JESUS CHRISTIANS NEWSLETTER #92, SEPTEMBER, 2007
Freegans
As we go to press, Alf has finished his first two dates... with a
glamorous model, who arrived in a limousine to share a few hours with
him raiding bins and preparing a wonderful dinner (which she refused
to eat). There were a lot of protests from the glamour girl, but Alf
is working on overcoming her prejudices through love and patience.
All of this will go to air later this year in the U.K.
Bob and Paul appeared on the BBC 6pm news last month discussing
freeganism and living off the waste of society. To view the article
on the BBC website, which includes a lot of interesting feedback from
the public, click on the following link.
[
news.bbc.co.uk]
Alf and Martin were also joined by Reinhard to give interviews with a
regional ITV news crew, the BBC, a British magazine and The Irish
Times.
There is a new article on our website which deals with the issues
that concern freegans. It is called "Freeganism and our Message".
Please check it out, by clicking below:
[
cust.idl.net.au]
Quaker Tensions
There was a statewide meeting on Saturday, September 1, of Quakers in
New South Wales, where a motion from the Regional Meeting Ministry
and Oversight Committee was read out and incorporated into the
minutes of that meeting, stating that the teachings of the Jesus
Christians are completely incompatible with Quakerism, and calling
for the removal of all references to Quakers on our website. About
twenty people spoke against the Jesus Christians.
Dave and Cherry expressed their desire to co-operate but said that it
was simply not possible or reasonable to act on the motion as it was
written. It would mean never using the word Quaker, even in the
kindest possible way. They they asked for a more reasonable
compromise from the meeting with regard to what we are allowed to say
on our website.
In the end, Dave and Cherry agreed to remove the area of the forum
dealing with the reasons given by the committee for wanting to
dissociate themselves from the Jesus Christians, and to re-title and
re-word the section of articles now referred to as "The Quaker
Connection" in such a way as to make it clearer that the articles
appearing there are not officially endorsed by Quakers in Australia.
The meeting has said that an inspection will be made of our web site
over the next two months, and they will want a report on whether or
not the alterations meet with their satisfaction. At the same time,
however, they have asked that an official statement be made on all
Quaker web sites in Australia to echo their own, which is that the
teachings of the Jesus Christians are incompatible with the core
values of Quakerism.
Obviously, we do not agree with this, and it remains to be seen what
their next step will be if they succeed in getting the support of
other Friends in such a claim. It seems quite obvious, if that is to
be their official position, that Dave and Cherry will eventually be
asked to choose sides and either leave the Jesus Christians or leave
the Quakers. We do look forward to more specifics about what it is
that they feel is incompatible about the two groups, and we pray that
they will not restrict us from making that list known, as they have
done with their first attempt to say what it is that they
specifically dislike about us.
We have further reports that representatives from the Australian
Yearly Meeting used the FWCC (Friends World Consultative Conference)
Trienniel in Ireland as an opportunity to speak negatively of Jesus
Christians to representatives from Kenya. This too was disappointing.
We were finally able to obtain a copy of the material being
circulated from the Friends Meeting House in Sydney, which includes a
sensationalist tabloid article from London about Jesus Christians
donating kidneys, a letter from Dave's son, Kevin, which denounces
Dave, and an article about narcisistic psychopaths, obviously
intended to be a description of Dave. It is, indeed, a shame that
the meeting has supported this kind of material being circulated
about ourselves at the same time that it is doing what it can to gag
the Jesus Christians from saying anything in response.
Sadly, we feel that these actions are going to be more hurtful to the
good reputation of the Society than anything that we have done.
Kidney Donations
Another one of our members was rejected last week from donating a
kidney in the U.K. simply because he is a Jesus Christian. We have a
growing number of Jesus Christians who are becoming disillusioned
with going through the long, tedious procedure of testing for kidney
donations only to have the executives of various hospitals tell them
at the end of it all that they are not suitable because they belong
to a religious group that actively promotes live organ donations.
But not everything we have to report is bad news. Please read on...
PROJECTS IN KENYA
There has been a welcome influx of international and local volunteers
to help with the work in Kenya. This rush of volunteers came just in
time for the August school holidays, during which we were planning a
number of new projects.
We are grateful for the input of international and local volunteers
who continue coming to the centre to participate in various projects.
We have been greatly encouraged by the positive feedback many of them
have given about the centre and about the meaningful experiences they
have shared with us. At this stage, it looks like the project in
Kenya is quickly achieving a good reputation just through word of
mouth.
Rob and Chris also arrived back in Kenya at the beginning of the
month, having spent some time in Australia and India. As a result of
the increase in personnel, up to 20 full-time volunteers were able to
work together on a variety of projects over the past month, including
computer classes, basic English tutorials, painting of a community
mural, and an Alternatives to Violence workshop.
Computer Classes
The computer classes were a great success with up to 50 teenage
orphans participating. They had attended computer classes in
December, and were now able to practice what they had learned as well
as developing their skills in typing, word processing and using the
internet.
Easy English Tutorials
The basic English tutorials were also successful, seeing up to 100
children participating each day. The tutorials use the Easy English
flashcards to teach some of the schools' struggling students the most
basic and commonly used words in English, through pictures. The kids
loved the combination of learning and play, and were eager for us to
continue teaching them. There were dramatic improvements in their
level of English even just from this short period of intensive
training.
Community Mural
Last month we had organized a drawing competition at five schools
with thousands of entries to choose from. In the end we chose 50 of
the most original pictures and awarded prizes in the form of art
supplies. The pictures were on the themes of five Quaker testimonies:
Integrity, Simplicity, Equality, Community, and Peace.
The winners then came to our volunteer centre to paint a mural with
some of their pictures on them. The children loved painting with us
and were enthusiastic about the end result of their work. Several
local people also expressed their joy at seeing the colourful mural,
which faces the main street of a very busy village market.
AVP Workshop
Toward the end of the month we hosted an Alternatives to Violence
Project (AVP) workshop. A combination of volunteers, church leaders,
teachers and other members of the wider community participated in the
workshop, which lasted three days. The workshop encouraged
participants to consider the causes of violence and conflict, and to
explore ways of transforming negative situations into positive ones.
Those of us who participated were inspired to consider alternate ways
of reacting to situations; and we are keen to host more workshops in
future.
"Survivors" in CD format
The Australian team produced 10,000 copies of a CD version of
Survivors this month, with Cherry telling the story over top of a
sound track which includes music and sound effects. The CD also
includes a wide selection of our rap, folk, and rock music, and other
foreign language reading material.
We were amazed at how quickly the public responded to these CDs. In
the first week, distributors were getting out as many as 250 copies
each in a single day. This is great news for teams which have found
it hard to carry thousands of books around with them when visiting
remote locations. A thousand CDs can be carried comfortably in a
single suitcase, and so the Australian team is already talking about
outreaches to such places as Cairns, Perth, and Darwin.
Now teams in the UK and the US are looking into doing much bigger
print-runs, to meet the expected demand in those areas of the world
too.