CONGREGATIONAL STORY
Passing on
blessing
Wavell Moore describes how Hazelbank Presbyterian Church in Coleraine, thankful for God’s provision in their own congregation, have chosen to pass on this blessing, helping the poor and vulnerable in the Zomba area of Malawi.
T
hroughout its short history since achieving congregational status, the congregation of Hazelbank Presbyterian Church in Coleraine has always been strong in its support for a wide range of missionary causes. Having faced the challenge of making provision for local witness with the development of its own suite of buildings on the west side of the River Bann and being thankful for God’s faithful blessing in this regard, in 2005 the kirk session began to look at how the congregation might look beyond its own boundaries to help others in greater need. Arising from the vision of Rev Dick Gordon and his wife Maureen from the nearby town of Kilrea, who had served as PCI missionaries in the Zomba district of Malawi, a local charity was formed in Coleraine in 2003, the Zomba Action Project (ZAP).This created a great local awareness of the needs in Malawi and subsequently the kirk session decided that for the medium to long term, it would commit the annual harvest offering to help address the basic needs of the poor and vulnerable people of Zomba. Ravaged by the AIDS epidemic sweeping through Africa, the needs of widows and orphans were paramount. However, the kirk session was keen to be able to demonstrate the outcomes of the support to the congregation
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Herald July/August 2019
through identifying specific projects and communities who would receive the help. Consequently, Rev Alan Johnston visited Zomba in 2005 and as a result of his feedback the congregation warmly adopted this link as a long-term opportunity to offer practical thanks for their blessings. In 2007, a group of elders and other church members visited Zomba to help identify potential future projects. Ken Ford, an elder who was on the trip, comments, “The visit gave us all a
Being thankful for God’s faithful blessing…the kirk session began to look at how the congregation might…help others in greater need.
perspective on not just the needs but the ways in which we could fund the practical help needed.” Since 2005, the congregation has contributed some £75,000, sometimes through ad hoc fundraising efforts, but mainly through an annual harvest appeal offering, which usually raises some £5,000. Over this period, Hazelbank has channelled the delivery of its projects mainly through Emmanuel International, a highlyrespected international Baptist charity which designs, manages and delivers projects in Malawi and through ZAP which uses local people on the ground in Zomba to guide and direct the aid to best effect. A wide range of life-changing projects in the Zomba area have been funded, usually for individual villages or clusters of villages. These projects have always been done with the blessing and support of the local authorities so that there is no overlap with any other funding. These projects have included: • Feeding programmes during times of crop failure and extreme hunger, many of which were targeted at helping widows and orphans; • Supply of mosquito nets to communities to avert the deadly risk of malaria; • Provision of shallow wells in villages to supply clean water;
