I started writing fiction about four years ago. I’d always wanted to write (something a bit more imaginative than research reports, feasibility studies, staff appraisals and funding proposals, which I spent my professional life on) but it wasn’t until I reached the great age of retirement that I got the chance. Since then, after a few creative writing courses, I have been hooked.

To my own and everyone else’s astonishment, I have churned out millions of words resulting in one published and one unpublished novel and another one in first draft form at present. My published novel is The Ball Game and you can buy it on Amazon and in some bookshops.

Recently one of my daughters set up a new charity to raise money for mothers and children in Ghana. “What would I like to do for it?” she asked me. Dreading another sponsored walk – I love the walking but hate collecting the money – I decided to put together some of my short stories, fund the first print run and sell them at £5 each. The full £5 from each copy goes to the charity, which is Love Ghana

So Tales to Dip Into is now available from: franbbrady@aol.co.uk. Just email me that you want one (or more) and I will send you an order form.

Then relax, uncurl your toes and dip them into this little book… Meet a mad woman in the streets of Florence, a baby speaking from the womb and a nonagenarian going courting. Watch Facebook ‘friends’ at the Edinburgh Book Festival, go to garage sales in Toronto and attend the last performance of a stage legend. And much more! Fifteen funny, romantic, sad, dark and quirky tales – three of each.

Indulge yourself and support a wonderful cause at the same time.

Go on… You know you want to.

You can get a copy of Tales To Dip Into to support Love Ghana by e-mailing Fran (click here) Find out more about Fran Brady by heading over to her website www.franbrady.com. You can also find out more about Love Ghana on facebook or by heading over to their website.

Thank you Frances (aka Fran!) for sharing with us, I love your writing, and hope that the book raises lots of funds for Love Ghana!

We have loved the journey of church planting. It’s incredibly to be a part of God’s work and seeing how he saved and changes life. No matter how difficult it gets it is always worth it when you see someone break through from darkness into light, from addictions into freedom, from hopelessness into hope!

It was never our intention to plant a church; no not in our wildest dreams did we ever see ourselves doing this. Our daughter started it all, we had moved from London to Cheltenham and she stared at a new school. She was 14 at the time. It was tough for her and she complained that she couldn’t make any friends that shared the same values as her. After some time of struggle she decided to see school as her mission field. If she couldn’t find friends that shared her values then she would win people to Jesus and help them to become the friends that she needed. She of course didn’t say it quite like that, this is me paraphrasing.

Soon she insisted that we start a youth group at our home so that we can get to know the young people, so we did. Within months they were getting saved! We started to present the gospel and as they got saved we realised that we had a discipleship problem, we needed to get these baby Christians disciple and our church was over and hour’s drive away, we couldn’t get them all to church. At a meeting with our pastor about this problem we asked permission to start a discipleship group for these young people and when we walked out of the meeting we were given permission to start a church! Still today we don’t know how this happened. How did it go from asking to start a discipleship group to being released to plant a church. We had NEVER preached before, never don’t anything at all like this – why us!!!

Anyway, the short story is, we did and here we are LOVING the journey!

The best part of the journey has been life change and not only in the lost that come to know Jesus but in our team. I have the honour of working with the most amazing leadership team. They consist of our daughter who is now 18, her boyfriend who is one of the very first young people to be saved at the youth group, another young person who was our very first convert as a new church and a trainee whom he lead to Jesus. Along with this amazing bunch of young people is my husband, myself and one other “grown up” ha ha. Many people laugh when they hear about our team and often refer to them as our “leadership team” as if it is not a real team.

They may be young but they are the most reliable people I have ever worked with. Never have I come across such amazing people who are passionate about the cause of Christ and will do whatever it takes to build this church. Adult Christians have come and gone, added their two pennies worth, not got their own way, complained about how we did things, threw in some Bible verses to justify what they say, stir up a mess in Church and then leave. This has happened several times. Through it all the very ones that they look down at have remained faithful and have simply got on with the work. No theological debates, no longs emails with complaints or loads of unnecessary questions. They get what it’s about, the simple message of the gospel, and they get on with it. I could it a huge privilege and honour to work with this awesome leadership team.

Here are some links where you can keep up with what God is doing at D7 Church.

Our website: www.d7church.co.uk

Our community: www.d7community.co.uk

Thank you Angela for sharing the journey your family has been on to plant a church!

You can also follow Angela’s blog King’s Daughters at http://kingsdaughters21.blogspot.com and you can also purchase her book: Hope’s Journey on Amazon.

So the reason Laura Anne has asked me to come along is to talk about my new short story collection, Stars in Unexpected Places. This was released a couple of weeks ago now and is being sold in aid of the aid and development charity Tearfund in Paperback and E-book format. The stories in the collection are really just about people’s lives, little snapshots that tell bigger tales. Some are old stories, familiar stories from the bible but rewritten from a different perspective. Some are about romance, holding hands in the rain. Some are about freedom, quitting a job you can’t stand and battling with yourself when you think better of it. Some are funny. Some are sad. A bit like life really! And that’s the thing with short stories and is the reason why I wrote them and why I write anything at all. They can capture so much in so few words. Through simple things that life is made up of, a picture, a conversation, they say something bigger than just the moment told.

I started writing more seriously when I went to Zambia with Tearfund to visit some of the partners working on the ground for the organisation. Partners are local people who see a need in their community and work tirelessly to see it met. This means that money raised by Tearfund goes direct to the people who need it most and is administered by people who live in the community and know it best. It was in Zambia that I realised how much meaning can be in those little moments. I travelled around Zambia meeting people who had benefited from the support of the charity and the things that I saw really stayed with me. One day we were driving through a desperately poor area, our tyres bouncing in and out of the potholes, when I saw a sign sprayed in thick black paint on the wall of a market stall saying ‘God Knows’. This spoke more to me than hours of conversations about economics and the route out of poverty because yes, he does know and I think it quite breaks his heart.

Some of my experiences in Zambia feature in Stars in Unexpected Places and these stories are ultimately about hope because that’s how I left, feeling hopeful. And I feel hopeful now, that this little collection of stories might do a bit more of the wonderful work I saw started. You can have a read of some sample stories on my website and I’m currently doing a blog tour of the book, telling the stories behind the stories and giving a sneak peak of what you can expect from it. I hope you like it.

Nicola

For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of being in Nicola’s company, you are indeed missing out – but you can catch Nicola over on her website www.nicolahulks.co.uk and on twitter @nicolahulks.

I’m Carolyn;  I’m a 31-year-old Scottish girl who now lives in Cardiff, South Wales.

What is Anjali House?

To properly answer this, I need to explain a bit of Cambodian history and culture. I’ll try to be concise.

Between 1975 and 1979, under the regime of Pol Pot and the communist Khmer Rouge party, approximately 21% of the Cambodian population (an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people) were killed. Pol Pot’s vision was for an agriculture based communist utopia, and two of his methods of promoting & achieving this were to close schools (everyone was now to be a subsistence farmer, working to provide for Cambodia’s own needs so it would have no need for the Western world) and to kill anyone with any level of prior education (as they may have been a threat to the new ‘utopia’).

Cambodia as a country has been ‘reeling’ from this ever since. Although Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are long gone, the legacy of their rule was a country in ruins – no economy, no infrastructure, and the huge problem of a pretty much uneducated and unskilled population. Either you were educated before the Pol Pot rule and were killed due to being educated, or you didn’t receive any education to begin with as you were a child during the regime as you worked in the fields instead of attending school and after the regime was over there was no infrastructure for schooling and no educated citizens to teach you.

Fast-forward 30 years…

Cambodia is a country that’s done a pretty good job of piecing itself back together. It’s still a very, VERY poor country. But it has an infrastructure of sorts. It has an economy of sorts. It has a stable government. It’s getting there. Corruption is rife. There are still live landmines all over the place. It’s not perfect. But in spite of all this, it’s getting there.

The education gap is still there though. It’s one of the things Cambodia can’t easily fix on its own. Another generation has passed, but they didn’t have anyone to teach them either. And so the cycle continues.

There are ‘public’ schools in Cambodia, but the fees (a few dollars a month) plus the need for a uniform and the lost earnings of the child make it an unobtainable dream for most Cambodian families.

And this is where NGO’s (Non Government Organisations) come into the picture, and where I finally get back to the original question…

What is Anjali House?

Anjali House (pronounced An-jah-lee) is an NGO in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  I was privileged to spend a month there in summer 2009 working as a volunteer English and General Studies teacher.

Anjali aims to provide support, education and healthcare provision to street kids who otherwise wouldn’t have access to these things.  In practice, this means…

• The kids attend Anjali for half a day, and public school for the other half (Anjali pays their fees and provides them with a uniform).

• Many of the health problems affecting Cambodian children are a result of poor diet and unsuitable drinking water. To attempt to counter this, the children at Anjali receive two healthy meals (breakfast and lunch) and a fruit snack each day, and have access to filtered drinking water throughout the day.

• Due to the lack of clean water and the constraints of poverty, many of the children had never used soap or cleaned their teeth. They now bathe every morning at Anjali and are educated in the importance of personal hygiene.

• All Anjali children have regular medical and dental health checks provided by the project. They will also be taken to hospital or the doctors if necessary.

• As one of the conditions of attendance at Anjali, the child is no longer allowed to be sent out to work on the streets begging, selling trinkets etc. The families receive a weekly allowance of rice to compensate for the loss of income.

There are currently approximately 80 children at Anjali. Enrolment is by application (and based on social and economic testing). Due to lack funds and constraints of space, Anjali currently is not accepting any further applications at this time.

Tell us how you ended up going over to Cambodia to work with the team at Anjali?

The short answer is it felt like the right thing to do at the right time.

The longer answer is that I had recently resigned from a job I’d once loved after a prolonged chain of events (clash of personalities with one of my bosses, what I believe was an institutional bullying campaign, an unrealistically large work load, a nervous breakdown and a 5 month absence due to stress, a subsequent formal grievance process, and so on) None of it is particularly interesting reading. Suffice to say it wasn’t the best period in my life.

I had (and still have) an incredibly supportive partner in my boyfriend, Ian. He not only encouraged me to bite the bullet and resign, but told me to take as much time as I needed to recharge my batteries, get my head straight again, get over the lousy year I’d had and generally become myself again.

I realised that I’d been defining myself primarily by my job for a long time, and that I needed and wanted to change that.

I’d just posed the question ‘what next?’ when my friend Beth had returned from a month in Cambodia, having been placed at Grace House by a volunteer organisation called Globalteer. She’d come back on schedule purely to attend her own university graduation, and was planning on heading straight back out to Siem Reap. She told me I ought to come with her. I decided to roll with that.

Beth later decided that although she’d love to return straight away, it wasn’t to be. I applied anyway, thinking that it probably wouldn’t be possible. Less than a month later I was on a plane, having been placed at Anjali by Globalteer.

What are the most important things you learned from your time at Anjali?

I think I learned a lot, but it’s incredibly difficult to describe the experiences I had, words just don’t seem to do it justice. I can honestly say it was one of the best months of my life. (I STILL want to go back).

I learned that you don’t have to be perfect to be a volunteer. You just have to be enthusiastic. I’m a perfectionist, and as such, frequently worry that my best isn’t good enough.  It was, and you get lots of help and support from the staff and other volunteers at Globalteer.

I learned that there’s a place for all personality types in this sort of environment. I’m very much an introvert, and in the beginning found myself feeling inadequate due to the fact that I wasn’t an ‘all out’, loud, confident presence around the kids during non lesson times. Pretty soon I realised that not all of the kids were extroverts either, and the fact that I interacted with them in a different manner to some of the other volunteers didn’t actually matter.

I learned that there’s a peace that comes with just going with the flow and that somehow you’ll end up in the right place at the right time anyway – even if you didn’t see it coming.

I learned that I can’t solve everything for everyone, but that’s not a reason to stop trying to at least make a small difference. There’s an old Scottish saying that –  “Mony a mickle maks a muckle” (translation: lots of small things make up a large thing), and I realised that I need to stop worrying about the ‘Muckle’, and just get on with my ‘Mickle’.

How can we support Anjali?

There are lots of ways…

Volunteer over there. I promise, you will NOT regret it. You don’t need a month; however long you have is fine. And if I can do it, ANYONE can.

Raise awareness of Anjali, who & what they are and what they do. You’re welcome to use the information & pictures on my blog.

Make a donation/ host a fundraising event for Anjali. I’ve been there and can personally verify that every dollar is put to good use. If you’re a UK tax payer, you can gift aid your donation to make it worth and extra 28%.

Sponsor an Anjali child Please be aware though that Anjali don’t generally allow sponsors to visit the kids (Cambodia, unfortunately seems to be fast becoming the new Thailand in that respect, and that fact breaks my heart).

If people wanted to pray for you, what would you have them talk to God about on your behalf?

Prayer isn’t something I’ve figured out, so I’m not entirely sure how to answer that sincerely. I guess the best answer I can give is ‘however they feel led’.

Cambodia is a beautiful country with beautiful people, who lead hard, hard lives. I’d like to hope it’ll get better for them.

The kids at Anjali come from some pretty hopeless backgrounds, I’d like to think that they’ll have better futures than pasts.

I’d hope that their time at Anjali makes them feel loved and validated and allows them to have a childhood.

I’d like to hope that they won’t have to go to bed hungry again.

I’d like to hope that they grow up create a better world than the one they were born into.

Thank you so much for sharing about Anjali House with us Carolyn. We’re also really happy to announce that Carolyn will be returning to Cambodia and Anjali House this summer! You can find out more about Anjali House by going to www.anjali-house.com and follow more of Carolyn’s tales of Cambodia, plus life as a Scottish lass in Wales on her blog http://searchingforbrokenness.blogspot.com

A lot has been going on, with work, and then with the demise of my iBook – I lost many e-mails (and e-mail addresses) not to mention some posts and so on. Very sad and frustrating times.

However, I’ve been given the wonderful gift of a MacBook now to replace my poor faithful iBook. I’m still finding my way around, but now I’m back and ready to get stuck into finding some people with things to share.

E-mails have gone out today to people who have expressed an interest in sharing.

It’s never to late to put yourself forward if you have something you’d like to share with the world…please do leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you via e-mail!

Hope to see you back here soon!

Laura Anne x

South Africa Fortnight (though longer than a fortnight) was AWESOME! Thank you so much for everyone who contributed – so many wonderful photos!

Just to give you a wee update on everyone…

Caroline has just cut her son’s hair (those of you who follow her blog know that this is a BIG deal for Caroline & Mark) and is now an Auntie! They are getting ready for their first shoe distribution.

Alece is still in the USA, and the Thrive Africa store is up and running. Check it out by clicking here. They are doing a huge fundraising push so they can continue all the work they are currently doing in South Africa.

Liam & Rachel are currently back at the YWAM base in Kona, Hawaii. Pray for them as they get prepared and look for God to provide so they can return on a more permanent basis to start work in Masi.

Phil & Rachel are in Durban, and have got a lot of training, mentoring and education work going there.

Carl has had a stressful time at Seed of Hope recently, and the Waldrons took some time to recover at the beach. Pray for Carl, Michelle & the Seed of Hope team as they try and deal with & make sense of what has been going on.

You can get more info by clicking to the ‘Our Guests’ tab (at top of the page), and you’ll find links to various blogs, twitter feeds and websites so you can keep up to date with the folks you’ve been introduced to so far.

Which leads me on to some questions I have for you, if you are willing to respond…

1. Would you/your organisation like to be introduced here? Would you be willing to do a guest post (written or video)?

2. What questions would you like to be asking our guests?

3. What things/people/organisations/stories/issues do YOU think need more awareness?

Leave a comment with your thoughts, and feel free to share a link to this post on Twitter or Facebook - the URL: http://wp.me/pLkyR-2q

I love that she called it a ‘spin-off’.

So if you want to know a little bit more about my journey to get into this new blog project, and how you can help get LFS Introducing … to reach further, you can read the post here.

Thank you to Lisa for giving me the opportunity to share on her blog!

Love,

Laura Anne x

Please introduce yourselves and tell us about how you got inspired to work with Seed of Hope…

We are Carl and Michelle Waldron.  Carl is a Canadian boy, and I, Michelle, was born in the good ole’ US of A.  Our paths crossed when we both signed up to go overseas as short-term missionaries as a one-year break from university.  We met during training for that year and started a friendship that eventually turned into romance and we married in August 1998.  Our passion has always been for cross-cultural missions. Carl has a degree in International Development and I am a Registered Nurse. The text we chose as our life’s guiding statement was from the Psalms:

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”

Psalm 67: 1-2

Seed of Hope is a community centre in the middle of an underserved, under-resourced Zulu community.  Our centre offers many different classes and programs.  We have 3 after school programs for differing age levels.  We provide HIV testing and counseling, offer 3 HIV support groups, teach vocational skills (i.e. sewing) to women in the community, encourage gardening, promote healthy lifestyle choices, etc.  Carl is the CEO of this small organization and I work with another nurse to lead the medical side of the ministry.  We are in a daily battle against HIV/AIDS and the stigma that prevents so many people from reaching out and getting help.

How did you get involved with Seed of Hope?

We have always shared a joint love of and interest in missions.  But God did not open doors for us to go overseas until we met a South African man named Derek Liebenberg.  We attended a gathering at a friend’s home, where Derek shared how God led him and his wife, Heather, to begin a community centre in a small rural community ravaged by HIV/AIDS, near Durban. By the end of his slideshow, we were ready to jump on a plane and come to South Africa to work with them.  We gradually began that process, but unfortunately, he passed away from a sudden heart attack before we made the big move. Carl was asked to step into the CEO’s role. We finally arrived on African soil in June 2007 and have been working with Seed of Hope, ever since.

What is 2010 shaping up to look like for your work with Seed of Hope?

We are praying for an opportunity to buy or long-term lease the buildings we currently rent to do our ministry. This would allow our organization to expand and grow in ways that have been hindered until now.  We also have several new staff coming on board this year who will help us grow and reach even further into our community – and also bring leadership gifts to help fine tune the programs that already exist.

What is your favourite thing about the work you are doing?

Michelle – I LOVE being in the homes of the people in the township we serve.  Just today I was in the home of a mom we helped last year to get tested for HIV and then get onto anti-retroviral medication.  To see her healthy and actually being able to care for her children is so rewarding.  And as I sit there visiting with her, she says, “can I take you to see my neighbor?  She is now sick.”  Of course!  So she takes me next door and there is another single mom – losing the battle with AIDS…finally willing to reach out for help.

Carl – My role is more about looking ahead at how we meet the challenges of a growing number of child-headed households, the need for entrepreneurship and agricultural training, and developing leaders within our staff and the wider community who can come up with new ideas to face these issues. I also share the vision of what God’s doing in our community through Seed Of Hope, and invite others to join in and support our work in whatever way they’re able.

What is the most challenging thing about the work you are doing?

Seeing children being orphaned over and over again.  A lot of them are initially orphaned by their mom, who often succumbs first to HIV.  Then sometimes by their dad, and finally by their grandmothers, who usually end up caring for them, until they become too old or pass away. Along with that emotional strain is the challenge of relating across many different cultural, linguistic, economic and racial lines, all the cause of drawing each person involved a little closer together over time.

Who do you have supporting you? How do they support you?

Friends and family in Canada support us.  Our church in St. Albert, Alberta is the biggest supporter for us, financially, with prayer, and with love! We’ve also made friends from the UK, USA, Australia and many other places over the last few years.

Our website has links to various means of joining in with what we’re doing.

Do you partner with any other organisations?

Yes, we partner with many organizations.  Some local, like the Amanzimtoti Pregnancy Resource Centre, or Bobbi Bear, a local NGO that provides counseling for children who have suffered sexual assault and abuse.  Others include Durban-based Soul Action, local churches in Amanzimtoti such as Oasis Church and Amanzimtoti Methodist.  And we also partner with some international organizations.  Seed of Hope Canada and RESKU International in the United States are the main international partners.

What piece of advice would you give to anyone that is thinking about doing something similar to what you are doing?

Take the time and energy needed to get a good handle on the culture and language of the people you are serving. This will make your time more enjoyable, your impact more lasting, and your relationships deeper. Also, prepare well by learning as much as possible about where you’re going, visiting in advance, and cultivating a habit of being laid back, gracious and humble. Accepting that you have much to learn, being patient with delays and inadequate services, and being willing to accept tasks that help others achieve their goals even if they seem unrewarding to you at the time.

How can others engage with you and support you in the work you are doing with?

We welcome prayer support.  South Africa has a high rate of violent crime, so we love to hear when people are praying for us and for our staff at the Centre!  We are also in the process of buying the property and then doing some renovating to accommodate expanded programs/classes… so any financial support would be gladly received. We do have space for occasional volunteer placements, depending on skills and international experience. We’d love to hear from people interested.

If people would like to pray for you, what would you have them talk to God about on your behalf?

Pray that more people (particularly the men) will come for HIV testing, pray that the stigma will be reduced, pray for the massive orphan crisis that South Africa is facing. We would value prayer for the health and safety of our organization staff and volunteers, and for favour as we build relationships with local government, rural Zulu tribal and nearby city authorities in our region.

Thank you so much Carl & Michelle for sharing with us. I feel so blessed to have met you in person and to have spent time working with the Seed of Hope team, and have such fond memories of my short time there last summer. Hopefully by what you’ve shared people may understand why many of us are missing everyone there so much!

For more information on Seed of Hope Community Development, check out their website www.theseedofhope.org . You can also follow Carl’s Blog and Michelle’s Blog.

Please introduce yourself, and tell us about what you do with Soul Action South Africa.

Phil and Rachel Bowyer are co-founders of Soul Action South Africa, they live in Durban with their 9 year old son Zachary. Prior to moving to South Africa, Phil worked for Tearfund, He was a key member of Tearfund’s Innovation Team and before that co-ordinated their Youthwork across the UK and Ireland.

Rachel is a qualified teacher with a degree in Music and Mathematics.  Before launching Soul Action in Durban she spent 11 years as a primary school teacher and Special Educational Needs Coordinator in one of the UK’s Urban Priority Areas.

Soul Action South Africa has been working in Durban, in the province of KwaZulu Natal, for over two and a half years. As a result of the research we have gathered by meeting with Christians from across Durban, and a greater awareness of the situation with regards to the extent of HIV and Aids in KwaZulu Natal, we have felt led to establish a network where Christians who are serving the poor can come together, share good practice and begin to learn from one another.  It is a place where individuals can share their difficulties, a place where they can receive from one another, and most of all a place where they feel supported and encouraged to keep on serving.

As Soul Action South Africa, our aim is to facilitate opportunities for Christians who are passionate about integral mission to network, train and work together, in order that the poor and marginalised may be served in a more sustainable way.

What is 2010 shaping up to look like for your work with Soul Action South Africa?

During this year we will continue to work through the Network we have established – at present we are working with 60 partners churches and projects that serve the poor and marginalized across our municipality.  These range from an individual whose own experience of dealing with HIV led her to establish a community HIV support group, to projects that are enabling hundreds of children to go to school. Soul Action South Africa currently facilitates three network gatherings each year, with the specific aim of bringing together all the projects we are working with in order that they may share with, learn from and give support to one another.

In addition to this, we have been able to start two new initiatives which have the potential to benefit the whole Network: A network for Young and Emerging leaders and our Literacy Project.*

*Phil and Rachel have given us more details on these projects which are posted here for any of you that are interested!

What is your favourite thing about the work you are doing?

We particularly enjoy connecting with the different people across the city, learning about what God has called them to and from this gaining a bigger picture of what God is doing in the city of Durban.  From these conversations we are able to ensure the network is appropriate to the needs of the people it serves.  There is so much potential and seeing and being a part of empowering local people is such a privilege.

What is the most challenging thing about the work you are doing?

I would say the most challenging element of what we are doing is the pace at which it moves.  We are very aware that what might be a good idea to us may not be appropriate so we ensure we work with projects and churches where they are at and at their pace.  The work we are involved in is long term, we are encouraging and supporting communities to analyse their own situations and to take steps to work together to make changes for the better.

Who do you have supporting you? How do they support you?

Our church, family and friends in the UK pray for us on a regular basis and support us in that way.  Delegates attending the Soul Survivor UK summer festivals raised some funds last year, these have enabled us to start the two initiatives with young people and children this year.

Do you partner with any other organisations?

Soul Action South Africa relates to Soul Action UK.  Soul Action UK is a partnership between Soul Survivor and Tearfund.  Over the past ten years Soul Survivor has resourced and equipped literally thousand of Christian young people to live lives of integrity and worship to God.  Tearfund works in about 70 countries across the world by supporting local Christian partners and working directly in emergency situations.  By bringing together the best of Soul Survivor and Tearfund the hope of Soul Action is to raise up a generation of Christians who are whole hearted about whole life discipleship and mission to the whole world.

What piece of advice would you give to anyone that are thinking about doing something similar to what you are doing?

I think there are three main things to do:  PRAY, TEST IT OUT, GO FOR IT!

Doing what God wants you to do has to be first prize, no matter what the challenges being in that place is it always brings with it great rewards.  So if God is asking you to do something, no matter how big or small then take the first step and let God lead you.

How can others engage with you and support you in the work you are doing with Soul Action South Africa?

Soul Action South Africa can only remain effective if Christians who are just as passionate about integral mission as we are continue to get behind it.  There are many ways that people can add value to our ongoing work with the last, the least and the lost:

• Prayer – committing to pray for our work on a regular basis
• Volunteering – come and serve our projects, from two weeks to 6 months
• Financially – www.soulaction.co.za/support has details of the different ways our work can be supported

If people would like to pray for you, what would you have them talk to God about on your behalf?

For the two initiatives that Soul Action South Africa has been able to start this year:

The Young and Emerging Leaders Network – for each young person that is a part of this that God would continue to show them his plan for their lives

The Literacy Project – for the two local people that are working in school on a daily basis, that as well as teaching the children they would be able to show God’s love.

Our current funding runs out in September this year, and at the moment we are praying and looking into different ways of securing funding so this work can continue.  Please pray we would make wise decisions in who we apply to funding for.

Thank you so much to the Bowyer Family for sharing about Soul Action South Africa with us. It was such a pleasure and privilege to go out to South Africa as part of Soul in the City Durban last summer – so I have seen the amazing stuff God is doing through the Network and more!

For more information on Soul Action South Africa you can check out their website www.soulaction.co.za & if you have any questions you can e-mail Rachel by clicking here

Phil & Rachel sent so much information and detail about the research they did when they first arrived in Durban to how they got the network of local partners established and so on. I didn’t want to leave it out, so for those of you interested here are the extra details on what Phil & Rachel discussed in their ‘Introducing’ post….

How Phil & Rachel got started with Soul Action South Africa…

For the first eight months we made a commitment to visit as many Christians as possible who it was felt were in some way serving the poor and marginalised – so far we have met and recorded the work of 130 churches and / or Christian projects from across the municipality.  During this period we found many Christians who were doing amazing work but who were also, by the nature of their work, pretty much unaware of what else was going on.  Many people we spoke to felt isolated in the work that God had called them to, some wanted to serve the poor but just didn’t know how to get started, whilst others had a great desire to improve what they were already doing with, through and in their communities.  Our research has helped us to learn about the variety of work Christian’s are involved in throughout our municipality and as a result we have begun to understand some of the difficulties and frustrations they, and the poor they serve, face.

39% of the population of KwaZulu Natal is HIV+, higher than any other province in South Africa. Efforts to reduce new infections have had some success, but changing people’s behaviour takes time and factors that increase the risk of infection – such as poverty, social instability, illiteracy, sexual violence, and gender inequalities – cannot be addressed in the short term.  There are 11 million children living in poverty in South Africa, that’s over 60% of all its children! In 2008 the South African health department said that 1.5 million children had lost their parents to AIDS, by 2015 that number is estimated to grow as high as 5.7 million.  The impact of HIV/AIDS has a deep and lasting affect on communities and particularly households.

How the Network they have established is developing, learning & growing...

At our first Network gathering of the year the issue of human trafficking was highlighted.  An organization called Red Light shared with the network. Red Light Human Trafficking are a young adults team who have a keen interest in creating awareness on Human Trafficking and uplifting their community.   They explained what is meant by the term human trafficking – that human trafficking is the kidnapping, enslaving and exploitation of men, woman and children for use as sex workers, forced labour and in the illegal medical trade. They also shared some of the statistics, that 100,000 people will be trafficked into South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, that most trafficking victims are girls between 5 to 15 years old and that between 28,000 to 30,000 children are currently being prostituted in South Africa.They highlighted how we as churches / projects could share about the issue of human trafficking with the children we work with and empower them to make good decisions and speak up against these issues.

The Network is also proving to be a base of knowledge and expertise, projects can contact Soul Action South Africa with a need, and then we can point them in the direction of another who could provide the much needed area of expertise or service.   We produce a newsletter each month, which includes an article written by a member of the network, stories of encouragement, news from various projects, training opportunities, needs for specific resources, prayer requests and items to be thankful for.

The Young & Emerging Leaders Network: We believe there are many young people within the poor communities in which we work who have the potential of becoming leaders.  These young people need people to input into their lives and to work with them on achieving their goals.   Therefore we have started a network for young and emerging leaders.  We spent the day together last Saturday, which was amazing; there were 23 young emerging leaders who committed to be part of the network for this initial year.  All the Young and Emerging Leaders responded well to the activities and fully participated.  They worked well with their peers and there were lively discussions.  The day consisted of four workshops; The value of you, Peer mentoring, The value of others and The value of leadership.

The Literacy Project: Children who are being educated in some of the schools in the townships located across Durban are in large class sizes (between 60 and 70 learners per class) and the schools are very under-resourced.  Due to these circumstances many children are failing to learn the basic skills of reading and writing.  All children have to write their exams in English, therefore the children need to be learning English from a young age and at the same time their mother-tongue needs to be valued. The aim of the project is twofold: to equip the teachers to teach the children to read and write in English through modeling, team-teaching, developing appropriate resources, and lesson plans; and to empower the children to reach their full potential by learning to read and write in English. At the moment the project is working into one school, as funding allows this will be introduced in other schools across the city.

Plus Phil and Rachel have authored several books on poverty, development and mission, including Express Community Through Schools: Taking Social Action Beyond the Classroom, A Different World (a youthwork resource) and The Whole Wide World which you might be interested in!

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