Puzzle Pieces

My friend met a Rabbi at the airport recently. They got talking and as a result, he sent this:

‘There must have been a time when you entered a room and met someone and after a while you understood that unknown to either of you there was a reason you had met. You had changed the other or he had changed you. By word or deed or just by your presence, the errand had been completed. Then perhaps, you were a little bewildered or humbled and grateful. And it was over.

‘Each life is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. For some there are more pieces. For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble. Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle. And so it goes. Souls going this way and that, trying to assemble the myriad parts. But know this. No one has within themselves all the pieces of their puzzle. Like before the day when they used to seal jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Ensuring that all the pieces were there. Everyone carries with them at lest one and probably many pieces to someone else’s puzzle. Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don’t. And when you present your piece which is worth less to you, to another, whether you know it or not, whether they know it or not, you are a messenger from the Most High.’

Extract from ‘Honey From the Rock’ by Larry Kushner

REPOST: Bulembu

Following our Missions evening this week, this is a REPOST of RESTORE A TOWN. TRANSFORM A NATION from July 2011. We will be sending our first KingsGate team there this November!


You drive for 5 hours from Johannesburg, through the mountains and over the Swaziland border. What greets you is quite breathtaking. Bulembu is an old mining town. When the mines closed nearly ten years ago, the 10,000 population moved out. Bulembu became a ghost town. Until someone had a vision of what could be.

Today a Christian trust owns the whole town. All 4,000 acres. The population is back to 2,000. There are successful industries in wood production, water bottling, honey production, a bakery, a dairy, successful tourism. All from nothing.

Most of all, there are 200 orphans saved. Bulembu has become a centre for rescued children. With the worst HIV rate in the world at around 40%, and an average age expectancy of just over 30, Swaziland is slowly dying. Children die daily. Bulembu is changing the statistics.
Their aim is to be a sustainable community for 2000 children by 2020. Their shirts carry the slogan ‘experience transformation’. And they are. In restoring a town, they are transforming a nation.

The butterflies win

The village of Ruddington has been busy over the last few years. They undertook a project to convert land used in the Second World War as a bomb making factory, turning it into a country park. The project was called ‘Bombs to Butterflies’.

The release of secret papers from the Foreign Office indicates that there was also a ‘Butterflies to Bombs’ project! There was a concern in 1938, before the outbreak of war that a number of German military personnel were posing in East Africa as butterfly enthusiasts, whilst their real intent was to spy prior to potential invasion.

From butterflies to bombs and back again. The butterflies win!

An Introvert in an Extrovert World

I’m an introvert in an extrovert world. The BBC reports that 92% of the population thinks it is better to be extrovert. (BBC News Magazine, 27/3/12).

I can do the extrovert thing – be social, go to the parties, speak up when it’s needed – but it’s hard work. I prefer to be reflective, spend time on my own, read books. By no means am I a loaner, but I enjoy my own company.

And I’m not alone. The Myers Briggs psychometric test shows there are a third to a half of the UK population that are introvert. And when you dig into the data, you find that some of the best leaders are introverts – maybe because they think and reflect more on the urgent issues before taking action – or before opening their mouth!

I’m in good company anyway. Here’s a few of the more famous introverts: Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, J K Rowling, Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford.

According to Myers Briggs, I’m an INTJ – an introvert who is intuitive and rational. I will leave others to judge! In the meantime, maybe I’ll spend today in my study, reading a book…..

Seven Miles Deep

James Cameron, the filmmaker and explorer has just reached the bottom of the deepest ocean in the world- the bottom of the Mariana trench in the Pacific. That’s seven miles deep, in an environment that is likely to be more alien than the moon. Only the third to descend this far and the first in this part of the sea since 1960, he will be collecting data and imagery that will be entirely new to us.

The ‘Deepsea Challenger’ is a purpose built capsule and is protecting Cameron from the 8 tons of pressure outside the cabin.

The world we live in is amazing. There is always something new, whether it be the smallest creature or the deepest sea.

Thank you Richard Dawkins

One of my favourite programmes is The Book Show on Sky Arts. I know, a bit pretentious isn’t it? Guests are invited to talk about their latest book and to discuss other favourites. It was a surprise to see such a heated discussion on a slow moving programme, but Richard Dawkins decided that he had been slighted by the host Mariella Frostrup when she moved the discussion on from his railing against Christianity. His attitude was so far removed from the regular show, it became almost amusing.

This isn’t the first time Richard Dawkins has got angry- but the more he does it, the more he is helping the church. Here is Mary Ann Sieghart of The Independent, as quoted in The Week.:

The Church of England is lucky. It couldn’t have asked for a better enemy. The contrast between the ‘puffed up, self regarding, vain, prickly and militant’ Dawkins and the ‘charitable, open, welcoming, tolerant, undogmatic’ church is practically an advertisement for anti-atheism.

Thank you Richard Dawkins.

Risk

There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played
He never risked, he never tried,
He never sang or prayed.
And when he one day passed away,
His insurance was denied,
For since he never really lived,
They claimed he never really died.


Anonymous poem  from Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell.