Interconnectedness

I’ve been thinking about options about doing foster care or the big sister/brother program, since I will be less busy and more efficient next year teaching. I still do not have any conclusive decisions.

In regards to roommate situations for next year, things are up in the air. I’m extremely excited about living with Kamil and Kat next year. Where, with whom, etc. is still a big question. We may not know all the details until August because apartments in New York are rented on the spot, rather than in advance.

Medical school prospects look auspicious. I’m applying to D.O. and M.D. schools. My top choice is Michigan (far reach school) or Michigan State. I know many people at both schools. Wayne State has financial and accreditation issues, so I will stay away from it. I’ll apply to an array of other schools totaling more than 20 M.D. and D.O. by the end of the it all. Lots of secondary applications!

I cannot decide which church to go to. Lately, the MCAT and medical school applications have been “my church.” Now that school is coming to an end, I will be realign myself. Redeemer Presbyterian seems promising. Although Manhattan Mennonite is top notch, the community Redeemer provides may be a higher priority. I might do both. I’m torn about the community at my local church: it’s highly social justice oriented and I know people there, yet I feel alone.

Speaking of being alone, as I get older and see more of my friends getting married, especially Christian friends–secular friends seem to follow marrying much later–I pine for a relationship. Community and relationships are the core of being. I will forever be fragmented without a close intimate companion–i.e. marriage. Marriage is a purpose of life, along with family. I could name all the girls I have liked in my life on one hand. At this point, that handful of girls is down to one and there is little hope. I cannot like girls I do not know for an extended amount of time. Love overcomes all. Love is rare.

The only way to match with a loving person is to become a loving person yourself. Like dissolves like to create a single being out of two people. In reflecting about myself, as the pressure to perform escalates with the more skills and responsibilities I gain, the less idealistic and more normal seeming I become. There are endless temptations to underperform. I could call more parents, plan better lessons, talk to students more, give presents to students, plan field trips, help more with afterschool activities, but I sometimes veg out, wasting time with less important things, or the worst, wasting time on the internet.

This makes me understand the Amish way. While technology is a haven for medical advancements, some technologies hinder the quality of human communications. Without TV (I have no TV, but I still watch shows on my laptop) and the internet, Amish people spend more time with their families than average Americans. My parents have the same issues. Often when I come home, my mom is watching shows on TV or on the computer and my dad is doing something on the computer. The only time I talk with my parents for extended conversations is on hikes, which I never go on because I make excuses about being busy with other things.

I often prioritize school, jobs or other activities above relationships. The only way I can often spend a lot of time with a person is if I live with them, such as living with Kamil, my parents, my grandma or in the dorms, or isolate myself in nature or on a trip with a person. Although I have the desire to be in close community, whenever the temptation to retreat to technology or “more productive” activities arises, I often neglect community. This goes back to the psychology of addiction (dopamine) between liking and wanting. I may not like something, but still want to do it. I may not like productivity/technology because it makes me neglect community, but I still want to do it. Addicts eventually stop liking hard drugs, but they still want the drugs. Liking is controlled by the conscience (superego), whereas wanting is controlled by the unconscious (id).

Ultimately, this is a battle between the conscious and carnal nature, as the Bible describes. Nothing new.

I’m becoming continuously more conflicted on what my ideal entails. On one hand, it would be amazing to preach Jesus with every fiber of my being. On the other hand, I should not bury my talents God has given me to multiply. Some people have no other option but to become preachers. Others can become doctors to assist preaching. The biggest two hurdles to me going into preaching is, one, not having rhetorical skills (although it did not stop Moses), and two, having no role model other than Jesus to look up to. Until I found imperfections with by human role models, such as Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne (they are great people and so are you!), I was more motivated.

Jesus confuses me. Most of all, he’s supernatural, yet truth at the same time. All my conversations with Kamil stumble at this fact. I cannot explain it.

I’m more about word than deed; dreaming than reality; hope than love; faith than truth. I’m blessed to humble myself. I’m too haughty. Otherwise, I have no baseline from which to improve, becoming apathetic. You are better than me. I like to love you and often do not want to. Love without truth blinds, and truth without love kills. I must talk less and do more. The world can’t wait. God can’t wait.

There are two more days of school left: it will be the last two days of Regents Exams (New York State Exams) Monday and Tuesday next week. The Living Environment exam, the exam I have been preparing my students for the entire year, will be on Tuesday. We’ll see how well I prepared my students on Tuesday! In New York, students need to pass five Regents exam to graduate. One of these exams must be a science exam, albeit Living Environment (Biology), Chemistry, Earth Science or Physics. The Living Environment is considered to be the easiest out of these four exams.

Now, I can reflect on my year. Watching over the video and seeing how far my students have progressed from throwing objects at me in the beginning of the year to completing the Regents exam now has been gratifying. By the end of the year, I allowed my preparation for the MCAT and medical school admissions to overshadow the quality of my teaching. Fortunately, the desire for my students to perform well on the Regents helped makeup for the decrease in my performance as a teacher. The Regents results will tell.

Here are videos of me teaching biology to my 9th graders.

Mr. Mikhail Lomize teaching biology at the Performing Arts and Technology High School (PATHS) at the Thomas Jefferson High School Campus in East New York, Brooklyn, NY.

Our co-principal, Mr. Frank Murray, was videotaping me as part of a formal observation. We were learning how the environment affects heredity.

Part 1:

Part 2 (it is fuzzy for the first few minutes only):

Due to my server company, Netrillium.com, deleting my database and other malfunctions, I rebooted the whole website. Tell me what you think. You can still access all the old posts and comments at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://interconnectedness.net.

Discover the growing movement in Russia where neo-Nazi groups are brutally attacking immigrants and spreading their hate by posting violent videos online. Over half the neo-Nazis in the world are in Russia! Much of it is supported by the Russian government. My family personally knows a person involved in this movement!

Here is a video I made before leaving to New York for NYCTF. It is about my classroom observation for my NYCTF Independent Study Guide at Ypsilanti High School. Enjoy.

It is difficult to imagine the school year is almost one third done. I feel like I am finally understanding how to teach my students. For instance, when I taught about diffusion, I would start by explaining, “Diffusion is the flow of particles from high to low concentration.” Now, I start by explaining, “What is concentration? It’s the amount of particles in a liquid.” Concentration needs its own whole day. Each single vocabulary word needs its own day and some words need several days. The best teachers expound much on a single concept.

There are about 440 vocabulary words in the Regents Living Environment (LE) curriculum. I found lists of all the LE vocab in two formats: topical and alphabetical. These lists are extremely useful. I’m thinking of having my students paste these lists (in a modified format) in the back of their notebook and use it as an index. The students would write the page numbers for the notes that use each particular word.

There are about 165 full school days after you factor in Pep Rallies, afternoon parent-teacher conferences, assemblies, field trips, low-attendance days before holidays, a dozen mandated fire drills and the October 16 PSAT. Since 1200 minutes of lab are required to take the Regents LE exam, that is about twenty-four 50-minute periods. In reality, there needs to be at least 30 days for labs, because many students will be missing some labs they need to make up.

Hence, there are about 135 days to teach 440 concepts! It is necessary to narrow the 440 concepts down to about 100 while still covering the whole LE curriculum. It is possible.

Other than instruction, classroom management has been interesting. Although I kicked students out, called homes and reprimanded students for through objects, it is difficult to stop this problem entirely. Even in excellent veteran teacher classrooms, I’ve seen objects thrown at students covertly.

A few weeks ago, my classes started to get completely out of hand and no instruction was happening. I got paper balls, spit balls and writing utensils thrown at me.

I instituted a participation half-sheet the students fill out daily. Before, I would punish and give checks on a chart only for misbehavior. Now, students earn points and I give checks only for good behavior. Positive and negative reinforcement work better than punishment, as I learned in Intro to Psychology years ago.

Although it is a lot of paper work for me to grade the participation half-sheets, my classes are far more manageable and I’m teaching again. Now, my students know my expectations clearly and reflect daily whether he/she followed the rules. Moreover, the participation sheet gets every person to speak in class and answer a summary question.

Over 70 percent of my LE students are currently failing. About 85 percent of students fail the exams and about 20 percent of the students do their homework. However, these last few days, some students started performing better on the Regents LE questions, which is promising. I hear that during the approaching third marking period, students work the most, which is also promising.

Furthermore, Kevin Young, the director of NYC Student Venture, the high school ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, has come to my school twice to meet with me about starting a Bible club at P.A.T.H.S. There is one teacher, one staff member and one zealous P.A.T.H.S. student I’ve been in contact with about making this dream a reality. I’ve also been hanging out with Kamil and others, which has been amazing.

Lastly, I am returning to Ann Arbor for Thanksgiving and will see Rob Bell with Kamil in NYC Sunday, November 25th, 8pm for the gods aren’t angry tour.

I’m learning a lot about life in the inner-city. September 29th there was a 15-year-old boy, Chris Williams, that attended our church who was shot in the back and leg 9 times, because he told a few boys to stop harassing his female cousin. One of his legs was amputated and he’s in a coma. [Update: He is not in a coma anymore]

I just completed my first month of teaching my own classes. Many teachers congratulated me, because there are a significant number of teachers who quit by this time. I have no intentions of quitting. During my two month summer training, I know several people who left the program, but most teachers stayed.

During the summer, I took two education classes at Pace University and taught 8th grade summer school Earth Science in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood as an assistant teacher at I.S. 302 Rafael Cordero y Molina School (middle school). When the students came in the room, they would talk to their friends and continue talking to their friends for the duration of class. When I commanded the students to be quiet or instituted a class procedure (when I raise my hand, everyone stops talking and looks at me) to get everyone quiet, it would work for a few minutes or days, but ultimately failed. Since talking over the students was not effective, most instruction was repeated to each student individually or in small groups. This way, there would be about 10 minutes of learning time per student per 45 minute period. It was sad.

Also, on the days the lesson was not very engaging, the kids would first start talking loudly, then push one another and soon a “play fight” would break out. Girls would stab boys with pencils. Boys would pick up girls and body slam them.

This is common behavior for these kids, especially for socially-confused middle schoolers. One evening when I was waiting for a bus, I observed that one boy pushed another boy into a glass bus stop. The boy hit his head but nothing was broken, fortunately. An older woman instructed the boy to get his revenge. Revenge is a common theme with these kids. Many students say, “If someone throws a paper ball at me, I have to throw one back.”

Once I found my job at H.S. 507 The Performing Arts and Technology High School (P.A.T.H.S.) in Brooklyn to teach three classes of 9th grade Biology and one class of Health for grades 10-12, I was given a chance to do a better job than what I witnessed during the summer. I received several of the same students I taught during the summer. The first two weeks went OK. The students listened more and behaved better than during the summer, although I spent some time talking over students. On the third week, my class with the “honor” students started throwing paper balls. By the end of the week they were throwing volleyball-sized paper balls and a plastic water bottle with water at me. At that point, no instruction was happening. I started to doubt whether I made the right decision to teach in the inner-city.

After those incidents, I started contacting other teachers, administrators and parents for help with these students. Now, no students would dare throw anything in my class, because they know that they will be immediately removed and administrators and parents will be contacted. The only way the students behave well is by having many consequences for misbehavior.

By the fourth week, I had most of my students in check and I learned most of my students’ names, which helps immensely. These last fourth and fifth weeks, the students as a whole finally started to learn some biology. I can generally have all the students quiet and we can have discussions as a group. There is still much room for improvement with classroom management, but the difference is night and day. I received a lot of positive feedback from other teachers. One teacher said, “Mr. Lomize has improved more than any other first-year teacher in our school, especially for a white teacher [most of my students are Black or Latino]. He reflects and is flexible about changing his approach.” Another teacher said, “I’ve taught for thirty years in these schools and I could not control these kids any better than Mr. Lomize.”

The building I teach in used to be Thomas Jefferson High School, a large ~ 2000 student high school that had a 10% graduation rate and many violent crimes. Four years ago, Thomas Jefferson High School was shut down and gradually replaced by four small high schools. My high school–P.A.T.H.S.–is one of those four new high schools. The school still has metal detectors, but the attendance, violence and soon-to-be graduation rates are now much improved. Security guards are positioned in all parts of the school, the students have uniforms and rules are strictly enforced.

Lastly, I’m currently taking education classes at Pace University and will have a masters in education in two years. I enjoy my apartment, which is 20 minutes door-to-door from the school via the subway. My neighbors are mostly teachers and lawyers. I live in a predominantly African-American, Caribbean and Latino community. It’s interesting to learn about other cultures.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

I was assigned to teach 8^th grade summer school Earth Science with Mr. Joseph Roy. There was another fellow, Ms. Alexis Dean, in this class already. Both Alexis and Joe were really nice. The class was quite chaotic. Alexis transferred to a different class after the third (of five) week of summer school.

I tried laying down the law by posting and rehearsing five classroom rules. Also, I established a way to quiet the class by teaching the students that, “When I raise my hand, everyone needs to look up at me and stop talking.” Lastly, I made assigned seats.

These procedures and the rules only worked for a few days, because I did not have any consequences beyond a verbal warning and I was inconsistent. The students were not graded on their daily performance and most students did not need to pass Earth Science during summer school. If a student failed math or English, they automatically had to take the full summer school curriculum, but only pass the subject(s) they failed. Moreover, summer school was seen by most people as “relaxed” and talking to parents did not seem to be recommended. Finally, it was difficult to be consistent with the class since I was not teaching or preparing the lessons most days. There was an inverse correlation between how engaging a lesson was and the level of misbehavior: the less engaging a lesson, the more misbehavior. Many of the lessons I did not prepare ended early, lacked demonstrations, and were disengaging. The level of success is mostly decided before you set foot in the classroom that day.

Although I made many mistakes and sometimes the class spiraled out of control with students throwing books across the room, stabbing each other with pencils, punching or body slamming one another, constantly swearing, listening to iPods, checking their cell phones and almost never listening to the teacher addressing the whole class (most of the instruction time was spent in talking to students one-on-one or speaking to small groups of students), I received superlative evaluations for my teaching. I was observed twice and by the second time received, “Exceeds Expectations” for all three categories: (1) Instructional Design and Delivery, (2) Classroom Management and Culture, and (3) Professional Values. During the time I was observed, the students behaved better than usual. Perhaps it was because I engaged them since I prepared my own lessons for those days? Perhaps I was fortunate?

The Pace University classes were an utter waste of time. We mostly learned about Understanding by Design. It is one of many ways to format lessons. It is not important how you format lessons; instead, it is important how engaging lessons are. If we focused on making demonstrations, activities, analogies, and other active learning concepts to prepare for teaching in September, then the class would’ve been useful.

It was so bad that I wanted to transfer from Pace University to City College. I contacted the NYCTF Placement Office and Pace Alternative Certification Office, but after much talking I understood that they would not let me make that switch no matter what. They already denied several other people before me. “They had to stick to their guns,” right? They “would not want to admit” that the Pace science curriculum was “b.s.” although many people came forward with complaints, so now there’s “bureaucratic red tape” to stop people from self-determination. They could let me go to Lehman College if I found a job in the Bronx; however, I hear that Lehman is no better than Pace. City College has the science immersion program and Brooklyn College has the Earth Science immersion program, which for some reason causes their general program to be better. Hence, future non-immersion science teaching fellows will have a low quality Master’s education unless you are keen and request to be transferred to City College directly after University placements are announced. It would’ve been nice for me to know this before. At this point, I was described as a “divorced child between my University and NYCTF.” It did not have to be this way!

Update (Monday, October 8, 2007): I hear that City College does not have a very good program either. Brooklyn College is the only college I get consistently good reviews, although it depends on what professor a student has.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Upon coming to Phillis Wheatley on Monday, I was placed in 3rd grade. They placed us without regard for our content area. The 3rd graders are great. I was a big help to the teacher. We were teaching writing, reading and math. The more one-on-one help we could give, the better. Several kids took medicine and slept for most of school; however, later in the week, they started to sleep less and work more. One girl cried when she felt too crowded. Another girl cried when she needed help. There are many brilliant kids. About 15% of the kids live in a homeless shelter. Some kids read well, yet struggled with math, or vice versa. One girl was good at math, reading and writing. I wonder why she was in summer school? Other kids were labeled special education for behavioral issues, although they were no less intelligent than others. Each child was precious. It was amazing to know each person by name and personality. I loved adapting to each child. Overall, I had three days to delve in about twenty kids’ lives and learn classroom management from a veteran teacher. Now, I will be transferred to I.S. 302 Rafael Cordera Y. Molina School that is also in East New York, Brooklyn. They need a science teacher. Teaching middle school is more similar to high school biology come September.

For fourth of July, Jan Dolle invited me to her apartment at Park Slope, Brooklyn. It so happens that Jan directed Summer In the City in Detroit in 1999 and 2000. Jan and her husband know many of the social reconciliation Christians I met in Detroit during Urban Immersion Spring Break 2007 and our Mission Serve trips. Now, I got to met many NYC social reconciliation Christians of all ages. I met staff and ex-staff of Here’s Life Inner City, Campus Crusade for Christ in NYC. They told me about Greater Restoration Baptist Church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I plan to go there tomorrow. This church has afterschool and GED/Literacy classes just like every inner-city church should have, yet many do not. In the past, when I would look at a church, I would usually consider, “Do my friends or peers go there?” or “Do they have good sermons?” However, now, I look at how a church is helping the community, if at all. The more they serve the community, the better.

The Pace University coursework is unpleasant, yet my classmates are wonderful. One fellow wisely said, “It is low level teachers teaching classes that are too long.” I expected education classes to teach all the nuances of active learning. Instead, our teacher has boring powerpoint lectures with little content and discussion. They give us volumes of reading assignments, which I do not read because it is not helpful. Instead, I read The Reluctant Disciplinarian and The First Days of School, or prepare innovative lessons. Fortunately, the NYCTF classes are better, because they are more practical. I learned more from 4 hours of NYCTF workshops than 16 hours of Pace University classes. I hear that other universities are similar. The best asset of NYCTF are the fellows. Experienced fellows teaching new fellows is ideal. Education school faculty offer little substance; hence, college education classes are commonly described as, “fluff.”

I recently learned that some administrators encourage some students to fail state exams. If a child is not performing well, some believe they would do better in a smaller special education classroom, rather than a class with 30 other students, although the child does not have Down’s syndrome, autism or other classic special education needs. Some administrators would purposely schedule a class early in the morning hoping that a child would miss the class and not pass the state exam. On the other hand, if a child fails a class, but passes the Regents exam for that class, then administrators will usually change the student’s grade to pass the class. Lastly, starting this year there will be a letter grade (A, B, C, D or F) assigned to each school based on a bell curve. The bottom 15% of schools will receive a D or F, and will likely be closed. The top 15% of schools will receive an A, and the principal (not school, students or teachers) will receive a ~ $20,000 bag of cash!

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Yesterday, on Friday, I finished the first course in NYCTF training at Pace University. It was ED 630: Adolescent Development, which was easy and time consuming (9am - 4pm every weekday). We read Random Family in two weeks and wrote daily one-page reflections about it. We learned how to make lesson plans and practiced teaching. We observed classes at Pace High School. I did interviews at the High School of Sports Management and the ACORN High School for Social Justice. Neither school called me back, including the school from last week, the EBC High School for Public Service in Bushwick. I would not like to work at EBC because they want me to teach Earth Science along with Living Environment, which would be too time consuming and not allow me to do a high quality job teaching either subject, not mentioning that I know nothing about Earth Science. ACORN has a ridiculous amount of teachers getting Unsatisfactory ratings (over 35%), which is due to poor teacher assessment by the administration. Therefore, the High School for Sports Management is the only school where I would like to work, although I know nothing about motivating students in sports management. I’m not worried. I’ll do more interviews in the coming weeks and there’s an upcoming job fair.

The last day in our ED: 630 class. Classes are grouped by subject area. All my classmates are science teachers in middle or high school

About half of my classmates are recent college graduates. Many people dropped out of PhD programs because their research was not going to well. One person dropped out of Medical School. Jan Dolle resigned from staff with Here’s Life Inner City (Campus Crusade for Christ). I like talking with Jan, because she is knowledgeable about Christian social justice and very caring. She invited me to a cook out. Others ended jobs elsewhere.

This cut-out poster is part of our final exam for the class. Welcome to graduate school!

We watched short films made by students about, “What makes a good teacher.”

Lastly, my appeal to work in a high school for my five-week summer school assistant teaching was rejected. I will start teaching in P.S. 328 Phillis Wheatley School on Monday. I’m thrilled to assistant teach in this East New York school, because this is one of the highest need of the high-need schools/regions in NYC. I’ll probably never again have an opportunity to work in a preK-8th grade school.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

I just completed my first week of NYCTF. On Monday there was a three hour reception with at Avery Fisher Hall. All of the June 2007 Teaching Fellows were present (over one thousand people). It is the only time all the fellows are together. We received lots of useful books and other materials like a NYCTF calendar, bag, keychain, highlighter and pen.

Tuesday through Friday I’ve had classes at Pace University from 9am to 6:30pm (Friday classes ended at 4pm). It takes me one hour to get from Richmond Hills, Queens to Pace University, Manhattan. Everyday for homework we have to read about 80 pages from various sources and write at least one essay. It is about 14 hours of work per day including travel and homework.

Yesterday on Friday, I interviewed at H.S. 545 EBC High School for Public Service in Bushwick. I was invited for a second interview. Some schools have three or four interviews before they hire a teacher, whereas other schools may have only one interview. I interviewed with the dean of the school who was also a science teacher. She seemed very caring and educated me on many issues in teaching. She talked more than me. She liked that I had research experience because they wanted to participate in a regional science competition.

This morning I discovered that I will do my five-week summer school teaching in P.S. 328 Phillis Wheatley School in East New York, Brooklyn. This school is pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade. I plan to teach high school, so I will appeal to teach summer school in a high school, because it would prepare me better come September. Here’s an overview of this school from insideschools.org.

What’s special: Free summer camp; new playground with track and field.
Downside: Frequent disruptive behavior.

Children who learn at PS/IS 328 deserve a Purple Heart. They are courageous, strong, and intelligent, and fight to get an education. Frequent assaults and misbehavior at the school result in an average in-house suspension rate of 18 students per day, and many students who remain in class sleep, crawl on the floor, hide under tables, chat, and curse. Some teachers aren’t much better.

While teachers yelled “sit down,” “be quiet,” and “get over here,” (one teacher screamed continuously for three minutes), students shouted “shut-up,” “get away from me,” and “I hate you.”

With an overwhelming desire to learn, one student in the 7th grade pushed his desk away from his classmates and sat alone. “I don’t like sitting in the group because they talk too much, and I can’t concentrate,” he said with frustration and sadness. “I don’t like this school.”

In fall 2003, Principal Douglas Avila arrived at PS/IS 328 to greater chaos. According to Avila, fights broke out daily, some administrators were unsupportive, and the school had no counselors. In response, Avila made numerous changes: He hired a behavior management specialist to work with both teachers and students; brought in two graduate students studying guidance counseling to work with detention students; reduced class size in kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade to 20 students; extended the school day to 5:30 p.m.; hired new administrators; and added reading specialists for grades 1-4, and a New York University tutor for kindergarten. Avila has also sought to make teachers more accountable for what goes on in the classroom: In cases where only one student passed the state exams in a class, he demoted the class teachers to cluster teachers, that is, teachers of non-core subjects. He also brought beauty to deteriorating bathrooms. After an artist painted a mural in a boy’s bathroom, the vandalism stopped. “They started to respect the bathroom,” he said.

Still, he says, he needs more time — and more resources — to turn the school around. “I have one guidance counselor,” Avila said, “but what I really need is ten.” Fourteen percent of his students are homeless, the others live in public housing, and a few teachers voiced concerns about the effects of second-hand crack smoke on their students.

The school has several important strengths to build on. Some dedicated teachers use their expertise to engage students in exciting lessons and stop class disruptions. Their classrooms are elaborately decorated with student work, and they have larger class libraries. In one 5th grade class, student work was posted with cheerful stamps that said, “nice job” and “good work.” Essays and poems were printed on colorful paper with festive decorations. In a 2nd grade class, the children were excited about writing on whiteboard slates to solve math problems. As the teacher dictated a math problem, each student wrote the computation and solved it. Students then proudly raised their whiteboards, and one student explained the problem-solving process.

The school also benefits from its new basketball court, playground, and track and field. Music, drama, and step clubs are offered to the older grades during lunch. Additionally, there is a summer camp for 30 students in each grade. Held every weekday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. between June and August, the program offers exciting activities, including overnight camping for the younger grades and out-of-state trips for the older students. Children who participate in the Groundworks after-school program receive preference in admission to the summer camp.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Read my notes and see my photos from Sojourners' Pentecost 2007.

Speakers and workshops to explain how to put poverty on the agenda of our Church

Rich Nathan, a pastor from Vineyard Church said that no church will refuse to serve the poor, but a church will refuse a change of vision. So, if you want to help the poor, lead by example and your church will follow.

Shane Claiborne inspired my specifically. Have you heard of Shane Claiborne? He traveled to as part of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) to end the war, lives in an impoverished region of Philadelphia to serve the poor, advocates many ideas to help the environment, is a vegetarian and worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. Shane talked about the New Monasticism. Have you heard of the New Monasticism? Have you heard of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA)? Have you heard of John Perkins?

The New Monasticism is living in a small intentional community in the abandoned places of the Empire, such as the inner city and other places where God’s children are oppressed. It’s “New” because this monasticism is for both celibate singles and married couples. Christians don’t start new churches, but breathe life back in the old shell of the Church. The three R’s of Christian Community Development explain this well.

The first R is Relocation. Jesus did not live in the suburbs. He neither gave charity nor did community service once in a while. His ministry was incarnational. He gave up his position of prestige to serve and know the most oppressed with ALL His life. It is more popular to give charity to the oppressed than to live with the oppressed. The problem with Christianity is not that we do not serve the oppressed, but that we do not know the oppressed. We won’t have a revival until we know the least among us.

The second R is Redistribution. Once we relocate and build a relationship with the oppressed, we will naturally want to help our friends. This will cause a natural redistribution of wealth. The poor will have their needs met, and the rich will realize they really did not need very much.

The third R is Reconciliation. Once we are living with the oppressed and sharing with them, there will be reconciliation among the different races, nations and social classes. It is the Kingdom of God.

The three R’s of Christian Community Development are (ALL TOGETHER): Relocation, Redistribution and Reconciliation.

The way we put poverty on the agenda of our church is by putting poverty on the agenda of our own life. Jesus did not go around forcing people to follow his agenda. Jesus even told people to keep his agenda a secret. Serving the most oppressed starts with community service, but it is much more than community service. It consumes all parts of our life. God is either Lord of all or Lord of none. Once we start loving God and others with all our lives, it is contagious.

Speakers and workshops to explain how to put poverty on the agenda of our Congress

Covenant for a New America tracts

Candidates Debate

Third day:

Lobby Day training

March from Church to Capital building

Compared to the January 27 Anti-War rally, people did not yell angry chants, but sang beautiful Christian songs of love. It was amazing.

Rally by the Capital building

Met with the aides of Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow and Representative Dingell

Aides told us that they were happy to hear from us and prefer hearing from us more than lobbyists.

I had a big question coming to this conference.

Do Christians try to influence their politicians? Would Jesus lobby His congress?

I’m going to talk about two main ideas I learned during Pentecost 2007.

First, talking with our politicians is not lobbying, but instead community service.

Second, Christians do much more than community service; Christians challenge the Empire, the state religion, by building the Kingdom of God.

What Would Jesus Do (WWJD)? Jesus would talk with politicians as far as they would listen, and at the same time He would build God’s Kingdom that consumes the Empire.

Talking with your politicians is community service, not lobbying. We were not lobbyists, but constituents. Lobbyists try to influence all politicians, but constituents only talk with politicians that represent their community. As an analogy, imagine you are at a university. Your professors are your congresspeople. Your classmates are your community. Your classes are your district or state. You are a constituent in your class. If your professor is hurting someone in class, you have a responsibility talk with your professor. A lobbyist tries to influence classes they are not a part of. Imagine if an unwelcomed stranger tried to influence your class. You probably would not like it. But if one of your classmates suggested a way to improve your class, it would be helpful and appropriate. You can send emails or letters to your professor or congressperson, but sometimes it is necessary to go to office hours. That’s what we were doing. We were going to office hours with our congresspeople. We went to office hours because God’s children are hurt by the policies of congress.

There are 9 million uninsured children in . It would take $50 billion over five years to decrease this number by more than half. Congress spends $10 billion per week, $10 billion per week!, on the war in . Instead of 5 weeks of fighting, we could protect millions of children from disease for 5 years. Yet, there is a debate in congress about sources of funding for this!

Politicians care what others think of them more than most people. Speak up! To proclaim the Gospel is the opposite of being silent. We worship God by giving a voice to the oppressed. It is a true church service. Before talking to my congresspeople, people mentioned that we ought to be like the widow who kept coming to the king incessantly until he agreed to her demands. Christians are holy gadflies. However, a king is not an elected official. Our elected officials want to hear from their constituents. When we speak with our politicians, it is community service, rather then just making demands.

Although Christians do community service, community service is far from the Kingdom. Christians challenge the Empire by building the Kingdom. Our hope is not in an improved Empire, but a radically different way of life: the Kingdom of God. This is exemplified in the three R’s of Christian Community Development. Talking with politicians is damage control. We want the Empire to be the least impedance to the Kingdom coming. Our hope and lives are in the Kingdom. Peace be with you. Shalom.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

After participating in Cru for the last four years, listening to Rob Bell and reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution, my view of church has changed a lot. Real church is in the small groups of people, not the large gatherings. Rob Bell calls his Sunday assembly of people, "Gatherings," instead of, "Church." He calls the small groups, "House Churches." Essentially, the "small group leaders" are church planters.

This would mean that communion, offerings, the elders and other church functions should be administered in the house churches, not the gatherings. However, most small groups do not get organized enough to fill these functions, so the gatherings administer these functions by default. Gatherings would be like conferences, parties or celebrations. I've seen four categories of small groups.

1) Mixed up small groups for non-neighbors and different genders to know one another (e.g. Harvest Mission Community Church).
2) Unordered small groups for anyone to know anyone (e.g. Shalom Community Church).
3) Clustered small groups for neighbors and same genders to know one another (e.g. Cru).
4) Semi-clustered small groups for neighbors of all different backgrounds to know one another (e.g. Mars Hill, The Simple Way).

While small groups are generally a step toward house churches, categories 1 and 2 are better suited for making a cohesive gathering, and categories 3 and 4 are better suited for a cohesive house church, because people living in the same community are usually more connected.

The amount of small groups in American Christianity is growing. About ten percent of all church-goers are in small groups.

As small groups grow, the amount of house Churches grows too. To share possessions in common and know one another deeply, house churches are the way. The early century Church was based on house churches.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

The Ryan Rodrick Beiler: Falwell Commentary Round-Up does a good job summerizing Rev. Jerry Falwell's legacy, especially Fred Barnes.

Fred Barnes, on Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume:

[H]e spurred one of the most important transformations of modern times and basically taking a group, millions of conservative Christians who'd been apathetic about politics, really since the 1920s and turned them into an active, lively, concerned voting block, that basically joined the Republican Party and gave the Republican party rough parity with Democrats.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Taken from mothersdayforpeace.com
In the United States, Mother's Day was originally suggested by poet and social activist Julia Ward Howe. In 1870, after witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War and the start of the Franco-Prussian War, she wrote the original Mother's Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace. This "Mother's Day Proclamation" would plant the seed for what would eventually become a national holiday.
 
In 1907, thirty-seven years after the proclamation was written, women's rights activist Anna Jarvis began campaigning for the establishment of a nationally observed Mother's Day holiday. And in 1914, four years after Howe's death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day as a national holiday.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

 
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

 
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

 
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Is America a Christian nation?

Gregory Boyd wrote a book about The Myth of the Christian Nation published by Zondervan.

The Christian Right is not the only main Christian religious/political power in America. The Christian Right only describes 12.6% of the U.S. population. The rest of the U.S. population is divided in 11 other groups, with most groups being Christian. Here is analysis of the twelve major political religious voting blocs in America, known as the 12 Tribes of American politics. Please read the article about The Twelve Tribes of American Politics.

Most of these Christians voted based on the Christian culture wedge issues of abortion and gay marriage. Only the "Religious Left"  and secularists substantially valued the issue of violence and poverty at the ballot boxes.

Based on a Pew Forum study, evangelical Christians are the most nationalist group of Christians in America.

The U.S. population as a whole trusts military leaders more than religious leaders, politicians, journalists or businesspeople.

Here is a World War II propaganda poster for Christians to join the Air Force. I have not seen posters like this up now, but now it a more covert mentality, especially with U.S. evangelicals more than any other group in America.

Christian nationalism, and nationalism in general, is most alive in evangelical Christian circles. I consider myself an evangelical Christian. Evangelical Christians are some of the most active church-goers in America. There is much work to be done to reform evangelical Christianity to serve the Prince of Peace who nonviolently died on the cross as an example of the path to reconciliation among all nations.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Please check out Pentecost 2007 to end poverty. It's hosted by Sojourners in Washington D.C. June 3-6. Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, Ron Sider, Lynne Hybels, Sam Rodriguez, Rich Nathan, Wallace Charles Smith, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards will talk and/or give workshops there. We'll learn how to lobby our congresspeople and meet other Christians for social justice. I'll be there. Please let me know if you're interested.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Christian Right leaders used Christians' trusting and loving nature to build a movement opposed to God's call to love our neighbors. This is still happening today. These Christian Right leaders blatantly ignore the entire Old and New Testament narrative that spells out God's priority for caring for the sick, hungry and oppressed. They replace the Good News with a message that exalts the rich, powerful and proud, especially presented with a Coke, a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, in a Hummer with an American flag and a God Bless America bumper sticker, wearing Abercrombie with Nike shoes, talking about how lost Muslims are for not accepting our message when we are spending billions of dollars to kill their relatives who we do not listen to or try to understand.

If Christians worked to establish universal values, such as ending illness, poverty and violence, nobody would look upon Christianity as harmful in politics. The current "crucial issues" (according to Rick Warren) are 1) abortion, 2) stem-cell research, 3) homosexual marriage, 4) human cloning, and 5) euthanasia. (see my entry about the status quo Church). These issues do nothing substantial in solving illness (stem-cell research and human cloning already have strict ethical guidelines without Christian influence), poverty and violence (euthanasia is an act of mercy, not judgment, unlike war and capital punishment). Abortion is the only issue of significant gravity in this list. Ending poverty is essential in stopping abortion, yet poverty is no where on this list. Some call these Christian Right issues "moral" issues. Aren't illness, poverty and violence even greater moral issues because they destroy more lives? Since Christian Right issues actively distract people from ending illness, poverty and violence, why would people interested in moral issues, especially Christians, possibly support this?

The year 1980 is key. First, a little background. The American Old Left was characterized by FDR and the New Deal that focused on labor issues. The Old Right was formed as an opposition to the New Deal Old Left, because it viewed the New Deal as socialism. The Old Right supported small government and non-interventionism. The Old Right opposed involvement in World War II in Europe (although many Old Right people supported war with Japan), whereas the Old Left Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged in WWII in Europe. The Old Right faded by the time of the Korean War (1950-53) as key Old Right people died and the fight against communism escalated. The New Right became interventionist and favored big government, especially for military spending. In opposition to the New Right and the Vietnam War (1959-1975) the Old Left was replaced by the New Left during the 1960s and 70s, which was characterized by mass social activism and a focus on social revolution. The New Right Republican party was faltering after the Watergate scandal and the born again democrat Jimmy Carter took office. Republican Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 with the help of New Right activists who denounced abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, affirmative action and supported Israel militarily (because of dubious classical dispensationalist theology).

Why did the Republican Party suddenly become the Christian Right Party in 1980? Jerry Falwell who opposed Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement, the equal rights amendment, women's liberation and gay rights was gaining power in the 1970s. Falwell's political clout climaxed has he and other Christian Right activists influenced the Republican Party to follow the Christian Right agenda to the dismay of many Republicans. James Dobson's Focus on the Family (founded in 1977) and Falwell's Moral Majority (founded in 1980) provided the necessary voters and social movement to make it possible.

These Christian Right activists did not know much about economics and foreign policy, but hated civil rights reformers. The Republican Party did not know much about harnessing the Christian vote, but were zealous to militarily oppose Communism (e.g. with Star Wars). This marriage of a counter-progressive domestic agenda and a militant foreign policy proved to be a winning combination that gave Ronald Reagan a landslide victory (91% of the electoral college).

Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. followed Reagan's footsteps. Bush Sr. did not emphasize the Christian Right agenda as much as Reagan and Bush Jr. The Republican primary competitor against Bush Sr., Pat Robertson (who founded the Christian Coalition), would have been the ideal Christian Right candidate.

Before the the Christian Right and Republican Party merged, the Christian Right was not an avid military interventionist (Christians held the same general population views, whereas 69% of evangelicals supported the invasion of Iraq in 2002, which was 10 percentage points more than the U.S. adult population as a whole; Bill Bright, Chuck Colson, James Kennedy and Carl Herbster with Richard Land sent a letter to Bush Jr. before the Iraq invasion to state that the Iraq invasion fulfilled Just War requirements although it was a preemptive war and the Catholic Church,  among other Christians, said Iraq invasion does not fulfill Just War requirements) and the Republican Party was not as avidly socially counter-progressive (it is unlikely the Republican party would oppose gay marriage, stem-cell research, etc. as avidly without Christian Right influence).

The current Christian Right can be thought of as the New Christian Right. The Old Christian Right was in the 1920s when Christians fought for prohibition of alcohol (which was a failure) and to stop teaching evolution in schools. 

The upcoming presidential race is loaded with big government, interventionist politicians. The Christian Right/New Right candidates are John McCain and Mitt Romney. Rudy Guliani is New Right without the Christian Right. The New Left Democratic candidates are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (in decreasing order of support for interventionism). Ron Paul is an Old Right (non-interventionist, small government) Republican candidate.

The founding fathers were firmly non-interventionist in foreign policy, preferring to trade with countries instead of meddling in other country's internal affairs. Now, both the Democratic and Republican party are war parties that favor interventionism. The Democratic Party supports multilateral interventionism, whereas the Republican Party supports unilateral interventionism. Fortunately, not all candidates follow their party line, such as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. The Green or Libertarian parties form the peaceful alternative, but since there is no alternative run-off voting, they have almost no chance of winning.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

It amazes me to see a blossoming movement of Christian social reconciliation. Christian social reconciliation has blossomed before in the early centuries and the Radical Reformation. Jesus is well known for social reconciliation. In fact, this is his goal for humanity. Some prominent people in the current movement are Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, Walter Wink, John Yoder, Ron Sider and René Girard. They come from different Christian backgrounds.

I see atleast three categories of Christian ministry. Christ most importantly brings life. How can Christians bring life? What do Christians save others from?

1) Illness. Jesus heals disease, mental illness and deformities. Medicine and science allow us to heal. Prayer heals. Christians must lift up science and all types of inquiry to follow Jesus. We need to treat AIDS/HIV, TB and more. Many doctors and scientists throughout history were Christians. (Evolution is a legitimate way to look at creation. If you reject evolution, you reject a part of God's creative power, which is love. Anti-evolution rhetoric is one of the greatest causes of atheism today.)

2) Poverty. Jesus feeds the hungry, lives communally, rebukes the rich and clears the Temple court. You cannot serve both God and money. Jesus relocated from heaven to serve the oppressed. The last shall be first, and the first last. God's redistributive economics is jubilee justice where every servant has enough. Christians relocate, redistribute and reconcile to follow Jesus. (Failure to help the poor is another cause of atheism.)

3) Violence. Jesus constantly battles against the strand of zealous nationalism in Judaism. Jesus is the suffering servant instead of a militant nationalist. Christ opposes the zealot mentality by subverting Roman/Temple power nonviolently (the Romans/Temple lost all credibility after killing God, a perfect being), showing compassion to Roman centurions who were disliked by the Jews (imagine how Palestinians dislike Israeli soldiers or how Iraqis dislike American soldiers), and even forgiving all sins on the cross. Judas Iscariot gave Jesus to the Romans/Temple to push Jesus to violence (the view that Judas betrayed Jesus to fulfill Jesus' mission — hence Judas is a hero — is not present in the canonical Gospels, but is present in the Gospel of Judas, a gnostic text). Jesus' disciples (Luke 9:56; John 18:11) and Judas betrayed Jesus every time they expressed zeal for violence. The fact that Jesus' disciples were so troubled by Jesus' arrest/cruxification (Judus commited suicide; Peter betrayed Jesus three times) shows how strongly they believed in the power of violence before the resurrection. The whole idea of the resurrection is to get ride of violence. Paul was a zealot before turning 180 degrees to become a Christian. The zealots killed for power, wealth and prestige. Jesus died to give all this away. Jesus ended sacrifice and taught the supremacy of mercy, even to enemies, as it was from the beginning of time. Christians overcome evil with good because our battle is not against flesh. (Causing violence or not stopping violence with love breeds intense atheism.)

Zach Hunter, a 15 year old from Atlanta, is an inspiring activist for Christian social justice. He started the “Loose Change to Loosen Chains” campaign when he was twelve. He recently wrote a book! "Be the Change."

"We can have a new peace and love movement, but instead of how the hippies tried to do it without God, we can do it with God." - Zach Hunter

Here's a short video.

Read about International Justice Mission (IJM), a leading Christian human rights organization.

History

Founded in 1997, IJM began operations after a group of human rights professionals, lawyers and public officials launched an extensive study of the injustices witnessed by overseas missionaries and relief and development workers. This study, surveying more than 65 organizations and representing 40,000 overseas workers, uncovered a nearly unanimous awareness of abuses of power by police and other authorities in the communities where they served. Without the resources or expertise to confront the abuse and to bring rescue to the victims, these overseas workers required the assistance of trained public justice professionals.

When the poor are hungry, homeless or alienated, the Church has come to their aid by providing food, shelter and missionaries to meet the pressing needs.  But when the poor have been oppressed, treated unjustly and suffered under the hand of someone more powerful, little was done on their behalf.

Accordingly, IJM was established to help fill this void, acting as an organization that stands in the gap for victims when they are left without an advocate. IJM staff members (human rights experts, attorneys and law enforcement professionals) receive case referrals from, and work in conjunction with, other non-governmental organizations and casework alliances abroad.

Education

IJM is committed to helping local churches embrace God's call to "Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow."  Christians around the world are experiencing the joy of partnering with IJM to bring freedom to victims of oppression.  Their faith is being buoyed as they pray daily for the work of IJM and see the results of their intercession.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

When confronted with violence and death, it is incredible to hear stories of sacrifice. A 76 year old professor, Liviu Librescu — himself a Holocaust survivor — sacrificed his life to save his students. He barricaded the door from Cho Seung-Hui. Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said, "My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee. Students started opening windows and jumping out." Some students broke legs as they jumped from the classroom's second-floor windows.

"Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who survived the Nazi killings and later escaped from Communist Romania, was one of several foreign victims of Monday's shootings, which coincided with Israel's Holocaust remembrance day." ()

Yesterday, Monday, April 16, 2007, Cho Seung-Hui killed 30 people before committing suicide. He killed two people in a dorm and 28 people in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech.

Maybe Jesus being the gate to God is more about sacrificing our lives for others — like Librescu being the sacrificial door for his students — than adhering to doctrine. We are called to imitate Christ, not believe in Christ. God believes we can follow him.

John 10:9-16:
"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

From ():
Students who survived the massacre at Norris Hall spoke of school janitors who, as Cho opened fire upstairs, ran to help others instead of saving themselves.

"The janitors came running through, and told everyone to get out," said Nick Vozza, 20, of Burke, Virginia, who was in the Norris Hall basement when Cho began his attack two floors above.

In a German class upstairs, a few students tried to barricade the door against the onslaught of bullets, and then tried to help their injured classmates while they waited for help, Trey Perkins, 20, told Fox News.

Of 15 students in his class, he said only about six came out alive.

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

I'll be in the top 2.44% richest people in the world when I start working next year for NYCTF ($42,500 annual income).

$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

See how rich you are at globalrichlist.com.

Are wealthy Christians called to Relocation, Redistribution and Reconciliation? Do Christians follow Christ?

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. They relate the following story in their own words:

It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger.

Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No colored paper was available in the city.

Following instructions, the children tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel, cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia, were used for the baby's blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States.

The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help. All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat. He looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy's manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger.

Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at this completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously. For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately - until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, "And when Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift.

So I asked Jesus, "If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?" And Jesus told me, "If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me." "So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him—for always."

As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed.

The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, someone who would stay with him-FOR ALWAYS.  I've learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.

From Christian Stories

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war [as a medic]. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.

He said, "Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art.

The young man held out his package. "I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this."

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. "Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift."

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection. On the platform sat the painting of the son.

The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?" There was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room shouted. "We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one." But the auctioneer persisted. "Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?" Another voice shouted angrily. "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!" But still the auctioneer continued. "The son! The son! Who'll take the son?" Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. "I'll give $10 for the painting."

Being a poor man, it was all he could afford. "We have $10, who will bid $20?" "Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters." "$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?" The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel. "Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!" A man sitting on the second row shouted, "Now get on with the collection!"

The auctioneer laid down his gavel. "I'm sorry, the auction is over." "What about the paintings?" "I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets every thing!"

God gave his son 2,000 years ago to die on a cruel cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is, "The son, the son, who'll take the son?" Because you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.

From Christian Stories
Contributed by Gods Work Ministry Inspirational and Encouragement E-Mail

Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 was declared the winner in a competition to design the nation's first hydrogen bomb in two decades, a major step in restarting production of nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration said the program would improve the U.S. stockpile's reliability, security and safety and would allow for a reduction in the thousands of weapons held in reserve for a potential war.

Critics reacted sharply, saying the program sent the wrong international message when the U.S. was trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Key members of Congress said the program was moving too fast.

From