Do you sometimes wish you could do more to "Make a Difference?" Are you at a loss as to where to begin, what to do? Join me here for some inspiration and living examples of what you can do to make a difference in the lives of those around you.
No matter what your faith might be, Christmas is a time of year to think about Joy, Love, Peace, Angels and Giving. Our wish this Christmas is that more people will enjoy these gifts, which are the real meaning of life.
We would like to give you a gift. It is a true story of a Christmas angel that you can download here.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year!
On October 27 we once again helped fund raise for Children in Need, along with the charity Home-start Barnet. We contributed our face-painting and balloon modelling talents, to help raise about £200 at the Colindale Grahame Park Community Centre.
Funded by Children in Need, Home-start Barnet provides a safe place for youngsters to play every Thursday and Friday while their parents take part in courses such as first aid, healthy eating and emotional health and wellbeing.
I also volunteer for Homestart one day a week, by supporting a family with children under 5 years old.
You can view the complete article from the Barnet Times on-line newspaper here.
Recently I had the pleasure to meet up with two old friends of mine: Jenny and Gonzalo. They have a volunteer work in Ecuador, where Gonzalo is from and were here in the UK for a while to help care for Jenny's elderly mum. Now they are returning to Ecuador and we will be helping to support their work there.
In Ecuador, there are no such systems as the NHS, nor government benefit programs. So the people depend on NGOs and Charities for some of their most basic needs, especially the poor. Gonzalo and Jenny will be shipping down supplies of inspirational and educational books in Spanish, that they had been able to aquire while they were here.
Gonzalo's brother, who is a doctor, also gives of his time and expertise to the needy in his country. Here he is giving a free medical check to a handicapped patient.
Activities include a training course for other volunteers called 12 Founation Stones. Here are photos of the graduation of those finishing the course.
"Chocolatito" is the name of a program for deprived children, which often involves the apprearance of a clown!
Londoners volunteering their services cleaning up after the riots
I live in London. Like so many Londoners these days, my mind is often thinking of the recent riots. Now that things have quieted down there is a lot of reflection going on, questions of "why" and "what can we do to prevent this again", etc. Most of the rioters were youths under the age of 18 and it's a very complex and deep issue.
In this mood, I was on the bus yesterday, in a hurry to get to my appointment.Three young people got on the bus, the first two showing their passes and sitting down and there was quite a discussion going on with the third friend and the bus driver. It turned out that he wanted the driver to let him travel for free. He was 15, he was saying, and entitled to free travel, but he was robbed and had no proof of i.d. or any money to pay for a ticket. His two friends also had no money to lend him.
Was he telling the truth? It sounded unlikely.But who knows? So there I was, going through all sorts of emotions, wanting to help in some way, realizing that the bus driver had a perfect right to not allow him free travel without proper i.d. The bus was full and I quickly scanned the faces of all the other people, wondering what they were thinking. They were all the silent majority, keeping a stiff upper lip.
"What should I do?" I asked myself. "If he is telling the truth, how horrible, that no one believes him and no one wants to help in any way. That is the sort of thing to really get someone discouraged and perhaps alienate them against adults, or people who might be a bit better well off them then, etc. And if he is scamming, he will probably do it again anyway."
I finally decided to give him £1 and told him that he can ask other people on the bus to chip in, so that he can pay his fare, and we can get on our way.
But he refused my money and said he didn't want my money,he wasn't a beggar and he wasn't poor--he just was robbed and didn't have his i.d. By this time he was pretty angry with the driver and getting ready to get off the bus.
As he got off the bus, his two friends got up to go with him. But the girl (also about 15 years old), first turned to me, looked deeply into my eyes and said a very heartfelt: "Fank you!, fank you!"
I still don't know if they were for real or not. But I hope that by my action I helped them realize that humankind can still believe in each other and help those in need. I wanted to impart to them that there always is hope and to not give up, no matter how hard and unkind the world might be.
I tried my best to make a difference in their young lives.
