Hope is Kindled

Matthew 5:14-16

14 “You are the light of the world. A [beacon] built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

              

 

I was really inspired last week. UrbanPromise, the organisation that i work for, despite being formed in Camden, NJ, it has not been contained to this city. Beacons of Hope have been spread to the whole world.  Last week we had the UrbanPromise Summit, in which the UrbanPromises from Malawi, Honduras, Miami, Toronto, Vancouver, Wilmington and Trenton gathered together.

To hear the stories from all around the world is amazing. In Matthew we are told that we are light of the world, that a "beacon" on a hill cannot be hidden. At the summit it was incredible to see so many beacons lit.

I remember the scene from Lord of The Rings where the Beacons of Gondor are lit, and it struck me that one tiny flame, can produce a chain reaction which cannot be stopped and cannot do anything except drastically change the world that we live in.

So whatever you do, be this "beacon" that spreads light, because you never know what effect it will have.

Memories Frozen in Time

A few pictures from Urban Promise including our trip to the Philadelphia Zoo... 

 

I’m no Superman

I have in the last days come to realize that I am not Superman.

I don’t mean this in the sense that I cannot fly or catch bullets or turn back time.

I mean it in the sense that I cannot save the world. I cannot, no matter how much I want to, save those who you love the most.

I’m not going to go into detail but I was in a situation where I was trying to save the world, whilst ignoring the hurt that it was causing me. 

I heard someone talk a couple of weeks ago about self-care. He talked about how the first thing we should do when trying to help someone is make sure that we are in a position to help those who we aim to help. He gave the analogy of when an airplane loses cabin pressure. Do we help the person next to us put their oxygen mask on first?  No. Because if we pass out then we are of no help at all. So we fix the mask on ourselves first.

In my head I was (am still am) being pulled in two directions. It does make sense to look care for yourself but on the other hand, when appealing to my caring nature, it seems selfish. It was taking more that I had to put myself in this situation. And with hindsight I can see that I was tearing myself apart, which was resulting to me not being able to help and possibly being more of a hinderance.

So my advice to you is that if you wish to help those in this world that you hold dear, then make sure that you are in a position to help

Newbies

I have just finished the third set of orientation that I will encounter at Urban Promise. I have just started my second year Internship and I must admit that I have had mixed feelings.

On the positive side, I have been given  an incredible opportunity to learn. I have taken on the role of managing one of the Intern houses. and I am also taking on more of a role at the After School Program which I am really excited about.

The negative aspect of his has come out of loss. Firstly, losing a group of people who I looked to as family and secondly being awoken to the harsh reality of living in an area such as Camden. My first year internship was rudely interrupted by US Visa people. This resulted in me spending 3 months in the UK, and this resulted in me not always feeling as if i was part of the House community. But this all changed in the summer when I went to Trenton, and spent alot of my time with my team of 5 others. This led to our team being incredibly close. When it came for them to one by one leave, it felt as if I was slowly losing limbs. It was really painful and the next weeks was really hard.

And now I am faced with the knowledge that to get close to a group of people will inevitably come with the end result (for most part anyway) of pain over the breaking of ties. This is a choice which is impossible to make without any clear answer - do I close myself and become a Hermit (maybe abit extreme) or make friends with people whom you know that in 9 months will part paths? It is a choice that makes my head hurt. I am currently listening to the Soundtrack of the Movie Where the Wild Things Are and I was reminded of a quote from Judith (one of the Wild Things) saying "Happiness is not always the best way to be happy".  This made sense to me in some weird way. If the things that hurt, usually hurt because in one way they made us so happy. I think that the things that make us happy are worth it even if they are going to eventually have the potential to make us unhappy, and by running away in order to avoid pain, we also run the risk of avoiding the things that make us happy permanently.

But also weighing on my already overloaded brain is the fact that life is fleeting. A friend who I met in the summer in Trenton, died nearly two weeks ago, at the age of 24. And it struck me that life is fragile, and we never know what is going to happen. One of my favourite films is a film called The Crow. During the filming of the movie, the main actor, Brandon Lee was unfortunatly killed, but what was striking was that the day before he was giving an interview where he talked about how we seem to have a mentality of immortality, that we think that we are going to live for ever, saying

" ...you tend to take a great deal for granted, because you feel like you're going to live forever. It's only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, (that) many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance"

It has been an eye opening last couple of weeks, and I hope now that I don't take things for granted and if your reading I urge you not to either.

My Summer...

Leese B

I thought that I would share my friends new single.

If a picture paints a thousand words... (Take 2)

A few images from Camp Truth in Trenton