Ca impact report 2021/2022
Bringing hope on the streets since 1882
As blood ran from a wound on his leg, our staff and volunteers dragged the man into the building where they were working. Closing the door protected him from the gang, who were pursuing him with knives and were intent on one thing. It was a lifesaving moment.
I knelt on the floor washing her feet, and tears ran down both our faces. “I don’t know why I came to today to this Easter service,” said a woman who had found refuge and a place to re-build her life within our Marylebone Project. “I just knew I had to. I have never heard or felt things like this. I didn’t know this was what it all meant.” It was a lifechanging moment.
These are two of my own experiences of impact in this last year. Two that reflect some of the breadth of our work as we seek to offer vulnerable people the love of God in word and action, to find transformation in their lives and communities. Two of a kind repeated countless times in our work across the length and breadth of these islands.
These are just two, and in this report, you will read of many more.
With faltering steps, the UK & Ireland have been finding a path through the challenges of recent years and facing new ones. As these waves have washed over us all, I have frequently reflected that while none of us are immune, the dire impacts disproportionately affect those already vulnerable, marginalised, and with fewer resources. It is precisely there that Church Army serves and there that we believe God is to be found.
Whether you are an individual, a church or community group or a funding body, I hope that you will find joy as you read this report. It is about our work. It is also about yours and we thank you. What you offer in your prayers and material support is more than the necessary plumbing or scaffolding to what you read here. You are fully part of what we do – compassion from beginning to end.
Thank you and God bless you.
Peter Rouch
CEO
