What we do
‘Friendship’ (and Christian partnership) as expressed by the Friends of the Church in China includes these three strands: Projects, English Language support and Theological Education.
Projects
We support our friends in China by helping to fund work to alleviate poverty and help disadvantaged groups. One project involves supporting maternal and child nutrition in underdeveloped areas of Mainland China. The project (run by the Amity Foundation) provides continuous and in-depth services such as pregnancy check-ups, nutritional support, growth monitoring, and health education for poor women and newborns. The project aims to reduce maternal and child health risks, improve overall population quality, enhance health service capacity, and ultimately promote the sustainable development of rural revitalization. Another project (with the Chinese Christian Council’s social work department) has been to fund HIV/AIDS relief in X’ian, Shaanxi.
Theological Education
We host Chinese seminary teachers for informal visits to the UK. These have aimed at developing their confidence in oral and academic English. In each case these visits have been an important step as they undertake programmes of further study either in China or beyond. It has also been possible to offer short courses of oral English at one or two seminaries – often through inductive bible study. We have arranged support and exchanges for theology students and scholars to attend conferences and courses in the UK and Europe to assist the Church in China in enriching and developing the quality of its ministerial formation.
English language support
Our work in this area is on hold at the moment due to the difficulty in travelling to and from China.