Stepping Out…

The morning of Monday 1st March dawned clear and bright.

Tourists and businessmen first became aware that something unusual was happening with the slow, steady beat of a single drum. As they looked to find the source of the drumbeat, the procession came into view, all dressed in black and walking somberly as if in mourning.

At the head of the procession, carried on shoulders like a coffin, was a model of an army tank, sculpted crudely out of dull brown cardboard, with a single scarlet ribbon fluttering from the gun turret, as if to represent all the blood spilt by our weapons.

The procession moved slowly through the streets until we reached Kingsgate House, home of UK Trade and Investments, and also home of the Defence and Security Organisation or DSO.

We stood outside the building where civil servants spend their days supporting the British Arms trade, and therefore fuelling conflict, aiding oppression and harming development around the world.

We took part in a liturgy, where we accepted responsibility as British citizens for the weapons we are pushing around the world, and publically apologised for the pain and suffering that they cause.

We turned to the cross, the only source for true repentance and healing power for transformation, and took communion together in the street outside the DSO office building.

Inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy about one day beating “swords into ploughshares” and having “war no more”, we are calling for the government to close DSO and use the money and structures instead to promote civil and green technologies instead.

Taking the inspiration of “swords to ploughshares” transforming the ugly, destructive symbol of death and war into something useful, something productive, something that would benefit society. Perhaps a modernised version of this prophecy would call to see tanks turned to turbines?

To communicate this vision of healing transformation, we decorated the cardboard tank with flowers and messages of peace, and had a street party outside DSO to celebrate

When we had finished, we handed the flowers, petition postcards and messages of peace in to the staff working inside the building who were watching us through the window. This colourful and creative petition would stay in their minds longer than a simple signature on a page!

In the afternoon we went into the Houses of Parliament to meet some of our MPs. We had invited them to an afternoon reception, where we were able to introduce the arms trade campaign, and then speak to them individually about our concerns.

As a regional support worker, it was really exciting seeing people in my region who entered the Houses of Parliament full of nerves, gain confidence and empowerment as they realised that they had the right to speak to MPs face to face about their concerns, and that they really did listen!    They can now go back to their different towns and regions, with practical experience of political lobbying and plenty of enthusiasm to follow the campaign through. Very exciting!

“So Lucy, how long have you been looking for luuurve?”
“Well Cilla…” I replied, desperately trying to remember my lines, and not to panic that people were watching me acting.
“I’m not actually looking for “luuuurve” as you say, I’m looking for some help… to learn how to campaign more effectively.”
“Cilla” aka Lauren, colleague on the SPEAK Network support team, pulled a face at my response and the audience laughed some more. She then proceeded to announce and introduce the three contestants on SPEAK’s version of Blind Date.

Yes, you did read that right.
I… yes, unromantic, super scathing, cynical me, was currently taking part in a rather different “episode” of Blind Date.
It was actually a carefully scripted, clever parody play that introduced exactly what a regional support worker does, in a way that entertained the audience, and made a change from just having someone standing at the front and talking. We were about half way through the Soundcheck conference, and there was a lot of information to communicate. We needed to be a bit creative…

So there I was, standing in front of all those people, playing the part of “Lucy”, a girl recently moved to a new area, interested in social justice, who would like to get involved with campaigning, but not sure where to start.
Somehow she’d ended up on an episode of Blind Date, with Cilla desperately trying to pair her off with either number 1 (a smarmy smooth-talking charmer) number 2 (a mug of fair trade tea) or number 3 (a regional support worker, who wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up on the programme as he thought he was taking part in a radio debate about fair trade.)

Pretty obvious how it was going to work out, but a lot of fun to do, especially with all the jokes and banter to keep the audience laughing.
The charmer kept trying to woo Lucy with promises of candle-lit dinners, moonlit walks on the beach, flowers and chocolates.
When she asked how he would help her to share her passion for justice with others in her church, he replied that he only wanted her to share her heart with him.

The regional support worker on the other hand liked travelling to meet people interested in justice, offered training in how to campaign effectively, was happy to come and do a talk about SPEAK and the importance of justice, give the resources and support needed to organise a SPEAK event in her local area and support her in prayer.

And so, with the classic line from Lucy
“Wow, that sounds great! I don’t have any more questions. I don’t want a date, I want a Regional Support Worker!”
The contestants all left the stage, leaving Cilla complaining about how there were no interesting film clips to show about the “date”. How they hadn’t flirted at all, but used the time to plan an evening about the arms trade campaign instead.

So there you go…
A little snippet from the Soundcheck conference, and a little more detail about what my real job (as a Regional Support Worker) actually entails!

The rest of the Soundcheck conference went really well.
We had managed to transform the school hall we were using into a space where people could come and be inspired by all things relating to justice.
Our Speakers were very challenging, especially Roger Mitchell who talked about repentance, especially corporate repentance and transformation. As a nation we’ve done some terrible things around the world, and we still are… As Christians we really need to stand up and speak out about some of the evil that is taking place in our name.
The verse from Isaiah about transforming “spears into pruning hooks” was a recurring theme, especially with the official launch of the arms trade campaign on the Saturday night, and a very visual reminder as we bashed a piece of scrap metal from an actual bomber plane with a hammer to “transform” it into something new, something different, and something less destructive.

Everything leading up to our Day of Action the following day…

Finally finished crazy weekend.
8:30pm, just sent the last press releases from the office. Time to go home… and sleep!!!

I’ll try and find some energy to write about some of the amazing things that have happened over the weekend. But it’s not going to happen now!

Luckily, a journalist was at the Day of Action today, (who wasn’t already shattered before the day even began!) and has already got some amazing photos and a report on his website.

Check it out!!

http://www.demotix.com/news/263591/protest-outside-defence-and-security-organisation-london-organised-speak

“We did not want to become Indonesian in 1969 and after so many years of oppression; we certainly do not want to be Indonesia now. We want to be free.” – Benny Wenda, (Free West Papua activist)

Benny is coming to speak to us at our Soundcheck conference this weekend. He comes from the island of New Guinea, which has the independent state of Papua New Guinea on one side, and West Papua on the other. But West Papua has not been allowed the independence that its people long for. The Indonesian military have ruthlessly crushed any political activity and brutally oppressed, arrested, raped, tortured and burned the houses of the people.

“I asked myself ‘why?’ Who are these people? And why do they do this to us? Why do they kill my people? Why do they rape my aunties?” – Benny Wenda

Why does it affect us here in the UK?

Not only have we ignored the West Papuans plea for independence, but we have sold weapons to the Indonesian government which are used on the West Papuan people.

To give just one example – in 2000, the UK lifted an EU-wide embargo of weapons to Indonesia in order to sell them Hawk fighter jets. Months later, these were used in an offensive in Aceh.

There is a department in the UK government called Defence and Security Organisation (DSO). This exists purely to support the Arms Trade, yet it is bigger, richer and has more support than the departments supporting all the rst of UK trade put together. Millions of pounds of tax payers money is paid into persuading often indebted, unstable or undemocratic countries into buying our weapons, often with accusations of bribary and corruption. We even sell arms to half the countries on our “warning – potentially dangerous regime” list.

We think this has gone on for long enough.

Defend Peace: Disarm Tax is SPEAK’s new Arms Trade Campaign.

We want to see…

1. The closure of the Defence and Security Organisation (DSO), the governmental department which exists to support the Arms Trade

2. A new agency to facilitate diversification of skills, technologies and jobs from arms to civil sector.

Let the campaign begin…

3 days and counting…

After all the work, all the preparations, all the extra hours in the office (my personal record is a 16 hour day) Soundcheck is nearly here!

So what exactly is Soundcheck?

In a nutshell, it’s SPEAK’s annual gathering/conference. Once a year, members of the Network and beyond meet together to discuss justice issues and campaigning, to network, to encourage one another and to work out how campaigning for justice can fit into our already busy lifestyles.

This year, Ruth Valerio, author of “L is for Lifestyle”, Andy Flannagan, worship leader and director of the Christian Socialist Movement and Roger Mitchell will all be speaking.
Benny Wenda, leader of the West Papuan Independence movement, will be sharing how British selling weapons to the brutal Indonesian military government is fuelling the conflict and atrocities committed against his people.
Jonathon Kazembe a teacher who fled from rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo after speaking out against the training of his pupils as child soldiers will talk about his experiences.
We also have a wide variety of workshops, from creativity to theology,  prayer to movement and dance as well as those run by our partners, Tearfund, World Vision, Christian Aid, CAAT, FoR, Christians Against Poverty etc.

It’s Soundcheck’s 10th birthday this year, so we’ll be celebrating that – looking back at where we’ve come from, sharing memories and thinking about the changes that prayer and campaigning have brought about.

We’ll also be looking towards the future and next steps for SPEAK,  launching our new Arms Trade Campaign properly and having a Music Speaks acoustic night in the club “Passing Clouds” in Kingston on the Sunday night.

Monday is the Day of Action. We’re going to be marching to the headquarters of DSO (Defence and Security Organisation), the department of the government which supports the arms trade.

We’ll be using the verse from Isaiah for the theme of our action.

“They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Isaiah 2 v 4

We want to see transformation. Transformation of the support for an industry that fuels conflict, aids oppression and harms development into a sector that works for a peaceful, better future.

We will be carrying our famous cardboard tank – an ugly, crude representation of all the destruction and brutality caused through the arms trade – and at a certain point we will cover it with flowers, peace dove petitions, written prayers and hopes for the future, to make it beautiful.

This symbolic and prophetic action will be quite a powerful message of what we want to see transform within our government.

In the afternoon we will be going into the Houses of Parliament and lobbying our MPs. This will be a great chance to tell them directly what we (their constituents) are calling for, as we approach the next election.

If you’re bored or have any spare time over the weekend or on the Monday, why not come down and join us.

Come for a day, come for an evening, come for the whole weekend – it would be great to see you!

Let’s put God’s heart and call for justice into reality in our own lives, our communities and in our world.

Check our website www.speak.org.uk/soundcheck10 for more information.

“Rachel!”

I turned as I heard my name called and came face to face with a video camera. I tried to stop myself from instantly running and hiding, smiled sheepishly at the camera as I applied more strips of newspaper to the giant papier maché and chicken wire chrysalis we were making, and hoped that they would see how busy I was and move on to someone else.

“What exactly are you doing?” asked the dismembered voice behind the big black eye with the scary flashing red light.

“Umm… making a chrysalis” I replied, hoping that  a) that would be enough for the camera to move on, and b) that I would never have to see this footage played back.

“What’s it for?” No such luck, the questions continued.

I tried to keep breathing normally and desperately thought for an answer. Of course I knew what it was for. The girl with the camera knew exactly what it was for as well. But for some reason, she had decided not to tell the potential viewers of the video the purpose of this creative, ‘making-things-for-Soundcheck’, “Greenhouse” day herself – but to put me on the spot instead.

This was stupid, I had trawled the streets of Hackney scavenging for the materials we were currently making into butterflies, a chrysalis and of course, the famous tank, but the moment that camera with the flashing red light pointed in my direction, any semblance of coherent thought went straight out of the window.

“It’s for Soundcheck, our annual conference/gathering. The theme this year is transformation… and…”

At this point, my mind went completely, completely blank. I glanced desperately at one of the other people busy sticking newspaper onto the chrysalis for help, but they purposely avoided my eye and continued working hard, obviously hoping that the camera wouldn’t seek them out next.

The camera was still waiting patiently for my answer.

“Like butterflies” I stumbled out. “We’re using caterpillars turning into butterflies as a symbol for transformation in our own lives. ”

That sounded ok. Maybe a bit more explanation…

“So we’re making this giant chrysalis to go in our prayer room. If people want to pray about personal transformation in their lifestyle, they can sit inside to pray and symbolically and prophetically emerge transformed… like a butterfly.”

I nodded to the camera and then hurriedly returned to sticking newspaper strips, making it unmistakably clear that the conversation was over! Luckily this time the camera took the hint and went off to check out someone else.

*    *    *    *    *

“These are looking great!”

It was a few hours later, and one of my colleagues who had been in the office all afternoon had just come out to see what we were doing.

“That tank is amazing, it really looks like a tank!” she exclaimed. She was right, it was amazing how just a few pieces of bamboo and cardboard could be transformed so successfully into a tank the size of a small car. They had even managed to make it look menacing and brutal even though it was only made out of cardboard. The “cool” girl in the shop would never have recognised her cardboard boxes.

“Those butterflies are beautiful… they really look like butterflies!” My colleague stopped next to the industrious butterfly makers who were busy sticking colourful tissue paper all over the butterflies that were going to be decorating the room at Soundcheck. As the theme was transformation, it would be good to have symbols of transformation all over the place.

Then she came over to us.

“That chrysalis is great! It really looks like…” she paused and then laughed without finishing her sentence. We stopped our work for a moment and stood where she was standing to look at it from her angle.  She was right, from the wrong angle and out of context, our giant life-sized chrysalis did look a bit phallic.

“It looks better from the front” we insisted, dragging her around to see it from the proper side.

“That’s better, it looks much more like a chrysalis now” she smiled.

hmm… maybe it still needed some work!

*     *     *     *     *

At the end of the day we had to tidy up all our paints and newspaper so that the next group who had hired out the church hall could get in. We bundled all the loose bits into our office and scrubbed half heartedly at the new dark blue stains on the floor that refused to come out. (Note to self – wet tissue paper stains don’t come off floors!)

Now the hall was empty except for the tank.

It sat there, heavy and squat, with its gun pointing menacingly in our direction. We couldn’t leave it there, the hall was going to be used by many people before our Day of Action. But moving it was going to be a challenge.

“Left a bit, left a bit… ow! that was my foot!”

“Someone get the double doors! …The doors! …Quick!”

“I’m losing my grip!  …Stop a second,  I’m dropping it! …Wait!”

“There is no way this is going to fit through that doorframe …No way!”

8 people grabbing desperately to a bit of giant tank and trying to squeeze it through 4 doorways, very narrow corridors and a 90 degree turn at the end. It wasn’t going smoothly.

Finally we made it to office, and then came my personal favourite quote of the day, which to me sums up the whole essence of SPEAK.

“Can someone move the wellies and the loudspeakers so we can get the tank into the office.”

The idea of having a work place which has wellies (from maning stalls at festivals like Greenbelt) and loudspeaker megaphones (from public demonstrations) which have to be moved from whatever chaotic space they have been shoved in so that we can get a giant cardboard (showing SPEAK’s creativity) tank (weapon of war – campaigns) to balance on top.

Yep – I really am working in the right place!

“So why exactly do you want them?” the salesgirl asked me curiously.

She flicked her fringe out of her eyes and placed one hand on her hip – the typical “cool” pose. She fitted into this environment well; the trendy clothing store, loud music playing over the speakers, shiny white floors, full length mirrors, almost graffiti like sign above the window.

I felt less at home. Although that could have been because I was trailing a handful of large cardboard boxes behind me like a particularly disobedient puppy.

The cardboard was why I was here. I needed about 20 large boxes worth, and on an impulsive spur of the moment, I had just walked into the almost deserted shop and asked if they had any unwanted cardboard boxes. The girl’s colleague had gone out to check the store rooms, whilst the girl tried to make small talk and satisfy her curiosity.

“We’re going to use them to make a tank.” I announced with a smile.

She blinked at me, the unspoken question ‘why?’ hanging between us. It looked like she was already regretting asking, and was wondering how she could back away without being rude.

“I’m part of a campaigns group that believes the government should not be spending millions of tax payers’ money promoting the arms trade.” I continued. “Thousands of children and innocent civilians have been killed by weapons we’ve sold to conflict zones, or dodgy regimes. So, we’ve got this day of action coming up, where we’re going to ask the government to stop supporting the arms trade so much more than any other industry.”

I gestured towards the cardboard boxes.

“So we’re going to make a tank out of cardboard and take it with us.”

She laughed.

“That’s cool man!” she declared. “Good luck with that.”

Whilst I was still recovering from being associated with something declared as “cool” The door from the storeroom opened and the colleague appeared dragging a couple of boxes.

“Are these any good?” he asked.

“Great!” I beamed, taking them from him and trying to fix them all together in a way I could carry. “Thanks a lot!”

“No problem” he replied, obviously glad to have a slight break from just sitting at the till in an empty shop.

I wrestled my new boxes out of the shop, gave a quick wave to my new “cool” friend and took my shopping list out of my pocket. I knew this job would be crazy and varied. This scavenging was turning out to be a lot of fun.

Chicken wire…. tick

White lacy material for angel wings…. tick

Newspapers… tick

Sufficient cardboard….  I looked at my little collection trailing after me. Not yet.

I needed somewhere that got regular big deliveries of things in big boxes. I glanced up and down the street and caught a glimpse of the sign “Matalan”.

Perfect!

Quite a few of you already know that I’m not a big fan of making phone calls; I never have been, I doubt I ever will be. According to Wikipedia, this condition actually exists as a phobia – imaginatively named “telephobia”.

It’s probably quite hard to understand what it’s like if you have no problem with making phonecalls… so I’ll try and describe how it feels.

Consider that tense moment in a film, when the main character is approaching a blind corner, and you just know that something horrible is about to jump out and attack. Slowly, slowly he edges towards the corner; the scary music gets louder and tenser. If you’re really engrossed in the film, you can feel your belly muscles tighten; your breathing becomes shallower and faster, your heartbeat increases.

That’s what it feels like when I have to phone someone I don’t know. Full on, adrenaline filled, “fight or flight”. As I dial and listen to the phone ringing, waiting for them to pick up, sometimes my heart is beating so fast that I feel like I’ve just run up and down several flights of stairs.

Unfortunately, phone calls are a big part of the job. This is a phobia I’ve just got to get over.

Last week I sat down to go through a spreadsheet of speak members to phone them and encourage them to come along to the Soundcheck conference. I’d already prepared as much as I could, even writing out a script and answers to predicted responses and questions.

Finally I couldn’t put it off any more. With a deep breath and a quick prayer, I picked up the phone and dialled the first number.

It started to ring.

I forced myself to keep breathing normally, my heart racing away.

Still it rang.

‘keep calm, keep calm’ I told myself, rereading my script in front of me.

There was a click.

I breathed in sharply, readying myself to launch into my introductory sentence.

“You have reached the vodaphone answering service…”

I panicked and hung up the phone instantly. There was no way I could switch from prepared talking spiel to a comprehensible message in the seconds available. I need to know exactly what I’m going to say if I’m going to deal with a horrible answer phone.

I sighed and looked back down the list of names.

It was going to be a long day!

Eyes narrowed across the table, mistrust and suspicion hovered in the air like old cigarette smoke. Secret treaties and alliances were being formed on all sides, plotting together to bring other imperialist empires down. Terrorists were being planted in every available country; at a moment’s notice, a terrorist attack or dirty bomb could strike and wipe everything away. And the word on everyone’s lips… oil

Now I’ve managed to get enough trigger words into that paragraph to ensure that this blog will be monitored for possible terrorist activity by the government for the foreseeable future, I’ll explain what was going on.

“War on Terror” is a board game, a bit like “Risk” but modernised to be relevant to current issues. Completely tongue-in-cheek, with a very British sense of irony, it puts you in the position of a rich nation trying to gain control of other states so you can gain their oil revenues. Wars are declared as different empires fight over oil rich countries, and terrorists are used widely by all sides in an attempt to destroy the opponent and take over their oil.

I haven’t been living here that long, and I was quite chuffed to be invited to a board game evening amongst a group of friends. Food, laughter, and a healthy dose of counter espionage and terrorism led to a hilarious evening. Especially when you consider that practically everyone around the table was a fairly active campaigner against the government supported arms trade and army show rooms!

We reached the impressive old church building and made our way down the stone steps to the door half underground. Inside, down the corridor, and further into the crypt, we reached the door with the sign “Speak Office”; my new workplace for the next few weeks.

My first impressions as I looked around the office were really positive. Every spare inch of space in the room was crowded with papers, overflowing boxes, files and random items that had been made for various events and left there in storage, like the globe covered in prayer requests that hung suspended from the ceiling. In one corner was the little big dress, or the yurt, a heap of fabric and poles stacked against the wall which we take to events to use as a meeting marquee. Next to this was the bike powered sound system, and boxes and boxes of fliers for the upcoming Soundcheck conference.

The computers were located at the other side, some of them swimming slightly in pieces of paper and office stationary, others looking slightly forlorn and unused, due to mysteriously missing hard drives.

If you’re looking for a neat, efficient, tidy, open planned and organised work place… don’t work for speak!

This was a similar atmosphere to the Alpha office in France, the same chaotic mess to the untrained eye, but which contained everything you could ever want (as long as you remembered where it had been stored.)

Maybe it’s something common to low budget not-for-profit sector jobs. Maybe it just attracts people like me, those slightly disorganised people, with a passion for getting a certain job done, so focused on the task, that they fail to see the chaos around them.

But either way, it was a friendly welcoming atmosphere, which told me instantly that the job was demanding, time guzzling, unpredictable, variable, creative, and reliant on God to get through to the next day.

Exactly the sort of job I was looking for!

My tasks for the next few weeks are all based around Soundcheck.

I am doing quite a bit of admin, working with bookings, delegate information, chasing payments and general logistics. I’m also in charge of resources, collecting information from all the writers, putting it together and making it look pretty in the delegates book/programme before getting it printed.

Plus any other task that needs doing that day, from editing video footage to sending large orders around the country, to phoning churches and mobilising Speak members across the country.

It’s going to be a fun few weeks, possibly a little stressful at times, but with a lot of laughter and fun with the team. I love the way that the whole office stops for a while at 10am, to pray, to dedicate all the day’s work to God, and ask for his help and guidance in the tough decisions that need to be made.

This is where I want to be!

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

-  Proverbs 31:8-9

For the next year or so, I will be working with SPEAK, a network connecting together young adults and students to campaign and pray about issues of global injustice. Through bringing change to situations of injustice, we aim to share our faith in our all-loving, all-powerful creator: God.

I will be using this blog to keep people updated with all the things we get up to, from lobbying MPs, to awareness campaigns and everything in between.

Sometimes I’ll be talking about big events; sometimes I’ll just jot down thoughts, feelings and prayer requests as I come across Goliath-like issues of injustice. Some posts might be light-hearted and amusing, others might be deeper, possibly darker and reflecting my personal struggles and thoughts about justice.

But I invite you to come on this journey with me, through the ups and downs of life as a campaigner, working for SPEAK, and trying to bring God’s heart for justice a little closer into being.

I will be based in the London office for the first couple of months, working towards the big annual speak conference called “Soundcheck” at the end of February.

After this, I will be heading up to Manchester, where I’ll be working as a regional support worker; training and supporting SPEAK groups across the country in campaigning for social justice and living out God’s kingdom values in their lifestyles.

We´ve finished our time on the project. 6 weeks have gone so quickly. The church now has the shell of 4 new rooms which will be completed over the next few weeks. More importantly, the church has been given a new boost of enthusiasm for their bible college project, the visit from 11 crazy British young people has motivated them to move forward and keep going.

Right now I´m sitting in an internet cafe in the little town of Baños. Nestled between the mountains and at the foot of an active volcano, it´s a tourist hotspot for horseriding, canyoning, white water rafting, bungee jumping and other extreme sports. We´re spending a couple of days here, trying to find some activity which the Latin Link insurance allows us to do!!

Next we´re going into the Amazonian jungle for a couple of days. Inspired by stories of Jim Elliott and the other missionaries who gave their lives trying to tell the native tribes about Jesus, we´re going to spend a night with one of the tribes whose lives have been transformed by the power of the gospel! Really looking forward to it.

One more week here… then back to the UK.

I´ve loved my time here, but I´m looking forward to going home!

Time has gone really fast!

We´ve only got 2 weeks left, and we´re already starting to prepare for our last Sunday service. We decided that we wanted to do another drama (the others went down really well) …something special… something powerful and impacting.  After some discussion, we decided on the Lighthouse Skit to the song “Everything”

I love this sketch so much. I saw it for the first time on Youtube about 2 months ago. It actually moved me to tears… and considering how little I´ve cried recently (numbed emotions mean dry eyes!) that´s quite a big thing!

If you haven´t seen the drama, or want to see it again to understand what I´m talking about, the link is here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyheJ480LYA 

As we were discussing roles and props, I heard my voice volunteering to be the main girl. This surprised me. Normally I avoid drama if possible! the last thing I want is loads of people watching me! Why on earth would I volunteer for the part that is on stage for the longest, has the most to do, and lets face it… actually needs to be able to act!

But there is something about this drama that means so much to me… despite my hatred of being on stage – I wanted to do it!

So somehow I ended up with the role, and the rehearsals are well under way. It´s lot of fun, lots of laughter! I´ve ended up on the floor so many times, nearly had a t-shirt ripped off! I´m having to work individually with everyone else with dance routines and synchronising movements – but I´m really enjoying it.

I am nervous… there are much better actors in the team than me, and I still feel that I might mess things up, and someone else could do it much better! But as things start to come into place and people give me advice on facial expressions and movements, I´m feeling more confident.

Team Central – after 4 months of joking, I thought you´d appreciate hearing more about the closest anyone´s going to get to “wooing” me any time soon!  The dance sequence with the “charmer” is the funniest part at the moment. Neither of us really have a clue what we´re doing with the dancing, so there´s always a lot of laughter.  He insists he´s not going to drop me when he bends me backwards, but it feels like I´m going to fall any point! At this afternoon´s rehearsal he picked a piece of dried grass from the churches display to be the rose, …and ended up sticking it up my nose by mistake… not very romantic. Need to work on it! 

The thing I love the most about this drama is the end, when the girl fights to get back to Jesus and everything is in the way, clawing at her and not letting her near. When Jesus jumps in the way to save her, it just reminds me how amazing he is! He did that for me!

Now that really is awesome!

The buses here in Ecuador are crazy!

We use them every day to get to and from the church/ building site. The ones we use are painted bright green and come really frequently. Inside they are really luxurious. The seats are more like a long distance coach than a bus, they play music and some have curtains, tassels and decorations  inside.

But the rides are never without adventure and excitement! It´s rare we get seats, so we end up standing and gripping tightly to the overhead rail as the bus bounces along at breakneck speed and swerves around corners. This means we get rocked from side to side, often almost falling onto innocent Ecuadorean people´s laps. On the way home from work, the buses are normally so crammed full, that it doesn´t seem possible to squeeze our team onboard. Most rides home include being squashed up against complete strangers, nose in armpit style! Once we got about half the team on the bus before the doors closed in the other team members faces, and the bus moved off, leaving them stranded (well, until the next bus came)

Then there is always the fun of getting us all off before the bus drives off. At first we managed to get two or three people off before the bus tried to move. This was then followed by a lot of shouting and banging on the bus until it stopped and let the others off. We solved this problem by making sure the person with the money was the last person to get off. No bus driver is going to drive off before they get paid!

Once we were trying to get on the bus with a load of shopping. The doors closed as the last girl was half on, trapping her hand with the shopping bag on the wrong side of the door (not painful thankfully!) More screaming and banging on the side of the bus so that she could safely get all of her (plus shopping) onto the bus.

Bus drivers vary in temperament as well. Some buses are so old that they chug slowly up the hills, belching out masses of thick black smoke from their exhaust pipes. But one bus driver was completely crazy. Not only did he go down the hill so fast that the bus was tipping right over, but when he saw the bus in front stopping at traffic lights, he shot across to the other side of the road, bounced through the petrol station at top speed, and skidded back over onto the correct side, just to avoid the red light.  Crazy!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

We´re really getting to spend a lot of time with the young people in the church, which is amazing. Yesterday we were invited around someone´s house by the worship team for Hamburgers. After eating, we went outside to play a ball game that started off as a type of netball, aiming to get the ball into the top of two stacked tyres at either side of the field… but soon descended into a frantic rugby-like scrum of arms, legs, broken rules and lots of noise!

It was dark, and really hard to tell who your team members were. But after a while, it didn´t matter, as people just wrestled for the ball, jumped on each others backs, and even lay their entire body weight over the goal so that no one could score.

So much fun!

It´s official. We have now christened our house… in vomit.

Cheerful topic I know…but I thought I´d keep you updated with theh good and the bad points of missionary life.

It could have been worse… we could all have come down at the same time. As it was, it was only 3 of the girls for one night. It was quite a dramatic night though… it was hard to believe that the stomach could hold so much liquid, or that people could keep being sick after their stomachs had long emptied. I had the lucky positioning of having one girl throw up constantly throughout the night on the mattress next to me on one side, soon accompanied by the girl I was sharing my mattress with throwing up on the other. At least they were quite organised about it… they never did it at the same time! Which meant I could hold back hair, stroke backs sympathetically and go empty sick buckets with my full attention on one person at a time!

People seem to be a lot better now… but please pray that we return to full health, and stay that way for the 4 weeks remaining!!

We´re working with the church´s annual holiday kids club this week. Every morning somewhere between 60-80 hyperactive kids come running into the church building for a crazy jam packed session of songs, dances, games, bible teaching and lots of fun.

It´s weird doing everything in Spanish! I´ve got quite a lot of experience of working with Christian kids clubs, but I´ve always been able to enthusiastically sing the songs, do the actions and try and get the kids to join in. It´s a lot harder when you´re not sure what you´re singing about, and you´re just mouthing “rhubarb” hoping people will think you´re singing.

One of the girls on the team was convinced that one of the songs was about bunny rabbits. Quite logical, because one of the actions included stcking two fingers up on each side of the head and wriggling them like bunny ears.

It turned out that the action represented Satan, instead… goodness knows how! But not quite the same thing!

The girls have also been dragged up to perform some dances at the front. Again, this is tough to remember the order of the actions when the words are too fast to follow. The boys have been let off this little bit of humiliation, due to the churches view of male and female roles (what happened to positive male role models?) and spent the rehersals sitting at the back of the church and cracking up as we attempted to copy the Ecuadorean girls. The action that had them almost rolling on the floor was when we have to flap our hands behind our bums as we turn around on the spot. Not quite sure what that´s supposed to be… possibly a bird or a bumble bee… but then again, remembering the “bunny ears” I wouldn´t want to assume anthing!

In the afternoons we´re still on the worksite. Lots and lots of concrete making (when the Ecuadorean builders let me… I realised this week that it was better not to ask – just to grab a spade and get to work… prove that although I may be a girl, I can still mix concrete!) The walls are starting to grow… looking good.

We moved a huge pile of rocks and earth the other day and found 4 scorpions. I´ve always had a thing about scorpions… ever since I accidently watched the beginning of the James Bond film which starts with the baddies putting scorpions down a man´s neck when I was far too young!

These ones may have been small (about 3-4 cm long) but when you move  a rock and see a jet black little thing with a swinging tail above its head coming towards you, you jump back very quickly! The builders said that they were deadly…. not sure if they were joking or not, but I´m going to assume not… I´m not getting any closer to the horrible little things!

The people here are obsessed with football.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am not. In fact, I am obsessed with avoiding any chance of getting pulled into a game. My excuses range from the subtle, to the apologetic, to the down right “oh, I think I might have just broken my leg, what a shame” variety.

Unfortunately, Ecuador is pushing my ability to escape football to the limit. After every day on the worksite, the builders and church members invite us to play a game. Despite having spent all day heaving around heavy wheelbarrows and pick-axing foundations through the concrete, they still have massesof energy -whilst we look ready to drop.

I have actually played once, you´ll be proud of me. I did my normal flapping around in the corner of the pitch I judged the ball visited the least often, moving around just enough so people didn´t think I was rooted to the spot, but not enough to have any chance that people might mistake me for an enthusiastic, commited player. All the time, praying that the ball wouldn´t come anywhere near me.

Last Saturday we were taken to a girls´ football tournament. This was not the best news I´ve had all year – without the boys (who actually like playing football) to hide behind, I might actually be forced to play!

We thought that the tournament would be very light-hearted as it was between different churches. Imagine our horror when we turned up to find girls in proper football strip, boots and shin pads, coaches giving them instructions and the most cheesy chants imaginable. We tried to persuade our boys to be cheerleaders for us,but surprisingly they declined the opportunity to display their dance and cheer routines. So much for moralsupport. If we were about to be horrendously humiliated – then they ought to be too!

In the end I managed to escape playing. It was 6 aside, and so two of our 8 girls would have to make the self sacrifice required and volunteer to not play. Obviously it was a tough decision to make -(cue cheesy patriotic music they always play in American war films, and imagine me standing hand clenched over heart, with a pained expression on my face) but for the team… I´d sacrifice anything!

We lost the first game (big surprise) The Spanish team took it so serious, whereas our players just kept cracking up. Sharon discovered the hard way that “handball” includes elbows too – despite the confusion in the name and her attempts to argue with the referee. It was the first time some ofus had ever played a game of football…and it showed! One by one the English girls were pulled out and substituted with Ecuadorean girls from the church! until there were hardlyany English girsl still playing. The boys said that they probably lost as many calaories laughing at us as we did running around on the pitch!

Unfortunately the dreaded word “Football” comes up a lot on our timetable for the next 2 months…I need to start making up some more excuses!!

This morning I was interupted out of my book by someone knocking on the door. Matt and I were on domestic duty, and having boiled and puriefied some 40 litres of water, we were having a well earned break. We were not expecting the others to come back from the building site till at least 5 o´clock, and we certainly were not expecting any visitors. Surprised by te stranger knocking on the door, and puzzled as to how he had got to the house without pressing the buzzer to get someone in the house to open the gate (had he realised that the gate opens anyway if you push it hard enough?) we opened the door to greet him, and were confronted with a torrent of quick spanish.

Having worked out from the tone of voice that he was not upset or angry (and breathed a sigh of relief!) I turned to Matt to see if he had understood anymore than I had – but could see from his facial expression that he hadn´t. We asked the man to speak a bit slower, and he repeated his torrent at about the same speed. This time however I managed to pick up enough words “William” “message” “come” “eat” “there” out of the garbled stream which made me realise that William (our project leader) had phoned him and told him to ask me and Matt to join the others at the work site for lunch. After thanking the kind neighbour and getting ready catch the bus, I had the chance to think about what had just happened.

If that man had given me that message at that speed 4 months ago, I wouldn´t have had a chance of answering. But after all those months in a spanish speaking environment, my spanish ability (and especially confidence) have really improved.

For the first time, I´ve got the confidence to initiate conversations and not allow fear of missing vocab or grammar mistakes put me off trying. I can laugh at my mistakes and have fun playing a charades-like game to communicate missing vocabulary mid-sentence. But the important thing is that I´m trying… and I´m getting to know people in the church and build relationships through my awkward stumbling conversation attempts. And that is the important thing!

My experience of Step teams so far has been coloured by being crowded into a tiny space and eating the most basic of food. It´s been a lot of fun, and now I view it as normal. Which is why I´m constantly amazed by the luxury of the living conditions here!

We have an enormous house to ourselves. A massive kitchen, dining room, living room and a hallway big enough to be a room in its own right. The boys have more bedrooms than they know what to do with, and the girls have all of upstairsto lay out their mattresses- with space to walk between them!

The house has a massive garden which we share with a few neighbours, and is situated up a country lane from the main road into Tumbaco. We can easily get onto the low, almost flat roof by climbing through one of the windows in the girls´ room. From there, you can see an amazing view across the valley and towards the mountains beyond. In one direction you can even see a beautiful snow-capped mountain.

The food is incredibly varied. We have english style meals almost every night, with lots of vegetables and even meat!! Breakfast has the option of the inevitable porridge of course, but it is only an option – with yoghurt, fruit, toast and jam as alternatives! Bread is served for lunch most days on the building site, and we haven´t yet had noodles once!

I am getting really spoiled!

Our project here in Ecuador is to build two new two-storey rooms onto the church. Obviously we won´t finish in the 6 weeks we have here, but we´re going to see how far we can get. At the moment we´re doing more dstroying than building, which if you ask me is much more fun! We strted with a concrete staircase on the outside of the building. We had just arrived and been told to put our bags safely in a room on the top floor, then we were given pick axes and mallets and told to destroy the only route up to that room. Luckily someone had the foresight to dash up the stairs and rescue our stuff before the staircase totally disappeared. It was so much fun just to bash away and watch the staircase crumble around you!

We´re also making huge holes in the ground for foundations. Digging down a metre in the tough baked soil is slow work, especially when the sun is out. We´re pretty much on the equator, and it´s really hot. Huge piles of gravel and sand have arrived… but no cerment mixer… so it looks like I´ll soon be back to my favourite back breaking task of mixing concrete by hand!

There was a bit of drama when the sand arrived. The truck drove into the church grounds and was directed across the grass to the open space. Suddenly the ground gave way beneath the back wheel and it sank down and on its side with the other wheels sticking up in the air. It took ages for all the sand to be shovelled out of the lopsided truck, and another truck with a powerful winch had to be summoned. The sand truck was attached to the winch and lifted up so it was suspended in mid air. The first stage of the plan was complete… but no one had thought about the next stage – how they were going to get the truck away from the hole it was dangling over and onto solid ground. Many suggestions were tried, and the sand truck was lifted up down, left and right before something finally worked. Later on we got to inspect the hole properly. It was about 10 metres deep, sheer hand dug sides and concreted at the top. Apparently it was an old cess pit or something that had been covered over and forgotten about until the weight of the sand truck re-discovered it! Still – at least it was a convenient place to dispose of dirt and concrete slabs from our digging… even if I did nearly lose my wheelbarrow and possibly even myself when I stumbled when tipping in my heavy loads!

I´m moving a lot of wheelbarrows. There are only 3 boys here to 8 girls, so trying to get out of the heavy tasks is not possible! At least it´s a fairly level trek across the grass rather than uphill on cobbles – means that I can physically move the things!

Only got a few seconds… but wanted to post something.

We finished the project in Guatemala. Our last few weeks  included a frantic rush to finish the garden at the GEU house, which we left looking amazing… so much better than the jungle we found when we arrived. We had a special goodbye event with all the friends and people we´ve met and worked with over the last 2 months in Guatemala. We celebrated our last night in the GEU house by staying up all night and watching films on the projector with some of the students. 

On our holiday we climbed a volcano and toasted marshmallows on sticks over the lava and hot rocks. We also had a lot of fun sliding (or rolling) down the scree slopes of volcanic rock and ash, and quoting as much Lord of the Rings as we could whilst walking over the barren ash covered landscape. We went to Lake Atitlan and swam, sunbathed and took a boat across the dazzling blue/green lake in the shelter of the volcanoes. We ate out in restaurants looking out over the water, and some of us went on the zip wire, soaring high above the trees in the Nature reserve.  

One of the restaurants had the most hilarious translations on the menu. This included “The carbon paste” for pasta carbonara, “toasting the French” instead of French toast, and my personal favourite “foot of the day” instead of pudding of the day.Now Team Central has split up. Some have gone home, others have gone travelling.

I´m now in Ecuador with my new team and new projects. Still settling in, missing my old team members a bit, but looking forward to another 2 months with lots of different and amazing experiences.

If you could pray that I settle in quickly, that would be amazing!