Nicky Cameron

Nicky Cameron works for  Metro World Child, which is a global, faith based humanitarian organization dedicated to serving at-risk children throughout New York City, various urban centres and rural communities around the world.

Do donate to Metro World Child visit https://www.metroworldchild.org/give-online
To sponsor a child visit https://www.metroworldchild.org/sponsor

email: nickyc@mwc.org
Or call 01293 776900

Transcript

Nicola: Welcome to Cold Water Podcast. I’m Nicola Halton. We all know the importance of getting out there and doing a great work for Jesus. In this podcast we will learn more about the people who are involved in changing lives for good, for God. I would like to welcome Nicky Cameron from Metro World Child to the Cold Water Podcast. Hello Nicky how are you? 

Nicky: Hi Nicola. I am well thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Nicola: It’s lovely to see you. You look amazing. So yes I just want you to talk about the work of Metro World Child and your role in the work of Metro World Child for those who don’t know. 

Nicky: for those who don’t know, Metro World Child is an amazing faith based charity. We work all over the world. It was started by Pastor Bill Wilson, he is form New York and what  happened when Pastor Bill was just 12 years old, his mum left him on the side of the road. Basically she was like, “I can’t do this anymore, just stay here.” And he just sat there and waited for her to come back and a couple of days passed and he was just sat there waiting for her to come back. She didn’t ever return and this guy just drove past and he stopped the car and he got out and this guy had every excuse not to stop, literally his own child was in hospital but he had seen Pastor Bill sat there on the street corner and he was just like, “This guy is only little and he has been there, are you ok?” And he went, “No I’m not I’m hungry, my mum has just gone and I don’t know what to do.” And this guy literally put Pastor Bill straight on a bus, got some food and put him on a bus to a church camp. And that guy was just an ordinary Christian, he wasn’t some guy with massive qualifications he was just some normal person like you or me and just had compassion and helped and stopped and out of that has birthed, what is now Metro World Child. In that Pastor Bill met Jesus and He changed his life and so now he wants to reach other children who are in that situation that he was in where they don’t feel cared for our loved and they just need to know the hope of Jesus. A lot of kids who we are working with  are in the poorest of conditions and its just amazing what God is doing and it all stemmed from Pastor Bill and it all stemmed from that one guy that just stopped that day. So that is how it started. 

Nicola: Yes, yes, he was a very humble man wasn’t. He is was what we would call just an ordinary person doing what he knew God wanted him to do and we miss that in life. It is a wonderful organisation, I’ve been supporting it for many years, since I have known Pastor Bill and I love his passion and his drive and every thing about it. SO what is your role Nicky? 

Nicky: So I work here in the office in the UK and I look after the administrative side for anybody who wants to support Metro or sponsor in the UK and in the Northern part of Europe and Scandinavia. There is just me in the UK and I have a volunteer and she comes in and helps as well. So its amazing what God is doing so I’m really an admin head if you like. 

Nicola: Yes

Nicky: But I love the ministry with a passion and you know it is just amazing what God is doing around the world. 

Nicola: How did you get involved with Metro World Child? What lead you to it? Because these are all interesting stories on how we get to know Pastor Bill.

Nicky: Well it really is an interesting story because it had God’s finger prints all over it and I think that when God’s fingerprints are on something you know that it is just right. I was working for a bible college, a well known bible college in their admin department and my mum found this job that was advertised for Metro and I was like,”I think you should apply for this and I was like, “Oh ok”. It was much nearer where I lived and I apply and to cut a very long story short in that, I kept on pushing. 

Nicola: Yes

Nicky: and the team in New York contacted me and said, “We are really interested in a conversation with you.” And it was like God just flung the doors open and that was in December 2013 and I’ve been so blessed and I’ve seen Pastor Bill and so many of the team around the world and so many amazing people. Janine who is also from the UK is also director of Metro Kenya and a dear friend.. who is from Holland is a director of Metro Philippines… work in South Africa so its amazing what God is doing so people sent out from the UK and Europe. 

Nicola: I know when I had met Pastor Bill I had never heard preaching like it. It wasn’t English.. 

Nicky: No

Nicola: It wasn’t done in a very English way and I needed that. I needed to be shaken from our Englishness and it really struck me that night, I have never met Christ like I have met Christ after Pastor Bill has preached.

Nicky: He has a very good way of prodding you to action and you know that is just his heart for people to move on in God and to do things in God and to make a difference to children around the world. Yes he is an infectious, infectious heart he has. 

Nicola: And we just do fester as Christians, we can sit there festering and not really knowing our purpose and our goal in God and seeing a bigger, a bigger God than what we have actually made ourselves. 

Nicky: And we are definitely guilty of that in the UK we have got a very blinkered vision in the UK that this is what is going on in the world and when you have somebody who has been there, who has been to the rubbish dumps in Kenya and the Philippines and who has been to the poorest places in Africa and he comes and says, “This is what I have seen.” It can really.. it gives you a wake up call that this is the reality of what is actually going on and what people are facing and children are facing and we don’t realise in the UK. 

Nicola: No, no. Roughly how many children do you support every week. 

Nicky: Well to be honest at the moment. Weekly attendance is a bit fluid because of the pandemic. Pre-covid we regularly visited about 230 000 children globally. Our Sunday school has incredible numbers and that isn’t even counting the people that listen in, you know the parents that are standing at the edges, listening in, yeah incredible. Obviously with covid we have had to adapt, as everybody has. God is still at work. Sorry

Nicola: Yes he is definitely, definitely. He is doing it in a different way… no don’t apologise. Its more than just Sunday School isn’t it. You make sure that they are fed, that they have got uniforms, that they have got book bags, that the whole family are supported, you will deliver food when the food is needed. You are social workers, you are main carers, you do more than just support them for Sunday school. 

Nicky: Yes absolutely. I mean one of the big things about Metro is about relationship. We build relationship with children, and we don’t outsource what we do. It is Metro people on the ground in these countries, they are the ones seeing the children in their own homes, they are the ones saying, “Hey actually there is a real need here and can we help and what do we need to do to make that work in order to help the situation.”

Nicola: yes

Nicky: And that is amazing. There was one story just recently of a chap in Kenya and in the morning he put water onto boil, and literally he was praying over this pot, “Lord I have no food, please send me some food.” And he just kept filling up the water all day and kept the water boiling and then our team from Metro arrived with a food parcel for him and his family and he was just like praising God for answering his prayer. And all day he had a boiling pot of water with no food to feed his family. 

Nicola: Yes

Nicky: And Metro that day went in with a food parcel. That’s God isn’t it? 

Nicola: It is, it is definitely the Lord. One of the things I was going to say was about the book, Pastor Bill Wilson’s book. I can’t not mention that and home visits are very important, once a week you knock on the door and make sure everybody is ok. And that started in the Bronx, didn’t it, in Brooklyn and the ghettos and that, the pattern continues throughout the world. What would you say to somebody who was thinking about becoming a child sponsor? 

Nicky: Well I think I would have to hook it right back to that normal guy that stopped for Pastor Bill, he was a normal child who made a difference and that is what are child sponsor are, they are normal people and they might not think they are doing anything amazing or special but actually for that child it is making a massive, massive difference to their lives and for many of our child sponsors there are going above and beyond providing food for the family, helping with uniforms or book bags or even a family need, there is something specific that comes up that the family actually needs, then they will actually go I want to meet that need. Some of our sponsors are like, I want to make sure that my child has a bible in their language. Things like that. And I would just say to anybody who was going to do it, do it, it makes such a difference and there is nothing.. I mean I sponsor kids in Kenya and in New York and nothing beats when you get a letter through the post and this child is saying, “I love you, thank you for your encouragement, thank you for your love.” It just melts my heart every time and when you see photos of the difference, like in school uniform then you are like wow, we were able to do that and it goes back to the fact I was normal, me and my husband are just normal people but me and my husband are making a difference to these kids amazing. Yes do it. 

Nicola: yes do it

Nicky: It’s only £23 a month and what’s that when you go to Starbucks, its like a couple of coffees and a couple of cakes isn’t it?

Nicola: It is. It is a lovely thing to do. I have noticed that I have seen progress in her life, that I would never imaging. Seeing her in her uniform in a photograph and it was sent to me and I was worried about her and I was praying for her and I just asked, “How is she doing?” And I got feedback that she was doing ok. And that is really good just to have that connection with somebody who needs it. 

Nicky: And of course at the moment.. we have got sponsored kids in Haiti and we have had the same with people saying, “How is my child?” After the Earthquake. You know it is so good that we have people on the ground that we can actually, “Yes this is the situation.” Making a difference and the difference of people praying for their sponsored kids is incredible. 

Nicola: Yes

Nicky: It’s incredible. 

Nicola: It doesn’t have to be an individual. An organisation could sponsor a child, a church could take up a child couldn’t it and take up that responsibility as a group of people, so it doesn’t have to be the one individual. 

Nicky: That’s right. We have businesses that sponsor kids, as well as churches and we have even got mother and daughter groups or just a small group at a church so yes, anybody can do it. Its great. 

Nicola: Thanks Nicky for that, that was lovely. Why is vibrant, engaging, relevant Sunday school important for children. 

Nicky: Oh my gosh. It is so important for kids. I think one of the things we have to think about at Metro is that we really want the kids to know the Gospel and we don’t want it watered down, we want it truth as what the bible says, but we want it to be engaging and fun and kids to enjoy it. We want the kids to have that opportunity to be kids and in a lot of countries we work in they don’t have that same enjoyment time to play, its all fetching water and doing things to help around the house so to be a normal kid and have fun is great. But we don’t want to water down the gospel we want that up front… and that is so important for us at Metro even though at some of the Sunday schools they get a meal, in the Sunday school, like in the Philippines and even in the Philippines as well, we have kids that are living on basically dumps, dumps sites and for them to come and have fun but also hear the gospel, there is hope that Jesus loves them. How vital are these messages? And these kids are not the church of tomorrow. This is the church of today and we just want them to know that Jesus loves them from the earliest of ages and for some of our children, you know,  we know… and sadly it does happen where we have had children that have passed away through circumstances but we have known they know Jesus. You know, so we want to give them hope, right there, in those times they know that they can cry out to God and so many kids have said how they have seen answers to prayer. That they have prayed for their family for food and it has arrived. It is so important. 

Nicola: We have a lot to learn. We do have a lot to learn. On how to engage with children and how to not treat them as though they were just an add on to a service but we do really have a lot to be sorry for and a lot to learn. 

Nicky: We don’t ever want to be a baby sitting service. 

Nicola: That’s right.

Nicky: We want to be a mission to kids. 

Nicola: Nicky, how did you become a Christian? 

Nicky: Well I was brought up in a Christian home, praise God I had that privilege so I don’t have any amazing big lights and this is what God did in my life but actually I just knew from a young age that Jesus loved me and when I got to I think I was about 7 or 8 and it really hit me that verse, that says, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” It hit me at that point that I didn’t have to be prefect. There was nothing I could do to earn God’s love, that he loved  me before anything else and it was at that point that I gave my life to the Lord and I am so glad that I did because he has just done so much in my life and I am so grateful that he is with me every step though all the ups and downs of life. 

Nicola: yes he is and you have probably led quite a few people to the Lord yourself and that is why I am going to close on this question, what would you say to anybody thinking about becoming a Christian? 

Nicky: Well I would just have to say, its not actually anything about religion, it is about relationship and knowing Jesus and walking daily with Jesus has made such a difference in my life, I could speel of loads of verses and things like that but the thing is I can actually know that it has made a difference in my life. That’s I can speak to the Lord. He helps me every single day and the hope and the certainty that one day I am going to be face to face with Him in heaven, that I don’t need to fear death. It is just amazing and living as a Christian now is so wonderful, you don’t have to wait till heaven to enjoy it. We can enjoy it right now and I just say to anybody who is interested or got questions, find an alpha course, find a local church and actually get in there and ask the questions. You have got nothing at all to lose by looking into what Christianity is all about all you have got to gain actually, knowing Jesus because it really is the best thing. Ever! I am just so grateful that I know Him and that he has made such a difference in my life. 

Nicola: You mentioned about the web site that you have got. What is the web site address please? 

Nicky: So its www.metroworldchild.org or if you want to email us you can use uk@metroworldchild.org and get in contact that way. 

Nicola: Fantastic and feel frees to sign up, you can sponsor a child quite easily on the metroworldchild.org page. You can phone up. I will give you the phone number on the bottom if you want to discuss about a child and if you want to reach a need that is, you know, some of the worst case scenarios which is what I did Nicky would be able to help you with that. So we will sort that out. Thank you. That will be on the show notes. So thank you. Thank you for listening to the Cold Water Podcast. Please remember to subscribe and join nex