De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

A very good article about human creativity. For the full text click on the article heading just below. Make God Look Great. Create. Desiring God Blog Creativity. You've either got it, or you don't, right? You're right-brained or left-brained, into art or into computer science, a painter or a mathematician. Creative folks do creative things, like paint, write, and walk barefoot through the woods. Non-creative folks do non-creative things, like make spreadsheets and money. Wrong. Everyone is creative. Creativity is hardwired into our DNA by God himself. All of us were made to be creative people. Creative juices run hot through our veins. All of us have an irresistible, divinely-inspired impulse to create, organize, and fashion. We see this clearly in Genesis 1:27, which says: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ........... But creativity is hard work. It takes work to create a poem o...

On Day 10 Frère François gave us the opportunity to visit 2 different types of market in Lomé: first, a massive, sprawling market for the local Togolese people with narrow passageways between a riotous collection of multi-coloured stalls selling pretty much everything, from all types of food + drink to household goods, electrical equipment, clothing, etc... Secondly, a smaller tourist neighbourhood market designed to entice foreign clients such as ourselves into buying locally made souvenirs. Understandably, we spent more time at the latter. It gave the Team a chance to use up some of the spending money they had brought with get and buy souvenirs to take home. I recommended to the group that they didn't go around taking photos in either market, as I didn't want them (+ their cameras) to be vulnerable to the local criminal element. As well as to the markets, Fr. François took us on a drive around other areas of Lomé: the university complex, the government/admini...

A delicious soft shell crab at Drago's Restaurant, New Orleans. You eat the whole thing, shell 'n' all. view full image Thanks, The Instagram Team

I'm currently in "The Big Easy" visiting my big sister Mona who was not very well a couple of months ago. The other day we went to a free outdoor musical + seafood event on the Mississippi riverfront: the New Orleans Oyster Festival. Famous New Orleans native Irma Thomas and her band were headlining. Sheer class + a great voice, especially for someone in her 70s. view full image "Irma Thomas @ New Orleans Oyster Festival" (taken at New Orleans Oyster Festival) Thanks, The Instagram Team

After breakfast next door in the usual restaurant owned by the Sisters who run the centre where we were staying, we set off on our 9 hr trek back down to the south coast of Togo, but not before many of the youngsters from Foyer 1 and their accompanying adults came to say a final goodbye. Then we were on our way. Going through the mountains south of Kara we came across even more overturned or broken down lorries than on the way up. We stopped for a photo opportunity at the "Faille d'Aledjo" (The Aledjo Fault): a quite spectacular passageway cut through the rock on the twisting mountain pass road to allow an easier flow of lorry traffic around a particularly tight bend. Our faithful Nissan transport for the journey back down south. Morale was maintained in our trusy Nissan bus through regular singalongs to tracks from the Togo 2012 Team Playlist (courtesy of DJ Christos + Sound Engineer Br. James) and supplies of sweets....

Day 8 saw us having some relaxation before the long journey back to Lomé the following day. It also gave us the chance to do our packing and prepare our gifts for the orphanage that we would be handing over at the farewell ceremony that evening.  Prior to that celebration we ended up going back to the hotel swimming pool, thanks to our friend Bernard. His brother was involved in putting on a pool party in conjunction with a local nightclub and asked if we would like to go along. There was a good atmosphere with quite a few local people there, though the music being pumped through the PA was at times deafening.  Much fun was had from the swimming races they organised, Jack + Shovel near deadheating in the final of the front crawl, with Jack adjudged to have pinched it by a whisker thanks to instant video replay :-) They shared the prizes (t-shirt and a free entry voucher which shovel gave to Bernard for him to go with his son. Nice gesture. Well in, Shov...

The morning football match proved to be just the first of many memorable experiences on Day 7, the day of our final visit to Foyer 2 and the younger orphans out in the country. The post-match wind down involved some therapeutic football top washing as we were giving most of these tops to the orphanage the following day at our farewell celebration... ... and some therapeutic card tower building by Eric. After lunch we headed back to Foyer 2 in Bernard's lorry for a final round of activities with the youngsters. "My name eez Hercule Poirot!" Hand-print banners, one for the orphanage to keep... ... and one for us. Faces that will stay long in our memories. On the lorry heading back to Foyer 1... the older children who'd come with us for the afternoon led us in a raucous sing-song. They knew a certain number of songs in English, many of which were Christmas carols. It was at the same time am...