Friday 10 October 2014

It All Adds Up

Every year I have to send off a Gift Aid claim to the UK tax people. It’s a brilliant scheme. The UK government pays Hope and Kindness 25 pence for every pound that we receive from a UK taxpayer. Completing the Gift Aid claim form is a very rewarding task - financially and spiritually. Hope and Kindness would find it very challenging to stay afloat without the generosity of the UK government. Our Gift Aid payment from HMRI has enabled us to buy the land and buildings that we work from in Kenya and in the last couple of years Gift Aid has allowed us to keep up with the ever increasing demands on our budget as we have increased the number of children we help every day (now over 250) and expanded the scope of our work to include providing secondary education. So, a big thank you to Her Majesty’s Government and the far sighted individual who first dreamed up the idea of Gift Aid.

Completing the claim form involves a a relatively straightforward but time consuming workout with some of the minor functions of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Throughout the process I am both humbled by the cumulative financial generosity of our supporters and thoroughly freaked out by the challenge of continuing to keep our work going each month. It is a great faith grower. “On the ground” in Kenya we are frequently faced with difficult choices as we respond to the needs of the children and adults who come into our lives. When you are sat down with a man whose wife has just died who doesn't know how he will be able to care for the newly born baby in his arms there is only way that you can respond. It’s the same with the man who can no longer care for his four children himself and is desperately making arrangements for them to be looked after by relatives who live close enough to our project for the children to be able to come to our school. You can’t say no, however scary the decision is financially.

On my daily keep fit walk/run today I was listening to a talk by a guy called Tony Campolo. (Tony Campolo resources can be found here http://tonycampolo.org/media/ they are fantastic!) In the talk he said “God in his care and in his love has given to the church the resources to respond to the needs of the world.” Given that God says this himself in the Bible, very frequently, I shouldn't be surprised that we have, for the last twelve years, been able to continue responding to the needs of more and more children, young people and adults from our community in Kenya. Sinner that I am I do, occasionally, become anxious when we say “Yes” to another request or start out on a new project. I know I shouldn't. Every year, as I trawl through the financial records of the previous twelve months to do the Gift Aid claim, I am reminded just how faithful and generous our supporters are. Many of them have been with us since we first started twelve years ago.

Doing the Gift Aid claim keeps me very grounded, makes me very thankful and lifts my faith. So, today, as I finalize this year’s Gift Aid claim and continue plotting and scheming for what we do next year, I would like to say a huge thank to all the people who support us financially and make the miracle of our work in Kenya possible. I wish we could bring all of you to Kenya so that you could see for yourselves the difference you make to so many people’s lives.

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