I Will Lift Up My Eyes (Paperback)

The stimulus for the outer journey arises from the author's experiences in living out her Christian faith in the inner city of Birmingham UK, as part of a church-based community project; this has raised issues and dilemmas that she needs to resolve, especially the Church's reponse to women in leadership. She decides to visit other women involved in urban mission, across the world, to see their work and to talk to them about their experiences of male oppression within the Church. In addition to women's leadership, she examines the issues of personal poverty (and indeed, the 'double poverty' of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity); the true nature of forgiveness and whether it can occur without confronting, and gaining acknowledgement of, in inherent injustice in a situation; and, the challenge of the 'Three Degrees of Humility' in urban situations. The issues are uncovered prayerfully during times of meditation during the inner journey, which starts in a prologue to the outer journey, in the first four chapters of the book, and continues throughout the outer journey to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Thailand and India. These travels provide a stark contrast to the inner meditatory journey.

The women she meets during the outer travels include Jackie Pullinger-To, Veronica Silva, Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Mother Teresa and others; her discussions with them and some of the intriguing situations she finds herself in, as she travels alone, help to bring some answers to the dilemmas of her own urban ministry. These women speak their own stories, as do the poor amd marginalized people that she meets in thye streets and byways of the cities she visits; the homeless and destitute, heroin addicts, prostitutes, women who are victims of domestic violence and military rape, street children, families in poverty, lepers, beggars and orphans. Their stories become bound up with her own.

Much of the inner journey is brought to a focus during a silent prayer retreat in Manila. here, in a wonderful picture of horses galloping freely across a valley, without rein or harness, the Lord provides an affirmation of the author's free spirit and comissions her to further urban ministry for him.

The book is written mainly for women, especially those who feel called to urban mission, but is of interest to both sexes, especially the wider political issues arising from her journey: global warming, the effects of globalisation on the poor, Christian involvement in sociopolitical issues.

About the Author
Dr Christine Parkinson is a qualified biologist with a doctorate in medical research and numerous publications in scientific journals and books. In 1984, she left medical research in London, and moved in Birmingham's inner city, to follow a calling that God had placed on her life, to minister to the poor and to fight for social justice.

She worked as Urban Missioner there to the Baptist Church, helping 12 inner city churches to think through their mission in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith environment. Later, she became a community organiser, attached to one of these churches and helped to form the Jericho Community Project, which helps the long-term unemployed to find employment and helps women to exit from prostitution.

Now retired, Dr Parkinson is working on a second book, "The Desert Will Rejoice", which describes the setting up of two inner city Christian projects: the Gilgal women's refuge and the Jericho Community Project.

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