Yesterday we took part in the North Glasgow 5K Fun Run. I was surprised to see how many people turned out on what was a rather grey day. About 2,500 people attended, if you count both spectators and participants. The atmosphere was great and it was encouraging to see a positive reaction to the idea of healthier living. The organisers set up a "Health and Wellbeing Village" where local community groups offered information about cancer screening, how to quit smoking, stopping alcohol abuse, and healthy eating. The anti-smoking campaigners had even entered a man dressed as a cigarette to help draw attention to their message (there was nothing as outlandish as the London Marathon, but it was encouraging to see that the British pastime of combining running with fancy dress remains popular).

The event was organised by the North Glasgow Healthy Living Community. After living in Springburn for a while, it’s all too easy to dismiss the name of this organisation as an oxymoron, but events like the NG5K are a start. The event is now in its fifth year and it’s clear that the message is, slowly but surely, getting out there.

There is another 5k Fun Run taking place in East Glasgow in the summer. I’m hoping to get a group of the refugee guys involved. It would be a great way to make contact in the community and a positive way to bring attention to the refugee and asylum issue. More information on that as the time approaches...

As for the images themselves, they are breathtakingly beautiful. Any page would look fantastic framed on a wall. Tan has a gift for creating images that are at once familiar and otherworldly: he used photographs of Malaysian immigrants coming to Australia in the 1960s, as well as the influx of immigrants to New York at the turn of the century, as the starting point for some of his images. The opening illustration of the shadow of a dragon’s tail, as a family rushes down an alleyway, realistically and subtly portrays the fear many refugees face (this is skilfully achieved without reverting to the easier option of picturing violence). A huge variety of human emotion is captured in the story. The inclusion of playfulness and humour through the imaginary creatures alleviates the mood without taking away from the seriousness of the issues. It’s a wonderful book that I cannot recommend highly enough.

The other is an American film called The Visitor, directed by Thomas McCarthy. It’s the story of a university professor, Walter, whose life is altered by becoming friends with a Syrian refugee who is illegally living in an apartment that Walter never uses. We see the professor develop as a charter, from numb and detached, to a rejuvenated joy in life, and eventuallty to righteous anger about the treatment of his newfound friend.

The film is very funny (in an understated way) and portrays characters that seem all the more realistic due to their idiosyncrasies. Importantly, the film causes the viewer to engage with moral ‘grey areas’ when immigration law is pitted against particular circumstances and personal relationship. The Visitor also captures the sense of frustration and powerlessness that Emma and I have often experienced working with refugees. Like Walter, we rail try to rail against and change the system, but in some situations we can only listen and are faced with saying goodbye to people who have become dear friends. A poignant picture of the human aspect of the asylum debate.

The Arrival and The Visitor, both worth checking out.

- Paul

The illustrations in this post come from Shaun Tan's website. More images from the The Arrival and his other books can be found via this link: http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html

Last week, during my weekly backgammon game, I was given something very special: a Kurdish headdress. I think it was originally put on me as a bit of a joke, but I looked so fetching that my friend told me to keep it. Apparently, it makes me look like a Kurdish commando (I hope that’s a compliment). I was quite touched to receive the gift, the garment was obviously the product of fine craftsmanship.

For those of you who know backgammon, you’ll notice that by the position of the pieces that I was losing badly; as is usually the case when I face this particular opponent.

Last month, Emma wrote a blog about the anxiety caused by threatened deportations. This recent report in the Independent is a stark reminder that the fear our friends experience is not unfounded, but often a matter of life or death.

Sent back by Britain. Executed in Darfur

It has been a busy couple of weeks, but encouraging.

Last night Paul played football with a very mixed group of guys (1 Greek/Italian/American, 1 Irish, 3 Afghans, 1 Iranian, 1 Rwandan, 1 Kurdish). Thankfully, everyone seems to have got on well and had a good time. I think their footballing skills and styles varied widely as did their situations. The guys from Afghanistan have only been here about a month, and at least one of them looks incredibly young. They have been coming to the cafe at one of the local churches regularly, although they live some distance away. Our initial contact with them came through another young Afghan man who has been here a little longer.

Please pray for this little group. At least one of them is a serious seeker, if not already a believer, but communication is limited. He is working hard on his English and keen to get involved in a Bible Study / discipleship course. None of the programmes which might have had Farsi speakers have worked out with his schedule and we are trying to discern whether Paul and a member of another local ministry should take the plunge to start a group themselves, and trust God for the linguistic challenges. Potentially, this could include a couple of local Scottish guys who are at various stages in their journey.

Paul has also been making great use of his DIY skills this week, helping to do a few running repairs in the home of one of our African friends. His computer skills are used frequently too and both have opened doors allowing us to get to know some of the families with whom we had only minimal conact previously. We really must acknowledge the foresight of the Bible College tutor who bought us a toolkit as a wedding gift 5 years ago!
I continue to use some of my advocacy skills in various ways at the grassroots level where having someone to speak on your behalf can sometimes make a big difference. Frustratingly for me, as I like being able to fix things, there are frequently times when there is no answer until the injustices are challenged at an insitutional level. But love never gives up.

Finally for now, we'd ask you to pray for the area that we live in, for the Scottish residents. It is a sad area in a lot of ways. People are trapped; trapped in social problems and habits that they inherited from other generations but that few seem willing to search for a way out of. This past couple of weeks, there have been a number of sad incidents, one of which resulted in the death of a young man of just 19. For the Muslim refugees in particular, being on the margins of such a society frequently reinforces their desire not to integrate, but to remain separate from what they believe is Western (read "Christian") society. It also increases their anxiety about the safety of living here and reinforces the social isolation of some. For all of the segments of this fractured society, they need to hear that gentle whisper of hope.

Our ministry is now listed on the International Teams Refugee Ministry website. We feel very offical now.

Click here to see our little space on itrefmin.org

Please click on the link below to see something of the current situation for refugees, particularly from Afghanistan, in Greece. A group from Helping Hands visited the port of Patras last week and were overwhelmed by the needs.

Click Here

to read text only report or click on the link there to also see photos.

...to visit detainees (thought that title might catch your attention). Detention centres are a very controversial aspect of current UK asylum policy. Dungavel is the only detention centre in Scotland and detainees are taken there for a variety of reasons: coming to the end of the asylum process and awaiting removal, being in breach of Home Office reporting conditions or thought to be at risk of absconding, and criminal convictions being a few. Many of those awaiting removal have no idea how long they are going to be detained and live in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety about their future and possible removal back to countries that they fled. Due to public outcry, the government have stopped the detention of children and families at Dungavel, though there is concern whether the Home Office is really committed to abandoning this policy (click here to read a report from the Sunday Herald).

Hello, this is the sick Mr. Wilson. I got some antibiotics from the doctor and they seem to be taking effect... the eczema has also retreated, the blisters drying up into hard yellow patches (yes, it’s lovely).

I don’t deserve any sympathy though – while Emma was away in Lodon, I worked too much. Going flat out from 9am to 11:30pm, then working again early the next morning wasn’t the best idea. I already knew this, but the point was driven home: this is not a one person job! Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

*****

I was given a brilliant book for my Brithday: Extending the Table. It’s a Mennonite cookbook that’s essentially a continuation of their equally brilliant More-with-Less. One of the things I really appreciate about these books is not only that they give good and cost-effective recipes, but also explore the theological and spiritual implications of how we use food. Sharing meals, giving and receiving hospitality, are major aspects of our ministry in Glasgow, so these books are full of apt advice and suggestions.

There was a touching story in the forward of Extending the Table that I’d like to share:

...our interest was to seek his counsel on how... mission and service organisations should work in the years ahead. We asked how, in Argentina or the neighbouring counties, he would begin to share the gospel with other indigenous people who do not have churches among them. He paused for a moment, and then responded, "I would go and eat their food." He began to weep, and the missionary couple who were our translators wept with him... we knew that these forty-year missionaries and their colleagues had acknowledged the dignity of the indigenous people of the Chaco by eating their food, sleeping in their houses, and learning and recording their languages.
- Paul Longcre, 1990

It’s humbling and encouraging to learn that much of what we’re doing is not new, but part of a tradition of hospitality as a missional activity.

Mr Wilson is a little bit sick this week. His body decided to celebrate its 27th birthday with an inuagural outbreak of eczema (on his hands), combined with a rather nasty chest infection.

I attended a very helpful conference in London last week, hosted by the Refugee Highway Partnership. Lots of helpful teaching, networking and hearing how others are ministering in their own contexts. I also had an encouraging meeting today with a Christian Counselling Institute in the city who seem willing to offer counselling to a small number of refugees whom we refer to them.

Other than that, I have been pondering an issue that came up at the drop-in today. It's easy to help some people; they're nice about how they ask and they are very grateful for the help that you give. They ask in a way that you find acceptable from your cultural frame of reference. It makes you feel useful to help them (generally warm and fuzzy) and once you have done what was asked of you, they leave you alone to enjoy feeling good about yourself. Others are not so simple. They get in your face, they phone repeatedly, they're demanding or downright rude and seem less than grateful for what you manage to provide....you get the picture.
How often have we decided to help those whose way of asking was more acceptable to us, to ignore that person who has an annoying way about them and to deem them less deserving or less in need because they are less grateful? It seems to me that God's grace must reach to those who are annoying, demanding and harder to help, that it has extended to us when we have approached him in a way that closely resembles the hard to help. Not that we simply pander to demands but that we seek to remain in relationships that by God's grace may prove to be transformative, that our patience does not run out and we do not write people off because they make us feel less good about ourselves. It's a challenge. I'd rather help those who say please and thank-you, and don't phone me after 9pm. But somehow I don't think grace and mercy are limited to those with nice British manners.

- Emma

Glasgow is covered in a thin layer of snow, and the temperature is hovering around freezing. The unpleasant weather has coincided with a perceived new harsher policy within the Home Office that has led to many families that we know fearing detention and deportation. In the past few weeks, the goverment has been ordering those with families to bring the children with them when they make their weekly trip to sign on at the Home Office. This often means that the family will be detained, pending deportation back to their country of origin. (This method replaced the dawn raids to a large extent after a major public backlash in Scotland.)
We know of around 6 families who have recently been told to bring the children with them, and it instills terror in them as their appointment approaches. Some have complied and have been greatly relieved to not be detained but their sense of fear and insecurity that the Home Office has something planned, is not alleviated. One single parent who escaped a situation of domestic abuse was required to attend with her children this week. One of her children was ill and the doctor gave her a note, but it may only have postponed what the Home Office has decided. The fear in this lady's voice was all too evident as she explained the situation to me on the phone. For another lady and her young son, this is a sadly familiar situation. They have been detained in the past and were only released when bail was posted by those connected with a local church. Her son is clearly traumatised by that experience and has only begun to recover. There is a clear risk to the lives of some of these families if they are returned to their countries. For others, the risk to the well-being of their children through removal from school, detention and return to a country they know nothing about, is severe. The knock-on effects for other families in similar situations is also palpible. Empty chairs in a classroom take on a much greater significance.

Please pray for those imposing these policies to look with compassion on these people, to see their own sons and daughters when they look at the children and to act with mercy.

We've just experienced our 15 minutes of fame. Through a chance encounter we became models for the "Burns Bunnet". You might want to check this out:

www.burnsbunnet.co.uk

Copy and paste the above link into your browser.

We recently enjoyed a visit from our good friends, and former teammates, the Cottrell family en route back to Athens. It was great to catch up with them. As a parting gift, they left us with a bag of Australian sweets. This wrapper on a Minties sweet seemed particularly relevant given current events:

Though I hate to make reference to the tabloids, The Sun dubbed yesterday "Arctic Monday" due to freezing temperatures across Britain. I felt the headline was apt given the general mood, as Christmas decorations come down and people return to work (or worse, worry that they may not be returning to work for much longer). The frosty weather also coincided with equally cold reports from major retailers about losses and potential job cuts.

It’s also fitting that on one of the coldest days in Glasgow so far this winter, is when our boiler decides to stop working. At the moment, we’re without heating or hot water (using the kettle as a replacement for the shower is an interesting experience). The gas technician is currently in the kitchen trying to fix it... I initially thought it was a simple problem with the pilot light, but given the exasperated sighs I’m hearing, it might be something a bit more complicated.

The change in weather and rising fuel costs has also been difficult for many of our refugee friends (many of whom are much more accustomed to a warmer climate). Late winter fuel supplements are causing great stress and the wet and chilly weather is felt even more by those with ailments. As a result, the winter is a time when many refugees struggle with experiencing isolation.

One of the primary ways we’re trying to minister to refugees this winter is through hospitality: hosting, visiting, sharing meals. This may sound like something rather modest, but one of the major needs expressed by refugees in our area is that they feel socially isolated. I would go so far as to say that hospitality is the core practice our ministry here. A number of programmes exist to assist refugees in Glasgow, but they are no replacement for genuine human contact. One of our current projects is trying to gather a group of local volunteers who can commit to hosting and/or visiting refugees at least every other week – it’s an exciting opportunity. We’ll keep you informed as this ministry develops.

Well, the technician has just finished replacing a number of parts on our boiler (he says, "that should keep it working for a while", I hope he’s right), so I can finally head off to the drop-in at St. Rollox.

P.

We’re already nearly through the third week of Advent. We hit the ground running upon our return from the US; we’ve helped out at a number of Christmas programmes, visited some refugee families, spent time getting to know and discussing ministry with Paul Sydnor (our Associate Ministry Leader from International Teams), and I’ve attempted to fix an Algerian family’s computer on two separate occasions (unsuccessfully).

So Advent is supposed to be a time of expectant waiting; yet as I rush from one activity to the next, the discipline of waiting seems incongruous. I came across this advent reflection by Rowan Williams this afternoon and it served as a healthy reminder:

We remember in Advent the time of waiting before the birth of Jesus, and we remember that time of waiting as the Bible shows it to us as a time when people were indeed longing for something that would change everything, and yet at the same time not quite knowing what that something would be.

...It's been said so often it hardly needs saying again, but it is rather a pity that for a few weeks before Christmas we are saturated with Christmas carols. We don't have quite the sort of quiet we need to think, 'Well what would it be if Jesus really came as if for the first time into my life? What would it be for the good news really to change me.' Because for that to happen I need some reflective time; I need some peace; I need to slow down; I need, you might say, to take my time about things. And so all those bits of our contemporary culture which are about rushing to get gratification, getting the results straight away, all those habits in our culture which so drive the crises of our culture, whether it's the credit crunch or the environmental crisis, all those things we have to cast a rather cold eye on during Advent and say slow down, take time, let yourself grow and open up, rather like a flower coming to blossom - a time of expectation, a time of excitement, a time of waiting, a time of peace, a time where we're clearing our hearts and our minds a bit so we really can see clearly when Jesus arrives, and feel fully the impact of his coming.

(if you’d like to see the entire piece, follow this link: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2040)

Many of the refugees (especially the Muslims) are fascinated by all the activity that surrounds Christmas. The city of Glasgow is adorned with decorations (equally tasteful and tacky in parts), people flock to the shops, and their children are involved in Christmas crafts and activities at school. Part of me wants to enjoy the atmosphere that springs up this time of year. I find the pessimism and moaning about how "it’s not the way it should be" just as contrary to the meaning of advent as is consumerist excess. Hope, not dread, is implicit in Advent. So in that spirit, I want enjoy some of the events put on by city; Advent is an exciting time, so why not celebrate in some way? However, on the other hand, I find myself a bit embarrassed by how shallow and silly aspects of Christmas here can be. For example: a ‘High School Musical’ Advent calendar containing cheap chocolate... no comment is necessary.

So how do I bear witness to the real meaning of Christmas to my refugee friends when there is so much in our culture that I don’t want to affirm? It is a difficult question. I think we must try to exhibit joy as we look forward to celebrating the incarnation – an authentic joy that transcends and surpasses materialism. I also think we have to maintain that we are critical of our culture, but without slipping into an easy pessimism and gloom. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" – what a compelling reason to be joyful!

P.

We're back in Glasgow. Trying to get over some serious jet-lag, and keeping warm in sub-zero temperatures! It was a great trip back to the States where we enjoyed spending time with friends and family. Importantly, we were able to visit Paul's Grandfather whose health had been worsening and who sadly passed away as we were on our way to the airport to catch our flight home. Please pray for especially for Paul's Grandmother. There will be a memorial service in California in February.

We thought you might be interested in the following BBC report regarding the situation in Athens. There is a brief clip from the ARC, as well as a comment from a great friend of ours. Click on the link below:

BBC report on Athens

-Emma

We’re heading to the States on Sunday morning for a little while. We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving with Paul’s family, and also spending time with extended family, friends and supporters. The trip has "snuck up on us" in some ways. It always felt like it was a long time away, and then we suddenly got busy with things here...