I've been back in the UK now for almost 2 weeks. And what a strange fortnight it has been!
I got home on the Friday afternoon, had a week there (mostly working through my photos and making leaflets and things for a project I've taken on in the wake of my trip {more to come on that note!!!}) and then headed down the country for a debrief day for all the teams we've had out over the summer, then back home for 2 days before coming back to Cambridge for term to start for my last year of university! It's been great spending some time with my family and then being with my friends again, but I almost feel like there's been no time to breathe! It's nice now to have my room all set up around me, knowing I won't be leaving for somewhere else again in the next few days!
It's definitely strange being back though, after so long away. You realise things you didn't really notice before - like the fact that if I'm thirsty, it doesn't matter that I haven't stocked the cupboards full of things to drink yet, because I can simply go over to the sink in my room, fill a glass straight from the tap and drink it all! Or like the fact that I have SO MANY clothes - when you have enough underwear to fill a hiking rucksack, you're probably edging on the side of too many. They say it takes a bit of getting used to come back to your own developed country after working among poor communities for any length of time; just the stark difference between all the opportunities and options I have before me and the people I met who, for some of them, would struggle just to get enough food to feed their families each day.
I guess there's a slight tinge of guilt, even though everyone says you shouldn't feel guilty. Guilt that I have so much, and STILL bought that cool T-shirt, or book, or whatever. But I think feeling a small amount of guilt isn't bad; if that guilt makes me think more about whether I actually need another T-shirt or not, and makes me look at what else my money could do, then that is a good thing. And at the same time as that feeling of guilt, is a feeling of being immensely blessed - being privileged. I think, certainly in the culture around me, we shy away from wanting to be called 'privileged'; we think it takes away what we've achieved. But I am privileged. Privileged to have been born in this country, where I got to go to school from 4-18 for free; where, even if the system isn't perfect, I can get funding to go to university regardless of how much my family earns; where there is the NHS so that if I get sick or injured I get the care of trained and skilled doctors and nurses; where I have the right to vote and take an interest in how my country is run; where I can drink the water, for goodness' sake! So now I just need to work out how I can use my position here to make a difference to people who aren't so privileged - who don't have all those things that I do. And I'm not suggesting that will be easy; as someone told me, "If solving poverty was easy, it would've already been done." But we can make progress - though the Millenium Development Goals weren't fully met, SO MUCH progress has been made since then (thisis a brief, and cool video looking at how well they were met!). And now we have the UN Sustainable Development Goals to direct us in continuing that progress. Progress can be made; one starfish at a time! ;-D
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I wrote most of this post on an aeroplane during my MANY hours of travelling, and have now got round to tidying it up and adding the photos!
My last few days in-country were AMAZING! :-D Monday was the first day after the team left, so I had a lovely lie-in and then a relaxed day mostly spent tying up any loose-ends with team stuff and getting up-to-date with the internet! Following this, I went out for dinner with Claire and Megan - always love spending time with these ladies; they're great, and I'll miss them both! Then on Tuesday, Claire was going into Esperanza where she works all year when MD teams aren't there and asked if I wanted to come along too. Of course I did! So first highlight of this trip - I finally got to go up the road to Esperanza on a Moto!!! :-D SO MUCH FUN! For those of you who met him, Alex took me (I was gifted with the driver Claire knew was safe!) and everytime I let out a little scream or grabbed hold of him or something, he laughed his head off at me! He thought I was so funny just for wearing a helmet!!! It was just so bumpy, and with so many random rocks everywhere! And then we played around in the village chatting with people and playing with kids! Some friends I'd made on previous visits were there and so I really enjoyed seeing them one last time. Like this one little girl; Suzannah. I first met Suzannah on my first trip last year where I spent the morning playing with her while we were visiting a church held in the woods nearby. We just sat and drew pictures and played quiet games, and she got very annoyed at me when I had to leave. Then I met her again that afternoon when we went into the school in Esperanza and she was just so clingy! So then when we went back to the school in Esperanza with this final team, I was looking around, hoping to pick her face out of the many kids who were there and I finally saw someone who I thought looked like her, so I went over and asked her name and she said 'Suzannah' so I was like, 'I remember you...' and found out a photo of us from last year and she jumped up into my arms as if she remembered me too (probably didn't but so loving anyway!). And she has grown up SO MUCH since last year! She is so smiley and beautiful and conversational! When I saw her on Tuesday she came running up and I picked her up - she was on her way to school and so after a little while I put her down and told her to go in to school. She went in, put her bag in her classroom and came running straight back out! As school hadn't actually started yet, I chatted with her for a little bit longer before sending her in giggling to herself at her own cheekiness!
Just the way a child loves. I have felt so blessed throughout my trip by the way I have been loved by people here - people at church, people I've been working with, kids that come back to say hello time after time after time... People respond as if my very being there with them, the simple fact that I care about them or give time to spend with them, is such a wonderful, beautiful gift. When in fact, it is them giving me a gift. The gift of their love. A gift God has bestowed on us and we are to then bestow on those around us. What a wonderful thing God has created for us - a world of people full of so much potential for love!
Then on Wednesday I woke up and Claire messaged me saying she need to go into Ascension to do something for Megan (who was flying back home that day for short visit), again asking if I wanted to come along. Again, OF COURSE I DID! And again, I had an AWESOME Moto ride on the way in! We went a "new" way through a little almost walking path through the cane fields. It was SO beautiful! Just riding through, staring at mountains and trees and looking at the birds flying through the sky, I felt like I was flying too! It wasn't even too bumpy, to say it was a dirt track! Claire's Moto did end up getting a puncture half way there though, so mine went back to pick her up and we finished the journey the 3 of us together. Which made it interesting when we discovered this "new" way went through the dried-up river which made for a VERY steep down and then up again which Claire did think for a moment she might fall off at, being on the very back of the moto already! But she didn't and the driver had it all under control and delivered us both safe and sound into Ascension village! As soon as I got off the Moto, there was Mica (I've now learnt how to spell her name!) and as soon as she recognised us, she beamed and came running over up into my arms! She then proceeded to play around with my helmet for a while; wearing it for ages (even in the midday heat!) and doing Moto noises and arms everywhere she went! She was so funny!!! So I played with her and 2 other little girls (Luciana and Silvia) for a while; then went over to sing a song with Samuel one last time and say goodbye; and then we had to go because we realised the lady Claire needed to see was actually in Montellano (the main town, down the long canefield path!). So I went over to say goodbye to Mica and tell her I was going to miss her and she gave me lovely cuddles and said goodbye. And then I found Miranda (who promised me she'd shout, "Adios Rebekah" if she saw a plane go over the following day!) and Genesis, so was able to say goodbye to more of my little friends too! And we went into Montellano.
When we got to Montellano, there was Tania - whom Claire was meeting - and her 1 month old little baby boy! I went over to say hello and Tania took my helmet, telling me I could hold him; a wonderful swap, in my opinion! He was sleeping, and he just came and nestled into my chest and I cuddled him the whole time while Tania and Claire sorted out their stuff! Jhon (Mica's brother - I didn't know how he spelled his name last time either, it would seem!) and Wilson and another guy were there too; they were all trying to sort out what paint was needed and who needed it for painting the rest of the houses (apparently a difficult thing to sort out!!!). As I couldn't go into the paint shop with Tania's baby (because of the strong glue smell inside!); Jhon and I sat outside on a little curb bit in the shade of the shop. We chatted about school and Motos (most of the older teens/younger twenties guys here LOVE their Motos!) and family. It was great! Not only did I not have to help sort (or just try to understand!) the arguments going on about paint, I got to sit in the shade chatting and cuddling a little tiny, adorable baby! It was just perfect! Hahaha! :-D
I love both Esperanza and Acension. They're two beautiful communities with so much potential - potential that is being unlocked through the commitment and diligence and LOVE shown by Megan and Claire, working in conjunction with the local leadership and local people with a heart for their own communities. Because of the work in documentation these ladies have done, getting all these people of Haitian decent registered, and the work they continue to do in getting children sponsored and running different programmes; kids are now going to school beyond Grade 8 and people are starting to see there ARE opportunities for them. I know I am incredibly blessed to have everything I do here in England. Working among such poor communities in a country where the government itself is so poor it can barely do anything to help even if it wanted to, has certainly made me recognise how truly priviledged I am. But at the same time, what these 2 villages have is community. People help each other out, knowing that soon they might be the one who needs help. If someone earns a bit of money, even though they could very well do it themselves, they'll pay someone to wash their clothes for them or tidy their house for them - to share the blessing of that money round, even though what they were paid was very little and they have many needs too. If someone can't feed themselves, a neighbour might give them a meal, and in exchange that person might then shell beans for them to sell or something. It is a community of very much LIVING TOGETHER. And that is truly beautiful. I will certainly miss these wonderful people. This country has been on my heart for many years now, but after these last 3 months, I feel like that heart has been set on fire.
I'm well into the final team of the year now - just one more week with Team 4 and then I have 4 days before I too am flying home to sunny England (or not, as I've heard!)! ;-P And as we go to some of the projects and do some of the things that I've been doing and going to all summer, I'm becoming increasingly aware that that was the last time. The last time I'll walk into that village and be greeted by small children with loud voices shouting, "Rebekah! REBEKAH!" The last time I'll sit around having beautiful conversations with friends I've made here and feel like I've known forever. The last time I'll dance and sing praises to God with the most joyful men who have come through so much. The last time I'll pick up that one little friend who is ALWAYS happy to see me and ALWAYS wants a hug! Even the last time I'll traipse around at the top of the mountain making sure the team are keeping up and not tripping over oddly arranged steps! I say 'last time' in the sense of it being, at least, the last time for the time being, but as the song I'm currently listening to on my Rend Collective Spotify playlist says; "[God's] not finished with me yet!", and I certainly am not claiming to know the future!
So for now, it is the last time. Yesterday I went to Nazareth House for the last time. We played and we danced - I cuddled and I laughed. And I saw again how incredible Sister Mercedes is. How perfectly humble she is and how beautifully understated. I've been working on a side project to raise awareness about the current situation for Nazareth House and so in my time between teams I went back and was taking photos and stuff, so that I could make some publicity material and then I could show that to her to get her permission to use it. As most parents are, she's very protective of her children and doesn't want their photos to end up just anywhere and so not many people have photos of the kids there; so if I can make some materials that she is happy with, other people can then use those to share the story and situation of the house! So anyway, I needed a photo of her and originally she was like, "Nooo, nooo" all embarrassedly, and then she dragged Claire in too, so it wasn't just her, and Claire finally managed to get her to have one on her own; and she is beautiful. But she NEVER wants it to be about her. To the degree that if we give her the comfortable chair, she'll drag it aside and find one of the kids toys (a MOST uncomfortable seat!) to sit on! Whenever she tells her story, she wants it completely to point to God - not to anything incredible that she might have done, but all the incredible things that God has done through her. Claire has previously called Sister Mercedes her 'hero of the faith', and I'd never really understood having a 'hero of the faith', but now I so do. I endeavour to follow her example - her humility, her obedience, her pure faith in God - she is a beautiful, strong daughter of the King. And after all this, she made it about me. She told me how she was sad to see me go and told me not to forget them. I told her I was going to stay in contact, I was going to write to find out how she is and how the children are - and she was overjoyed! And I said, 'no I won't forget. I'll be praying, and I'm going to go back and tell everyone about you and I'm going to raise some money to help...' And she interrupted me; 'the most important thing is that you pray. Pray for us. And remember us.' Such beautiful, wonderful faith. --------------- [1] Photo credit for the sunset: Tim Hendy. As anyone who's read quite a few of my older blog posts will know, I'm training to be a local preacher in the Methodist church... and I LOVE preaching! I've been preaching since I was 16, starting out in youth services and at youth groups and then going into the full training when I was 17 (which probably means I should've finished the training by now, but hey - hopefully I'm still seeking God's timing, and if not, I'm trying my best to get it done a.s.a.p!). And ever since I started, I realised that preaching put my presenting skills into a setting that felt powerful to speak; I found that when I spoke about God I was discovering that he is more and more incredible and I just wanted to share that with everyone! And preaching also gave ground to my theology study for my degree - in my first year I wasn't preaching as I was taking the time to settle into a church, and I ended up thinking that Christianity was all about the theology that you thought. And it's not! Preaching grounds my thinking to constantly wrap around to what that actually means in the lives of Christians; in my relationship with God; in the Church; and in the world! All that is to say that I LOVE preaching!!! Anyway, I was preaching here at the English-speaking (thankfully!) church that I've settled in whilst I've been out here, last week (not yesterday, the Sunday before!). And so I was really excited, if a little nervous beforehand as I usually am, but as I started to speak I felt that calm and that power and it was all OK. This church is non-denominational; as in, it doesn't associate with any denomination and is inclusive of people from all denominations! It's also a very global church, with English-speakers from around the world. A lot of whom work in different missionary activities in the surrounding area, and a lot of whom are only there for short amounts of time. So it's also quite transient. Which all certainly makes for an interesting mix of people! A great, diverse and welcoming mix of people - but so interesting! The day I was preaching, a big proportion of the church was actually our Mission Direct team of 24 who were leaving that afternoon (made a change to have England in the pulpit and England possibly the biggest proportion of the congregation over here!!!). So anyway, I'd prayed about it lots and I ended up preaching on the difference between fearing the world and fearing God - how fearing the world paralyses us and makes us want to hide, whilst fearing God is the beginning of learning how amazing he is, and thus gives us power and strength. How fear of the world turns us in towards ourselves where we think we are safe, but fear of God turns us out towards the world where we love and serve and "soar on wings like eagles". And then after the service I experienced something I had never experienced before. As I finished speaking and returned to my seat, a woman walked up to me and whispered words to the effect of, "I don't agree with you one bit. You're wrong. God is not to be feared. Love and fear cannot go together." And then she walked off and left, before the service had even finished. The comment in itself is a fair comment, and I would've loved to be able to sit down with her and discuss that - we could look to the Bible, she could point out 1 John 4.16-18; that "perfect love drives out fear", and we could have discussed how I see that as John talking about fear of the world, and that when, in v.17 he talks about "having confidence on the day of judgement" he shows that yes, fear of God would be a negative thing, if you didn't also understand the love of God. But to hold them both together is to hold God as the God who "sits in judgement of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless." [1] At the time, I was a little upset by this. All those thoughts running through my head; 'did I preach what God wanted me to?' 'Did I get it wrong?' A man who was sitting behind me lent over and said that he thought the service was great and he was sorry that happened, and then I kind of calmed down because his just-beginning-to-walk baby was walking around my chair and holding my leg to balance, so I just revelled in human pureness and innocence for a little while! And then after the service, everyone else was so encouraging! One lady was crying, telling me it was exactly what she needed to here, and a man told me it made something he'd been thinking about for about a year finally make sense. And it was all so positive! More comments showing that people were really engaging with what I'd said than I'd ever experienced before. So I put the negative one to the back of my mind, and moved on. But you know how one negative comment stands out more than a hundred positive ones... Well I'd been thinking about it occasionally over the week, and then it got to Saturday night and I couldn't sleep well (another story in there!), so my mind was racing through different thoughts. And I was back to thinking, 'Arrr, I should've said more. More about the interplay between love and fearing God. More about how it's not fearing in the same sense as running away. I should've just said more. I had more time to speak, I should've said more. Lord, did I stop listening to you when I thought I'd finished? God, did I GET IT WRONG? ...' And then, 'Well, at least after tomorrow someone else's sermon will be in everyone's mind instead.' And I went to sleep (or thought about something else, at any rate!). Then at church, we had a great message from one of the Pastors, which really gave me something to think about (something completely unrelated to this!), and all was good. After the service, I'd been in to count the offering, and came out and another lady came bouncing up to me, "You did the sermon last week, didn't you? I just wanted to say, it was SO good. So true! It spoke straight to me; I've been talking about it all week - you'll make a great Pastor." (You get used to the fact that people have different words for church leaders and preachers in different places!) Those words... "so true" in particular... were exactly what I needed to hear. It was God answering my 'did I get it wrong?!'. Life's not always easy. And certainly, following God and doing God's work is not always easy. Just like a parent teaching a child to swim; sure, God throws us in at the deep end, but he never leaves us. Because even if we're strong swimmers, in the pool of life there are waves and obstacles and things that terrify us - so he's always waiting there to pull us out when we need it. So that we might turn from our fear of the world and fear the God who throws us out into the world, whilst remaining secure in the knowledge that his love will never fail to save us. Sorry I haven't posted in a while - the big team went home on Sunday and so up 'till then I've been quite busy with that! But while a bigger team does take a lot more organising, they also get A LOT done! It's been great to see them all working away and connecting with local people in the various projects we've taken them to help out in. And seeing the way this has certainly left and impact on some of their lives too, has been so rewarding! So I'm sat here, eating a big pot of chinola (passion fruit - of which I won't be eating it all today!), my face screwing up at the sourness of every mouthful, though the taste I love; thinking over the last 2 weeks about what has really stood out to me... I think one of the little things that has stuck in my mind has been Meekah (really not sure how to spell that!). Meekah is a beautiful girl. She is one of, I think, 10 children and is looked after predominantly by her older brother John (Megan, a missionary who works he in their village wrote this about John back in 2012!). I don't know very much about the family situation at all, but I do know that John loves her and she loves him. And EVERY time I go to their village, as soon as Meekah sees me, she runs up and jumps into my arms! She will then go everywhere with me, hold my bottle for me, want to be thrown around in the air by me... until eventually I run out of energy (or arm strength!) and we sit down and play less energetic games! She is absolutely great - I look forward to seeing her every time we go there!
Then one time with this last team, we went and she was there but she was tired. And this big lump had grown on the side of her head, quite quickly in the last week. And it was hurting her. She came into the feeding programme but was very clingy and wouldn't go and eat, so I took her on my lap and fed her food until she refused anymore, saying she was too full. Then I went off to do something with the team and when I came back she climbed back into my arms, and while we were waiting around she fell fast asleep. Don't get me wrong, I loved the cuddles, but this tired, kind of lethargic and hurting Meekah was nothing on the excited always-ready-for-fun one! So we decided to take her and John to the clinic on our way out of the village. John went and got changed and got her some nice clothes (looked like her Sunday whites!) and we got them on the bus and went out. Claire gave John money for the travel back and he went off and took her to get checked out! We went back the following week and she was napping while I was working. Then John took me to see her; she was lying down on some cushions just outside their house. I didn't want to wake her, but while I was just talking to John out there she opened her eyes and looked up, so I went over and laid my head down next to hers as she reached out her little arm around my neck. I asked her if she was OK, and she said yes. And as she woke up a little more she climbed into my lap as I rocked her and we talked a bit. The lump was completely gone and she had no more pain! And by the end of this week, she was starting back at school and LOVING it!!! Now I don't know if the doctors' really helped, or whether it would've just got better on its own, but even just to know it wasn't majorly serious and that both the lump and the pain would go away was a good thing - a quick doctors' checkup and some medicine - something I've certainly alwats taken for granted. But with the cost of being seen and the cost of travelling; it's not always that easy for people in poverty. I've done a lot of thinking recently; trying to work out how a problem like poverty can even begin to be solved. But I'm reminded of how Jesus acted when he was on the earth - he didn't raise his hands in the air, say a pray and eradicate blindnes (for example) from the earth. He walked about; interacting with real people, caring about them, teaching them, and helping the person in need he found in front of him. Maybe if we all did that, the problem of poverty wouldn't be such a massive one to think about tackling. |
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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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