Mission Support Team

St John’s embraces its responsibility to share the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ with its local community and also overseas. We pray for and financially support seven Mission Partners and also promote ethical trading through the sale of Traidcraft products.

St John’s undertakes to give at least 10% of its annual income to support its Mission Partners and together with the special offerings mentioned below, this figure rises to 15%. In UK we support FACT (Faith Awareness in Children Trust), East to West and CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society). Overseas we support Bible Society, Ruaha Diocese in Tanzania, Ian and Simea Meldrum in Olinda and Hannah Cross in Recife, both in Brazil.

In addition to supporting our seven Mission Partners, we also make special donations to particular ministries during the year at Lent, Harvest and Christmas. In the last year we have supported Tear Fund, Fegan's Child & Family Care, the Sam Beare Hospice and the joint churches in Egham Christmas Kitchen.

St John's has it's very own alternative gift catalogue entitled Mission Unwrapped. This tool allows the people of St John's to give specific help to our Mission Partners.

News

Church Member Sue Stafford recently returned from spending 6 months working with the Epiphany Trust in Kandy Sri Lanka. Sue worked with vulnerable street children and their parents and was able to use her professional skills to help the staff of the Trust to improve the care they were able to offer to the Street Children. Sue and Debbie, a colleague she met in Kandy, will be speaking at St John’s on 8th November.
A group of students went to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina in the Summer to help with the ministry to young people run by Novi Most. This work is having a significant impact on the lives of these young people whose early years were deeply affected by the horrors of war.
A variety of practical gifts have just been sent to Iringa in Tanzania to help in various ministries of the Diocese of Ruaha. The gifts include, 2 overlocker machines, a Braille machine, carpentry tools and lots of buttons for Neema Crafts.
Funds are being collected to help our friends in Ruaha Diocese cope with the very poor harvest this year with yields of maize being one third of normal.
PCC agreed to make the following distributions of the annual tithe monies. CPAS £500, Hannah Cross £2,700, East to West £5,000, FACT £5,000, Ruaha Diocese £6,000 and Ian & Simea Meldrum £6,000.