Annual Report: Tear Fund Petersfield 2009
Aim
The Petersfield Group exists to inform and inspire prayer and support for Tearfund in this area.
Tearfund takes a comprehensive approach to releasing people from poverty and working for truly sustainable change. They work to inspire the church to transform communities. They mobilise the local church to work with poor communities to bring material and spiritual transformation: to speak out in advocacy, and to prepare and respond to disasters.
They are addressing a wide range of issues including HIV, water and sanitation, reducing the impact of disasters, economic injustice and climate change.
General
Tearfund went through a major restructuring of the way they resource their supporters in this country, in order to maximise their effectiveness. They now have a team at Teddington for Prayer Groups, tel 0845 355 8355. A second team at Teddington respond to the needs of churches, tel 0845 521 0021 There are also Regional Managers supporting other volunteers, and ours is John Archer working from his home in Guildford. They continued to help us right through their transition, and we are grateful to them as we move forward together.
Petersfield Meetings
We meet on the second Tuesday of every other month, and were well provided with speakers last year. The topics covered were as follows:
- January 13th Sheila Lawrence reported back on her Malawi trip, and Seren Boyd talked on the role of the local church with reference to Tearfund’s "Be Part of a Miracle" programme.
- March 10th Revd Arthur Croad spoke about his visit to Tearfund work in Burkina Faso
- May 12th Andrew Bulmer recounted his experiences of evaluating several Tearfund projects which strongly affirmed the effectiveness of Tearfund’s approach based on working through the local church.
- Juy 14th Julian Evans from the Tearfund Board spoke of his five favourite projects and both inspired and challenged us from his experiences.
- September 8th Ruth Markby talked about her trip to Uganda with Mission Direct. We followed this with the Tearfund video "Make Life Flow," which had been filmed in a village in the same area of Uganda.
- November 10th John Archer updated us on progress with the "Be Part of a Miracle" programme specifically as it related to Fombe in Malawi.
- November 12th Jennie Matthews hosted a Created sale (the new name for Tearcraft).
Other Activities
- February 7th there was a Regional Conference near Bristol which presented Tearfund’s vision for the role of the local church and introduced the "Just People?" course for churches and home groups to develop this vision locally.
- March 28th there was a gathering in London with about 70 other organisations to pray and march for jobs, justice and climate. This was aimed at the G20 talks
- Hope for Planet Earth was a national tour exploring the effects of climate change. It was run in the Spring and Autumn at a numbe of venues.
- May 30th at Weyhill, there was a Regional Conference which introduced us to "Make Life Flow," a DVD promoting the provision of drinking water and sanitation.
- December 5th there was another gathering in London with around 100 Christian organisations to pray and march for climate justice ahead of the Copenhagen talks.
Thanks
Our thanks go to our supporters who come from a wide area. Please invite anyone you know who might be interested in Tearfund’s work, and feel free to contact Ken at 01730-233769 for any local support in addition to the Tearfund helplines.