
The London 2 Brighton Ultra Challenge: Supporting the Walking Team.
9 July 2018
Pride Beyond the Pain of Walking 100km.
26 July 2020Walk347 For Amaudo & Mental Health: The Bedford 20.4 Kilometres, The Pilgrims Progress and Making A Positive Impact Like Nkechi Colwill - The Mother Teresa of Nigeria.
This Wednesday or Friday, as part of a target total - 347 kilometres😫, I will be doing a 20.4 kilometre walk to and from Bedford as part of Walk347 to raise funds for Amaudo UK (Mental Heath Charity). A small but amazing charity that for over 20 years has been providing free accessible mental health care services for people who become destitute and homeless due mental ii-health.
Bedford? What's Special About it?
Apart from being an ancient and historic English town with an amazing rustic serene countryside around it, this Bedford walk, I consider, as the most significant because of a piece of history about Bedford: the first novel written in English was done here opined J. Chapman in 1892 in The Westminster Review, Volume 138. p. 610.
What Book? What Author?
John Bunyan was imprisoned in 1660 for 12 years in Bedford Gaol. He was a member of the nonconformist Christian Bedford Meeting for which attendance was to become a violation “of the Conventicle Act of 1664, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England.” - Wikipedia.
In retrospect, his imprisonment and the persecution the Bedford Meeting and it’s like suffered was a grave human rights violation that reflects the religious tyranny which was considered a divinely ordained normality in those days. According to historians it was here in the Bedford jail, that Bunyan wrote one of the greatest religious book of all times: Pilgrims Progress. (The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a Christian Allegory published one 1678.)
Bringing it Home to Get Personal!
While I will not pretend that I hold or live any of the Christian religious narratives of the book, it will be impious (pun intended) of me to deny this book as one of the most important books my mother made me read as a child, and that it left deep etchings on my mind. At multiple levels and dimensions, the journey of “Christian” the main character, is a journey that we are all on from birth to death (and beyond for those who see any pathway from the grave to wherever...).
Personally, recalling the days I leafed through this book, reminds me of the journey I did and still do:
- Wandering through overwhelming weakness to deeply ingrained strength.
- Traversing from demeaning conformity to liberating idealism even at searing costs.
- Struggling from inconsequential to the eureka moments of every little is greatly significant.
And here is the relevance to the cause of raising awareness on the suffering that people are experiencing; as lack of accessible mental health services in Nigeria conspires with religious misconception, cultural misperception to inflict stigmatisation; and hastily deteriorate lives into destitution, homelessness, imprisonment, torture...
As we see many of our brothers and sisters roaming the streets naked, dirty; drinking from gutters and eating from rubbish bins, we easily walk by in self-righteousness snidely thinking that the so called ‘mad person’ deserves dehumanising squalor. This helps us shut our conscience up so we can grovel in the comfort of our self-deluded platitude, insensitive to the disadvantages people grapple with in the grime and wretchedness of a mineral rich and wealthy country.
Enter the Nkechi of Our Times!
A young English lady, over 20 years ago as a volunteer and missionary at the Uzuakoli Leprosy Settlement, in Nigeria, decided that she can’t ignore any longer, this suffering caused by lack of mental health services and will ACT OVER YAP to make a difference.
Thus the founding of Amaudo Itumbauzor as Nkechi Rosalind Colwil (often called the mother Teresa of Nigeria) began going to the streets to take mentally ill homeless people on a journey through rustic rainforest and farmlands to the serene and beautiful brick paradise she established at Itumbauzo.
Here with mental health medication and truly thoughtful humane care many have been nurtured back from the abyss of gloom. Yes for many and for many years, the pot hole ridden journey to Amaudo is like the last kilometre before Christian’s arrival to “That Which is to Come”. For many that architectural circle of peace atop Amaudo Itumbauzor is the heaven from where they journey back home to humanity.
The Humanistic Heaven of Amaudo.
Amaudo is not about the distant lore of the scary door into the finality of an eternity devoid of, or replete with, fiery suffering. Nope! We humans, all sanctimony aside, want another day on this earth rather than rush into the deathly journey to heaven.
So we must appreciate greatly, the empyrean excellence of the humanistic value of Amaudo in providing a second life for those suffering from the terrible destitution and homelessness caused by unavailable and inaccessible mental health services in Nigeria.
Yes! This is about the effort of a small team of heroic and uncelebrated charity workers making miracles with scarce resources to help people journey from doom to the opportunity of another life free of mental illness or at least one where the mental illness is rightly and effectively managed.
The Pertinent News Report on Jesus' Position.
Matthew reporting on Jesus of Nazareth’s description of the journey culminating at the gates of heaven, wrote:
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’
Accountability Coming Home.
What is my journey through life? How is my journey through life? Ignoring the suffering littered on the sidewalks and imperiously writing off the disadvantaged as the architects of their own grievous lives? But as much as you and I may wallow in the Pharisaic misperception of our privileged lives, do not forget that the safety nets of family, friends and finance that we are opportune to have, life has not provided for many others.
This is no one's fault to the extent that none chooses the womb that birthed them. Many many more are not as lucky as you are. Disadvantaged, their lives easily spiral into an abysmal nightmare.
For Humanity Every Little Helps.
I have not done enough in my life to make a difference for others. But: I am always grateful to my mother and father for the values of unconditional compassion. I appreciate the National Association of Seadogs - Pyrates Confraternity for the ideals and the opportunities to add my very little help while I hope and work towards doing and giving more with my mates @Walk347.
Please support the humanistic work Amaudo is doing. Click here to donate.
Chiemeka Ozumba