
5 minute read
Passing on blessing
Throughout 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 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 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;
• Provision of bicycle ambulances to improve transport of the sick in rural areas;
• Refurbishment of a local orphanage;
• Education scholarships to provide disadvantaged pupils with secondary school education for five years;
• Supply of goats to villages to encourage small scale farming and food production;
• Supply of goats to villages to encourage small scale farming and food production;
• Establishment of bee-keeping operations in villages to stimulate the opportunity for locals to earn their own income.
The choice of an appropriate project for the year involves an informed assessment of current need. Questions are asked: Is there the prospect of a reasonable harvest? (If the harvest is failing, it may be necessary to resort to an urgent feeding programme, usually directed to orphans and widows.) What other current crises are there? (For example, if malaria is rampant in a certain area, the provision of mosquito nets could be a top priority.) What are the most basic needs at present? (Clean water through village wells is always a life-changing and sustainable intervention.)
The people of Zomba have expressed continuing gratitude for the village projects: “Thank you to our friends at Hazelbank who have changed our lives by bringing us clean water for our children.”
Some may ask, however, could as much or more not have been achieved simply through donating these funds each year to mainstream Christian charities which are active in Africa, such as Tearfund or Christian Aid?
The answer, from those heavily involved, is that these mainstream charities are, of course, worthy of support and indeed the congregation also supports them regularly by way of other initiatives. With the more direct engagement with the needs of the local communities in Zomba, the congregation can much more easily identify with the beneficiaries and see the difference which their harvest offering makes when the end-of-year project report is presented in church. This, in turn, has motivated them each year to rise to the new challenge.
The ‘Hazelbank approach’ is also regarded as innovative and effective by our partners in Zomba as this quotation from an official of Emmanuel International aptly conveys: “We took some visiting pastors from Canada and the US to visit some of the Hazelbank projects, including Anandi Athu orphan care (mosquito nets), Mbidi Primary School (school supplies), and Potani village/Nambande (shallow well). They were extremely impressed by the work that Hazelbank Presbyterian Church has done here, and I believe it was quite inspirational for them to see what the church can do to help the poor. I have to admit, it is by far the most exciting project for me to work on because it’s awesome to see the direct involvement of the church…The impact is real and significant whereas with large government funding there seems to be a lot of bureaucracy, overhead costs and some redundancy for the amount of output. Thanks for the great work you’ve done.”

Hazelbank is still working very closely with ZAP in its efforts (this small local charity has raised over £850,000 in its short lifetime) and the congregation has also been active in sending much-needed clothes, blankets and other supplies through the regular container service organised by ZAP from Northern Ireland to Malawi.
Looking to the future, the challenges in Zomba are not going to go away anytime soon; indeed, recent floods have caused further hardship with over 30,000 families badly affected in the region. Based on this ongoing need, Hazelbank plans to continue its commitment to the poor and vulnerable people in Malawi who have so little of this world’s goods but do have hearts that are full of love and gratitude.
Allocating the annual harvest offering regularly and directly to Zomba is an act of thankfulness to almighty God by the congregation for a bountiful local harvest and it is a privilege to assist those who frequently have no harvest themselves. Of course, it will not change the world, but it will certainly change some people’s world.
Hazelbank recognises that there are many congregations already very active in similar social witness, but should any congregation want to hear more about the practicalities of making this direct approach work, we would be only too glad to talk to you so that God’s work by God’s people can continue to address the obligation of believers as set out in Matthew 25: “Insomuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”