St James's puts charitable giving at the heart of its outreach. The money supports charities across the world, as well as here in the UK, making a real difference to people's lives. Regular giving by our parishioners maintains parish life in Hampton Hill, but it also enables our parish to reach out and support charities — part of our collective witness that is not so visible.

In 2010 St James gave £10,600 to chosen charities. Two-thirds of this sum was planned, coming out of our annual budget for charitable grants. The rest came from special appeals — the Haiti earthquake early in the year, followed by appeals during Lent (for ALMA), Harvest (for the Diocese of South West Tanzania) and Advent (for The Children's Society) — and a generous donation from St James's Ark playgroup. In addition, individual collecting boxes for The Children's Society raise about £330 a year.

Traidcraft Exchange
Our Traidcraft stall delivers a small profit thanks to bulk buying. This profit is returned to the charitable arm of the company, Traidcraft Exchange, which does good work helping to build up the business skills of its overseas suppliers and pioneering new products to bring to the fair trade market.

Christian Aid
During Christian Aid Week in May parishioners walk the local streets delivering and collecting envelopes from homes — part of our ongoing support for a charity that works with people, of all faiths and none, in around 50 countries, to combat poverty and injustice. This May nearly £3500 was raised.

For more information...
St James's website, www.stjames-hamptonhill.org.uk, has information on all the charities we support in the Witness and Mission section. It would be very good if people made a habit of looking there. Newsletters from some of the charities are also referenced directly from the home page.

I will now explain a little of the work that our supported charities undertake, divided into those that help people in the UK and those that reach out across the world.

HERE AT HOME...
Distressing events across the country in August revealed the 'other world' that exists in parts of our inner cities. All church leaders called for a renewed commitment to the building of strong communities.

Church Urban Fund
The Church Urban Fund provides key financial support to grassroots, community-based projects in areas of high deprivation. When we send our annual gift we can be sure it is well used. One of the projects we help support is the New Hanbury Project, pictured above — a centre for personal development and training, located off Shoreditch High Street, East London. The area has all the usual inner-city social problems, including high unemployment, high crime and poor housing.

The project helps people build their self-confidence, learn useful and practical life skills, become involved in voluntary work, go on training courses and gain employment opportunities.

Upper Room
At Harvest time we support another community charity — the Upper Room in Hammersmith — dedicated to the relief of poverty and social disadvantage among the marginalised and homeless of West London. Our Harvest gifts help to sustain its evening meal service (UR4Meals) during the winter months.

Another project, UR4Driving, seeks to reduce recidivism and improve the employability of young ex-offenders by teaching them to drive in return for voluntary work. Jobs in the transport and warehousing industries are often still open to those with a criminal record, so a valid UK driving licence is a de facto vocational qualification for an ex-offender.

Welcare
Even closer to home, Welcare in Richmond helps parents who might otherwise be isolated or find it tough to cope — strengthening families so that they can give children the best possible start in life.

In June we welcomed one of their clients to our Sunday worship: a mother whose self-esteem had been totally restored and said "Welcare gave me a new life".

... AND OVERSEAS
St James's has always valued being part of the Church worldwide.

St Luke’s, Milo
We continue our long friendship with St Luke's hospital in Milo, a remote village in the highlands of south-west Tanzania. The recent death of Benaiah Kilwale has put even more of a load on to 72-year-old Dr Simeon Mbuligwe. Our support is channelled through USPG: Anglicans in World Mission, which places health care as one of its main priorities.

ALMA
The partnership between the dioceses of London, Angola and Mozambique, known as ALMA, is a wonderful way to learn something about the joys and sorrows of life in these two developing countries. The website www.almalink.org helps greatly to bring this friendship alive.
As well as supporting the general work of ALMA, St James's shares a link with Santa Maria Madelena in Pemba on the north-east coast of Mozambique. We were saddened to hear of the unexpected death of their priest, Revd Juliao Fenias, who died last December while being flown from Pemba down to Maputo for treatment — a distance of over 1000 miles. A celebration in St Paul's Cathedral on 10 July included beautiful intercessions based on the letters making up the word ALMA.

Church Mission Society
Our Church Mission Society partners, David and Shelley Stokes, in the Diocese of northern Argentina share their own news below.

Tools with a Mission
We continue our support of Tools with a Mission by collecting unwanted sewing machines, gardening and DIY tools, bicycles, scissors, wool and fabrics. Every contribution helps, so please call Janet Nunn on 020 8979 6325.

All these charities, and more besides, are woven into the fabric of our parish life. Please keep informed by looking in the Witness and Mission section of the parish website and raise any questions or ideas you may have.

Source: Ann Peterken, The Spire Magazine - 2011 October

The Gospel truth in Argentina by David and Shelley Stokes
Beginnings
Resolution taken from a meeting of the South American Missionary Society: that a mission be started along the lines recommended by Mr W.B. Grubb in his letter dated 15 September 1910.
These words gave the go-ahead to a bold project that would over time lead to the formation of the Anglican Diocese of Northern Argentina. William Barbrooke Grubb had already been working among indigenous groups in Paraguay for almost 20 years, and had the vision for reaching similar nomadic groups living in Northern Argentina. In an exploratory visit there he had found nearly 6,000 indigenous people gathered to work the sugar cane harvest of the Leach Brothers in La Esperanza, Jujuy. So it was that Barbrooke Grubb, along with Richard Hunt and Edward Bernau, arrived at the sugar plantation of the Leach Brothers on 9 April 1911.

For almost three years they lived alongside these seasonal workers, gradually learning their languages and cultures. They concentrated on the Wichí, rather than the Tobas, at this stage. In December 1914 the three missionaries founded a mission station in Misión Chaqueña, and in 1922 eight people were baptised. From there the work gradually spread out across the Chaco, this vast expanse of semi-arid scrub forest. In 1928 a mission station called San Andrés was opened on the banks of the River Pilcomayo, which acts as the border with Bolivia/Paraguay. In 1930 came an invitation to start work among the Tobas and Misión El Toba was founded. Then in 1938 came another mission station at Pozo Yacaré (Alligator's Well). Each of these mission stations gave rise to a number of satellite congregations, usually started by local evangelists. As the church and its mission grew, the Diocese of Northern Argentina was eventually formed. It is now part of the Province of the Southern Cone, which in 2007 reported 22,000 members.

The Diocese presently has a number of Spanish-speaking congregations in towns and cities, and over 120 rural, indigenous congregations scattered around the Chaco region. These rural congregations have their own indigenous leaders, and they are grouped in 15 zones. Travel for the pastors who oversee these zones is difficult because of poor roads. In some cases motorbikes have taken the place of bicycles, but dust and mud still make travel eventful and arduous!

Celebrations
We returned as a couple to serve in the Anglican Diocese of Northern Argentina in November last year. We have been living in a small town, Juárez, which is conveniently situated in the centre of the Diocese. During this centenary year there have been weekend celebrations in many of these old mission centres, most of which we have been able to attend. Each event is organised locally and each one has its own character. The one at Pozo Yacaré included several older people talking about the impact the gospel had made on their community. They had made a poster with an impressively long list of those who had been the early evangelists and church leaders. The one at San Andrés saw local communities come together — many had been scattered when the Pilcomayo washed away the original mission in the 1970s. A number of music groups had written songs especially for the occasion, including one remembering Alberto, one of the first and much-loved Wichí pastors.

Seeing the way ahead
This year of celebration has been important for the 120 or so indigenous churches that make up the Diocese. Looking back and remembering has also had the effect of helping the Diocese look at the present challenges more clearly, and begin to plot the course for the future. The challenges for communities are immense: the pace of change these indigenous cultures have faced recently has been staggering (from hunter-gather to modern technology), the consequent generation gap, and the pressure economic development has put on old ways of relating.

The challenges for the church are immense: the selection and equipping of a new generation of leaders, the renewal of forms of services, the letting go of some inherited traditions (including those brought by the missionary founders!) so that the gospel can be allowed to reach and transform individuals and society as it is now. This is an exciting time for Shelley and me to be here. It is not an easy time though — either for us or for the churches. The challenge is to discern the way God wants to lead his church forward so that the gospel is embodied more faithfully in Wichí, Toba, Chorote and European Argentine culture.

We wonder whether members of St James's are aware of the history of the arrival of the gospel and the founding of your congregation. From our recent years spent in England we know the church there is facing different, but equally difficult, decisions about the way to be faithful to the gospel in our generation!

Source: David and Shelley Stokes, The Spire Magazine - 2011 October