This morning we (the team and Claire and I) were carrying loads of water pipes for the new water system in Severet village over stepping stones through a river and then up a big bumpy hill along where we'd already dug the trenches with the other teams. We had to keep jumping over the trench at times and ducking under the tree branches which lined the sides! Being fairly sturdy on my feet, on the changing terrain, one of my jobs was to stop at any difficult parts (like the river, or crossing the trench, etc.) and guide the team through them. This was all going well, but what we hadn't realised when we set off, was quite how far we were taking them... It took nearly an hour to walk up and down carrying them bit by bit and we didn't take our big, heavy water container full of drinking water with us. So when we finally reached the end, we realised that everyone was getting really thirsty; but we weren't going to walk them all the way back, get water and all the way back up again to fix the pipes together in the trench - they'd have drank it all by the time we got back and be thirsty again! So Alex (one of our translators and all round jack-of-all-trades) and I went trekking through the trees on the hill to find a road, and then walked along the road for about 20 minutes instead. Then we borrowed a moto from the president of the community - Enson - who's been working with us this whole summer, and drove it through the river (!!!) to pick up the water, and then back along the crazy road with Alex on the front, the water in the middle and me on the back holding - desperately - to the water container! It was really big and heavy and took up most of the room! So we had to keep stopping occasionally, as when we went over big bumps the cooler moved and started pulling me off! And when we went up a big hill, I nearly fell right off the back! But Alex stopped just in time for me to get back on and re-adjust where the cooler was! It was simultaneously the scariest and most fun thing I've done all year! :-D Things I've learnt from today:
Click on the photos for more!
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This is Cecilia - or Ceci (pronounced Se-see) for short. This is a photo I took last year, but it is so apt! I spent yesterday morning, with the Mission Direct team at Nazareth House, a home for children with a wide array of varied disabilities. Ceci has down syndrome and yesterday, I spent a good while sitting on the sofa next to Ceci as we all sang some songs together. Ceci was dancing and laughing her head off as we sang, and inbetween every song, she'd nudge me and make a short 'hmm' sort of sound and wait... and I'd repeat it, to complete hilarity of course! And when she could finally stop herself from laughing, she'd go again, and we'd repeat - the laughter never fading - until we sang another song! It was beautiful. I absolutely loved being at Nazareth House again. Seeing all the kids - talking to them - playing with them. Seeing Sister Mercedes - hearing her story - loving her. But it was also difficult. Seeing them still in that house, and no building work started on a new place yet. One of the things that brought this need home to me more than anything else was one of the boys, José. José is one of the older boys there, and he has to be separated from the other children all the time because he tends to be quite violent. So whenever we are there, using the back room, he has to be outside. He always comes and talks to us through the windows, and it's not that he's unhappy being out there at all - but Sister Mercedes would just love to have a padded room with things he can do in it, where he can do what he likes, and live and learn and so on. A new, purpose-built house would just make such a difference. This is life for them still. Still without enough bedrooms; still without big enough doorways; still without the right bathroom facilities. Just making do. The reason we're not already building a new place, as we had hoped to be this summer, is because we couldn't find the right land in time. We now have until December to find and purchase the land, so that we can definitely start building next summer. Amazingly, over the last year, enough money has been raised to buy the land - though we'll still be raising money to build the house this year - and so we literally just need to find some! It needs to be near enough to the school that some of the kids are able to go to, and to the people who currently bring food, to the children's hospital and the homes of the staff, and so on and so on. So PLEASE PRAY. Pray with us that land would be found. Land that meets all the necessary requirements and is affordable. We trust in God's timing and God's plan - it is in him that money has been raised this year, and it is in him that it will be spent! This is a video I made last year telling the story of Nazareth House, and what we hope to be able to do with it: You can see more about our project to build Sister Mercedes
and her children a new home over on the PROJECTS page! I've been having a go at some design-work, and I wanted to share the above design.
This design was inspired from a photo taken by somebody working with a different team, but in some of the same communities I was working in last summer in the Dominican Republic (and will be flying out to work with again in just 1 week!!!). The photo depicted the hands of a young boy, maybe about 6, washing the paint off of the hands of an older guy, around 20, in a bucket of painty water. The older guy had been helping the mission team paint one of the buildings in his village, but the young boy hadn't been allowed - but he wanted to help. So, when the others finished painting, he positioned himself next to the bucket of water, and when people came to wash their hands, he stooped down and rubbed the water into their skin to get rid of the paint. If only we could all be like this; willing and eager to help and work together, with whatever skills and abilities we have, with whatever we can do! I then went through my favourite photos from the 3 months I spent working in those communities and drew all the hands from them that I could (and which made sense, minus their bodies!). When I look at it, I see all the relationships that were built there - the child's arm around my neck; the new friend's hand on my shoulder; a boy climbing a palm tree; a girl playing with my hair; and so on. Usually, when we think about hands, we think about doing. But these hands show the people who I got to just do life with. The people I got to meet and know; the relationships that got to bloom and flourish; the reaching out from one life to another demonstrating the love that Jesus showed in reaching out from heaven to live alongside US! I am SOOO EXCITED to be going back! To BE with all these people again! And I pray that I would be quick to reach out my hands in love; quick to share my life with those I meet, so willing to share theirs with me. So this term has been a bit crazy, but as it draws to a close I thought I might (briefly!) reflect on my time here at Cambridge as a university student.
Straight off the bat; first year is strange. And not the easy kind of strange either! :-P It's just so different to life before uni. To begin with, I really struggled to make friends; fresher's week was a terrible amalgamation of trying to force "friendships" on people, usually amidst alcohol fueled antics. And I just couldn't get on with the fact that I was going to something with the aim to make friends. After my first 5 weeks here, I wanted to leave - I didn't fit in, I didn't get on with anyone and I didn't like it one bit. But apparently I wasn't the only one feeling that way, so if you do, hang in there! I joined the rowing club with my college, because I've always loved being out on rivers or in the sea or on a lake, and a couple of the girls in my crew invited me back for pasta one evening after training. And that was the beginning of two beautiful friendships which I hope will remain with me forever! It also led to my introduction to other friends, and gradually - though I ended up attending less of my lectures! - I began to really enjoy being in Cambridge. Around that time I also found a church I could settle in to. Again, the first few weeks of "church touring" are really weird. I didn't really like how big and full the "student-y" churches were and I missed being with people who weren't all doing exactly the same thing I was. I found a church with all-ages, though at the time, no students, and it just felt like family. It was what I'd been missing; love, care, interest in what I was doing; and as I got to know them too, people to love and care about, people to be interested in what they were doing. Meeting on Sundays and during the week became like the time at the end of a day, when the family sits around and talks about what they did. I needed that. The rest of first year and second year flew by in a whirlwind of adventure and excitement. Looking back, it took me a while to work out who I was - to stop trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be and, often, pretending I was something I wasn't. But I certainly loved life! I was in love, I had a great group of friends around me, was part of a loving church family, I loved getting involved in all kinds of things, and I was enjoying my degree as well (even if still not attending quite as many lectures as I should have!)! Third year suddenly got more complicated, but still, having good friends around me kept me just about sane! Some difficult family news in first term, coupled with the way Cambridge's short terms are packed absolutely chocka, and some delay in supervisions starting the following term, meant that I've kind of been playing catch-up this whole year! So when my final exams came around, I didn't feel as prepared as I would've liked; possibly contributing to some stress and anxiety issues around that time. Thankfully, with the support of friends and the college particularly, exams have now been and gone, and weren't as terrible as I thought they'd have been! So now, I leave. Another time of transition and change. But I'm ready for it; I am so ready to do something that isn't a degree and I am excited for what the next year may hold. I will still be in Cambridge, and most of my friends are planning to stay on for another year of study, so some things will no doubt remain the same. But what I will be doing and how I will be living, will no doubt be different too. So watch this space - as this blog will probably change a little too! And anyway, before then I will be heading back out to the Dominican Republic again in July, which I am INCREDIBLY excited for - so there will be quite a few blog posts documenting my time out there! And I'm also finally getting the time to delve into the relationship between theology and art, so expect more posts along that kind of theme too! Exciting times!!! And speak soon! ;-D I was preaching last Sunday, and the following is an adapted (and shortened!) version of the sermon I preached:
Christmas. As you will know, my advent series on my blog has meant that I had been very consciously waiting for it, and then it finally came - it happened, with all its promised excitement and joy, and then it finished. But can that really be it? All done and dusted? Christmas "over-and-out" for another year? Christmas day to me means waking up and getting excited - realising that there is something special about this day; it means exchanging gifts that bring joy and show that someone cares for you and you for them - using giving as a means of loving; and them it means going to church, being in God's family, where the gift is his love, shown through his people and poured out through their hearts. Christmas is all about that love. There is no way that God could show his love for us more than by making himself a powerless and vulnerable baby boy who would have a true experience of human lie and would die a terrible experience of human death. Death that would give us life, even though we definitely didn't deserve it. And that story lasts so much longer than one day, just for Christmas! That story has lasted over 2000 years and it's still going strong! And it's still very much needed too. In Colossians 3.14-15 Paul says, "Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were indeed called in the one body." Paul lists many virtues in the preceding verses; compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness... but then says that they are all bound together in love. And he follows that with this statement on PEACE. Peace is so desperately needed in our world. The terrors we have seen in recent months; countries against countries, groups of people against other groups of people, religions against religions; and so many people - so many lives - caught up in the middle of it. But we are called to let the peace of Christ lead us; guide us; decide what we choose to do in relation to other people. Of course, living in peace doesn't mean that the differences which often end up causing conflicts immediately disappear. But what it does mean is that, as Christians, we should love others and work together with them , despite their differences to us. Such love is not a feeling, but a decision to meet others' needs. If God loves us so much that he would come down to earth for us, even though compared to him, we were vile, that should give us the power and the confidence to love others too, though they may be different to us as well. Clothing ourselves in the love of God leads to peace between people, because it shows us that love is more important than the differences. Love is bigger. When we look around us at all the things going on in this world; the many conflicts I alluded to above; the flooding, here in our own country, as well as other natural disasters around the world, climate change becoming evermore prevalent; people dying from curable diseases that their countries can't afford to make available to them; and poverty preventing so many families from the security and safety of a home, food to eat, heat to keep warm by. I don't know about you, but when I think about it all, I cannot come up with a way to solve the problems. It's like this; as you know, I went paint-balling for the first time with some friends of mine recently, and I loved it! But I remember this one moment, just before I got shot in the leg 3 times. And I was standing behind a tree, looking forward, where what I was aiming for was behind a little house-style wall. But there was someone crouching in the window, firing at me too. And then someone else started firing at me from the right. And I couldn't be behind the tree in both directions, but there was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And I wasn't scared of being hit; that had happened many times already - there was a little sting but it didn't hurt that much! And yet my heart was beating with adrenaline because I couldn't work out a way to get out of this situation. I couldn't think of any way to change what was going to happen. I had no control. And when I look at the world sometimes, I get that feeling but so much stronger. I want to change it. I want to stop the conflicts, and the poverty, and the injustice, and the hatred, and the pain and the suffering. And I look up to God and I say, "HOW?! How do I change the world?" Because I can't think of anything. And I sink down as if I'm behind that tree, my heart pounding, scared that I'll never work it out; that I can't change anything. But I do not need to be afraid. Because God is a loving God, and God is a surprising God. The God who gave himself to die for me, is the God who will save the world again. The God who chose to interact with the world through all the people we remembered through Advent, will go on interacting through the people who follow him in this world. And the God of all hope and joy and peace and love will not abandon the world he came and died to save. People have often talked about the real meaning of Christmas, but this is the real application of Christmas. If we believe that God came down to earth because of his great love for us, then we must become carriers of that love to this hurting world. Christmas means that there is hope. That even if we feel pinned behind a tree, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, God is beside us, as if from nowhere and, surprising us as always, he finds a way to bring love and peace and joy to that situation too. It often seems hopeless, but so did that stable-cave with nowhere clean to lay the baby. So did the search for a child, in a city (Luke 2.41-52). So did Jesus, dying on a cross, blood dripping from the thorns in his head and a spear thrust in his side. But God was born, and God was found, and God rose again. All because of his love. So we are to bring that love into the hurt and horrors of the world - because his love changes hopeless situations and his love will change the world. So Christmas day may have been and gone for another year. But it does not end there; the Christmas story goes on and on; as long as there are people with God's love in their hearts, there will come peace, there will come joy, no matter how hopeless is may seem now. For love is more important. Love is bigger. Love binds all things together. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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