Tikhtak

CMS and Cricket

Spent this afternoon playing Cricket in Marble Hill park, Twickenham. The sun was out, the atmosphere was friendly and we were all up for the crack. Unfortunately we lost, although with no shame having made 121 in our innings. Paul Breckell -Director of CMS finance did a great job with the bat and behind the wicket and Chris Picts - PA to CMS Gen sec Tim Daikin, led us all with the expertise of Mike Brearly. Perhaps the best display was from Jamie - CMS advocacy, who showed great style and technique in everything he did, even when he just picked up the ball... Good hands! I was also bouyed on having my own coach and wife Irfana on the touch lines - it inspired me to a score of 8 before being caught... Pixie bring on the next game!

Shropshire Prang

Having a good time up in Shropshire and although we are in the middle of nowhere at Quinta it is good to spend time together as a team. Yesterday Chuli managed to run her car into the back of an empty horse trailer but thankfully no one was hurt. The trailer actually ended up in the ditch, but no horse inside! Jonny baker my  colleague jumped out of the car and immediately started taking photos which I'll get hold of..... Today we have been in Telford to assess the lie of the land for setting up a Christian community to reach out to 20/30 year olds. Unfortunately I was not involved in the study plan this afternoon as I too was involved in a minor prang with my Director Chris Neal. Again thankfully no one was hurt accept for pride.

From Amersham to Salop

Had a great afternoon meeting with our good friends Simon and Laekha in Amersham at their new house. Laekha had recently ran an excellent workshop at the Encounter preparation weekend to our India Encounter group, who will be going to Bangalore in June. We will be meeting Laekha's parents too while we'll be there. I had taken some good photos but I couldn't get them off my camera!! Tomorrow I am off to Shropshire for a CMS 4 day retreat where we will be trying to make clearer our strategy for Youth work here in the UK. I will be leading a Worship session on Tuesday morning and am excited to introduce everybody to the world of AE Houseman, a shropshire poet who like me was born in London and brought up in shropshire. I will leave you with an extract of one of his most famous poems on cherry blossom and his lament on the shortness of life.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifity more.

Peshawar debriefing

On Saturday Debbie James, Chuli Scarfe and myself  met with Lucy Stuart Lee and Sam Leach who  represented CMS in a Pakistani Youth Conference on Globalisation organised by the diocese of Peshawar. They both said the experience had a profound and positive affect on them. Perhaps the highlight was visiting a womens prison and then a men's prison with Nadeem Sadiq, a prison Chaplain and friend of CMS . They were surprised to see children up to the age of 7 years old there with their Mum's.

Set the Captives Free

Today I worked at the Christian Resources Exhibition for CMS, with the help of a replica brothel. I have to say it was a very powerful way to highlight the issue of the human trafficking for the sex trade, CMS's campaign for the summer called "Setting the Captives Free". Hasna Khatun (in red left) and Anjali Guptara (below) did a great job in taking on the character of an Indian prostitute and highlighting the real terror of being a slave in a caged brothel in Puna, India. Many people watched in amazement and were drawn to tears by the end in listening to their stories. My job was then made easy just asking people to commit to pray for the situation and sign up to recieve literature about it. The picture above also includes Sunetra Sarker of channel 4's no Angels who came to support the campaign on Tuesday. CMS are wanting to get behind a project to provide Creche facilities for the children of the prostitues who normally stay under their beds during work time and to fund a project in Bangledesh helping women who return (often by running away) from the Indian brothels to often a community who casts them aside. click on Set the Captives Free for more pictures and information about this CMS campaign.

Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

  Last night we saw the first episode of a new serious on BBC1 Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee written and starring Meera Syal. It follows three friends whose loyalties are tested when one of them makes a film about Love and Marriage in their community. I must say it was was quite hard hitting and attacked a culture of secrecy and "keeping up appearances". I think there were a lot of parallels to UK church communities aswell. Any way thought I would include this picture as it reminded me of my and Irfana's wedding. He even has the same coloured Turban and Shervani!

The Monastry

I am gutted I managed to miss this the first part of three of this reality TV programme which follows the experiences of 5 men as they spend 40 days with the monks of Worth Abbey to discover if monastic traditions and spirituality have anything to offer the 21st century. So here's a link to Chris Curtis' take on it and he has even developed a schools resource for year 9 if you click on this Download the_monastery.pdf

Blog switch

I have just returned from a snowy Winnipeg to the warm UK and have made the bold decision to switch my blog from "blogger" to "typepad". This I hope means I will be able to organise all my photo's better & also upload free resources which I produce for both Big Intent Theatre and CMS. This is a rare picture of blue sky taken on the morning we were leaving.