Appeal for Survive MIVA 18-05-2003.

We welcome Terry Gillow who is going to speak to us about Survive MIVA and we will be having a second collection at the end as you are going out. I would ask you to give generously.

Thank you Father for your kind introduction.

I was here about 3 years ago to be exact and I am sure you have forgotten what it is all about, so I shall tell you in relation to Survive MIVA, which is a small catholic charity organisation; people like you and I. A registered charity that works out of Liverpool and it involves raising funds, through the generosity of appeals to the parishes and their long term commitment to helping our missionaries; those wonderful people who do so much for people who have nothing and no one to turn to. By providing them with something which is very vital: some form of transportation, be it a humble bicycle or, at the other end of the scale, a 4 wheel drive ambulance type heavy duty vehicle and we do it by means of grants; it is very expensive to send vehicles or any form of transport out. So we give them a grant so that they can purchase whatever they want to do whatever job it is for locally.

That helps the local economy and also they can get the best possible terms. The word ‘survive’ means simply life’s existence itself, and MIVA is short for Missionary Vehicle Association. Just to give you a little background, we were set up in 1974, almost 30 years ago. A nursing sister from Liverpool, Margaret Price was invited out to eastern Ethiopia, by a mission run by the Verona Fathers, to go into the process of trying to organise medical services. I must stress that teaching our faith is of paramount importance, but the bulk of the work actually does concern health care, social care and education, and for that they have to be mobile and you must imagine in some of these territories you are talking about 34,000 sq.miles. Eastern Ethiopia is a big country, the fourth largest in Africa.

Anyhow, when the good lady Margaret got there she found it was mainly desert, mainly sand with most of the population being nomadic; they are tribes who wander around the desert and you don’t know from day to day, week to week where they are going to be and the good priests had no means of getting around, so Margaret decided to do something about it. With the permission of the Fathers she came back to Liverpool, where she lives, and started raising money and she did it in the way you do when you want to fund a project; you have bring and buy sales; you have coffee mornings; you have raffles; you sponsor this; you sponsor that; small things. She did this until she had sufficient funds. not only to purchase a vehicle, which was a second hand land rover ambulance, but also pay for the conversion to a mobile medical clinic and also to fund the transport costs because as I was saying it is very expensive to send vehicles out there and I think we didn’t do it much after that.

Anyhow, that vehicle was our first start, out first project sent out in early 1975 and from then until the end 2002 (just to show you what we are doing with the money we raise through the generosity and the commitment of the parishioners in the catholic parishes) we had supplied a total of 2416 vehicle of various shapes and forms. Last year was a bumper year; we supplied 443 means of transport and that comprised 33 4- wheeled drive vehicles 57 motorbikes, 4 saloon cars, a parish mini-bus. That minibus I believe went (it was a minibus ambulance really) to a mission working on the borders of India and Burma. The mission was set deep in the jungle and before we supplied this ambulance if they had a seriously ill patient they had to carry them on a stretcher, on foot obviously, through jungle, 30 miles just to get to the nearest bus stop and then there was the chance they wouldn’t get on the bus at all because as you know those colonial buses, they are one story, they are rickety and shaky and of course if you had an injured patient you had to put them on top and it would be a very uncomfortable and pain racking journey to hospital. Well we solved that with your help by supplying them with a minibus ambulance. In addition we also supplied 348 bicycles.

You might think,

"what on earth can a bicycle do as a means of transport"?

Well it is the essential tool of a catechist, and these are trained people they are unpaid with no funds themselves, only a few possessions. They can’t afford a bike and they go from village to village before the priest can get round instructing, to an extent, people in the elements of our faith; preparing children for first communion; for confirmation; they minister to the sick; they give the last rites. I am not sure if they bury the dead. They have a wide remit, they are sort of glorified deacons, they organise even HIV immunisation clinics and the like. They are literally the right arm of the priests and eventually, of course, the priest will come round and do the necessary.

I was listening to someone talking about Father Paul Swarbrick who is in Zambia. When he goes round he may go to one place and one day or weekend he probably has to: bring people into the faith; confirm people; administer first communion, marriages and various other things. So it is a very busy life and if we can provide what is basically their most important need we are doing a great job.

In the past we have also supplied waterborne transport: a river launch to the Amazon; an ocean going boat to the Philippines where one particular mission was serving about 1,000 islands; and 2 outboard motors to Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is a vast lake and on it are a series of islands on which communities live, little parishes, and the only means of getting to them is by boat. The priest gets the boat provided locally and we supply a grant for him to purchase an outboard motor. We also provided one to a mission in Columbia (almost one of the worst places on God’s earth to be these days because it is in a narcotic war you get the left wing gorilla’s on one side and the right wing paramilitaries on the other and the poor villager in between) the priest who wanted the outboard motor lived on the River Puta Maya, which is a big tributary of the Columbian Amazon. Off the river you get little communities. He had about 30 that he was responsible for and he needed something to propel a boat he’d had made locally. He applied about a couple of years ago, it takes up time to get these requests into being and he just needed this to supply his parish with what they need and to give them the sacramental elements of their faith.

I was asked (I think) last week whether we would be prepared to supply a horse. Well a horse is a means of transport and a quite serious form. I would say that all you have to do is ask up and I would see what we could do; in the past on one occasion we supplied 2 mules with pack saddles to a mission right on the top of a big mountain in the Andes about 10,000 ft. up and the only way up was by a very narrow rock stream path and it was difficult for pedestrians, impossible for vehicles or bikes, but mules could do it.

We have many requests, about 500 a year and we can’t supply them all at once. To give you an example of the funding we need. The 443 grants we gave last year of 443 cost just over £500,000. These days to supply the needs of our missionaries on the continents of Africa, Asia, South America and the Pacific river countries we do it by means of grants but we also get help from other major catholic charities, we co-fund, we help each other so that in the end we can do the best possible to help these people who are doing so much in our name and God’s name to help the downtrodden people, terribly poor people, to a much better life and also of course to receive the catholic faith.

We wish to continue that good work and we need your help which is why I am here today. So I hope you will be as generous as you possible can according to your resources. John and I will be at the back of the church taking the collection I hope and if you should have anything you would like to ask me I have got plenty of literature and would be only too pleased to answer any questions you may have. So thank you all for listening and God bless you all.

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