Tag Archives: stories about International Development and Relief
Travelling with Osama bin Laden; Solomon and the deaf cousin
I walk up the hill towards the apartment where am staying with friends in the Damascus suburb of Al Afif. Directly in front of me, desert sand coloured houses are stacked against the steep rocky side of Mount Qasioun and … Continue reading →
Hopelessness and Hope
Nicholas the driver and I left Nairobi in a white Toyota troop carrier at 7.30am. It negotiates the Nairobi traffic like a whale but soon we are out of rush hour and hurtling down Waiaki Way towards Naivasha in the … Continue reading →
All is not as it seems ….again
We have flown into the Indonesian island of Flores on the local airline Merpati. The plane is delayed. As a colleague said “It’s mer party and I fly if I want to”. Arriving at Maumere, we made the three hour … Continue reading →
Don’t Forget Me
I arrived in Jakarta last night. It is midday Saturday and I am in a chair with a woman at my feet. Rogers, with its white marble polished floors and large central tank with colourful corals and exotic fish, is … Continue reading →
All Aboard
The tall man in his 30s, sitting on the aisle seat immediately in front of me, raises his voice belligerently toward the young Indonesian flight attendant. Apparently he doesn’t think his drink was served on time. The flight attendant kneels … Continue reading →
Believing Into Real
Belief in what is real takes all kinds of forms. I recently bought a new pair of glasses in Jakarta. They cost about the same as they would have in Australia, but I needed them, my world increasingly out of … Continue reading →
How much is enough?
For six years I went to Washington DC based Church of the Saviour and we had a retreat centre in the county about an hour away called Wellspring. There was a dam there and one of the pastors used to … Continue reading →
What to do?
I am currently in Hardoi, which is somewhere in northern India two hours from Lucknow in India, in spell check comes up as ‘hairdo’. It has been around 43 degrees all week. We are meeting with farmers who are poor … Continue reading →
Signs and Wonders
Saturday evening I decided go for Sex on the Beach. I searched the drinks menu and this was what caught my eye, live dangerously I think to myself. But they didn’t have ‘sex on the beach’ , whatever it is, … Continue reading →
All in Good Time
Jakarta in May is hot at first light, hotter by noon, beads of sweat running down the gutter of your back bone, your head buzzing like a microwave and in this heat the one thing you know to be absolutely true is that … Continue reading →
What am I doing here? 