AIDS: Lend a Hand

The one who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and the LORD will reward that person for it. –Proverbs 19:17


Meet Agnes Kiambi. She’s twenty-three and she lost her mother three years ago to AIDS. Agnes came from a single-parent family.

A women’s group (WOFAK: Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya) knew her mother, so they sponsored Agnes for hairdressing and beauty training. One of the best students, Agnes received a job offer at the Blue Yellow Hair Salon in Hurlingham. Agnes started saving, and by the time she left her job to look after her HIV-positive younger sister, Agnes had saved $357. With these savings, she bought hair-relaxing chemicals, rollers, a blow dryer, towels and some chairs. She then rented a shop from where she has been operating.

With her income, Agnes feeds, educates and buys medicine for her sister.

Agnes's mother's relatives disowned Agnes and her eight siblings (four brothers and four sisters) after they learned the mother had HIV. So after burying her mother, Agnes took full responsibility for raising her siblings.

Agnes faces stiff competition from fully equipped neighboring salons. Some clients have left. So she's doing after-sales services, such as offering a free hair wash, to retain her clients. She fears they will continue to leave, leaving her with no income. All Agnes needs is a loan of $625 to purchase a dryer, steamer, blow dryer, four chairs, training dummy and a 14-inch television set.
With this additional equipment, Agnes can compete in the marketplace and win back her clients. She will also be able to give her customers quick and efficient service and in turn increase her income.

In addition, Agnes has trained two orphaned girls in hairdressing. She wants to help them avoid the suffering she experienced.

After buying the equipment, Agnes plans to employ two more people. This translates to higher income. Agnes intends to repay the loan in 8–15 months.

That’s where kiva comes in. I read about it in Nicholas Kristof’s NY Times column. Kiva is a 501(c)(3) organization that provides loans to small-business owners like Agnes, who want to make a living for themselves but just need a little kindness. Agnes is not asking for a handout. And she's willing to work hard. With twenty-five bucks, I just added Agnes and her shop to my list of investments. I'd love for you to join with me to help her. Again, nobody's asking for donations. You'll get your money back.

Orphans. Widows. The poor. The sick. God has something to say about our response to these. Admittedly, I'm not doing much here. But I do know we can do more than pray and give, important as these are. We can also lend...to the LORD.

Getting into Training

Yesterday we spent a family day in East Texas eating gingerbread cookies and riding the historic Texas State Railroad from Palestine to Rusk and back. As we chugged along, we saw lots of white dogwoods in bloom. We stopped for a couple of hours in Rusk and enjoyed a picnic by the lake at the state park before making the ninety-minute return trip. Perfect temps. (That's my girl and me with barely visible faces in the window.)

Driving to and from Palestine, we saw fields blanketed with yellow flowers. (It's a bit early for the paintbrush and blue bonnets, though a few peeked up at us.) But the best splash of color was and is in our own back yard, where both deep- and light-purple wisteria blooms cover the pergola.

In other news: Tomorrow I start two weeks of "on call" jury duty. I have to actually go to the courthouse in the morning. I've received all sorts of humorous tips for how to get out of serving, none of which I can print. Who knew we had so much animosity about the part we play in a jury-trial system? :)

Also, I've received several emails asking how someone can post a comment on my blog. I enabled the “anonymous” comment box, so you can post without having a Blogger account. Just click on the “comments” link at the bottom of any entry and write away. I reserve the right to delete any entry. (I will remove shameless attempts at product marketing.)

Other changes: I added a feed for a cartoon of the day. (Scroll down and click on the link.) And I have a profile over on Shoutlife now if you want to see my speaking schedule at a glance.

Coming up this week: Tuesday night at Highland Park Presbyterian in Dallas I'm speaking on "Finding Sabbath Rest in a Restless World." Then this Friday I'm headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend the weekend doing a couple of events at Hillsdale Baptist Church. Let me know if you're interested in getting more info.

God made people in all different shapes, sizes, looks, and colors!!!!Everyone is different. We just need to accept that!!!!!!!!!!!! --A. Glahn

My daughter drew me a picture this week with this message. And then my friend, Doug, who lives with his family in China, sent a shot of his daughter and her friend.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these --Jesus

A New Study

In the next week or so, Kregel plans to launch the third edition of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, which I co-authored with Bill Cutrer, M.D. As we were finishing up the galley proofs, he sent me some info on the latest research, as he is prone to do. This one was about a new study he felt sure I should know about. You need to know I'm not saying I agree or disagree. I'm just reporting it how I heard it, okay? His subject line was "important information" and the body of the text read as follows:

A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. If she is menstruating or menopausal, however, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth and a spear lodged in his chest while he is on fire. No further studies are expected.

Around Town

It's spring break here and my parents visited from Oregon. On Tuesday we saw "Amazing Grace," which I talked about earlier.

On Wednesday we hit the Dallas Museum of Art. Much to our delight, my daughter discovered a Mary Cassatt on the wall. We watched a video of her story a few months ago, which told of how Cassatt excelled as an artist when "woman" and "artist" didn't show up in the same sentence. We love her stuff, so the surprise of finding an original in our city made our trip.

On Thursday we saw Body Worlds, an exhibit in which we viewed human specimens, including entire bodies as well as individual organs and transparent body slices. Some of our group thought it was pretty cool and marveled at the miracle of human complexity. Others found it "creepy." We were unanimous, though in our positive assessment of the new IMAX movie, The Human Body.

We spent most nights in front of the DVD player. Jane Austen was the clear fave (we saw both "Pride and Prejudice," and "Emma"), but last night she got out-voted by "National Treasure." If your parents came to visit, what would you watch?

At the Movies (or Videos)

It's spring break here and my parents are visiting from Oregon. Yesterday we caught a matinee of Amazing Grace. Great stuff. If you've seen it, you probably noticed the lone woman who attended whenever the small group of abolitionists met. Her inclusion was not due to the producer's PC attempt to include a token woman. Hannah More was real and quite a force for social justice. You can learn more about her here. In the future, I hope to publish a reader of writings from five women who lived between 1400 and 1950, one of whom is More.

Also worth seeing at the movies: The Ultimate Gift. I talked about that one in my January 31 blog entry.

In other news, I saw my ortho surgeon on Friday for a follow-up x-ray on my rebellious clavicle. Good news! He released me to swim again, two months ahead of schedule. I'm glad to graduate from the stationary bike while getting a daily ultrasound treatment, especially because I finished watching Alias. (I loved it until they scaled back on Michael Vartan's character. Then, not so much.)

My fave part of Amazing Grace: Albert Finney telling John Newton's true story. If you've seen it, what was your favorite part?

Eating Greener

Sometime last year, I listened to food writer Corby Kummer on Mars Hill Audio (which my friend Laura describes as "Christian NPR") talking about the link between food and community. The author of The Pleasures of Slow Food, Kummer introduced listeners to the Slow Food movement, an Italy-founded group dedicated to "preserving and promoting traditional foodways--to protecting artisanal food producers and the pleasures of eating well."

After listening, I determined to shop less (and less) at Wal-Mart and to "buy local" more often.

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to shop quarterly (at least) at the Farmer's Market. And as I reported earlier this week, I've failed miserably at the whole resolution thing so far. But after I wrote that, I took heart--I still had three weeks before I officially flunked that resolution and another like it, to feed my family more green.

So I grabbed my friend, Julie Cramer, and on Thursday at lunchtime we headed to the Dallas Farmer's Market. Julie had never been, which made it all the more fun. (When faced with a new experience, Julie has the enthusiasm of a collie puppy. You may remember my blog entry about our Disney World experience last May.)

The weather didn't hurt. I know officially it's still winter here, but the sun thumbed its nose at the calendar and we were blessed with a balmy 75-degree day.

We passed acres of color and floral aromas as we made our way straight for the green (broccoli, lettuce, limes). Suddenly the world smelled of citrus.

Before long, Julie and I stood amazed at what one Andrew Jackson could buy each of us in sheer fruit-and-veggie poundage.

As it was Thursday noon, the traffic was thin, so every vendor gave us his or her full attention and thanked us profusely for our purchases. When I go to the grocery store, I'm lucky to get a cashier to glance up and mumble hello. Here people greeted us, offered us free samples of pineapple, melon, and pears, and showered us with gratitude when we bought their raspberries or green beans.

Julie and I each started with a twenty, and when we got close to the end, we had only $1.75 between us. As we counted our combined nickels and dimes, a vendor told us, "For two dollars you can buy these red potatoes." She had noticed us eyeing them.

Julie held up the handful of change. "That's the problem," she said. "We have only $1.75. But it's enough to buy two avocados." She pointed to the ones she wanted.

The woman, taking our pooled resources as a sign of serious budgetary deficiency, threw in an extra avocado for good measure. Despite our business attire, she saw poverty and met it with generosity.

Kindness. Friendliness. Generosity. I tried to remember the last time I used those words to describe my grocery-buying experience. And, you know, maybe it's just my imagination, but I think the salad we ate for dinner last night somehow tasted better. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the difference was in the avocado.

(P.S. The book winner is Erin.)

Evangelicals for Global Warming?

Today's New York Times included a short editorial titled "Evangelical Environmentalism." It was in response to stuff like this (copied and pasted directly from Jerry Falwell's web site):

There’s no need for the Church of Jesus Christ to be wasting its time gullibly falling for all of this global warming hocus pocus. We need to give our total focus to the business of reaching this world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and stop running down meaningless rabbit trails that get our focus off of our heavenly purpose.

Gadz.

Here are two thoughtful blog entries that take an opposing view:

Left Coast Sunburn blog (for those who won't freak out when they see the phrase "too damn hot" in the title)

Mike Svigel on Christians and our sorry history on some social issues

Jerry certainly doesn't speak for me. Does he speak for you?

The Name of Your Rock Band

Every once in awhile here at aspire2, I engage the culture on issues that don't matter. This would be one of those times.

I read tonight that one way to come up with the name for your rock band is to follow this formula: The name of your first car + the name of your school mascot = your rock-band's name.

My lame-name band? The Cutlass Warriors. Maybe we do acid-rock with hostile lyrics?

My husband's band? The Nova Jaguars.

What about yours?

Moms, Say "Cheers" with H20

In the last generation, male fertility has been declining in developed countries, with sperm density dropping 1.5% drop per year in the U.S. and 3% in Europe and Australia. Add to that the later marriage age in the West, along with more women delaying childbirth, and you have a growing number of couples with fertility issues.

Science News reports that the most common male genital birth defect is undescended testicles, which affects about three in every 100 American boys. No surprise there. But here's the new news: A mom's alcohol consumption during pregnancy appears to triple the risk that a woman's son will have undescended testicles.

Look, Ma, I Made the Cover

Want to see your mug on the cover of WIRED magazine? Click here and create away. Have fun!

Book and Mag Giveaways

Whether you need minor adjustments or a major overhaul, bestselling author Elizabeth George helps you pinpoint problem areas and reveals the small changes you can make to transform your life. What kinds of changes? Increase your productivity. Practice habits leading to good health. Get more closely aligned with God's plan for you. Order your priorities.

Leave a comment (you don't have to leave any words, only your ID), and I'll hold a drawing for the winner of Small Changes for a Better Life on Saturday morning.

Also, if you don't subscribe to Kindred Spirit magazine, which I edit, you can sign up for a free subscription here.

The Tomb of Jesus?

Have you wondered about that whole Discovery Channel Jesus box/tomb story? Something about it smacks of what one writer calls pornoscience, huh? On the other hand, an intellectually honest person needs to pursue truth no matter what it costs, right? So what does the evidence say?

Physicist Randy Ingermanson read the data, tried to give the authors a fair shake (didn't assume they had an axe to grind with Christianity before listening to what they had to say) and took a second look at the statistical evidence. Check out his findings.

Who's the Daddy?

Daily I receive an update from Infertility Network bringing me infertility-related news stories. This morning’s issue included an article from the Weekly Standard titled “Who’s Your Daddy?” by a sociologist at the University of Virginia.

He begins with a statistic: Births to unmarried mothers are at a record high in the U.S.—almost 1.5 million in 2004 alone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But then he notes, “While the rising trend is of long standing, one novel factor driving up childbearing outside marriage is the growing popularity of single motherhood by donor insemination.” The procedure has more than doubled in the last decade.

“Most public discussion of donor insemination for single women,” he says, “has been carried on in a neutral, positive, or breathlessly celebratory tone. Isn't it great, the thinking seems to be, that these women are fulfilling their aspiration to be mothers?” He cites support groups like Single Mothers by Choice and articles in publications such as the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and the Washington Post or NBC's TV drama “Inconceivable,” in his examples of glamorizing the practice.

Yet European countries ban it: “Sweden and Italy bar single mothers from engaging in either IVF or use of anonymous sperm (or, in Italy, eggs), and Britain and the Netherlands prohibit anonymous sperm donation. Why? While the U.S. conversation focuses on adults (i.e., women finding fulfillment), the European conversation focuses on the children. Imagine: How would you feel if you had no identifiable father—by your mother’s choice?

The conversation with donor-conceived kids of single moms is sobering. There’s the child who asked, “Mommy, what did you do with my daddy? You know I need a daddy or I can't be a child."

Donor-conceived children check out men who are strangers to see if they match the physical traits of their donor dads. One put it this way: "It'll always run through my mind whether he meets the criteria to be my dad or not.”

A 23-year-old donor-conceived woman said, “I had to grieve. It wasn't till I was 17 or 18 that I got it. I felt very angry. How dare someone take my choice away from me? How dare the medical profession tell me it doesn't matter?"

Donor-conceived kids, it turns out, are deeply affected by father absence.

With all our stress on autonomy and our focus on “my” rights, the stateside discussion is sorely lacking. It may seem strange to consider the rights of someone who’s not yet conceived, but in failing to do so, we harm them. It's time we learned from the Europeans and considered the children.

Coming Out of Quarantine

I pulled out my "goals" book today and discovered I've kept only one of my eleven New Year's resolutions so far. Not doing so hot, am I?

On the other hand, I got my novel e-mailed--all turned in to my publisher today--at 2 a.m. I didn't have "I will write a novel" on my resolutions list. Sure do hate when I leave out something major like that, because I derive so much sick pleasure from the teeny little act of crossing stuff off.

So I compensated myself by playing a game of old-fashioned Pac-Man. Okay, not one game. A couple of hours. I felt much better.

Probably because I've been writing a book, I've lost track of everything around me. Well, not everything. I did know of Anna Nicole's passing. I plopped down to eat my lunch in front of the TV the other day, and all the news stations were covering her funeral. I think she got more coverage than President Ford.

So I did know she died. But being sequestered has made me miss some major stuff. How major, you ask? Well, today I mentioned to my sis that allergens in Texas have been particularly bad this January. And she asked me in this schooled tone that exuded tact, "Um, did you not realize this was March?"

Meet Mary M

My name is Mary McLaughlin. In January, my husband, Mark, and I celebrated our 25th anniversary. We have two daughters: [One] is a junior in high school, and [the other] is in eighth grade.

I teach second grade, but when I’m on vacation, I bring out the sewing machine. I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, and I’m currently trying to adjust to gardening in the Texas heat and drought.

Unfortunately, every time I go to the nursery, I find myself buying the rain- and shade-loving plants that I grew up with in the Pacific Northwest. The results are always disastrous!

This intro appeared earlier this week on Mary's church's web site along with a devotional she wrote. Mary is a super close friend, perhaps because we have so much in common--went to the same schools, spent weekends together growing up, toured all the same museums when we lived near D. C. We also have the same parents. Mary's the baby of the family and the chief comedienne. She used to throw shoes at me when she got angry, but I had an advantage--I could grow fingernails. (She still has tiny scars on her arms to prove it.)

All these years later, we've buried the hatchet and enjoy hanging out. If you read what she wrote, you'll see that my dad and I aren't the only writers in the fam.

The Beautiful Ache

Our friend, Leigh McLeroy, launches her new book, The Beautiful Ache: Finding the God Who Satisfies When Life Does Not, today. Here's a link to a really good interview with her about it.

When our friends in Houston, Karen and Barney Giesen, introduced us to Leigh, we instantly loved her. She's smart and witty and well-read and balanced, and approaches life with gritty honesty. I think you'll appreciate her, too.

Some quotes from a different interview she did:

C. S. Lewis says that "If we experience desires that no earthly experience can satisfy, the most logical explanation is that we were made for another world." We are. But we live in this one. That's an ache that can't be avoided - and shouldn't be. Embracing that longing is embracing the kingdom of heaven.

So many writers and artists have influenced me. I love the lyrics of Bono, Derek Webb, Chris Rice and David Wilcox - and the writing of Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, Eugene Peterson, C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft. I'm also powerfully inspired by hymns. There's a chapter in this book called "Singing the Hymnal" about our aching desire to praise God. The poetry of Emily Dickinson moves me, too.

Leigh writes a weekly e-mail devotional called "Wednesday Words." You can read archived copies (and a few other things) at www.wednesdaywords.com.

Enjoy!

Ruth and Colossians

Fun news today. New covers for upcoming books are out, with Amazon evidence that they're slated for release in June.

Cappuccino with Colossians

Premium Roast with Ruth

Wanted: The Right Eulogy

Last November as I returned to Dallas from Munich, I flew through London, and on the London/Dallas leg of the trip, I chanced (her word, not mine) to end up next to a fellow author. As it turned out, she was writing a book for Yale University Press about Armageddon. She labeled herself a humanist, secularist, relativist, and I think she also threw "agnostic" in there somewhere, too. She had done her homework and knew her stuff.

I liked her personality. She listened well and tried to understand. And what followed was eight hours of uninterrupted and fascinating conversation. She was on her way to an enormous prophecy conference with some big-name teachers/authors/TV personalities. She's been to Israel several times with evangelical groups so she's had a front-row seat. Nothing second-hand here.

Well, this week I read a pre-release copy of her work. Okay, so we're miles (all right, light years) apart on some issues. But we knew that going in. Yet what I found totally interesting was her assessment of much of what passes for Christendom today. Sadly, some of what she had to say was right on target. Here's my summary:

We need to get serious about serious issues. We have big carnivals held in enormous dome-like churches that cost gazillions of dollars while AIDS kills millions and orphans languish.

We need more humility. In personal correspondence with me she identified two Bible experts (grads of my own alma mater, sadly) as flat-out arrogant. The closer their ties to Washington, it seemed, the more boastful they got. When she interviews leaders' wives, she often finds that the same uncompromising charisma which works in public fails to go over so big at home. (My words, not hers.) Yet the congregants seem to love it. She even asked me, "What happened to gentle Jesus, meek and mild." What, indeed?

We need to value character over power, influence, and access to political power. Since she did the interviews for her book, one big-league politician has left office in a sea of scandal. And then there's the pastor of a mega-church who's been defrocked. We seem too enamored of celebrity with too little regard for the quiet life. She asked about "Blessed are the peacemakers." Is that not a core value? Apparently her experience tells her that power trumps peace.

We need to be kinder in some of our assessments. I was appalled at how many preachers she quoted who assert without question, even with a sort of glee, stuff like "Katrina was God's judgment on the city of New Orleans."

My interaction with her and her work this week reminded me of a well-known African bishop. While he had enormous influence, he never lost his humility. And though he entertained heads of state from major nations, his friend said at his funeral, "The only name he ever dropped was the name of Jesus."