TEAR FUND

During March, we think a lot about one of the main missions that St. Anne’s supports.
TEAR FUND is an evangelical Christian development and relief charity working with partners to bring help and hope to communities in need around the world. Last year, TEAR FUND supported over 600 projects in more than 80 countries.
One of the important aspects of TEAR FUND’s work is to help local communities help themselves. Sometimes the charity’s work is to give the detailed know-how on building wells to provide clean, safe water, or setting up local co-operatives, with items that can be sold directly to the West, to ensure the income goes back to those who have worked for it. Sometimes the issue is healthcare, other times educational, other times after a disaster. One difference between this and similar charities is that all the staff, in the UK and abroad, are committed Christians. Their practical love and care reflect the love of God for the people.
We support TEAR FUND by giving a percentage of our church’s tithed income and adding to it what is given in our Lent Offerings. Envelopes and boxes are now available and usually returned around Easter, although some people keep a box out at home for donations all year. All donations can be Gift Aided.

The World at our fingertips

We get our fish from the freezer and our beans come in cans. Our chips are oven-ready. A pizza is something you buy, not make. Our shops provide thousands of products from hundreds of countries. Men, women and children in every corner of the world work to supply our food. Yet if asked where their food came from, most people would say: the supermarket. We know little about the sources of our food, and still less about how it is produced. We can buy whatever food we want. And with Internet shopping now we don’t even have to leave the house!

The work of our hands

In a developing country, the experience can be very different.
In Burkina Faso, for example, you eat the same food every day: most likely sagabo, a stodgy miller porridge, with some sauce made from boiled leaves. You don’t go to the shop. You hoe the ground, plant your millet, tend it, harvest it, pound it, winnow it, grind it, then cook it - and all by hand. Often the food runs out months before the next harvest, and that’s when you rely on your ingenuity. And that’s where a little bit of help can make a big difference.