Bishop’s Lent Appeal
This year I hope that we shall raise £20,000 and I want to divide the money between two projects—one at home and the other overseas.
The project at home is the Churches Night Shelter for homeless people in Newport in which seven churches (three of them Anglican) open their doors one night a week and provide an evening meal and bed and breakfast for the street homeless who often come from other parts of the diocese and beyond. The Night Shelter needs money to provide bedding, cooking utensils and washing facilities, and to assist the participating churches with the cost of food and heating.
This is a wonderful example of the churches ministering to the poorest of the poor. Many of them come from broken homes and struggle with mental health problems and addiction. Some have physical health problems and nearly all feel a sense of isolation and hopelessness. Church volunteers not only provide them with food and shelter but with human kindness and love. In Matthew Chapter 25, we read of Jesus saying that when we minister to the hungry and the homeless, and when we provide clothing and care for the sick, we do it for him.
The overseas project is to provide 2,500 bibles for new Christians in China. Every day 15,000 people in China are converted to Christianity and they long to possess a copy of the scriptures in their own language and to read about Jesus for themselves. The Bible Society can provide a bible for £4. For a family of new Christians, a bible becomes their most treasured possession with its life-changing message of hope. So often Christians in the West possess a bible but rarely read it, whereas new Christians in China are so hungry for God’s word that they will read their bibles every day. If we can give 2,500 bibles it will bring joy to thousands of people and give them strength in times of hardship and despair. It will also be a great encouragement to new Christians to receive such a precious gift from their Christian brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Monmouth.
As usual, I am asking churches to arrange to collect the money and to send it to me at Bishopstow.
+Dominic