What's it all about?

40 nights for the orphans of India. My 'Lent in a Tent' is about raising hugely needed funds for 'Shining Faces in India' orphanage in Salem, Tamil Nadhu, by sleeping ouside the Chaplaincy at King's Bruton for 40 nights. My target is at least £10,000 - which amazingly is only enough to feed the hundreds of children there for about two months.

I hope that many might be inspired to trade 40 pounds for my 40 nights. Actually, in the back of my mind I'm convinced that we could smash through the target and go much much further ... I wonder.

Thursday, 21 February 2013

An ideal face for radio! ... 16/40

Can you imagine it?

I'm all excited as I tell him, 'I'm being interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol & Somerset ... Sunday morning ... 8.15-8.20am.'

It's quiet for a moment, then he says, 'I always thought you had an ideal face for radio!' There's no doubting the thrust - with your face we're happy to hear you but not see you!

I did laugh in the vain hope that he didn't mean it ... then rubbed my ghastly beard and thought he was probably right. It's like a ginger kitten clinging to my face. Then I got thinking about night 16 and the little ones in India.

The joke was about being heard but not seen. For the orphans and children it's not a joke, and it's about being seen but not heard. They're everywhere in India, some 15-20 million orphans. You can't miss them. Their homes are the train carriages we ride and the streets we walk; the doorways we pass through and the rubbish tips we fill.  Seen but not heard.

The most blessed end up in the care of the few like Jayaraj ... founder and leader of the orphanage posted about earlier. Their voices now heard, these children blossom into their full selves - noticed, worthy, loved.


Why should their voices go unheard? We'd be outraged if it was us. Then again, are we so very different to the unhearing we've spoken of? We see so much so often ... in our papers, on the news. But don't we then fall short of really hearing their voice?  The needs of the 'Les Miserables' of the world seem so vast that our hearing is paralysed by the feeling that there's nothing we can do. So we go on seeing in their silence.

Well this venture and it's hand-in-hand blog is about going beyond just seeing to truly hearing the voice of those we seek to help. We hear them by hearing about them, their life stories, their day, their education, their nights. Then when we hear, and when we understand, so our will is moved to act.

So this night 16 I'll be thinking about learning to listen better ... let's try ...



Can you hear their shrieks and whoops of joy? If your hearing moves your will to act, then please ...

 
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