SOUL TOUCH - Laura and Jenn in 2010 - A Whole Nuther Level!

Soul Touch Wishes You A Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T09:00:00.000Z

May we wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas this year full of laughter, joy and peace. May you all find what you have been created for, and find happiness in that. May you feel the hope and comfort intended for you, and all the other yummy things we have been mercifully given.

Most of all, may everyone feel love this Christmas day. May we all share that love, and commit today to sharing more and more love every day as the new year unfolds. Thank you to everyone that made 2010 everything it was for Laura and I, for all the encouragements, the kindness, the hospitality and the wisdom. Please pray for the continuation of Soul Touch and that it develops easily into what God intends it to be.

So all that being said, im off for a mince pie (or two!) Merry Christmas!!!

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Life on the streets

2010-12-24T14:07:00.004Z

In Guatemala we worked with the Shikinah ministries, that reach many different people in all different ways. However, we spent most of our time working at their soup kitchen, helping them serve an average of 500 hungry and often homeless people everyday. We learnt a lot during our time here about the monotonous, survival based type of living for those on the street. Their day forcussed around ways of finding food and money. For children especially this is no way to live, so we were blessed and happy to also have the opportunity to work with a man Gyseppi who ran a school for theses children free of charge, and visited the families on the streets 3 times a week with hope, soup and sandwiches. As Europe is hit by the shockingly cold weather, please pray that everyone has a bed this Christmas and somewhere to go to get out of the cold. And for everyone in the world homeless, please pray that whatever the circumstances are that ended in them living on the streets are changed, and that they find not only a house but a home.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Christmas behind bars

2010-12-22T09:07:00.001Z

During our time in Oruro, Bolivia we worked with Arbol del Angel (Angel Tree) who work with children with parents in prison, and children who live in the prisons with their parents. Arbol del Angel runs from Wednesday to Friday, serving 30 children, helping with homework, teaching the bible and running clubs like choreography or art. During our time with them we had the opportunity to visit the prison with the children while they performed a dance for their parents and the other prisoners. It was very touching that the parents were able to experience their children performing, as so many parents in prison miss out on this. But it was heartbreaking to leave, some of the children stayed back with their parents which was hard enough to watch, but the ones that had to leave were so sad to be leaving mum’s and dad’s behind. I can’t begin to imagine what these children are feeling. Please pray for them, pray that they will see another, more appealing, side of life. Pray also for the parents, Arbol del Angel do work (which sounds like cognitive behaviour therapy) with them. Pray that they will realise the effect them being in prison has on their children, and pray that they will continue to want to rebuild their lives. Also pray for the staff and team of dedicated team of volunteers, they are doing an amazing job, pray that they will continue to be energised.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Living in the dust

2010-12-21T11:15:00.002Z

In Bolivia we worked with a project called Horno Casa. This is an afterschool homework and bible teaching group for children of all ages. These children live in the hills outside Sucre’s city centre. Often they have no water and their health is suffering, almost every child in the 60 we worked with had a cold. These children live outside the city and were so happy to have visitors! They have some resources but not a lot, the Brazilian team that work with them do so well with what they have! Last month the team from Brazil returned home, leaving one full time member in Bolivia. It’s essential that there are 6 members of staff working at Horno Casa. Please pray that God call’s the right people to work with these beautiful Children! Pray that the children will have enough to eat and fresh water to drink and wash. And pray that they understand the meaning of Christmas and feel loved as they are meant to this year.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Happy to be Hame!

2010-12-20T16:26:00.002Z

Sorry for the lack of blogs over the weekend. Laura and I are officially back in our homeland of Bonny Scotland (despite the worrying threats from the snow!) and we have been busy seeing all our lovely, excited family and friends!It's such a cosy nice feeling to be back with those we love and have missed just in time for the festive season. Thank you so much to everyone that has supported us in so many ways over the last amazing year!Despite the 2010 trip being over Soul Touch is nowhere close to being at an end, with so many incredible people involved and prayers being constantly sent regarding Soul Touch, I have a feeling we have seen nothing yet!

So, for today as Laura and I enjoy being back with all those we missed, please pray for those that do not have such people. Those that are lonely this Christmas or who feel forgotten. For the reconciliation of families and friendships and for the general love and fuzzy warm, glitteryness of Christmas to be felt and expressed in the hearts of everyone this Christmas!The Advent Calender will be continuing, so stay tuned! And thanks again for everything to all you brilliant people involved with helping us this year and getting us home safe and sound!!
xxx

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - The Good Samaritan

2010-12-17T17:36:00.002Z

In August we began the final leg of our journey in South America. We started in Buenos Aires, Argentina where we worked with San Andres church and the projects they are involved with. We had a wonderful time working with one project in particular Buen Samaratino (Good Samaratin) Community centre. During our time with them we helped at a childrens day party for children less privileged. The community centre and San Andres managed to get a gift for each of the children who attended the party. I’m sure over Christmas they will be organising another party with more gift, please pray for the organisers, pray also for each of the individual children, that they have all that they need. Pray for San Andres Church, for the congregation and the members who volunteer in the different community groups.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Difficulties of Division

2010-12-16T10:37:00.000Z

We spent a month in South Africa, during that time we learnt so much about the divides between the black, white and coloured people. Although the apartheid has been over for years there is still so much damage in the country. There’s a lot of violence and crime. Please pray for the people in South Africa, pray that the divides will disappear in the near future, pray for the countries leaders and for the police. Pray that corruption will disappear and South Africa will be known for the beautiful country that it is!

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Chilling childhood

2010-12-15T10:00:00.001Z

Any of you that have managed to keep up with the blog throughout the year (legends!) will remember my emotional blog about our visit to the remand centre in Uganda. This centre was set up by the Ugandan government as an answer to the many homeless, abandoned children cluttering the streets of Kampala. The original idea was a place where the children could be brought for rehabilitation, support and with the hope that they would leave the centre returning to a loving family, well cared for and well behaved. The centre as it stands now doesn’t even maintain a whispering of that initial hope. The children are deprived of all of their basic physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological needs. They run around the empty, echoing halls covered in filth, afraid of abuse, with hungry tummies before falling asleep on the floor or under a hole-covered mosquito net. Please don’t push this difficult scene to the back of your mind. Please share this knowledge to raise awareness and of course remember them in your prayers.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - From the Streets to a home

2010-12-14T10:00:00.001Z

We spent almost three months in Uganda working with a project called Dwelling Places who rescue, rehabilitate and re-home street children on a three year programme. By now all the children who are currently living in the home should be resettled with their parents, family members or another family. Please pray that their resettlement will be a success, pray that their relationships with family members will be refreshed and that they won’t forget all they have learned at Dwelling Places. Please also pray for the staff as they prepare for the new intake of children early next year; that they are prepared and have the energy for the children. Please pray for the children that are currently on the streets of Uganda, pray for their health and safety. Please also pray for the young people that have come through dwelling places and are being prepared for independent living.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Amazing Autism

2010-12-13T10:00:00.001Z

During our time in Kenya we worked with a school for Autistic children called Abbey Academy. The school was set up by Tabitha, the mother of an autistic child. Tabitha, a trained social worker, saw a need for her son and many other autistic children in Kenya and did something about it! She set up the school which reaches around 30 children, around half of whom board. During our visit we were able to visit the homes of two children who were unable to attend due to insufficient school fees. Tabitha was broken hearted when some of the children that were making progress had to pull out. She now has future plans to set up a child sponsorship programme so that finances don’t affect children’s education. Tabitha also wants to buy a mini-bus for the school allowing the children to go on outings and experience active learning! Please pray for her future plans and for the financial situation that some families are facing.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Peace on Earth

2010-12-12T10:05:00.001Z

Over Easter Jenn and I spent some time in Jerusalem, Israel. I must admit it’s probably the place I’ve felt safest all year... very contradictory to the general stereotype people tend to have. We encountered some very kind people and felt completely unthreatened by the army presence. This was a nice experience, I know that Israel is not always like this, please join us today in prayer for the civilians of the country, pray for peace and tolerance, and pray for the young people who are taking part in national service.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - St. Andrews Charitable Trust

2010-12-11T10:00:00.001Z

The world without walls partnership for St Andrews Church Bo’ness is Christ the Rock Church in Chennai, India. St Andrews have set up a charity called St Andrews Charitable Trust India which supports several projects in India, Please join us today in praying for the following projects; Sangita Charitable Trust orphanage; the Martha Medical Clinic; Bar Educational Trust; Nambikkayin Vasal Trust, working with Tribal community children; Lifeline Mission, reaching out to young people involved in violence and also working with people with leprosy; and Rapha Mission working with vulnerable women.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - World Vision

2010-12-10T16:22:00.003Z

In New Zealand we had the opportunity to walk through an audio tour describing the typical life of an African child. This was provided by World Vision to allow us a glimpse into the battles these children face daily. From here on World Vision was the main charity that we followed around the world. It popped up in most if not all the countries we visited, as the funders of several brilliant child projects. From providing sports equipment to full child sponsorship, World Vision have a huge effect in all the places they work. They really focus a lot of their work on the importance of advocacy, so if you would like to know more about the work they do and the people they effect, please visit their website at www.worldvision.org.uk

2010-12-09T10:00:00.000Z

Lots of different charities these days give the option of buying someone the gift of life for Christmas. A simple click away online are many opportunities for us to buy a goat for a family with no income, a well for a waterless village, an education for an eager child, a life-saving mosquito net for the exposed or even meals for a month for someone hungry. If we have learnt one thing this year, it is the huge difference waiting to be made in the world through small gestures. Any one of these things make the world of difference to a life somewhere out there beyond the snow piling up outside our windows. So, don’t just think, act. Buy a friend or family member something different this year, give someone else hope in honour of them. Here are a few of the many websites that allow this incredible giving: www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped ; http://shop.wateraid.org/ ; www.presentaid.org

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Thank you

2010-12-08T11:54:00.000Z

Like most people Laura and I have both been very personally affected by cancer at some point in our lives. This terrible disease can destroy families, break up marriages, steal any traces of sleep from millions of worried minds and in the worst cases can even claim the lives of loved ones. However, there is hope, millions of lives have been saved through the discovery of new approaches to diagnose, prevent and treat different cancers. (Please see http://cancerresearchuk.org for up to date information on cancer research). Laura and I have also experienced the miraculous healing power of prayer in some cases and so, this advent we ask that you pray for healing for those affected by cancer. Healing of the cancer, healing of the emotions, healing of the stress, healing of the exhaustion, healing of relationships and healing of hearts broken by this terrible disease. But, we also offer a prayer of thanks for those in our lives that are still with us for another Christmas, after beating the terrible fight they faced with their diagnosis. For these lives we are truly grateful.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Irish Magic

2010-12-07T18:19:00.002Z

Barretstown is a magical place in Southern Ireland. Founded by Paul Newman in 1994, this charity work with children with serious illnesses, and their families from Ireland, the UK and all over Europe. Through the use of therapeutic recreation (games and activities with a therapeutic purpose), Barretstown help to restore confidence and a sense of childhood in these children, also working with the families to ensure everyone learns to see beyond the fear these illnesses bring, and once again see the magic of childhood. Like all charities right now, especially in Ireland, Barretstown feel the financial pressure of the current economic crisis and have had to make some cut-backs in the brilliant work they do. Please pray for the children affected by serious illness, their families, the people that work with them and for the continued financial support of this incredible charity. For more info please visit www.barretstown.org

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - Scripture Union Sri Lanka

2010-12-06T10:00:00.000Z

We were blessed to be the first international volunteers to visit Scripture Union in Colombia, Sri Lanka. During our time there we spent time with the staff organising programmes for children and young people. I think it’s been the busiest, most challenging time we have spent this year. Our days were jam packed with organising and running sessions and we only spend 6 full days in the country. It was quite an experience! We want to remember today all the staff we worked with, pray that God will give them energy and motivation to keep going. Pray also for Scripture Union’s finances, over the last few years they have lost a lot of support with people leaving the country. Pray also for the children and young people they work with. Especially remember the children and families on the streets of Sri Lanka

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calender - YWAM

2010-12-05T18:33:00.004Z

Hi, sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, had a few uploading problems!

We had the privilege of visiting YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Bangkok, Thailand earlier this year. It was a short visit but we were both very encouraged to see what YWAM were doing. Another thing that really spoke to us was the welcome we received. We weren’t around long enough to be of any real help to the project, but the staff made us feel very much part of the team and made arrangements for our time with them. YWAM work with many projects but we visited Kings Kids, a project which works with children living in the slums. They teach English and take the children out of the slums to a nearby park to play games in the sunlight and fresh air. Please join us in praying for them at this time, pray for the staff, that they will meet their financial target, most of the staff rely on sponsors. Please also pray for the children, pray for their health and education. Pray that through the staff they will know how precious they are and that they will have a joy filled Christmas!

Soul Touch Advent Prayer Calendar - Hillsong, Sydney

2010-12-03T09:09:00.002Z

In February we visited Hillsong Church in Sydney Australia, there we worked with CityCare on a project called Street Beat, which works with the homeless people on the streets of Sydney. They work in conjunction with St Vincent de Pauls (who serve food to the homeless every evening). Today we want to remember the friends we made there. We will be praying for the team that goes out on a weekly basis, that the right people will be in place so that work can continue and grow. We will also be remembering the homeless people on the streets of Sydney during this time, Christmas is a hard time for so many people, please join with us in praying that they can experience God’s love and the true meaning of Christmas.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calendar - I am the vine; you are the branches John 15:5

2010-12-02T09:44:00.000Z

“Vine Trust is an international, interdenominational, volunteering charity which seeks to enable volunteers to make a real and significant difference to some of the poorest children and communities in the world. We welcome people from all backgrounds who share our ethos of caring and our belief that whilst we can’t help everyone we can all help someone.”

The Vine trust began 25 years ago in the form of Branches Gift Shop Bo’ness. Branches is manned by a team of volunteers and each year they make a donation to the Vine Trust, since Branches opened The Vine Trust has grown and grown, to view a video of some of their work go to http://www.vinetrust.org/know/about/who_we_are We want to offer you an opportunity to pray and support for the Vine Trust today, You can do this by logging onto www.vinetrust.org where you can shop for gifts or leave a donation. Alternatively you can pop into Branches Gift Shop, Market Square Bo’ness and pick up some cards or a few gifts.

Soul Touch Prayer Advent Calendar - Day 1

2010-12-01T18:36:00.002Z

As Jenn mentioned we're turning the Soul Touch Blog into an advent calendar of of the places, people and charities that have touched us so much we want to share them with all our friends! We'll take a new theme each day and give you some prayer pointers, we hope to also inform you of some alternative christmas gifts along the way...

It's nearly a year since Jenn and I stated our Soul Touch journey... the trip began in January in New Zealand, we left Scotland on the 8th and arrived on the 10th, completely loosing the 9th of January altogether, something we’ve never quite gotten over! Anyway our first volunteer opportunity began with Scripture Union New Zealand, Jenn and I were leaders at a camp for 15-18 year olds on an island called Ponui. We spent a fun filled week with some amazing young people! This camp will be starting again mid January. We would like you to join us in prayer today for the staff of the camp, that enough volunteers come forward and that they are the right people. Also pray for the campers that will be attending, pray that they have a positive experience and that God can use their time on Ponui to encourage them. Also pray for their time after the camp, and for previous campers. Pray that their experiences can continue after camp has finished and that they don’t forget what they have learned about God’s love!

A different sort of Christmas sparkle...

2010-11-29T18:48:00.006Z

The past few weeks Laura and I have been really enjoying visiting a homeless ministry in down town Vancouver called Servants. As well as living in community in the poorest areas of the city and offering a friendly, warm place for dinner and friendship every night, Servants also have a group they call “Creative World Justice”. This group is a combination of missionaries, locals, friends from the neighbourhood and basically anyone else that wants to show up. They meet every Tuesday night after dinner for a time of prayer, worship and discussion of what actions can be taken to creatively fight for justice.

The topic focussed on switches every few months and as Laura and I first joined the meetings they were finishing off a long time of discussing what can only be described as slavery on cruise ships. Intrigued and a little confused I managed to corner Craig from Servants and asked him what this really meant. He sadly explained to me that most, if not all, cruise and cargo ships that travel the world are full of injustice and exploitation. These boats hire staff from our Western countries for the entertainment and the upper decks, the ones that mix with the paying customers. These staff are paid fairly enough, and as far as I can tell from conversations with people who have had jobs like these, they have a great time. However, below the decks is a very different story. The big ships stop in small countries, lots of them in Asia and pick up workers for their boats. They then take these workers to countries that have no labour laws and register them as their workers. This then means that very legally these ships can pay these poor people around $50 a month and have them working up to 7 days a week! The whole thing stinks of slave ships that we all pride ourselves in getting rid of so many years ago, but I wonder if we would be so proud after seeing the cramped and unhygienic living conditions of these modern-day slaves.
Craig explained to me that, being on the water so much, the ships have little accountability to any one source and, like me, most people have never even heard of this awful exploitation. So we happily, naively pay these big companies to cruise us on the holiday of our lives, completely unaware of the atrocities occurring in the well hidden, bottom, dirty sections of the ships.

So, to try to help, Servants don’t believe in only praying or only acting; they do both. For this issue their main goal is to raise awareness in the hope that companies will become accountable either to us (the paying customers) or even to governments that allow them to dock in their ports. Amongst these actions was a flash mob display of many, many “pirates” flooding into the local Quay demonstrating peacefully and in an entertaining way, whilst also informing intrigued passer-bys about the shocking truth. (Please see www.creativeworldjustice.org for photos and more information on how you can get involved).

But, like I mentioned, by the time Laura and I joined this interesting group of people on Tuesday nights they had began to switch focus to Advent (the time leading up to Christmas). One of the main things we have been discussing is the commercialised approach we have all slowly slipped more and more into over the years, and how this disguises the true meaning of Christmas; Jesus’ birth bringing peace, love, forgiveness, life and truth. For many years now Christmas has been more about presents and nights out than anything else, and it seems that more and more we are even falling away from understanding the importance and the pleasure of spending real time with people. Instead we send them a Christmas card, updating them with our news and secretly hope they wont hold us to our word when we mention meeting for an “overdue coffee”.

However the thing that shocked and disgusted me and Laura the most was when we found out that whilst the states alone spend $450 BILLION on Christmas each year, it would only cost $10 BILLION (that’s right, one 45th) for every single soul in the world to have access to fresh, clean water. (For more info see www.adventconspiracy.org) I literally almost threw up and burst into tears all at once when I heard this. Because the thing is, these numbers are not just statistics, they’re not just interesting, sad facts, these are the lives of actual people that are being unnecessarily thrown away every few seconds because we have so much greed and so little understanding. All of a sudden I wasn’t so excited about the Christmas lights appearing in the streets around us.

But the more I thought about it, the calmer I became. Because the thing is, no matter how naive or childish this may sound, I do still genuinely believe that most people are truly good at heart. Even those who seem completely lost and consumed with greed, I trust they have a spark of passion for humanity somewhere within them, as lost as it may seem. But the problem in our commercialised world, isn’t lack of people trying to help, it’s the overwhelming need we seem to find facing us at every turn. I mean, in all seriousness, when I used to live in the city, if I had given to every charity box I met between my flat and the train station I would have ended up on the streets myself. There is just so much, everywhere, and it does just get to the point where the guilt and the overwhelming confusion over where to help drives us to the easier option; closing down and not helping at all. But the one thing I have had hammered into my brain time and time again this year, is the MASSIVE difference the tiniest thing can make to somebody with nothing. We think that if we can’t commit to donating a certain amount a month then we shouldn’t give anything, but that is so far from the truth.

For as long as I can remember my mum has been putting together shoeboxes at Christmas time to send as gifts to those in countries such as Romania for people with nothing at Christmas. They generally contain some concoction of gloves, a scarf, a hat, toothpaste, a toothbrush, a toy and some sweeties. I have always enjoyed making these with her and love the idea of a little child with nothing smiling as he opens this jam-packed gift. But when I first went to Africa a few years ago and saw how extreme poverty can be, I began to wonder how big a difference these tiny things make in the scheme of such a vast problem. However, this year, as we have met hundreds of people all in need of one thing or another, I have been reminded again and again of how important these little differences are. Not only will that child have a memory of kindness from Christmas, he knows that he is cared for beyond his family or the people he knows, he is given a spark of hope, and for once in what can be a difficult day to day life, this child experiences a taste of the unconditional love that was meant for him.

Or, on an even smaller scale, work it out for yourself. At some point in the next few days as you struggle through the crazy snow Europe is getting, or try to warm yourself waiting for a bus, do me a favour and take off a layer of clothing. Remove your gloves or your scarf, or even just your hat. Just take one item of clothing off and I can promise you, within minutes you will have a whole new understanding of the huge effect you can have on someone else’s life through tiny acts of giving. You may not have money, or feel like you have many skills, but I am positive you have (or if you truly look for it, can find) time, and I guarantee you will have at least one person in your life that would love nothing more than your time.
I know, I know, this is beginning to sound like the end of a cheesy Christmas movie, but seriously, please let this be the year that we stop thinking and we start acting. Even if it is just little acts in our eyes, it wont be in the eyes of others, and you never know, your acting might just set the example others need to do their own “little” thing this Christmas.

If, you’re stuck for inspiration or ideas for the direction of your thoughts or prayers this advent, Laura and I are more than willing to help! The Soul Touch blog will officially become a 2010 advent calendar this year, with a small entry each day showing you the “door” into some of the inspiring lives and organisations we have encountered on our year so far. Please let these little messages resonate in your thoughts this advent and remember them as you reach for yet another reel of tinsel. Anybody that knows me knows I love glitter and all things sparkly, but there are also so many other people I know that despite all their own sparkle, they need so much more than glitter. Please remember them during this festive season.
Jenn x

Oh Canada!

2010-11-15T22:37:00.007Z

So here we are...Vancouver, our final stop on our amazing Soul Touch journey! Neither of us can believe we are at this point already!
We arrived in about a week ago to be met by Laura’s lovely cousin Moira at the airport and brought back to warm comfy beds after about 16 hours travelling from Guatemala. (Stupid less expensive diverted all over the place flights!!) Our main focus during our time in Vancouver is to sit down and process the year and get it all down on paper. Between us we are working on writing up a detailed description of the different organisations we have been blessed to work with this year, with the intention of having this information available to everyone involved in Soul Touch and anyone else interested. Individually we are also working on writing up a personal reflection of the journey. Soul Touch, as incredible as it is, passes insanely fast and can sometimes feel like a whirlwind that you are somehow caught up in. So whilst we are here we have been given the chance to take some time to work out what actually happened in the past year, what we learnt, how we grew (which I hope we did a bit at least!) and where to go from now on. This will hopefully also help us process things and reduce the effects of any reverse culture shock when we finally arrive home in bonny Scotland.
Vancouver is actually the perfect place for us as we are able to stay with Laura’s kind family and their amazing dog Jackson, but also our minister Albert has managed to put us in touch with a Theological Professor friend of his who lives just 10 minutes from us, who has kindly been helping to guide us with all our thoughts and get them onto paper without ending up in confused tears or over excited giggles (although they might come anyway).
Another reason Vancouver is so great for us stems back to a time many months ago when we were in Thailand working with YWAM (Youth With A Mission), and Laura and I stumbled across a friendly Canadian man named Kevin. As I was waiting for Laura to skype her family in the YWAM offices I became involved in a conversation with this man who was also taking advantage of the internet connection. I was shamefully quiet as we introduced ourselves to each other because in all, ugly, honesty I couldn’t really be bothered making conversation after a long day. However when Kevin mentioned he was only passing through Bangkok on his way home to Canada from Cambodia I asked unexpectedly if he had ever heard of a small ministry called “Servants Asia”. This had been my favourite ministry since I had read a book about them called “Urban Halo”, but nobody I had met so far had heard of them despite us being in Asia. So, expecting him to say no, I understandably leaped across the room towards him screaming at the top of my voice when he told me that in fact, he was part of that ministry and he had been in Cambodia finalising the details of his move out there as part of Servant Asia’s Mission. So after a long night of my incessant questioning, Kevin explained to us that he actually lived with the author of “Urban Halo” Craig and his wife Nay in Vancouver where they ran a homeless ministry. He promised to put us in touch as he ensured us volunteers are more than welcome and ... well... 8 months on, here we are!
Craig and Nay were, as Kevin had promised, more than welcoming and invited us to join them for dinner and a justice meeting on Tuesday nights. Servants Asia work on the basis of “incarnational ministry”. This is the idea that Jesus came down from Heaven to meet us where we are and so we must also live amongst the people we hope to help, rather than help them occasionally from our ivory towers. So, in Canada Servants have 2 houses in the rougher downtown area where homelessness is rife and they basically live in community with an open door. At 6pm every night they have dinner and anyone is welcome to join them. If they come on a regular basis they are expected to contribute either food or time, but basically anyone that wants can come and they all share a meal together. This means that the group can either have dinner with their fellow Servant’s missionaries that live in the community and one or two homeless people, or they can cram about 50 people that have shown up, around a table. Food is made for plenty and left overs eaten the following day. Everyone helps and nobody is considered at all “higher” or “lower” than anyone else.
Laura and I have had a brilliant time with Servants on Tuesdays and have popped along other times to just spend time with the great people there. However, worryingly for everyone else when we asked how we could best help we were assigned to the cooking rota a couple of nights a week!! This basically involves us rocking up with the will to make whatever we can think of from the donations they have been given on a mass scale! It’s great fun, and the dinner conversation is always so interesting with so many people from different backgrounds. I have to admit though, it’s much easier now we can fully understand the language people are speaking!
We were excited to hear that Kevin, who we met so many months ago, is actually coming back to Canada for a short time in a few weeks so we will get to see him before we leave. Also, our good friend Matt who we met in New Zealand, at the Scripture Union camp 3 days into the start of Soul Touch, is in Vancouver for a while and is meeting us tomorrow to come with us to this brilliant organisation. It will be great to see them both after so long.
Just a wee depressing (or inspiring depending on how motivational your reaction is) note to leave you on. We were discussing the lost meaning of Christmas at the last justice meeting and we were told that while the States alone spend $450 billion on Christmas each year, it would only take $10 billion for EVERYONE in the world to have access to clean water! So, maybe as we go to buy those extra unnecessary Christmas decorations, or another pile of chocolate, we should try to remember a few coins, thoughts or prayers for all of those still thirsting. Tesco is right, every little really does help.
Jenn xxx

Leaving Guatemala

2010-11-09T20:52:00.016Z

Hi folks, a bit late here but just wanted to fill you in on the work we were doing while in Guatemala. It really was a crazy busy and wonderful experience for Jenn and I. Like I mentioned in my previous blog we spent most afternoons working at The Lords Kitchen, but we also had the opportunity to visit a few more projects. One of which was the amazing project the Gyseppi runs (mentioned in Jenn’s previous blog). This man is a complete legend. Ha has the warmest face and sparlky eyes and is so in love with God! He has the biggest heart for the people on the streets and in particular the children.
Gyseppi sends a bus out every morning to pick up the children on the streets and bring them in for warm breakfast, after that they attend lessons in the school which Gyseppi has set up and funds himself, with God’s provision of course!
The children break midmorning for another snack and back for more classes, before Gyseppi’s bus drops them back with their parents they are fed lunch.
As if that wasn’t enough, Gyseppi heads back out to pick up another 50 older children, these are the ones who have to work for their parents in the morning.
Three evenings a week Gyseppi heads out on the streets to 9 destinations with sandwiches, soup and coffee for the parents of the children attending his school. Gyseppi begins the evening with a word from God, an encouraging story to show the people how valued they are by God and how loved they are.
By the way - yes I am his biggest fan!
We had the chance to visit the school and were out a few evenings with his team. It was great to be in amongst all that he is doing on the streets and the school was a definite highlight for Jenn and i.
On our last night with gyseppi he came to thank us for our time with him. Jenn and I were shocked when he told us he had learned a lot from us... eh?! This is just an example of how completely humble this man is! We were the one’s learning from his amazingly generous heart!

We spent the other two weekends visiting the sister church of Shekinah and a breakfast and afterschool club run by a family in the congregation.

In Shekinah we visited the childrens church which takes place on a Saturday and hosts about 300 children.
After the church we took some of the teenagers for a Ceilidh lesson which they were due to perform the following morning during the Sunday service. That afternoon we went to the Pastor’s house who taught me how to make chicharron (similar to pork scratching, but these one’s were made with chicken skin).
The following morning the young people performed their dance, and did a spectacular job! After that there was a guest speaker from the States who delivered a healing service which was amazing to see!

Later that week we left to visit Rodolfo and Evelyn at the breakfast club they have set up, this was a good hour from home so we had to leave very early. We arrived in time to serve over 90 children breakfast before painting one of the rooms in the house that had been acquired by Rodolfo and Evelyn for the childrens club they run. The house is perfect and has huge grounds

for games with the children in the good weather. The club is run by one man, Fester and a team of volunteers. Rodolfo and Evelyn both work full time so they can support the club financially. We spent the next couple of days working with them and attending their childrens church which runs on a Saturday morning.
Our final day in Guatemala had been set aside for a trip to Antigua, it’s a beautiful place and we had an amazing day there. In the evening we stopped off at the church for a quick baptism before heading home to pack.
Laura <><

Soul Touch takes over Stirling Uni!

2010-11-02T13:41:00.002Z

Yesterday, 1^st of November a handful of pupils from Wallace High School went to talk to some Stirling University students. The pupils who participated are in 4^th year and they are; Emma Hayashibara, Emma Whiteley, Charlotte Riley, Anna Kiakowski, Megan Gibbons and Shona MacLean and had a wonderful experience talking all about Soul Touch, what our mission is and what we do. We had made up a PowerPoint presentation prior to this event and we showed it at our talk. All the girls were very nervous-and to top it off Miss Bonnar told us there were going to be approximately 3000 people there! Of course when she told us there was only going to be about 300 we were put at ease a little J

By Shona MacLean, Aileen Ferguson and Ruth Porter J:P ☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙♂♀♪♫☼►◄↕‼¶§▬↨↑↓→←∟↔▲▼ !”#$%&’♥

The Constant Provider

2010-10-27T03:51:00.002+01:00

Once upon a time God put a lovely lady on this planet (specifically in the USA), gave her a brilliant husband and them both a burning passion for bringing His Kingdom to earth. Her name was Charlotte. Charlotte and her husband were called to Central and South America as missionaries travelling in any transport available and sleeping mainly in tents to ensure they reached the people in the most rural areas with the Gospel. When Charlotte was blessed with two boys and a girl the couple managed to raise their children on the mission field, understanding the importance of completing their purpose and mission. However, sadly Charlotte’s husband was taken from her at a young age to return home to his Father in Heaven. Charlotte was left alone with her children, but never had she heard the voice of God more clearly. And the country he was calling her was back to beautiful Guatemala, where she and her husband had already set up a successful feeding programme for poor kids.

Charlotte returned to the country she had once travelled with her husband, her heart full of passion for the many children who were lacking in material things, love or care due to poverty or the devastation of the continuous guerrilla war in the country. Eventually God showed Charlotte an area of isolated land in the countryside outside Guatemala that He wanted her to buy and use to help some of the thousands of children that were war orphans. So, she did what she was told. She bought the lifeless, waterless piece of empty land and began to do what she did best; pray. To the disbelief and shock of the builders Charlotte employed God provided her with fresh running water, a church building, land for the children to play in, several gorgeous buildings fit to home orphan boys, girls, widows and volunteers. Over the years Charlotte officially adopted 78 children in total. They were raised as a family rather than an institution, with help from her own biological children and volunteers, local and international.

During their time there they witnessed countless miracles and lived day to day relying on God’s provision. But as the Bible tells us, provide He did. Every one of the 78 children wanted for nothing materially, emotionally or spiritually. They attended the best school in the area, had nice clothes and things and were always well fed, guided and most importantly loved.

Sadly, as with the rest of the world, there is much greed and violence in Guatemala. One terrifying night the boy’s house was surrounded by a gang of armed men wanting to rob the place, regardless of who they might have to hurt or kill in order to do this. As they began to run at the weak wooden doors to the building with a large tree trunk the petrified carers and children in the building did what they did for everything they needed, and got down on there knees and began to pray. But not just weak words, these were people that relied in faith and they prayed with complete belief in the power of their God. Despite the lack of strength in the doors, the men were unable to break through them. Seeing one of the children looking out of one of the windows on the top floor, one of the gang members shot at the young boy. The bullet of course flew easily through the wooden walls of the house, but as it shot towards the boy’s knee it suddenly stopped in it’s tracks, and without leaving a mark on the child, the bullet fell to the ground! Excited, the little boy picked up the bullet to tell his friends and family that hadn’t already seen what had happened, about how his God had saved him.

Meanwhile, downstairs one of the other gang members had managed to break through one of the windows and was currently crawling into the empty downstairs room. However, as he entered the (what was thought by all at the home to be an) empty room, he suddenly saw before him something that God only knows about. Whatever it was, it terrified him to his core and sent him and the rest of his gang screaming in fear, guns in hand, away from the building.

A few years later there was another hold up in the home as a local gang managed to break into the building were Pastor Debbie (Charlotte’s daughter), Pastor Alvaro (Debbie’s husband) and their children lived. When the gang approached the door Pastor Alvaro steeped out of his house to meet them in an attempt to keep them from his family inside. However this angered the trigger-happy gang leader and without much thought he held the gun inches from the Pastor’s head and shot him. Alvaro fell to the floor, his face covered in blood, leaving Debbie shocked, terrified and more than anything, angry. However, she was more shocked when a few minutes later he stood up again completely unharmed! The shooter literally turned round to him and said “I just killed you”, totally confused in the presence of God. The gang made it away with lots of the valuables, but the van they stole was returned a few days later and the gang were caught and sent to jail (just as Charlotte prophesised at the time of the robbery). After the gang had left, Debbie and Alvaro studied the wall behind where he had been when he was shot. Not only had the bullet clearly hit the wall, despite apparently missing his head, the route it had taken from the gun went directly through the exact space he had been kneeling. The only scar Alvaro was left with from the attack was the marks of pieces shrapnel that made the shape of a cross around his eye, leaving his eye completely unharmed.

There are many more stories of miracles and provision that Charlotte and her friends and family could tell you, but I can’t possibly write down even the few that we have been told so far. Thankfully, she is being encouraged to write a book to share her amazing life with everyone. So we will let you know when we hear more news about this.

When the 78 children Charlotte adopted grew up, she knew it was time to shut the home, as she was never called to run an orphanage, but just to raise the children she was given. The land is now used as another church and also for a children’s church on a Saturday for the many local children that needed a place to learn about God. It is also used for retreats for different missions teams as the area in which it is situated is very beautiful and relaxing.

For a short while Charlotte was sent to the Ukraine and Russia church planting, but it wasn’t long before God put Guatemala back on her kind heart. However, this time the need she was called to was the many thousands of people that live on the streets in Guatemala. So, faithful as ever, Charlotte returned to Guatemala and with the help of her daughter and husband (Pastor Alvaro and Debbie, that we are living with) and others within the ministry (including Jan that we spend most of our time with), she began to visit these people where they lived on the streets. They arrived in cars full of hot soup, coffee, sandwiches and the love of the Gospel. Over time they befriended many, provided for more and brought so many to know the loving life that was meant for them.

After some time Charlotte realised that they could reach more people if they had a place they could gather. God provided a huge building with a large courtyard, rent free in the perfect area for the homeless people to reach, volunteers, food and a brilliant leader (Jan). And in 2001 the Lord’s Kitchen was born; the first “soup kitchen” in Guatemala. However, Gyseppi, a man trained in homeless ministry by Charlotte, still continues to go out on the streets 3 nights a week the same way they did all those years before, bringing warm food, and an even warmer heart.

Working here with these people is a real reminder that God doesn’t just exist; He doesn’t just love you; He is powerful and waiting to look after you. You just need to be willing to let Him.

Jenn xx
(sorry about the lack of photos again, the connction really isn't great for uploading, will try get some up soon!)

A story of hope: Nabakooza Shivan

2010-10-25T10:33:00.005+01:00

Soul Touch continue to thank God for the privilege it is to have so many friends and family in Dwelling Places, Uganda. We are continually blessed and encouraged by the way that they show love, love, love to children! Dwelling Places, we love you and feel so inspired by you as you witness the love of Christ to people all over the world! Praise God for what he has done and is still to do! x

Nabakooza Shivan is a six-year-old girl who was diagnosed several years ago with a congenital heart defect called Patent Ductus Arteriosus. This means she had a hole in her heart that should have closed at birth. If left untreated, this condition could cause fluid to build up in the lungs, leading to heart failure and eventually death. Shivan is small for her age, appearing to be about three years old. In addition, Shivan is deaf and mute. It is still unknown whether this is related to her heart condition or not. She was receiving treatment from Mulago Hospital, and they had advised surgery some years back but Shivan’s parents were unable to raise the money—totalling 900,000 Ugandan Shillings (£250 or $400) at that time. Shivan’s condition continued to deteriorate and therefore started medication to dispose of excess fluid in her body. Although Shivan was not recruited onto the Dwelling Places program, we rejoice that through our extended services to the community she has a bright future. We greatly appreciate Dr. Allan and the Kilkeel team for their selfless giving.

In June this year, the Health Department at Dwelling Places held an outreach clinic in the Katwe slums which Shivan attended. She was in the care of her aunt who has been supported by Dwelling Places on the Family Empowerment Program. Dr. Allan Poots from Northern Ireland was there at the time to examine Shivan. He referred the young girl for further tests at Mulago Hospital.By this time, the operation’s cost totalled 2,405,000 Ugandan Shillings (£670 or $1070). The funds were donated by Dr. Allan and the team who came from Kilkeel Church in Northern Ireland. Shivan finally went for surgery on the 13

th of September, and the operation was successful. She spent two days in the Intensive Care Unit after surgery, three days in the main ward, and then she was discharged on the 18th of September. On the 21st she went back for the stitches to be removed. She has completely recovered from the operation and is a joyful and active child.

Dwelling Places

‘Until every child has a chest to rest his head on and a place to call home’

Amy Schmidt Concert

2010-10-19T13:38:00.001+01:00

Upcoming star Amy Schmidt from Nebraska in America, came to Wallace High School and did a mini concert for the students. It was a great success despite short notice. Her easy listening style got everybody listening and tapping their feet to the rhythm. Many of the young students asked for her autograph, and got their pictures taken with her. It wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the well organised and quick thinking members of Soultouch, thank you Amy and good luck for the future!

The Lords Kitchen(sorry can't upload pics from here :( )

2010-10-14T02:02:00.003+01:00

We spent our last Saturday in Oruro teaching the teenagers ceilidh dancing, once we had successfully trained them in the Canadian Barn Dance and the Dashing White Sergeant we demonstrated for the church dance teacher. After our performance she asked us if we would be willing to dance during the Sunday morning service! I was slightly nervous as ceilidh dancing is quite tiring at the best of times, but thousands of feet above sea level it’s somewhat harder!!!! But of course Jenn and I agreed to take part... fun was had by all and we were surprised when the congregation to begin to clap along!
Later in the week we spent some time painting a mural with the children on the wall at the Arbol del Angel centre... was a great day, we were given free reign so we painted a scottish girl with a bolivian girl and further along we painted the whole world in God's hands.
The day before we were due to leave Oruro we had an opportunity to visit the prison in Cochabamba, a four hour bus journey from Oruro. We left at 4am for the bus terminal, well wrapped up as Oruro is rather chilly at night. We arrived in Cochabamba around 9am and headed for the prison offices to meet with some of the staff. I’m afraid our Spanish is fairly limited so we’re not sure exactly what was discussed at this meeting but everyone was very friendly and we got a coke! After that 6 of us jumped in a four seater taxi for a half hour drive to the prison, it was an experience... we arrived at the prison entrance, our passports and bags were checked, now all that was left was a body check followed by a smiley face stamp (seriously!) before we were allowed to enter.
The prison was much more open and nicer than the one in Oruro. We were there to visit a man with children living Oruro who attend the Arbol del Angel (Angel Tree) project. The staff told him stories and delivered some letters from his children, his eyes filled up as he explained he’s been there for 2 years and had 3 to go, it’s such a long time when his 3 children are so young, all of them are still of primary school age. He took some paper to write replies to his daughter and sons. While he was writing I had an opportunity to do a spot of people watching. There were so many young families. Dad’s in prison and mum’s bringing children in to visit them. One woman had a new born baby with her and when she handed him to his father his face lit up, I can’t imagine what that must feel like for either of them. I spotted a few more families and couples spending the only quality time they would get in full view of everyone before I noticed a young family, husband wife and son playing and talking. A few moments later the woman turned around to reveal a heavily pregnant tummy! It’s such a sad place to be! This was a ‘nice’ prison, but nothing can ever replace these moments that families are missing out on, fathers missing the birth of their children or being around to help with the other kids while mum’s are carrying. It was a sad day, but beautiful to be part of that small piece of communication provided by Arbol del Angel.
Next day we left for La Paz where we planned to visit Hossana and Nelson after his operation. Unfortunately his operation had been cancelled as he has bronchitis and they need to wait until he has fully recovered from that before he goes through surgery. Please pray that the operation is a success. We were sad to have missed them in La Paz but took advantage of the time and had an early night so we were fresh for our three plane rides the following morning.
Our first flight was from La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru. We had a short wait there which was spent in the transfers line to have our bags scanned, what we were supposed to have done to our bags during a flight I don’t know. Our next stop was in San Jose, Costa Rica. It didn’t take long before Jenn sniffed out a Cinnabon where we spent the next 5 hours.... not eating the whole time!
We arrived in Guatemala around 8pm, we were collected at the airport by Pastor Alvaro and Debbie, his wife. They brought us to their beautiful home, which is provided by a member of their congregation, where Debbie had organised space for Jenn and I to unpack, having done a fair bit of travelling herself she had thought of everything. She put the hot water on and left us to get washed and ready for bed. Before we went to sleep she spent a little bit of time chatting with us, but we were ready for an early night after a long day.
The next morning we were up and ready for church, we were introduced to Janet who was going to translate for us during the service. We were excited as this was going to be the first sermon we would have understood since Argentina! We weren’t disappointed!!! After the service we went for a famous Guatemalan Pollo Campero (Country Chicken), which lived up to it’s excellent reputation!!!! This was followed by a dulce de leche (caramel) ice cream and a relaxing Sunday afternoon lounging in the house.
The last few mornings we’ve spent in the church painting walls which are damaged with dampness after the worst floods Guatemala has ever seen. Jenn and I are fairly practical so it’s nice to see the instant result of our labour ;)
We’re also both very much people’s persons so the highlight of our day is spent in the afternoon at the Lords Kitchen, a homeless mission in Guatemala City, feeding between 450 and 750 people daily. It’s an amazing experience, there’s such a variation of people. Some individuals have just always lived on the streets, some have become homeless through circumstances and some have ended up there through drug or alcohol problems. I was very impressed with how everyone was treated as individuals and how everyone is so well respected. There was even staff members there to help people who couldn’t manage (due to too many kids, disabilities or even one too many) to their tables. The relationships between the staff and community are quite inspiring, they all seem to know one another and the staff clearly have a huge passion for what they are doing there. We’re both feeling energized and are very much looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks volunteering here!
Oh another bit of good news is that a fundraiser was held by my amazing family last Friday evening. The night raised £900, much more than we were expecting or even hoping for! It means we are almost there with the money needed to complete the trip so thanks so much to everyone who was involved in the evening, whether you donated prizes, helped with the organising or showed up. We really do thank God for his provision this year and for the encouraging, caring and generous family and friends Jenn and I have been blessed with! God only knows we could never have done it without you!
Laura xXx

Heroes behind bars

2010-10-05T20:07:00.005+01:00

“Mammy!” is not the word you would expect to echo around the cold tall walls of a prison. However, sadly that is the case here in Oruro in Bolivia. With the lack of the same social care we benefit from in the UK, children who have criminal parents here often have nowhere else to go and so if they cannot live with a relative and both parents are in jail (which seems to be the case all too often), or if they depend on only one parent, then when that parent gets sent to jail so does the child. The result is a “mother’s courtyard”, a small courtyard in the prison where children live in small rooms with their siblings and mother for the duration of her sentence. The children still attend school and are able to leave the prison when collected by someone, but of course this is far from the life they should be leading. Never can they be walked to school by their parents, or have them smiling in the audience at a school play, their surroundings are cold and grey, without grass or a park to play on in sight, and the idea of inviting friends home for dinner is as crazy as the idea of children in prison.
Laura and I have been working with a project here in Oruro called Angel Tree (or Arbol del Angel in Espanol). This project was set up in Oruro by a woman called Gabriela, a lawyer who saw the need of the children in the prisons all too often during her visits with clients. Arbol del Angel have a centre on the back of their church that children with parents in prison or children who live in the prisons can come to every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for help with their homework, some Bible teaching, lunch, games, snacks, emotional support and social time with children in similar situations to their own. The centre is absolutely brilliant, with great resources, good moral and health values and run by a brilliant, caring team. They provide the children with much needed structure, confidence building and understanding relationships. This is essential for these children as I’m sure we all know that it can be all too easy for children in such situations to follow in their parent’s footsteps. And even forgetting all these benefits, the centre is a safe building full of colour and laughter, a million miles from their prison homes.
During our stay here Laura and I have been able to visit the prison a couple of times. The first time was just to speak with the prisoners and meet some of the parents of the children. It was interesting for us as we were surprised by several things. For example the prisoners seem to be able to fill their rooms with hundreds of belongs, cover the walls in photos of naked women, but strangest of all for us was when Laura came across one prisoner’s collection of empty whisky bottles!
We had been told by the women from Arbol del Angel that we would be meeting lots of male prisoners and so we had to dress “sensibly”. So, taking this advice to heart maybe a bit too much, Laura and I didn’t wash our hair, wore fully covering clothes, no make up and barely washed our faces! But thankfully, all of the prisoners were not just friendly and nice to us they were all respectful and never made us feel uncomfortable. I think a lot of that respect came from the fact that we were with Arbol del Angel, which is a great testimony for the work they do.
The following day we returned to the prison (yes we were allowed out!) with the children for a performance. The prison were having some kind of entertainment day with art work and musicians visiting and our children had prepared a dance for the event. I was really excited about this as I’m sure it means a lot to both them and their parents that they can share something like this that with any other organisation they would miss. The kids all did a great job and seemed to enjoy the day and it was lovely for us to see which kids matched with which parents. Leaving however was a bit more difficult. Our hearts broke in two. One half wept for the many children we were leaving behind in their concrete home, and the other for the children and parents that struggled to once again say goodbye to each other. At that point I have to say I started to almost understand having the kids living in the jail. It was just so sad watching them leave their parents behind.
It’s really nice for us to be working with such a well-run and well-equipped project as we get to just enjoy the brilliant work they are doing and not worry too much about what they are lacking as we have done with some less developed projects. But one thing I do find difficult here is to remember it is never my place to judge others. I have always had the privilege of having loving parents that have more than provided for me both emotionally and materially, and so I know I can never properly empathise with or understand desperate poverty (which I’m sure is the reason at least some of these parents have ended up in prison) and I know for a fact that I would do my all to provide for my family, which isn’t always easy for everyone; but I also can’t understand how all of these parents have been forced to end up taking a route that leads to their child living in a prison or growing up with a parent in jail. However, as I keep reminding myself never to judge, especially what I don’t know, I am full of sorrow and compassion for these parents. I don’t have any children yet, but if I even think about how much I love other people’s children I can’t imagine how it must feel to feel like you are letting them down in such a huge way.
During our first visit I noticed the “comforts” in the material things allowed to the prisoners. But on our second visit I had a much deeper understanding of the situation and what they had been forced to give up as I watched a father of three dish out small pocket money to his kids and hug them goodbye as they clung to him at the gate. The scene looked normal for a prison gate, but when you looked closer and into their eyes, it was clear that these small children were hugging their Daddy who, like all other children, was their hero, and he was desperately clinging to his children’s innocent minds, knowing fully that one day that view may change and all he could do is wait in his concrete box hoping to be their hero once again. I am just so sorry things ever got so desperate for these families that it could end up like this, but I am fully confident the children will be stronger than they ever could be without Arbol del Angel, and for that I am thankful.
Jenn xx

City of Angels

2010-09-27T18:48:00.003+01:00

hey everyone, just a wee quick blog to let you all know we have arrived safe and sound in cold oruro (still in bolivia for those of you that have similar geography skills to me!). we are staying in the flat of a missionary who has kindly allowed us to stay there whilst she is away in Cuba. Its so strange for us to have a place to ourselves (and the first time this year) but there are lots of meeting etc that take place in the house through the week with the charity we will be working with here "angel tree", so we are never really alone. Everyone has given us such a lovely welcome, and although we are still not totally sure of the specific work we will be doing here we have been shown around the building where Angel Tree work with children (lots whom have one or both of their parents in prison, and some who even have to live in prison with them), and it looks like a great project.
Its colder here than Sucre and a higher altitude so we are struggling a bit of an embarassing amount with the stairs and hills, but im sure we will adapt again soon enough!
We dont have great internet access here, but will be in touch with details of the work soon enough!!

love and blessings

Jenn xxxx

Salt and Silence

2010-09-21T23:18:00.009+01:00

Bolivia is home to the world’s biggest salt desert, with over 10 billion tons of salt it is 3million acres and rests at 12,000 feet above sea level. The salt is covered in water which creates the effect of the horizon merging into the sky. With volcanoes and mountains in the backdrop, this sight draws tourists in their masses from all over the world. In January 2009 a young missionary couple, Jessica and Luke, set out with their 2 infant girls on a trip across the salt flats after preaching in a nearby town. They had been considering planting their ministry around this area and so wanted to check it out further. Knowing where they were heading, Jessica and Luke felt confident enough to go in their truck independent of tour guides. The family enjoyed the journey immensely, squealing at the sights and stopping to take advantage of some the many beautiful photo opportunities. They were a little confused when they reached the village at the bottom of the volcano they had been heading towards, to find there wasn’t a single soul there. However they weren’t completely shocked as they were both well aware that in villages like this it would often be the case that the people would be away in fields elsewhere working long days. So, as it was coming into the late afternoon Jessica and Luke decided it would be best to start on the drive back to make sure to be at the hotel before dark.
However not long into the journey the car came to a sudden jolt as the engine cut out. Concerned, Luke got out of the car and had a look under the hood. He discovered a blown fuse, and was able to replace it quickly. Nevertheless when he started the engine again the new fuse blew as well. This happened again with a third fuse, when Jessica and Luke were hit by the truth of the situation. They were stuck. Studying the map desperately they worked out that they must be around 20 miles from the entrance to the salt flats and safety. The sun was beginning to go down so the couple tried their hardest to calm their upset daughters as they settled down in their truck for a sleepless night.
Jessica and Luke spent the night praying and crying, to wake up early to a beautiful sunrise and thankfully the perfect weather conditions for the walk they were facing. Carrying a daughter each, strapped with all their water and food, a map in hand and hope in their hearts Jessica and Luke set out for the long walk ahead. The couple both wore flip flops on their feet (which shockingly never broke) and as they trudged through the many miles of solid sand covered inches deep in water the salt wore on their feet and legs and began to burn through their skin. The salt water numbed them enough to allow them to keep walking, but had it not been for the pure necessity and their desire to get their children to safety, I’m sure they may have collapsed with the pain.
After 11 painful hours of walking, the exhausted family came to “land”. They stumbled across a small thin road that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Being out of the salt water increased the huge pain they were in and it was now starting to get dark again. Looking around desperately for a possible place to sleep for the night they came across a grave yard with many tombs. Despite being told by everyone that the whole region they were in didn’t have a mobile phone reception, Luke took his from his pocket and turned it on to see if the little battery he had left would find anything. With their God looking down on them, Luke managed to find one tiny spot in the graveyard where he managed to get a signal. Unfortunately they didn’t know the area code for the closest town, but they frantically called their friends from the other side of Bolivia. Eventually they got through to a fellow missionary who acted quickly, getting in touch with friends in Uyuni (a town close to the desert) trying to explain where the lost family where. But without many landscapes, or much of a mobile reception working out their position was proving to be very difficult and a night sleeping behind a tomb was beginning to look more and more likely.
However, just as things were looking really desperate, a truck full of people returning from work for the day approached them. Jessica hobbled to the road to flag them down and explain what had happened, begging for help. Despite being a bit freaked out by the crazy white woman that had just seemed to appear from a graveyard in the middle of nowhere, the men in the truck emptied themselves out so the driver could drive the family to the town and then come back for them. Luke and Jessica were collected at the police station by a friend’s father and brother who immediately drove them to their hotel to get them washed up and into a bed, off their destroyed feet. On the journey to the road the family realised how truly blessed they were as they were told that tours don’t go out to the salt flats during this season as it was too dangerous and that may people doing it alone had in fact died there.
Within a few days Luke and Jessica had been looked after by so many people. Childcare was provided by doting women, the truck had been collected and fixed and the family had been transported from the Hotel to Sucre Hospital for proper medical attention. Never having considered Sucre as a place to start their ministry they knew of but hadn’t yet met one of their fellow missionaries, Caroline. Caroline came to the hospital to visit the couple and after their immediate medical needs were addressed she offered to take them to her home were they could rest (neither could walk properly and Luke would be bed-ridden for a few weeks yet).
As the family rested in Caroline’s house they met the community she worked with; the deaf community of Sucre. Everyday Luke was visited in is sick bed by more and more of the local deaf men and women, offering him kindness and company. For most people this might have been difficult due to a possible break down in communication. However, God had prepared Luke for this long ago, and in fact he had made a deaf friend at 8 years old when he learnt to sign. From then on his life had been filled randomly with more and more signing deaf friends. Luke has therefore been a signing interpreter many times before for many years.
It was slowly revealed that as Caroline is single, the community really wanted a couple to come and set up a church for the deaf in Sucre. After some time of healing and prayer Jessica, Luke and their two beautiful daughters moved to Sucre to start laying the foundations for what looks like it is going to be an excellent church for the deaf.
Hearing this incredible story through our friends, Laura, Banny (our Spanish teacher, who is currently learning sign language) and I attended a service with them on Sunday. Laura and I have been to many services over the year where they are preaching in a different language and so we were happy to just sit back and take it in. But amazingly Luke was able to sign in Bolivian sign language and speak in English and sometimes switch to Spanish when necessary! It was a brilliant experience, especially as we tried to join in the worship: signing the words to a worship song together.
We also seemed to be in the right place at the right time as the deaf community were having a deaf awareness march the very next day which we were invited to participate in. The purpose of the march was to tell people that these people are deaf and in no way did that mean stupid. In many of the rural areas in many countries (including Bolivia) deaf children can be seen as a curse and are never given a way to communicate with the world, and rather are used as slaves or hidden completely from the world.
The march was so good, but it was strange for us to be involved in something like this that was done in silence! We are so used to the big marching bands! But they seemed to make a real impact. Leaflets with the symbol for love (see photo of me and Laura) were handed out with the slogan “my eyes can hear you and my hands can talk to you”, with leaflets with the alphabet in Bolivian finger spelling. At one point a group of older men stopped what they were doing to face the march and clap slowly as a sign of appreciation.
Despite how fun the past few days have been for us, how much we’ve learnt and how happy it made us that these brave people have the courage to march for their rights, we were told that there are still an estimated 8000 deaf people unaccounted for in Bolivia. Either they are embarrassed, in denial, or hidden. Whatever the reason, I pray for these people to know how loved they are and how fully human they are.
One thing that does continue to encourage and motivate me around the world, is despite the language, the country or the communication barriers we have come across, the sound of laughter and the appreciation of a warm smile is universal. And even if that laughter can’t be heard by some, the release it brings is understood by all.

Hosanna and Nelson

2010-09-17T22:32:00.006+01:00

A few weeks ago Jenn and I moved in with two girls from Brazil. The girls studied at a Brazilian seminary school and have come to work in Sucre for a few years. Last week I had the pleasure of accompanying one of them, Hosanna, to the hospital to visit a very special little boy named Nelson. Nelson was born with problems in his oesophagus which means he was unable to swallow leaving him living in hospital and as a result had been abandoned by his birth parents. One day during while Hosanna was visiting someone in the hospital she met Nelson, when she asked the doctors about him her heart filled with love for this wee boy and she began to visit him daily. After a while Nelson’s father signed over power of attorney to Hosanna so she was now able to make any medical decisions on his behalf.

Hosanna managed to save money from her tight missionary budget and take Nelson from Sucre to La Paz for an operation which would mean that liquidised food could now be pumped straight into his stomach via a tube. This has helped with Nelson’s growth but he is still very small for his age. Hosanna now has the money together to take him back to La Paz for a second operation, and this is quite amazing... they are going to attach his intestine to his throat so that nelson can begin to eat normally.
When we walked into the hospital ward nelson was lying on his bed being fed by 4 staff members. His face lit up as soon as he saw Hosanna, mama he called out to her with a huge smile on his face. Hosanna’s face was equally lit up at the sight of her boy. Hosanna pulled out a balloon for him and began to play with him while he was lying there. After he had finished being fed she pulled colouring pencils and paper from her bag and began to draw, I was super impressed when he was done and he began to tidy up, this boy is so independent, I tried to help him put his pencils away but one look told me to stop and made me laugh a lot! I loved watching Hosanna and Nelson and really see how much they mean to one another.
She considers him in all she does and talks about, during a football match last week I told Hosanna I wanted to visit Brazil in 2014 for the World Cup, she nodded profusely and showed me what height Nelson would be by then. It’s so clear this girl is completely in love with this wee boy. Hosanna would love to adopt Nelson, but that’s a bit tricky as she’s sponsored to be here and isn’t in a financial position to support herself and a child also Hosanna’s single, and as we’re in Bolivia unless Nelson’s parents sign him over to her specifically then as a single person she’s unable to adopt. Even then the adoption process could take years before she is able to bring him home to live with her.
This is a situation that is very much on our hearts at the moment, so please feel free to join us in prayer for Hosanna and Nelson, pray for their relationship, for their health and that God will find a way for them to be together as soon as possible. Please also feel free to get in touch with Jenn and I if you have any more questions regarding the situation or think you might be able to help in any way.
Love and blessings,
Laura <><>

friendship covered in dust

2010-09-13T01:34:00.002+01:00

Last week Laura and I began work with the children’s charity Horno Casa. This is a charity aiming to encourage education and play for children from one of the poorer areas on the outskirts of the city in Sucre. This community really has very little, is very dirty and dusty and the serious lack of clean water in the area is sadly clear from the physical appearance of the children. Horno Casa runs groups for all ages every afternoon. The main focus for the older, school attending, children is for them to complete their homework in a quiet and structured environment where help can be provided. For the younger children it’s a time for organised play, learning, socialising and learning about values and Bible stories. At the end of the session the kids are then all given a nutritious snack that they all get very excited about! The programme was set up originally by a Bolivian man, but is currently run mainly by a group of Brazilian missionaries (1 of whom is 1 of our lovely new flatmates!).
Over the year Laura and I have discovered our preferred age groups to work with and so with the hope to be where we can help the most Laura is working with the slightly older, school-aged children and I am in with the gorgeous wee teeny tots!
Every afternoon from Tuesday to Friday we take the bus to the final stop, leaving behind the pretty white city and arrive up the hills in the dust-filled outskirts of Sucre. Generally by the time we turn the corner into the Horno Casa area the bus has acquired an entourage of screaming excited kids running to greet us with hugs and kisses as we disembark. We then split into 3 groups according to age and head to our different rooms. The rooms are very basic and always filled with dust from outside, but they still seem to adequately provide a kind of haven for these kids. The first half hour for my kiddies is free play where I generally become exhausted spinning squealing child after squealing child round and round in circles, but it’s that great, had too much fun and fresh air type of exhausted. After all this excitement the kids are brought together and we have group games songs and lessons, which they seem to thrive on.
We are both loving working with Horno Casa and I can’t wait to learn more about them. One thing I’m sure of however is that these children are beautiful in more ways than a pile of dust and lack of water can cover up and I can’t wait to know them more.

Aprendiendo Espanol...

2010-09-05T00:52:00.008+01:00

Due to the lack of English in Bolivia and our lack of Spanish, Laura and I decided to spend our first week in Sucre as students at an intensive Spanish course. We had originally thought we wouldn’t have the money for this which had worried us but then as we were introduced to different people at church on Sunday a beautiful lady Elly told us that she has just moved away from the main language school to a new smaller, cheaper school, and as it is Christian-run she could work out a discount for us! We were ecstatic and relieved as the language is crucial here!
So the past week has been spent with 4 hours of language classes in the mornings and then about 3 or 4 hours of homework at night. On top of that though our lovely host Jan has been introducing us to some of the people and missionaries at their church, hosting several lunches and teas for lots of really nice and interesting guests. The Spanish school we are attending also offer several activities in the evenings to provide opportunities to practice the language and also get to know each other and Bolivia more.
So on Tuesday we had a tour around the beautiful city of Sucre. I didn’t know what to expect from Sucre, but i definitely never expected to love it so much! The architecture and feel of the whole place is breath taking and the surrounding mountains provide an idyllic backdrop. We spend most of our morning walks to class smiling at the beautiful scenery surrounding us. It’s so cool as well to see all the wee women walking around in their traditional dress on a daily basis. We have been very few places that are so seeped in tradition as Sucre is. And we love it!
On Wednesday poor Laura had an upset tummy and so we had to call in sick to classes to postpone that class until next Monday. This did however give me the opportunity to go with Jan to her Bolivian dance/aerobics exercise class! I had so much fun, although I couldn’t believe the way that some of the women there were able to move their hips! I giggled lots and worked hard on the moves (although I struggled a bit with the fast pace with the altitude sickness in my head!)
Thankfully Laura woke up feeling much better on Thursday, so we made it along to our class in the morning and then Spanish karaoke at night. Laura was so excited about this as everyone that knows her knows she is a karaoke queen, I however had horrible images of being forced to take the mic and attempt to sing in front of the people from the Spanish school that I barely knew. But it turned out to be much more relaxed than that, with no mic and everyone singing together! I’m still not so sure however that I will take Laura up on her suggestion to go again next week!
Friday came with roasting hot sun which was nice and a rather fun, more relaxed, less verb-filled Spanish lesson. We were even nicely surprised to manage a broken conversation in Spanish over lunch with some lovely Brazilian missionary girls. After some more homework time we headed out with Jan to meet the other people from the school for a Bolivian cuisine class. It was lots of fun and we were shown how to make some yummy stuffed potato ball things that are then covered in batter, fried and served with salsa. I will definitely be making these again in the future!
We are having a good time in Bolivia so far and are both really looking forward to getting stuck in helping working with the local street kids at a homework group next week! We are also excited to be moving in with 2 Brazilian missionary girls for the next few weeks who don't speak much English but seem great fun. I just hope our Spanish stretches far enough!!
Jenn xxx

The wheels on the bus go round and round... and round and round and round and round!

2010-08-29T23:30:00.004+01:00

On Wednesday morning we met with a few members of the social outreach team from San Andres to chat about our experiences during our time in Buenos Aires. We chatted over what we had learned(poco espaniol, how effective nonverbal communication can be, how much of an encouragement sharing testimonies can be, people and things from Argentina are known as Argentine and not Argentinean!) what we had enjoyed (the great organisation of our programme, the variation in work, the people, in particular our hosts) and what had surprised us (the cost of living in comparison to the wages, the amount of dolce de leche (caramel) people eat!). Overall Argentina had been such a fun learning curve for us both and we only wish we could have spent more time there!

Now it was time for a two day bus journey to Bolivia, 45hour on a bus, and Jenn and I were feeling quite excited about it. We had seen the luxury buses and they looked so comfortable! So we headed to get a train into town where the bus station was. It was about 11am so we thought the train would be pretty quiet, but we were wrong, there were no seats and worse still there wasn’t room near a handle to hold on for support, bear in mind Jenn and I had HUGE rucksacks on our backs and small one’s over our front, plus poor Jenn had an extra bag of food(and I use that term loosely!) to keep hunger at bay until Friday! It was an interesting journey, but it all seemed so worth it when we thought about the comfortable bus we would be meeting in town.

We arrived a little later than expected into town so it was a bit of a rush to the bus station to drop off our luggage, but thankfully we made it in time, there wasn’t much time until the bus arrived so we found the right stance and waited for our bus to arrive. 15 minutes before it was due I was getting a little panicky that we were in the right place, 10 minutes later there was still no bus, and no one around to ask for advice! It was now about ten past one, and our bus had been due to leave at 1pm. One of the porters must have noticed our concerned faces and came over to help, he pointed to tell us that we were in the right place, so again we relaxed and felt excited about the bus!

The bus pulled up about 20 minutes late, we pulled out our tickets and waited to board, as we entered the bus we began looking for the seats toward the front of the lower deck that we had requested as they are much better for preventing motion sickness, but the girl directed us upstairs, and to the very back seats, which hardly even reclined as the window was in the way! This was a bit of a concern, and the bus looked nothing like the one in the pictures we had seen... but it all worked out well, we ended up having the back section of the bus to ourselves and lots of room to spread out.

We had been promised breakfasts, evening meals and snacks in between during our journey, so after a little nap we woke up to some crisps, biscuits and fizzy juice. At that point we weren’t feeling to hopeful about dinner! We were pleased when we noticed that the bus stopped at a cafe t pick up our evening meal, roast beef, mash and some bread, cold meat and cheese. Result!

We were now ready for a good nights sleep, and in actual fact it was, apart from the fact that the bus was a bit cold we managed to find fairly comfortable spots (considering) and settled for the evening, we woke up early to some breakfast and some beautiful scenery! I enjoyed the view for a while and then settled for a little nap as there wasn’t much else to do.

I woke up an hour or so later and could hardly breathe, thinking there must be something wrong with the air conditioning I moved around the bus trying to catch a breath! Early afternoon we stopped at the border and I was so pleased that I could get off the bus and catch some fresh air, so off we headed. I stepped off and realised it wasn’t the AC on the bus, it was the altitude! Jenn and I had never experienced this so we weren’t quite sure what to expect, it was all a bit of a shock. We sat on the pavements as it was far too much effort to stand up and chatted about the things that would make us feel better. On this list food was included, so we decided to collect some from the bus, we both stood up quickly and the light headed feeling came over us instantly, it’s like when you get out of bed too fast, only worse!

We spent about 3 or 4 hours at the border in the not so fresh air before finally arriving in Bolivia. Back on the bus and we settled for some food, we were only on the bus about 10 minutes when it stopped and everyone got off. We knew we had to switch busses but hadn’t realised it was so soon. We collected our luggage and walked to the next bus. We now had to pay for our bags to be taken on the next bus, and then pay a tax for using the bus station before being led onto a HOT bus with no toilet. I wasn’t impressed when a very intimidating looking policeman got on the bus, he was searching under peoples seats and repeating something in Spanish, I was dreading him reaching us! But as he approached I could hear more clearly that he was saying ‘buenos noches’ over and over greeting everyone he passed. Jenn was amused as I couldn’t hide the delight on my face at how friendly he was!

The bus didn’t make any toilet stops on the 14 hour journey, nor did they provide any food or water so at 7am the following morning, two very tired, hungry and dehydrated girls were dropped on the cold streets of Oruro. We were across the street from the bus station so we headed over to enquire about a bus ticket to Sucre... turns out there were no busses leaving till 9pm.

We grabbed some breakfast and contemplated getting a taxi. Then we realised it was an 8 hour journey and that would probably be out of our budget. We bought tickets and managed to drop our bags off straight away so at least we didn’t have to worry about carrying them about all day, we were slightly concerned that we fully understood the set up, but with some broken Spanish we managed to communicate that we would collect our bags in Sucre and not before it.

We spent the rest of the morning looking for somewhere to eat lunch, we found a tiny cafe with three tables and one lady serving, she was adorable and was so understanding of our lack of Spanish, she brought a small dish with a sample of pasta and rice to ask us which we preferred, she did this with our drinks too and went out of her way to make sure we were comfortable.

We spent another 15minutes fighting altitude sickness and walking around the area before taking rest in a small park. We eventually gathered the energy to make it back to the bus station where we counted down time till our 9pm bus.

The journey to Sucre was pretty smooth and we arrived at our host, Janice’s around 5.30am. Janice was lovely and showed us straight to our rooms so we coult rest and be fresh for our first day in Sucre.

So after 68 hours spent on one train, three busses, and a taxi we’re now safe in Sucre!

Laura <><

super powers without the cape

2010-08-26T15:25:00.000+01:00

Last week we went to a lovely nursing home mainly occupied by people from British familias called BABS. We spent two day there talking and laughing with the ladies and gentlemen, most of whom had made it to the grand old age of their 90s! I think the mediterinian inlfuence in the diet here must have something to do with that if the olivio adverts were right about the health properties of food such as olive oil! We spent some of our time in a “reminisence group” where the occupational therapist (a ral glow of sunshine in the place, denise) gives a topic and everyone is invited to share their memories on this topic. When we where there the topic was dogs and horses but we heard some hilarious stories about pets of all shapes and sizes, including a skunk that had its smelly stuff removed!! This activity encourages the brain to keep ticking and the memory to keep working well.

On our second day we gave a presentation about Soul Touch to a very keen audience who were asking questions faster than we could answer. We were then invited to join them for lunch and enjoyed hearing stories of the residents many travels and adventures over dulce de leche (basically condensed milk boiled into caramel that they put on EVERYTHING here) flavoured ice cream. I had my lunch with a woman that was 101! I asked her and the other lady at the table for advice on how to live a happy life and they told me “be happy!” I explained I was hoping for more specific hints than that which might hopefully reslt in happiness, but they explained to me that happiness is often a choice rather than circumstances. No matter where you might end, or how different your life might look to how you expected you can always choose how you deal with the situation. You can choose to enjoy it and be happy, or you can choose not too. However since then I was reminded of a quote which I cannot for the life of me remember properly or even who said it, but it basically says that a happy life comes from a life dedicated to making other people happy. What a nice thought.

Friday morning we headed back to the Good Samaritan community centre for the final time cleaning and serving with them through non-verbal communication. The love they show the people in the community there is unbelieveble. There are no airs and graces whatsoever, everyone is a soul and everyone is treated with such worth.

After a quick stop at home to move to our third host house with a lovely lady that works in the church, Neli, we headed back to the community centre at night with Susan to translate as we gave another presentation on Soul Touch. It was a lovely night as the youth there are so active, always wanting to help and improve themselves and always making you feel wlecomed. We gave the community centre a Scotland flag before leaving and were delighted to reveice a flag from them and t-shirts.

The weekend started early Saturday morning as we headed to a Christian owned country park about an hour outside Buenos Aires for the weekend youth camp for 12 – 14 year olds that had started the night before. The next 2 days were crammed full with dicipleship lessons, games of all sorts, singing, bonfires, tree planting, lots of sweeties and general giggling. The thing that really touched me and Laura however was the patience and kindness of the children at the camp. Even the ones that didn’t know much English tried their hardest to always include us, and the ones that did know English were only too happy to translate. One amazing little girl event realised that Laura was unsure of the Bible reference being spoken about, and so as she couldn’t speak much English at all she wrote the whole thing down for Laura on a piece of paper in Spanish so she had a copy of it. They were so kind and taught us a lot about seeing a need and meeting it before being asked to do so.

The theme of the weekend was heroes. But there was a strong distinction being made between superheroes and everyday heroes. We were told a lovely true story of a boy in a wheelchair that wanted to make a difference in his community. He decided to just do something small and within his resources. So everynight before he went to his job at a checkout in a supermarket he found a nice quote or saying, wrote and cut out hundreds of slips of paper with this on it and started dropping them into the customers bags as a surprise whilst he packed for them. The manager was soon shocked to find the takings jumping up and the queue at this boys till always being much larger than any of the others.People were so touched by this gesture they kept coming back for more and more. It would seem this tiny gesture had a bigger impact than he could have imagined. We encouraged the youth to become heroes like this in their own homes and communities.

On Monday we spent the day painting a changing room in a charity shop run by a family here beside a government hospital for children with cancer. The health care here is free, but the chairty shop offers the transport fees and other costs to the parents, most of whom are already struggling to live in a country that we find expensive, on wages that are about half of the wages in Scotland. It’s a lovely little shop that patients or parents of patients often find comfort and friendship in. The people running this shop are real examples of love and kindness.

The whole time we have been in Argentina we have given several presentations about Soul Touch to several diferent groups. We both always finish talking by explaining the thing we have learnt the most from the trip. My experience in Argentina has completely confirmed to me the lesson I have learnt. (I promise you I was talking about this even before the hero camp!) The world doesn’t want a superhero, and we cant be superheroes anyway. They already have a saviour. All we can do is the little things that make all the difference. Having a cup of tea with someone, or taking the time to genuinely find out how they are and then listening, might not change the earth or even their country; but I promise you it might just change their whole world.

2010-08-25T01:53:00.004+01:00

On Friday evening after our talk Harry and Susan took us to the local Baptist church where a group of young people from a college in America were performing. The group sang beautifully in Spanish, and were all so musically talented that we were shocked to hear that none of them had specialised in music. The group shared testimonies and we heard a sermon from their lecturer, it was great to chat with them after the service, they were all very interested in Soul Touch!
Early Saturday morning we left for the Good Samaritan community centre where we would be helping set up for the childrens party they were hosting in the afternoon. We were both a little nervous as no one at the centre spoke any English, and our Spanish has quite a way to go! Thankfully we’re both very skilled in non verbal communication so we managed to be helpful.

In the afternoon we had the honour of accompanying one of the ladies from the centre to the hospital to deliver blankets and New Testaments to the new babies and mums. The ladies were delighted with their gifts and were happy to pose for a photograph.
We arrived back on time to catch the second half of the childrens party, the volunteers at the centre put on a show and at the end they released balloons from the ceiling, the kids were all going mad! They were each given a gift as they were leaving, these were the gifts that we’d helped to package last week. It was great to see the joy on the childrens faces as a result of the committed team at San Andres collecting the toys for them.

On Sunday morning we moved to stay with our new host family in the morning before the church service. Church is held in a high school as the building is too small for the congregation. The service was of course in Spanish but we had most of it translated for us. The service was pretty much the same as a Presbyterian service at home.
We arrived at church, which is held in San Andres high school, and thankfully one of the ladies volunteered to translate the Spanish service for us. We met up with our hosts again and headed home for a traditional Sunday lunch! This house differs from other argentine homes, the traditional meal here is pasta, which makes a lot of sense to me considering the time it takes to prepare a Sunday roast! And fresh ravioli is a real treat! We had some time to relax in the afternoon before we were collected for the evening service, this takes place in an old Presbyterian church building in town. It’s a more traditional service but is the same sermon as the morning, so Jenn and I used the time to practice singing in Spanish (during worship – not during the sermon!) and read our bibles.
We’re excited but very nervous about learning Spanish! But we’ve jumped in a little at the deep end... on Monday morning we agreed that the following evening we would give our testimonies and talk about the trip – IN SPANISH – at an ecumenical meeting which takes place once a month in the Martinez area, north of Buenos Aires. So we spent the rest of the morning working on our pronunciation.
At lunchtime we headed to meet with the youth leaders for a meeting about the youth camp which was taking place at the weekend. Jenn and I had agreed to help out at the event, but we were a little concerned we’d be more hassle than anything as everything would have to be translated for us! Anyway we went along to the meeting to meet with the staff and everyone was very welcoming. A few people told us their English was very poor, but the Argentine’s seem to be quite modest and usually their English is muy bien(very good)!
We spent the afternoon with a couple who work with the youths (Ruth and Sergio), they took us to Caminito which is the birth place of a particular tango dance, As you can see from the photographs the buildings are beautifully painted and Jenn and I had a bash at a tango pose!

We managed to bag ourselves a mati cup and straw (this is a cup used to drink a local tea, which is shared among groups of friends) as a keepsake and headed for a drive around town to some of the tourist spots while we waited for it to be late enough to go for dinner...

I don’t know if we will manage to adapt to the argentine way of living. Dinner served at 8.30pm would be considered early! Our tummy’s are grumbling by 7pm! We managed to get to a restaurant fairly early, it was called follow the cow, but in Spanish and was an all you can eat BBQ place with the most amazing salad bar I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Jenn and I, not being big meat eaters, were baffled when we were asked which part of the cow we liked to eat... we were clueless! Apparently this is something which is very important in Argentina, we were unsure so left it up to Ruth and Sergio to decide for us. We tried something very similar to black pudding, although it was a lot more moist and soft but very delicious! We had a long drive around the grid system as neither of us could remember where our new home was! But eventually we found our way home and headed for some rest (or at least I did!) as we were due at the food bank early the following morning.
I woke up to discover Jenn had been up late organising transport for the day! Oops! Anyway I’m not much fun when I’m tired... The Food Bank takes food from companies which they won’t use, this can be because of imperfections in the packaging etc, but the food is perfect inside so the food bank take the food, and make packages up for places like the good Samaritan community centre and they can use it to feed the people in the area. We arrived at the industrial estate where the food bank warehouse is located and spent the best part of an hour searching for it, eventually we found our way and we were put to work opening boxes of food, checking for holes in the packaging and making sure it didn’t go out of date before October.

The first box we opened was full of open packets, it’s was so depressing to be throwing more food out, but a few boxes in it became visible how much food we were actually saving and it became very rewarding. After we filled the tables with food we made miscellaneous boxes of food which weighed 11kg and these were ready to be delivered. Once the tables were clear the process would begin again. We were working over lunchtime so Jenn and I had started to feel a little peckish... and were now surrounded by food! At one point we opened a box which was full of cheetos (similar to cheesy wotsits) which were due to go out of date the following day. We thought there was a chance we might get a bag, but unfortunately not... we agreed that it was probably delivered to a youth centre and that made us feel much better!
We arrived home in the afternoon absolutely shattered! And tonight was the night we were supposed to be reading our talk in Spanish at the meeting, I had promised myself a short nap before we practiced lots and attended the meeting; unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. We arrived at 4pm and received a phone call telling us to be at the church in an hour, so after a few rushed practices we headed. I think the talk went well, well at least I think the congregation understood us! I reckon we probably read like 5 year olds though, but at least we tried and now we are a bit more clued up on pronunciation!

Laura (now pronounced low-ra) <><

Atlantis

2010-08-15T18:27:00.003+01:00

Jenn and I have spent the last few weeks in South Africa, we flew to Pretoria to visit Rudi (a friend from the world without walls project) and luckily arrived in time for the World Cup Final. This was spent at a fanpark in a local cricket pitch.

After the weekend we headed for Cape Town to stay with Jo-Anne and Raymond, a Scottish couple who live in one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever seen overlooking Cape Town and Table Mountain. Unfortunately the church we were supposed to be working with didn’t have very much going on at the time but thankfully, Rose, a friend of our host family volunteered to set us up with some work while we were there.
Rose is a school nurse so firstly she organised for us to spend some time in a primary school and the second week we would spend with her in her home in Atlantis and work in a crèche for children aged 2 years – 6 years.

As you may already know South Africa was affected by Aparthide (separating people on the colour of their skin into three categories, blacks, white’s and coloured) several years ago. Although this has now been done away with the people generally still live in different areas according to their skin colour. Atlantis is a coloured area a short drive from the centre of Cape Town.

Jenn and I spent the week in different classes, me with a younger group and Jenn with the older kids, we were both placed in English speaking classes which was a relief as our Afrikkans isn’t up to much!

The week consisted of spending time playing with the children, joining them in their practices for their upcoming concert and teaching them games, songs and prayers (including ‘you cannae shove yer granny off a bus and the Selkirk Grace). On our final day the staff from the crèche organised a lunch for us with the most delicious cakes and treats. We were given lovely gifts and cards and pictures o we wouldn’t forget the friends we’d made and time we’d spent with them. Which I’m sure we won’t!

It was a fantastic to spend some time with Rose in Atlantis, it was such a different experience from Cape Town and we’re so grateful to have seen two sides.
Laura <><

Soultouch goes Spanglish

2010-08-13T21:24:00.008+01:00

After spending a long, uncomfortable and extremely funny night sleeping on the floor in Johanesberg airport we made the 12 hour flight from South Africa into Buenos Aires safely and without too much boredom. We arrived sleepy but excited at our new host home on Wednesday evening, thankfully just in time to try a lovely spanish supper dish, tortilla, before heading to bed.

Thursday morning started with a much needed Spanish lesson from one of our lovely hosts Susan. We then headed to San Andres church to meet with Valeria and Camilla, the 2 main co-ordinators of the social outreach side of the church, for lunch. Camilla explained to us that San Andres church is still linked closely with San Andres school and University, and although the church itself does not have any of their own social outreach projects they draw alongside many other projects in the surrounding area and are always supporting and helping those around them. Over the course of the lunch we were pleasantly surprised with an extremely well organised time table for the next 2 weeks that ensures we cover all of the different projects and get a real feel for the work the church does here during our time. This type of organisation has become foreign and almost strange to us after living on “Africa time” (any time you want) for so long, but the structure was welcomed by us both and our western minds.

On Friday we spent the day working in a poorer commuity in Buenos Aires in a soup kitchen run by one of the churches there. We helped the dedicated pastor and volunteers hand out steaming bowls of polenta (corn flour mixed with water, milk and cheese) with a sauce similar to bolignaise, and cups of juice to the many children and families from the community that cant afford to buy their own food. Everyone was really lovely to us and so patient considering none of them speak English and so far Laura and I can only string together a few small sentences of Spanish between us. There seems to be a general warm and loving feel to the people here so far, or maybe its just that I like kissing people on the cheek when greeting them!

Very proudly we managed to use the correct Spanish to find our way back to the church on the bus to give a presentation on Soultouch to an Elderly group from the church. Everyone was so nice and really seemed to appreciate the presentation and a look at the many photos we have gathered over the year. And we were invited to join them for afternoon tea which is always nice!

It would seem we have a busy few weeks ahead of us with hospital visits, childrens parties, food banks, several presentations (including one in spanish!) and working at a youth retreat camp, and hopefully on top of all that we will be slowly but surely learning more Spanish as the days go on. It all seems very exciting and we are looking forward to it all, but prayers are needed for the language. Laura, although nervous aswell, sounds great using the words she knows, but I need a bit more of a shove into it as I have very low confidence in new languages. But so far everyone is being very patient and I know that the times of trial are when God helps us shine the most!Eek I hope so!

Love and blessings,

From a mucho scared Jenn! xxx

Catch up from the Cold

2010-07-14T14:15:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update to let you all know that last friday early morning we said our last sad goodbyes to our many great friends in Uganda to head south for the next part of the trip. We were both so sad to go and can't believe we spent 9 weeks at Dweeling Places, Uganda. All I can say to explain how we felt about leaving is that we are both already discussing when we can make it back!
But we can't complain as we spent a brilliant weekend with some friends Laura me through the world without walls project in Pretoria. We had the oppertunity to spend some great quality time with them, see a bit of south sfrica, get over the culture shock, eat a brii (a south african bbq) and catch up on some much needed sleep. It was perfect!
We caught a flight to Capetown early Tuesday morning to be greeted by our lovely kind host Joanne and we were quickly and warmly accepted into her family's beautiful home! We are still adjusting to the drop in temperature (it can go to -2 degrees C at night and the houses have no heating as they dont normally need it - we came at a bad time weather wise) and the feeling of being clean and not covered in dust, but we are loving the big comfy beds and how much joanne is spoiling us! We will be meeting up with some contacts from Hillsong church Capetown shortly and will be palnning the work for the weeks ahead. But as for now, I am going to put the kettle on and maybe even hunt out some gloves!!!
Sending all our prayers, thoughts and best wishes to everyone we have left behind and are missing!
a chilly, but clean smelling Jenn xxx

Buloba

2010-07-03T10:11:00.013+01:00

The youth I’ve been working with work on a farm called Buloba every Monday and Saturday. The farm grows crops which are used to feed the children staying at the Dwelling Places home. I’ve joined them a few times to have a shot at farming the African way...

The night before my first visit I was praying for rain, I knew I was going to be digging, and I was dreading the thought of digging the dry red dirt. I was so pleased when I woke up through the night to the sound of rain battering on the corrugated iron roof of the cottage! I got up, had my breakfast, thought I better have an extra weetabix this morning as I was planning on working very hard. It was still a little drizzly so I put my raincoat on and headed to Henrietta’s where I was meeting the youth at 7.30 to be collected.
We arrived at the farm just after 8 o’clock, we only had a short while to take it all in. The farm is placed on a fairly steep hill, at the bottom of the hill there’s a stream, matoke and banana trees all the way up to the top where there is a building with a few doors. I was told this was the kitchen, chicken pen, and area for the staff to live. There was also an area for the pigs and a little in the distance is a home which has been built for older boys taken in by Dwelling Places in the future. These buildings still have a little work to be done on them, but there is a team from Northern Ireland out at the moment working on that.

After being shown around I started digging, by now the rain had stopped but it was still very cloudy, I was extremely happy about these clouds as the day went on as they kept the heat from the sun away. We dug for just over an hour before stopping to collect water from the stream in jerry cans and a cup of Ugandan porridge...

which is quite different from Scots Porridge! It’s made from corn flour, water and some sugar. Was great to keep our energy up for the rest of the morning of digging. We stopped about 11.30 and rested while having a munch on some jack fruit, if anyone’s ever tried jack fruit straight from the tree they’ll know about the horrible sticky residue it leaves on your hands, and for those of you who know me will know what a stress it is for me to have anything on my hands! But the jack fruit is pretty tasty, and since it’s only available for a short time I dug in.
Simon Peter, the farm manager, took me to show me some cassava (a root vegetable), he dug the small tree up and peeled some cassava, which is usually fried for breakfast, and handed it to me to eat. I was a little concerned as when it’s fried it tastes a little like potatoes, so raw I didn’t know what to expect, but it was actually very tasty, and reminded me a little of coconut.

We dug up the rest and Simon Peter showed us how to plant cassava, basically you dig a hole, take two branches about a foot long, place them parallel about half a foot apart and cover with soil. I found that very fascinating!
We took the rest of the cassava back to the kitchen and the ladies prepared it for lunch, along with pumkin, beans and rice. Just as we were finishing off a storm began so we hurried into the bus and headed back home.
I got back just in time for friendship club, so after an hour with the children I went home for a wash and a nap! I couldn’t believe it when I woke up three hours later! Must’ve needed it!
Didn’t put me off though as the following Monday I was up sharp to join the young folks at the farm again, this time the sun was shining. So I was pleased to have been given the new job of pruning the matoke trees. It was another great day and I wasn’t nearly as tired as I had been on Saturday.

I was working with one of the young people, Christine, who showed me what each part of the tree is used for, how the leaves are used in the cooking, and also dried out and used in crafts, in actual fact it’s the matoke leaves that are used in making baskets like the one I made a few weeks ago. I love that nothing is wasted here!

Jenn came along for a shot of digging the following Saturday, she was unfortunate to have come on another sunny day. She was also unfortunate in that they kept her digging for hours and didn’t stop for porridge until it was time to go home. But she survived! This time I was pruning again, and after that I was helping (or watching while the boys) take the matoke trees down, I did help to carry the matoke up the hill, which proved to be a much more difficult task than it looks. I couldn’t believe the weight in the branches, but with a little help I had it on my head and was looking very African indeed!

Laura <><

Desperate tears lost to deaf ears..

2010-06-30T14:46:00.007+01:00

My childhood memories, like so many people I know, are filled with laughter, squeals of excitement, ice-cream, games, sweeties, friends and lavishing of unmistakable love. Even most of my worst memories I can now see were based in love, and I just didn’t like discipline or being told no, like every other child acting bratty. My thoughts were full of innocence and the world around me filled my eyes with beauty so powerful and encompassing it sunk deep into my heart, filling my childhood years with a sense of constant warmth and safety. I always knew that if I cried loud enough, no matter what was happening, my Mummy or Daddy would find me and wipe my tears away.
I spent today with a group of children that couldn’t even begin to imagine these memories, let alone think they might someday have the chance to experience some of these things. Instead they live their lives day to day in constant fear, confusion, need, loss and loneliness. No matter how loud their cries, they wont be answered. They may be heard, but the wont be answered. No-one will wipe their tear and dirt stained faces clean, and laughter comes rarely and is normally interrupted by fear returning all too quickly again. Safety and warmth for these children is nothing more than a myth, sometimes heard about in passing whispers but never lingering long enough to be understood. Love is not constant for many of these children, and their worst memories are too devastating to be given a voice.
I spent today in a government-run “rehabilitation” home for street children, and children that had behaved badly and been given up on. An hour drive from Kampala ensures the grounds are far enough away that escape is at least a bit more difficult for the kids.. And if they do survive the long, difficult walk back to the streets they will be quickly rounded up again. The layout of the buildings, and the land all seem to have been birth from a brilliant, beautiful dream but since building them the dream has clearly quickly turned into a terrible nightmare. The dirty, mould-infested buildings are really just shells of what could have been. They provide shelter for the kids so long as the definition of shelter is “a roof and four walls” and no more.
From the dorm rooms to the worm infected children all you can see is filth and disease. Everything is dirty, cold and disgusting looking. And then it happens...a child sees you have come to visit and all of a sudden their whole being lights up, theirs eyes sparkle, the grin forms, their arms reach out to you for love, and your heart breaks in half. The rest of your time is spent holding back tears, choking on the lump in your throat and trying to muster energy for the many needy children, until you go home. And then boom...your heart is hit again as you realise that for the beautiful children surrounding you, they are already home. They have no end to this nightmare, at least not one that they can see or understand how to reach.
The home was started by the government in 2003. The idea was that street children would come here to be rehabilitated, care for and resettled with their families. The building would also serve as a punishment centre for children committing petty crimes, or even just annoying their parents to the point they want to throw them out. The children would then have their lives turned around and be sent back to society model citizens. This is obviously a failed plan, long lost somewhere within the prison I visited today. Nothing about this place seems to follow any rehabilitation programme or even offer basic care or dignity. All of the children were filthy, and most of them had some sort of skin disease (which was just the disease we could see on the outside, I’m sure it covered worse on the inside). The clothes the younger ones wore, hung off of their small bodies, barely covering them, and they had no underwear on to keep them decent as their rags moved or floated up in the draughty rooms. One boy spent the day trying to cover himself up by always using one hand to hold up his broken dungarees. The nurses at the government health building on site sit about all day bored, as they say they’ve not had even one pill to give out for the past month. So no matter how ill the child is that comes to them, unless they find the funding to send the child somewhere else, there is nothing that can be done.
To make sure the children don’t run away when they are first brought in from the streets (where they are collected by guards who force them into patrol cars) they are kept together (regardless of the number) in one empty concrete hall with no mattresses or mosquito nets. When it is thought that the risk of escape is high the clothes may be taken from the child in the hope that this will discourage them from leaving. This will be for the first few weeks until the staff think the children have lost their initial motivation to attempt escape. After this time they will be moved into one of the dorm rooms with the rest of the children, until they are naughty at least. When they are naughty (including being caught on the street again after a successful escape) they will be badly beaten and thrown in a cell which will be locked. The child will be brought meals by staff only and not allowed out of this cell until their punishment time is complete.
On a more positive note however, I was grateful to be there with Dwelling Places and another local NGO working with street children, RETRACK as they offered a free mobile medical clinic. They do this once every two weeks as part of their involvement with a network of several similar NGOs that are committed to visiting the children at different times and running games, discipleship, sports, medical services and other things to improve their welfare. However all this hard work barely seems to scratch the surface in such a desperate place. But at least we can take hope in the fact that there are people dedicated to scratching as deep as they can, and continuing to do so until they make as much of a difference as possible. Your prayers really are needed for this work and positive government involvement.
Having no medical training, I spent the day playing with the smaller kids, dancing, swinging them in the air, singing and generally being silly as much as possible without using any language. They just LOVED the attention and laughed as though they’d never laughed before for every tiny thing I did with them. Before leaving, one of the small boys caught his hand in a van door and started screaming from the fright. I quickly opened the door and scooped him up to take him through to Mariam (the Dwelling Places nurse). I almost burst into tears as I felt his grip around me. His little feet linked, his legs tight to grip on and his arms clinging desperately to me. He stayed like this long after the pain and tears had faded and my heart was ripped apart all over again as I put him down on the filthy ground so I could board the van to leave and go back to our comfortable office.
I’ll never forget the noise of weeping as we came toward the home, or the stench that hit us as we walked through the doors. But I have made a conscious promise to not allow myself to ever forget the fear in the eyes of some of those children. Fear I can’t begin to understand, and hope to never have to. I will etch that sight deep into my memories and heart and use it as motivation for everything I do. Every time I pray, remember others, become too self-obsessed, or forget the importance of every small act of reaching out in kindness, I will force my heart to remember those eyes with such fear and I will allow my heart to break all over again. I have tears beginning to roll down my cheeks even as I write this, but I thank God I had the opportunity to visit such beautiful souls trapped in such a horrible cage, even just so I know how many beautiful souls are crying out for help. And I can only hope I can somehow begin to be the one that not only hears the tears, but at least tries to wipe them away.

PARRTTAAAAAYYYYY!!!!

2010-06-23T07:50:00.011+01:00

I had the privilege to spend a week in the Naguru Teenage Health and Information Centre the week before last, helping with various jobs around the clinic, learning more and more as the days passed. The centre is focussed on providing free health care and information to teenagers (between ages 10 and 24), the majority of which is related to HIV and STD testing, awareness and counselling. This centre is a huge success story for Uganda as it was the first of its kind focussed only on teens in East Africa, and they help hundreds, if not thousands of anxious teens that flood through their doors every week. To manage this the staff are extremely well trained, very up to date with research and information related to their work, normally in the office from about 7am – 6pm, and are all EXTREMELY passionate about their work.
Over the course of my week there I got to work in several different areas with different people, as despite the many committed youth volunteers that do brilliant jobs, there is always more to be done in such a busy place, and so to ensure I learnt as much as possible, the staff made sure to share my time out around the centre. I spent time counting pills in the pharmacy (which made me feel important having access behind a counter I always feel is quite out of bounds at home!); registering patients (which is more difficult than it sounds when their English is very broken, my English can be reasonably broken by a Scottish accent and my Luganda is non-existent); putting patient’s data into computers; sorting flyers into boxes; sorting through and organising feedback data and working in the lab. I loved working in the lab, as I couldn’t have learnt any more if I tried, and I even got my blood type tested (it’s O negative in case anyone wants some). The lab in the centre is a very small room, with only a few pieces of equipment and two staff members (Polly and Julius) but it does the job perfectly. Having the lab in the clinic allows for them to test for syphilis, HIV, Typhoid, Malaria and blood type very quickly so the results can be given to the patient that day and further action taken. This is especially important with the HIV testing as it allows immediate counselling to be given about future steps to be taken by the patient.
I was confused as to why the huge majority of people coming to be tested were women (lots of whom were pregnant I’m sad to say) and after quizzing Julius and Polly I discovered the extent to which women can be vulnerable in a relationship with a man in this culture. Julius explained to me that although men tend to sleep around more, women are more at risk to contracting HIV as the man is generally the decision maker in relationships and so if he decides that he doesn’t want to wear a condom (regardless of promiscuity) then that is more than likely what will happen. This of course can often lead to pregnancy and sadly in some cases HIV. Ignorant and thinking I knew more than I did I started discussing the importance of education for women and how this can be so unavailable to women. I quickly was informed that in fact a high percentage of the women visiting the clinic are actually at University. However University here doesn’t seem to be all about showing off your bargain clothes and beans and toast like it is at home. On top of the fees that people tend to struggle to find, there seems to be a culture within the University that we seem to leave behind in high school in the West, where a person is judged by their material things and the people that seem to be struggling with money can become outcasts. This of course puts a huge pressure on the young people to find money somewhere, and so knowing this, older (often married) men can be found hanging around the university grounds inexplicitly offering to buy a girl pretty things in exchange for sex. The girls feeling under so much pressure can often see this as a quick fix, with the result possibly being fatal. All the way around the world I have been ranting on about education resulting in empowerment, I hadn’t realised before how essential it is that the education is completely specific and relevant for your audience if it is to have the desired effect. It is however nice to know that there are centres such as Naguru that young people feel so welcome and comfortable in, and that people are determinedly working to reach these vulnerable groups.
One of the main focuses of Naguru Teenage Health and Information Centre is education spreading into communities and schools through “peer education”. This is the idea that by educating some of the youth in their rights in life and relationships, and building their confidence, they can be guided as to how to pass this information onto their peers around them, thus reaching a much wider population. The idea is sort of like a ripple effect of information, with the ripple starting with a core group at the centre to ensure the information being passed out is all correct and up to date. One way the centre is doing this is through the “Post Test Club” held every Saturday from 10am – 4pm. This is a day of information-giving through games and purposeful group activities that not only educate, but also improve confidence and knowledge of self. This club is open to anyone that has been for testing at the centre regardless of their result, and also to anyone else that may not have been tested yet, but would like to come along. I attended for the last 2 Saturdays and had a brilliant time working with the youth. I facilitated a session this Saturday for the girls promoting self confidence and self worth regardless of the world around us. This was really a great opportunity as the youth were very good at participating and some of the discussions we had were very interesting and also educational for me. The main theme I found myself coming back to again and again is that we need to be the change we want to see. It can be so easy to be swept up in the world and society around us, ignoring our own worth, rights and needs. This can also hugely influence the way we treat others, but there really comes a point we need to take responsibility for our own lives and actions and live the life we want to promote. After our many discussions, and writing our thoughts on the good and bad things about being a woman we had a short activity where we imagined all the negative things anyone had ever said to us, or that had ever happened to us travelling up our bodies, into our lungs and leaving us with one huge breath out. It is important we don’t carry all the negative thoughts others can create or cast onto us, as they will soon consume us and become our focus, which will of course negatively affect our actions.
After a good day on Saturday we had a brilliant day yesterday (Sunday) at my pre-birthday, birthday party at the children’s home. It was a really fun day with party food, party games, face painting, presents, party bags, balloons, birthday cake and of course a LOT of dancing (oh my word African women can dance! I at least tried to follow them, my hips attempting to click in and out in ways I had never attempted before!) The kids here are just so beautiful and it was such an honour to be involved in the making of some good, fun memories in their lives which already have too many bad memories. Laura had kindly arranged for a birthday cake for me, so I blushed my way through Happy Birthday and we all got to enjoy the cake. Rita Nkemba (founder of Dwelling Places) gave a quick speech after the cake which was really sweet as she was thanking us for our work with them (although I feel more like we should thank them for letting us come!) and they presented us both with beautiful wooden drums and a scarf each, which was so unexpected and so kind of them.
The night came to a lovely close thanks to the hard work of my wee mummy! After the guests had all left and the kids had started cleaning up I asked them to all come into the hall for one last thing. They gathered together staring up at me with smiling, sleepy faces covered in smudged face paints and looking utterly exhausted! I handed them a parcel with a message asking them to give my “friends” a nice home. They opened their present to find a puppet for each of them hand made by my mum. I wasn’t sure if they would be too childish for the older girls, but the whole group went absolutely nuts. They completely loved them and the hall was soon filled with giggles and screams. It was the most beautiful sight and the best part of my day by far was enjoying watching them. All of the children were thanking us for the party and the presents which was lovely, but I was close to tears when Shakira (one of the teenage girls) stopped me before leaving and simply said “Aunty Jenn, just thank-you for loving us”. I couldn’t appreciate my time with these children more, I am so sad to leave Dwelling Places, and I can only hope I will return one day.
Jenn xxx

14.06.10 Indian Family

2010-06-22T13:21:00.003+01:00

On Monday an Indian family came and visited us. It was a great pleasure for the Soul Touch Group to meet them and they were so pleased to see us to. After a little lunch we had an amazing performance by Arpana Sharon and her family. We were really sad when we had to go to class but we were also so delighted they came to visit. We got a lot of good photos of the family and we listened to Sharon’s new Gospel CD it was amazing

In the afternoon Raj and Vanitha spoke to the classes and shared a lot about their life in work in India. It was a great afternoon and we all really enjoyed asking questions and learning about their life. It really inspired us when Lilias (an amazing and passionate and inspirational and adorable and sweet and lovely, youth worker from St Andrews church in Bo’ness) told us how the youth in Bo’ness raised enough money to get them here from India. That really inspired us to know that young people really are changing the world, little by little, one Soul at a time!

Also huge shout out to Mhairi and Lisa who came from Bo’ness to spend time with us. They are both stunning and lovely and it was such a joy to host them at our school. We are so privileged to have such great friends all over the world and so many opportunities to meet with them and learn about their lives.

Partaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

2010-06-21T12:20:00.011+01:00

Over the course of my week there I got to work in several different areas with different people, as despite the many committed youth volunteers that do brilliant jobs, there is always more to be done in such a busy place, and so to ensure I learnt as much as possible, the staff made sure to share my time out around the centre. I spent time counting pills in the pharmacy (which made me feel important having access behind a counter I always feel is quite out of bounds at home!); registering patients (which is more difficult than it sounds when their English is very broken, my English can be reasonably broken by a Scottish accent and my Luganda is non-existent); putting patient’s data into computers; sorting flyers into boxes; sorting through and organising feedback data and working in the lab. I loved working in the lab, as I couldn’t have learnt any more if I tried, and I even got my blood type tested (it’s O negative in case anyone wants some). The lab in the centre is a very small room, with only a few pieces of equipment and two staff members (Polly and Julius) but it does the job perfectly. Having the lab in the clinic allows for them to test for syphilis, HIV, Typhoid, Malaria and blood type very quickly so the results can be given to the patient that day and further action taken. This is especially important with the HIV testing as it allows immediate counselling to be given about future steps to be taken by the patient.

I was confused as to why the huge majority of people coming to be tested were women (lots of whom were pregnant I’m sad to say) and after quizzing Julius and Polly I discovered the extent to which women can be vulnerable in a relationship with a man in this culture. Julius explained to me that although men tend to sleep around more, women are more at risk to contracting HIV as the man is generally the decision maker in relationships and so if he decides that he doesn’t want to wear a condom (regardless of promiscuity) then that is more than likely what will happen. This of course can often lead to pregnancy and sadly in some cases HIV. Ignorant and thinking I knew more than I did I started discussing the importance of education for women and how this can be so unavailable to women. I quickly was informed that in fact a high percentage of the women visiting the clinic are actually at University. However University here doesn’t seem to be all about showing off your bargain clothes and beans and toast like it is at home. On top of the fees that people tend to struggle to find, there seems to be a culture within the University that we seem to leave behind in high school in the West, where a person is judged by their material things and the people that seem to be struggling with money can become outcasts. This of course puts a huge pressure on the young people to find money somewhere, and so knowing this, older (often married) men can be found hanging around the university grounds inexplicitly offering to buy a girl pretty things in exchange for sex. The girls feeling under so much pressure can often see this as a quick fix, with the result possibly being fatal. All the way around the world I have been ranting on about education resulting in empowerment, I hadn’t realised before how essential it is that the education is completely specific and relevant for your audience if it is to have the desired effect. It is however nice to know that there are centres such as Naguru that young people feel so welcome and comfortable in, and that people are determinedly working to reach these vulnerable groups.

One of the main focuses of Naguru Teenage Health and Information Centre is education spreading into communities and schools through “peer education”. This is the idea that by educating some of the youth in their rights in life and relationships, and building their confidence, they can be guided as to how to pass this information onto their peers around them, thus reaching a much wider population. The idea is sort of like a ripple effect of information, with the ripple starting with a core group at the centre to ensure the information being passed out is all correct and up to date. One way the centre is doing this is through the “Post Test Club” held every Saturday from 10am – 4pm. This is a day of information-giving through games and purposeful group activities that not only educate, but also improve confidence and knowledge of self. This club is open to anyone that has been for testing at the centre regardless of their result, and also to anyone else that may not have been tested yet, but would like to come along. I attended for the last 2 Saturdays and had a brilliant time working with the youth. I facilitated a session this Saturday for the girls promoting self confidence and self worth regardless of the world around us. This was really a great opportunity as the youth were very good at participating and some of the discussions we had were very interesting and also educational for me. The main theme I found myself coming back to again and again is that we need to be the change we want to see. It can be so easy to be swept up in the world and society around us, ignoring our own worth, rights and needs. This can also hugely influence the way we treat others, but there really comes a point we need to take responsibility for our own lives and actions and live the life we want to promote. After our many discussions, and writing our thoughts on the good and bad things about being a woman we had a short activity where we imagined all the negative things anyone had ever said to us, or that had ever happened to us travelling up our bodies, into our lungs and leaving us with one huge breath out. It is important we don’t carry all the negative thoughts others can create or cast onto us, as they will soon consume us and become our focus, which will of course negatively affect our actions.

After a good day on Saturday we had a brilliant day yesterday (Sunday) at my pre-birthday, birthday party at the children’s home. It was a really fun day with party food, party games, face painting, presents, party bags, balloons, birthday cake and of course a LOT of dancing (oh my word African women can dance! I at least tried to follow them, my hips attempting to click in and out in ways I had never attempted before!) The kids here are just so beautiful and it was such an honour to be involved in the making of some good, fun memories in their lives which already have too many bad memories. Laura had kindly arranged for a birthday cake for me, so I blushed my way through Happy Birthday and we all got to enjoy the cake. Rita Nkemba begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting (founder of Dwelling Places) gave a quick speech after the cake which was really sweet as she was thanking us for our work with them (although I feel more like we should thank them for letting us come!) and they presented us both with beautiful wooden drums and a scarf each, which was so unexpected and so kind of them.

The night came to a lovely close thanks to the hard work of my wee mummy! After the guests had all left and the kids had started cleaning up I asked them to all come into the hall for one last thing. They gathered together staring up at me with smiling, sleepy faces covered in smudged face paints and looking utterly exhausted! I handed them a parcel with a message asking them to give my “friends” a nice home. They opened their present to find a puppet for each of them hand made by my mum. I wasn’t sure if they would be too childish for the older girls, but the whole group went absolutely nuts. They completely loved them and the hall was soon filled with giggles and screams. It was the most beautiful sight and the best part of my day by far was enjoying watching them. All of the children were thanking us for the party and the presents which was lovely, but I was close to tears when Shakira (one of the teenage girls) stopped me before leaving and simply said “Aunty Jenn, just thank-you for loving us”. I couldn’t appreciate my time with these children more, I am so sad to leave Dwelling Places, and I can only hope I will return one day.

Jenn xxx

Communion with a difference...

2010-06-17T19:05:00.014+01:00

Firstly I’d like to apologise for my lack of blogging, I didn’t realise how much time had passed! And a HUGE thanks to Jenn for keeping you all updated!!! Also a big shout out to all the young people at Wallace High, the Soul Touch group there are doing an amazing job, and I know that the kids at Dwelling Places absolutely loved skyping with you last week! You’re doing a fantastic job with fundraising, and I’m so excited to hear how it all goes!

I’ve been having lots of fun with the young people along at Henrieta’s, we’ve been sharing discipleship sessions daily, and one of the young people led the session through the week. It’s really amazing to watch these young people grow in faith, and see them striving to reach their potential is such an encouragement to me!

I’ve also been joining in with the craft session after the discipleship which has likely been the highlight of my time here. One of the youths, Stella, taught me to make beads from a magazine, from which I made a necklace and now Mama Paula is very patiently teaching me to weave a basket!

At lunchtime I eat lunch with the youngsters so I can continue working as long as possible, and they never tire of photographing me eating local meals with them, usually something like posho(corn flour and water) and beans...

I’ve been spending Saturdays at a friendship club for the Dwelling Places kids and other children in the community, this is a time of fellowship for the kids with songs, games, teaching and biscuits and juice. It’s like Sunday School, but on a Saturday! The kids have the most adorable song they sing to the visitors and they are so pleased to have us around, there’s usually a wee queue to sit on our knees during our time together! It’s tiresome learning and having so much fun so we usually end up with a few of the younger kids sleeping in our arms. Us Mzungu’s quite enjoy the cuddle but the teens from Dwelling Places are quick to remove them onto a mat at the side of the hall.

One of the pastoral team for the young people invited us to attend his church on Sunday morning, and we were happy to accept the invitation. All 4 of us in the cottage got organised with packed lunches in the morning as we had to hire a taxi to take us the 35-40minute drive there, and figured since we were near the beach we would be as well to visit. Things didn’t work out that way though as the sky clouded over and thethunder began during the service.

The service was fantastic, lots of young people and a real friendly atmosphere. We were invited forward to greet the congregation. Lynn shared a short word and I shared a testimony with everyone before we sat back down to experience a dedication service. There were 4 babies being dedicated that morning, and some members of the congregation had bought cakes, snickers bars and soda’s for everyone... and we didn’t even have to wait till after the service to enjoy them! Hope you’re making notes Albert ;)

We’ve been doing our best to combat the cabin fever! Usually we are in bed by about 9.30, we did however host a Friday night disco a few weeks back. I arrived home from work to find the cottage decorated with balloons and posters, Jenn had a busy afternoon! A couple of the girls had dressed up a little and put a bit of face paint on... as usual when dressing up is involved I took it to another level. I appeared from the room looking like this...

The other girl is Laura, Ugandan’s like to call us ‘double rola’! And the rest of the cottage joined in the madness. We even managed to talk a couple of the Dwelling Places staff into joining us. The night was great and we even had a bottle of organge soda! Don’t be worrying though, we were all in bed, lights out by 10.30pm that evening!

I’ve taken quite a shine to a baby boy called Sirus while I’ve been here, he’s a great baby and I just love having him around so much. His mum is involved with the running of the cottage so we’ve been seeing lots of him. Unfortunately this week he’s been a bit unwell. They had to take him to the hospital a few nights ago but I’ve heard he’s getting a little better. Please remember him in your prayers!

There’s also one of the children from the home that has run away. This happens regularly when children are taken off the streets and attempts are made to settle them in a home. The simple things like using a toilet, sleeping in a bed are so difficult for them as they’ve never had to do it before. This girl has run away in the past and just seems to feel at home when she’s on the streets. She’s only been back at Dwelling Places for a few weeks after having been settled with her family. We would really appreciate if you could keep her safety in your prayers. We’re really hoping she’s back by Sunday so she can join in the party for Jenn’s birthday!
Sorry again for my lack of blogging!

Love and blessings from Uganda!

Laura xXx

Our Success This Week

2010-06-11T15:28:00.003+01:00

This week at Wallace High School, pupils have been working constantly to continue raising awareness for the Soul Touch Group within the school, with the help of the amazing Mrs Stewart and even more amazing Miss Bonnar.

Wednesday started off with an emotional live Skype link up with the Dwelling Places Childrens Home in Uganda, with Laura, Jenn and the beautiful children who stay there. Their bright smiles and angelic singing inspired us to continue our fund raising and to constantly make our best efforts to make everyone aware of the poverty within Uganda and the hard work of Dwelling Places staff to rescue, rehabilitate and re-unite abandoned children with their families. We were so encouraged by the fact that the children there exuded hope and were radiant with joy… mind you they are with Laura and Jenn, and those girls brighten up everyone’s lives!

We were all really encouraged by the new members to Soul Touch, who kept up with the pace of the challenges constantly thrown at them, and came up with hundreds of new fundraising ideas, especially new S1’s; Ainsley, Chelsea, Leigh, Louise and Raegan, who took part in writing letters to the children of Dwelling Places, creating collages of pictures and constantly remaining cheerful and maintaining the focus of helping others. Many of the boys are working hard to organise a football tournament and girls are working to arrange another water challenge, after the huge success of last year’s event.

Many of the pupils have been working to raise awareness in the school, by updating the Soul Touch and Fairtrade boards in the corridors. As well as looking bright and beautiful, these boards are packed full to overflowing with photos and information about the work of both groups.

We are looking forward to keeping in touch with Uganda, and with Laura and Jenn’s travels. Hope to speak to you again on skype; we love love love love you!

Wallace Love You!

2010-06-11T14:56:00.003+01:00

Hi guys well we’ve been doing all sorts of things to help fundraise for Dwelling Places. Our live chat yesterday was amazing and your song was beautiful, you guys are lovely. We all loved you so much!!

We all thought up some ideas for fundraising the boys thought up a really good idea of a football tournament. The girls had a great idea of no chocolate for a week challenge; we are also having another water challenge.

Today we are doing little things like posters for soul touch, Ark – acts of random kindness, letters to you guys, and preparing for our friend and member of soul touch, Kirstin Gray, who is going to Uganda in the summer to help a program called an African dream. Please keep us up to date with all your travels girls we will be following you guys so keep us up to date. We love you so much; you are such an inspiration to us!
Love
Ainslie & soul touch xxx

2010-06-09T14:04:00.005+01:00

It was a public holiday today in Uganda so the Dwelling Places offices were closed and the kids were all off school. Lynn (brilliant northern Irish girl we are living with) has been trying to set up a library system in the home the past few weeks with the few books that have been donated to the kids. So we headed up with her today to have a kind of “book day” in the home. Lynn had suggested we have 3 different stations and the kids could move round them spending 20 minutes at each. So, Laura was reading to them, Lynn was creating stories with them and I was getting them to write a book review of the books they have been reading by making up a newspaper front cover that summarised the story as a headline story. Meanwhile Canadian Laura was busy keeping the smaller children entertained with chalks.

I am constantly going on and on to Laura about how education is everything and kids like these need education as much as possible, so I thought the book day was a good idea but I was a little apprehensive that they might not feel the same, as I seem to remember books being the last thing on my mind when I had a day off school, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. They all absolutely loved it, and the grounds of the home became completely silent as the air filled with the sense of concentration. It was just so gorgeous to see their faces light up at being given a challenge, and also made me really remember how big a difference even one little book can make in a child’s life. It’s so easy for us to throw out our old things wondering who would want them, but I’m telling you, these kids (like thousands of others) would be only too delighted to receive them! The longer we are away the worse I feel for always moaning at school and the more grateful I am for our education system in Scotland. It’s something the kids here literally dream about. As I would dream of running through African fields as a small child, they were dreaming about owning a book and maybe even their own set of pencils.

After we finished up with the book activities we managed to catch one of the original Soul Touchers Miss Erica Bonnar and her Soul Touch fundraising group on skype at the school she teaches at in Stirling. This group of brilliant passionate teens have been having several fundraisers for Soul Touch linked projects (particularly Uganda) and have been showing brilliant results. These teens all take time out of the lunches every week to meet together and plan different events on top of their school work. It was great for them to talk to some of the Dwelling Places kids, and for both groups to learn more about the cultural differences (I think the group in Stirling now have a new appreciation for washing machines after hearing the alternative!). It’s so important that our young people all over the world can connect up so they can learn the simple things about each other that make all the difference in their lives. You definitely don’t need to be in Africa to make a difference to African people, but I can promise that the motivation and fire to make a difference in these young people will blaze a lot stronger now they have met the people that own the lives their actions are changing! How cool to directly see the huge difference a simple school fundraiser can make, to literally save and change lives. Just think what might happen if we all chose to follow the example of these youth!

Jenn x

The icing on the many cakes!

2010-06-05T16:03:00.011+01:00

After a few crazy busy weeks with nights filled running rehearsals and days spent cutting out the many props or organising invitations and promoting the event, the advocacy event I have been involved in planning came this past Thursday and it was a great success. The kids involved and watching all seemed to have a brilliant day and everyone in the hall was dancing with a huge smile and a pretty butterfly on their cheek by the end of the day, which for me counts as a success.
The main purpose of the day was to promote to children their rights (with local police men and council men there to answer their questions) and encourage families to treat ALL children with true love from the Bible, which in Africa normally means having to see beyond the exterior and into the heart. Street children are of course the perfect example of this; annoying people begging on the street and often stealing and lying. But of course, these circumstances are through no choice or even fault of their own, and we need to remember that although we can’t be sure of where money would go if we give to everyone (as parents tend to send their children to beg to benefit from their vulnerability and cuteness) we still need to see them as blameless children that deserve love. Everyone was put here for a reason, it’s just that sometimes we need to see past the dust to the sparkle underneath, which can sometimes take some serious elbow grease and polishing!

I was working on songs and a dance with local Sunday school children who were too young to learn a drama, and I did the drama with the Dwelling Places children who are ridiculously quick and talented in this area due to the stacks of experience they have from other such events. The main drama was called “Hot Steps to Heaven” after a popular reality TV dance show here “Hot Steps”. We had contestants competing for a place in heaven, the audience voting, some funny judges and presenters with huge personalities! The contestants were given several different challenges based on Biblical messages and their reaction to the challenges determined whether they were voted off during that round or not (i.e. those who put the weakest and youngest first and themselves last stayed). I was worried, only having about a week and a half to practice with the kids that they wouldn’t understand the concept properly, let alone remember lines but they were so enthusiastic as they all love Hot Steps and their brilliant personalities shone through and they made the parts really come to life, it was hilarious to watch!

As well as the dance the little kiddies were doing we had two interpretive dances with stories or messages behind them. The first showed a short story of how children can end up on the street abandoned and how alone they can feel. The music for this was from Sigor Ros which can be pretty intense and with the story behind it all it was actually quite difficult watching these children pretending a story that most of them have lived. It especially hit me when they rearranged the way I had told them to sit whilst begging because the way they wanted to sit was more comfortable for long periods which is what you need when you’re begging. At that point I felt I could almost see the million miles between their childhoods and my own.
The final dance was to the song True Colours and showed the older girls taking the risk to remove the horrible, scary looking masks from the little kids to show beautiful butterflies painted on their smiling faces underneath. One of the children read the verse “I can never forget you! I have written your name on the palms of my hands” from Isaiah 49:16. It was then explained that although God never forgets us it is our responsibility to also never forget each other and to always take the risk of removing a “mask” from someone to help them show their true colours underneath. To make sure this message hit home everyone was given a small card butterfly with “Be a blessing...reveal the beauty” written on the back in the local Lunganda language. But more exciting than this everyone got one of the hundreds of fairy cakes I had made, a samosa and a soda. The kids were all very excited about this! It was a good day all round, and the fact that the electricity lasted the whole time wasn’t much short of a miracle as we have had some serious power cuts recently so I was so thankful for that. We all came home in the bus Thursday afternoon like sleepy babies that had had too much excitement for one day and almost collapsed entering the cottage. I’m not sure yet what my next project at Dwelling Places will be, but i am sure I will still be visiting the kids home as much as possible after work. They are the sweetest kids, sometimes cheeky but so kind and all of them true survivors. I couldn’t ask for better company.

‘for many are called but few are chosen’. Matthew 22:14

2010-05-27T14:40:00.000+01:00

So as Jenn mentioned in a previous blog we’re now working on completely separate projects. This makes meal times a LOT more interesting as we don’t have to tell each other stories of what we’ve just experienced together.

I’m in the PR office, which involves making PowerPoint presentations for some staff members to take with them on upcoming visits to the UK and America. It’s looking likely that the team will be in Bo’ness on Friday 10th September, so get it in your diary and head along to see my amazing PowerPoints!!! Only joking! But seriously head along to hear what these fantastic ladies have got to share about the work of Dwelling Places.

The really fun part of my job is at Henrietta’s, this is a café which has been turned into a youth training centre for the time being. The Youth Rebuilders is a pilot scheme for young people who have recently left full time education, but haven’t begun work. The young folks spend their morning working on computer skills, entrepreneurship etc and in the afternoon are involved in craft sessions. They also work a farm which I am yet to visit.

I have been trusted to run a 45minute discipleship session for a group of about 15 young people (18-25) Tuesday to Friday. Last week I was working with Lynn (our housemate) but started on my own yesterday as Lynn has returned to her regular position teaching in a local primary school.

So I have years of experience in youth work, but this is an older group, they’re nearly ages with me! And they are also completely inspiring and awesome!!! (Samuel mentioned in Jenn’s ‘Every Teeny Finger Counts’ blog is one of my youths… just to give you an idea of exactly how inspiring they actually are!) So I felt very, very nervous at the thought of preparing sessions for them.

Anyway, after some praying and planning I had a session. We planned a wedding for a friend, brother or sister in groups and discussed why it should be a special day. I then asked the group to think about that day, and how they would feel if no one turned up. They were all shocked and I could see the devastation and anger on their faces at only the thought. I then went on to read to them from Matthew 22 when Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding feast that the King has organised for His son but his guests don’t come. The king then sends out his servants to bring people from the street; who attend. When the king arrives he finds one man not suitably dressed for a wedding and has his servants take him away. (That’s the story in a nutshell – but you should check your bible for a more accurate account!)

We discussed the parallels of the story, Jesus is the son, God the king and discussed the appropriate dress for the wedding God is talking about. Which by the way isnae a kilt! It seems to be that we should be clothed in righteousness, which we decided as a group meant loving your enemy as you love yourself, being patient and kind and following God’s law. So now that I’ve accepted the initial invite, all I have to do is clothe myself with righteousness? Sounds easy, eh?!

As usual, when working with young people I am constantly learning, and being challenged and have now made a mental note to myself, to always bear in mind that with God’s invitation comes the responsibility to accept, show up, AND to have the right(eous) attitude.

Laura x

Every teeny finger counts!

2010-05-27T07:03:00.004+01:00

So we are busy busy busy in Uganda and absolutely loving it! I have been blessed enough to be trusted with the creating of an advocacy show of drama, dance and singing that is happening on 3rd June. The overall theme for the advocacy week run by a children’s Christian charity in Uganda called CRANE, is “made in God’s image”. So from this our day has a sub-theme that because of this every single one of us is beautiful, despite our exterior or possible situations or circumstances. We are specifically trying to encourage people within the surrounding communities that this is even more true for children and that it is our responsibility as their elders to change their circumstances to allow this beauty to shine through. Typical to me there is a butterfly theme to the day aswell, as not only do I happen to love butterflies, but the reason behind my love fits perfectly with the day: at first sight we see butterflies as horrible creepy crawlies, but with some time, care and the right nurturing environment a new beautiful creation is revealed. I think this can be applied to every single person’s life at some point. It is also an old Christian symbol with the cocoon representing the tomb and the butterfly symbolising new life from the resurrection. SO ANYWAY...we have a hall booked, we are expecting around 200 – 300 people and in between practices with the gorgeous children I am making a small cake for everyone coming and involved (which by the way is much harder than you might think in a Ugandan oven, although this does mean we keep having to test them!), and cutting out hundreds of butterflies to hang in the hall and give away with each guest. It is so much fun right now, and I am absolutely loving having something to get my teeth stuck into. And the kids...oh my word they are so so cute and all try so hard (which for some can be a struggle to ignore that pickable thing in their noses for a whole hour of practicing!). It’s so great to work with them, because no matter how much I can’t be bothered, or how long a day i have already had, as soon as I see them my spirit is totally lifted!

So things are coming together and on tuesday I spent the afternoon with two of the youth from Dwelling Places, Samuel and Isa, who helped me stick posters for the day on every post in a 5 mile radius (or at least a long walk away!). Samuel was involved with the Peace Child show that Erica and Lorna had been involved with organising when they were here. I have heard so much about this show and the more I hear the more fantastic it sounds. I would like to say my full initial reaction to Samuel’s praise of Peace Child was feeling proud of my incredible serving friends and the hard work they did to bring this show about, but I have to admit that fear was creeping into my voice. I was wrongly verging on comparing my very separate and different project with Peace Child, which had a completely different purpose and it would seem budget. But as my fears began to creep through my positive words Samuel calmly said something so simple but beautiful all at once to me. He held his hand out in front of us and pointed to his pinky finger. “Jenn, no single finger on a hand no matter how big or small is any less important and loved than any of the rest. You have some bigger, more obvious fingers , but I can promise you that if you were to lose the littlest of all you would still ache for it. All you have to do is forget about how big you may be in something, and make sure to be making an unforgettable impact on those around you by simply loving them. And that is when you would be truly noticed to be missing.” I was so blown away, a 19 year old just gave me a life lesson on one hand! And how true he is aswell. I would so prefer to be a teeny baby finger that has a small positive impact than a huge big one that is just there to be there. Even as I type I am smiling at my beautiful, non-remarkable, tiny little pinky fingers, and I thank God I have them in my life.

jenn
xxxx

Dwelling Places

2010-05-19T14:46:00.001+01:00

Our first day in Kampala, the heavens opened and the rain poured almost non-stop all day. Normally for two Scottish girls this isn’t a big deal, but here when it rains pretty much everything stops. We are living up a hill and the orange mud roads turn into rivers with the rain, so most people stay inside as much as they can until the rain is over. This meant that we missed church on our first Sunday in Uganda, but it was actually a blessing in disguise as it gave us time to get to know the other two girls we will be living with in the volunteer cottage, Lynn and Laura (yes, another 1!). Laura number 2 is from Canada and Lynn is from Northern Ireland, they have both been here for a month already and have another 2 to go, so we will be spending the rest of our time here with them, so its a good thing we are all getting on really well and they seem really lovely (and i’m not just saying that in case they read this!). The four of us are sharing a cute little 2 bedroom cottage in a compound with some of the other Dwelling Places staff. Laura and I are actually in the converted garage, but if it wasn’t for the big metal wall you could never tell, and now we’ve unpacked its lovely and homely. The cottage interior is very basic, with all the essentials; a fridge, a table, a sink, a bathroom and even a working shower. But by far the nicest thing about the house is the fact it is in a compound where other women are always walking around, washing clothes, playing and laughing outside our window, and so when we are home we have our door open to the many visitors we receive from our neighbours. It’s just such a nice relaxed and welcoming atmosphere, shame you couldn’t do this in Glasgow without all your things being stolen!
Monday morning we all woke up early and so Laura (number 1) and I walked the short distance along the road with Laura (number 2) up to the Dwelling places offices where we were met by the volunteer co-ordinator, Martha. We spent the day in “orientation”, where we were shown around the offices, met the staff, visited the children’s home and were given our job descriptions for the next 7weeks. The children are actually on holiday from their schools right now until the end of the month, and so Dwelling Places are taking this opportunity to see if the children will settle into the homes that are lined up for them.
Let me explain...Dwelling Places uses a programme based around four R’s: rescue, rehabilitation, reconciliation and resettlement. The first stage “Rescue” involves social workers from Dwelling Places going out into Kampala and the surrounding slum areas to build relationships with the children who are begging and living on the streets. Once this relationship is formed and trust is built the outreach and medical team can assess the children best suited to Dwelling Places and create a specific programme for that child. The children are then brought into the Dwelling Places to live in the “Transitional Home” where the “Rehabilitation” stage can begin. Street children are the outcasts of society here and can so easily become mixed up in a whirlwind of drugs, abuse, sexual activity and theft from a very young age. Dwelling Places therefore use the Transitional Home to teach the children basic everything: English, hygiene, social skills, self esteem, even how to sleep in a bed rather than the street. This can then lead onto education in the “interim school” which, through funding from child sponsorship, can lead to access to the mainstream education system.
After a minimum of 2 years, depending on the stage of development of each child, “Reconciliation” with a family can begin. Dwelling Places’ founder Rita Nkembe doesn’t believe in institutions for children where avoidable, and understands the importance of a loving, family environment. So as soon as the child trusts the staff enough to open up about their family, a search begins for any family members. If family are found, the social workers conduct a thorough investigation into the family to see if reintegration of the child into this family is the best thing for the child. If this is found to be the case then the family members are invited to join the Family Empowerment Programme, run by Dwelling Places to provide families with the skills and education to provide a loving home environment for a family. This involves many things such as counselling, health advice, skill training and housing in a safe area. If however the family cannot be traced or is deemed a bad environment for the child, a foster family is found instead and adoption can also take place.
The final stage is “Resettlement” where the child is integrated back into their family (or into their new family). This is a long process, with short term visits, followed by assessments and then continual reassessment of the family situation after the child moves in with the family for good. When a child is nearing adulthood, they will be given trained in skills to allow them to live independently, ie. Craft skills, trades, business lessons.
SO....the last intake of children was three years ago and so the aim for this year is for all the children to be resettled by the end of the year and a new rescue intake to begin next year. So right now the children are mainly all spending the holidays in their soon to be new homes as a kind of trial period. Only eight of the girls are left, as either their lessons were still running or they don’t yet have a family to go to. Therefore until the children come back on May 23rd Laura and I will be helping more around the office with different things and getting our head around the organisation, before helping with the kids on their return. Laura being as technical minded as she is, has been asked to help in the public relations office with several computer related tasks and computer training for staff. I have been asked to help create and teach a performance to the children for an upcoming advocacy event they will be attending. The theme is “Created in God’s image”, but other than that I don’t know much yet. I’m sure everything will make sense and flesh out in the next few weeks for us both. But I really need to learn to be patient as I want to help in absolutely every department RIGHT NOW, but as Laura keeps telling me, it’s good for us to find our feet and the deep end isn’t always the best way into things. I wish I didn’t need to learn that lesson...I’m far too impatient for it!
I really can’t wait for the work in the next few months though, as we get to know the children and understand the heart behind an incredible organisation. Every staff member is so nice and even the locals are more used to mzungos, so we only get the occasional shout in the street which is nice for us. I think we will make some incredible memories here and learn some invaluable lessons.
xxx

Last week in Kenya

2010-05-14T08:58:00.004+01:00

Our last weekend in Kenya was spent with friends from church. We had supper with one of the elders, Solomon, and his family on the Friday evening. This turned into an evening of African dance, a highland fling from Jenn, and singing. We had lots of fun, and we even managed to talk the family into letting us de-cob some maize before heading home for rest before attending a football tournament the following day.

We were collected early by George and Henry who walked us down a fairly steep hill toward the football fields. The last week had been youth week in the PCEA (Presbyterian Church of East Africa) so each district would organise events for their young people. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side, it was fairly drizzly and the games had to stop a few times so the youths could take shelter in a nearby school. This gave Jenn an opportunity to show off some football skills and add to her collection.

After the games, we joined some of the boys for lunch in a nearby café, well I say nearby but it didn’t feel too nearby after the walk back up the hill, which the Kenyans seemed to take in their stride; and after hours of football too! We enjoyed some chips and Jenn and I prepared to leave, when the waiter appeared with half a goat, gravy and ugali (corn/maize flour and water cooked to the consistency of mashed potatoes, it resembles mashed tatties a bit too much for my liking!). We watched as the boys polished it off and headed back to the church for a game of Chinese checkers before being taken home before dark.

The next morning we were collected for church, we arrived on time to have a little interaction with the Sunday School before the main service. We sang a few songs and prayed together before sharing some sweeties and joining the rest of the church. Kiambaa Church were trying very hard to talk us into staying with them till the following Monday so we could join them for church the next week, but Jenn and I were already late in leaving for Uganda as we’d had problems getting out of Scotland with the volcanic ash situation. So we said a formal goodbye during the service, thanking everyone for the hospitality, friendship and kindness they’d shown us over the last week and how we were looking forward to our last few days in Kenya, especially our visit to Abbey Academy on Friday before we were leaving.

During the service the congregation had a ‘fundraiser’ for the youth. This consisted of a basket at the front of the church, and each group in the church (youth, guild, districts etc) would take it in turn to go forward with an offering. I can’t remember the exact total but I was amazed at the generosity of the congregation. Especially when I hear that this fundraising took place every month, for a different church group.

After the service we joined the youth for lunch before the football was being screened for the locals. Thankfully Jenn and I had found a new passion in chinese checkers so we sat in the garden for a game with some of our new friends when the football began, we slowly had an audience around us, I was a little confused as to why until I realised there was a power cut which meant the football had stopped, of course as soon as it came back on there was 7 or 8 of us round the board again. We were walked home early evening by another 4 youths who stopped at the hostel with us, singing praise songs and chatting in the lobby till after dark.

During our last week in Kenya we spent time with different elders, visiting sick, bereaved and general members of each district. We met some really interesting people but unfortunately did not get to spend much time with anyone as we visited, prayed and moved on. Kenyans like to host visitors, so they were all keen to give us a cup of tea or some ginger snaps, but we could only stop for a couple.

Unfortunately Jenn and I took a short vomiting bug during our last week so had to take a day to rest in bed, but we’re both feeling back to normal now so nothing to be concerned about. After our day in bed we had to visit Nairobi to collect our Ugandan Visas. One of the youth accompanying us was celebrating his birthday so we went for a typical Kenyan lunch of sausage and chips, and to the park for a bit of birthday cake and a pedal boat ride before heading back to Kiambaa.

We spent our last day in Kenya with Tabitha at Abbey Academy. We met her in the morning to visit a few of the children at home who had attended the school but were now unable due to financial difficulties. We were sad to hear of the progress the children had been making before they had to leave the school, but in some cases the money just wasn’t there.

We returned to the school to spend the day with the children, we started out in a play room with the children with autism. There was a lady in giving the children massages to relax their muscles and set them up for the day. The other children played with beads, building blocks and 4 very special puppets, which had been handmade by Jenn’s mum, Caroline. Although I think Tabitha had the best fun with the puppets!

After lunch the children washed and brushed their teeth ready for their weekly games afternoon. Jenn and I were split into two teams with some of the kids and we took part in skipping, bouncing, blindfolded races, tire races and three legged races for points. I’m not sure how but Jenn and I ended up running together in the three legged race as we were competing in different teams? Perhaps God wants us to work on our teamwork…

When we finished games the children returned to the classroom to draw pictures for us to take away with us. Jenn was then asked to draw a friendship tree for visitors to sign and I was allowed to paint a frog on a log on the wall of one of the classrooms!

We said goodbye to the children before heading back to pack for our journey to Uganda the following day!

Some elders visited us in the evening to say goodbye and ask us how we'd enjoyed our visit, of course it was all positive feedback and I'm looking forward to another trip to Kenya in the future; God willing! hehe

Laura x

p.s. Will get photo's up soon, sorry about the lack of them so far, this is due to a very slow internet connection.

Abbey Academy

2010-05-10T05:48:00.003+01:00

Last Thursday morning we were collected by four of the youth: Passie, Tyras, Elizabeth and Bonnie (yes we did inform him that this is a Scottish term!). As always we has no idea where we were heading and so we were delighted when we were told that we would be visiting a local school for “special” children. We soon arrived at Abbey Heaven School tucked away behind the safe compound walls. We were greeted at the gates by a smiling welcoming woman Tabitha, the founder of Abbey Heaven School. We walked into a reasonably big, well kept, blossoming garden where a boy sat on a near-by swing smiling to himself as several dogs excitedly leaped around us all, scaring Laura a lot. Tabitha introduced us to the boy as he ran to jump on the small trampoline, explaining to us that this was her son George who suffered from Autism. We greeted George before Tabitha took us on a tour around the grounds.
The school is made up of two main buildings (which used to be Tabitha’s house and her late father in law’s house), converted into care rooms, a big kitchen, boarding facilities for the children and an area for self administered massage and physical therapy. The attached garage and some smaller rooms built around the back of the houses act as different classrooms. Everything in this school has a purpose, with so much thought and understanding obviously behind it. Examples of this thought were everywhere; classrooms were filled with pastel colours so as not to be stressful for the children, most learning is done through pictures as this is a better way for autistic children to process information, there were toilet training facilities, a black room the children could retreat to under adult supervision to learn when the normal settings become too distracting or promote hyperactivity, there were many activities which not only encouraged learning but also skills such as hand-eye co-ordination and concentration (e.g. threading beads with smaller and smaller holes) and most of the essential equipment was available to the children.

Tabitha explained to us that although primary education is free to Kenyan tax payers, education for children with special needs comes at a high cost and generally involves a daily, long journey on the public transport which is crowded, unreliable and stressful for anyone of a relaxed, sound mind. Due to these high costs of time, money and stress she had watched several parents having to take their children out of education over the years. Tabitha herself had eventually had to withdraw George from his school and hired a private tutor to come to their home. However she was more than aware of the importance of socialisation and integration with “normal” children for an autistic child. After many years involved with the schools, and the background of a social work degree, Tabitha had come to the conclusion that the size of the schools and the high number of staff needed were what resulted in the steep school fees being paid by the parents. After much research Tabitha has found several ways around this problem, keeping things small scale (around 30 children attend Abbey Heaven), but more importantly enabling the children to help themselves where possible, providing the appropriate equipment to allow this. For example, rather than having to pay the wages of several physiotherapists, she has one full time physiotherapist who, rather than having to do all of the massaging and nerve work herself, helps the able children to use a massaging, acupuncture machine she had imported from Asia. This machine has a paddle with several balls that heat up and hit the different pressure points used in acupuncture, when it is placed in the right positions. The physiotherapist can work with each of the children that need regular massage and as long as they are capable, they are taught how to use the machine themselves. And so at the end of a long day, although she will have to work directly with some of the children, the physiotherapist can just supervise several of the children as they administer the treatment themselves. This dissolves the amount of work from several to one full time physiotherapist, thus cutting wages dramatically. They also have other equipment such as a balance ball to improve balance, a swinging seat to improve co-ordination and an exercise bike, which also improves balance and co-ordination. Even the many pet dogs have a purpose; children with autism find it much easier to relate to animals naturally than they do humans, so by developing relationships with the dogs the children improve in their social skills. These skills are also improved by the integration of the autistic children with the 15 “normal” children that also attend the school. This integration allows natural socialisation and learning between the children to take place.

About 10 of the children board during the week, although they are encouraged to go home over weekends when possible to allow them to still feel part of their family. This means that Tabitha, her husband and a member of staff that stays overnight must always be ready to respond to any upsets or problems from the children and a guard is hired for the gate overnight to enhance security. When I asked Tabitha if she ever sleeps she laughed as though this was a ridiculous question but then went on to tell us how it can sometimes be good when she wakes up through the night as she can start the cooking for the next day at around 3am! The most incredible thing about her is that she is just so completely genuine and humble. When we asked about her lack of personal space she explained to us that her house is really God’s house she is looking after and since she can only sleep in 1 of the rooms she should really be putting the other ones to good use for those that need them since they deserve them just as much as she does. This sounds as though she is some really airy fairy, sickeningly sweet superwoman, but far from it. Everything about Tabitha is practical and honest. She happily described the difficulties she also faces being a mother of an autistic child, the worries she faces and the space she can need, and as she opened up to us there was an uncommon, overwhelming sense of vulnerability in her voice, but she was happy to show this so as to let us know her heart and why she is doing what she is doing. Everything about Abbey Heaven is about having this heart for caring for these children, and Tabitha employs according to this passion rather than training, as she is confident that she can provide training, but you can’t make a person care for and love children that demand so much, and it is only this love that will keep you going through the difficult times.
When she started the school 3 years ago Tabitha never had huge dreams, or any personal agenda, other than her son getting the best education possible, but yet 3 years on and the school is flourishing and she is now looking to open a home nearby for the older pupils to share where they can live together and live independently with only essential assistance. In the nearer future she also hopes to put a heated pool into the gardens to hire out for a source of income to allow her to keep the school fees low, but also to be used as part of the relaxation and physiotherapy treatment programme for the pupils. She also hopes to buy a bus so the children can be taken on day excursions as she explained to us that many of the children have never even seen a river, as due to their mental limitations imagination is not accessed so easily, so experience of such things is essential for understanding. However, Tabitha relies on bank loans which she slowly pays off as she can or donations which can be unpredictable.

Tabitha never once asked Laura and I for anything, but before leaving we asked excitedly if it would be possible for us to come back sometime. Thankfully Tabitha was happy to agree and so we will be attending Abbey Heaven this Friday to assist with their outside play day! I can’t wait, being there is actually like someone wrapping warm, sparkly fluff around all your cynical thoughts and giving you the hope and encouragement you never thought you needed.

Abbey Heaven is the perfect example of what happens when someone accepts that they can’t do everything, but knows they must do something. When we look at poverty and Africa as a whole it is so easy for it to all seem helpless and utterly hopeless, and it’s far too easy for us to take the easy option and turn our backs on the dark situations. But when you take the time to look hard enough you find that sometimes amongst the darkness tiny, very basic, very simple stars pop up from the hope burning from people like Tabitha and their courage in their dreams. And what a huge difference each one of these little stars makes in an otherwise pitch dark world. Maybe we don’t need to change a whole world, we just all need to have the courage to take the risk to light just one little star.
A humbled Jenn xx

Great Rift Valley

2010-05-10T05:42:00.003+01:00

We were picked up on Wednesday morning by Jamlech and Peter for another day full of surprises. First we began to walk toward the gate to leave the hostel grounds the men called us back to a car! What a treat! We’ve been enjoying the sludging through mud but I was looking forward to arriving home in the evening with clean feet!
We headed along the great North Road away from Nairobi to the Uplands where we enjoyed a spectacular view of The Great Rift Valley which is the longest valley in the world.
We then visited a local market, I was amazed at the different types of beans and fruit available, and felt pretty cheated at the range accessible to us in the UK, that’s only one reason to visit Africa! Before we left Jamlech and Peter made sure to buy a bag of sugar cane for me to sample. If I could bring one thing home for my family to taste this would be it. It was not what I expected at all, very juicy and refreshing! Wasn’t so keen on the strings we had to remove from our mouths after we’d had a good chew right enough.
We enjoyed a quick cup of tea (this is all Kenyans seem to drink!) and a samosa (which was very different from Indian ones, some beef with gravy in the middle) before we headed to the hospital to visit one of the elders Peter who had had an accident in the garden. He seemed pleased to have more visitors, and proudly showed us photo’s of his leg before surgery – lovely! Despite the pain Peter seemed very cheery! This seems to be due to the support of his friends and family. He explained that at one point there were so many people in his hospital room he could hardly move. I’m always worried that if I visit someone that I’m not extremely close to in hospital or at home when they are unwell that I will be putting them out. But during my time at home and here I’ve seen how much visitors can cheer someone up and it’s changed my misconception.
In the evening we spent some time at Jamlicks home, we enjoyed some tea before starting on the supper. We learned to make chapattis, 15 each so we’re now gurus in Kenyan cooking... we relaxed for a little while with the family, and enjoyed our chapattis and some more tea before heading home for an early night.

Laura <><

Food Glorious Food

2010-04-30T07:11:00.001+01:00

Monday morning after a big breakfast of bread, jam, boiled eggs, sausages and fruit (they seem to want us to get fat here) we were collected by Ann and Pesh, 2 girls from the youth group at the church. We all squeezed into one of the teeny weeny buses and headed over the pot hole filled, orange mud roads towards the local market, with African music blaring out the speakers the whole way. It was brilliant! We had a look around the market and the girls pointed out their local fruits and the different foods they cook with, which mainly involves a million different ways of preparing corn from the cob, which is more correctly called maize here.
After buying some fruit and appreciating the cheapness of what we would consider exotic fruit we jumped back on the bus to go to Paul’s (one of the elders, and Ann’s uncle) house for lunch. We were welcomed into a lovely house with a huge living room crammed with seats to allow for as many visitors as possible and were fed a beautiful meal of pumpkin, stew, rice, veg and chapatti (which I am happy we didn’t leave behind in India). We asked Paul about the land he attends to during lunch and we even had a nice song sang to us by his cows which were just outside. It seems to be a running trend in Kenya to grow as much of your own veg, and own as many of your own cows, pigs, goats and sheep as you can, as this is much more cost effective for them, and the result is the millions of food we are being given everywhere we go! The regular rain in the country means that they have very fertile soil, and so it is easy for them to grow their own veg and to tend their own land. However Laura and I were disgusted when we heard that Paul had not given any of his cows names, so we quickly ran around to the side of the house to name them for him. We agreed on the ginger one being called Sarah (after my beautiful ginger sister) and the others, Daisy, Brian and Buttercup. I have a funny feeling Paul might not remember these names, but we will maybe try and leave a note of them for him before we leave!
After finishing our meal I asked Paul how he would spend the afternoon, and he told me he had it to relax. Deciding to push the boundaries a tiny little bit, I teasingly suggested that maybe he could help his wife with the dishes, to which everyone in the room other than Laura cracked up laughing! Silly Jenn! We were quickly told by Jeremiah (another youth group member that had joined us) that men actually look very silly washing up so they couldn’t help. We explained that in Scotland the men that don’t help with the washing will normally be made to look silly in the future by their wives as unless one partner has left work to stay at home, the load is shared. Women in Africa really do work so hard for their families, often being expected to be the main caregiver and provider for the family. However I should say that this is not the case with Paul as he, like many Kenyan men, does seem to work very hard on his land and is heavily involved with his work at the church.
We spent the rest of the afternoon with the youth walking, eating fruit (that’s right more food) and sharing cultures. One of the funniest things we were asked was definitely “what is wrong with your skin that you have so many spots?” These “spots” were in fact our many freckles which are apparently extremely misunderstood by Africans, who think they are the sign of a skin problem! We giggled and assured them that we are not contagious! As Ann is getting married soon we were asking about relationships and weddings in Kenya. It turns out that it is not uncommon for there to be about 15 – 20 bridesmaids and groomsmen and then another big group of little flower girls and page boys! But thankfully for the couple getting married, the people involved pay for their own outfit for the wedding which the bride will choose. It is also still a rule here that a dowry is paid before a wedding, but conversely to British tradition, the man is expected to pay a sum of money to the parents of the bride. This will be the amount asked for by the parents, but is often paid over the course of the marriage rather than a lump sum before the wedding, which I get the impression would be quite unrealistic as I think it can often be a very large sum of money.
Pesh was also telling me later all about the many youth activities they have in their church. I was amazed and very impressed! They will all meet once a week for bible study one week and fellowship the next, then they have choir practice twice a week, they run things like the football on the Saturday and then additionally to all of this they have sports groups (mainly football I think) and drama groups that will meet regularly to practice and then are involved in ongoing competitions with other local P.C.E.A churches in matches and events that are decided by the General Assembly at the start of the year. It sounds like they have so much fun, and hopefully we will get to cheer on their football team this weekend at their upcoming game.
Around 6pm we headed to another one of the youth member’s, Stanley, and his wife Mary’s house for dinner. We had a brilliant night watching their wedding video and giggling as they failed to pull funny faces for a photo (apparently this is not the done thing in Kenya). We were then presented with an overloaded plate of even more delicious food! I ate as much as I possibly could, but just as I thought I might burst, Laura asked me if I was feeling ok because apparently I was very flushed! I took that as a cue to give up the fight and put down my plate. Luckily as yummy as the food here is, it is all very healthy and extremely fresh as it is literally from the back garden so although our appetites may become stretched staying here, hopefully our tummy’s wont be too much!
After a deep sleep we were collected on Tuesday morning by Terry who took us to her mum Lucy’s house just around the corner from the hostel. Lucy’s husband was the moderator for the P.C.E.A for 6 years and has only recently returned to his role as a Pastor. They have a lovely house with a pretty large farm off the back. We had some coffee and a nice chat with Lucy and we told her we would really love if she could just let us help them with the work they would normally do about the house and not make special plans for us. I almost fell off the seating and deafened Laura squeeling with excitement as I found out I could help them milk the cows later! I had never done this before and loved every weird minute of it (although I doubt the poor cow felt the same, and I don’t think I improved production much!).
We also got to help the women make mokemo, a typical Keyan dish. This involves picking the kernels off the cob of corn, peeling the bad bits off pumkin leaves then cutting them, peeling potatoes and then boiling all of them and kind of mushing them all together. It’s so yummy, I will definitely be making it for my lucky family when I get home! (Dad you will love it!)
The best part of the day though (other than drinking the same milk I had earlier squeezed) was the conversation. It’s so interesting talking to the women about their lives and the many culture differences between us. Christians in Kenya do not drink alcohol at all. At first we understood this as good role modelling, but it turns out alcoholism is a huge problem especially among men in Kenya and so is adultery, which generally follows from the men leaving the wives at home to go drinking and dancing and this of course adds hugely to the terrible HIV/AIDS problem here.
When the Pastor returned we continued swapping stories as he has actually been to Scotland to visit their partner church in Carluke several times and so he was able to make comparisons. The main theme that seemed to keep arising is the lack of community in Scotland. They find it so strange here that people in Scotland often are scared to give someone something or help them in case they offend them. And the idea of not getting in touch with someone so as “not to bother them” is completely foreign here. I agree that this is something really sad about our country and think that as society gears more and more towards money and independence we move further from the community and large family feeling that once defined our identity. So when we get home I think I might start a revolution...neighbours watch out, here I come!
One really funny thing we learnt was that although it is considered completely acceptable and normal to comment on someone’s weight here, to ask them their age or for them to talk about how many children or animals they have is very wrong. This is even stranger since it is seen as an honour and respectable to be old here. I hope we haven’t offended anyone as one of our first questions with the youth is normally their age, and apparently it doesn’t matter if you are 7 or 79, you don’t like to be asked this. I thought it was weird that some of the youth didn’t seem to know the age of some of the close friends! As for the not counting thing, there is a superstition ingrained in the culture here that by talking about the number of children you have, or animals you own, you are likely to lose one of them! So people are very afraid to talk about this...again something Laura and I ask quite regularly, after all if we are going to name your cows we need to know how many you have!
What an amazing learning experience we are having so far! I’m off to wash in a bucket whilst the water is still hot enough! I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Jenn xx

Hakuna Matata

2010-04-30T07:08:00.000+01:00

I can’t believe I’m finally in Africa, I’ve wanted to be here since I was about 6 or 7, and it’s everything I’d imagined and more, perhaps a little cooler and wetter, But I’m definitely not complaining about that, makes it feel more like home ;)

We arrived in Kenya early Friday morning and were greeted by five members of PCEA (Presbeterian church of east Africa) Kiambaa, this is the church we are spending time with while we are here. I was amazed to step out of the airport to some cool air, I thought Kenya would be HOT, being on the equator and all! But we had arrived during the wet season so I was glad to hear we would need to take a cardigan and a rain coat with us whenever we left home, feels like home!

We were dropped at the pastoral centre, a hostel used for training etc in the PCEA, fed some dough nuts (square ‘puffs’ of pastry) and tea before we were left to rest for the day, in the evening 4 elders from the church came to visit us and discuss a timetable for the next fortnight. They told us a few young people would come to collect us early Saturday morning for a walk, and we could discuss the rest of the programme on Sunday after church.

Sure enough three young people, Ann, Stanley and Dan showed up, on time, to the hostel ready to spend the day together. First they took us for a long walk, Jenn and I had not prepared well for this at all, I had the silliest little pumps on, which were not at all appropriate for sludging through puddles.

We hopped on a bus, a fourteen seater, or at least it’s meant to be... and headed to the church of the Torch which is the first Presbyterian church in Kenya, and was planted by Scottish missionaries around 120 years ago. Some ministers seemed to be having a meeting inside so we didn’t get in for a look but one minister came out for a chat. He gave us a little history about the church and welcomed us to Kenya.

We headed to the PCEA university for a walk in the gardens, and lunch. During lunch one of the boys asked me if I enjoyed watching football, to which I replied ‘nah, not really, I quite enjoy going to the stadium to watch, but I can’t much be bothered with it on the television.’ Jenn quickly informed me that the boys wanted to watch an English league game and I was being invited to watch it with them. OOPS! I agreed we should go, and I’m glad I did because Man Untd. won, nah only joking, I’m glad I did because it’s a project set up by the young people in the church to discourage the men in the community from going to the pub to watch football at the weekend. And it seems to be working! There was over a hundred locals enjoying (some more than others) the game.
On the way home we stopped off to have a peek at a local wedding, Jenn and I were a little nervous as we weren’t sure how well we would blend in as gatecrashers at a Kenyan wedding!!! And we didn’t, we were only there a few minutes before the groom spotted us, he turned quickly to his groomsmen and his new wife, and before we knew it they had instructed the camera man and he was over with a camcorder in our faces, we were absolutely mortified!
In the evening we rested as we had an early start for church in the morning, the youth service begins at 8.30am. We were again collected to walk to church and met with the people taking part in the service for a prayer beforehand. We were invited to take part in the service by sharing a word or singing a song, we agreed to sing a song. We were led into the service and seated on the stage at the front with some of the young people. The music started and the worship team took to the front. Everyone began singing and harmonising beautifully before shaking their hips and joining in with actions, and even jumping to praise the Lord. It’s so different from the Presbyterian church in Scotland, and to be honest I’m not sure we’d manage the moves, although Jenn and I gave it a good shot.
After the service we met for another prayer before heading meet with the elders before the second service. We all marched in together and one of the elders kindly directed us to our seats, we were moved seconds later to sit with a couple of girls that would translate for us. We could barely believe it when the service began, we started with worship, then the women’s guild got up to sing a song, then the youth group, the choir, another few groups in the church before a couple of artists came forward to share a short message and song. Perhaps we should try this at St Andrews?!
The elder taking the service then asked any visitors to stand, we were then invited to the front to share a bit about ourselves, Soul Touch and our experience of Kenya so far. Andrew, an elder, told the congregation that we would be spending time with different groups every day, they were to give us lunch and dinner and not to make any special allowances for us. He also said we had to be home at the hostel for 7pm?! We then returned to our seats for a short while before we were invited back up to present gifts to students who had performed well in a recent maths exam. Afterwards we heard the sermon and the service finished nearly 3 hours after it had started.
After the service we joined the youth team for some lunch, I think it was Irish stew! Seems to be a common meal in Kenya. We discussed politics, Kenya are about to vote on a new constitution in the next few weeks so this is a very hot topic. After lunch we spent some time in the church gardens with the congregation and Andrew, one of the elders, to discuss the programme for the next week.
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with the children in the garden. They were fascinated to hear about Scotland and by the way we looked. We are becoming used to hearing local children shouting mzungu (white person) to their friends so they can all great us in a thick African accent, ‘how are you?’ After a busy day we were walked home and told to be ready to be collected at 9.30am the following morning by some more members of the youth group.

Laura <><

Leroy

2010-04-30T07:05:00.000+01:00

So I completely understand that the girls have had a lot of confusion recently with their flights being cancelled and rebooked due to some crazy dust in the air, but I thought I meant more to them than this!
Extremely excited we were going out to Africa next I decided I had better get a good sleep on the Wednesday night before we left Thursday, so I curled up with butterflies in my tummy next to Jenn’s rucksack and looked forward to the morning. BUT when I woke up on Thursday the bag was gone and there was no sign of Jenn!! I assumed she was having breakfast, had put the bag in the car and was allowing me some more time to sleep before coming and getting me, but as I looked around the empty room the more reality began to sink in. Then I heard Jenn’s mum’s voice so I ran to the door to ask her about it, where I heard her on the phone telling someone that Jenn was on her way to Kenya!!!! It finally hit me...THEY LEFT WITHOUT ME!!! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I know I can be a bit moany, but I never thought they would phase me out the group like this! Tears flooded my eyes and I quickly found a nice dark corner to sob in.
Just as I was becoming hysterical and contemplating the point of life, Jenn’s mum came in looking for me and explained that although the girls had left, they had realised the mistake at the airport and they too were distraught about the whole situation, but there had been no time to come back for me and as I’m not the most confident driver (due to the lack of length in my legs, I take after Jenn there) I couldn’t get there myself. So, after many cups of tea and reassurance we have all agreed that I will catch a plane with some other forgotten things in the next few weeks or so, probably to head to Uganda or Cape Town. Although I’m disappointed I will miss Kenya, it’s an opportunity for the girls to realise I really am the glue that holds the group together! I heard that they are loving Kenya so far, and have received a lovely welcome, but give it a few weeks and the enormity of their mistake will kick in! I’m sure of it! Until then though I will be sitting here eating Jenn’s Easter chocolate and plotting my revenge...ah how sweet it will be!
So, I’m sure the trip will suffer for a while, which means the girls need your support with messages and prayers more than ever...poor fools! And don’t be worrying, I’ll be with them soon and everything will be good again!
LEROY

UPDATE

2010-04-20T13:46:00.002+01:00

Hi folks, sorry about the lack of communication over the last few weeks, Jenn and I have been back in Scotland, and this has proved to be the busiest, most tiring leg of the journey.

Jenn's mum, Caroline had organised a coffee morning and soup lunch in St Andrews Church on Saturday 10th April, this was a fantastic success, so thanks to everyone who was involved, baking serving and showing up! Was great to see you all!

We then took the service on Sunday 11th... perhaps we went on a little, there was a LOT to say! We promise to cut down if we're ever asked to talk in church again.

Then Jenn got stranded in Ireland as there is a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland hovering over the Europe. After busses, trains and boats (Jenn's favourite!!!!) she was finally back on Scottish soil and preparing for a trip to Kenya.

At this moment we should be boarding a flight to London, but we're stranded in Scotland, I guess if you're gonna be stranded anywhere, home is probably the best place!

We're now booked on new flights on Thursday 22nd April. We plan to arrive in Kenya early Friday morning. And should be back blogging after the weekend!

Love to everyone, and if you've been part of Soul Touch or our visit home, thanks for making 2010 such a special year for Jenn and I!

Laura <><

Chappathis to chocolate...

2010-04-03T19:10:00.001+01:00

Monday 29^th March was our final day in Chennai, so we spent most of it getting last minute things done. After packing our rucksacks for the millionth time we were picked up by Raj to go for breakfast. We then picked up Sharon and were taken to visit one of Sharon’s top places to visit in Chennai, the shopping mall! We had a look around before going back to Raj’s to be kindly given Salwars as a gift from Christ the Rock Church, handmade by the tailoring class they run. Laura and I pranced around in our Indian outfits with the traditional jasmine in our hair for a while before being taken by the family for a lovely goodbye meal in a local restaurant. We had a giggle trying to get photos where everyone looked nice and not like they had plastered a fake smile on their face, and had a great giggle at the faces Raj was pulling. Still giggling we collected our things, stopped to say goodbye to Captain Thacker and pray and started off for the airport.

The rules with immigration etc seem pretty tight in India and so we had to leave Raj and Sharon outside before we could check in. As we handed over our passports to the immigration officer he stamped them informing us of the restrictions we might face for when we could come back to India with our current visas. Blasé as ever, I quickly told him “we wont be coming back thanks very much!” in a way that Laura cringingly explained to me came across as a bit cheeky, but luckily as I cracked up with laughter at my accidental rudeness so did the immigration officer and we all left giggling. I am getting far too comfortable in airports but am very aware I have to watch what I say more as I don’t want to get us into trouble purely by accident, especially with the stricter customs in some of the countries we will be visiting.

We had a wee while to wait for the plane and as we were talking Laura got distracted by a beautiful baby boy leaning over the shoulder of his mum behind her. After some oohing and ahhing and copious baby talk we introduced good old Leroy to the conversation. At first the baby’s face was covered with a gorgeous grin but not for long. Laura decided to become a bit more playful and as she was moving Leroy’s mouth pretending he was talking she moved him quite quickly in the direction of the baby to show expression in Leroy’s voice, but the poor baby jumped more than I knew a baby was capable of and became frozen in fear! I was almost rolling off my seat at the sight, but we decided we should maybe move somewhere a bit quieter until the plane arrived so as not to upset anyone else!

Another 10 hour flight and we are now in Brussels, which we know is way past Israel and closer to Scotland, but apparently is a cheaper way to fly! We spent the day here ignoring our salivating taste buds around the Belgian chocolate and casually reflecting on the trip so far. We have discovered that both of us are learning in different ways the importance of knowing what your own individual calling is, but also in understanding how different this is for each person and how important it is to appreciate and respect these differences. We were each made individual for a reason, with our hearts’ owning different burdens and it is nobody but our own responsibility to respond to these burdens in the best way we feel we can.

We are now waiting to board our next flight to Israel to arrive in at midnight their time. Both of us are exhausted but are still smiling and really looking forward to our time in the Holy land over Easter and to visiting the Nazareth Hospital which was founded by an amazing Scottish missionary who just so happens to also be the late grandfather of one of my best friends! What an amazing time we are having, and we are learning more than we can imagine, but we can’t help but be looking forward to coming home in a few weeks now!

Can’t wait to see everyone at our upcoming coffee morning fundraiser in the church on Saturday 10^th or at the church service on the Sunday! Missing you all!

Jenn xx

Christ the Rock

2010-03-29T12:40:00.009+01:00

I’m sure I just got into bed when the alarm went off, but Jenn assured me it was 8am! I physically couldn’t wake myself up this morning, but I was excited to be visiting our friends at Christ the Rock for the service this morning. We quickly got ready so we could lie back on our bed for a dose before we were to be picked up between 8.30 and 8.45, but of course this is India and our lift to church arrived at 9.30am, giving Jenn and I an hour to snooze... I’m not sure how wise this was! We were driven to Raj and Vanitha’s and fed some dosai with potatoes for breakfast, before heading upstairs to church.

We had a traditional Indian introduction, presented with gifts and Captain Thacker talked a bit about the trip and also prayed for us before Pastor Raj began his sermon. The service was of course themed on Palm Sunday, Raj read from Matthew 21 and we all made crosses from palm leaves. It suddenly hit me that next Sunday, Easter Sunday, we would be in the Holy Land, and this excited me A LOT! This is partly because we’ll be eating chocolate and sweeties, but mostly because we’ll be there, where it all happened 2000 years ago.

After the service we spent some time with the youth group, sharing about the trip and answering various questions about our experiences so far. Jenn talked about true religion and faith without action. Using the two verses we base the trip on...

“Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.” – James 1:27

“what’s the use of saying you have faith if you don’t prove it by your actions? That kind of faith cant save anyone” - James 2:14

The youth then shared their roles in the church with us before we closed in prayer.

We headed down to Raj and Vanitha’s for a cold drink and a chance to catch up with some e-mails. It wasn’t long until it was time for our home church, St Andrews, Bo’ness to start, so we tuned in to online streaming and enjoyed watching our friends in the congregation chatting before the service began. This made me a little homesick, and very excited to think we’d be back worshipping together in two weeks!

In the evening we visited the Sunday School, who were enjoying a puppet show. Afterwards Raj and Sharon took us for a bit to eat and we brought Sharon back to our apartment for a catch up. She left pretty early and Jenn and I packed and are now ready for an early night before spending our last day in Channai, last day of this trip anyway!

Laura x

2010-03-29T12:25:00.005+01:00

So the intended purpose of the trip to Munna was to visit the tribal school that St Andrews supports, but as Laura mentioned that unfortunately ended up not being possible, so instead Daniel and family wanted to show us some of the local attractions whilst we were there. So we set off early-ish, for a day packed with activities, first stop a local flower garden for some pretty pictures and some oohing and ahhing at the different pretty flowers. Then we headed off for my highlight of the day...an elephant ride! This was both Laura and my second turn at this, but I was like a little girl I was so excited! We were a bit disappointed that the kids couldn’t come on with us as their mum Rose was rightly nervous at the idea, but all the more fun for us! Laura kindly let me go on the front as she was a bit nervous about it all, but then this turned out worse for her as every time we went up a hill she struggled to grip on to stop herself from sliding off! Meanwhile I was up the front squealing with excitement.
Next stop, Laura got her own back and it was time for her to squeal and me to get nervous...we headed for a boat trip. However in the end I quite enjoyed it and it was poor little 2 year old Emerald that spent the whole time wailing crying in fear, with Daniel trying his hardest to console him. I could totally relate, I do not see the big deal about boats, they are a travel sickness sufferer’s worst enemy!
After a fun-filled day we headed back down the mountain, with similar sickness problems as the day before, but I am proud to say I managed to keep all my food down the whole trip! On the way back we hit a lightning storm which was strange, exciting and a little nerve racking all at once, so I dealt with it the best way I could: borrowed Laura’s ipod for some chilled music, got comfy and enjoyed the show! And what a show it was! The whole sky was lighting up and we would drive through flash rain showers, with all the mountains and cool tropical trees as a backdrop it was pretty spectacular!
After a quick pit stop back at Ruth and Abrahams we headed to the bus station for our overnight return bus trip back to Chennai, with our brilliant friend and body guard, Charles. Arriving back into the church around about 5.30am we were shattered and headed straight to our new digs, a rented apartment near the church, to try and catch a couple of hours sleep before the 9.30am service. Lying in at the weekends is slowly becoming a very distant memory! But what incredible new memories we’re making instead!
Jenn xx

Sleep???

2010-03-29T12:11:00.002+01:00

So after a bumpy, 8 hour bus journey we were finally in Dindigul, it was 5.30 in the morning so we weren’t quite ‘with it’, Daniel picked us up and took us to a hotel for a few hours sleep. We checked in and headed straight to bed, about ten minutes later there was a power cut and a knock at the door followed shortly after. There was a problem with the electricity in our room so we had to move along the corridor.

Daniel brought Ailsa and Emerald to collect us at 9am to go to Pastor Abraham and Sister Ruth’s for breakfast... this spread could have fed the five thousand! There was porridge, French toast (or Bombay toast as it’s known in India!), sandwiches, dosai, fruit, potatoes, cashew nuts, and much, MUCH more! The kids were sussing us out the whole time, they are getting so big and have the most beautiful eyes and smiles. Rose, Daniel’s wife, reckoned the youngest Emerald wouldn’t remember seeing a white person! Pastor Abraham soon joined us and was in top form sharing his thoughts and sharing stories of his faith experiences.

We spent the rest of the morning in their home before heading to Munnar with Daniel and his family. We had only entered the wildlife reserve a few minutes when we spotted a crowd of tourists with their camera’s out. As we drew close we saw an elephant in the distance. A bit on up the hill we spotted some monkeys, now all we had to see was some tigers!

Jenn started to look a bit peaky and I realised the bumpy, twisty drive up the mountain wasn’t doing anything for her travel sickness, we stopped for a bit of air and continued on up. The kids and Rose were starting to feel it by now, and the kids were both quite sick.

As we got higher and higher the temperature dropped, we stopped to wrap the kids up warm in balaclavas and winter coats. The windows were down and I was loving the cold air blowing in! I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Jenn pipe up, ‘is there a hospital at the top?’ – she ensures us it was just a general question, but I’m not sure I believe her ;)

We arrived after dark and had a quick rest before heading out for the best dosai in India! I’m now in bed, the 4^th bed I’ve been in 17 hours, and ready to rest for a long journey back tomorrow.

Laura x

p.s. Please keep the Tribal School very close in your prayers, we have been unable to visit them as foreign visitors seem to cause problems with the locals, they think they are receiving money and are stealing from them. When challenged the thief’s reply why should they care, they have lots of money from foreigners, which certainly is not the case! This was my favourite place to visit last time I was in India so I was pretty gutted to not get, but I feel worse knowing us being there can cause them so many problems!

buses with BEDS!!!

2010-03-28T10:01:00.000+01:00

Thursday morning we were picked up EARLY!!!! That’s right, not Scottish time, definitely not Indian time, but early! Rushing to throw our things together (which stressed Laura out for the following few hours) we checked out of the YWCA and headed to the church to meet Raj and family. After some yummy lunch and a chat we were invited to go and watch as Sharon and Raj completed her first album of praise songs, which they will hopefully be bringing to Scotland with them on their upcoming trip. We jumped at the chance, and with it being my first time in a recording studio I warmed up my vocal chords just in case there was an emergency and I needed to step in for my debut! Not really, although Raj did insist on Laura, Sharron and I singing together for everyone before we left. It was great watching them making the final changes to some brilliant music, Sharron has such a beautiful voice, but more than that, it was so nice to see her and her dad laughing so much together. They have a really lovely relationship and seem to just have so much fun together no matter what they’re doing, which is nice to watch as it reminded me of my similar relationship with my daddy so many miles away in Scotland.

After the recording was finished we had a chat with Sharron about being a Christian girl growing up in a predominantly Hindu country. According to the Hindu caste system Christian’s are a whole other group of people with no status or worthy of any respect, so being a Christian in this society Sharron had to discover and stick strongly to her morals and opinions from a very young age. Although this must have been tough, part of me couldn’t help but wonder if this was a bit of a lesson for us in the western world, most of us spend our youth and much of adulthood consumed with material issues and other people’s material issues. I wonder if there is a way to direct our youth toward some deeper understanding of the world and their opinions and beliefs without it being too heavy or depressing.

At night time we met Charles at the bus station who had come all the way from Dindigal (which is a bumpy overnight bus journey) to spend the day alone in Chennai, just to meet us to accompany us back to Dindigal...now that is the way to be welcomed somewhere! He showed us onto the sleeper bus which Laura and I were both very excited about because it had full length beds! They were little thin beds and we were sharing a double but even still they were beds...ON A BUS! We giggled at being flung around as the bus dodged, and fell into the many pot holes and bumps in Chennai roads, before settling back for our journey to the country.

Jenn xx

Photos to follow soon!x

2010-03-25T06:22:00.014Z

Sunday morning we were collected at the YWCA by brother Franklin who took us to visit the leprosy mission. After a long car journey we turned along a dusty path outside of the local village and arrived at Bethel Town where the leprosy sufferers lived with their families, which is now extending to a second and third generation. We received a very warm welcome and as the bags of rice were unloaded from the car (which we were informed are funded from money donated by St. Andrews church) we were led to some seats just outside their small but beautiful church, where we would be having a small service. Franklin left to gather together the growing group of Christians in the community and as they gathered in front of us the very small children looked extremely unsure of us (I don’t think they get many strangely coloured visitors). Trying to put the children at ease and break the language barrier we remembered we had some balloons in our bag from a previous visit somewhere so I went quickly to collect them and start handing them out.

As we expected the confused faces quickly broke into smiles of delight when the children saw the brightly coloured balloons and they were soon dancing and play fighting each other excitedly! We then shared a little about Soul Touch and our trip so far, and encouraged the community that St. Andrews do still remember and pray for them, and Franklin gave a small message. After the small service we were chatting to the people from the community in broken English, with the assistance of 2 very small, very talented translators, when I was handed a tiny little baby boy who I fell completely in love with. The thing with this situation is that although leprosy is not genetic and the children of the community have not contracted the physical disabilities of their families, the stigma and the stereotyping of this illness has a whole other meaning in a country that has a social caste system.

This system, deriving from Hindu backgrounds, states that you are born into a specific “caste” (similar idea to class in the western world but more specific) and that is you for life. You cannot work your way out of this caste or marry with anyone from a different caste, so if you are born into the lowest caste “the untouchables”, that’s where you will spend the rest of your life. Your caste could well affect your job prospects, despite how intelligent or skilled you are. We have been told that this system is having increasingly less impact and that people are slowly moving away from these ideas, but when you have a beautiful little baby in your arms smiling up at you, you can’t help but think it can’t change fast enough. However the ideas behind this system involve many Gods and supernatural powers which many people have been brought up fearing and so to turn from this strong culture and scary “forces” is a daunting thing to many people. This system allows many to believe they can work within their given boundaries to earn their place in heaven and gives them clear outlines as to what is expected from them, which can be a comfort to most of us. There are however people stepping out of and pushing these boundaries, many Christians included and the recognition of the injustice of this system is a good thing and a sign of hope in itself. After saying our goodbyes and offering and receiving prayers, we got back in the car for the journey home, trying to keep as many mosquitoes out of the car as possible!

On Monday we were collected by Mary Sundaraj. Mary’s husband, Pastor of Mount Zion Church in Chennai, sadly died about 4 years ago suddenly in a motorbike accident. Then tragically about 1 year ago her son John, who had taken over role as pastor, and was also close friend of our church, also died from cancer leaving behind a grieving wife, Jesse, and 1 year old beautiful boy, Benjamin. Mary took us to her home where we were welcomed in by the smiling faces of Jesse, Benjamin and John’s sister in law, and her baby boy Nathanial. We were given a yummy dinner and played with the two boys as Mary told us about the financial struggles they are now facing after the family has lost two of their “bread-winners”, and then after some giggles with the boys and a tour of the lovely house which they are sadly having to leave due to finances, we were struck with an action that smacked us with a mix of shock and humbling power. Before we left the house the ladies gave a donation to soultouch and the work we are doing. I couldn’t believe it. Despite all their financial struggles right now, they gave us more than I’m sure they could afford for us to spend on others and all they asked for in return is prayer. But to them, and a huge lesson to me, is that prayer is indeed priceless. How amazing these women have learnt this through their hard times.

Tuesday we were picked up promptly (which is always strange in India) by Captain Thacker who would be taking us to visit the children at the brand spanking new buildings of Sangita orphanage. On the way we stopped for crayons, paper and some treats for the children, thanks to the kind donations from the night before. We pulled up about an hour or so later to one of Captain Thacker’s friend’s houses. We were welcomed in and as Captain spoke to his friend I was swinging excitedly on the swing-seat in their house sipping yummy lime juice. Next stop was a nursing home called “Amazing love”. We had a quick tour of their new building which was lovely with really nice gardens, a lovely church and around the clock care. Captain joked with us about moving here, but we’re sure he wont be moving anywhere for a good wee while yet! Finally we reached the stunning new grounds of Sangita. They are still in the process of finishing off the buildings, but everything looks incredible! It’s all so well planned, they’ve thought of everything, with everything colour co-ordinated for age groups. They also have huge grounds for sports and the work they do with the widows which is just going to be a huge blessing to everyone. Walking around the site I was breath- taken with how much Sangita has grown from it’s humble beginnings in 1997 which I have only heard about in stories, and must seem to some like distant memories now. We spent some time drawing and playing with the youngest children before travelling home smiling contently with echoes of “aunty, aunty” in our ears.

Wednesday we visited Kennedy School with Mrs Matthew, whose late husband founded the school. We went round as many of the classes as we could fit into the school day teaching songs to the younger pupils and discussing cultural differences and exams with the older children. However, the song “If you’re happy and you know it” sort of lost it’s meaning as the youngest children constantly clapped right throughout the song! After some reasonably successful attempts to explain the 2 claps after each line, we just decided they must just be super happy! Before leaving we were given photo albums to look through of events held in the school where we came across Laura’s smiling face from her visit with the St. Andrews youth group in 2008. Was funny to see they had kept this and I’m sure that when the photo’s were originally taken Laura had no idea she would be looking over them in the very same place 2 years later! We were then given lovely gifts of trophies for our visit, which seemed very unearned but were hugely appreciated and will be displayed proudly in our homes when we return for a visit in a few weeks.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are off to visit friends of St. Andrews’ Pastor Abraham and Sister Ruth in Dindigal until Monday morning, before we fly out to Israel far too early Tuesday morning (about 1am). Please keep in your thoughts and prayers all the lives of the people we have been honoured enough to visit and also everyone at our home preparing fundraisers for our return on April 8^th.

Loadsa love,

Jenn xxx

Indian Stretchy Time...

2010-03-25T05:19:00.002Z

Arrived in India safe on Tuesday evening, we were met at the airport by Pastor Raj and Captain Thacker. As we were leaving the airport Raj asked, ‘when are you leaving?’... I’m trying not to take that too personally ;) Shortly later we arrived at YWCA, where Sharon and Becky were waiting to greet us. We checked in and were shown to our bedroom, room 208, same room as I’d slept in when I was here in 2008 with the youth team from St Andrews Church. The happy memories came flooding back!

Jenn and I were left to relax that evening and were going to be picked up at 10am the following morning to spend the day with Raj. We had a phone call from Raj about 5 to 10, ‘you’re in India, so 10 o’clock means 11 o’clock’... ah yes India Stretchy Time!

We arrived with Raj around 12 and headed to the Tailoring Class, out came the measuring tape and Jenn and I were fitted for Salwars. The class introduced themselves and Raj asked us to speak a bit about Soul Touch. After that the girls took it in turns to tell us their favourite verses from the bible, and sang to us in Tamil. A couple of the girls shared a bit about their experiences of the tailoring classes, how they enjoyed the fellowship, learning about the bible and of course learning a new skill. Most of the girls come from Muslim and Hindu families. Anyone is allowed on the course free of charge, taking part in bible study is optional but Vanitha serves as a pastor to the girls. All spoke about the peace they felt when coming to the class. We prayed that after the 3 month course the girls would continue to feel at peace and that they would find work using their new skill.

On Friday we were collected in the morning by Maria who works at Shanti’s Clinic, working with the young girls, training them in computer skills in the hope that they will find work in this area. Jenn and I had prepared a session for them on love, using the passage in 1 Corinthians 13, however in the auto (this is an Indian taxi, a motorbike with a trailer type thing on the back for passengers) on the way to the project we felt this was perhaps not the right message for the girls we were going to be working with. We sat in silence for a bit, thinking about how we could change it when Jenn came out with an excellent idea. We had planned a session on self worth for a group of vulnerable young girls while we had been in Sri Lanka, but unfortunately when we arrived at SU to take the programme it had been cancelled. We didn’t have all the resources we had prepared with us but had some of the notes we needed.

We arrived at the project and Maria introduced us to the group, ‘we’re so happy you are here to see us!’ one of the girls said, I already felt quite overwhelmed! We headed upstairs to a bigger hall to play an ice breaker game, and run the session. The game was a huge hit with the girls and we were soon all laughing and feeling very much at ease. We began the session by telling the girls some interesting facts about women, they blink twice as much as men, talk 3 times as much (we’ll have no cheeky comments!)etc... after this we all sat in a circle and discussed the things we liked about being a woman. This was so interesting and quickly turned into a lesson in Indian culture for Jenn and I. The things we enjoyed about being female would not apply in an Indian setting. We talked about the relationships between men and women in India, and also about the relationships between women. We were sad to hear that when an Indian woman is married she leaves her friends and family to be at home. Jenn and I were both aware that the duties of a married woman in India were very different from the UK, but when we thought of the loneliness that these women must experience it touched a nerve... we’ve been away from friends and family for 3 months now, and have missed everyone loads, but we know we are able to send an e-mail or text, and also that we’ll be together again soon.

We talked more with the girls about the value that they put on themselves and each other, and we played another game where each of the girls wrote there name on the top of a sheet of paper, they each passed it to the person on their left and had to write something they liked about the person whose name was at the top of the sheet, the sheet was passed around the circle, repeating the process till it was eventually back at the owner. The girls opened the sheets and huge smiles appeared on their faces, we asked them to share something they were surprised with, and the compliment they liked best. After this the girls turned over the sheet of paper and individually wrote on it what they valued about themselves, I was impressed to witness the screeds they were writing!

After this we played another game, the girls sat with their eyes closed, Jenn selected a couple of the girls and instructed them to touch someone on the shoulder who had shown them kindness, someone who had made them laugh, and so the game went on each of the girls taking turns to touch another’s shoulders.

At the end of the game we returned to the circle, faces beaming! And I read to them from Matthew 10:20-31, and encouraged them that even more than they valued themselves and one another, God valued them, he even knows how many hairs are on their heads! As we looked around the group some of the girls were becoming quite emotional... we felt certain that this programme, although planned weeks in advance, was meant to be used today!

In the afternoon we enjoyed some Domino’s Pizza with the girls and they performed a mock Indian wedding for us. Some of them nipped home to collect some photo albums to show us, one was of a puberty celebration. Jenn and I felt quite mortified of the thought of our parents inviting friends and relatives to our homes at such a sensitive time. But this is very normal to girls in India, and I’m sure they quite look forward to the dressing up and huge party they receive!

We visited Shanti, who was hosting a prayer meeting at home with staff members, sang a little, enjoyed some delicious grape juice, and I took some photo’s while Jenn performed a highland fling!

The following morning we were collected by David Samuel for a tour round Chennai. David is the son of Adolfus, a good friend of Captain Thacker. He took us to the mall, we spent a fair bit of time in a bookshop, which seemed to be torment for Jenn, as she is already struggling to close her rucksack, and is completely in love with most books! We did pick up some postcards before looking in a couple of clothes and jewellery shops and heading for a coffee and a chat.

After lunch David took us to St Thomas’s Church for a look around the church, museum and gift shop. We met Adolfus there and headed back to his house for a drink and a snack while we waited for the sun to set so his daughter, Anita, could take Jenn and I (with our delicate skin) to the beach! Adolfus’s wife, Manilla returned home and made us fresh chapatti’s with Kurma (I think it was Korma) and offered, literally to give us the clothes off her back when I commented on how beautiful her Sari was!

Indian hospitality never ceases to amaze me, it’s good to be back!!!!!

Laura x