Rice and Beans

As part of Kerith Community Church I was challenged to make a choice this week, to live on Rice and Beans. Now initially this didn't strike me as a great choice to be honest, as I love my food, and in particular meat. However as I heard more about the reasons behind it all, and as Gemma had already made the decision to do this, and let us say, enthusiastically encouraged me to join her (!!) I felt I should give it a go.

This choice however was one which helped me appreciate life a bit more. It made me look at all we have in this country and the amount of variety of food and possessions we are exposed to. As a church the Kerith are supporting Serenje, a village in Zambia. It's a 5 year project in which we are partnering with Tearfund and EFZ to provide practical assistance for those living with HIV. To read more about the whole project click here.

In taking up this Rice and Beans challenge, we were encouraged to empathize with, and pray for those people (particularly in Serenje of course) who don't have the choices we have. Who can't just nip down to Tesco and get a ready meal or phone for a pizza or Chinese takeaway. The exercise in itself was not a difficult one as I didn't go hungry, but it did make me appreciate all I have access to on a daily basis. The variety and amount of supermarkets, takeaways and restaurants we have to choose from. It also made me appreciate the balance of diet we eat and what an effect that has on your digestive system!!

A great encouragement to me over the week was the way others in our community joined the challenge and shared their experiences and recipes (thanks Stacey!) on facebook. This joining of hearts and minds is what this whole Serenje project is about, and having got involved with this Rice and Beans challenge it helped me connect more with the whole ethos of the venture. We also had the privilege of hearing firsthand what a difference our connection with Serenje is making as we had two Zambian pastors come and visit recently and share at our Serenje celebration meeting. They were so encouraging and so positive about how we had helped it was truly inspirational.

Also during the Celebration meeting we heard about all that had been done in Serenje, and the many ways our community had got involved with raising money for the project. It was fantastic to hear how our young people had got so on board with it all and how local schools had taken up the challenge too. I had the privilege of playing at all three meetings so got to hear firsthand from local teachers about how this project had affected them, as well as hearing from the CEO of Tearfund himself about what a difference we were making.

Our combined vision is not just to provide short term financial support for the African village, but to link the two communities of Serenje and Bracknell in a long term sharing of hopes and dreams. In blessing Serenje we in turn are blessed.