The Quarterly News Magazine of Torch Trust
OUR AIM: To overcome sight loss as a barrier to finding a personal faith in Christ and to living a fulfilled Christian life.
From:-
TORCH TRUST, Torch House, Torch Way, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 9HL, U.K.
Telephone: (01858) 438260, Fax: (01858) 438275, email: info@torchtrust.org
Charity Number 1095904.
This is Torch's 50th year: maturity or mid-life crisis? Surely it's the former, but even that has its dangers. When does an organisation become an institution? Organisation hints at something organic, with life and growth. Institution stirs duller flavours of stability and discipline. They're not bad things but they can stultify and crush out the life: "It's the way we do things around here".
Our creative God has made us and placed us in a world bursting with life. Inanimate or dead things tend to rot and decay, living things lead to growth and renewal.
Torch is thriving today because it has remained creative. Creative in the way that it responds to the needs of blind and partially sighted people. Creative in the way it adopts and adapts new technology and methods.
When we create we do a God-like thing. Of course our creative impulses need to be properly channelled - directed towards God's purposes and to his glory.
Jeremiah, the notoriously downbeat prophet, exuberantly declares that God's mercies are "new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). The Christian life is an adventure that starts afresh with each dawn. We have a living faith in a living Lord.
Gordon Temple
What's it like to be 50? For some of us it's something we look fondly back upon, for others it will be anticipated with foreboding!
For Torch, its 50th year is to be packed with activity. Gordon Temple, Torch's Chief Executive says, "It's a singular opportunity to boost our efforts to raise awareness of the needs of blind and partially sighted people and of the vital work that Torch does". It was back in 1959 that two streams of God's work flowed together.
Since 1931 the Trench sisters had published a little devotional magazine in braille from their home near Workington in the North of England. It was called The Torch.
In 1958 The RNIB opened a training centre for blind young people in Redhill, Surrey. It was from there that Lillian brought a blind student named Wendy along to the Friday Nighters club run by Ron and Stella Heath. After coming three times she found faith in Jesus Christ.
To grow in her faith Wendy needed to be able to read Christian material but nothing suitable was available in braille. The Heaths received God's call in the words of Scripture: "You give them something to eat" (Matthew 14:16).
It was at this time they came across The Torch magazine. What a Godsend! Ada was the last surviving of the Trench sisters and she wrote to the Heaths explaining that at 83 she could no longer carry on editing this magazine. She asked if they would take it on. Ron and Stella wrote back to confirm they would. Ada died as the May 1959 edition was being despatched.
To support their work with blind people, the Trenches had established a Trust, with surprisingly far-sighted aims. It was transferred to the Heaths, later to be renamed The Torch Trust for the Blind. The transfer was dated 8th June 1959.
We shall mark this anniversary date with a Day of Prayer, remembering prayer has always been at the heart of God's work in and through Torch. No doubt we shall have a cake too! Look out for the next and special edition of Torch Family News.
Over the years the Torch Trust has grown ... and grown again. Why the growth? Firstly, because the need was great, and still is. There's so much more to do. But growth is also a sign of life, and a testimony to the blessing of God. As the Scripture tells us, some plant seeds, others water, but it is God that makes it grow (1 Corinthians 3:6).
If you want to join with us on our Anniversary Day of Prayer you can do so right where you are. Just let us know and you will be included in the circulation for Gordon Temple's twice yearly prayer letters. The next one will include a programme with topics for praise and prayer.
Saturday 21st March at 12 noon - Louis Braille bicentenary service at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.
4th-19th April - Spring Harvest (Skegness and Minehead) - Exhibition, seminars and interactive experience.
12th-15th May - Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Racecourse, Esher.
8th June - Anniversary Day of Prayer.
11th-24th July - Keswick Convention (the first 2 weeks) - Earthworks Exhibition.
14th-16th July - Sight Village - Birmingham.
28th August - 1st September - Grapevine Festival, Lincoln - Exhibition.
28th November - 50th Anniversary (Thanksgiving) Celebration - Market Harborough.
by Helen Patten
First, picture a small boy, carefully making his way up the steep main street in the village of Coupvray, not far east of Paris. He is Louis, son of the village saddler in whose workshop he was blinded by a freak accident whilst playing with his dad's sharp tools. His alert mind hasn't been damaged, however, and now he is on his way to the house of the parish priest where the kind clergyman teaches him all he can.
Our scene soon moves to Paris, where Louis has become a pupil at the Institute for the Blind. Painstakingly he learns to decipher the tiny embossed copperplate letters in the bulky books. He desperately wants to read, but surely there must be a simpler method! Captain Barbier, an Army officer, visits the school to demonstrate his system of reading with dots - 12 to a symbol - devised for soldiers who need to send messages which can be read in the dark. Louis is inspired. After years of experiments, setbacks, trial and error, he perfects his own system of reading and writing for blind people, a maximum of 6 dots to a letter, so simple yet so flexible!
Louis, now a young man of 18, has been appointed a teacher at the school and proves gifted. Even more important, his new system is a great success with all the blind pupils. He is even able to adapt it to write music which is vital for him as a member of the church - he has become organist at St Nicholas, and is teaching others to play the instrument as well. Nevertheless, there is fierce opposition from most of the sighted staff: what can a blind man know about such matters? He should leave such things to the sighted authorities who know better! Not until Louis is almost thirty is the first book published in "braille" and it takes many years before the majority are convinced about the effectiveness of his code.
But also at about this time Louis has to face something much darker: the knowledge that he was suffering from TB, brought on, no doubt, by the miserable living conditions of his early school days. It is his strong Christian faith which gives him the courage to go on, devoting his remaining years to the service of others without sight.
And so to our final picture, as Louis lies dying at the age of just 41. Radiant with faith, he exclaims: "My mission on earth is done! God has graciously shown me, shining before my eyes, the glory of eternal hope." And yet this is not the final picture. Through Louis' dedication and faith, the braille system has been and will be a blessing to countless blind people throughout the world.
Saturday 21st March 2009 - 12 noon.
St Martin-in-the-Fields, off Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 4JJ.
Service conducted by braille readers with blind musicians.
Refreshments to follow.
Did you know that Torch has the only Braille Library in the country that is dedicated solely to Christian books - thanks to the vision and dedication of Torch people over the last 50 years.
It is hard for us in this computer age to imagine the painfully slow methods and the patience needed to produce the first books dot by dot. Machinery with names such as Stainsby, Blista, Perkins, Lynes & Heidelberg, let alone washing mangles, together with their operators have come and gone; however, their legacy is a living library of over 1,000 books. Today we have computer-based transcription and a state-of-the-art Interpoint Braille embosser which can produce a single volume in just 10mins. Our collection now stands at around 1,700 books.
Torch borrowers include church ministers, general readers and children. This has been reflected as over the years we have produced most of the books that would be considered "classics" such as Mere Christianity by C S Lewis, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, and The Chocolate Teapot by David Lawrence, which are still popular today.
As we go to press the latest titles available in braille include a study title called Acts for Everyone by Tom Wright, a biography called Out of Islam by Christopher Alam, and coming soon for the young at heart, You are Mine by Max Lucado.
We leave the last word to Mrs Heath, who's book Coping With The Camel, is also one of our popular classics. She says "there will be no braille in heaven ... but let us use our braille ... to the utmost so that the family of God in heaven is complete."
[Jack is a teacher and a regular reader of the braille books from the Konzere library in Malawi. He writes:]
To put everything in a nutshell, the braille library at Konzere in Malawi, and the braille Bible volumes are an essential tool which is making my visual impairment to be nothing to worry about, because even at my Church, my preachings have drawn the interest of many because I am able to read using my own fingers.
I know that I raise so many questions in the minds of those who listen to me but I always thank God for allowing me to be in such a state of impairment and I do capitalise on this to teach my listeners the love of God and the need to praise him. It is my prayer that more books should be sent to our library. In addition, I ask God to bless all the well-wishers who have always provided their donations towards the production of spiritual braille books. These books have completely changed my life. I couldn't live without braille to read.
How big is your Bible? No, this isn't a contest! My Bible takes 7ft of shelving in forty-five volumes. How come? It's braille. This Bible is very hard to take to church. It also needs a lot of storage space. But I wouldn't be without it. Louis Braille, born 200 years ago in 1809, invented the raised dot system that enables me to read God's word and do my job. However, my latest braille Bible is eight inches by three inches, and just one inch thick. It's in braille but is stored on a tiny braille computer. This "BrailleNote", as it's called, has a set of pins which display the braille letters for me to feel. I write my sermons and notes on this tiny computer, and it connects to the internet and other computers. In fact I have three complete versions of the Bible in my "BrailleNote" plus a number of hymnbooks. When writing Bible studies I can quickly search for suitable texts in my little braille Electronic Bible, and immediately copy and paste them into my articles. My Bible goes everywhere with me.
The following comments will give a clue to the answer ...
Of Christian Today Digest:
J D, London - "All articles very informative, some including more in-depth info. Without access to internet, I'm so glad it's in braille.."
T D, Somerset - "Just right, absolutely wonderful. Looks forward to future editions. So glad it's in braille - not got computer so can't access on web."
Of Library books:
B of Leicester: "I'm so glad to be having books from the Torch Library. The books are like a lovely refreshing drink to me. It is like your heart aches to read the books for yourself and it is wonderful to be able to do that. I am also happy I am able to go through one of the books with my housegroup at church - The Purpose Driven Life in braille."
Braille is the medium that many blind Christians in the developing world appreciate, as they can use it to study the Bible and other Christian material. Therefore at Torch we concentrate on producing Bibles in languages where nothing has been available before.
At the old Torch House the Russian Bible and plates for the Romanian Bible were produced, and in more recent times Bibles in African languages have been embossed in Blantyre, Malawi. To date we have worked on 9 languages there, with Bibles or New Testaments in Chichewa, Sena, Tumbuka (Malawi), Bemba (Zambia), Shona, Ndabele (Zimbabwe), Hausa, Igala (Nigeria), and also an Easy English version. The next planned production is the New Testament in Lunda (Zambia), followed by Luganda (Uganda).
There is a tremendous hunger for God's Word in many countries, and blind people are thrilled to be able to get it in their own language despite the difficulty, for some, of storing a whole Bible (some 50 or more large volumes) in a small mud hut! The New Testament in 15 volumes is rather more manageable, so this is always our priority.
People are sometimes surprised that Torch doesn't produce a braille English Bible. The reason for this is that it is produced by other agencies, so we try not to duplicate effort. Whether in the UK or overseas, braille remains the medium of choice for anyone wanting to study God's Word.
What makes a blind person, who is living in extreme poverty, request a braille Bible above anything else? Or what gives a blind man the incentive to walk many kilometres to collect a braille magazine, which contains the words of eternal life, or to sit on the back of a bicycle and be taken 20km plus to a post office to receive a braille Bible volume? Can it be because everyone has a God-shaped hole within, which causes a deep hunger for God?
There are a number of missions, such as Compass Braille, Mission Evangelique Braille, and Lutheran Braille Workers, as well as Torch Trust, who are passionately committed to producing braille Bibles so that today many thousands of blind people around the world are able to read about Jesus in their own language through their fingertips! We all owe a debt of gratitude to the United Bible Societies, who have helped with the financing of many projects. Pray that they will find the resources to support more. Although the braille Bible is available (in whole or in part) in over 70 languages there is still a terrific challenge before us. Many still want the Bible in their own language. What greater joy than to be part of this ministry.
by Lapson Mbewe
[Lapson is a trustee of the Torch Trust International work in Malawi.]
My recent visit to Mozambique really challenged me. I would dearly like to thank all of you who give your time to pray for the blind people of Mozambique. My appeal to you all is to keep praying as there is a very positive response to your prayers.
For many countries in Africa a blind person is not regarded as a person who was created by God. I have been visiting Mozambique for a number of years and it is always sad to see the blind people being sidelined. Worse still, this is happening in churches where love is supposed to be shown to them.
This is now changing. I visited a number of churches in December where blind people are now welcomed, and in one village I found a church being pastored by a blind person. The Pastor challenged me a lot for he is pastoring a very big church with a lot of people who are well respected. It was also good to see that the secretary is a severely disabled man. Seeing these people in leadership makes me feel very happy. Please let us keep on praying that the Lord would bring us together so that His kingdom would be full. We are serving a God who answers prayers.
As you continue to pray for Mozambique please pray for my next visit to Malawi in March/April. Wisdom and guidance are needed as a programme is drawn up. The needs are so great; we need to know what specific things God wants us to be doing and the resources to fulfil them.
There are invitations to visit blind people in the nearby African countries of Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique travelling from Malawi. These cannot all be done at once. We need to know which country we may be able to visit this year and the provision from God to do this.
Pray for the blind people particularly in southern Malawi/ Mozambique, who are suffering deeply at the moment, as there was no harvest. Some have been living on wild berries for a number of weeks and have no prospects of provision of food.
Please pray for Neuva Luz. Torch is committed to see that this unique mission to blind and partially sighted people in the Spanish-speaking world has a secure future. It's a critical time.
A team led by David Padilla, son of the founder who died in September of last year, and including Paul and Susana Wood, has been drafting the governing documents that establish the mission as a properly registered Christian organisation in Spain. These are being brought for approval to the meeting of leaders of Spanish (Brethren) churches that support the work, attended also by Gordon Temple.
It is now clear that Nueva Luz will have to move out of its offices in central Madrid sooner rather than later. Please pray about the future location of the work, for David and the staff team of Paloma and Debra. Pray also for Paul, Susana and baby Lidia as this brings uncertainty for them.
Someone once said: "Preachers should remember that the capacity of the mind to absorb is limited to what the seat can endure!"
That may be a rather flippant way of measuring our preachers but there is a kernel of truth, in so much that the external factors can sometimes detract from the communication of the gospel. In my homiletics class my tutor taught me the value of visual aids to enhance the preaching of Scriptures. Of course visual aids so often do not work for people experiencing sight loss. Furthermore, many people today do not have the same Bible knowledge as was once enjoyed 30 years ago. Thirdly, Torch Groups often have a high proportion of elderly folk whose attention can be limited.
All these factors have encouraged us to seek some fresh and stimulating ideas. Therefore, we have compiled a list of themes for 2009, all conveniently beginning with the letter P. They range from Party for January to Parcels for December. For each month we have drawn together various songs, Bible passages, prayers, activities and other resources that relate to that theme. We hope this will bring a fresh, more interactive approach that engages everyone, whether they are sighted, blind, or partially sighted.
Over the past few years we have been making more and more connections with professionals from the statutory and voluntary services working with blind and partially sighted people.
In January we held an Open Day at Torch HRC where we had a great reaction from the representatives from Sussex and Hampshire who came.
On 11th March we are holding a Professionals' Open Day at Torch House. Invitations and information about Torch have gone out all over the country; please pray that people will come on the day and that information will be passed on to blind and partially sighted people who don't know about Torch yet.
To strengthen our links with 120 local charities that serve blind and partially sighted people across the country, Torch has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with their national body, the National Association of Local Societies for Visually Impaired people - or NALSVI. This will mean they all receive regular news from Torch that will help them to introduce what Torch has to offer to those with sight loss.
No-one wants to be alone at Christmas, so we were delighted to take over High Leigh in Hertfordshire, once home to the Barclays of banking fame and now a well-equipped Christian conference centre, for maybe the largest Torch Christmas houseparty ever. For the first time, no-one had to be turned away at Christmas. High Leigh can accommodate over 200, but we stopped at around 70!
The guests - and guide dogs - were many and varied, among them Simon, who is deaf-blind. We talked to Simon, using the deaf-blind manual, touching his hand in different places for each letter. Fortunately for us, Simon could cope with our mistakes and was able to speak his replies.
Many people came and worked hard to make the holiday a great success, including three of High Leigh's regular catering staff who came in over Christmas to work the sophisticated kitchen equipment.
Peter Jackson and Mike Townsend led our carols and devotional times and people gained a deeper understanding of the real meaning of Christmas. Despite breaking her ankle on the first night, Gail Miller led the houseparty and plans to do it all again for Christmas 2009 - minus the crutches, of course!
For information on this year's holidays, contact Torch House for the Torch Holiday Magazine now out.
Our Holiday and Retreat Centre can accommodate 21 guests and is based at the foot of the South Downs near Brighton. We provide holidays especially designed for people with sight loss.
We are currently seeking to recruit full or part-time staff to undertake the following roles: Centre Coordinator ... Administrator ... General Assistant ... Cook.
This is not necessarily 4 separate jobs as the duties can be combined in a variety of ways to suit skills and experience. "Live in" accommodation and a flexible approach to hours are possibilities.
For more information about these positions contact either Gail Millar (Centre Manager) on 07900 215600 or John Darby (Personnel Officer) on 07747 842192.
Tune in at 4pm every Sunday to listen to life experiences, guests, topical comment and much more, all linked to disability themes.
Listen to Premier Christian Radio on their website www.premier.org.uk or tune in:-
London area: 1305 1332 1413 MW, DAB
National: sky digital 0123, Virgin Media 968, Freeview 725.
Monthly CD's of the programmes are now available from Torch House, free to blind and partially sighted people and £5 annually for others.
As I write these words, signs of spring are beginning to emerge, despite the snow! The snowdrops have poked their heads above the hard ground into the gradually lengthening days. Even the grass is beginning to grow again. These things surely gladden the heart, as do signs that the Lord has his hand on our financial situation. We praise God for the following:
An additional £5,000 is being reclaimed from HM Revenue & Customs under the Gift Aid scheme following a special awareness project we undertook in November. Thank you to all who responded.
In the past nine months, our income from committed standing order donations has risen by almost £5,000 per annum. Thank you to everyone who contacted us to ask how to give in this way.
However, with around 50% of our work reliant on legacy income there is a real note of caution to be sounded for the coming months. Although we have been blessed recently with funds from legacies, we know of little further legacy income in the pipeline, and even that is being seriously delayed due to the current state of the housing market.
Recognising the challenge, staff members have been meeting during part of their lunch break to pray that the Lord will meet our needs. Perhaps you can join us in your own home or place of work for 10 minutes each Monday at 1:30pm.
We are trusting the Lord to guide our steps and provide for Torch's needs, especially during this period of increased expenditure in support of our 50th year awareness raising initiatives.
Andrew Nicholson
To help us with our programme of awareness-raising during our Jubilee year we have brought together a great team of Christian freelance specialists.
Abigail Watkins, who previously worked with World Vision, is bringing inspirational and engaging ideas to our exhibitions and events. John and Lin Ball have a lifetime of working in Christian publishing; Lin is the current chair of the Association of Christian Writers. We pray that this will be the start of a long term relationship.
Jeff Bonser has 25 years experience in broadcasting and communications. He helped set up Premier Christian Radio, and became the first director of the Churches Media Council - supporting Christians in broadcasting and influencing media policy.
In 2001 Jeff was appointed director of the Christian Enquiry Agency where he developed national evangelistic projects. He moved with his wife, Margaret, to Market Harborough in 2004, is a deacon of the Baptist Church and project manager of Sing Christmas - a broadcasting initiative that takes the celebration of Jesus Christ into pubs, clubs and other venues in the Midlands. Jeff and Margaret have two grown-up children, Andrew and Caroline, and a grandson, Oliver - and enjoy cruising the waterways in their narrowboat.