David Newsome reflects on his recent walk to fundraise for the Miswa Community in Zambia.
“In Hands at Work we say that we go to communities ‘off the tar road.’ In other words, we go to the most isolated, poorest communities. Last year my wife, Jane, and I visited Miswa in Zambia. It was 13.5 miles from the tar road along dirt tracks to this isolated and scattered community.
During our visit we asked one of the Care Workers what they do when one of the children gets malaria, a desperate issue in that area. He replied that he takes them with his vehicle to the clinic on the main road. It was only as the conversation continued that it dawned on us that the ‘vehicle’ he was referring to was his bicycle. Imagine taking a sick child on a bike all that way.
The memory of that community has stayed with me ever since. I love walking; it restores me, it lifts my heart, and it turns me naturally to prayer. For me, walking is a matter of leisure, of choice, but for the community of Miswa it is a matter of necessity and, in some circumstances, of survival.
The Care Workers shared with us their dreams of establishing a community garden. The picture shows them explaining to Jane where they hoped it would be.
It was wonderful to receive photographs this year of how they had realised their dreams!
In the last few weeks we have received some videos of the first fruits from these labours! It is wonderful to see what this amazing group of hard-working women and men have achieved. So when Hands at Work UK was asked recently to help raise funds to enable this community to build resilience during the Covid crisis, we really wanted to support their endeavours, and doing a sponsored walk seemed the natural response! From the 5th–8th October I walked the Northumberland Coast Path.
The Northumberland Coast Path
The Path starts in Cresswell, just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and runs up to Berwick-upon-Tweed in the North. It is 64 miles long and almost the whole route is classed as an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’. It passes one of my very favourite places, Holy Island, the cradle of Christianity in the north of England, as well as a number of impressive castles at Warkworth, Dunstanburgh and Bamborough. It takes in some beautiful little fishing villages too – Amble, Alnmouth, Craster, and Seahouses.
I rather cautiously set the target at £500 and by the end of the walk had raised nearly £3,000. What has been exciting is that money has continued to come in. With more sponsorship and some separate gifts, the amount raised for Miswa is now over £4,000.
Doing the walk amidst the pandemic, and not long before the government instituted a second lockdown, gave ample food for reflection along the way.
On the final day I stopped on Goswick Sands, just north of Holy Island. It is a beautiful spot and was a lovely morning, with not another person in sight. There was a tangible sense of peace and prayer, a truly ‘thin place’ in the border between heaven and earth.
Yet in 1939 it had been identified as a prime invasion location for the Nazis. There were the remains of gun emplacements trained on the beach further up the coast and anti-tank obstacles scattered along the shoreline like the teeth of some fossilised remains of some long-slain monster. Difficult to imagine all of that now but it became a sustaining reminder of the promise in St. John’s Gospel that the darkness does not overcome.
Many of those who gave towards ‘Miles for Miswa’ did so anonymously. If that includes you, thank you for your support for this amazing community.”
David Newsome