James Colton support team

Position: James Colton support team - letter writing team.

Work involved: Writing a letter to James in Tanzania once a month. Preferably the letter will be hand-written, but one done on the computer will be fine. It's just that the personal touch sometimes makes the difference; but that's not really an issue, what is important is that James is getting mail on a regular basis. In time James will comment as to his preference.

Requirements: If you can pick up a pen and write, that's enough! Don't worry about spelling or grammar (although if you are, then use the computer so that you can spell-check everything. As we say, it's not an issue anyway). You may not even know James personally, but by reading his regular news updates (click here) you will no doubt feel that you do. You can write about your church, the latest news, in fact anything, even the weather! You may want to include news cuttings or anything else that you may feel James will find interesting. The only commitment is to the next letter; if for any reason you need to leave the team, that is no problem at all.

Guidelines: As James is a single man (a widower), we are really looking to avoid a woman in the same position, for obvious reasons. Not that this is a male-only opportunity - far from it. But if a lady did take on the commitment to write a letter, we would only be happy if her husband was fully aware and supportive. Obviously if a couple knew James before he left for the mission field, then this would fit that requirement perfectly.

Concerning the actual letter itself, always write when you are feeling good. Don't sit down and pour out all your troubles and problems to James. You are doing this as a ministry to him, not to burden him. Life is hard enough on the mission field as it is, without carrying extra baggage that he picks up in a letter. If you are going through a particularly bad time yourself then either stay totally objective or else give the next letter a miss and someone else will do it.

Organisation: As people join the letter writing team, we will develop a rota so that people know exactly when they are due to write. It is always better to work to a date as without one, even with the best of intentions, the job sometimes never gets done. You won't be given an exact day, so don't worry about that, but rather you will be allocated a 'week beginning' slot, hence you can write any time during that seven days.

As we will communicate by e-mail then you will need to have access to the Internet. Web space is allocated so that you will know exactly what is going on, and you will have direct access to home base so you won't be alone.

Interested? Contact Stewart Bloor and away you go!

Spirit led and organisationally driven