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4.23.2010

African Itinerary

 (clicking on photo should enlarge it for you)

Well, here we go again.
The red line is my June 29 through about (?) third week July.
I will start out at Mombasa at the United Society of Friends Women Conference.
On or about June 5, I will travel by people's Bus with some Kenyan Friends Across Kenya to Eldoret and the Home of David Zarembka and his wife. 
A few days of rest there and  somehow through Uganda or over Lake Victoria to Kigali, Rwanda. ( I am open to the idea of Puddle Jump Airways)
About a week there visiting my former students, and then on to Bujumbura.
(open to the idea of Finding a motorcycle to rent to cross Rwanda)
I will spend the month of August teaching in Bujumbura, Burundi with a side trip to Uvira and possibly Abeka, DRC.

For those of you who have followed my previous exploits - the green line is my previous, much storied, bus ride from Buja to Goma, DRC and back. 
My best guess is that the green line is about 250 miles and the red line is 1200 miles.

Stay tuned, in continuing posts, I will talk more about what I am doing and who I will be seeing and why. Also Flee now, if fund raising offends you.







4.18.2010

Earth in my Yard


I spent some the afternoon in the yard. It hit 70 degrees today and spring is in the full yummy lusciousness that I usually associate with May.

I celebrated Earth day by moving about a cubic yard of damp, black crumbly compost from the bin to a bed.  The other bin is three feet deep and cooking fast. I need the old bin empty to start over.

I love the very idea of compost. My father gave it to me as the story of Redemption.  I also love actual compost. The smell and sight, and the hosts of red wigglers.

We live in the Willamette Valley and among our many blessings is that we get to have a guilt free lawn. And it grows fast and the clippings mixed with kitchen scraps cook like Hell's kitchen. I could fuss with it and turn it and watch the wetness and get more, faster. But a cubic yard twice a year is plenty.

I don't try and keep the weed seeds out of it, I compost weeds, seeds and all. It would be a waste of green, and they would get in there anyway, and besides my dad taught me that everything should have its chance, weeds and all. Biblical he was, "Leave the tares till later."

I don't compost blackberry clippings or bindweed. They are of the devil and must be put out into the Gehenna of the city compost bins.  Our city will now take kitchen compost at the curb, bless them,  but they won't get mine.

I try to buy local, but I make my exceptions. It pleases me to no end to know that in my compost is a good bit of fair trade coffee grounds from Ethiopia. I have left bits of me over there. But Africa comes to my yard and feeds my tomatoes. And the banana peels;  I could do without them, having been spoiled by real bananas, but an indulgence for Alivia who enjoys them. A little Central America in our yard as well.

It is all good, it is all wholesome, it is all well.





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4.14.2010

Tax Day Info

This from FCNL
How does the governments spending of your tax dollars align with your values?
not so much?
Tell your congress-people and Senators
I did today.


































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4.09.2010

Safe, domesticated and distrustful of each other

A great Quote from  Friend Johan


Evil is real; as a movement we cannot respond with anything less than the "whole armor of God." We can't let demagogues set evangelicals against liberals, or create other distracting divisions.

We need the commitment to spiritual warfare that evangelicals claim and the social/ethical zeal that is often the province of ...liberals. 

We all need all-out revival that sweeps over all idolatries--not just the blatant blasphemies of the world's would-be Hitlers, but the more subtle ones that keep us Christians safe, domesticated, and distrustful of each other.