Op 58

On Friday night, Salvo youth from a few different corps in South Australia, came together for Op 58. I have blogged about Op 58 before, but for those who don’t know. The youth come together and worship, and the meeting is justice focused. They are also challenged to give up something for a term, and put the money that they would normally spend on that thing in their pigs (blue piggy banks) and then bring the money back to the next Op 58. So far the youth have raised enough money for a dormitory to be built (and it is now being built). However it doesn’t stop there, they are raising more money, which will go towards building a kitchen, dining hall and other buildings for this childrens home… This children’s home is on the board of Cambodia, where a lot of kids cross the board to look for work and end up in slave labour places, (like cocoa and coffee farms, sweat shops) or as sex slaves. A lot of the kids who are and will be brought in to the home are these kids… they have already rescued some kids from prostitution.
On Friday, the youth was challenged to do more, to act out for Justice… to sit down and make a plan of action and follow through on it, and be willing to become the unpopular person, to be the person who makes things uncomfortable… and example was give, if asked if you wanted to go for coffee, to reply with “if it is fair-trade, cause if it isn’t kids were used to harvest the coffee and not paid” or with chocolate the same sort of thing, bring reality to the situation on how chocolate or coffee was made.
I was asked to be a witness to the covenment of one of my cell mates (it was his first time at Op 58)… and it was a modern day example of when a widow gave one coin and Jesus said that she had given more than the Pharisees, cause they only gave a small part of what they had, where as the widow gave more in percentage of what she had.
It was awesome to witness….
I pray that everyone will be faithful to their covenment with God that they made on Friday.