WHEN a church undertakes charity work, the assumption might be for it to involve helping its local community, or perhaps people in a Third World country.

Not so, Thundersley Congregational Church, where the focus of its recent voluntary efforts has been on the richest country on earth.

A team of church volunteers has been travelling Stateside to help a struggling community in the American states of Arizona and New Mexico.

Last month, the church, in Kenneth Road, sent out 13 Beacon Mission volunteers to work with people from the Navajo Nation.

The tribe is the largest federally-recognised Native American tribe in the US, with more than 300,000 members, with its own reservation on the Arizona-New Mexico border To reach Gallup, New Mexico, where the team would stay for the next 17 days, involved an 11-hour flight to Las Vegas, followed by an eight hour drive.

Church minister, the Rev Dave Pickett, 59, said: “We’re keen to extend our support as far as possible.

Nobody is excluded, and we try to help as many as we possible.

“I’ve always seen this sort of thing as an adventure with God.”

Vulnerable members of the Navajo tribe, people in prisons and homeless centres, and the wide Gallup community have all benefited from the Beacon Mission’s work.

The church is not entirely unfamiliar with the idea of long-distance help having previously embarked on self-funded “adventures” in other parts of the world.

Romania, China, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Germany have each received visits from the Beacon Mission, which in the past eight years, has also made three previous trips to New Mexico.

It was a friend from Sri Lanka, a former Hindu priest converted to Christianity, who first sparked Mr Pickett’s interest in Gallup, back in 2007.

He believes a strong relationship, forged with Gallup’s mayor, Jackie McKinney, has make it easier to send help to the places it is needed.

Mr Pickett said: “From our previous trips here, we’ve got to know the mayor, and he has, essentially, opened doors for us, and points out those in need of our help.”

Many of the area’s problems arise from alcohol.

The minister explained: “There’s an alcohol ban on reservations, but nearby Gallup is on government land, where alcohol is permitted, so what tends to happen is people from the reservation will come to Gallup, have a lot to drink and will get picked up by the police.

“The authorities then put them in a local alcohol detox centre to sober up.”

Chris Govus, a pastoral worker at the church, says the reasons for the area’s appetite for alcohol consumption reach back to the days when Native Americans were still treated as second-class citizens.

He added: “They still feel they don’t have a lot going for them.

“Low self-esteem turns them to drink, and that leads to trouble.”

The church has visited Care 66, a homeless centre on Route 66, to help provide meals for the homeless.

Reflecting on his own work and that of the church’s work, Mr Pickett said: “I left school and joined the Royal Marines.

“I was there for twelve years before being medically discharged.

I became a Christian after the Falklands War.

“I’ve been trying to tell people the idea of church being about things you can’t do isn’t right. It’s more about what you can do to help others.

“Our policy is not to pursue a trip, but to go where we feel our help is needed most.”