Archive for August, 2009
Friday, August 14th, 2009
Thanking God for our kids
Last night between midnight and 2 am, I was wakened and kept awake by the behavior of some teenagers. I felt an odd relief to realize that they were not connected with our Joni and Friends Retreat.
By contrast, here’s what I saw this morning–our young people gathered around the Word and praying together to begin the day.
To add to my gratitude to God, this was organized by one of the young men and the daily meeting is 45 minutes before breakfast, prime sleep-late time.
Our volunteer training time ends soon and pictures are posted. This afternoon the campers arrive.
Yesterday I asked you to pray for nervous volunteers. Today please remember the first-time families who probably are even more apprehensive about coming into a new situation.
And pray for all the families. If you’ve ever traveled with small children, multiply the paraphernalia and noise and unpredictability and otherwise general stress level by about 1000 for many parents traveling with one or more children with disabilities.
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
"Behold, I am doing a new thing . . . "
For the next few days I’m blogging and tweeting from the 2009 Joni and Friends Family Retreat in Minnesota.
Right now, volunteers are gathering for orientation and training to be ready to be a help and blessing to the campers who will arrive tomorrow afternoon, families and individuals affected by disabilities.
We will be a total of 310 people, about equally divided between campers and volunteers.
Please pray today for the new volunteers who may feel nervous in this new sort of setting for them. Pray that God will use these hours of training to remind us of his power and goodness and good plans for his people.
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, 1921-2009
Eunice Kennedy Shriver died today.
Life for a person with developmental disability has changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Eunice Shriver was a key player in that change, spurred by her love for her older sister Rosemary.
According to USA Today:
Rosemary, born with mental retardation made worse by a surgical lobotomy, spent most of her adult life at a private institution in Wisconsin and died in 2005. Shriver devoted much of her energies to countering the social stigma once attached to mental disabilities.
“If I (had) never met Rosemary, never known anything about handicapped children, how would I have ever found out? Because nobody accepted them anyplace,” she told National Public Radio in 2007.
In 1956, she became executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, which helped fund Catholic organizations and those that benefited the mentally retarded. In 1962, she opened her Maryland estate to a summer camp for mentally retarded children.
In July 1968, just weeks after Robert Kennedy was killed, about 1,000 people from 26 U.S. states and Canada participated in the first Special Olympics at Soldier Field in Chicago. Shriver persuaded Chicago officials to join with the Kennedy Foundation to sponsor it.
Today, the organization says it serves almost 3 million children in 180 countries.
Unlike other members of her Democratic clan, she remained opposed to legalized abortion and was a longtime supporter of the group Feminists for Life.
Friday, August 7th, 2009
He does all things well . . . . I keep telling myself
“How do you measure the worth of 34+ years of friendship and 23 years of living 3 houses apart?
23 years of:
- impromptu meals together
- countless borrowed onions, eggs, and cups of sugar
- walks together
- encouraging each others’ children (and admonishing if needed)
- shared birthday celebrations
- carpooling our kids to school
- loving and attending the same church and ministering together there
- praying through our tears for each others’ children
Today, our friendship with David and Karin Livingston is stronger and deeper than ever. But the “3 houses down” has ended. They moved yesterday to be nearer Bethlehem’s South Site, where David’s primary responsibilities are.
I know they’re not gone-gone. I know we’ll develop new patterns of seeing each other. And yes, our cell phones work just as well as they ever have. I know this is a good thing that the Lord has planned for us all and for Bethlehem.
But today, I’m good for nothing and crying at the drop of a borrowed onion.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Remembering
Four matching picture frames hang in a straight vertical line on a narrow space on my living room wall.
That’s my rotating exhibit of 8 x 10s from my most recent travels or special family event.
Right now the photos are keeping China in my mind. I couldn’t choose just 4 from all my photos, so these are Chinese sights. Later will come Chinese people and Chinese places.
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
"What can Brown do for you?"
At lunch time today, Talitha and I were in line at Subway 3 blocks from home, ordering sandwiches, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, “Is that package ready?”
Out of nowhere, our smiling UPS lady had appeared, asked about the package I’d mentioned to her at my backdoor yesterday, and just as quickly disappeared.
We still don’t know where she came from or where she went–Superwoman?
Anyway, she’s watching out for us. Makes this inner-city neighborhood feel like a small town.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Thanks for vacation
Vacation took us to Georgia, South Carolina, southern Minnesota and northern Minnesota.
We had reunions with Johnny’s family and with my extended family and with friends. One of those weeks, Barnabas and family were with us.
For most of a week, we were the substitute shopkeepers at Jumble Thrift Shop in Fulda, MN.
And then came some quiet days of sleeping when we wanted and reading when we wanted. Each day we three walked hard together for 1/2 hour and then Talitha and I would cool off in the water. One weekend Ben and his family joined us.
I am so aware that it is a privilege to have such weeks. Every good and perfect gift is from our father of heavenly lights. I’m pretty sure that some year his good and perfect gifts to us will not be so obviously sweet and pleasurable.
I pray I will receive those times with as much gratitude as I feel now for this summer.
