SGM Lifewords is taking part in a variety of ways, and you can find out more about our plans here.

• SGM Canada partnered with churches in British Columbia to provide resources for the duration of the Winter Olympics – making use of titles such as Winning is Everything, a popular resource exploring the themes of sport and faith. Give thanks for this wonderful opportunity, and please pray for all those who received these resources, that they will be intrigued by the message and encouraged into encounter with Jesus.

• As Easter approaches, SGM Canada is working to inspire Christians and churches to reach out to their communities with the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. A new resource, iBelieve, has been written to help people to explore the Easter story during Lent. Please pray that those who receive it will grow in their faith and be encouraged to live, speak and share the Story with those around them.

• Canadian supporter Barbara Hern uses SGM Lifewords Inspire resources including Life’s Not Fair and Forgiveness Matters as part of her work mentoring church leaders for Christ Life Ministries. During a recent trip to Guyana, she had the opportunity to witness to a young man who had been hospitalised after trying to take his own life. Through hearing her testimony and praying with her, he discovered Christ’s love for himself. Please pray for all those like Barbara who are using Inspire resources in their personal outreach and mission.

• This month, SGM Lifewords will be moving our UK offices from Radstock House (in Victoria) to the Oasis Centre near Westminster. Please pray with us for the logistics of the move, and for a smooth transition for all involved. Give thanks with us for the significant part that Radstock House has played in the story of the mission; pray also for start of a new chapter in a new home, and pray that we’ll be able to make the most of the opportunities a different working environment will provide.

• The UK programme development team is currently working on two new manuscripts, both telling the story of Jesus’ life and ministry. One is an “introduction” to Jesus; the other a longer telling of the gospel story. Inspiration for these booklets came from research for the Historic Churches initiatives, as people working in visitor contexts asked for resources that would help introduce Jesus to an “unchurched” audience. Please pray for wisdom and creativity for all those involved in working on these projects.

• SGM Lifewords is one of more than forty agencies in the UK supporting the Biblefresh campaign for 2011, aimed at encouraging Christians across the UK into a deeper engagement with the Bible’s life words. The hope is that 2011 will be a year in which the whole church will get involved in rediscovering, celebrating and experiencing its Story in fresh, creative ways. Please pray for the initiative as it’s launched to churches this month. You’ll be able to read more in the next issue of Interact, and we’ll keep you up to date with how to pray for the campaign, and access resources for your own church.

• The eyes of the world’s media will be on South Africa this summer as the country hosts the football World Cup. As final preparations are made, there are ongoing reports of shanty town clearances and vulnerable groups – including many children – being sent to prisons or temporary homes. Please pray for Pavement Project partner organisations involved in responding to the needs of children-at-risk in South Africa. One innovative response, Street Child World Cup, gets under way in a fortnight’s time. Organised by children-at-risk agencies and headed up by former street children, the football tournament will also provide an opportunity for a forum on children’s rights – and provide ways for street children to tell their stories. See streetchildworldcup.org to find out more.

• Recent feedback on the use of Inspire resources in Africa has indicated that many churches find Bible booklets a great way to get to people to engage with the Bible. One group of Lifewords supporters in Kenya, doing a Bible study on forgiveness, were given copies of Forgiveness Matters to aid their learning. After using the booklets for the study, many people commented on how well the material was presented. Pray that there would be a greater awareness of these materials within local churches and that they would be put to use in helping people connect with the Bible’s life-giving words

• Rites of passage are a common practice across African tribal communities. This usually consists of training in traditional survival skills, but it can also include less-welcome cultural practices. In order to provide Kenyan children with an alternative, Lifewords has been talking to churches about developing a rite of passage based on the Bible-based curriculum Choose Life. Pray that these discussions would be fruitful in providing a viable alternative for Kenya’s young people.

• The Alabaster Project is a volunteer organisation seeking to reach out to women forced to work on the streets of Berlin, offering fellowship and support and introducing them to the Bible’s life words. SGM Lifewords has been partnering with this organisation since 2007, providing foreign language resources to aid them in their ministry. Pray that these resources would be well used and that many would come to faith through this authentic Christian witness.

• Sadly, human trafficking, particularly into forced prostitution has become one of the largest criminal industries of our times, and over eighty percent of the victims are women and children. Indeed a recent study found that over 18,000 Bulgarian women are currently involved in prostitution throughout Western Europe. Please pray for initiatives such as STOP THE TRAFFICK, which are attempting to offer an authentically Christian response to this issue.

• SGM Lifewords Faith Journeys project aims to connect Christians across Europe through the use of blogs, reflections and other interactive content. December saw the publication of a series of Advent Reflections and subscribers to Life Changing Words were encouraged to send e-cards, which resulted in over three thousand being sent. Please pray that many would have been touched by the authentic Christian message proclaimed in the e-cards they have received.

• Praise God for the success of the latest SGM Lifewords Christmas resource, The Ultimate Gift – created especially for Canada. Nearly 40,000 copies flew out the door travelling across Canada for use in local churches and communities. Many Salvation Army corps used The Ultimate Gift at their Christmas kettle drive (a traditional street collection). Please pray that those who received it might accept Christ as their ultimate gift.

• Lawson Murray, National Director of SGM Canada has written a range of inspirational books, including iConnect and iBelieve. These new initiatives were developed to encourage people to engage with the scriptures on a daily basis. Pray that they would be widely used and that those who read the books will be inspired to grow more in their faith.

• SGM Canada is currently working on a new Inspire resource, responding to the needs of individuals and communities struggling with financial loss and insecurity. Pray it will be a useful resource for those searching for meaning in the context of ongoing global economic crisis and change.

21st century India is a land of infinite layers. There are sprawling “mega cities”, where an ever-growing array of multinational companies, call centres, and high-technology firms rub shoulders with teeming slums that occupy every inch of urban wasteland. Meanwhile, traditional ways of life continue untouched in rural villages. There are temples, cinemas, politics, schools … and cricket. And everywhere the age-old struggle between poverty and potential rages on. New visitors find the sheer diversity “overwhelming”.

11 million slumdogs
India has another layer. One that the film Slumdog Millionaire highlighted – though for most real-life slumdogs there is no happy ending. India is home to the world’s largest population of street children. Conservative estimates put the figure at 11 million, but the number is likely to be far higher. Walk the crowded streets of Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi, and you will meet them – begging, singing, performing for loose change; selling flowers, vegetables, fruit. They are rag-picking, working at tea stalls, playing porter at the railway stations, shining shoes. And they are always prey to exploitation, malnutrition, harassment, abuse.

400,000 children trafficked in one year
The circumstances that trap children in poverty and danger are as simple as accident of birth, caste, and location, and as complex as global capitalism and our insatiable appetite for cheap goods made from cheap labour. In India, as across South Asia, trafficking of children (and their parents) is a significant problem. According to UN sources, at least 400,000 children in India were victims of sex-trafficking in 2004 alone.

”Accidents of birth”
Two of the biggest challenges that India’s most vulnerable children face are determined at birth: caste, and being a girl. Those born in the slums live and die in the slums. Despite government efforts to introduce change, children of the “untouchables” (the Dalit caste) still have little access to education, healthcare, or opportunity.

And girls are particularly vulnerable. Last Easter, VIVA India (a children-at-risk agency, and one of our major partners in India) produced a report called “Abundant Life for the Girl Child”. In it they detail some of the discrimination that girls face: lack of access to health care, discrimination at home, low school enrolment, early marriage, trafficking, early working, and even female foeticide.

Names behind the numbers
VIVA can tell hundreds of stories like Ruthi’s*. Her parents died when she was just eight. Her aunt and uncle took her in, with the promise of sending her to school. But Ruthi was not sent to school; she was used as a domestic worker, and repeatedly raped by her uncle.

Or stories like Soni’s*. Soni is five years old. Her mother was trapped in prostitution. Soni’s grown up with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse all around her – a victim of severe neglect. Sadly her mother died. A local project working in the red light area has taken her into their care.

Pinky’s* story stands for the millions like her living on the streets. She moved with her parents to the city when she was a little girl, joining the growing group of street dwellers in India’s mega cities. They made themselves a home under a flyover and a “living” picking rags. When she was 15 she was married off to a man she didn’t know and became pregnant. Her baby boy died when he was just three months old; she was unable to feed him properly.

Unlocking children’s stories
Against this backdrop, what’s the vision for Pavement Project in India? India was one of the locations where Pavement Project was first tested ten years ago. Since then, workers have been trained mostly in and around Bangalore (a major city in the south). In such a challenging context, the programme has struggled to find a foothold for sustainable growth. In 2008, SGM Lifewords set about re-imagining how Pavement Project could make a difference in India. We began by meeting with some major children-at-risk agencies, among them VIVA India, World Vision India, and Oasis India. Together we explored how Pavement Project might enhance the work that these organisations are already doing with vulnerable children.

In Hyderabad (where the first new Pavement Project Worker Training was established in 2009) the local VIVA network (called Blossoms) works in some of the largest slums, running literacy and health projects; working with whole families. Likewise, World Vision’s field workers run community projects in slums, while Oasis provide community health workers, and run children’s clubs – supplemented by a team of counsellors who work one-to-one with (women and) children in particular need.

All these organisations highlighted how much traumatised children struggle to confide their stories. Unlocking what has happened to them is such an important step towards healing – and repeatedly the stories we hear from Pavement Project are about just that. Christina, an Indian worker who trained in Pavement Project’s Picture Me process in May last year, put it like this:

“I am really grateful to Jesus for making me a part of this project. The children I’ve counselled are children I see almost every day, and I’ve shared lots of light and happy moments with them. But when I worked through Picture Me with them, I saw a different side to their characters: stories which they’ve kept hidden up until now, things they have never let anyone else know … I thought I knew these children well, but I’m so grateful that Pavement Project has given me the tools to deepen my relationship with them and to relate God’s Word to each of them more effectively.”

Blossom and grow
The scale of the “problem” in India is enormous; and Pavement Project is very small in comparison. In 2009 we re-started work with just ten new workers; adding more with a second Training Workshop at the end of the year. The work we’ve done in putting the programme together with partner organisations means that these workers are well-supported in their projects, well-chosen for their ability to use Picture Me in their existing work; and the organisations they are a part of are beginning to dream about how tens and hundreds more of their workers can join Pavement Project from across different states and cities. Together we’re committed to making that dream a reality. That’s our vision for the next ten years!

Through Pavement Project, SGM Lifewords has always dreamed big dreams! Our prayer is to see Indian children’s lives touched and transformed, as they meet Jesus through the Bible stories Picture Me tells, and the workers who tell them.

Ten years ago, when the Pavement Project green bags were first created, each had a picture on the side – a small flower growing from between two paving stones. It symbolises the hope that children’s lives can blossom and flourish, even in hostile circumstances, as they experience God’s love for them. Think of that image when you pray for Pavement Project in India. This is our hope, however small we begin: that Pavement Project might leave a sea of flowers in its wake; blossoms that grow even in the dust and dirt of the slums, between the cracks, and under the flyovers.

*Names have been changed in line with SGM Lifewords‘ child protection policy.

• The recent earthquake in Haiti has brought pain and turmoil into the lives of the island’s inhabitants, with many experiencing the loss of their homes and loved ones. Please pray for all those who have been dispossessed or bereaved as a result of the crisis, that they might experience the peace and comfort of God.

• Give thanks for the widespread response to the events in Haiti, with many specialist teams being dispatched to aid in the rescue efforts and many people donating towards the relief effort. Please pray that there would be good communication between the various emergency teams as they continue to offer help and support to the people affected by this catastrophe.

• In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, many will be attempting to come to terms with what they have witnessed and to accept what they have lost. In such circumstances, it’s important that churches and Christian organisations have the necessary pastoral resources to allay people’s fears and point them to God. Please pray for the efforts of numerous organisations to provide the people of Haiti with words of hope and comfort in a language they can understand.

• Every stage of life brings its own changes, challenges, and opportunities. As we walk forward on life’s journey, we need to know God’s daily provision for us. SGM Lifewords booklet Day by Day has been a source of daily strength and encouragement for hundreds of people over the years. Give thanks for the words of  life, hope and promise the Bible contains. Pray that despite the challenges each of us face in our day to day lives, we will find the time and the space to reflect on those promises and allow them to change and renew us.

• “’Because he trusts me’, says the LORD, ’I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name’.” Pray for all those who are working to make God’s name known in challenging environments: for prison chaplains, those working cross-culturally, those seeking to remain faithful to God in the cut and thrust of the business world. Pray that, day after day, they will know God strengthening them as they seek to live true to the story the Bible tells, that as they come before him each day, he would strengthen them to reach out to others with the Bible’s life-changing words.

• We recently received the following feedback from a supporter who had used our pastoral resources as part of her personal witness. She writes, “You may like to know about my experience with your leaflet Day by Day. A church member was ill and so we sent them a card and a copy of Day By Day.  The leaflet was much appreciated and the member then passed the leaflet to a non-Christian friend who is terminally ill, actually resulting in the conversion of the person concerned.” Give thanks with us for this story of the Bible’s life words at work. Please pray with us for all those using our Inspire resources to help people make connections with the Bible for the first time.

I’ve known Carla* since she was eight years old. Now eighteen, she’s a radiant young woman, excitedly making preparations for her forthcoming wedding. A committed Christian, she loves children and teaches in the children’s ministry of her church. It’s hard to imagine that she’s ever had a care in the world.

But ten years ago, Carla was living on the streets, begging for food and loose change from passers-by. Like so many street children, she had suffered sexual abuse. Completely lacking self-worth, she compared herself to an armadillo in a hole that stayed hidden away to avoid being seen. Through Pavement Project, our stories collided.

It’s been ten years now since Pavement Project first hit the streets. This unique Bible-based counselling process has equipped hundreds of street workers with the ability to sow the seeds of hope, possibility and change into the lives of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable children.

Carla was one of the very first children to encounter Pavement Project. It provided her with an opportunity to tell her story, to understand how precious she is to God, and to have her self-worth restored. It gave her a stepping stone into a transformed, hope-filled future. That’s the difference Pavement Project can make.

A Ten Year Journey
I’ve been involved with Pavement Project from the very beginning. It’s been a ten year journey in which I have experienced huge challenges, but also great blessing! As a trained social worker and family therapist, I’d been working with children-at-risk on the streets of Rio de Janeiro for seven years when I was approached by SGM Lifewords (then Scripture Gift Mission) to coordinate a survey amongst children-at-risk in Brazil – exploring their experiences, fears, dreams and aspirations. The hope was that the results would equip SGM to produce a Bible resource that would touch and transform the hearts of street children the world over.

Mind the Gap
I realised that the Pavement Project idea brought all my areas of practice together: social work, children, evangelism and discipleship; and I was aware of a significant gap in my ability to bring about lasting change in the children I encountered. Even though they received all sorts of material, spiritual, educational and vocational help, most remained immobilised by pain and low self-esteem. Nothing I attempted seemed capable of transmitting the unconditional, transforming love of God. The possibility of having a tool which would enable me to bridge that gap filled me with excitement, and led me to accept the opportunity to be involved from the very beginning of the survey process, through the production of the Picture Me resources, and eventually in the implementation of Pavement Project.

Unprecedented Impact
Even at development stage, Pavement Project was investing in children-at-risk, giving them value and affirming their worth. Everything, from the colour of the bag to the pictures inside it, was chosen by the children. And I could see God’s hand directing every stage of the process. The difficulties were great, but what God did was greater still. As we began to implement the programme, the impact of the Picture Me counselling on the lives of the children was amazing, and unprecedented. The percentage rates of change in their behaviour and sense of self worth were so high that I spent hours studying them to confirm that we were indeed witnessing genuine transformation. I was not disappointed. External psychologists and researchers were astonished by the impact of the programme. “I’ve never seen this much improvement and this kind of progress in so short a time” said one. “I need to find out more about this Jesus factor.” “Incredible!” exclaimed another. “Imagine what this material could do to a whole nation, or even the whole world.” Imagine indeed! Why not find out if these results can be repeated in other cultures, in different countries? This has been my most recent involvement in Pavement Project, as I took on the role of global coordinator.

I never tire of it
As I’ve read the stories of transformed lives from all over the world, I’ve discovered that our God transcends differences of background, language and culture. God is equally efficient and powerful whatever the circumstances, wherever we are in the world. So ten years on, I’m still excited by Pavement Project. I never tire of it. I always feel that a world of children are asking for help, right before my eyes. And I’ve had the privilege of hearing the testimonies of children from Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Columbia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Brazil, all encountering the same material, all hearing the same stories, all experiencing transformative encounter with the Bible’s life words, all discovering a faithful friend in Jesus. What could be better than that?

* Name has been changed in line with SGM Lifewords‘ child protection policy.