Carers Christian Fellowship Founders
Brenda & Chris Baalham
How it All Started
The Fellowship was started by Chris Baalham and his wife, Brenda who suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis. Chris had decided to give up work and look after his wife and as a full time carer he realised how difficult and isolated a path he often trod. He and Brenda shared a joy and trust in God and they received much practical help from statutory bodies, friends, relatives and his church. However, when it came to the crunch, they felt alone in the world because they lacked contact with other Christian carers with whom they could share their needs and experiences on a spiritual level.
Out of this arose a vision to seek fellowship with other Christian carers - to offer comfort and hope. They knew that caring involved spiritual issues as well as practical and emotional ones, and for a Christian it was difficult to find help at a spiritual level. They had found the answers to their own problems, with God's help and the support of each other - but they wanted to save others some of the pain and isolation.
Unbeknown to them, Julia Burton-Jones (working first with the Jubilee Centre and then Scripture Union) was making the same discoveries in a research project on carers. Contact with each other was eventually established and they felt that the next step forward was to help carers help each other. The Carers Christian Fellowship was thus born in December 1992.
During an initial two year trial period they found that a great need for supporting Christian carers existed. The steady stream of letters and telephone calls - many with heartbreaking stories - revealed this. So in 1995 the Fellowship was launched on a permanent basis and charitable status was gained in 1997.
Since then we have seen a slow, but steady growth in membership and the Fellowship continues to be run entirely by volunteers who have had experience of caring and who wish to give Christian support to other carers.
