A child's journey through hell and back

Ishmael Beah tells his story…It’s 1993 in his country of Sierra Leone. He’s a happy go lucky normal 12 year-old boy with a fixation for American rap and hip-hop. One day, he, along with his older brother and good friend, travel to a nearby village to participate in a rap contest. To save money, they decide to walk the 16 miles. Since it is only to be a day trip, they wear only the clothes on their back. They decide to stay the night in Kabati with Ishmael’s grandmother before continuing on their journey. The next day they arrive to their destination, the town of Mattru Jong only to hear that school has been canceled because word has spread that the rebels were on their way to attack the village. They learn that the war has already swept through Ishmael’s village, leaving nothing and nobody alive. Thus begins the longest nightmare of Ishmael’s life. He and his brother decide to turn back in hopes to find their parents, only to find their home in rubbles, and no sign of their parents. They never saw them again. Ishmael is eventually separated from his brother by the rebel army and for a year he runs and walks alone throughout the country desperately trying to escape the rebels. He witnesses unimaginable acts and bloodshed that will forever taunt his mind and heart. A year later, he is captured by the government army of Sierra Leone and forced to be a boy soldier to fight the rebels. He is trained to kill anyone who is not a government soldier and to commit horrible acts himself. Little had he know that on that day to the rap contest a year ago his childhood would be lost forever. After three years in the government army, at age 16, he is rescued by UNICEF and taken to a recovery center where he suffers severe withdrawals, anger, and self hate, and psychological torture from memories and images of the last 4 years. He eventually travels to the United States and gets a degree in Political Science and becomes a member of the Humans Right Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee and speaks on behalf of the suffering and war of his people in Sierra Leone and throughout Africa. A powerful moving story that causes me to ask the question, What now? How can I help? How can we help fellow humanity in war-torn nations? What does it look like for Jason and I to fight injustice as we live here? May we never let ourselves become ignorant of the world beyond us.

~n

our christmas prayer

Enlarge my heart 

to love You more,

when I am stumbling

on the way;

only the heart

enlarged by You

runs to obey.

-Ruth Bell Graham

Feliz Navidad!

promoting peace

I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson…AMAZING!! It’s an incredible story of the author Greg’s determination and passion for the people and children of Central Asia (Pakistan and Afghanistan). He devotes his life to building schools in remote villages where there, the children sit on the grass and draw their arithmetic with sticks in the dirt because they have no school, no supplies, and no teacher.

I loved this book for so many reasons. I am passionate about cultures and I love to experience foreign places, culture, food, people, and ideas and values. It was fascinating to me to live overseas and experience a foreign way of life and culture, but what impacted me the most, was the people….to know the people.

The author and main character, Greg Mortenson is astounded at what he finds when he stumbles upon the Pakistani people….he is profoundly changed by their hospitality, their dreams, and their values. After he asks to visit the village school and finds children seated on the ground doing their arithmetic with sticks, he promises to build them a school. And that he does. He toils, struggles, suffers huge obstacles, and ends up raising money to build a school in the village that he has come to love so deeply. He forms profound life-long friendships with the people of this village. Years, and many new schools later, he creates the Central Asia Institute and builds 77 more schools in small villages throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, all the while gaining the respect of village elders and national leaders. His driving force is his belief that to change a nation, is to educate its children, especially its girls. This is how a nation becomes empowered to sustain itself. It is educating its children that will eventually fight and end terrorism (not war). He gets to the root of the issue of terrorism instead of just fighting it. “In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever” (page 310). If only more Americans would understand this!

Throughout the book, I got to thinking…I don’t know whether Greg knows Jesus, but his story is that of the incarnate Christ and how we as Christians are to imitate Christ to others, and to cultures and nations that we encounter. Greg spent time with the people, he taught himself the language of the people, he dressed liked them, and learned their customs and what they valued, and why they did the things they did. He took the time to learn them and understand them. I love that. That is what “ministry” and missions is to be. We enter in to a culture as guests, to learn everything we can and most of all to serve them. This requires humility.

Another thing that is crucial to missions and ministry is that it be locally owned and run. Greg sought out the elders of the village for advice, wisdom, and direction. He used the nation’s tools, materials, supplies, and built schools in the context of their culture…not “American” schools, but Pakistani and Afghani schools that reflected their culture and arts. He raised up teachers from within to teach their schools. He didn’t bring in Americans to teach their people. This is so that they can sustain themselves and continue on and teach their own people…passing on peace from generation to generation.

Likewise, missions or ministries in other cultures and nations must be started with the goal that it be led by natives. From the start, we are to be raising up locals to carry it on. So it is with the gospel. Christ must be shared in the context of one’s culture (by the way, you've got to read Peace Child, if you haven’t already). We do not bring an “American gospel.” A question to ask is, How will this people understand the sacrifice of Christ from their cultural understanding?

These are just some of my thoughts that I am super passionate about. Man, if I could live a couple of years in every country of the world, I would, for Christ is revealed in different and unique ways in each culture.

All that to say, Three Cups of Tea is a must read!

To read more about Greg Mortenson's work visit: http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

~n

2 years ago today...

The Two Hour Battle of the Recalcitrant Druid Sacrifice and the Sedulous Festooners

Ah yes. It is once again time for us to do something that we have no idea the meaning of: cut down a symbol of pagan fear, the biproduct of over active Irish/Jute imaginations. Well, as a tribute, Naomi and I took this very seriously. We drank Glog to represent the crimson blood spilled of those whose bodies remain forever hidden beneath layers of heavy peat and the blood that we our selves have been spared of losing. Thus, the documentation of a fierce and irrational battle between tradition and senility. (The title is more a need to use words I never can in normal conversations). 

 

You should all be glad there was no audio to this sequence of photos.
Oh, and my crimson hat...very necesary to show how serious i am about sacrifices...not my head!

Naomis reaction to the tree flipping me off behind my back...dont worry, i gave it a solid "what-for" when I turned around. 

See, this is the "what-for"...a fierce festooning! That'll teach'em.

What i saw as a result of too much Glog and festooning. 

OH NOOOO! GREAT GOD OF THOR! The tree is spitting giant florescent neon colored Druid gametes! Ruuun!...

Glad you could share in the pure nonsense of our holiday. Cheers!

Third Snow

We have received another snow! A week after our post thanksgiving snow, we have a new four inches (which, is slowly fading) but lasted an entire day with temperatures, that as a high, was 25 F and a low of 14 F. Heres a few pics.  

The morning after, at 7 am looking down our street. When I took this photo it was 8 F, the overnight low was 4F. Far far faaaar colder than the balmy NW. Thank you Jesus!
Yes...its cold inside, too. 

My plan is to document every snow we get...as over-done as it is. 

christmas is here!

Yesterday I put up Christmas decorations (the other half is still in Portland) while listening to Christmas music and munching on peppermint bark, one of my favorite Christmas treats.

Jason hung up Christmas lights around both windows and lined the entire living room ceiling (cozy!). 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Inside of the front door...

Our table...

A little train that will go below our tree (it's actually an Advent Calendar which will be fun to do with our kiddos someday)...

Coffee table...

Our Feliz Navidad stockings...

Above the stove (it says "Feliz Navidad")...

Snowman cookie jar waiting to be filled w/ Gingerbread cookies...

First Abdilla Thanksgiving

We cooked and hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner!! Boy, was it an experience!  I loved every minute of it.  I now have so much more appreciation for my mom and abuelita who would rise at the crack of dawn to cook the turkey and then spend hours in the kitchen preparing each dish.  The biggest challenges for me were our tiny kitchen (and thus almost nonexistent counter space) and then preparing each dish to all be done at the same time.  I had so much fun!  We invited our friend Juli to join us.

Here's what we enjoyed...

Abdilla Thanksgiving Dinner 2008

organic free-range herb roasted turkey (it turned out awesome!!!)

organic stuffing (I'm not usually a fan of stuffing, but this had amazing flavor)

yams

brussel sprouts w/prosciutto ham and toasted walnuts (delish!!!)

spiced orange cranberry sauce

waldorf salad (made w/plain yogurt vs. mayo and had way better flavor)

pepita farm bread (w/pumpkin seeds throughout!)

white wine

dessert:

pumpkin crisp w/organic vanilla bean ice cream

hot apple cider

Mid Nights Wintry Stroll

Its only 20 minutes until the day is over. The awaited Thanksgiving snow never showed up; weathermen shrugged and explained away their false prophesies with a science machine. When I got off work today, the clear crisp skies i expected were low and heavy, and a soft icy mist was drug in their wake. Within a few hours it turned into the snow we all (naomi and i) had wished for. Its been comming down steadily, now two inches...and I am watching it fall heavily through a shaft of street lamp. We're going to take a quick stroll through this late autumn snow, then slip into a nice warm bed. Happy Holidays! 

Poignant!

If you dont know me well, then this wont seem that funny to you at all. But for those that do, doesnt this sum it all up? Well, this comming week we're supposed to get some "flurries"...I can only hope.

I apologize for the bad scan job.

It's Naomi here. I've been thinking a lot about the issues that were passed and weren’t passed recently and those that were made important and not so important by each candidate in the election. The more I read about Jesus and seek to understand who He is as God made flesh, I am more convinced that the issues are not what should be the focus or what we should spend our efforts and energy fighting for or against. I really believe that it goes way beyond that…that the real issue is to seek and strive to understand the person behind the issue or the person making a decision…whether it be morally right or wrong, or whether the decision is God honoring or not…that I truly believe is more transforming than fighting for pro-life or fighting against gay marriages or any other issues that one should feel strongly about. Instead, we should seek to love. This can be manifested in different ways…one way is to sit down with the person and allow space and freedom for dialogue to talk about their struggles, why they are making the decision or why they believe or do what they do, and love them because they bear God’s image and they are fellow humanity. We can share ourselves and who God is and believe it or not, learn from their life. Is this not what Jesus taught and demonstrated over and over again to his disciples and the Pharisees? He didn’t fight for the punishment of the adulteress woman, or condemn the woman at the well who had been married 5 times (thus divorced) and currently living with a man who was not her husband. And the life of Mary Magdalene, and countless others. Instead, Jesus looked upon all with love in his eyes…that is what transformed them and compelled them to run and tell others about Him…because they had encountered Jesus, the living God. Do gays and abortionists encounter Jesus when they are met with opposition from Christians? Do they see and hear Jesus when we speak to them? This is not to minimize their sin or condone their choices. It is simply loving them and seeking to show them Jesus, not fight them in Jesus’ name. I just don’t see that anywhere in Scripture. In some ways it can become pharisaical to fight for or against these issues and force those who do not know Jesus to believe the same and in so doing, actually turn them even farther away from God. How can they even understand, if they don’t know Jesus? Is it not the heart that is more important than the action, and will not the action be the outpouring of the heart? Jesus spent time with sinners, he knew them. Do we take time to know others (not just those who are like us), to understand their heart, and share mine with them, and in turn be Jesus to them, by my words, life, and my love for them and not get hung up on differences (whether it be doctrinal, theological, or things not black and white in Scripture, etc)? I’m more convinced that that is Jesus. This is what will turn their hearts (non-christians AND christians) towards Jesus and make him attractive and a sweet aroma. Yes, these issues matter, but I believe that we often miss the point. It’s all about living Jesus to the world and by that they will see Jesus and maybe understand, not by our fighting for or against, but by our love for mankind. The Jews expected a political Messiah, one that would overrule the Roman Empire and destroy the existing government. Yet Jesus did the exact opposite….he came at the mercy of the government. And instead offered (as well as taught) grace and love, and forgiveness…As children of God we are to seek justice, but not fight for it as I see we are doing today. Instead, be a people of justice always bridled by grace as Jesus modeled, and seek to understand and love the heart of fellow man as we seek to understand the heart of God.

First Snowfall In Denver

Over the last month the weather in Denver has been abnormal according to weathermen and natives. One man said to me the other day, with a twinkle in his heartless eye, "it's the first Halloween in sixteen years there's been no snow! Ha! Maybe we'll get summer until January!" Walking off, his wheezy laugh turned more and more into an eerie winter-hating-cackle. I cursed the Tropic gods and beseeched Father winter to freeze the gasoline in his car.

It's true however, that it has been considerably warm and dry for this area this time of the year. The latest recorded snowfall is Nov 21 in 1939, which a local weatherman said gleefully "we're getting awfully close to another record!" There has been a handful of "systems" that have "just missed Denver" letting snow descend in areas just north, south, east and west of here. People find it a blessing from God...I...a personal insult. It is one of the bigger reasons I chose Denver: the fact I was almost guaranteed snow.

So, when the other night they forecasted again another chance of snow, I was obviously skeptical. The day was a record breaking high of 71 with no clouds. Around 7 pm, though, the temperature dropped 15 degrees and later around 8 pm, it had gone from 71 at 3 pm to 38. I made many trips outside to gaze skyward, hoping to see clouds. Nothing. Finally at 11pm when we all went to bed, I checked the temp one last time and it was hovering around 35, yet the barometric preassure had skyrocketed, which is usually an indication that any weather systems are being fended off. Still no clouds. I lost heart and went to bed rather discouraged and remembered one meteorologist's comment about how this could be Denver's record breaking year of high "summer-like temps and no precipitation whatsoever".

It was nearly 4 am when I got up to go to the bathroom. Passing the entryway to the kitchen, I glanced at our backdoor which has a small window covered by a curtain, I took a small detour just to see if maybe Denver's notoriously erratic weather has taken a turn for the good. I pulled back the curtain and saw...nothing. No snow. it was the dusty driveway with some stale leaf corpses tumbling about by a soft wind. I noticed, however, a couple small wet patches and on the hood of our car there were large droplets of water. "Great" I mumbled, "it flurried while I was asleep and now its..." just then like a wandering angel finding its way to bear good tidings, I saw a small white disk float through the wood rafters above and land ever so gracefully on the desolate floor. Its godly little body dissolved...but I didn't let this bother me, I began glancing rapidly about to see if any others were coming also. A gust of wind turned the corner of our building and WHOAHAHOA! a legion of baby angel flakes came blasting their wintery trumpets -my little saviors- stomping beneath their feet the dusty head of Satan (Summer). I felt my knees getting weak, so I ran to the bathroom, did my business, and ran back, rubbing my eyes to ensure I wasn't halucinating. More were drifting lazily down. They were small little flakes that seemed to not want to land, but eddied and waltzed with the wind and eachother's gentle motion. I ran back to bed and immediately woke Naomi. She forced a smile and fell right back to sleep. I too, fell asleep, but only for half an hour. At 4:45 I woke up and put on some clothes, made a cup of tea and went outside. It was DUMPING! And the winds had picked up significantly. I walked around our block, and listened to the muffled sound of flakes landing on roofs, tree branches and grass. One of my favorite things to do is stand beneath the tungsten color of a stree lamp and watch the flakes fly through the small shaft of light, from darkness to darkness. I did this until I was frozen. The temperature had dropped to 25 and the wind was howling through the neighborhood.

I spent an hour at the Starbucks accross the street "reading", looking up every two minutes at the snow whitening cars and roof-tops. It never stuck to roads or parking lots, but all else had a total of maybe an inch or two. Not much, I know, but it didn't matter. It was snow; a fresh reminder of Hope. It was all melted by 11 am, but the temp never got higher than 38 that day, with the sun and all. Unfortunately, we are back to record breaking temps, tomorrow is 65 and the next few days making up to the eighties. Damn La Nina! I took a few pics once every one else was awake (my camera was in the room where our guests were sleeping). So here it is, our first snow...

sweet reunion

Hannah and Timmy stopped in Denver on their way back to Oregon. Three precious days together...

We love you so much and miss you terribly!