Here in the Highlands
Smoke hangs heavy on the hills around Ukarumpa. Locals burning the dry grass, partly to clear for planting, but also to get the attention of the spirits they worship, pleading in flames and embers for much-needed rain. Dust lays thick on everything, inside the house and out. It billows from the gravel roads, blurring the eyes and choking the lungs. There are whispers of drought. Water tanks are running dangerously low. People are borrowing jugs from neighbors who have some to spare, relying on kindness to be able to wash dishes, to cook, to quench thirst. The rainy season is coming, they say. It couldn’t be here soon enough. The hillsides burn on, a deadly and silent cry for help to spirits who neither hear nor care. And then it starts. One drop, two, twenty,...
Read MoreSoft Targets
There was a time in this country, not so long ago, when airport security was a breeze, when bullies and mystery meat were school’s scariest possibilities, when no one thought twice about a misplaced backpack at a public event. For better or worse, those days are behind us. We live in a world awash in images of 9/11, Newtown, the Boston Marathon… We are awake to the reality that we have enemies, and those enemies want our destruction. They are merciless. Bloodshed and terror are their goal. Ignoring them, pretending they don’t exist won’t make them go away. They target our soft spots. Our fragile areas. Like a sweet faced eight-year-old boy waiting at the finish line to celebrate with his father. Why does terror so often target children? I believe it is for...
Read MoreA Royal Mess
We rolled in, dusty, hot, and weary, to speak at yet another church. I was twelve, and all I wanted to do was get on the plane and fly home to the Philippines, but we still had a month to go. Another long hallway decorated with Sunday school posters and a corkboard with our prayer card front and center… Another crowd of earnest, smiling, unfamiliar faces, eager to hear about the Lord’s work in other lands… By the time we reached the sanctuary, my attitude was bubbling with all the worst adolescence has to offer. The room was packed full – nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Arms crossed, I pressed myself against the nearest wall and willed myself to disappear like a chameleon. But one tiny, wrinkled, gray-crowned saint with poor eyesight and a huge grin made a...
Read MoreThe Rabbi’s Math
We’re really very normal people. There’s nothing too extraordinary about us. (Well, Mike can play the recorder with his nose, which I guess is a useful talent since we do work with middle school students.) We argue. I get frustrated with my kids. And one look at my house tells me just how disorganized I am. I once heard someone say, “My whole life is duct taped together.” I love that image. Only I think mine has some clothes pins and chewing gum in there somewhere, too. So what do you get when you drop two ordinary people into an extraordinary story, a God-sized story? To be honest, at times you get two people who are completely overwhelmed, wondering if what they have to give is enough. After all, we’re just a guy with a youth ministry degree, a quirky sense...
Read MoreWhat in the world are we thinking?!!!
What in the word are we thinking?!!! As I watch my highly energetic 23 month-old scramble around the living room at a mile a minute, I can’t help but ask myself this question. After all, we are planning to take this child and her equally energetic pre-teen sister on a 30+ hour trans-continental trip next Fall. . . just to turn around a month later and do it all over again. And we’re taking school on the road (and in the air!) with us. And we have to raise $17,000 to do it. What ARE we thinking? Honestly, it’s tempting to tremble and quake when we think about the logistics of everything that needs to be done in the next year to prepare for our trip to Papua New Guinea: planning, fundraising, visas, a passport for our youngest, finding people to fill in for...
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