My wife blessed me by making homemade tapioca pudding, laboring over the pot for an hour. This coming weekend, with all my four turning-adult kids home, we’ll go to a favorite Vietnamese restaurant for a bowl of noodles, comfort food that reminds us of our years in China. And we’ll eat frog legs (a joke about cake and ice cream from when our kids were small fry.) Such is the fun of a birthday around our home.

A friend, on hearing my age, proceeded to share how her mother had died at 57. And then went on to relate all the people she knew dying of cancer. Bless her heart, she’s beaten those odds and then some, a generation older than me and still in great health.

You never know about life. This past year, I’ve weathered my first hospital stay since I was born, a check up on the old ticker that proved merely a temporary scare. One son did the same trick and the other son made it through a year in Afghanistan unscathed. It’s been a year of financial ups and downs, more the latter. Vegetables were grown, holidays were celebrated, a daughter graduated from high school, and people were served.

Yesterday I took time to reflect on where life is headed. I noted that it never fails to delight – or disappoint. I reminded myself that the good life is not about one giant step or some magnificent achievement, but a thousand, zillion tiny, almost imperceptible decisions to do right. Life is less about where you go than how you get there.

So as I have tried to do for so many birthdays, I recommitted myself to loving God with my whole being and loving my neighbor as myself. Everything else is extra.

Robert serves in Afghanistan. His deployment continues until April when he returns to Fort Drum, NY. Having a son in the army hasn’t changed my thoughts about war, but it has made me much more sensitive to the needs and concerns of our veterans. How many of them have returned from this war or that, facing unique problems reentering the workforce, dealing with mental or physical health issues.

Lots of people talk about those serving in the military, how we should honor them, what we should do to support them, what we should do about them. I see all that more personally now than ever before. I have long been opposed to war and have written much about pacifism from a Pentecostal perspective. I am also very proud of my son and feel strongly about how we should respect and support those we send into harm’s way.

But I am also deeply concerned about how we treat our vets after they hang up the uniform. What good does it do to salute them on patriotic days and then ignore their concerns otherwise? You’d think this blog should be written on Veterans Day, but it’s not – and on purpose. Because this is not about honoring veterans on certain days. It’s about caring for the most vulnerable among us every day.

Some vets came back from ‘Nam or D-Day and are doing just fine, thank you. For others, however, there are physical or psychological or financial burdens that overwhelm the soul like a tsunami.

This morning I met with a certain vet. When he served some 60 years ago, he never saw action. His stint turned promotional due to his prowess on the basketball court. He’s one of our top supporters at the Northeast Emergency Food Program and for that he gets a standing monthly appointment with me. The time is good for both of us. He asked about Robert this morning, as he always does, and was glad to hear about the upcoming leave. He understands.

This afternoon I met with Barbara Stone, who manages the Shared Housing program, a sister program under the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. I’ve just been assigned a supervisory role for her and her program. My objective in this first meeting with Barbara was to catch a vision for the housing concerns of the working poor. I was thinking the housing program a good match with my portfolio at the emergency food and clothing program, but I wanted to hear her heart on the matter.

She talked about meeting special housing needs. Like our program that places homeless teenagers in homes. I had no idea there are 400 homeless teenagers in Beaverton secondary schools, kids who need a second home – or more accurately a real home – they can contract to live in.

Like our program that matches people who need help in their homes with people who need a home. She told me about an aging couple, one with dementia, and the person who exchanges helping with home care for a place to call home.

Like the dream she has to find housing for vets with vets who have room to spare. My ears perk up. I hear the statistic that a third of homeless men are veterans – and can only ask why? There are no easy answers, only necessary action.

It’s getting cold outside, now that it is December and this is Oregon. As people in need leave our food pantry, I wonder where they are headed. What we provide is food and clothing for the working poor and those who have some sort of kitchen or shelter at least. There are soup kitchens and shelters elsewhere in the city, but our canned good and frozen meat offerings require some ability to self-prepare. Even so, lots of our clients are as insecure in their housing as they are in their food.

Food, clothing and shelter. You can’t get much more basic than that. Returning home tonight, I prayed over our meal and gratefully thanked God for all three. God, I added silently, help me to treat each client like I’d want my own Robert to be treated. Amen.

Here it is the last of August and son and I are both doing great – while NEFP is going full speed ahead serving 40,000 people a year. With fall comes a return of Life Group on Thursday evenings, a part of our life in the Mosaic community. Back in the spring I resigned my volunteer work and service on the board of the Oregon Center for Christian Voices – a fine organization whose goals and values I still believe in, but for which I lack time and other resources to help.

Much of this year has meant looking after the needs of a family emerging from high school into the larger world – Robert, our oldest deployed to Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division; Stephen a junior at George Fox U went to nationals with his college debate team; Hope graduated from high school, spent a summer serving in Panama, and started as a freshman at GFU; and Hannah, beginning her junior year in high school, has taken over her sister’s old bedroom. Then there are the dog, two cats, the five laying hens, one part-time goldfish (okay, full-time as a goldfish, part-time with us) – and a garden filled with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, herbs, squashes, onions, lettuce, spinach, cukes, and tomatoes.

But, oh, how I long to get back to writing! I’ve started a new blog at http://hnkconnect.blogspot.com/ and put the old blog schedule in mothballs for a while, though you can still check out the archives on my website homepage at http://hnkconnect.com/. Word is spreading about my new book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom, out in paperback and soon to be out in e-book version. And I’m in the early stages on a couple other writing projects.

Last night, I reconnected with an old college roommate in town on business. We talked about priorities in life and agreed the essentials are few – something to the effect of love God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself. For too many people these days, the essentials are buried under a pile of discardables.

My kids joke about my 30+year friendships as if these were ancient artifacts in a souvenir shop in their hometown in Xi’an, China. Well, such friendships, old and new, are even more valuable. As Barry and I talked, I thought about that line from the movie Shadowlands (1993): “We read to know we are not alone.” Sometimes we write for the same reason.

I look through my March calendar and see a very busy month. “Busy” is a mixed bag of a term, useful for good or evil. What defines the value of busy-ness is its focus. So I look again at my month and search for its center.

In chapter three of Night Shift, I write of the roles to which God calls us. To fulfill His mission, we become altar builders, dreamers, advocates, worship leaders, and priest trainers.

I love to write – more books coming out, a monthly ezine, several blogs, an ebook version of Night Shift. And so much of this writing is advocacy work, worship leading and all about training priests, every bit of it in the name of extending blessing “wherever the curse is found.”

To sustain this writing habit of mine, I have a day job. Happens to be work with much the same passion, serving as I do as program manager for the Northeast Emergency Food Program (NEFP). Last year our staff, volunteers, support and supply network provided help to 1 in every 50 Portlanders – nearly 11,000 people who all together received over half a million pounds of food, plus thousands of articles of used clothing. It takes a lot of coordinating and fundraising to make all that happen – a lot of altar building, dreaming, advocating, leading and training. Between now and Easter we will have 3 major fundraising events (advocacy) to help us sustain our work through the coming months.

On March 14, I’m visiting my state senator and assemblyman as part of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s Interfaith Advocacy Day. NEFP is a direct service of EMO. In the face of necessary state budget cuts, we want to make sure the most vulnerable among us are not pushed to the side of the discussion.

That political advocacy also includes my role on the board of the Oregon Center for Christian Voices and as blogger on “Oregon Christian Voices.” Advocacy: speaking on behalf of those who have no voice – the poor, the homeless, the enslaved and trafficked, the sick, and the lost. To track what I’m tracking, go to the calendar page on my website.

Then there is the Life Group I co-lead with my wife, where a growing core of friends gather in our home each Thursday to study how we all can be agents of blessing. As part of the worship team I fiddle with on the third Sunday evening of each month, I play the role of worship leader at our church, Mosaic.

By far not least of my work is the co-role I share with my wife of providing and caring for our family. Our oldest, Robert, deploys to Afghanistan the end of this month. Stephen leads the International Justice Mission group at his college while pursuing a teaching degree in math. Child number three, a delightful daughter named Hope, turns 18 this month as she works hard to find scholarships for a college nursing degree. One by one they leave the nest, leaving Hannah who will remain home for two more years as she finishes high school. Hopefully, I’ve been a good priest trainer.

Times are tight all around. I see it in hundreds of faces every week at our food center. I see it among the faces of our 150 volunteers, people who come to serve others even as they themselves have needs. And that is the beauty of serving together in faith – we do it in community. Which is what a lot of our clients and volunteers are looking for when they walk through our door.

Like you no doubt, we’re stretching every penny, looking for more resources, asking God for each day’s bread. But as we do so, we realize we are far from alone. Not only in being aware that so many others are struggling, too, but also in being aware that such burdens are to be shared, something easily forgotten in our cutthroat world.

So, to get back to the original question, is there focus in this busy-ness, a focus beyond mere survival? Absolutely! It is the passion to live out what I believe about God – that He who is love incarnate has called us to love Him and our neighbor in return.

Each Sunday morning as Chris boarded the bus, she greeted LV, “How are you?” And he answered, “I’m alright.” But one week she heard a funny line and the following Sunday she was ready to use it. “No you’re not,” she smiled. “You’re only half right.” LV chuckled and drove on to church.

Days later he was steering his rig along the highway and, as he drove, her little line kept repeating over and over in his head to the rhythm of the tires on the road. You’re only half-right. You’re only half right. You’re only half right. And he realized that he was just as she had said. He’d never submitted his life to God.

Right then and there, LV pulled his truck over to the side of the highway, got out, knelt down on the ground and did just that.

Chris didn’t know it, but in her own sweet way, she had become an advocate. Advocacy is “any effort meant to lead to a change in attitude or position.” As I write in Night Shift: “When we build altars and dream God’s dreams, we come to perceive God’s vision for righteousness and justice in a given situation. That perception should lead us to action in bringing influence to bear so that change can and will occur.”

That is what Moses was doing when he commanded Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go. That’s what preachers like Billy Graham do in evangelism crusades when they invite people forward to commit their lives to Jesus. That’s what friends of mine are doing today and tomorrow at the state capitol as they press for just laws and funding to stop human trafficking and end hunger. That’s what Chris was doing the day she inadvertently shared a life-altering truth with LV.

All these people and many, many more are making efforts (concerted or solo) to lead to changes in attitudes and positions that will bring God’s justice and righteousness to bear in our world and time. They are advocates, one and all.

Spring in Oregon is the season for advocacy, what with our intensely short legislative sessions. The state budget is an absolute mess, no argument on that. While there are no easy solutions, some of us believe that justice for trafficked or hungry kids can’t wait. So we’ll be advocating through media like the blog, Oregon Christian Voices, and going down to the state capitol and connecting with our legislators as often as we can. As I’ll be doing this evening with mine.

And in the next ten weeks, we’ll be raising money to bless others. That is advocacy, just as much as going down to the state capitol or inviting a friend to church.

Emergency food is far from the whole solution, but it is a first and most critical step. We’ve seen the need up front and personal at our Northeast Emergency Food Program the past few months. People like Reya desperate for a job. People like little Randy hungry for food. People like elderly Mrs. Romanchuk struggling to survive. Lots of them in record numbers – 11,000 different individuals in 2010. So many of them, we struggle to keep our shelves stocked even as we give away half a million pounds of food each year.

So we are “spreading the net” at our first Annual Sustainers Breakfast on March 30. Two weeks later on April 9, Portland’s CROP Walk will benefit NEFP and again on April 23 the youth of this city will run four miles round trip between Beaumont Neighborhood and NEFP to benefit their needy neighbors.

Through these events and more, we are praying for:
1. 30 new sustaining partners
2. Churches and civic groups to fill our “Christmas Year Round” calendar with in-kind giving
3. 50 new volunteers
4. Cash offerings of $16,000
All to help us help others.

If you didn’t notice, I am advocating right now – asking you to help. At the very least, you can help by praying. And that, my friend, is far from least.

I’ll be posting updates on the progress on legislative bills on my website. If you want to join me in prayer, if you want to be alerted on legislative bills as they come up, or if you want to help by giving, send me a message on the contact form to the right.

I have always been puzzled that we allow our world to be defined by others - be those others Christians or whatever.  Someone else says the world is this way or that and we allow him or her to define boundaries of the discussion, if not the argument itself. 

For example, I "listen" to Facebook friends arguing about contemporary concerns along liberal-conservative lines.  Oh, they may add a wrinkle or two, such as libertarianism (be that in either the liberal or conservative form!), but essentially they are allowing others to define and confine their values, even if they are merely choosing the opposite, as if there were not a third, or fourth or umpteenth option.  I hear people talking about faith, and the same thing happens - we need labels and boundaries and camps, if only so that we feel safe in knowing where our friends and our enemies stand - who they really are being more optional.

I tend to rant against labels, realizing at the same time that such ranting is a waste of breath.  That labels are as human as upright walking.  After all, God did tell Adam to name (define) the animals.  But I will resist to my dying breath the impulse of others to categorize me so that they can feel free to excuse themselves from listening any further to what I have to say.  Which is what we tend to do with labels.  We like labels because they serve as a useful shortcut, a shortcut that saves us from the agony of having to hear someone else out. 

Which is why I like Jesus.  He never stops hearing me out - and he never forces me to wear a label.  He doesn't call me to be a Christian, not even a "Christ follower".  He simply calls me to follow him (emphasis on the action, not a label).

In fact, he himself resisted labels.  "Don't call me 'Lord,' rather do what I tell you to do."  In other words, labels can be meaningless, worse a form of lying.  Instead, he says, treat me as if I am your "Lord" and obey my words. 

We talked about this in our life group (sorry for the label) last night, reflecting on Jesus' question to his disciples in Luke 6:46.  Later I thought about a friend who has been starting to follow Jesus.  Someone asked me if that person was a Christian yet and I realized once again the need we have to label things.  This friend may call himself a Christian already, but so do most of his neighbors - 83% of Americans, according to recent polls.  (I don't think so, but I'm not going to let such self-labeling define my world.)  So why bother with whether my friend has the label?  More importantly, this friend is starting to listen to Jesus' words and to live them out.  That is label enough for me - and, methinks, for Jesus, too.

Care to explore further the umpteenth option in all the discussions swirling around you?  Care to think beyond the labels in your relationship with God or with your neighbor?  I invite you to read my book just published called Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom and also to check out the new ezine, Night Shift Crossing, where we explore life's concerns far from the either-or debates filling the spaces between us these days.  And then, let's cut the name-calling and start dialoging.

If you haven't checked out my website in a while, now's the time to do so.  Lots of changes, not the least of which is a growing list of reviews and comments by people already reading my new book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom.  Also check out the new blog schedule to the right.  I do post a lot of blog updates on Facebook as well as news updates from the Northeast Emergency Food Program, which I direct.  If you are not on Facebook, you can keep up in three ways:

1. Check this home page frequently
2. Click on a "follow" option on one or more of my blogs.
3. Subscribe to the new monthly e-zine, "Night Shift Crossing."

In case you missed my Christmas/end-of-the-year musings, click here.

As I write this, news of the weekend shootings in Tucson is filling the media and Facebook communications.  People are talking about how fired-up socio-political hyperbole may or may not have caused the shooting.  Regardless of such rhetoric, I am reminded that we wrestle not against flesh and blood and that the weapons with which we fight are not of this world's system.  On the contrary, while others trust in the world's weapons, we are to trust in the name of the Lord.

I'd rather have a thinker's dialog with someone with whom I disagree than a sound-bite, high decibel, slingshot discussion with someone with whom I share thoughts in common.  With the former I can trust they will listen through to the end of what I am saying and actually think with me.  With the latter, no conversation is being had, for listening is two-thirds of any true conversation.  Which is one key reason I wrote Night Shift. 

Some people posture these days that with their slingshots they are really being prophetic, which they say is what the Christian mandate is all about.  There is indeed a valuable role to be played by the prophetic voice, a voice that is all too often muted in the church or that tends to sound more tinny than authentic these days.  In fact, there has never been greater need for the truly authentic prophetic voice.  The greatest prophet who ever lived, Jesus, also happened to be the best listener ever to inhabit this planet.  He saw beyond this world's sound bites and slingshots into the heart of humankind as only God can do.  Jesus did not sling shots at people.  He listened with truth and spoke the truth, a truth that is sharper than any sword ever invented by human hand.

And so I invite you to sit down for a dialog with me.  Read what I've written.  Respond in kind.  And when you find something that speaks to your heart, act on it.  Just remember to make the conversation a four-way listening session - between you and me, and God and our neighbor, who may or may not even know God.  Then we'll have a conversation that is truly prophetic.

I have a ready gift for friends this year – my new book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom. It is off the presses and getting into the hands of eager readers (or so I hope!).

For many friends, this is a lean year for giving, a year of hardship and pain.  For our respite foster kids in Morrison's Child and Family Services program, this year blurs among so many.  As always with the marginalized, the past four years of economic turmoil is like so many waves thrashing above their already drowned heads.  And yet, for many others, a lifetime of progress has suddenly dissipated.

As I see people in need crowding by the droves into our food program sites every time the doors open here in Portland, Oregon, I am reminded of one of my favorite biblical passages where Moses writes that if we obey God, there need be no poor among us. And yet, though the poor are mentioned scores of times in the Scriptures, the only verse some Believers seem to know is the one about there always being poor people, thus supposedly justifying their inaction to heed Moses’ commands to bless the poor.

In chapter 5 of my book, I talk about this passage in Deuteronomy 15, how this relates to our mission as Believers in the twenty-first century. “We are called to be in on the Master’s plan,” I write, “declaring and demonstrating the whole gospel to the poor, even though the poor are always with us.” Strange how 2,000 years after Jesus spelled out the mission for us, we still struggle to agree on just what that mission is, let alone obey it.

But this diversity of opinion is to be expected among we who are followers of Jesus. Not all differences are the result of sin. After all, God wrote diversity into the warp and woof of the human race (another theme in my book). Thus I am excited that an organization in which I have joyfully served the past three years has just decided to change its name to the Oregon Center for Christian Voices, emphasis on the plural. For Christians who serve a God much bigger than all of us put together, it should be no surprise that no one of us or no one group of us can speak alone for God.

Amidst so many controversies that wrack the body of Christ these days, I am reminded of Paul’s response to the first great theological tension that struck the New Testament Church. Though the conclusions were more extensive than Paul’s summation, he wrote his friends in Galatia, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.”

When we get in there and get our hands dirty serving the poor (be that poverty spiritual, physical, material or whatever), we draw closer to the Master and discover that we tend to make this Christ-following thing far more complicated than Jesus ever meant it to be.

That is what makes the Christmas narratives in Matthew and Luke so riveting: while all the world about is caught up in power plays and pompous pageantry and posturing, the Christ child comes to identify with the lowly and turns all that strutting on its head. While we trample all over each other trying to come out on top, Jesus dives into the bottom of the pile and lifts us all up.

My church calls itself Mosaic, an ever-faithful reminder that we who are broken pieces come together to shine as a thing of beauty before God and in the world. I find it easy to partner with others who accept my brokenness along with theirs, fellow travelers on an authentic journey of faith.

So I reflect on all this, grateful that my book has been released, grateful that I have a job when I didn’t have one six months ago, grateful that I am gaining in health from a very crippling period of depression, and especially grateful for a loving wife and four wonderful kids who will all be home for Christmas. Robert serving in the U.S. Army and headed to Afghanistan, Stephen a math major at George Fox University, Hope about to graduate from high school and wanting to train to be a nurse, and Hannah a sophomore at Lincoln High School. Oh and then there are the garden, the pug, two cats and five laying hens.

My wife kept asking me what I want for Christmas this year. We finally agreed that we wanted a date together. A hike in the mountains or woods. A quiet conversation by the fireplace. A cup of coffee (for her) and hot chocolate (for me) at a local shop. And we’ll still compete to outdo each other with a few treats in the form of stocking stuffers.

As I see how oppressive, systemic and complicated are the needs of those I serve at the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s Northeast Emergency Food Program, I am stirred with a spirit of gratitude and humility. Grateful for all I do have. Humbled that I have been so blessed.

A most wonderful celebration of our Savior’s birth to each and everyone one!

I have a ready gift for friends this year – my new book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom. It is off the presses and getting into the hands of eager readers (or so I hope!).

For many friends, this is a lean year for giving, a year of hardship and pain.  For our respite foster kids in Morrison's Child and Family Services program, this year blurs among so many.  As always with the marginalized, the past four years of economic turmoil is like so many waves thrashing above their already drowned heads.  And yet, for many others, a lifetime of progress has suddenly dissipated.

As I see people in need crowding by the droves into our food program sites every time the doors open here in Portland, Oregon, I am reminded of one of my favorite biblical passages where Moses writes that if we obey God, there need be no poor among us. And yet, though the poor are mentioned scores of times in the Scriptures, the only verse some Believers seem to know is the one about there always being poor people, thus supposedly justifying their inaction to heed Moses’ commands to bless the poor.

In chapter 5 of my book, I talk about this passage in Deuteronomy 15, how this relates to our mission as Believers in the twenty-first century. “We are called to be in on the Master’s plan,” I write, “declaring and demonstrating the whole gospel to the poor, even though the poor are always with us.” Strange how 2,000 years after Jesus spelled out the mission for us, we still struggle to agree on just what that mission is, let alone obey it.

But this diversity of opinion is to be expected among we who are followers of Jesus. Not all differences are the result of sin. After all, God wrote diversity into the warp and woof of the human race (another theme in my book). Thus I am excited that an organization in which I have joyfully served the past three years has just decided to change its name to the Oregon Center for Christian Voices, emphasis on the plural. For Christians who serve a God much bigger than all of us put together, it should be no surprise that no one of us or no one group of us can speak alone for God.

Amidst so many controversies that wrack the body of Christ these days, I am reminded of Paul’s response to the first great theological tension that struck the New Testament Church. Though the conclusions were more extensive than Paul’s summation, he wrote his friends in Galatia, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.”
When we get in there and get our hands dirty serving the poor (be that poverty spiritual, physical, material or whatever), we draw closer to the Master and discover that we tend to make this Christ-following thing far more complicated than Jesus ever meant it to be.

That is what makes the Christmas narratives in Matthew and Luke so riveting: while all the world about is caught up in power plays and pompous pageantry and posturing, the Christ child comes to identify with the lowly and turns all that strutting on its head. While we trample all over each other trying to come out on top, Jesus dives into the bottom of the pile and lifts us all up.

My church calls itself Mosaic, an ever-faithful reminder that we who are broken pieces come together to shine as a thing of beauty before God and in the world. I find it easy to partner with others who accept my brokenness along with theirs, fellow travelers on an authentic journey of faith.

So I reflect on all this, grateful that my book has been released, grateful that I have a job when I didn’t have one six months ago, grateful that I am gaining in health from a very crippling period of depression, and especially grateful for a loving wife and four wonderful kids who will all be home for Christmas. Robert serving in the U.S. Army and headed to Afghanistan, Stephen a math major at George Fox University, Hope about to graduate from high school and wanting to train to be a nurse, and Hannah a sophomore at Lincoln High School. Oh and then there are the garden, the pug, two cats and five laying hens.

My wife kept asking me what I want for Christmas this year. We finally agreed that we wanted a date together. A hike in the mountains or woods. A quiet conversation by the fireplace. A cup of coffee (for her) and hot chocolate (for me) at a local shop. And we’ll still compete to outdo each other with a few treats in the form of stocking stuffers.

As I see how oppressive, systemic and complicated are the needs of those I serve at the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s Northeast Emergency Food Program, I am stirred with a spirit of gratitude and humility. Grateful for all I do have. Humbled that I have been so blessed.

A most wonderful celebration of our Savior’s birth to each and everyone one!

In case you haven’t heard, the first run of my new book Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom, is coming off the press in about a week. I can’t describe how excited I am that this long-awaited day is almost here.

This November run is a special prepublication printing. 300 copies are going to reviewers leading up to the official publication date of February 15, 2011. The rest are available for purchase by anyone who is interested in being among the first to get their hands on the book. I’ve even offered to autograph copies on request for no extra charge and the publisher, Fanno Creek Press, will send them postage free (USA domestic addresses only, sorry) as long as the orders are made online or postmarked by November 15, 2010.

Orders have already started coming in. As things look now, orders placed by that date will be mailed on time before Thanksgiving. I’m planning to make a trip directly to the printer just to sign the autographs so they all arrive at their destinations well before Christmas.

Would you help me by passing on this announcement to anyone you think might be interested? I am hoping that through word of mouth, we will generate a lot of interest in the book. In short, the book is a fresh look at what I call the Christian mandate – that through the culture of love we are called to push back curse by extending blessing everywhere, that we do so cross-culturally no matter what setting we find ourselves in, and that more often than we realize we have to do so in the night.

To help build awareness and develop an engaged reader community, I’ll be publishing a regular e-zine (electronic magazine) starting in December through Fanno Creek Press called “Night Shift Crossing” free to anyone who requests a subscription. The e-zine will carry a reader Q&A, a regular column I’ll be writing on issues related to the focus of the book, as well as updates from me. To get a subscription to the e-zine or to request one for a friend, send you or your friend’s name and email address to info@fannocreekpress.com asking to be placed on the “Night Shift Crossing” e-zine subscriber list. [At this point there are no plans to provide a print edition of the e-zine. The advantage of the “e” in e-zine is that costs are negligible.]

Thanks for letting me share this news with you. If you want to read more about the book, check out my blog "Night Shift Crossing."  I've been posting almost daily.

Anyone is welcome to write me concerning the book via nightshift@fannocreekpress.com – I’ll get the message!

Thanks,
Howard N. Kenyon

P.S. Tell your friends that the special prepublication offer is good only through November 15, 2010, and includes free shipping and handling to a USA domestic address. Anyone can order online by going to http://fannocreekpress.com or by sending a check for $19.95 per copy requested to Fanno Creek Press, 6663 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy PMB 223, Portland, OR 97225-1403. Just make sure it is postmarked by November 15.  After that you can still order and even get the signed copy - you'll just have to pitch in for the shipping and handling!

Fanno Creek Press has the Night Shift info and order links up and running! You can now order online with a credit card. 

Although the official publication date for Night Shift is February 15, 2011, Fanno Creek Press is releasing a special pre-publication printing of the book for reviewers in November. Several hundred copies of the book should be available for purchase just in time for the Christmas season to all who wish a first-run copy. I'll even sign my autograph on request :) The book is priced at $19.95. For this pre-publication special only, Fanno Creek Press is offering $19.95 with shipping and handling thrown in free (to domestic USA addresses only, sorry), so long as orders are placed online or postmarked by November 15, 2010. Check out all the details at http://hnkconnect.com/night-shift.

In the coming days, I'll be releasing more information on this website and on a special Night Shift Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Night-Shift-Crossing/155866811119766. Stay tuned on Facebook or on this website for further news, including a new blog, "Night Shift Crossing," coming soon!

How ready are you for the stark challenges of the 21st century?  In Night Shift, I share how we as believers are all on a mission to cross cultural lines for the kingdom, even in the darkest night. 

How do we apply an age-old mandate in an indifferent and skeptical world polarized, even hostile to the messengers of the gospel?  We do so by embracing biblical cross-cultural models, being shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves in tough times and hard places, becoming agents of blessing to a world desperately in need of good news.

Night Shift's official publication date is February 15, 2011.  However, next month Fanno Creek Press is releasing a special pre-publication printing of the book for reviewers.  Several hundred copies of the book should be available to all who wish a first-run copy.  I'll even sign my autograph on request :)  The book is priced at $19.95.  For this pre-publication special only, Fanno Creek Press is offering $19.95 with shipping and handling thrown in free (to domestic USA addresses only, sorry), so long as orders are placed or postmarked by November 15, 2010.

In the coming days, I'll be releasing more information on this website and on a special Night Shift Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Night-Shift-Crossing/155866811119766.  So stay in tune.  Online orders coming next week.  To order by mail, send $19.95 check or money order to Fanno Creek Press, 6663 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy PMB 223, Portland, OR 97225-1403.

The launch of my book is into its final countdown and I am at once very excited and extremely stretched.

Here are the dates:

· October 15 – Pre-publication sale launches via website, email, Facebook and a postcard mailer

· November 1 – Book goes to print

· November 15 – Pre-publication copy comes off the press and gets shipped direct to all those who order early

· February 15 – Publication date – right on time for spring missions conventions and book ordering for fall classes and small groups

The book? “Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom” examines the Christian mandate for the 21st Century – what our mission looks like crossing borders in the night.

For over four decades, (am I really that old?) I have been drawn to do something about those who are underserved and in some cases neglected by the Body of Christ. It is my life's passion, a passion that has propelled me to travel and live in some very diverse places. This book is the outcome of years of study, research, preaching, teaching, training, and field work, by which I mean actually doing what I write about, both in my home country (the USA) and abroad, particularly in Asia, and most recently in PDX.

Three years ago a fairly serious bout of depression knocked me out of one remote place into another (Portland, OR, or PDX as the natives call it). I label it “remote” because it was a place I’d had little contact with before. And yet I’ve discovered there is much to do here as well. PDX happens to be one of the least churched cities in the USA and ranks tops in homeless population, human trafficking, slut shops, and other lovely “Top 10s.” (It also happens to be a wonderful place to live notwithstanding!)

My mission in life has always been to reach the unreached, free the oppressed and embrace the misfits (people like me :) ). And to recruit others doing the same.

Thus, the book. My days of extensive travel are over, at least for the foreseeable future. Instead I’ve discovered that through writing (blogging, for example), I can communicate with quite a diverse audience both geographically and otherwise. [Even in the past three months as I’ve backed off from blogging to get out this book, the hits on my website have shot up higher than ever. I guess that means when I’m silent, more people listen?]

Because of the nature of some of my work, I won’t be totally free to share all of my story or the stories of those with and among whom I have served. However, I’ve managed to pack a lot in there. Including some of those experiences and lots of helpful stuff from the Scriptures, which has been a pretty reliable guide for me over the years. I am praying that through this book thousands will hear my Master's vision for what they can do for those He counts dear to His heart.

The bottom line question with which I have lived since I was a thirteen year old is this: What does it take to get it done where it is not being done? The "it" in this question is what a friend of mine, Stephanie Ahn Mathis, calls the "2GC" mandate. In other words, what does it take to accomplish the Great Commission and the Two Greatest Commandments where they are not yet being fulfilled?

For millennia, we as Believers have been commanded to love God with all our beings, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to go and make disciples of all nations. We, like Jesus, are called to bring good news to the poor, to free prisoners, give sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim what the Ancients called "the year of Jubilee."

Yet after all these centuries, the task of bringing God’s love to the unreached and oppressed and misfits remains daunting. Sure we as Believers in Jesus have come a long way, but there are still a lot of kids crying in the night - and some older people, too, lots of people short on hope.

I don't think our mission is more difficult to achieve now than it was 100 or 500 or 1,000 years ago, but there is a lot more to be done. Every age has its own challenges, of which ours certainly has its share. It is never easy and we definitely have some great issues to confront in today’s world.

So I’ve asked a question that is probably a burning one for you, too. How do we apply an age-old message and mandate to an indifferent and skeptical world that appears increasingly polarized, even hostile to the messengers of the Gospel? And I’ve found the answer: We do so by embracing biblical cross-cultural models and learning how to be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves in tough times and hard places as we become agents of blessing to a world in desperate need of good news.

In this book, I talk about how biblical models apply to our lives and our world. How we cross cultural boundaries and creatively access opportunities in order to fulfill God's mandates. And how we do all that, when necessary, at night.

By “night” I mean serving where our work is not as visible as what we traditionally think of as ministry. I mean working in tough times and hard places. Working where people don't know or don't understand what you are doing. Going where people don't want you, serving people who don't like you, and blessing people who know only the curse.

If that sounds like your own neighborhood or workplace or family, you are right on. This book isn’t just for types with pith helmets who eat weird things. It is also for average Janes and Joes who never leave home, but find themselves in the committed minority.

Maybe you are already out there, trying your best to do it. Perhaps you've been at it a long, long time. Or maybe you've never considered doing it before picking up this book. My prayer is that through this book you can discover how to go on a mission crossing borders in the night.

The countdown is on!

And now, at age 55, comes a new adventure.

Thirty-plus years ago living in Texas, I was struck by the model of an Old Testament slave-bureaucrat named Daniel. Carted off from his home and a promising career in Jewish royalty, he found himself a servant in the court of Babylon. There he got to rescuing the likes of sorcerers, quietly converting kings and blessing despicable empires. Other than a short list of thrilling adventures such as lion-taming, Daniel spent the rest of his life a mere a bureaucrat for various alien regimes.

Over the intervening decades I’ve discovered ways to apply that model in places diverse as New York and Ningxia. I’ve come to the conclusion that Daniel’s model, along with Paul’s in the New Testament and a host of other biblical heroes are as applicable today as they were back then – give or take a few interpretive and cultural hurdles. It is this cross-cultural challenge that stymies the forward movement of the contemporary church as much as anything in our global age, even after the church long ago became truly trans-global.

Missiological work is not just about pith helmets and martyrs on foreign soils. Being missionary or missional is everyday stuff for the average Jane or John Doe, or so I am attempting to prove in my book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom, currently in painstaking editing process with my wonderful editor, Dave Greene, and to be released shortly by Fanno Creek Press. The mission of the church is all about crossing cultural barriers to preach good news to the poor, be they materially oppressed or spiritually destitute.

Four years ago a whirlwind of circumstances conspired to pluck our family out of its familiar world in Xi’an, China, and, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, dump us in a far away and strange land called Portland, Oregon. Unlike Dorothy’s dream, there is no going back to Kansas for us. We are here to stay. And so in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression, I have proceeded to explore where I could invest my dual passion for the unreached and the oppressed with my desire to provide financially for my family.

Last Tuesday that search came to a happy conclusion when Lowen Berman, Community Ministries Director of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, called me to say they wanted me to take the position of Program Manager for the Northeast Emergency Food Program (NEFP). And the next day I started. It’s been a heady few days of learning the ropes, a training process far from over. But I can honestly say I am thrilled to be heading up the team of staff and volunteers at 4800 NE 72nd Street. Upstairs is the Luther Memorial Lutheran Church. In 5,000 square feet of the church’s basement is the bustling world of NEFP, where languages as diverse as Romanian, Spanish, Vietnamese and that glorious mother tongue of Mandarin are spoken.

While I gain my sea legs, I’ll be cutting back on my blogging – don’t worry, readers, I’ll be back August 2 (meanwhile you can search for heresies in my old postings at my website http://hnkconnect.com). And, as I sort out my basement duties, I do intend to continue my involvement with the Oregon Center for Christian Values, Morrison Child and Family Services' Respite Foster Care program, and our home church, Mosaic, all on the geographical fringes of NEFP’s core service area in Northeast Portland.

Plus there is a family of becoming-adults to love, a garden to keep and a growing menagerie of pets (chickens, cats and now a dog) to clean up after. In true “loving the misfit” fashion, the Kenyon family welcomed two dogs into our house this past week. Finnegan will stay – a blessing from the Pug Rescue Mission. “Bandit” wandered into our yard Friday night and we’re not sure who doesn’t know where to find him. But since he’s terrifying Persia and Columbus, our cats, he’ll have to find a loving home elsewhere – today.

So having Danieled and Pauled myself across America and China, I’m out to prove what that looks like among Portland’s “land of barely there,” to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite Children’s book authors (Stephen Cosgrove), people who are at their wits’ end and desperate for the fresh produce, day-plus old bread, rice, canned goods and somewhat-used clothing we dispense four days a week. The food pantry is sort of new to me, but otherwise I’ll be doing what I’ve always been doing – recruiting workers, raising funds, and building relationships with people in need of a Friend.

See you August 2.

Today is a day of expected departure. Stephen is already off to a nearby college (George Fox University), studying on nearly full-ride scholarships. This evening we take Robert to an airport hotel and tomorrow go back to watch him be inducted into the U.S. Army. Early the following morning he flies off to basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

My sons love to hear me tell the story of one of their teachers several years ago. The teacher came to me and said that he understood my thinking on a subject because he, who had been talking with one of my sons, assumed I thought like my son. To which my cryptic reply was, "Which son?"

When they were younger, I loved to throw out a topic, any topic, and watch them tear into it with much gusto like two puppies on an old slipper, each picking sides as long as it was opposite the other. As they grew older, I no longer needed to suggest a topic - they were well over my head by then, whether the issue be science, math, history, literature, media and the arts, politics, theology, ethics or whatever. OK, I still surpass them in theology and ethics (I have a Ph.D. to defend after all). But I can in most fields raise a third angle, because on nearly every issue in life there is always one more option to consider. They were home together one last time about a week ago. As Kim and I went to bed, I fell happily asleep listening to them discussing some random topic with great intensity.

The pursuit of life for each of my kids, including these boys, is not just an intellectual exercise. Life is about fervent activism. Stephen, a declared pacifist, wants to pursue his field (math) for the sake of helping kids. Robert is joining the army and wants to go into the infantry - so he can be, literally, on the ground with the people he has come to help. They are both passionate about injustice in our world and are finding their own unique ways of making a difference.

I will miss their intellectual wranglings. Who can guess how many more of those cerebral wrestling matches I will enjoy hearing? As I see Robert leave, I have feelings of pride and of loss: pride that he is making his own way in this world, loss that I must now let him go.

My mother once told me I could do whatever I felt I should do in life as long as I kept my center in Jesus. And that is the same admonition I leave with my boys. There are very few absolutes in life and sometimes it is hard to know what is and is not essential. But this much I know, and I know they know, that whatever else may or may not be true, our center is in Jesus Christ. I wish Robert well and will always, no matter what, leave the light on for him.

Often lost in all the busyness of the American Christmas season is the tradition that this is the time of year to make merry.  People talk about putting Christ back in Christmas.  I'm not so sure he's gotten left out as much as we've added much more to the whole scene.  The plus side is a lot more people get in on the fun.  The minus is they don't always catch the core message.  Whether that is altogether good or bad I don't know.  I have the feeling that if we work hard enough to put "Christ back in Christmas" by banning all but supposedly Christ-centered Christmas activity, we won't have any more people catching the true meaning than we do now. 

Better to do what we did with Christmas in the first place -- our ancestors supposedly attached divine meaning to a pagan holiday and brought a whole bunch of pagans along with them.  So if we really want to put Christ back in Christmas, we just celebrate the season in a way we think is meaningful and invite others to join us.  No one likes a party pooper, least not those who poop.  Best to make merry for the right reasons and in the right ways and trust that others will see all the fun they are missing.  Seems to be the way Jesus did it with tax collectors, sinners, publicans, prostitutes, the poor and little kids.

This is a difficult year to make merry.  Notwithstanding the hope-filled carol "I heard the bells", we're mired in two wars that don't know how to quit.  A royal downer of an economy (for the second Christmas in a row) is not just hitting the old pocketbook, the stress of trying to rub two pennies together for far too many months compounds daily with little hope of relief in sight.  The impression you can get by listening to some pundits is that those who are struggling have made their own nests and ought to learn how to lie in them.  Whether or not this is true (it isn't entirely), the fact is that the One whose birth we celebrate this month was born to bestow grace and merriment in all of our lives, whether we were naughty (all of us) or nice (none of us).  Christmas is all about God's love coming to us even though we don't deserve it -- and to that we give thanks, not just at the end of November, but throughout the entire year as we extend that grace to everyone else -- whether they deserve it (not) or not (true).

So I plan to celebrate Christ's birth the same way I'd like my own birthday celebrated -- all inclusive, lots of sharing, and tons of merriment and joy.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and Joy to the World!

I’m very focused these days on writing and advocating in other ways for causes and concerns that remain near and dear to our hearts. I’m writing a book – will I ever get it published? – on what it means to be missionally cross-cultural and how to do that in creative ways that are often not only necessary but also more effective. And I’m learning how to use the “pulpit” of the day – the Blog.

As a family, we are seeking God to understand how we are to fulfill our vision (see the statement above and to the right) at the local level, which means right here in the greater PDX (Portland) area. As the saying goes, “Think globally, act locally.” Which so far has meant becoming respite therapeutic foster care parents, and volunteering with the Oregon Center for Christian Values as a co-chair for the Human Trafficking subcommittee.

There is one more missing piece to this whole equation in what we’ve been calling “The Next Chapter” – I’ve got to find some bacon to bring home. Meaning meaningful work, or at least work that pays enough. My desire is to be proactive in fulfilling that vision listed above-right and in bringing home the bacon, all in one neat package.  May or may not be so simple. But, regardless, vision and bacon are both essential to life. Stay tuned.

 I'm discovering that the world doesn't like someone marching to the beat of a different drummer, to quote Thoreau.  In today's world we call it politically correct speech.  Funny thing about PC speech.  I hear political and religious liberals and conservatives alike accusing each other of forcing PC speech on the rest of the world.  In other words, everybody's doing it and accusing everyone else of doing it.  The result is there is a lot of fear-induced conformity in both the Church and the World.

 Well, let's start a new fad.  Let's baptize ourselves in the Master's grace and then start loving each other no matter what we say or do, all the while urging each other (through truth and love) to speak and act honestly and lovingly whenever we do talk or act.  By doing this, we just might discover what Authentic Community is all about.

 What do you think?

Certainly Christmas has been burdened down with a season running as long as modern presidential elections and with the expectation that it will annually balance the bank accounts of the nation’s retailers.  This year the holiday is touted as the last great hope in the current melodrama of economic woes.

There has long been a great gulf fixed between the secular and the sacred in the holiday season.  Santa and the Babe in the manger rarely meet, except in awkward bumps.  When they do clash, jingle bells seem to drown out the ringing of the church bells.  There are special days for certain minority groups (Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Kwanza, for example) and then Christmas for everyone else, even the truly nonreligious, for whom Santa or winter lights serve as manger babe substitutes.

But before we Christians jettison this supposedly evil spirit of Christmas Present, let’s take one more look at what it might have to offer.

The China Story

When my family and I first moved to China in 1995, Christmas observance was all but banned.  Slowly but surely Christmas found its way into the national landscape, particularly the urban one, until today Christmas Eve rivals Chinese New Year, at least for intensity among the youth.  Offspring of Communist party members, the privileged and the educated throng the streets on this “Peaceful Eve”, mixing Valentine’s Day roses and sentimentality with New Year fireworks and partying while packing the open churches and homes of Christians with the curious and spiritually hungry.

Party cadres and government officials invite foreigners to present the true biblical Christmas story (in all its meaning) at public school parties and village ceremonies.  Police are called out to help manage the crowds of youth packing into the churches by the thousands.  For one night a year, church attendance is the “in” thing where the gospel is freely preached.

How has it happened that a nation that so aggressively promotes a religion of secularism and atheism has come to so readily embrace such an overtly religious holiday?  In China, the only ones who openly oppose Christmas are the few Westerners who pronounce “bah humbug” on any too joyful and carefree a celebration of the Advent. 

The secret of China’s embrace is in the secularization of Christmas in the West.  Christmas has become a truly global holiday for all people, not just Christians.  If it were a purely religious event, Christmas in China would be as unknown as Easter is. 

Are we really being shut out?

Even in America, Easter lies faintly in the shadows, a mere shell of a holiday in comparison.  There are various theories as to what has caused this disparity.  Regardless, secularized commercialization of Christmas is clearly the reason the true meaning of the Advent can be so openly proclaimed in the world’s largest nation which is also officially atheistic and one with scarcely any Christmas traditions of its own.

There may be plenty of examples of how the true message of Christmas has been shut down in our modern America.  But is the message of Easter any less “shut down”?  Who hears about Easter, or better yet, Good Friday anymore, with the notable exception of the release of the movie, “The Passion”?  When I was a teenager, Good Friday was a school holiday and townspeople thronged to three-hour long community services.  Today the spring dates barely register on the public psyche, except for egg hunts and chocolate-filled baskets.

Not so with Christmas.  Over the next two weekends, the calendar will be packed with events.  My own kids are singing in a musical performance proclaiming an overt Gospel message.  Neighbors, schoolmates and all sorts of secular types who never come to church otherwise will swell the attendance to 15,000 during the 10 concerts at Portland Christian Center.  If it were not for the holiday hunger of our non-religious neighbors and the commercial thrill Santa brings, might not Christmas be as ill-celebrated among modern Christians as Easter and Good Friday are? 

On final analysis, are we Christians actually hindered in celebrating a truly spiritual holiday?  My family will observe traditions older than we are along with some new ones we just invented yesterday.  At the heart of gift-giving and charitable donations and “The Nutcracker Suite” and a family reunion feast of biblical proportions, we will know and communicate the message of Jesus’ birth just as much now as we did when I was a kid a half-century ago.  As ever, Christians are free to do what they will with their own sacred holidays.

What should WE do?

I too am concerned that the true spirit of the season not be lost in the festive frenzy.  As Christians we do well to hold ongoing evaluation of our lifestyles, spending and expressions of exuberance.  For example, Advent Conspiracy and the Oregon Center for Christian Values call for thoughtful effort to be made to imbue Christmas with its original intent to reconcile the Good News to the poor.  But the onus to do so is on us, not on the world which has come to our party by our invitation.

Sure, Christmas used to be respected as a religious holiday by even the heathen, but then I am not certain the audience was any more or less responsive to the Savior’s arrival than it is now.  Meanwhile, the secularization of Christmas gives the Gospel an open door it has at no other time of the year.  Not everyone will receive our greetings of “Merry Christmas” in the check out line, but far more people may well hear the true message of Christmas than if it were not so awkwardly and enthusiastically embraced by our modern secular world.

How quickly we forget that Jesus was not born on December 25.  Scholars tell us that the ancient church embraced a pagan non-Christian holiday to bring the Good News of Messiah’s birth to the larger marketplace of ideas.  We should do no less: reclaim Christmas by embracing the secular and infusing it with the sacred where we can, welcoming the profane throngs of the modern marketplace to experience the true meaning of Christmas along with their own secular and commercialized trappings. 

Such was the spirit of the original Christmas when the vulgar shepherds and later the religiously questionable wise men attended the Manger Babe’s birthday party.  An opportunity for the sacred is often found in the open doorway of the profane.  Come and see just where this Babe was born.  You’ll be surprised to find the world there, too, because the world is where he was born.

I write “we” because it is a communal vision – shared by Kim, my partner-for-life, and to varying and growing extents by our four wonderful teenagers. That vision is shared by others as well. And we hope through the reach of the internet to find those kindred spirits far and wide, men and women and young people who know that we are not destined to hide in our own oases of pleasure, but we are designed to bring all people into a far higher purpose than we can presently imagine. We live with the truth that the Creator is not wishing anyone be left behind – figuratively or literally.

So, as I test the characteristics of this shared heart and vision, I am experimenting in this laboratory called hnkconnect.com. The internet is a mix between the printed media and the airwaves of the last century – it has the best of both. Written or printed words can be read and reread as long as they last.  The media of the airwaves can go farther and faster and are certainly more immediate, but they can lack permanence unless recorded.

As with the older media, there is really no way to know for sure who or how many are “listening” to our website.  But the internet does provide more immediate response if people are listening. And we hope that happens in the near future as people start talking back to us and eventually with each other.

So bear with me as I experiment with style and format, with web pages and blogs and links.  I have no idea where this all is headed, except that I know for sure that the anchor is that vision of the heart expressed in our dedication.

Years ago I was very concerned about certain injustices I saw in our world.  The only thing I knew to do was to research the problem and write about it. So I did. I got a Ph.D. and a ministry career in the process.  I’ve done more than write over the years, but I sense that the methodology is coming full circle.  Eventually I hope to publish.  Books and articles pay and in this world we live in, pay has value.  But also publishing gets the message out in ways that websites and blogs do not yet.  We’ll see.  This is a world in fast-change mode and we’ll keep experimenting in this lab to see where the changes take us.

Meanwhile a big thanks to Jon Harstaad for creating the design and format of this website and for the guidance he and others continue to provide.

Odd thing, we find it much harder to keep updated on China and Asia now that we are no longer living there.  I am not sure news coverage is better here – we just pick up on a different part of the world.

I get most of my news either from the radio or the internet – see this week’s home page for sites I track.  While I am driving or making the kids lunches early in the morning, I have my dial tuned to 91.5 (KOPB) and get all the headlines, in depth reporting and great human interest stories from National Public Radio.  We do get a local paper once a week on Sundays – The Oregonian.  Oh, I almost forgot, we also receive Time magazine and The Atlantic.  I picked up six-month subscriptions for $2 each.  Time is news-lite, but it generally has an article or two of interest.  The Atlantic Monthly also usually has something good to chew on. 

But I am finding it is a lot easier these days to read the news on the computer – I can surf information for what I want and if my eyes need it in larger print, no problem.  Especially handy is the New York Times headlines which I have delivered daily to my email – and for free.

Just one of the perks in living in the USA – all kinds of options for staying in touch with what is happening in the world, parts of it at least.

The other night at our favorite Chinese restaurant (“Lin’s China Jade”) my fortune read “You will have a stable income in your future”.  So be it!

Voting is like trying to forecast a country’s or district’s future.  I much prefer to vote two years after the election when I can better determine how things will turn out.  I guess I don’t have that option.  Still I find myself once again struggling to sort out everything from President of the USA to Measure 54 amending the state constitution standardizing “voting eligibility for school board and other state and local elections”.

In a link I’ve provided you on the home page, my pastor, Ray Noah, offers some helpful points about valuing God’s agenda over your party’s platform or candidate:

1. Speak for the innocent, weak and vulnerable
2. Defend the poor and oppressed
3. Confront sin and moral decay
4. Work toward the peace and prosperity of Jerusalem
5. Pray for political conditions conducive to the salvation of the lost.

 On my own home page, I’ve listed a few resources I’ve found helpful in sifting through the voting choices.  In the end, I'm glad my future doesn’t totally depend on this election or that fortune cookie!

It certainly was not by design, at least not ours anyway, this move.  Life is like that.  You're driving down the road at 55, ok 65, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the hospital or home in bed or in another movie.  Just when you least expect it. 

This past summer, we made a trip back to Xi'an, our beloved home for the twelve years prior to our returning to the States in the spring of 2007.  It was a bittersweet time to reconnect with old friends and see how people and projects continue to grow and develop and to say goodbye.  The Chinese don't say "goodbye" meaning "never see you again" kind of thing.  They say Zhai Jien, which means "See you again."  So we didn't say goodbye, we said "see you again" and we meant it.

For now we are on a leave of absence, a time of rest and recuperation and reflection (still got the speaker's alliteration in me) -- basically catching our collective breaths from somehow having had the wind knocked out of us.  We're putting a lot of energy into writing, hoping to continue to help the work for years to come. 

Beyond that, we're taking it all one day at a time.