Witnesses

The following was shared by the pastor and Catholic priest at St. Mary's parish in Beverly this week.  I believe these are questions all Christians must ask themselves (not just Catholics).

"Now that the election is over... I'd like to offer a brief admonition.  This concerns members of every political party and supporters of every political candidate.  We are in the Year of Faith.  It is an opportunity for us to deepen our knowledge of the Faith and to deepen our love for the One who is the heart of our Faith.  We should ask ourselves some questions.  Am I more diligent about defending a political candidate or a political party than I am about defending my Catholic Faith?  The world needs the witness of Faithful Catholics who are completely loyal to Christ and His Church.  Civilization as we know it is rapidly deteriorating.  Are you completely dedicated to bringing Christ and His Gospel to others or are you part of the culture that is pushing Christian Faith out of society?  To whom much is given, much shall be expected.  St. Augustine once wrote to somebody who was inventing his own version of Christianity.  He said, 'Tell us straight out that you do not believe in the Gospel of Christ; for you believe what you want in the Gospel and disbelieve what you want.  You believe in yourself rather than in the Gospel.'  To be a Christian is to believe in the full Gospel.  Political candidates are human.  Political parties are human institutions.  The Catholic Faith is revealed by God.  Let's be witnesses to the faith.  If we are believers, then we must also be witnesses."
-Fr. David Barnes

On Gentleness and Power

This Sunday I held a baby who was only 12 hours old.  Her name is Amara and she is beautiful.  Her legs tucked close to her body, she breathed tiny, tiny breaths as she slept.  We marveled at her fingers and fingernails and her smooth skin and feathery hair.  My friend expressed the wonder of it all- how that person lived inside of her, moved inside of her.  We talked in low voices about a friend who had lost her baby, how we take for granted that babies are born when so much can go wrong.  And we turned to Amara.  A miracle.

Yesterday I watched in the moonlight as giant pipeline waves crashed on the rocky cliffs around a usually quiet beach in Plum Cove.  The storm was resting, gathering strength, but the sea raged and splashed and glowed like fireworks in the eerie calm of the night.  I sat on the rocks and soaked it in.

With awe I recalled the day before- the tiny and beautiful creation of God, a daughter so sweet and perfect.  How gentle God is!  His attention to detail so tender and perfectly working together- every bone, muscle, nerve, organ, and cell.  He knows every hair on Amara's tiny head, and he knows her future and what she will hope for, who she will love, who she will be.  And He loves her- now and forever.  He suffered and died so that she might spend eternity with Him and know Him and know His love.  Amazing.

Then I turn my thoughts back to the moonlit sea in front of me and marvel at God's power.  He could destroy us in an instant.  None of us could stand against those waves crashing against the cliffs.  Earlier that day I had watched the gales of wind- giant pines bending toward the ground, smaller trees uprooted, rows of street lights taken down.  Hurricanes are marvelous and terrifying.  I thought of how foolish we are- to think we control our lives, to think man has power over the world.  We are at God's mercy, and thankfully, His mercy is great.  The waves on the beach were terrifying and beautiful, strong and mighty, reflections of the great power of the Creator.

The contrast of His gentleness and His power.  We can never hope to understand Him though we fill our days with study.  And our problems seems so small, and wisdom seem like foolishness when we contemplate God.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, how great Thou art, how great thou art.

Full-Time Ministry

A missionary recently spoke at bible study.  He laughed a bit at how sometimes we use the terms "part-time" or "full-time ministry."  He stated that as followers of Christ, we are all in full-time ministry.  Our entire life is ministry.  Lord, remind me everyday, every moment, that I am a minister of your love and peace.  Help me to get outside of me.  Increase so that I may decrease.

Poem

Countless times I forget
You Lord remind me
A daughter of the King
Since the day that you found me
In rags and with nothing
You washed me like snow
And clothed me and crowned me
And called me by name
And sent me to darkness
To call out lost daughters
To lift up their chins
To hold trembling fingers
You put light in their eyes
And clothe them and crown them
To me they are sisters
Waiting singing working
'Til you carry us home.

Love as a Burden

Tonight, love feels like a burden.

The Bible tells us many things about love.  Three things remain: Faith, Hope, and Love.  The greatest of these is love.  God is love.  For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life.

So I think of God's love, TRUE love and begin to fathom what it means. This is a love that is all-powerful, all-healing, and life-transforming.  It is a love that sent Christ to the cross to suffer not only the pain of physical suffering and death but also the unbearable pain of spiritual desolation and separation from God the Father.  This punishment that was meant for us for eternity became His. He who was blameless and sinless and pure- He who was loving and good.  He took it all.  While we turn our back on Him and reject Him and deny Him and sin against Him, He looks at us with that TRUEST of true loves and says, Yes, I will stand in their place.

We are surrounded by images that name themselves love.  They are joyful kisses and carefree laughter and youthful faces and passionate embraces.  But that was not what the love that saved the world looked like.  That love hung on a cross, naked, beaten, heartbroken, lonely, and forsaken as the world grew dark as night at midday.  That love shattered death in victory and rolled back the door of a tomb, with holes in His hands as proof.  That love was a burden, a cross, a weeping, a suffering, a heartache, a voice crying out in utmost desolation, a battle, a victory, and a fire set in the hearts of many whose eyes He has opened and names He has called.

We do not bask in the warmth and glow of His love, but we are called to be His ambassadors- to take a torch and carry it to the ends of the earth.  Most times, this job of loving people as God loves is one of great joy and the blessing of all blessings that we are counted worthy of this task.  But at other times, we feel the weight of the love.  It is the cross we take up and carry to follow Christ.  God calls us to love others, and He places people in our lives to love with the relentless and all-encompassing love of God.  We love people who cannot truly love us back.  We pray for people who may never know we pray for them.  We mourn for the lost and the broken of the world.  We pray for the conversion and redemption of our greatest enemies- those who have wounded us deeply.

Everything around me tells me love is the opposite of loneliness.  No, the two are sisters.  God's great love story reached its pinnacle of love and loneliness on the same day in the same great act- when Christ hung arms spread on the cross.  For He did not come into the world to condemn us but to redeem us and call us His children out of His great love for us.

Tonight, I love and pray for people who do not know the depth to which I love them, who do not know the depth to which their Savior loves them that He would place them like burdens on my heart.  Those I have loved deepest and lost, and those I have hated most, and those who are broken in need of a Healer.  Tonight, this is my cross.  This love is a burden.  This love is a small piece of the pain Christ feels in the love He bears for us.

Learning to Love

God continues to humble me on a regular basis.  There are so many stories of faith in the midst of suffering- faith that makes me realize how small my own faith is.  I wish I had time to write them all here, but I will choose one.  On a daily basis, I work alongside young Haitian men and women translators.  We depend on them to bridge the language and cultural barriers when we are working in the villages, but they are so much more than just translators.  They are men and women committed to serving God, serving their people, and bringing real hope and change to this nation.  I am continually learning so much from them, and I am amazed by their stories because God writes such beautiful stories of redemption and providence in the poorest of places.

I had a conversation with one of our translators, Marcial this week.  He is 29 years old and lives with his wife in a one room home in Source Matelas.  Marcial is passionate about sharing his faith especially with people who do not know Christ.  In fact, he is disappointed to go through a day without doing so.  He often shares the story of the Gospel- that because we were sinners, God loves us so much that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us so that we might spend eternity with Him if we have faith.  When someone responds to this and decides to live for Christ, he is sure to write down their names and where they live so that he can continue to encourage them and support them.  He also makes note of people in need in the different communities we visit and sacrifices whatever he can to take care of them.  Americans like me look at Marcial and his life and see that he had nothing, yet he is rich in the selfless love and faith rooted in the relationship he has with Jesus Christ.

This week, he told me the story of a teenage girl he met in a tent city who just had a baby.  Tent cities are communities of people who have been living in temporary shelters since the earthquake two and a half years ago.  Not only are these people living in poor conditions, they have the stories of tragedy and loss that brought them there.   The girl that Marcial described has an abusive boyfriend who continues to beat her, and Marcial continues to speak to this girl to offer her the hope that only Christ gives.  He is saving his money and praying so that he and his wife will be able to rent a bigger house, one with two rooms so that he can offer this girl an escape from the destructive and hearbreaking life she is living.  He almost has enough saved.  Someday he hopes he can build his own house, but for right now, he will rent one so that he can rescue this girl.  Two rooms is all he needs.

Stories like that force me to search my own heart and realize how much needs to change, and I pray I allow God to change it.  Oftentimes, I am asked what I am doing in Haiti by both Americans and Haitians.  The true answer is learning how to love.  Jesus Christ is teaching me everyday to learn how to love, not as the human heart loves but as he loves.

"...When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all." -C.S. Lewis

Life Transformation

Life Transformation is a phrase we use often at Mission of Hope.  It is in fact written right into the vision statement: "As an organization following Jesus Christ, we seek to bring life transformation to every man, woman, and child in Haiti."  One of the greatest blessings in my life is being able to see the changes and transformation that God is accomplishing in Haiti not just weekly but also from one year to the next.  Those of us who are called to work on the ground day in and day out are sustained by the presence of God and the encouragement that He is doing great works here in Haiti.

One of my favorite stories of life transformation that God is writing here is in the community of Leveque.  Leveque is a village formed from hundreds of families displaced by the earthquake.  Last summer, it was one of the most difficult places for me to visit.  Families crammed in temporary shelters we referred to as blue tarp houses on a dusty stretch of land devoid of trees and without clean water.  It had been a year and a half, and there were many hungry babies and many sad stories.  Kids always seemed rough, dirty, naked, and sick.  Many had the red-tinged hair from malnutrition.  Parents seemed exhausted and crushed, tired of waiting for promises to be broken.

But there was still HOPE.

Rows of empty houses, colorful as candy buttons, dotted the landscape.  We worked day after day to get the houses ready- painting, clearing land with machetes, putting on roofs, planting cactus hedges.  We prayed for clean water while a drill was stuck, broken in the earth.  And everyday, as we worked, we loved the people of Leveque and shared the ultimate story of hope- that God so loved us all that He suffered our fate in order to be with us for eternity.

This summer, I love climbing the hill overlooking Leveque to see the green landscape of gardens and plantain trees that surround the colorful homes.  Families wave to us from their front porches.  Now, there is clean and affordable water in the village.  Every Tuesday afternoon, the community gathers for a soccer game.  The children play first.  Then, the adults from the deaf community play adults from the hearing community with some Americans mixed in.  The players wear real jerseys donated from a middle school basketball team in the States.  Music blares from speakers and people sing and dance along.  Americans and Haitians mingle on the sidelines, cheering on the players, hugging babies, meeting families.  At the end of the game, we all gather in a circle and sing praises and pray to the God who loves us all- we pray in English and Kreyol and Sign Language- a beautiful dance of words and hands.  The Lord hears all of our hearts gathered there on the dust of the soccer field.

There are still many people in Leveque living in blue tarp houses, hoping for a home that they can raise their families in and grow their own food, but transformation has begun.  I pray that God will continue to transform this community and bring hope to the poor.  After all, Christ came so that we might have life and life abundantly (John 10:10) and that promise is meant for the dirty baby living in a tent in Haiti just as much as it is meant for you and me.  Keep praying.

The Least of These

before i begin my seven weeks at mission of hope, i am staying two nights at new life childrens home in port au prince.  this is an orphanage that is an oasis in the middle of a broken city. when you enter the gates, you are met by green grass, playgrounds, and well fed children.  miriam fredericks, who began the home over thirty years ago, provides a haven for the orphans she rescues.  many come on the brink of starvation or severely handicapped.  one of the most recent additions to the new life family, louvens, was found at only fourteen pounds at the age of five.  he was almost mistaken for a dog.  he now is learning to walk and is smiling. a life transformed.  the name of this place is fitting... new life.  indeed these children have been given a new life, a new hope, the dignity that god intended for them.  somehow, although i rejoice and thank god for the miracles that take place here, i cannot help but think of the countless orphans that no one will rescue, both here in haiti and all over.  the words of the book of james echo in my head...

religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless is this... to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

my question then is, if so many orphans go uncared for, starving, reduced to something subhuman, unloved... where am i? Where is the church?  How can we better use the gifts and wealth we are blessed with in order to fulfill the calling to take care of those counted as the least of the world?

lord, you have shown me all this.  reveal to me how i can be a part of your plan to love the world and make all things new.

Outside the Circle

Years back, a friend told me how she prayed for the gift of joy.  I remember how surprised I was at the time- to think of joy as a gift to pray for.  But I pray for it now, and I will keep praying that it will increase all throughout my life. It is incredible to realize how much laughter is inside of me now- I feel like it spills out because there's nowhere to put it- like a popcorn machine without sides.  I can laugh at almost anything, especially myself and the mistakes I make.  And once I used to beat myself up for mistakes for days on end and spiral into a hole.  Now I laugh. And laugh.  And I love laughing.  I could probably talk all night about how much I love it.  I laugh at myself and my shortcomings and heartbreak and my friends and my enemies.  I laugh at animals and babies and couples who wear matching outfits.  I laugh at humanity and the church and the ways in which God has designed things.  I laugh at how we stubbornly and blindly refuse to see God or how we keep trying to stuff him into a box. And I even laugh at the tireless struggle we fight in this broken, broken world.

Sometimes I meet people who cannot laugh.  People who forgot how to laugh.  People whose laughter died somewhere between childhood and adulthood.  It is a tragic truth- the absence of laughter in a person's life.  Maybe it is because their life has been full of pain and heartache.  Maybe someone hushed them too much in school and in church and told them to be quiet and sit up straight.  I do not know, and I cannot judge, but I pray they learn how to laugh again.
Sometimes we hear the old cliche: Don't take life too seriously.

But then I think about how so many people live recklessly or look for ways to numb themselves.  There is nothing intentional about how they move from day to day and everything about how they live is so random.  We hear the phrase "It's my life," and many will use it as an excuse to do what they please.  They forget that our lives never just belong to us.  Our lives echo into the lives of many others- for better or for worse.  Perhaps even they fail to echo when they should.  The absence of good that a life could have brought into another life.  They forget that life is a gift of great magnitude.  They forget to take life seriously.

So most people live in the middle of two extremes.  Between taking life seriously and taking life lightly.

A friend recently made the declaration that he wanted to live life outside the circle.  I actually must admit I do not know what life outside the circle means to him, but it put into words a desire I carry with me.  Because that is exactly my desire- to live life outside the circle.  The circle to me is the middle.  The circle is where life is safe and predictable and pretty.  Sometimes my own desire scares me, but I desire to live outside that circle.

I've begun to see more and more what a contradiction I might appear to be, and I am going to take it a step further and say I want to live both extremes.  And no, that does not just mean I want to live in the middle.

I want to laugh at everything and take nothing too seriously and at the same time regard life as the greatest and most serious adventure and gift entrusted to me.  I never want to settle for the middle.  For the mediocre.  For the pretty-good.  I never want to live inside the circle.

Because I believe there is something better.

There is something better that God has for each one of us if we are brave enough to step out.  It won't be predictable (and that's tough for those of us who like romantic comedies).  It won't feel safe.  It will mean loving people beyond the walls we set up.  I have no idea what that will look like.  And I can almost guarantee it will make me laugh- laugh really hard.  I can only live one day at a time.  Maybe I will only have one more day, maybe thousands more.  Either way, I want God to be the author of those days because after all, our life is a gift to be part of his great and beautiful plan to make all things new, mend the broken, and love the lost.  I would rather be used by him on the edges of this life risking everything than live safe and sound in the circle- never risking. never aching. never laughing.

Take me deeper.  Show me more.  Fill me with more joy and more love that spills out like popcorn.

Struggle

I think I've said this before, but when I was younger, my greatest fear was feeling pain, especially the pain of losing someone I love.  However, now I realize my greatest fear is just the opposite- being numb.

I'm terribly ashamed to say that oftentimes I try to forget the countless faces of suffering people in the world.  I try to live a "normal" life, one that mostly revolves around myself, where  my biggest complaint is how tongs are a terrible way to serve cheese on taco day in the caf.

Don't get me wrong- there is nothing wrong with enjoying life, but there is something wrong with sleepwalking through it.

I'm afraid of becoming numb, yet I work to numb myself.  I am a contradiction and a hypocrite.  Maybe most of us are.

And then I remember- I remember that the real world is not just this corner that I live and work and play in.  The real world suffers.  Whether it is someone suffering from mental illness twenty feet away from me or someone struggling to survive the day thousands of miles away, this world is full of pain.

One sensation that struck me when I came home from a summer in Haiti is that the suburban America I live in is both beautiful but somehow less real than Haiti.  Everything looks and seems perfect, but there is a lot of candy that coats what's real.  There are a lot of people walking through life asleep.  Most Sundays in the months following the summer, I wished I could scream in church.  I cried after mass on Christmas because it was like watching a comatose, sleepwalking version of what should have been.

I wanted to stand up and shout: HEY!  Can you believe it?!  God became MAN to save a dying world!  The great God who created the universe humbled Himself and became one of us!  A human being-- a hated and persecuted human being, just to be with us for all eternity!

HELLO?!  Anybody let that sink in yet?

But I didn't shout out anything.  I just watched a mostly numb congregation go through the motions of another Christmas service... watching their watches.  Waiting to get home and eat pie and ham and fall asleep.  Numb.  And yet I try most days to become just that.

I remember.  Then I feel helpless.  Then I try to forget.  Repeat.

God- don't let me forget.  Don't let me use my life as novacaine.  Just tell me what to do with what you have shown me.

Thinking about church

My mother shared this story with me today...

By Matthew Kelly
From his book ,"Rediscovering Catholicism" - Beacon Publishing

Imagine this ...
You're driving home from work next Monday after a long day. You tune in your radio. You hear a blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. It's not influenza, but three or four people are dead, and it's kind of interesting, and they are sending some doctors over there to investigate it. You don't think much about it, but coming home from church on Sunday you hear another radio spot. Only they say it's not three villagers, it's 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it's on TV that night. CNN runs a little blurb: people are heading there from the disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.
By Monday morning when you get up, it's the lead story. It's not just India; it's Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you're hearing this story everywhere, and they have now coined it as "the mystery flu." The President has made some comment that he and his family are praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering, "How are we going to contain it?"

That's when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen. And that's why that night you are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman is translated into English from a French news program. There's a man lying in a hospital in Paris, dying of the mystery flu. It has come to Europe.

Panic strikes. As best they can tell, after contracting the disease, you have it for a week before you even know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. And then you die. Britain closes it's borders, but it's too late. South Hampton, Liverpool, North Hampton, and it's Tuesday morning when the President of the United States makes the following announcement: "Due to a national-security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I'm sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing."

Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are wondering, "What if it comes to this country?" And preachers on Tuesday are saying it's the scourge of God. It's Wednesday night, and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and yells, "Turn on a radio, turn on a radio!" And while everyone in church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made. Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital, dying from the mystery flu. Within hours it seems, this disease envelops the country.

People are working around the clock, trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working. California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts. It's as though it's just sweeping in from the borders.
And then all of a sudden the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It's going to take the blood of somebody who hasn't been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood analyzed. That's all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.

Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they've got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it. Your spouse and your kids are out there, and they take your blood and say, "Wait here in the parking lot, and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home." You stand around, scared, with your neighbors, wondering what on earth is going on, and if this is the end of the world.

Suddenly, a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He's yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and says, "Daddy, that's me." Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. "Wait a minute, hold on!" And they say, "It's okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn't have the disease. We think he has the right blood type.

Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses are crying and hugging one another - some are even laughing. It's the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says, "Thank you, sir. Your son's blood is perfect. It's clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine."
As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying. But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, "May we see you for a moment? We didn't realize that the donor would be a minor and we need... we need you to sign a consent form."

You begin to sign and then you see that the box for the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty. "H-h-h-how many pints?" And that is when the old doctor's smile fades, and he says, "We had no idea it would be a little child. We weren't prepared. We need it all." "But... but... I don't understand. He's my only son!" "We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We... we... need to hurry!"
"But can't you give him a transfusion?" "If we had clean blood we would. Please, will you please sign?"
In numb silence you do. Then they say, "Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?"
Could you walk back? Could you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, "Daddy? Mommy? What's going on?" Could you take his hands and say, "Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn't just have to be! Do you understand that?" And when that old doctor comes back in and says, "I'm sorry, we've got to get started. People all over the world are dying," could you leave? Could you walk out while he is saying, "Dad? Mom? Dad? Why... why have you abandoned me?

And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and some folks sleep through it, and some folks don't even bother to come because they have better things to do, and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just pretend to care, would you want to jump up and say, "EXCUSE ME! MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON'T YOU CARE? DOES IT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?"
I wonder, is that what God wants to say? "MY SON DIED FOR YOU. DOES IT MEAN NOTHING? DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?"

Washing my Armpits

I showered this morning and thought about the many people in Haiti- the many people in the world- who do not have clean drinking water.  I thought about how I was at that moment washing my armpits with clean drinking water.  I thought about how we wash our clothes and our cars and our dogs' fur and flush our toilets with clean drinking water.  We don't just have enough clean drinking water;  we don't just have plenty of clean drinking water.  We have an overabundance, a glut, a surplus of clean drinking water.  SO MUCH that we don't even know what to do with it.  Sometimes we fill balloons and supersoakers with it or pour it into swimming pools or slip-and-slides.  In fact, many of us choose not to drink this water at all and instead buy spring water which is even cleaner and tastes even better.  This makes me extremely grateful and angry at the same time.  I am so grateful for the gift of clean water- for God's blessing that I do not in anyway deserve, but I am so angry at the injustice of this world.  I am angry that children's bellies fill with worms and diseases just because they need water to survive and they only have dirty water.  My armpits and my car and my toilet receive better than these children receive because they were born somewhere else and that is wrong.  And I stand in the shower and feel the weight of the world when I ask myself, What can I do?

But that is not the question we ask.  All we can say is, Lord- Here I am.  Although I am unworthy and unqualified and only one person, You are God and You are great.  Send me.  And God will use us- and continue to amaze us at what He does.

When I was younger, my greatest fear was feeling pain- especially the pain of losing someone that I love.  Now, my greatest fear is feeling numb.  Feeling pain is part of being alive in a broken world.  Although I am not brave, I know that God must allow my heart to break a thousand times for His people.  I must feel pain.  I think pain allows us to love more completely.  I pray I never become numb.

"All the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense"
-Jars of Clay

Donations Needed

This March break, I will be traveling to Mission of Hope and another organization called New Life Children's Home.  Someone with an extremely generous and kind heart had donated my flight, and because he is flying me down first class, I can bring tons of donations!  Praise God!  So if you have anything you would like to donate, please get in touch with me by March 2nd (next Friday).  Here is a list of needed items:
Food
-peanut butter
-jelly/jam
-$ for food
-children's chewy vitamins

Clothing/Shoes
-children's summer clothes
-new socks
-new underwear
-dress shoes (kids 2-womens7/men 9)
-durable sandals (same sizes as above)
-sneakers (same sizes as above)
-boys dress pants and shirts (size 6x-youth 12)
-girls skirts/dresses/dress shirts (size 6x-youth 12)
-girls leggings
-bathing suits boys and girls (no bikinis) (size 6x-youth 12)
-black belts (6x-12)


Toiletries
-deodorant
-shampoo
-Selsum blue shampoo
-full-sized toothpaste
-soap
-maxi pads
-moisturizer
-baby powder

Baby Needs
-diapers (all sizes)
-baby formula
-baby wipes

Toys/Sports/Music
-Children's books in English or French
-games
-DVD's
-soccer balls
-basketballs
-volley balls
-sports equipment
-used musical instruments (especially trumpet, trombone, keyboard)
-waterguns
-$ for food

Miscellaneous
-wristwatches
-wall clocks
-irons
-durable table cloths
-clothes pins
-sheets
-garbage bags
-ziploc bags
-sheet sets
-medium fans
-colorful fabric 2 yards in length

Only You Know

Two nights ago I had a dream of Haiti.  I was walking through a village with a group of Americans and we passed by a hut.  It wasn't really a hut though because it had no roof, just a dirt floor with some posts and several women sitting or crouching on that floor.  One woman was laid in the lap of her daughter in the middle while her daughter fed her with a spoon.  She was badly burned and missing all four limbs, crying in pain.  It was so real that I woke up praying for this woman and kept praying in case she was real.  I wondered if the real Erica would have done anything or if she would have stood helplessly like dream Erica did.  I cannot say.

Last night, my friend lost her father.  We talked once about how blessed we were to have such great and honorable men as fathers and how the perfect man to marry would be a mix between a Bill Lee and a Dave Naylor.  I don't even have any words to say what the world has lost when it lost Dave.  I know God has a plan and a good plan, but sometimes real life is just too real.  Sometimes I just can't see why.
How many hearts must be broken?  How many tears must be shed?  How many children must die?
Before you come again?
Only you know.

The Life I Want to Live

"He is the Life that I want to live.
He is the Light that I want to radiate.
He is the Way to the Father.
He is the Love with which I want to love.
He is the Joy that I want to share.
He is the Peace that I want to sow.
Jesus is Everything to me.
Without him, I can do nothing."

-Mother Teresa