APBAid

Helping people in need has been a continuing feature of the ministry of Asia Pacific Baptist Federation. From the inception of the Federation on 9th July, 1975, originally known as Asia Baptist Federation, a committee of the Federation was established to give oversight to this aspect of the ministry of the Federation. This committee was titled: the Aid and Relief Committee.

Since 1975 the Aid and Relief Committee has been active in informing member bodies of humanitarian needs in the region, as well seeking to educate the member bodies as to the holistic nature of the call of following Jesus to being towards and seek justice for the poor. Churches have been encouraged to support aid, development and relief efforts both in their communities and amongst needful communities of other member bodies.

The Asian Tsunami of December 24th 2004 spurned a renew commitment to helping the many hurting communities impact by this disaster across the Asia Pacific region. As a result of the need and the enormous response from APBF member bodies and the wider BWA family to help those Baptist communities responding to this disaster it was decided to expand the work of the Aid and Relief Committee by hiring a full-time staff member. As the work continued to expanded, it was decided to formerly establish an aid and development organization, Asia Pacific Baptist Aid, as a direct outworking of the ministry of the Aid and Development Committee of the APBF. APBAid was established with a set rules to organize and govern the work of the APBAid Committee (formerly called the Aid and Relief Committee), which were accepted by the APBF Executive in January 2008.

The work and ministry of APBAid has continued to grow each year, with a resultant increase in full time staff to three at the time of writing (December 2011). APBAid seeks to respond to the needs in the Asia Pacific region by supporting relief and sustainable community development activities of the APBF member bodies.