>I just checked out the blog of a sweet, sweet young lady who served as a Youth Intern at our church. She is now serving the Lord in a faraway land. As I read what she had to read I sat stunned at what a difference one of us can make, if we know. Sometimes knowing the injustice or the pain, or the___________fill in the blank is all it takes to get us on our feet.
As I read about the injustices and the death, I wonder what can I do from here. I have some ideas, but it is limited:
Buy things from the communities in pain (ideas on http://www.marissainrwanda.blogspot.com/ )

Teach our children…I was told just yesterday that we can not be innocent and wise, I am moving that around my spirit, but I do believe it to be true, mostly. Teach them them about the pain and loss in communities near you, encourage them to read excellent literature and works by those who have suffered in our nation and those abroad, read biographies and autobiographies about others. Tell them about tough history, painful history, even if it is personal….Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur, Civil Rights in the US, Apparteit, sadly we have many choices.

Choose to serve outside of our homes, with a plan, put on the calender regularly.

Go places that you think might not be safe and hug a kid or take someone to dinner.

I am sad today, about things happening in the world that I don’t know how to help.
Being sad is ok.
Maybe being sad is best and if not we should wonder why.

>I want a new checklist, that doesn’t change from child to child or for that matter from day to day. We have some hard and fast rules in our family. We also have some guidelines that we pray continually over, seeking to protect the purity of our children’s hearts and integrity and like it or not, those guidelines and what we allow are often dealt with based on the people (besides our children) involved. This is difficult at best, I ask for God’s grace, often in successive moments. As a momma of one teenager and 5 up and coming teenagers, I now realize I don’t know it all. What I know today is that I want the best for these kids. That my ideas have changed would be an understatement. When we found out that Zachary was going to be, it was the night that Clinton was elected….the first time. I was far more liberal AND at the ripe old age of 19, I had the entire plan for the coming 21 years completely set out. Fifteen years later, during one of the nights of the Democratic National Convention, I am far more conservative and I am trying to plan out tomorrow and how I will answer the questions, the big questions of the big kids, because I don’t have all the answers anymore.