Words for our journey

Keeping up a blog is a great challenge. Having unsuccessfully applied for a job as a trainee reporter for the Oxford Mail when I was about eighteen or nineteen there is, I think, a frustrated journalist inside me. Knowing how to get the right balance and tone in the posts is the biggest problem. I don’t want to come across as over preachy but really want to avoid the “I’m on the train ..... “ approach as well. I’d like to think that what I write is either encouraging, thought provoking or brings a bit of light relief at different times.

Judi and I are speaking about our work in Kenya in our home church tomorrow morning. It’s a nice opportunity to give a lot of people who support us an update on what we've been up to. Preparing for tomorrow’s talk gave me an opportunity to reflect on the different scriptures that have been a source of strength and inspiration to me over the years since 2000 when Judi and I first committed ourselves to our Christian faith. I’d like to share five of them today. There is a sequence to them which goes with our first going to Kenya in 2002 up to this year. I offer these as an encouragement to anybody who is struggling with their own faith, thinking that something is missing from their day to day life or wondering what the God thing is all about. They've inspired me a lot over the years.

Isaiah 6:6-8 “One of the flaming creatures flew over to me with a burning coal that it had taken from the altar with a pair of metal tongs.  It touched my lips with the hot coal and said, "This has touched your lips. Your sins are forgiven, and you are no longer guilty. After this, I heard the LORD ask, "Is there anyone I can send? Will someone go for us?" "I'll go," I answered. "Send me!"

Ephesians 2:10  “God planned for us to do good things and to live as he has always wanted us to live. That's why he sent Christ to make us what we are.

Micah 6:8  “The LORD God has told us what is right and what he demands: "See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God."

Jeremiah 29:11  “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.”

Joshua 1:9 “I've commanded you to be strong and brave. Don't ever be afraid or discouraged! I am the LORD your God, and I will be there to help you wherever you go.”

Recognising the wide range of responses that people make to proclamations of faith and scripture I can only say that each one of these verses has been very real for me. Since Judi and I said “We’ll go” and set off for Kenya a plan has unfolded which vastly exceeds what Judi and I are capable of in our own strength. We make a mess of living the way God wants us to all the time but it won’t stop us from trying to.

Dave Allen, an Irish comedian, famously finished off his TV show each episode with the catchphrase “May your God go with you.” Imperfect as I am, I’m glad that God is still in the driving seat and we are making our journey with him.

Me 1 Stuff 0

Following on from yesterday's post, today started with a tough fight against the lure of a new tablet computer. The psychology of our addiction to stuff is very complex. By about 9.30 this morning I had just about convinced myself that it would be a great idea to buy the new Tesco hudl 2. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with the thought process. It doesn't take long to get to the point where your life will be incomplete and infinitely more difficult if you don't buy your current object of desire. The sure sign that you have been completely sucked in and sold on the purchase is the well rehearsed list of benefits that you present to your nearest and dearest before rushing out of the house in a contradictory fit of guilt and anticipation of sealing the deal.

I had to go to the store this morning anyway so, sucked in by the in-store display, I tried out a hudl 2, picked a colour and then ......... something deep in my subconscious stirred and I managed to resist the temptation. It was a crucial moment. I walked out of the store with my shopping and without a new tablet computer.  I think I am now cured. I guess the next trip to Tesco will prove it one way or another.

Judi and I are off to London tonight. The car is laden with stuff from our son Tom's room which we are taking down for him. It's going to live in his place now. As we continue to prepare our own house for renting each car full of stuff that leaves the premises feels like a small victory. I think it's going to be a long campaign!

Stuff

I’ve just got back from a trip to our local tip and the Salvation Army charity shop where I have offloaded what seems like a ton of our unwanted stuff. Judi and I (to be honest mostly Judi) are in the throes of clearing out the accumulated stuff in our house in preparation for renting it out while we are in Kenya. It has amazed me how much stuff we have managed to pile up in the house since the last time we blitzed the place twelve years ago when we first went to Kenya.

The problem with the stuff in your house is that it hides everywhere - under beds, in cupboards and corners, sheds and attics. It also seems to reproduce itself. I wouldn't really describe Judi and I as  mass consumers to any great extent so it is alarming to see how much there is still left to clear out. Perhaps the two of us aren't doing enough to stimulate the economy by not buying a lot of stuff. Tony Campolo (an American speaker I referenced in a previous post) talks about societies like the US and UK where we all have a lot of stuff. In a very funny talk he says “Do you understand that it is your patriotic responsibility to buy stuff.” He has a point. Just imagine what would happen to all the people who have jobs making stuff if people weren't buying it.

Difficult as it is I would really like to work on a different way of doing things - i.e. NOT buying stuff. I know that this will be a big challenge. Stuff is enticing. Stuff convinces you that you can’t do without it. I am, at this moment, being seduced by the new Tesco hudl 2 tablet every time I walk into the computer section of our local branch of Tesco. The demonstration models on the display cry out “Buy one of us!”. How could you resist the promotional advertising - “Souped-up and super-sized, the hudl 2 is primed to entertain and has oodles of room for apps and downloads. Its choice of 8 fab colours totally rocks too!” I have, to my shame, taken the guided tour on the Internet advert. It is hard to resist. But I am going to try.

How about a different strap line on patriotic duty. It is our patriotic duty to humanity not to buy any more unnecessary stuff because the planet can’t take it any more. J Matthew Sleet, MD has written a great book called Serve God Save the Planet. The endorsement on the cover says “Serve God Save the Planet is the best single book I've found to help people of faith learn practical ways to fulfill our call to be stewards and caretakers of God’s beautiful creation." I’m grateful to Judi for taking such a tough line on what we chuck out and recycle - painful as it is to bid farewell to cherished old books, videos and cassette tapes. We can’t take our stuff with us, we don't need most of it, its in the way and its got to go!. I think I’ll go out and hug a tree to relieve the pressure.

On a Mission

It has taken Judi and I a little while to readjust to being back home in the UK. Catching up with our children, Tom and Ellie, has been great and we have enjoyed seeing our other family and friends. It is also a bit strange being missionaries.

Judi and I are now full time missionaries with Elim Missions. This week-end we have been on our first set of "missionary events" since returning home. As well as catching up with our nearest and dearest our time in the UK also involves going out to talk about Hope and Kindness and encourage people to support us. We are just starting to get used to this new role. On Saturday we attended a missions conference in Birmingham and went on from there to Nantwich (in the North West of England) where we spoke about our work in Kenya to the Elim church there.

We had a great time up in Nantwich. It is difficult sharing about ourselves and our work in Kenya in about twenty minutes, but Judi did a great job. She would be the first to say that the thought of talking in public fills her with dread but once she gets going she is very good. We met some very lovely people in the church and were really encouraged by the warmth and hospitality we experienced. Thank you everybody at Nantwich, especially Rachel, Pastor Michelle, Laurie, Richard, Ella and Austin and Rachel's mum, dad and sister Lisa.

While I am in "on the road for Hope and Kindness" mode I'd like to take the opportunity to extend an invitation to anybody who might be thinking about going on a short term mission. I read an article recently that said the term "short term mission" should be banned. It was a provocative headline but the writer went on to make the point that spending a short time "on a mission" abroad is actually a great opportunity to start up a long term relationship with the people you go out and work with. We would agree. We have had a number of repeat visitors and they are always a massive encouragement to our children and staff in Kenya.

I think a lot of people are put off thinking about coming to a place like ours for a short visit because they worry about what they have to offer. "What will I do when I get there?" We would love to have more visitors who have practical skills, IT experience, teaching skills, musical giftings, a heart for dance and drama and everything in between. As Jesus said, the fields are ripe for the harvest but the workers are few.

If you feel a desire to go somewhere new and challenging to make a difference in people's lives check out the Volunteer, Visit Us section on our website (www.hopeandkindness.org). We would love to hear from you.

It All Adds Up

Every year I have to send off a Gift Aid claim to the UK tax people. It’s a brilliant scheme. The UK government pays Hope and Kindness 25 pence for every pound that we receive from a UK taxpayer. Completing the Gift Aid claim form is a very rewarding task - financially and spiritually. Hope and Kindness would find it very challenging to stay afloat without the generosity of the UK government. Our Gift Aid payment from HMRI has enabled us to buy the land and buildings that we work from in Kenya and in the last couple of years Gift Aid has allowed us to keep up with the ever increasing demands on our budget as we have increased the number of children we help every day (now over 250) and expanded the scope of our work to include providing secondary education. So, a big thank you to Her Majesty’s Government and the far sighted individual who first dreamed up the idea of Gift Aid.

Completing the claim form involves a a relatively straightforward but time consuming workout with some of the minor functions of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Throughout the process I am both humbled by the cumulative financial generosity of our supporters and thoroughly freaked out by the challenge of continuing to keep our work going each month. It is a great faith grower. “On the ground” in Kenya we are frequently faced with difficult choices as we respond to the needs of the children and adults who come into our lives. When you are sat down with a man whose wife has just died who doesn't know how he will be able to care for the newly born baby in his arms there is only way that you can respond. It’s the same with the man who can no longer care for his four children himself and is desperately making arrangements for them to be looked after by relatives who live close enough to our project for the children to be able to come to our school. You can’t say no, however scary the decision is financially.

On my daily keep fit walk/run today I was listening to a talk by a guy called Tony Campolo. (Tony Campolo resources can be found here http://tonycampolo.org/media/ they are fantastic!) In the talk he said “God in his care and in his love has given to the church the resources to respond to the needs of the world.” Given that God says this himself in the Bible, very frequently, I shouldn't be surprised that we have, for the last twelve years, been able to continue responding to the needs of more and more children, young people and adults from our community in Kenya. Sinner that I am I do, occasionally, become anxious when we say “Yes” to another request or start out on a new project. I know I shouldn't. Every year, as I trawl through the financial records of the previous twelve months to do the Gift Aid claim, I am reminded just how faithful and generous our supporters are. Many of them have been with us since we first started twelve years ago.

Doing the Gift Aid claim keeps me very grounded, makes me very thankful and lifts my faith. So, today, as I finalize this year’s Gift Aid claim and continue plotting and scheming for what we do next year, I would like to say a huge thank to all the people who support us financially and make the miracle of our work in Kenya possible. I wish we could bring all of you to Kenya so that you could see for yourselves the difference you make to so many people’s lives.

Waving and not drowning

Judi and I are back in the UK at the moment after spending most of the year in Kenya. We came back in early September for our son Tom’s graduation from Goldsmiths University (proud parent syndrome sneaking in here!) Since then we have been catching up with the rest of our family and friends and gearing ourselves up for the next nine months in Kenya starting in January 2015.

It’s very strange being back home. Life in Kosele (Kenya) is very straightforward. It’s easy to focus on what needs doing and there is so much going on every day that you don’t get too much time for introspection. Now that we are away from Kenya and preparing ourselves for some fund-raising events I am finding it a challenge managing the balance between what needs to be done immediately here and what needs preparing to take back to Kenya. To overcome this somewhat frustrating imbalance I am (between completing our Gift Aid calculations and worrying about a hundred and one other things) reading a book that my sister recommended to me called "True North". So far it has been a very rewarding read. Not being in the thick of things in Kosele does allow me the luxury of re-charging my batteries physically, emotionally and spiritually (which, when I see it written down does look a bit pretentious but is still true) and really focusing on what is really important.

Jim Wallis, one of my favourite Christian authors, took a three month “book writing sabbatical” to write his book "On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned". Judi and I will have spent four months in the UK before we next go to Kenya. I’m not planning to write a book but I am beginning to recognise the value in spending some time reflecting on what we have done this year and what we need to do in the future.

True North makes this interesting observation. “An enormous vacuum in leadership exists today - in business, politics, government, education, religion and non-profit organizations.” A similar point is made by the South African author of “Why Africa is Poor”. In keeping with an observable shift in working with young people I want to take a leadership course back to Kosele to share with the oldest students in our High School. They will be taking their KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) exam at the end of next year (2015) and I believe that they need to be equipped to both recognise and demonstrate good leadership themselves. I’m working on the material at the moment.

In the spirit of sharing life experiences and becoming a better version of you (closer to the person God means you to be) I’d like to close this post with some really challenging questions from "True North" that I am wrestling with at the moment (hence the title of the blog.) The book says “Your True North is based on what is most important to you.” The following four questions, based on the book, are a great starting point for finding your True North (and thus God’s purpose for your life.)

1.What are your most cherished values?
2.What are you passionate about?
3.What motivates you?
4.What are the sources of satisfaction in your life?

If you are honest about the answers these are really tough questions. I’m hoping that the process involved in finding answers will help me to do our work in Kosele better. If you’re up for the challenge I’d be interested to know if considering these questions helps you at all.

In case you thought I was lost

Its been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened during the break. We are in the first week of our school holidays, though our older pupils have yet to see the benefit of any time off. In July the public school teachers in Kenya were on strike. As part of a somewhat protracted settlement to the strike the public schools have extended their term and will not finish until this Friday, the 16^th of August. This brief study window has been snapped up by our District Education officers to stage a mock exam for all of the oldest primary school pupils. We are 'hosting' two other schools for this exercise which started today. Being part of a public exam is always an interesting experience. The team of supervisors and invigilators that have been allocated to our school have been very busy today, finalizing mark schemes and marking papers. To their credit all the pupils taking the exams have been very well behaved, despite occasional opportunities for cheating when the invigilators have been called out of the exam rooms. It will be a relief when the exams finish tomorrow and our young people can start enjoying their holiday.

We have had a very busy time over the last fortnight working with a group of visitors from Welford (a village close to Stratford-upon-Avon). Our friends Jon (the Pilot) and Fiona May and their children Jessica, Juliet and Nathan have visited our place a number of times over the last six years and were able to persuade a good number of their friends to join them on the journey this year. We started off with a total of eighteen visitors, staying with us for a week. The number went down to eleven for the second week of the visit. During their stay our visitors worked incredibly hard and were a great encouragement to our children and staff. Because of their efforts we now have a really nice playground, with swings, a rope ladder, balance beams and a tyre tunnel in our lower school area and are well on the way to finishing off our Vocational Training Centre building. The primary school pupils were able to enjoy upper and lower school Sports Days and our Secondary School students spent time working on a Happiness Project. We enjoyed an evening of song, dance and amateur dramatics as the children worked in teams with their new friends to put on a show that was, in the end, enjoyed by everybody. It is always sad saying good-bye to visitors to Kosele. We are hoping to see all of them again in the future. In the meantime a very special thank you to the Welford team for being such fantastic people and such good friends to Hope and Kindness.

At one point last week we were uncertain whether it would be possible for our visitors to leave Kenya on their scheduled flights. The fire that swept through the arrivals hall in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport,Nairobi, in the early hours of last Wednesday made news all over the world and caused a serious shock in Kenya. The airport is a major hub for East Africa and the temporary cancellation of all flights had repercussions all over Africa and the world. I think it is safe to say that the fire has been a wake up call to public services in Kenya. Because of its strategic and economic importance the airport will no doubt be quickly rebuilt and should provide a much improved service to travelers in future. It will be interesting to see what else rises out of the ashes of International Arrivals.

I have, at last, been reunited with my wife Judi and we are getting stuck into the work that went on hold while she was treated for cancer last year. We will be joined in Kenya by our two children Tom and Ellie next week so will be able to celebrate our 11^th year of being in Kenya together as a family. Its been six years since we were all in Kenya together and we are looking forward to spending some very special time together.

This time of year is very challenging for our community. We are approaching a new planting season and everybody is trying to second guess the weather so that crops are planted t the right time. We have had a bit of a false start with rains in the last week so our own planting is currently on hold. Many of our neighbors have ploughed their land in preparation for the rains but will, like us, be anxiously looking to the sky for the first signs of the rainy season proper. The sun is great for tourists but, at this time of year, too much of it is a nightmare for farmers.

As ever there is never a dull moment in Kosele. I'm looking forward to the chance to review some of our projects in time for the beginning of next term and have new plans in the pipeline to mover us closer to the seemingly elusive goal of being self-sufficient. With Judi back on the scene we will, I'm sure, take some new steps before the end of the year. Challenging as the work is very often, I still count myself very lucky to be out here.