Saturday 26th October 2019

This morning I attended an award ceremony for Tim and Liz, who were being presented with a Sri Lankan Humanitarian Award in recognition of the charitable service they have given to the local community here over the past ten years. It particularly recognised their work with the Empowered Women Headed Families organisation, which became their area of focus when they realised how many women here were struggling to bring up families on their own.

It was an entertaining occasion for a number of reasons: one of the men compering the event, even though his English was a little suspect, got rather carried away with it all and he can best be described as a mixture of the judges who give their country’s vote at the end of the Eurovision Song Contest and the host of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ in the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’; it was also entertaining because of the many dances we were treated to in the ceremony, particularly the one danced by some young children. Most importantly, it was entertaining because of the high regard that this community clearly has for the way that Tim and Liz have supported them over a long period of time. It was very moving to see the impact of the work that Tim and Liz have carried out with a large group of women and their families and I felt privileged to be there to see them presented with this award.

Following the ceremony, I went with Raelene to Erica’s house, as she had very kindly agreed to let me watch the first semi-final of The Rugby World Cup between England and New Zealand. England played a tremendous match and beat New Zealand 19-7, so I can't wait for the final next Saturday!














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