Really the only things that could make my day better are:
Good News
Helping non-existent homeless downtown (it's raining, you see, and they are all inside, most likely at the shelter.)
A full day of playing piano and guitar and other assorted instruments
My Mom
My Dad
My Sister
My Brother
My Mom's Cooking
Tomorrow
Jesus Coming.
Showing posts with label helping others. Show all posts
Showing posts with label helping others. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
7 Billion
The world has officially reached a population of 7 billion people.
How many hungry people have I fed? How many naked people have I clothed? How many prisoners have I visited? How many sick people have I cared for?
I think it's rather selfish of me to want Jesus to come tomorrow. There are billions who need to know about Him.
At the same time, Jesus needs to come now. There are many people which will be lost if He doesn't come now, because I am too scared and ashamed to go out there.
How many hungry people have I fed? How many naked people have I clothed? How many prisoners have I visited? How many sick people have I cared for?
I think it's rather selfish of me to want Jesus to come tomorrow. There are billions who need to know about Him.
At the same time, Jesus needs to come now. There are many people which will be lost if He doesn't come now, because I am too scared and ashamed to go out there.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
What I Learned about Happiness, Hardships, and Humanity from broken Women in the Congo and a Vietnam Veteran
"But some, who like one old man whose name was called, had no problem sharing the joy of the moment by performing a little impromptu dance for my camera, making this crowd of people laugh with abandon. Everything had been taken from them--but their humanity."
--Kevin Sites, In the Hot Zone
I realize that there is really no reason to be sad sometimes. In the last chapter I read, Kevin goes to the Democratic Republic of the Congo attached to a low-key humanitarian aid organization. He encounters boys not old enough to drive legally in the US who have been recruited by the various militias with confusing acronym names. These little boys have stories of how they have killed several people--not because they want to, but because they're being shot at. One of the boys talks about how he is haunted in his dreams by a man he killed for food.
I don't think I'll ever say "I'm starving!" when I mean "I'm a little hungry" again.
Mr. Sites then heads off to a women's shelter. As an aside, I've volunteered going door to door asking for donations for the local shelter and received good responses from people who have been there. For the women in the Congo, their shelter is the banana plant groves. There they hide from raping rebel soldiers, because if they were all in one place it would be horrible. Some of them have gone through several rapes and widowing experiences, yet Kevin Sites always describes how calm they talk about their experiences. He talks about their singing, their laughter, their dancing.
I don't think I'll ever complain about Mondays again.
Later in the day, I sat down with a professor who is a Vietnam veteran. He told me about several people who went through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. He tells me how he once sang old songs with his guitar at a veterans convention, and how those suffering from PTSD were able to open up. He told me, "I knew God had sent me to do this, and now I do it in prisons and I always get the same effect."
I don't think I'll ever complain about how hard something is if I PTSD is not a common consequence of that action.
--Kevin Sites, In the Hot Zone
I realize that there is really no reason to be sad sometimes. In the last chapter I read, Kevin goes to the Democratic Republic of the Congo attached to a low-key humanitarian aid organization. He encounters boys not old enough to drive legally in the US who have been recruited by the various militias with confusing acronym names. These little boys have stories of how they have killed several people--not because they want to, but because they're being shot at. One of the boys talks about how he is haunted in his dreams by a man he killed for food.
I don't think I'll ever say "I'm starving!" when I mean "I'm a little hungry" again.
Mr. Sites then heads off to a women's shelter. As an aside, I've volunteered going door to door asking for donations for the local shelter and received good responses from people who have been there. For the women in the Congo, their shelter is the banana plant groves. There they hide from raping rebel soldiers, because if they were all in one place it would be horrible. Some of them have gone through several rapes and widowing experiences, yet Kevin Sites always describes how calm they talk about their experiences. He talks about their singing, their laughter, their dancing.
I don't think I'll ever complain about Mondays again.
Later in the day, I sat down with a professor who is a Vietnam veteran. He told me about several people who went through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. He tells me how he once sang old songs with his guitar at a veterans convention, and how those suffering from PTSD were able to open up. He told me, "I knew God had sent me to do this, and now I do it in prisons and I always get the same effect."
I don't think I'll ever complain about how hard something is if I PTSD is not a common consequence of that action.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
In the Hot Zone
After cereal, the next (material) thing I love most are books. However, I am very picky in my book selections, bypassing any that look that won't give me much brain food. My favorite non-Christian book of all time is The Grapes of Wrath--it's probably the book I have most enjoyed out of all the books I have read more than three times.
I am currently reading Ellen G. White's Patriarchs and Prophets, Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, and Kevin Sites' In the Hot Zone.
It is Kevin Sites who has captured my full attention right now. As a journalism major and an international rescue and relief minor who aspires to be a photojournalist/essayist in the manner of Gordon Parks, this book speaks directly to me. The book is a narrative of a year in Kevin's life as a solo journalist (SoJo) who goes to all the hot zones in the planet. (Hot zones are war and disaster areas.) Reaching out to my humanist and idealist mind and to my adventurous body, he tells the story of capturing controversial clips of a certain Marine's behavior in Iraq and also being in the Indian Ocean for the 2004 Tsunami a few months after, where he not only reported but helped bring relief to others as well.
Every time I pick up this book I can't put it down. I will try to put updates on how this book is going as I advance.
I am currently reading Ellen G. White's Patriarchs and Prophets, Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, and Kevin Sites' In the Hot Zone.
It is Kevin Sites who has captured my full attention right now. As a journalism major and an international rescue and relief minor who aspires to be a photojournalist/essayist in the manner of Gordon Parks, this book speaks directly to me. The book is a narrative of a year in Kevin's life as a solo journalist (SoJo) who goes to all the hot zones in the planet. (Hot zones are war and disaster areas.) Reaching out to my humanist and idealist mind and to my adventurous body, he tells the story of capturing controversial clips of a certain Marine's behavior in Iraq and also being in the Indian Ocean for the 2004 Tsunami a few months after, where he not only reported but helped bring relief to others as well.
Every time I pick up this book I can't put it down. I will try to put updates on how this book is going as I advance.
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