One less place to call home
It’s strange being back in the UK for the first time since I left in fall 2006.
Four years ago, I hadn’t experienced a year of integrating politics and faith with Sojourners in Washington, DC. Four years ago, I didn’t even care about politics; I’d never heard of Barack Obama, let alone volunteered for his campaign. Four years ago, God hadn’t yet broken my heart for the poor, or stirred me to anger against injustice. Four years ago, I was still figuring out what I was going to do with my life—how I was supposed to weave together the disparate passions and talents I’d been entrusted with.
And most of my friends in the UK have missed out on that part of my life. Many of them haven't seen the last four years of growth and maturing, of heartbreak and healing, of discovering my calling and the joy that comes with that. And I wish they had.
So it’s been a little sad. Much of this past week I’ve been reflecting in a fairly resigned way how we’ve grown apart, how God has led us in different directions, how friendships that used to be so close are no longer so, how people who played such important roles in my life no longer do. I know God is doing great things in each of our lives, and I’m glad for that.
But, like Hong Kong, it seems London is destined to become (and is already becoming) just another place I spent time in—formative years, life-changing years, years when I encountered God through and among some amazing people—but home no longer.
The last weeks of 2009
Last week, I celebrated Christmas with Aaron, Amy and Elijah in Huntington, WV, home of Marshall University ("We Are Marshall") and of Amy's family. It was great spending a few days outside of DC, and with an awesome and wonderfully welcoming family.
To boot, last week ...
- I got to go on a tour of the East Wing of the White House.
- I got to talk with family in Australia, Hong Kong, and California.
- I got to talk with friends in New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. (What up, iChat video conferencing?!)
- I got to watch a truckload of enjoyable movies: Avatar, Invictus, The Blind Side, The Invention of Lying, and Sherlock Holmes.
It was a good week. 
[For Christmas pics, check out my Facebook.]
This week, I'm in snowbound St Louis for Urbana 2009, InterVarsity's triennial missions conference. I'm here with Sojourners, who are co-leading the Poverty and Advocacy track along with World Vision and International Justice Mission. It's the first time in Urbana's history that they're looking at advocacy as a form of mission, and so it's a pretty momentous occasion and an exciting development.
One of the things we're launching this week is the Human Wrong Initiative, which is geared towards combating child slavery in all its forms: prostitution, forced labor, and child-soldiering. Of the 27 million people still in slavery today, about half are women and children.
This is how the world is today. But it is not how the world should be. Nor how the world needs to be. Join us, get involved, let your friends know. Let's stamp out child slavery.
The other thing that's happening (that I'm involved with) is helping Sojourners lead a night of lament for the injustice in the world; that'll take place tomorrow (December 29th). I'll only be speaking for a few minutes, but I'm gonna be laying the groundwork for the couple hundred students in our track to engage with God in this way, so I'd appreciate your prayers!
[Pics to Urbana will follow. ]
Cage-dwellers in Hong Kong
Check out this disturbing report on people living in cages in Hong Kong.
Links of the Day, October 14
News
- Heartbreaking: girls sell sex in Hong Kong for shopping money.
- Some coal plants are dumping waste into drinking water sources. How generous of them ...
- According to the Guttmacher Institute, bans do not reduce the number of abortions. Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women a year.
Health care
- The Senate Finance Committee passed its bill, 14-9, with Sen. Snowe (R-ME) the only Republican to cross party lines.
Politics
- Sen. Lindsey Graham is really getting it from the right for working with Sen. John Kerry on climate change legislation.
Miscellaneous
- A follow-up to the suggestion that email is on its way out: why email will never die.
- Enjoy:
- The world's "most beautiful object": this fireplace.
- Social stratification in social networking? Apparently so.
Links of the Day, August 14
Happy Friday!!
News
Human trafficking
- Forced prostitution on Craigslist?
- Human trafficking and Islam.
- A case featuring an American teenage girl is cracked in Florida.
- Britons can unknowingly contribute to the slave trade.
Health care
- Paul Krugman on the "Republican death trip."
Green
- Cap-and-trade? Or just a tax on carbon emissions?
- Harvard University goes solar.