I received the lovely card attached from a reader yesterday who must have felt that I needed it, which I did. The text “We live with one eye on the horizon of eternity and we stand on the side of hope.” are the words of a Lutheran Bishop of Namibia who was a strong advocate for peace despite having lost his own daughter to violence.
Wendell Berry coined the phrase ‘practice resurrection’ some years ago in his Mad Farmer Manifesto and yet there are so many things in our world that can make this very difficult especially if we move this beyond the ordinary practices of our lives. We tend to want to see things on a grand scale. We despair when we read the news from Lahore or Brussels because we feel helpless in the face of it. How does one prevent a suicide bomber from walking into an airport with a suitcase full of explosives? This may sound simplistic, but I think we do it by practicing resurrection on a more humanly manageable scale.
Our friend Dena Nicolai has just begun her new work as Chaplain and Refugee Community Coordinator working out the First Christian Reformed Church of Vancouver. That church now lives in the wonderful shadow cast by Vancouver’s newly erected Refugee Welcome Centre. She and a group of volunteers hosted some 90 Syrian Refugees that are living in temporary housing in local hotels to an Easter Monday Dinner in the church hall. That is practicing resurrection and that gives me hope.
Hope is being practiced everyday at our partner Christian Schools in Sierra Leone and Honduras. For some 70 children in Choluteca and 400 in Kabala each day children are receiving instruction from dedicated Christian teachers who are working under difficult circumstances and meet the challenges before them for the sake of these children. Check out the small video to get a sense for what is happening today in Kabala, Sierra Leone : https://drive.google.com/a/crcnapartners.org/file/d/0B-FxhX1Y8bBocjBFbFhIVGg4ZG8/view?usp=sharing
In the month of May we be holding our annual Sponsorship Drive to continue our practice of resurrection in Honduras and Sierra Leone.
Wendell Berry coined the phrase ‘practice resurrection’ some years ago in his Mad Farmer Manifesto and yet there are so many things in our world that can make this very difficult especially if we move this beyond the ordinary practices of our lives. We tend to want to see things on a grand scale. We despair when we read the news from Lahore or Brussels because we feel helpless in the face of it. How does one prevent a suicide bomber from walking into an airport with a suitcase full of explosives? This may sound simplistic, but I think we do it by practicing resurrection on a more humanly manageable scale.
Our friend Dena Nicolai has just begun her new work as Chaplain and Refugee Community Coordinator working out the First Christian Reformed Church of Vancouver. That church now lives in the wonderful shadow cast by Vancouver’s newly erected Refugee Welcome Centre. She and a group of volunteers hosted some 90 Syrian Refugees that are living in temporary housing in local hotels to an Easter Monday Dinner in the church hall. That is practicing resurrection and that gives me hope.
Hope is being practiced everyday at our partner Christian Schools in Sierra Leone and Honduras. For some 70 children in Choluteca and 400 in Kabala each day children are receiving instruction from dedicated Christian teachers who are working under difficult circumstances and meet the challenges before them for the sake of these children. Check out the small video to get a sense for what is happening today in Kabala, Sierra Leone : https://drive.google.com/a/crcnapartners.org/file/d/0B-FxhX1Y8bBocjBFbFhIVGg4ZG8/view?usp=sharing
In the month of May we be holding our annual Sponsorship Drive to continue our practice of resurrection in Honduras and Sierra Leone.