He’s a living breathing Pied Piper. Everywhere he goes, children trail after him. In a Kenyan man called Pastor Karau, the legend becomes visible in real time, albeit with a happy ending. In his home culture, Pastor Karau walks the winding, muddy lanes of the second largest slum in East Africa, seeking out the last…Read more World Children’s Day
Orphans
Orphans in Zimbabwe
Photo: kids in Zimbabwe along for the ride to fill water containers I'm currently en route from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to Colorado, wrestling with the joys and tragedies I witnessed of a courageous people under the siege of a bankrupt economy. Why are kids orphaned in Zimbabwe? What are their lives like? Travel along vicariously with…Read more Orphans in Zimbabwe
Orphans in N Vietnam
In 2006, after adopting two kids from a Kenyan orphanage and being haunted by the ones we left behind, my beloved husband of now 26 years and I helped open Sanctuary of Hope in Kenya, where Hope's Promise now cares for 24 orphans in two families. In the process, I came on staff with Hope's…Read more Orphans in N Vietnam
Who Is My Neighbor?
I’m about as far from my Colorado Springs downtown neighborhood as possible. The organized streets and neon lights of a modern city fade far away as asphalt yields to a rutted, mountainside-hugging dirt road, and then to a slice in the forest where men on motorcycles cluster. I straddle a bike behind a smiling Vietnamese…Read more Who Is My Neighbor?
Above All, Keep Your Heart Free
When Mugabe, thirty-plus-year year dictator of Zimbabwe, bulldozed neighborhoods who didn’t vote for him and committed other horrendous human rights abuses, my friends took international journalists to witness his crimes. And paid for it by ending up on the government hit list. L describes how she and her husband, a pastor, fell asleep at night…Read more Above All, Keep Your Heart Free
Littlest Voices
All over the world, they peer from the shadows of deconstructed realities… From the rice fields of Vietnam, laboring under a relentless sun. From the slums of Kenya, neglected and starving . From the mountains of Nepal, sold into slavery. From the countryside of Zimbabwe, oppressed by the whims of a corrupt dictator. And from…Read more Littlest Voices
One Pebble… Thousands of Ripples
I wrote this entry for the Hope's Promise blog about my dear friends, Brian and Debbie Lee. Decades ago, when I was a twenty-something campus staffworker with InterVarsity, they were leading teams of students to serve in Kenya. One summer they brought back necklace gifts with little hand-carved bone pendants for all the staff. As…Read more One Pebble… Thousands of Ripples
Speak for Those Who Cannot
There was a time in my life when trauma stunned me into silence. I unexpectedly learned about harm perpetrated against someone I love. A friend exposed the truth to me with kindness and sensitivity, but I walked away from the conversation shattered. I told no one even though surrounded by people who cared deeply…Read more Speak for Those Who Cannot
Always Held
For Lilia, my children, and the many others around the world who ache for a different beginning... This is what really happened... You slip into the world raw and trembling, aching for tender touch. But instead, the one you most long for walks away. You huddle there, vulnerable in an abandoned building, or a slum…Read more Always Held
Love – The Search Is On
I once lived, moved and breathed right smack in the heart of the biblical parable of the lost sheep, albeit contextualized for Colorado Springs, Colorado. Now, in these parts, at least in the city, we don’t herd many sheep; but we do have cliffs, frigid winter nights, and hungry predators. And we adore our animals, especially…Read more Love – The Search Is On
