The work we believe we have been given to do

Reading it clause by clause

Every phrase in our mission statement was argued over, and each one carries a practical consequence. Here is what we mean by them.

“To serve vulnerable communities”

Serve, not develop or transform. The verb matters. Communities are not raw material for our plans; they are the ones doing the developing, and our job is to be useful to that.

“Vulnerable” rather than “poor” is deliberate too. Vulnerability is about exposure to shock — the absence of any margin — which is a more accurate account of what we actually encounter than a line on an income chart.

“Alongside local churches and leaders”

This is the clause that most constrains us. In practice it means that in almost every community we work in, the programme is led by people who live there, and our role is to resource, train and account for funds.

It is slower than doing it ourselves. It produces fewer photographs. It also means the capability stays behind when the funding ends, which is the only version of this work we think is worth doing.

“Meeting urgent needs”

We are not too sophisticated for relief. A family with nothing to eat this week needs food this week, and telling them about a five-year livelihoods strategy is an insult. But relief in our model is always time-bound, always reviewed, and always connected to something that follows it.

“Building lasting change”

Lasting is the test. Not delivered, not launched, not reported — lasting. We look at what is still functioning several years after handover, because outputs are easy to count and easy to inflate, while continuation is very hard to fake.

“Pursuing reconciliation”

Pursuing, not achieving. Reconciliation cannot be scheduled or guaranteed, and some processes do not resolve. What we can commit to is pursuing it — with trained local mediators, patient dialogue, trauma healing, and a willingness to measure in years.

And we pursue it in both directions the New Testament describes: between people and God, and between people and one another. We do not think those can be separated.

What we are not trying to do

We are not trying to become the largest Christian relief organisation, or to have a presence in the maximum number of countries. Both would be easier to fundraise for than what we are actually attempting.

We are trying to be genuinely useful to a manageable number of communities, in a way they would recognise as respectful, and then to become unnecessary to them.