Today has been a relaxed day for Dan and Paul but
not for Rob. He was called into action this morning to speak at Christ
Church, giving a sermon and also confirming seven young people into the
church. The service went well and the general consensus among the
congregation was that Rob should probably be promoted to Bishop,
although he was introduced as the Reverend Dr Bob Powell, so the sky's
the limit.
Yesterday evening Churchill took us for a look at
Marina Beach, which stretches for miles and is a popular spot with the
locals. We then briefly visited one of the slum areas on the waterfront
which had been badly hit by the 2004 tsunami. Both Rob and Paul have
been to slums in Africa and South America before but what we saw was
pretty shocking. The conditions that people live in are dire, with most
making a living catching fish, which then then sell on stalls on the
waterfront. It's really difficult to reconcile seeing such terrible
poverty such a short distance away from affluent areas. It is also
difficult to imagine how anyone could possibly escape the cycle of
poverty in a place like that. Looking at the little children running
about on the beach, playing quite happily, you wonder what the future
holds for them.
We are now back at
our accommodation having a break before meeting some people from the
YMCA School of Physical Education tonight. They very kindly donated one
of their pitches free of charge for our use during our visit and
hopefully we will be able to work with them again in the future.
Tomorrow we have our third training session, which we are all really
looking forward to. The kids we are working with have been great and
are very keen to learn as much about football as they can, and have also
been really enjoying Rob's talks.
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