TONY'S NEWSLETTER
MAY 2007
Dear Partners and Friends,
I give you regular updates on what our EAPE affiliates are doing in cities across North America and what is happening with our various ministries in Haiti and Zimbabwe, but in this letter I want to tell you about what you and I together have helped to initiate and support in the United Kingdom.
A survey of my speaking itinerary will let you know that I spend a great deal of time in the United Kingdom, and a look at the EAPE website will remind you that I have a weekly radio show on England’s Premiere Radio station. You even may be aware that we recruit workers and even raise some financial support from our friends "across the pond." However, there’s much more to our involvement than that. Allow me to list some of what is happening in the United Kingdom with the help of EAPE:
We are deeply involved with a truly innovative ministry in Northeast England called Aquila Way (www.aquilaway.org), which helps homeless and abused women and children recover, heal, and begin new lives in homes of their own.
We have been a major sponsor of SPEAK, a program that organizes university students across the United Kingdom to work for social justice on behalf of their brothers and sisters in the Third World. When I spoke for SPEAK’s annual gathering in London a month ago, there were more than 400 university students in attendance, representing chapters not only in the United Kingdom, but also in Poland, Romania, Canada, the USA, and Iceland (Yes! We are having an impact in Iceland too!). These young people are faith-based social activists working on behalf of the poorest of the poor, who too often have no voice in determining the policies that determine their economic destinies.
As a representative of EAPE, I now serve as the patron to Creative Opportunities, Development and Innovation Agency (CODIA), a new organization based in Preston, England, that organizes programs for young people entering the entertainment industry. CODIA puts on plays and musicals that enable aspiring artists to earn a living, develop their talents, and audition for career-building positions. Especially in Europe, we believe that a strong Christian witness in the arts is long overdue. CODIA is seeing to it that the young people who would be that witness are encouraged, mentored, and connected to one another.
Through my speaking engagements, EAPE provides ongoing fundraising assistance for British Youth for Christ and secures hundreds of child sponsorships each year for the British branch of Compassion International.
EAPE has long been connected with OASIS (www.oasistrust.org), the vibrant ministry directed by my close friend Steve Chalke, one of the most dynamic Christian leaders ever to emerge from the United Kingdom. Together we have been partners in developing an extensive youth ministry and residential training programs for some of the neediest street children in Zimbabwe.
Our British involvements are not usually headlined in these newsletters, but lately I have been thinking you should know about them. When you support EAPE, you are not only helping Urban Promise ministries in Camden, Toronto and Vancouver, Beyond Borders in Haiti, Cornerstone Christian Academy, and Mission Year, but also this great outreach across the United Kingdom, and dozens of other, smaller ministries and missionaries that we assist in different ways.
To say that all of these efforts for Christ and his Kingdom are sustained by your giving is to state the obvious. We need your help very much! Please come through with a good gift this month!
Sincerely,
Tony Campolo
ABOUT TONY + May 2007