'Tis the Season to be Tender

It's the most wondrous time of the year.  That's true enough. But our songs all insist we must all put on a jolly face, have a wonderful time and, for goodness sake, we'd better not cry! 

Goodness knows, we don't want to be sad this time of year.  We are supposed to be happy, right?  "I'm sorry," my friend apologizes through reddened eyes, "I don't know why I'm weepy."

And yet, it's the season of the year when we celebrate the most vulnerable time of all--the birth of a baby.  Death in childbirth for mother and/or child was an all-too-common occurrence then (and still is in too much of the world), multiplied several times over by placing the newborn in an animal trough!

Angels and shepherds and circumcision and magi and Herod... we bunch together a couple years of gospel events into one big season of constant celebration.  And maybe that's the point: we call it all a "celebration" when the story itself calls for a commemoration.  There are solemn, even somber, parts to that story.  Those parts didn't have to be part of the scriptural record.  It could have been all angels singing, innkeepers repenting, shepherd dancing in gay apparel, no sheep dung on their sandals. But isn't that just like the Bible to show life as the mixed bag it really is, warts and all? David, the "man after God's own heart," adding adultery and murder to his résumé . Peter, both passionate and foolish.  The ancient Israelites, set apart as God's "chosen people," yet berated by their own prophets for their greed, injustice and xenophobia.  If there's one thing that strengthens my faith in the veracity of Scripture, it's the unvarnished and almost universally unadorned portrait of its characters.

Yet over the centuries our culture has adorned Christmas and varnished it 'til its glossy sheen nearly blinds us to the underlying material. It has become something different, a magical season of fantasy.  Janet and I watched the original "Miracle of 34th Street" last night and were swept up in the story as much as the next guy.  It's fun to delight once again, like we did as children, in a myriad of memories and traditions and twinkling lights like those that mesmerize my young grandson.

But not only can this feeling not be sustained for the entire “Christmas season” (which is a shopping term of ever-increasing length), but neither should it be.  The Church's term throughout history, "Advent", invites and even beckons a different and more complex set of emotions.  It's a time of preparation, of remembrance of the full story, of feeling the complete range of human emotion at the full-orbed story of the entry of the Christ-child into our full-orbed world. 

"Peaceful Christmas" music wafts behind me, courtesy of Pandora.  It invites a peaceful acceptance of emotion, as violins now render "Silent night, holy night."  The phrase, repeated in every verse of this most-beloved song, is "holy night," not "happy night."  "Holy" can be joy-filled, thoughtful, tearful, awestruck, watchful.  None of those emotions need an apology during a season of preparation for a holy night. 

In my office hangs a framed photo I was given when I left Promise Keepers, after serving as their California state manager during the boom years.  The Orange County Register published the photograph during the largest stadium event PK ever held, at the LA Coliseum in 1995.  The photo portrayed what was best about that uneven men's movement: as worship music was pulsing from the stage, the men on the front row are shown alternately lifting hands, kneeling, weeping openly, singing passionately.  Their diversity of response to what was "holy" is as riveting as their diversity of race and socio-economic status.  It is beautiful to behold.

Let that be our invitation then, to not only feel but to accept and even welcome the full range of human emotion in this season, without apologies that "I'm such a downer" or "I know I shouldn't be sad at this time of year."  Those of us who struggle to feel the complete range of emotion should be jealous.  We lack the taste buds to enjoy the full-bodied communion wine of all the complex flavors of Advent. 

If you can taste them fully, but are tempted to apologize for that, perhaps it will help to remember that this is first and foremost Advent season, the time of preparation for Christmas, which lasts for a day.

In my view, an Advent season without tears is the saddest Christmas indeed.  'Tis the season to be tender.

Cory

Advent 2012

Joy Deep As Sorrow

The slaughter of 20 innocent first-grade children in Newtown, Connecticut last week sickens and disheartens us all. There is some pathos that the tragedy occurred the day after I sent out my meditation "I'm dreaming of a safe Christmas" dedicated to vulnerable children. That it happened during Advent season, when we are re-reading wondrous Christmas stories that always crash headlong into Herod’s terrible slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem, makes both incidents all the more poignant.

At times like these, people often look to spiritual leaders for answers. I'm sure some of these “spokespersons for God” are feeling great pressure to find meaning in the senseless violence, feeling a need to defend God's reputation.

I was talking with a friend today who told me she’d just seen one of the popular television preachers on a major network morning show. The primary question that the host had was, "After a terrible tragedy like this, how would you reassure our viewers that God exists and that God cares?"

My friend felt the clergyman had done a fairly good job of empathetically providing the explanations most of us, if we've been people of faith for some length of time, have heard repeatedly in one form or another:  reminders about man's free will and assurances of God’s compassion for the victims.  Without question, this is a tough circumstance in which to be an apologist.

But as she was talking, I put myself in the place of this "man of God,"  and I realized that I no longer feel it's my responsibility to "apologize" for God, to defend God in times like this. God is perfectly capable to defend God.

That sounds odd, doesn't it?  Somehow we've all been indoctrinated that this is our job.  We’ve had our gospel sales training and we walk around feeling great pressure to help get God off the hook. 

If there's good news in that gospel, I don't see it.

I even think we can do a disservice to God in trying to use reasoning that we humans can understand.  It implies that I can understand God and you could, too. In truth, If we could understand the mind of God, God would not be God.

As we discussed it further, I was reminded of an article that was written over 20 years ago to World Vision staff. It was written by a staff psychologist before PTSD was a household term. He was offering empathy and an explanation of our colleagues who work in relief camps or other difficult settings surrounded by misery and pain, who then come back and would worship with us at World Vision's weekly chapel service. The counselor counseled the rest of us not to be concerned that these wounded warriors were not being demonstrative in chapel or singing praise songs with great gusto. Don't think they've lost their faith in God, he advised us. Rather, they continue to believe in a loving God despite the evidence to the contrary.

I've remembered that article for over two decades and I especially appreciated that he inserted the word "the" in the phrase “despite the evidence.” It acknowledges what we all know is true yet are usually afraid to admit—that there is evidence, compelling at an emotional level at the very least, that argues against belief in a loving and all-powerful God.  So, to hold our own subterranean fear of unbelief at bay, we do all we can to defend that God, “our God”.

As I'm writing this, my wife just sent a text with the disturbing news that a former church member and acquaintance died yesterday of complications from a terrible motorcycle accident. Frank has been a well-known radio host at a Christian station here. What will his family go through?  What words of comfort will quickly morph into fervent explanations and apologia?

Let’s face it. Life is painfully cruel; as life is unbelievably beautiful. 

My new friend bob Bennett sent me the very first CD of his new album. He burned it himself for my dying friend Mark Archibald, who passed away the next day, before Bob could mail it, so it came to me instead. The title song asks plaintively, "Is there joy deep as sorrow?" 

Despite the evidence to the contrary, the fact that the answer to Bob' question is a resounding yes may be all the defense I personally need for God.  Oh yes, there is joy deep as sorrow. 

And for those who can open their hearts to it, this season offers deep reminders of both.  Our usual response to someone’s loss or heartache at Christmastime is, “Oh, and how terrible that it happened at this time of year, too.”  Perhaps the ultimate victory of the Christ-mission despite the river of blood from Herod’s infamous Slaughter of the Innocents requires a different reading, a different response when tragedy strikes at this very time of year.  Perhaps at no other season is there such clear evidence that joy is always comingled with sorrow, and vice versa; such a clear sign of ultimate hope, that sorrow can be redeemed. 

Redeeming last week’s sorrow is the task before us now, as well… a task we can undertake in strength and comfort, reaching out for the hand of One who also endured great sorrow while beckoning us to a Peaceable Kingdom of unending joy.

Peace on earth; goodwill to all,

Cory

December 2012

I’m Dreaming of a Safe Christmas

This year I've found new courage to open myself to the tragic problems we lump together under the term "children in crisis". This refers especially to children living alone on the streets of the world, children in abusive labor, and trafficked children.

Frankly, it takes a good deal of courage to engage these issues. They are so disturbing, so evil, so repulsive. It's a great deal easier to focus on providing clean water or micro loans, seeing smiling faces and proud countenances of those being helped, not the slumped and somber frames of the fortunate few children who are rescued, their identities hidden from the camera.

I encourage would-be contributors to these "Child Protection" issues to first pray about whether or not they feel called to it, because I believe it takes a special calling to stay in this battle against insidious evil in some of the places where it is most firmly entrenched. 

Yet the silent cries of these children is a drumbeat on my own soul lately. I'm hearing that same divine calling myself, and now Janet and I allocate much of our own giving to this issue.

A colleague and good friend just sent out the note below to our co-laborers  around the country.  I appreciate Steve's deep passion and heart on this issue—refueled by a riveting trip to Bangladesh and India this year where he experienced vignettes like these first hand—and feel his note is worth sharing, without comment.  It's a message for Christmastime that may be worthy of reflection again during the holiday, as we seek to make it truly a Holy-Day.

Advent blessings,

Cory

           Christmas letter to my fellow reps about Child Protection

In about two weeks, we will all largely cease our busy activities regarding the ministry of World Vision. It will then be a time for families, exchanging gifts, wearing something new, and of course those delightful Christmas cookies that seem to be consumed by the half-dozen!

We will also gather to worship in a variety of settings, whether a simple chapel service or an ornate candlelight communion somewhere which allows us to reflect on the significance of Jesus's entrance into a troubled, and less than ornate, world.

I was asked by the Child Protection team to remind us of some of the themes of this sector. How could I do so without immediately noticing the obvious contrast between those we serve and this affluent Christmas culture we call home?

Consider their Christmas morning…

- A child of ten forced into working 12 hour days in a factory with conditions that don't exactly tout coffee breaks nor a leisurely lunch hour, meanwhile netting maybe 50 cents a day.

- A girl of 12 whose value on the street, due to her youth and lack of prior sexual experience, can give her family the most expensive "Christmas gift" they have ever received; their only problem being that there is no address for them to send her a thank you note.

- A young child's only experience of "Silent night!" will be hearing the threatening exhortation from his mother, a sex worker in a brothel, to keep quiet while she goes about earning her living.

- A teenage girl already rescued from the darkness of exploitation, yet still yearning to find joy in singing "Joy to the World"… perhaps next year she can get through the first line without weeping.

I believe that Jesus is the HOPE of the world, that indeed He brings Joy, salvation, comfort and healing. Will you join us in praying for children like these, and for our global Child Protection team as we seek to bring light and hope to these precious children?

God bless us, EVERY ONE!

The Day the Music Died

I got the call a little after 7am this morning from a mutual friend in Chicago: "Mark is dancing in eternity.  He's not suffering any longer."

I've just lost the most faithful friend I've ever had, or that I expect I'll ever have.  Actually, I never expected to have this one.  But I suppose friends like Mark are never expected.  

Mark was diagnosed at age 56 as Stage 4 of a rare lymphoma and told he'd have 3-4 more years.  That was almost three years ago, so this was not a surprise.  When he was beginning life's end game a couple of months ago, we changed our September vacation plans to travel back to Chicago for a second, and final, extended visit.  Two amazing things occurred which I'll never forget.

I introduced Mark to the music of a budding Christian singer-guitarist back when we lived in Chicago 30 years ago, Bob Bennett, who lived way out in California.  Mark got hooked and knew virtually every word to every song, and these became part of the soundtrack of our friendship together and of Mark's life.  Bob sings of brokenness and grace, and Mark was well acquainted with both, so Mark would said that Bob was "singing my life with his words", as the lyric goes. We'd sing Bob's songs together when he'd make his annual winter visit to SoCal.  Through God's amazing grace to Mark--and me, I was able to surprise Mark and arrange for Bob to come to Chicago while we were there, to give Mark a private concert.  Mark was stunned; he alternated crying, singing and shaking his head.  Bob did this for no fee, simply as an act of love for a guy he'd never met, at the request another guy he'd never met.  When  I emailed Bob about the idea, I innocently mentioned that I know a friend of his--who as it turns out has been Bob's best friend for 40 years.  I think that's all Bob needed to read, as he called me 30 minutes later and had already been looking at flights.

The other unforgettable memory came from another prompting.  I knew we were choosing to visit Mark while he was still alive and coherent, in lieu of attending his memorial, but I also wanted to honor Mark that day in our absence.  I knew immediately that I needed to write a eulogy...and read it to Mark while I was there.  Reading it aloud was terribly difficult, yet one of the great honors of my life. How often do we get the chance to express our love and appreciation to someone as clearly as we do in our remarks about  them after they are gone?

I seriously choked up multiple times, and then went out to the kitchen and wept hard.  Mark, usually the emotional one, sat quietly, mostly watching me...and apparently listening.  When I finished, he was silent.  Then Mark, who has always been my most faithful editor, said in a voice that was commanding yet barely audible, "Don't...change...a word."

I thought I'd share my remarks here as well.  I do it only to honor my dear friend, and maybe there's a lesson for the rest of us about friendship from the way he modeled it.  What a great privilege it has been for me to experience it; it's also a privilege to testify to it.

Cory

---

Mark came to light up our lives when we moved to the Chicago area 30 years ago.  We were in the Calvary Baptist Church library, and he was holding Matthew, his first son, who was a toddler at the time.  I still remember that first encounter.  And I remember how Mark was dressed...as I recall, Mark was wearing a coat and tie that day for some reason, but what I'm certain of is that he was dressed in a smile.  This was before the days when Mark was the official or unofficial greeter at the church, but Mark never needed a job description to be welcoming, and we were new to the church and eager for friends.  

He had me at hello.

No matter how many friends Mark already had, he was always happy--no, hungry--for more.  Mark was always ravenously interested in people, his appetite for building relationships was never satiated, and as far as I know, his compassion inbox has never reached "FULL".  

So there may well be fifty other people in this world or even in this room who would say that Mark Archibald was their closest friend.  Mark was that kind of guy.  All I know is that he was mine.  And I feel like my heart just slammed into a brick wall, and now it lies bleeding on the side of the road.

One of the reasons I know Mark was my best friend is that we didn't agree on everything.  I could drive him crazy, though I'll never know why!  Close friends walk that fine line: on the one hand, you want to fully show that you respect the individuality and rights of the other person to have his or her own opinions; on the other hand you care so much about them you want to be of one mind on everything, to share the same ideas and concerns you have.  I'm blessed to count many friends, friends all over the world.  Yet Mark, alone, was uniquely concerned with knocking me upside the head.  As parents, none of us exercises the same level of concern for other people's kids as we do our own; and that added level of concern is the measure of our love.  I've always, always known that Mark's concern was the measure of his love for me.

And truth be told, I wanted to knock  him upside the head sometimes, too.  Which means he's not actually a friend at all...he's a brother.  And not just to me; he was a dear friend to our entire family.

Mark loved our kids like no friend I've ever had.  Ben and Karey actually have a special code with Mark, a song they'd sing when they'd talk with Mark by phone or see him... Robert Palmer's classic rocker, "Bad Case of Loving You."  One or the other would invariably start the conversation by belting out, "Doctor, doctor, gimme the news..."

I found out the other day that Mark even had our granddaughter Taylor's phone number in his cellphone...and that her name is spelled out using the baby language her siblings used when she was little..."Tay-wer."  

How much must someone be a part of your life for them to do stuff like that?  ...to know--and remember--the pet family names of your... grandkids?  Can you imagine having a friend like that, who takes that level of interest and shows that level of love to your loved ones?  It's simple: our loved ones were Mark's loved ones too.  Every one of them made special efforts to see Mark when he'd come to California for his annual visit, and they've all been praying for Mark these past few years.  I've always felt bad that I didn't have the chance to invest similarly in Mark and Debbie's kids. They were younger than ours, and we moved away to California just after Jeremy was born.  Even so, Matthew has a special section in our family's urban legends.  And sometimes I think, even though he's so much like Mark, yet Matt could be a blood relative of mine: the way he plays the piano and sings is almost identical to me.  Early this summer we came for a visit, and on the last evening Matthew and Lara came for dinner.  Matthew and I sang duets to Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes and traded off playing the piano accompaniment, one song after another until we'd exhausted the songbooks and our voices.  We had a fantastic time that I'll never forget.  But more immense than the joy Matt and I experienced, I looked over and there was Mark in his chair just bursting with pride and joy and contentment.  Finally as we ended with some worship songs he couldn't take it anymore, and during "How Great Thou Art" he began singing along at the top of his failing lungs, sucking in oxygen from his nose-tube so he could keep going.  It was incredible.

That was Mark, giving all he had to give, and then pushing himself to give more.

I think Mark's most singularly attractive character trait was beyond his love, his friendliness and even his humor, though every one of those was a defining trait that made Mark the amazing person he was.  Rather, what attracted me most and for so long was his humanity.  Mark was so terribly human, and he embraced his humanity.  He was fallen, he knew it and he thanked God every day for grace.  He made mistakes, he dusted himself off, he beat himself up, he questioned himself, he muddled through... and he kept on muddling even through the darkest times.  Isn't this why King David was such an intriguing character and probably the #1 personality and star of the Old Testament? He wasn't perfect, but he was real, and he wasn't private about his failings.  

Like David, or Peter, Mark was a man after God's heart.

Mark clung fiercely to the hand of God, and with his other hand, he held on just as fiercely to the rest of us.  We got to experience Mark's life with him, and he made himself comfortable in our lives.  And as the most faithful editor of my writings, he coaxed my guts out onto paper by accepting me and challenging me to be real, too.

He was exactly what I would want and need in a "best friend."  That's not a phrase I ever saw myself using. To have had that relationship with Mark is beyond my hopes.  That it doesn't continue to the end of my life is heartache.  The fact that it continued to the end of Mark's life is my gift back to a friend who has given me far more than I could ever repay.

Traveling at the Speed of Life

Too often, I speed through stories of impact and of personal transformation. Maybe it's an occupational hazard in my work and my drive to "get everything done."  In the process, I miss the real story, of struggle, of aspirations, hopes, dreams and fervent prayers.  Like those times when a long lost friend says-- as one did to me last month at my 40th high school reunion-- " I've been sober for 27 years!" We’re so busy keeping the conversation going, keeping things cordial, bouncing from conversation to conversation, that we can't begin to plumb the depths of the story, of the personal victories and failures and the daily struggles behind the factoid.

While driving to Phoenix last weekend, I wanted to demonstrate to my wife Janet how Siri, the "personal assistant" voice on my iPhone, could even read emails aloud to me while I'm driving. So I opened a random email for Siri to read. It was from a colleague, and in it he was forwarding a thank-you letter from an African village leader about the impact of clean water on her village.

Siri reads quickly and efficiently.  As we sped down the freeway, we happily enjoyed Siri’s speedy recitation of the impact that water, now both near and clear, was having on the communities’ families.

One of Siri's little quirks is that she keeps reading even the sign-off information at the end of an email if you don't stop "her". And so it was that Siri read even the sign-off details from this letter... the "stuff" I rarely even skim.

But in this case, those details made us slam on the brakes of our minds.

It turns out this thank-you was from the very same village where Janet and I had visited a couple of years ago to see their then-new water well.  Janet even worked the handpump.  And we'd a powerful encounter with the women there, which I've written about previously.  This was the village that felt so isolated that they renamed themselves, choosing the name of the furthest place they could think of in the world: California, or "Kalivonia" in their phonetic spelling of it…

Dear World Vision,

Thank you for wiping our tears!

It was like a dream when we finally got water in our village. We always walked about 4 kilometers to the nearest source of water from our village. We had suffered for a long time and like the children of Israel when they were in Egypt,  God heard our cry and had mercy on us by sending World Vision to support us to dig a well in our community.

From this day, our problems have become less. First, we had clean water nearby, and then we began using it to water our vegetables in our kitchen gardens.

Our living conditions also began to change for the better. We started earning some income from the sale of our vegetables. The health of our children also improved because of the clean water and nutritional foods. We also learnt the importance of good hygiene and sanitation and we practice it because we can easily get adequate water in our homes.

The committee and a few other members were trained on how to maintain the pump. Water from the well is sold to members at a shilling for every 20 liters [roughly a penny for 5 gallons]. The proceeds from the sale are used to maintain the pump. Members have used surplus income from the project to initiate other income generating projects and today the members have 28 goats.

We members of the project have also earned 3,000 shillings from the sale of vegetables (tomatoes, kales and spinach) that we water from the well. We hope that by the end of this year, we will be able to earn more than 20,000 shillings from the sale of vegetables. Our desire is to buy a generator to pump water from the well and construct a storage tank.

We thank World Vision for the love for us. May God Bless you.

Elizabeth Ndugu Joseph
Secretary
Ngiluni-Kalivonia Water project in Kenya
 

Janet and I promptly re-read the letter, at the speed it deserved.  It was lovely to be reminded about all the impacts and benefits which have been brought about because of clean water, and to know that these are now even expanding into economic benefits.  We'd seen the humble kitchen gardens which had been recently cultivated right near the well.  At that time, they were mostly aspirations—their seeds and their hopes had been planted and begun to sprout, now bringing in an expanding harvest.

But the encounter which seared our minds most indelibly that day is neatly tucked away in Elizabeth's phrase above, "We also learnt the importance of good hygiene and sanitation and we practice it because we can easily get adequate water in our homes." 

Here's what I wrote two years ago early the morning after our visit:

Our group tried out the handpump and then we all adjourned for warm soda under a tree, where they told us more about the impact which the well has had. That's when things got personal.  One woman reported happily that now her children are clean, because she has enough water to bathe them.  My mind flashed to a recent recounting of a woman who said that her top personal “dream” is to be able to take a bath at home.  Just then, a very brave women chimed in, and we heard the translation amid muffled snickers and giggles from others in the crowd. "Before the well, when a man and a woman would come together as a couple, they were not able to wash afterwards."  Her words were shocking in their obvious meaning and profoundly human practicality, yet without any salacious subtext. I felt extremely honored that she would make such an intimate comment to seeming strangers...though of course World Vision is no stranger here.

After more praying, singing and dancing we bounced off to our next stop. But that night over dinner we each spoke of our most powerful image or memory from the day, and I found myself bringing up this woman's comment. Lucy, a Kenyan woman on our staff who'd also grown up "in the bush", commented, "Yes, it was very brave of her to speak so frankly. But what she didn’t say, yet was really implying behind the words, was that if the woman can't be clean, then her husband is likely to lose interest and go into town to find 'girls'."

After you've taken that in, imagine with me that every sentence in Elizabeth's letter is just as pregnant with meaning and human practicalities as the one about good hygiene.  It might be worthy of a second, slower reading. 

Personally, I've concluded that, though I still love Siri, and freeway speeds, in matters of the heart it’s wiser to take my foot of the pedal and travel at the speed of the human heart.

Living Behind the Screen

I'm sitting on a screen porch at a lake in Wisconsin.   We are taking a few days away from our visit to Chicago where we are visiting our dearest family friend, who is in the late stages of terminal lymphoma.  This is a chance to renew and refresh before our final days together.

The evening cool is gathering here, crickets are in full throat (or whatever they use to make themselves known), the evening light has now emptied from the sky, an occasional still-energetic human voice wafts in, the dark outline of a tiny gnat crawls across my backlit laptop screen.  We watched the burning orange sun set over the lake an hour ago.

This is now the magic hour for which the screen porch was built.  It just sits here most of the time, but now I get to sit enclosed in it and read, or write, enjoy the sounds outside without becoming dinner for the sinister bugs that lurk on the other side.  You see, with all this flat land and standing water, I'm in Mosquito Heaven.

I was enjoying the cacophony outside my cocoon a few minutes ago when I received an unusual email from my friend John: "I'd appreciate you and Janet saying a prayer for this little one. Thank you for all the healing work you have done around this suffering world. Bless you!"  Below that was a link to his blog page with a short entry.  Through another child sponsorship agency he has supported for some 30 years, he was now sponsoring Meta, a little girl in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa.  He was stunned to receive a letter today that she has died of malaria, two months before her eighth birthday.  He went on to lament, ". ..I have Meta's picture but had never gotten around to writing. It was something I planned to do tomorrow. Today's letter from [the organization's] always efficient and gracious staff left me feeling desolate and ashamed. I've written back offering to sponsor another child in the same community. But no one can replace Meta. For her, I'm forever a day late. Sometimes all we can do is give thanks for the opportunity to do better."

Needless to say, my serenity on the screen porch was immediately pierced through by the story...just the simple tragedy of a singular little girl whom few people would ever know.  But for that sponsorship connection and John's willingness to send in $30 each month, he would never have encountered her. 

Sponsorship can seem so happy and simple.  How nice that as a sponsor I can give a few dollars each month through automatic credit card deduction and have this relationship that the organization mostly handles for me, almost like having a spouse or assistant who makes me look good by sending flowers on my behalf when it's a loved one's birthday. They make it so easy for me, and as long as I send in my check I can feel that my life and the life of my sponsored child are interconnected, and to some degree they are connected.

But then a tragedy like this happens, a one-page letter becomes ice water in the face, and we realize we are still oceans apart in our experience of the world, our rights, our opportunities. It's absurd that a million little kids die every year of malaria on the same planet where I live. I'm writing from Mosquito Headquarters here in Wisconsin, and NOBODY here will die of malaria. Why? Malaria was a major killer in America 150 years ago, but we eliminated it.  That happened mainly through widespread spraying of DDT, which for several reasons—many of them relating to global economics of the choices you and I make as consumers—is not an option today.   

It's tragic.  It's complicated, and I'm no expert.  But in the meantime, the unevenness--the unfairness--of the world in which I live in and in which Meta lived for a few years leads to numbing letters like the one my friend received today, giving us a piercing glimpse behind the curtain, to the world outside the screen.  

Screens, like the new mosquito nets we use in malarial regions, help a lot.  But the truth is, there are no malaria-infected mosquitoes on the other side of this patio screen.  I might get plenty of bites, but none of them would kill me.  Decades ago, we broke the larva's life-cycle once for all here, and every year the dividend in human lives saved grows by leaps and bounds. 

That this was not a viable option for Meta and her community is just a small part of the tragedy and unevenness of our lives on this earth.  And there is nothing at all in this inequality that pleases the heart of God.

So yes, John; I’ll pray for this little one.  I'm sorry for little Meta, sorry for you, sorry for Meta's family... sorry for the Kingdom that is not yet come.

Cory

August 2012

Good News for Bad Feet

I’ve got bad feet. 

I learned this when, at about age 30, I was determined to get more exercise and decided to try jogging.  Soon my heals were hurting and cracking, well beyond the deep cracks they’d had as long as I could remember.  I finally ended up at the podiatrist’s office to get my heals sanded down, and he told me I have bad feet.  Actually, the feet themselves are fine, but they are connected to bowed legs.  The shin connections to my feet are straight, but the legs aren’t, so the result is that my feet don’t hit the ground flatly as they should.  I have to spread my legs fairly far apart to get my feet fully on the ground.

But now I’m learning that this physiognomy may be to my advantage.  As someone who purports to have one foot firmly planted among the world’s poorest inhabitants and the other among the world’s richest, you could say I have wish-boned feet.  That pulling apart we do after Thanksgiving dinner is the feeling I get some days.  Or maybe it’s a fear more than a feeling, a fear that I will not be able to integrate the two halves of my life, that the two halves will be torn apart and have no relation to each other, no connection, no integration.

This certainly can happen to people who go on vision trips, or to any of us when we have close encounters with cultures which are “foreign” to us.  World Vision just published a terrific new Vision Trip Field Guide.  It includes a section about reentry and “reverse culture shock”, that whipsaw feeling when we are now back home and are confronted once again with our first-world habits, values, and lifestyle against the backdrop of our recent encounters and new friendships with the third-world* poor.  The Field Guide describes three roles we can choose to adopt in response to the dissonance between the two worlds…

Assimilators act as though there was nothing to learn from the experience and do everything possible to fit back into their home turf, dismissing whatever memories makes them uncomfortable.  “Although they seem to adjust well, they have actually missed a tremendous growth opportunity.” 

Alienators reject their home culture in favor of all things new, alienating and often condemning those around them.  “Unable to create personal alternatives, though, they eventually succumb to their home culture out of a need to belong.”

Integrators try to “embrace the tension they are experiencing” between the two halves, trying to call upon the ‘good’ learned now from each culture and recognizing the shortcomings of each, hopefully ending up a ‘richer’ person as a result.  However, because they want their short-term experience to have a long-term impact, in a way they are choosing a life sentence of dis-ease, as they “grapple with how to integrate their new understanding into a broader view of life and of the world.”

Sounds to me like wish-boned feet would be a big plus when attempting to be an Integrator: the only time my feet are actually firmly on the ground is when my bowed legs are in tension, being pulled apart. So, short of reaching the breaking point (which can feel dangerously close at times), the pulling has the potential to actually make me more “grounded” than I’ve ever been!

Certainly, it is an act of the will to grapple so, when a “don’t bother me” dismissal of our memories and encounters would be much easier.  Yet I feel continually compelled, even called, to stay in the struggle and to learn from the dissonance.  The process itself not only gives me that “broader view of life and of the world”, but also of God’s agenda for both.

And now I’ve realized I even get a bonus: that God actually built my body to benefit from the attempt… this Wishbone Effect actually improves my balance physically as well as spiritually!

Cory

June 2012

* The handy but outdated Cold War political term “third world” is now often replaced with “two-thirds world” or “majority world” to  represent the portion of the world’s population who live in poverty.

Christmas in Summer

In my last meditation I mentioned little Jose Antonio, our sponsored child in Tijuana, and his apparent learning disability.  We've now asked World Vision Mexico to find out more about his situation and to let us know what can be done.  We might want to help financially beyond our sponsorship commitment.

As a parent, we always believed in treating our children as unique individuals, providing the same love to each, but tailoring our "help" to their specific needs.  A few years ago I discovered an amazing way to go beyond the standardized construct of child sponsorship to be truly responsive to individual sponsored children.  It happened accidentally...

At the end of one year, we sent an extra $200 to World Vision for a project I’d visited in Malawi, where Janet and I were also sponsoring a child.  I didn't explain our intent sufficiently when we sent our cheque, and apparently the WV gift processing team didn't catch the subtlety, because several months later we received a thank you letter from little Tiyamika and her family, along with a photo.  The picture showed her and her parents surrounded by blankets, sacks of grain and cans of cooking oil, a new outfit and shoes for Tiyamika, a dress for her mother, and work gloves for dad.  Accompanying the photo was a letter thanking us for our “special gift” which had provided all of these things. I was so stunned by the impact for this family that I couldn't be frustrated about the receipting mix-up.  In fact, we kept the photo on our fridge for many months and talk about it to this day.

A year or two later I was in Kenya with a couple who is sponsoring 6-7 children in one community.  We met all of their sponsored children, and afterwards the wife came to me privately and asked about one girl.  "Gladwell seems unusually bright, and the letters we receive from her do are well written.  She wants to become a lawyer!  I think she could go far but I'm concerned that when she starts secondary school next year here in the slums that the teaching quality won't prepare her for university."  I encouraged this donor to ask World Vision to look into the feasibility and cost of a better secondary school.  It took a few months, but word came back to Kathy & Rick that for $900 a year, Gladwell could attend a good quality boarding school.  They had their own four children in private schools at the time, so they were thrilled at the comparative cost and very happy to provide the funding. 

When Janet and I were in Kenya two years ago, she spent an afternoon with Gladwell on behalf of Kathy & Rick.  Gladwell had graduated secondary school and was now a student at the University of Nairobi (Kathy & Rick decided to support her university studies for about $1200 per year…which includes room and board).  Gladwell is also a regular volunteer at the World Vision office, giving back for all she's been given, and training to become a public defender.

We followed Kathy's example.  A few years back, one of our sponsored children, Godfrey, was quitting school in Uganda at age 16 to help support his family because of his ailing father.  He seemed to be abandoning all the dreams he’d written about in letters over the prior years.  So we contacted World Vision and asked whether the local staff could find out if he had the interest and aptitude for vocational training, and they reported back that he would like to apprentice as a mechanic, which would cost about $500.  Underwriting his career training was a privilege and became a lovely final contribution to what we hope and pray is dear Godfrey's success.  

I recently read perhaps the best story yet... a little snippet from the Summer 2012 World Vision magazine, about Mike Murphy, a construction worker in Florida who sent and extra $100 to benefit Devi, his sponsored child in India...

   For Mike, 43, it was a significant sacrifice. A deep recession in Florida’s building industry means Mike has struggled to find regular work. He has no car and little family support, and he estimates that over the last 12 months he has earned just $16,000.

   But Mike felt that God laid it on his heart to give the money. He believed Devi’s family could make even better use of it than he could—perhaps by using some of it to help improve their home or buy a cow.

   What happened after he sent the gift took Mike’s breath away.  He received a letter from Devi’s neighbor saying that the family was extremely grateful. The letter went on to explain that it was now the cold time of the year, and Devi’s father was conscious that children in their village needed something to help them keep warm. So he worked with World Vision to use Mike’s gift to provide a top-quality blanket for every child in the village.

   Accompanying the letter were pictures of the village children clutching their new blankets. The letter and photographs reduced Mike to tears. “It floors me that somebody that poor can share with somebody else.” He says the letter could not have come at a better time. Because his own circumstances have been so trying in recent months, many times he has succumbed to depression and felt like giving up. But the news from India revived his spirits.

   Mike likens the experience to throwing a rock into a still pond. One ripple touches the next one and the next one and the next one. “It’s like God touched me, and then I touched Devi’s family,” Mike says, “and then they selflessly shared what they had with their whole village—touching many children. That’s how God’s love works.”

This little-known service World Vision provides to child sponsors, under the terribly bland name "Gift Notification" (because our local staff notify and work with the family of the child to determine the best use of the special funds), has become a favorite Christmas tradition for Janet and me.  We'll send an extra $100 or so for each of our sponsored children and await with anticipation the letter and photo we invariably get back, usually 3-6 months later.  So as summer starts, we receive our own Christmas gifts: learning how our funds were used to bless these children and their families.

This evening we opened a hand-written letter in beautiful Sanskrit from Nakitha in India, along with translation.  Also included was a photo of Nakitha with her mother in front of the “wet grinder” which was purchased with our funds.  The mechanism grinds various grains for food preparation, and perhaps could be rented out to generate family income as well.  “My heart is full thanks to you for all your love, care and concern toward me and especially for the gift. My mother is also conveying her special thanks to you.  We are able to feel God’s love through you.  Please do pray for me and for my future.”

And last month, our sponsored girl in Ethiopia, Worki, sent a photo of herself with a young cow.  In the accompanying letter, she says "...With this gift, one bullock is bought for me.  It we'll use for farming after few months.  Really, all the ups and downs of our problems on farming will be eliminated. My God bless you..." 

Janet and I never cease to marvel at what can be accomplished with small amounts of money, provided with loving guidance by the staff.  So, I was a bit taken aback a few years ago when one sponsor I know sent $5000 for one of his sponsored children!  But the letter he got back explained that the boy had received a new set of clothes, his father had received a bicycle for his business, and the entire village had received a new granary to reduce spoilage on their harvests!

Gift Notifications are unique in that the entire amount is used for the beneficiary; World Vision deducts nothing for administering the donation, though we spend outsize amounts of staff time ensuring that extra cash actually helps children and families and isn't a deterrent to good development work.  We also need to ensure that large gifts don't create jealousy in the community; thus sometimes the entire community benefits.  And in the most beautiful instances, as Mike Murphy experienced, our meager funds empower the poor to be generous themselves with those around them, sharing their blessings with others.

Special donations like this are icing on the cake, not the “main course” in our family’s giving.  But, like the Gift Catalog, they provide us a fun way to feel a tangible connection to those we are helping.  OK, it’s not the meat and potatoes of making a lasting impact on poverty, but after eating a balanced meal, good icing tastes sweet to everybody.

The Pink (and Blue) Elephants in the Room

The Pink (and Blue) Elephants in the Room

Because of Child Sponsorship, I didn't have a prayer.

I took a group of women to Tijuana last week, my first trip there in 2 years.  My last visit was also with Women of Vision, and some of the same women were on this trip. 

In the morning, we visited several energetic microfinance borrowers at their businesses.  It was a whirlwind display of practical and creative enterprises, all of these run by women: a convenience store, a beauty shop, a produce stand, even a pet food shop and an internet cafe.  The latter business owner was clearly a serial entrepreneur.  With each subsequent loan, she has addressed one more customer need and business opportunity after another in her "cyber cafe"...moving from telephone access to computer access, to arcade games for the bored children of computer users, to a snack counter, refrigerated drinks, even a still-rare indoor toilet for customers.

These were fun visits, learning about the impact of the loans, seeing once again the confidence that running a business builds in these women, most of them single mothers.

But our host Bárbara was wise in scheduling those visits prior to our stop at the Las Palmas Community Center.  Because once we arrived at Las Palmas, all love broke loose. 

Most of the visitors in the group are sponsoring children now in Tijuana—something which has only become possible in the past couple of years.  The staff and community volunteers had arranged for virtually every one of our group’s children to meet us at the community center.  A couple of these children had met their sponsors two years ago, and you'd have thought a favorite aunt had just arrived for a visit.  There were hugs, squeals (especially from the women in our group), and laps to be sat upon.

We tried to organize our usual program overview, and each person around our large circle introduced themselves.  But each time a sponsored child was introduced, or a sponsor mentioned the name of their child, another connection was made and everything stopped for new hugs and more exclamations of glee.  

A little side drama was happening for my wife Janet and me.  In a shadowed corner sat little Jose Antonio with his mother, his head buried into her chest.  He's our sponsored child, a replacement for another "Jose" who moved away last year.  We chose this little guy because his photo looked so forlorn, and we wondered if he was mentally disabled.  In fact, he has just been diagnosed with some learning disability—probably autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.  He kept his head down but his eyes piercing straight ahead, never smiling, and at times headbutting his mom's chest.  She was embarrassed, and I'm sure that whatever small disappointment we felt in comparing the reaction of the other sponsored children against the reaction of our Jose Antonio was magnified many times over in her heart.

As the introductions continued amidst the growing din, Bárbara tried valiantly to keep the process going, but it was as though she was trying singlehandedly to hold back a dam.  It was a powerful reminder to me, a guy who earned quite honestly the moniker "Agenda Trenda", that connection trumps information.

You see, there was an elephant of love in the room that day, and even when we tried to focus on other topics, such as the important work being done in economic development, sanitation, delinquency prevention, health... that elephant kept getting in the way and demanding the attention of everyone's heart—even those who didn't have a sponsored child.

And it was beautiful to behold.  Though geographically Sponsor and Child live less than two hours apart, socially and economically they are practically on different continents.  Yet the bond of relationship was so strong and tangible that it was the most important reality in the room.

I've always had a strong desire for these one-day trips across the border to be a window that gives visitors a clear understanding of WV's global methodology. It's rather amazing really, that in just a few hours, a person can have a cross-cultural Vision Trip experience, and they can come back much better educated on just how sound our program model is and how its underlying principals operate anywhere in the world.  I've thought with satisfaction many times of the day when a pastor told me, "Traveling with you Cory is like getting a graduate-level course in Christian Community Development."

So when I was younger and more agenda-driven, I'd have been frustrated that so little of this wonderful, important knowledge was imparted last week. But instead, great love was imparted. An entire crowded roomful of love was on display, in the staff and community volunteers, as well as in the children and their sponsors.

And in the final analysis, the most intelligent, logical, world-class program is nothing without love. 1 Cor 13 makes it clear that only that which is deeply and truly rooted in love will make any difference at all.  At least on this trip, I saw that Love had a better idea of what could be accomplished than I did, and I didn’t fight it.

I've recently realized that a primary motivation for my writing is that I want readers to experience the love I've come to feel for the poor, and to realize that really, we are all the same.  Or, in the beautiful words of Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, which provides economic opportunities for inner-city youth and gang members in LA, "It's not us versus them; there is only us."

So, was my "agenda" achieved?  More to the point, I think God's was.  It’s not knowledge versus love.  In the end, there is only love.

Cory

May 2012

The Difference A Century Makes

Last evening, Janet and I watched an episode of the Ken Burns' documentary Baseball which focused on Babe Ruth and the singular, unparalleled impact he has had on the game. One small factoid really jumped out at me: George Ruth (his given name) was born into a poor family in Baltimore in 1895, the oldest of nine children. Of the family’s subsequent eight children, seven did not survive infancy. How amazing and even miraculous that George lived to become arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Today I was reading a World Vision annual update regarding our For Every Child initiative.  The report included the story of Rose Mukarukundo, a Rwandan woman and single mother who fled that nation’s tragic genocide in 1994 and then married.  Buried in the middle of the story was the sentence, "Four of her five children died as infants, and eventually Rose's husband abandoned her."

How similar those stories are, separated mainly by geography and one century.  There was one other point of separation: my focus, which had shifted from the surviving child to the unspeakable heartache of a mother who has lost nearly every child she bore.  Parenthetically, in our country it has become popular to say “No parent should have to bury their child” which—while true and empathetic—also speaks to our expectations of zero child mortality, a reflection of the incredible change in our reality over the past century.

Another part of this same report focused on malaria, the #1 child killer in much of Africa.  Malaria.  It seems so intractable and so pervasive in these countries, but completely absurd when imagined as a fearsome killer in America.  Yet, until roughly 100 years ago, malaria was a major scourge in the Western hemisphere too, including the U.S., particularly the southern states.

Totally "unfixable" in Africa*, yet long ago totally "fixed" in America.

What a difference 100 years makes.

And yet, how many of us can tolerate such a long view and be faithful to do what we can do now in order to achieve results that simply will not be accomplished in our own lifetime?  We have this vague sense that this would be poor stewardship, because we won't "be there" to witness the final declaration of victory... that on the day of my death God will somehow hold me accountable to the final result of my efforts or prayers or donations, so I’d better stick to problems that will be "dead" before I am.

As I've noted previously, when I started in this work 30 years ago, over 45,000 children were estimated to be dying every day of preventable causes. Today that number has been reduced by half.  Taken over the long view, the progress is stunning.  At the same time, it’s impossible to truly comprehend the vast numbers of children who still died needlessly each day over this same 30 years.  The glass is both half full and half empty.  But it's certainly not stagnant, even if the change appears so sluggish and arduous that many people throw their hands up with impatience that "nothing is changing."  Some days the same thoughts creep into my head, days when my shoulders and chin sag and a sigh escapes involuntarily.

At times like that I'm comforted with a beautiful prayer-poem usually attributed to Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass in a cancer hospital in San Salvador...

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view; the Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything,

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

Rose's story of unimaginable grief as a mother is tragic.  Yet the fact that the equivalent tragedy occurred in Babe Ruth’s family only 100 years earlier gives me great hope for the future of places like Rwanda.  One hundred years from now, there will still be plenty of current social ills everywhere, crusaders aplenty for programs ministering mercy and justice appropriate to that era.

Yet the infant mortality rate in urban Baltimore today is but a tiny fraction of the 77% that George Ruth's mother endured.  One hundred years from now, may that be the case in Rwanda, and Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, and in all of God’s world.  Our offspring's offspring may not be ready then to declare that God's Kingdom has fully come, but may we then be in that great cloud of witnesses testifying that, compared to the way things were during our watch, God's will is being more fully done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Cory
May, 2012

* Actually, major progress is happening regarding malaria deaths, thanks to a major scale-up in malaria programs over the past decade in Africa.  A recent study, "estimates that 842,800 child deaths have been prevented across 43 malaria- endemic countries in Africa, compared to year 2000. The impact in 2010 is estimated to be biggest, with a 24.4% decrease in malaria- caused child deaths, compared to a scenario of no scale-up of prevention interventions beyond 2000 coverage levels."

Raised From Their Beds

It's often endearing to hear non-native speakers try to communicate in English.  Often their childlike word choices are actually quite communicative, yet in ways that we don’t expect.

On my latest trip to the Afar desert, we received the obligatory overview briefing from the field workers before visiting the project sites.  I was pushing the staff to keep this short -- the travelers are often fighting jetlag just to stay awake, and making them sit in a stuffy room after breakfast and follow a too-technical PowerPoint presented with thick accents often brings slumber to the even the hardiest among us.

Buried somewhere in this presentation was almost a throwaway line that sounded so odd that I wrote it down.  (My thumbs get a real workout on these trips as I type furiously into my smartphone.) We heard that people living with the virus that causes AIDS had been "raised from their beds." It struck me as a phrase that only faith healers and pitch men would use in this country, but it was spoken with humility and without any claims of superhuman power or braggadocio.

We heard a great deal more, and then proceeded to make several project visits.  The next day images, not words, flooded into my mind. And then those words made sense...

The faces hang on the wall in my office. And they live in my laptop.  But otherwise, I assumed they were faces of those long since dead.  I can "see" them clearly in my mind just writing this, the nameless man and the woman whose photos I'd taken five years earlier during another HIV Support Group meeting in Afar.  Their faces were so gaunt, eyes pleading and almost visibly losing their light... I would look at the photos and with a little sigh and sense of empathy I'd wonder: How long ago did she/he die?  I didn't see them when I returned two years ago.  I was certain these two had succumbed to the virus and I was looking at "dead men walking" on my wall, almost like seeing a photo of JFK smiling and waving as he drove in his motorcade in Dallas, or Dr. King standing on his motel balcony in Memphis.

Two years ago, in 2010, it was rather shocking to notice the faces I didn't see from my 2007 visit.  So I was hopeful that due to better treatment -- thanks significantly to President Bush's AIDS Initiative -- that there wouldn't be so many additional missing faces this time. 

Then as soon as I walked into the dimly lit room, I recognized a man.  But not a face from 2010.  Though he was older, I'd seen the photo so many times that I was rather certain his was one of the faces on my wall.  "I've… met you, haven't I?" I asked him, still unsure what more to say.  He nodded.

We sat down and went through the usual formalities and introductions.  Then we were invited to speak or ask questions.  Whenever they are willing or can be coaxed into it, I try to let the visitors speak for our group, but this time I felt strongly that this was my turn, and my legs propelled me upward almost involuntarily. 

Yet I could hardly speak.  I didn't want to offend or say the wrong thing, but I felt I needed to tell the story.  Trying not to choke up, I began a public conversation with this man who was now five years older but who looked younger and healthier than when I first met him in 2007.  I expressed my joy, my wonder!, at finding him alive when I was certain he had passed away.  We hugged and took pictures, I found out his name--Saeed Mohammed, and I sat down having had what became my most memorable and poignant experience of the trip.

We then heard several stories from HIV sufferers who had taken small loans averaging about $80 to start businesses, thanks to a $1000 loan pool our 2010 team had donated for this purpose before we left Ethiopia.  It was a real delight to hear the stories of how the loans were being put to use...

One man, Alem, had no source of income. With his loan for $80, he rented a fridge and started selling soft drinks. "Today, I can pay for my children to be in school." He even saves about 50 cents each day.

A woman, Amenot, received a loan of about $100 to start a charcoal business.  She told us that because of heath limitations and discrimination, "Before this, I didn't have any work."

A moment later, as I was scanning the others in the room during the stories, there at the farthest point across the round thatched-roof room was another face…again different but distantly familiar.  I asked and found out that she was in fact the woman from the same 2007 visit—the other face on my wall!  "Ergo" is not only still alive, but her children are now in school.

It's difficult to articulate the feeling I experienced, and I certainly had great difficulty expressing it that day. But I now have a small understanding of the feeling of those who witnessed Lazarus come walking out of his tomb.  Truly, I had seen first-hand that people were honestly being “raised from their beds."

Maybe it’s a good reminder to me to take it easy on the writers of the gospels when their human words seem to fall short in communicating works of God.  That day, I felt that I too was witness to a work of God, a modern day resurrection, and I was speechless.

My New Hero

I'm sitting in the side chapel at St. John Chrysostom church, where Janet and I are spending a reflective hour as part of the Good Friday prayer vigil. Earlier this morning I read a meditation for Holy Saturday which I'd written last year but never sent out. It was concerning an attack on World Vision's office in Afar Ethiopia, which happened just before Holy Week last year. My reflection was that in Afar we were in the in-between time: we knew about the bad news, but we didn't yet know what good would come of it... "This day, the day between Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday, is the 'not yet' day, the day when the worst had already happened, and no one knew the best that was about to happen.  The disciples thought it was over; the women went to the tomb early Sunday morning simply to dress out Jesus' body, not to check whether his body was still there or had been resurrected.  They could not envision another chapter to a story they thought had ended in tragedy. The best was about to happen.  God was using death to bring life in all its fullness." I'd closed with a twist on Tony Campolo's famous sermon: "In Afar, it's Saturday; but Sunday's comin'!"

But I didn't send it out, partly because it seemed a bit glib and partly because I was concerned that explaining the causes of the attack might be too complicated or risk being misunderstood and derail the piece. I thought about sending it this year but—as I complained to Janet while we drove to our church, it’s a year later and there’s no Easter ending to the story yet.

To start my prayer vigil time, I decided to employ an ancient ritual for focusing the mind on God by "walking" along a handheld labyrinth using my fingers and a stylus.  As usual, my mindset while traveling toward the center of the labyrinth was that of moving into God's presence.  But then it shifted, to a reminder of Christ's arduous but willing journey up to Golgotha, Skull Hill, the place of his ultimate suffering.  My usual joy upon arrival became serious if not ominous.

Then my mind shifted again, to the suffering from last year, and then to what happened a few weeks ago when I was again in Afar...

For the first time, this year I was blessed to take my 16-year-old granddaughter Emmy to Ethiopia! She was an absolute delight to have along and stole everyone's heart, not least her proud grandpa's. Last weekend Emmy and I reflected again on our trip as we prepared to give a talk at University High School in Irvine, which was holding a fundraising event for WV.  I asked Emmy: Who does she remember most when she thinks about Afar. I was expecting her to say the newborn baby she’d held in her arms, or the teen girls she met, or the students she addressed. Maybe even the camel she rode.

But she surprised me by answering, "I always remember Yared. He's my new hero." Yared was WV's project manager in Afar, and one of several hosts for our group. When Emmy learned that Yared had been injured in last year's attack, she was moved to give him a letter and the Valentine's Day teddy bear that her mom had sneaked into my suitcase for her.

After she’d written the letter, we all had a lovely morning at a school, interacting with the kids there (pretending to teach them English while they pretended to learn from us). As we drove back, Emmy and I were able to climb into a vehicle alone with Yared so Emmy could give him her gift. As he read her note, Yared wiped silent tears; they rather streamed down his face. I asked if he would mind telling us about the attack.  The story was dramatic and painful.

An angry mob of young people had attacked a high school teacher, and as the adrenalin-soaked herd headed back into town, they passed the World Vision office and decided to wreak more havoc.  The upshot is that they hit Yared over the head with bricks and though a few of them (the girls!) pressed to do more, he and three other staff were left bleeding and semi-conscious inside the wrecked office.  The wounded were moved out of the area for treatment and recuperation for several months.  Yared told us he'd been reassigned to the regional office, and though he comes back to the office in Afar and has had to give depositions in town, this was the first week he'd been back in the outlying communities where we work.

He became very quiet, turning away toward the window and wiping his face profusely.  When we'd arrived at the school earlier that morning, we had walked the joyous gauntlet of all the students clapping and shaking our hands, hundreds lined up on either side of us.  I flashed back to our interactions.

"Were...any of your attackers at the school we just visited," I asked sheepishly.

"Yes. There were several."

Did they do or say anything? Was any kind of remorse shown?  No, everyone just acted as though nothing had ever happened.

I didn't need to ask him how he was feeling about this; he was doing his best to hide his face from us and furtively dry his tears.  I prayed for him instead.

We returned to the same school the next day for a second morning of “teaching” and, to my surprise and admiration, Yared came with us again, even knowing what he now knew, and he translated in the classroom, though others could have done so.

Pausing in the center of my labyrinth, my heart went out to Yared and his colleagues as they continue in their slow healing process, and I decided to travel back out of the center “walking” in Yared's shoes, walking down from that mount of pain, taking the circuitous route one must follow out of the labyrinth, sweeping away from the center, practically around in circles, back toward the now-unwelcome center, and finally, finally out...to freedom.


I told the story to Janet as we drove away from the prayer vigil, and I pondered that Yared was clearly still in pain; he hadn't “arrived” or done anything outwardly "heroic".  Then I thought again: but he came back.  And, every day at our early morning devotions in the desert, Yared was one of the most enlivened worshippers.

Now I saw where the analogy to Holy Saturday, that place between the pain of Good Friday and the redeeming miracle of Easter Sunday, fits authentically.  Here is the place where we still don't know Sunday's comin', except by faith.

Yared is facing and walking through the pain from his own Friday; and while it's Saturday he's holding firmly onto faith in the God who redeems all things.

Maybe he's my new hero, too.

Cory
April 2012