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Milton, aged 28, is one of those 800,000. He arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, dreaming of an easier life in the city. He left behind a small plot of farmland, a young family, and crippling debt. Local policies, unfair trading, and increased globalisation, meant that Milton’s land no longer earned enough to sustain his wife and three children. Like millions of other rural Africans, he was drawn to the city, desperately hoping to find a job. He soon discovered that the best way to save money is to live in the cheapest accommodation possible: the slum.

One by one, the dreams Milton brought with him to the big city were torn away. He quickly realised the difficulty of finding a respectable job when your address is a well-known slum, so he turned to one of the many informal industries within the community – selling coal by the roadside. It now brings him just enough money to pay his rent and to buy one meal a day, but no more than that. He recently fell deeper into debt when a bad burn forced him to borrow from one of the unscrupulous money lenders that swarm the slums.

Milton thinks daily of his family who trust that he will visit soon with the money he has been able to save. He dreads having somehow to send the news that there is no money, and indeed that he is now in greater debt than ever.

Milton knows the reality of what we call the poverty cycle. Slum life is cruel, dangerous, and extremely difficult to escape, and it’s the life known by 1 billion of the world’s population today.

Slum Survivor:

Meanwhile, in the shadow of comfortable high-rise apartments of Hong Kong, lies our own small makeshift slum: four houses made of scrap metal and thin boards with leaky roofs, in which, week by week, members of the Hong Kong community are led through a deep, rich journey of experiences that helps them enter the lives of people living in poverty.

A traditional Chinese proverb says, ‘what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.’ We might take it a step further and say, ‘what I experience, I take to heart’. Since the beginning of our Life X-perience program in 2005, we have seen profound change in the lives of 5000 participants from the Hong Kong community as they stepped, through simulation activities, into the shoes of an Indian child labourer, an Afghan refugee, or an impoverished Kenyan – like, indeed, Milton - who sleeps on a dirt floor.

These immersive experiences bring about the kind of compassion that motivates, the kind you can’t manufacture simply by reading statistics or news reports. It’s a compassion that moves people to change their daily behaviour, the way they spend their money, and even, in some cases we’ve seen, their career paths.

In early March we welcomed 25 people from Hong Kong’s press and corporate world to spend a night in our own shanty town. They slept on the ground with just a straw mat and blanket and then spent the next 24 hours living under intense slum and refugee conditions. Of their experience, one participant said, “I think it give the opportunity for your imagination to capture what it might be like. But, of course, the reality is even worse - the mind games and the element of surprise. It’s quite unnerving. Everything you have take for granted is off the table.” And another, “We’re only doing 24 hours, but you’re confronted with the reality of how many people have to struggle for survival”.

All the money raised from the Slum Survivor event is used by Crossroads to bring hope and new life to people in need locally and internationally.

Slum Survivor 2007Slum Life: You can smell Africa’s largest slum before you see it. It’s the dizzying stench of 800,000 people living on top of each other, with no toilets, no running water, and no rubbish removal service.

Lay Ho!Welcome to my first newsletter from Crossroads International in Hong Kong. Once a month on a Friday, each full time team member here (there’s about 70 of us) spend the day writing to our friends, family and supporters back home, so all going well one of these newsy-letters will find its way to you each month.

It’s over 5 weeks now since I landed in this crazy and wonderful country of bustling city streets bursting with an ever-busy humanity along-side rolling green and untouched hills which so often inspire in me songs from The Sound of Music (well, one in particular: The hilllllls are aliiiiiive....!!).

Already my time has been very full and so much has happened. Thank you to everyone who has been tuning in to my blog and/or emailing with words of encouragement and news from home. It’s wonderful to hear from you so please continue to keep in touch!

The day after I arrived at Crossroads was the annual Slum Survivor event which is a major fundraiser involving local business-people (bankers, lawyers, chief executives, media representatives) and their families in an effort to raise money, and just as importantly to increase people’s awareness of those in developing nations who are caught in the cycle of poverty. This year there was a camera crew filming the event and the resulting documentary was aired twice during prime-time on Hong Kong television last week. There were also numerous newspaper articles in the local papers such as the one above.You can read a bit about this event in the next article

Crossroads International Crossroads Village, 2 Castle Peak Road, Gold Coast, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong E: marniemoo@bluebottle.com W: www.marniemoo.com W: www.crossroads.org.hk

April 2007 – Marnie’s News: 01

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On Wednesday night of Easter week, the Crossroads team divided into our departments to re-enact the Easter story in various locations across the site here - stirring in us both delight and contemplation. The children’s play was especially noteworthy for the strength and passion of it’s performers, particularly 7 year old Leanne who played the meanest and scarriest Barrabas that ever was (she’s in grey cammo in photo 1).

On Thursday I spent the day in Central with Katrina, Tari and Sarah. Sarah was ‘house’-minding for some friends so we went back to the unit for a lunch of home-cooked spaghetti followed by a dvd - Flushed Away (very funny). You might note that in photo 2 I’m wearing a coat. That’s because, yes, it has been cold. Unseasonally so, I am told. About 2 weeks ago I was just gearing up for the growing humidity when a cold snap passed through and suddenly found myself needing 3 blankets on my bed at night. Since then it’s been a mixture of cold and comfortably mild. I’m enjoying it whilst simultaneously psyching myself up for the humidity that will soon return and remain for quite some months.

On Good Friday we had a group time of eating well-buttered hot-cross buns, drinking chai and singing, followed by a short hike (pic 3) part way up the mountain behind us for a time of reflection, looking out at the spectacular view over the Crossroads site and around and beyond (pic 4). In the afternoon we washed our hands and made the biggest ‘salad’ of all time with an Easter theme to it (pic 5), after which we ate it

(as you do) and enjoyed a movie while eating easter eggs from Dubai. Some of our team had just returned from a trip to Dubai and kindly came bearing the BEST easter eggs ever. Think Swiss chocolate, only from a wealthy middle-east country...

On the Monday, we had the amazing privilege of sighting this golden orb in the sky which from recollection I think is called the sun. Not only that, but we saw blue-ish sky. Incredible! The timing of this rare emergence of the sun was perfect, as a group of us headed to Lantau Island and made the trek by ferry and bus to the the big buddha - who is indeed big (pic 6). We took the 5km cable-car trip back down and were treated to the awesome beauty of Lantau’s hills, free of the signs of man except for a few bush tracks. The hills are aliiiiiive!! (Note pic 7 the big buddha top left in the distance).

KazakhstanThis month, our Central Asian team visited a refuge for abandoned kids. This is the kids’ first stop before they are sent to an orphanage. Our

team took backpacks filled with clothes, toys and school stationery to give to the kids.

After the visit, Alice wrote, “There was one kid who was particularly sad. We found out later that his mum was a prostitute. When she would ‘work’, she would pass him over to some friends to look after him. They, however, would shut him in boxes and he would eat cockroaches. When he came to the refuge he kept on looking for cockroaches to eat. It was awful... It was great though to be able to give him a bag with his name on with clothes and a toy in it. Something just for him. People have destroyed his understanding of what it means to be cared for and there is a lot of damage but I hope this will be the beginning of a softening of his broken heart.”

Teacher Needed!We are richly blessed to have several families, with children, on our full time team. In total, we have 10 beautiful kids, aged 6 to 14 years. They do their studies through a home school correspondence course at our “Teaching & Learning Centre”, under the care of two teachers/tutors. (Two are needed because each child is a different age and has their own school program).

Both of our full time teachers, however, have just recently finished their periods of service with us. We are asking the MD to send us people to replace them... and to send them soon!

What are the requirements? We are looking for people with training in education who feel called to serve here for one year. If you know of any teachers who might be interested in hearing more, could you let us know? We’d love to get in touch with them.

Security ReminderYou might notice that my letters and emails sometimes have some strange language or might be missing some common terms you may expect me to use. I refer to the One I believe is guiding and directing me the “MD” or managing director. Or I may refer to the place I regularly go on as my club. This is done as a means to protect those we serve who are in non-MD friendly environments. I ask you to please remember that this language also applies to emails and letters I receive from you. Feel free to use your creativity and think of new terms to describe situations and events.

Easter breakOne of the (many) wonderful things about living in Hong Kong is the number of public holidays. There are the ones the English introduced and then there are the Chinese holidays, all up making the grand total of about 16 days a year. Woohoo! Over Easter we enjoyed a rather extended break (Thursday - Monday) thanks to a combination of English and Chinese days off.

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