Being Thankful

I know that thankful Thursday was yesterday, but I went to church last night and the theme was being thankful and it was a really great service. And today has been kind of a crappy morning, so I feel like I should focus on something other than myself.

I am thankful:

1) I am thankful for Vashti and all the work that she is doing in South Africa. I am really anticipating going to South Africa and Ethiopia because I believe that it will really change my perspective on life and love.

I've been to Cambodia, but it was more insulated. I was with my family and we had a private tour and there were times that we saw what life is really like in Cambodia but it was very far from us.


This is a Buddhist Stuppa that contains 8,000 human skulls that were found at Cheoung-Ek, also known as, The Killing Fields.

Cambodia is still getting over genocide, over 30 years later. There are still not enough teachers to help the children and the prostitution is rampant. Parents will hack off the limbs of their children so that they will get more money from tourists.

2) I am thankful that I have more than enough. Sometimes, it feels like it's not enough and I know that Steve and I panic. But God has given us grace and that is enough. We had a dinner for an upcoming church event and the pastor there used The Message's translation of 1 Timothy and it is really touching. Part of what he says is 'If you have bread on the table and shoes on your feet, that is all that you need.'

Most people in Cambodia make $30 a month. Gasoline costs over $1 per liter. Because their currency is so devalued, they allow the US$ in circulation.



Those bottles all contain gasoline. It is cheaper to buy your gasoline from a bottle in the road then to go to a gas station. The more rural the area, the more likely you will see roadside stands with gasoline. People purchase enough gasoline to get them where they're going. At the same time, we saw almost no cars in Cambodia. Almost everyone drives motorbikes. We saw up to four people on these bikes.

3) I am NOT thankful that I am STILL being bitten by bed bugs even though the exterminator has been out twice. But I am thankful that I have someone to lean on while we go through this. God has been good and so has my husband.



We will get through this, even if the darn blood suckers are multiplying in ways that are inconceivable to me. Update! I AM thankful that we have a three month guarantee and the exterminator is coming out again without us having to pay! Which is great, because we couldn't pay that again. Literally and figuratively.

and I am also hopeful.

I am hopeful that God will answer our prayers. Maybe not in our way, but in His. That God will touch our hearts to do something far beyond ourselves. That, while I feel called to something, Steve clings to what makes him feel safe. And that's okay. There is still time. And maybe God will call Steve too or maybe it will be that we are called at a later time or for something different then what we had previously thought. Or maybe I can go on a TOMS shoe drop :)

And because everyone needs a good joke every now and again...

A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says "get in, get in!" The religious man replies, " no I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle."

Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in God and God will give him a miracle. With the water at about chest high, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again cause "God will grant him a miracle."

With the water at chin high, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in, mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grand me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter."

Love Weekends!

This is Laren Poole (and a gaggle of ladies), one of the originators of Invisible Children.  Can I tell you how awesome it was to be a journalist for a day?  I got to meet him and a few other people.  

The Rescue in New York City was AMAZING!!!  We got there around 4:00pm (I had already been doing Hands On New York Day planting trees and had to come home and get a shower.  Otherwise, we would have been there a bit earlier, I think) and they just were so, SO good 

to me.  Not only is Invisible Children a great cause, but everyone I worked with was super, super nice.  So around 5pm, they started gathering groups of 20 people and placing them on ropes and heading them across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Some of the tourists on the bridge were nice and some...not so nice.  Some asked us what we were doing and some made fun of us.  Chris Lowell (from Private Practice, Veronica Mars, and Grey's Anatomy) walked across the bridge too. 

 

So we walked across the bridge and got to Empire Ferry Fulton Park.  Can I tell you how absolutely beautiful that park is?  It's right underneath the Brooklyn 

Bridge.  All the pictures we used for New York City were standing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.  It's absolutely beautiful.  Let me put that underneath.

                          By the time Steve and I left, I had interviewed Yin Chang from Gossip Girl, Chris Lowell from Private Practice, Laren, and a few other celebrities.  It was an incredible day.  We raised so much money for the Invisible Children.  I pray, I pray, I PRAY that the Ugandan civil war comes to an end soon.  No child should ever EVER be forced into these sorts of things.  Children deserve love.  Children were not born with the idea to kill.  

Here's a question for you: So I live in America, should I only be worrying about what happens in America?  Because that's all the comments I see on some news articles about Invisible Children.  That we should only deal with America because Africa will always be this way.  I'm glad that I know what love is.  :)  People were saying that The Rescue could be used so that people could do nothing and feel good about themselves.  Do not be cynical!  The world is so beautiful and we are so blessed by God.  Even in hard times, we could be child soldiers who had to watch our families be murdered.

JUST got an e-mail from a midwife and I'm going to call her tomorrow to get an appointment!!  I'm so excited!  I also went to the Broadway Panhandler and got some cheap kitchen supplies.  Finally, a metal spatula and a thermometer for baked goods!!!  

How was your weekend?  Tell me about it!