Christians Against Poverty (CAP) in Yeovil

Just had the latest newsletter from our local CAP centre. Some fantastic work being done there, here's a few snippets from it:

Please pray for those potential clients who need our help, but can’t get appointments. We are booked up 3 months ahead and had to turn 2 away last week.

To help with the situation we are now delivering 38 Christmas hampers to our current clients, and we have opened a regular drop in centre at St John’s Church every Thursday morning from 10am to 12 noon. As well as being somewhere warm where our existing clients can drop in for a coffee, cake and friendly chat, it’s also useful for anyone with appointments in January or February, or potential clients to come and get some immediate advice. So far this has been very successful. 

We’ve managed to  make a couple of phone calls and avoid court action, bring a very urgent visit forward when we got a cancellation, and by showing what paperwork is needed make the first visit far more effective and less stressful....

..Also anyone who will otherwise be alone, and that includes a lot of our clients, is invited to the Christmas dinner in the schoolrooms on Christmas day.

Please pray for all these events, and that people experience Jesus for real at these events. I think that’s what “The Word became flesh” is meant to mean….

As we look back over another year we have a lot to be thankful for.

• We’ve now been open a month longer than 2½ years which is the national average.
• We’ve dealt with 102 clients.
• 17 of these are now debt free.
• 10 have made a first time commitment to Our Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour as a result of the Grace they’ve been shown and an explanation of the Gospel.
• 43 are on a debt management plan and are somewhere between initial contact and becoming debt free.
• 4 have parted company in a very positive way as they now feel empowered to work with their debts themselves and no longer need CAP’s help.
• 42 are still living in their homes, when they otherwise would have been evicted by their landlord or mortgage provider for arrears.

We were challenged at our 'clergy gathering' last week by a Kiran Martin from India, whose work in the slums was showing what the kingdom of God looks like in terms of transformation of everything - health, work, education, relationships, hearts, relationship with God, government, homes, from whatever angle you looked at it, it was good news. Reading the summary above I get the same feeling.