The Encouragers Life

I put together The Encouragers Life because I wanted to connect with people like me.  I wanted them to feel like they had someone who understood on some level the pain, confusion and desperation they felt when life became chaotic. I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to choose to connect with me whether they were of my faith or not.   Doing a Day of Prayer event was risky.   I ran the risk of alienating people.   I ran the risk of having people unfollow.   I can imagine its out of several different emotions.   I can assume its because they have had a bad experience with the church, God or a Christian or two.   I can guess its from a thought or feeling that you have to be perfect to pray and so it heaps pressure on people and so they stay away. The fact is, I can only guess why the people from The Encouragers Life community would have felt that way, but I wanted to take this week to talk about it a little.   Hopefully everyone indulges me. When you hear the word prayer you might th

  DISCLAIMER AND INFORMATION All of the things I will be discussing in this series are from my own personal experiences and perspectives.   I share examples and stories and so some details have been changed to provide necessary protection. The first week of this series we talked about  gift giving triggers  and then last week we looked at  police checks .  In todays post I am discussing actions and reactions. I think the hardest thing for people who don't foster is that the children aren't atypical children.  Yes they deserve the same things. Love. Safety. A home. Food. Support. But they are wired differently.   This isn't their fault and isn't their responsibility.  It is the adults in their lives that have the duty to nurture  and create an environment for positive experiences.  Therefore you can not blame a child for having coping mechanisms which are difficult, for those on the outside, to understand.   What you can control is your reaction to them. Staring It is

DISCLAIMER AND INFORMATION All of the things I will be discussing in this series are from my own personal experiences and perspectives.  I share examples and stories and so some details have been changed to provide necessary protection. Thank you all for reading last week’s instalment of the series.   In part one we looked at ‘gift giving triggers.’   If you missed it you can read it  here . This week we are looking at the importance of Police Checks.   Everyone does it. Don't they? I spent my twenties involved in leading youth work programs and I learned the policy and importance of having staff police checked.   Today in Northern Ireland we call them Access NI’s.   Due to my background, and how normal it was to have anyone that works with young people checked, I always assumed that every body, every organisation and every church upheld this safeguarding measure.   Long story short… I was wrong. I have not called too many churches my home, but I have visited others across di