Continuing a tradition

The church has always had very committed involvement in cross-cultural mission, having supported a number of God's servants in various locations overseas.  In addition, past members of the church were active in setting up and running a home for children of missionaries, enabling the children to be educated in local schools while their parents continued to work in their fields of service.  To this day the church membership includes at least two who were there as children and one lady who was there as a carer.

On active service past and present

Several current church members have spent ten or more years of their lives serving overseas: Dawn Elliott in Chad, June Sadgrove in Congo, Clive and Kathie Cornelius in Zambia and Kenya, Brian and Deirdre Davies in Congo, all of them in association with "Echoes of Service".  Since the late 1990s Dawn has spent 4 months of each year in Chad.  In addition, Mark and Susanna Barrell served with the "Baptist Missionary Society" in Uganda between 2002 and 2007.

At present our "own full-time missionaries" are Andy and Eira Patching in Zambia working under the "Echoes of Service" umbrella,  Graham Jack is serving with OM Ships International and Rebekah Cornelius is working on the Logos Hope.  In addition to Dawn's visits to Chad, we take an interest in the visits of Victor and Meg Jack to the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem for the purpose of chaplaincy work.

Some members of the church are volunteers with the local charity "Aid to Hospitals Worldwide", which recycles discarded medical equipment and computers to aid institutions around the world.

Keeping informed

One instrument for keeping abreast of Christian work in the world at large is deputation visits by missionaries on home leave or representatives of mission agencies, mainly but not exclusively at the mid-week meeting.  Another is the use of DVDs published by mission bodies.   By these means we have been informed of the work of many individuals and such diverse associations as, amongst others. Asia Link, Latin Link, Orphaids, Slavic Gospel Association, Brass Tacks, Medical Missionary News, Friends International, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, Barnabas Fund .

Practical support

Apart from our support for local and national gospel initiatives in the United Kingdom, about 30% of our income is allocated to cross-cultural work overseas.  Each year we establish a schedule of recipients, divided into two categories, individuals and organisations.  In addition to our "own missionaries" the individuals we have supported in the past five years are as follows:

The organisations supported over the same period have been: