City Church's mission does not end at the city limits, however. The Fair Trade stall is a regular part of our fellowship here. We support Christian Aid and such organisations as Christians Against Torture, the Women's Aid shelter and the Welsh Refugee Council along with what we call our "Church Project "--a specific cause, differing from year to year, to which we devote specific fund-raising and interpretation events. In 2003 our project was Health Help International and in 2004 we supported the Amber Project, a group workingwith youth at risk. In 2005 we voted to take on two projects, Health Help International again and the Medical Foundation Caring for Victims of Torture.
In addition to these particular church-wide projects, we support our members in their own specific projects.Here are just a few examples: In 2004 we helped sponsor Russell Davies in his journey to Zambia to do computer training with the Health Help International project there. Our day of workshops organised for World AIDS Day in 2004 grew out of Towela Munthali's work with African women for the Terrence Higgins Trust. Her husband Raymond Pilling serves as one of the barristers who give two days a week to our Asylum Justice programme. Themba Moyo received the Welsh Volunteer of the Year award in 2005 in part for his work with the Welsh Refugee Council. His work with Displaced People in Action and Victoria Chitsega's work with the Refugee Council are part of City Church's wide involvement with refugee issues. A large group of members, both gay and straight, come together to run an outreach stall at Cardiff's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Matthew Batten works with Stonewall, a gay rights advocacy organisation. Aud Fawcett and Mellissa Elliot serve with Inroads, a street-based drugs rehabiitation programme. Ann Nugent serves as a volunteer for the creche in the visitors' facility at Cardiff Prison. Beth Charles volunteers several days a week as a hospital and hospice chaplain, and has developed her own charity, Face-Up,supporting people with facial cancers. Doug Bales serves on the board of Cardiff's Huggard Centre for homeless men, which City Church was instrumental in founding. Several of our members are working with learning disabled adults, and we keep up a special relationship with Special Education schools in Cardiff, which includes hosting their annual concert. Amanda Smith serves as head teacher at one of these Special Education schools. These are just a few examples of mission individuals are undertaking, supported by a caring church.
COMMITMENT
FOR LIFE, a Christian Aid programme
of the United Reformed Church, receives significant attention at
City Church. The Commitment for Life programme continues the old "1% Appeal", an encouragement for each church member to contribute 1% of annual income to Christian Aid. The appeal, made annually in the autumn, is focused through our Commitment for Life partnership with Silveira House in Zimbabwe, a partnership made more significant for us by the presence of two Zimbabwean families at City Church.
We invite all who come through our doors to join us in our concerns.
Silveira House, just outside Harare in Zimbabwe, is a Catholic institution specializing in helping Zimbabweans acquire the practical skills they need to escape poverty. Dieter B Scholz SJ, Director of Silveira House, writes:
Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord, 1. We are deeply grateful to all of you for graciously hosting Janet Mkombwe and Chrispen Masenyama on their recent visit and for praying with us for peace, justice and forgiveness in Zimbabwe. I am very sorry I could not come and visit you this time. I look forward to meeting at least some of you when Zimbabwe has entered better times. 2. I also thank you for your wonderful generosity. Your donations totalled £2,169.99. The funds are being spent wholly in direct person-to-person aid to people in need – the hungry, the sick, the elderly and the orphans who knock at our door every day, or who live in the nearby Kamombe squatter camp. The people there come from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Many worked on commercial farms and lost homes and livelihood when the land was taken over by others. Many are too old and too poor to return home. They are worse off than real refugees. 3. Inflation is running at 500 per cent now in Zimbabwe. Essential goods like maize meal [the staple food here], cooking oil, candles, tea, sugar and margarine have become luxuries ordinary people can no longer afford. As so often, it is the poor, unemployed, elderly, sick and disabled who suffer first and most. The people at Kamombe are made up of all of these and have to contend daily with hunger and AIDS, not to mention violence, crime, suicide and the many other social problems created by the abuse of alcohol and drugs. Kamombe is part of our parish and so the people’s problems and difficulties are never far from our minds and hearts – nor from our doorstep. There is not a single day when the poor from there do not knock at our door, from sunrise and sometimes even after dark. Father John Dove, who was brought out of retirement at the age of 82, is always there and responding to these knocks with indefatigable charity, kindness and patience. 4. With your gifts we are able to help many families with the essentials of life – and even death. There is not a single family at Kamombe which is not caring for one or several relatives suffering from HIV/Aids. For the poor, even burials have become a luxury many families cannot afford. With your help, we can assist elderly parents to give sons and daughters a decent Christian burial, then look after their young grandchildren. Had it not been for your help, the parents might simply not have collected the bodies from the mortuary, and the dead would have been given paupers’ burials in unmarked mass graves outside the city. If that sounds scandalous to European ears, it is unthinkable in traditional African culture where families go to extraordinary lengths (and expense) to ensure a splendid burial for relatives. That people are forced to abandon their dead shows just how abnormal life has become in Zimbabwe. 5. Beyond Kamombe, we assist children and adolescents with school fees, uniforms, food, medical expenses, bus fares and related necessities. Most of these young people have lost one or both parents to HIV/Aids and are surviving under the care of one of their fathers’ brothers, or their grandparents. The host families all have their own economic and social difficulties to cope with; thus, the anger and frustration resulting from these additional pressures are frequently vented on the step-children, many of whom then prefer the life on the streets to the constant quarrels and conflicts at home. To be able to support, even in a small way, a family who has taken in orphans from a deceased relative, often lessens these tensions and makes life bearable both for the orphans and the foster parents. 6. Last year’s drought and the political chaos caused by the violent invasions of commercial farms, have led to a famine of a magnitude and severity not seen before in Zimbabwe in living memory. A good part of the donations you have sent us are being spent simply on helping people who come to our door begging for food. For me, this brings back memories of my childhood in Berlin, when, in May 1945, we went begging for food from Russian soldiers. They were very kind and never sent us back with an empty dish. We try to do the same. 7. It must be added that this is only the early stage of the famine and that things will become much, much worse in the months to come as hidden stocks of maize are gradually eaten up. The situation is made worse by the fact that the ZANU PF Government continues to use food as a political weapon to punish those who voted for the opposition party in this year’s presidential elections, or who are merely suspected of having done so. Under these circumstances, the World Food Programme was forced to suspend their food distribution in southern Zimbabwe until the Government gives assurances that UN food distribution operations will not be interfered with. Fortunately, Fr John Dove has been able to continue his food programme at Kamombe and in the surrounding villages without any such interference. His operation is of course on a much smaller scale. He has been able to buy maize from a deacon at Mutemwa, Mutoko, about 200 km from here, and have it ground at Silveira House before his weekly distribution rounds. He also visits the sick and their families, prays with them, gives the dying the sacrament of the sick, and helps with the burials, where necessary. Once again, thank you all for your prayers and help. Back
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