Beachy Head Marathon Saturday 26th October 2013: 26 miles, 42 Kilometres

When I was about 11, I watched the first London Marathon on TV. Just starting my running ‘career’, I guess I thought that one day I would run a marathon. Since running a marathon runs a very high injury risk, and was never likely to be my best distance, in the years I was running seriously the furthest I ever ran was 14 miles. The furthest I have run to date (as of this week!) is 16 miles, but I still have a few weeks to make it towards the 20 mile mark, and then have been advised that somehow I’ll make the last 6 miles when it comes to it!

Why now? Why this year? Well, I thought 42 K at 42 years of age sounded a good thing to aim for, but since we couldn’t come home to the UK to sea level last year, I’ve had to wait a year. The idea was to come home in time to fit in a couple of months training in, but as it is, I’m doing all the training at altitude and will come to sea level just three weeks before. Great advantage to be training at altitude you may say – but unfortunately we live 1000m higher than any sensible person would go to train at altitude, with the result that it is pretty hard to run at all, never mind run a long way. Anyway, I jog along slowly and by doing that I’ve managed to keep going for 2 hours 40 minutes so far.

The marathon I’ve chosen is Beachy Head since it’s on the edge of Eastbourne so is my ‘home’ marathon. Perhaps not the best to choose for my first (and probably only) marathon as it is rather hilly (said to be one of the hardest course in the UK!), but I figure that I’m training on the side of an Andean mountain and the hills can’t be any worse! It is also known as one of the most picturesque marathons, if one has the energy to look at the view.

Please don’t think ‘Oh, Jenny has always run, this will be easy for her’. I haven’t done any serious running since before Sammy was born, 10 years ago, and even then I was training for races of between 4 and 8 K.  So 42 K really is a lot more. And I’m quite injury prone so can only train three times a week, which isn’t very much.

Although this is mainly a personal challenge, the fulfilment of a long-held ambition and a way to get fit and have time out in the beautiful Andean countryside which does me a lot of good, I have decided to try and raise some money too.  Here’s what you can support:

26 miles – I’ll run a mile for each year my mum has been severely affected by ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – Half of what I raise will go to the ME Association that supports people with this disabling illness and funds research.(It is estimated that 250 000 people in Britain have the disease.)

42 Kilometres – I’ll run a kilometre thankful for each year of my life that I have been able to run (thinking that I must have run my first steps at age 1!) – Half of what I raise will go to support Latin Link and our work in Cusco, including resources for kids in Cusco’s state hospital and funds for Kallarisunchis micro-finance project.

I don’t have a particular target in mind, but every pound will help people with a chronic disabling illness, kids who spend weeks, even months, in a very poorly resourced hospital and families trying to work their way out of poverty in Cusco. You can pledge a certain amount per mile or kilometre by sending me an email or facebook message – this will motivate me to keep going the whole way! Or you can go straight to the Justgiving page now and donate, in faith that I will make it!! http://www.justgiving.com/JennyBrownRun

Here’s the web site for the marathon details. It’s taking place on Saturday 26^th October, starting at 9am:  www.visiteastbourne.com/events/BeachyHeadMarathon.aspx  Supporters welcome if you live anywhere near. Here’s the web site of the ME Association: www.meassociation.org.uk

 

If you want to know more about our work in Cusco and don’t receive our regular newsletter, please contact us and we can send it. The Latin Link UK web site is: www.latinlink.org.uk/

Daniel's Story

The tiny form in the hospital bed appeared to have arrived from an African famine rather than an Andean mountain. Never have I seen a child so skeletal and mal-nourished and never have I been so surprised to see a child so sick, live. Daniel’s distressed Quechua mother really spoke only Quechua, with just a little Spanish so from the start it was clear that communicating was going to be difficult. With a little help from the mother of the boy in the adjacent bed, I learned that Daniel, nearly three, had fallen from a horse and suffered a severe head injury leaving him paralysed, all his muscles contracted, stiff as a board and with just a little movement of his head, eyes and mouth. The poor little mite didn’t look as though he’d last another day to be honest, but I went downstairs to the room in the Burns Unit where we store our toys and clothes and found him a little jumper, more to try and show some kindness to his mother than anything.

A couple of days later. to my surprise, Daniel was still there. He didn’t look any better, and his mum was still very distressed. I still hadn’t got a clue how to help. I started to get to know the mum of the boy alongside and learned that Daniel’s mum had five children, but two had already died and she had a 9 year old at home with cerebral palsy. She had a Quechua Bible with her that she couldn’t read, but was a Christian and had a church she belonged to in her community. Over the next few weeks, Jenny O and I visited Daniel, and Jenny, with her OT background, had a few ideas to help him – some alpaca fleece between his knees to stop pressure sores, the beginnings of stretching his little clenched hands and arms, a musical toy. 

His mum left at one point to go back to her other child, so that week Jenny went in every day. That week he seemed to have a respiratory infection and we thought that would be the end for him, but he surprisingly fought it off and recovered. He seemed to be losing weight rather than gaining it, although his weight chart was going up and down between 7 and 9 kg rather randomly – we’re  not sure they were actually weighing him! One week I came across a visiting American doctor downstairs and asked him to have a quick assessment of Daniel. He said the injury was extremely bad, but it was too early to give up hope of any sort of recovery. It was an interesting exercise in three-way translation as I went from English to Spanish, and the grandpa of the girl in the next bed translated from Spanish to Quechua!

Daniel’s mum was starting to give up hope of being able to care for Daniel back in her community, so the hospital started to look for a children’s home place for him. However, the local home that is best for rehabilitation said they weren’t interested in him because he wouldn’t improve. And then all the other places that might have taken him were either full or said his needs were too great for them to handle. At this point we were afraid Daniel’s mum might just disappear and leave him - which would have been the worst thing for Daniel as, apart from being abandoned, he would have been stuck in the hospital for weeks, possibly months, while they waited for a place to be available. Thankfully Mum stayed, and came round to the idea that maybe she could take Daniel home after all. By this time Jenny had convinced her that she could pick him up, and he did seem to be pleased to be in his mum’s arms rather than stuck in his bed full-time. Robyn had also ventured back into the ward (she’d been thrown out a few weeks before basically for being too helpful, i.e.’ interfering’!) to help us with Daniel. 

Finally a relative of Daniel’s dad arrived who it seemed was able to accompany them back to their community, if we could help with the bus fares. This we were pleased to do as we had been trying to find someone who could do the 12 hour plus journey with them but to no avail. Robyn helped them get a letter from the hospital to the nearest community clinic (which I think is still several hours walk from where they live) – we hope the staff there will give some sort of help. And I wrote a letter to their church, trying to encourage them to support Daniel’s family – not sure if that will have helped, but there is so much superstition in the countryside about kids with disabilities being cursed that I thought a letter might be better than nothing.

We don’t expect to see Daniel again in Cusco. We hope and pray that his family love him and care for him as best they can, and that they will remember the advice given to his mum about feeding him, turning him and doing some gentle exercises with him. At least we were happy to see Daniel stay with his mum instead of becoming yet another abandoned child left to whichever overcrowded children’s home that would take him.

What would be great is to have some type of outreach worker who could support mums like this who, with help, could keep their children and learn how to care for them. The biggest obstacle to this is literally an obstacle, or rather quite a few obstacles – 4000m+ high mountains and treacherous unpaved roads! But not all the kids come from places as inaccessible as Daniel, so perhaps there is some mileage in the idea. The best solution for these children cannot be to leave them amongst total strangers in an institution.  It would be fantastic to contribute to reducing the constant flow of abandoned children!

August News from Cusco

Life is full of contrasts at the moment. In the course of a day I am watching tears of both joy and heartbreak at the Olympics, enjoying the fun moments with four kids and then despairing of ever being able to parent them adequately, and holding the hand of a little boy with a severe head injury in the hospital and praying that he will just speak a word or move a muscle.

For all of us from the UK I guess the Olympics are something special this time. Maybe there are enough people writing articles and giving their opinions, but here are a few thoughts as we watch from Peru. I loved the Opening Ceremony and also feel proud of the GB public as I see the huge crowds lining the route of the cycling races, as I am sure they will do for the marathons and other events that can be seen from the streets. We were really very disappointed not to be able to come home during this summer to see our families and friends and to experience the torch relay, the atmosphere of a home games and perhaps see some of the events. But how does that disappointment compare to that of people who could have made the teams but didn’t, or who haven’t managed to perform to the level they hoped? As an ex-athlete, I can understand how these ‘failures’ can be devastating after the years of training and the sacrifices made, but when it comes to it, as Michael Johnson has just said after watching a heartbreaking interview with a disappointed judo player, ‘It’s a game, it’s not life, it’s not the end of everything’ . When you regain perspective, there are more important things in life.

Our ‘more important thing’ this year has of course been to bring home H and K, and the relief of having them with us somewhat offsets the disappointment of not being with our families this summer.  We have needed all the perseverance and patience we possess, and more, and the sacrifices that are being made by ourselves and our families can be difficult – but we maintain that giving two little girls a family is worth more than an Olympic medal, even when we are dealing with a face coloured black with a felt tip pen, orange peel dropped into a brother’s drinking cup, a constant stream of ‘I want... I want... because I want ... because I want ...’ and various other interesting 3 year old behaviours! K does have us laughing sometimes too – we bought some candyfloss the other day and she promptly grabbed a handful and started to wipe her face with it – she honestly thought it was cotton wool! H just said, ’Yuck, this is a strange thing!’

H continues to be a relatively calm little girl, keen to please. She is showing a talent for dancing and artistic things and was one of the fastest skippers in her class on sports day – great for her to be one of the best at something after struggling with the academic side somewhat. She is still quite lost about many of the normal things of life, but she’ll get there in the end! I’ m just printing out a calendar for her as days of the week, months and years are rather a mystery to her. I spent five minutes before bedtime tonight trying to explain that today was Wednesday, which means that there will be two more days before the weekend, and that will be when we can buy an ice cream. And, no, it won’t be Christmas for a while yet!

The older three kids are very patient with K, although exasperated with her at times too. Sammy is especially good with her and there have been some sweet moments when he picks her up after she’s tripped over, or reads her a story, including the other night not only reading her Bible story but translating it from English to Spanish as he went along. Ben was helping Hilda with her maths homework today – he, of course, had raced through it himself and obviously felt very clever being able to teach his sister how to do it! He and H are also having some fun mini-volleyball matches on our little patio (at least it’s fun as long as Ben wins – fortunately H is not quite so competitive!)

Our regular ‘Nature Club’ outings continue to be a bit of a sanity-saver – the kids love being out and they play better and very cooperatively when chasing sticks down streams or building shelters out of branches. H and K are getting fitter and showing the potential to be quite sporty, which will help with fitting into our active family life! (See the ‘Club NaturaNiños’ facebook page for some of our photos.) 

The main work responsibility I have retained is hospital visiting – partly because it fits in timetable-wise and partly because that was part of my main ‘call’ to Peru and something to which I feel I have never been able to give 100%. Hospital visiting is also a big part of Jenny O’s work, who I’m mentoring, so it’s great to be able to go together some days. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum to Bradley Wiggins et al is a little boy, Daniel, who is almost completely paralysed with a bad head injury. It seems that he fell off a horse, although details are sketchy as his mum only speaks Quechua so we are mostly relying on whoever is around to translate. (I’m still trying to learn a bit of Quechua, but just vocab on the internet at the moment as I can’t fit in classes.) Daniel is nearly three and as is so tiny that he looks like a famine victim. We’re not sure how malnourished he was before he came into hospital, but there must be something seriously wrong with how he is being looked after for him to be in this state. We have seen this occasionally before with kids who have been abandoned or who have Quechua parents with no resources – it seems that the hospital expects them to die and so don’t ‘waste’ time or money on them – and then of course they are more-or-less bound to die. And the child and parents are helpless as they don’t understand what is going on, have no knowledge of what could be possible and have no money to pay for even the simplest things such as nappies. Daniel’s mum has gone home for a few days (she has a daughter with special needs) and we hope and pray she will come back. She is actually a Christian and had a Quechua Bible with her last week, but she can’t read so it isn’t too much use to her. I took a sheet of the Quechua alphabet in for her and the mum of another little boy was going to try and help her get started on reading. We are very limited in what we can do for Daniel, but he seems to like it when we hold his tiny hands and stroke his face, and he makes an attempt to cry when we leave.

The new group we have started with teenagers from our church is the other main responsibility I have in these few months. They meet in our house as the church building is more of a tent than a building and would be very cold in the evenings. We have been pleased how committed the group has been and have been using Youth Alpha materials. Recently we watched a film about a Christian sports coach and they seemed quite inspired by that. We want to capitalise on this by helping them plan an outreach for kids and maybe some sports-related activities as a means of evangelism too. It is clear that goal setting and planning isn’t a big part of the culture here. People find it hard to look more than a week ahead. There is something to be learned from this – the whole idea of living in the ‘now’, in the present – but there are obvious problems if you never plan longer term. We want to help our group to see that they may not be able to grow the group from 10 to 30 in a week, but maybe they can in a year if prayer and outreach is planned month by month, bit by bit.

One of the most encouraging aspects of Roland’s work at the moment is the starting of a new group of clients in a more rural area outside of Cusco. Cusco now has many micro-credit organisations whilst outside the city it is much harder to start or grow a small business. There is a still a very important role for Kallarisunchis in town of course as no one else is offering the training and Christian discipleship that they offer, but it is always good to look for where there is most need too. This first group of clients outside Cusco has a good link with a local church as the first member to be connected with Kallarisunchis is a Christian. Her Pastor is really keen to be involved so the ‘ideal’ Kallarisunchis model of helping people with material need and linking them with a church that can follow up regarding their spiritual need has started off well in this small Andean town.

Roland’s role as treasurer of the Peru team for Latin Link has been a significant part of his work again this year. He has involvement with the chain of bookshops and the large school in Arequipa, both of which are overseen by the mission, a children’s home headed up by Latin Link workers (Huaraz), and finances relating to all sorts of church projects across Peru where Latin Link and the supporting British, European and other international churches are partnering, working with all ages from small children to the elderly.

If you are wondering when we will next be in the UK, so are we! Our latest plan is to try and come during the second half of 2013, but that largely depends on the judge in charge of the girls’ case, and whether he will let them leave the country before they are adopted. We’ll possibly have more news about that after Christmas.

Poverty, Environment and Lifestyle

This is a blog post almost entirely written by other people. To explain - Carrie (who works at both CORASON and The Meeting Place) and I have recently re-started the once-a-week evening discussion group we used to run for volunteers and other English-speakers travelling through or living in Cusco. We have done a couple of sessions related to poverty and while preparing we have read such a lot of very interesting and challenging material. Parts of our discussions have been based on quotes and statements from some excellent books, and I thought I’d note some of them down on the blog as a follow-up to some other blog entries on poverty. Hope you find them interesting and challenging too, and that they inspire you to read the books referenced, study the Bible, do something about what you read and maybe lead your own discussions and studies! (If you would like a copy of the notes and handouts from our two evenings, I would be quite happy to send them to you, by the way.)

Below are the main books we have been reading and from which we have used material. I would 100% recommend getting hold of any of these to both read yourself and use with any type of home group/cell group if possible.

• When Helping Hurts, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, 2009 (How trying to help can lead to more harm than good! Especially useful for churches who send short term mission teams, but also excellent for anyone looking to help in their local area or beyond.)

• Poor No More, Peter Grant (International Director of TEARFund UK), 2008 (Includes a self-assessment relating to how your life is currently impacting the poor, and practical ideas for making a difference. Good too for when you feel overwhelmed with the needs you see and don’t know where to start.)

• Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper, 2003 (Have just found a version of the book you can download free, plus a study guide, at www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/online-books/dont-waste-your-life There is one chapter in particular which is fantastic and very challenging: Chapter 7 ‘Living to prove He is more precious than life’.

• The Cape Town Commitment 2011 (A booklet published after the Lausanne Conference in South Africa – see the web site for the full text: www.lausanne.org)

A few quotes you’ll see below where there is a name but no book referenced, or where a different book from the above four is referenced, come from three study booklets published by TEAR Australia and Scripture Union in 2000: Eyes Wide Open, Seeing Faith at Work, Awake to the World – All by Steve Bradbury (Director of TEAR Australia for 25 years and Chairman of the Micah Network for 10 years)

Any comments in italics are my additional notes. The questions in bold are some of the questions we have been discussing in our group.

What does it mean to be ‘poor’?

Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation and voicelessness. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing, etc. ...This mismatch between many outsiders’ perception of poverty and the perceptions of the poor themselves can have devastating consequences for poverty alleviation efforts.

(When Helping Hurts, 2009, p53)

We have seen that poverty reduction depends on economic growth, and effective governments. But these alone will not solve poverty. There is a missing dimension. Poor people need increased incomes to live a more fulfilled life, but they also need love, acceptance, respect, friendship and a sense of belonging. These are the things which a purely economic model cannot provide, and which the pursuit of materialism can often take away. (Poor No More, p60)

Poverty – What are the links with Environment and Lifestyle?

Rich countries are generally the polluters at present. People in India produce on average one tonne of carbon dioxide per person per year, while the Chinese produce 4 tonnes, Europeans 10 tonnes and Americans 20 tonnes each. ( Poor No More p45)

The melting of glaciers and changes in rainfall patterns worldwide threaten the water supply to hundreds of millions of people. (Poor No More p203)

Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘The earth has enough for every man's need, but not every man's greed’.

Destroying the environment is a major source of world famine. Since God calls us to be concerned about the poor and feed the hungry, we must save the environment for the sake of the poor and the sake of the hungry. (Tony Campolo)

In a world of limited resources our wealth is at the expense of the poor. To put it simply, if we have it, others cannot. (Richard Foster)

What can we learn from the Bible about Poverty?

'The effect of the Fall was that the desire for growth became obsessive and idolatrous, the scale of the growth became excessive for some at the expense of others, and the means of growth became filled with greed, exploitation and injustice.' (Christopher Wright)

... Jesus is relentless in his radical call to a 'wartime' life style ... I am wired by nature to love the same toys as the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth 'home'. Before you know it, I am calling luxuries ' needs' and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing ... (Don't waste your life, p112)

‘We think of fellowship as biscuits and coffee ... but the New Testament fellowship is rooted in the idea of economic sharing, of financial participation, which works in relieving the pain and hunger of suffering brothers and sisters.' (George Malone)

Quote of Matthew 6:31-32, then:

‘If we look like our lives are devoted to getting and maintaining things, we will look like the world, and that will not make Christ look great. He will look like a religious side-interest that may be useful in escaping hell in the end, but doesn’t make much difference in what we love and love here. He will not look like an all-satisfying treasure. And that will not make others glad in God.’ (Don’t waste your life, p108.)

Some of the Bible passages we have looked at:

On poverty in general:

• Old Testament: Law: Deuteronomy 15:7-11 (Be generous to the poor); Prophets: Isaiah 1:13-17 and Isaiah 58 Amos 2:6-8 and 8:4-7 (Justice not religion)
• Jesus: Luke 12:13-21 (Parable of the Rich Fool); Matthew 6:19-24, 31-33 (Treasure in heaven, seek first his Kingdom); Mark 12:28-34 (The Greatest Commandment)
• Early Church: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 13-15; Galatians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; 1 John 3:17-18

Poverty, Environment and Lifestyle:

• Old Testament: Genesis 1: 24-31; Leviticus 25:18-24; Psalm 104
• Jesus: Matthew 6:25-34; Luke 12:13-21
• New Testament: Acts 4:32-35; 1 Timothy 6:6-10,17-19
• 
  

What is our Response to Poverty?

The Lord God says:

Share your food with the hungry,

Bring the homeless poor into your house,

Cover the naked.

Dear Lord God

We have got new carpets,

So this will not be possible.

(Steve Turner, 1992)

We are called to imitate Jesus in his passion for the lost, the sick and the suffering. The quality of the life of the church and the extent to which it demonstrates the character of God are much more important than whether we are popular or powerful. (Poor No More p171) (This is interesting in terms of the balance of how much money a Western church spends on evangelism where the aim is to reach people in the Western culture, and how much is spent on serving the poor in that culture or in the developing world.)

Our societies are obsessed with personal fulfilment, consumption and celebrity. Demonstrating a different way of life is perhaps the greatest gift that we can give to our society. We need to move our focus from:

• Things to people
• Self to others
• Judgement to mercy
• Consuming to sharing

(Poor No More p89)

Why don’t people ask about our hope? The answer is probably because we look as if we hope in the same things they do. (Don’t waste your life, p109.)

But even more significant (than giving or personal action) is the challenge that your life can be to others. ... Never underestimate the impact of your life on others, particularly when you seek to live differently from your prevailing culture. (Poor No More p20)

The biblical vision is not that everyone should have a European or North American standard of living, but that there should be enough for all, based on a generous redistribution of resources. Enough for everyone to have basic education and healthcare, and to enjoy safety and dignity in a community where people can share and celebrate together. Poverty denies people these basic elements of a fulfilled life. (Poor No More p21)

John Stott said in his last published sermon that the greatest hindrance to the advance of the gospel worldwide is the failure of God’s people to live like God’s people. We are to demonstrate godly lives before a watching world – caring for the underprivileged, the poor, those affected by pandemics, the broken-hearted. (The Cape Town Commitment 2011 p77)