is it totally ridiculous that i have just had my first mince pie?
or that i am still wearing flipflops??
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
upside down world
since my last post a lot has happened.....
hooked up with 4 crazy international friends for an evening of laughter, chinese, beer, tears and prayer - perfect, but defo not often enough. This happened after a shock visit to gatwick to pick up the lovely oria dale, and then travel to the middle of nowhere, to meet the others and laugh at thier totally shocked faces. 10 points to ozza for shock potential!!!
It was then onto Uganda, via a miracle last minute ticket, to see the people i am going to be working with and the children i will be working for. They are amazing - after enough trauma for a life time, are only just beginning to live. But when they laugh and smile - its amazing..... especially when you see the context from which they come, the slums or the north.
The combination of bad news from home and seeing such back breaking and shocking poverty, made it an emotional week. But all the way through God was successfully turning my world upside down.
What does it look like to be prophetic amoung countries which are so well labelled as "diseased, dying, starving, war ravaged, corrupt" etc. Everyone knows what a bad state the third world is in, even if it can't imagine the scale or depth of depravity. And i don't want to be someone who denies the level of human suffering. But as part fo the church, surely we should be speaking words of life and hope, not just confirmation of what is already there. Jesus so often called things by what they would become, not by what they were. and i think that is where my heart lies....
anything we do in partnership with 'the thrid world', should not be about last ditch effort to maybe save some lives, although that is so needed... but it shoudl be about unlocking potential that is there.
i realise i say this with no study of development, no practicl outworking, nothing really to say this is it - the answer.... it was just an observation and thought. might be totally wrong.... i have no idea, but i look forward to finding out.
hooked up with 4 crazy international friends for an evening of laughter, chinese, beer, tears and prayer - perfect, but defo not often enough. This happened after a shock visit to gatwick to pick up the lovely oria dale, and then travel to the middle of nowhere, to meet the others and laugh at thier totally shocked faces. 10 points to ozza for shock potential!!!
It was then onto Uganda, via a miracle last minute ticket, to see the people i am going to be working with and the children i will be working for. They are amazing - after enough trauma for a life time, are only just beginning to live. But when they laugh and smile - its amazing..... especially when you see the context from which they come, the slums or the north.
The combination of bad news from home and seeing such back breaking and shocking poverty, made it an emotional week. But all the way through God was successfully turning my world upside down.
What does it look like to be prophetic amoung countries which are so well labelled as "diseased, dying, starving, war ravaged, corrupt" etc. Everyone knows what a bad state the third world is in, even if it can't imagine the scale or depth of depravity. And i don't want to be someone who denies the level of human suffering. But as part fo the church, surely we should be speaking words of life and hope, not just confirmation of what is already there. Jesus so often called things by what they would become, not by what they were. and i think that is where my heart lies....
anything we do in partnership with 'the thrid world', should not be about last ditch effort to maybe save some lives, although that is so needed... but it shoudl be about unlocking potential that is there.
i realise i say this with no study of development, no practicl outworking, nothing really to say this is it - the answer.... it was just an observation and thought. might be totally wrong.... i have no idea, but i look forward to finding out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
