The Fam... and Dan Franklin

They came, they saw, dad took copious notes, mom asked many questions, they were an absolute pleasure to be around, then they left again. It was so good. I was blessed by my parents coming to visit. They both caught me off guard. My dad was nervy before he came here. In phone calls and emails, I thought he may not enjoy his time. But once he hit the ground, you couldn’t stop him. He would venture off by foot to nearby villages and towns marveling at the culture taking only Enoch with him at times. He helped to fortify a church that had been destroyed last rainy season. He checked out several of our programs here. Here is a list of the programs he got to see, in case his journal didn’t cover them:
Rehabilitation: Helping returning refugees, widows, and orphans to build their houses
Goat project: Giving goats to the poorest people in the world to help them survive.
VST: teaching formal rebels, and children how to work with wood, metal, cement, or teaching sowing, and bread making, so that they can get work now the war is ending.

All our programs are run in conjunction with the local churches here.

He also did a building inspection for our Child Survival program that will be used to estimate costs for repairs, so we can fix up the houses in order to get our program running. Mom was with us the whole way as well. She took pics, and she mingled really well with the locals. The kids loved her, and she was a great negotiator in the markets. The poverty was hard on her, and she had a soft heart. She wasn’t afraid to swim in the lake where, often times fifty percent of our visitors opt out of swimming do to crocs and hippos, and the occasional snake. Mom spent the most time in the lake, and dad enjoyed several dips as well. Trina and I were truly blessed by their visit. “They were rain,” as we would say here. Rain is seen as a blessing that gives life. That was my experience with my folks, a blessing that gave life.

Speaking of rain… there has been cases of torrential downpours a couple months back that caused some problems with flooding and destroyed crops etc in many villages. I visited several of these villages and was talking to a Burundian about all the damage to his town and how it was a bummer. Then he said: “Yes, for so long we prayed to God for rain, and we prayed and prayed. God decided to answer our prayers in one day but it was too much rain at one time.” I asked follow up questions because I was fascinated by his statement… I asked things like, “so if you prayed more specifically for appropriate rain quantity spaced out over a period of time, would God have responded to such specific requests.” He responded with a resounding yes, so I kept digging. He is a pastor at a local church, and I was fascinated about how different a view we had concerning weather. Note that I said fascinated… not shocked. I’m really not shocked by much anymore, especially not “The-weather-ology” which I consider to be the study of God and weather patterns. Both of us possessing incomplete biblical world views, and both of us having completely different views on “The-weather-ology” which I consider to be the study of God and weather patterns (the more you repeat the new big word, the more likely it will end up in a seminary program somewhere), I realized that if I went to his church, and he was giving a sermon on weather, I might lean over to Trina and say something like: “Trina, I really don’t agree with his guys thoughts on God and weather,” Trina would then shake her head in annoyance, and I would feel proud and stupid. Then when I went to tithe, I might stick a note in with my money, telling the leadership of that church not to use my tithe money for any of their weather ministries.
I don’t know who is more right, and it didn’t matter to me at the time, and it still doesn’t. We both gave our view, and we still love each other. Of course I think I’m more right. But I’m smart enough now to know that I’m not all that right about stuff… but I think I am. But deep down I know that really, Dan Franklin is the one who is right most of the time. Also, Doug Hebert is right, and so is Dan Brose… and between the three of them, I can triangulate. Triangulation is useful for all sorts of things. You can ask my dad about that.

So, like I was saying. I was so blessed by my parents visit. It was really difficult to see them go. I was the saddest I’ve been in a long time, so I immediately shot home, and edited a short video to get my mind on something else. I really love my parents, and I love who they are, and who they are becoming. I love that they put up with me, and my short temper at times. I truly can’t thank them enough for coming out.

Separately, but related to Dan Franklin. One of his many great posts was on dreams. His question was something to the effect of: “what nightmare would wake you up out of a deep sleep causing you to vocally express that nightmarish fear.” When I was a child a little older than Matthew, I woke up saying over and over again: “I don’t want to go to camp, I don’t want to go to camp.” My dad then said, “okay, seth you don’t have to go to camp.” I guess I went right back to sleep after he said that… but he was never going to send me to camp… he was really confused as to why I was worried about that. At that time I had never been to any youth camp so he was wondering how I even knew what camps were. To this day one of my least favorite activities are camps and retreats of any kind. Especially church related camps and retreats.” I simply dread them. But nowadays a phrase I would be likely to scream out of a deep sleep would be: “What do you mean you have to take out all my teeth!” I also might scream something like: “We can’t run out of sea food. We must always have New England clam chowder!” I read in a article a few years back that we’re pretty much eating all our seafood from earth’s oceans, and I remember having a few nightmares about that after I got home. Scary stuff... completely different from my parents visit.

Tribute

I wrote the greatest blog post in the history of the world last week. I wrote it over the course of a few days, and I thought “I should copy and paste this because internet explorer is super lame, and I’ll loose all this incredible blogging insight after a freeze followed by an error, explore must close.” Sure enough, I lost everything after saying several anathemas to Internet Explorer.
I do remember a line about the electricity here being as intermittent as my good intentions, and something about love being more precious than equity… but that’s about it. But this post isn’t the best blog post in the world, this is just a tribute.
Thanks to the good folks at mars hill, I’ve been reading a lot of George MacDonald lately. I love this guy. And man his he Scottish, which I love as much as I love his insight into life and faith and stuff. So then my wife’s copy of “velvet elvis” turned up on the dining room table last week, as I lost my blog post. I should also mention that I’ve been reading Michael Crichton (timeline) as well, just so you know: Also, I like Crichton better than Grisham. I’m not a guy who likes court room dramas, and law. If I ever get the chance to do a feature film, it won’t be a court room drama. Although, the first feature length screenplay I ever wrote centers around a traffic violation being settled in court (I know, it has oscar written all over it). I’ve been to traffic court many times, lots of times Officer Durbins from Gresham Oregon has sent me there… It could be officer Derbins, or Durbens. I no longer have my tickets so I don’t know how to spell his name In fact, I remember one time I was supposed to go camping with Andy Whipps and Matt Guerino, and I forgot I had a court date that prevented our timely departure. They both ended up coming to traffic court with me, watching Derbins, give out yet another successful traffic fine to yours truly. I’ve never won against that guy.
So whenever people send me books, like Jason from Mars, I start thinking about those people, and I start wondering what they’re doing… occasionally I facebook them, check out there new picks etc, and then I think how greatful I am that he would send a book out here to me, and of course I then start thinking about Greg from Mars... and that’s usually my process. Then that get’s me wondering why I haven’t read “velvet elvis.” I met two other people from mars, Don Golden, and Chris Stark, again the name spellings could be wrong, but these guys never gave me a single traffic violation, and I love ‘em for it. I had some good discussions with Don, and with Chris, and I remember thinking how, Mars people reminded me of each other, and myself… like I could pick them out of a crowd or something; or a few may show up at my next family reunion... So that got me thinking that I should read “velvet elvis” after all, why would it just show up like that, after I’ve had mars hill on the brain, plus I remember Chris saying to me that it was an important read as a part of his journey, and I’m a guy that’s all about journey… and Trina really liked it. Plus, Rob points out in this book that you should be critical and wrestle with it etc, and I’m super critical, and I like criticizing movies and books and bible commentaries, positively and negatively, and I don’t like that I like criticizing, so an invitation to criticize is like a delicious meal for me.
I realized that I never really studied too much about rabbinical tradition. It seems like Rob is really into this sort of study as a means to understanding scripture. Which makes a lot of sense. I thought Rob put himself out there. It was a bold move, and I liked his style. The concept of binding and loosing things was new to me. It was a good concept to think about. I did love the concept of pastor/teachers being masters of the obvious, and pointing out the obvious. I found that to be true to my experience… His passion and honesty was refreshing, as well as his sense of humor. I like to think about Rob as a big fan of Punk touring around with his punk band, it seems we’ve got similar music tastes. It was also great to see Trina’s notes, the things she liked, the sentences she underlined. Looks like she used it to teach quite a few things, and I know that Nooma is no stranger to the High School/Junior High machine at G-shep. In about two months we’ll be receiving two teams from Mars, and I’m looking forward to having them. Greg, see if you can make it back on one of those teams, I mean it, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Some things I’ve enjoyed lately:

Dan Franklin's blog… I just plain love reading his blog... it's good stuff
Trina’s blog… I love reading her blog… she’s a great writer.
Burundian smiles… warmer than proper tea on a cold rainy day.
Rainy Season… you have to experience it for yourself.
East African Scenics…I don’t need to expand on this.
The living colors of Afrique… the colors are more alive then most people I know.
Beach volleyball… and bad mitton
Our new little church… as refreshing as cold water on a hot day.
Our Burundian friends and family… we’ll keep growing deeper roots.
Trinabelle… she’s Trinabelle, everybody enjoys the belle.