Fusion Caribbean Update March 2010

Well last year we kept meaning to send out fairly full updates to keep you in touch with the what has been happening in the life of Fusion in the Caribbean… but our intentions always got shelved as we never made the time to do it! So we are going to use a different approach of shorter and more regular contact, because ultimately everything we do depends on people praying for us. So I hope you enjoy the read and invite you to take a few minutes to remember our prayer points at the end.

It is a busy time as we keep regular weekly programmes going as well as prepare for Easter Festivals, a “Fusion Americas” Conference in April and also work towards sending some people to work with Fusion in South Africa this June to use the Soccer World Cup for community building Festivals.

At the same time, day to day life is very full, and Tuesday of this week is a classic example of a day that was full of both ups and downs and was such a reminder to me of what this work is all about. It started with me going to pick up Kevon, Patrick and Shaboo (some of our youth and community workers) from Majesty Gardens for a training day that day. When I arrived at Kevon’s pathway, a dusty street with zinc fences along each side, it had been sectioned off with police caution tape, and there were three police vehicles and several heavily armed officers. It turns out that not long before a young guy who survived by ‘hustling’ on the streets had been killed not far from Kevon’s front gate, and what was most saddening to me is that one of the perpetrators was a young man who used to come to our basketball programme and had even been on one of our Day Trips. Saddening because it is always painful when people we have related to and tried to help turn away to destructive choices. Not only that but Kevon’s house had
been broken into and ransacked the night before while he was out at church and his neighbour had just been rushed to hospital so there was nobody there to protect the place. Thankfully nothing was missing. In spite of this start to the day we went along to our training day as planned, and it was one of those moments when things in our training suddenly ‘click’ into place at a far deeper level of awareness for our small team. So within hours of such a painful reminder of the challenges we face it was so encouraging to see our small team, including four young men from the same community who could all have taken a similar destructive path, instead encouraging each other to press on in not only making better choices, but in giving their lives to help other young people find a better set of bearings for their lives.

I was reminded today that it is now two full years since we had any consistent and regular funding for our work, yet in that time the output has become so much more consistent and effective, the full time team has grown by over 400% (in numbers) not to mention the remarkable personal growth of many of these
people as well as other volunteers. We have even been able to make contributions to similar work in several other nations through both programmes developed here (like our Kids Club) and by sending our team members to serve. We have achieved Charitable status in Jamaica, a step that now makes us
eligible for local funding and grants, but one that has taken us 3 years of hard work to achieve. And as these other things come together, one of our long-time volunteers – Dorma – has applied to come on as full time team, bringing her skills in accounting and asking if she could help by bringing our book keeping
up to scratch … with most of the rest of our team from Jamaica’s inner city … could she ever?! What reminders of God’s faithfulness.

At the same time there are areas that have stretched our capacity to trust this faithfulness!! We still owe some months of rent on our office, and in the last five months it has become increasingly dysfunctional as a place to work. First a fire took down the phone line so we had no phone or internet, followed by the
property managers having electricity cut off on the entire compound that our office is on for years of nonpayment, followed by a drought so we no longer have running water … and finally followed by an infestation of rats. We are praying to find a new office to move into next month!!

We were joking in the week about what would be the best title for this update, and one suggestion was; “Help make ‘Together with Rat’ back in to ‘Together with Hope’!”

Other challenges include our level of financial support for the team also being very low, so each one of us has at different times found that very challenging both in terms of making it by, but also at times internally as well. In the face of these challenges, celebrating the positives has been important, but
above all realising once again how critical it is to “set your eyes” internally on he who never changes.

Recently on a team retreat we looked at Steven Covey’s teaching about being proactive and working within the things that we can influence, rather than spending our energy on concerns that we cannot influence (which, if we fall into that trap, causes our influence to diminish and leads to increasing powerlessness). It struck a deep chord and there has been a lot of banter among the team about being ‘proactive’ or ‘reactive’ since – but more than that, some choices about doing things differently, and clearly identifying the most critical things to invest in over the next 3 years. During the coming 3 years Jamaica will have her 50th birthday (in August 2012), so we are positioning ourselves to
make the most of that opportunity to build trust and cohesion in local communities. A massive challenge we know, but they are things we have consistently seen being enhanced in communities as people who
want to be part of God’s solution have worked together to intervene in their communities life. So now the work is to make those practical steps and the necessary training and support more available to others.

So it is an exciting and yet still demanding time for the team here, please continue to pray for us. We would love your prayer for the following things:

• Working out who to send to South Africa for the Soccer World Cup Festivals, and the fundraising that needs to take place to get them there.
• A new Youth Drop In centre to open in April in Trench Town, (please pray as we look for games, and things like a ping pong table, chess & drafts boards etc. etc.)
• Our 8 week “Yard Flexx” (biblically based youth discussion time) programme as we run a pilot of the new curriculum and put a participants manual together.
• A NEW OFFICE!!!
• Increased financial support particularly for the team, and as we begin looking for grants.
• The 12 week “Foundations” course that has just started, with a number of participants who are wanting to get more involved with our work.
• One of our team (I will use the name “Mary”) whose family has had a string of very difficult challenges to face.
• Majesty Gardens community, where there has been a lot of violence lately, but also where we have just committed to a 3 year process of regular festivals 3 times a year and will be holding a summer Kids Club.
• The New Generation “Trust Camp” from March 29th to April 1st that takes young people from a school in Trench Town that we work with for an experiential learning camp about trust. Fusion partners with them in delivering the camp.
• Marverley community as we do 3 days of Festivals at the end of April, and use it to launch a new Kids Club there.
• Robert Dixon and his wife Diedre (Robert is assistant Team Leader) who are having a baby in September. There are some health challenges with the pregnancy so Diedre is managing some pain.
• Patrick (one of our full time staff) as he applies for his US Visa to prepare to go to South Africa in June.
• Dorma Forsythe as she takes on a full time role with us helping to set up our accounts.

Thanks again for being with us on this journey. Much love from us all.

David and the rest of the Fusion Caribbean Team

The Fusion Caribbean Team

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

- Mother Teresa

Information and support

If 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

david.campbell@fusion.org.au

7 Swallowfield Close, Kingston 5, Jamaica, West Indies.