still. small.

...(almost) 1 year anniversary will also work I suppose. I'm sorry for that void. It's not that things were happening or I my brain wasn't spinning, I just felt the need to take a little leave of silence, to refrain from sharing my thoughts with the world for a time.

That doesn't mean though that I don't want to share things with you, my dear friends, so please hold me accountable to keeping in touch, even when I'm a terribly unreliable blogger (putting things out there for all the world to see is just sometimes a bit too much for me).

Now that I'm far away, missing everyone terribly, and really wanting to share my daily experiences, I've decided to return to blogging, intimidating as that is to me of late. You can read up on my time in the DRC here:

http://mikhalrebekah.wordpress.com/

Dear Ali,

You are so sweet for checking this again. Really, I'm amazed at your faithfulness especially where mine is so lacking. I like to pretend I was waiting for the 6 month anniversary of my last post to write again =).

Really -- more coming soon.

xoxo,
Mikhal

Homeward Bound

I should really watch that movie again. Used to be one of my favorites. But the point was, I'm coming home for Christmas! Just wanted to give everybody a heads up =). Dec. 11-Jan. 12 I'll be back in the good old midwest, and excited to see everybody! ...and go to house church, and Hiawatha, and run around Lake Harriet, and eat buffalo chicken pizza at Broadway, and live it up at Pancho Villa's, and keep old roomies up far into the night when they have to work the next day, and play pounce w/ my sis, and 500 w/ the Luther crew, and hug the puppies, and watch GG w/Dad and Dana, and enjoy Christmas (and games, cinnamon rolls, candlelight, and apple cider) w/ the whole fam. Those are my dreams. Make them come true?

I realize that time is still a ways away, and I'm OK with that. Things here are good. But now you can't say I didn't give you a heads up =).

Food for thought:

"In the face of an empire that rules through military and economic control, what is the shape of a community that serves a ruler who brings reconciliaton and peace by sacrifical death?"
-from Colossians Remixed

Thanks for listening...

Fall is in the air. And on the trees, which perhaps is even better. I do believe I've moved to the right place. If I've ever told you in the past that spring or summer was my favorite season (I believe I rotate between those and fall), disregard that. Fall is it. It's hard to consider it a season in Minnesota because it lasts approximately a week. It's absolutely gorgeous, but over before you know it. Really, if we didn't get up to the Superior Hiking Trail that first weekend in October, it would all be over by the next time we tried. However Philly, beautiful Philly, it's been fall here for like a month already, and there're still plenty of leaves on the trees! I told a friend recently that weather was a boring thing to talk about, and a sign of age (sorry Will, if you ever read this). So we'll say all that was instead about nature... which continually causes me to stand in absolute awe of God's glory in the beauty of His creation.

This last month has also brought its share of other blessings. My classmates and I continue to form deeper friendships as we struggle together with issues of poverty, development, religion, culture, capitalism, corruption, top-down vs. grassroots economics, demonstration vs. proclamation, and much more. One joyous day I had the priviledge of playing some great ultimate. I've found some running partners! I've enjoyed several churches, and eventually determined to go to the one right across the street. I've found some friends to watch Grey's Anatomy with (don't judge me, it's fun alright?). I played eucre with people from all over the country (from Maine to Oregon. Who said that was a Michigan/Wisconsin game?).

I think there is nothing I would rather study than what we are studying at Eastern right now. I'm also realizing it's so true that the more you know, the more you understand how much you have yet to learn. I'm discovering more questions than answers. And yet I think it's all a part of the growth process. I may have mentioned that we began the semester with some really hard books. Hard in the sense that they challenge idealism, and show how good intentions can cause harm (one of my professors begs that we not be "headless hearts"). But I've found encouragement in several things. First is in recognizing and even forgetting my unworthiness, and trusting in His plan:

“God is asking me, the unworthy, to forget my unworthiness and that of my brothers, and dare to advance in the love which has redeeemed and renewed us all in God’s likeness. And to laugh, after all, at the preposterous idea of “worthiness.” -Thomas Merton

Then there's the fact that we MUST pursue our passions:

"So every individual has a responsibility to be concerned about himself enough to discover what he is made for. After he discovers his calling he should set out to do it with all of the strength and power in his being. He should do it as if God Almighty called him at this particular moment in history to do it. He should seek to do his job so well that the living, the dead, or the unborn could not do it better." Martin Luther King Jr.

And even when we're discouraged...

“See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.” 2 Corinthians 7:11

I have been sorrowful over the brokenness in the world, and the injustices done by aid organizations especially. Yet these things have raised in me indignation, alarm, concern, longing for change, and eagerness to see organizations that function under principles of justice. And I know that in all things God will provide hope:

"Christ is like a river. A river is continually flowing, there are fresh supplies of water coming from the fountain-head continually so that man may live by it, and be supplied w/ water all his life. So Christ is an ever-flowing fountain; he is continually supplying His people, and the fountain is not spent. They who live upon Christ, may have fresh supplies from Him to all eternity; they may have an increase of blessedness that is new, and new still, and which will never come to an end.” –Jonathan Edwards

i think it's only reasonable...

...to be a little worried about how the day's gonna go when you pour orange juice into your cereal first thing in the morning. i strained it out because my cereal is precious and is imported from minnesota, but it still had a slightly citrus-y flavor. eck.

and now instead of writing my paper about the correlation between corruption and different economic growth factors, i'm blogging about orange juice. someone cancel my internet.

cute moment of the day:

Natasha and I were taking a walk yesterday when we came upon an unusual scene. On the porch of a small house by the side of the road there were two chairs. Sitting right in the middle of one as if he'd been there his whole life, was a little squirrel. He had active eyes like squirrels do, but was sitting quite still.

Then the door to the house opens a bit and a thin, wrinkled, but smiling old man's face appears. He sticks his cane through the crack in the door and wags it at the squirrel, saying, "hey there! aren't you supposed to be down the block with your family?" Seeing that the squirrel is unmoving, he lowers his cane to the ground, slowly steps out the door, and sits down in the chair next to the squirrel and begins chatting away as if they were old friends. Perhaps they are.

A few quick notes...

If anyone wants to read about my classes and classmates, I'd tell you but my classmate Michael's already written about those things! Check out his posts from 9/2 and 9/11 here: http://constantcastro.blogspot.com/

Amazing book of the week:
Walking with the Poor by Bryant Myers
He breaks down what poverty really is, the important role that faith must have in development work, how we must affirm the role of humans in their respective societies, be good neighbors, be learners, focus on relationships, address root causes, seek truth and justice, recognize pervasive evil, and affirm the role of the church. And those things can apply to development work overseas, or in North Minneapolis, or in small town Iowa. Because even when physical poverty is not prevalent, poverty of spirit is everywhere. According to Myers, the deepest and most profound expression of poverty is when one no longer knows who they truly are or why they were created. He emphasizes the importance of restoring relationships with others, self, God, and community, because we were made in the image of a triune God. Thick book, but amazing. Recommended to one and all.

Amazing song of the week:
"New Today" by Alli Rogers

Amazing movie of the week:
I haven't seen a movie since I've been out here =(. For those of you who are already disappointed at my lack of knowledge of pop-culture, it's only gonna get worse. I'm not distraught.