PRESS RELEASE



Youth Worker takes up Great Wall of China marathon challenge
in aid of Open doors
Click to sponsor Jon at [link]


Youth Worker Jon Miller (me) is facing the challenge of a lifetime as he gears up to run the Great Wall of China Marathon

Jon, 29, is usually known for school assemblies and running the various Youth Groups at Seedfield Methodist Church in Bury, but on May 17th he will be donning his shorts and running 26.2 miles to raise money for Open Doors, a charity that aids persecuted Christians in countries around the world by sending them materials for worship and youth work as well as campaigning to get Christians released from prisons in countries where it is illegal to practice the Christian faith.

"The most exercise I used to get was running after the kids," says Jon. "The last time I got any serious exercise was in PE lessons at school. And that was 13 years ago! Now I'm doing 10k runs. And I've had to knock the fatty foods on the head. I must be mad!"

The hard work will all be worthwhile for Jon if he succeeds in raising £2,000 for Open Doors. Jon has been a Youth worker for almost 8 years now and has a real heart for youth workers in other countries and feels the need to do something to help those who are being persecuted for teaching young people about Christianity.

"When I heard that in some countries of the world people were being put into prison or even out to death for doing the same work I do, I felt the need to do something about it.
It made all of my gripes about the difficulties of Church youth work seem so trivial.”

“Then I heard about the Charity Open Doors, who send Bibles, youth work materials and other such things to those that need them and did what they could to help those who were imprisoned and facing death, I thought this was a charity that I would like to help but I just didn't know how.”

“In May last year I turned 29, with 30 fast approaching I thought I should check my list of things to do before I reached the big three-oh, thankfully I had achieved most of the things I had wanted to do but there was a couple of things which I still hadn't got round to doing. One was to do something BIG, like run a marathon or something and the other was to visit China and see the Great wall.”
“So I put Great Wall of China into Google and up came “The Great Wall of China Marathon” as one of the hits. After some thought and prayer and asking my friends I decided that this event would be something great for me to do for Open Doors as it would be raising money for Christians in China by running in China and this idea tickled me.”

"Life is so difficult for Christians in other countries that I didn't want to do something easy to help them, I wanted to do something that would really challenge me and also give me just a taste of the hardship that others have to live with."

Jon is well known in to many of the young people of Bury for his work in schools and with Youth workers at other Churches and he is hoping the local community will support him in his marathon challenge.

"The young people at our youth groups have been very generous and I hope others will sponsor me if they can," said Jon. "Even a few pounds will make a huge difference and mean Open Doors can continue their invaluable work supporting Youth workers and Christians like me."

You can sponsor Jon by visiting his on-line fund-raising page on [link] You can pay by credit or debit card, and the money will go directly to The Autism Charity. Where supporters are UK taxpayers, the charity will automatically receive 28% extra in Gift Aid, which makes Justgiving the most efficient way of sponsoring Joe.

Notes to Editors

For further information or to arrange a photo call please contact Jon Miller on 0161 7617013 or 07967323086

For further information and photos on Open Doors please check out their website [link]

For further information on Justgiving.com, please contact Franklin Rae Communications on 020 7317 5400.