Meet the Pilgrims 8 - Rose

Now a chance for Rose to say a little bit about herself...

Hi I'm Rose and I live in Falmouth; I have just completed my GCSE's and am about to enter my first year at Truro College. I feel very lucky to be included in the group of Pilgrims that are going to Umzimvubu and I hope that the trip will provide me with a valuable life experience, it will also be my first long haul flight! I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn about another culture that will enable me to grow both, as a person and in my faith; the experience of being in a land that remains poor economically but so rich spiritually will, I am sure give me a great insight and inspiration in many ways.

My parish church is St Budock at Budock Water near Falmouth, as a parish have we supported Umzimvubu for many years and have been lucky enough to host special visitors from Umzimvubu, who inspired me greatly with their great charisma providing wonderful worship and preaching.

I am, personally very interested in music and look forward to observing the African worship and perhaps to bring back some exciting and inspiring ideas! I am involved in worship music at Budock and love to sing, I help occasionally with the Junior Church and run the Fair Trade sales and promotion. I also love to organise events and outreach activities and am currently partaking in a part time 'Music Events Management' course at Tremough. Other hobbies I enjoy are swimming, sewing, art, drama and am a a member of local theatre companies, I am a member of the Cornwall Youth Choir which rehearses and performs at the Cathedral, I love being with people and meeting new friends, I am also a member of Youth Synod.

I look forward to being able to return to Cornwall after the Pilgrimage and share with my church and community my experiences, and hopefully lots of photographs. My church family have been an amazing support to me during the fundraising activities and I have been overwhelmed at the great kindness and enthusiasm shown to me for our Pilgrimage. I wanted to be able to do a special activity myself to raise funds not only for my trip but for our church campaign for the respite centre, I have produced a compilation music CD called 'And so it Goes' featuring young Cornish musicians, and have sourced some incredible talent ranging from the Truro Cathedral Choral Scholars and Cornwall Youth Choir to 'The Hitchcock Rules' with an impressive acoustic rock song called 'Cancun'. The choirs and artists have all generously donated the tracks, this has been greatly appreciated. And the sales have been very successful and copies going worldwide!

Also a very kind member of our congregation has organised a special concert with her friends from the community for my Umzimvubu funds this is to be held on October 22nd at 7.30pm in St Budock Church, please do come if you can it promises to be very good, with some very talented and experienced musicians.

... and she even managed to plug her latest fundraising event!

Meet the Pilgrims 7 - Tom

In case you thought we had no men coming on this pilgrimage allow Tom to introduce himself...

I'm Tom, I'm seventeen and I view this as a chance to experience what few people are able to. My main goal is to help with anything I can in South Africa, my view is that if I can make one persons life better for one day, the hard work will be worth it.

Currently I am studyingA levels of PE, Drama and Law as well as an AS in Philosophy. In my spare time I enjoy anything to do with music (of any kind) as well as sport and local theatre companies such as Open Road Theatre Company and Cornwall Youth Theatre Company.

So what dramatic inspiration will the team get from Tom?

Meet the Pilgrims 6 - Kate

Now it's Kate's turn to say hello...

My name is Katherine although I prefer being called Kate. I come from all over, Bristol, Essex, Gloucestershire and now Cornwall. I am currently at college in my second year doing a Creative and Media Diploma and A2 film studies. From my courses you can probably tell my interests. I love watching films, talking about films and making them with my friends.

From making the documentry whilst we are in Umzimvubu I hope I can show others and myself through it, the situation there and create a better understanding of it.

As mentioned above Kate will be filming us while we are in Umzimvubu for a college project. We hope to be able to use the film when feeding back to interested people and to promote the link with Umzimvubu.

Trevor

Just a word or two to introduce Trevor.

Trevor is a fish shaped oven glove that we found at St Paul's. He was immediately adopted by the team and given the name Trevor the Trout. It was suggested that he sould be our team mascot and Pat from the Church very kindly (?) allowed the young people to take him.

Yasmin took him home to look after him until we leave...

Preparation Days

The past weekend saw most of the team arriving at St Paul's, Upton Cross for our latest preparation session. The church had recently extended its hall to include a new kitchen and toilet. We would pay for our stay by helping with some of the decorating and clearing some of the graveyard.

The Friday night went quite quickly as we set up and then walked a prayer Labyrinth and then played a card game where we competed over presents. And then it was time to go to bed, so as airbeds were blown up and sleeping bags unrolled we took turns to use the toilet and washbasin. It took nearly an hour. But then again we were mainly girls!

The next morning we showed our true colours as some took a long time to wake up and others were alarmingly bouncy!

David arrived and then, starting as he meant to go on, began talking. Soon after a couple of the church members arrived to show us what to do and we began to work.

There was a car boot sale across the way that meant that lots of people were asking us about what we were doing and in many ways we wished we'd known about this as we'd have organised a stall to help with our promotion and fundraising.

After lunch we then went on a walk to the Cheesewring, it was rather windy but we had a good time and saw lots of wildlife.

Once we returned to Upton Cross there was time for a cup of tea and an update, before we all went our separate ways. Our next, and final, preparation session will be on October 10th, two weeks before we leave.

Meet the Pilgrims 5 - Megan

Now here is Megan to tell us a little bit about herself...

Hello, My name is Megan and I feel that I’m quite a lively, churppy kind of person, I live in Probus, and am member of Probus Parish Church. In Church I play my flute in our family service along with a few other youngsters. At the moment I am at Truro College, just starting my second year, I am studying English Lit and Lang, Illustration and Graphics, Drama and Psychology. At the end of my A levels I would really like to become a Primary school teacher or do something Arty.
My main hobbies are performing, whether that’s Drama, singing or dance I enjoy them all, I also love working with children, painting and any outdoor sports.

I am extremely exited about going to Umzimvubu in October, I am really interested in seeing the different lifestyle that they have and looking at there totally different culture. Getting the opportunity to also help and hope to make a small difference would hopefully be a life changing experience for me. I look forward to bringing back all I learn and then share it with the people in my Parish and my friends and family.

And again Megan provided a photograph.

Meet the Pilgrims 4 - Lydia

And now it's time to meet Lydia...

Hello! My name is Lydia and I live in Saltash and am a member of St. Stephens by Saltash parish church. I help with running the Sunday School and play the viola or recorder in the church music group at our family services. I've just completed my GCSEs at Stover School, Newton Abbot with results much better than I had expected! In September I am going on to do my A Levels in Geography, Biology, english Language and Religious Studies at Saltash Community School. My hobbies include Guiding and palying my musical instruments. I have a hamster called Krenza which means 'peace' in Cornish.
I've had an amazing summer, I went to an international jamboree in Iceland with Girl Guiding South West England and then in August went to Sri Lanka with my family. Going to Umzimvubu in October will make my year even more exciting as it will be a completely new experience, meeting Christians who live in different cultures and helping them over the two weeks. I look forward to being able to share my experiences from from South Africa with my church and the local community.

Thanks Lydia and thank you for your photograph.