Christ Church supports their partners, and other projects, with prayer and financial giving. Each year we give away 10% of our income to World Mission.

 

The Diocese of Gloucester, of which we are a part, has links with the Diocese of Dornakal in South India. Christ Church paid for the construction of a new church building in a village called Kompelly. A team attended the dedication of the new building.

 

Nearer to home, each summer Christ Church mounts a fortnight of Prayer Visiting – calling from door to door to see if people have requests for prayer. Some of us are also involved in 'Tony's House' - working towards creating emergency accommodation for homeless people in Cheltenham.

 

The World Mission Committee is a sub-committee of the PCC, and exists to encourage, promote and support the giving of prayer and resources to local, national and global mission initiatives.

 

Currently the committee has  6 members: Leena Halse (chair) Cyril Bleasdale, Joanna Johnston, Helen Weir, Amanda Whitefield and Philip Whitefield. They usually meet 4 times a year unless there are urgent appeals or other needs.

Christ Church has the following partners: Dan Browne ( ACET) Philbert Kalisa (REACH for Rwanda) and  Corrie Verduyn (CMS) working at Kiwoko hospital in Uganda.

 

In November each year, the World Mission Committee has the privilege and responsibility for allocating to charities the tithed money from the church’s income and the proceeds of the fete - in 2011 this totalled some £18,000. For the first time last year, members of the congregation were invited to get in touch with the World Mission Committee if they were working as a volunteer for a charity and the Committee would consider making a donation to their charity. In an earlier edition of the magazine, we told you about Mindsong, the charity that provides music therapy to people suffering from late stage dementia.

 

Two other charities that benefited this year were Listening Post and the Battledown Centre for Children in Cheltenham.

Listening Post is a Gloucestershire based charity started over 20 years ago to provide counselling to adults in emotional distress. It offers tremendous support in the community, but receives no funding from the government or the NHS; clients give what they can and all trained counsellors and receptionists are volunteers. But there are considerable overheads and running costs in maintaining three sets of premises in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud, and so the charity relies on fundraising and donations. Christ Church’s donation of £1000 was well received. Volunteers are always welcome; more information can

be found on the Listening Post website: www.listeningpost.org.uk 

 

The £500 donated to The Battledown Centre for Children and Families was put towards the redevelopment of the sensory room. In fact, it was spent on sensory sacks which hold equipment for different areas of sensory awareness. The sensory room is an invaluable tool for helping children with various difficulties to engage with the world. For some children on the Autistic spectrum, sensory overload causes them to withdraw; in a sensory room the environment can be tailored to promote various senses, encourage physical development, calm the over-excited and inspire the unmotivated.

 

The Centre continues to fundraise to enable the completion of the redevelopment work. Equipment is dated and the Centre needs to take advantage of recent developments in technology to provide resources to enable the children to achieve things that other youngsters take for granted. More info on the website. www.battledown.gloucs.sch.uk

 

It is nearly time for the World Mission Committee to allocate the money for 2012. So once again the World Mission Committee would like to invite anyone at Christ Church who is involved in working as a volunteer for any charity to get in touch and the Committee will consider a small one-off donation to some of the charities. Please speak to Leena Halse or email her by Monday 12th November. (Your information will be kept confidential)