JESUS CHRISTIANS NEWSLETTER, #122, APRIL, 2010.
There are so many interesting things that happened during the month of March that it is difficult to know where to start.
FREEGAN MEDIA
In the U.K. media interest in freeganism continues to grow, with members of our community featuring in several very interesting media events.
Simon and Fran went bin-raiding with BBC-TV presenter, Andrew Marr, who is researching big cities, and was dealing with the amount of waste that there is in a city like London.
Then the whole UK team gathered a huge amount of food in a single day, from which celebrity chef Arthur Potts Dawson selected ingredients for a fabulous fund-raising meal for fifty wealthy benefactors of a radical new community supermarket in London. Arthur came bin-raiding with the team, and a short documentary of Sue's raids in particular was being put together at the same time that Arthur was preparing the meal. Guests had paid 150 pounds each to attend, and they were shown the video of where the food had come from just before the meal was served, thus giving them the option of refusing to eat the "rubbish" food if they were worried about risks. Fortunately, all fifty decided to trust Arthur and enjoyed a fabulous meal along with Fran, Kim, Roland, and Sue, who had all helped with the project.
The People's Supermarket is aimed at reducing supermarket waste and encouraging a more community run approach to food distribution in central London.
Bottles of wine we had found thrown out earlier in the day were auctioned off to the guests for up to £400 a bottle to raise more funds for the project! A documentary on the event will be aired later in the year.
DOLLARS FROM HEAVEN
The twins seem to have come up with a new form of freeganism, where they literally recycle cash. Actually, it's just a series of unexplained coincidences. Throughout the month they repeatedly found five, ten, and twenty dollar bills lying on the ground, totaling nearly a hundred dollars over the month. Just further evidence that God is able to provide in any number of different ways if we are faithful to do his will.
ANOTHER MEDIA COINCIDENCE
While distributing at a new California location one Saturday, the twins happened upon a film crew shooting a commercial for a restaurant chain called "IHOP" (International House of Pancakes). Jeremy quietly walked past police and security into a blocked off zone and started passing out copies of Survivors, including three to some friendly actors, as well as one to a guy who seemed to be among the "head honchos".
Advertisement producers are most likely "small-fry" in the overall Hollywood scene, but you just never know where God could have those books end up!
MELBOURNE GRAND PRIX INVITE
Ross met up with an old high school friend who drives the emergency pursuit car for the Melbourne Grand Prix. This friend kindly offered Ross a free pass to get inside the event
SHIPMENT OF DVDS RESCUED
After months of delay, the huge shipment of "More Than Just a Band" DVDs that was blocked by American Customs, was cleared to be sent back to India for a DVD logo to be covered over by the printers there. The owners of the logo accepted our explanation that we had found it on the Internet without the little trademark figure on it, and assumed it was just a way of distinguishing a DVD from a CD. They appealed to Customs on our behalf, and won us the freedom to correct the error.
A WORKING HOLIDAY IN INDIA
Rob and Karl, who will not be able to attend the luxury cruise in Australia later this year because of duties in Kenya, were awarded a two-week holiday in India instead. It was Karl's first airplane trip, and his first journey outside of Kenya. The pair enjoyed spending some quality time with Boop in Chennai as well as being able to sort out some printing business there. In the midst of all the business, they were able to squeeze in some sight-seeing and a mammoth train ride across the country (both ways!). They are now back on the job in Kenya after their whirlwind trip.
GERMAN SISTERS VISIT
Two sisters from Germany, Hanne and Lotta, who had worked with us for quite some time in Kenya last year, have now moved in with the travelling teams in the U.K. for a few weeks, so that they can experience life with the Jesus Christians in a different locale. They arrived just in time to participate in the freegan feast preparations.
NEW VOLUNTEER PROJECT
Over in Kenya, where exotic visitors are commonplace, we had volunteers from countries like Germany, Finland, England, and Japan this last month, as well as several groups of Kenyan volunteers. In addition to teaching English, there were enough volunteers to arrange visits to local orphanages, do renovations on the compound, and maintain the permaculture garden. A new project has been the creation of recyclable sanitary pads for school girls, who often have to stay home from school when going through their periods.
KINDNESSES
One of the colleges the twins visited in the high desert above Los Angeles was particularly receptive. On one especially cold and windy day, a woman who had received a book from Jeremy even donated her gloves to him when she saw that he had none.
Over in England, Sue was pleasantly surprised when the manager of a friendly Tesco supermarket made her a cup of coffee after watching her distributing outside the front entrance of her store for most of the day!
In Kenya, the rains which have nearly brought our water tanks to their 100,000 litre capacity, have also made the dirt roads very dangerous. After a sudden downpour one day, Alf, who was driving the Landrover at the time, slid off the road and got stuck in a muddy ditch. Thankfully, a team of locals flocked around him within minutes, and helped push the vehicle out to get him on his way.
IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
Ross met a woman in Melbourne who had received a copy of Listening in Fulham, London and had since returned to Australia. Another guy said he had received a copy of Destroyers in Santa Monica, California, earlier this year!
JC VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Jesse has been doing a great job of editing footage in the U.S. for an upcoming documentary about how Christians view justice and mercy when someone breaks the law. The documentary will focus on our own experiments with "substitutionary punishment" as a way of motivating offenders to change.
Meanwhile, the U.K. team is working on a documentary about the microchip implant and how it relates to the Mark of the Beast, with some interesting interviews with various people on the subject.
BOBBY KELLY
Along with the other interviews, Fran, Rols and Sue managed to get an historic interview with Bobby Kelly, the boy whom the British media falsely claimed (for a while) that we had kidnapped, some ten years ago. Bobby shared a bit about himself, but also about the whole debacle that has been used as an excuse for years to castigate us. We hope to have that interview up on the media section of our site shortly.
JON RONSON BREAKTHROUGH
Jon Ronson, who actually did quite a good interview with Bobby shortly after the story first broke in the U.K. so many years ago, has recently issued an apology for comments that he made more recently about us in relation to kidney donations. You can read about it here:
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One of Jon's books (Men Who Stare at Goats) has recently been made into a movie, starring George Clooney.
JOE'S STORY AND THE MEDIA PAGE
Joe has been very busy writing a book about incidents leading up to and following the horrific attack on Reinhard in May, 2006. It gives many interesting insights into Joe's past, and his relations with his family. You can access this section directly by going to [
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Speaking of our media page (http://jesus-teachings.com/media-page), we have also opened up two new sections "Early Days" and "Freeganism". Although they are not completed, there are already several articles and videos to browse through on those topics.
As you can see, there are a LOT of different categories in the Media section! Blessings on Fran for his efforts in getting this all up.
FRIENDS AND RELATIVES
Paul and Ulrike spent a week in New Zealand visiting relatives. (Yes, Ulrike has relatives living there too!) The trip came en route to Australia from the U.S. The couple are presently travelling with Dave and Cherry around the eastern states of Australia.
Glenn came for a visit with Ross and Barry in Melbourne one day last month. The trio had dinner at an interesting restaurant called "Lentil as Anything". It is a non profit restaurant where there is no fixed price for the food and where customers can donate whatever they wish. The food is also excellent vegetarian faire.
The UK team enjoyed a visit from a long standing friend named Ian, who has been supporting the community there for many years.
A NEW PHANTOM CHAMP
For years, Simon has been overshadowed by other runners in the phantom run competitions, barely getting a mention, even though he has put in some outstanding performances. There always seemed to be one or two runners just a second or two in front of him. However, he has finally broken through to become the fastest Jesus Christian over two miles at the moment, with a personal best of 11:00, and the third fastest of all time. Only Casey and Alf have run faster, and that was years ago. Word is that early morning training runs in the more mild spring weather of the U.K. has contributed to a number of improvements for our most northern team.
'POSITIVE ENCOUNTER'
While still reaching out to the wealthier suburbs early in the month, Jeremy came upon a woman who had worked as a staff member at a very wealthy church. She had become deeply disillusioned with the greed and lust she discovered behind the scenes, and came close to abandoning her faith in God altogether when a near fatal car accident brought her back to God. While Jeremy was sharing with her about our faith and how we live, she broke down in tears several times and admitted that she knew God wanted her to be hearing these things. It was quite a positive encounter.
NEW ARTICLES
Under our new articles page (http://www.jesus-teachings.com/new-articles), you will find one by Alf called "The Last Shall Be First" , as well as one by Dave on the phrase from the Lord's Prayer about Temptation.
THE FORUM
As usual, there have been a host of new topics raised on our forum this month. Several threads have been started in relation to news items:
A church leader in California being arrested for talking about Jesus in a shopping mall.
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A donut chain's donations to underprivileged children.
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An Australian church leader involved in a sex scandal.
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A great little media blog article on Kim.
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An interview with Alf on freeganism.
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Peace protesters acquitted in New Zealand.
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Statistics on murder rates by countries around the world.
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Anti-cult witchhunts in Australia.
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A new megachurch Billy Graham in the U.S.
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Radio program on endtime teachings of Muslims as compared to those of Christians.
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A report on how the Peruvian earthquake affected the earth's axis.
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Some new threads discussing other topics appear below:
A discussion of the movie "Avatar"
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An article by Alf about the paradoxes of Christianity.
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An update on the cruise we have planned for JCs and relatives later this year.
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A short article by Ali about there being nothing new under the sun.
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More on the Mark of the Beast, from Cherry.
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How far should we go in giving to the poor, by Joe.
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A book review by Paul.
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