It’s an interesting thing traveling to new countries. There’s always some kind of cultural misunderstandings or rules that you will inevitably realize a little too late. Many of these situations happen and then become the fireside stories that missionaries sit around and tell each other in candid moments. Sorry if you guys didn’t understand all that. Let me put it another way.
Not all people in the world live as we do in America. There are a lot of people who have different rules for their communities and culture and families and stuff. For example, in the United States most kids have their own room. If you have your own room raise your hand. O.k. now put them down. If you share with a brother or sister raise your hand. O.k. you can put them down. See in many places around the world a lot of people share a room with a brother, sister, cousin, mom or dad. Sometimes they may even share with two brothers or two sisters or more. Here’s another example. If you have more than three pairs of shoes raise your hand. O.k. put them down. Did you know that in many places around the world lots of children will never have a pair of shoes. They will walk to school and home and to the shops barefoot. So everyone take off your shoes and let your teacher smell them. Then walk around barefoot the rest of the day. (But only if your teacher says it’s o.k.)
Some countries have McDonalds and KFC and different restaurants that are similar to the U.S. but in some places the food isn’t the same. Actually the food may be the same, like chicken, beef, zebras, corn flakes and toast. It’s just that sometimes we eat different PARTS of the animals. Here’s an example. I was recently visiting a country in Asia. The country is called Malaysia. Can you find that on a map? It’s near Indonesia and Thailand. I went with a friend of mine to go have breakfast and guess what we had? Chicken feet. I was very surprised to have a bowl of tasty looking chicken feet sitting in front of me. My friends all ate them, so I picked one up with my chopsticks and ate one too. It was pretty good actually. Maybe someday you can ask your mom or dad for chicken feet for dinner?
Do you guys think it’s ok to have a competition between the boys and the girls? I think we should see who’s smarter. Who do you think is smarter? Girls or the boys? I’ll think of two questions, one for the boys and one for the girls. Then we’ll see who’s smarter.
Girls:
#1- How many countries are currently in the European Union? (Without using the Internet to find out)
Boys:
#1- What is the name of your school?
So who got the question right? Boys? Girls? Tell your teacher to email me and let me know who’s smarter, boys or the girls.
Ok. Everyone have a good day and I’ll try and take a picture of a giraffe for you.
Thanks for reading…
9.26.2007
Fish Stars
I sat at a table last night with a young child who’s imagination grew restless after about the first 5 seconds of the adults talking. Soon the chair became a jungle gym and his food was being covertly flung across the table. A lack of discipline wasn’t this boy’s problem; his father removed him from the table three times as we tried to “overtalk” the sound of crying from the other room. Just the lack of adequate sensory input was more our fault than it was his. Soon the imagination wandered and Fish Stars somehow found themselves in the story.
Sitting out at the edge of a savanna under the moon and star lit sky the boy’s stories grew bigger and bigger as the night wore on. I seem to recall something about a lion or a leopard in one of the exaggerated tales. At one point I think I made out the part in the story where I was some kind of astronaut sailing into the sky eating fish stars. I think I rescued everyone sitting at the table by going all the way up there to swallow them to keep them from falling and hurting people. I mean think about it, who wants to get hit by one of those? It felt kind of nice to be a hero for once.
Most of the times with the Nomad (intern) teams I’m kind of a familiar face that they all try to figure out. Laughing at times, joking at times, yet pushing them to give a hundred percent of themselves to the kids in the presentations at the schools. I train them and try to teach them to rely on and trust each other. I may ask more of them, I may make them work a little hard, I may break their will to live, but I do my best to prepare them for something. See I may not be a hero, but soon they’ll be one.
Soon they’ll stand in front of thousands of children and young people and relay God’s message of Truth and Purpose for their lives. They will be the ones rescuing and protecting those who’ve been hurt and had their lives broken. These are the ones who will be a child’s answer to whether anyone cares for them or not. The child searching for hope, the child feeling the burden of raising their younger brothers and sisters, the child who on that day they enter their school, has decided to give up on life. I’ve trained another semester of heroes.
How long has it been since you’ve been a hero? How long since a child could point at you or remember the day a simple word you said rescued them? I don’t think we realize what kind of impact the smallest word or a smile, an encouraging email or a phone call can make. How much time does it take to be a hero to someone searching for hope?
Pray for those heroes that are out there right now. Two teams near the border of Swaziland, sharing a smile with those searching for a hero. Pray for safety and unity in their teams Pray for me as I work in Malawi to level the roads for teams coming here. Pray for safety and God’s direction in my life. Pray for us as we point children to a true hero, and point to Him yourself. You don’t have to eat fish stars just to be a hero.
….become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of Life…
Phil. 2:15
Thanks for reading...
Sitting out at the edge of a savanna under the moon and star lit sky the boy’s stories grew bigger and bigger as the night wore on. I seem to recall something about a lion or a leopard in one of the exaggerated tales. At one point I think I made out the part in the story where I was some kind of astronaut sailing into the sky eating fish stars. I think I rescued everyone sitting at the table by going all the way up there to swallow them to keep them from falling and hurting people. I mean think about it, who wants to get hit by one of those? It felt kind of nice to be a hero for once.
Most of the times with the Nomad (intern) teams I’m kind of a familiar face that they all try to figure out. Laughing at times, joking at times, yet pushing them to give a hundred percent of themselves to the kids in the presentations at the schools. I train them and try to teach them to rely on and trust each other. I may ask more of them, I may make them work a little hard, I may break their will to live, but I do my best to prepare them for something. See I may not be a hero, but soon they’ll be one.
Soon they’ll stand in front of thousands of children and young people and relay God’s message of Truth and Purpose for their lives. They will be the ones rescuing and protecting those who’ve been hurt and had their lives broken. These are the ones who will be a child’s answer to whether anyone cares for them or not. The child searching for hope, the child feeling the burden of raising their younger brothers and sisters, the child who on that day they enter their school, has decided to give up on life. I’ve trained another semester of heroes.
How long has it been since you’ve been a hero? How long since a child could point at you or remember the day a simple word you said rescued them? I don’t think we realize what kind of impact the smallest word or a smile, an encouraging email or a phone call can make. How much time does it take to be a hero to someone searching for hope?
Pray for those heroes that are out there right now. Two teams near the border of Swaziland, sharing a smile with those searching for a hero. Pray for safety and unity in their teams Pray for me as I work in Malawi to level the roads for teams coming here. Pray for safety and God’s direction in my life. Pray for us as we point children to a true hero, and point to Him yourself. You don’t have to eat fish stars just to be a hero.
….become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of Life…
Phil. 2:15
Thanks for reading...
9.01.2007
The Gristle
I had to spell check that word to make sure it was right. But I came up with a different meaning than what I had intended. Unfortunately this isn't going to be a hugely spiritually significant post on a life lesson learned. It's 130 in the morning and I leave in about 5 hours for South Africa so thoughts and ideas are slightly scattered. I kind of just finished packing...
Usually before I travel I cut my hair pretty short, so right now the gristle refers to the feeling of the short freshly cut hair, maybe it should be the bristle... Perhaps due to lack of adequate sleep my mind has settled on a word that shouldn't be used.
Being in Southern Africa always hits you with so many emotions. The helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, the anger and frustration at how so many children's innocence is stolen. It's hard to describe driving through places where you know the children's life expectancy is only about 30 years. It's frustrating trying to answer secondary student's questions about HIV/ AIDS. A disease that is honestly and literally going to cause some of their countries to be extinct if behavior doesn't change.
And somehow I'm supposed to prepare 14 young people to be ready to face these situations for the next three months.
In Africa AIDS is destroying the nations, in America materialism is corrupting our thinking and our priorities.
The gristle is that it's so easy for us to not even take five minutes to pray for God's Justice and His hand to rescue those in need.
I'm going to post this now, and someday soon I'll probably go back and read it and edit it... trying to make sense of what I was thinking... or not thinking... the gristle.
Thanks for reading
Usually before I travel I cut my hair pretty short, so right now the gristle refers to the feeling of the short freshly cut hair, maybe it should be the bristle... Perhaps due to lack of adequate sleep my mind has settled on a word that shouldn't be used.
Being in Southern Africa always hits you with so many emotions. The helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, the anger and frustration at how so many children's innocence is stolen. It's hard to describe driving through places where you know the children's life expectancy is only about 30 years. It's frustrating trying to answer secondary student's questions about HIV/ AIDS. A disease that is honestly and literally going to cause some of their countries to be extinct if behavior doesn't change.
And somehow I'm supposed to prepare 14 young people to be ready to face these situations for the next three months.
In Africa AIDS is destroying the nations, in America materialism is corrupting our thinking and our priorities.
The gristle is that it's so easy for us to not even take five minutes to pray for God's Justice and His hand to rescue those in need.
I'm going to post this now, and someday soon I'll probably go back and read it and edit it... trying to make sense of what I was thinking... or not thinking... the gristle.
Thanks for reading
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