the slave tree – action trick 3

I have mentioned Freedom Day before. Recently, anticipating that this day to mark the end of slavery is just around the corner (25th March), we went in search for the famous slave tree in Ndola town and a local history lesson.

Swahili slave-traders used to frequent the area around the tree – meeting under the shade of the tree to sell and trade their slaves. Today it is in an almost forgotten part of town and in a decaying state, but I felt it had a story to tell. I took some photographs and walked up and down the quiet street – and decided to make a short film about it’s story.

I purposefully didn’t use images of people but rather focussed on the environment and local history to get across the complex reality of the area today. It is far from being a great video (it is my first effort at this sort of thing) but I liked the creative process more than anything. I am making it action trick 3 – to mark the importance of getting creative and using the local environment and history to get active. You are welcome to use the film if you like – use the above player or at YouTube (if you want to download it you can for free by using keepvid.com and then use VLC media player to play it).

The Secret Message of Jesus

We mentioned The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren whilst in the UK but until now haven’t had the chance to actually explain much about it. Brian McLaren is a church leader who has written a number of books and is a significant voice in the EmergingChurch movement, particularly in the USA. In The Secret Message of Jesus he looks at Jesus’ message afresh – asking whether the church has misunderstood, or distorted, his message.

“what if Christians were (un)willing to consider the possibility that they have more to learn (and unlearn) about the message of Jesus?” – Brian McLaren

The book examines the historical Jesus, trying to understand his message in the culture of the time. It covers similar ground seen in N T Wright’s academic works, and also explores similar issues found in Colossians Remixed, which we’ve mentioned before. The Secret Message of Jesus probably doesn’t say much more than others have said, but it says it in a very accessible and easy to read way. McLaren takes in the political, subversive and secretive nature and language of Jesus, and explores what it means to be a member of the Kingdom of God (both at the time and here and now) that Jesus talks about. It is well worth a read.

One of the things that really stood out for me was exploring the language of Jesus and why he spoke in parables – Why did Jesus speak in parables, why was he subtle, indirect and secretive?…..

“Because his message wasn’t merely aimed at conveying information. It sought to precipitate something more important: the spiritual transformation of the hearers. The form of a parable helps to help to shape a heart that is willing to enter an ongoing interactive; persistent relationship of trust in the teacher. It beckons the hearer to explore new territory. It helps form a heart that is humble enough to admit it doesn’t already understand and is thirsty enough to ask questions. In other words, a parable renders its hearers not as experts, not as know-it-alls, not as scholars… but as children.” – Brian McLaren

Making the web work for you

Our lives are often enslaved by time – busyness rules… so how do we find the time to keep up-to-date with everything. The internet for one can capture you and swallow hours without you even noticing it, or the thought of wasting time surfing puts you off looking in the first place.

You may already be aware, but just in case you are not, help is at hand… it is basically this little orange button , also known as RSS or Atom feeds. This is a ’site feed’ that you can subscribe to. For example, our blog offers you the chance to subscribe to the site feed by email (but most sites don’t) or through using a News Reader or Aggregator. Once you subscribe to the feed, when the site gets updated it automatically sends the update to you – releasing you from having to go to each website that interests you for the latest update.

The rains keep coming

You’ve probably heard about the flooding in Mozambique, we are also having severe problems caused by the same rains and rivers. At Jubilee Centre we have estimated that there are probably around 200,000 displaced people in the country at the moment – yet for some reason it isn’t mentioned in the media locally or internationally. In one of the townships we work in around 200 of the mud brick houses have collapsed, meaning over 1,000 people are homeless. There is no drainage so nowhere for the water to go, and no foundations to hold the houses up.

Yesterday I spent the day meeting with a group of women and visiting the long-term sick, but by the time we came to leave, the road had been washed away. My colleague, Martha was bravely driving but we skidded and got stuck. I managed to work out how to put our decrepit vehicle in four wheel drive and drove praying that we wouldn’t slip into the deep gullies that had appeared. Meanwhile Martha was helpfully shouting ‘left a bit, right a bit’ from outside the vehicle! My heart was pounding so hard when we reached a bit that looked impossible to me, but everyone just said to give it some welly – people pay good money to do this sort of thing at home! But we managed and it certainly gives you a sense of achievement. I didn’t stop to take a photo of the non existent road – but we have uploaded a few photo’s of the day into our Community Faces photo set on our Flickr pages.