share the journey

Our friend Frances Bryant is an inspiration. She has a deep commitment to her faith; to its implications for the world’s injustices; and to living a life of joy and thankfulness that makes a difference. To her, it’s important that her two sons – Joe (8.5) and Daniel (6.5) – also grow up to understand how they can make a difference.

In part 1 of this guest blog, she told us just why she cares so much and explained the impact a Mum can have from her own experiences growing up. In this second installment, she shares various things that her and her husband Mark are trying to do to ensure that loving God, and pursuing justice, again gets passed to the next generation.

“Last time I wrote about the impact my Mum had on developing my faith and heart for justice, and how I hope to pass this on to my boys. Mark and I don’t have all the answers, but we’re trying to teach our boys to love God, love others, and be eager to make a difference when they see an injustice or need.

“We try to do this in our lifestyles, and considering how our consumer choices affect the world’s poorest communities and our use of resources could help those closer to home. I’d like to say it’s all very well thought through and strategic… but in reality there’s a lot more we could do.

“At the moment we try to be as green as we can – shop locally, compost, avoid flying and be careful who we bank with. But we hope to grow in this and live more simply. Wanting to walk to work and school informed our house-buying too, and means that we don’t use the car too often.

“We don’t involve the boys in our decision-making on these issues, but they definitely pick up on it. In town recently Joe asked me “which is the greediest bank out of all of these?” I was quite surprised, and asked him what had given him the idea that banks were greedy? He said, “you and Daddy told us, and that’s why we bank with Co-op”.

“When they pick up on things like this, I can explain them on a simple level, so I was able to say that we have a choice over who we bank with, and that we try to find the ones that are the least greedy – though of course I can’t explain everything about foreign investments and their impact on poor communities!

“I once heard someone say that the moment a child can post a penny into a box is when you can start talking about the fact our money is not just for us.

“Until the age of seven, children learn by imitation, so what they see you do in their early years has a huge effect. And then when they’re six or seven, you can start talking about things.

“Fair Trade has been a brilliant way in – eating and talking about chocolate is always popular! We find out about the producers on the packets and these provide the boys with a link with someone somewhere else – as well as making a difference.

“Recycling is good too – in fact they’re very good police generally! Children are quick to notice when you’re not consistent. Daniel recently pulled me up for not turning the tap off when cleaning my teeth. It turned out I was just leaving it on a bit too long at the end, but this prompted a delighted “I’ll show you how to do it mummy!” and step by step instructions. He loved it! And of course we saved some water.

“Thankfulness and fun must be central. There’s no point chucking all the good things God’s given us back at him – but that’s not the same as hoarding them for ourselves. It’s important that the boys have a good time – but also that they share. So we’ve tried to cultivate an open house which means lots of other people playing with their toys. Lego models get broken and that’s hard, but it establishes the value – people are more important than things.

“Different children respond to different things –and it’s good to go with what catches their unique imaginations. With Joe and Daniel, one of the things that really fascinated them was The Bible Society’s appeal for printing bibles in China. The envelope included two pages of the Chinese bible. When they were able to see that God’s word was being produced at a rate of knots for people far away in a language they couldn’t understand, they were amazed and excited that all these people were becoming Jesus’ friends too!

“One of their favourite things of all was when I took part in Live below the Line earlier this year – a fundraising event where you get sponsored to live on just £5 for 5 days in solidarity with the 1.4 billion people in the world living on less than $1.30 a day. They found it hilarious that I had to eat boring, plain lentils and they could have whatever they wanted! So they asked a lot about that…

“At their age, modelling things to them, and involving them directly, are equally important. Recently our church (St Mark’s, Harrogate) did fundraising for the Eden network. The boys loved washing cars – especially with the much cooler teenagers! Suddenly, they were coming up with other fundraising initiatives to organise themselves…

“We’re feeling our way with it all – and learning as we go! We don’t have specific plans about how we’ll develop these issues with the boys as they get older. But Mark and I have had the benefit of working with youth groups so we know things like Live below the Line, or having a slightly older role model coming to speak, are especially effective.

“But we’re trying to just do what we can with them now.

“Every night we prioritise reading the Bible with them – even if we miss out other things. Again, they want us to make that a priority too and so there’s an expectation now that I will sit on landing with my Bible too. This helps our focus move outward naturally. They can’t not notice the call to love others because the Bible is full of it!

“(There are some really good Bible notes for kids which help them read scripture itself and really grasp its messages. Scripture Union’s Tiddly Winks for pre-schoolers, and Snapshots for 7-9s have been great. Now we’re using CWR’s TOPZ which is also brilliant.)

“Sometimes we pray together for particular needs, and we do always try to pray before meals, with other families, before bed, and before long journeys, or meeting up with grandparents.  It’s a bit of a token gesture at the moment, but I’d love it to become integral. We all have to start somewhere!

Here are five easy things to get stuck into whether you have kids or not:

1. I promise I haven’t been paid to say this, but one of my top tips would be to visit the Sanctuary’s website!

2. Perhaps get a calendar from Christian Aid, the New Internationalist, or anywhere which opens up the places and the issues to you and your family through pictures and short snippets info.

3. TV programmes work well for sparking interest too –Blue Peter has been great starting point for talking about stuff with the boys because they’re like sponges for facts.

4. Fair trade products are a brilliant way in as I said before!

5. Put up a notice board in the kitchen with photos of people – that’s something that’s worked for us in praying for our God children every meal. But doing this blog has made me think I might put some other things up too. Perhaps the boys could take turns in choosing what we’ll pray for each day…

Lastly, relax, just do what you can, and remember it all needs to be natural, fun, and done out of thankfulness. All children know what injustice is – we don’t have to put that there. What we need to do is to help develop their wisdom  that that “unfair” feeling they know so well is what it feels like for other people who don’t have what they need, or are treated badly by others.

Our friend Frances Bryant is an inspiration. She has a deep commitment to her faith; to its implications for the world’s injustices; and to living a life of joy and thankfulness that makes a difference. To her and her husband Mark, it’s important that their sons – Joe (8.5) and Daniel (6.5) – also grow up to understand how they can make a difference. Here she tells us just why she cares so much and explains the impact a Mum can have from her own experiences as a child.

“For me, the thing that first got me fired up about poverty and injustice – especially at an international level – was my childhood and the flavour of the home I grew up in. And I want Joe and Daniel to experience the same thing.

“My Mum was (and is!) a rep for Traidcraft and there were quotes on every notice-board and memorabillia from round the world in the house.

“From an early age, I definitely knew that our way of living was as part of a privileged minority – that there was a whole massive part of the world where most of the people lived very differently – and with much less. At Christmas we had advent calendars where we put money in each day, rather than taking chocolate out – at the time I thought that was what everyone did!

“I vividly remember Christmas Eves too. Together with some other Mums and their children, we would hold a vigil for a particular charity – praying for an hour for them, and then giving to support their work. I remember it being my favourite part of Christmas. One year, we focused on Shelter, and we actually made a shelter and sat in it for the hour and I remember thinking how magical it was to be sat in there whilst people rushed around or had parties.

“Now when I think back, I see it was a pretty brave thing to do with kids. I think the secret of why it touched me so positively was two-fold. The first was that it flowed out of my mum’s own thankfulness and ability to make things fun. I loved these things – I distinctly remember never being made to feel guilty; and I didn’t feel hard done by either. We weren’t materially rich but we were comfortable. And it was an incredibly secure and loving home. We had lots of fun.

“The other is that I knew it came out of her faith. I knew she was praying every night. It was real, and it was authentic to how she lived her life. Understanding God’s grace at a fresh and deeper level has also richly blessed me and I want to pass it on too.

“I knew that we were privileged and I was thankful for that, but I also knew that there was something I could do – pray, give, get involved and make a difference. And I want Joe and Daniel to know the same thing.

“Of course it wasn’t just my upbringing… but that was the foundation that everything else was then built on. At 13 I had a long holiday in Africa and as a teenager I went to Greenbelt multiple times and really got the bug! I found it challenged me about what I really need to live through a mixture of the camping experience, the speakers, the worship and the stalls which felt like they opened my eyes to the big wide world.

“But it was my time living alongside poverty, and sharing my life with the people it affected, that had a massive impact. I spent a gap year in Uganda at 18, and then worked in South Africa with LINK when I graduated. Then, it just got into my blood and I couldn’t shake it – because you learn to love people as the friends you are sharing life with – not just as anonymous faces.

“I guess from then on I just chose to keep my eyes open. Some people actively avoid knowing what’s going on in the world but I can’t do that. I need to know – I want to help.  I know what it’s like being the stranger, the foreigner, so I look out for the stranger here.

“Whether it’s people in a totally different culture, or individuals struggling in your community, it comes down to the same thing: I know that I’m loved by God, created by him for him and that’s exactly the same for everyone I know… they are precious… obviously I do judge people and I do fall short, but underlying that is a genuine longing that I will see them as God sees them, and that I’ll somehow be able to show his love in all those relationships.

“I have memories of being so generously welcomed in Africa by people who had very little. And at the same time, a memory of one of the guys we were helping through Watford New Hope Trust giving me shoes for Joe that would have been for his kid if things had been different. Both acts of kindness were materially and emotionally sacrificial – and that just humbles me… Personal relationship, and knowing that every single person has got this incredible capacity to love and share, reignites the flame for love and justice in you.

“Amazing though it is, Christ has no hands but our hands – often we say we feel we should respond to a need – that is Jesus’ spirit prompting us to do something, talk to someone, look out for the stranger.

“In the past I’ve worked for LINK Community Development – an international charity helping to provide education to poor communities and Watford New Hope Trust – a local organisation providing services and care to people who are homeless. (And I continue to support organisations such as Christian Aid and Neema crafts in Tanzania.)

“But actually in many ways, not working in this field anymore is helpful. Before I could spend all my time doing assemblies about homelessness – you’re making a difference of course, but you’re not actually doing it – now I’m privileged because I have the time to respond to people in conversation, do something at home to raise money, or to meet the needs of those I meet.

“In a way there’s more scope now to put my worship into action – through prayer, giving, campaigning and simply walking the walk. And through passing on the values my parents gave me to my children too.”

(Look out for part two, coming soon, where Frances shares various things that her and her husband Mark are trying to do to ensure that loving God, and pursuing justice, again gets passed to the next generation.)

Our friend Steph Cooper is a Regional Coordinator for Christian Aid in Yorkshire. From 2-6 May, together with her husband Rob and daughter Sammi, she took part in The Global Poverty Project’s awareness and funds raising challenge Live Below the Line. For five days, each of them had just £1 each per day to spend on all their food. We caught up with her to see how the experience had affected them.

Steph is no stranger to statistics like the one about 1.4 billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day… but her week taking part in Live Below the Line has given her a new glimpse of the reality behind the numbers, and a new respect for the unique individuals who battle extreme poverty every day.

“I would say that I’m almost in awe of them as to how much they manage and cope with… how creative they are to find a way to support their families at all.

“I only did this for five days and only with my food – everything else was the same. I still had shelter, and petrol in the car. But families living in poverty have to pay for everything from this tiny amount – and they have to work so hard to earn it – many of them have even less than this, and it’s not even a secure income.

“I took part because I wanted, in some small way, to experience what it might be like. It’s so easy to trot out the statistics, even to become quite blaze about it; it’s easy to lump 1.4 billion people together. But they are all unique individuals with their own thoughts and feelings.

“Even this small reflection of their experience was very hard. Some of the most difficult things were:

1. going to the supermarket because we could hardly afford anything. We got the cheapest stuff possible – the basic range – which was not at all healthy. We really did have to scour the shop for things we could afford – it was depressing.

2. the first day, which was Bank Holiday Monday, we had an event at church (Haxby Methodist), and then family over later in the afternoon. People kept offering us cakes at church and then at home, we had to serve nice food to our family, but couldn’t eat any of it ourselves.

3. health and energy levels. On the Tuesday I felt very irritable, and throughout the week I was craving fruit and vegetables. Rob had to stop a squash game halfway through because he didn’t have enough energy to keep going.

“This was unsurprising really, with just £15 for the five days between the three of us our options were limited, and our portions small – breakfast was porridge made with water and a teaspoon of value jam; lunch was cheap sliced bread with a scraping of spread, or maybe a cheap cuppa soup and dinner was usually pasta with not a lot, sometimes baked beans or tinned tomatoes.

“But really these practical issues were secondary to the sense of disempowerment we felt. We couldn’t participate in things. If someone invited us for a coffee or a drink we had to say no, because our budget didn’t extend to that.

“However, there were some positive things about it. As a family, we talked more, and it led to conversations with all sorts of people in surprising settings.

“I also found it amazing how quickly our bodies adapted. By the end of the week it was easier – we had got used to smaller portions, and were just craving the fruit and vegetables we really needed rather than treats.

“I’m not unrealistic enough to think we will change everything about our shopping, or not to realise that in a few weeks time we are likely to drift a bit. But it has really made us think again about how much we need, and how much we spend.

“Because the memory of an experience like this does stay with you.

“Christian Aid has a vision of Poverty over – we say regularly that poverty is a scandal – experiencing it in some small way showed me again just how much of a scandal it is. And how everything we do to help – especially through our praying, campaigning and giving in Christian Aid Week next week (15-21 May) and the amazing work of our partners on the ground all year round – can encourage and help people.

“The lectionary readings since Easter have all been about hope and life. Again, it’s brought home to me, how can we say we love God, and then do nothing to help our brothers and sisters?”

Our thanks to Steph Cooper for sharing her experiences. Today, let’s pray for the 1.4 billion people living below the line – for real. (See our Living below the line prayer, and other intercessions for poor communities, in our recently updated written prayers – intercessions responding to global poverty issues.)