Here's a Cyber Monday Shopping Idea (and it's good all month long)

I bought some gifts online on Black Friday but before I could buy anything today- Cyber Monday- I got distracted.  In a good way.

Instead- I gave to a Cause.

My friend Tom Davis (He's the President of Children's HopeChest and author of a couple of my favorite books like Priceless and Scared), is raising money and awareness through a campaign called "Change Their Story".

The idea is that for the money I would normally spend on someone's Christmas gift I can "Change an Orphans Story".  And by blogging and Facebooking about it I can raise awareness that will also help "Change an Orphans Story".

I know it's a crazy time of year.  We spend money we don't have giving gifts to loved ones that really don't need anything.  On top of that it's a great time to give last-minute gifts to our church and other charities for tax purposes.  We're in a recession; money is tight.

I'm treating my donation like it's gift under the tree.  And for my part...I don't need anything for Christmas.  I'll be WITH my family; that's better than a new shirt or book or CD.  I'd rather have someone who would otherwise spend money to give me a gift give that money towards my $500.00 Goal through CHC; I'd rather you give a gift to protect an Orphan.

Would you consider joining me?  My $500.00 goal is a part of a greater goal of $10000.00 that will help protect Russian girls from being kidnapped and trafficked.  Now that's an awesome gift that can help "Change Their Story".

You can donate via Credit Card on my "Change Their Story" Page.

History

I have a lot of friends involved in the Modern Day Abolitionist Movement.  (Yes friends, Slavery is a greater issue today than it ever was in the 1800's in America!)  That's one thought.  Hang on to it for a minute.

Another thought: One of my classes is Russian Culture and History.  One element I've found fascinating is how much Russia's (and the rest of the former Soviet world's) present is shaped by the past (I guess that's true of all of us.)

For example: The emerging Russian Empire was dominated by the Mongol Horde for more than 200 years.  By all accounts it was a particularly ruthless reign of terror that left a lasting impression on Russian Culture.  Not only did the West (Western Europe at least) fail to aid Russia during the invasion, but in the chaos and vacuum of leadership that followed, the West on different occasions wrestled land and control from the Russians.  One invader actually tried to deceive the Russians into thinking he was a long lost heir to the throne and led an invasion at the head of a Polish Army.  His reign lasted less than a year and when he was found out, he was killed and his ashes loaded into a cannon and shot back to Poland!!

To this day Russians are generally distrustful of the West and they learned well the art of despotic rule, ie, they tend towards authoritarian and/or totalitarian rule.

Here's where my two thoughts collide:  There's a great hour-long video floating around produced by PBS's Frontline (http://freedocumentaries.org/teatro.php?filmID=161&lan=undefined&size=undefined),  It's about the Sex Trade in Eastern Europe and along with any number of articles you can find on the internet, you can see that not only is Eastern Europe (Ukraine in particular) a major source country for trafficking victims...but a  primary destination country is Turkey.

Now read this excerpt from one of my text regarding  the occupation of Ukraine/Russia by the Mongols.  More lasting results of the past bearing on the present??

"Each year they would ride forth from their strongholds in the Crimea through the narrow Isthmus of Perekop in roving bands which had no purpose other than to take captives.  In the summer, when the river beds were dry, they would ride in silently, surround villages and descend on them.  The horsemen carried leather thongs to drag away men prisoners.  On the sides of their horses were slung great baskets made like bakers' panniers to carry away children, for their prized booty were young boys and girls whom they sold to the Turks or other neighbors.  Galloping through the towns, they swept up children in their baskets; a sick child was dashed to the ground or against a tree."


"As late as 1571, the Crimean Tatars reached Moscow.  Accounts of the day say they killed 200,000 people and that the rives were swollen with bodies; 130,000 people were carried off into slavery."  (Land of the Firebird, Massie 39).

Lana's Song...the Video

I blogged awhile back about a song I wrote this summer inspired by one of the kids at Camp Friendship. I guess it's called "Lana's Song: When I look in your eyes"...but really, it's dedicated to all the fatherless kids I've known.

I still think the music is pretty one-dimensional...and the vocals were kinda hurried. I created it the track with Audacity (a fun, free download).

Enjoy.

Camp 3

My original plan was to go back to Mississippi 2-weeks ago. Instead, I postponed my flight home and returned to Camp Friendship.

The scene I'm about to describe on the last day of camp- this past Saturday- actually when Camp was officially over and all that was left was for kids to go home- illustrates why I went back. Why I stayed all summer.

Anastasia is a beautiful little 11 year old from nearby Lugansk. She lives with both parents and has an 18-year old brother. She's really bright. Plays Piano, dances, sings, draws, speaks a little English. She's a lot like so many other pre-teen girls. We met the very first day of Camp 1 and we hit it off immediately.
The last night of Camp 2 she got permission from her Dorm Parent to sit with me instead of with the girls from her dorm. She got one of the Interpreters to teach her how to tell me I was her best friend in English. I know I surprised her with I returned for the 3rd Camp.

Anyway, the "scene" I alluded to. This past Saturday morning I was out on the road telling other kids goodbye when I saw Nastya and her mother walking through the center of the Camp. We waved excitedly to one another but I noticed that they kept walking through the center and not up to the road. A few seconds later I thought, "I can't let it go at a wave, I want to hug her goodbye", so I started jogging down the road back toward the center of the camp. When I was about halfway down the road, she came running around the corner towards me, apparently having had the same thought as I. I got to meet her very gracious mother (pretty obvious that Nastya had told her all about me).

Anyway...we never had any terribly deep conversations...with or without interpreters. We threw the frisbee a lot. We played Checkers. During the last week of camp she came to me twice with an interpreter to pray. The last night she prayed one of the sweetest prayers I'ver ever heard for her family to become believers and for her friends to be serious in their faith. It was precious.

And that's why I stayed all summer. My 15-semester hours of RussianLanguage wasn't nearly enough to learn her life-story or explain to her the current tension between the emergent church and the institutional church (like I could, right?). But there was something of value in spending 2-weeks of my life (6 weeks with her and a few others) just loving and caring for her. Just being attentive and available. Hopefully, being Jesus with skin on.

In a quickly fading summer I hope the Nastya's and Natasha's and Dasha's and Tonya's and Lana's, the Dima's and Kolya's and Sasha's and Anton's all felt as much love from me and Jesus as I felt from them and for them.


(Pictured here is Anastasia and Natasha- Natasha was also a 3-camp-kid...at Camp Friendship all summer. She's from one of the local orphanages.)


Oh, and I'd be remiss not to mention the Interpreters. They were a great bunch of mostly 19-25 year olds that Shane (the Camp Director) has discipled and nurtured over the last 4 years. They were all great and I'm proud to call them my Ukrainian Friends.

Lana's Song

Lana is an orphan in Ukraine. Not a true orphan I guess; more of a "social orphan". As best as I could learn, she has a Mother and maybe an Aunt that visits her and her younger sibling and older brother who also live at the orphanage. On the one hand, you look at a kid like this and think 'how in the world could a parent give up such a precious child'? But on the other hand...maybe the Mother did the most loving thing she could do.

The fact remains nevertheless, that the kids that grow up in orphanages in Ukraine and in so many other places around the world have the deck stacked against them in so many ways. It may be better than nothing; it may be better than living at home where the mother is apparently unable to care for her. But the chances this kid has in life are slim at best.

Lana became my friend during a Camp here in Ukraine. At times it seemed like she liked playing with my Ipod or my Telephone more than she liked me. She pouted when I said "no". She got jealous when I gave attention to other kids. But time and again she sought me out to hold her hand while walking across campus. She would take me everywhere and tell the other kids "he understands a little Russian" (in Russian, of course!). Sometimes we were able to communicate with my childlike Russian abilities. And then there were times when it was OK not to say anything and we would just stare into one another's eyes.

It was during one of those moments when I was "inspired" to write a song. Understand...I've tried to write songs before and I've never...NEVER...been able to do it. But later that night, this one came to me. It's long and it's probably still a work in progress. The music is still pretty one-dimensional and needs some work. But here it is:

Today we laughed and we played
you were running after me
I wasn't trying to get away.
And as we grew tired
you climbed up on my knees
I was looking down at you
You were looking up at me.

And when I look in your eyes
this is what I see
I see a wounded little heart asking questions of me
Will I leave you like the others?
Will I forget what I see?
Will I remember your name?
Will I remember your needs?

When I look into your eyes
this is what I see
I see sweet little Jesus looking back at me.
I see doubts and fears
I see pain and needs
I see your longing for a family
I see your hopes and your dreams.

And as I stared deep into
the windows of your soul
the thought occurred to me that you were thinking too.

When you look in my eyes
I wonder what you see?
Is it a reflection of Jesus deep inside of me.
Do you see my Father's Heart?
Do you see the emptiness?
Me without you is as lonely as it gets.
Do you know the price I'd pay, to hold you in my arms.
Do you know how much I love you?
Do you know how much I see?

And then I started thinkin'
'bout how we're the same
I was once an orphaned soul
lookin' for my place.

Jesus when you look in my eyes
do you see what I see?
My doubts and fears, my pain and my needs?
Do you see me longing for a family?
Do you know my hopes and dreams?
Will you hold me in your arms and never let me go?

As surely as I sit here
you revealed your truth to me.
You opened up my eyes so that I could see.

Jesus, when I look in your eyes
this is what I see.
I see a Father's Heart embracing me.
I see love and forgiveness
I feel your tenderness
I know you're my redeemer, I know the price you paid.
I know you as a Daddy and I know you as a King.
You gave me your heart and your eyes to see.

Jesus when I look in your eyes
this is what I see
I see a Father's Heart embracing me.

Book Review: Scared: a Novel from the Edge of the World

I have an “Author” friend. He just released his 4^th book, his first novel. Tom Davis is his name. He’s a former Youth Minister and was one of the men that helped “steer” the 2007 World Race that I was a part of. I’ve known about his most recent project, SCARED: a Novel on the Edge of the World, since those “Race” days.

I excitedly pre-ordered my copy from Amazon before I left the States for Ukraine. In May, I noticed an opportunity to download the novel in PDF from the publisher so I’ve had the book in digital form for a couple months. I had been putting off reading it just because I don’t like reading 300+ pages on a computer screen. There’s nothing like curling up with a paperback, right? But I stayed in a comfortable hotel last night and with no English Language programs on TV I read SCARED. I’m glad I did. Today I’m ordering 5 copies for my church!

It’s about the plight of orphans and the plague of AIDS in Africa- in the tiny, beautiful country of Swaziland, in particular. Our Western mindset would have us believe AIDS is a homosexual disease. Thinking like that releases most of us from worrying about it because we don’t fall into a behavior category that puts us at risk. AIDS in Africa is no more a homosexual disease than the Potato Famine was a French Fry problem!

It’s complicated. Regardless of where it came from or how it started- there are forces at work in much of Africa that exacerbate the problem to Biblical proportions. Ignorance and lack of Education, lack of adequate healthcare and in more instances- just non-existent healthcare, myriad customs and traditions among myriad people groups that hinder communication, corrupt governments and all-talk-no-walk relief organizations, the kind of extreme poverty that we see on late night infomercials but have become anesthetized to, and then there are spiritual forces that can’t be easily explained to a Western thinker.

This is a biased book review. I admit it. I know Tom and I know his heart. His 2^nd and 3^rd non-fiction books (Confessions of a Good Christian Guy, Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds) were sort of run-of-the-mill to me. His first book however, Fields of the Fatherless, established him as a voice for Orphans. SCARED is Tom’s first novel and I think establishes him as a real-deal writer who makes a difference in the world. With the exception of the main character, photojournalist Stuart Daniels, SCARED reads like the front-page of today’s paper, or maybe more accurately, like the blogs of missionaries I know who are at this moment working in Swaziland.

I was gripped by it the same way I am when I read one of John Grisham’s novels set in Memphis, New Orleans, or all across Mississippi. Part of Grisham’s appeal to me is that I know these places, these names. The same was true for me reading SCARED. It’s set largely in Swaziland and I know these places. I know these names. I know these faces. So does Tom. Intimately. God is using his organization, Children’s Hopechest, to care for and keep alive thousands of orphans in that tiny country, raising them to be God’s answer to the crises in Africa.

I read the novel last night in one sitting. It is fast-paced and heart-breaking. It doesn’t preach; it simply tells a gut wrenching story convincingly. There’s courage and cowardice, humanity at its worst and at its best. There’s redemption and hope and inexplicable, unconsolable loss. I cried. I felt gritty-dirty. I felt anger. I felt like I could be fulfilled if I were in Swazi right now holding and feeding an orphaned child.

Read this book. When you turn the last page-stop and pray. Then immediately do something with your wealth- find a way to give- there are suggestions in the back of the book. Go to my friend Seth Barnes’ blogsite and click on the “Swaziland” tab. If you’re not affected by these stories then please see a doctor. You have a heart problem.

This won’t be a spoiler…another novel is in the works featuring the main character on assignment in Russian exposing the international child-sex trade. Children’s Hopechest has been there many years. Tom know’s whereof he writes about.