BORISOV, BELAURUS
The Burscough Outreach Trust has strong mission links in Borisov, Belarus and have been supporting them for many years now, both financially and through mission trips.
Groups of volunteers have been going to work in the city of Borisov since the early 2000’s. Our activities vary for each visit, but we have always been able to help run a week long holiday camp at a local orphanage, working with up to 30 children with lots of fun activities.
We always do a “build project” as well, either at one of the orphanages, the local baby hospital, or at a special school which has been designated to work with disabled children. Recently we have built new playgrounds and play shelters, rebuilt paths to make them wheelchair accessible or refurbished classrooms.
We hope to restart our activities in Belarus once the difficulties created by the pandemic are behind us.
KIPUSHYA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Kipushya is a big village in the very heart of Africa, in a very isolated part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is one of the poorest nations in the world and their health system is nothing like the NHS, as you can imagine. In 2021 the Trust was able to support them financially, to help provide electricity, enabling them to use lifesaving equipment such as ultrasounds and ventilators.
We were blown away by the generosity of local people from St John the Baptist Church, Burscough, who donated nearly £24,000 to this project, meaning the people of Kipushya could also build and equip a new hospital wing, with more permanent materials (rather than the existing mud walls and thatch roofing). As well as this, it paid for practical resources such as training for staff.
BRAVE, YOUTH WEEKEND
We are super grateful to the Burscough Outreach trust for their support in helping us take a group of young people away to North Wales for the weekend in March 2020. We stayed on a farm in a remote part of the Ceiriog Valley and had a great time exploring what it means to be BRAVE… the leaders definitely showed their bravery by agreeing to give up their weekend to hang out with this crew! 😊
We faced some gross eating challenges, physical challenges which pushed us out of our comfort zones, spiritual challenges that got us to think about our relationship with God and at the end of the weekend we stopped off in Delamere to do the ultimate Go Ape challenge. We had a fantastic time building relationships, having fun and sharing life together.
Some of the highlights for the young people were:
“The walk where everyone was talking to one another.”
“Getting stuck in the mud!”
“Having our lunch in the forest”
“Throwing snowballs!”
“Chatting in our bedrooms.”
“Spending time with people our own age.”
“Danny’s pasta & Cathy’s roast dinner.”
“I loved playing games together as a group.”
“Listening to worship music and having a bit of time out.”