Video about Jamii Bora Trust's miracle

Kenya had months of post-election violence in 2008, and it also had some success stories about conflict resolution. I've written in an earlier blog about Jamii Bora Trust in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum, perhaps one of the largest in Africa. Thanks to Tony Cox, we've edited a short video which shows how Jamii Bora's branch manager for Kibera, Andrew Otieno, got youths who looted and burned Toi Market to rebuild it, then rebuild their lives through getting training and loans from Jamii Bora.
The sound quality is poor, so look out for these points:

• a member talking about how she'll use her loan in her catering business
• Andrew about how he increased the membership at Kibera branch from 7k to 50k from Jan. to Nov 08
• John, the ex-Rebel Leader, about how they looted, then burned the market
• John and Bernard about how they couldn't believe that Jamii Bora would give them a chance after they had destroyed the market
• John and Bernard about their box-making business and how they now have a stake in society

A miracle brought about by the 'whole community' approach at Jamii Bora Trust!
www.youtube.com/user/SantaMicrofinance

200 kilometers to get a Microfinance loan

Whenever you complain about your 'hole in the wall' being out of cash, think about this event told us last night at our Microfinance without Borders course by Sadrudin Akbarali, of the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM). He started microfinance in Tajikisthan in 1995 when the only sign of entrepreneurship he could find was one woman with a stall selling random items.

Sadrudin told us about a person who walked 200 kilometers over the mountains to the branch he opened in 2000 to get a loan. With inflation at 20% the poor person would have lost some of the value of the money by the time he returned. Happily today there are 30,000 borrowers of micro loans in Tajikisthan and many more branches of the Microfinance Bank that the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance has set up.

Everyday Miracles

Lots of gloom about with media hype about the credit crunch. Makes it easy to ignore miracles that happen when we look closely, put things into perspective, see the brightness. Monday I had a slight concern so went off first thing to my GP's 'drop in' surgery in Soho, unique for being bi-lingual Chinese and English. The cheerful Chinese-British receptionist said 'Phyllis' straight away without having to ask my name. I congratulated her and she replied, 'So many people are amazed at my memory. I tell them to watch out because I remember what they do as well as their names.' We had a laugh, and no sooner had my bottom hit the chair then the GP, a French-British one, called 'SantaMaria' and I went in to see him. We had a good consultation, my concern was addressed and off I went.
So often people are complaining about Britain's National Health Service, as if complaining were a national disease that the NHS also has to cure. We often forget to see the great service, extraordinary in fact, as my Monday morning example illustrates. It's hailed as one of the best practices in the UK, one that's bi-lingual Chinese-English with the French-British doctor learning Chinese as well. I know the NHS has its imperfections, and I know excellence when I see it as I did Monday morning.
By the way Dr Brassey apologised during the consultation for taking a call from a patient stuck in Bankok airport who needed his help. How's that for service, helping someone half way across the world!

Maori Michaelangelo in London, John Hovell

Maori Michaelangelo in London
"See how nature - trees, grass, grow in silence: see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence … We need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa

I'd seen Father John at St Martin-in-the-Field church here in London, a three months’ visitor from New Zealand, and discovered his talents as a painter shortly before his leaving for home 1st December. It came out of his casual remark about his being a painter as well as priest.

‘Oh, what kind?’ I asked.
‘Ceilings mainly’, John modestly replied.
Richard Carter, John's host for the last three months and a priest at St Martin's chimed in, ‘Lots of ceilings, all over New Zealand.’
John, incredibly modest, was not very forthcoming and smiled shyly.
‘Do you have a website? thinking it would be wonderful to see some of these ceilings.
‘No!’ John replied in a split second.
Richard laughed and added, ‘John’s not a technology fan. He writes letters.’
Dan, Richard's brother standing nearby added, ‘I ring and ring and ring, sometimes he answers.’
‘Are your ceilings on anyone else's websites?’ I asked, growing more curious after John said his ceilings were filled with sea creatures, sea and estuary scapes.
‘Probably, I've done a lot of Maori Morae, traditional buildings.’

I wheedled out of John that he and Richard had worked together in the Solomon Islands for almost 20 years, teaching theology, John previously had taught art in New Zealand before becoming an Anglican priest. He started doing the ceilings in New Zealand as part of his Maori heritage, art done for free by custom, a gift to the community.
We started searching for John's art on my iPhone, narrowing down to John Hovell, Harataunga Morae, and struck gold. Rakairo, Harataunga, meeting house in Kennedy Bay, eastern Coromandel coast NZ, appeared in Taonga, Sept 03, a NZ Anglican magazine article by Julia Stuart, ‘A Maori Michaelangelo’ (http://www.anglican.org.nz/news/Taonga/Taonga%20Sept%2003.pdf)














It was a ceiling of sea delights, and John explained how he had achieved such a marvel. This was a newer Morae, a Maori meeting house, so they could take down the panels, put them on trestle tables, allowing John to first draw the designs, then paint standing up. Ceilings in older meeting houses had to be done Michelangelo-style, John lying on his back and applying small amounts of acrylic paints. I asked John who had paid for his work, and he said, ‘We Maoris do not take payment for our artwork, it’s a gift from God that we gift on.’ John’s Maori grandmother has made him ‘quarter-cast Maori’ and he follows the custom. Many of his art students have done well, and many of his paintings have been taken as designs by craftspeople working in glass, needlework, other media. He said he had done a series of paintings for a church needlework group to make into tapestries, and they had kept the paintings. He added, ‘I know they’re in safekeeping in someone’s houses, enjoyment for them.’

‘Maori Michaelangelo’ had a photo of the small 50 seat Church St Paul in Kennedy Bay, NZ. featuring Hovell’s Stations of the Cross which evoke Christ’s last hikoi or journey to Calvary.
John’s note near the door explains:
“They are envisaged as a meditative walk across beaches and mudflats, stopping to look at small beautiful elements of the estuarine environment, contemplating the grandeur of God’s plan revealed at the smallest moments of nature.”












John explained how he managed to sandwich his painting between his work as a priest in New Zealand and the Solomon Islands, working on holidays. He’s now going back to New Zealand to prepare an exhibition of his paintings and has promised to send photos of his works, scattered throughout NZ.

As we left St Martin’s I asked if he planned to return to the UK as this had been his first ever visit. ‘Nope, I’ll be too busy. Many ceilings to paint, other work.’ He added: ‘When I’m working I am in complete silence.’

I took some photos of John in St Martin’s and a view outside with John in front of the statue of the child in St Martin’s portico and the National Gallery behind. I was amazed at John’s modesty about his art teaching, his ministry in New Zealand and the Solomon Islands, his art, the bounty of his silent working, bringing the wonders of nature and God to the ceilings and walls of New Zealand, to all of us to touch our souls.

The first Sunday of Advent, the day before John departed for New Zealand, Richard Carter’s sermon for the Advent Carol Service at St Martin’s was about ‘Creating Space’. He opened with a reflection on the nebulae of the universe, coming down to the trillions of cells in our bodies, the wonders of space and of ourselves, our human vulnerability. He mentioned the statue of the baby with its umbilical cord in the portico of St Martin’s and one recent morning finding a homeless man sleeping on top of the baby. Richard kindly asked the man what he was doing there.

‘I’m keeping the baby warm’

he replied. As John returns to New Zealand, going back to his ministry and his painting, I know he’s keeping the baby warm, bringing the sea to ceilings, bringing us somehow into the warmth of creation, allowing us in our vulnerability to experience a taste of ‘all of it’. Richard continued his sermon with a reflection on our human vulnerability, remembering a prayer he and his Christian brotherhood fellow members would say before going to sea in the Solomon Islands:

‘The sea so wide and deep
My canoe so small’

Safe hikoi home, John, and thank you for your visit.