My son, Ben, arrived tonight from San Francisco where he lives. Ben, Rebekah, Naomi and I sat around the table for some triple chocolate brownies and Blue Bell, Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream tonight. This was followed by a game of Rummicube. It was really great to have the four of us together in our home, first time in a long while. It was a bit like closing a nomadic chapter of our lives and opening a new one with a sense of place again-of geographic spaciality that is important in life. Rebekah called Naomi and I at the end of the work day and asked us to drop past the Galleria Mall where she works. The visit there with a hug and a conversation was a special gift, particularly given that we lived half a world away for almost two years. These are the simple joys of life.

I got home yesterday afternoon, exhausted after 19 days on the road in August. I slept for two hours before dinner late afternoon and then another 13 last night. God was kind to me as I met so many interesting people. Wednesday I flew to Pasco Washington from Philadelphia. Pasco is in the middle of the state, largely an agricultural area. Thursday a good part of my day was spent with some of the good people of Broetje Orchards.  www.broetjeorchards.com  Cheryl and Ralph started their orchard in 1968 and struggled in the early years. By God's grace the orchard has prospered in an extraordinary way becoming one of the largest private orchards in the United States with about 6,000 acres of apples and cherries. More extraordinary, however, is their commitment to live out the gospel in very tangible ways with a strong commitment to servant leadership and generosity.  The Broetje brand is First Fruits, referring to the biblical festival in which God's people gave the first and best of their harvest to the Lord. The family has invested in housing for their workers, an elementary school and 75% of their profits going to charitable causes locally and internationally. There are 1100 year round workers and another 1000 seasonal workers during peak times. It was greatly encouraging to see the gospel in action and to converse about some of the complex issues in African agriculture. 

Recently I have read three most interesting, provoking and troubling books. These are three of the best reads I have had in recent years.
Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty
by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. The authors track the production, storage
and distribution of the basic foods that feed the world. There are many factors incluing what the writers term as new variant famine. In famines caused by drought, pestilence, bad agricultural policy or conflicts, the crops died first.  in new variant famine or AIDS -induced famine, the farmers, the crop growers died first, crops then died and then the recepient populations died.
Deeply troubling is the consideration of how Amercian farm policies (subsidization) and food aid policies had on the fledgling farming efforts of African nations. We as a nation forget our recent history of just 50 years ago when grain futures did not exist and so in times of plenty famrers literally dumped their grain, flooding the market, receiving marginal funds--leading to fewer resources for the next year and no reserve for years of famine or pestilence. American farmers receive hundreds of billions of dollars not to grow certain produce or to prop up global prices.  More troubling is the American food aid policy which requires that only American grown grain be shipped to famine regions. Additionally it must be shipped on American ships. So, for example, in Ethiopia, hundreds of grain trucks rumbled through Etheiopian towns with 200 pound sacks of U.S. grain (marked with the stars and the strips). These trucks RUMBLED PAST WAREHOUSES FULL OF ETHIOPIAN GRAIN, beans. Why? because the food aid policy said the food must come from the U.S. and the Ethiopian farmers possesd only donkeys for distribution and could not afford to give away their grain.
 
This is a must read book. You don't have to agree with the book, just contemplate its findings.
The Fever: How Malaria Ruled the World for 500,000 years.
This is an extraordinarily well written book, captivating from start to finish and very thought provoking as to the role of malaria in shaping global politics and policies. this includes impact in World War II and American slavery. Prepare for some cynicism as author Sonia Shah makes some claims that stretch credulity. Even these do not reduce the great research and proposing new ways of looking at matters gasp fo
r our attention.
Portolios of the Poor: How the Worlds' Poorest Poor Live on Two Dollars a Day
The world might suspect that the poorest of the poor have little if few funds to invest, save and so the assumption is that their money management skills are limited. What a remarkable study this is on othe rrealities and how to maximize limited transactions. this one will take a bit more work to get through but is well worth it. It grants dignity even admiration for their doing much with little.
 
 
 

To build or not to build. Our president is embroiled in a controversy about developer Sharif el Gamal's plans to build a mosque and community center near the site of the 9-11 tragedy.  At face value, the outrage is understandable, an Islamic center being built near the site where the atrocity of Islamic radicals was evidenced. Some sites in the world where the most evil of human behaviors have been displayed have strangely become sacred places . . . places that give testimony to the brokenness of humanity.

And yet I believe our president has a point . . . one could argue that following the despicable behavior of the Christian church during the Inquisition and the Crusades, that no churches should be built in these particular locations in Europe and the Middle East. Whenever issues of religious liberty are at stake, Christians must be thoughtful, reflective. We must be willing to consider matters from another point of view.  If in today's world a group of radicals who claim to be Christian were guilty of a mass murder, would those of us in the mainstream of Christian faith want attempts to establish a church to provide a place of worship and outreach labeled as unacceptable? In any faith there are moderates, radicals, fundamentalists and secularists. Christianity has its 1001 flavors most of which don't want to be identified with the other 1000. Islam is perhaps not as diverse with the more strict observance of worship practices and texts. In Christian parlance, Islam has a liturgy that is universally practiced and yet there is significant opportunity for interpretation and application of its holy texts. 

Understand as well that the proposed building site is a full two blocks from Ground Zero, which in New York City is practically a neighborhood apart. There has been some political opportunism exhibited by the political right and political expediency by the political left on this issue. One would suspect from the news that the mosque proposed is sponsored by Isalmic fundamentalist who want to build a propoganda center on the "holy site" of the World Trade Center where of course all kinds of God-honoring decisions were made. (This is sarcasm for those of you who take things more literally :) ). The proposed project has been assigned the intent of spitting in the American eye, rubbing in the raw wounds, strutting in the endzone and the like.  

But consider if the shoe was on the other foot. Consider places like Indonesia in which churches cannot be built where a mosque has been established. The U.S. constitution does not establish a theocracy--a government in which God is the supreme ruler and the U.S. as a country is not a Christian nation.  I know that we have that phrase, one nation under God, but even with the founding fathers the identity of that God has been in question. We, by God's grace, have been deeply influenced by the gospel--in terms of our morality, love of peace, freedom and charity-though these increasingly come into question.  In terms of values and worldview, the U.S. is post-Christian.

As we consider issues of religious freedom, we might consider historical precedence for the day when our grandchildren very well may be living in a society that no longer possesses the status of primarily Christian worldview.

This is something to think about.

I plan to be in Pennsylvania this next week to perform a friend's wedding. I will perform it on Naomi and my 34 anniversary. I will be at Calvary, Sunday, August 22 and near Mr. B's for any of you available to drop by.  Naomi had hoped to come with me but her work responsibilities at ALARM didn't really make it an optimal time. She hopes to visit in October when I am in Africa.  I was in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Menlo Park and Portland, Oregon and Newburg, Oregon this past week.  Following my Pennsylvania visit I will head to Washington State for a couple of days and then home for two weeks (I am grateful for that). 

Life is so full right now and I have throttled back on how much I do, which means less blogging time these days. I hope to re-engage at a more significant level in the near future.