We're Here!

Here we are. It's been so busy that this is first chance I have had to post. And, unfortunately there is a line behind me for using the computer, so this will short and to the point. It is so wonderful to be back again. We've missed the people - more than we knew until we got here. We've done cooking classes at the school (three so far...spice cookies and then thumbprint cookies. Yum!) The kids have loved it and they have been so fun to work with. They are so anxious to practice their English, and to find out everything about life in the U.S. We also delivered the toys to the orphanage, and were able to get some photos and video. The children were precious, and were so much more interactive than last year. It was a relief to see the children smiling and so comfortable with us. They loved the toys. We sat on the floor and played with the children for about an hour. What an incredible blessing.
We went to the mountains today and hiked up to an old Albanian church. It was beautiful and peaceful and we felt like we were truly in another world.

I am going to try and post some photos tomorrow. Hopefully. Keeping fingers crossed.

On to Baku

We're leaving this morning for Baku. I'm packed...sort. Of course I have to stop by the store on the way to the airport for two more things (earplugs and Tums - how random!) I'm hoping internet connections hold up and I am able to post. If all goes as planned, the next post you see will be from somewhere in the interior of Azerbaijan! Now...on to Baku!

Goodbye Madeleine

"It was a dark and stormy night..."
So begins Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time. That's a brave way to begin a book. It's a repetition of the opening line of 19th-century novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. And it's also the way Snoopy begins the novel he is perpetually writing in the Peanuts comics. So perhaps Ms. L'Engle was being trite? Not a chance. I've read this classic twice, and both times I was awed by the depth of what is considered to be a piece of children's literature. It has been one of the most banned books in the United States, accused by religious conservatives of offering an inaccurate portrayal of God and nurturing in the young an unholy belief in myth and fantasy. But Ms. L'Engle was all about story. She was all about telling the story of good and evil - and how good wins in the end - and how we can be redeemed. She just happened to use a form that made some people uncomfortable, but she was writing a story to tell THE story, and so she took the criticism with all her usual grace and charm. The book, published in 1963, won the John Newberry Award. It has sold over 6 million copies.

Madeleine L'Engle died on Thursday, September 6 in Litchfield, Connecticut at the age of 88. I love her writing, her wit, her deep theological reflections written in simple terms and intertwined with the grit of real life lived in real time.
The last book I read of L'Engle's was "Penguins and Golden Calves." Despite protests and warnings from friends and family, she traveled to Antartica and through the beauty of the place was moved to write about how ordinary things - even penguins - can become "windows to God", that lead us to a richer faith. In her book, she writes:
"I look at the stars and I do not understand. But I know. I know, not with my mind, but with my heart. The Maker of the stars made me, made each one of us. We are loved, and what is expected of us is that we return that love with love."

I say goodbye to Ms. L'Engle with the hope that her writing has helped me - if only a little - to be honest and real in my own writing, and in my life. It is the knowledge of how deeply loved I am that should cause me to breathe deeply and peacefully. I don't understand it, but I know it....I feel it. And so I thank you Madeleine L'Engle. Thank you for thinking deeply about your faith, and being unafraid to write about it.

Now in Paperback....

Melissa Fay Greene's "There is No Me Without You" is now in paperback. I'm thrilled because there will be another round of book tours by Melissa, more interviews about the subject, and additional attention paid to what this book is about. I believe everyone should read it. I really do. Everyone. This book. Now.
Here's why:
Today, 5,760 children will lose a parent because of AIDS.

There are over 12 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.

There are five million AIDS orphans in Ethiopia.

There are over 100,000 AIDS orphans in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

I read this book in January, absorbing the story, the statistics, and the realities of it, while at the same time feeling shocked that I really knew very little about the orphan crisis. Where has this story been? Twelve MILLION orphans? And the numbers are climbing. By 2010, the number of AIDS orphans could reach 25 million. That absolutely cannot be right. These children are dying in great numbers because there is no one to care for them. They are languishing in orphanages, many of which do not have the resources to adequately care for them. Some of these children are heads of households, caring for younger siblings and they simply cannot feed themselves and their families. And the ones who are in places where they are physically well taken care of are growing up without a mother or a father. They are true orphans. Beyond the numbers and the horror of this pandemic, however, is the story of someone who simply could not sit around and do nothing. So she did something. Melissa tells this story in her book.

Every 24 seconds, a child in sub-Saharan Africa is orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF says this: "The silence that surrounds children affected by HIV/AIDS and the inaction that results is morally reprehensible and unacceptable. If this situation is not addressed, and not addressed now with increased urgency, millions of children will continue to die, and tens of millions more will be further marginalized, stigmatised, malnourished, uneducated, and psychologically damaged."

I have linked Melissa's website in my Do Something (to the right). Melissa, in many ways, has helped to break this silence with her book. And she continues to speak out for the children. She has brought them into her home and her heart, and helped those of us who have heard the story to also break the silence along with her.

Our Friends' New Life

Our friends Geoff and Erica and their baby Ariel moved to the Philippines in August. They have no air-conditioning in their home and no hot water so they take about three cold showers a day because it's humid in the Philippines and they sweat all day. And they have no stove or fridge yet because both come with free installation that takes several months. So they're cooking on a two-burner plug-in job. Roosters crow all night and day, they have a lizard for a roomate, their washroom has a rain trough and sometimes when they are in the shower and have their hair all soaped up, the water goes.

Geoff and Erica are so humble. They could have walked around for the last several months before they left for the Philippines acting as if they were doing God some big favor by giving up all their Western comforts to go serve Him in a third world country. But they didn't. They actually seemed sort of happy to give it all up. They sold their house, car, furniture, lots of clothes and all the junk they had accumulated over the years. When it was done, and they were finished with the last garage sale, they seemed released. I found myself a little envious. They were so unencumbered, and it was as if they began to see things differently...maybe more clearly. Perhaps when the clutter of the "stuff" that we hold so tightly is swept away like some kind of blinder, we see our need for God in a new way. We depend on our possessions to satisfy and gratify, and then God becomes incidental. Yes, we need Him, but do we crave Him like we crave our stuff? It's not something I like to think about, because I have to raise my hand high..."guilty."

When I look at the pictures that my friends sent me, I see God's beautiful creation in the lush landscape and in the face of the Filipino girl who is kneeling to look into Ariel's eyes. I hear in my friends' email voice that they are thankful for the simple things. They wake up early and go to bed early, and they look around them and see the world in a new way. And once again, I'm sort of envious. We miss Geoff and Erica and baby Ariel, but we are glad they are home at last.