Some ancient, invisible, Saint Nick in the Sky

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

$10 Billion to give everyone clean water. $450 billion spent on Christmas?

Enough said...

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

An interesting week...

We have finished the first week at Camp Truth in Trenton, NJ and to put it diplomatically, it was interesting. I put a lot of it down to new camp syndrome, with new kids, directors, interns, streetleaders resulting in a week with some very stressful moments.

We also had some good moments. On the whole, teaching rec has been fun and enjoyable, and the Kids love it. We also had a trip to the New Jersey State Museum.

I have faith that in the next week we will continue to get stronger as a camp

Trenton, Day 2

We are in our second day in Trenton, working for Camp Truth in its Inaugural year. We are settled in our house and have had a chance to survey the Church (more like the Cathedral) that we are working in.

The class I will be teaching is Rec and I will be teaching it in a Gym which is in a converted Crypt under the main Cathedral hall.

The feel about the camp is one of excitement. We have some newbie interns and streetleaders, but also some old School camp kids who have grown up and are in the Leadership positions, which gives the camp a really good feel.

The one downside is that out house is so far from the camp we are working at. This is bad for two reasons. One, it means that we are not going to be interacting with the children that we are working with all the time, which is the case for many of the other camps. Secondly, it means that we are a hour bus journey from camp, and because we have a 7.30am start it means a very early bus journey.

I am really enjoying getting to know the team that I am working with. We have 3 from California, one from Belize (a little country below Mexico, in the Caribbean) and one from Camden. We are looking like we are going to be a really good team.

Thats all from me for the moment but I probably update you with some pictures sometime.

The Greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears

I've been thinking about why I do what I do.

My thoughts continued to return to this quote. It is from a book called East of Eden by John Stienbeck:

"The Greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime, guilt - and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails. It is all there - the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world - and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt."


There are so many people in this city that have felt the harsh sting of rejection. Some of the stories that I have recently heard are so heart wrenching that I wonder if I can ever have any influence. I really feel that I have been called here to stand by those who have been rejected, those who are still being rejected  today and to help stem the cycle of rejection, anger and guilt.

A New Chapter...

Next week I begin the next part of my adventure, with nearly 50 interns arriving to work at the Urban Promise summer camps. This is particularly exciting for me as I have volunteered to go to a City called Trenton in New Jersey, where they are starting up a brand new summer camp this year. (Click here for more info on Trenton).

I will going there with my buddy Kumar and some other Interns. I feel that this will be a really fun time, but I also feel that this will be a time that I will be able to be challenged, and possibly help me grow.

This move will only be temporary, as I will be returning to Camden in August to start another Year Internship at the camp that I have been working at this.

I ask that you all continue to support me, that your keep me in your prayers. And if you feel called to support my work here in the USA financially,  then please go to https://www.servicenetwork.com/olg/upusa-f/Sponsor.asp and select my name from the drop down menu.

The only true disability is a crushed spirit

I know that this video is kinda long but it is incredibly inspirational to me and to the work that I am doing out in America.  If you don't have the time to watch it all then please watch from 14.38

Camp Faith 2010/11

Here is a movie I made of the previous year working at Camp Faith. Hope you enjoy it

If a picture paints a thousand words...

Prophets of a future that is not our own

I have been prompted many times in the last weeks and months about how whatever we do, we cannot do it in our own power, and that it is detrimental to the world around us when we take God out of the equation and try and manage our surroundings in our own way.

A friend sent me this quote by Oscar Romero, and I found it extremely inspiring:

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts: it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No sermon says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."

The question is, can we manage to set aside our need for control and look beyond ourselves and to a future that is not our own?

Chasing Shadows

I have just been struck about how much I chase shadows.

I don't mean this literally. But in the fact that I am constantly chasing the good things that God places around me. This could be a Job, or friends or countless other things.

I remember somebody once telling me that in our relationship with God, he is our only light source, and that the things he gives us, be it relationships, jobs, talents etc. are the shadows produced when his light hits us. If we chase after these shadows then we are fruitlessly walking with our backs turned from the Light source, and in the end the shadows become less and less defined.

The only way to attain the things we want is to turn our backs on them. To fix our gaze to the light source, and only when we are running towards this do the 'shadows' become more defined.

More of a suburban dullness than an Urban Adventure

I'm sorry for not blogging recently but I've been a bit preoccupied.

At the moment I am not in the USA, but in the UK. This is a result of having to wait for a new visa. Admittedly this last couple of weeks has been a real struggle, going from doing really exciting work in a really interesting city in the USA to doing 'donkey' work back at my old job in grey old England is enough to make pretty much anyone feel down, frustrated and fed up.

It's not that I don't like England, I do, but when you know that your called to be somewhere to do something and you can't get there it is frustrating.

I have wondered where God is in all of this waiting, because he could fix this in an instance, but the lack of progress leads me to believe that there is more that meets the eye, that God isn't being vindictive or ignorant but that he is trying to teach me.

I realised that the most frustrating thing is having no control over what is not happening. This isn't a new. I struggle a lot with not feeling that in someway i can influence what is occurring, and maybe this is God telling me that I need to release control, to trust him. That's what the writer of Proverbs says, that we need to place our trust into Gods hands, and not put our faith into our own understanding, not depending on our own strength but Gods. Maybe this is what God is trying teach me.