Introducing Butterfly Space, our newest CRED partner

I’m sitting in the sunshine, at a lovely little guesthouse in Mzuzu town, from where I will catch the bus to Lilongwe tomorrow so that I can do the final part of the risk assessment for the CRED Malawi team trip that is taking place in July.

Until now my time in Malawi has been spent at Nkhata Bay, on the shores of Lake Malawi, visiting the project that will be the focus of the team trip: Butterfly Space, our newest CRED partner. And what a wonderful partner they are turning out to be – let me tell you more.

Butterfly Space started out as a backpacker-type of accommodation, set on the edge of Nkhata Bay town, and with its land running right down to the water’s edge of Lake Malawi, so that it boasts its own little beach. It still offers accommodation, and indeed that is where the team will be staying, but Butterfly is so much more than just accommodation now.

Two Brits who both now have Malawian residency run it: Josie manages the accommodation and sustainability side of things, and Alice is the driving force / passion / spirit behind all the community-based projects that spill out of Butterfly and into the surrounding town and villages and communities. And it is Alice who has been such an inspiration to be with these past couple of days.

Monday mornings sees Alice getting into the Butterfly truck and setting off on a one-hour drive around a well-worn route, picking up a variable number of disabled children and young adults who are out waiting for her. There are 30 registered in the Butterfly disabled group, although rarely more than 15 of them come – quite enough in the back of one pick up!

The route has been worked out not just to be efficient and logical, but also to ensure that some of the more able bodied are collected before the less able-bodied, so that the former can support the latter in the back of the truck. There are no nicely supportive car seats, or other specially designed travelling aids in Malawi – if you can’t sit up for yourself you have to rely on family and friends to hold you up, or else you stay lying down.

Once back at Butterfly Space, the group do some little activities – maybe a craft, or some stories, or singing etc – and whenever possible they will be joined by the members of the ‘Little Leapers’ homeschool group who meet at Butterfly Space each morning. Through this, prejudice and stigma against disability is being gradually broken down, and the disabled group get the chance to share an activity with the able bodied rather than being always ostracized.

The session finishes with a simple meal, and then the drive round starts again as everyone is dropped home. For many of the children, this is the only real time that they get to go out, so even just sitting in the truck with the wind and sun on their faces is a treat.

On another afternoon, Alice will accompany the prison chaplain into the local prison to help lead a Bible study for the in-mates followed by a creative session – art, or creative writing, or music etc. The prisoners testify to what a special time this is for them – to be able to work through some of their feelings and issues in creative form, but Alice is sure that she gets more out of it than any of them, as God is always so present at the meetings.

Yesterday afternoon, I’d been out visiting the school that the team are going to work at, and when I got back to Butterfly I found a group of ladies all sitting around the big table honing their tailoring skills with the Butterfly sewing machines. For these ladies to be able to develop such a useful life skill is wonderful – it is leading to income generation opportunities for them, and empowering them to be so much more self-sufficient. Some of the ladies are widows, some are raising grandchildren, and some are HIV+ve and so need sound nutrition to ensure the medication works well.  The combination of access to an opportunity to earn money, plus the dignity of having a skilled job, of being empowered, of being able to afford food and so gain health benefits, of being able to feed the family – so many ripple effects from Alice and Butterfly having the vision to set up the ladies group – God can take the little we offer and turn it into something big every time if we will just trust it to Him as Alice has done with this.

Other projects on the books at Butterfly include a vocational training centre for the disabled, a youth group for the local young people, a nursery school that has accessible prices for those who can’t afford mainstream prices and links with several primary schools that are serving communities living in rural poverty.

And then there are the placements that Alice coordinates for an ongoing stream of young adults who come to spend weeks or months at Butterfly Space – as part of a gap year, or a sabbatical from work etc- developing their own skills, learning about themselves, using their professional qualifications, discovering their calling….living out the strapline that CRED applies to its own work of ‘transformation through participation’.  Butterfly and CRED are clearly on the same page!

That’s just a snapshot of a very impressive and inspirational place in Malawi, run by a very incredible and amazing young woman. If asked about her motivation – Alice would say she is just doing what feels right, just trying to be do her bit to make the world a better place.

Me – I’d say she is living out Matthew 26 in a wonderful, self-less, Christ-centred way. And I’d say she is demonstrating in no uncertain terms how to love God with all your heart, strength and soul, and to love you neighbours as you love yourself.

Oh, and did I mention she also has a wonderful Malawian husband and two gorgeous girls age 2 and 7, so she is fitting in wife and mother as well!!!! Definitely a lady worth praying for – that she will be blessed as she is a blessing to others.

Miriam’s faith rewarded

During this past week at Acholi Quarters, the team has had the joy of having three wonderful local young women working with us as translators. Deborah, Jackie and Miriam are exceptional – in their English-speaking ability, their academic ability, their patience and tolerance and compassion for the children, and their love of life, and of living out their Christian faith

Deborah and Jackie are from the pastor’s family, and so have a fairly secure family set up, still living at home with mum and dad, and as part of a family respected by the community. Not that life is easy or materially rich for them, and they also as a family will have their own set of stories about life during the Lords Resistance Army times.

But for this blog I’d like to focus on Miriam, who I got to know much better this past week and yesterday in particular, and for whom yesterday was a beautiful example of God’s provision being perfect in its timing.

Miriam is 21 years old, and is attending university in Kampala in the evenings, to train to be a primary teacher. Watching her with the children during the day, as she translates the activities and numeracy / literacy / science concepts to the children, with lots of extra explanations along the way is confirmation that she will be a very special teacher. Whether it is helping one of the quicker children to go further and be challenged, or sitting patiently going over the same thing time and again in different ways to a child that just doesn’t get the concept when presented in a certain way – she naturally exemplifies all the best bits of teachers!

In the afternoons, at least twice a week, Miriam runs the adult literacy classes that I have mentioned. There are ten ladies on the books, speaking 2 or 3 different languages between them, and some who have never been to school before whilst others managed to achieve bits of education before the LRA war put paid to any further schooling. Again her devotion to these ladies, and her patient, gentle, non-patronising and respectful style of imparting knowledge to the ladies is helping instill a confidence and self-belief in them that has been so lost through years of living in poverty and illiteracy.

The rest of the time, Miriam makes beads to sell, amidst all the usual daily chores that come to those living in Acholi where there is no running water, no power, no sanitation, and none of the appliances that make our lives so easy and in many ways wasteful.

A remarkable young lady, with a passion to make a difference to the local community and bring good to those around her, living out her life against a background of memories of trauma from the LRA - escaping from a burning house, living the life of a night commuter as she sought safety in the town each night whilst living in the village during the day, running from soldiers and trekking many miles to safety. Stories that to us like a horror movie, but are the reality to so many others in this community, and in living such positive lives bow against those backdrops are demonstrating in an inspiring way the power of forgiveness.

But the extra bit of Miriam’s story, in my mind, happened yesterday evening, and is a lovely example of a) how God has so many more plans for these trips than we can ever imagine, and b) how His timing is always perfect.

As I said, Miriam is attending university and is the second semester of her first year. Yesterday we learnt, through a passing comment, that she didn’t know if she would be able to finish the semester as she hadn’t been able to raise the required tuition fees (£300).  There was no request for money or anything like that, it was just a comment as part of a bigger conversation, along with the assurance that God would provide in the right time, and He had everything in control.

When I probed a bit deeper, it turns out there is a 6 week grace period at the start of each semester for students to get their fees in, and during this time they are able to attend lectures. However if the fees aren’t in by the end of those 6 weeks, then they have to stop attending, and would have to restart the whole year if and when they do raise the required fees. The 6-week grace period ends next Friday (27^th Feb)!

You’ll have guessed where this is going – some of the team have clubbed together and pledged to cover her fees for this semester, and for the next two years to allow her to graduate, with the peace of mind that she doesn’t have to struggle for fees, but can focus on her studies and in her spare time do the adult literacy classes for the ladies.

When Miriam heard of this last night she was overwhelmed – it was such a beautiful moment. It wasn’t a loud moment or lots of fussing, as those who made the commitment wanted it kept quiet, but all the same there was a definite sense of God’s presence in it all.

If the team had come a week later it would have been too late; if we had come earlier it might not have come up in conversation, as the deadline wouldn’t have been looming. It was perfect timing – as it always is with God.

And it came as a culmination of a lot of faith exploration, and heart softening that has been going on this week – through time at church, time with the Acholi, learning about their lives, their history, their forgiving nature, and seeing their unshakeable faith in action.

For Miriam it was a prayer answered in an unexpected way; a ‘well done good and faithful servant’ for someone who has walked faithfully and selflessly for many years, and who speaks and lives great trust in God at all times.

For those on the team concerned it was confirmation that they were in the right place for God to work out that little piece of life, that He has unique tasks for each of us if we just stay open to His bidding, and that He can use each of us, wherever we are at, for the good of others – and that in itself is a great testimony to go home with.

The team goes home tonight and I go on to Malawi. Not sure what the internet is like down there, so I might go somewhat silent, but thank you for your prayers, and may we all be open to whatever little treats God has in store.

Love and prayers

The highs and lows of the past 2 days

Well, what a two days it’s been – some amazingly exciting evidence of God touching the hearts of many on the trip!

Yesterday I had all three of the staff who are non-believers chatting with me at various times about Christianity, my faith and how it impacts my life, faith and poverty etc – fabulous conversations, and such wonderful opportunities to go deeper on a one-to-one basis.

Then one of the lads in the team decided that he wanted to teach the kids in his teaching group a song, and he chose ‘My God is so Big, so Strong and so Mighty’ – a song he’d never heard of before Sunday when I taught it to everyone at church, but loved so much that he has been humming it regularly since! More evidence of God moving in this team in special ways.

I also got to meet Smiler’s mum yesterday, whom I blogged about the other day. It was a lovely meeting between the two of us, plus John and Harriet (our Acholi wonderwoman!) and we chatted very openly about mum’s situation, her wish to get out of it, the realities of life re costs of living, dreams and hopes for herself and the children etc. At the end of it all, a possible option for a start up business had been hatched by her and talked through with John and Harriet, and an outline of the start up costs identified. I promised to go away and pray about it, and we parted with hugs and smiles.

Then I went in to meet the ladies who are part of the adult literacy group that has been started up very recently, and which I would like to find some funding for. The ladies shared with me their stories – fleeing from the rebels, escaping from the north, losing the chance for education, living in poverty now due to having no qualifications; and they shared with me their hopes of what it means to them to be able to read, and write, and do simple sums, and have the confidence to answer questions. Powerful testimonies, faith-filled testimonies; testimonies which I am praying I can honour through securing financial support to ensure that the classes can be maintained.

And then in the evening the team had a great debrief session – sharing their thoughts on the past few days, and what they’ve heard and experienced, and how they are feeling inspired and challenged, and how they are changing within themselves.

Yesterday later in the evening certainly had a bit of a downwards blip as well, which for me just underlined the spiritual warfare angle of this trip, and how the enemy isn’t happy with what we are doing, but even through this team grew stronger and more supportive of each other, and got perspectives even more positively aligned than before – the enemy isn’t having the last laugh here, that’s for sure!

Today was another great day at Acholi, but for me the highlight had to be the news that yesterday afternoon Smiler’s mum  got herself a job as a kitchen assistant at the local primary school! So after all the conversation about possibly starting her own little business, she fell into a paid job that she started today, and means that instantly she can step out of the prostitution that she had stooped to in absolute desperation.

It doesn’t mean all her problems are over by any means – she still can’t afford for the children to go to school, but what she can now do is pay the rent, feed the family, and hold her head high in her community – and that’s a good place to start. What an answer to prayer!

The team is here for 3 more days, and then they fly home and I go down to Malawi to visit a project there. Thank you for your prayers thus far, and thank you for all the prayers still to come – there is lots going on in their hearts and minds, and many lives are being impacted in many ways.

What does Justice look like?

The second-in-command for the Lords Resistance Army, when it was doing its worst in Uganda and beyond, is currently at the Hague facing war crime charges. He is a Ugandan and is charged with countless heinous crimes against humanity – not just the murderous acts that he carried out himself, but also the part he played in causing thousands of children to be abducted, forced to be child soldiers, and brain-washed into carrying out murderous acts themselves. Add to that the women he raped and the part he played in causing other to be raped by soldiers acting on orders from above, and he has a long charge sheet.

The quick response as to whether he is guilty or not has to be yes – certainly that would be my first response. But I’ve just been listening to a talk by a remarkable guy called Benson Ocen, founder and director of I Live Again Uganda, and something he said led me to think deeper and realise that a guilty charge just isn’t quite so straightforward.

Benson is from the Acholi tribe and grew up in northern Uganda, and has had more than his fair share of horrific experiences due to the Lords Resistance Army. His testimony of forgiveness and grace is very powerful, and the work that he is heading up through ILA Uganda, of trauma counseling, discipleship and resettlement is very inspiring to hear about.

When Benson mentioned about the guy at the Hague, it wasn’t with bitterness and resentment, despite all that the LRA had done to his family and those around him as he grew up. Instead Benson reflected on the fact that the guy was himself an ordinary child, who was cruelly abducted at a young age, and brainwashed time and again until he no longer was able to reason rationally, but instead became a killing machine.

When it was put like that, the guilty charge became less straightforward. Is it he who is guilty of the crimes, or the soldiers who abducted him and brainwashed him?

If he is charged, then what about all the other child soldiers, many of whom are trying to carve out a life post-war, and find some semblance of focus within a community that is often oblivious to their previous history?

But if he is not charged, due to his ‘state of mind’ then what does that mean for all those who suffered at his hands, and for whom closure to that part of their life can’t happen until they feel that justice is done?

I don’t know the answer, and I’m glad I’m not the one who has to try and work it out. But I do know that the most powerful part of Benson’s talk this evening was about how an increasing number of the Acholi are choosing to take the path of forgiveness and grace – of moving on, rather than looking always backwards.

 Oh how much that attitude is needed in this world; and oh what a privilege it is to be leading a team of young people as they get a first-hand experience of that attitude this week – may it pervade their spirit in a really impacting and life-transforming way.

All in a day's activities!

So, yesterday (Sunday) included visits to Green Pastures children church, the Maya dental clinic project and the Acholi community.

Within all of that:

• ·      Some of them went to church for the first time ever
• ·       Those who have been to a UK church before all said how much better their Ugandan experience was than UK churches
• ·      They all heard a lively ‘preach’ of God’s love, through word, music and dancing
• ·      Many said that if church was that lively in the UK they’d be up for giving it a go – to which those of us who go to church did gently point out that there are some lively and happening churches in the UK!
• ·      They all had a practical, lived-out case study of sustainable living through the dental clinic that is solar powered, bio-gas for fuel, rainwater harvesting for water supply, and built out of eco-friendly bricks
• ·      They heard the story behind the dental clinic which all came from a 16-yr old UK girl who went to Uganda on a team, saw a need, responded by sharing her dream of making a difference, and didn’t give up – very powerful story to hear, and a lot of this team were very impacted by it
• ·      They were introduced to the concept of being good stewards of God’s earth, and sharing resources with others rather than just looking out for number one – a seemingly new thought process for some of them
• ·      They came face to face with abject poverty, held hands with children running around bare foot, or with broken sandals, wearing clothes that would have long ago go in the rag bag at home, and yet still smiling, laughing, and giving thanks for life – mind blowing for our young people for whom possessions are so often nine-tenths of the law (apologies to all young people who don’t live by that standard!)
• ·      They shared in bead-making with the Acholi ladies, learnt a new skill, and realised the impact that selling the beads has for the ladies, who now don’t have to work in the quarries.

The outcome – lots of thought-provoking experiences taking place, lots of processing going on, lots of spiritual, emotional and physical challenging for each of them, and a massive amount of enthusiasm for the week to come!

Will keep you posted on Smiler and his family, but for now the two-pronged mission trip continues!

Thank you for your prayers

Helen