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Guinea Bissau
Link to BBC Guinea Bissau page.		 Heading: The Family Church Christchurch.
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Heading: Guinea Bissau
Map of Guinea Bissau
Heading: Factfile, the first set of figures in each category is for Poland, the second set is for the UK.
Area
36,120 km2
(244,820 km2)
Population
1,600,000
(60,270,200)
Life expectancy
47 years
(78 yrs)
Infant deaths
108.72/1000
(5.4/1000 births)
HIV positive
17,000
(34,000)
Aids deaths
1200 a year
(450 a year)
Literacy
43% (99%)
(figures in brackets are for the UK)
 
Tony Goodman, one of the Family Church Christchurch Elders, spent fourteen years in Guinea Bissau, West Africa as a missionary. Consequently, our Church has links with that country. Teams travel out every two years or so, their main involvement being in Church leadership training. They have also been involved in running marriage, parenting and family courses, which have attracted interest from people high up in government and the health department, who then attended the courses! steel frame laid out on plot
Building in progress
Christians in Guinea Bissau number about 50,000. During the civil war in 1998/99 the Christian church played a key role in mediating between the two opposing factions. Jose Paulo, a friend of Tony Goodman’s, is Pastor of Central Church Bissau. Like many other Churches in this country, it plays an active part in the community, having started its own medical clinic and boating enterprise. This helps to take missionaries to the islands, and the people on the islands market their goods on the mainland. Central Church has now opened a school for 200 pupils on one of the islands.
Two years’ ago Tony Goodman went with a team to Guinea Bissau to help build a Church. The initial plan was for them to oversee the steel frame being put up. However, the Church ended up being built from scratch to completion in three weeks. Even the bricks had to be made, and the team found themselves designing the building literally as it was being built.

The top right picture is of the frame laid out on the plot. Above is a picture of the building in progress, and on the right you can see bricks being made.
Bricks being made.
   
 
The Family Church, Hope House, Jumpers Road, Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 2JS, Charity No 1090933