Luke: When I Grew Up

Yesterday Luke finished his year of kindergarten. (sorry not a current pic)  No graduation but they did have a pool party.  Robin and I are proud of him as he has learned a lot this year and really grown in terms of interacting with his class.

Last night we were talking as we went to bed.  he said, "Dad when I get older I am gonna feed orphans like you.  (Note:  Not sure I feed orphans but we are going together as a family to work with a ministry this summer that does that in South Africa.  You can read our team updates here. )  He said, "I am going to run an orphanage.  Dad, there are a lot of kids who die every year because they are hunger and I won't be able to save them all but I can save a few from dying."  

WOW!  Robin and I are hoping this summer is a life-changing time for our boys.  But even before we go, Luke is already thinking of serving those who don't have.  When I was six I was saying I wanted to be something like a baseball player, an astronaut or a famous actor.   My son is saying he wants to serve the poor and run an orphanage!

(Before you put him on a pedestal, know that he got a time out earlier that evening for acting disrespectful  during the blessing over supper meal.  Its a nightly occurrence.)

Bombing of a Starbucks

This morning a small bomb went off outside a Starbucks store in New York City

Personally I find it easier to pay $2 for a really good cup of coffee, than a $1 for a lame one.  It has never crossed my mind to bomb a coffee shop but I have considered throwing a brick through the window of a few with lousy coffee.

Where are the Other Kids?

Last week while sitting around talking with parents at Luke's soccer practice, it hit me that I was the poorest parent there.  No surprise as we live of a missionary's salary.  But as I heard them talk about all the expenses of children's sports and I contemplated how Robin & I thought through our budget in order to find money to pay for soccer.

But my thought wasn't 'woe is me'.   It was was 'what do all the underprivileged kids in our community do?'   It hit me that they can't be involved in recreational sports.   I don't even know.  Maybe Lafayette cuts families with little or no incomes a break.  But then how to they pay for the cleats, socks with the required shin guards, gifts for coaches, etc?  How do working single moms get their sons to practices?  Where are they?

I got this idea I have been toying with... what if we had a league for under-privileged kids?  And what if we got business & the faith communities to donate equipment and coaching?  As I have shared this with others, I have come across a few potential roadblocks.  Like where can we find fields for these kids?   How will we get them to practices and games?

Yesterday I threw my idea out to a good friend who loves sports and cares about the community.   Coach Donny had a more brilliant idea.  Instead of starting a separate league, why not have each team sponsor a number of unprivileged kids?  (Genius!) The parents (or sponsors) chip in to buy equipment and take it own to get the kids to practices.   That way they participant with the other kids at the same level.  No need for more coaches or soccer fields or refs or whole separate organizations.  You level the playing field.

So here's the dilemma...  I have the idea so I can't let it die.  I'd like to go meet with those in power to make this happen - those in agenecies that serve the poor, school officals, city rec officals, those in the faith community.  My goal is to say a year from now to have it where every kid in Lafayette Colorado can particapnt in city rec sports just like my kids can - at least soccer and baseball.

If you live in Lafayette and want to help me make this dream happen, feel free to contact me.

RSVP Friday Delivery

On Fridays (unless I forget or they don't need me), I help deliver groceries for RSVP.  This morning Luke went with me as my helper.  He had a choice of going with Robin and his brothers to church to set up for a yard sale for missions.  But he said he didn't feel like doing either.  I didn't push it but when it came time to go I asked again if he wanted to go with me.  (If he didn't I was going to have to cancel.)   But he said he wanted to go and I was glad.

It was good having a helper.  We only had two deliveries.  One was to a lady that I had never met.  She was a school teacher in California for 20+ years and came here 3 years ago to visit her sister.  She got sick and never left.  She was in a wheelchair having lost part of her left leg to diabetics.  But she had a joyous smile and I enjoyed chatting with her.  If I didn't have another delivery and Luke didn't have to go school, I might have stayed all morning and talked with her.

In fact as I am writing, I am remembering that she had called the home repair department with RSVP to see if someone could install a ceiling fan and wasn't sure if they could come.  Maybe I will call her back and see if she got that done.  If not today, perhaps I can swing by tomorrow after Luke's last soccer game.

I did learn some sad news this morning.  One of the men we deliver to regularly died.  His name was Vern Ewing (pictured here).  I haven't seen his obit in the paper yet but he died Sunday.  His family was a long time member of the community and his family homestead is a historic site.

Mr. Ewing was a nice man and I enjoyed getting to know him the half a dozen times I have delivered to he and his wife.  (Dick, another deliverer, usually took Mr. Ewing because he considered him a friend.) Mr. Ewing is the 2nd gentleman to whom I have delivered groceries that I know of that has died.  Sad to think of these nice people passing away.  Makes me think more about taking time to listen to them and be a blessing to them as I deliver.

Wherever did we come up with that?

Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these 'nobodies' to expose the hollow pretensions of the 'somebodies'?...  ~  I Corinthains 1:28

"This is in constrast to the widespread and virutally unchallenged American strategy to target influencial and accomplished men and women for kingdom work - men and women, as we say, with 'proven leadership qualities' or at least 'leadership potential'.  Wherever did we come up with that?  Certainly not by reading the stories that Jesus told and the stories that were told about him." ~ Eugene Peterson, Tell it Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers, p. 115

It Happened in Italy - by Elizabeth Bettina

In occupied Europe, 75-80% of the Jewish population during World War II was executed.  And, yet what if I told you that in one country, approximately 75-80% of the Jewish population in that same period survived.  What if I told you that number may not include thousands of more foreign Jews living in that nation?  What I then told you that this nation where so many Jews was one that was Hitler's prime ally?

Of course you read the title of the post so you know by now it happened in Italy - fascist Italy.  But if you were didn't know all this you were like me and most students of history and you were like the author.

 Elizabeth Bettina  takes us on a journey of discovery in her first book -   It Happened In Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust .  As you dive into this easy read its more than just a book of facts but more a personal journal of how Bettina unearths a little known history.  We travel with her as her journey begins during a visit to Campagna, Italy and Bettina discovers a doctoral thesis and a photo of a rabbi and a priest on the steps of the church were her grandparents were married.  From this one photo, the passion of Bettina is seen through the pages as she discovers survivor after survivor of Italian Internment camps.  She discovers that their experience is diametrically opposed to what was going on in Germany and other parts of Europe.  

Bettina, a Roman Catholic who grew up in a Jewish neighbor of New York, is the perfect tour guide to reconnect the past and tell the story takes you all the way to audience with the Pope.  You feel like you not only learn how the Italians lived out the command to "Love thy neighbor as thyself" but you see how the author follows this same command and takes it upon herself with zeal to honor those who made the story happen.

I warmly recommend It Happened in Italy.  

Drew's Story

Once upon a time there was a mommy lamp and a baby lamp.  (I'm sure he meant 'lamb' but said 'lamp'.)  The mommy lamp made the baby lamp a milkshake and then they went for a walk.  

A tiger came by and ate their house.  The mommy lamp and the baby lamp came home and said, "oh no.  Someone ate my house."  So they built a new house made of sticks.  And the tiger ate that.

So the mommy lamp and the baby lamp went to live in a tent.  The mommy lamp found a mushroom.  The baby lamp knew it was a marshmallow.  So they roasted marshmallows over the fire and ate them.  

End the.

Swine Flu Propaganda from the Dharma Initiative (c. 1976)

Thanks to my loan follower of this blog for this.   I guess since "A Non-Quotidian Existence" is my only follower, I really am just passing this back and forth.

Was this put out my the Carter administration?  "Betty's mom gives it her best friend Dottie.  But Dottie died."

Rusty Nail Allegedly Found in Starbucks Egg Thingy

Maybe you can get me something to eat with a little iron.