Here are some more photos, which I as yet haven't been able to post while I have been in Japan...
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
JAPAN Days 21 - 23
Day 21: Visit to see Mission Partner Sheila Norris in Nagasaki on Kyushu Island travelling again by Japan's incredible Shinkansen Bullet train, fast, efficient and reliable. Sheila & her colleague Barbara were waiting to greet me. Straight to Kwassui Gakuin Women's University together with a Junior & Senior High School on different sites across the city. Hills and steep ones at that are a feature of Nagasaki city and test the endurance of any visitor. Arrived by taxi and straight into a meeting with Head Chaplain Revd Kiyoyuki Nihei and assistant Chaplain Korean Presbyterian Minister Revd. Byung-il Cho. The chief issue which came out was the possibilities which may be around Peace Study Partnerships. I mentioned connections perhaps Kassui (which means living water) and Corrymeeela Community, Cross of Nails Reconciliation Centre of Coventry Cathedral Sabeel and also St George's College in Jerusalem as well as our newly opened Holy Land Office in Tantaur Bethlehem. A sharing time followed with two graduates. Journey back down the hill to check into my hotel and then out for dinner.
Day 22: Sight seeing day with Sheila we were on a street car by nine am and first visited the Peace Park where a ceremony for recently died atomic bomb survivors was being held. A short walk to the area which marks the epicentre of the explosion and then into the Atomic museum. As usual many school parties were visiting, hundreds of thousands of handmade origami paper cranes symbolising peace are left in this area each year. After lunch to the site of the execution of Japan's 26 Christian martyrs from the 17th century and the Museum and Roman Catholic shrine next door. A moving and emotional day stressing for me that we must keep strong in the faith and striving for the kingdom via the King of Peace.
Day 23: Traveled back to Okayama for the rest of the weekend and to prepare for Day 27 when I return to the UK, leaving behind my family and also all the new relationships that have been formed by this extended visit.
Alan Ashton -13th November 2012.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
The Zenu people of Colombia
Los Palmitos is a community of indigenous people in North East Colombia. They have been in this part of Colombia since before Christ and were alsmost wiped out by discease during the Spanish conquest of the 15th and 16th Centuries. The ancestors of the people I met had managed the marshy land so that like that of Holland, with canals it was able to be drained and grow crops and sustain them. Exploitation and violence after the Spanish conquest and since continue to deprive them of their land. These days they are exploited by business interests that have dispossed them of their land and fenced it of for cattle rearing. I met with the Zenu on the last day of my recent visit to Colombia. At first they were reticent to say anything, we had so little in common, even that I had come from the land of John and Charles Wesley did not make an impact. The whole dynamic changed when it was mentioned that I had worn a hat made by them at the olympics, this was the trigger for these quiet people to share with me the injustice of their situation. Men and women from the community shared how the The Methodist Church is the only church in their community and the means for them to tell their story to the world. The hats and other products they make are made from the women and dyed leaves of palms. They are paid £0.33 per meter and many meters of the half inch braid are needed to make the hats know throughout the world as a symbol of Colombia. What takes many days for them to produce is sold for many more times what they receive. They feel that once again they have been exploited. First the conquerors, then the settlers and today fellow Colombians and big cattle sindicates are robbing them of their lands. Their church is a traditional palm thatch structure on mud, the pastor's home is a similar two roomed structure with a bamboo screen to provide privacy alo on mud. The family sleep on one room and cook on the floor of the other. This is the same for many people in the community who also have to share their homes with other families. The Methodist Church in Britain through the World Mission Fund has been making a grant to the Methodist Church in Colombia to support the Zenu people in telling their story and claiming justice for the way that their culture is being exploited now as it has been in the past.
Tom Quenet.
Brizas del Mar "Sea Breezes"
Brizas del Mar is a community of Afro Caribbean settlers on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. They are all Methodists, because the Methodist Church is the only one in the community of about 1600 people. The Methodist Church started its work here because no other church is present in the community, something that Methodist in Colombia look at before establishing a new church. It is over an hour by motorbike from the main road. This was my second visit to this community, the first had been with a friend from the USA whose brother worked for UMCOR. The community was proud to share with me its latest achievement possible through international partnerships. The building of a Clinic named after the Clinton Rabb, one of the people killed at the Hotel Montana, during the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti, and brother of the man that had accompanied me on the first visit. The last time we visited the community we had helped to secure a good water supply for the community. During this visit, I saw the excellent clinic that has been built. Four full time workers (Doctor, Pharmacist, nurse and health promotor) provide free health care in the clinic and the community. Bishop Juan Alberto Cardona, insists that people should not pay a cent for the care they receive. The communy has been displaced by waring partie, they have been pushed of their land by large companies exploiting the land to grow palm oil and have to live in small mud huts with three or four
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Round table
Today we assemble at a round table as international partners of the Amity Foundation. We are looking at the situation for NGOs in China with the help of a university professor - a fascinating insight into the way government is slowly beginning to address social development and not exclusively economic progress, but still prioritising social stability. The GS of Amity (left in photo) will then talk about the programmes and opportunities (everything from village clinics to preachers' bikes) and partners will look at how we can respond. Steve on Friday
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
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