Saturday night at WA of WFMUCW

So
This was going to be the last post, but its taken me so long to type Saturday night and I have a service to prepare this is all you are getting for the time being!

OK so its 7:30 and we are meant to be starting our hour long presentation. We thought there was no chance of starting on time so we had only planned 45 minutes of programme. We were missing one of the group, even though we were meant to be there 45 mins earlier. We also couldn’t start for 2 other reasons, the powerpoint and video weren’t on the memory stick, and the ppt hadn’t been saved anywhere else! And the voting members of the assembly were stuck voting for the next World Executive. We sent a runner to the voters to see if we should wait. And Alison Adam took over the stage and kept everyone singing – which included us taking the stage to teach everyone the final song of our presentation. Our member turned up, the video was found and the powerpoint remade! And we were still waiting. An hour late we started our presentation with the current (at the time) executive and area officers in the congregation. During that hour I’d been wearing my new pasmina, which originally was just drapped round my shoulders like a scarf, but after crawling round the floor and nearly strangling myself I changed it to how I would often wear a scarf - kind of knotted... anyway.
So our presentation started. We danced in to the room singing Bambelela– which was the theme song of this assembly (it means never give up and when said the reply is ‘Christ is our hope’) we stood on the stage as the the history of Helen Kim was explained, and pictures of what we had been up to appeared on the screen. Then we had to say our name, our country and our area. Hi I’m Rachel Coates, from England and I represent Europe: Britian and Ireland area. Was a good job we all had our name badges on still, they were a bit of a mouthful. That done we got off the stage and Aurelia and co did a stunning drama about our 2 faced attitudes. After that we set everyone a challenge, mainly about a dialogue with us. Then Rachel and Lise asked 2 questions to the people and I ran around the room (yes you read that right, I ran) with the mic getting their answers. It was a good time of engaging and starting a dialogue. I hope someone wrote down what they said. My face was the world vice pres who said we need to get young people involved in the planning as well as the events! Woo participation! at the end of that part me and Rachel had another freaky moment when I said what she was about to say, in almost the words she had in her head!
This led on to the vision declaration where we stated:
We believe in:
- God
- Peace
- Self-worth
- Beauty
- Empowerment
- Empathy
- Equality
- and Nurture.
We affirm:
- that we are all equal in the eyes of God;
- therefore, through empathy, we can nurture each other to reach our full physical, emotional, social and spiritual potential;
- that one another can be empowered to be confident in themselves and in their beauty
- and that peace is possible. (many languages)
We confess that:
- we have sinned against God and our fellow sisters and brothers
- at times we haven’t done our part to speak out for the voiceless
- we have erected and maintained the walls of race, class and gender
- we have failed to love ourselves and others, as Jesus calls us to do.
We commit ourselves:
- to love one another as God has loved us and to reach out to those in need
- not to accept anything less than an equal partnership
- to work towards creating and maintaining a sustainable world
- to use our voices
- to do all we can and to pray for what we can’t
- to the glory of God.

I said Self-worth and ‘to do all we can and to pray or what we can’t’. The vision we had written as a group, but then Rachel, Juliet and I had finalised it with Tara’s help. That had been Friday afternoons job! The words in the believe section came from the area / continent visions we wrote on Thursday. Europes was about self-worth and beauty – inside and out.
The vision was followed by a mini challenge that Rachel and I read out. We did a small presentation to Dr Kim, and then invited past HKSs on to the stage to sing ‘we are the ones’
We are the ones to make a change in this world
We are the ones to make our Jesus known
Let’s join our hands to break the chains that have kept us apart for so long – so long
Let’s come together as one
Not minding all the differences between us
Let there be peace and love and harmony
So we can live in unity.

That done I took off my name tag – as the British unit had decided to for their presentation. The Europe: continental area president did a presentation about her area and how it may be changing. Then the Irish took over, Rachel played and sang (I made a good mic stand) then we had to do some irish dancing – the one photo I’ve seen is when we are standing still but we looked like we were having a good time, it was great fun.  See Wesley I do dance!

After this someone from Europe told us about her unit and then it was the British Unit’s turn. We went on to the stage in our black trousers, white t-shirts and red pasminas ready to sing ‘for everyone born’ which is a very moving song about justice and equality – and is in the new Methodist hymn book! Between each verse and chorus 2 people got up to tell a story that linked. I obviously linked with the verse about young and old. The most moving story was that of Kate, which started ‘Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, yeah right!’
The evening ended with everyone singing in Christ alone. The we had chance to look round the market a final time – Emma if I hadn’t been for that and a pushy lady you wouldn’t have a present!

We (me, Rachel and Niki I think) sat in the courtyard after this. Not really ready to go to bed. But then tiredness kicked in and off to bed we went.

start of the end

about to start the journey home. Will update blog with rest of week when back!
thanks for your comments. pray for safe coaches, planes and trains for me and all my friends please
love you all

Rach

a trip and some stress!

Friday afternoon started with a very long session with the other HKSs as we started to prepare for our presentation. We took the visions we wrote the day before and merged them into a vision declaration – to follow at a later date! When you bring 14+ leaders together its going to be difficult, and because we hadn’t had a proper time of forming, we were storming later in the programme and it wasn’t till Saturday we finally found a middle ground – norm, and were able to perform together! (love a bit of Tuckman!)
So after hours of prep we went for tea and then watched the pacific and American presentations, Susanna’s dancing, and Patsy’s singing were great. And me and Rachel had a right boogie to the Jamaican presentation. And did some work for our presentation while we were watching. Then it was bed time.
Saturday!
That morning I went on a trip to Sowato. I was sitting with Christina the HKS from USA. It was such a moving experience- I even cried at the Hector Pieterson museum, which was all brand new information to me. During the tour instead of going into the Nelson Mandella house Christina and I went shopping, so look out Becky, Mum, and the boys. And I have a pretty thing for myself! It was also heart wrentching to see young children begging for our packed lunch. And we also tried to find Desmond Tutu’s house, we took photos of 2 houses in the block, just incase
We got back, and straight back into work – well some of us did, others arrived a little late... We worked hard, and there was quite a bit of stress and more arguements! We missed the next slot of issue workshops. We also in this slot learnt some Irish dancing!
After a rushed dinner and a quick change into British outfits! Then it was Helen Kim presentation... and on that Cliff hanger I’ll leave it there for now!
Rach

PS, I nearly got engaged, someone wanted me to marry her son in Nigeria!

just another day in SA!

To my lovely readers, if you are there!
Firstly and most importantly I want to wish Duncan a very happy birthday, hope you liked your card and present and I’ll give you lots of hugs when I get home – obviously a further present is no hugs today! 
Right then: Update of past 24 hours!
• Area meeting, presentation of new officers, me and Irish Rachel did a great double act – even if I say so myself, then conversations about transport. Dad, I’ve found someone also going the route you suggested so that’s all sorted! Will have 7 hours at airport here, but that saves r180 = £18 so that will get me a good lunch!
• HKS. Me, Rachel and Murielle had to think of a vision for Europe, its something about self worth and everyone knowing they are beautiful inside and out.
• Then tea with the world officers, who were late, but it was nice all the same.
• Then Rachel and I went and had a look round the stalls, so many pretty things!
• The African area reports were loud and colourful as you would expect, one of the HKS Aurelia did some amazing dancing.
• The british unit presentation is on Saturday night so we had a practice and I need to learn the chorus of the song, and practice my little story.
• Then I went to bed, and slept really well.
• This mornings opening devotions were all about Pricilla, and rather than from a ‘why should women lead’ perspective the speaker talked about her a part of the couple, but also a very important person in her own right. It was moving too as it was said in Spanish and translated for the rest of us.
• Then the Bible study was really good, interesting aspects of Matt 15 21:28. Was Jesus prejudice..? but also about the ‘other’ how we treat outsiders
• To make up for flying over England which Steve C wouldn’t approve of, and it is all his fault I’m even here I went to the workshop hope for creation. We talked about traffic and recycling, gardens and water. We pondered of why wasn’t eden enough for us. Looked at our needs and wants and learnt pigs like tofu. We need to think that the earth has abundance – cos it has, not that its lacking, which is not true.
• Then I had lunch!
Rach
PS it is now evening, but I’ll update today tomorrow!

starting and pondering

Good afternoon lovely blog readers!
Today is very black. Its not surpising to say that there are many non-white women here, but today is more black as almost everyone is also wearing black. You may or may not know that I’ve done this every Thursday for nearly 4 years now. It is really moving to see the lack of colour as we all stand in solidarity with women who struggle in violent situations. We stand against rape, domestic violence, trafficking we do this because we believe everyone should be safe and free.
This blog may come across as very random, I’m short on time, not only cos I can’t currently plug my laptop in, and the internet costs –though yesterday I sent emails, updated the blog and shared it with twitter in just 4 minutes!! But also I have a meeting in 43 minutes! Must also say it may take a day to reply to comments – as I write this online before logging on to post it. Also, don’t have time to check news, any updates appreciated... (Rob you still ok?)
For those of you who worried about my bedroom I’m only sharing with 1 other HKS (Helen Kim Scholar) so its not too bad. She is lovely and is from Hong Kong, though has been in SA for a couple of weeks with the other Methodist events!
The rest of the HKS crew are lovely, 14 girls from all over the world, really looking forward to getting to know them better and working with them this week and beyond. SO far been thinking about confidence and speaking – focus on what the listener gets out of it rather than how I’m doing. And listening for (what can I get out of this) and listening from (perspective, if i think it will be interesting I will be interested) ...
Does anyone know what the red R is on my phone when I turn it on?
Last night we had the opening ceremony that was trying to be as long as our circuit final worship – though they didn’t beat you Andrew. The singing hasn’t been great as many people don’t know the songs – difficult to do a service for so many cultures. This had led to ponderings about specialist worship – if this is for all women and its difficult, and we’ve had similar thoughts about youth worship at national events, how do we get a balance...no answers just thoughts...
There has been a lot of changes to the programme and a lot of confusion, yesterday we only found there was a HKS session cos we went to find the room at the right time, unfortunately there was only 7 of us yesterday but we are all together today, though the main programme changed to confuse us. And stuff needs to be slicker – where is affinity when you need them?!
One last pondering, church of today, church of the future... I really hope I am both, but I hope when I am defined as the now, I’m not past it. I wonder when you from being young and the future to the old and past-its...
And most importantly the food is good! Bread and butter pudding today!
Rach

made it

So here I am, I’ve made it safe to my hotel room in South Africa. Little bit confused as I’m meant to be sharing with 3 others and there is only 1 double bed! Could get cosy!
My 24 hour journey had its ups and downs – and a few shaking moments, but what really surprised me was what the bus trip from the airport to Hotel showed me, here are a few:
• A spar, toysRus and other multinational companies.
• A guy living in a tent on the grass verge between a motorway and an A road.
• Many people in jump suits working along side the road.
• Everything was in English
• If you are HIV+ you can text a number and get 5million rand compensation / insurance – about half a million pounds.
• Cities and shanty towns side by side.
• People selling fruit
• Alot of cars like mine!
• And many other things I’ve forgotten already...
To put this all in to context, I decided to fly down to London from Manchester, as I didn’t really want to go through London after the last couple of days, and suitcases on escalators are a pain at the best of time. Having flown for an hour I then had about 4 hours at Heathrow terminal 5! Before flying albeit delayed for 11 hours to Jo’burg, in which I had a choice of movies, music and could watch a map of where we were, how high we were and the temperature outside! As well as 2 cooked meals. I flew over countries struggling with famine and left a country with riots. I just hope that what I do out here will be worth the environmental impact, amongst other things.
But I’m safe, happy and have had lunch. Not sure about plugs, may have just blown a fuse in my laptop plug, so we shall see how long this lasts, but here I am, registered and raring to go. Just need to find some Helen Kim Scholars now.

Rach

yes ok I failed!

Ok then, I yet again failed to keep my blog up to date - all I can say is that its a good job I have a faith based around forgiveness and new starts!

I'm not promising to start again, but while I'm at WFMUCW's 12th World Assembly I thought this is a good a place as any to note my thoughts - especially as I can write offline and just log in to update.

Today has been a bit mad, last minute packing, ringing dr's to get a new inhaler, buying a plug to be able to use electricity in SA. and printing a tree's worth of information!

But its all good, cos tomorrow I get on my first plane in 12 years and become "well traveled" as one of my circuit stewards put it. Prayers and travelling mercies appreciated. :)

Rach