Who Are We

SACO is an interdenominational Christian charity based in Southampton for outreach to the Asian and wider international community. It seeks to bring the Good News about Jesus Christ to people from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.

SACO was founded in 1983 by a group of churches interested to see the Gospel proclaimed to the Asian people in Southampton. It was decided that it would be a faith mission which would not appeal for funds but would trust God in prayer to provide all the needs of the ministry. Clive Thorne was employed as the full-time worker.

Starting without any funds at all in January 1983, prayer was made for God to provide shop premises for the outreach ministry by August of that year. The idea was that the shop would be a neutral venue where enquirers could come to discuss the Christian faith. It would have Christian literature in the various Asian languages, Third World handicrafts to help the poor and accommodation for the full-time worker and lodgers who would be interested in Asian ministry.

Through the kindness of a local Christian, a shop was provided in June and a prayer target was set to see £1,000-£1,500 donated each month to pay for it. This target was not publicised beyond those who came to the prayer meetings and no collections were taken for the work but the money came every month until the shop was paid for and then it reduced to the amount needed to support the work.

Twice it happened that someone phoned to donate £1,000 on the very night of the prayer meeting. In January 1987, we were again in the position of praying for a shop by August as we would have to move due to a road scheme. In the February prayer meeting, God led for specific prayer for £10,000 in interest-free loans towards the new shop. About a month later, someone who had not heard of this offered that very amount and the next day, the shop that we had been interested to buy became available. The completion date for the contract, which was not under our control, was 31st July and God had again provided us a shop by August! By God’s grace, SACO has never been in the red with the bank and has always had what was needed.

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