Time to breath

There's been a really great development in my life - ashkurallah - I'm downsizing to part-time work! Basically the last seven months have been crazy working full time at NPC and doing Jubilee Iraq in early mornings, evenings and weekends. I've had almost no time to chill, zero social life and have been doing justice to either NPC or Jubilee.

Going to Iraq certainly put a bit of perspective on things, and then a few weeks ago I was reading Pauls letter to the Philippians "Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (2:v3-4). It was one of those 'words jumping out of the page' experiences and I knew that this was a principle God was telling me to apply in my situation. Why was I sticking at my nice safe job instead of putting more energy into trying to help Iraq and get the unjust debt cancellation?

I though the best solution would be to work part-time, so I could still earn a little money to pay the rent and Jubilee Iraq expenses, but have two days mid-week to think, write and get on the phone to people (it's been really hard trying to run the campaign without being able to call people during office hours). It looked pretty unlikely that this would be acceptable, so I was expecting to have to resign. That probably wouldn't have been a great solution because, quite apart from lack of money, I'd probably revert to my natural laziness and end up lying in bed until mid-day if I didn't have the discipline of paid employment. Anyhow after much umming and ahhing I popped the question to my bosses and, what do you know, they graciously agreed!

The next month is going to be pretty crazy even with the extra time. Important meeting with UK government next week, writing an op-ed for New York Times, doing a proper launch of the Iraqi views on debt report, lecturing in Parliament on 27th and possibly going to meetings in Prague, Paris, Cairo and Geneva in early December. Not sure how I'm going to afford all that travel, but with the new part-time arrangement I should certainly be able to find the time. Another huge answer to prayer is that a couple of amazingly talented people in various parts of the world have emailed over the last few days offering to lend a hand. I'm pretty dreadful at delegating, but now I'll have a bit more thinking and emailing time hopefully Jubilee Iraq will be able to make proper use of some of these wonderful volunteers.

So things are basicaly looking up, al-hamdulillah. Now all that's missing is a girlfriend.