Back to the Everyday Whining

Okay, Thanksgiving and the parades, football and overeating are finished for most of us. Now we're in Christmas shlepping, I mean shopping, mode. And that leads to whining when the store is out of stock on the sale item you drove there especially for. Or sarcasm when the salesperson is less than interested in helping you. Or complaining when the crowds push you around.

To combat the ho-hums that have already begun to replace the ho-ho-hos, let's take a moment to list 5 things we're grateful for. I know Thanksgiving is over, but gratitude isn't just a Thanksgiving tradition. It's a daily exercise that lifts our spirits and reminds us of all the good things God has provided us with.

Be creative and list things other than your family, your relationship with God and your house and food. Here are 5 items off the top of my heart:

1. Books, and the ability to read them
2. Laughter, because it makes life bearable
3. Scones, especially with clotted cream
4. Climate control, in houses and cars (not too hot, not too cold, just right)
5. Socks, in a glorious array of colors and patterns

Put 5 things you're grateful for today in the comments section. Or at least name them to yourself, and maybe make naming 5 things a part of every day this Advent season. It may just change your attitude about the whole season of giving.

Picture Perfect

I'm not much of a photographer. I took some photos with my phone when I was at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico last year. Les made fun of me because most of them have my finger in them, as you can see in the photo at the right where it looks like a giant balloon is attacking the mountain.

So calls for photos don't usually interest me. However, I saw a newspaper article about GE's Ecomagination Photo Project and had to play along. You upload up to three photos and tag them with wind, water or light.

For each photo, GE will make a donation. Water photos bring donations of 480 gallons of drinking water. Wind photos, 4.5kW hours of wind energy. And light photos, 175 hours of solar power. It's a cool simple way to give. Here's one of the three light photos I uploaded. Taken on the same New Mexico trip, I might add, and nary a finger in sight.

So if you have an opportunity to upload a photo, your effort could help power clinics in rural Peru, give families in East Timor solar-powered lanterns or help build clean-water wells.

Now that sounds like a picture-perfect investment.

A Victim For Life

Several weeks ago Ashlee's Sunday school class took on the Heifer Read to Feed program. As part of the program, which raises money to buy animals for families in need, the kids were to read books and ask for donations for each book read. Heifer provided a suggested list of books that would help kids learn about other cultures and needs. Unfortunately, the books on the list all seemed to be picture books geared for younger kids.

So Ashlee and I spent some time at the library, using key words like "poverty," "justice" and "hunger" to try to find appropriate books for her age. We ended up reading two that told of children who were sold into sexual slavery. Both books—Sold by Patricia McCormick and They Called Me Red by Christina Kilbourne—were written for preteens. We read the books out loud, so I could deal with anything awful that came up. Both authors did a great job of communicating what these children dealt with as child prostitutes without graphic sex. Ashlee was captured by the stories and appalled to realize that each year 2 million plus kids are exploited in the sex trade.

The heartbreaking stories made me more sensitive when I got an e-mail from change.org about Sara Kruzan. Sara was "befriended" by a man when she was 11, who ultimately raped her and then made her a prostitute. At the age of 16 she killed him. A judge sentenced as an adult in 1994 to life in prison with no parole. Watch the video in which Sara tells her story.

Then if you agree that Sara has paid her "debt to society" over the last 12 years (plus the three years in sexual slavery), sign the petition asking Governor Schwarzenegger to commute her sentence. Does she need to be a victim for life?

What Do You Know?

A few weeks ago we attended a missions conference where one of the speakers was Kurt Graff. Kurt and his wife Nancy spent years in Russia and Central Asia starting churches. Now they are working with an organization that encourages young people to invest their lives in countries within the 1040 window. (If you want info on the 1040 window, watch this video. I would suggest you turn off the sound, because I found the music very annoying.)

Anyway, Kurt had this quiz for us about Central Asia, Russia and a few other mission questions. Try the quiz yourself. Send me your answers. Anyone who gets them all correct, I'll have a prize for you. (What? I have no idea!) Maybe you'll learn something—like I did—even if it's how little you know about Central Asia.

1)      What are the names of the 15 countries that made up the former Soviet Union?

2)      Rank in order from the most to the least popular Russia Leader.

            Putin         Lenin         Stalin        Gorbachov        Yelstin      Czar Nicholas       Catherine the Great

3)      How many different people groups, live in the former Soviet Union?

             10           30           50            130           300               1000

4)      What country is the only one that that has all of natural elements listed on the periodic table?

              America       China      Russia       Kazakhstan       India     Brazil

5)      What country is sending out almost as many missionaries as America?

              Canada       Korea        England      Germany     Kenya      Brazil 

6)      What percent of those who live in Central Asia claim to be believers in Jesus?

              50%          25%          10%          1%         .01%

7)      What percent of the states in the country of Kazakhstan have at least one church?

              100%           90%       75%         25%      10%

8)      How many bibles can a one have in his possession in Uzbekistan?

                 0                  1                 10                50              unlimited

9)      What is the major religion of Central Asia?

               Atheism          Orthodoxy        Christianity        Islam        Buddhism        None

10)    What percent of the population are under the age of 18 in Central Asia?

               05          15            30            50             65

11)    What is the average life span for males in the former Soviet Union?

               35              45                58           65           73           82

12)    The most popular type of programs on prime time TV in Russia are?

             Political shows         music channels          comedy       Spanish soap operas       Russian dramas

I Can't. Really?

How often do I make excuses for why I can't do something for the world? I am easily overwhelmed by the immensity of the problems. Really, what kind of difference can I make anyway?

Take the Haitian earthquake and the new cholera epidemic, for instance. I don't have any medical skills, and I don't do body fluids. (God was wise not to give me babies.) I couldn't build if my life depended on it; just ask the people who worked with me on my occasional Habitat for Humanity forays.

And so my default mode is to pray and if, especially moved, to make a financial donation. At least that way my little bit combines with others' little bits to support those who actually have the skills.

It takes only a 10-year-old to shame me. (No, not my granddaughter Ashlee this time.) Alexys Palmer saw video of the Haitian earthquake at the Creation music festival and decided she had to do something.

She came up with a great idea. She would make dresses for girls in Haiti. 100 of them. Out of pillowcases. She wanted them all done by November to ship them to Haiti in time for Christmas. There was just one tiny little hiccup (my apologies to Sam in Love Actually for stealing his line). Alexys didn't know how to sew.

It didn't stop her. She had her mom teach her to sew. Now she's halfway to her goal. On each dress she's sewn a pocket, and in the pocket she places a Bible verse translated into Creole. She calls her ministry Lexy's Pockets Full of Sonshine. After she fills her Haiti quota, she plans to make more dresses for a group called Angels in Africa, which cares for impoverished children in African countries. You can watch a video about Alexys to learn more.

Creativity is a beautiful gift from God. Alexys is using hers to meet the needs of his children. May she inspire each of us to use our own creativity to find ways to serve.

Wandering Back Into the Light

Debby Howell-Moroney, her husband Michael and their, at that time, small children Maddy and Ian, were part of our Delaware church while Michael was getting his PhD. They moved on to Birmingham many years ago, but we were so thankful to see them this summer when they visited the Mid-Atlantic region. Debby is a tireless advocate for social justice, so I asked her to do a guest blog. It’s different from what I expected, but I believe you will find it as challenging as I did.

I am finally coming out of a long dry spell, spiritually speaking. If you’ve been a believer longer than a week, you probably know exactly what I am talking about. Never one to see things as “half-empty,” I like to reflect on the children of Israel being led into the wilderness. God rescued them from Egypt, but this wasn’t exactly the Promised Land either. There was—and still is— a purpose to the wilderness. God doesn’t intend to leave us there either. That is what keeps me going. God had something better, awesome, amazing, planned for the children of Israel on the other side—they just couldn’t see it from where they were.

God has something better for you and God had something better for me too, and I think I caught a glimpse of it today. Back when I was feeling loved and special and basking in His glow (while I drove my minivan to ballet practice, changed diapers, and did mountains of laundry), my spiritual life consisted of daily conversations and meditations with God in the most unlikely places: the shower, while driving, or sitting in the car-pool line at preschool. I am, and maybe will always be, a completely undisciplined and rebellious Bible reader. I don’t want anyone making me feel guilty about how and when and with what frequency I “do” a “quiet time.”

Thankfully, God finds a way of smooshing in through the cracks and the spilled cans of soda. Bless Seeds Family Worship and The Donut Man—they are largely responsible for my knowledge of Scripture, with their catchy little jangles and funky little beats. (Those and my sweet childhood friend who dragged me along to every VBS and Awana meeting they held at her church.) God takes snippets of Scripture and puts meditations in my mind—often during “McPrayers” or while humming praise music that has stuck in my brain from Sunday morning worship.

I don’t know when He stopped speaking to me or, more likely, when I stopped hearing Him.

Somewhere in there we stopped leading a small group at our home on Sunday night. I stopped attending the playgroup that I have been going to since we moved to Alabama in 2002. I no longer have a preschool age child to use as an excuse to show up, religiously, for a recharge. Money got tight and we got busier with the busyness of life. Our desire to be foster parents ground to a halt as the certification process was inexplicably prolonged by bureaucratic inefficiencies. My 2½-year tenure of hip-hop dance fitness ended right as I was completing the process of becoming an instructor. What does it all really matter anyway?

Sometimes I think we get lost in similar “what does it matter” funk. We get to feeling as though we can’t make a difference on our own in the world around us or in the world at large. It’s not that I ever really felt like what I do doesn’t matter; I just felt like if I didn’t do those things, that wouldn’t matter either. After all, what is one Bible study group, more or less?

I received a note in the mail this week that began the course of my redemption from this dry place. It was from Alabama Youth Home. AYH regularly uses telemarketing to raise money for the youth they serve in several group homes. I typically pledge 10 or 20 bucks when they call and faithfully write a check when the pledge form arrives.

But this wasn’t a typical mailing from them. Inside was a letter reminding me of a $10 pledge I made back in January 2010 that I hadn’t mailed in. “Unbelievable,” I thought. Can you imagine—they were collecting on a commitment that I had made back in January and neglected to fulfill. As I am sure you can imagine, our budget was tight in January in the post-holiday crunch. I had made my usual pledge, but by the time the collection envelope had arrived, our money was nearly gone for the month and I had blown it off. What is $10, anyway? No big deal. Right?

Why on earth would they be collecting now? That seems crazy. Surely people make pledges and don’t pay them all the time, right? Maybe, but it struck me as incredible, brilliant. Assuming they are coming up on the end of their budget year and with a tightening economy, what an interesting thing to count unpaid pledges as assets. I love it. I made a pledge; I needed to honor it. I was convicted, and so I wrote a check—for $20—and dropped it in the mail.

I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it was last night when I was washing dishes and God shared the phrase, “Be a person worthy of respect, because it is the right thing to do. Don’t do it for recognition because you will largely go unnoticed.” Or perhaps it was in the car today when I clearly heard Him say, “No act, done in love, is too small when it’s done in my name.” That’s when I realized I had really missed hearing His voice. I am glad it is back or that I am listening again.