Never cease to be inspired

There’s no denying it – I love my job! Being paid to travel around the world and spend time with amazing organisations doing inspirational works amongst the poor and marginalized sectors of society, and also have the chance to feed into the lives of the next generation of world changers as we take teams of young people overseas – it’s certainly a reason to get out of bed each morning, and give thanks to God!

I find all of the projects inspirational in their own way, but I have to admit that some get under my skin more than others. And one of those is the Women At Risk project (E-WAR) in Addis Ababa, where I have just spent a few days.

I’ve written about the project quite a number of times before, so I won’t go over old ground, but essentially E-WAR provides rehabilitation programmes for women seeking to escape prostitution, including counseling, skills-training, discipleship, life-skills, access to health care, pocket money to ensure they can stay off the streets whilst undergoing the rehab, education fees for their children, food packages for the whole family, and more.

E-WAR are also increasingly getting involved in prevention and intervention services, to try and impact the flow of girls into prostitution, and attack the problem from the source rather than just the symptoms.

So, that’s the background; now to the last few days, and the reason for the title to this blog!

The E-WAR folks that I’ve spent time with this week have been the teenage children of the ladies who have been through the rehab programme. And they are such an inspirational bunch of young people to be with.

I had the privilege of helping to run a 3-day programme of workshops for the teenagers, themed around ‘relationships’, and from that have had the joy of spending time with the girls chatting about topics such as communication issues with family and friends, peer pressure, identity in Christ, knowing God’s unconditional love, boyfriends and relationships. How special to be able to come alongside them, to listen to their concerns and their queries, and to feed into their thoughts and discussions about it all from my older (and wiser?) perspective.

When I think of the backgrounds many of these young people have come from, and the kind of experiences they have lived through in their early lives when their mothers were ‘on the game’ – to look at them now, and see what lovely young ladies they are growing in to, with such good morals and values – I never cease to be inspired.

There were approximately 30 teenagers on the programme, from 13 to 19, boys and girls, and there was a lot of energy and laughter and banter going around. But there was also a huge amount of respect and love for each other. The younger ones clearly look to the older ones as surrogate older siblings, and the older ones look out for the younger ones, and never push them aside or belittle them in any way. They all come across as one big happy family, secure in the knowledge that they are all in some way ‘in the same boat’ and are supporting each other through – beautiful to watch, and I never cease to be inspired.

But credit where credit is due – the other inspiration in E-WAR is the staff themselves, and indeed it is their unstinting love and support for the children over the years that has allowed the teenagers to grow into the wonderful young people they are today. The staff are tireless in the ways that they give of their time, energy, love and compassion. And the young people know that and willingly acknowledge it. So when it comes to the staff – yes, once again I never cease to be inspired.

The ultimate credit for why E-WAR  is like it is: E-WAR is an organization that has prayer as its middle name. If it were a stick of rock, it would have prayer going all the way through it, and it is that total dependency on the power of prayer to uphold all things that undergirds all aspects of the work. The young people and staff alike start and finish their days with prayer, and I have been reminded over and again these past few days of just what a difference prayer can make.

So thank you to the E-WAR young people for allowing me to be part of a very special few days with them; thank you to the E-WAR staff for all the background support to allow the programme to go ahead; thank you to the amazing Samoan – Kiwi missionary Asaua Tiatia for leading the programme; and thank you God for giving me the chance to be inspired once again, and for letting me have a ring-side seat from which to view some of the Kingdom work going on by E-WAR in Addis Ababa. May God be glorified in it all.