Running 15 marathons in 15 days to fight poverty

The founder of Christians Against Poverty, John Kirkby, is presently engaged in a ‘marathon’ endeavour to raise money and awareness around the plight of the poor.

Starting on Tuesday, Kirkby plans to run 15 marathons in 15 consecutive days. The first marathon is in Edinburgh, followed by runs in Newcastle, Nottingham, London and Bradford, before Kirkby jets off to Australia for five more marathons, and then to New Zealand for the last five.

Kirby’s marathon effort has already raised close on £300,000 in donations but he is hoping to break the £500,000 barrier by the last marathon.

“I'm doing this run to remind us all that no matter how bad things get for the majority of us, they are so much harder for people living with real poverty,” said Kirkby, who founded CAP 15 years ago.

“When you haven't got a lot to start with, it takes very little to throw your finances into crisis and it is up to all of us to make sure that even when times are hard, we don't give up helping those who struggle to achieve the most basic standard of living.”

CAP presently runs a network of 190 debt help centres in the United Kingdom carrying £71 million of clients' secondary debts. CAP provides debt counselling through local churches and also opened new centres in 37 different locations last month.

CAP’s CEO Matt Barlow said: “Our experience shows that there will be people in each of these areas who think there is no hope and in fact, our research shows most people wait to get debt help because they don't think there is any available. Creditors will be ringing all day, the letters will be piling up and their sleep, health and relationships will all be suffering.

“The fantastic news is that due to the commitment of their local church, we will be able to support each client by seeing them in their own home, contacting their creditors on their behalf, setting them a budget and staying with them until they are debt free.”

You can follow John's progress at www.cap15.org


World famous evangelist Billy Graham turns 93

Billy Graham, who is arguably one of the world’s most famous evangelists, turned 93 on Monday. The preacher has enjoyed a career spanning six decades, and recently admitted he fought against the idea of growing older.

"I fought growing old in every way," Graham wrote in his latest book "Nearing Home," a book filled with advice on the dealing with the changes of life caused by age. "I faithfully exercised and was careful to pace myself as I began to feel the grasp of Old Man Time. This was not a transition that I welcomed, and I began to dread what I knew would follow."

Graham is world-renowned for the massive crusades he led as a younger man where whole sports stadiums would be booked out to hear him preach. While Graham has always been associated with the evangelical movement, he is immensely respected by people from all sorts of different faith backgrounds.

"It's his influence on the broader public that's intriguing," Grant Wacker, a professor at the Duke University Divinity School, who's working on a biography of the evangelist told the Huffingtonpost. "There are a lot of people who are not evangelicals who really admire him."

Wacker believes the respect that Graham has gained across the spectrum is partly because his longevity, partly because of a well-earned reputation for integrity and trustworthiness, but also because he has shown the ability to evolve in his belief systems. Wacker cited Graham’s movement from a strident anti-communist early on to a position advocating nuclear arms control in the 1970s as an example of this.

"He's acquired first a national and then an international vision over the years," Wacker said. "Whether or not they like his theology, people admire anybody who can grow into a wider vision."

Remember your Scriptures, Tutu urges Israel

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has issues a challenge to the nation of Israel to remember their own scriptures when it comes to the suffering the Palestinians are presently enduring.

"They have forgotten their own history. They have forgotten what their own prophets have said about our God," the Archbishop insisted in his opening address to the International Russell Tribunal on Palestine.



"We worship a God that is naturally biased in favour of the suffering, the underdog, those who are suffering underfoot... God is always on the side of the oppressed. In the Holy Land, the Palestinian people are the ones suffering.



"There is a great deal of preventable suffering being caused by people who themselves suffered so deeply... who have gone through a crucible of suffering.



"Those of us who are Christian have been influenced very greatly by what one might call the Jewish scriptures. The biased God of the past is the biased God of the present... and if God is to be God, watch out," he warned.

"This is the anguish that I bear."



The International Russell Tribunal is an international forum attempting to promote peace and justice in the Middle East. The tribunal is meeting until Monday at the District Six Museum. Panel members include Holocaust survivor Stephane Hessel, author and poet, Alice Walker, Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire and former South African Cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils.



Some Jewish organisations, including the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, have disregarded the tribunal as nothing but a kangaroo court, according to News24.com.


Call for prayer for Pacific island threatened by rising sea levels

The Bishop of Polynesia has made an urgent call for prayer after visiting the island of Tuvalu in the Pacific.

Archbishop Winston Halapua said that on his visit he saw children wandering the streets because their schools have closed due to water shortages.

Sea water has contaminating drinking wells on the island, and also poisoned traditional food sources such as breadfruit, banana and coconut trees.

The Archbishop said that his visit to the island provided him proof of the problem of rising sea levels.

“For me, to go to Tuvalu – that’s all the information that I need,” he said.

“For me, seeing is believing. What I have seen is the reality of sea rising.”

The Archbishop added that immediate relief is only a “tiny part of the story”.

“The bigger story is this: please do something about climate change,” he said.

Archbishop Halapua urged Christians all over the globe to pray for rain in Tuvalu, climate change and rising sea levels.

World’s poor under threat from pollution and drought, says U.N.

The United Nations has issued a challenge to prosperous countries saying they have not fulfilled promises to aid the poor.

In its annual report on global quality of life, the United Nations Development Program pointed out that the poor often suffer because of polluted water, drought and other environmental factors. The report also asserted that more should be done to address environmental concerns and that sustainability needs to become a part of daily life as the world population continues to increase.

"Sustainability is not exclusively or even primarily an environmental issue," UNDP Administrator Helen Clark wrote in the report's introduction. "It is fundamentally about how we choose to live our lives, with an awareness that everything we do has consequences for the seven billions of us here today, as well as for the billions more who will follow."

The report added that while aid to poorer countries has grown to 23 percent from 2005 to 2009, this still was not enough.

"Rich countries have consistently failed to meet their stated pledges," including promises made by the G-8, the European Union and the United Nations to donate $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the impact of climate change in developing countries.

"The pledges fall well short of estimated needs, and disbursements fall well short of pledges. Most of the 'new and additional' funds pledged at the 2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen have not been delivered, and less than 8 percent of pledges for climate change were disbursed in 2010," the report added.

In the survey of 187 nations, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands topped the annual Human Development Index while Congo, Niger and Burundi were at the bottom.

What do Angry Birds and the Bible have in common?

Angry Birds may have long dominated the digital scene as one of the most downloaded apps of all time, but now it faces a stiff challenge from the Bible.

The Bible had long been the top hard copy bestseller, so it was only a matter of time before it began making inroads into the digital scene. However, this is the first month the Bible has beaten Angry Birds leading Publishers Weekly to say that we are in the midst of a “digital Bible explosion.”

These Bible apps all have hands-on, personalized features making them extremely popular with Christian readers. iPhone Life magazine stated that Logos Bible Software was the fourth most popular Bible App download, while “BibleReader broke into the top 10 highest grossing book apps for the iPad earlier this year.”

Another popular Bible app download is YouVersion, which hit the 30 million download mark in October. YouVersion designer Bobby Gruenewald said he created the app by using “the best of today’s and tomorrow’s technology to help the world fall in love with God’s word.”

Dan Pritchett, vice president for Logos Bible Software, said the new apps and software made the Bible more accessible to people, especially in those moments when they “turn to their phone to keep them occupied.”

Protests outside St Paul's result in further clergy resignations

The situation with anti-capitalist protesters camping in tents outside St Paul's Cathedral has become so volatile and complex that yesterday the situation claimed another clerical ‘victim,’ as the Rt Rev Graeme Knowles resigned from his position as Dean.

Upon announcing his resignation, Knowles, who has been Dean for the last four years, said: "The past fortnight has been a testing time for the chapter and for me personally.

"It has become increasingly clear to me that, as criticism of the cathedral has mounted in the press, media and in public opinion, my position as Dean of St Paul's was becoming untenable.

"In order to give the opportunity for a fresh approach to the complex and vital questions facing St Paul's, I have thought it best to stand down as Dean, to allow new leadership to be exercised.”

Knowles is the third priest to resign, with Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, Rev Dr Giles Fraser, and part-time chaplain Fraser Dyer handing in their notices earlier, although the last two did so in protest at how the Cathedral was handling the affair.

In his first comments on the protest since it began, the Archbishop of Canterbury admitted "urgent issues" had been raised.

Dr Rowan Williams stated: "The events of the last couple of weeks have shown very clearly how decisions made in good faith by good people under unusual pressure can have utterly unforeseen and unwelcome consequences, and the clergy of St Paul's deserve our understanding in these circumstances.

"Graeme Knowles has been a very distinguished Dean of St Paul's, who has done a great deal to strengthen the pastoral and intellectual life of the cathedral and its involvement in the life of London.

"The urgent larger issues raised by the protesters at St Paul's remain very much on the table and we need - as a church and as society as a whole - to work to make sure that they are properly addressed."