How Tearfund cured me of wanting an iphone but got me to join twitter

So a couple of weeks ago I spent the day down at Tearfund HQ in deepest darkest South West London (Teddington) with the Tearfund communications team and a bunch of other people who love Jesus and write and blog and draw things.

It was a really interesting day despite a bad start (getting up late, running for the train, getting off two stops too early, waiting half an hour for the next train and then walking in the completely wrong direction from the train station – a good sense of direction is not my spiritual gift).

We spent the day talking with various Tearfund staff about their work and about digital communication. To which I concluded:

1.   Tearfund are doing a great job
2.   I should probs join twitter (follow me @rachsherlyh)

One of the things I learned was that Tearfund is all about resourcing the local church. The majority of their work is carried out in conjunction with local partners and churches. As someone who works for a charity that resources churches to start and run foodbanks, and as someone who believes that local community is more important and powerful than we realise, quite why I have never thought about church and community and international development is beyond me. But now that I have thought about it, I realise it's probs the way forward.

So for the last few months I’ve been saying that I need to get a new phone (the one I have is slowly falling apart) but haven’t been able to work out what phone I wanted, until recently...

It seems like everyone has an iphone. Everywhere I go I see people elegantly and silently typing out text messages on their touch screen while I’m still having to press the ‘9’ key four times just to write the letter z, and don’t get me started on having to be patient when using a word with too many m, n or o’s in it (first world problem or what?!). “There’s an App for that” is a phrase I’m beginning to hear all too often. It began to seem that all my problems would be fixed if I had an iphone. Now, I’ve never been concerned about having the latest technology (I got an ipod for Christmas a few years ago and had to be told what it was) and tend to avoid anything with a ridiculous amount of buttons or settings, but for some reason I decided that an iphone was the way to go.

So over lunch at Tearfund we were chatting about various things when the conversation landed on technology. I tried to keep up, I really did, but I didn’t understand half of what was said. My confusion must have been obvious because one of the guys turned to me and asked if I was a techie (I presumed he meant was I into technology not was I a Star Trek fan – but maybe that’s trekkie instead? Anyone know?). To which I replied “No, I only use what I have to and avoid the rest.” 

And just like that I realised that I didn’t need an iphone. I think I had begun to believe the lie that because nearly everyone (it seems) has one I probably needed one too or that it would make my life easier (because my life is so hard as it is!). And that realisation completely cured me of wanting an iphone. I am now content to use my current phone until it completely gives up on me. Thank you Tearfund.