Evangelical charity is helping people 'come to know Jesus' and rise out of poverty in Africa and Iraq, UK boss says
The
work of the Christian charity Samaritan's Purse is 'lifting the sights' of UK
churches and showing what 'God is doing on a global scale', the international
organisation's British boss has said.
Interviewed
by Christian Today at the Spring Harvest conference in Minehead, Simon
Barrington, Samaritan's Purse Chief Executive Officer outlined the work being
done in Rwanda, Iraq and South Sudan and how people are being lifted out of
poverty and 'coming to know Jesus'.
Samaritan's
Purse is an international and evangelical relief and development organisation
that works through local churches. The charity has been operating since 1970 and
also has offices in the US, Canada, Germany, and Australia.
'Working
through the local church, we do that practically everywhere we go right round
the world,' says Barrington, whose organisation has a strong presence at Spring
Harvest, where some 4,000 Christians have gathered. 'One of the programmes we're
talking about this week is the mobilisation of 700 churches in Rwanda –
Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian – have come together to lift 14,000 families out
of poverty. And that just seemed to fit so well with the theme of [Christian]
unity that is here at Spring Harvest.'
'In
Rwanda we started quite small with one Anglican diocese, saw them mobilise a
hundred churches, saw 2000 families lifted out of poverty out of that, and then
the [local Anglican] Archbishop [Onesphore Rwaje] got the vision for what that
could become, brought all of his bishops together, rolled it out to the whole of
the Anglican church and Archbishop Rwaje started talking about that to his
colleagues from other denominations.
'They
got excited about it, and what's really exciting about it is it's seeing family
lifted out of poverty, but it's also seeing people coming to know Jesus as well,
and seeing the Church growing, and that's why people like the Archbishop are so
excited about it.
Barrington
continues: 'So the whole theme of unity and church coming together for a
purpose, church coming together for mission – it's something that we wanted to
inspire Spring Harvest: it's not just about the UK, it's actually a global
phenomenon. And the story [everywhere] is exactly the same: churches coming
together.'
Some
twenty years after the genocide in Rwanda, 'where neighbour killed neighbour and
the [rival] tribes were warring with one another', churches are coming together
and 'there is reconciliation happening, there is healing happening,' says
Barrington.
'It
is changing the Church as well as changing the lives of those families. So
that's why our partnership with Spring Harvest is such a natural fit really
because everything that is being talked about in terms of ministry on the stage,
is what's happening with our partners in countries...And I think that lifts the
gaze about it just being a UK conference about UK churches – and says this is
what God's doing on a global scale.'
Samaritan's
Purse has also been working in Iraq for the past 12 years of violence, and
established the Samaritan's Purse Emergency Field
Hospital on the Plains of Nineveh. On 17 March the hospital
received its 1,000th patient.
Barrington
explains: 'Last year the World Health Organisation (WHO) together with the Iraqi
Ministry of Health were saying to us that nobody is prepared to put a field
hospital close to Mosul, and that was at a time that the east of Mosul was
falling and people were having to be driven for two hours from eastern Mosul to
Irbil if they had shrapnel wounds or if they've been hurt.
'So
we actually responded to that call and with the WHO deployed a hospital that is
twelve miles out of Mosul that has two operating theatres, dozens of beds...and
is really bringing life-changing medical care to civilians who are free in
Mosul. So that is a big area for us, and mirrors the fact that we are trying to
build the medical capacity of Samaritan's Purse.'
The
third area the charity is focusing on now is South Sudan, a country currently
ravaged by famine and civil war.
'We
are focussed on South Sudan and we are involved in providing clean water in some
of the most dangerous parts of South Sudan,' he says.
The
charity is involved in additional projects include drilling wells to provide
clean water, distributing food to fight hunger and malnutrition, providing
medical care for the sick and suffering, and working through the local church to
build up communities through education and biblical
literacy.