Team Report Index
H-8 World Hunger/Tangible Love Team Report
To the First Presidency and the World Conference:
Since the World Conference of 2007, the two international funds
of the church most noted for supporting hunger-alleviation and basic community
development around the world are now the administrative responsibility of one
World Church Team.
The World Hunger Fund and Tangible Love Fund continue to be
funded and accounted for as unique entities of ministry. One body, the World
Hunger/Tangible Love Team, analyzes and responds to field proposals for the use
of those funds. This approach removes the possibility of gaps and overlaps in
considering proposals.
Since 1979, when it was established by World Conference action (WCR
1148), the World Hunger Fund has provided grants to recipients to help the
hungry throughout the world. A summary of the types of disbursements provided
appears later in this report.
Oblation Fund dollars help provide short-term relief to
individuals and families. Additionally, Oblation supports long-term programs
through Tangible Love grants for peace, justice, and compassionate ministries
sponsored by congregations and jurisdictions in collaboration with their
communities. Specified amounts received through the Oblation Fund are set aside
for use by the Tangible Love Fund. A summary of these expenditures also is
included in this report.
These funds are made possible by the continued generous support
of members and friends of Community of Christ. Recipients of all grants
everywhere are grateful for this flow of loving concern, as are members of the
administrative team. Lives literally are saved, communities changed, and threats
to basic human existence held in abeyance in remarkable ways because of such
giving.
Decisions about where and how grants are awarded are made by the
World Hunger/Tangible Love Team, which features a strong international makeup.
The following people reside outside the United States and have regular voice and
vote on the Team: Duane Anderson, Cochabamba, Bolivia; Tanoh Assoi, Yopougon
Maroc (Abidjan), Ivory Coast; Amanda Hernandez, Mexico City, Mexico; and Adam
Wade, Seoul, South Korea. The team leader is Alex Kahtava of Raymore, Missouri.
Other members are Paul Davis, Jim Cable, and Ed Martin, all of
Independence, Missouri. Brenda Williams of Independence, Missouri, serves as the
team’s development and grant-writing consultant. Marsha Brown of the
International Headquarters staff is the administrator.
Proposals come from a wide variety of locations. Historically,
75–80 percent of the proposals submitted to the team initially are received and
reviewed by Outreach International (USA) or World Accord (Canada). These
organizations have a long-standing relationship with Community of Christ and
have expertise and developmental investment that provides a familiarity of the
proposals and their local sponsors.
Outreach International and World Accord provide valuable
evaluation standards and secure placement avenues.
Recent World Hunger projects channeled in this way include:
agricultural development in several African nations, an ongoing nutrition
program in Haitian schools, a child-education center in Brazil, water and food
development in Nicaragua and the Philippines, continued support of education and
nutrition for children from the deeply rural high hills surrounding Gumiguda in
India’s Orissa State, tube wells (boreholes) providing water in various
locations in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a unique approach to gaining control over
marketing and growing tea crops in Bolivia.
Tangible Love proposals funded reflect an increasingly skilled
approach to creating employment opportunities in places such as Zambia,
providing after-school feeding and fellowship programs for children and families
in places like Cary, North Carolina, and a traveling “peacemobile” in the
British Isles.
An increasing number of proposals come directly from
congregations and other jurisdictions and are not required to be passed through
Outreach or World Accord. Many of these bring Community of Christ into
supportive and transformative contact with broken and harsh circumstances.
Evaluations suggest that ministry is given and received and
lives are changed for the better on both sides of these enablement equations. In
various ways, the social parables of Christ are lived out daily in known
locations among real people.
The World Hunger/Tangible Love Team also carries a determination
to work with proven and experienced advocacy groups in dealing with governmental
and other institutional bodies. The World Hunger Fund has for years carried out
a part of its mission through partnering with Bread for the World, a Christian
advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
We provide direct support of Bread for the World Institute’s
publication, Hunger, which influences key decision-makers in the field. We also
support the annual event known as “An Offering of Letters.” It encourages our
members to write their senators and representatives in the US Congress to bring
about hunger-related legislation for the benefit of groups in the US and the
rest of the world.
Another parallel institution (bigger than our own efforts) is
CARE, one of the world’s largest, private, international humanitarian
organizations, committed to helping families in poor communities and achieving
lasting victories over poverty. Founded in 1945 to provide relief to survivors
of World War II, CARE is a trusted vehicle for the compassion and generosity of
millions.
This year, World Hunger/Tangible Love Funds will be used as part
of an overall CARE project to create sustainable livelihoods for food security
by working through motivated village women in selected areas of Ethiopia.
The team invites Community of Christ members and friends to
become familiar with and support our missional commitments by visiting our Web
sites. Both can be reached through the church’s site at
www.CofChrist.org and following the links
through the “Resources” section.
Regular or occasional giving opportunities are available through
the long-standing practice of receiving Oblation Funds on the first Sunday of
each month in our congregations’ services of the Lord’s Supper. Two Sundays each
year, one in March and one in September, are World Hunger Emphasis Days. Our
church’s regular giving envelopes allow donations to be marked specifically for
these purposes.
For more than 30 years, the World Hunger fund has sought to ease
suffering in the world caused by chronic and indiscriminate hunger. More than
US$12 million has been distributed during that time. This includes nearly US$2
million released for hunger-related projects in 17 nations since the last World
Conference.
Tangible Love’s approach has been equally effective. From its beginning in 1984,
Tangible Love has directed more than US$4 million for these purposes. Of that
amount, at least US$400,000 was granted for 33 Tangible Love projects since the
2007 Conference.
A major impetus for these ministries during the last 13 years
has been President Emeritus Wallace B. Smith. In his retirement, “Wally” has
given leadership within and outside the church in ways that have enabled these
human-serving efforts to become most successful. His leadership and credibility
in the larger not-for-profit community led to an expansion and increased
effectiveness in pursuing this portion of our role in this Christian mission.
Wally ended this phase of his leadership early in 2009. We now
thank him and his wife, Anne, for their unselfish commitments over this long
period.
With our members and friends, we continue to hope for that
fulfillment time when all things are, indeed, made new, and neither mourning,
nor crying, nor pain shall afflict the children, parents, and nations. With that
as the promise for the future, we will do what is possible now to hold out hope
to the many thousands being reached through the programs and organizations we
support.
We are most grateful for the confidence and trust the church
places in these efforts. We join with all of you in praying to and being
watchful for the presence of the Spirit of Christ in all of our decisions and in
all of our doing.
World Hunger/Tangible Love Team
Duane Anderson
Jim Cable
Ed Martin
Katie Harmon
Tanoh Assoi
Jennifer de Guzman
Amanda Hernandez
Alex Kahtava, team lead
Amanda Hernandez
Angela Ramirez
Adam Wade
