Standing Together is the call from Christian Aid this spring.
Our very own Christian development charity helps us to stand together with the poorest of God’s children in many ways.
For Christian Aid Week 2024, we are invited to stand together with Aline, from Burundi. Her picture is on your Christian Aid envelope. Victim of violent abuse from her husband, forced to flee her home, separated from her three boys, the community rejecting because of her husband’s lies, she was sleeping on the streets and barely surviving. Christian Aid, through Village Saving and Loans, provided training and enabled her to use her own considerable energy and determination to set up a small business; she is now reunited with her kids and building a new home for them all. She is representative of many people helped into relative security by what we put in our envelopes.
You may be pleased to know that Christian Aid is involved in Ukraine, working with partners there to provide essential healthcare, organise emergency accommodation and supply psychological support to children. It is working in conflict resolution in tragically war-torn Sudan. And it’s present and active in Gaza, through its partner there, PARC: Thanks to the generosity of Christian Aid supporters, our established partners in Gaza are responding as best they can, under intense pressure. They’re responding with medical relief and community-led initiatives such as food, shelter, sanitation and cash. This includes building mobile bathrooms in four shelters to working with local farmers to get fresh vegetables for families that have left their homes to escape airstrikes. Through our support for Christian Aid, we too stand together with the victims of devastating conflict.
Work to relieve immediate poverty and distress is not enough. As the Bible Study group explored during the special Lent course, Climate Change has already caused irrevocable damage in poorer parts of the world, and it’s set to become much, much worse. By campaigning for changes that will combat the climate crisis, and for a Loss and Damage fund for the areas worst hit, Christian Aid gives us the opportunity to stand together with today’s victims, and tomorrow’s as well.
We are very lucky to have an organisation that helps us pray, give and campaign with maximum effectiveness. Please stand together with Christian Aid by stuffing your envelope full this May and by encouraging other, too, to give in this way. May it bring you joy.
Maggie Hindley
