833 Days

I have been here for 834 days and yesterday one of my young people was stabbed. The figures of youth violence indicated that it was bound to happen to one of "my" young people soon, but it's still a massive shock when it happens.

It wasn't fatal and I'm going to visit him in hospital but I never wanted this day to come, it's not that I want to be ignorant to it happening I just want to somehow protect my young people from it. The worst part of it is that we didn't see it coming, everything had been okay that evening.

I'm still trying to put God in this and struggling.

Youth Deaths

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7510901.stm - 28 so far this year, that is one young person being violently killed less than every 2 weeks.

This is the world we live in.

It's really hard to see God in this.

Bangladesh

So many of you will know that in August I had the utter privilege of traveling to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

You may now be wondering why it has taken me so long to tell you all about it. Well the truth is it's only now that I am starting to process what happened. That and my good friends the Brierley's have gone traveling for the year around the world and reading their updates reminded me of how important it is to communicate what's going on.

So I spent 3 days prior to traveling being trained up in how to be a good missionary and how to avoid illness (as you read on you'll realise this may have been a pointless exercise). I also got to know the team I was gonna be spending the next two weeks with.

Once we arrived we were met by a wonderful woman names Sandie who was my Guardian Angel on the trip. We spent two weeks staying in a beautiful German Guesthouse (yes you did read it write, they may have lost the war but they have guesthouses in Bangladesh). This would be my home from home whilst I was there.

During our time in Dhaka we helped out at The Duaripara Family Development Project teaching classes of young girls and making visits to their homes - when i say home I mean cramped corrugated metal shacks known better as slums.

My worst experience was probably getting sick for the first week meaning I didn't get to do anywhere near as much as everyone else. I made good friends with a green bucket that lived in our bathroom, this same bucket went on to serve me well when I had to wash my beautiful Salwar Kameez. A little bit rank I know but desperate times call for desperate measures and hot water with bleach cleaned it up nicely.

The hardest thing to get my head around was the amount of poverty and poor treatment of people. I spent much of my time in tears and despair as I watched beautiful children unable to access education, young women oppressed and forced to work in the sickening garment factories and men who were beneath so called society because of a birth defect. Lagbe na (want not) and maph koren (forgive me) were commonly used to bypass the problem but every time I said the words my heart broke a little bit more. All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around these people and tell them they were loved which would have been very frowned upon due to religious law (Bangladesh is a 98% Muslim country) and the oppression of women meaning I was to be seen and not very much.

I got to visit many churches but by far my favourite was Nekbar's church. Nekbar is the financial administrator for Oasis Bangladesh and he is a converted Muslim. He is lucky in that his family also converted meaning he is not an outcast unlike many of the other Bengali Christians I met. His church struck me of that that we read about in Romans where families meet together to journey, pray and praise God and as I sat through the service I felt God's presence more than any fancy gathering in England.

There is much more that I want to share with you but it seems fitting that I leave you with the thing that impacted me the most, the beautiful girls at Duaripara. Aged between 8 and 13 these girls were more eager to learn than anyone I've ever met before. I was suddenly racked with guilt at how much I resent my education and yet how lucky I am that it exists. Every lesson I taught was hard work but so rewarding. I may not have taught them anything of great value (it would take 198 days to walk from Dhaka to Rio De Janeiro) but what I did has made a positive impact on their lives. It's hard in London to ever think you're making a difference when all the time it seems like the very people you're trying to help resent you, yet in Bangladesh everyday I knew I was doing a great thing and that it was to the glory of God.

So this is my short story of Bangladesh. I hope you like it and the pictures xxx

Once every twelve days ...

01.01.2008 - Henry Bolombi (17)
05.01.2008 - Faridan Alizada (18)
21.01.2008 - Boduka Mudianga (18)
26.01.2008 - Fuad Buraleh (19)
15.02.2008 - Ofiyke Nmezu (18)
19.02.2008 - Sunday Essien (15)
23.02.2008 - Tung Le (17)
13.03.2008 - Michael Alexander Jones (18)
14.03.2008 - Nicholas Clarke (19)
27.03.2008 - Devoe Roach (17)
27.03.2008 - Amro Elbadawi (14)
03.05.2008 - Lyle Tulloch (15)
10.05.2008 - Jimmy Mizen (16)
24.05.2008 - Rob Knox (18)
24.05.2008 - Sharmaake Hassan (17)
02.06.2008 - Arsema Dawitt (15)
29.06.2008 - Ben Kinsella (16)
04.07.2008 - Shakilus Townsend (16)
07.07.2008 - David Idowu (14)
10.07.2008 - Melvin Bryan (18)
17.07.2008 - Unknown (18)

21 in the past 7 months, 3 per month, 1 every 12 days ... "An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind"

Boris is Mayor

So Boris Johnson made it through as Mayor for London. What does this have to do with my youth work I hear you say ... well a lot actually. Dear old Boris is proposing some promising plans to cut youth on youth crime and gang violence which if he can deliver on could radially change the youth work I do. He's also banning the drinking of alcohol on public transport to increase safety and general usage of it. It makes a huge difference to your journey home if you can sit in the knowledge that your are safe from harm and that the only danger to you is the dubious driving capabilities of the driver.

He's also planning to develop the green spaces within London for all people to use to encourage families, youth groups etc ... to spend time outside.

Boris' manifesto makes quite a good read and if he can deliver he may actually be more than the joke vote. So lets pray for God's will to be done throughout his term and see if gang violence and the like can be reduced and London can become safer.

Bless you all

me xxx

Residential ... wagwan blood!!!

Well as the title suggests I've recently got back from our youth residential. Basically I organised and ran a youth residential for 30 young people (28 of whom turned up) and 8 leaders. It was hard work to plan, the bane of my life to organise and stressful once we got there but I had a great time.

It was based around the the theme of Hollywood, so we had four teams - Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood Drive (my WINNING team) and Vine Street. We also had Big Sessions based on John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one can get to the father except through me. These were a big success and provoked some really good conversations and reactions out of the yute dem.

It was really great to spend some quality with my young people, start to see the developments from 18 months of hard work and for them to get to see the real me. I was honestly dreading the whole thing but am so glad we did it.

Welcome one and all

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog.

This is the place to come if you want youth work, university and general me updates. If you want to pass what I write on here to others feel free to and I hope you enjoy my new blog.

Much Love

Rach xxx