|
Message
from Sarah:
Lent is
Just the Beginning
Hooray! April has arrived. Easter is
here – Christ has died and is risen, signifying the beginning of
new life.
The team at Lent Event once again feel
so blessed to have been able to take the Lenten journey with you,
learning about and growing closer to our brothers and sisters in
Christ overseas and getting to know our most loving God on a
deeper, more personal level.
Our deep thanks goes out to Rev. Dr
Chris Budden and Rev Kent Crawford who prepared the 2010 Bible
study and daily prayers, helping us to build relationships with our
overseas partners as well as with people in our faith communities.
Through our study groups, and our Lenten sacrifice, we have opened
up our lives to each other by hearing the voices of our partners in
Timor-Leste, India, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sudan and
Zambia.
Our children too grew from the
understanding gained from the Lent Event Sunday School program,
where each week the children learnt about a little girl named
Nakali from Sudan. One Sunday School leader reported how her group
of children sat wide-eyed, engrossed by the photographs of Nakali
and the village women carrying large containers of water back to
their village – the children couldn’t believe that these women
would lug such large heavy containers over huge
distances.
With Lent over, our task of reaching out
in love to connect with people who are very poor continues. We pray
that your community will be encouraged to link further with our
partner communities and to build on the relationship that Lent
Event has opened up for us. For more information on how your
community can form partnerships with our overseas neighbours,
contact Rob Lutton at UnitingWorld at info@unitingworld.org.au
Coordinators: Processing
Donations
To all our wonderful coordinators, we
wish to express our heartfelt thanks for all your work for Lent
Event over the last few months.
It is now time to process the funds
which your faith community has set aside. Please give your
congregations a few weeks to bring in their money (knowing people
often forget to bring their money in the rush to get to church on
Sunday mornings). Follow the instructions for processing funds set
down in the ‘Process’ booklet, the lift out section at the back of
the Coordinator’s
Guide.
Please call the Lent Event Office on
1300 536 838 or email at info@lentevent.comif you need any extra brochures.
Alternatively there are donation forms available on page 29 in the
‘Process’ booklet or on the Lent Event
website.
Please try and have all donations
finalised by 2ndMay, 2010, and returned to Lent Event,
PO Box A2266, Sydney South, 1235.
For further instructions on how to
process the donations please refer to your Process Guide which can
also be found on our website or for further advice, call the Lent
Event office.
Trip to
Timor-Leste
Lent Event founder and program Director
Sarah White is preparing to visit our partners in Timor-Leste on
April 18, 2010.
UnitingWorld recently offered Sarah the
opportunity to travel with Rob Floyd, Associate Director of Relief
and Development, to see first hand the benefits flowing from the
micro-credit and health initiatives supported by Lent
Event.
This project provides advice, training,
equipment and loans to farmers in order that they can grow crops
and rear animals, gain food security and a stable income to support
their families. It also provides loans to help community members
establish small businesses. For many, accessing medical support in
Timor-Leste is also extremely difficult; consequently UnitingWorld
has set up two medical centres to support local
communities.
Sarah will be travelling from Darwin to
Timor-Leste’s capital, Dili, before travelling overland to the
projects. While the United Nations have reported that redevelopment
of the country is occurring at a remarkable rate, Timor-Leste is
still ‘fragile,’ combating issues such as political corruption,
crime, unemployment and poverty.
Please pray for Sarah for her safe
journey, that she be Christ’s witness in Timor-Leste, that she has
opportunities to form connections with our
partners.
Project
Report: Zambia
In December, Lent Event reported on the
Mwandi Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Project humbly led by
Fiona Dixon-Thompson and her wonderful
team.
We are happy to report that on the
25thof January, Fiona was blessed to safely
give birth to a beautiful baby girl named Lucy Sepo (Hope in Lozi)
and that both mum and daughter are doing extremely
well.
Lucy, Rury and Fiona have only just
arrived back in Zambia to the project, which in the mean time has
been run by staff and volunteers at the OVC. One young volunteer
who, Fiona reports, has been an absolute blessing, is a young
Australian named Steven.
In the latest OVC Project Newsletter,
Steven wrote about his experience working with the project. The
team at Lent Event found it so moving that we have reprinted it
here for your benefit:
Having spent the best part of 5 months
living in Mwandi and working at the OVC, one would think that to
write a short report on my time here would not be a difficult thing
to do. However, upon sitting down and trying to put pen to paper,
this seemingly simple task presents itself as something far more
challenging. For once though, this difficulty does not arise out of
not knowing what to say, but from having far too much material to
cover. Having said this let me endeavour to sum up my time in
Mwandi briefly, accurately and
honestly.
When one first visits the OVC it is
difficult not to be struck by the overwhelmingly happy feeling that
the grounds exude. Brightly coloured buildings, children singing or
jumping rope, kids playing on the playground or having a game of
football. Of course there are the occasional tears but the first
impression of the OVC must be that this is a positive, upbeat
place.
It is only when we look a little closer
that we can come to see the sadness that underlies this joy. For
under many of these happy, smiling faces are stories capable of
breaking hearts. Perhaps it is a childhood punctuated with
malnourishment, or a history of sexual abuse, or having to watch
one’s parents dying of AIDS. Perhaps in some cases it is all
three.
These stories however, rather than
dampening the positive first impression of the OVC, actually
intensify it. It is because of these stories that the smiles on the
children’s faces are so heart warming and uplifting. It is because
of these stories that progress at school is so celebrated. It is
because of these stories that hearing the children sing in unison
“higher than the stars, deeper than the sea, wider than the
universe, oh oh wonderful life” fills your heart with such radiant
joy. It is because of these stories that those of us fortunate
enough to come here are able to receive so much from the
experience.
For my part, I have learned and
experienced so many new things here I find it hard to put it into
words. I have learnt the meaning of courage from kids able to look
on the bright side of life despite facing difficulties I can
scarcely imagine on a daily basis and the meaning of perseverance
from 20 year olds wanting to do their grade seven because they
never got the chance when they were
younger.
I have learnt the importance of
education for a community and a society to be able to better
itself. I have learnt that while being called ‘white man’ by
someone older than 10 may possibly be offensive, to be called this
by someone under 10 is often a term of bewilderment, excitement,
affection and sometimes even fear.
I have learnt that we should never take
for granted what we have in this world because we are far more
blessed than we realised. I have learnt just how much of a
difference one person with a dream can make in this
world.
I have discovered what caterpillars
taste like and the feeling of riding in the back of a truck with 12
adults, 2 babies, 3 sacks of mealy meal and enough luggage to fill
a small airplane.
I have met people who give up their
small amount of holidays to fly half way around the world to help
people they have never met and I’ve met people who have left
careers, family and friends because they wish to make a
difference.
I have experienced the camaraderie of a
session with the OVC youth group and the musical prowess of the UCZ
choir. I have experienced the joy of the Zambian football team
winning a game and the heartbreak of the team losing on penalties.
I have even experienced the anxiety of 9 Zambian women waiting
impatiently for photos of the newest member of the OVC family to be
sent to us from Australia.
We at the OVC were recently fortunate
enough to receive a visit from a group of American doctors and
medical students. The group was led by Dr Tom Irons, a
paediatrician from North Carolina. Having spent 2 weeks with us
giving medical checkups to the children at OVC, it came time for
the group to leave. Amidst the hugs, tears and general mayhem of
their departure Dr Irons said something that really resonated with
me. In response to the thanks and well wishes of the OVC children
and staff Dr Irons said: “Thank you. We are truly blessed to have
been able to serve you. You have given all of us far more than we
can ever give to you”.
And perhaps after all this is the
perfect way to sum up my time at OVC and what I think this place
means to those involved with it. While things here aren’t always
easy, at the end of the day, no matter what we give to this place,
we always receive more in return.
Reprinted
from Mwandi OVC Project Newsletter, No. 43: January-March
2010.
Prayer
Points
- Pray for all the participants within
your congregation, that this Lent has been a life-changing
experience for them.
- Pray for a joyful and safe arrival for
Fiona Dixon-Thompson and her family, as she returns to the OVC
project in Mwandi with her baby girl, Lucy Seepo (hope) to continue
her work with HIV/ AIDs orphans there.
- Pray for our partners in Sudan; that we
may continue to provide communities with bore wells that deliver
life-giving water.
- Pray for the people of the Solomon
Islands; that we might support them further through practical
healthcare that they would access it.
- Pray for the children of South India;
that we may continue to provide education initiatives that allow
children to gain the knowledge they need for a brighter
future.
- Pray for the people of Papua New Guinea;
that we may continue to support projects providing adequate water
supply and sanitary works to ensure that communities can gain
access to clean water and prevent the spread of
disease.
- Pray for Sarah White and Rob Floyd as
they prepare to travel to Timor-Leste to view the micro-credit and
healthcare projects established there; may they travel safely and
return to bring us the latest news from our valued
partners.
- Pray for the Uniting Church and its
entire people; that our missional faith may continue to grow and
deepen as a whole church.
|