Stuart

Just over a year ago, I met a child called Stuart. Stuart was once a healthy little boy, but on the day that I met him, Stuart's mother had been asked to pay double the usual fare to bring her son on public transport because the driver had thought that he was a corpse. Stuart was suffering terribly from Cerebral Palsy that he had developed after contracting malaria, which spread to his brain when his family couldn't afford to treat it.
Children with cerebral palsy need regular physiotherapy to stretch out their tight muscles, but nobody had known that this was what Stuart needed, and so his condition had worsened until his body was so tense that people actually thought that he was dead.

I'll never forget the day that I met Stuart. He was indeed alive that day, but there was no life in his eyes. It was one of the most haunting and devastating things I'd ever seen. This was what I wrote in my diary that day:

"Stuart was really, really thin. It reminded me of photos I've seen from the holocaust. He looked at me with wide eyes but there was just nothing there. Moses started his physiotherapy and he cried with such a horrific look in his eyes, but there was just no life behind them; it was horrible."

Last week I was told the sad news that Stuart passed away this summer. I never knew Stuart when he was healthy, but I hope that someday I'll meet him in a place where he is more alive than ever.

The truth is that Stuart died because he lived in poverty. If he had had access to proper malaria prevention and treatment, Stuart would still be a healthy little boy running and playing in his village in Uganda today.

Stuart and his Mum

The truth is also that many people will read this blog, and feel sad for a moment, but then close the window and continue with their day. I often do the same because its easier and less painful to distance ourselves from the injustice in the world and its much more comfortable to make no effort to do anything about it.
So while we enjoy coffees out with friends, nice new smartphones, an endless supply of clean water and all the other things that we take for granted, somebody's child is dying. 

If a member of your family was in the same situation, few of us would even have to think at all before we did something to help them. But for those of us who are Christians, these people really are our brothers and sisters. If we actually acted that way, the world might be a very different place.

I can't tell you specifically what to do about this... God calls each of us to act differently and who am I to know how to combat poverty anyway!? But what I do know is that if we don't do anything, then nothing is going to change, So please... before you click on the little 'X' in the corner of your screen... take a moment to decide what you are going to do about the injustice in this world, and then actually do it.

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Kisaakye Rehabilitation Centre is a locally run charity that works with disabled children in villages in the Kayunga District of Uganda where I met Stuart. They gave me permission to share Stuart's story, and they continue to work with many other children in similar situations. Tragically, this week another child that they work with died. Her name was Amazing Grace. Kisaakye desperately need support to continue the work that they do and to prevent this story from repeating for more children. They have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kisaakye.rehabilitation

Perseverance

Sometimes, God uses one situation in our lives to teach us something about another one. When I was about to give up on something this week because I felt like I’d hit one hurdle too many in the youth work I'm involved in, God used a few phone calls to remind me why I shouldn't.

Here’s the story – I receive a message from a friend in Uganda that makes me worried, so I dial his number to check that everything is okay… after a few rings I hear the phrase I've become way too familiar with; “sorry, we could not connect the call to the number you dialed.”

I hang up and try again… 

no less than 24 phone calls later I finally get through to my friend.

24 phone calls!

It’s hard to describe how it feels when you have to hang up for the 23rd time, still having not heard the voice you've been waiting for on the end of the phone.

Persistence can be painful, especially when you feel like everything you try is failing. It turned out that my friend was fine, but the ridiculous effort I had to put in to find that out, taught me something.

Sticking at something when it feels like its taking more time and effort that it should, is really hard ...but what motivates us to do it anyway are the people we love.

The great thing is that God doesn't ask us to love the task, he asks us to love the people.

That means that I don’t have to love dialing the number; I have to love my friend. So I dial the number because I love my friend.

It also means that when I feel like I've hit a dead end in setting up a youth group or organizing an event, I have to remember the people that I'm trying to love in this task; I don't have to love making the risk assessment or going through the process of trying to find new leaders. I have to love the people that I'm reaching through these things and persevere because of them.

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This week we held our first Rock Solid of the new school year. When we first launched Rock Solid in November 2013, only 3 girls turned up, and for the first 3 months that was it and no one else came. We persevered for a while for the sake of the girls that came, and started to watch each of them grow.

Trying to think of enough games that you can play with only 3 people is harder than you might first imagine, but as we persisted, we gradually started to see Rock Solid growing too; slowly, we began to welcome a few more girls to the group and then started to watch each of them growing as individuals too...

Well this week when we added the 19th name to the register and I had to add a waiting list to our folder!

With that inspiration behind me, I now face a new challenge of growing our youth work and discipleship further. I might be hoping that it will be smooth and easy, but I'm not expecting that to be the case. I'm expecting a challenge... I know that as I seek to stretch and grow the young people I work with, God will stretch and grow me - and I know from experience that it’s unlikely to be comfortable. But I will continue to get up each morning and do what I do because I know that God has asked me to do it, and by his grace has given me love for the young people that we work with... and I have faith that this time next year, I'll have another story to tell about what God can do when we persevere.

'Back to School'

So the new school term has started. For me that means that I'm back on the island and getting back into the routine of running youth groups, planning events, attending meetings and just trying my best to make a difference in the lives of the young people I work with.

For some of my friends this time of year means a new year at uni, complete with a new house and a fresh set of essay deadlines. For others it means that their kids are moving up into a new year group or starting a new school, and my Facebook news feed is littered with photos of children in school uniform. But for some people I know, the new school term means another bill to pay, because if they don't pay the school fees, then their kids will be sent home from school.

Unfortunately, for so many people around the world, education is not something that they can take for granted like we do. One of my best friends took his eldest daughter to school this week for the first time. Like many parents, he's had the experience this week of coming back for the first time to a quiet house and missing his daughter; hoping that she's getting on okay at school... but as well as that, and just like so many other parents around the world, he also is embarking on the beginning of a long season of bills and payments just to keep his little girl in school.

I know that it wont be easy for my friend, but I also believe that he'll be okay... I've seen God provide for him time and time again just at the right moment and often from the most unexpected of places. But for many others, the story isn't quite the same. According to UIS, in 2012 there were one hundred and twenty one million children of school age around the world who were not in school.

One hundred and twenty one million.

But God does provide. And often he gives us the privilege of being a part of the way that he does that. Child sponsorship gives thousands of kids around the world an opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise have - to go to school and receive an education that will empower them to have a better future.

My friend was one of the lucky few - he was able to go to school because he was sponsored through compassion as a child and now he's in a position to be able to send his own daughter to school. I asked him whether I could share his story in this blog, and this is what he had to add...

"It takes love and faith to make a difference in this world. Its not always about how rich you are or the surplus on your budget that you can give. Its a heart to help and share and love just as Christ did for us. You know it only takes you as an individual to make this world a better place for one person. It begins with you and the little you can put in - even if its only prayers; start with that and you can make a change."

So as you drive past the kids at the bus stop, or you wave your little ones off to school, or you sit and write your first essay of the new term, just take a moment to think about those who don't have the same privilege of education that we have in the UK...

And maybe take a moment to consider doing something about it?
https://my.compassionuk.org/app/sponsor/campaign/
http://www.smileinternational.org/sponsor-a-child.aspx

13 nights of camping

In the past three weeks I've spent thirteen nights in a tent, but in the few days that I spent at home last week, my parents and I had some visitors from Canada staying with us (one of whom has the same name as me!) We had fun catching up and visiting a few different people and places around the area and I enjoyed sleeping in my own bed for a couple of nights.

After our visitors left, I made my way back to Somerset for a Christian festival called Momentum. This is the same as Soul Survivor, but aimed at people in their 20s and 30s, so it meant that we didn't have the responsibility of looking after a bunch of teenagers and also everything was a lot more relevant to us. Among other things we got to take part in a massive worship evening around bonfires with Rend Collective and go to lots of interesting and challenging seminars. It was a great week spent with some brilliant people and our amazing God who as usual taught me a lot.

The Big Top at Momentum

Among many other things that God taught me this week was this...

Kneeling on the floor with memories of people that I miss so much it hurts playing in my mind, God quietly whispered to me "if you miss them this much, how much more do you think I miss you when you take yourself far from me?" 

I find it way too easy to convince myself that by being in the place God wants me to be and by doing the stuff he's asked me to do, I'm staying close to God. In reality, I need to daily make him my first priority - even over his work. Time with God is so precious and so beautiful and the only place I should want to be is in his presence.

After Momentum, I got to come home again for a few days and to spend a bit of time with my family and also with Clare which was so lovely! In a few days time I'll be heading back to the island to make a start on my second year there... I've got plenty of vision and ideas for this year, so now I just face the task of actually making it happen!

With Clare

Soul Survivor

This week we (Isle of Wight YFC) took 2 coach loads of young people from the island to a Christian festival called Soul Survivor. Call me crazy, but spending 7 nights under canvas looking after a bunch of teenagers was an absolute privilege!

At Soul Survivor, eight thousand people get together twice a day to read the bible together, pray for each other and to go absolutely crazy in celebration of God’s incredible love. As well as this, there’s loads of great teaching on different topics, and people also get involved in all kinds of crazy activities, like ‘colour chaos’, which is basically just hundreds of people throwing paint at each other all afternoon and having fun!

Among all the fun and madness, there is a lot of time that we get to just spend with God, and as usual when we make ourselves available to God, he teaches and stretches and grows us all in different ways. It’s been so great to get to pray and chat with loads of people this week about what God is doing in their lives.

After all of the young people got on the coaches to go back to the island, I hung around at Soul Survivor for a while to see some friends who were arriving that afternoon to bring groups of young people for this week. It was so good to see them that I ended up pitching my tent again and staying another night! Tonight though, I am back in Basingstoke for a few days and very much looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed again!

Daydreaming

Well this week has brought me back to Basingstoke, but not before a bit of travelling around!
I've done some admin work with the Church of England in the past, and this week they offered me a bit of work in Bournemouth. Somehow I managed to complete all the work by Wednesday afternoon (even with a day off on Tuesday for a YFC social on the island)... So I've had an unexpected couple of days off this week!

I was on the island on Tuesday, so I spent the morning cleaning my room (and my car which seemed to have half a beach in it!) and packing. In the afternoon we had an end of year social event with everyone from the island YFC team plus other halves and families, complete with kayaking (and swimming for some) for those who wanted to, and a lot of food!

So after finishing work on Wednesday I headed up to Basingstoke and that's where I've been for the past few days. Its been really nice to spend time with my parents who I'm always so blessed by, and to have some chilled time to recharge a bit after a very busy month or so! Its also given me time to think though... and as usual my thoughts go in the direction of my heart and I daydream about beautiful people with beautiful hearts, in a beautiful country that is a painfully long way away.

Sometimes I ask God why I can't just go back to Uganda now? ...and he gently reminds me that his plans are SO much bigger than mine, and I can't ask or imagine what he has in store for me. For now, I have to trust that his plan is better than my own, and that what I'm doing here at the moment is important too, because the wonderful young people I'm working with right now are just as important and just as in need of the love of Jesus as the precious lives I daydream about 4000 miles away.

This coming week we (the island YFC team) are taking two coach loads of young people from the Isle of Wight to a Christian festival called Soul Survivor. I know that God will have some big plans for this week and I'm so excited not only to spend the week worshiping and having fun with thousands of other people who love Jesus, but I'm also excited to see what God will do among the young people that we have the privilege to take along.

Holiday Club

We've had a holiday club at the church that I work with on the island this week and its been brilliant. We had around 40 children who came along every morning and a fantastic team of volunteers from a selection of churches on the island who ran the club. The club was themed around 'Cops and Robbers' but we focused on the story of Joseph in the Bible. This meant that the crafts ranged from making police hats and handcuffs, to making pop up Joseph puppets falling in a well and on the last day we even made junk models of Pharaoh's palace! Of course we had a typically cheesy and tuneless theme song which we had the joy of singing twice a day... The kids all absolutely loved it and we all kept catching ourselves singing it all week!

My role was as a team leader, but I also had the task of running games every day with one of the other leaders... among other things we played 'police dog' (bull dog!) and relay races and we even managed to get 40 kids around a parachute! 

I think the biggest achievement of the week however was successfully getting all the kids to bake scones on Thursday! 

Cops and Robbers Holiday Club

Among it all though, we had the absolute privilege of getting to teach these kids about the gospel and to share with them the amazing news that God wants to be their friend, and that he made that possible through Jesus' death. God's grace never fails to blow me away, and the fact that he would chose to use someone like me with all my flaws and failures to tell these kids about him is just amazing. I couldn't have been happier on the last day to see some of the kids in my group telling God that they wanted to be his friend.

Holiday Club was over by lunch time every day, so we had the afternoons off. Clare was staying with me on the island this week which was brilliant. She came along and helped out as part of the team at Holiday Club and we spent the afternoons together; walking along the beach, swimming in the sea, eating cream teas, drinking hot chocolate and talking ... a lot! I can't thank God enough for blessing me with such a great friend!

With Clare on the beach