Starting tomorrow myself and our friend Dave will begin the Tearfund rice and beans challenge.  The basics of this is to bring more awareness to ourselves about those who are going through severe poverty. To relate to them about how they eat, how they possibly feel when hungry, to of course pray for them and to donate any money we would of spent on groceries to the charity of Tearfund.

Chris was hoping to do this challenge also but due to a throat infection he is unable to take part at this stage but will hopefully we doing it in the near future.

I have to say as the day draws closer I am apprehensive about beginning this challenge.  I have treated tonight as if it was my last supper! This probably defeats the point on lots of levels but I am hoping to give this a go and see if I can do it.  I make no promises however. If it turns out I am a mere weakling and need my food too much then shame on me but I guess we will find out…..

Dave will be contributing to these blogs also. I encourage you to follow the blog posts, to pray for us (!) and to try and support us if you either see or hear from us over this next week.

Here’s to the challenge!

Leaving before the sun had risen fully, the road was dusty and full of early traveller's. It was during this drive that it occurred to me how beautiful, yet broken, the nation of Pakistan is.

Not that long ago, the flood waters that lie either side of this road covered the road.

When we arrived at the village where the Church of Scotland helps to sponsor a Basic Health Unit (BHU) we were greeted by the men of the village. These men were keen to impress upon us how little help and aid they had received. They were also keen to impress upon us how much the BHU had helped the community.

After meeting with the men of the village, we met with the women and children. They expressed the same concerns and gratitude as the men. They were a beautifully colourful group.

The children of the village we delightfully curious. Especially with regards to our cameras and flashes.

Despite the beauty of the people and their clothes, the sadness, the desperation, the brokenness was evident in their eyes.

After visiting the village of Bchaya Jogo, we returned to Thatta where we visited a Construction Training Program run by Church World Service (CWS) for young men from the area.

The training program runs for young men from the area who have no alternate employment and whose families have been affected by recent flooding in the area.

At the project, the men are taught plumbing, electrical, woodwork, building and metalwork.

The skills the men learn here will qualify them for paid employment, as well as given them the skills to repair and strengthen their homes in Sindh.

Peace Out

The theme of the Assembly this year was “Love life”, with John Bell being the main speaker. From all accounts John spoke very well – passionate and challenging, over the weekend. When I was there on Monday he was speaking about the importance of recieving blessings from other people alongside the importancd of giving blessings to them. He illustrated this with stories about people he has met over his life that have enriched his life, even when he initially thought they had nothing to give. Now, usually I don’t find myself in agreement with some of John’s approach to Theology, but on Monday I found myself agreeing with him, more than that, I found myself really resonating with what he was saying. It started me thinking about my time at the Youth Assembly over the last 11 years and how it has blessed me through the people that I was often there to serve; about the times when I took part in summer mission and how they people I met more often than not blessed me more than I felt I blessed them; about the hospitality I was shown when I visited an unrecognised Arab village in Israel, visiting a community who had very little, were severely oppressed, yet still gave everything they had to the 11 white people who were visiting them.

There was only one debate on Monday at the assembly, a debate talking about marriage. It was really interesting to listen to the groups as I was walking around taking photos, hearing how each group had picked up on different aspects if the material. Some were delving deeply into Theology of marrisge and looking at what the New Testament had to say about it; some were exploring current cultural approaches to marriage, asking questions such as “Is more emphasis
put on the wedding than on the actual marriage?” and “Is marriage as important to society as it used to be?”; other groups were exploring issues around divorce and remarriage, during the ‘blether’ where they had recieved some background information about the subject they were also asked some specific questions about Marriage and how the Church relates to it, one of the questions being “should the Church develop a liturgy of divorce?” The reasoning behind this being that an earlier survey of young people had brought back the suggestion that a service marking a divorce may help children and young people (and the adults) to cope with thr break up a marrige better. It was a really interesting debate, I’m sure the final deliverance will appear on the COSY blog soon!

One of the things I loved about visiting this assembly was the number of people I recognised, it really wasn’t that big a percentage of the number of people there. I thought that was awesome! Yeah, it was great to see old friends, people I haven’t seen in ages when I went, but it was just as awesome to see more youth and young adults engaging with the wider Church, the more diverse the attendance at the NYA is, the better for the wider Church!

My role on Monday was to take some photos of the day, capturing some of the moments that could be used for publicity for the event. I was able to get a number of good photos, which will be appearing on here, the COSY blog, the COSY flickr page and a few other places soon, I was very aware that I was starting my visual story telling of the weekend at the end of the event. They may be good photos, the may provide a visual narrative to some of Mondays goings on, but they are missing the wider narrative and context of the entire weekend, so I can’t wait to see the photos appearing from others who were there for the whole weekend, or perhaps just for small parts of te weekend.

I’m going to leave my ramblings there for the time being, save to provide some links for you to better explore things around the Church of Scotland National Youth assembly:
For the COSY blog visit: www.cosyblog.wordpress.com
For the COSY Twitter account: www.twitter.com/#!/cosy_nya
For the COSY Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/cosyblog

Enjoy exploring these pages!

Peace Out

I’ve been very, very inactive on here over the last wee while, something I”m not happy at all about!

I’m not sure why I have been inactive, I’m certainly not short of things to write about – CLAN Gathering, Tearfund, World Mission Council, Canada, Cyprus, Hoskins Gallery, Starting a business, Pakistan…..if these things don’t make sense, that’s because I’ve not been keeping this up-to-date!

I’m hoping to remedy this over the next while, if I am fighting against writers block then the only way to deal with that is to write!!

Anytime I write on here, I’m a wee bit nervous about how it will be recieved, so it’s definitely not fear of how I write or what I say being the issue! Although, at some point, I do want to have the courage/ strength to blog about my experiences over the last few years!

I’ll leave it there just now, other than to say, one of the things that’s been keeping my so busy recently is that my wife, Linda, and I have started our own photography and art business, Hoskins Gallery, you can check it out at www.hoskinsgallery.com

Suffice to say, we’re very excited about it!!!

Peace Out

First, the official Church of Scotland media:

twitter: @generalassembly

Live video stream: webcast

Life and Work, the Church of Scotland magazine are also tweeting and posting regular notes on Facebook:

twitter: @cofslifeandwork

facebook: Life and Work

There is also an official hashtag on twitter where you can follow what is being said about the assembly: #GA11

There are also a number of individual twitter users who are regularly tweeting about the assembly:

Shuna Dicks: @shunad

Stewart Cutler: @stewartcutler

Niall MacKenzie: @rawxing

Lynsey Martin: @lynsey1889

Bryan Kerr: @revbk

Alistair Vannet: @Vdawg

Church of Scotland Youth: @cosy_nya

Fiona Fidgin: @Fidge

Mary Haddow: @WeeRant

Rev Marc Kenton: @kirkofscotland

GA_Junkie: @ga_junkie

A few blogs that are worth keeping an eye on this week too:

Bryan Kerr,  a Minister in Lanark: http://www.lanarkgreyfriars.com/bryans-blog/

COSY Blog, a blog set up to talk about various Church of Scotland Youth endeavours, this week featuring the youth Representatives to the assembly: http://cosyblog.wordpress.com/

GA Junkie, a blog by Steve Salyard following the politics of presbyterianism: http://blog.gajunkie.com/

John Orr, a probationer Minister with the Chuch of Scotland, and my old YF leader!: http://johnorr.me.uk/

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, I’m bound to have missed some people given that I don’t follow everyone! If you do see someone that I have missed, please add them in the comments below this post!

Peace Out

I serve the Church in technical ways, helping with the powerpoint presentations and with the sound system. Over the last few weeks myself and 2 others (David Ogilvie and Phil Noble) have been redeveloping the Church website. We decided to go with a wordpress.com hosted blog, mainly due to ease of use. It’s still a work in progress, but please pop over and have a wee look and let me know (on here preferably) if you can see any obvious things that could be improved.

The website is: www.covechurch.org.uk

Peace Out

We’re all very excited to go out and meet people out there – I’m particularly excited to be able to meet and learn from Christians who love out their faith in a culture that is so different to any I’ve ever experienced. 4 of us were able to meet together a couple of weeks ago at a training weekend down in Oxford – it was good to meet some of the folks I’ll be traveling with!

Before we leave there are still things I need to get done – I’m reading up on Nepal and cross-cultural experiences – using a book given to us by the CMS crew. It’s interesting reading, throws up lots of food for thought. I’ve manage to be prepared enough to have a lot of the things I need to take so I don’t need to worry too much about that side of things!

While we’re away, there are a few ways you can keep tabs on what we are doing, providing we are able to get internet access! I’ll be updating this blog as often as possible, we’ll also be posting updates on the cosyblog and tweeting whenever possible. We’ve also set up a group on Facebook where you can recieve prayer points while we’re away and read updates before, during and after the trip.

It should be an awesome trip – I’m sure we’ll all have a lot to write about while we’re away and when we return, we’ll be doing our best to make sure that the trip is well documented – in writing and in image.

The picture below is of 2/3rds of the team. Once we have a picture of all of us, I shall upload it!

Peace Out

Chris

keep your eyes peeled for more changes, and I’ll keep you updated with whats going on

peace out

Chris

At the moment we’re talking about blog, everyone is setting up a wordpress and account and having their first go at blogging.

It’s been an interesting day so far, I look forward to hearing their comments at the end of the day after we’ve done even more with them!