by jphilo | Jan 30, 2009 | Current Events
Yesterday morning, after listening to another gloomy economic report, I started obsessing about my son’s job situation. Will he find work? How will he live? What’s going to happen to him? In the afternoon, I talked to him on the phone. “It’s easy to get depressed when new layoffs are announced ever day,” he said. “But God will provide.” His steady, quiet voice calmed me, and for the first time that day, I found peace.
This morning, he peace continued, and my sense of humor returned when the radio announcer said the latest figures showed the economy shrinking at its greatest rate since the first quarter of 1982. That’s the year Allen was born. He came into the world right about when the scope of that year’s economic downturn was hitting the airwaves. He was greeted by parents who earned less than $20,000 a year and didn’t know how they would pay the $100,000 worth of medical bills their son racked up in his first year of life. They didn’t know where the money would come from for their mounting travel expenses either. But somehow, in those hard economic times, God provided all they needed, and every bill was paid.
Now, almost twenty-seven years later, God brings Allen out of the monastery and into our world again, healed and whole after PTSD therapy, smack into the worst economic conditions since he was born. How could my sense of humor not come back in the presence of God’s perfect comedic timing? When I listen to the news, Allen’s chances of finding a job seems impossible. But when I remember how God provided for his needs twenty-seven years ago, hope returns. Today I stand expectant, waiting for the punch line, ready to laugh.
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2009 | Current Events
Six years ago I met Ashley. The G.R.I.P. (Growing Relationships in Pairs) mentoring coordinator in our local school introduced us. Ashley was a second grader when we met, and though she’s now now in seventh grade, we still get together for a half our once a week at her school while it’s in session.
We meet outside of school sometimes, too. We do things like going out to lunch for her birthday, baking treats for our families before Christmas, attending the high school plays and the Grand March before prom, watching the Anne of Green Gables videos together. One sultry summer evening, we sat through a tornado warning in our basement. We’ve attended some G.R.I.P. sponsored activities: roller-skating, the annual carnival, and our favorite an afternoon at the butterfly and horticultural garden in a nearby university town. That’s where we took the picture of the pond above. Later, when we saw our reflections in the photo, it became a favorite, too.
Because January is National Mentoring Month, Ashley and I, along with the G.R.I.P. coordinator, were interviewed at the local radio station this past Monday. During the interview, the coordinator said their program serves over a hundred children in our county and another fifty kids are on the waiting list. Fifty kids. In just one county. Take that number times the one hundred counties in my state and take that number times fifty states, and you have a crowd of kids waiting for an adult to make a difference in their lives.
If that number disturbs you, consider becoming a mentor in your town, even though you’re busy, even though you don’t think you have time. Seven years ago, I wasn’t sure I had time in my life for a little girl. Now I can’t imagine my life without Ashley, a seventh grader who maturing into a lovely young woman, being part of it.
Ashley and I aren’t mentee and mentor anymore. We’re friends for life. You need a friend like that. And somewhere, there’s a child who needs a friend like that, too. Is it you?
by jphilo | Jan 20, 2009 | Current Events
Today’s inaguration of our first African-American president, Barack Obama, fulfills the dream Martin Luther King put into words when I was an elementary student.
One of my former elementary students recently put words to one of his dreams recently. Nic, who is fighting cancer for the third time in his fifteen years of life, shares his dream at his family’s CaringBridge page. Click this link to get to the CaringBridge website. Type “nicroney” in the box to get to his page. Then click on “Read Journal” and scroll down to the January 19, 2009 entry to see what he wrote. And please, will you join me in praying that someday, perhaps soon, his dream of a cure for childhood cancer will be fulfilled?
by jphilo | Dec 31, 2008 | Current Events
While the past month brought unexpected joy to our family, it’s been a month full of challenges for Alicia Burghduff and her young son, Dane. On December 15 this thirty-something young mom from Harding County (the most northwestern county in South Dakota where we once lived), was in a single car accident on a remote stretch of Highway 85. She broke her pelvis and one leg, crushed an ankle and sustained burns on both legs. Somehow despite her injuries, she had the presence of mind to release her seat belt button and crawl away from the burning car. A truck driver saw the flames, stopped to investigate, and called for help. Alicia credits him with saving her life. She was flown to Denver where she’s endured numerous surgeries and making good progress.
This accident isn’t the first tragedy Alicia and Dane have endured in their young lives. A few years back Alicia’s husband Shawn, a strapping and healthy young man, died when he contracted a mysterious virus that settled in his kidneys. After her husband’s death, Alicia returned to college and competed her master’s degree while raising her young son. Her courage and determination before the accident amazed and humbled me, but now her attitude is astonishing.
The Philo connection with the Burghduffs (Shawn and his parents, Gerald and Becky, and his sister Natalie, rather than with Alicia) go way back. During my years as a country school teacher, Shawn and I did first, second, and third grade together. Our family spent a lot of time at their ranch, visiting and eating meals together. After Allen was born and throughout his surgeries, they were a constant source of support for us. When we head out west to visit, Gerald and Becky insist we stay with them.
Over the years God has bound our families together with ties of laughter and loss, joy and sadness. All we can do to support Alicia and Dane is pray for them and leave messages at their CarePage website. I invite you to go to www.carepages.com, become a member, and then type in alicia_burghduff to track her progress. You’ll also see pictures of Alicia and Dane, who looks so much like his dad at that age, it takes my breath away.
At the end of the New Testament book of James, the author says true religion is to care for widows and orphans. Though in this case, distance complicates the fulfillment of that command, I’ll do what I can. Each day of the new year, I’ll pray for this determined young widow and her little boy. Wrap them in your arms, dear Father. Hold them close.
by jphilo | Nov 27, 2008 | Current Events
Today, our Thanksgiving group of nine did a formidable amount of food damage. After we nibbled on Chex Mix, the relish tray, cheese and crackers and then gorged on turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and cranberries.
The damage control component of the day was the half hour walk squeezed in between the main course and dessert. What else explains how nine people could belly back up to the table and eat fifteen pieces of pie liberally topped with whipped cream? Fresh air and sunshine is worth its weight in pie is what I say.
The way I figure things, if I spend every waking hour of the next two days walking outdoors at top speed, the damage inflicted over the past twenty-four hours might be reversed. Of course unless everyone eats all the Chex Mix and leftover pie while I’m gone, I’ll come inside and resume my hand to mouth existence immediately. And if they eat like that, they’ll be in terrible shape by the end of our holiday weekend.
Since I’m wholly unselfish woman, I’ve come up with a solution that cancels out my overeating without putting the rest of the family at risk: I take my share of the leftover pie and Chex Mix and eat it while pounding out a few miles on my sister’s treadmill.
The idea of having the fam fawning extolling my selfless concern is quite repellant. So I won’t mention my damage control plan to them. Instead, I’ll sneak into the kitchen, nab the last piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie and a quart of Chex Mix, and power up the treadmill.
The fam doesn’t ever need to know how I sacrificed for their health. It could ruin their Thanksgiving, and I love them too much to heap guilt upon them. So please, don’t tell them how blessed they are to have me in their midst. They never need to know.
by jphilo | Nov 25, 2008 | Current Events
Last February Anne suggested that Hiram, Mom and I come see an original musical written by her college drama professor. “It’s based on the bad stories from the Bible,” she explained. “And it’s weird, edgy.”
She wasn’t kidding. The Northwestern College play, which is titled Terror Texts, was haunting, hard to watch, sad. It impressed me so much, I wrote about it in my March column in our church newsletter. I wasn’t the only one impressed by the show. A man from an organization that watches college shows, provided feedback to the cast. He suggested they resurrect the show in the fall and enter it in a national college contest. So they did. This fall, the new improved version of Terror Texts premiered and even garnered an AP story that ran in newspapers nationwide and on state television. The article was positive and thought-provoking, but Anne says the college has gotten a lot of hate mail concerning it. She comes home tonight for Thanksgiving break, and I hope to learn more about the controversy.
But for now, I’m going to brag a little. When you read the AP story, pay particular attention to the description of the wedding dress. Anne, who works in the costume department, created the thing. She said it was really fun to spray paint it and then singe it. To think her maddening habit of dressing her Barbie dolls in Kleenex years ago led to one of her creations being mentioned in an article that ran nationwide. That’s our Anne!
Hmm…come to think of it, before our Anne gets home tonight I need to hide the Barbie dolls and the Kleenex, and the spray paint and the matches and my wedding dress. It’s the price of creativity. Or maybe, it’s the price of college.
