Vietnam War

I am currently enrolled in a class called the "Vietnam Experience" at Converse. It is basically the history of Vietnam with a significant focus on the American war there. I was not at all excited about this class. I tried my hardest to get out of it, but I had no choice. Now I am just over half-way through the class and I find myself with a significant interest in the Vietnam War. In fact, last week when Chris and I went to Barnes and Noble, I spent a long time in the Vietnam War section looking at all the books and memoirs. I want to interview veterans, and learn about their experiences. I am not sure why I have this sudden interest in Vietnam, but I find myself wanting to get my hands on any information about it. I have a thirst for knowledge about it and I cannot wait to learn more.

Alive Day

Have you ever experienced an event and you know you need to write/blog about it, but you aren't sure where to start? I feel a little like that. Yesterday was Alive Day for my friend Andrew. Alive Day is the anniversary of an injury; it is called that so one can remember all that he/she has left, not what he/she has lost. On October 29, 2006 Andrew was in an accident with an IED in Iraq. He lost both his legs and suffered significant abdominal injuries. I met him through my husband's discipleship group. I remember where we were a year ago when we learned that Andrew was injured: we were in my parents' garage in Nashville. We'd been in town for a wedding and Chris got a call that Andrew was seriously injured. At that point we did not know if he would make it. Information was unclear and not forthcoming. When he got to the United States he had gone into cardiac arrest 2 or 3 times. We gathered to pray and cry and hope that he would make it through this. And as I write now I wish that I had more eloquence and grace; better words to express my thoughts and feelings over this past year. My husband and I cried together. I asked God why Andrew. I prayed. I cried some more. A group of us went to DC to visit Andrew after Christmas. He was out of ICU (but not by long) and we still had to wear gowns and gloves to go in his room. His spirit was amazing. I was blown away by his attitude and the smile on his face. We brought him sweet tea from one of his favorite restaurants. We played cards and spent time together. It was a good trip. It was neat to see how good he was doing in spite of all he had lost. He was not grieving, but was thankful. We saw Andrew again in August at a discipleship reunion. He was doing even better. He was on the jet ski and swimming in the lake. He was more mobile than I was anticipating. And there was that smile. And this past Saturday Andrew came home for the first time not only since his accident, but since he left. It was one of the most incredible things I have ever experienced. The people came out in droves, and so did the motorcycles. As various people spoke I cried and was overwhelmed by it all. The next day Andrew spoke at church. He talked about two things that have gotten him through this experience: prayer and discipline. He brought tears to many eyes. And the next day in class my professor spoke abuot what Andrew had said. He even admitted that he was brought to tears. Andrew has touched so many lives and he does not even realize the extent of it. He is just a 24 year old man living life with what he has. And maybe that is what is so amazing about it.

Close but no cigar . . .

It's thundering outside. It's been thundering for at least half an hour. But no rain. It thundered all afternoon yesterday, too. But no rain. Well, it sprinkled. But we need rain, intense rain. Sprinkling is close, but it's no cigar . . .

Genocide and Forgiveness

My senior year of high school I took a humanities class, and in it we studied the American Civil Rights Movement, the Holocaust, and the genocides of multiple countries. In this class we read a book entitled, "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With our Families: Stories from Rwanda" by Philip Gourevitch. The first sentence reads: "Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population, and in the spring and summer of 1994 a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda." In 1994 about 800,000 people died over the course of 100 days in one of the world's worst genocides since the Second World War. Reading this book opened my eyes to this atrocity as well as to the fact that few Americans, including our government, did anything to stop it. In Rwanda, the Hutus systemactically killed the Tutsis. Tutsis took refuge in schools and churches only to be massacred there. The Murambi Technical School is now a genocide museum with 45,000 skulls and corpses in all of its rooms, not because they were moved there, but because they were killed there. It has been six years since I read Gourevitch's book, and have not heard much about the Rwandan genocide in the media since.

One of the websites I frequent is that of Relevant Magazine and it's lead article today is entitled, "Unconditional: In the face of a terrible genocide, two Rwandan men choose forgiveness and hope." This article by Katherine Carelock describes two Rwandan men, Emmanuel and Ernest, whose families were killed and who have found forgiveness in spite of the atrocities they have encountered. The link to the article is below. Please read it, for two reasons. The first is to become a little more knowledgable about this event. And the second is to read about the application of forgiveness in real life and be challenged to forgive the personal atrocities in your own life.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god_article.php?id=7406

The Little Engine that Could

I haven't been able to sleep the past few nights and as I looked around the darkness hoping to fall alseep, I've done a lot of praying and a lot of thinking. One of the things I thought about last night was the book "The Little Engine that Could." We read that book a lot when I was little, and I haven't really thought much about it until last night. I thought about how the lesson/moral of it has implications for me at 24 years of age. In the book the little engine has to climb a big hill and he does it by saying "I think I can" over and over again and by going slowly but surely up the hill. He makes it and there is much rejoicing. And I was thinking last night about the little engine and how in my life there are sometimes looming obstacles and overwhelming situations. Like the engine got over the hill, I can get through them (with Jesus, of course) by taking things one step at a time and by encouraging myself (preferably through a Bible verse). And I feel like right now I am at a place where I know there is a hill, but I'm not sure how close it is to where I am. It could be around the next curve, but it could be a few miles off. Regardless, I know that I will make it to the top of the hill.

Hopefully I will sleep better tonight, but if I don't maybe I'll come up with something else to blog about . . .

Eli's coming . . .

There's a storm brewing outside my apartment. It's been thundering and very windy for the last half an hour or so, but there hasn't been any rain. Sometimes it's calmest before a storm, but sometimes it can be nasty and violent. And at times some people see the storm coming but others see nothing. The bottom line: Eli's coming. He may come in the next three or four minutes or maybe not until later tonight, but he's coming. What will Eli do? Will be bring the much needed rain? Will he cause wide spread power outages and fallen trees? Only time will tell. I hope that Eli will bring relief from the pain of drought even though there might be pain in the storm.

and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

Eli's coming. And when he gets here I hope that no matter the pain I can raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away.

Ron Paul on Foreign Policy

I've been reading a lot lately about Ron Paul, who's a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination. I haven't been following the election, but some of those whose blogs I check on a regular basis really like him. However, this blog is not about how I feel about him as a candidate; it's about an article I read on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/18/martin/index.html).

The main just of the article is that the United States brought the attacks upon itself because of its foreign policy. Paul seems to imply that because we have been in the Middle East for 10 years bombing and generally interfering we were only breeding anger in the hearts of some Iraqis and so here we are today: fighting a war. During the Cold War George Kennan discussed the fact that it is impossible to separate Communism from the internal affairs of a country (take Vietnam, for example). Towards the end of Kennan's life he wrote the same thing about terrorism. It is impossible for us to separate terrorism from the internal affairs in Iraq, which could be part of the reason why this war seems so far from over.

This term I was in a Russian history course and we talked a lot about the Cold War, and there were some perspectives that I had never been taught before. One of those is that the Russians were responding to our actions that they perceived as aggressive; we, in turn, responded to their responses and we almost had a nuclear war on our hands. I know that this view is not wildly popular among some, who, may, in fact, still want to drop a nuke on the Russians. But the point is that there are multiple ways to interpret history and history must be interpreted in the context of the present.

Honestly, I do not know whether or not I support the war. I know that it forever changed the life of one of my friends. I know that not many people support it. I know that the President is trying his best to stay the course while Congress is trying its best to get us out of the boat. Regardless, I think that Ron Paul's opinion deserves some attention, and should not be written off, as Giullani did during the most recent Republican debate (May 15, 2007).

I am not in any way trying to justify the terrorist attacks on the United States. I am simply stating that we as Americans often think that we have done nothing wrong and are innocent victims. I am inclined to agree with Paul: we are not innocent victims here; our foreign policy most likely has contributed to the attacks and therefore, have brought us to where we are now.

Why don't the Christians just love?

There are a lot of things that bother me, but one that is currently at the top of my list is when Christians assume being a Christian means being a Republican. And if you are a Christian and not a Republican, then you are not a "real" Christian. It is so sad to me that Christianity is so tightly related to politics. I understand that untangling the two would be, for the most part, futile, but why must Christians be so emphatic about the connection between God, Christianity, and being a Republican? Why can't people just know Christians by our love and by how we show that love to others? I mean, honestly, why has Christianity strayed so far from what God intended it to be? I cannot even begin to believe that in God's plan for the world, He thought: "And around the year 2007, I don't want my children to be known for their love, but instead, for their Republicanism. And it is good." Are you joking?! My prayer for Christians in America is that they will stop ranting and raving about being a good Republican and start loving those around them. I mean, after all, which is going to make a bigger impact for the kingdom?

One of the Boys

I recently got an invitation on Facebook to be in a group. The group is called Danny's Boys. And here is the story behind the invitation:

It started when Chris was in high school and was a member of a discipleship group at church. The group was led by Danny Jelley, and the guys continued to hang out through, and now after, college. One of the first "tests" I had to pass as Chris's girlfriend was meeting Danny. I had just driven 6 hours from Nashville and Chris took me to his house and we talked. Danny asked me some deep questions about myself and my relationship with God and then he had to leave because China called. I'm not sure how long Danny was on the phone, but I think I may have fallen asleep on the couch. I'm pretty sure I passed the "test" because he would have told Chris if he didn't approve.

Since meeting Danny, I met the guys from this group and was immediately accepted because of Chris and our relationship. This was truly an amazing feeling. This group was, and still is, a huge part of Chris's life, and they have become a huge part of mine as well. Danny and his wife have welcomed me into their home and discipleship family, and so have the guys. This was point was driven home when I got an invitation on Facebook to join the group "Danny's Boys."