More for the Just Love Network in Scotland
Kathryn Ritchie, our new Scotland Network Coordinator, shares about her journey to her role at Just Love and her passion to build more for the Just Love Network in Scotland.
Let’s roll it back to November 2019. It’d been three months since I graduated university, started my first graduate job, and moved from Edinburgh to Dundee. Winter had set into the city, already dark and bitter as I drove down to the city centre after work. I felt like I was sneaking onto the university campus - I wasn’t a student anymore but I’d met some cool students at my new church and they were screening a movie about human trafficking, Nefarious: Merchant of Souls. This was my first experience of Just Love - a ragtag group of students and a new grad who wasn’t sure if she was meant to be there watching a movie in a lecture hall.
I slowly got to know Just Love more over the next few years through the students at my church. I also was invited to speak at a number of Just Love student groups through my volunteering with 24-7 Prayer Scotland. I loved getting to speak on my favourite subject - how can we be people of prayer and have a depth of relationship with God that will sustain us through the radical pursuit of justice the Bible calls us to as Christians?
I’ve worked for Just Love for a year and a half now and while I feel settled into working with my student groups, Dundee and Aberdeen, I still feel woefully new to the depth of relationships, web of connections, and stories that have been built over the 10 years since Just Love started. One thing I knew when I started was that I wanted more for Scotland.
I should probably introduce myself though before we go any further! Hey, I’m Kathryn! I’m fae bonnie Aberdeen but I’ve lived all over the North East of Scotland. I studied Religious Studies at Edinburgh University before a postgraduate degree at Napier in Career Coaching. After university, I worked for Scotland’s national career service as a career coach in a high school and with unemployed young adults for four years.
A fun fact about me is that over the last decade I have spent a year of my life on the island of Ibiza. Outside of Scotland, it’s the place I have spent most time ever (including England!). When I was 19 and fresh from my first year at university my church sent a 2 week mission team to Ibiza with 24-7 Prayer. We prayed a lot, we helped drunk and drugged clubbers back to their hotels, we cleaned vomit off our shoes and our car, and we prayed some more. Ibiza, a place where beauty, joy, and God’s unending love co-exists with deep sadness and escapism, captured my heart and it’s not given it back yet.
To my friends, I am the girl with two hearts - one for the island of Ibiza and another for Scotland. Like I said, I want more here in Scotland! What would it look like for there to be Spheres, Hubs, and Projects that are accessible in person rather than a 4-hour fast train to London (6 hours for Aberdeen) or through a screen.
I get the privilege to help give the network here in Scotland some shape but I want to know what you need from a network here in Scotland! That’s why we’re running a Scotland Summer Gathering to pray and dream for where God is mobilising us for his justice here in Scotland. Join us in Edinburgh on Saturday 6th of July, to share your thoughts - I’d love to connect with you there!
We're gathering the Just Love Network in Scotland this summer to ask the question, What will our legacy be? Together, we’ll look back and reflect on the legacy of Jesus as well as looking forward to pray and dream for where God is mobilising us for his justice here in Scotland. Click the link below to learn more and get tickets.