God’s Plan A by Rev John & Anne Coles

The local church is God’s hands and feet, his Plan A for his world. This is what lies behind our long-term involvement both with New Wine and Tearfund. Tearfund’s motivation is empowering the local church to bring the good news of the Kingdom of God to their community, and Tearfund’s practice is ‘integral mission’.

As Tearfund Ambassadors, we were invited to speak about this mission, and their work in the poorest communities around the world, at the Big Church Festival on 3 and 4 June, back for the first time after three years of enforced separation.

In the glorious setting of the Wiston Estate in East Sussex, we enjoyed the wonderful combination of good music, worshipping God, family fun, and sunshine. As we took to the stage at Tearfund’s Tea Tent, the rain started, but our passion for speaking about Tearfund remained undampened.

We recalled stories of our visits to Uganda, Peru, Ethiopia and Nepal where we have seen people grateful to the local church, and heard the local church leaders thanking Tearfund for their help. But nowhere did we see the name ‘Tearfund’ emblazoned. Tearfund doesn’t try to be the outside solution to extreme hunger or poverty; they seek to resource the local church to empower communities to lift themselves out of it – that is the only way to enable long-term sustainable development around the world.

In Uganda I saw a brilliant example of this in a rural community where the church, using Tearfund materials, led Bible Studies with anyone who wanted to come. During study of the miracle of feeding the 5,000 the question was asked:

‘What have you got that you could offer to Jesus that he could multiply as he multiplied the loaves and fishes?’

One man said he had a boggy piece of land but all it contributed was mosquitoes and malaria! But the church worked with him on the idea of offering it to Jesus anyway and after praying, thinking, and a lot of hard work it became a fish pond, providing food for his family. They discovered the fish ate the mosquito eggs and the villagers’ health improved! Subsequently another pond was dug and the whole community lifted themselves out of poverty, and began to sell the fish to other villages.

Anne vividly remembers seeing a group of women in Ethiopia working with the local church, empowered by Tearfund, to begin self-help savings groups which encouraged people to save their pennies together and invest for the future. One woman movingly told her story of how she regained her dignity and hope. Previously she had to resort to begging, but over time she was enabled to house, feed and school all her three children.

After declining for 25 years, the number in extreme poverty in the world increased in 2020 due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis combined with the effects of conflict and climate change. Although global poverty has more recently resumed its downward trend, between 75 million and 95 million additional people could be living in extreme poverty in 2022 compared to pre-COVID-19, because of the lingering effects of the pandemic, the Ukraine war, and rising prices.

Now there is a growing food crisis in East Africa, possibly the worst situation for many decades. And yet, globally there should be enough food to feed everyone if it is well managed. We, as the local and global church of God, are asked to look at what we have in our hands and consider how we can use it to bring about the vision for God’s Kingdom on Earth. We’ve seen through our relationship with Tearfund how transformation is possible. And we know our God works wonders. We believe in God’s plan A!

 John and Anne Coles
Rev John & Anne Coles are supporting Tearfund’s work around the world, helping vulnerable communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Photos ©️ Tearfund. www.tearfund.org/bigchurchfestival