|
In this issue:
Archive: |
Fusion Caribbean Update August 2009Welcome to another update of the work of Fusion in the Caribbean. We hope this keeps you informed about what has been happening here, and gives you a glimpse of the people who have been willing to step out of their comfort zones for the sake of others, so that you can both be conscious of them in your prayers and encouraged by their stories. Our Young People
It is the summer holidays now so we don’t have our school lunchtime programme every week at Operation Restoration, but the last day we did (in June) was a good ending to the year with lots of the young people letting us know how much they appreciated the way the programme helps them relate to one another and have a positive focus for their lunchtime – it was a real encouragement to our team. Foundations
Yard FlexxWe also run “Yard Flexx” (a young Christian discipleship programme each week) which Tim Britten, a 19 year old volunteer from the UK who has been here for 6 months, has been heading up for the last few months. It is the first time he has led something like this, but has done a great job at putting in place a more firm structure that really caters for growth and fellowship in the young people’s walk as they are discovering more of their faith. We now have so many young people coming into this groups through the contact on Day Trips that we need to find a larger venue, but what has also been encouraging is to see young leaders coming through to help sustain and continue growing this programme. One of the reasons that the programmes have been growing is that we have also been helping with some of our activities at a Youth Group run in conjunction with a community policing initiative in a very marginalised community within Trench Town. It has been a privilege to assist these faithful people who are doing what they can for the young people of their community and has introduced the young people from the group to some of the other Fusion programmes as a result. Working in Local CommunitiesOne of the keys to our work is listening to the people within the communities we are working, to have an accurate sense of the needs and also be aware of others who are working and providing services as well. So amongst all the other things that have been keeping the team busy, we have been entering all the data collected from community surveys in the earlier months of the year. This is exciting as it means we now move on to seeing what the surveys revealed as well as looking up statistics from other research on the community and a few more interviews before we finalise a document and can release it to all the agencies working in the community. We also set up more regular times of contact (called Action Cells) in Trench Town and Central Village, to give people fellowship in working out how to best reach their region. There has been a very positive response so we are now working to set these up over the coming months in Marverley, Majesty Gardens and Montego Bay as well. At one of the Action Cell meetings one of the volunteers in Central Village remarked on how refreshing it was just to come together with other people in her community and share what was going on in life. It was a helpful reminder that we can sometimes get so focused on a busy schedule that we forget to make deliberate times to interrupt that just for the sake of listening to each other.
This reminds us just how much we still need to do to encourage parents to spend time with their children, but having started and being able to show photographs and tell the story of the day, we are hoping to get more parents to the next one in October. Another practical way we have been able to build relationships with the children and their families is by seeking sponsorship to help them covering some of the costs of school books for the coming school year. We initially hoped to support 6 families with this, but having sent out an appeal to some of our networks, we received more funds for this than we had anticipated, so we have been able to support 11 families so far, which has been received with a very warm response as parents have received some support at a very challenging time of year. Seeing the bigger pictureWe can neglect this one too often, but when we are at our best it is an intentional part of our work and one that’s value can scarcely be measured. The varied individuals, communities and circumstances we work with all draw together around a common meaning if we make space from those involved to tune in enough to see it.
What resonated so deeply with the rest of us as she said this was not just the words, but the knowledge of how much she had to manage in her daily life, as a parent surviving in Jamaica’s harsh economy, working hard when work is available, working hard to find work the rest of the time, living in a volatile community is currently in another spate of violence and managing various health problems along the way … and yet when she said it there was such a courage and unshakeable depth to the assurance that she was making a difference. The goals identified on this retreat have helped us be more clear in our invitations to others to share in working towards them, and as a result new volunteers from some local churches have begun to offer their time, a group of business men has paid the fees for Fusion to get Charitable Status (which is still being processed) and it contributed to the costs of the recent Daytrips. Team News Charmaine Rowe, who has been working with us as a volunteer ever since Fusion started in Jamaica, decided that for the summer months (she is a teacher’s assistant so has those months off work) she would come on full time with us. She took on the coordination of the first ever Fusion Family Day Trip (described earlier), has been taking the Kids Club to new levels, helped as part of the training team for Foundations and has provided that much needed female touch to the Fusion office which is looking tidier than ever before!!
To Pray ForPlease pray for finances for our team as well as for the work itself. It has been a very tight time financially for all of us so we would appreciate your continued prayer.
Thanks again for being with us on this journey. Much love from us all. Fusion Caribbean Team The Fusion Caribbean Team
Information and supportIf you would like to receive information about how you can support the work of Fusion Caribbean either in prayer, by lending a hand, by telling others about us or financially then please contact us. Tel: + 1876 296 6801 7 Swallowfield Close, Kingston 5, Jamaica, West Indies. |
See more photos |
This page
is managed by Kyrios
Design on behalf of Fusion Caribbean. To sign up to the email newsletter, please subscribe here. |
||
On the three Daytrips since our last update (action-packed days taking young people out of their home community and putting them together as teams to take on various challenges) we have seen growth in numbers, both with more young people and more leaders. 
The MC at one of these Trips was “Shaboo” a 17 year old volunteer who has been coming as a Day Trip participant over several years and has now joined the team to help with almost all the programmes that we run.It has been wonderful to see him invest himself in helping other young people, and especially to see him taking on new responsibilities that he didn’t think he could do, and with mentoring and support doing it well (to his own surprise). 
One of our team members noted last week that each of these day trips has included both volunteers and young people from five different inner city communities all working together, which is special because that level of interaction and exposure to other people and other environments doesn’t happen for people who live in these communities very often.
In July we held a “Foundations” course over 2 weeks at the same school, with volunteers who have been helping other Fusion programmes as well as all the school staff. It was so good for some of our longer term volunteers to get the chance to do the course at last, and the staff all loved the material and the chance to become more of a family as they went through the experience of the course together – many of them saying how much more they got to know each other even though they had been working in the school together for several years. At the end of one day, when every single unit had gone over the allotted time because of the enthusiastic discussion that it had provoked, David said from the front that they had done very well to be able to focus for so long and one of them replied – “But we are not tired, we are energized – this stuff is just so practical for our lives we don’t want the units to finish!” Another lady remarked on how much it had changed the way she was relating to her family, and that she was already seeing improvements in the way they were relating to one another by the second week of the course. The same lady reported back a month later that doing the course had changed her family’s life, something her husband approached David to tell him as well independently of her. One other quote from a young man doing the course was; “I have become more of my true self, and I am now ready to give myself completely to God and helping people in my community.”
One of the targets of our work with children is to create positive time for them to interact with their parents and other adults, and in strengthening our existing Kids Club we began planning our first Family Day Trip in August. It was a very high energy and fun day, the biggest sadness being that only 7 parents attended (with 54 people on the day altogether) but with many other volunteers we still had a good ratio of adults to children, which meant all the teams worked well together and looked after each other, one volunteer describing it as “the best Day Trip EVER!”
As part of doing this we had an unforgettable team retreat in the Blue Mountains, at a botanical gardens 5,000 ft above sea level, with the team wrapped in towels and jackets to keep us warm! However it was not so much the setting that made it so special, but the opportunity to stop and hear from each other as we looked at the core themes of our work and our goals. We came away with a much sharper sense of the core of what we are working towards, as well as specific goals for the different aspects of the work. One quote from this time in the mountains was from one of the volunteers from Central Village: “Doing this work just gives me hope. It is hard and asks a lot of me, and sometimes I feel like giving up, but when I see the difference in the young people, when I see them going in a positive direction, I know we are not labouring in vain. We can make a difference in Jamaica, we are making a difference.” 
Kevon (one of the local full time youth workers) went to Canada for some training, and after returning to Jamaica accepted and invitation to go to South Africa as part of the team preparing for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, where he will be till December. Rubie, one of our volunteers from Australia who came out for three months has gone home after having taken the work forwards a lot, particularly preparing for a young mothers group to start in Trench Town. Tim Britten, from the UK, will also head home this month after 6 months here and growing significantly as a contributor and a young leader – the local team will very much miss his friendship.