Bardaï Hospital appeal

Help get life-saving healthcare to people in Chad

Andrea and Mark in local dress, smiling in the desert sunshine. — You can help Andrea and Mark Hotchkin reach the people of Bardaï with vital healthcare.

Benjamin's life could have been destroyed without Bardaï hospital.

Benjamin was in terrible pain when he first went to Bardaï hospital: what was a minor infection at first had caused his arm to swell to twice its size and lose half its skin.

Can you imagine how frightened you’d feel, seeing your body change beyond recognition, knowing there’s no way you can work or earn money for your family while feeling so ill? And then there’s the stress of knowing that if you can’t work, there’s no way you can afford hospital treatment to get better.

It’s a terrible catch-22 that BMS World Mission workers Andrea and Mark Hotchkin have seen time and again over the last 13 years they’ve been working as doctors in Chad. But your generosity could change everything for people like Benjamin.

Benjamin with two medical staff and a bandaged arm outside the hospital — Could you give to get life-saving healthcare to people like Benjamin today?

How could my gift help?

Your £14 could provide specialist equipment like oxygen masks and drip sets to treat two children suffering from respiratory illnesses.
Your £25 could cover the cost of treatment for one person, so they don’t have to choose between caring for their family or losing their life.
Your £92 could cover the cost of one day of Andrea and Mark Hotchkin’s work providing life-saving healthcare in the Chadian desert.

Give now

Benjamin is just one of the many different patients Andrea and Mark and the team at Bardaï hospital treat every day. Your help is desperately needed to heal children with pneumonia who’ve travelled for over 100 miles across scorching desert with their families, to help people who’ve suffered brutal accidents while working on treacherous gold fields, to assist expectant mothers and, in one of the harshest environments on earth, to welcome new life into the world.

Because Bardaï hospital was there, Benjamin received emergency medical care and skin grafts, and will thankfully be able to return to work soon. Even better, the hospital was able to cover the cost of his treatment, meaning Benjamin has enough money to keep his family fed until he’s well enough to go back to work.

We’re sure that after the last few years, you’re keenly aware of how crucial accessible healthcare is. If you can give today, you can make sure this hospital can keep helping people who can’t carry the financial burden of their treatment.

Andrea and Mark Hotchkin

Wide shot of the hospital, showing three low buildings painted cream and green with a desert background of blue sky and golden sand. — Without this hospital, life in Bardaï would be disastrous. Please give today to help provide life-saving healthcare in Chad.

Bardaï Hospital appeal prayer PowerPoint

Download this short PowerPoint presentation to guide your prayers for BMS World Mission’s work in Chad.

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Your gift will help provide life-saving healthcare for the people of Bardaï, Chad.
If our appeal target is exceeded, additional funds will support work in the world’s most marginalised countries, based on where the need is greatest.

The disease the world forgot

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Andrea and Mark Hotchkin on fighting an ‘orphan disease’ in the Chadian desert.

Orphan disease /ˈɔːf(ə)n /dɪˈziːz/ noun

A disease whose treatment or prevention has seen little investment by pharmaceutical companies, because any financial incentives for manufacturing new medications to treat or prevent it are small.
Orphan diseases may also include neglected tropical diseases, defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a group of diseases concentrated almost exclusively in poor populations in the Global South. Among these diseases, which affect more than one billion people, are dengue fever, leprosy, onchocerciasis (river blindness) and leishmaniasis.

If you haven’t heard of leishmaniasis before, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Think of malaria, and you’re getting close, except that this microscopic parasitic disease is restricted to a much narrower geographical region, populated by the particular species of sandfly that transmits it. “In world-terms, it’s not an important disease,” says Mark Hotchkin, who, alongside his wife Andrea, has served as a surgeon in Chad for the past ten years. “Visceral leishmaniasis kills something like 20 to 40,000 people in the world every year, whereas malaria will see something like 10,000 deaths of children in Chad alone.”

And while the problem is of a totally different order in terms of numbers, when you live in an area that is affected by leishmaniasis – and patients start showing up to the hospital with worrying symptoms – it becomes less about the global statistics, and entirely about what you can do to help this person. “Really, you could argue that in terms of numbers, you should focus on malaria and forget about leishmaniasis,” adds Andrea. “But, I suppose, we’ve been in the right place at the right time.” Mark vividly remembers the day he was called to see his first leishmaniasis patient. It was 18 March 2018, and a child with a high fever had been brought to the hospital. It was an unusual case that left the staff team puzzled, but Mark was reminded of the leishmaniasis patients he’d only ever come across three or four times while working in the Chadian capital of N’Djamena. The little 12-year-old boy who had been brought to Mark was already extremely ill, and while Mark was confident of his diagnosis, he didn’t have access to any of the tests or medications he needed to treat the child.

A man and a woman talking outside a Chadian hospital.

The difficult truth

Because leishmaniasis has been categorised as an ‘orphan illness’ – restricted to the poorest parts of the world and not financially lucrative to create up-to-date medications for, you might be led to think its prognosis isn’t serious. And while eight in ten people will be naturally inoculated against the disease, visceral leishmaniasis (one form the disease can take) attacks the internal organs of the 20 per cent who aren’t.

Those who do go on to show symptoms will start to experience them a couple of months after being infected, as the disease infiltrates their bone marrow, liver and spleen. Sufferers become anaemic, feverish and eventually immunodeficient, unable to make new blood platelets and at risk of severe bleeding. Without treatment, it’s a slow, inevitable decline towards death.

Faced with this knowledge, and in an awful race against time, Mark and Andrea quickly sent out a call for the medication to everywhere they could think of, even going so far as to contact suppliers in England in case it could be found in time. A rare supply of drugs was frantically sourced by BMS pharmacist Claire Bedford and paid for by BMS World Mission – but – “It arrived shortly after he’d died,” says Andrea. “It was really very sad.” And while the medication did arrive, another patient had since passed away less than a day after arriving at the hospital. Time went by without any other leishmaniasis patients coming to the hospital, but, unbeknown to Andrea and Mark, echoes of the tragic deaths had found their way to Chad’s Ministry of Health. God had truly been at work, and it was with real surprise that Mark and Andrea found themselves being offered a large donation of leishmaniasis medication by the Ministry of Health’s own pharmacist, who wanted to know if Mark and Andrea had the skill to roll it out in the hospital in Bardaï.

“We got the drugs, we got the tests, and then… we started getting patients,” says Andrea. Ironically, the news that tests are available has made life more complicated when chatting to anxious parents, coming to the hospital with a feverish child. “The trouble is that these tests will give you a positive reading, even if you’re one of the eight in ten who is immune to leishmaniasis,” says Andrea. A positive reading means the team have to think hard about whether to start someone on the treatment plan of daily injections, which can span from 17 days all the way up to 30. This is because the treatment plan has lots of negative side-effects, partly due to leishmaniasis’ status as an orphan disease. Little research has gone into creating newer, more effective drugs, and with Andrea’s rough estimate that around five per cent of those who go on the treatment plan could die from those side effects, you start to appreciate the enormity of the decision Andrea and Mark have to make.

To make that crucial decision, they’ve developed a rigorous protocol to follow with each patient. They begin by taking on board what the patient says, ascertaining whether they’ve had a fever and how long it’s gone on for. Then, they’ll admit them to the hospital and monitor them, using a test to rule out malaria and treating them with antibiotics. Without any improvement from that, they’ll do the test for leishmaniasis and start them on the medication. Wonderfully, because the Ministry of Health has been involved since the beginning, the expensive treatment course is free for patients. A cohort of doctors has also been sent to examine Mark and Andrea’s work and suggest how it could be replicated across the country. “They were really impressed,” explains Andrea. The WHO has come on board too, and samples of the leishmaniasis strain have been sent to Cameroon for testing, so the most effective medication might be found. When the treatment plan is rolled out, affected areas of Chad will have the possibility of treating people with leishmaniasis for free, including, hopefully, at the BMS-supported Guinebor II hospital in N’Djamena. Andrea and Mark estimate that without the treatment hub they’ve created at the hospital, most patients they see would end up seeking help in Libya.

“Lots of things have fallen into place that have allowed us to do more than we would have ever imagined we could do,” says Andrea. Another positive consequence of the programme has been a huge increase in confidence in the hospital, with the wards filling up and patients staying for the whole course of their treatment, something that wasn’t a given previously. Two things are undeniable though: Andrea and Mark are quite clear that this astounding achievement would not have been possible without God’s provision and without your support.

“It is such a joy to see a child who has come in so sick go home laughing and running around,” reflect Andrea and Mark. “Thank you for enabling this to happen.”

Make pioneering healthcare and lifesaving work like this possible. You can enable Andrea and Mark’s crucial work when you support them regularly as a 24:7 Partner. Go to www.bmsworldmission.org/247 today, and support healthcare in northern Chad.

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Words by Hannah Watson, Editor of Engage, the BMS magazine.

How to vaccinate the world

Join Hannah and Laura from BMS World Mission’s Advocacy Team, as we journey through one of the biggest issues facing the world today: just access to the Covid-19 vaccine.

Looking to the past

How many people do you know today who have suffered from polio? I imagine the answer is probably no-one, or at least very few. Cases have decreased by 99 per cent since the 1980s, and what was a tragically widespread disease is now only found in three countries in the world. And the reason? The vaccine was never patented, allowing for it to be made accessible worldwide and saving countless lives. In a recent blog post, BMS surgeons Mark and Andrea Hotchkin argue that the same attitude is needed to eradicate Covid-19.

A man and a woman outside a hut in the desert. — Andrea and Mark Hotchkin provide vital healthcare in Bardaï, Chad.

“Could you patent the sun?” These are the famous words of Jonas Salk, the creator of the polio vaccine, when asked who would own the vaccine. It’s a phrase being used by The People’s Vaccine Alliance, of which BMS is a part, to campaign for intellectual property waivers on the Covid-19 vaccines. Waiving the patents means vaccines can be manufactured across the world. Those waivers, however, are currently being blocked by Western countries, and have been since 2020. “It seems that for the rich nations it is unthinkable that this should be proposed. It is apparently just not the way our world works,” say Andrea and Mark. “But it doesn’t have to be this way.”

The struggles of the present

A woman in PPE — Rachel Conway-Doel is BMS' Overseas Team for Relief but is also a trained vaccinator in the UK.

So how do you go about co-ordinating a relief effort that is clouded by such complicated issues? Laura sat down with BMS’ Overseas Team Leader for Relief, Rachel Conway-Doel, to ask how she’s been facilitating BMS’ Coronavirus relief response since the beginning of 2020, and how BMS is supporting just access to the Covid-19 vaccine.

Laura: When you see what happened with the polio vaccine, how does that relate to what’s happening today with Covid-19 vaccine?

Rachel: So, this is the point of the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA). Their big thing is access to the vaccines – and one of the biggest things around that is the international intellectual property sharing. If the blocks aren’t lifted, it means that more manufacturers can’t make vaccines, and that means restricted supply, which means fewer people get vaccinated.

L: How does that link to BMS’ role in terms of the Campaign for a Covid-free world?

R: We’re part of the PVA, which is calling for equitable access – and intellectual property waivers are one of the biggest ways we’ll be able to achieve this. So it totally aligns with our petition, and it needs all the noise it can get. Because without the noise, the heads of state and big organisations won’t feel like it’s as central an issue.

On the ground

Many of us in the UK feel instinctively that vaccines are safe – but all around the world, fears about being made to have a recently developed vaccine are very real. Hannah spoke to Daniel and Regiane Clark, BMS workers in Peru, to hear why, in many contexts across the world, vaccine hesitancy is grounded in culture and history.

Hannah: Can you tell us how the Covid pandemic affected life in Peru?

Regiane: Since the pandemic started last year in March, the lockdown was very strict for Peruvians. The army was patrolling the streets, and you couldn’t go out… It was very difficult, and very hard, especially because 70 per cent of the population are informal workers who work out in the streets.

Two BMS mission workers and their daughter smiling into the camera. — Daniel and Regiane Clark have been advocating for the Covid-19 vaccine in Peru.

Daniel: And many don’t have bank accounts, or access to the internet.

H: Did you hear of many people becoming ill with the virus, and being hospitalised?

R: We did, but most people were dying at home… They would prefer to stay at home and be treated with natural medicines and by relatives, because the hospital might not have spaces.

D: There’s still a history and a legacy from the [Peruvian dictator Alberto] Fujimori era, of women who were sterilised. Some women were forced to be sterilised, or a lot of them were Quetchua-speaking but were given documents in Spanish, and they thought they were signing up to one thing. But they were signing up to not have any more children.

H: I’d like to ask you about the webinars you’ve been preparing – I think there was one around family health in the pandemic, focusing on good practices and myth-busting?

R: I think most people want the vaccine… but they have doubts. Maybe they had bad experiences in the past. The problem is, there is information going around Peru and in other countries in South America, confusing people. People think they could get side effects, or other kinds of diseases that would be worse by having the vaccine.

H: So when you are doing a seminar like that, what content would go into the web events?

D: These are new things… the one that will take most time is the one around debunking myths and reinforcing good health.
I think it’ll be true of other countries – not just Peru – that people do have a reason not to trust… you’re having to engage with what is quite a legitimate fear, a legitimate concern.

The workshops planned by Daniel and Regiane are just one of a number of ways that our partners are seeking to make just access to the Covid vaccine a reality. If you’d also like to be part of making a difference, why not sign our petition, the Campaign for a Covid-free world? Your voice will be added on those calling the UK Government to make decisions for the good of everyone, not just the wealthiest nations, when it comes to equal access. And we’ll keep you in the loop with how else you can be involved in supporting vaccine rollouts in the places we work, too.

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Words by Hannah Watson and Laura Durrant.

You've done amazing things this year:

Looking after the planet just got easier

Praying for this 29

Creation stewardship is crucial to our mission, and to our faith. It’s why BMS World Mission was on the streets with Christian Climate Action earlier this week. It’s why we’ve been supporting creation care initiatives for years. And it’s why we’re encouraging you to do what you can in the fight for climate justice. Not everyone can join a demonstration, but by using our new carbon calculator, you can offset your carbon footprint and put that money straight back into the environment.

Come with us to a fragile desert ecosystem – one that’s home to the peoples of the Tibesti region in mountainous northern Chad. We’re in the mid-Sahara Desert, so as you may imagine, medical provision in this remote and unyielding environment might be hard to come by. But travel to the oasis town of Bardaï, and you’ll meet BMS medical workers Andrea and Mark Hotchkin. They’ve lived here for years, supporting the government hospital which provides 24-hour healthcare (whether through life-saving surgeries or supporting safe childbirth) to the communities who need it.

A mountainous desert landscape. — This mountainous desert landscape is home to the peoples of the Tibesti region.

The sad irony is that this beacon of life and health has traditionally had to rely on diesel generators to get electricity pumping round its wards. Like any hospital, the one in Bardaï needs to keep life-giving medication refrigerated and crucial equipment powered for use in medical and surgical emergencies. But that meant 35,000 litres of diesel fuel per year being burned up in a 60KW generator, releasing 90,000kg of greenhouse-generating CO2 into a delicately balanced desert climate. The generator was expensive, limited, and damaging. But in a place as remote as Bardaï, it used to be the only option.

“Used to be”, because the Bardaï hospital project is the first BMS project to receive the Climate Stewards Seal of Approval. Under the scheme, money raised through offsetting carbon is invested in supporting green initiatives to protect our planet – starting in Bardaï. Where diesel used to fuel the hospital, solar panels now power a majority of its needs. And when you choose to offset what you can’t reduce in your own carbon footprint, you become part of this incredible solution – reducing emissions in Bardaï and, as more creation care and carbon reduction projects come online, around the world.

Soon, by calculating and offsetting your carbon emissions with the BMS Carbon Calculator, you will be a part of initiatives that meet the high standards of Climate Stewards and that do something real and valuable to fight climate change. From emissions-reducing efforts in Christ-glorifying ministries like the Bardaï hospital project, to planting trees for carbon capture and oxygen production, BMS is committed to being part of the solution to our climate crisis, and to doing it in the name of Jesus.

Solar panels funded by BMS supporters being unloaded from a plane. — The panels arrived on a flight already scheduled to visit the region, so no extra carbon emissions were created by their delivery.

The BMS-supported government hospital at Bardai. — Solar panels will now power a majority of this crucial hospital's needs.

The Bardaï solar panels will save an estimated 1,578 tonnes of carbon emissions over a period of 20 years, representing an 87 per cent reduction in annual fuel consumption. To put that into context, the yearly saving is equivalent to the output of 24 standard UK cars, and the financial saving for the hospital equivalent to six months’ worth of life-saving medications.

It’s also going to improve lives by improving reliable power. The old generator’s output was patchy, meaning patients might give birth by torchlight at night. The new solar panels allow the hospital to function for 24 hours a day with proper lighting and refrigeration of medications – enabling better care, more thorough cleaning, safer operations and a hugely better atmosphere for patients and staff. And it’s hoped that the solar panels will generate interest from the local community, raising awareness of green energies and better alternatives for fuelling life in Bardaï.

God gave us a world to take care of. Doing so doesn’t need to be a choice between helping people and being good stewards. Praise God for this opportunity to do both!

Try our new carbon calculator!

At BMS World Mission, we want to encourage you to reduce what you can. But for carbon emissions you can’t reduce, our calculator will allow you to invest in greener solutions for some of the most fragile places on earth. Take positive action in responsible stewardship, and try the calculator today!

Join us in praying for our planet Click here

Words by Hannah Watson, Editor of Engage, the BMS World Mission magazine.

The most dramatic day

Sahel surgeons:

The most dramatic day

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Truckloads of injured fighters. Surgeons donating blood. Chicken pies for tea. All in a day’s work for BMS World Mission workers in the Sahel, Andrea and Mark.

Oh my goodness, these guys. The things they see. The help they give. They’re amazing. And inspiring. And deserving of your support. If you don’t know them, let us introduce you.

Andrea and Mark Hotchkin are BMS medical workers in Bardai, in the northern part of Chad, and they are some of our favourite people. They are experienced and highly skilled surgeons who are living in a two-room dwelling in one of the most remote locations BMS works. They sleep on the floor (in sleeping bags to keep out the scorpions). They have an outdoor loo and washing area. And they are, as you will see a little bit later, magnificently understated about the work they do and the situations they face.

Take their latest prayer letter. Andrea and Mark work in a Government hospital, alongside dedicated Chadian staff, building capacity and raising community trust in what is an important medical centre in this part of the Sahel region of North Africa. Lately, they have been dealing with some of the fallout from the conflict in the Sahel that you may have read about. It’s pretty intense and dramatic, but Andrea and Mark open their latest prayer letter with characteristic calm:

Since the start of the year we have been using a morning prayer from the Corrymeela Community:

May we make room for the unexpected, may we find wisdom and life in the unexpected. We recall our day yesterday: May we learn, may we love, may we live on. Help us to respond graciously to disappointment.

It helps us reflect on our lives, the joys and the difficulties of each day, and the fact that it is often through relationships with others that we can truly live and encounter God. So on Friday the 21 February we prayed that we may make room for the unexpected, whilst at the same time hoping for a normal day’s work before expecting a quiet weekend as we have been exceptionally busy over the past 2 months and just needed a bit of rest.

So far, so just-the-same-as-most-of-our-Fridays, right? Wrong.

At one o’clock, three military pickups arrived without warning from the local airstrip. They had 11 badly injured fighters who had been evacuated by helicopter from a gold field 300 km (a day’s drive) to the North on the Libyan frontier. The battle had been a couple of days before, we had heard some news, but as such things are quite frequent and often we get two or three self-referred casualties at a time, we hadn’t thought much about it. Thankfully, a couple of weeks before, we had opened a new seven-bed ward (that had been used before as a storeroom), so the two patients in there were moved next door and the room filled. Four extra beds were added when it became clear that they were needed. It sounds efficient, it wasn’t; but amazingly it was possible.

Casual. Three trucks full of wounded fighters show up without warning. You beat yourself up about the efficiency of your bed-moving. These guys are incredible. And helping people who are in real trouble. Like this:

There was one teenager in shock with a bullet wound to his abdomen and another with a bullet wound puncturing the lung and paralysed from the waist down. The rest had a mixture of open fractures of legs and arms caused by bullets and closed fractures of leg, chest and pelvis from being hit by armoured vehicles. All had received no treatment or dressings since they were injured three days before. Where to begin? The entire hospital staff sprang into action, all six of us: two Chadian doctors, two Chadian nurses and us.

Wait, what? Six people? Yes. Because BMS sends people where they are needed most, rather than where it’s easiest, and we send them to work alongside the people already making a difference. Chad has fewer than 500 doctors to serve a population of 11 million people, and places near the Libyan border really need medical capacity. The Chadians working there are real heroes, and Andrea and Mark are proud to work with them. And work they do…

We needed fluids for resuscitation, antibiotics, anti-tetanus serum, pain killers and dressings in large amounts. The hospital administrator who is currently running the pharmacy had never seen anything like it. Fortunately, we have boxes for major surgical emergencies from the Ministry of Health: drugs, dressings, stitches and swabs all in a big box. Soon everyone was pulling together and an unexpected four nurses came from the small military clinic to help to assess and treat the patients. An emergency chest drain was put in, saline drips started and everyone was assessed, wounds dressed and notes made. The first patient with an open fracture was operated on, the second with maggots in his wound had drunk a litre of juice supplied by the local community (along with blankets and food the next day) and the patient with an abdominal injury was vomiting as he too hadn’t been able to resist a drink. At that moment, four hours after the first casualties, a second convoy arrived with twelve more patients, about half walking wounded and the rest with bad fractures.

That’s right. More. But did the amazing mix of British and Chadian staff panic? No. Or maybe yes. We don’t know. What we do know is that they just got on with it and did what was necessary.

A second ward was cleared and, as first treatments were being given, we took the man with the abdominal wound and peritonitis to theatre as he now had a palpable pulse and measurable blood pressure. We have no blood bank but a unit of much needed blood had been given by a mission colleague and very fortunately, a couple of days before, an electrician had fixed the ceiling lights so that we now had six, rather than two bulbs, which, along with our head torches, made up for the fact that the operating lamps are broken. The operation went well, two perforations of the small bowel were removed, and as he was still shocked at the end of the operation, despite Andrea’s best efforts, at midnight I gave him a unit of my blood. And once we had finished cleaning up the operating theatre for the next day’s work and checked on the newly arrived patients, we were ready to walk home.

So, to be clear: operating using head torches and donating your own blood to patients you’ve operated on. No fanfare, no fuss. Just doing what you do. Andrea and Mark and the amazing local people who they work with are an inspiration to us. We hope they are an inspiration to you, too. People who have sacrificed an easier life at home to help people where the need is great, working and living alongside the hard-pressed local heroes who are able to do more because people like you support BMS.

You can support Andrea and Mark regularly Click here

Andrea and Mark wouldn’t be able to be there without your prayers and without your giving. So please pray now for Chad, for peace in the Sahel and for Andrea and Mark, as well as all the staff at this heroic hospital.

And here’s our favourite part of this letter form the Hotchkins. The understated cherry on the top of their day of drama:

The final unexpected event of that eventful day was a chicken pie that our mission colleague had dropped off at the hospital for our tea. It was 2 am and we fell asleep with the alarm set for 7 o’clock.

You can support Andrea and Mark by giving regularly or you can make a one-off donation to support this and other life-transforming work around the world. Whatever you do, we are grateful. Thank you for your prayers.

They are the very opposite of ex-pats living the high life, separated from the real lives of the local people they serve. And they experience some of the most intense and challenging situations you can imagine.

From the frontline: stories to inspire you

From the frontline:

stories to inspire you

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From giving critical medical aid at night, to helping a rural community grow crops, our mission workers have had a very busy, challenging and blessed start to the year. We thought it was time to share some of their news with you.

The surgeons in Chad who came to the rescue after dark

Andrea and Mark Hotchkin in traditional Chadian dress in front of a sand coloured wall — Andrea and Mark Hotchkin dedicate every day to helping others in Chad, no matter where they are in the country.

We’ll paint a picture for you. One day you’re in a fancy hotel in Chad’s capital city, N’Djamena attending a Ministry of Health meeting. Then just a few days later you’re hours from the nearest town, it’s late and you’ve spent the day driving from village to village assessing healthcare provision. Word reaches you that two local people are seriously unwell and no-one has made any effort to get help.
This is what happened recently in the lives of BMS World Mission surgeons, Andrea and Mark Hotchkin. If you didn’t already know how amazing they are, you certainly will when you read their latest blog.

Read the Hotchkins' blog

Giving hope for a better future

A woman dressed in black stands behind a table covered in neatly arranged clothing — You’ll probably never meet Shama, but thanks to your support for BMS you’ve helped her and her family.

Consider this: you have five children, your husband is unable to find work and one of your children has tuberculosis. You have to spend every day not knowing how long you have to make the small amount of income you do have last. This is the life that Shama has known in Delhi. But thanks to your support for BMS workers James and Ruth Neve, Shama and others have been given hope of a new life-changing income. To find out how, read the Neves’ latest blog by hitting the button below.

Read the Neves' blog

A night of praying with women in pain

Evening street scene in Bangkok with neon lights — The light of Christ is being received in Bangkok’s red-light district, helped by BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb.

In the red-light district of Bangkok, women are learning they are children of God and that he loves them. BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb writes in her latest blog about a special event at a hotel where women who work in some of Bangkok’s bars gathered for a meal and prayer. Please read Ashleigh’s blog, and please continue to pray for her and the people she meets in one of the world’s darkest places.

Read Ashleigh's blog

‘The seeds we received are a gift from God’

Carlos Tique stands in front of a house and some green foliage — By supporting BMS worker Carlos Jone, you’re helping people in Chassimba, Mozambique not only fight hunger, but also earn their own money.

There’s a rural village in Mozambique called Chassimba, where your faithful support for BMS work is transforming lives. Men and women are not only being given seeds to grow crops, they’re learning how to take care of them better. And with increased production comes an income. BMS worker Carlos Jone visited Chassimba recently, and shares in his latest prayer letter the beautiful response he received from villagers.

Read Carlos' update

News in brief from around the world

In Guinea, BMS worker Ben*, along with a professional football coach, visited football training sessions to strengthen links with non-Christians. Ben has also started to meet with a prison group as he continues to show God’s love among the marginalised.
In France, the BMS Action Team has been helping at a refugee centre for women, supporting youth work, forging friendships and developing their language skills. Check out all their news on their blogs page.
In Peru, BMS worker Laura-Lee Lovering has been kept busy through attending the Peruvian Baptist Assembly (her seventh!), catching up with BMS short-term volunteer Becky Richards, and meeting Action Teamers.
In Mozambique, BMS worker Sergio Vilela has put in a lot of miles (around 3,000 in two weeks) meeting people through our partnership with the Mozambican Baptist Convention. Meanwhile, fellow BMS worker, and Sergio’s wife, Liz Vilela has been doing great work with child protection training, which she touches on in her latest prayer letter. Please check it out and pray for the Vilelas!

Want your church to support life-changing mission work?

Your church can get behind our mission work by becoming a Church Partner. It’s ever so easy to join and gives your church the chance to focus on a region or ministry, or on specific people.

We’d love to talk to you, so please don’t hesitate to contact Jo in the Church Partners team with any questions. Call her today on 01235 517600 or email her at churchrelations@bmsworldmission.org

If your church isn’t in Church Partners, talk to your minister today. Get involved, be inspired, express your heart for mission!

These stories are just a snapshot of what our mission workers and partners have been up to. In countries like Uganda, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ukraine, Albania, Lebanon and India, your support is being felt through training, nourishment, heating, education and much more. We thank you today for all that you do for BMS, for your giving and prayer, and your encouragement. Thanks to you, God is meeting the needs of people like you and me around the world. We praise God today for your support and give thanks for our incredible mission workers.

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*Names changed for security reasons.

Fearless: taking on the Sahara Desert, raging rivers, and the sex industry

Fearless:

taking on the Sahara Desert, raging rivers, and the sex industry

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There’s nothing overstated about the headline above. BMS World Mission workers enter isolated, extreme and often dangerous places because God has empowered them to change people’s lives for the better. They tread fearlessly knowing you are standing alongside them in prayer. So please read on for some of their latest blogs.

1. When you get lost, stuck and weary in the desert

Nightmare journeys home usually consist of heavy traffic, train cancellations, or flight delays. Not so for BMS surgeons Andrea and Mark Hotchkin. For these two brilliant mission workers, along with their children Ruth and Rebecca, the journey home to Bardaï in northern Chad involved getting lost in the Sahara desert, camping outside as lightning struck, and digging for hours to release their vehicle from sand. And if that wasn’t challenging enough, a dust storm then hit. Read the Hotchkins’ blog to find out how they got home!

Read the Hotchkins' blog

Truck stuck in the mud in a desert — The Hotchkin family not only faced flooding in a desert, they also had the problem of sand becoming mud.

2. Cable bridges, landslides and a lot of walking – just to reach schools

Simon Hall holding a book as children surround him — Children’s books (and Simon Hall) are clearly popular at this remote school in Lamjung District

It’s fair to say that Simon Hall put in a lot of effort to reach the school in the photo above. That’s what’s needed in Lamjung District, Nepal, where BMS teacher trainer Simon serves. The school you can see was one of 15 that Simon and three of his colleagues visited in just one week. Reaching them involved crossing cable bridges over raging rivers, walking for hours up steps, and then travelling in jeeps up to altitude-sickness-inducing heights. The journey was understandably draining, but it was nothing compared to what was to come for Simon. Please read his blog today and pray with him using his prayer points.

Read Simon's blog

3. Joining the fight to eradicate TB

Can you imagine being part of history? BMS mission workers James and Ruth Neve don’t have to. As part of the Indian Government’s plan to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) from the country by 2025, James and Ruth are going to be giving training to people who have been cured of the illness. Their training courses will teach vital skills to help some of the poorest and most marginalized people in India generate a better income and turn their lives around. Read James and Ruth’s blog post about the day they decided to help change the world.

Read the Neves' blog

Ruth Neve signing TB agreement — Ruth Neve signs a life-changing agreement

4. ‘I want women to understand that God created us beautiful’

Ashleigh Gibb witnesses pain every day. She serves with BMS in the red light district of Bangkok, where she enters bars and brothels to speak words of love and kindness to women who have been trafficked. She also works in a coffee shop, that gives women who have managed to escape the sex industry the chance to learn new skills. Ashleigh’s blogs are always very powerful and heartfelt, none more so than her latest post in which she writes about the importance of loving those around us, even those who are hard to love.

Read Ashleigh's blog

Ashleigh Gibb in Bangkok — BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb takes the light of Christ into the darkness of Bangkok’s sex industry.

5. ‘May you know that you are loved with a constant and eternal love’

The Ovendens sit together with new baby Eleanor — Please keep Joe, Reuben, Lois, Eleanor and Connie Ovenden in your prayers.

This may not be the frontline of mission work, but we’re confident you’ll want to read about it. There was much joy in the BMS family when news came through about the newest Ovenden. Eleanor Ada Joy was welcomed into the world on Tuesday 18 September, a third child for BMS workers in Uganda, Joe and Lois. We give thanks today for the blessing of new life, and for everything that Joe and Lois do for BMS. They’ve posted a prayer for Eleanor in their latest blog. After you’ve read it, please pray for Eleanor.

Read the Ovendens' blog

God is with our mission workers, as are you. It is your faithful prayer and giving that enables them to be on the frontline of mission, helping the sick in Chad, children in Nepal, women who have been trafficked in Thailand, and many others in need around the world. Our mission workers across the globe write blogs about their work and we often post them on our Facebook page, along with prayer requests and videos. Please check it out, and please do comment on the blogs with words of encouragement for our workers! We love to hear from you.

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Looking back:

1. Big thinking for little minds

Millions of children in Nepal are getting the opportunity of a better education, thanks to your support for BMS worker Annie Brown.

With her teacher training programme being adopted by the Nepali Government, every teacher of students aged between five and 13 in all government schools will have the chance to receive Annie’s training. They’ll be better-equipped to teach, and Nepal’s children will face brighter futures!

Read the full story here

2. Pray for our new mission workers

James and Ruth Neve, who are preparing to move to India to work with us.

Tucked away in our centre in Birmingham, new BMS mission workers are busy preparing for overseas service. For them, it’s daunting, but also exciting, as they get ready to serve God abroad in different ways. From a family heading to Nepal to help with disaster relief, to a couple heading to Albania to teach children of mission workers, there are plenty of things we can be praying for.

Loads of you loved catching up with our new mission workers’ prayer requests, making this our second most popular story last year.

Pray for them today by clicking the link below.

Read their prayer requests here

3. 5 ways you're fighting violence against women

For thousands of vulnerable women and girls around the world, gender based violence is a daily part of life. But, thanks to your support, BMS is taking a stand against it. From helping girls know their rights, to freeing women from prostitution, you’re helping to empower women and prevent trafficking, sexual abuse and domestic violence. Find out more by reading the story.

Learn how you're empowering women around the world

4. Baptised in a barrel in Phnom Penh

Students are meeting Jesus in Cambodia! We loved witnessing the amazing moment when Srei got baptised in a barrel and by our stats it looked like you did too. Read about how she and Chan came to find God at a BMS-supported Christian hostel in Phnom Penh, and how, thanks to your support, more and more people are finding Jesus.

5. Feeding of the 400

You’re helping to build Christian community in France – where young Christians often feel isolated and lonely.

Connexion 2017, an event put on by BMS worker Sue Wilson and her team, helped young French Christians realise they’re not alone. Watch the video above to find out about what it meant to the people who were there, and click the link below to read how you’re helping bring young French Christians together.

Read how you're helping young French Christians find community

Thank you for supporting us in 2017. Your gifts have helped people find God, and have transformed countless lives. With your continued support, we can’t wait to start doing even more in 2018!

Other great stories made possible by you

Five stores aren’t enough to sum-up how much you did last year. So here are a few extra ones we’d love you to read too.

Meet the inspiring Mozambican Christians you’re supporting: they’re bringing justice to abused women and teaching communities their rights.
From witch doctor to church planter: the story of a witch doctor who found God, and then started planting churches.
Baptist church brings light in Uganda: one simple action is raising money, helping people’s lungs and introducing people to Jesus.
Refugees are like you and me: BMS worker Ann MacFarlane has seen God at work in the lives of refugees in Italy.
This is what a life transformed looks like: meet Joshua. You helped give him a reason to smile.

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Thank you

Bardaï Hospital appeal

Help get life-saving healthcare to people in Chad

Benjamin's life could have been destroyed without Bardaï hospital.

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The difficult truth

How to vaccinate the world

Looking to the past

The struggles of the present

On the ground

You've done amazing things this year:

Top Stories of 2020

1. Pictures from the frontline: An oasis of healing

2. Surviving lockdown: tips from Afghanistan

3. The accidental pastor

4. Sahel surgeons: The most dramatic day

5. Picking up glass: the human stories behind the Beirut blast

Calling all stewards

Looking after the planet just got easier

Sahel surgeons:

The most dramatic day

The final unexpected event of that eventful day was a chicken pie that our mission colleague had dropped off at the hospital for our tea. It was 2 am and we fell asleep with the alarm set for 7 o’clock.

From the frontline:

stories to inspire you

The surgeons in Chad who came to the rescue after dark

Giving hope for a better future

A night of praying with women in pain

‘The seeds we received are a gift from God’

News in brief from around the world

Fearless:

taking on the Sahara Desert, raging rivers, and the sex industry

1. When you get lost, stuck and weary in the desert

2. Cable bridges, landslides and a lot of walking – just to reach schools

3. Joining the fight to eradicate TB

4. ‘I want women to understand that God created us beautiful’

5. ‘May you know that you are loved with a constant and eternal love’

Looking back:

Top 5 stories of 2017

1. Big thinking for little minds

2. Pray for our new mission workers

3. 5 ways you're fighting violence against women

4. Baptised in a barrel in Phnom Penh

5. Feeding of the 400