Bibles and Biscuits

The Amity Foundation is the partner organisation of the Methodist Church in Britain and the means by which we are involved in the work in China. Many of us know of the work of the Amity Foundation as being the organisation which prints and distribute Bibles. We also know of them as the organisation to whom we send mission partners to work as teachers in China. We are perhaps a little less familiar with some of their other work. Today I visited the Amity Bakery, a social enterprise project which takes young people with learning difficulties and trains them in commercial bakery. The finished products are sold and any profit put back into the company. I can confirm that they make delicious biscuits – I hope I can bring some back with me! The project began in 2008 and is still quite fragile as it cannot produce large enough quantities of products to establish a good retail base. The bakery management team are considering the possibility of opening a café as a means of creating a retail outlet for their products.

Other work I saw today included a visit to a day-care centre for elderly people – a little like the MHA Live at Home projects that some of our churches in Britain are involved with. In this work, Amity is in partnership with the local government of the area of Nanjing in which it is situated. At the other end of the age-range, I also saw the work of the Amity- supported project which works with children with autism. The children, aged from 1 to 7 years, come to the project and are given support and preparation for entering mainstream education wherever possible. The newest project of the Amity Foundation is in partnership with the government and offers support to new NGO’s as they set up and establish themselves. At present, the government is very supportive of the work of Amity because they see so much of what they do as promoting “social harmony” and stability. Amity is happy to work with the partners in these projects because it helps generate the income to enable their mission in the poorer rural areas and amongst marginalised people.

We pray for China on day 21 of our Methodist Prayer Handbook. When you next remember them, pray also for the work of the Amity Foundation and all their partners. Pray for the great network of relationship that they build and the vast array of work that they enable and support. Pray for the bakery that its work will grow from strength to strength.

Adrian Burdon