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Archive for August, 2011

Aug 31

Ten steps to success? No?

Like this?

The fall marathon of traveling and speaking is coming up for Steve and I. We will be crisscrossing the world sharing about Partners, Burma, life and God. We may even share stories about other stuff, such as our dog Marley and our fine daughters, Elise, Naomi and Kristin.

As I was preparing for my talks today (which is still on the stage of: Oh, my gosh, what am I going to say? Where is my Bible? What are the themes that are ‘in’ right now? I am reading five different books, trying to get the inspiration and wisdom that I feel I need.) I thought: I wish I could speak about something fun, something that would give people tools to get rich, beautiful and famous. It would be nice if I had, in my voice, the ten infallible steps to everlasting success.

Or like this?

Instead my themes will all involve refugees, the tools of dictators, admonitions to simpler lives and our responsibilities to work for righteousness, and some useful tools to do so. (Good flashlights and worm medicine are among them.)

Could it get boring? Could it be that people will just get up and leave as I am in the middle of my dissertation, detailing the importance of sustainable development? Well, yes. But as I am thinking of the different speaking opportunities I feel an excitement rising. I don’t need to focus on numbers, on dos and don’t, on theory theology, or on other theories for that matter. I can focus on life. I can focus on the lives of people I have met.

I am thinking of all the people that have made me a richer person over the past year. What did they do that impacted me? What did I learn about life from them? I did for example learn that if you have a lot of fish, you share. I learned that even if it rains and we are wet and uncomfortable, we can still be happy and sing. I learned that one can be grateful for a plate of rice. I learned that courage it to do something scary. I learned that guests feel more welcome if you have lit candles when they arrive. I have learned that it is better to deal with clutter right away. I learned that your teenagers still love you even though they are mean at times. I learned that hugs should not be super short, especially not the ones you give your husband. I learned that one can carry all of one’s belongings in a basket on one’s back.

This and more I have learned, not from books, but from being with people. Wonder if this could be the outline for my teaching? I will not offer financial solutions (other than this: Don’t spend what you don’t have), but I can offer some insight into contentment and happiness.  Now, if only I can find my Bible. Then I can find that Jesus taught us a lot of the same things my friends taught me.

Hope to see some of you this fall.

Aug 25

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The benefit of blueberries

My bank account is anything but fat. In fact, I think it is anorexic. Still I think I am rich. One of the luxuries I get to enjoy is walking into the forest just minutes away from our house to pick wild blueberries. I have picked many pails full since I found my own secret spot. They are big, juicy, give me blue fingers and are full of antioxidants. I feel myself getting healthy while I pick them. Honest truth.

While picking the berries I enjoy the luxury of quiet. I only hear the birds singing, sending messages back and forht about what to bring on their journey back to southern Spain where they will spend winter. For me it is a time to reflect and to dream.

Naomi doesn't have the newest iPod, but she has free blueberries.

Next to me you will find our dog, Marley. He loves blueberries. Like a cow eating fresh grass in the spring, he is bent over the blueberry patches, chowing it down. He frequently makes it over to my patch and starts eating where I was picking. “Go away, sucker!” I say, and point in the direction of some dried raspberry bushes. But mostly we stay friends and enjoy each other’s company.

I looked through a children’s book today that is about being thankful.With great illustrations it lists all the things we have to be thankful for. A good reminder in a time when we are mostly concerned with talking about what we don’t have, and not focusing on what we have.

I don’t have a new car, and won’t be able to afford one until I win a lottery. I don’t have the coat that I think I need, and it seems like I won’t afford it until it goes on sale because it is out of style. I don’t have a boat and a cabin and a leather sofa. But I have free blueberries in the forest, a closet full of clothes, a car that runs and a house that keeps me dry, warm and comfortable. And when I think of it, I don’t need any more stuff. But I would like some more berries in the freezer for the long winter to come.

I think I will take my dog and my pail and go for a walk to the forest.

Kristin after a day in the forest

Aug 17

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The tears of heaven and heaven on earth

It’s the kind of rainy day that was made for inside activities. Part of me feels cheated. Hey, I have not had my portion of sun yet this season! We are heading towards Norway winter, and, let me tell you: it is dark and cold. I need all the sun I can get.

Then I thought about the rain as the tears of heaven. And as I think of that, I think it rains too little.

I think of the dying children on the horn of Africa—their mothers holding them, wishing only for one thing: Enough food for their babies to eat. At the same time as we, here on the mountain, throw away enough food to feed many villages every day. At the same time as we in the West encourage farmers not to produce food on their land because we have enough, and it is cheaper for them not to produce, than to produce and then have to turn it into garbage.

The mothers in Africa would like some of that food.

Politics are complicated. And economics even more so, but, holy cow, can it be that hard? If people like me raised our voices in unison and said: This is bullshit! There is enough food in the world for all of us to be fed. If only we distributed it a little differently and some of us stopped overeating. 

Could we change the world then?

Cherku Paw the way she looked when she first arrived at the hospital

A coupe of years ago I received some photos in my inbox. It stayed with me for days. For weeks. It was of Cherku Paw, a young girl in Burma, who, when she was six, was standing in front of the fire in their village, trying to warm herself. The cold season is cold. The people seldom have warm clothes. Little Cherku Paw got a bit too close to the fire. A spark fell on her polyester shirt and she caught on fire. She caught on fire.

The pictures I got was of her two years after the accident. For that long she had suffered pain, humiliation and terrible discomfort. For that long her parents had hoped there would be a doctor or a hospital somewhere who would help their little girl. For that long Cherku Paw had not been able to stand up right, close her mouth and run around with the other kids in her village.

Her father had heard of a hospital that could help his girl. For three days he carried her in his arms through the jungle. When she got to the hospital, run by one of the people I admire the most in the world, Dr. Mitch, the doctors were moved the way Jesus would have been moved. Money was raised for Cherku Paw and she was sent to an even better hospital in Chiang Mai.

Months later I received another email. This time there was a photo of a cute little girls, smiling shyly to the camera. I heard that when she thought she was alone in her room at the hospital, the nurses would see her dance on the floor. Joy filled her as she moved her legs, looked at her face in the mirror, touched the parts of her body that before only had been the source of incredible pain. Soon after I got the photo she went back to her village together with her daddy who had been with her the whole time at the hospital. She could walk with her head raised high and a smile on her face. Soon she could join her friends playing games.

Cherku Paw and her dad some moths later at the hospital.

I heard from her again today. She has just been back to Chiang Mai for check ups and we were asked to help pay for the doctors’ fees. I am so glad that I will be able to help. I am so proud that I can.

It’s still raining. Heaven has many tears still because there are so many children like Cherku Paw left to help. In the news they talk about financial crisis around—a world crisis they call it—and I understand the fear. I too fear it. I don’t want to end up on the street. For all these years we have spent resources that don’t belong to us in the first place. For generations we have enjoyed freedom that has been paid for by others’ bondage. Is it time that we realize that and change our ways? I think it is. But I also fear that even through this crisis, it is the ones with the least who will suffer the most, as usual. Not the people like me, who have my security in a nation that only gives from our abundance.

So, it still rains. For the children in Africa. For the children in Burma. For the children on the streets in the big cities around the world. Rob Bell writes about hell in his book, Love Wins. Hell is here on earth, he says. And for too many people, that is true.

But for little Cherky Paw, hell was turned into heaven because generous men and women gave their time, resources and dedication to help her.

Today, let’s try to bring heaven a little closer. Let’s try to bring the sun back in the lives of those who need it the most.

Heaven seen in little children in a refugee camp (photo by Kris Ryan, my friend)

Aug 9

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As the leaves change colors and the weather grows cold, I will think of this

The summer of 2011 is kind of officially over. On the main highways there were lines of cars, all going back home after the summer vacations last night. We are like this in Norway—we all take lots of time off to enjoy the summer with the long, light nights and the warm weather.

Now it’s time to get back to a routine, to start exercising and eating right, to get up in the mornings, long before 9. I guess it will feel kind of nice.

The summer of 2011 will leave me with these memories:

Our 5 star hotel

Riding our bicycles on the coast, finding beautiful spots for our tent and experiencing that the tent was indeed waterproof.

Eating the year’s first strawberries from Norway.

Waiting for the weather to get warm.

Listening to the radio in the mornings, with the same program that I listened to as a child: Reiseradioen.

Waiting for the weather to get warm.

Driving to the south of Norway to attend a festival that we had heard about for years.

Cooking together in the rain? That strengthens community.

Experiencing incredible fellowship with lots of other Christians as passionate and half crazy as ourselves. Cooking, eating, talking, playing and surviving the most rain I have ever experienced while sleeping in our tents.

Realizing that our tent is super-waterproof.

Watching our girls play with new friends.

The numb feeling in my gut as I watched the news, heard the stories, saw the photos of the 77 people who were brutally massacred in the worst act of terror that has happened in Norway since WWII.

Being glued to the news, crying, thinking, mourning with a whole nation.

Wondering how the victims’ families are able to cope.

Wishing I could do more.

Sending Steve to Burma to deal with a new refugee crisis.

Thinking about how we can help the thousands of new refugees.

Trying to understand the needs and the devastation of the world around me without getting depressed.

Swimming at midnight. It was not warm water.

Going for a late night swim in the ocean with Naomi.

Waiting for warm weather.

Getting about three days of warm weather.

Having friends over that could sit on our balcony watching the ocean and the sunset.

Eating wild raspberries, wild strawberries and wild blueberries on the same walk almost daily.

Walking barefoot.

Getting a tan that made me look chocolate milk colored rather than milk colored.

Going for a hike on my birthday.

Not reading 1% of what I had hoped I would read.

Sleeping until I felt like getting up.

Staying up until I felt like going to bed.

Reading the newspaper while eating breakfast outside.

Wanting the summer to last a little longer.

Roasting hotdogs on the fire was SO yesterday

It has been a good summer, a cold summer, a warm summer, a sad summer, a happy summer, a lonely summer and a summer when I have felt like I have some really good friends. It has been a summer where I again realized how frail our lives, how frail our security. It has been a summer where I have been reminded to appreciate every day and make the most out of it.

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