On bringing God's love, both physical and spiritual to those in poverty
'I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.' - John 10:10
'It is impossible to comfort men's hearts with the love of God when their feet are perishing with cold.'
- William Booth
'We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the cruel words and actions of the bad people, but for the appaling silence of the good people.' - Martin Luther King, Jr.
'My father told me the word of God, but it was Yanapanakuna who taught me the meaning of it.' - 27 year-old Fausto speaking of Tearfund partner Yanapanakuna in Bolivia
'Pray as though everything depended on God, work as though everything depended on you.' - Saint Augustine
On God's love for the poor
'He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people.' - Psalm 113:7-8
On our role to play
'This may be the most dangerous, exciting, life-altering prayer a human being can pray: "God, make up there come down here." ' - John Ortberg
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but pray for power equal to your tasks. Then the accomplishing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.' - US clergyman Philips Brooks
'Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?' - Isaiah 58:6
'No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away from Europe, Europe is the less. Any man's death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind. Therefore do not seek to know for whom the bell tolls-- it tolls for thee.' - paraphrased from the poem by John Donne
'Today's mighty oak is yesterday's little nut that held its ground' - Anonymous
'If you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness.' - Isaiah 58:1-12
'After all, what makes any event important, unless by its observation we become better and wiser, and learn "to do justly, to love mercy and walk humbly before God?" ' - Oluadah Equiano, a former slave who was central to the campaign to end the slave trade, quoting Micah 6:8
'Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.' - John Wooden, They Call Me Coach
'Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude.' - Ernest Hello
'Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is we are powerful beyond measure. - Nelson Mandela
'If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.' - Betty Reese
'Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often.' - Mark Twain
'No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others...' - GK Chesterton
'We can do no great things, only small things with great love.' - Mother Teresa
On the church and the fight for justice
'The two hungers in the world today are for spirituality and social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for. Spirituality without justice in an affluent society can turn easily into consumerism and narcissism. But the fight for justice without spirituality can lead to despair, bitterness, anger and burn-out. That’s why spirituality and the fight for justice, they need each other.'
- Jim Wallis
'I think the movement in the churches is really one from charity to justice. When I read the Bible, God doesn’t call us to charity. God calls us to justice.' - Jim Wallis
'To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.' - Goethe
'Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, pleasd the case of the widow.' - Isaiah 1: 17
'How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.' - William Shakespeare
On HIV and AIDS
'The church provides the most potent and reliable mechanism to respond to AIDS across the whole spectrum of care, support and prevention. Love and compassion should be the heartbeat that motivates the church to act.' - Paul Kabunga Katois, Programme Manager for Tearfund's church based partner ACET (AIDS Care, Education, Training), Uganda
'AIDS is not demanding something new of us as Christians, but rather than we really become the people we are called to be.' - Kurai Chitima, a pastor in Zimbabwe - which has the highest percentage of infected adults
'This disease has affected us very much. Half my congregation are orphans or widows. I have 200 orphans and vulnerable children and 50 widows in my church.' - Church leader, Homa Bay, Kenya
On climate change
'It is not raining now as it was before. When it rains and we prepare to plant, it stops raining and the time for planting passes.' - Waruma Diafar, Burkina Faso
'Love does no harm to it's neighbour.' - Romans 13:10
On wealth and poverty
'Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.' - Ben Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the USA
'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.' - Matthew 6:19-21
On water and sanitation
'There was this one beautiful old guy; he just stood there with tears running down his cheeks. He put his arms in the air and said, 'Praise God' - Relief worker Chantel Richey, who witnessed the closing stages of a well being installed in Guwin, Liberia
On Children @ Risk
'If a child grows up without relationships full of love and protection, this is reflected in adult life. When people living in poverty have to fight for their survival, they too find it hard to believe in themselves.' - Dr Rene Padilla
On public health
'They built him a small hut where he lay day and night, waiting to die. No-one visited him other than to put food on the floor and leave ...' - from Earthed
On asking other people to support a vision
'Fundraising is proclaiming what you believe in, and proclaiming it in such a way that you offer the other person an opportunity to participate in your vision. So it is precisely the opposite of begging. It is not saying, "Please, we have a problem, could you help us out?" It is saying, "We have a vision that is so exciting that we are giving you the opportunity to participate in that vision with the resources that God has given you." ' - Henri Nouwen, theologian
'Find out how much God has given and from it take away what you need; the remainder is needed by others. - Saint Augustine
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.' - Winston Churchill