Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Ordering is Such a Soothing Occupation


I don’t have many days when I have a compulsion to spend a whole morning ordering, but yesterday I was waiting for a new refrigerator to be delivered (unplanned expense). Plus, it was the fourth day of a head cold, and in between draughts of Nyquil and Dayquil, I began to suspect that I was dragging.
My writing study at home is across the hall from our bedroom. The computer desk faces the window, where the warm southern sunshine fills the room on cold winter days. I bought an opaque shade that screens out the sun, blocks out most of the view, and when I am actually writing, cuts the glare on the computer screen.
Yesterday, however, a gorgeous but appropriately cool day for October, the sun felt comforting, so I sat at my desk and ordered my financial records. Business expenses were filed, I wrote out a check to pay down the SEARS credit card. I tossed old bank-deposit notices. Reminder notes were re-read and some discarded. I straightened books, added to the writing pile of the most recent project, worked on my desk calendar, called tradesmen who are still making repairs after the derecho that hit our area on June 29.

To read more, click here.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Show, Tell and Sell


We wheeled the display shelves to the ‘soko’ (market spot) to take part in the sales organized by AIU women’s fellowship. On the shelves were bags of all kinds made by global bag project ladies. We had two goals to accomplish today, to create awareness about our ministry to women and to sell bags.
At GBP Kenya, we believe that vulnerable women are resourceful and can learn and produce high quality products. So we no only use statistics and women stories but we also offer highly competitive quality products. We want the buyers to buy our products because of the quality workmanship and usefulness. Two things happen  when you buy a bag from us; you will be pleased to be part of a solution to poverty realities in our context  by providing income to women who make bags as well as walk away with a well-made-bag. Our visit to the ‘soko’ expose us to AIU community that is composed of young business studies students, seminary students, faculty and staff of the university as well as owners of small craft businesses.


To read more, click more: http://goo.gl/8oYYo

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - A Book Review By Karen Mains


Half the Sky is not recreational reading material. It is, however, a book that raises consciousness as to the condition of women the world over and asks for specific commitments to turn their oppression into opportunity.

"We became slave owners in the twenty-first century the old fashioned way: We paid cash in exchange for two slave girls and a couple of receipts," write Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the first married couple to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. "The girls were then ours to do with as we liked."

So begins the chapter on child-sex trafficking titled "Rescuing Girls Is the Easy Part." The writers, along with an international agency, returned the young women to their families and discovered that the journey toward rehabilitation is a long, hard road.

Traveling around the world, from Thai brothels or to China, Asia, and the Middle East, Kristoff and WuDunn accumulated information on the causes of maternal mortality (some 536,000 women perish in pregnancy or childbirth per year—although the data collection is so shoddy, this a rough estimate), on the lack of medical care, on non-existing systems of education and on the constant presence of grinding poverty and malnutrition particularly assigned to the female half of the planet. The statistics themselves build a savage indictment against the brutal treatment of women worldwide.

Read More, Click HERE.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

A Perfect Match


Just as the spring of 2012 was one of the most beautiful Chicago has ever experienced—a quick burst of warmth that brought everything that blooms to full glory all at once, plenty of rain, plenty of sun so the greening earth also turned luxuriant, then cool but not freezing temperatures that kept every spring thing blooming for what seemed like weeks on end—it feels as though this is going to be a particularly beautiful fall.
The nights are cool, the days are warm but not hot, colorful maples dance in the sunlight, and somehow, in some way, it feels quintessentially fall. If you live somewhere without obvious seasonal changes, you may be wondering, Well, isn’t it that way every autumn?
No … no, it’s not. Last year’s fall was particularly dull. We kept going around wondering when it just would break all out into glory. It was not a year I would have invited friends to come to Chicago and to see the turning of the trees.
Every so often when I’m reading Scripture, the words in my Bible and the paths of my days intersect and there is a perfect match between the divine word and the ordinary world. I wrote this psalm out in my prayer journal—Psalm 65:9-13. My commentary on it was, “Lovely! Perfect harvest scripture.”

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Co-collaborators


In the morning, when I remind myself that my life goes better when I become God’s co-collaborator in creating beautifully lived days, I consequently compile lists of ways I see His help. Tonight is a little weekly prayer meeting that a small group from our church is trying to launch. The pastor called yesterday to ask whether I would substitute in leading the prayer time since the gal who has been doing so will not be in attendance.
Our pastor’s wife is in India, about two days into a 12-day journey. “Are you planning on dinner tonight?” I asked, thinking of what life must be like for him moving four kids and three dogs (two of which are Cocker Spaniel puppies) through day schedules. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get an e-mail out so everyone is on the same page.” I note as I write this that it is 3:33 p.m. per my computer clock and nothing has come through.
So to be decent and caring and compassionate, I should contribute to this meal that is supposed to be happening (about which we have not yet received notification).
Then it occurred to me that in the stocking of my new refrigerator this morning (after tossing 2/3 of the contents when the motor died and the repairman came two days later to inform me of its permanent demise) that I had everything I needed to make a broccoli salad and baked potatoes with do-it-yourself toppings for a small crowd.
I have now finished writing five blogs and am on my way home to wash potatoes, pop them into tin foil, and stick them into the over for a baking hour. I have butter, a new 12-oz container of sour cream, grated cheese that survived a short exile on our kitchen counter, chives still fresh in the garden. I picked up a head of broccoli, not knowing that I would make it into a fresh salad—and I have sliced almonds, canned pineapple and dried cranberries. I also salvaged the Italian dressing from the dying-refrigerator incident, which is my traditional choice to dress this broccoli recipe.
And I will simply take one of the prayers out of the Book of Common Prayer and lead the group through a meditative exercise. Everything I need to help tonight is right where it should be so that I can help the crew, the pastor’s family and our small group, and to substitute for the leader who is not able to be in attendance.
When this happens, particularly after I have taken time to remind myself that I am a collaborator with God in the creation of the days of my life (we are co-authors in the existence that is Karen Mains), then I see, clearly and unshakably, that I am surrounded by His interactive, participatory love and care.
This is an unmovable conviction for me. The evidence is weighty. I am utterly convinced.
I spy God!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Tribute to the Men Who Thought I Was Beautiful: Husbands, Brothers, Fathers, Friends


When news of the death of Dr. John Stott in the fall of 2011 came our way, I remembered an incident out of the forgotten past. During the mid-1980s David and I had been invited to perform a dramatic Scripture reading for two voices, “And the Word of the Lord Came Unto…” for the Congress on Biblical Exposition (COBE) at a hotel adjacent to Disneyland in Los Angeles.

Dr. Stott and Chuck Colson were both slated to speak on the program that night. In the green room (none of these rooms are green but are the places where participants gather for debriefings and explanations before the actual program begins), Dr. Stott, quiet, punctual and charmingly English, went around greeting everyone kindly and renewing an acquaintance with David and myself. He had been at Circle Church, the plant in the Teamster’s Union Hall in Chicago, where we had experimented with contemporary forms of worship, with social action motivated out of a conservative theology, and with an open-church policy, which we encouraged through a racially integrated staff and congregation. He might even have been in our home since we generally dragged people back from church for a Sunday meal.

At some point as we were waiting to proceed to the platform in the couple-thousand-seat auditorium Dr. Stott eased quietly beside me. He smiled, a man some 20 years older than I, slender and elegant and said with total composure, “I had forgotten how beautiful you are.” My husband, standing beside me, agreed with him.

What a lovely compliment; I received it with pleasure (being a middle-aged mom at the stage of life where major amounts of my time were taken with corralling and herding four children) and promptly forgot it. Perhaps this was because it was very much like something my father frequently did when we were in groups. My father, Wilfred LaRue Burton, also would also ease up to me, place the back of his hand so it hid his mouth and whisper in my ear, “Now, sweet, I’ve looked everyone over in the room and you are the prettiest one here.”

Friday, October 5, 2012

TIME-SENSITIVE SOULISH FOOD: OPEN TODAY


What Can I Do?

In my mind, there is no excuse but one for isolating ourselves from the suffering and horrific abuse women experience around the world. That one excuse would be for the woman who has have suffered similarly and exposure decathects their past pain. They actually re-experience, live out again, and vividly remember all the pains and sorrows of and horrors of the past.

Apart from this, I simply do not accept the excuse—“I’m really an oversensitive person. I can’t bear the thought of other women going through those terrible things.”

Christ entered into our suffering and He calls us to enter into the pain of those who are suffering around us. Paul wrote: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10a). One of the ways we share in Christ’s sufferings is to suffer with Him over the brokenness of this world.

On October 1 and 2, Monday and Tuesday, PBS is telecasting a documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. This is from the book by the same name written by two of our most fiercely moral voices, Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. 

I strongly suggest that you save these two evenings to watch this documentary.

Sensitivities aside, every Christian, man and woman, should read this book, which has been named as one of the 12 best books written in 2011. It certainly is a stunning and comprehensive handbook chronicling the battering and abuse and sex-trafficking of women around the world. The book has become a lightning rod for raising consciousness and a clarion call for both men and women to positive action.