THEY come from one of the poorest nations on earth but the children of the Bethany Project have been spreading a message of Christian joy and love during a visit to Hyndburn.

Thirty Tanzanian orphans have been talking about their lives at the 30-acre Christian home in Mwanza, on the shore of Lake Victoria, to schools and churches across the district.

The children, all members of the project's choir, would have faced a hand-to-mouth existence on the streets or even starvation if they had not been taken in by the orphanage.

The project has strong Hyndburn links.

In April the Rev Kevin Logan, of Christ Church, took his new bride Ann on honeymoon there, along with a number of parishioners and youth club members.

Last summer Nick Hopkinson and Karen Ross, of The Hollins Technology College, visited the project's centre to work in local schools and saw first-hand the work done to improve the lives of the children.

The Bethany children, who are staying in Oswaldtwistle, arrived last weekend and will stay until 5 November.

They have already been to Baxenden Primary School, Hollins and Rhyddings High Schools and Accrington and Rossendale College, where they have entetained people with Tanzanian singing, dancing, drama and speaking about their lives.

The trip has been paid for by the Northern Evangelical Trust, based in Oswaldtwistle.

Jemma Turner, a nurse from Nelson, who has visited the project three times, is chaperoning the children during their stay, along with Graham Pountain.

She said: "We hope to raise awareness of Bethany and life in Tanzania. The children have so little whereas children in England have everything. The schools have computers and interactive whiteboards. In Tanzania they have a dusty school room in a mud building. One of the classrooms has a great big hole in the wall.

"They have got absolutely nothing but somehow they have so much more.

"They have completely different values to our children here. We value more material things.

"There are two rules at Bethany, good behaviour and hard work. If they work hard we hope they will do well and go on to be teachers or working with the community.

"We give them Christian values and they will take them into a corrupt society."

The idea for the project was formed in 1989 following a visit to Tanzania by evangelists Paul Morley and Dave Shore from Hyndburn, who saw the poverty of the people and children.

The following year they returned and started building a children's home with the aim of helping the most underprivileged, deprived and vulnerable members of society.

Now 119 children, ranging in age from Elizabeth, three, to Rehema, 19, live at the Bethany Project, which focuses upon three main activities: operating a children's home, managing a health clinic run by four medically-trained Tanzanians and maintaining a clean water supply, providing 7,000 gallons of purified water every day.

Children of all ages are accepted if they have no relative or other adult or institution prepared to care for them.

They are taught Christian ethics with a strong emphasis on the need for honesty and integrity in all things.