Stench

At 1 o’clock in the morning we were wakened.
A colleague and three Nigerians stood at the door.
My colleague had gone to visit an evangelist he was supervising.
When he got to the village, he found that the man had died the day before.
Because he came from another village and was of another tribe, the people wanted to bring him home to be buried.
But the taxi drivers wanted too much money. The little church could not pay. Impasse.
My colleague decided to bring the man home himself.
So – the wooden casket was tied to the top of his car, and everyone who could go along got in.
It was quite late at night, they knew they needed to sleep somewhere. Viss would not mind being woken up in the middle of the night. Of course not.
The next day we saw that the casket had begun to leak. And stink. The man had, after all, been dead now for more than a day in the tropical heat.
We moved the casket to a pickup truck and took off with two cars for the man’s village.
It was a four hour drive.
His family did not know what had happened. We had to tell them.
Because the man had become a Christian, the family did not want anything to do with him. Including burying him.
We tried to negotiate in every way we could, but without success.
Finally, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we headed over to the church. Perhaps they would help us.
When we got to the church, we saw a bride and groom standing outside the church. A wedding was about to begin.
We went to the elder’s room and explained the situation to the minister and elders.
They were willing to bury the man even though they did not know him, but, understandably, they would do it after the service.
We went back outside and waited.
It was now 5 o’clock, the man had been dead for 2 days, and the stench was unbearable. At least for me.
What an example of Christian love.
The minister and his elders dug a grave.
At 6 PM we buried our evangelist.
We were rid of that awful stench.
I will never forget what that smelled like.
Nor will I ever forget the love of those elders.

Sometimes I think about that story when I am attending an elder’s meeting.

(Note: this is the ninth in a series of blogs celebrating the 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Chickens

I think we need more chickens in the church - and in the world.

Great White Hunter

In the river near us you could catch Nile (or Niger) Perch.
They could get quite big (see picture).

I caught a few of them, but of course never this big.
Lots of fun.
One time we went camping with colleagues along the river.
Four adults, eight children.
I caught one that probably weighed 25 pounds.
It was big enough to feed all of us.
Of course I had to clean it myself.
I did that with my fan club watching.
What more could a great white hunter wish for?

(Note: this is the eighth in a series of blogs around the 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Sinner

Something sad woke me up, late that evening.
I turned over, and, still waking up, realized that my wife was crying.
I knew instantly that it was about me.
I don’t know any more how she did it, how long it took or how difficult it was for her make me understand, but she let me know in no uncertain terms that she felt very alone in our relationship and that something fundamental was wrong.

Before a missionary family went on furlough a process of evaluation and planning took place.
The personal evaluation was done anonymously by Western and Nigerian colleagues.
Most of the time I got passing grades.
This time, reports that I was impatient, distant and angry appeared like an oil spill on the waters of my work.

In Nigeria (and I assume this would have happened wherever we were working) I looked for the first time directly into the face of my own sinfulness. Not just that I did things that were wrong, but that “sinner” was a description of who I was.
I was capable of throwing away the things that were the most valuable to me – my wife, family, work, calling and relationships – because of my own pride and selfishness.

The Heidelberg Catechism gets it right in Question 2:

How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?
The first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; (There is a third, but I don’t quite agree with that one.)

Today we call it grace.
You realize that you are a crook.
You realize that you are still unconditionally loved.
During those years I began to realize those truths.
I had to in order to survive.

That process is still continuing.
It is unbelievably freeing.

(Note: this is the seventh in a series of blogs around the 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Women and children

My wife Cyndi taught the women at the Bible School in Serti. They were the wives of the students, and moved, with their children, to Serti for the duration of the study.
Most of them were illiterate. Cyndi taught reading, writing, Bible and hygiene.
Obviously there was a tremendous gap between Cyndi and these women in terms of culture and way of life.
But Cyndi gave herself to these women, and, as you can see, the women received her and our children with open arms.
The white baby above is Ben, our second child and first son, born in Nigeria (another story).
In the photo below you see Cyndi and Sarah among the women.

(Note: this is the sixth in a series of blogs around the 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Screwed

Four months after we arrived in Serti I started teaching at the Bible school located next to the church. I was not just the teacher – I was the Director!
Imagine this: students go to school here for three years. Most of them can hardly read, and know nothing about the Bible. After three years they are sent into villages to plant churches.

(Most of us don’t realize, here in the rich, well-educated West, that by far the most church leaders in the world have not enjoyed good theological training. In my cynical moments I think: high quality theological education has not really helped our culture remain Christian, has it? But that’s another topic.)

My colleague was Yakubu Mai Tadi (Jacob the Joyful). He was 10 years older than me and had been a teacher there for some time. He was a very friendly man, and we got along well. I think that he faced enormous pressures from family and tribe because he was one of the few with a fixed income.
I tell you that to tell you this:
In the summer of 1979 the Nigerian government decided to change the bills in Nigeria in order to do something about corruption. Before the end of the year everyone was to turn in his or her old money and exchange it for new money.
There were no banks in the district around us. People had to drive 100 miles to the nearest bank to change their money. It was very costly for poor people.
We decided to help the people in our district. They could give their money to us, we would exchange it. I didn’t have enough money on hand to provide for the whole district, so I developed a system of receipts. I took the old money in, wrote a receipt with 2 copies, and people could come back later with the receipt and pick up their money. It worked perfectly. Hundreds of people came with old, shrivelled money that had been in mattresses, underwear, and probably many other unmentionable places. I tried not to think about that as I counted the money.
In October we went on furlough. I was not able to finish the job. My replacement was a young pilot with his family, who would live in our house to learn the language. I explained everything to him, and left things in good hands.
When I came back six months later, he told me that everything had worked fine. No problem, as Nigerians say. I was pleased.
After a month or so I noticed that people from villages in the bush were coming to me asking for their money. When I asked for their receipt, they couldn’t show one. It was then impossible for me to give them money. But I found that strange and difficult, because it was obvious that these people had spent money to come long distances, and were really disappointed when they went away empty handed.
But there was nothing I could do, and after a while people stopped coming.

Months later I was going somewhere in the car with the pastor with whom I worked. I don’t know exactly how we got on the topic, but he informed me that people in the surrounding villages – that we were trying to reach with the gospel – were angry at me because I had cheated them. They really thought I was a crook.
Finally I heard how things had gone. Yakubu, my colleague, had gone to the bush villages and offered to help the people there by collecting their receipts, picking up the money and returning it to the people. The advantages were that people could save travel expenses, and, because Yakubu knew the Bature (white man), it would be a simple process.
By now you have guessed it: Yakubu turned in the receipts all at once to my (inexperienced) colleague, and never returned to the villages with the money. When he was called on the carpet, he insinuated that I was the problem.
I honestly do not remember what happened between me and Yakubu after that event. My mind draws a blank. As far as I remember, he stayed on as teacher in that school, and as elder in the church.
Since that time, whenever I have been the recipient of criticism that is not accurate, I think to myself: been there, done that.

This is a picture of the first class at the Bible School that I taught. Nigerians don’t laugh on pictures. I wasn’t laughing much during those years either, so that was not hard for me. Yakubu is sitting left of me next to the young lady.

(Note: this is the fifth in a series of blogs around the 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Virginia Tech

The words of poet Nikki Giovanni yesterday at Virginia Tech:

We are Virginia Tech.
We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.
We are Virginia Tech.
We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail, we will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech."

Why we went

I suppose you can ask the question: why did you go?
If I give an honest answer, it is: I don’t know.
Adventure. Challenge.
The lure of Africa, acquired during my stay in Eritrea in 1973.
To prove something to myself and my community: I can do this!
To help people.

It really wasn’t very spiritual.
I believed in God, and I was convinced that it was worthwhile to tell people about Him.
But that faith was more a thing of the head than of the heart.
It hadn’t translated yet into an open and warm heart.
Perhaps you could say the “reason” for going was the theory in my head, the “drive” to actually go came from who I was as a person.
Maybe that’s too bad.
But I don’t think so.
I needed to make this journey in order to learn.
Otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am today.
And I believe I did it with integrity, given who I was and where I came from.

In order to get somewhere, you need to take the first steps.
And then it doesn’t really matter so much why.

(Note: this is the fourth in a series of blogs around our 30-year anniversary of our departure for Nigeria. The blogs can be found under the label "Anniversary". Click here for the first one.)

Snakes

Of course I was and am afraid of snakes.

I do not have the gift of being able to spot animals and birds in nature.

When you don’t see a snake he is at his most dangerous. Snakes want, with few exceptions, nothing more than to get away from you as quickly as possible. They only attack when they are cornered.

Once I was standing by the house of our colleague in Serti. I was working with another colleague on building a water system. Suddenly he began striking the ground next to my feet with a piece of pipe. A puff adder lay right next to my right foot. I never saw him.

That same colleague went on furlough for six months. We lived in their house. During that whole time, I never saw a single snake. The afternoon he returned he killed a snake in our front yard.

We got to know the spitting cobra. It is really true that they can spit their venom. Their search for food brought them often to our chicken house, and one had to watch carefully before going in to get the eggs.

We always had a cat, to warn us when snakes, scorpions or other unwanted animals came into our house. Our kids played on the floor, so that was very helpful. One day we heard our cat making a terrible noise behind the house, and, sure enough, he had been spit at by a cobra. We washed his eyes out under the faucet, and he spent a week sitting on a sugar sack, recovering. He did recover.

Did you know that frogs make more noises than only croaking? When they are terrified for their life – for example, when they are getting eaten by a snake – they make a cry that cuts to the marrow of your bones. Terrible.

To my knowledge, I’ve never eaten snake.
They say it tastes like chicken, as they say about every strange kind of meat.
I’m sure that’s true.

Our first weekend

I’ll never forget that first weekend in Serti.

Serti lies in eastern Nigeria, on the only road to Cameroon in that area. It’s a narrow, dirt road, treacherously slippery because of sand in the dry season, impossibly muddy in the wet season. It was a hundred miles over that road to our nearest missionary neighbors, and that trip took us 5 hours average.

Serti was very reachable by air – during the daytime and assuming good weather. The airstrip was right next to our house. On Saturday, April 24, we landed at that strip in the twin engine plane that belonged to our mission organisation. It was always a big deal when the airplane came, and that day was no exception. I’d guess there were a hundred people there, including the Nigerian pastor with whom I would be working. (Later someone told me that his words, upon seeing me, were: They have sent us a boy!)

It was hot, dry and dusty. There was no water. The house was furnished with the furniture of the family that had been there before us. After a while everyone left, and we were alone. The midwife who was at that station had an emergency (later we learned through experience that, when it came to meeting and caring for people, she often had an “emergency”.) We were left to fend for ourselves.

Just before supper our other colleague, Ruth Veltkamp, drove up. She was in charge of our orientation and language learning.

I remember so clearly that she parked the car and sat there for just a moment, head bowed. I had no idea what she was doing, but I assumed it was praying – thanking God for a safe trip, as a missionary should. Or something like that. I had no idea. My thought was: would I think to pray and thank God after a trip? Asking the question was answering it, it seemed to me. Later I learned that she was filling in the mileage sheet.

The next morning (Sunday) we went to church with Ruth in a small village. The church was made of tree trunks with a grass roof, and we sat on benches made of clay, through a long service we could not understand. I remember constantly hearing the word “chicken”. In Hausa that means “inside” (spelled “cikin”). The temperature hovered around 100.

After the service we had lunch it someone’s house, a hut with a grass roof. The food was not good to our taste. We struggled with Sarah, the food, the people, the culture, the heat.

Monday morning we started our language lessons. Ruth let no grass grow under her feet. She had hired a young man to help us. We faced the huge task of learning a brand new language in an area where almost no one spoke English.

The image is still etched in my mind of me, in the afternoon, sitting on the couch next to Cyndi, crying my eyes out. I’ll never forget what that felt like.

Our first weekend in Nigeria.

Anniversary

Thirty years ago today my wife Cyndi and I, with our daughter Sarah, left Phildelphia for Nigeria, West Africa. It was the beginning of our journey in the world of cross- and multicultural living.
That's a long time ago, and a lot has happend in those years.
I always enjoy remembering these kinds of dates. They provide me a moment to be thankful, reflective and enjoy the memories. I look back, and I look forward. Where have we been, and where are we going?
Many people have made this journey possible, and we are thankful to all of them.

The Bible verse for today was from David, 2 Samuel 22: For by Thee I have run through a troop; by my God have I leaped over a wall.
With God: without Him nothing is possible.
I have leaped: I still need to leap, to do something, take action.

During the coming weeks I would like to think and reflect with you about these last 30 years. I will do that by telling some stories and reflecting (briefly) on what I have learned. I hope that you can, in this way, share in our thankfulness.

The first short story: On April 14, 1977 we left Philadelphia for Holland (see photo). We spent a week in Sassenheim, where a cousin of my father still lives with her husband and family. He exports bulbs (flower bulbs, that is ;-).
He had at that time two cars: a Rolls Royce and a big Chevrolet. He loaned us the Chevrolet for that week (I'm still upset that it wasn't the Rolls Royce) and in that huge car we floated over the cute Dutch roads.
We had no idea that we one day would be living close by Sassenheim.

Lee Iacocca

Found this on the blog of Greg Caruso.

Lee Iacocca has a new book out: Where have all the Leaders Gone?

And he is mad, acoording to Caruso. This excerpt:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

To read more of the excerpt, click here.

But watch out, if you are a Bush fan. GW gets nailed.

B.C.

Johnny Hart, the creator of the comic strip B.C., died last weekend.
I have enjoyed comics since I was a teenager, and especially B.C.
I'll never forget two poems from strips I read 35 years ago:

When Hydrogen U played Oxygen Tech
The game had just begun.
When Hydrogen racked op two quick points
And Oxygen still had none.
Then Oxygen scored a single goal
And thus it did remain
Hydrogen 2, Oxygen 1,
Called because of rain.

Little earthworm in the ground
Tell me something quite profound:
How, with attributes so few,
They named a planet after you.

Someone sent me this strip last week for Good Friday.
Hart died on Saturday.
Another legend gone.

Very large stone

Three women were on their way to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body.
Three women who had been touched deeply by Jesus' words and actions.
They loved him deeply enough to perform this last service to him.
But they were worried.
"Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" they asked themselves.
Mark says that it was a "very large" stone.

What kinds of large stones are there in your life?
Which impossibilities stare you in the face?
Failures?
Obstacles?

"When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away."
You have a choice.
You can believe that the very large stone will never be moved.
Or you can believe that there is Someone who can roll it away.

The choice you make has enormous consequences.
It determines how you live your life.

Bad news for Bush

Juxtaposition

I have been thinking this week about the contrast that we experience in this week of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It is strange and unusual that we, in this one short week, and actually in two short days (Friday to Sunday), are confronted with so much death and so much life.

Have you ever thought about that?

Which other religion or celebration or ritual invented by humans has this kind of contrast?

Death is dramatically posed next to life in a juxtaposition that only the Bible and the gospel could think of.

And the gospel displays all of its glory: the deeper the darkness, the more radiant the light.

Good money after bad

According to this website, the war in Iraq has cost almost 414 billion dollars up until now.

Are we, after spending this money, any safer from Isalmic fundamentalist terrorism?
If you want to say the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam, OK.

But are we (I mean Americans, citizens of these United States - and it is, after all, about us) any safer?

We have spent money on security within the United States, and we haven't had any attacks, so you can presume that money is being spent reasonably well (although I heard the other day that a stewardess took a handgun on board an airplane without any problems).

But has the money we have spent in Iraq made us any safer?
Is the worldwide threat of terrorism, and the threat to our society, any less?
Are the terrorists now less capable of succesfully attacking us?
Do fewer terrorists want to attack us?

All the Bush government can say is, that if Congress sets a date for withdrawal, the terrorists will have won.
I don't hear them showing us how we are winning now, or will win if we keep spending this money.

The message is what will happen if we don't.
I want to know what will happen if we do.

Dobson (again....sigh)

Well, our man Dobson has done it again.
He apparently is, has or knows the litmus test that determines if someone will be a good president, and even if someone is a Christian.
Speaking about Fred Thompson in U.S. News and World Report, Dobson said this:

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression."

What is a Christian, according to Dobson's spokesman? "We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians."

In the old days, preachers mounted the pulpit with fear and trembling because of the awesome responsibility to preach the word of God correctly and call people to repentance. Nowdays that doesn't happen much anymore.

Dobson takes an awesome responsibility upon himself to judge the heart of a man he doesn't know, and make his judgement public, based on an impression. I think his knees should be shaking.

Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited, reports the article.

Imagine.

Republicans

Those Republicans...

"Rudy Giuliani has defended Newt Gingrich, saying it's okay Newt had an affair and that no one is perfect. That's when you know the Republicans are in trouble -- when a guy with three marriages and an affair is defending the guy with three marriages and two affairs, so they can team up and beat a Clinton."

--Jay Leno

Proposal

It is a reasonable proposal.
At least he can pronounce it.

Casualties of War

Zbigniew Brzezinski

You can tell I like Jon Stewart.
In this clip, his guest is Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Articulate, smart man, who has good things to say about how the last three presidents have squandered the opportunity to really do something in the world after the fall of the Soviet Union.
If you have the time, take it to watch this clip.
If I were in the U.S. I'd buy the book.

Bush in South America

Dead before you die

This quote found on this blog:

Psychological studies reveal that Americans live in less than forty percent awareness, as though our minds and spirits cringe before the banality and ugliness of national life. Such studies imply an enormous waste of potential lost to trivial pursuits - game-playing, fantasizing, daydreaming, television, self-pity, brooding, boredom, gluttony in food or drink. Lost is the prospect of personal and social renewal, reading, study, meditation, prayer, teaching, service to the poor, justice, peacemaking, and non-violent resistance to power-mongering government and corporations. The scripture likens such crippled attentiveness to death - death before one dies.
Philip Berrigan

Newt Gingrich

Well, Newt Gingrich has admitted to having an affair at the same time he was heading up the impeachment procedings against Bill Clinton for perjury.
He is well educated, and is clear about how he could do that while carrying on an affair. He attempted to impeach Clinton because of perjury, not because of sexual immorality. So his own personal immorality played no rol in his efforts.
Technically he is correct.
When one divorces twice and has at least one affair, he has to lie more than once. There is no other way.
A liar is a liar is a liar. The room in which it happens doesn't make much difference. Courtroom or living room.
Certainly Christians with a moral conscience know that.

Gingrich has been interviewed on Focus on the Family radio by James Dobson.
One of the things Dobson said in his introduction: "We have often talked about pro-family issues that we care about so deeply."
I think it is scandalous for Dobson to overlook Gingriches' morality in this way, and help him prepare for a possible presidential run.

The Right and the Religious Right are seeming to make fools of themselves without thinking twice about it.
President big-smile-I-am-the-decider-I-am never-wrong Bush has mislead our country and dumped us into a mess of historic proportions and has been incompetent in almost every area of his presidency.
Dobson focusses on a couple of moral issues, promotes war and hate langauge and thinking, and now supports Gingrich who has a horrible moral record, not to mention the ethical questions which caused him to leave his post in Wshington.
The Right's most popular talk radio host has been divorced three times, is a (ex?) drug addict and was recently caught with Viagra in his handluggage while coming into the U.S.

It boggles the mind.

Bono

Bono's speech at the NAACP has received a lot of attention.
If you haven't seen it, you can see it here.
A couple of quotes:

Martin Luther King: A man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job.
Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.
This is not a burden, this is an adventure.
We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty.

Nukelar

There's a very well written blog by Cynthia Huddleston called Prodigal Aspersions.
She wrote a piece about George Bush, Iraq and the way he says "nukelar".
A little bit of it here to whet your appetite.
Click here for the rest.
I got to Cynthia via Real Live Preacher. Also a well written blog.

Most of us had no idea George Bush would be president this long. (Stop a minute... Breathe...) Heck, George Bush probably didn't think that far ahead either. He said nukelar because that's the way he is...a Texas good ol' boy. He probably never realized that folks would find it incorrect or uneducated or misinformed. He always said nukelar, so nukelar it will ever be. Even if he now sees that it might look a mite rubish, what can he do?

George Bush cannot just start saying nuclear, as if he had always done so. That might point out the embarrassing fact that he has said nukelar about a million times...wrongly. What...wrong? Never. Gee folks, it was cute the first hunnerd times, but, ok, no more nukelar. Heh, heh..or more improbably... I was wrong. Can you imagine him saying it the right way just once and the story of it not leading the nightly news shows on all channels?

He cannot admit he was wrong. He just can't. It is not in him. He can't risk public ridicule by suddenly starting to say the word correctly. So he will just continue to say nukelar. You know he will. He will chuckle at it occasionally. Heh, heh. That's my nature. (Big grin)

Christian Pick-Up lines

I love the Wittenburg Door, the only Christian satire magazine.
Only thing is, because I've lived out of the U.S. for so long, there's a lot of satire I don't get.
But that Christians are a constant source of good satire is clear and pretty funny in and of itself.

This issue helps young Christian men pick up girls in a spritually wholesome way.
I wish I was young enough to try it.

Pick-up lines range from beginner-level, such as the favorite, "Do you want to start a Bible study with me?" to professional-grade, "In Koine Greek you would be known as babelios-dynimo. I've studied the ancient language for three years just to be able to tell you that truth with confidence." (Do not attempt this line unless you have actually studied Koine Greek.)

"Can I have your number? God told me that if I have faith when I ask I shall receive." (Matt. 6:7)

"Miss, I believe that if you were to count your ribs you'd find you have one of mine." (Gen. 2:21-23)

"Excuse me? Would you hold my hand as I pray? I believe that so long as you're standing with me, God will grant me anything I ask." (Matt. 18:20)

Conservapedia

Jon Swift, one of my favortie bloggers - no, make that my favorite blogger, including myself - has written a great piece on something I had not heard about yet. Conservapedia.
I took a look at it myself today. Really unbelievable and amusing.
Conservapedia bemoans Wikipedia's biases (anti-Christian and anti-American), but manages to say clearly on the main page: Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.
That's not bias?
Just for fun I looked up Copernicus.
Copernicus is described as having made the stunning claim that the earth revolved around the sun, opposing the views of science and the church of his time. Copernicus did make some unforgiveable mistakes, however: he thought the planets moved in circular revolutions and that the sun was stationary.
Conservapedia reports that most Protestant countries reacted negatively to the theory of Copernicus because it clashed with the Biblical truth that the sun had stood still for a while in the time of Joshua.
This illuminating article concludes with the assertion that To this day, most Protestant countries reject the Copernican theory.

I had not realized there were Protestant countries today.
I'm glad I found Conservapedia. Thanks, Jon.

Intellingence and Iran

This from Time Magazine:

Worst foreign policy mistake in history

"Things getting very nasty in Washington. Today the White House denied an assertion by Senator Harry Reid that the Iraq war is 'the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history.'
The White House said, 'You have to realize that President Bush has two more years in office.'"

--Conan O'Brien

Are we winning?

This in the news today about a resurgence of Al Qaeda.
Not really surprising.
Up until recently Buish has been saying that we are significantly crippling Al Qaeda. Apparently not.
It has already been announced that we are not winning in Iraq, probably soon he will have to announce we are not winning against Al Qaeda either.
I would use the word crazy to describe this if it weren't so dangerous.

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The new warnings are different from those made in recent months by intelligence officials and terrorism experts, who have spoken about the growing abilities of Taliban forces and Pakistani militants to launch attacks into Afghanistan. American officials say that the new intelligence is focused on Al Qaeda and points to the prospect that the terrorist network is gaining in strength despite more than five years of a sustained American-led campaign to weaken it.

The concern about a resurgent Al Qaeda has been the subject of intensive discussion at high levels of the Bush administration, the officials said, and has reignited debate about how to address Pakistan’s role as a haven for militants without undermining the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.
Last week, President Bush’s senior counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, went to Afghanistan during a Middle East trip to meet with security officials about rising concerns on Al Qaeda’s resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an administration official said.
Officials from several different American intelligence and counterterrorism agencies presented a consistent picture in describing the developments as a major setback to American efforts against Al Qaeda.

Sad but funny

If it wasn't so sad you could make it really funny...

Press Conference 2

Yesterday I said I'd quote some from Bushes' press conference of yesterday.
This post will be a little longer than normal, because I am quoting from the transcript.
The first subject has to do with the reliability of the intellingence telling us that Iran is sneding weapons to and meddling with the situation in Iraq.
It seems to me a most reasonable question and, in the light of the intelligence mistakes upon which the war in Iraq is based, absolutely necessary that we can trust the intelligence information we are getting. There is nothing political or negatively critical about the question. It is perfectly reasonable, and one we are most interested in.
That question was asked at least twice yesterday, and received no answer.
It is at least scandalous that no answer was given, and also alarming. Read it for yourself:

Q Thank you, sir. I'd like to follow on Iran. Critics say that you are using the same quality of intelligence about Iran that you used to make the case for war in Iraq, specifically about WMD that turned out to be wrong, and that you are doing that to make a case for war against Iran. Is that the case?
THE PRESIDENT: I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops. And I'd like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds force was ordered from the top echelons of government. But my point is what's worse -- them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening? And so we will continue to protect our troops.
David, our strategy is comprehensive in order to resolve problems that will affect our own peace and the peace in the world. And the biggest problem I see is the Iranians' desire to have a nuclear weapon. As you know, we've been dealing with this issue ever since you've been covering me, and pretty much ever since I've been the President. And we've made it very clear to the Iranians that if they would like to have a dialogue with the United States, there needs to be a verifiable suspension of their program. I would hope that they would do that. I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people.
But my focus is on making sure that this weapon is dealt with, the program is dealt with in a constructive, peaceful way. And we'll continue to work toward achieving our common objective with other nations in the world in a peaceful way.

Q. What assurances can you give the American people that the intelligence this time will be accurate?
THE PRESIDENT: Ed, we know they're there, we know they're provided by the Quds force. We know the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds force, go do this, but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government. What matters is, is that we're responding. The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous, Ed. My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple.

He gives us no assurance that the intelligence now is of a better quality than that of five years ago. None.

I also mentioned how difficult it is to understand Bush. If you have some time, try to figure out his answer to this question.

Q Mr. President, do you agree with the National Intelligence Estimate that we are now in a civil war in Iraq? And, also, you talk about victory, that you have to have victory in Iraq; it would be catastrophic if we didn't. You said again today that the enemy would come here, and yet you say it's not an open-ended commitment. How do you square those things?
…The reason I described that is that no matter what you call it, it's a complex situation, and it needed to be dealt with inside of Iraq. We've got people who say civil war, we've got people on the ground who don't believe it's a civil war. But nevertheless, it is -- it was dangerous enough that I had to make a decision to try to stop it, so that a government that is bound by a constitution, where the country feels relatively secure as a result of a security force that is even-handed in its application of security; a place where the vast resources of the country -- this is a relatively wealthy country, in that they've got a lot of hydrocarbons -- is shared equally amongst people; that there is a federalism that evolves under the Constitution where the local provinces have got authority, as well; and where people who may have made a political decision in the past and yet weren't criminals can participate in the life of the country; and is an ally in the war on terror. In other words, that there is a bulwark for moderation, as opposed to a safe haven for extremism. And that's what I would view as successful.

Now only 704 days.

Press Conference

I'm listening live to the Bush press conference today.
He really does simply avoid answering some pretty straightforward questions.
Some of what he says is really absolute nonsense.
Some of it is not understandable.
The English continues to be butchered.
It's an embarrassment.
When the text is printed, I'll comment more specifically.
Only 705 days, my counter tells me.

Children and the Kingdom

Today UNICEF published a report entitled: An overview of child well-being in rich countries.
It is an assessment of the wellbeing of children and adolescents in econcomically advanced nations.
On the front page are these words:

The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.

The older I get, the more I think this is correct. When we as families cannot or will not provide a safe place for our children, we fail miserably, however rich and powerful we may be.

It is interesting that Holland takes the first prize, having the highest average ranking.

The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed - Britain last and the U.S. next to last.

The U.S. has the higest number of children in households with less than 50% of the median income, and ranks, in that category, last.

My sermon this coming Sunday will be on Jesus' parable about Kingdom as a mustard seed that provides a nesting place for the birds of the air. Where the Kingdom is, people - and children - are safe.

Should give us a lot to think about. Where is Gods Kingdom now really?

Why are children so safe in "secular" Holland, and so unsafe in "Christian" America?

And what are you doing to promote the wellbeing of the next generation?

Derailed

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone about what it is like when things get difficult - either temporarily or for the long haul.
I used the example of a train that is derailed. It's not going anywhere (for a while).

What you don't need is someone who makes all kinds of suggestions about what you could/should have done to prevent the derailment.
It also doesn't help if those around you say or think look, you derailed the train, get it back on the tracks yourself, and when things are running again I'll catch up with you.
You need someone who bends down to help you without saying too much.

Sometimes you need more than one person.

Deadly Sins

This list of the deadly sins of preaching as given by John Ortberg and reproduced on Out of Ur. Good stuff, and so relevant.

1. The temptation to be inauthentic
We want to present an image to others that makes us appear more holy, intelligent, or godly than we actually are. In the end this is a foolish pursuit because the truth of who we are will always leak out.
2. The temptation to live for recognition
After finishing a sermon the question that runs through most of our minds is, did they like it? But we need to learn to root our identity in something other than applause. Ortberg cited Dallas Willard’s ability to present his material and give no thought to people’s reactions. He’s like a child who releases a helium balloon. He says what God’s given him to say, and simply lets it go.
3. The temptation to live in fear
What if I fail? That question plagues many pastors. But there is a difference between failing at something and being a failure. You are not a failure. Again, our identity must been hidden in Christ and not our accomplishments.
4. The temptation to compare
With the radio, television, and the internet our generation faces this temptation more than any previous generation. Our culture of celebrity pastors causes us to compare ourselves to others. This does nothing good for the soul.
5. The temptation to exaggerate
This seems closely linked to temptation number one. Overstating facts is how we often try to manage our image and appear better than we are. John also linked this to plagiarism—passing someone else’s story, sermon, or idea off as our own to win approval.
6. The temptation to feel chronically inadequate
7. The temptation of pride
Having people listen to you give a monologue every week can make you prideful. The antidote? A wife. (Ortberg’s joke, not mine.)
8. The temptation to manipulate
Having a pulpit and speaking the words of God might give some a power rush. We mustn’t use our position to manipulate people into doing what we want them to do.
9. The temptation of envy
This seems related to number four, the temptation to compare. But envy carries the nuance of desire and ambition. We not only compare ourselves to another preacher, but we seek to achieve what they have. Such selfish motivations will undermine our spiritual health.
10. The temptation of anger
John read this quote from Henri Nouwen that says it all:
Anger in particular seems close to a professional vice in the contemporary ministry. Pastors are angry at their leaders for not leading and at their followers for not following. They are angry at those who do not come to church for not coming and angry at those who do come for coming without enthusiasm. They are angry at their families, who make them feel guilty, and angry at themselves for not being who they want to be. This is not an open, blatant, roaring anger, but an anger hidden behind the smooth word, the smiling face, and the polite handshake. It is a frozen anger, an anger which settles into a biting resentment and slowly paralyzes a generous heart. If there is anything that makes the ministry look grim and dull, it is this dark, insidious anger in the servants of Christ.

Contrast

If you have some time, check out these two videos.
One is emerging church.
A little, like, too much, like, vague, for me, like, what are these guys like really saying?
The second is selling someone a product based on fear - fear of hell. Can you imagine how succesful a counselor would be using this approach to save a marriage on the rocks?
(I did like the girl who wouldn't admit that "cursing" was such a sin. She stood up to them.)
Been there, done that.
Won't do it again.


Publish

Death by Ministry

From Mark Driscoll, the following information about pastors in America.
When have you last prayed for your pastor and his wife?
When have you last encouraged your pastor and his wife?

Pastors
• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
• Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
• Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
• Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

Pastors' Wives
• Eighty percent of pastors' spouses feel their spouse is overworked.
• Eighty percent of pastors' spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.
• The majority of pastor's wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

Don't embolden the enemy

One bullet

This story in the New York Times of Monday, January 29.

You can do nothing else than have enormous respect for the soldiers who exhibit such bravery in such dangerous and overwhelming circumstances. I hope and pray with all my heart that God (and anyone else who can) protects them from harm.

Staff Sgt. Hector Leija scanned the kitchen, searching for illegal weapons. One wall away, in an apartment next door, a scared Shiite family huddled around a space heater, cradling an infant.

It was after 9 a.m. on Wednesday, on Haifa Street in central Baghdad, and the crack-crack of machine-gun fire had been rattling since dawn. More than a thousand American and Iraqi troops had come to this warren of high rises and hovels to disrupt the growing nest of Sunni and Shiite fighters battling for control of the area.

The joint military effort has been billed as the first step toward an Iraqi takeover of security. But this morning, in the two dark, third-floor apartments on Haifa Street, that promise seemed distant. What was close, and painfully real, was the cost of an escalating street fight that had trapped American soldiers and Iraqi bystanders between warring sects.

Staff Sgt. Leija died.

I have already said on this weblog, but I will say it again: guerilla warfare can almost never be won. Our soldiers are being put into a no-win situation, and the addition of 21,000 troops does nothing to give hope that the situation will improve in the long term.

If I was in the States I would join a peace rally. For a half-decent comparison of Iraq with Viet Nam, click here.

God weeps

"God weeps," Archbishop Tutu told participants in the ecumenical gathering near the conclusion of the World Social Forum in Nairobi, "and says, 'Who will help me so we can have a different kind of world, one in which the rich know they have been given much so they can share and help others?'"
More than 50,000 community activists, social reformers, religious leaders, and movers and shakers met at the seventh World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, this January to compare strategies on transforming global economic systems to benefit the majority world, rather than maintaining economic systems that produce immoral disparities: one percent of the world's adults owns 40 percent of the world's wealth, while the bottom half combined owns less than one percent.

This from God's Politics, the weblog of Jim Wallis.

What can you do, as an unbelievably rich person, to contribute to righting the imbalances in the world?

Words

The New York Times has an interesting interactive site that helps you see what words George Bush used in his State of the Union speeches, how many times he used them, in which speech, and the context of the words.
He has spoken over 34,000 words in these addresses, and you can search for words and find out exactly when and how he used them.
For example, "Iraq" was used 34 times in 2007, "Social Security" twice. In 2005, the year of his big (failed) Social Security push, he used the word 8 times.

Interesting that he clearly says, in 2007, that we are failing at protecting Social Security.
About Iraq he says: Let us find our resolve, and turn events to victory.

He also says that our commitment to Iraq is not open ended. (I thought we couldn't say that, that would be capitulating to the enemy.)
And we learn that Iraq's government has committed itself to a series of benchmarks. During the election campaign, benchmarks were of the devil.

Throughout history, Presidents have begun their State of the Union with the ringing words "The State of our Union is strong".

This year he couldn't bring himself to begin this way. So he slipped it in the last sentence: We've met challenges and faced dangers, and we know that more lie ahead. Yet we can go forward with confidence -- because the State of our Union is strong, our cause in the world is right, and tonight that cause goes on.

Check out the site, it is a lot of fun.

Hillary

Well, she's done it.
She's going to run.

I hope they don't, but the Religious Right is going to have her for dinner, if they can.

Which I don't really understand.

When her husband strayed, she stayed with him.

Sounds like pretty good family values to me.

Crickets

Diplomacy

This is what we need more of, and it is encouraging.

Public American diplomacy in the Middle East: high level (Condoleeza Rice) and public. The Isreali-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of much of the problem in the Middle East. Anything that will help solve that problem will help reduce terrorism.

Good.

Good.

It appears that Rice also wants to try to sell Bushes' plan for Iraq. I hope she listens well.

A good car salesman listens to his customer.

The latest funnies

"The good news is last night President Bush finally admitted he's made mistakes in Iraq. The bad news is he's planning to make the same mistakes again." --Jay Leno

"After hearing the president's speech, Democrats in the Senate are seeking bipartisan support for a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush's deployment of his military escalation. In response, President Bush said, 'Huh?'" --Conan O'Brien

"President Bush is now calling for sending 21,000 more troops to Iraq. How does he come up with that number? I don't even think 21,000 people in the country think it's a good idea." --Jay Leno

"President Bush announced he's creating 20,000 new jobs. They're all in Iraq." --Jay Leno

"Yesterday Al Sharpton was asked about running for president, and he said, 'I'm not hearing a lot of meat. When the meats hit the fire, we'll find out if there's some real meat there.' Personally, I think it's a shame President Bush can't run again, because that would be one hell of a debate." --Conan O'Brien

Guts

News report today:
A British newspaper reported Sunday that Prince Harry (who is third in line to the British throne) was scheduled to begin final training for deployment to Iraq with his Army regiment -- but the defense ministry said no decision had been made on whether his regiment would be deployed.

John McCain's son may also go to Iraq, now that the President needs more troops.

There were, of course, many stories going around about G.W.'s stint in the military. Who knows what the truth really is, but the very fact that these stories are out there (and no stories of this nature would even be taken seriously if they were about John McCain, his son, or Prince Harry) says something about our Commander in Chief.

Failure according to Bush

You have certainly seen or heard this, but if not, here it is.
And it isn't even a late-night joke!
Apparently Bushspeak and Rumsspeak is contagious.

An interview by CNN with Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Advisor:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

They don't have to come

A first reaction to the speech of President Bush.

He said this: The consequences of failure are clear: (..) Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities.


116 Americans died in December 2006 in Iraq. The total number of deaths to this point is 3019.
If the violence continues at this same pace (and most - including Bush himself - expect it to get worse) another 1000 Americans will lose their lives in 2007.
On September 11 2001 we lost 2996 Americans.

The terrorists don't have to come to the streets of our cities anymore.
They can kill us right in the streets of Baghdad.

Poll

Another facet

An article by Ryan Beiler on another aspect of Saddam and Iraq. Click here for the weblog.

One salient point that I've found missing from most commentary on the execution is that the specific crime of which Hussein was convicted - the 1982 massacre of 148 Iraqis in the town of Dujail - occurred while Hussein was being aided by the United States.

The infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein was taken in 1983. What's more, the U.S. actively supported Hussein throughout the '80s in spite of reports of such atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons. This isn't conspiracy theory - the report linked above is drawn almost entirely from mainstream media sources like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Of course, this isn't news to anyone who's followed Iraq-U.S. politics for any length of time. The joke about how "the U.S. knows Iraq has WMDs because we have the receipts," isn't far off.

It just seems especially ironic that so many Americans are celebrating the death of a tyrant who was executed for a crime committed while he was "our S.O.B." Iraqis had long suffered because of U.S. support for Saddam, and now American servicemen and women have joined them in paying dearly for the war to remove him.

Biting my fingernails

Apparently George Bush is going to unveil his plan for Iraq next week.

I’m pretty nervous about it.

I have just minimal knowledge of how other cultures work, and the culture of the Middle East is not my area of experience. But it seems that some common sense things are being ignored in the Iraq situation that even I can figure out. It is interesting to see people like Zbigniew Brezinski and William Cohen say things on Wolf Blitzer’s Late Edition that echo what I think. A couple of things:

1. Don’t ever make a martyr out of someone. Every culture has its martyrs, who are heroes. The worst thing you can do if you are trying to stamp out a resistance movement is create martyrs for it. That means, I would think, that one would wait with Saddam’s execution until the situation has stabilized in Iraq. Insisting on doing it now only inflames the resistance. And don't tell me that the U.S. did not influence the timing of the execution.

2. A war should always be for just causes and bring justice (at least from our Western perspective). By not making Saddam stand trial for all the crimes of which he was charged you create a deep sense of injustice in many victims. I believe you could heal things in Iraq more quickly by insuring that everyone feels he or she has had the chance to seek and find justice or reconciliation. South Africa provides a fine example of that, it seems to me.

3. Avoid looking like an occupying army. The U.S. fumbled this ball from the beginning, and while it looks like a small thing, transporting Saddam to the execution chamber and his body afterwards cannot have helped things in that regard.

4. The hardest war to fight and win is a guerrilla war. We should have learned that in Viet Nam. World history is clear on the difficulty of winning guerilla warfare. If Bush does increase the troops in Iraq, and only by 30 or 40 thousand, it will show that he and his advisors do not understand this basic principle. We either need to get out of the guerrilla war as soon as possible or send in 400,000 troops and an atomic weapon to finish off the job. Now.

5. You cannot impose, from outside, a political system or a religion on a people. Democracy, for example. You have to win hearts and change the culture from inside. The barrel of a gun will never do it.

The signals we are getting are not at all encouraging to me.

But I still hope.

Attitude toward enemies

A quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Don't forget that he voluntarily returned to Germany from a safe position in New York because he felt he could not minister to his people after the Nazi regime was gone if he didn't suffer with his people under the regime.
And we was finally hanged by the Nazis in prison in 1945, just three weeks before the liberation. He has the right to speak about the Christian attitude towards enemies:

[N]ever be conceited. With respect to our attitude toward our enemies, this means first, remember that you were God's enemy and that, without having earned it or being worthy of it, you were met with mercy. It means second, remember that God hung on the cross for your enemy too, and love God and God loves you.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The secrets died with him

Robert Fisk is a controversial figure. Some say he is in bed with the Arab countries of the Middle East and so his reporting and criticism of the West can't be trusted. I don't really know. It is obvious that he has spent much time in the Middle East and gets to places (partly because he is a very brave man) that other reporters don't. It certainly is worth listening to his voice.

This article (one of a couple) on the death of Saddam from which I reproduce a few excerpts:

We've shut him up. The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is dead….

Iran's official history of the eight-year war with Iraq states that Saddam first used chemical weapons against it on 13 January 1981. AP's correspondent in Baghdad, Mohamed Salaam, was taken to see the scene of an Iraqi military victory east of Basra. "We started counting - we walked miles and miles in this fucking desert, just counting," he said. "We got to 700 and got muddled and had to start counting again ... The Iraqis had used, for the first time, a combination - the nerve gas would paralyse their bodies ... the mustard gas would drown them in their own lungs. That's why they spat blood."

At the time, the Iranians claimed that this terrible cocktail had been given to Saddam by the US. Washington denied this. But the Iranians were right. The lengthy negotiations which led to America's complicity in this atrocity remain secret - Donald Rumsfeld was one of President Ronald Reagan's point-men at this period - although Saddam undoubtedly knew every detail. But a largely unreported document, "United States Chemical and Biological Warfare-related Dual-use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War", stated that prior to 1985 and afterwards, US companies had sent government-approved shipments of biological agents to Iraq. These included Bacillus anthracis, which produces anthrax, andEscherichia coli (E. coli). That Senate report concluded that: "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-systems programs, including ... chemical warfare agent production facility plant and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment."……

We still don't know - and with Saddam's execution we will probably never know - the extent of US credits to Iraq, which began in 1982…..

The whole truth died with Saddam Hussein in the Baghdad execution chamber yesterday. Many in Washington and London must have sighed with relief that the old man had been silenced for ever.

Happy New Year

In 2007 a new look for this blog, which is not read by too many people. The last count showed an average of 6 persons per day.

That's alright - it gives me a chance to express myself, particularly on politics, Iraq, etc. If you want to read a really good blog that will make you think and laugh, try Jon Swift.

Anyway - a Happy New Year to all 6 of you!

I hope you have a healthy, happy, fruitful and blessed 2007!