Some Interesting But Radical Ideas

Since I've been back there's been little opportunity to fully incorporate a time for reflection back into my schedule. However, over the last few days, I've found some interesting resources covering a broad base of topics around the theme of reform. I simply offer them here with limited comment.

Parker Palmer was recently interviewed by Bill Moyer. Click Here to hear him talk about American illusions and injustices.

Thomas Frey's (Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute - Website) article on the Future of Education. Click Here to learn about his view on the change that will begin within two years toward an education system unleashed by the advent of a standardized rapid courseware-builder and a single point global distribution system. In the article he explains eight trends that are driving changes in education. This is not a modest proposal.

Finally, an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor on the impending demise of evangelical Christianity. Click Here to read Michael Spencer's article (Michael started Internet Monk right after the November 2000 elections. Internet Monk is consistently rated in the top twenty Christian blogs in the world. It was recently voted the number 12 blog read by Christian leaders.)

Back to the Routine

I have been back from Africa for one week. As hot as I was in the Sudan, now I'm freezing in Bellevue. Wind, rain, hail and snow have become a part of the routine. I'm pleased to report I picked up the "Red Rocket" last Friday. When I took it in for routine maintenance just before leaving for Africa, the mechanics noticed a crack in the frame near the seat post. The timing was perfect since the fix required melting the seat post out of the frame, repairing the tubing, and repainting the entire frame. Now I have a new bike. I'm excited to get out to ride, but the weather is not cooperating at all. For now it is indoor spinning for me.

Please check back here for regular updates on what I'm learning. I've also included blogs from past adventures as well as from Stephen, a missionary from Nigeria, whom I met in Yabus.

Check Out the Africa Blog

For the months of February and March I'm switching over to a blog about my trip to Africa. I'm leaving February 12th and will return March 9th. Please check it out at timkrellafrica.blogspot.com.

. . . man is the only wild animal - Chesterton

The romantic, unpredictable nature of humans sets them apart from all other animals. All other species are predictable. Every day animals of all kinds eat, sleep and fight for survival as certainly as the sun rises.

Even the most organized critters do not celebrate their brief histories on earth. Have you ever seen little ant statues celebrating ant heroes or portraits of the most beautiful queen bees hanging in hives? At best these organized communities of insects are forever given to gathering food. All the while humans are given to that work for as limited time as possible so they can give themselves to wild amusement and pleasure. Have you ever seen an ant on vacation?

Our passions and their unpredictable nature make it possible for our love and our anger to be hot enough to set us apart from other, more tame, species. In the deepest recesses of our soul we cannot cast aside our wildest dreams nor our darkest nightmares. There, by God's grace, we see ourselves unmasked as we really are and discover, with God's help, how to move from darkness to light.

Home Again

The events of the past five days made me realize how much I need home. In one sense, I went home to Latah. But, I realize now looking back how homeless I was over this past week. I do not feel at home in that place of my upbringing any longer.

Nouwen writes, "Probably no word better summarizes the suffering in our time than the word 'homeless'. It reveals one of our deepest and most painful conditions, the condition of not having a place where we feel safe, cared for, protected, and loved." - In My Own Words, p. 62

My sense of belonging has slowly shifted from Latah to Bellevue. My longing to be home grew stronger the more I was unable to get there. It took me forty hours, nearly two full days, to travel across the state - a journey that usually takes one-tenth that time. The routines that keep my heart and mind close to God disappeared in my preoccupation to get home. I did not understand it at the time, but my urge to get home and the growing adventure of getting there overwhelmed my attention toward God.

"Yet strain does not seem to do good [in attending to God]. At this moment I feel something, 'let go' inside, and lo, God is here! It is a heart melting 'hereness,' a lovely whispering of father to child, and the reason I did not have it before was because I failed to let go." - Laubach. Letters of a Modern Mystic, p. 26

I realize now the need to "let go" during the past few days. I should have put away my computer and turned my attention from the sensational storm toward disciplined reflection on God. But, now I'm home sipping coffee at Tullys and writing in my journal. My heart and mind lean towards God in this morning ritual, and I know I belong here.

"When we say: 'I wish I were home' we express a longing for that intimate place that offers us a sense of belonging.” Nouwan, p.62

Snow Turns to Mush

I've included this picture from our deck to prove it snowed big, fluffy, white flakes on Christmas day. It even snowed a little amongst the rain yesterday afternoon. Now the snow is receding quickly. For today I've included a slide show of the ice festival in Harbin, Manchuria, China. The temperature in this northern China village stays below freezing for half the year. Makes our short week of low temperatures seem very insignificant. Here's slide show:

I've also finished Three Cups of Tea. The main point for me was also listed on the back cover. This quote found on page 150 is from Haji Ali, the chief of Korphe (the first village to have a school built by Greg Mortenson). "If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die."

Then Mortenson responds, "That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life. We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their 'shock and awe' campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them."

I have more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them. I'm struck by the power of this sentence, and its influence on my upcoming trip to the Sudan, Lord willing.

Next Steps

Dear friends,

The arrival of this letter coincides with the advent season in which Christians celebrate the birth of Emmanuel, God with us. This simple stable birth is the middle of a larger story that began with “In the beginning was the Word . . . “ from John 1, and in which the final chapter is yet to be written. But I know that in the end, “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father.” (Philippians 2: 10,11) This story is the context for my vocation, and when I think about doing God’s will, a quote from Eugene Peterson comes to mind. “Praying ‘your will be done’ cannot be pulled out of the Jesus context, his stories and prayers, and then used however we want.”

You likely know I no longer work for Bellevue Christian. After thirty years working in schools with young people in grades seven through twelve, I received a clear call to pause, like a rest in a musical phrase, wait and remain open to God’s direction. As I keep an ear attuned to silence and the still small voice of God, I have agreed to work half time for Alta Vista, a Christian service organization dedicated to helping Christian teachers bring a distinctively Christian perspective to their work with students. This work is the second context from which I write this letter.

The third element to this musing catches me slightly off balance. The picture is murky, and most of the time I find myself in a state of wonder and imagination. I’m unsettled and restless because the future picture is small and blurry in the center of a very large canvas. If you remember C.S. Lewis and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, like Lucy I am poised to walk into the painting just as Lucy walked through the wardrobe the first time, having no idea what lay on the other side. However I know without a doubt, as the canvas sits on the easel, the brush gently held in the Painter’s hand strokes the image of a masterpiece.

This new work of art with the Alta Vista team is to assist teachers and leaders of schools in the developing world as they create and sustain schools that clearly operate from a distinctively Christian perspective. Assisting schools in the developing world fits Alta Vista’s vision which is “to participate in God’s kingdom agenda by helping to equip people for faithful, visionary, competent, and compassionate discipleship in whatever circumstances they may find themselves.” To some extent one of our team members, John Van Dyk, has already been cultivating the ground for international work. With his help, Alta Vista is beginning to collaborate with organizations in Nicaragua, Haiti, and Mexico with the hope of fostering sustainable Christian schools and indigenous leadership.

I’m writing to let you in on what God is teaching me and to make these two requests. Would you pray with me in this effort? The idea is in its infancy. How might Alta Vista join what God is already doing around the globe? Secondly, a goal of $10,000 has been set to provide seed money for this new project. The funds would provide resources for two to three visits by Alta Vista team members to schools in the developing world. Two of our team have already worked in schools in Haiti, Mexico, and Central America. We would like to continue and possibly extend that work. For example, the Lord is opening an opportunity for me to join a colleague who left Bellevue Christian a year and a half ago to start a school in the Sudan, Africa. There she has helped start a secondary school, the only one with one hundred miles, in the village of Yabus in the Blue Nile region three miles from the Ethiopian border. The school serves adult men who have had some elementary education in refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia or Khartoum. If the Lord allows, I would plan to visit in February for two to three weeks to help enhance science curriculum and to assist in training teachers to teach from a Christian perspective. Your prayers for me personally and for the larger work of Alta Vista would be greatly appreciated.

Should you wish to give monetarily, your tax-deductible gift may be sent to

Alta Vista
P.O. Box 55535
Seattle, WA
98155-0535

Please mark it “Global Project” so it goes into the correct fund. It would be our hope that after the initial financial goal is reached, we would be able to approach Christian foundation with a more detailed proposal after having visited schools in other cultures and thereby multiply the initial investment.

I leave you with the hope that this advent season of anticipation will draw you even closer to Christ and the will of the Father for your life and with another quote from Peterson’s Tell It Slant. “The mature, sane enduing counsel of our best pastors and theologians is this; keep Jesus’ prayer, ‘Your will be done,’ in the storied and praying context of the Holy Scriptures. Quit speculating about the ‘will of God’ and simply do it – as [the virgin] Mary did, as Jesus did. ‘Will of God’ is never a matter of conjecture. It directs a spotlight on believing obedience.”

Grace and peace,