The gift of giving

I’m currently reading a great book on fundraising by Jeff Brooks. I am honestly so grateful to have come across this gem. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in getting people on board to support a cause. In addition to learning lots of evidence-based techniques, fundraising strategies, and ways that donors think, I am also growing in passion about fundraising and the power it has to change the world.

It has taken me a while to come around to this way of thinking. Often I get frustrated with working in the charity sector and raising money. My doubts and frustrations are mainly centred around human nature and the reasons why we give. The self-centred motivations we all have, and how much we fall short.

But Jeff Brooks writes so passionately about the power of fundraising. He is so proud to be a fundraiser. In reading his words, I think I feel proud to be a fundraiser too. Jeff Brooks makes me believe that fundraising, when channelled correctly and with integrity, can be a real force for good. It can make a difference.

I want to share an excerpt from the last chapter of the book. Reading it made me think hard about the gift of giving. Jeff Brooks writes about the painful deterioration of his mother due to Parkinson’s. He writes about her horrible delusions, physical suffering and death.

“It’s over now. I’m thankful Mom no longer struggles in a ruined body and a darkened mind.

Yet it’s not over. My heart still aches over the torment she suffered. I wish I’d spent more time with her. I regret that I wasn’t with her the night her life finally floated away like a wisp of smoke. 

But there’s a way I can strike back at Parkinson’s disease. I can defy it - give it the finger - take back some of what it stole.

I can give to a nonprofit organisation. They’ll take my money, even a small amount, and fight Parkinson’s disease. They’ll help people who have it now. They’ll fund research into better treatments. And maybe, someday, they’ll find a cure - so Parkinson’s can never take anyone else down that terrible road.

All it takes for me to move from defeat to victory is to give away some money. It’s so easy. […]

Giving can’t bring her back or erase the pain, but it reorients me. I’m less a victim, more in control. Wiser, and less wounded.

My brush with Parkinson’s disease isn’t special or unusual. Everyone faces these things. You’re in the same boat; if it hasn’t happened yet, you or someone else to you will eventually fall under an attack of some kind, swift or slow, fatal or not. You’ll take wounds so deep you’ll wonder if you can survive.

But anyone can embrace the miracle of giving. It can ease your grief, revive your hope, and give you strength to face affliction, wrath, danger and distress.

It’s available whether you’re wise or foolish, educated or ignorant, rich or poor, believer or nonbeliever. Giving is a light in the darkness, a life vest in a storm, a song among tombs.” 

Jeff Brooks is right. Giving is a gift and a miracle. It ignites the soul. It can get us through the darkest of nights. It brings healing to both the giver and the receiver.

Dave and I have been looking into the gift of giving as a married couple. As a couple we want to be generous givers. We want to pour ourselves and what we have out as a balm into the wounds of the world.  We want to bless people and projects with the resources we can offer. We feel blessed to be able to give. And so Jeff Brook’s words really resonate with me. Giving can be “a song among tombs”, a way to cling to the hope that you can make a difference in this crazy world, that you can overcome personal and public tragedies with a small act of kindness. It can be a way to "give the finger" to all the things that are so desperately wrong, that feel out of control and unstoppable. It can be a life vest in the storm of life’s sufferings.

Maybe I am ashamed of giving and asking people to give. But giving is a gift to be celebrated. We are so small and flawed and fragile. But our gifts can accomplish great things. Giving can make the world better.

Thank you, Jeff Brooks, for showing me that.

Why do we put up with this?

So the Chancellor's new budget has come out and it's all the rage. Rage being the key word here for me.

I think I have just about reached the limits of my patience with the government, politicians and politics. Listening to coverage of the budget on the radio and reading the Chancellor's speech, I just want to ask one question:

Why do we put up with this?

I am not an economist. Sadly, numbers and budgets are not my strength. So I won't go into detail on my opinions about specific policies - you might as well go talk to a random passerby, who would probably have a deeper grasp of financial terms than I do!

What I do want to talk about is ideology and rhetoric. Because I think it's about time. I've just about had enough of this rubbish.

STRIVERS VS. SKIVERS

In his speech,  George Osborne talks about the Aspiration Nation. "Mr Deputy Speaker," he opens. "This is a budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on."

He goes on.

"For years people have felt that the whole system was tilted against those who did the right thing: who worked, who saved, who aspired. These are the very people we must support if Britain is to have a prosperous future. This is a budget for those who aspire to own their own home; who aspire to get their first job; or start their own business. A budget for those who want to save for their retirement and provide for their children. It is a budget for our Aspiration Nation."

At this point I started yelling at the radio. Not an altogether healthy or contained response, I know. But this makes me so angry. I find it so insulting, so deeply offensive, and so unjust.

The reason why I hate this rhetoric is because of its underlying, not even subtle ideology. The belief is that the nation is made of two groups of people: the wonderful and blameless strivers, those who "work hard and just want to get on", those hardworking families who are finding it harder to get by, and the evil, benefit-scrounging skivers, who sit on their asses, leech off the government, annoy others by being "nightmare neighbours", and drain masses out of our economy.

There we go, ladies and gentlemen. Are you a striver or a skiver? You're either one or the other.

Apparently, if you're a striver, you have dreams. You aspire and work hard towards your goals. Britain wants you and only you, and you're the key to our prosperity.

If you're not though, if you're a skiver, you have no dreams. No aspirations. You don't just want to get on. You have no desires in life to buy a house and protect your children, to have stability and retire in safety and comfort. No, you don't have these desires,  because you're some kind of evil underling underclass who cares about nothing but leeching and taking drugs and mindlessly wasting good taxpayer money.

I hope you read that and saw it as the absurd farce that it is. If not, I'd recommend reading this post, "Lies we tell ourselves", which exposes the myths that we have about poverty and the poor in this country - including this view of skivers. There is no proof for this ideology- in fact, evidence often points the other way. So not only is it insulting and unjust, it's also a lie.

I hate - and for me hate is not too strong a word - this rhetoric and ideology that the government shovels to us day after day. By using ridiculous self-fulfilling phrases like "For years people have felt" or "We have all known for some time", they would have us believe, like soulless automatons, patently untrue and unverified/unverifiable crap of epic proportions.

What got me when I heard George Osborne's words is that everyone has aspirations and dreams. Everyone wants to have a livelihood, to be safe and stable and be able to provide for their children. Everyone wants to have that happy life. But for some people, living in poverty amidst violence, abuse, and generational cultural problems, those aspirations and dreams are knocked out of them very early on. Poverty is an accident of birth - you don't choose to be born into a poor deprived area, where everything will be stacked against your chances of living free of drugs, gangs or poverty. Who chooses that?

But no, let's not look deeper into the reasons why people are claiming benefits or living in poverty. Let's just demonise them in one fell swoop and take away everything that gives them a chance at long term survival. Let's lump them all into an insanely tasteless and baseless group and proceed to heap public scorn and mistrust on them.

That's what your role as a government is, right?

THE WORST PARTS OF US

I can't explain to you how disappointed I am by politics and politicians. Every day I wonder whether there'll be someone and something new, something that will show politics can have a heart, can be righteous, can be defending the poor and vulnerable and perpetuating justice instead of injustice. That politics can have integrity. 

I am sad and angry when I look at our politics. Britain is one of the world's most developed democracies but this is still happening. It's devastating. What I see is a government that lacks moral responsibility. A government that lacks a deeper interest in truth and justice beyond what garners positive public opinion and election points. What would politics be like without elections I wonder? Would politicians still act amorally? Probably. People only want power and forget the poor.

I hate the way that politics and politicians seem to appeal so much to the worst parts of us. The parts of us that look down on others and judge.  The parts that need someone to blame for our problems. Labour for our financial situation. Foreigners for taking jobs. Skivers for draining our taxes. The list goes on. But no one wants to say: it's our fault for allowing this system to go on. Or: it's no one's fault. It's just the way life is.

Instead, the government and opposition pander to public opinion. No one will say things that are true but won't win an election. Even Ed Milliband has to appeal to the right, cracking down on immigrants and welfare. No one wants to tell the truth if it means votes will be lost. This seems to me to be a really dangerous place for us to be.

So the Tories pander to the rich, slashing welfare costs that further cripple the disabled but allow millionaires to get tax cuts. They help home buyers to put down mortgages but don't invest in social housing. They take 1p off every pint of beer while binge drinking and alcoholism reach alarming rates.

Insulting, isn't it?

WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH THIS?

Why do we let this rhetoric and ideology go unquestioned?

All over the media, people are questioning and nitpicking new government policies. But we let the rhetoric and ideology slide. Rarely do people challenge these assumptions. Why?

We need to challenge the injustice and untruth politicians are trying to spread in an attempt to justify their policies and secure votes. We need to denounce these stereotypes. They are not true. They set up false distinctions between people which ultimately won't achieve anything good.

We need not to put up with any of this anymore.

Life, comedy and tragedy

One of the most moving and realistic depictions of life that I've found is a TV show called 'Derek'. The setting is a residential care home for the elderly. The protagonist is the most loving, caring and genuine person it's possible to imagine. Surrounding him is a crew of imperfect saints. The community in 'Derek' is my idea of church as it should be. If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend it. 

This show has made me laugh hard and cry hard. It is seamless in the way it shows the ups and downs of life. Dave told me that apparently Ricky Gervais, the creator of the show, was asked by a fan whether he would class 'Derek' as a comedy or drama. Ricky Gervais responded that those categories were fairly arbitrary. If depends on your point of view, he said. If you see life as funny, 'Derek' is a comedy. If you see life as sad, 'Derek' is a drama.

I've been thinking about comedy and tragedy, and how closely linked they can be. I remember seeing some interviews with famous British comedians on this topic a few years back. Many of them expressed that for them there was a fine line between hilarity and depression, humour and sadness. Many of them said that they saw the sadness and tragedy of life, and they generated their comedy by using humour and satire to view and critique the world. You see this interweaving of comedy and tragedy all over the British comedy. Think Bill Bailey. Think the angry irony of Jack Dee and Charlie Brooker. And obviously, there's Ricky Gervais with 'Extras' and 'The Office'. Comedy and tragedy can be two sides of the same coin.

I recently discovered a hilarious, despairingly nihilistic American comedian called Doug Stanhope. I love this guy. I think he really hits the nail on the head, exposing the facile superficiality of our cuilture and the moral bankruptcy of our media. Granted, he is deeply nihilistic and vitriolic on almost every front, including faith - and obviously I don't agree with him that there is no purpose or meaning behind anything. He is also pretty rude and offensive about almost everything and everyone, which is unfortunate. But I think Stanhope is brilliant at showing us the stark, awful logical end point of our vacuous modern world. (This is one of my favourite Doug Stanhope rants; if you don't like swearing though, please avoid.) 

In one of his slots, Doug Stanhope ends an angry, vitriolic rant on the emptiness of talk shows and news coverage on an almost desperate note. "No one ever does anything anymore," he says in despair. He pauses, then laughs. Elsewhere he loudly proclaims that the only way we can ever make it out of this dire and pointless mess we call life is by being able to see it for what it really is and laugh in its face. And that he does.

It is hard to explain how deeply I feel this link between comedy and tragedy sometimes. My husband will be the first to call me out on my tendency to swing to extreme despair at the corrupt selfishness of human nature and bleakness of the world we live in, crippled by mistrust and cynicism. Maybe this is why Doug Stanhope's words resonate with me so much. And why depression sits so naturally in my personality.

At the same time, I find so many things in this world hilarious and wonderful. "You laugh more than anyone I know," a close friend told me the other day. This is possibly true. I laugh hard and I cry hard. I feel things deeply. And without humour and bursts of childlike wonder, I don't think I would survive this life.

Maybe the reason why comedy and tragedy are so intertwined is this. The world is full of tragedy. It's overflowing with it. Left alone with it, we would be overwhelmed, consumed by it. We use comedy and humour to fight. To be able to survive the tragedy and move onto the next day. We use comedy as a weapon against the tragic and awful elements of people and the world. And the more we hone this comedic skill, this ability to laugh and see the humour in any situation, the more we can get through in life.

We do what we can, anyway.

"No worse than any man"

I remember that in one of Rob Bell’s books, he tells the story of an American soldier who is about to execute a Iraqi prisoner. I don’t remember all the details, but I recall that at the last minute, the Iraqi prisoner receives a phone call. He is allowed to take it, and it turns out it is his father, who he's been out of touch and on bad terms with for years. Rob Bell talks about how the soldier has a moment when he realises he and this man, ‘the enemy’, are the same. The soldier is struck because he has a strained relationship with his father as well. He watches and listening to this man crying and apologising to his father on the phone, and it hits home. He realises that they are standing on different sides of the war but they have the same hurts and fears and hopes. The enemy suddenly becomes a friend.

A few months back, I was listening to the news on the radio. There were reports of another politician being held to account and another public inquiry being called for another wrongdoing. It struck me how obsessed our culture has become with assigning blame and demonising wrongdoers. Yet, when I look around me, I see a world full of individuals who constantly fall short and frankly leave a lot to be desired. The judgementalism of the public mood and the inevitable failures of human nature strike a strange tension.

There is a human nature that lies beneath all the differences we see in each other. Underneath, we all share the same flawed humanity. We are brothers and sisters, underneath it all. When you look at another person, really look and see, you can see that they are just like you, no more and no less. It is humbling. Words of judgement then stick in the throat.

I love 'Les Miserables'. I think every Christian needs to see it to enhance their understanding of God, grace and the gospel. In ‘Les Miserables’, Valjean says to Javere, who insists that Valjean will undoubtedly kill him for revenge:

You are wrong, and always have been wrong
I’m a man, no worse than any man
You are free, and there are no conditions
No bargains or petitions
There’s nothing that I blame you for
You’ve done your duty, nothing more.

I am a huge Les Mis fan but no matter how many times I hear these words, they are still powerful. They are powerful to me because I really struggle to see people in this way. I struggle to see past the things I disagree with, that I think are offensive and wrong and unjust. I struggle to forgive them, accepting that I am just as sinful and wretched. And so I struggle with anger, unforgiveness, judgementalism. This is even more true of Christians and churches - people who I should identify as my wider family. I feel the anger more deeply because they are claiming to act in the truths that I root my life in, which I find hard to forgive.

I recently posted a poem by Joel McKerrow. In it he says: "To my brothers who say that God hates fags - Oh how I wish they were not my brothers. Sometimes it is easier to love your enemies than your kin." These words really strike me to the core. I really struggle to affiliate with those people who do awful things in the name of the Lord I worship. I struggle to really act out the sentiment behind Joel Mckerrow's questions: "Who am I to be bigoted about the bigoted? Who am I to condemn those who condemn?"

I wish I had more grace, more patience, more forgiveness inside of me.

A colleague said to me today, "I don't really know how you feel about church other than that you have angst about church." It was said as a joke and we laughed about it a lot - but it really gave me a mirror on myself. What my colleague said was true.  Virtually everything I say about church to other people, the things I am loudest about, are negative. All this comes from a place of disappointment, anger and passion for justice and the poor. But that is the way people hear it. No positives, just negatives. A damning reflection.

In that moment I realised that if I were to die tomorrow, that would be part of my legacy. "Has angst about church" might be one of the biggest things many remember about me, including this colleague.

This made me sad.

In the end, I know that God sees and understands the reasons why I struggle with church, many Christians, and forgiveness. But I don't want this to be my legacy.

As the years go by, I am beginning to understand more and more why ordinary radicals like Shane Claiborne are so gracious in the way they speak about systems they believe are wrong and the people in it. Everything Shane says is infused with a sense of the sacredness of humanity, not of attack and judgement. Every impassioned plea carries with it respect of everyone, no matter what their point of view or theological position. I understand more now why Christians pursue holiness of character. If you are trying to live and serve radically, you can't waste your time on judgement and unforgiveness. It's exhausting and counterproductive. And it's not gospel.

I want something different from the bitterness and anger I hold inside me. I want a real, life-shattering understanding that the enemy is my brother and sister. I want real love, grace and forgiveness alongside a spirit which pours itself out for the poor.

I want that to be my legacy.

God's promises

Today at staff prayers we reflected on God's promises. We thought and prayed about what promises we had felt God had given to us and kept, and what promises we were still waiting on.

Reflecting on all this made me realise that I don't think God has ever made any specific personal promises to me. Like "you will have a child", "this guy is the one", or "you will have this job". In honesty, I felt a bit weird confessing that to my colleagues. The presupposition was that we would have promises that God had made to us about our lives. And I didn't have this kind of personal promise. Awkward.

Maybe God has made personal promises to me and I just never realised because I'm sceptical, cautious, and constantly miss God's still small voice. I suppose when I have heard him speak softly to me in the noise of life, it has generally been in words and promises from Scripture. "I will never leave you or forsake you". "Your body is the temple of the living God." Many words of comfort and challenge. When it comes to promises God has made to me, those are what I think of.

What really struck me is that God has kept all those promises to me. He has done what he said he would. He has never left and will never leave me defenceless with more than I can bear. He has taken care of me through amazing people around me. He has given me hope and a life full of purpose. He loves me. Those scriptural, communal and deeply personal promises have all been fulfilled. I realise this looking back on my life and my journey, even though I haven't been able to see this in the moment. Life can only be understood backwards, Kierkegaard said. It's very true. I always felt that God had abandoned me during times of great illness and pain. But he got me through in the end. I'm still here, and so is he. I am a little bruised and battered, and so is my faith. But we're still here.

Sometimes it takes a little hindsight and reflection to be grateful and to see God's love and faithfulness. Not in loud lightning bolts, grand gestures and staggering miracles. But in small movements, increasing steps towards recovery, stability, and wholeness. That is how I feel when I think of God and look at my life. When I think of all the tears and screams that God has worked with me through, the scars that remain. The things I feel now which I thought would be impossible when I was a teenager, alone and suffering. It was hard to understand God's ways then. It's still hard.

I suppose I feel a sense of awe and silence about God that I didn't used to feel so much. A sense of his magnitude and mystery.  Of his gentle touch. We ask for God to do things for us, to act in violent and dismissive ways sometimes. To fix and patch up things that we can't help but break. I throw my questions at him like bullets.

I think we yearn for significance. We want to know that we matter, and often God doesn't seem enough to fill that need. We want to feel important, to know God's plan for us individually, to know we have a stake in it. We want signs and healing and miracles, we want personal prophecies and clearly proclaimed words. We want to feel that we stand out as special individuals for God.

But maybe for some of us, God is just there. Like the wind. He is just the everlasting presence, always faithful, always waiting. Always constant.

Maybe we don't need to ask for more than that.

I am grateful for God's promises, even if he has never promised me anything specifically. It is enough for me that he says our lives have purpose, they are redeemed, and we have a job to do. It is enough that he says he will never give up on us. Maybe I haven't experienced true intimacy with God. Maybe the core of me still needs to be opened up and moved, so that I can hear him in the way so many others seem to.

For now though, in this moment, this is enough for me.

Sunday service

I find church services boring.

There. I've said it.

I struggle to engage with our normative church experience- the Sunday service. I find it hard to engage or even to stay awake often. This is as much my fault and my health issue than it is an inherent problem with the service format. It doesn't matter how great the sermon or music is for me. I still struggle with the university lecture style format, where we all attend church as though it is an event, we sit and listen to someone talking to us, we sing songs led from the front, and then we leave- only to return for the same next week.

Church services don't often engage or excite me. Which is a problem because it is the main expression of church and Christianity that seems to be prevalent. I don't find the event to be a passion strirring thing. More often that not, I find them formulaic and can't shake the feeling of being a consumer, going to attend an event once a week that has little impact on my life.

This may be an appropriate time to insert a disclaimer. This is just my opinion and experience. Many people find church services extremely emotive and helpful. Many people don't. These are just my thoughts and honest feelings. And in truth, often I feel like this is what we've got, and this is what I need to work with. I need to mould myself and try and engage. That's my usual mindset every week - and it is not to say that I don't ever hear truth or experience any inspiration from a sermon or a song.

But if I am honest, I really crave something different- something exciting and engaging and inspiring, something that is radical and life-changing, where we really come together to laugh and cry and serve as a community. Not an auditorium where we hear a lecture and sing some songs and have some coffee and then go about our everyday business. I want my soul to be alive and awake to God and my neighbour.

Then truth is, the church in UK is haemorrhaging men, young people, and Christians. If you look at the bigger picture, it is in decline. So I think services are worth looking at if they are clearly not drawing people in to a God who we believe should be inherently attractive to people.

When I was in Bristol, I was part of a pioneering house church type movement. In my opinion we didn't do a great job and it didn't really work in the end. There was too much bitterness and hurt in the leadership, and not enough resources and energy to keep us afloat while we were trying to pour ourselves out for the poor. But if I am honest with myself I often wish I was back there doing something new about church. Daring to envision and dream and engage in a different way, trying to reach out from the subculture that we are so stuck and numbed by, and which is so alienating for many.

Every Sunday we tried to do something called "Sunday Service". It was a little polemically named but the main idea was that we would gather together every Sunday to corporately serve someone in need - offering our cleaning and painting services to a struggling family, for instance. I loved this idea but I wished at the time that we had had some spiritual care and input as well, to keep us going. But I still love the idea. I think it could work alongside the many elements of church that it was missing.  We could change ourselves and change the world.

Psychologists have talked for a while about people's tendency to stick with the status quo and not to go for change.  (Of course there's some evidence to the contrary as well which suggests that people like change rather than the status quo - so maybe no one really has a clue!) I think the truth is that change in the church will never come from the people inside it who are perfectly happy and comfortable with the way things are. Why change something if you're happy with it?

But there are so many people for whom it is not enough. People inside and outside the church who believe that there are different ways for us to come together as a community to worship God.

I guess the  challenge is to believe that our voices will be heard.

Sinai kidnap gangs

A few days ago when I was driving to work I heard a report about an atrocity that has been overlooked by the international community. The kidnapping and ransom industry in Sinai is booming. Refugees are being taken in the hundreds, tortured and killed if their families are unable to pay financially crippling amounts of money to the kidnap gangs. The interviewer spoke to many victims of this awful trade, detailing obscene methods of torture, including burning and electrocution. I was left in tears and absolute horror.

The worse part was that the report ended with a man crying out. "Help us," he said. "Please help us. Listen to our voices. Please help us."

When I got to work I couldn't shake what I had heard. I walked past glossy posters and shiny computer laden desks on the way to my seat and I just couldn't stop thinking about the fact that right now, right this minute, people were being taken, tortured and killed - helpless, resigned to their fate. Some people say that this atrocity is being overlooked by the international community because it is not wealthy foreigners who are being kidnapped but poor refugees and locals. I couldn't shake the injustice that a problem of this scale was not being fought for internationally, and the horrible impact this indifference is having on people's lives.

I spent a while looking on the internet for ways to help. I couldn't find anything. All I could find was that Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Amnesty International were working in the area, but I couldn't find anything on how the average person could get involved to help. No campaign to the international community. No way to contribute directly to this effort, even. I felt desperate.

I just couldn't get the man's voice out of my head. I want to help you, I kept thinking, I want to help you but I don't know how. How can I help you? Please tell me how I can help you. We have to do something.

Eventually I emailed Amnesty International to ask them how I could help. I got a holding reply and still haven't heard from them. And I went on with my day, guilty and sad that this is what we do - we go on with our lives when our neighbours are suffering,  and it is so easy to switch ourselves off and throw ourselves into the comfortable helplessness that we are unable to do anything to solve huge problems.

Sometimes we can throw money at the problem, believing that we have done our part and helped, and we move on with our days, forgetting. Forgetting the real suffering. Forgetting the struggles and the wars that are so far from being won.

I know that we have to forget to be able to survive. To be able to function in our own lives. Otherwise we would be bowled over by all the suffering in the world. I know the danger of this, I've been there.

But I think really feeling the suffering can drive us to action.

I still want to know how I can help, but I don't know how. If anyone knows, please tell me. For now, I want people to hear these people's cries. Maybe the more people who truly hear, the more people will call on their leaders to do something.

All of this has made me reflect on charities and what we do. About how the average person who really wants to  help suffering people or change a situation feels when they come to us. 

As a charity we must be meeting needs. And we must be able to tell people and show them how they are meeting that need by giving to us. But for me, money isn't the be all and end all. I wish that charities would help to change people so that their lives are shaped by that need. So that they become more ready to stand up against injustice, more willing to help others in need.

I recently read an article entitled "How to Transport Your Donor into the World's Suffering". I have had my struggles with charity and fundraising culture but this article made me feel a sense of real mission about fundraising. To end this post, I'd like to share some of it with you.

"Need is need.  If you are a normal human being you will experience a great deal of emotion when you come face to face with a hurt and broken human being, an abused child, a sick animal, or a forest that has been destroyed.  It is just not pleasant to be around need... 

Why do we try to turn need into something it isn’t?  I think fundraisers who dress need up are afraid of their own emotions – they are afraid of the pain they experience when they encounter need.  So they first dress it up and package it for themselves in a tidy little emotionless package, which avoids the pain, and then they pass it on to their donors.All of this dressing up and packaging to contain the need and pain is a useless activity.  We should be doing the opposite. Rather than protecting our donors from all the reality of the need we should be using every media, picture, choice of words and stories to literally take the donor right into the action – right to the scene.  This, in my opinion, is effective communication that has integrity... 

Much of our world and its people and places are broken.  That’s the reality.  And it hurts.  It really hurts.  As you are being a vessel for good, don’t be afraid to let your donor experience the journey as well."

The need is great and the truth is we all have to do something. As I mentioned before, if any of you know about how we can help to stop the kidnap gangs in Sinai, please let me know.