Christians Against Poverty
Christians Against Poverty is an international debt relief charity that started in Bradford in 1996.
CAP Burnley began in January 2020 when the Bishop of Burnley approached Life Church and other Churches in the local area to work together to create a CAP debt centre to help people in financial hardship in the local area.
John Graver was appointed as the CAP Debt Coach having served CAP for over 2 decades! John then had to navigate all the complexities of lockdowns, social distancing and online working to help people get out of debt.
In the summer of 2021, Katy Oehring was appointed as the 2nd Debt Coach as we expanded the CAP debt centre to cover Burnley, Nelson and Colne.
CAP Burnley and Pendle are currently helping 67 families of which 25 have yet to reach their budget stage. 28 families have gone debt free so far with around 6 more in process. We are close to reaching 200 families that we have helped or are helping so far.
John’s highlight of the past few months was the appointment of Katy as our 2nd Debt Coach which was a great relief for him now that we are helping more and more families. John is also delighted to see some clients now coming to church.
Katy’s highlights include the relief and feedback she gets after seeing the clients for the first time. They always speak about how just knowing we’ll walk alongside them in the journey to become debt free makes a huge difference. Knowing that clients are getting involved in churches, joining Alpha courses, home groups, becoming debt free etc because they’ve been helped by CAP is also a huge highlight.
There are various ways that you can support CAP locally;
Befriending – every time John or Katy meet with a CAP client they take a befriender from a local Church to help provide a friendly face and Church contact for the client. To find out more email info@lifelancs.org
Prayer – there is a monthly prayer meeting for the work of CAP Burnley and Pendle. To get the details for this, contact info@lifelancs.org
Life Skills – we are planning to deliver the CAP Life Skills course this year to help people with basic budgeting, cooking, healthy habits etc. We’ll share more about this and how you can get involved nearer the time!
To find out more about CAP go to www.capuk.org
