Positively Gideon

I have spend quite a lot of the past day with Canon Gideon Byamugisha (right) from Uganda. If you haven't heard of him don't worry - but you should have! Gideon was the first religious leader in Africa to publically say that he is HIV positive. He is now the Goodwill Ambassador on HIV and AIDS for Christian Aid and engaged in a hundred different programmes to change our attituded towards people living with HIV and AIDS. Last night he was awarded the prestigous Niwano Peace Prize.

Is being positive a negative thing? Not if you get anywhere near Gideon - he's one of the most positive people I have come across for a long time, positive about life, the gospel, and AIDS. Could I catch something from Gideon sharing time with him today? Yes, he is highly infectious - don't get too close or you really will catch a nasty case of joy in the gospel and anger at the way so many people living with HIV/AIDS are treated in our world. We had great conversations about the difference between sin, failure, criminality and sickness. We touched on the new (homophobic?) bill being pushed through the Ugandan parliament at the moment. I listened as he spoke about living life to its maximum potential (John 10:10). Great stuff.

And ... don't forget World Aids Day is just ten days away.

Think positive!

A grown up ministry

It feels like I grew up this week. A little baby that I sort of adopted ten years ago has just become a responsible adult. It has been great fun for me, over those years, to nurture the Faith2Share vision and to see an ever-widening network of mission agencies coming together and enjoying each other - most of the time! Now we have become a charity and that means we have to act responsibly - maybe a little boring, but growing up can be fun.

We submitted our carefully prepared application to the UK Charity Commission in late October and were told not to expect to hear anything for a couple of months - then less than two weeks later Faith2Share Charity No. 1132727 was born. I couldn't believe it when I opened the letter. The good news is that we can now raise money and get some tax back from the government - and that means we can really do the business of mission. To be a charity you need trustees and over the summer we found four great people to do that - four people representing six countries. How? A Kenyan running a mission agency in New Zealand, a Canadian businessman, a Sinaporean teaching mission in Britain and an American mission leader in California - welcome Steve, Loun, Robb and Kevin.

If you want to know more about this brand new charity (but a ten-year old vision and ministry) find us at http://www.faith2share.net/