Please pray for Linda

I first shared about Linda here. Today, I received an email, and Linda has breast cancer. Please pray for my friend.

More great wisdom from our Founding Fathers

Thank you, American Spectator, for the great article, and Samuel Adams’ quote:

No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.

Sunday Morning Smile

What BO’s FB feed might look like…

Read it all at Slate. (Click image to enlarge.)
Joe Biden's post...and Levi Johnston updating his work info to "Baby-daddy" literally made me laugh out loud.

Thank God for our brave SOLDIERS!

I have stood in awe on sands of Omaha Beach thinking of all the American blood that was spilled.

Gazing at the steep cliffs—overwhelmed with emotion.

Unable to fathom the bravery of those young boys (average age early 20’s) who stormed the beach that morning. So, so grateful for their sacrifice.

I have seen a very small glimpse of war, and it is still impossible for me to comprehend in any small way what these men experienced. The American Digest D-Day post attempts to capture the moment and bring it forward to today…I especially like the last few lines.

Today your job is straightforward. First you must load 40 to 50 pounds on your back. Then you need to climb down a net of rope that is banging on the steel side of a ship and jump into a steel rectangle bobbing on the surface of the ocean below you. Others are already inside the steel boat shouting and urging you to hurry up.

Once in the boat you stand with hundreds of others as the boat is driven towards distant beaches and cliffs through a hot hailstorm of bullets and explosions. Boats moving nearby are, from time to time, hit with a high explosive shell and disintegrate in a red rain of bullets and body parts. The smell of men fouling themselves near you as the fear bites into their necks and they hunch lower into the boat mingles with the smell of cordite and seaweed.

In front of you, over the steel helmets of other men, you can see the flat surface of the bow’s landing ramp still held in place against the sea. Soon you are in range of the machine guns that line the beach ahead. The metallic dead sound of their bullets clangs and whines off the front of the ramp. And the coxswain shouts and the bullhorn sounds and you feel the keel of the LST grind against the rocks and sand of Normandy as the large shells from the boats in the armada behind you whuffle and moan overhead and the explosions all around increase in intensity and the bullets from the guns in the cliffs ahead and above shake the boat and the men crouch lower and yet lean, together, forward as, at last, the ramp drops down and you see the beach and the men surge forward and you step with them and you are out in the chill waters of the channel wading in towards sand already doused with death, past bodies bobbing in the surf staining the waters crimson, and then you are on the beach.

It’s worse on the beach. The bullets keep probing along the sand digging holes, looking for your body, finding others that drop down like sacks of meat with their lines to heaven cut. You run forward because there’s nothing but ocean at your back and more men dying and… somehow… you reach a small sliver of shelter at the base of the cliffs. There are others there, confused and cowering and not at all ready to go back out into the storm of steel that keeps pouring down. And then someone, somewhere nearby, tells you all to press forward, to go on, to somehow get off that beach and onto the high ground behind it, and because you don’t know what else to do, you rise up and you move forward, beginning, one foot after another, to take back the continent of Europe.

If you are lucky, very lucky that day, you will walk all the way to Germany and the war will be over and you will go home to a town somewhere on the great land sea of the Midwest and you won’t talk much about this day, or any that came after it, ever. They’ll ask you, over the long decades after, “what you did in the war.” You’ll think of this day and you will never think of a good answer. That’s because you know just how lucky you were.

If you were not lucky that day you’ll lie under a white cross on a large lawn 65 long gone years later. Weak princes and fat bureaucrats will mumble platitudes and empty praises about actions they never knew and men they cannot hope to emulate. You’ll hear them, dim and far away from the caverns of your long sleep. You’ll want them to go, to leave you and the others to their deep study of eternity. Sixty-five years? Seems like a lot to the living. It’s but an inch of time. Leave us and go back to your petty lives. We march on and you, you weaklings primping and parading above us, will never know how we died or how we lived.

If we hear you at all now, your mewling only makes us ask, among ourselves, "Died for what?"

Weak princes and fat bureaucrats, be silent and be gone. We are one with the sea and the sky and the wind. We march on.

Happy Birthday LJ!

I was so happy to be Stateside for LJ’s first birthday celebration. I so love this boy and did not want to miss this. He loved his truck.

After a couple hours of festivities, he was ready to go home.

Several times during the party my mind wandered to Kim, Eskarleth, and José. When I think of them, it is not with a sense of guilt for it is useless to feel guilty over something one cannot control (i.e. where one is born).

When I think of them, I am usually overcome with two extremely strong emotions/feelings: thankfulness that I was born in the United States of America and determination to do what I can to make their lives better.

Life with the Lansfords

I had such a blast with the Lansfords while I was in Texas.

I have known Lisa and the girls—Linsay, left in the picture, and Rochelle on the right—since I taught Linsay 15 years ago. (WOW! How time flies.)

And I love staying with them when I am in Texas because:

• The girls make me laugh until my sides hurt, and I feel as if I will BURST (quite literally)!
• Linsay remains one of my all-time favorite students—I loved having her in class, and I love hanging out with her now that she is an adult.
• Lisa’s husband is one of the nicest men I know. He understands the importance of “girl time.” AND he makes breakfast when I am staying there (the best huevo rancheros—yummy!!).
• Lisa is a true friend.

No matter where I go or where I live—a part of me will always call Texas home—and it is because of my friends.

Memorial Day

Having spent time in a warzone, I understand, somewhat, the sacrifices that our brave men and women in the military (and the civilians who support our armed services) make each and every day. Some, of course, make the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives to protect our freedoms—these men and women we remember on this day.

During my Iraq experience, tragedy struck close to home on two occasions:In November 2004, my dear friend, Doug Thomas was killed. The picture above is the last time I saw Doug alive. We were readying to convoy from FOB Danger to Camp Speicher. I was stopping at Speicher to catch military air to Baghdad to depart for my first rotation. Doug was continuing on to Anaconda for a mission. During his return convoy from Balad to Tikrit, a roadside bomb exploded and a piece of shrapnel hit Doug, killing him instantly. Though Doug was a defense contractor, I remember him this day for he was providing direct support to the military when he was killed.

U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Phillip George was the son of my colleague Carson George. On Aug. 18, 2005, Phillip was killed in an ambush in Afghanistan—he was only 22. Phillip joined the Marines on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, yearning to see the world and aching to make a difference.

An interview with Mrs. George, Phillip’s mother, was recently published in the Houston Chronicle where she states that not a day goes by where she does not think of her son. I am sure that Doug’s wife and children think of him everyday, too. And even though I may remember the fallen occasionally, there are others who acutely feel the loss daily. Please pray for the families of not only Doug and Phillip but for all the families of the 4,971 American servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To remember those who have sacrificed visit MilitaryTimes.com's Honor the Fallen, Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen, the Iraq and Afghanistan Pages, or Legacy.com.

God bless our service members and God bless America.

Happy Birthday Stock and Buck!

While in Texas, my former “team”* and I were able to get together for a nice Pappasito’s (carry out) dinner to celebrate Stockman’s and Buck’s birthdays.

My favorite food…and some of my favorite people. Life is GOOD.

*LOMS used the team concept (a team of teachers—math, science, history, and English—taught the same group of students).
Front row:

Me (holding my dog, Skip), Preacher’s Wife (former library aide at LOMS), Bonnie (history team teacher), Stockman (math team teacher), Buck (former librarian), Tom (science team teacher)

Back row:
Ray (Bonnie’s husband), Jodie (science team teacher after Tom retired), Nicole (not on our team, but I hired her to teach at LOMS—truly one of the best hiring decisions I have ever made.)

Honduras...another home visit

80% of Hondurans live below the poverty level—

50% live in extreme poverty.

Unlike the homes in our earlier visits (extreme poverty), our final visit was to a family that lives in an area where most homes are constructed of cinder blocks and have cement floors.

This is the home of the family we visited.

I snapped this picture from the open window. This is the view of their neighbor's home.

The small house had two rooms. A small living room (with a small sofa and wooden bench for seating) and a bedroom which sleeps six (the parents and four children). The green wall is the bedroom wall.

This family has the luxury of an older television and stereo system.

The little girl of the family standing outside the bedroom door.

The mother and three of her four children. The father works at a produce market.

The home does not have indoor running water. There is a cement sink with water spicket outside the home.

We were able to get a glimpse into their daily lives and even had an opportunity to “help” prepare a meal. Of course for those who know me, know that I am not comfortable in a kitchen—any kitchen—so the extent of my help was husking a couple ears of corn. (I cannot even imagine what they must face preparing a meal during the rainy season!)

Food is cooked over an open fire.

The ever present fowl!

View from the backdoor.

Another view from the back door. The children were chasing chicks.

The kids were not only totally adorable, but also HILARIOUS!

For some reason they could not understand why I refused to hold their cute fuzzy chicks (no really—I barely escaped swine flu—do you really think I want to chance it with bird flu???)

or the little puppies (What? Get nipped by the angry mother and have to endure rabies protocol in Honduras????).

When we heard the universal sound of childhood summer happiness (the ice cream man), we treated all the kids in the neighborhood to a cone (at 5 lempiras each—approximately 25cents—it was well worth every penny to see their smiles). However, our refusal to eat this delectable treat made them question our sanity—what type of people were we? We disliked downy chicks, cuddly puppies, and ice cream on a sweltering day! (Our guide strongly suggested that we not eat the ice cream.)

He is smiling on the inside. :)

Buddies!

After ice cream some of the neighborhood kids gathered inside.
This little girl even sang a song for us.

It was time for us to head back to the project.

Beautiful flowers camouflage
A not so beautiful home.

I took this only because I could not believe the number of wires!

Honduras Home Visits One

I had seen poverty—but only from a distance.

The pictures of African children with distended bellies and gnats flying around their eyes and noses. The literature containing pictures of children who gazed into the camera with lifeless eyes. The endless infomercials letting me know how “for less than one dollar a day,” I could change the life of a child.

I saw poverty while flying low in a Blackhawk over war-torn Iraq…I saw children play on trash heaps…and watched them run from the heap as we tossed them soccer balls in a small humanitarian gesture.

However, like many Americans, I had never really seen extreme poverty…up close and personal.

Never had seen it, that is, until I went to Honduras.

There, I saw poverty…extreme poverty... up close.

I looked into the eyes of poverty.

Held the hand of poverty.

Heard the “white noise” …dogs barking…hens clucking…the murmur of voices…the sound of cars…a distant radio blaring…children playing…laughing…a baby crying…creating a hypnotic static.

Smelled the repugnant odor of sewage and trash along the roadside.

Poverty permeated my senses…

Walking…trancelike…trying to wrap my head around all the sights, sounds, smells…unable really to take it all in…

Reaching our destination, standing in a dark, dank “home”—not more than a shack really—made of roughly hewn wooden planks where the cracks between the planks allowed small ribbons of sunlight to play on the damp, dirt floor. The main room furnished with only two 50’s diner type chairs with rusted chrome legs, a sheet separating the bedroom that sleeps six, and a “kitchen” out back behind the home. No running water in the home…no bathroom…just a lone community spicket several yards away from the cooking area.

We were introduced to the family that lived in the home. As the mother spoke through an interpreter telling what a blessing the sponsorship has been to her daughter…my mind drifted…the mother’s soft murmur followed by the quick cadence of the interpreter…words lost their meaning…for the pounding in my head…bringing me close to tears…was the thought that the seven month old little girl that she held in her arms would learn to crawl and eventually take her first steps across the damp, dirt floor in that dark, dank shack.

I thought of LJ and how vastly different his life will be from this little girl’s. I thought of the many times that we have played with him on the living room floor—something so simple that I have taken for granted—and the oh so many other things that I have taken for granted.

How many times have I complained about minor inconveniences or nuisances…never realizing the hardships that so many others around the globe face each and every day?

After each home visit, I would board the bus…gaze out the window as we pulled away…trying to wrap my head around what I had seen and experienced.

Usually, I was speechless…silenced by the thought that I have failed…as a Christian…in my obligation to the poor.



*Thanks to all who shared pictures. Included in this are pictures from 2 of the 5 home visits that we made. The final home visit will be in a separate post.

Making our way to one of the home visits. For each home visit we provided a bag of non-perishable food and toiletry items (that is the black bag our guide is carrying).Six people live in the home below. Their kitchen is in the front of their home.

This mother has three children.
This is her home.

This is her third child. He is sitting in the "common area" that three homes shared. Beside the wooden table is their water spicket.

This is the grandmother's home; it is adjacent to their home.

Random pictures...