There is little to record in my diary today. I did get up and walk Mix (and I did run my car into Duns for its MOT test) and then this morning, two of my colleagues from presbytery came to see me and spend the morning talking. I grabbed a bite of lunch (some bread and cheese – now what brought that to mind: you’re right, Christian Aid of course) and Tom popped in with some of the Christian Aid money we have collected (more of this anon).
In the afternoon another colleague from presbytery came and we talked through some of the issues which are coming over the horizon and which I will have some part in sorting out. Then Rachel drove me into Duns to collect my car and to deposit her Berlingo which seems to have broken a spring.
We met up with Tom in Pearsons as I was buying rollers for the painting job I hope to start tomorrow. We talked a bit about Christian Aid week. In some respects it has been extremely disappointing. I thought that the material produced by Christian Aid was absolutely first rate and I thought that the proximity of the tragedy in Nepal would have put helping others at the head of people’s agenda. But it didn’t really work out like that. Tom and I personally put envelopes through the door of every single house in the parish and yet when folk went to collect these envelopes in Longformacus almost everyone told our collector ‘Oh I didn’t get an envelope’ and we raised £12 from the entire village – I think that was better than Abbey St. Bathan’s where Tom who had distributed the envelopes was told that no one had received them and came back with £5 and it was little better anywhere else (and Tom got a door shut in his face when he told a lady that he had delivered an envelope but that if she hadn’t received it, he had another one to hand). So, yes, it is disappointing and, to be honest, our events haven’t been as well supported as I had hoped.
However, we have raised some money and every £150 we raise will enable a small African family to be lifted permanently out of extreme poverty and given a future. Last year some twelve million pounds was raised from communities all over the United Kingdom and Ireland and that money will have been raised again this year, made up of tiny amounts from so many places. So we can’t get down about it and we can’t stop collecting.
A lady who collects in another area close to here told me that this is the third year she has done it, starting it there after a long time without a collection. The first year her experience was just like ours this year; the second year was a little better and this year people have been waiting for her, anxious to give – so we just need to persevere!
We dined in the farmhouse and afterwards I came across to the Bothy to play my banjo returning to watch the programme on BBC1 about people living in poverty in Scotland today. It was a very powerful programme, made more so by being balanced and measured.
After the news (and a snack) I walked Mix and went to bed.
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