How I ended up deciding to hang around in a slum for two weeks

When I first became aware of the opportunity to go on this trip, I was excited and thought this would be great. Friends encouraged me. I got an application form and everything. Then ... I sort of forgot about it.

Then I went to church camp; our major focus was talking about how we could/should be doing something explicitly missional. There was a lot of discussion about overseas mission. What really struck a chord for me was the mention of how it can be transformative to the people who go.

Again ... I sort of forgot about it. Until I saw one of the Urban Vision people on Twitter talking about how they'd just got cheap tickets to Manila, and realised that I hadn't sent the form in and needed to do something, now. I decided on the spot that of course I was going and called up the guy organising it and sent some money for the tickets and stuff -- thankfully he had some idea I was keen so this wasn't completely out of the blue.

This sort of mirrors how I ended up joining Urban Vision myself; initial excitement, then trepidation, then it slipping to the back of my mind, then being asked and saying yes of course how could I do anything else?

What the trip is

It's billed as a "Slum Retreat". We're each placed with a family in the squatter community -- to live with them, see the routines of daily life, the struggles, the hard things, the easy things, the normal, mundane everyday things, even the boredom when there's nothing to do.

We're deliberately trying to avoid fitting the role that Westerners on mission trips are expected to take. We're there to learn, not to teach. There to live like they do, not stay in a hotel and put a roof on a school. There to have our hearts changed, not just our film exposed.

What I expect to get out of this

I don't know exactly how I'll react. I expect to feel stress, homesickness, boredom, confusion. But I'm hoping for a few things:

• hoping to experience a way of life and a level of poverty that is completely out of my field of experience and pretty far out of my comfort zone
• hoping to, as a result of being moved far far away from our western affluent consumer culture, to find Jesus in a new and meaningful way -- to see Christ in what Matthew 25:40 calls "the least of these"
• hoping this will better inform my activities as a member of Urban Vision, to continue to develop a relationship with the poor and marginalised that is based on humility and servanthood

Oh, and I won't be answering my phone

No phone. No laptop. No email. For the first week, no camera. I'm not going in order to twitter "look at me I'm in a slum" every 45 seconds. You'll all just have to cope without me for a couple of weeks. I'm sure you'll manage.

Up and atom!

Fly out early this Thursday morning. Back on Sunday the 26th of July. Your thoughts and prayers will be most appreciated.