'Full of grace and truth' ... are we?

|PIC1|This morning I have been considering the best approach for World Emergency Relief in respect of one of our major overseas partners. We have been financially supporting and working with them for some six years, but at the moment they are really struggling to survive.

It is a great project dedicated to helping disabled and impaired youth, and it has changed thousands of lives for the better. For WER, our partnership with this project has been one of real significance and the funds invested have undoubtedly been well spent.

Children and young people have received wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs, special needs education has been provided and local attitudes to disability have been turned around, so that in the local community disabled people are now regarded with proper respect.

Yet in recent years our partners have struggled to manage the growth in demand for assistance from disabled youth. They've struggled to raise the funds and strengthen the management structure in a way that would allow them to increase capacity and effectiveness.

Let me be clear, our partners have not failed, but are struggling to balance the complex pressures of running such a project. The immediacy of a patient needing urgent medical treatment and surgery, which can cost up to £20,000, has to be balanced with the fact that this amount could cover at least two weeks running costs for the project overall.

Over the years WER has invested money and given a lot of time to encourage and mentor the personnel involved. At times our partners have not taken our advice and often we have been frustrated. We could easily turn round to them now and say 'We told you so .... If only you had put into practice what we recommended ...' and so on.

A few years ago when we uncovered corruption in a different partner organisation, WER decided to stand by that partner and help them through whilst another major Christian charity pulled out and suspended all funding. I could understand this decision on one level, but there is no doubt that it made it much harder for our partner to survive its difficulties and continue its good works.

So this morning as I grappled with all the different scenarios, I was thankful to be reminded of the verses in John's Gospel, chapter 1v 14.

'The Word was made flesh and lived among us ... full of grace and truth.'

As I read the above verse about the coming of Jesus I was reminded that I and WER, as a Christian and a Christian charity respectively, need to live up to these same words.

We need to be truthful in our relationship with our partners and our donors.
We need be honest and open in our discussions and communications.
We need to recognise that we have benefited from others allowing us to learn from our mistakes.
We also need to be people who exercise grace.

Grace in how we communicate, especially in times of disagreement or potential misunderstanding. Grace in recognizing that our partners are really no different to us. We may have more resources and experience, but we are still ordinary people seeking to serve those in need ... no more, no less.

So I am grateful for this reminder from the Gospel and trust that it will help me and WER handle the current situation with GRACE and TRUTH.

Surely it is the least our partners can expect from a Christian charity.


About Alex Haxton:

Alex has been Director of Operations at Christian humanitarian agency World Emergency Relief (WER) for the past seven years and before that worked as a consultant to the charity.

His business career was spent in the catering equipment industry for over 20 years before he moved on to Christian ministry which is how he first came to go to Africa.

A few months spent at Roffey Place Christian Centre brought a more radical change than anticipated, and it was there that Alex met a Pastor from Burundi who became a central influence on his life, even to this day.

He has since worked in Christian ministry, which he describes as "a call of God we must not ignore".

It was the work in Burundi and Rwanda, post genocide, which eventually brought Alex into contact with WER as he sought funding for relief and medical work in those countries. He remains heavily involved with humanitarian and development work worldwide through WER.

About World Emergency Relief:

World Emergency Relief is a non-denominational, global fellowship of Christians, working together, and with others, to help people in need. Underlying World Emergency Relief's efforts are God's love for this WORLD He created, the physical, emotional, spiritual, social and economic EMERGENCIES afflicting millions, and the RELIEF we can bring to hurting people, especially children, thanks to God's unending mercy coupled with the generosity of our donors.