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Saturday smiles: Christmas spirit edition

December 22, 2012

We’ve been slow to get in the Christmas spirit this year, so I feel like we’re packing a lot of our favorite Christmas activities into this week leading up to Christmas. The kids and I made Christmas cookies on Thursday and more today. Last night we had a family dinner night out of the house then drove around looking at Christmas lights. I finished the shopping for the kids yesterday. My husband’s picking up a few more things today.

The kids made these cute ornaments at storytime yesterday.

They make great additions to our tiny tree. (And if it weren’t for library storytime, we might not do any crafts at all. I lack the patience gene required for doing crafts with my kids.)

And this really has nothing to do with Christmas, but Phil worked late one day last week and stopped at the discount grocery store to grab a treat for me. He knows me so well.

And our Christmas cards are not yet in the mail, so here’s a preview. It might be more like a New Year’s card. What can you do?

Joy From Us Holiday

View this season’s most popular holiday card designs here.

View the entire collection of cards.

Letter to a stranger: How you can encourage a hero

December 20, 2012

Next month, a team from The Exodus Road will travel to Southeast Asia as part of their work rescuing children from sex trafficking. During that visit, they also plan to deliver letters of encouragement to the investigators who do the front-line work of rescue: posing as customers, collecting video evidence, and all the while putting themselves in danger for someone else’s freedom. Here’s an open letter of thanks and encouragement to an investigator. If you’d like to write your own, the address and instructions are at the bottom of this post. Deadline is January 5.

Dear investigator,

I don’t know you. We’ll probably never meet. But your work, it inspires me.

In a world full of darkness, you are a light.

In a world quickly losing hope in humanity, you are living, breathing hope.

You are courageous and committed, going into places few of us will ever see or would ever want to. You go willingly where others have gone unwillingly.

You stifle your own fears to get the job done. You offer life and rescue to those who have given up on both.

You choose to go in with no guarantees of your safety or success in your mission. And still you go.

You will never be publicly recognized as a hero because you work undercover. And still you go.

And half a world away, I am grateful.

Words from another letter, written centuries ago, seem appropriate for this letter as well: “Do not become weary in doing good.” The good you do changes lives.

I humbly send these words to encourage you, wishing I could do more to strengthen your resolve. You do not carry this burden alone.

Keep fighting for rescue where you are. I will do my part where I am.

And together, we will shine a light on the darkest parts of the world.

With great thanks,

Lisa

Want to write your own?

Handwritten letters can be mailed by January 5 to:

The Exodus Road PO Box 7591 Woodland Park, Colorado 80863

OR submit one online. The crew at The Exodus Road will translate your letters, if necessary, and hand-deliver them in January.

The Exodus Road blogging crew has more than 60 members. If each blogger and four readers write a letter, the team will send more than 300 letters to investigators in the field. Will you be one of the four?

Here are The Exodus Road founders Matt and Laura talking about why this is important.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/YziCPbx_6c8]

It's OK to eavesdrop on this conversation: a review of Red-Letter Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo

December 19, 2012

Before I’d heard of Shane Claiborne or Red-Letter Christianity or even knew who Tony Campolo was, my faith was undergoing a crisis. Four years ago, my husband entered seminary and our Christian world was turned upside down by questions scholars couldn’t answer and didn’t think were all that important, by friends who believed differently than we did, by a culture that puts feet to its faith and exudes peace and simplicity.

Red-Letter Revolution is a series of conversations between Claiborne, a 30-something who lives in one of the worst neighborhoods of Philadelphia in order to minister, and Campolo, an older educator, author and speaker, on a variety of topics (some of them hot-button) that Christians and the world at large wrestle with.

Topics like Islam, economics, being pro-life, homosexuality, immigration, environmentalism, politics, the Middle East and missions. Claiborne and Campolo challenge the evangelical “talking points” by encouraging Christians to look at what Jesus said and did. The following statement and question guides the discussion:

“The litmus test of whether or not something is Christian is the question, Does it look more and more like Jesus?”

The authors keep an open mind on these tough subjects, but they don’t just speak from study. Their experiences of living out a Gospel of love give life to the discussions. I was moved and inspired by their stories.

To read this book is to be open to challenges to what you believe, and to take it for what it is: eavesdropping on a conversation between two people who are deeply and passionately committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who want to encourage others to live with depth and passion as well. You might not like everything they have to say, but if you’re willing, you’ll find ways to broaden your beliefs without abandoning your faith.

My faith and beliefs are not what they once were, and frankly, I’m okay with that. Reading Red-Letter Revolution confirmed what’s been slowly happening to my beliefs. I no longer feel like a non-Christian or a lesser Christian. I feel like part of a movement to change the world, one act of love and obedience at a time.

I hope you’ll give this book a chance.

For more on the Red-Letter movement, visit www.redletterchristians.org.

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In exchange for my review, I received a free digital copy of Red-Letter Revolution from Thomas Nelson as part of the Booksneeze program.

My soul speaks

December 17, 2012

I was overwhelmed. With anxiety about the future and some decisions my husband and I will face in the coming months. With sadness for the tragedy in Connecticut. With a grief I couldn’t put a finger on. Sometimes, life just feels heavy.

So I did something I don’t do often enough. I dusted off my guitar — an acoustic that’s older than I am; I “inherited” it from an uncle I never met — and thumbed through my song books and strummed and sang until my fingertips, throat and shoulder hurt.

I’m no musician. I can’t read music. I’m not sure what notes are supposed to sound like. With the help of a friend, I learned how to play some basic chords, and I’ve added a few since then. All I know is: sometimes I don’t have any words to soothe the ache and I just have to sing. To make music. To communicate in a language I don’t really understand. And even that doesn’t fully describe what happens to me with music.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA So, here are some others’ words about music:

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. –Berthold Auerbach

I love this. Music is cleansing and soul-lifting. Along those same thoughts:

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. –Oliver Wendell Holmes

I used to sing to my kids when they were babies. I’d sing my way through the day with them: while changing diapers and getting them dressed and changing more diapers and cooking and rocking them to sleep and bathing them and getting them ready for bed. I don’t know when I stopped doing that, but I know that hard things are sometimes easier when I’m singing my way through them.

He who sings scares away his woes. –Cervantes

And this:

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done

I need to rediscover poets. Poetry, like music, is a soul-language.

Music is an outburst of the soul. –Frederick Delius

I think that’s why I’m drawn to the Psalms. Poetry, music, sorrow, joy. We lose something in the expression of the words because we so rarely sing the Psalms. And yet they touch on deep emotions and the heights of elation. When I read the Psalms, I feel like someone understands. I read these words this weekend, from Psalm 103:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.

This particular verse always speaks to me when life is troubling. When I don’t feel like blessing or praising or singing. I think the psalmist David understood that we won’t always feel like honoring God or praising Him, but that sometimes we would need to pep-talk our souls until the feelings caught up the words. Sometimes when I’m singing, I don’t feel the words, but I sing them anyway. Sometimes I can’t sing and have to just let the music and the words and the sound of others singing wash over me.

Maybe music and singing and psalms don’t affect you in the same way. What soothes your soul when your world, the world at large, is troubled? How do you express what you feel when you don’t have the words?

A prayer for today

December 15, 2012

Attributed to St. Francis. From the Book of Common Prayer.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

A story of rescue: Meet Sarah

December 13, 2012

Last week, I introduced you to The Exodus Road and told you why I’m joining their blogging team.

This week, I’m sharing a story of rescue.

The Exodus Road partners with 15 trained undercover investigators in Southeast Asia to rescue children enslaved in the sex trafficking industry. They work on a case-by-case basis, funding and investigating a case from initial contact to raid and prosecution. Sarah was one of those cases. Here’s her story:

They met Sarah in a brothel in Southeast Asia. There was a line of prostitutes behind a glass wall, a fishbowl they call it. They were sitting on high bar stools, with heavy make-up and short skirts, numbers pinned to their shoulders, displayed for the customers on the other side of the glass.

And then, they brought in Sarah. She was “fresh,” the pimp had told the lead investigator over the phone. Sarah was dressed in street clothes, head down, hands fiddling nervously with a napkin. She was 15 and had been sold by her mother in a neighboring country several days before to work off a debt which her mother owed. Sarah’s virginity had been sold three days prior for $600 USD.

Let that sink in for a minute. Then take a look at these numbers:

What is a human life worth?

Back to Sarah’s story.

Sarah could not speak the local language, was kept under close watch daily, and had no access to a cell phone or any communication from the outside world. She had been slipped illegally across borders by a system of traffickers that has become a global highway of modern day slaves.

With covert cameras, Exodus Road investigators were able to record the sale of Sarah for the night, capturing valuable evidence that could be passed on to the trusted authorities in hopes of the pimp’s prosecution. Later, behind a closed door, the Exodus Road operative was able to call a social worker who spoke Sarah’s language. He explained that he was there to help her, not to hurt her, and that he could aid her escape if she wanted. Unfortunately, Sarah was too scared to run, too scared to trust a stranger, understandably.

The following day, the investigator returned to visit Sarah in the brothel, just blocks away from a crowded local market. She scribbled a note, “Please Rescue Me,” on a bill and slipped it to him.

She wanted out, but didn’t know the way.

Immediately, the investigator gave his testimony and video evidence to the authorities and asked the government to conduct a raid on Sarah’s behalf. It was believed that 10 or more girls were also being held against their wills at the same brothel where they found Sarah.

In late August, the team of investigators The Exodus Road is able to help fund worked in connection with the local government in SouthEast Asia to raid Sarah’s brothel. It was a collective effort of several NGO’s, two of which are involved with The Exodus Road, and several government and police agencies. It was a professional operation, spearheaded chiefly by The Exodus Road lead investigator, which took the course of three days and resulted in the discovery of eight underage victims and the arrests of the brothel owners.

After weeks of waiting, Sarah’s door was kicked in. The note she scribbled to the investigator on a piece of currency which said, “Please rescue me,” finally got answered.

And while it did require more time, money, and manpower than first assumed, the team pursued Sarah’s freedom with tenacity, a reminder that there are brave men and women on the front lines who live the belief that child slavery is unacceptable.

And Sarah’s life will never be the same because of it.

Sarah isn’t the only one. Every 60 seconds worldwide, a child is sold for sex. The Exodus Road is working to rescue girls (and boys) like Sarah. To find out how to partner with them in rescuing children from sex trafficking, visit the Web site to learn more. Tell others. Fund a raid. Buy a covert camera. But, please, don’t do nothing.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt

And now I need to read some Shakespeare: Review of Courting Cate by Leslie Gould

December 12, 2012

Amish Shakespeare. If this was a game of Apples to Apples, it would be a stretch of a combination. Author Leslie Gould takes a chance on the combination in her new book, Courting Cate.

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Courting Cate brings together the “prickly” Cate Miller, oldest daughter of a widower, and the persistent Pete Treger, an Amish drifter looking for work at Cate’s father’s business. Theirs is a fiery relationship from the start as they hold fast to their pride, as well as past hurts they’ve both experienced. Cate, who is well-known for her temper and biting tongue can’t believe a man would ever want to court her. So, when Pete asks, she falls hard, only to discover that it might have all been a cruel bet instigated by some other bachelors in the community.

First, a word about the genre. I’ve been burnt out on Amish fiction, but every now and then, a novel comes along that surprises me, and this is one of them. Cate and Pete’s relationship takes place in the confines of an Amish community, but the intensity of their emotions and struggles made me forget I was reading Amish fiction. For me, that’s a good thing, though living near Lancaster County gives me an affection for stories set there. So, being an Amish novel does not detract from the quality of this book. I was so engrossed I fixed my kids lunch with one hand while holding my Kindle in the other! I’m actually looking forward to more books in this series.

I’m a big fan of Shakespeare. I’ve never read The Taming of the Shrew, though, so I can’t comment on whether the plot of this book follows the play. However, I intend to add Shakespeare’s play to my reading list.

Overall, I’d call this a successful story. If you’re not into Amish fiction, you might want to give this one a try anyway. It’s not overly Amish, and I found myself identifying with Cate’s temperament and insecurities. She’s an inspiring heroine, and I ached along with her for the hurts she suffered (sometimes of her own doing).

Gould’s next book in the series, Adoring Addie, releases in May. That, too, will be on my reading list.

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In exchange for this review, I received an electronic copy of Courting Cate from Bethany House Publishers.

Getting my hands dirty

December 10, 2012

Yeast bread and I have a love-hate relationship in that I love to eat it and hate to make it, although I’ve gotten decently good at pizza dough over the last couple of years.

On Thanksgiving, I wrestled once again with the family recipe for sugar-coated donut-type treats and rolls. A month or so ago, I tried (and sort of failed) at homemade cinnamon rolls. I want to try an actual loaf or two of bread but I’m terrified I will spend time, ingredients and effort for something that turns out inedible.

I finally took a page out of my husband’s cooking manual (ha ha — that sounds like I ripped a page out of a cookbook or something. I wouldn’t dare!) and read the introduction to yeast breads in The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, a wedding gift from my husband that I thought was sweet at the time but should have rejected as sexist. (Just kidding, honey! I really do love it.)

I didn’t learn a lot of homemade baking or cooking in my growing up years, so Fannie Farmer by Marion Cunningham has become my mentor and tutor. As usual, she didn’t fail me, and I almost, almost believe that I can make a good yeast bread.

With the pizza dough, I’ve taken the easier road by mixing it in the stand mixer, and I’m convinced this is the “secret” to my pizza dough success. Because if yeast bread fails me in any other recipe, I blame myself because I don’t have the experience or guidance or intuition to know when the dough is ready.

Then I read this from the baking book:

Electric equipment can be helpful in kneading doughs, although I still prefer the experience of working doughs by hand. Beginning cooks particularly will miss learning by feeling, literally getting in touch with the dough.

In other words, I’m gonna have to get my hands dirty. I’m going to have to try and fail and try again next time. And if I’m not in there, working the dough with my hands, I won’t get a feel for when it’s just right.

As with life. Ministry. Work. Parenting.

In all of these things, I have to get in there and do the work myself. I can’t read about it. Or let someone else do it. Or buy it pre-packaged. I have to get my hands dirty. To try and fail and try again until I get a feel for how it works and where I can tweak and add and change to fit the environment I’m in. Only someone who is in the mix can notice the subtle changes and readiness of the bread.

This is what I will think about the next time I’m up to my elbows in yeasty dough, kneading the life out of it, willing it to rise.

Because there will be a next time.

Saturday smiles: Change is good edition

December 8, 2012

I was thinking of Sheryl Crow when we rearranged our living room yesterday.

“A change, a change, would do you good.”

Now, you’re singing it, too, right?

Even though we’re anticipating a move in what we hope is the near future, we decided to move our furniture around, clean and pack up living room stuff before decorating for Christmas. My thinking is that we won’t have to get the stuff back out that we packed up. Might be wishful thinking.

Anyway, the change has done a lot of good for me mentally. We’re still in the same house with the same problems, with too much stuff and too little space, but I’m refreshed by the new look. A little change with a big mental impact for me.

This week was full of changes for us. Our son turned 3 on Sunday. And we are now fully engulfed in the preschool years. I can’t call either of my kids babies or toddlers anymore. They are little human beings now. (I mean, they were always human but now they’re more like small adults.)

As I write this, our daughter, 4 1/2, is teaching her brother about how babies are born while they play with their Little People nativity set. I guess it’s time to start talking about where babies come from!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA She’s also drawing pictures that look like things now. She drew this for me yesterday. I’m pretty sure it’s her and not me.

Two days this week I got to leave the house. (Did you here the “Hallelujah!” where you are?) By myself. Without kids. For large chunks of time. Grandparents were in town, so twice I accompanied my husband to Lancaster, where he works, and spent the day doing whatever I wanted. One day, I hung out at Panera and Barnes and Noble, reading and writing. Then we all ate together at Chick-Fil-A as a family. Then my husband and I got a mini-date night at a coffeehouse. The next day, I got to spend hours catching up with a friend. Both days it was fun to ride with my husband and just be together. And to order a drink from him at his place of work and sit and read while waiting for his shift to end. So refreshing. A taste of what may come when the kids start school, if I’m not working a job myself.

More highlights from this week:

The 3-year-old and his orange shades.

Yep, it’s bedtime and he’s wearing them while brushing his teeth. When I asked him what he wanted Santa to bring him, he said, “Orange glasses. Because I only just have my orange shades.” Mark my words: He’s going to choose a college based on their colors, and if orange isn’t one of them, no deal.

The girl and her brain. On a day when they watched Super Why, Sid the Science Kid and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, I asked which one she liked the best. (I’m personally fond of Super Why, and Sid is growing on me.) She said, “You know how much I like Sid? 12 plus 14 plus 1.” Huh? Oh, well. Math skills, here we come!

And a box of love landed on our door Friday. We always love boxes of love, especially though, when they are filled with such awesomeness as:

pirate eye patches (new house rule: one pirate eye patch per person at meal times)

Ugandan coffee

fun cups and bowls

Lush bath product

and clothes for the kids, including some cool winter coats that the kids wore out of the house 30 minutes after we opened the box. Life isn’t about stuff, but it’s the love behind the stuff that we love.

That’s my favorite part of Christmas: not the getting of stuff or the giving of stuff but the showing of love in ways you can see and touch and hold and use.

Smilin’ today. Now if only I could find an extension cord so I can light the Christmas tree!

"What if it was my daughter?" Why I'm blogging to end human trafficking

December 6, 2012

The first time I heard about human trafficking was about five years ago. My husband was finishing his undergrad degree. We were newly married. I was early in my first pregnancy. He came home from a class one day with information about human trafficking for a project. I was naive and uninformed and unaware that a horror such as sexual slavery, involving women and children, existed in the world. What he learned, he shared with me. Yes, I decided. We needed to support those who fight human trafficking.

A year later, holding our less-than-a-year-old daughter in my arms, we attended a Ten Shekel Shirt concert near our new home in Pennsylvania. The concert supported an organization called Love 146, which works to end child trafficking and exploitation. During the concert, the band shared stories and statistics about child trafficking. I remember crying when I read the words about a girl who had been used and abused in unspeakable ways before her 8th birthday. I looked at the little girl sleeping in my arms and thought about the other little girl. Somebody’s daughter.

William Wilberforce, a man who worked to end another kind of slavery, said this:

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

Today is the first of many posts to follow about human trafficking. I’ve joined the blogging team for another organization, The Exodus Road, working to end child slavery.

At least once a month, I’ll share stories, pictures and videos from their work to rescue enslaved children in Southeast Asia. It’s not an easy topic by any means, and sometimes I want to turn away. But it’s my hope that the stories we share will move us to action. To do whatever we can, wherever we are, to fight this horrific crime.

Next time, I’ll share some of Sarah’s story. She was 15 when The Exodus Road investigators met her. Three days earlier, she’d been sold for the equivalent of $600 USD to pay a debt. In the meantime, I urge you to learn more about the modern-day slave trade. Through The Exodus Road, you can provide surveillance equipment for investigators or fund a raid. (Learn more about that here.)

The founders of The Exodus Road, when first faced with the challenge of child trafficking in Southeast Asia kept asking themselves the same question: “What if it was our daughters?” They speak more about their motivation to start this organization in the video below. I’ll hope you’ll come along with me on this journey.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/53473680 w=500&h=281]

The Exodus Road: Fighting to End Child Slavery from Justin Lukasavige on Vimeo.