Universal Healthcare

The debate is out. I'm on the fence.

On the one hand, I totally disagree with people that say we have the best health care in the world, as we discussed in the comments on my rant and rave post earlier this week. We may have great resources and fantastic doctors available, but are they actually accessible? I really question that. I have multiple refugee families that I know that feel like they can't go to the doctor, period. No matter what. Medicaid pretty much covers the very bottom rung of people, and even most poor refugee families don't fall into that category. However, they don't make enough money to pay for health insurance, thereby making all health care inaccessible.

I also have a number of young working friends that have the type of jobs that don't offer health care coverage. During a period where they didn't have insurance, they had an unexpected hospital trip and dental surgery, and the costs were astronomical.

Then there's us - two young professionals who were living in Chicago, covered by a great insurance plan by Aetna insurance through my work. They are a great provider, and Chicago is a huge city. However, when my husband's foot was badly burned and he needed to see a burn specialist to get skin grafts, Aetna told us that they did not cover ANY burn specialists in the city of Chicago. I asked what in the world I could do... and they had no options for me. RIDICULOUS.

So, here's the thing. I see two options.
1. We open up our system so that insurance, pharmaceuticals, and health care are actually competitive, capitalist systems that we are consumers of. Right now that is NOT what we have. Insurance and pharmaceuticals are a wall that the average consumer cannot access or analyze because they keep their information private.

2. We go for universal health care. People bash the health care in Canada and England, but in my experience the general health care there is much more accessible and better than what we have here. Yes, we'd raise taxes to cover it, but I genuinely question whether the cost I'll end up paying will be more than what I currently pay on work insurance plans.

This is a story written by a guy on a Yelp talk thread discussing universal health care:

Fact: When my pregnant wife and I were in Montreal, she was spotting at at risk of losing our baby. We found a hospital emergency room and were whisked into an examination room within 2 minutes of our arrival. Ultrasound, doctor consult and we were out of there in less than an hour - total cost : 7 dollars2 weeks later the routine repeated itself and this time we were in the states.... 90 minute wait in the emergency room- Ultrasound, doctor consult and we were out of there in 4 hours 30 minutes. Total cost $650- I remember joking that the cheap foam slippers they made her wear were going to cost as much as the hospital visit in Canada - I was correct 7 bucks.

Vocation: Job, Career, or Sacred Calling?

Throughout the last two years I have asked, sometimes in tears and always with deep emotion, the following question.:

"How can I find some way of thinking about [my job] so that it will not merely pay the bills, but it will give me… satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, accomplishment, a sense that I’m doing what God wants me to do?"

That was written by the head of a foundation that has doled out HUGE sums of money around the country to help advance the discussion and teaching of "vocation". He gets to the root of my struggles. Emotionally, I long to do something meaningful rather than slide into the trap of the daily mundane. Spiritually, I believe that following God means being counter cultural, and I long to be faithful. I read Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life" an am goaded by the call away from purposelessness. Practically, I face questions of jobs and career and I have waffled here and there and everywhere, not knowing what I can or should do, or what I am particularly gifted for.

So, in the midst of my questions is the important idea of vocation. I've wanted to study it for a while, but didn't jump into it until I was due to lead a community group discussion and "vocation" seemed like a good topic. I asked facebook for recommendations about who or what to read on the topic and then spent the next week and a half reading and reading and reading.

Definition: Essentially, vocation means "calling", which comes as a surprise to those of us that use it to mean career or job.

Vocation in Church History:

In early Christianity, you were "called" to Christianity, and that itself had huge counter-cultural implications. Being a Christ-follower was their calling, and it is of course still ours.

As the Church developed (i.e. into the middle ages), the idea of monastic life grew. In the Catholic church those with a religious "vocation" were nuns and monks and church officials. If you experienced a "calling", that was your only option - to serve God in a monastic life. Even today when the Catholic church speaks of vocation, that is what they are referring to. Ironically, though, the modern-day Catholic church isn't nearly as bad about this as we are. We act as though being called into "ministry" is a true calling, and being a pastor or a missionary is superior to being a businessman or an elementary teacher.

The Reformers reacted against the separation of the Church from daily life. They emphasized that ordinary work, even sweeping floors and washing dishes, are legitimate vocations in which we are called to fully serve God faithfully, just like callings within “ministry”. They taught that everyday activities should be treated as sacred. They weren't concerned with how to (rejecting ecclesiastical callings as unique and rejecting the church/world dichotomy - there is an inherent dignity in everyday activities.) They weren't concerned with how to figure out your vocation so much how to live out your calling to Christ in the life given to you.

Some reformers (i.e. the Mennonites) disagreed that all areas of life can be sacred. They identified that much of secular life is corrupted and so in response they pulled away from the world and formed spiritual communities where they could engage in redemptive lives. They believed they were "called" to a Christian life. Evangelicalism sort of retook this idea - we formed Christian schools and camps and conferences and businesses and essentially tried to create a safe world where we could be Christians without dealing with the messiness of the secular world. I very much dislike this way of thinking. :)

A natural outflow of Calvinism and the belief that our lives are predestined for us is the perspective that we have a particular calling that God has determined for us. During the Reformation this was relatively uncomplicated - the career and station that believers had is clearly what they were called to.

Nowadays the implications of this is complicated. If we have a particular path that we are called to, what do we do as we hit college and decide our major, and then pick jobs, or hit our 20's (like me) and ask the same questions all over again? Now we have choices, and so we struggle to know how to determine the will of God or hear His voice as we make our choices from the career salad bar. So - today we teach vocation and give people career and personality tests - vocation becomes just another choice to make.

So... this is already long, so I'll stop here for today and move on to some of my conclusions later. I'll leave you with the quote from Frederick Buechner that came up again and again and again as I read about vocation. It seems to sum up most of the modern-day church's thinking on vocation:

“The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That intersecting point is your calling, your vocation.

My question is, do you think this is true? What does this say about our society TODAY?

Further thoughts: Part II and Part III of my thoughts on vocation.

days that feel like memories

Isaac used to tease me when I would get together with my family or my closest friends. Everything we did was "to make a memory". He thought that was silly - why make the present the past before it has to be?

This video is quietly beautiful.


April (For Pittsburgh) from Mothlight Creative on Vimeo.


That video was made by a guy I went to college with, though I never really knew him. The filmaker's description of the video struck me: "To me this piece is about days that feel like memories as they're happening, which is why I liked those moments."

Days that feel like memories. Those are the things that jumped out at me while I read Gilead (which I talked about here). It was infused with a quiet beauty in every day moments. In high school I was constantly struck by the tiniest things that were beautiful. Life was beautiful. I breathed it in.

I suppose part of it is growing up and part of it is being in the consumer-driven Western world, but feel like I sometimes totally forget about the little things. Over the past few weeks I've intentionally looked and soaked in LIFE. I will sit in my car for a few minutes before heading in to the office and just marvel at the clouds, the light, and the strains of music on my radio. In the morning I marvel at the shadows and sunshine in the bedroom and the feeling of morning. At night I marvel at Isaac's arm thrown over me - that it should be the arm of my husband, the one that I deeply love. Last night I was awakened by thundering and pounding rain and lightning. I laid there marveling at the power and beauty in the moment.

When I stop to soak in life, it begins to feel like a memory, even as I experience it. I like it that way.

Commence a rant and rave

I got annoyed yesterday when (yet again - I have a lot of obama-haters among my friends) someone angrily and vehemently proclaimed on facebook that Obama is the worst President ever and all who voted for him to be idiots.

Because you know - there's not a lot of room for discussion in that statement. I personally would like it revised to say that Obama is directly opposed to that particular individuals political persuasions, and therefore his Presidency is bothering the heck out of her, and she simply can't agree with those who voted for him. That'd be fair enough. I voted for him, and I would again, and although I haven't always agreed with Obama, he has pretty much been what I expected him to be politically. Then this morning U.S. News and World Report had an article about the controversy over Obama's birth certificate (they don't agree with the accusations, just reporting on the situation), and the comments after the article were just completely ridiculous and infuriating. The amount of people that have questioned his ability to be loyal to America simply because he grew up in Indonesia.... oh man.

I just got annoyed again when a conservative Catholic blogger that I follow posted the video of the dancing wedding entrance that has gone viral and said it was absolutely the most sacrilegious wedding entrance ever. The following comments agreed and went on to discuss how absolutely horrible it was and how they'd never allow it in their children's weddings. I put in my brief comment to say - and it's so horrible because dancing is completely anti-God or anti-church? What about that dance was so irreverent? It was a wedding, they were still saying their vows... it was just an unconventional entrance! I don't know, I just do NOT understand the condemnation of it. They didn't condemn the dancing itself, they simply said it should have been left for the reception. I don't know - the wedding Jesus changed water into wine at most certainly had dancing... that's the way of Jewish weddings.

There was something else that annoyed me but I've already forgotten it in the face of the new annoyance.

Oh, but while I'm at this whining and complaining thing, I may as well say that I do understand the draw to the shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and I do occasionally watch them, but it still makes me mad to see love and marriage portrayed the way they are. The idea that two people would be making a wise decision to spend the rest of their lives together because they've dated for a few weeks (in a very non-real life situation, while also dating other guys) have slept together and are clearly very infatuated with each other..... is ridiculous AND unhealthy for the women that watch.

End rant.

Practical Christian Ministry

Moody Promotional Video from Mothlight Creative on Vimeo.

Some of the guys I went to Moody with created this video for the PCM (practical Christian ministry) department. The concept of requiring students to be out in the city actually ministering as the natural and necessary outworking of a theological education was what made me choose Moody. Once I got to Moody that at times became laughable, because of course sometimes the things people were doing were ridiculous, and sometimes the PCM office was ridiculous, and it could all become cliche, particularly in the eyes of college students struggling against the conservative rules of Moody.

I still struggle with those rules and with some of Moody's more rigid side, but I am still a huge fan of the concept behind PCMs. They really did change me. I worked in an after-school program with the children of homeless kids. I worked in the Puerto-Rican side of town tutoring hordes of absolutely adorable add inner-city kids. I walked the Magnificent Mile and talked to people about their faith and mine (couldn't quite get into street evangelism, but having conversations - that I can do). Those experiences changed me. I am unable to sit in church without being compelled to love on others in response.

Watching my brother with Downs Syndrome enter adolesence

Simply stated, I LOVE my brother Matt. He was born right after I turned 12, and I spent my teen years feeling like I was second mother to the little guy. Since we were in the remote city of Sentani, Indonesia, there was no prenatal testing and mom and dad didn't know Matt had Downs Syndrome until after he was born. For them, it was a huge adjustment to release the dreams and expectations they had for what Matt's life (and their life with him) would look like. For us kids, he was our brother, Downs Syndrome was a blurry concept that didn't bother us, and we were overjoyed to welcome him into our family.

From childhood

Of course, life had to adjust so that Matt could get the special care he needed. Mom learned how to do speech and physical therapy with him, and we all pitched in. The family came back to the US twice, partly so Matt could get the extra schooling and therapy he needed (still, I'm convinced no therapist has come even close to what my mom has taught him!). Yes, Matt grew up more slowly than other kids, but he is still pretty high functioning for a child with Downs Syndrome. He is active, inquisitive, imaginative, he's hilarious and sarcastic, loves to tell stories, and he's usually happy and LOVES to talk to people.

From childhood

Because of all of that, we have hardly ever felt like Matt was mistreated or ignored, even by other kids. He was mainstreamed in the public school for grade school, and even then the kids learned to accept and be friends with him, which was super cool to watch. Adults LOVED him. He was an adorable baby and such a likeable little boy, so everyone wanted to talk to him and get a hug from little Matt.

I loved spending time with Matt when I came home from college. My siblings said I spoiled him and they are probably right. He was so funny - he would disappear and reappear 15 minutes later in an entirely new outfit, sometimes a cowboy outfit, sometimes a tuxedo... so funny. He sings completely off key and is just so funny and endearing, and the stories go on and on, like when he had to get a shot and afterwards lifted his tear-stained eyes to the nurse and mournfully told her, "thank you". How could you not just want to hug that kid?

Basically, I LOVE Matt.

About a year ago Matt hit his growth spurt, and suddenly he's shot up, his voice has deepened, and he's got the body of an awkward teenager while developmentally he is still about five years or so behind his body. It's different for Matt now - adolescents scare people anyways, but an adolescent with Downs Syndrome people are particularly uneasy around. With the family back in the US for six months Matt will be back in public school. IT SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF ME. I can't imagine what 8th graders will be like to a kid with Downs Syndrome, even if he is friendly. In fact, maybe even MORE because he's friendly. For the first time, Matt is different and everyone is awkward about that, and that affects him, and then it affects all of us. It's tough.

He's a teenager. He's beginning to be moody like a teenager, and his growing awareness of how people perceive him combines with adolescent insecurities to make him much more easily frustrated with himself. My parents are confronted with the need to teach a little boy how to deal with an adolescent's changing body. It's... a tough stage. I ache for Matt and for my parents.

My parents are incredible. They have such patience in teaching lessons again and again. They have such vision - mom taught Matt to read this year, and she refuses to ever think that he can't learn something. They treat him with respect but discipline. They invest in him. Best of all, they laugh. That's my favorite thing about my family, our laughter. When I look back I realize that it's never been easy for my family, but because we had so much FUN and were so well loved, you would have thought we grew up the most privileged kids in the world.

So yeah. Matt's gonna be okay. He's a strong little guy (or not so little any more). He has a mind of his own, he is determined and stubborn and loving and he is covered by the love and prayers of all of us. My parents are awesome, and they are working so hard to guide his growth in maturity and integrity as a young man... which is just crazy... how can little Matt be a young man? He is. But he's still my little brother.

From Summer 2009

Below is a video I took of him the day after we arrived overseas to spend Christmas with my family. It will probably take you a minute to understand him past his speech patterns.

In the above photo, the family was on vacation and all of us were spending hours reading. Matt was just starting to read, but he grabbed a Little House book and literally would spend 20 minutes at a time, studiously "reading" page by page.... with the book UPSIDE DOWN.

7 Quick Takes - Our Four Year Anniversary

--1--
It's our anniversary! Or, it was yesterday, and today is the day we're celebrating. Four years of marriage and nearly seven as a couple , and I feel like I can really and truly sing with Brad Paisley, "Stronger then it's ever been..We've come so far since that day..and I thought I loved you then... but now you're my whole life... What I can't see is how I'm ever gonna love you more... But I've said that before..."





--2--
I made a Starbucks run so that I could present my groom with an iced mocha for our anniversary morning, and I was greeted with the radio playing Christmas songs! Apparently 103.7 Lite FM is having Christmas in July today, and it is absolutely impossible to not be cheerful while "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas is playing".... at least, not until it's been playing for three weeks and you're trying to make your way through the mad December shopping crowds! In any case, Merry Christmas in July. :)

--3--

I just finished the book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. I wrote my review here, on my media review blog. It was really stunning (the book, not the review). Considering I picked it up because it won a Pulitzer and rave reviews from the media, I was shocked to find it a boldly Christian, quietly beautiful, and theologically intelligent book. It was funny to read blog reviews afterwards. Most people don't know what to do with it - they don't like it because they dislike the uncompromisingly Christian world-view (or perhaps the fact that it's a very reminiscing and non-plot driven book), but they begrudgingly recognize the beauty of the writing. Have any of you read it? Thoughts?

--4--
Last week I put up a plea on facebook and twitter for opinions and book referrals on the topic of vocation. When I say "vocation" I do not mean it as we often take it to mean to day, which is synonymous with "career". I mean it in it's literal and historical sense, meaning "calling". I was going to talk about it with our community group and have wondered about it for a long time as I struggled with deciding what to do with my life. Do we each have something in particular that we are "called" to do with our lives that we have to discern? If so, how to we discern it, and if not, what provides direction to our lives and careers? I did a lot of reading and research on it through some of the reformers and some modern perspectives, and it was really good. I've got to transfer my notes to my theology blog, and it'll go up next week.

--5--
Matthew Paul Turner wrote the book Churched, which is a bitingly humorous look at growing up in a fundamentalist Baptist church. It's so ridiculous that it's rather painful to read. In any case, he has a blog, which may be too sarcastic for some people (it can be a little irreverent, but he uses his sarcasm to target the excesses of the evangelical world, which I can't complain about). This week he announced that he's actually going to have a sex therapist guest blog for him, and he asked for anonymous questions about sex. It's pretty interesting to see the comments and questions come it... and to be honest it's refreshing to see people talk honestly.

--6--

Ahh! I love So You Think You Can Dance! This week there was a pretty incredible dance that was meant to symbolize the struggle with breast cancer. Every one of the judges was in tears, and it really was rather raw and beautiful. HOWEVER, it got the two dancers through another week, which meant that one of the three much more talented female dancers got kicked off. Jeanette is gone. Tragedy. In other media news, I put up my reviews of Before Sunrise, Changeling, and Bride Wars. Before Sunrise was on a list of the best romance movies of all time, and I'd never heard of it before. It was really interesting.

--7--

I love my family. I've been uploading videos from Christmas overseas, including a video from our Christmas cookie decorating day. I love the hilarious Chipmunks music in the background, the fact that we are having real chai with our Christmas cookies (we had it ever day over there!) that Matt is singing off-key in the background, and mostly that we are all together. I have more videos to come, except they are less family and more - "woah I can't believe I'm actually experiencing this, I've never been in a culture like this before!"

Visit Conversion Diary to view more 7 Quick Takes!

antiquated dogmas

What do you think of this quote from GK Chesterton?

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.

It was posted on a blog I follow - one of an increasing number of blogs by Catholics, particularly newly converted Catholics from atheistic or evangelical backgrounds. She found the quote on the facebook page of Francis Beckwith, who stunned the evangelical world by converting to Catholicism while he was the President of the Evangelical Theological Society a couple of years back. He doesn't think evangelicalism and Catholicism are mutually exclusive, and his conversion has led me on a journey to understand Roman Catholicism. I now have immense respect for the RC Church.

Family Visit!

Last week my family came back to the US after two years overseas, and they spent their first weekend here in Dallas with us. I wrote a lot about the goodbyes I was watching my sisters were going through, leaving a place they'd learned to love. It was SO GOOD to have them HERE. To hug them goodnight for real instead of just sending it over skype across continents

It's strange being the oldest sometimes. I'm 10 years older than my sister:

From Summer 2009

and 12 years older than my brother (who his goofing off for Isaac):

From Summer 2009

My memories of my family growing up includes little kids running around while I was packing bags for college. So now here I am at 26, watching my sisters go through the same things. I feel like I'm halfway between a sister and a mom, and the roll is strange. I was a little too old to fight with, but certainly not too old to boss them around. I was their hero in some ways, the big sister in high school and college, made way cooler in their minds than I really was. On the other hand, I was just a kid myself, really, and an awfully insensitive one at that.

So you know, having my growing and grown up siblings around is SOO good, because we're constantly playing catch up and building friendships as equals, as sisters that tease and talk and hug and KNOW that we love each other. I LOVE my family. Passionately. I consider it my charge to love them in whatever way I can - to support them, cheer them on, and sometimes just weep with them.

It was cool for them to see our lives here in Dallas, since they've been overseas since we moved here. Here's Mom and Dad and Matt as Isaac gives them a tour of his seminary and Matt attempts to find their last hometown on the globe:

From Summer 2009

And... my friend Emily who came and lived with us in Indonesia for the last semester before Em and I graduated from high school came over from Fort Worth. We looked at wedding pictures, caught up on lives, and watched old home videos from overseas. It was so fun to watch them with people that think they are as hilarious as I do! I just love that the boundaries of my family expanded to bring in a number of our friends who call my parents surrogate parents and my parents are glad to call them surrogate children. My parents are pretty much amazing...

From Summer 2009

And there's Matt. I'm going to write more about him later because it's been tough to watch him struggle as he enters adolescence. It's tough on everyone. Luckily.. .it's a stage. Matt and Isaac were together the whole weekend - Matt thinks Isaac is the height of coolness.

From Summer 2009

And me? I just love my little brother, and I love that he loves to goof around and have fun.

From Summer 2009

And... here's a tiny snippet of a video of the entire family together making Christmas cookies overseas in December.

Meeting a Refugee Family

This week I am meeting a new refugee family, and it is AWESOME. I thought I'd post what I wrote on my old blog last year when I met the first refugee family that I mentored.



Meeting My Refugee Family - March 2008
So... today the volunteer coordinator drove me over to meet the family that I’m matched with. From now on I’ll meet with them once a week. Well, turns out they are in the SAME apartment complex as the Karen (a people group from Burma. I found out there were thousands of them in Dallas and wrote about it here). The family that I'm paired with are also from Burma, but they are from the Chin ethnic minority. It’s a young couple probably in their late 20’s named Chan and Tum. They have a little girl named Van, who is four (a year later I can tell you we had her name wrong and she was actually three). We walked into their sparsely furnished but totally comfortable one bedroom apartment and greeted them in halting English, with smiles and awkward silences all around.

Then….. an epiphany. Unlike the Karen, who have been in camps in Thailand, most of the Chin were sent to refugee camps in Malaysia. We check with Chan, and he confirms, they were in Malaysia. I ask – do you speak Malay? He does, she doesn’t.

On the outside, I stayed calm, but on the inside I was FREAKING OUT. Immediately Chan and I entered into a 20 minute conversation in Indonesian/Malay. Some words are different, so it’s still an awkward communication, but … we’re speaking the same language! And… it’s Indonesian!

When I left the meeting that night I could barely restrain my total jubilation. When I finally got off the train and walked alone through the night to my apartment, I started praying aloud and found myself laughing and crying at once, and feeling the distinct sense that God was laughing at me the way I laughed at Isaac’s total astonishment when he opened the ipod I surprised him with for Christmas. It’s laughter brought on by astonished response to a surprise gift. Because while I’m getting involved in this to meet a great need on the part of these refugees…. Suddenly I find someone who speaks my language.

That is so huge to me. No one around me in the US knows Indonesian or understands the culture. There are few immigrants and no refugees from Indonesia. It’s next to impossible to find an Indonesian restaurant. So while I can talk about being an mk and people get that, the parts of the Indonesian culture that are a part of me (I was raised there… in some ways it’s just as much a part of me as America and English are!) are never used, never recognized. When we went to Indonesia last summer the most striking emotion was the huge sense of relief at being back in the Indonesian culture. All of the tiny below-the-surface cultural things that no one would recognize were INCREDIBLY familiar and comforting to me, even before we ever got to the island I call home. I felt like I could relax in a way I have never been able to in the US.

And so I cried and laughed my way home at the sheer joy of this surprise gift of Indonesian/Malay.

And at the same time I cried out for this family and the other refugees like them. As soon as Chan had realized that we could communicate, he asked me to translate for him to the refugee coordinator. I did, and it was heartbreaking. For a month after a refugee arrives, all bills are paid for them. After that, they receive some compensation for four more months. Well, Chan got a job pretty early on, after having been here for two months. Once he had a job, the government cut his food stamp allowance in half. Next month he will have to begin paying for their apartment.

He makes $1000 a month.

He said that he doesn’t have enough to feed little Van, who was sitting quietly at the table writing the abc’s . He said that he’s sending home money to “mama dan papa di kampung” (his parents in their village). He finished by brokenly saying, “Kami miskin” (we are poor).

_________________________________

There is plenty more to that story that I need to tell. I met with them regularly for about 6 months. We went to see the 4th of July fireworks and we visited the mall. We worked together on English (but abandoned that quickly), we filled out lots of paperwork, fought with Medicaid together, I served as a translator at little Van's surgery (quite an experience), and accompanied Tum at her request to Planned Parenthood (an even scarier experience). It has been quite a ride. I'll have to write about it and what it's like to be a mentor for a refugee family, but only after I write about what it's like to meet the new refugee family this week!

the story of my wedding dress

I sold my wedding dress when we moved into this new apartment and tried to downsize to fit into a smaller space. Most of the few people I've mentioned this to have gasped at this sacrilege, and I understand that reaction. Wedding dresses are the symbol that women carry of the day they made a lifetime commitment of love. It becomes an heirloom, and little girls try them on in front of mirrors for Norman Rockwell-like photos.

Well, I think that my love for Normal Rockwell and sentimental country music stands in for my own lack of American traditions, because I just couldn't justify keeping the dress. I mean, we are global nomads, and who knows if we'll ever own a house, and there is just not enough space in little apartments to store a big dress. I love the story of my dress far more then I loved the dress itself, and I figure my daughters will never wear it because there's no way it will stay in style. I wore my mom's veil, and that is an heirloom that will be passed down through the family and take up MUCH less room then a wedding dress!

So... in memorium... the dress:



I got my dress on ebay. I did briefly go dress shopping with mom, but the Mecca of affordable (by American standards) wedding dresses is Davids Bridal, and I pretty much hated all of their dresses. I have absolutely no shame when it comes to bargains (actually, I'm rather proud of my cheapness), so I immediately began hunting at thrift stores, ebay, and craigslist.

When I found this dress on ebay, loved the detailed lace design that sweeps the bottom and creates sheer cap sleeves. Bidding on a wedding dress I'd fallen in love with was the ultimate in nerve-wracking bidding! My family watched from Denver while sat in front of my laptop in my dorm room in Chicago, bidding up and bidding up, desperately trying to outdo the opposing bidder. My last bid was one MINUTE before it expired, and I got frantic phone calls from my parents saying, "DID YOU GET IT??"

It was SO MUCH FUN - a family affair! I got it for $200, and it matched my mom's long veil that she wore in her wedding.

Of course, it was my attire on the day Isaac and I got married. I felt like a princess, but a Papuan princess who walked around barefoot and soiled the bottom of the dress. :) That's just me. The dress, and the story of the dress... they're just me.

There's another reason I love my wedding dress - this photo:


That's my college friend Mandy. She did all the hemming and adjustments on the dress, including taking out the zipper and creating a beautiful lace-up back. She was there on the morning of the wedding, sitting on the couch with her skilled hands, sewing in last-minute adjustments.

I'm so thankful for this picture, so thankful for Mandy doing that for me, and for the memory of her presence on my special day. Mandy died three years later, days before her boyfriend was going to propose. I mourn her loss, and although we know that there is no loss for Mandy, it is certainly painful from this side of heaven to see the loss of Mandy's story of engagement and marriage.

So yeah. I loved my dress, but I didn't need to keep it. I have the story, and that's what will last.

Oh, Oh, the Places I Go

As I've looked for photos for other posts over the last couple of weeks, I've seen old photos of places I've been and have been astounded all over again at the places I've seen. This first photo is of me and classmates in high school, dancing with the villagers during a school trip. We danced for hours and it was incredible.


My friend Max Grubb (or rather, my sister's friend), took these photos of a Papuan ceremony, and I'm reminded that I'm incredibly lucky to have seen and grown up around a culture as unique as this:








AND... not only is the culture unique, the island is BEAUTIFUL.




I saw this photo and thought.. WOW... how surreal is the countryside behind me? This is on a work trip Isaac and I took to Cyprus, where we led a youth program and took two days to tour ancient Greek ruins... it was AMAZING.


And then... my in-laws and one of my best friends live in England, so I get to do things like this, and step right over the Prime Meridian:


or see the Houses of Parliament on a weekend trip:

And my crazy family lives in crazy places overseas, which means at Christmas we all gathered here in Lahore, Pakistan:

We attended a wedding, and this photo is in a dusty corner of a biblical-looking village courtyard where my sisters and I attended a bride's henna ceremony. The intensity of the whole thing led me to nearly hold my breath in disbelief the entire time - I couldn't believe I was actually experiencing what I was experiencing!






It was some INCREDIBLE, once in a lifetime sightseeing. And we spent several days in a crumbling beach house hunting for sea turtles and riding camels.




And I LIVED here, in the beautiful city of Chicago, for six years. I took this photo myself on a frigid winter night, in an attempt to capture the view I'd fallen in love with.





My family's American home is Denver, Colorado, which means trips to the Rocky Mountains, which is in my opinion the geographical highlight of the USA.





I'm not going anywhere this summer (most likely), and I'm okay with that, because I am lucky beyond my wildest dreams to have gone the places I've been to in the past!

America's Future: California v Texas

I love the Economist. It feels like it's more removed from the American culture wars of liberals vs. conservatives because it comes out of Britain. It is socially more liberal but pretty firmly economically conservative, which I love. In general, it's fresh and fantastic reporting.

I was fascinated to see this week's headline article titled "America's Future: California vs. Texas" which a picture of a sad looking potbellied surfer with a cracked surfboard labeled 'Golden State' looking enviously at a muscular cowboy running headlong towards the beach carrying a shiny Lone Star seado.

Texas is fascinating to me. Coming down here from Chicago was definite culture shock - I hadn't realized how dramatically different the culture of cosmopolitan, liberal Chicago would be from fiercely independent, mostly conservative and evangelical Texas. I view Texas with humor, mostly, because as a whole this place is so quirky, as the Economist editorial points out:

California and Texas, the nation’s two biggest states, are the twin poles of the West, but very different ones. For most of the 20th century the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood has been the brainier, sexier, trendier of the two: its suburbs and freeways, its fads and foibles, its marvellous miscegenation have spread around the world. Texas, once a part of the Confederacy, has trailed behind: its cliché has been a conservative Christian in cowboy boots, much like a certain recent president. But twins can change places. Is that happening now?

Everyone knows California is in bad shape at the moment, but it is stunning to me to read how well Texas is doing, due in part to the small government model (and here all the Republican and Independents cheer). In contrast to California being ranked by Chief Executive magazine as the worst place to do business at the moment, Texas is the very best. We have lower recession rate than the national average and a very low rate of housing repossession compared to the rest of the country. We have NO capital gains tax and NO income tax (which completely shocked me when we first moved here and I tried to fill out my state taxes). In 2003 we eliminated our deficit - how often are states or countries totally without debt? Props to Texas. We even have a "savings" of some sort, called a "rainy day fund" taken from taxes on oil and gas companies and only accessible by a 2/3 vote from both houses of the state legislature. We are business friendly with our taxes, and therefore are home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state. We have a fairly open policy towards immigration (at least officially - unofficially the picture may be different).

BUT... and there's always a but... we have a our problems. Education is a huge one - would you believe that the Dallas Independent School district passed legislation last year that will not allow teachers to fail students? Ridiculous. We only have ONE top 20 university in this massive state, and it is small and private. The state high school drop out rate is extremely high and the rate of spending per pupil is incredibly low. The biggest problem is among Hispanics - they have a high dropout rate and because of immigration and high population growth, within 10 years they will make up the majority of Texans. Without a reversal in the education level of Hispanics, the majority of the next generation of Texans will be very poorly educated.

Interestingly, despite Texas being a big red state known for being fiercely conservative, the Hispanic population is mostly Democrat and will soon be the majority. Unless there is a party shift among Hispanics or a shift in immigration levels, Texas will be a solidly Democratic, liberal-leaning state in just a few years. Unless there is an ideological change in the Democratic party (which isn't unprecedented), this means that Texas will actually follow the same path California has taken and move from being a big, wealthy, business-friendly state to a state burdened by bureaucratic spending and soon bankrupted by supporting the mostly under-educated population. The Economist describes this possibility:

Despite all this, it still seems too early to cede America’s future to the Lone Star state. To begin with, that lean Texan model has its own problems. It has not invested enough in education, and many experts rightly worry about a “lost generation” of mostly Hispanic Texans with insufficient skills for the demands of the knowledge economy. Now immigration is likely to reconvert Texas from Republican red to Democratic blue; Latinos may justly demand a bigger, more “Californian” state to educate them and provide them with decent health care. But Texas could then end up with the same over-empowered public-sector unions who have helped wreck government in California.

I would tentatively say that Texas needs to work on their education system, and fast. If they can boost education and direct the flow of educated graduates into jobs and innovative businesses, it's very likely that even a Hispanic-dominated population could remain fiscally conservative. The future of Texas is wide open - I'm fascinated by what could happen. As the Economist concludes:

The truth is that both states could learn from each other. Texas still lacks California’s great universities and lags in terms of culture. California could adopt not just Texas’s leaner state, but also its more bipartisan approach to politics and its more welcoming attitude towards Mexico. There is no perfect model of government: it is America’s genius to have 50 public-policy laboratories competing to find out what works best—just as it is the relentless competition of clever new firms from Portland to Pittsburgh that will pull the country out of its current gloom. But, to give Texas some credit and serve as a warning to Mr Schwarzenegger’s heir, at this moment America’s two most futuristic states look a lot more like equals than ever before.

View the Economist's "Special Report on Texas"

When negative situations have positive results

I was thinking about this today when someone I work with came back from North Africa and told about meeting someone that said that Christianity is exploding through underground house churches in Iran, and it didn't surprise me one bit. Generally the Church grows incredibly each time a government cracks down on it. It happened in Rome. It happened in China. It's happening in Cuba.

I read a statement by a house Church leader in China who was responding to the prayers of Western Christians that Communist China would fall and Christians would stop being persecuted. The leader said that he never prays for this, because when resistance to the Church stops, the Church will grow decadent and lethargic.

Funny. What we see as bad in these countries has ultimately been good.

I have a harder time transferring this mentality into my own life. When I moved to Dallas, it only took a few months for me to feel deeply, painfully lonely. It was a long hard road for over a year... probably more like a year and a half. I could identify what was wrong - lack of relationships, lack of community, lack of a mode of transportation, being in an unfamiliar place, being in a new culture, etc.. etc. All in all, it amounted to a bad situation for me.

But ultimately, it wasn't bad. It was hard, but not bad. It meant stripping away everything so that for a year, I had little more then me, Isaac, and a lot of time to think... and ultimately that led me to pray, to read, to cry out to God, to examine my faith, and to understand that hope, contentment, and home lie only in Him.

It may not be the way I would have chosen
as You lead me through a world that's not my home
but You never said it would be easy
You only said I'd never go alone
... I will walk through the valley if You want me to

There are some other things I think of as negative. I think it's really tough to feel useless while I wait for Isaac to finish His schooling, but at the same time I'm learning that my identity shouldn't be drawn from the significance of WHAT I DO.

It's tough to not be near the people I grew up with, or my family, but at the same time this new place is forcing me to face the walls I've built up around my heart. I'm having to take tiny aching steps to re-learn how to grow friendships and learn to love people, and how to just be myself around people instead of faking friendliness, you know? Those are things I REALLY need to learn.

So I think... a lot of the time.... what I think is bad... is actually good... and I just haven't figured it out yet.

Thickest, Richest, Darkest Chocolate Dessert EVER

I have an intern working for me this summer. She's fantastic. She also turned out to be the maker of a flourless chocolate cake dessert that has turned up on the office free-for-all table.

IT WAS THE BEST CHOCOLATE DESSERT I'VE EVER HAD.

I had to email out to the whole office to try to track down the baker and the recipe so I could make it in the future. It is, of course, absolutely terrible for you. It's also only suited for those who like dark, dark, almost bitter chocolate things (like me). The upside is that because it is SO dark, you only have to eat a little square or two of it to be satisfied.

So... if your tastes are like mine and you love rich, dark, creamy chocolate desserts, give this one a whirl:

Triple Chocolate Truffle Cake (from Ghirardelli)
The grand prize winner in Ghirardelli's contest, created by Gig Burton of New Jersey

•3 cups Ghirardelli Semisweet Chocolate Chips
•1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
•8 large eggs, chilled
•1/4 teaspoon salt
•1/2 cup heavy cream
•1 cup Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Chips
•2 ounces Ghirardelli White Chocolate baking bar, chilled

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Arrange a rack in center of oven. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 by 2 inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

In the top of a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, melt the semi-sweet chocolate chips and butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl with an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, whip the eggs and salt on medium speed until doubled in volume, about 5 minutes. Gently fold the whipped eggs, a third at a time, into the melted chocolate. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Prepare a water bath for the cake by placing the cake pan in a larger pan and filling the large pan halfway up the sides of the cake pan with hot, but not boiling water.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and is set in the center. Remove the pan from the water bath to a cooling rack and cool the cake completely in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. To remove the cake from the pan, dip the pan in warm water halfway up the sides and run a thin metal spatula around the inside of the pan. Invert onto a plate to unmold and remove the parchment paper.

To prepare the ganache, bring the heavy cream to a simmer in a small saucepan over low heat. Pour the heated cream over the milk chocolate chips. Stir gently until smooth and allow to cool slightly. When the ganache is still warm to the touch, pour over the top of cake and spread with an offset spatula to evenly cover. There will be some ganache left over.

Chill the cake until the ganache sets, about 30 minutes. To garnish, grate the white chocolate bar on top of cake.

Makes 8 to 12 servings .

Summer of 2009 Fun!

Independence Day celebrations stretched out nearly two weeks for us!

- Celebrate Freedom, a massive free outdoor concert that was BRUTALLY hot, but most importantly we met Linda and Bill there! So good to chat, even if it was just for a little while.

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

- Community Group Party! We swam, played games, talked for ages, had a group dinner, and it was generally fantastic to hang out.

From Summer 2009

- KaBoom Town, which is a massive fireworks display.

We began the evening by finding a parking spot blocks away, right next to a Texas truck with this bumper sticker.

From Summer 2009

After I was finished rolling my eyes, we sat down and enjoyed our Sonic chili dogs, Corona, ice cream, and random planes flying around.

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

I fell completely in love with this adorable Indian family next to us, including this cute little girl.

From Summer 2009

- Grill and Fireworks with family
TM's house is fantastic for hosting, and we had a big group that enjoyed Baughan's hamburgers, our smores, games of wii and poker, and TM's fantastic lattes. We also saw somewhere over 20 different fireworks shows in the distance from TM's back porch with a view.

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

From Summer 2009

Yay for summer partying!