Soul Touch

Holocaust Museum

What’s New?
So what’s different?
Have we moved on?

I really don’t want to appear a typically hysterical, or heaven forbid, soppy female. I don’t even want to write my emotions; my feelings on this subject are really irrelevant. In fact they’re so muddled at the moment that they would only confuse you anyway.
What I want to write is something of what I have just seen and heard: images; words and feelings of people being persecuted; tortured; displaced; humiliated.
Although I cried and yes my heart broke the sensation of hopelessness and pain I felt as I walked around the museum is not a new one for me. These images were in black and white because the atrocities against the Jews happened in the past, many years ago. But the images really reflected what is going on right now.
You see the starving children on the streets of Europe may look different: the faces of the Jews were not black; their noses are long and straight, not flat, and their lips thin. But really the colour of their skin is not relevant either. The pictures in the museum are not unlike the ones we took only weeks ago in Africa. They are all displaced. People are still being humiliated under cruel dictatorship. What struck me most in the museum was that there was a section dedicated to a particular ship. A ship that was once full of Jewish refugees. They tried to enter several countries, including America and Britain, but nobody wanted them. So they just floated not knowing their fate. These people were completed displaced and rejected while the rest of the world refused to take any responsibility for them. So what’s new? Nothing?
A different place maybe: Gulu? The children have different coloured skin. The torture instruments being used are different.
But…is our generation, the one you and I belong to; the one reading this now, are we going to refuse responsibility? Are we going to be displayed in a museum in fifty years time, described as neglectful? I don’t want to be. I don’t want my name displayed there; do you?

Start right now by praying that you can used to help the people in Gulu.

God bless, the Soul Touchers

Fun in Israel

Ha if we’re never famous for anything else we will be for causing chaos in Israel I’m sure. Few wee memories we want to share with ya! We love Israel! It’s stunning, peaceful and safe, contrary to what we are told at home! I think they do that so no-one comes here and they have all this to themselves!
First night here and Lorna and I decided to go for something to eat. While we were innocently enjoying the tranquillity of the sea front, the sound of the waves and lack of mosquito’s (although we have found that the men can be just as irritating!) suddenly the restaurant burst into song; it was obviously someones birthday. It looked so much fun, sparklers and all.
“Ah it’s my birthday too!” I joked (no I didn’t lie dad it was supposed to be a joke. A very obvious one I thought).
Next thing I knew I was in the air! Seriously I was surrounded by waiters, equipped with tambourines and sparklers who proceeded to bounce me up and down (and up and down and wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwup again) in the air, despite my screaming; if anything it seemed to encourage them. As for Miss Main the excitement was all too much for her; she was speechless. Ahh well I guess it’s true what they say: God brings good out of every situation!

Fame? Yes Lorna and I were seemingly on Israeli television yesterday. We were filmed on the beach. ‘N’ no it wasn’t a whale sighting documentary Roy before you ask! We were just walking but they didn’t ask permission. I’m sure we can sue for Royalties or something though. Do they not know who we are!?

Leadership?

By the year 2010 there will be fifty million children in the world orphaned because of aids and conflict.
Sometimes when I speak to people over here I write down what they say; we photograph them and video their stories. This is one statistic I didn’t write down. It shocked me so much it is ingrained in my head and plays over and over. Similarly the picture of the starving and homeless children we saw in Africa is one I don’t need to show you or even recreate; you have seen it before and you know it exists.
What I hadn’t thought of before is the global and economic impact that this poverty will have, not only on Africa but on the rest of the world. You’ve heard how the police in Peru deal with this increasing problem: they sweep it up. They perform mass “sweep up” operations whereby they gas the children out of the sewers or worse still they feed them rat poisoning so they die slowly and painfully like vermin, because after all that is how they are viewed there, and all around the world. Orphans, street children, child soldiers, invisible children, abandoned children, they have been given all sorts of different names but ultimately they are seen as nuisances.

I don’t believe that any one of your reading this blog now is of the same opinion as the police in Peru. In fact I know that many of you already support children all over the world. The fact that you are reading this right now is a support to us, two people striving to help these children and make their stories heard.

Dwelling Places, The Vine Trust and Watoto are three amazing organisations all doing wonderful things to save these children from the streets and the hands of cruel, ineffective governments. So if you are not involved already we urge you to get involved.

Don’t turn off the computer and think it doesn’t effect you. Have you children? Are you planning to have children in the future? Will you be here in the year 2010! Yes, exactly it is incredibly soon. We’re talking about three years time. What age will you be? There will be fifty million children homeless or worse still dead around the world. Don’t think they will all just suddenly appear either. They are already here. You’ve seen their pictures on our blog. You know that there are things that we can do to start changing this process so that stops.

The Vine Trust works in partnership with Scripture Union Peru building homes for street children and educating them; they teach them the gospel. Dwelling Places is the home we just left in Uganda. They rescue street children and try to re-establish contact with their parents, rehabilitating them in the process; they teach them the gospel. Watoto is a village in Uganda which houses abandoned children. They place them in homes, each home has a mother and a maximum of 8 children. They educate them, care for all of their needs and teach them the gospel.

Teaching the gospel is a priority for all of these organisations as you can see. But how do they do it? They teach them it by living it! They are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and rescuing the orphans. Have you ever asked how you can be Christan’s in this world and how we can start making a difference. Well now’s your chance. Each time you do it for “one of the least of my children you do it for me” says the Lord.

“What difference does it make if it’s a Christian organisation or not? Lots of people do good things!” I’ve heard this many times. Yes. but if you’re not teaching them the gospel and you’re simply educating them well think about this. You could be educating the next Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler and how much more dangerous are they with an education! Think about it. Surely Jesus’ philosophy of “loving one another” is better then any of theirs. I know who I want to follow. We saw the news recently and people in Britain were moaning about Gordon Brown. We constantly moan about leadership but we could be doing something huge to change the future of leadership. God’s raising a generation of children in Uganda and Peru (so far that’s all we’ve seen) that love him and want to serve him. Leaders in the making. Leaders we’re not scared of!

‘N’ here’s the exciting bit. Remember that sickening feeling you got in your stomach approximately two minutes ago when you read the statistic about orphaned children? Imagine the feeling you would get if you knew that the figure had dropped to 49, 999, 000 and that the one less was the one you were supporting.
Imagine the feeling you could have if you read this blog in three years time and the statistic at the top of the page was shocking…shockingly good. That 50,000, 000 children in the world were growing up loving God ‘n’ serving him. Now there’s a dream. The Vine Trust, Dwelling Places and Watoto are three organisations have started making it a reality. Be part of it!

www.vinetrust.org
www.dwellingplaces.org
www.watoto.com

Kenya

Now we are fully, well getting there, recovered from our whirlwind tour of Kenya we will tell you a little bit about what we actually did with our time there and why we have such fond memories of the country and the people!
Firstly we arrived to a kings (well princess’s) welcome. It was amazing. After spending some 15 hours on the worst road in the Africa, or make that the world, we arrived in sunny Kenya.

The bus screeched to an emergency stop and all of a sudden armed police men entered shouting “Mzoongo, Mzoongo”. Of course I immediately elbowed Lorna, who was obliviously picking dead cockroaches off herself, and told her that the police had pulled us over because white people were on the bus. Doh! In actual fact the police had stopped us because Nancy and her crew had asked them too. Next thing we knew beautiful Nancy was calling to us to get our bags and get off the bus.
So we did. The first thing we noticed were their beaming smiles and the number of people who were waiting for us. It really was a warm and totally unexpected welcome. Although still slightly sleepy eyed and whip-lashed from the bus we learned our hosts names relatively quickly:
“Hi nice to meet you,” the mzoongos chorused.
“Hi I’m Julius”
“I’m John.”
“I’m Jamilick”
“I’m Geoffry,” they replied, arms outstretched to hug us.
‘N’ just when we thought we were all J’d out another voice piped up, “I’m Betty, but you can call me Joyce!” At this point Main had a moment. Giggle tastic!

Ok so we’d met the team, well some of them, and we were taken to Nancy’s stunning home where we met her husband…James!!!
Oh how we chuckled.

The first thing we noticed was the volume of chairs in the sitting room. The room was full of beautifully patterned couches and it was very welcoming. Aswell as the couches I noticed some other chairs stacked in the corner. Later we discovered that all of the homes we visited had several chairs in them, crammed around the walls in their living areas. We questioned Nancy about this and she told us that they were for visitors and that they often held church meetings and groups in their homes. We can certainly testify that these people expect visitors. The prepare themselves to have them and they make entertaining them and being hospitable to them part of their lives. Yes I know we all love to do that but you’ll see that there’s a slgiht differnce to the way we entertain and the way they do it: Kenya style!

While I was talking to Nancy I realised why we had received such a warm, “princess’s” welcome. I explained to her that we had never experienced anything like this and that we were actually very humbled and slightly embarrassed to be so joyfully received. “It was like you were receiving royalty,” I explained.
As soon as I said it I realised why they had acted this way. “You are God’s daughters,” she remined me. (Of course we are daughters of the King.) “And so when we welcome you we are welcoming him into our homes and we would only give him the best!”
Of course. It all made sense. For those of you who know us well you will know that we, well I at least, are in no way a princesses (far from it) and we are still not quite sure that we deserved the hospitality we received. However, we are sure that God did and they were right: each time we entered one of their homes we prayed together, we shared together and in everything God was at the centre of it all. So thank you to all our friends in Kenya. We know you will be bountifully blessed because you blessed us so much.

Then, after eating some goat (yes we did a lot of that), we visited the church on Sunday morning. The minister (Robert) wasn’t preaching that morning but Lorna and I soon made up for that. Nancy asked us to say a few words, little did she know we like to talk….and talk…and talk. Anyway everyone seemed to enjoy it and even understand our funny accents. We later learned that the reason for Robert’s absence was that he is the minster for the parish. Yes, most ministers are you may be wondering what’s my point. Well the point is that the parish is so full and so vast that there are actually six congregations and and they are spread over many miles. Wow can you imagine the church in Scotland having so many members and lovers of God that there aren’t enough ministers to accommodate them. I can!

That Sunday afternoon we met the youth group, whom we would be sharing and teaching for the rest of the week. We absolutely adore this group of young people. We say young but in actual fact some of them were older than us (ages between 16-30). We spent the rest of the day singing, dancing and doing drama with them. That week we got to know them a lot better. Nancy kept saying you must spend time with the youth and I see why. They are so passionate about God and he is really real to them. They rely on him for everything. I could see why us spending time with them was so important for the church, the same reason that everywhere we have gone people have asked us to focus on the children and young people: they are the future of the church. They are the next generation and as Marylin Skinner recently pointed out they are the next leaders of the country.

Having taught in Scotland (although only for a baby amount of time in comparison to some) I appreciate the importance and emphasise we place on education and exam results. I know that you already understand how important it is to be educated, because you are. But what I have seen in each place I visited in Africa, including Kenya, is that yes it is important to educate children but I saw how important educating them about God is too. How much more confident these children are when they know that they have someone that loves them unconditionally and that God has a plan for their lives. We may think at home that our children don’t need this hope, they have other things to distract them, computers, alcohol, fashion. Yeah these things may be satisfying…for a little while but ultimately they want something long term. Something that relates to them, someone who understands them (the way their parents and peers don’t') eh… try the gospel!!! So that’s a little (only a tiny part) of what we learned from the youth there, as well as how not to paint! If we’re ever invited back I guarantee we will not be asked to paint the church again although we had lots of fun doing it!

The youth group then took on the monumental task of taking out my braids and before we knew it, it was time to leave Kenya. We cannot express how much we loved every second of our time there, how much we learned and how much fun we had. We laughed…and laughed…and laughed! We know that our partnership and friendship with them is just at the beginning and it will be lifelong. We pray that you too will get involved in the work of their parish. One of the many things they do in their community is pay for local children to go to school. We had the privilege of meeting some of the children (young people) whose education is paid for by the congregation and they are not necessarily children who attend the church or are even associated with it. It terrifies me to think that there are so many other children, even some of the youth we met, that can not go to school simply because their parents can’t afford the fees. I know that it seems we are always asking for you to support our brothers and sisters abroad, well we are visiting them for the next year so perhaps we should get used to it, but we would not ask if we did not see that it was doing some good. Infact a huge amount of good. Giving someone food for the day is keeping them alive, giving them an education is giving them a life and a future. Please get involved. Contact World Without Walls to get in tocvh with Nancy and the J team tehy are waiting and would love to hear from you!
God Bless and much love, the Soul Touchers