Dear Friends
I hope you will be as pleased as I am to see the 2008 Diocese of London Lent Appeal materials enclosed with this letter. This appeal is a direct response to London Challenge 2012 where we have not only committed to engage with the Millennium Development Goals and build on our existing partnerships with the church in Africa especially in Angola and Mozambique (5b), but have also embraced the challenge to help develop all areas of education in these our link dioceses.
Our partners in Angola and Mozambique are among the world’s poorest nations (160th and 166th respectively on the Human Development Index of 177 countries – the UK is 18th). The context of poverty shapes their ministry and mission and we stand alongside as they seek ways of being Good News to their people. Our three link Bishops: Bishop Andre Soares in Angola; Bishop Dinis Sengulane in Lebombo (southern Mozambique) and Bishop Mark Van Koevering in Niassa (northern Mozambique) have all identified education as pivotal in enabling people to move out of poverty. Universal primary education for all is also the second Millennium Development Goal - Angola and Mozambique each have a million children who have no schools to attend.
This Lent, the first of five focussed on London Challenge 2012, we begin with the modest and achievable goal of building and resourcing a school in each of our three link dioceses. The strap line is ‘Education for All’ with the goal of raising £75,000. I hope very much that every parish will play its part in this. I urge you, even if you generally support other international links as a church, to give one Sunday’s collection (offertory) during Lent to the Diocesan Lent Appeal. I also urge you, if you are a church with links in Angola and Mozambique to give to this appeal as generously as you can, as it enables the benefits of our ALMA relationship to be shared with Angolan and Mozambican churches and communities currently without direct parish-to-parish links with London.
I conclude with the observation the Bishop of Kensington made at November’s Diocesan Synod entitled the cappuccino challenge: if half of London’s electoral roll, 34,000 people, gave the cost of one cappuccino a week for one year we would raise £1,768,000 – a sum that could transform the life opportunities, particularly in rural areas, of many of those children without schools. He’s got my £104.
With thanks for our partnership in the Gospel.
The Rt Revd & Rt Hon Richard Chartres DD FSA
| Lent Appeal leaflet |
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| Lent Appeal poster |
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| Template for Gift Aid envelope |
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ALMA link: www.almalink.org
