Kevin is a principal at an inner-city High School in Oakland, CA. His school facility can accommodate about 1,000 people but only 200 students attend because most of them have opted to transfer out of the district. Last week seven people were shot just outside the campus. One of those victims is a one-year old baby who was shot in the head but survived after being put on life support. Within this environment, Kevin and his teaching staff is attempting to have a positive impact on the kids and community. Let that sink in for a moment.

I asked Kevin if he had any experience working with Teach for America, a two-year program that allows people from any profession to teach and impact local schools. He shared this story:

 A few years ago I had four Teach for America teachers on staff. I thought it would be a good idea to take them on a walk around the neighborhood to understand the community better. While we were out, we witnessed a murder. Right there in front of us. That’s the sort of neighborhood we live and work in! They certainly got a first-hand view of the neighborhood! They were traumatized. Three of the four teachers stayed on to complete the year and one went home.

After hearing this story and after recovering from what I had just heard, I asked Kevin the question you’re wondering right now, “How do you do this job every day?!” His response was quick and clear, “I have faith in God. There’s no way I could do it any other way.” Actually, it was Kevin’s first year as a principal (now 6 years ago) that led him to be baptized and put his faith in Jesus. He said his faith is more about necessity than personal reward. Without it he could not do what he does. It’s the very same thing I’ve heard from friends serving the refugees in Burma. Faith in God is a necessity for life, itself, when it’s the only thing that gets you through the day.

As I drove back to the airport tonight, the radio in my rental car caught my attention. The newscast gave an update about a shooting that occurred in Oakland last week. The parents of a one-year old baby who had sustained head injuries decided to take the child off life support this afternoon. I thought about Kevin and his community, the school and what these parents must be going through. So devastating and senseless. But this is not rare in Oakland, CA.

Kevin, if you read this post, I want you to know “You are the light of the world.” “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness will NOT overcome it.” Thanks for shining your light this afternoon, Kevin. Blessings to you as you shine in Oakland and inspire others, like me, to do the same.

-Russ

The question of origin can be a tricky one. The truth is that all of us pick some point in time and place for answering this question to make it quick and easy. These days I say I’m “from Colorado.” But most of my adult life has been spent in Arizona and I grew up in Texas. I could just simplify things and say I’m from the Southwest United States, I guess.

Today I was blessed to see a friend add a new piece to the puzzle of his place of origin. My friend was adopted from Korea back in 1971 by a kind American couple. By some turn of events he and I find ourselves in Korea this week on business, but we took time today to make a special trip about 1 hour outside of Seoul. What we found warms my heart.

We drove into Chunchon, Korea around 11am and made our way through the narrow, steep roads to a brightly colored two-story building What was once an orphanage is now a vibrant day care. The sound of laughing children was all around like a distant memory of the children that had lived in these buildings following the Korean War so many years ago. What we found there was much more than a building or a piece of property, we found a person who knew the history of this place. We met the son of the orphanage director from the 1960s and 70s. He was a little boy around the time my friend was there. This gentlemen proceeded to spend an hour showing us old yellowed photographs and handwritten records from the 70s that cataloged the arrival and departure of each child. Over 2,000 children had been placed for adoption through this facility from the 60s through 2006 when it closed. After an hour of research we found that my friend had spent four days there in 1971 before being placed with a foster family. There was the handwritten entry in the journal… his Korean name… his place of birth, all representing a precious piece of the “from puzzle.”

After over an hour of discussion, smiles, questions and realizations we prepared to leave. We prayed. We cried a little, too. We thanked God for providing this place for children and for our new friend from the orphanage who had taken the time to share his personal history with us. He said that several people stop by every year to learn about where they are from. As we prayed I realized that God didn’t lead us to a place today but to a person. What an unexpected surprise. God’s ways and plans are always a surprise, not because we’re stupid or not paying attention but because he is so much better than we will ever understand (at least not yet). I learned something new today about how good God really is and how He not only makes a place for us in the future… He makes a place for us in the past, too.

-Russ

As she turned to walk away she asked me, “Is your church mixed?”

I could feel a confused look come over my face. I asked, “You mean racially?”

She replied, “Yes. Are you mixed racially?”

I responded, “ABSOLUTELY we are. I’ll see you next week.”

Friends, there are some questions we should never need to ask. Whether a church is mixed racially is one of those questions. There was a day when Christians thought it was a good idea for races to remain separate during worship. There were a variety of reasons for this thinking. All of them were misguided. Jesus used a Samaritan as the main character of his stories when speaking to a Jewish audience for a reason. He was saying something. And He’s still saying it.

-Russ

Jesus

A husband who loves me, supports me and challenges me

A daughter who brings pure joy to our home

My daughter’s birthmom who chose to give her life and who loved her enough to make an excruciating choice in the hopes that she would have all that she needed and more

Good friends with whom I can celebrate Thanksgiving

Squeals of delight from three 2-year olds (who are seeming more like they’re 7 or 8 these days!)

Turkey bags

My washer and dryer (2 years of doing laundry at a laundry mat or at my in-laws’ when we were first married and 13 years later, I am STILL so thankful to have a washer and dryer in my house)

Parents and inlaws who love us and dote on our kid

All of the Lees and Debenports

Lifelong friends who are more like family than friends

My church home and a new faith tradition (new to me anyway) that I have learned to love and appreciate

The faith heritage in which I was raised and will always love and cherish

Our pets that also bring much joy to our home

The “thankful” list made by my 2-year old (that will be shared soon)

Clean water

Happy Thanksgiving dear friends!

Rebecca

]]> http://russandrebecca.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/thankful/feed/ 0 russandrebecca http://russandrebecca.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/california/ http://russandrebecca.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/california/#comments Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:50:28 +0000 rd http://russandrebecca.wordpress.com/?p=1170 ]]> I keep saying that I’m going to start blogging again … well, here goes another attempt.  I know it’s been a long time because I’ve returned to the WordPress dashboard and don’t recognize a thing!  Hmmm, hoping I can figure it out again.  So rather than go back and blog about all the other blog-worthy events that have happened in the past 6 months, I’ll just start from where we are now.  We just came out of a very busy time with lots of out of town visitors, several out of town trips as well as the regular busy-ness of life (including some short-term contract work I took on during the month of July).  Whew!  We are ready for some downtime!

The last of the whirlwind activity was a 6-day trip to southern California.  My cousin, Ginger, has been engaged for over a year and she asked shortly after getting engaged if Kate could be her flower girl.  When she asked, Kate was neither walking nor talking so we had a hard time imagining her walking down the aisle dropping flower petals!  Ginger knew that Kate would be just over 2 years old at the time of the wedding, so we made tentative plans for her to be the flower girl knowing that she could very well be having a bad day and it just might not work out.  But with tentative plans for her flower girl debut in the works, we decided to turn the wedding trip into a little vacation for our family.

Day 1: We had an EARLY (6am) flight out of Colorado Springs to LA.  Although it’s a pain to get up so early, Kate usually sleeps on these flights which makes life easier for everyone, so that was what we were planning on.  We should know better than to make plans though, right?  She fell asleep about 10 minutes before we landed.  And I should add that Kate had been on 24 flights in her short two years of life up until this point (which means 24 flights of sitting on our laps).  This was her 25th flight and her first time to have her very own seat … but guess where she ended up sitting for most of the flight??  That’s right, on my lap.  No matter … we made it to LA safe and sound and made our way to our hotel in Anaheim – stopping off for some Mickey Mouse pancakes at Mimi’s first of course.  After too short of a nap, Kate was ready to go swimming and wait for Yeh Yeh and NaNau’s arrival.

Mickey Mouse pancakes at Mimi's

Day 2: Disneyland!!  I grew up going to Disneyland and was excited to take Kate for the first time.  When we were pondering whether or not we should take her, some friends wisely advised … “Just take her!”  And I’m so glad they gave us that advice.  I really don’t believe anyone is too young to go to Disney.   She loved it!  We started introducing her to Mickey Mouse a couple months ago and she was well-acquainted with him by the time this trip came around.  She also had learned about all his compadres by watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse just a couple times.  For some reason, she’s a big fan of Goofy.  I really thought she’d only want to see the characters from a distance and not get too close but she proved me wrong on that one!  So after spotting Pluto and requesting to stand in line to meet him, she kept her eye out for the other characters as well.  We lucked out and saw Mickey coming off of his break so we were able to meet him in person without too long of a wait.  While she was waiting for Mickey, she spotted Dale (don’t ask me why she thought it was Dale and not Chip) and was ready to make a bee-line to give him a high-five and fist bump.  I was surprised she was so eager to meet the characters and wasn’t scared of them.  (She didn’t quite know what to make of Cruella DeVille though.)  I am thankful that she is not yet in a “princess” stage so we didn’t have to go searching for Cinderella, Snow White, Belle or any of the others.  She enjoyed the carousel, Dumbo and absolutely loved It’s a Small World.  It was a great day for her and we enjoyed getting to see it through her eyes.  (I think this is the first time I’ve gone to Disneyland and NOT gone on the Matterhorn, Space Mountain or Indiana Jones!)

Kate is ready for a big day at Disney!

Such a fun day!

Day 3: We made a stop in Chinatown for some dim sum before heading up to Santa Barbara for the wedding festivities.  Kate has been a fan of dim sum since she started eating and can order some of it herself in Cantonese!  She will usually ask to eat whatever she sees on the table – this time that included jelly fish and whole prawns (eyeballs and all).  I’m very proud of my adventurous eater!   We made it up to SB barely in time for the rehearsal.  I should say that I had been very skeptical that Kate would actually walk down the aisle by herself.  Ginger wanted me to escort her (which I agreed was a good idea), but I had the feeling that she’d just want me to carry her down the aisle rather than walk between lots of strangers.  We started practicing at home a few days before this trip and she had mainly thrown the flower petals all over the place and then ran across the house.  So we really weren’t sure what she’d do.  Well, she surprised us all and walked herself right down the aisle not at all concerned about where I was.  (Of course, there wasn’t anyone in the chairs the night of the rehearsal.)  Only issue we had was that she really wanted to pick up the flower petals after dropping them and threw a fit about having to leave them on the ground.

Kate goes for the whole prawn!

Day 4: Wedding day!  We had to be at the chapel at 4pm which is prime napping time for Kate, so the morning consisted of tiring Kate out with the hopes that she’d take an early nap.  We walked through downtown Carpenteria (which was a lovely town) and headed to the beach.  It was actually pretty cool that day and not at all beach weather, but she was still happy to sit and play in the sand.  The early nap plan worked and we made it by 4 with a happy girl in tow.  The wedding was beautiful and Kate did a GREAT job … so much better than any of us expected.  She didn’t need me to escort her at all (I don’t think she hardly noticed that I was behind her).  She walked confidently down the aisle (I did have to remind her to drop the flower petals … we had not practiced with real flower petals, so I think she was more interested in feeling how soft they are).  But with a little reminder, she did begin to drop them.  She dropped 2 or 3 in the actual aisle and then dumped all the rest of them at the front.  But we were so proud of her and could not believe that she did such a great job at such a young age!  The only thing she did not do was pose for pictures (which was no surprise) so all we have are candid shots.

Kate flower girl debut

Day 5: After breakfast at a fun local diner with my parents and aunt, we headed down the coast towards Malibu and back to LA.  Of course, we had to stop at one of our favorite eating spots – Malibu Seafood – for some steamed shrimp for me and fish & chips for Russ.  (Kate opted for the fried shrimp.)

aka The Fish Shack

Day 6: We headed to the Santa Monica Pier and beach.  We’ve been to our share of beautiful beaches and Santa Monica isn’t exactly what one would describe as “beautiful” by any stretch of the imagination … but it is still fun and there is some great people-watching to be done there!  Kate enjoyed playing in the sand and even got in the freezing cold water up to her thighs.  She also enjoyed the playground and gymnastics equipment that is set up there.  In typical Santa Monica beach fashion, we had hot dogs and lemonade for lunch topped off with strawberry shakes from our favorite shake shop that we discovered on our first trip to Santa Monica back in 1999.  We roamed around the Pier a bit and let Kate ride on yet another carousel (although I think this one is pretty famous dating back to 1922).  She wasn’t tall enough for the ferris wheel unfortunately, but she was pretty much done by that point anyway so we headed home.

Day 7:  We were up bright and early for an early flight back to Colorado.  We actually missed our flight (very first time for either of us to miss a flight), but thankfully they got us on another one just an hour later which gave us time for a stop for hot chai.   And this time, Kate stayed in her seat and slept the whole way home.

We had a wonderful vacation and were so thankful to be able to celebrate David and Ginger’s wedding day.  Kate is now a veteran flower girl and is available for any future gigs.   One thing I have learned about vacationing with a kid … I am ALWAYS ready to come home!

As political parties point fingers and the media makes revenue from their 24-hour coverage, how will the Christian community respond? How will I respond? What ethic of Jesus can guide us? I believe Romans 12:21 sums it up better than any other:

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Good is greater than evil. There is no middle ground on this, friends. Either you believe this or you don’t. No truth more clearly describes the life and death of Jesus than this; a simple, earth-shattering statement in the middle of Paul’s epic letter to those living under the brutal rule of the Roman Empire.  Hear Paul’s message again. Jesus does not lead us to brashly jump into heated political debates and name-calling, that’s a defensive posture. Jesus was never defensive. He was too good to be defensive… or to put it more clearly, his goodness was too good to be threatened. Instead, Jesus brought a goodness to bear that outshines the darkness, that is more true than the lies of hate, that is more lovely than the violence of retaliation. Brothers and sisters, that’s “who is in you” and this is why we respond with goodness and love.

-Russ

Kate's chubby self on New Year's Day 2010

First trip abroad as a family of 3!

Kate and our Compassion-sponsored child, Tawan, in Chiang Mai

Kate's adoption is final!

Rebecca goes snowshoeing

Russ goes to Amsterdam, Switzerland and Austria. (that's our friend Philippe with Russ, he runs Compassion Suisse)

Kate's first time to the beach (Malibu, CA)

Reuniting with Arizona BFF, Lola

Kate keeps getting cuter and cuter

Family trip to Florida

Kate turns 1!

Enjoying a weekend in Breckenridge with my parents

One crazy castle!

Uncle Paul comes to visit!

Annual Girls' Weekend (with my mom and aunt ... looking forward to hopefully adding my cousin next year)

Kate celebrates her first birthday in Texas with Russ' side of the family

We get together with Kai and his parents every few months ... I love this one of Russ and Kai

Having fun at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Kate gets to meet her Singapore family (here she is with Uncle Ximin)

Christmas in Texas (Kate was napping so she didn't make it in the family photo)

Christmas Eve at home

Christmas morning

Kate with NaNau and Yeh Yeh

Happy 2011 everyone!

-Rebecca

So for no particular reason, I will write about Kate and food.  Thrilling, huh?  Actually, for me it is quite interesting.  I’ve taken a liking to “food” blogs, specifically food for kids.  I feel strongly that Kate should eat as healthy as possible and that if we don’t introduce the sugary, processed junk to her that perhaps she won’t develop a taste for it (or at least she will develop a taste a bit later than most).  When she was being introduced to solid food, everything was all-natural, usually organic and always homemade (except when we were traveling somewhere I couldn’t cart around frozen cubes of puree and a cooler).  I took a lot of pleasure in shopping for organic fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains.  I researched which food had which vitamins and tried to be sure she had a healthy variety.  Luckily, Kate was an eager participant and ate pretty much everything that was put in front of her.  She graduated from just fruits, veggies and grains and we began to include dairy, eggs, chicken, meat, fish and seafood (yes, I give my child seafood … the old “rule” of no shellfish before the age of 3 is no more).  But with that progression, she became more and more picky mainly about vegetables.  I was assured by my pediatrician at her 15-month appointment that this was completely normal and I could expect it to get worse and worse.  Lovely.  So as a solution to her pickyness and the necessity that she eat vegetables, I started making “green” smoothies with this little beauty.

They are DELICIOUS and so, so good for her (and for us).  They all have some sort of fruit that serves as a sweetener, but she is also getting a good serving of spinach, broccoli, cucumber, carrot, etc.  She loves them and I love knowing that she is drinking something that is chock full of vitamins with nothing artificial.

And then there is the issue of snacks.  Now that she is 17 months old, snacks are a big part of her day … especially when we’re out running errands or traveling.  Every toddler loves to have snacks, right?  The challenge for me is to find healthy snacks that are still edible.  I’m holding out on the goldfish and the animal cookies and trying to find snacks that a) aren’t messy, b) do not have ingredients that I cannot pronounce (in other words, made of ingredients that are actually FOOD), c) have at least 2g of dietary fiber per serving, and d) that she will eat.  I’ve definitely had some misses … the multi-grain flakes that I put in her snack cup along with her cheerios were a no-go.  I found them all picked out and on the back seat of the car when we got home from errands one day.  I don’t blame her really – they taste like cardboard.  But here are a couple items I’ve found that are a go:

I’m always on the lookout for tasty, healthy snacks to keep in the diaper bag, so if anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears.  Well, that was the big return of Rebecca to the blog.  I’m optimistic that I will be back frequently.  In the meantime, happy healthy snacking!

-Rebecca

-Russ

Last year the staff turnover at my school was 50%. This school is in one of the most diverse and economically disadvantage districts in the state [Colorado]. The majority of students live in one-parent families; many parents are or have been incarcerated. School is often the most constant thing in their lives. While I teach 125 students per semester, parents or guardians of only 22 students attended the recent parent/teacher conference – a mere 18%.

But… I believe I am yeast for the Kingdom of God.

As in many businesses, the bottom line in education has become performance. Our salaries are determined by our student’s achievements on specific tests. I suspect that many of my colleagues left last year because they couldn’t accept that their value as teachers were based on test scores. Why did I stay?

I tend to agree with St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”

My mission field is my school. I am yeast when I let the Muslim students gather in my computer lab during Ramadan, rather than have to go for lunch. I am yeast when Mark shares about his mom’s incarceration and I can pray for him and his mother, later. I am yeast when Zach talks about his disagreements with his probation officer and Cam shares of her struggles as a teenage mother. I am yeast when Brandon addresses the faculty and shares how he used to feel like a failure, but after Mrs. Wolf “adopted” him, his grades are soaring and he does not consider dropping out anymore. I am yeast when students gather in my class at 6:45am to catch their breath from whatever they experienced the night before. I am yeast when the salutatorian weeps on my shoulder in January when she finds out she is an undocumented illegal alien and the college opportunities evaporate.

Many attending this church may feel of less value because they have not gone to Rwanda, or Mexico or China to preach and teach. Have you considered whether the Lord has called you to be yeast right where you are? In fact, I want you to know that God has called you to be yeast right where you are.

I am not allowed to speak the gospel [in schools], but I can live it. We can all live it.

-Celeste Wolfaardt

Thanks, Celeste. I want to be like that good yeast that works its way into every aspect of our lives and communities. Thanks for giving some real examples of how the Kingdom of God is spreading in our community. Peace.

-Russ