In which I empty a little bit of my brain onto a webpage.

If you are reading this, it means I actually decided to go ahead and publish this, and hold my breath for the reaction.

Right,

Social Justice. Equality for all yo'. Not exactly a new concept is it?

²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

It's definitely not new, it's biblical.  But it's something that the world, as a whole is failing at. And when I say failing, I mean, failing. 

As a Brit, by default, I'm in the top 5% of the worlds wealthiest people. The Dominican Republic is officially a 'middle income' country. But there are thousands of children (and adults)  that don't have access to any sort of quality medical care, and the free public hospitals are overflowing, resulting in a lack of proper treatment for those that get in. To be honest, they don't really have access to much of anything. I wouldn't call a tin shack a home.

Haiti, the Dominican's next door neighbour, is far worse off. And there are hundreds of other countries where people's living conditions are even worse.

And it sucks.

It's totally unfair. Horrible. Makes me want to scream and rage and shake my fists.

But that wouldn't help anyone.

And even if I spent my entire life campaigning, and fundraising, and I don't know... digging flipping latrines; It won't change the world. I'm not naive.

It would be incredibly easy to wave it all off sometimes. To say 'I give up, there's nothing I can do about it.'

But then, that would be going against every single one of my core beliefs. I might not change the whole world, but I think it would be a pretty good thing to at least try. Because I could alter someone's world. I could make a difference.

And I wouldn't be on my own. I couldn't do it at all on my own.

 I need God. I'm lucky that I have God.

And I'm not going to deny that over these last few months I haven't had some angry conversations with the man Himself, where I've whined at him like a petulant child. 'It's not fair! Why are there so many people like this? Why do some get help and others don't? What's the point? Why, why, why?'

And do you know, the only answer I've got back is; 'What are you going to do about it?'

That one stopped me in my tracks.

Because really, at the end of the day, it's the Human condition that's the issue here. Nation against Nation, man against man (and I mean that in the gender-encompassing sense of the word, I'm not being sexist here). People are constantly trying to one-up each other, to get ahead, to get better. And you can bet that they don't care who they have to step over to achieve it. Which then, in the long term, translates into countries unable to support themselves, lands full of starving people, and shored up with debts that they'll never feasibly repay.

It's an issue. And in unrelated news, I'll soon be going up for the understatement of the year award.

I'm not entirely sure where this post is going right now. It's currently a long winded ramble. It will probably remain a long winded ramble, even after I've edited it all. I apologise (Sort of. But not really.)

I could quote a load of largely unrelated stuff at you all that I've found out over the years, through spending far too much time reading newspapers and following links on the internet until I end up lost on Google Scholar. But I don't think that's entirely necessary, and it's a blog post you want to read, not a dissertation -- and me pretending to know anything about anything is just silly. And would probably be embarrassing too.

Anyway, I'm just writing down what I think, and trying to be honest about it.

Poverty sucks.

I remember the 'Make Poverty History' campaign, and going down to London to watch the concert in Hyde Park. It was 2005, so I would have been eleven. I was young enough to think that it would work.

It didn't quite work out. But it did make a difference. And I think, realistically, that's all we can hope for.

To make a difference.

To let this generation of people; the most privileged lot of all our predecessors, stop and look around ourselves once in a while. To realise that we actually hold the power within ourselves to change someone's life. It's simultaneously so little and so much to ask of somebody. But we can do it. You can do it. I can do it.

And if you don't think you can, ask God. He's always willing to lend a hand.

Just think about it. That's all I can reasonably ask.


So, that's me done.

And as ever, I send my love and prayers your way, whoever you happen to be, if you've managed to make it to the end of this post. Remember to check out Project Isobel , and I'll update you all soon on how the fundraiser goes. And keep in touch! Feedback (even negative stuff, I can take it) is equivalent to an internet hug.  Which is always good.

Lauren

x

In which we go out to deliver school supplies, and come home with a toddler.

So, yesterday we went out to deliver some of the 20 packages of school supplies for children that we have to two of the families that the project is connected with.

The first stop went smoothly, after we'd bolted in from the (torrential, always torrential) rain. The two boys were excited by all of their new school stuff, and started testing out out right away. We got hugs, and kisses, and they proudly showed off their last report cards.

Their favourite things were the felt tips.

We stayed and chatted for a while, then moved on to the next, much larger, and even poorer family, which is where we met Ranciel.

Well, I met Ranciel, Pauline re-visited him and his family.

And this is him;

He's so flippin' cute.

He is three years old. And currently attempting to eat the keyboard.

He's had a testicular hernia for two of those three years of his life, and desperately needs an operation to have it fixed.

The operation is free, but Ranciel was turned away as he is too severely undernourished for the operation to be safe for him to undergo.

Which is where we step in.

Ranciel will be under our care for one month, where he'll receive vitamin and anti-parasitic treatments, and nourishing meals. He'll be lavished in attention and exposed to toys, games, and wildlife that he'\d never get to experience at home.

This is Ranciel's home:

It has two rooms, gaps in the outer walls, no running water and no real toilet.

He shares it with his Mother, occasionally his Father, and 5 of his 7 older siblings.

Trust me, it's grim.

I'm not really a weepy person, but I had to hide my tears when we walked into that shack.

We only went to deliver school supplies to his older siblings, and came home with Ranciel. He's an absolutely gorgeous little boy, affectionate, smiley and inquisitive. He absolutely loves to be cuddled, he finds showering a hilarious experience and he's fascinated by the animals.

He's a bit wobbly on his feet, and he struggles with his co-ordination a little. On one hand he never developed a little finger- we think due to poor nutrition in the womb and lack of proper pre-natal care- and on the other he has a little finger, but it doesn't have a tip, and it doesn't bend.

He's been here for a night already, and this morning we took him to get some shoes, underwear and clothes, because all he had when we arrived was a couple of dungarees, jeans that are a few sizes too big, and three t-shirts, no pants, no shoes, no toys.

That's it.

That's all his Mum had to send him with, packing up his belongings and thanking us, and God, the entire time. It was clear that she loves all of her children, but she simply does not have the means to support them. I was told that a lot of the time, the children are all crying with hunger, and she just doesn't have anything to give to them.

Heartbreaking isn't it?

Could you help the Project support Ranciel for a month? If so, visit Project Isobel to donate towards his care and make a world of difference in this little boy's life.

Thanks.

Love and Prayers,

x

This post starts with an Abba quote. You've been warned.

You know the Abba song? The one that goes;

‘Money Money Money, must be funny, in the rich mans world’

(And if that song is now playing on a loop in your head, well, I apologise. Or not - depends upon how much you like Abba)

Anyway, I can sincerely assure you that if it’s funny in a rich mans world, then the air distorts and the humour vanishes from the room in a poor man’s.

Look. I know money is tight everywhere. Before I came here I’d spent eighty percent of my time inside my car thinking about how much the time inside my car was costing me.

But, hey, I have a car. First world problems written all over that one.  

This has a point, I promise. I'm getting to it right now.

...

So,

Project Isobel is currently operating as a drop in centre for local youth and children.

To give you an idea about what some of this involves:

The opportunity to play games, work with the animals, go on the computer, watch TV, play basketball,  and get fed a balanced meal.

It costs around 2 pounds per person to do so, accounting for the cost of food, gas, electricity and petrol to provide all of the stuff, as well as delivering clothing, school supplies and food packages as part of the Project's outreach.

You may have been observant enough to notice all of those teeny, tiny hidden costs that mount up to something monstrous when you’re not being careful (and when you are).

So, say 10 kids, at 2 pounds per day… multiply x by the square root of y and take a sharp right at the cosine of pi and you get to somewhere in the region of twenty pounds. Just to supply a meal.

That was not real maths. But the answer is correct.

A day.

And then, without the great food fund (which I named myself, by the way) there are the running costs of the project itself.

I mentioned gas and electricity didn’t I? What about running water? And maybe maintenance of furniture and walls and cars that have a nasty knack of breaking down at the most inopportune moments and costing a whole lot of money.

What about when one of the animals falls sick?

To put it bluntly, at the moment, there’s a whole lot of money coming out of this charity, and an awful lot less going in.

Project Isobel has a website here. And if I handily set that link for you all to go straight through to the support page, it is purely to economise your time efficiently.

But please, feel free to stay a while there and explore the project from the comfort of your screen. 

  

And maybe, just maybe, if you look at your costs and shave something like an overpriced coffee off your list of daily necessities for just one day a week, you could possibly spare a few pounds to give over at the Project Isobel Paypal. (click the yellow donate button on the site)

Or possibly, quite possibly, you figure you wouldn’t even notice it much if you set up a standing order and twenty pounds of yours flew off to do some good before you even registered it was in your account.

And feasibly, entirely feasibly, you might want to use one of the email addresses provided on the site (or maybe email, tweet at, comment on, or direct a smoke signal towards me) and ask how you can get involved, and make a difference in the lives of street kids and abused animals.

Here I would like to take a moment to provide a few hints, tips and ideas. And yeah, I'm using a bullet pointed list. It's aesthetically pleasing.

• Get in touch.

I know I just wrote about it, but it needs emphasising. Even if it's just to send a word of encouragement about the Project's work. Some of the time (all of the time) that's priceless.

Also, getting in touch enables what the Project needs, and what you can offer it, to be personally matched. Kind of like internet dating, but with less creeps.

• Share it

Maybe you are just a really excellent networker, and have a bazillion and eight Facebook friends. Sharing links and the like for the project helps to raise awareness - and raising awareness raises the charity's profile, which may lead to raising the charity's donations, which definitely leads to raising the impact that the Project can make on the lives of the children.

I think I've got about 8 different ways to share at the bottom of this post, and along the sidebar too. There's the recommend to StumbleUpon badge, which will connect totally random people to this blog (speaking of which, I have a Russian following, which is amazing)

And then there's the +1 button, which recommends this site on Google, or the share on Facebook option, or the 'email this' (it looks like an envelope) or the 'tweet this', or 'blog it'... you get the picture. 

• Dig deep

I know for many of you reading this it's a struggle to afford yourself, let alone support a charity.
But please, please, consider it.

Consider how much you can justifiably spare.

A one off donation of a fiver? Brilliant.

A pledge of ten pounds a month for a year? Wonderful.

Whatever it is, to shamelessly lift a catchphrase from a well known Supermarket chain, every little helps. It really does. It eases the immense financial pressure on the Project just a little, and helps it to continue doing it's amazing work, one day at a time.

And that's you, that's your money, your generosity, making a difference in somebodys life.

I think it's pretty amazing that we have that chance, that we can do that for a child.

Don't you?

• Do Something

Everyone can do something. Maybe you're feeling inspired and want to do something creative, flog it, and donate the profits. Into graphics? Design a T-Shirt or a Hoodie or something, and sell it to everyone you come across that needs clothing. I'll be first in line.

Or maybe you're a party lover, or a foodie. Perhaps you could organise a dinner/tea party and charge for entry, and, er, donate the profits.

You might have a blog or a Tumblr of your own. Why not try linking http://www.projectisobel.com/ to it, and helping to increase the site's traffic?

Prayer support is always vital. I, and the Project, serve the Creator of the Universe, and I fully believe that prayer changes things. It brings about breakthroughs, and the Project needs a breakthrough. And it's free.

I know that I have a highly talented and dazzlingly beautiful readership of this thing, with an astounding pool of varied talents and skills that are just waiting to be utilised and honed, brimming full of more ideas than I could ever come up with.

Give it a go.


 I'll update again soon with what I've been up to, but for now I think this is enough. If this post has made even one of you consider any of the options handily listed above, then I will be so thankful. Honestly, whatever you do really will change things over here.

Thanks for sticking with it.

All my love, and a whole load of God's blessings being sent your way.

x

Bunting, and other assorted events.

You may have guessed from the post title that this one's a little bit about bunting.

More to the point, about a craft/activity afternoon I led with a group of local children where we all made bunting.

And paper moustaches on sticks, but that comes later.

As does the bunting I'm afraid. For now I'll have to leave you hanging like the paper flags on the wall. (Geddit? No? Okay.)

I'll attempt to stop writing like such a twerp now, and move on to something more serious and hopefully semi-coherent.

But before any of that, a picture of the Project's ducklings to put you all in a pleasant frame of mind:

Aw.

My time so far in the Dominican Republic (a whole month already) has already taught me a lot.

Not so much about 'me' - although that one is being muddled through too, and a key lesson there is about the use of the pronoun;

*deep breath*

It shouldn't be about 'me' at all - society's built on the mindset of 'me' and 'what can I get?' and 'what's in it for me?' or 'why should I?' and in my humble, sorely uneducated and unauthoritative opinion that's where a lot of the worlds problems lie... we're all too bothered about ourselves and what we can gain, often at the expense of others.

And if we maybe started looking outwards even just a little bit more, and treating others in the way that we think we deserve, then perhaps there wouldn't be such a great imbalance between the rich and the poor, the child that gets an education and the child that has to beg on the street, the woman that fears the birth of a child could kill her and the woman in the private suite complete with jacuzzi bath and classical music.

But, don't take my word for it obviously. Take God's.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

1 Timothy 18-19 (ESV)

Now, I know that many of you will be reading this and will have inwardly cringed at the mention of God, and the whole quoting-the-bible-at-you deal. But honestly, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye (please don't) a relationship with God; a free forever, open, unlimited data streaming, and no loss of signal contact ever, contract with Him?

Best. Thing. Ever.

It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done up until this point in your life. In fact, that's what has shaped you and made you, and God loves every ugly, shameful, keep it in the dark and don't feed it after midnight part of you... but if you open up to Him and let Him do his thing in your life, you get a new start and a chance to be the person you've always dreamed of, with a whole heavenly support team behind you all the way, screaming and yelling and fist pumping for you to keep going, cheering every time you do something different, a little bit less about you and more about others, and fully prepared to give you a spiritual hug and a whispered 'we'll do it better next time, together' when you don't quite reach the mark.

Because the Three-In-One-in-You is infinitely better than having to go it alone.

And the Three-In-One-in-Me, I can assure you, is exponentially better than me, myself and I.

I'll stop writing in never ending run-on sentences and confusing combinations now, and get back on topic.

And for a second, I'd appreciate it if you removed your view from whatever screen you're reading from, and took a look around you.

Done?


Does your view look anything like this?

Now, it's not a great picture, but it's enough to get an idea. Corrugated iron sheets,  wooden boards and breeze blocks cobbled together to resemble a house. This isn't a rare thing over here. Last week, we went to visit a woman named Yolanda, who had just given birth to her second son, Justin. We went to donate some clothes for her older son, and some that she could sell on (she sells second hand clothes to make a living), and to check on how she's doing after giving birth again.

Her Caesarean isn't healing properly, and she's at risk of a serious infection if it carries on as it is. They think the six week old baby has some kind of parasite in his digestive system.

There's no such thing as the NHS here. Good healthcare is expensive, and the public hospitals are often rudimentary at best. Yolanda and her two children live in a 2 Bedroom wooden shack which she shares with her Mother. They still cook over an open fire in a tin bucket inside, and live in an overcrowded area which is currently doubling as an insecure building site.

And yet Yolanda is bubbly, and generous, and so grateful for what she has got. Her two sons are absolutely beautiful, she was kind, hospitable and so happy to see us.

I don't know about you, but it made me think.

Yolanda with Gabriel, and me, hogging the baby.

 Yolanda and her family aren't a rare case. There are situations like this on practically every corner, and there are children here that aren't lucky enough to have a parent who can care for them at all.

The Project has the facility to take these kids in, and give them a loving, safe, supportive home, but it doesn't have the regular sponsorship to take them in on a permanent basis. And that's just... naff.

So anyway, that's just an example of how this experience is opening my eyes, and showing how much exactly I have to appreciate, and teaching me how much I have to give.

Relying on the premise that there are still people reading the post at this point, I'll move on to the aforemtioned bunting extravagansa now.

I am an ardent advocate of bunting and it's ability to make things look pretty - as well as being easy to make- so naturally I decided that it was the best activity to do with children who have never really had the chance to mess around with arts and crafts... it's just not something that's on the agenda here.

However, and luckily (?) for all involved, making stuff is always pretty high on my list of things to-do, especially things to-do with kids when there's too much garden for them to dissappear into during hide and seek.

When the kids were first introduced to the glue, paper, sequins, foam bits and pens, they were a little wary. They started slow, and hesitantly; dutifully applying bits to the triangles of paper when suggested. Then the dam broke, especially for this little boy, whose name I cannot attempt to spell correctly, but is pronounced 'yor-yo'

Well, I could attempt to spell it correctly, but it would probably be wrong. Anyway, once he got started he was a bunting making machine. And the others all followed suit too.

And now, to ease the pain on your eyes from all the words, I give you pictures:

And contrary to the expression on the little girls faces, they were having a great time. They just didn't appreciate my sneakiness with the camera.

So, by the end of the day all of the kids had made their own lengths of truly impressive bunting, and had managed to knot themselves in it before being untangled and walked home.

The highlight of my day was watching them run up to their parents and show them what they'd made. It was pure brilliance.

Oh, and of course the paper moustaches. The fact that they all went home holding them to their noses was hilarious.

I'd just like to take this time to say it was windy and I had PVA Glue in my hair.
Also, in honour of the moustaches, Huzzah.

If you've got to this point, thanks for sticking with it. And for that, I leave you with lots of love.

God Bless x