Little people thoughts on birthday cakes and sharing!

It's not that I don't have any thoughts of my own at the moment, but when others have better ones, then I can't see the point in not spreading those thoughts wider!

So, having posted a blog that was all about passing on Natalie's news, this blog starts with an article taken from an e-newsletter sent out by a folk singer Karine Polwart. As well as being a very good singer, with a lovely Scottish accent, she is also very much into social justice and ethical thoughts, and I think the following article is excellent:

'ON HOW TO CUT YOUR BIRTHDAY CAKE
It’s September 1994 and I’m in a primary 4 classroom at Castlemilk Primary School on the outskirts of Glasgow. I’m facilitating a weekly philosophical inquiry session for 8 year olds. The discussion that ensues - a wee bit speeded up here - goes like this:
¥ Alex: But Miss, everybody should just get the SAME size bit of birthday cake. It’s no FAIR if anybody gets a bigger bit.
¥ Kyle: I DISAGREE wi Alex cause what if you’re only wee and you dinnae NEED a big bit of cake? Like my wee sister Jemma she just gets a WEE bit of dinner cause she’s only three. And my dad - he gets a bigger dinner ‘cause he’s a MAN.
¥ Eilidh: I AGREE wi Kyle cause some people maybe need more food than other people. But it doesnae mean they’re SPECIAL!
¥ Louise: I DISAGREE with Eilidh cause when it’s my birthday my mum says I AM special. And if it’s your birthday cake then you should DEFINITELY get a bigger bit cause it’s your birthday and you ARE special.
¥ Kyle: I AGREE wi Louise because I always get an extra bit of cake with loads of icing on it when it’s my birthday.  But what about the boy in the story’s mum? She made the cake. I think MAYBE she should get a bigger bit too because she made it.
¥ Eilidh: I DISAGREE with Kyle about the boy’s mum getting a bigger bit of cake. Just because she made the cake doesn’t mean it’s HER cake.
¥ Kyle says: I agree with Eilidh. It’s NOT the mum’s cake.  She made it for the boy.  But he’s too WEE to cut the cake himself with a big sharp knife. It’s only his mum who gets to cut it.
 Ah. The brute knife-wielding, birthday-cake-power of mums eh?

That discussion has stayed with me for eighteen years. It unfolded off the back of a storybook designed to stimulate questions in the kids themselves. And as it unfolded, I realised the kids were talking about some of the major ethical and political issues of our era - on their own terms - and through the medium of birthday cake.

What is a fair and just allocation of resources?
Who produces those resources?
Who owns them?
Who wields the cake knife that determines how they’re split?
Who actually needs what?
And what does equality mean in practice?

My head is filled with these questions these days. Yours too?

Imagine a Scotland, UK, world where each of us, like those kids in that Glasgow classroom, felt entitled to, and confident enough to, ask these questions and qualified to have a relevant ethical stance on the answers? Just imagine.'



So, there you have it! In CRED we try and help everyone we work with have that feeling of entitlement and confidence to ask the questions and be listened to as they give their views. But it’s actually about each of us doing that at every level; in the individual conversations as well as the bigger scale ones, with children, teenagers and adults, with each person no matter what their age, gender, race, qualification, level of employment, or not, religious belief.
By allowing an equal conversation, where all parties are equally heard and respected, could we get closer to peace, harmony and unity? It’s worth a try!

youth speaks: Natalie

OK so this could be seen as a cop out, but Natalie has just posted a lovely blog on her blog-site and so my 'youth speaks' blog this weekend is to refer you to her blog!

For those of you who haven't clicked, Natalie is one of my twin daughters, and she is on a gap-year; part one in India, in the Himachal Pradesh region, and part two in Uganda.

The other reason for pointing you in Natalie's direction is that this weekend we are taking Rozzie (t'other daughter) to Durham University so that she can embark on the exciting new chapter of her life, studying law. Am very excited for her as she has endured school for a long time to get to this point, and she thoroughly deserves all the joys of Uni student life. So, onwards with the University weekend, and I'll leave you in the hands of Natalie!

Click here for Natalie's blog

3 weeks today!!!!!

3 weeks today (Friday)  the CRED Uganda Team of 30 mainly young people arrive in Kampala. 3 weeks on Sunday, the CRED Ethiopia (AHISDO) Team of 30 mainly young people arrive in Addis Ababa. And 4 weeks today, the CRED India Team also of 30 mainly young people arrive in Hyderabad, and then journey to Rajahmundry.

3 teams, 90 people (yes, mainly young!), visiting 3 CRED partners and working with approximately 1200 people (very rough guess, but one of the teams alone will be working with about 450 children, so a fairly conservative estimate).

Each person on each team has up to 46kg of baggage allowance. If we let them have a quarter of that for their own possessions, that leaves about 34kg per person for resources to bless the communities. 90 people taking out 34kg each - that's 3060 kg of blessings!

And each team will be doing approximately 7 hours of work per day for the Monday to Friday, and some even do extra on the Saturday. So that's 90 people doing 35 hours each of volunteer work for the projects, ie 3150 hours of love being poured out on street kids, marginalised and vulnerable children, people living in slums, some suffering from leprosy! Not bad at all!!

So that's one direction of the trips, but the other aspect to consider is that those 90 people will have first hand experience of God's Kingdom work going on; through working with, chatting to and hearing testimonies from project staff and beneficiaries. They'll have many opportunities to see people celebrating life and faith, in conditions that from a secular viewpoint are really worthy of celebration. And they'll have time to think it all through, and wonder, and reflect, and process.

All sounds pretty exciting huh! The multi-faceted benefits of these trips are so wonderful, the multi-direction missional aspect is a privilege to be part of.

The teams are all meeting at various points in the coming week to make final plans, sort out resources, practice lessons, and just get excited together! Please pray for them, and for all of us, as we prepare them for trips that will change many lives.

A timely reminder!

As many of you know I am a strong advocate of Fairtrade. Mum, and presumably dad, were some of the faithful few who endured grotty coffee in the early days because it was ethically much better than the tastier 'slave-labour-made' alternatives.

I don't like coffee, so I can't comment on fairtrade coffee nowadays, but I am assuming it is heaps better, because it sells so well, and holds it own amongst the big name brands. However, there are plenty of other items that I do get fair-trade, mainly through Traidcraft, as it's so much quicker than seeking them out in the shops.

I must confess though that the whole principle behind fair-trade doesn't get thought about very often - on-line shopping for the FT items is just what I do when certain stocks get low, because i like the items and i like the convenience - thoughts about the bigger aspects of trade injustice etc don't pop up so much as they did.

But yesterday that changed when a campaign leaflet from Traidcraft came through the post which focusses on cashew nuts. As a cashew nut lover, I gave it a quick glance, and then a longer look, as I was reminded about just what a major difference it really does make buying fairtrade items.

Cashew nuts are not cheap - a 200g bag is about £2.50 in a UK supermarket. And I know I shouldn't be surprised, cos I've read it all before for different products, but the reality of how that £2.50 is split up is just so unjust:

the farmer gets £0.54
the guy who does the drying and trading of the cashews before processing gets £0.07
the Indian factory (de-shelling, peeling, grading and packing) gets £0.40
the individual cashew factory worker gets £0.03
the European importer (roasting and packing) gets £0.43
the EU supermarket gets £1.03

and it's not just the financial side of things that is unjust - health risks for cashew workers include damage to eyesight through consistent exposure to dust, chest infections due to poor working conditions, blisters to the hands through the acidic nature of the cashew shells that burns the hands, fertility problems and UTI's, headaches and nausea due to the acrid smoke released on roasting, backache, aching joints, arthritis, diabetes and high blood pressure due to the cramped crouching position of work. No NHS for these guys, or girls, as most of them are. No sick pay if they can't get in to work.

The leaflet from Traidcraft highlights the awful working conditions that are endured by producers of non-FT goods, and uncomfortable a thought as it is, when we choose to buy the non-FT option we are supporting that exploitation of workers. I know there aren't FT options for everything, but where we are privileged to have the choice, we also have the responsibility that goes with it. A responsibility to honour others in this world as equally worthy of fair pay, fair working conditions and a fair crack at life.

Sorry if this has been a bit campaign-y or activist-y, but as you can tell the story of the cashew workers really struck home and reminded me just how important it is to make the right choices, and just how a simple thing like which packet of cashews we choose can make a world of difference to others.

Prayers for Nairobi

What to say? The awful happenings in Nairobi over the past 48 hours have just been so terrible to read about. Innocent people, going about their lives, just doing ordinary things like shopping, and having coffee with friends. Lives shattered, torn apart. Families wrecked, never the same again. Our prayers are with them, big time.

Nothing can condone violence like that, nothing can justify what the gunmen did. It's another sign of the mess parts of this world are in. And it's hardly surprising that critics of religion use incidents like this to strengthen their argument that religion is the cause of so many of the world's problems throughout history.

So, as well as prayers for all those impacted by the shootings at the Westgate Mall, my prayers are that from this horrible event, good may come. May this be a catalyst for the Kenyan people coming together more than ever before; for any tribal tensions to be laid aside, for any class-based disagreements to be resolved, for religious harmony to be striven for, and for our Lord of peace and unity to be raised up high.

To all my Kenyan friends - I'm praying for you.

To all my non-Kenyan friends - please join me in praying for Kenya at this time.

Innocence lost

I'm going to be incredibly lacking on detail in this post, as it is imperative that I totally protect all identities and locations, and yet at the same time I really feel that the general issue needs to be highlighted.

The last couple of days I have been receiving some e-mails from a very reliable source keeping me informed on the progress of a distressing case. A young girl, age 5, who is known by the particular source, was found to have been raped earlier in the week. Absolutely awful - that poor poor child.

It only came to light because staff members of the project noticed that the girl was going to the bathroom more often than normal, and was clearly in discomfort, and so after some discrete questioning of the child the horror of her experience started to be revealed.

There are lots of reasons not to disclose particulars, including of course the protection of identity of the child concerned. But one key reason is that the perpetrator still hasn't been apprehended, and although the child has named him, the police are being very slow to act, and therefore it is vital that the perpetrator doesn't get wind of anything. Now I'm not thinking that my blog is so mainstream that he would read about it on here, but even so I'm not taking any risks, hence not even saying which continent this took place on.

What really upsets me though is two-fold:
1. the act itself - a 5yr old innocent girl - raped. Violated forever. Innocence lost forever. Gentle smiling face forever undershadowed with a hidden horrible secret that she can't escape from. It should never happen, and again I find myself asking what sort of a broken world is it that means people do such awful acts.
2. the slow response of the authorities. If this had happened to a 5yr old daughter of a politician or an influential figure, or a rich business man, or one of those in authority, the response would be so prompt. No statements would be lost, and having to be re-given; no medical check appointments would be postponed; no costs would be charged such as to be an obstacle to ensuring justice takes place. But because this child is from a less-than-salubrious part of the world, and the authorities don't like going to that part of their patch, it is proving very hard to progress the case and achieve justice.

Every child is equally important in the eyes of God, there is no hierarchy or class structure. Why oh why can't it be the same here. When will the world recognise that everyone has an equal right to justice, and security, and that it shouldn't be based on ability to pay, or shout loud, or who you know, or where you live?

It is frustrating that there is nothing more I can do than pray (not that I am underestimating the power of prayer, its just that I am an action person, a 'fixer'), but pray we must
 - for the child and her family
 - for the project staff pursuing justice
 - for the authorities, that they will speed up their actions and bring justice
 - for the perpetrator, that he will be apprehended, receive a just sentence, and so recognise the error of his ways that he doesn't ever do such an act to anyone else.

Please join me in prayer for this situation, vague as it is, but knowing that God knows all that needs to be known. And please pray also for all children everywhere - that none others will experience what this little 5yr old went through.

From ‘working for’ to ‘being with’

I’ve just had a really interesting 24 hours at a Seedbed conference up in Leicester. Entitled ‘Roots and Routes’ it focused around the roots that we each put down to secure us as we journey forth, and also the routes that we are on, or would like to be on. There was time and space for reflections, conversations, workshops, learning from others, and dreaming – opportunities not always available in the maelstrom of everyday life.

One of the speakers I heard was Andrew Grinnell, a guy from Leeds who works for the Salvation Army, and with his family relocated to one of the poorest estates in the city, to live and work in and amongst that community. He was sharing about his reflections on the reality of living in a very impoverished community, and about coming alongside those in need in a way that provides opportunity for positive support without running the risk of being patronizing, over-bearing, top-down, or agenda-setting.

Andrew spoke about the different levels of coming alongside people, and I found it a very insightful thought process and one that could also be applied to a number of other settings, including between CRED and its overseas partners. Here follows a summary of it, and mention must be made of Sam Wells, one of the church leaders at St Martin-in-the-field, who first came up with it, and who Andrew ‘borrowed’ it from.

There are 4 levels of coming alongside a person in need to help them:

1.     ‘working for’ the person ie getting involved in the issues that are relevant to them eg homelessness, poverty etc, and campaigning, writing letters, drawing attention to those issues, but staying relatively detached from the person themselves

2.     ‘being for’ the person ie continuing to do the campaigning etc, but this time through giving a name to the person, telling their story, personalizing the issue. To do this you have to get a bit more involved with the person, but still very much on a need-to-know basis

3.     ‘working with’ the person - this involves actually interacting with the person, coming up with plans on how to help them and trying to implement those plans. So you would be spending time with the person, but its your agenda, and you come up with the ideas on what they need

4.     ‘being with’ the person – this is the closest level of interaction, and involves just being with the person; no agenda, no ground rule, no expectations; just being with them (so long as that is what they want), giving them space to talk as they wish, accepting them for who they are and not trying to change them.

It was a very challenging talk, and I found myself wondering how much of what we do falls into each category firstly with regard to CRED and its overseas partners, but also on a personal basis as I try to live out my Christian faith.

To ‘be with’ someone in need has its risks that we have to be willing to take:

• run the risk of staying alongside them even if they have some unsavoury habit 
• the risk of people judging us based on who we are keeping company with
• run the risk of stepping well outside our comfort zones and putting names to statistics and getting a feel for the reality of abstract concept
• run the risk of opening up questions about our own lives and questioning the integrity of our words and our faith, and possibly having to face up to charges of hypocrisy

Ouch! This was definitely no easy talk, and is one that I will be reflecting on for some time to come I think. Living in a comfy, mainly white, middle-class market town means that it can be very easy to avoid some of these tough inequality issues, but the fact that we now have a Foodbank that is being increasingly used shows that the need isn’t just in the cities, or overseas. Deprivation is spreading, and there are more people than ever who need someone to  ‘be with’ them, not just ‘working for’ them.

Who am I being called to ‘be with’? Who are you being called to ‘be with’?

From start of a team onwards

Yesterday I waved goodbye to Natalie as she embarked on her Gap year travels that will take in Asia and Africa over about 11 months. Today I read through 35 application forms from yr 10 students at a local secondary school who are keen to go on a CRED Team Trip to Kenya in 2015. And then I chatted to a student from another college who is hoping to go on the trip to Kenya in 2014, and in amongst all that were various bits of admin for the 3 CRED Team Trips going out to India, Uganda and Ethiopia next month.

I guess it's all in a day's work in some ways, but it was interesting to reflect on how Natalie's first real experience of mission was on a CRED trip to Kenya about 4 years ago, and look what it has led to now! And as I read through the applications from some of the yr 10's, their passion about getting out there, meeting people from another culture, getting involved in the project, making a difference, and being changed in the process really shone through. I'm looking forward to meeting and interviewing the young people next week to see just how much the passion on paper comes through when asked to verbalise it, and what extra special nuggets of personality we get peeping through!

The student wanting to go to Kenya next year told me how she had applied for a previous trip but got turned down as she was so lacking in confidence. determined to get on a trip, she has been helping with 2 after-school clubs for the past year, to help her gain in confidence, and she told me today that she now  is very happy to stand up in front of a group of children and teach them a game, or run an activity session. Fabulous to hear from her how she acknowledged what her weakness was, but didn't give into it. Instead she strove to overcome it, and has blossomed as a result into a much more chatty and outgoing young lady - it will be great to have her on the trip next summer.

And then there's all the students doing final preparations for the trips this autumn - they've been through the application and interview process, done the fundraising, and all the preparation for the activities and lessons they will be teaching at their various projects linked to CRED partners, and now its a case of final tweakings, collecting resources, packing, and actually delivering the week.

So many lives being impacted in different ways by the team trips - from even just thinking about it at application stage, to taking up extra activities to help with personal development, to the numerous ways in which the young people will be impacted when actually on the trips, and even afterwards on return.

Quite what all those different levels of impact will be, no-one can predict; some impacts are subtle, some are more obvious; some young people will come back with a new career in mind, or with a career choice confirmed, some might even decide to go off on longer term missional gap years!

Some of the impacts are fairly immediate, some take longer to show through but no matter what, it is certainly very exciting, and a great privilege, to be part of this amazing opportunity to shape the lives of young people in such a positive way.

Tears at the airport

OK, so I shed a few tears!

We took Natalie to Heathrow this afternoon for her to catch the plane to India, and I almost held it together, but the final hug was too much, and a few tears flowed.

That's OK! I'm human, I have a heart (although some might wonder when I'm doing the tough 'all-in-control' leader bit on trips!), and whilst it is full of pride for what Natalie is doing it also has capacity to be sad at the thought of not seeing her for several months.

Anyway, I'm not going to witter on, its been a long day, but here's a photo of the happy adventurer - embarking off on a year following her calling and seeking to go where God is guiding her and do what He is asking of her.

oh, and by the way - Natalie is blogging whilst away: www.faithandactions.blogspot.co.uk

On being a mother today

September 17th has been a significant date in my subconscious for about 4 months now, ever since Natalie went and bought her flight tickets that allow her to embark on her 11 months of travelling.

The whole 'gap year' has been spoken about for a lot longer than that, but it was only when the tickets were purchased that a date became fixed in the diary, and a deadline was made. And now it is here! Gulp!!!

The last few days and weeks have included collecting all the equipment and kit Natalie needs, packing and discovering she has too much stuff, working out just how few socks and sweaters she can cope with then packing again (more successfully this time), saying farewell to all the friends who are going off to Universities around the country, and ensuring that Natalie's favourite meals have been included in the menus of the last week or so!

Natalie's year is not totally sorted - she's left lots of space for God to fill in the gaps, but the general outline is a YWAM Discipleship Training course in northern India for 2.5months, and then 2 months out on outreach somewhere (first significant gap for God to fill in!). By the start of March she will be in Uganda, and apart from the fact that we know where she is staying, and roughly what the  projects are that she might be able to get involved in, the rest is an exciting blank canvas.

I have to say I am incredibly proud of what Natalie is doing - just to be going abroad for a whole year pretty much on her own is mammoth, and her faith-filled approach to it all is so beautiful to see. The trip for her is all about a blend of her two passions - her Christian faith, and serving the poor and marginalised, and I am so excited to see how God uses Natalie and this year.

I am also apprehensive about saying goodbye - hopefully I won't be too much of an embarrassingly weepy mother! At least I will still have Rozzie around for another few days before she goes to Uni, and of course Tim is my most-wonderful support system. And at the end of the day, if I'm not a bit tearful it might seem as though I am heartless - and I'm definitely not that!

So, its off to the airport to wave farewell to an amazing daughter, and send her off on an adventure that is going to be life-changing in many ways. Not the easiest day for a mother in some ways, but a day of great pride in others!

Will report back later on the tears or not!

PS - I hope this doesn't in any way undermine the pride I also have in Rozzie - an equally amazing young lady, choosing a different but equally exciting path!

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Good news from Ethiopia

In 2 weeks time, world leaders will gather in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals that were set up in 2000, with a proposed end date of 2015. There is still lots to be done, and certainly some goals are being met more successfully than others. Some critics would say that the MDGs are flawed and not serving their purpose, but at least they have ensured that world poverty has stayed high on the political agenda at top level.

Some areas of success include over 2.1 billion gaining access to improved water supplies, the number of children accessing education falling from 102 million to 57 million, and universal access to HIV treatment becoming almost 100% (Christian Aid).

And according to new UN statistics, Ethiopia has more than halved the child mortality rate from 200 deaths per 1000 births, to 68 deaths to 100 births. For a country that was once synonymous with images of drought and famine, and children dying in their parents arms, this is great news and really encouraging to read.

CRED has two partners in Ethiopia - Women At Risk works with prostitute women and their children, providing packages of care, education and training to help them get off the streets and start new lives earning money from gainful employment. AHISDO is a community-based programme that runs a number of projects for community members of all ages, from child-care to after-school clubs to elderly day-care to feeding programmes, all in one of the poorest and most deprived parts of Addis Ababa. Inspirational work, all of it!

The work that both our partners do is truly helping to improve the lives of some of the poorest and most marginalised in the city, and as a result they are playing their part in helping to achieve some of the MDG's in Ethiopia. Yes, Ethiopia still has its problems, and yes there are still many living in poverty, as I have indicated in previous blogs, but what a privilege it is to be involved in such life-saving, life-trasnforming work as is done by WAR and AHISDO, and all our other partners around the world.

Help from 'The City'

Most of the times that we hear about companies based up in the City of London, it is to do with banking scandals, or the size of employees bonuses, or something else equally unsavoury to those of us who aren't involved in such work.

So I am delighted to share today about a conversation I had yesterday that somewhat redresses the balance.

Advocates for International Development (A4ID) is a charity that empowers lawyers to use their skills to help fight world poverty. It acts as the broker between NGO's that are involved in world development and meeting the millennium development goals, and law firms who wish to use their skills to assist the NGO's with solving legal matters.

CRED Foundation is one of the NGO partners for A4ID, and we have recently applied for some legal advice regarding the ambiguous wording of part of the charity tax laws. Don't worry, everything we are doing is totally legal and above board, and I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say yesterday I had a very good conversation with 2 lawyers from a big law firm in London who are going to do the investigating for us. And the nice thing is that the advice, which normally costs an arm and a leg, was free - because the law firms do the work pro bono ie for free!

Our enquiry is relatively small, and I doubt it will take them many hours to sort out; but for us who aren't legally trained it would take hours, and even then we'd still be wondering if we'd reached the right conclusion. Yes we could turn to a lawyer in the normal way - but it is very nice to be able to ask the question and not wonder if the cash-flow will cover the bill when it comes in.

And of course another benefit of the A4ID set up is that we are given the opportunity to let big law firms know about what we do. Now I'm not making any assumptions about what will happen - but God does have a knack of bringing the unexpected out of situations, so who knows what might happen with any given contact and conversation!

Watery good news for Kenya

Some potentially very good news for Kenya has made several news websites today: discovery of a huge underground water reservoir.

Some sources say it will never run dry, and some say that it has the capacity to supply the county's needs for almost 70years - either way, it's very good news for a country that frequently has severe droughts in some of its more northern regions.

The aquifer is in the Turkana region of Kenya, one of the driest parts of the country, and also an area close to borders with South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. Due in part to the harsh living conditions, and in part to the frequent conflicts that occur in the area over the sparse resources, there aren't many people living in the region - at the moment. It will be interesting to see if this remains the case, or if there is a movement of people towards a place where the wells will never run dry.

I've never been to the Turkana region of Kenya, but I have been to some similarly drought-stricken places in other African countries e.g. in Mali and Burkina Faso. One of my lasting memories of these places, apart from the heat, was how any water available came at a great price due to rich land-owners charging extortionate prices for use of their wells. The rich guys had deeper wells than the villagers wells, due to having the money to drill further down, and thus it was the villagers wells that dried up first forcing them to go to the rich guys to seek the life-saving liquid.

And it is with this memory in mind that my prayer for Kenya is that it will find positive, well-managed ways of moving forwards with this new find.
May the poorest in Kenya have as much access to the water as the rich; may the water lead to improved sanitation and clean water supplies to those who need it most.
May the water not be wasted through bad practice, but treated as a precious resource.
And may the presence of the water in Turkana bring only positive times of growth to that region, with no conflicts or illegal acts taking place by those trying to gain access to a resource that isn't rightly theirs to have.

For a full news-article on this go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24049800

After an excellent TBC service

Yesterday evening I was privileged to be part of a wonderful church service at Thornbury Baptist Church. Entitled 'Summer Overseas Mission feedback' the service was in fact an inspiring celebration of what some of our young people are getting up to as they venture out into the world and make a difference.

We had a team who went to Romania to a church that we are linked with, and through running a week of children's Bible-school activity days, and doing some sessions for the local teenagers, have helped to reignite the children and young people's work in the area: never underestimate the longer term impact of simple acts when God is involved!

We had a medical student who went out to Malawi with some of his University friends and spent 2 months getting involved in a number of projects in the Nkhata Bay area. These ranged from planned sessions with the youth group, disabled group and HIV support group, to building community compost heaps, to providing malaria nets in random acts of kindness to individuals they came across. The team also managed to get an epileptic lady reunited with her family, and got a deaf child a place at the only deaf school  in the country. Some really inspiring stories of what can happen when you make yourself open to the promptings of God.

We had feedback about the Rwanda CRED trip, and what was very clear during that talk was just how strongly the genocide aspect had impacted; and how much processing had taken place post trip regarding issues of justice, ethnicity, marginalisation on ethnic grounds, the insidious onset of the genocide and how that can be seen to be replicated in many other ways, and the responsibility each of has to ensure we don't get sucked in to such ways of thinking, and also to take a stand against such ways when we meet them. A very powerful and passionately given talk that one!

Not included, because the relevant people couldn't be there, were 2 other young people who spent 2 months in Tanzania on various community projects, including supporting people suffering from leprosy, building community water tanks and toilet blocks, doing children's work etc.

And only slightly included, due to lack of time, was mention of the team who went to Ethiopia with me to work with the children of prostitutes through the Women At Risk.

On Saturday I had coffee with 2 friends who had led a team trip to Bufumbo in Uganda - the team was a group from our local anglican church, and they were visiting their church link parish in Uganda. For the first time in the history of church teams going out to Bufumbo, the team was predominantly young people, and they did some great work, made some excellent links, and brought a new dimension of parish linking to the Bufumbo residents through their energy, enthusiasm and youthfulness.

What came out of all this for me was how exciting it is to see what God is doing through our young people. And if you add in all the other young people who went on the afore-mentioned trips but weren't at our church last night but were still impacted by, and have been changed as a result of the people they met overseas and what they did, heard and saw, then it gets even more exciting.

And that is just links from one church in a little market-town called Thornbury - add to that all the other young people who went on trips from other churches around the country, and the numbers are really starting to add up!

Who knows what all the outcomes will be of these overseas trips, only God can see that; but years of experience tell me that the they will be many, varied and continue rising to the surface for months and even years after the trips.

It is such a joy and pleasure, and indeed a privilege, to be able to facilitate, equip and empower young people in some small way on these trips; to get out there and see, and get involved with, another corner of God's Kingdom, and so help them discover more about themselves, their skills, their calling, faith issues, their self-worth, and what makes them tick. Long may it continue!

dan's journey

One of the lads on the CRED Women At Risk Ethiopia trip this summer was Dan. The trip was an incredibly transformative experience for him, and here is his story, as told by Leonie, his 'responsible adult' who accompanied him on the trip from a Portsmouth- based organisation called Motiv8, who ran the programme mentioned below.

This time last year Daniel Bailey was a 16 year old boy, involved in a programme that was all about giving back to the community; yet the only thing he was interested in was what he could get out of it, and how it would benefit himself.

He was a mouthy teenager, who would do anything to be popular and impress people; including getting involved in drugs and being a regular smoker of cannabis.  He described himself as a “self-centred bighead, with a lot of anger needing to get out”, and that was evident in his behaviour.  He was hanging around with other young people involved in drugs and anti-social behaviour and it was, to quote his Mum, “only a matter of time before he pushes it one step too far”.  It was all about what people thought of him, and if someone asked him to do something stupid or dangerous or even illegal, he wouldn’t need to think twice about doing it if it was going to get him a popularity status.

That was the difference with Dan, compared to other young people…he cared about what other people thought; meaning to me that he was simply an unconfident young man trying to figure out who he was.  Of course the other major difference, compared to some of the other young people I work with in the city, was that fact that Dan has a supportive family behind him, who literally just wanted the best for him, and were starting to run out of options.

As the programme went on over the summer of 2012, there was a natural reduction of those young people that were either removed from the programme or dropped out due to lack of commitment.  Despite Dan being involved in some of the more negative behaviour; rightly or wrongly I decided to give him another chance, for him to change his attitude and behaviour, making it perfectly clear that it was my neck on the line as well. 

As time went on, all staff on the programme started to see little glimpses of hope from Dan, with him really starting to step up to the mark.  (The risk of keeping him on the programme was starting to pay off).  He was changing from a selfish and angry teenager into a considerate and conscientious young man, and at that stage I saw that as an opportunity to challenge him that bit more.  Dan appeared to thrive on knowing that someone believed in him, and had taken a risk on him, and by the end of the programme had gone above and beyond all the expectations we had had.

It was at this point that I looked into a CRED Team Trip for myself and then decided to offer it out to a variety of young people I had been working with over the summer.  This was an opportunity that was made available with my support but unfortunately was not accepted by all.  Dan however did accept, and whether he saw it as a holiday, or a trip of a lifetime, I am not sure but all I knew was that he still had a lot of “growing” to do before he was going to be any use to any team in a different country.

Despite being an asset to the team whilst on the Portsmouth community programme; working hard raising money for local charities such as Enable Ability and Barnardo’s, he was still getting himself into some sticky situations back home with his friends, and still dipping into the odd bit of cannabis here and there. 

However after Dan got through his CRED interview I sat with him and explained that I truly believed he could be an amazing team member on the WAR trip to Addis but told him that I wouldn’t take him if he kept using cannabis and getting involved in anti-social behaviour.  This was also explained to his parents and of course they were fully supportive of my honest ultimatum.  Dan had a big decision to make and only he could do it…

8 Months later…

The CRED Team Trip to Ethiopia was a life changing experience for both of us.  For Dan he explained how the strongest memory he has from the trip was the team, and how “a bunch of individuals came together to form a truly amazing team and group of friends.  Despite varying personalities, we all worked together like we had known each other forever”.  Being part of a team trip does of course come with its ups and downs and Dan discussed how the most difficult part of the trip was the home visit.  Seeing the conditions that others live in really made him appreciate what he has and what he takes for granted.  This home visit was one of the first times Dan had to deal with his emotions, and whereas in the past he would have lashed or hit out, this time round he simply sat in silence (with his sunglasses on) until he felt ready to talk about it with me. 

Other aspects he found difficult was the Sunday morning tour up to the top of the mountain. “Seeing all the different people and what their city was like.  Children reaching for your hands whilst we were in the minivan…just like you see on tele”.  It was the first part of “real Ethiopia” we had seen and he admits “it was a bit of a shock”.

As for all of us who went on the “Friday Night Drive” this was also an area of difficulty for Dan. However instead of feeling upset helpless with the sights that we saw, he felt angry.  I saw a change from a teenage boy that used to talk quite crudely about women and prostitutes, into a guy that felt angry and ashamed to be of the same sex as the women’s pimps.  He didn’t necessarily show upset and sadness but instead anger and pure disgust.

The biggest impact for Dan has been the stories of the children we worked with.  We live in a sheltered world here in England, where all so often we don’t want to deal with our own problems let alone someone else’s.  However out in Ethiopia it was the stories and the faces of the young people that were our inspiration and motivation.  In Dan’s words “seeing what I could do, and the difference I could make, made me realise what I have to offer to others”.   He was an asset to the WAR team and away from his school responsibilities was a massive support for many, (including myself).

 My hope is that now he knows what good work he can do, he can go on and continue to make a difference not only to others’ lives but to his own life.  He has come so fair in just a year, and thanks to CRED taking the risk on me, and giving me the opportunity, I was able to take the risk on him.  And as it turns out…it was the best risk I ever took.