AUCTION

see post 'AUCTION!!!' for the list of items
or click here to view the auction post

radio and update

hey
Went on the radio thursday morning, it was scary but it went ok! :) heard it back again in the car on the way to school! its quite scary hearing yourself on radio!

Anyway, I got the card from Soapbox back the other day, I have to raise £300 more, that means I've raised £1200 already! not bad! :)

Thanks to local businesses I have some good stuff for my auction!
Have also now been given 2 original paintings for it.

If your around for the auction drop in

Saturday 7th May
2pm-4pm!
Somersham Baptist church

need anymore details drop me an email jen_pyper@hotmail.com

Radio!

Tommorrow I am going on the radio to talk about what I'm doing in South Africa. It's hopefully going to be good! Am looking forward to it in a slightly wierd - I'm so scared! - way!
Will post tommorrow about how it went!

The Blog

I'm getting the hang on blogging now!
Should be off to the bank tommorrow to get another cheque to send off to Soapbox!
I'm getting there now!
:D

engage HIV AIDS

Links!

wow! I really dont know blogspot very well!
The code on the template says the websites I want it to but when I publish the blog the links go back to the default of edit me and google news!
Does anyone know what to do?

Make Poverty History video

http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/video2.html
Take a look

Pictures From Ecuador

This is a picture of me and a little boy in the slums in Ecuador


This is a picture of the meeting house in the slums, before we rebuilt it


And this is it rebuilt!

All good!

Got an email back from Soapbox last night to give me the address of the place to send the cheque to, they said it wasnt a problem about the card and that I could get another one easily!

Have been given another £175 last night! am really happy! :D

uh oh!

Went to the bank today to get a cheque written out fot Soapbox, but I've lost the payment card! Its in my house... somewhere! Ive had all my files out and I cant find it anywhere! :( I'm just about to send an email to Soapbox asking them to write me out a new one. (Hopefully they will have records! I'm sure they will) So yeah, slightly nervous at the fact I'm now going to admit what a complete muppet I actually am!

Fed up with blogspot!

I cant get the white band logo on this blog! No matter how hard I try it just moves everything down. If anyone has any suggestions please leave me a message!

I also want to put this on my site:





Its a banner from www.engagehivaids.com

Make Poverty History

Hi,
I wanted to make people aware of the make poverty history campaign.
check out www.makepovertyhistory.com email Tony Blair, wear a white band! Get involved!

South Africa

This has been taken from a forum I visit regually:

Since January I have had another pay raise at work which is very nice! Hehe! I also got a bonus in March which I wasn’t expecting! I have also been appointed as the first aider at work so I receive an extra £5 a month – which isn’t much but every little helps!I have done a tombola and guess the name of the teddy! Was quite successful, raising £50, it also promoted what I was doing and had various donations mounting to the total of roughly £150! Not bad for a weekend!

I run a kids club in my church and when one of the parents found out what I was doing they gave me £40! My school is now aware of whats happening and they are supporting me, I was allowed to do a sponsored silence in school, it was so hard! But I did it and raised another £200! My leaflet and posters are now going to be put on the staff notice board to ask them for baby clothes and other things to take with me!

One of the most amazing but slightly freaky thing happened just before I went to spring harvest! I went across the road to visit a friend and when I came back my mum told me a letter had come through the door, it wasn’t sent to me cus there was no address. Just my full name! I opened it and inside was £60 with a note saying: “This is a little something for your trip!” There was no name or nothing. I was shaking cus it was quite odd really! My mum told me she heard it come through, seconds later she opened the door and there was no one there! Ran down the road but I couldn’t see anyone!

The other night a man gave me £100 towards my trip! My church have given me some money and people have been sponsoring me and supporting what I’m doing!

Diary From Ecuador

This is something that I wrote to my old church when I got home from Ecuador

Ecuador has been and gone! So fast, it seems like only yesterday that I actually was planning to go on the trip and now I’m home! I had a fantastic time away and Ecuador is just so amazing! Our flights out there were such a mess! The flight from Gatwick to Newark airport was delayed so that meant we missed our connecting flight to Quito, we were stuck for 4 hours in Newark airport whilst our team leader tried to sort out another way of getting to Ecuador. The team bonded really well in the airport as we spent so long talking to each other and playing cricket with a plastic bottle and juggling ball! Eventually after a lot of arranging our team leader told us we would be spending a night in a holiday Inn in Newark then get a flight next day to Miami, then to Panama then finally Quito!

We got to spend the night in a really nice place! When we looked out of our room we could see the Manhattan skyline, was so cool! The next day we flew out early in the morning to Miami where we had to stay for 4 hours until our next flight to Panama. I got to go out the airport, it was really badly raining, but it was so hot! The flights went well and eventually we got to Quito 24 hours later than expected but it worked out well in the end because the other 2 members of the team arrived at the same time as we did in Quito. (They flew out later than us due to other arrangements they had) That night we spent in a hostel, the next day we made the 4-hour trip to Santo Domingo.

We arrived at the final destination of Santo Domingo late on Monday night, we all had a quick look around then went to bed. The room I stayed in was really small but nice. I shared it with 2 other girls called Jess and Kim. We all got on really well and had the most amazing mess you have ever seen by the end of the first week!

On Tuesday morning we started work on our first project – Concreting a playground for the children in OrphAids. We found out we would be making the concrete by hand, seeing as we had no cement mixer until later on in the week! It was such fun making the cement but it sure was hard work! We worked from 8am till midday on the building site then had our lunch and went back to the building site in the afternoon from 2pm till 4pm. That evening we had our first devotion session where we prayed and thanked God for all that had happened that day and for the fact we had all got to Ecuador safely. In the devotion we had little worship sessions where our team leader Simon and a team member called Chris led on the guitar and keyboard. That evening I got my first glimpse of a cockroach! It was sitting in the shower room! It was so disgusting! Cockroaches are horrid!

On Wednesday we were back on the building site in the morning then we went for the first kids club in the barrio (Slums). It went really well and I totally thank God for Briony, I have no idea how we would have coped without her to translate for us! It was hard to communicate with the children as they spoke Spanish and I don’t! Eventually though I worked out how to communicate with them through body language and learning the odd encouraging phrase such as Bien (Good) and bueno (Good).

The transport to the Barrio was such a laugh and extremely dangerous, it is totally illegal in the UK to use! It was us all standing on the back of a pick up truck! We have no idea how fast we actually were going and we couldn’t find out because the drivers speed dial didn’t work and was constantly on 0 miles and hour! It was VERY fast though and really fun to go on! During the evenings the team got to bond more as we had our own free time where we could talk and play games. We played many games such as Frisbee, football and a game called Mafia, which is a detective game and really fun! I loved the team I was with and got on well with all of them. I’m missing them all! The children we met at OrphAids were so cute! I loved them!

There was one little girl called Brendita, she is 4 and lives on the site with her mum, auntie and granddad. She isn’t part of the OrpAids project but she lives on site because her granddad is the gardener. Her auntie has extremely bad arthritis and is bed ridden so we visited her, as she gets bored stuck in bed all the time. Brendita became part of the Soapbox team, she was so cute and I spent many hours playing with her and her dolls during my free time. I remember one night I was trying to write my diary and she came and sat next to me. We spent the next hour drawing pictures in my notebook!

Some of the other children that were at OrpAids had really sad stories attached to them. One little boy there is called Victor. He is 2 years old but he has an illness that causes his brain to continue to grow but his skull isn’t expanding, that means that although he is 2 he looks only 6 months. Along with this he also has HIV so he doesn’t have a very long life expectancy. Its really sad though, he has the cutest smile and I know he is being looked after really well in the OrphAIds centre, the house parents (the people who he lives with at OrphAids) are so lovely and I know they look after him so fantastically!

Another child that lives on site is called Lukimba. He is 5 and has AIDS; his mum lives with him on site. Lukimba was born with HIV (his mum is HIV positive) and over the years its developed into AIDS. He too doesn’t have a very long life expectancy; he isn’t expected live past his early teens. Its so sad, he is such a happy lively boy. I know I will remember Lukimba, he was always playing knock and run on my room door and I remember when he made us all laugh when he ran up to us when we were having our small meeting and started dancing! OrphAids do a fantastic job and I certainly support all the work they do. There are about 30 kids on the site, all of which have their own story about how HIV and AIDS have affected their lives.

A lot of the children’s parents died and now they live with house parents. House parents are people who have given up their everyday lives to come and live on the OrphAids site; they act as foster parents and take care of all their needs. The children at the orphAids site also go to school so they are all being educated and will hopefully get good jobs.

On our first weekend in Ecuador we went to the jungle! It was really good until Laura – one of the girls on the team. Fell off a tarzan rope and injured her ankle! She was ok though and by the end of the trip we were all laughing about it! The jungle was cool though and we saw LOADS of insects! I saw killer ants as well! (Was told I was standing on their nest, luckily they were inside so it wasn’t too bad) The jungle guide person picked them out on a stick - they are seriously HUGE! About an inch long! After the jungle we went to an outdoor pool centre we were all relaxed and had a great time! It was so lovely! On the Sunday we went to an Ecuadorian church, it was really strange hearing some of the songs we sing in church – like ‘we want to see Jesus Lifted high’ – in Spanish!

In Ecuadorian churches it is normal to have 2 preaches. That’s ok but the only problem was I couldn’t understand any of it! It was an experience though and was cool! The Monday of week 2 was when we started building the new meetinghouse at the Barrio. We had to rebuild it because the old one was rotting! It was not very good looking. That meant we had two building projects going on, a lot of work but it was so much fun! The barrio taught me loads. The way all the men in the barrio pulled together to help us build and the attitude of the people there really touched me. I remember when we were asked to go to the barrio because they wanted to present us with something. We all went along and were so touched when they presented us with a plack that had all our names on it, it thanked us for the work we had put into the kids club and the building work. They hardly had any money but they all pitched in to buy us this plack, I was nearly in tears! It was such an emotional experience and its something I will certainly remember! The women at the barrio were crying and kept saying gracious (thank you). They gave us far more than we gave them. They gave all of us such a welcoming and their whole attitude to life just astounded us, its made a real impact.

I got to knock down the back room of the old meetinghouse! I was kicking the wood with my steel toe capped boots and just whacking it with a crowbar! If you need anything demolishing give me a call! It was such fun! We dug the foundations for the new walls and made the concrete etc. It only took 3 days to build the new walls! We had so much help from the people at the barrio it was so nice to see them pitching in.

On our second weekend off we went to Otawalo. It’s an Indian market (American Indians) and it sells traditional hand made Ecuadorian stuff! It was so lovely! Later we went to the centre of the world and stood on the Equator line! The view from the monument was so good! On our way back to the place we were staying it required a 4-hour bus journey downhill on a mini bus packed with 15 people! The roads we were travelling on were bendy and there was literally like 5 metres between the cliff edge and the road. One of the girls didn’t feel very well so we stopped. As we all got out we noticed smoke above one of the wheels. The break fluid had leaked and the wheel needed to be changed for some reason. It was really odd because if the girl hadn’t been ill and needed a break from the bendy roads I don’t know if the drive would have been safe! God was really protecting us on the trip and it was really cool to see him working!

The kids club went well! I really enjoyed doing it and making friends with the children there. On the outside of the meetinghouse we painted a design of children playing games with a rainbow and sun in the background. It was enjoyable to paint and all the people in the barrio loved it. It was so cool and I loved every minute of the painting!

On the last day of our kids club we held a party for the children, they all made crowns and bracelets. We played party games with them and did face painting, It was amazing, the smiles on their faces as they were playing and having their faces painted was so cool to see! I’m really going to miss the kids from the barrio, they were all such amazing kids and despite the conditions they lived in they still had such a positive attitude to life!

The whole trip has taught me so much about life and I’m really hoping I can go to Ecuador sometime again to see all the kids and the other people I met on the trip.

My First Blog

Hey My first blog! hmm... not much to say! Am currently on the phone whilst typing this so I have no idea how this stuff works! This blog has been set up so I can speak about what I will be doing in South Africa in summer 2005 Suppose I could start off with telling you a bit about Soapbox - the charity who I will be working with: Taken from their website http://www.soapboxtrust.com/ "Soapbox specialises in taking teams on practical aid and mission projects to some of the poorest areas of the world. We are a Christian organisation but do not proselytise and we are not sectarian. We believe in earthing our faith by demonstrating God's love through practical, caring action. Soapbox Short-Term Projects is a part of a registered charitable trust that specialises in taking teams on practical aid and mission projects to some of the poorest areas of the world. Skilled and unskilled people of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life have been on our projects since their launch in 1993.We are a Christian organisation but do not proselytise and we are not sectarian. We believe in earthing our faith by demonstrating God's love through practical, caring action. We believe firmly in the validity and effectiveness of short-term projects and would encourage you to think about the possibility of joining us on one of these life-changing experiences.Every year, Soapbox gives hundreds of people the opportunity to serve in third-world countries. We have built clinics, feeding centres, vocational training units, classrooms and multi-purpose facilities in some of the poorest locations on earth. We have conducted health education and basic medical care programmes. We have also been involved with culturally sensitive mission, supporting the work of local churches worldwide.Currently we are working in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. We keep our running costs to a minimum and our budgets tight - and yet Soapbox is one of the largest short-term service agencies of it's kind in Europe with a track record spanning some ten years.Soapbox turns good intentions into practical action - and it works for teams and those we go to serve! The conditions people live in need to be seen to be believed. Overcrowded; little or no sanitation; no clean water; pollution and disease; children dying of curable diseases - you name it! We do not build concrete jungles, destroying communities and imposing our western lifestyles on people! We are concerned about basic human rights - clean water, good nutrition, proper sanitation, medical facilities, education and tender loving care. We are a voice for those who cannot fend for themselves. We give people tools to stand tall, live right, feed their families and bring hope in a world of despair. You can be part of this and you can make a difference!" Will post another blog with the information about the Ecuador trip TTFN!