My Prayer For The Week

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen.

A Fransciscan Blessing

Do Martyr's Still Exist?

Now I’ve heard stories like that of Jim Elliot who was killed trying to share the gospel to the isolated Quichua tribe in Ecuador, but that was over 50 years ago. Do things like this still happen? There are fewer and fewer isolated tribes like the Quichua, and if you’re anything like me, you never hear of missionaries dying out in the field any more. With this in mind, I've decided to share a few of the great stories I’ve recently come across. It certainly is not my ambition to become a martyr, but if that was my destiny I would hope that my story would inspire others to continue the work that I gave my life to. So for this reason, I want to remember two martyrs who I believe have given their lives to incredible causes.

Unlike most people in America, most people in Nairobi, Kenya know the story of Father Kaiser, a Catholic priest from Minnesota. For more than 30 years, Father Kaiser served as a missionary in Kenya. As tribal hatred and violence grew in the 90’s, he began to collect information on specific acts of violence that he suspected to be politically inspired. The government denied these accusations as they had even denied that AIDS was a problem in Kenya.

Father Kaiser’s protests got him arrested, beaten, and thrown far out into the bush, but his real downfall began when he came to the aid of 2 schoolgirls in the summer of ‘99. The girls claimed to have been raped by a government minister. Father Kaiser raised the matter with various high officials and was first rebuffed and eventually put under pressure to cease publicizing the facts. When he kept at it, they attempted to deport him. With the intervention of US Ambassador Jonnie Carson (for real), he was eventually granted a new work permit. But In August 2000, Father Kaiser’s corpse was found on the side of the road. He was murdered. Less than a week after his death the charges of rape were dropped.

Before his death, Father Kaiser wrote a book about his experience in Kenya, entitle If I Die. In it he warns:

““I want all to know that if I disappear from the scene, because the bush is vast and hyenas many, that I am not planning any accident, nor, God forbid, any self destruction. Instead, I trust in a good guardian angel and in the action of grace.”

Clearly Father Kaiser knew the dangers of what he was getting into, and yet he stilled sacrificed himself in order to give volume to the voices of the weak and oppressed.

I am amazed and inspired by Father Kaiser, and I wonder how many people out there have the heart and the faith of this man. It was 7 years later when things finally got crazy with the Kenyan government. Initially I was in support of the government of Kenya in this conflict, but in lieu of stories like this, it is much easier to understand how widespread violence can break out among seemingly peaceful people. Corruption and oppression breeds violence. Let’s not forget what Father Kaiser gave his life to.

Another great story is that of Amy Biehl. After graduating from Stanford, in 1993, she was a Fulbright exchange scholar in Cape Town, South Africa. As a volunteer in voter registration for South Africa’s first all-race elections approaching in April, 1994, Amy had driven three African friends home to their black township as a favor. Seeing her white face, a mob of African boys preyed on her and showered her car with stones. Amy was dragged from the car and as her friends pleaded with the assailants, yelling, “She’s a comrade!” she was viciously beaten to the ground, her head smashed with a brick and she was stabbed in the heart.

At first glance, Amy’s death would appear to be the tragic waste of a great young life. But much like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus himself, and 11 of the 12 disciples, Amy became much more powerful through death than she could have ever been through life.

Four young men were convicted for Amy’s murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After 3 years, they appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and pleaded that their motive was political and not racial. The murderer’s freedom would have been impossible without the assent of Amy’s parents, but in 1998 all four boys were pardoned. Although the mother of one of the killers was so disgusted with her son that she could not face him, the Biehls embraced them. Amy’s father shook the hands of the murderers and said, “The most important vehicle of reconciliation is open and honest dialogue...we are here to reconcile a human life which was taken without an opportunity for dialogue. When we are finished with this process we must move forward with linked arms.”

The Biehl’s created the Amy Biehl Foundation, a multimillion dollar charity dedicated to empowering people who are oppressed. 2 of the boys, Ntombeko Peni and Easy Nofomela were given jobs by the Biehl’s and to this day still hold salaried positions for the foundation. Monday, August 25^th marks the 15^th year anniversary of Amy’s death. I will celebrate her life that day.

So, do you know any modern day martyrs?

Livin Cheap

If you're anything like me, you spend way TOO much money on food. In an effort to simply my life and my spending, I thought it would be an appropriate step to start eating in rather than out. I soon learned that Waluk and cooking just don't mix. I would probably start courting a nice domesticated girl before I learn to cook a meal 6 nights a week. I once had the ambition of becoming a freegan, someone who doesn't pay money at all to eat, but unless I put myself in the community of other freegans, this just isn't going to happen. I even once considered primate food, but that's neither here nor there. Then I realized that if you hit up the right bar/restaurant at the right time, you can come across a pretty good deal. So now I'm on a mission to find a meal deal for every night of the week.

I should mention that it was once my goal to find $25 cent wings 5 nights a week (this never panned out), but this time I'm looking for something more hearty and healthy than wings, but on that same kind of a budget. Subway's $5 footlongs, or Hi-5's $5 menu is good place to start the brainstorming, but I'm going to set the bar just a little higher than that. Good meals that I can buy with one Abe Lincoln, including drink. Here's my list for the week. Please help me complete this!!!

Monday:
Moe's $5 Joey and a drink (retail value of $7.95). Bring a flask of George Dickel to irish up your coca-cola and drink cheap all night.
Jax $.35 wings
Chick-fil-a, free chick sandwich if you can show up with a church bulletin.
Pint night at the Flying Saucer

Tuesday:
Harris Teeter $2.50 subs. These are high caliber, made to order.
Snoopy's $.99 hot dog day
Free snack table at the Flying Saucer...too bad beer is >$3 a drink.

Wednesday:
Person St Pharmacy 2 Dogs for $.99. This is the best deal of all, but the grill closes at 5:30.
Jax $.35 wings

Thursday:
Help!
1/2 priced sushi blues after 11pm is not that great of a deal....

Friday:
Harris Teeter $3.99 12-inch subs. 6-inch is probably enough, but go in with a friend.

Saturday:
Free beer at the Carolina Brewing Company in Holly Springs at 1pm. That's better than a meal.

Sunday:
Stool Pigeon's 1/2 price menu
The Goat $1 mystery beer

Any night after 10pm:
Mojo's $1 burgers


Alright, upon review, this list is less than desirable. Please chime in with any good deals you know of. With your help, we can compile the ultimate go to list for any time during the week.

An American in Africa

I have a friend in Sudan and I recently sent him a fantastic book called The Unheard, along with a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition (you have to read the book to understand this one). The book is about a young, deaf American's two years of Peace Corps service in Zambia. Upon finishing the book here are my friend's thoughts. Comments please.



i finished The Unheard on Tuesday. i liked it a lot! the people of Mununga in Zambia are SO much like the Sudanese in a lot of ways. probably it’s because of the level of poverty in the two places. Sudan is a bit more impoverished than what Mununga sounds like but a lot of the same things happen. a lack of a reliable justice system leads to Mob Justice. women are still considered assets, second class citizens and are still sold off for marriage. People are VERY tribally biased...the Sudanese are just terrible with that. the infant mortality and maternal mortality rates are astronomical.


reading the book i felt a noticeable level of despair creep in. i mean, it affirmed a lot of the frustrations i have with Africa. it seems like no matter what you try to do on this continent there are evil and corrupt men who simply won’t accept good things. we work with a lot of subcontractors and individuals in church leadership and i can’t implicitly trust a single one of them. not because of gut feelings or anything, but because we’re constantly burned whenever we try to trust people. i was talking to a guy who grew up in East Africa and works with us. we agreed that it seems like nobody has any hope that a better Africa can be built, so every opportunity they have to cheat the system, to cheat other people they take. they are interested only in making sure that at least their family is taken care of. it’s tough to consider that many people in the international community believe Africa will never be any better than it is right now.


take Mauritania for instance, a West African country north of Senegal. i read on BBC yesterday that after one year in office, the first popularly elected President in a free and fair election since the country’s independence from France in 1960 was ousted in a military coup this week. i mean, as soon as Justice plays out and things look like they’ll be OK some power hungry, greedy, irresponsible sons of bitches decide they want it for themselves. but hey, it’s job security for us in International Relief. i know, not cool. i’d much rather live in Africa promoting a booming tourist economy than propping up the innocent citizens of failed states who are spat on by their governments and ignored by most of the rest of the world. what’s their hope? only the love of Christ. i guess that’s ultimately why i’m here.


anyway, such a good read! i now see how the swimsuit magazine fits in. funny stuff. it’s so true though about the amount of sexual energy there is out here. it seems like sex and poverty are the two unifying themes that run throughout Africa.

Dog Sitting

So as fate would have it, after posting a blog about how twenty somethings shouldn’t own dogs, here I am pet sitting for the week. My girlfriend left me her dog, Maggie, as she went up to Ohio to hopefully get people to give her money in order to go save the world. In the past few days Mags and I have spent some quality time together, and I haven’t spent one second inside of a bar or had a night on the town since her arrival. So I stand proudly as my own best example of shameful dog ownership.

Have I ever owned or even lived with a dog? -No. Have I seen The Dog Whisperer? -Yes. That hour and a half of my life more than qualifies me as “pack leader” for the week. In just two days I’ve trained Maggie to walk along side of me perfectly. Beyond that, I’ve accomplished nothing. She’ll follow me around the house obsessively, then I will turn and call her over to me and she just stares back and then runs away when I approach her. How do you train a dog to come when you call it? I’ve always gotten a good laugh at people, namely Sam Ed, who call and call their dogs to no avail, but now I am one of those people. I really could be the most shameful of dog owners.

So what’s intrigued me the most about Mags this week is her obsessive routines; most notably her pooping ritual. I’ve broken her habit of constantly pulling on her leash, but right before she poops she will pull on the leash, dip her shoulder and circle counterclockwise 2 times. This gives you a good warning incase you want to pull her out of it and avoid a shitting. If you yank the leash at any point before she squats, she will abandon her quest to poop, hence my inability to rid her of this habit. Once she poops, she will take about 4 steps forward and then claw at the ground as if she is trying to burry her poo, even though she is typically clawing nowhere near her poo and she only kicks up the smallest amount of grass. I was quite proud of myself yesterday when I saw Maggie circling around and was able to bag her poo straight from the anus. To my chagrin, she dropped two more logs, but I was still impressed with myself.

Here’s a video of Maggie displaying one of her illogical fears. The two things she fears in my house are large cardboard boxes and air vents. Rest a toy on a large box, or a vent and it’ll drive her crazy. What a weirdo. Does anyone know a good dog therapist?

Weddings Save American Economy

I recently stood up in a friend’s wedding. It was only the third wedding I have stood up in, but my lack of understanding of the tradition is growing and growing. Aside from my philosophical holdup with the bridal party in general, the giant draining hole in my bank account has become a much greater concern for me. Not only did I have to sacrifice 4 ½ days to party, I paid for it dearly. Let’s examine some of these expenses:

Tuxedo: $150

Golf at bachelor party: $38

Bar tab at bachelor party: $32

Groomsmen round of golf: $32

3 nights in a hotel: $125

modest wedding gift: $45

Gas in and out of town: $40

Beer/food/miscellaneous: $100

That’s a total of $562. Now, I’ve never heard of anyone turning down a request to be in a wedding due to financial needs, but why not? And I got off easy. Some of the other groomsmen flew in from out of town, probably at a cost of about $300, and at the end of the bachelor party, about 20 guys wound up at the strip club and from what I heard, each of them spent anywhere between $100 and $400 there. All this money in the celebration of the union between two people, with a statistical 50% chance of complete failure. I had no duties outside of standing straight, smiling for pictures, and of course paying for my tuxedo. At no point did I need to speak, gesture or even help out in any way. I did get introduced at the reception, and even got paired up with a very attractive bridesmaid, but I suppose any time you drop down a small pile of c-notes, you should be treated with some level of earned respect.

This would not have been so difficult on me had I not just sent an email to a Ugandan friends explaining how I just didn’t have the money to help supplement his schooling. At a whopping $70 a semester, it will now surely require even further faith in Jesus to get me to heaven. “Sorry buddy, I just don’t have the money to give to you at this moment. Good luck…uhh…eating…I guess.”

Considering that I was just one of ten groomsmen, the wedding party of 20 people easily accrued over $10,000 in operating expenses. I’m sure this might sound a little selfish on my part considering that the families of the bride and groom easily doubled this amount of money in funding the wedding and rehearsal dinner. Then when you consider the guest list of around 250 people, largely from out of town, and taking a glance at the extensive registry of the couple, I’d say it’s a conservative ballpark guestimation that somewhere between $50,000 to $100,000 was put into this wedding somewhere along the line. And considering that the combined take home income this past year of the proud couple was surely less than half of this, the whole production seems a little ridiculous. The real winner in this wedding was not the bride and groom, but rather the small town of about 20,000 people where the wedding was held.

In defense of all this, I must say that I had an absolute blast of a time over the entire weekend. It was great to be part of the whole experience of family coming together and letting loose in celebration. My questions lie within the institution itself. Let’s remember that this wedding was performed under the supervision of a Christian church. The bride and groom were forced to take a nine week premarital course and even sign a vow of chastity. I’m not sure what went on in the premarital class, other than discussions on budgeting as a couple and waiting for the wedding night, but it concerns me that churches actually encourage people to get married in such an extravagant fashion. The pastor who conducted the wedding even told me, “there’s next to nothing in the bible on weddings”. So my question is, “Where did all this come from?”

The same pastor told me that the tradition of the groom not seeing the bride before the ceremony stems from arranged marriages. There was a concern that if the groom saw the bride for the first time before the wedding, he might bail and flea from town. There are countless traditions like this that are harmless details of any wedding: the first kiss, the cutting of the cake, the tossing of the bouquet and boutonniere, the toast, and even the bride wearing white. But there are also some traditions that are a little less innocent, namely the ring. It was tradition, and still is in some cultures, for the groom to make a financial sacrifice to the bride’s family (a dowry) in order to display his commitment to his bride. This tradition is out of hand in some places around the world as I have heard of so many fathers selfishly exploiting their daughter’s husband for as much money as he possibly can. The strange irony in America is that the father of the bride now seems to be the person who is left with the largest financial burden when his daughter is taken away in marriage. Somewhere down the line of American tradition, this financial sacrifice of the groom turned into the purchase of a ring, and under the marketing of De Beers, the ring turned into a diamond ring. Somewhere around 100 years ago this became the norm, but in the 1940’s De Beers realized that most couples were selling their engagement rings years after their marriage, creating a large second hand market for diamonds. De Beers then launched the most successful marketing campaign of the 20^th century; “A diamond is forever”. The rest is history, as I (and probably you) can’t think of a single American couple to get married without a diamond. As a society people are finally becoming aware of the turmoil caused by “blood diamonds” or diamond companies in general, but what’s amazing to me is that there has been no shortage in the demand for diamonds. The diamond ring stands as the single most important, fundamental detail in the American wedding.

All this coming from an unmarried blogger. Whenever the day comes when I find that special someone and we decide to tie the knot, I’d like to think that maybe we could do something completely different. No wedding showers, no registry, no flowers, no giant cake, no tuxedos and especially no diamond ring. All I want is a beautiful bride, my family and friends, and plenty of wine. We know that these simple things were in the bible and for me anything beyond this would most likely only cloud up such a grand celebration. Make this my official goodbye to any aspiration of getting married the American way. My apologies to the American economy.