Mad month of travel

On return from Israel at the beginning of this month, hubby met me at the airport and handed over the girls. He flew straight off to Uganda for the week and I tried to catch up work, washing, mothering and life in general. Hubby returned the following Sunday and we had exactly one day together before I headed back to the airport to catch a flight to....Uganda!  Same place exactly...our dear friend and work colleague Isobel had made space in her home to accomodate both of us... only separartely!

The time in Uganda was precious and I believe that much was achieved for the networks in East Africa working with children at risk. The cockroaches, slow trickle of water in the shower and the power cuts were a reminder that I should be more appreciative of the standard of living we have here in the UK.
Following hot on the heels of Uganda I travelled to Cape Town, South Africa where I was able to connect with 'CONNECT' the network working with children at risk. This coincided with a Global Day of Prayer summit that was happening in celenbration of 10 years of GDoP.

The time was full and punctuated with wonderful connections with old friends from around the globe. It was a priviledge to be part of this global gathering and I had the added blessing of sharing a room with an Australian friend and her daughter who previously were only skype connections! I did manage a trip to the top of table mountain thanks to two more of my friends inviting me to skive off one of the plenary sessions.....I guess one can always hear Ed Silvosa another time!

The final day was spent networking with new friends around the 'World Weekend of Prayer' for children at risk - This year falling on 5-6th June. God was in the house and we all felt a sense of divine connection especially regarding raising children as 'Child Ambassadors' - something I was championing in Africa and have a vision to see expand across Viva's networks globally. Children being raised to hear God's voice in prayer and to be a voice on behalf of their peers who suffer so much in the earth.

On hindsight the month could have been planned a little better - regardless - I now find myself back home 2 weeks later having to catch up on hubby, children, work , washing and life in general. I came back to discover my neighbour has had a baby....that's how long it seems. (Last time I saw her it was a small bump.)

The trip has saturated me for travel- my only desire right now is to be home based for a good length of time. Maybe until October when there's something else brewing on the horizon.....

Car park fiasco

Since the beginning of the year we have been on a mission to help sort out and update my mum's kitchen. My Mr Fixit husband was on hand and we set aside a weekend to complete the job. All I had to do was take mum to a local DIY store, choose a paint colour,some tiles and a border.Easier said then done. The plethora of paints, tiles and border tiles left us with too many decisions to make in a short period of time. When we finally got out of the shop the car park was full with people queing to find a space.

We were delayed leaving the car park because a lady had driven the wrong way to reverse into a space and was then pipped at the post by another impatient driver resulting in the lady stuck in a tight spot. The queue forming behind us grew as she laboriously reversed back out of the car park into oncoming traffic! We breathed as sigh of relief when we arrived home!

Thinking that was the end of it and pleased with the results of our labours and the final colour  and tile decisions I was somewhat dismayed to recieve a letter the following week, It was from some company acting on behalf of the DIY store threatening debt colletion of I didn't pay up a parking fine. To my amazement there was a picture of my car entering and exiting the car park.Apparently there were signs everywhere which were totally lost on me, my mum, and my 12 year old daughter, saying you had only one hour free stay as a customer. In the small print it said you could appeal and appeal I most certainly did. Horrified at the idea of debt collectors turning up at my house - yet having no intention of paying what I percieved to be the most ridiculously unfair car park fine. I composed a letter stating three VERY good reaons why I felt it unreasonable to expect payment and tried to remain logical despite my inner fury at at the injustice.

The letter worked! I had listed the fact I was with my elderly mother and to expect decisions to be made in an hour when purchasing the items we did was unreasonable, I listed the fact that we had NOT seen any signs warning us of the hour limit, and my final reasoning was the fact we had been severely delayed exiting the car park taking us well over the allocated hour.

The fact my mother is a sprightly and tenacious 77 year old who, on hearing about the fine had insisted on speaking with the manager if the DIY store is neither here nor there....my letter had apparently done the job.

Power to the people!

When a Wii is not cricket!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Wii is succesfully joining families together over generations and miles, just not this family! The reasons are many and varied; traditions have become deeply embedded as the years have progressed and the majority of my family have remained firm novices when it comes to correct gift purchasing.
The ‘secret santa’ tradition of placing our names into a ‘hat’ and taking out the name of another family member in order to buy just one present every Christmas, began when my generation became adults and started having children of our own. We decided that £20 was a good sum of money in order to buy a decent present for each other and looked forward to unwrapping the ‘family’ gift every year.
From the outset it became evident that certain members of the family were easier to buy for than others. The ones who didn’t specify a gift choice would inevitably end up with traditional and obvious types of pressies. Socks and aftershave for the men and scarves and perfume for the ladies. The more difficult to please and choosy members of the family became the ones everyone would groan over and the ones you hoped you wouldn’t end up with. The fact this was all kept secret from each other left for much deliberation and leg pulling.
2009 has been one of the most notable of family ‘secret santa’ efforts. A number of things have dawned on us – firstly, £20 is nowhere near enought these days to purchase anything half decent and secondly the family saga that has ensued signifies that it might be time to re think the tradition.
The long suffering relatives who didn’t used to mind what they got have finally bitten back and have become the ones who now specify EXACTLY what they want every year. My husband has become one of these and decided that this year his precious £20 family present should be some water proof covers for his shoes for when he’s cycling. I think they’re called gaiters, (well that’s what I told the person who ‘secretly’ had pulled his name from the hat.)
I had given up being subtle in my efforts to find out what my chosen person wanted for Christmas. Cutting down on time and confusion I came straight out with the question- needless to say my person got EXACTLY what they wanted and was very happy with the resultant gift. My sister and brother in law on the other hand struggled to find ‘gaiters’. The cycling magazine hubby ended up with had the £20 attached with a note admitting defeat – they had tried and tried again only to be confounded by the notion of such things. (Annoyingly my brother in law had actually come across them at £30 a pop in a sports shop only to be told by another member of the family that these were not the sort because they didn’t reach his knees! (HIS KNEES!)?)
The brother in law threw in the towel completely however, when, on opening his family present, he was dismayed to see the title ‘Cricket’ across what looked to be a DVD. To contextualise his disappointment it might be helpful for you to know that on a previous Christmas the ‘family’ had given him a set of video tapes showing the ‘complete cricket test series’ (or something of that sort). Although graciously received at the time, I don’t think he ever got round to watching them! This hstory blinkered him to what might have been a redeeming feature in the fact that this was in fact a Wii cricket game and not the DVD he had initially thought, he went off on one about how he hated cricket and could think of nothing worse than cricket and that he no longer wanted to be part of the family!
So...we are potentially one family member short for next year, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, will mess up numbers. So.... I am going to tentatively suggest that for 2010 we think more creatively about celebrating our saviours birth.

Reviewing the year...

My Godson and his baby brother...

X factor final and our friends the Hatchers came for the second year running...must be love...our tv screen is postage stamp size compared to theirs!

Melody meets the new arrival and discovers she will come in very handy to have as a friend because she is 14 VERY soon and can legally babysit. (Though 4 boys between the ages of 10 yrs and 2 weeks old would not be for the fainthearted.)

The Viva team in La Paz treated us like royalty and made us feel very welcome.

Our beautiful translator Kattya on the right.

The Christ statue in Cochabamba is larger than the famous one in Rio and much more accessible!

The children in Refugio were a delight and full of joy. THere was much hope as these children were counselled and allowed to be children maybe for the very first time in their lives.

At the start of 2009 I had every intention of writing at least a monthly blog!

Life's been too busy to keep that sort of commitment and I find myself at the end of the year with too much to unpack and catch up on. Take the photo's alongside for example.....

Costa Rica, Bolivia, new babies, more fundraising activities, the X factor final....I guess this photo diary will have to say what I haven't time to.

Latin American travels of a mum and teenage daughter.

For those interested in such things there's an interesting dynamic to travelling on long haul flights with your children. We've been doing it since before babies had to have passports of their own and over continents and time zones.

Pre children of our own, my first experinece was taking my godson Ben on a flight to Switzerland. At 10 months he sat straddled on my lap and fell into a deep sleep cuddled into my chest. He was blonde and blue eyed and no one considered that he wasn't mine as I proceeded to lay a napkin over the top of his sleeping head and tuck into the meal provided by the airline. The friendly passenger to my left commented that I was obviously really experienced at such things and I felt it would be tempting disaster to apologise for having such a natural 'talent'.

Life continued to give opportunity for the practise as I travelled single handedly with a four and two year old across America and then to Uganda via Nairobi when they were six and four respectively.

As the girls have grown we have tried to tailor our trips to suit their personality and giftings and have the luxury of being able to take them individually. The younger daughter seems to have come off best, so far having travelled with me to India last year and recently to New York. Both long haul flights were a dream for me as this self motivated and avid reader used every opportunity to learn and take in every piece of information she could.

Our eldest has been poised and at the ready waiting for an approriate opportunity to travel and was finally thrilled when it worked out that she could accompany me to Latin America. At thirteen she is not at the easiest of ages to have to deal with long haul flights and changes of culture. Her memory of previous travel was hazy and her observations of airline and service were astute and comical. The first thing that grabbed her attention was the age of the cabin crew. She has a specific interest in cabin crew as she thinks this is what she wants to do when she grows up! 'Mummy, when I'm 50 I could come and work for this airline.' was her loudly whispered conclusion. I marvelled at her positive outlook and resigned myself to the fact we were travelling on what must have been one of the cheapest low budget airlines around!

Due to the fact our final destination was Costa Rica we had to enter America in order to connect to an onward flight. This was SO annoying as we did not want to be in America and would only be there in order to catch the next plane. It has been this way since 9/11. At this point patience was at it's shortest having travelled 9 hours. I needed to use the bathroom as we disembarked and consequently we ended up at the back of the queue for customs. This was too much for my thirteen year old and she flipped at the fact we were at the back. A very public confrontation followed which did not make for an easy wait in the passport queue and I became quite nostalgic for the days when I could simply stick a napkin over her head.

We've arrived and it's day two of our adventure....more to follow I'm sure.

Generating something...

Sometimes the funniest things happen at work! Working for a charity has it's challenges. Not least the challenge of funding the dreams and aspirations we carry; that every child has the opportunity to become all that God designed them be and to network and work in partnerships with others to help facilitate this.

In a recent effort to generate income our CEO and senior management were involved in hosting an early evening drinks and canape reception to meet some potential partners.

It was a warm day and on arrival at the allocated space at the top of an office block in central London, the blinds were down resulting in a dimly lit room.

Our CEO set to tackling the spring loaded blinds to let in some light. Within minutes we ended up with an overextended blind, which, regardless of all effort would neither open nor close! Attempts to fix it proved futile and the whole blind, housings and all, came pinging off the window frame and landed on top of us. As the room quickly warmed up to uncomfortable heat we soon discovered why the blinds had been closed in the first place. We were relieved to discover an air conditioning unit on the wall which saved the day and us from cooking, and began the next task of shifting the large conference table to the side, to free up space for 'mingling'.

By the look of the conference room table I doubt it had ever been moved before. It had wires coming out the middle with phone and internet access points and the three sections that made up the whole, had been screwed together with metal brackets. Unfortunately we were soon to discover that one part in particular hadn't been screwed in place! As we attempted the first shifting movement one of the table legs collapsed and clanged to the floor leaving a mid section of table precariously balanced. As I glanced over at my colleague, 7 months pregnant, I realised that we would need a little extra help. Our CEO came to the rescue and I was able to capture the humour and hysteria of the moment on camera as he and the pregnant work colleague climbed beneath the table in an attempt to fix the leg back in place.

I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that things did improve. The evening was enjoyable and people seemed warm to us. I do have a final confession however -As our guests arrived I had been tasked with being door keeper and welcomer. Strategically postitioned downstairs in the reception area of the office block, I was given a set of keys to lock the door once everyone had arrived.

When all guests had been directed to the top of the building I was finally alone in the foyer and began to think about locking up. It was only then, as I contemplated the height of the door and the position of the lock at the top of the door, I realised we had a problem. As the smallest member of the team I am somewhat vertically challenged and it occured to me that I would be unable to reach the lock unless I stood on a chair......... All I can say is I hope there wasn't a security camera around.

In Recovery

I'm in recovery! The year long programme to the World Weekend of Prayer culminated last weekend with my own involvement in at least three events over that weekend. It started on the Friday night when I addressed a group of bedraggled teenagers who had been persuaded to experience a sleep over in a back garden. The idea was to give them some idea of what it might be like to have to sleep in the 'open', as street children or such like.

OK! So it was wet and it DID rain all night and the temperature was COLD, but nevertheless I was bemused to discover that our 'tough' teenagers had in fact been molly coddled by the hosts of the experience! Starting with a bar b que and with full bellies, I watched as parents ran round inflating lilo's and putting up tents inside of tents! Electricity was relayed to the gazebo and ambient lighting was rigged! I was able to present a power point via a lap top and play music at the same time - such was the electricity supply!

The next morning the youngsters were helping with a Praise Party to celebrate the work being done with children at risk and to pray into issues facing these children. My concern as to how they might fare after a night 'roughing' it was short lived as I learned that they had been given, not only cereal but a cooked breakfast and had even had HEATING supplied to the communal tent!

The PRAISE PARTY was an experience itself. Those who know me will be aware that I like to help children be authentic in their faith and relationship with Father God. The prayer stations were thus designed to engage the most agile and physical of children, with a goal set at one end so that a ball could be kicked as children prayed for the Millenium Development Goals to be achieved. There were tents to climb in, birthday candles to be blown out and rubbish to be sorted through. (To name but a few of the activities to inspire prayer and inform the children about issues facing children at risk!)

As the event kicked off, within minutes I had cause for alarm. I had considered it an inspiration to cover the birthday cake in a serviette and place the candles on top so that as children blew out the candles they would not spit over the cake - leaving it possible to hygienically distribute at the half way point with a cup of orange juice. I really had not anticipated that the serviette might catch fire! As flames licked around the cake I was thankful that my precious husband had come to the rescue and I was relieved when he succesfully extinguished the flames, much to the amusement of the children concerned.

Believe it or not it was a special time and everyone involved seemed to enjoy the experience and engaged meaningfully in prayer. Hey ho....here's to next year!