.... bags packed .....and the last UK click until Monday ....
..... got to get to stinking Heathrow tomorrow with a massive suitcase on d train tube and tube ..... but I will sleep on the plane and be welcomed real good ......
I dug the item below out of an old file when I was searching ....
..... with you I share ..... Blessed always ...
... because if you are ....... others will feel it too ....
England -Living in Communities
In March 1994, Pip Wilson, YMCA, England, recorded the following
'Words of Faith' for the BBC World Service.
"My life has been spent working mainly amongst young people 'at odds' with society.
Young offenders, violent, aggressive and those who can't cope with life - inadequacy reigns in their lives. In fact, I found the most agressive, the most inadequate.
They have few life skills - they're only skilled in theft, drugs, street life.
They don't have skills which contribute to the community.
As a Christian I believe it is clear that God sent Jesus to die for that person -
that beautiful human person.
It's my job - my mission - to facilitate their development, to see them become more beautiful persons for the community, the world of God.
I believe there are no difficult people; only difficult behaviour!
I've just been talking to three unemployed young residents in a YMCA Hostel.
All of them keen to talk, willing to touch real life issues, but they have so little money each week to see them through their life.
When they get their money they have to buy washing powder. soap, all the necessities of life, leaving them very little to spend because of the high cost of living in the UK. I asked what they would do if they had £50 to spend on themselves.
What would they spend it on?
The first said, "I would buy a pair of boots, because I have no shoes, my shoes are cracking up and I'm desperate for a pair of boots, but that would cost at least two weeks of my living allowance."
The second one said, "I would save it, so I could buy my family presents. I've got no money at all, I have nothing to buy presents with and I would love to buy the family presents."
The third one, after a long pause and the question being asked one again, said,
"I wouldn't know what to do with £50 because I've never had £50 in my life and I couldn't handle it.
I'd rather stay on what I've got."
Mahatma Gandhi was asked towards the end of his life,
"Of all the difficult things you've experienced in your life, what had been the most difficult?"
Gandhi replied,
"The hard heartedness of the educated".
I believe in a God who is into 'heart operations'.
Unless we allow 'heart change' we are community takers, not community makers.
If we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem!
I believe that people who experience real community can grow into more beautiful human persons. Some people need community to be able to survive.
I believe all of us need to contribute to a community to help us to grow.
Perhaps 'growing' is more about 'a softening of heart', rather than growing academically and intellectually.
The YMCA around the world is a collection of a people 'in community', drawing in all ages - women, men. girls, boys - people with great skills, and people with limited skills.
The YMCA is about comforting the disturbed and also disturbing the comfortable.
Living 'in communities' for 25 years had also damaged me in some ways, but I believe 'damage' is part of life.
If we go through life seeking only happiness and fulfillment for the fullness of life.
That is 'not ok' - it seems to me.
We cannot have a beautiful rose without the thorns.
But then the symbol of the Christian faith is a cross, not a cushion."
Pip Wilson
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