Missionaries & Organisations Supported
As well as donating to other Christian organisations as needs arise, the Fellowship has supported various individuals carrying out missionary work outside the United Kingdom on a regular basis.
Amy Finsterberger
The Fellowship has supported Amy Finsterberger who is based in Austria for many years.
Pat Crook
The Fellowship also supports Pat Crook who is the Programme Director of the ‘Three Stones Preventative Health Programme’ based in Kampala, Uganda. She works with Missionary Ventures East Africa and her charity has recently been awarded NGO (Non-Government Organisation) status. This means that they are recognised as a charity that can attract funding from Government and other sources to continue their vital health promotion work.
The vision of the programme is to significantly reduce preventable diseases in rural Uganda.
The programme itself is based on the three ‘stones’ approach to health i.e. safe water, proper hygiene/sanitation and a balanced diet. The programme is run in rural villages throughout Uganda. Villagers support their cooking pots on three stones over the fire. If one stone is broken the cooking pot falls and the food is lost. Pat uses this analogy to teach rural people that safe water, good hygiene and a balanced diet are the ‘three stones’ on which the health of a family sits. If one of these ‘stones’ breaks, the family will fall prey to preventable diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid and TB.
Pat and her colleagues train local people to deliver the health programme in their own villages and they, in turn, train others and so the programme is spread throughout the area. To provide sustainability, Pat often visits villages to ensure the health measures learnt are still being adhered to and to update the trainers as appropriate.
Rwanda Orphans Project
Started back in 1992, the Rwanda Orphans Project has helped children from over 260 families and currently supports over 300 orphans in the capital city of Rwanda, Kigali. The main problem that has led to the huge number of orphans is the AIDS epidemic that infects a sizeable proportion of the adults in the capital but back in 1994 the genocide of more than 800,000 Rwandans also resulted in many families being without one or both parents. There are therefore currently many hundreds of thousands of orphans who need support.
Peter Andrews (our UK contact) and his family have had connections with Rwanda since 1981 when Peter went out to teach Motor Vehicle Mechanics at a skills training centre in Kigali. Both he and his wife Jenny had also had a number of years experience in social work in the UK prior to this new venture. When the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic were becoming more apparent in the early 1990s they expanded the work that they were doing with the Inkuru Nziza (Good News) Church in Rwanda to include a project for the support of the orphans. They worked alongside one of the church leaders, Elie Ugirimbabazi, and a team of other Rwandans to support orphans in the community that steered away from the use of institutional care.
Please do not confuse this Church linked charity to the similarly named Rwandan Orphans Project based in the US that is not linked to a Church and only supports male orphans.
We supported a young man called Fred from being a child until he graduated from university last year. Every year we received an up to date photograph and a letter, written by Fred himself, As a Fellowship we now support a young girl called Sylvie. Some members of our Fellowship also sponsor orphans’ education personally. If you would like to sponsor an orphan’s education, please see Gil Ratcliffe or Kathryn Ashworth who will be able to help you.