Recent Facebook posts on OSA have prompted requests for some background info which we are happy to provide:

Oathlaw Tannadice - Overseas Aid

Since 2007 Oathlaw Tannadice has been supporting Operacion St. Andres, a Houston Texas based Charity founded by Peruvian born cardiologist Dr. Luis Campos and his wife Ruth in 2003.

OSA’s work is centred in the town of Collique, Comas, Peru which is situated on the lower slopes of the Andes. The population have great difficulty in surviving being exceedingly poor, having little food and no state healthcare.

Our connection came when our then minister David Taverner, in discussion with Dr. John Gilmour of Kirriemuir, discovered his relationship with OSA, his wife Karen being Ruth Campos’s sister.  David felt it was a good idea for both Kirriemuir St. Andrews and us to become involved in Christian support of a locally connected Overseas Charity.  Dr. Gilmour and Karen have been regular volunteers and have travelled to Peru on a number of occasions to assist medically.

OSA’s base is the South Main Baptist Church of Houston and other Baptist Churches across the Southern States.  Full details of their work may be viewed on our web site.

Since Tannadice Church’s involvement in 2007 we have raised over £7000 through meals, functions and other events which have been much appreciated by the Charity

Postscript from OSA Executive Committee in Houston

We hope you enjoy reading this account (see below) of how a group of OSA moms in Collique banded together to generate income by selling baked goods. However, we want to emphasize the life transforming aspects of this project. For most of these women, this has been their first opportunity to apply basic business skills such as making budgets, bookkeeping, reinvesting profits to grow a business, bank accounts, establishing business plans, electing leadership, etc. They have also developed important life skills by meeting and learning together in a cooperative way. 

Unfortunately, this enterprise came to an abrupt “pause” when, in mid-March, the Peruvian government imposed severe social distancing rules in their effort to control the spread of COVID-19. While they wait for the opportunity to restart the enterprise, these women exhibited another lesson well learned – Christian charity. Charo Rosario, OSA’s social worker and author of this report, shared the following from the president of the cooperative enterprise: 

“We met and decided that we would use some of our funds to provide food parcels for two of the mothers in the group in greatest need – everybody agreed that was the right thing to do.”

 May 4, 2020