A Warm Christmas

A German colleague of ours helps support a soup kitchen in Balti, Moldova. One of their regular clients froze to death in her home last week. This is why our church in the Netherlands cooperated with a Sinti and Roma church in Germany to provide firewood for 14 vulnerable families in two different Roma villages in Moldova.
This is aid--giving immediate help. Aid is dangerous, long-term. It is giving people fish rather than working along side of them to catch--or raise--fish. Aid can foster dependency; healthy development fosters their own sense of worth. Aid can rob people of initiative; transformational development empowers people to solve their own problems with their own resources. Aid is not sustainable; it ends when the outside supply of funds and goods ends. Transformational development continues, for lasting change, even when I am no longer around to send money to Moldova or explain the need to potential donors.
In the past, we've passed on firewood funds for a few vulnerable families in the village of Vulcanesti, but for all these reasons I have been reluctant to get involved in aid. I was surprised when our Dutch church decided to take up yet another collection for firewood. This year, they have designated half of their Christmas Thanksgiving Offering for firewood.
Also this year, a Moldovan businessman and a Roma entrepreneur have begun working together on a business plan.
Immediate help . . . long-term transformation . . . Merry Christmas, one and all!

And the Word Became . . .

What is your favorite version of the Word? There are a lot of different English translations of John 1. One of our daughters' favorites is the back-translation of the Kalderash Romani New Testament. Before it was corrected, John 1:1 read, "Before there was anything, there was a sofa . . . ."

Now the corrected version is available through Amazon.fr (France) as well as the French Bible Society.  Romani-language Scripture is becoming more and more accessible.

Some people prefer to hear the Word. For instance, the Eastern Slovak Romani version of the New Testament can be heard through the Bible.is website. Keith recorded this several years ago. Because some people prefer to hear AND read the Word, he has done the sample you see above. This is not the only YouTube option Faith Comes By Hearing uses. They are also dubbing this video version.

The Lutheran pastor in Iceland that Keith has been meeting with this past week was enthusiastic about this last option. He thought it would really help to get the young people in his catechism classes into the Word.

Amazon, YouTube, there are a lot of different ways to connect with the Word. My personal favorite is the very first one:  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us!"

No Flowers on Sinterklaas

I went out to trim out the nasturtium vines which had finally wilted from frost. The nasturtiums came up like weeds this past spring. Throughout the growing season, I had painstakingly woven the vines through and over two and a half sections of the weathered fence between us and the neighbors. Even this late in the year, December 5, only a few had withered.
But I found myself, once I'd started, pulling down everything. I wrenched every last one of them out from between the fencing and jerked them up by the roots. Even the ones still blooming--deep orange, creamy yellow, cheerful pumpkin--ended up buried in the compost pile or heaped on the dormant flowerbeds. All this uncharacteristic destruction gave me a fierce satisfaction. Half-way through, I realized why.
December 5 is a big holiday in the Netherlands. Sinterklaas and his sidekick Zwarte Piet bring presents to all the boys and girls. Families gather to play games and share jokes. It's a time of warmth and laughter and good fun. Maybe it was too big a holiday for the man down the block. Maybe that's why he killed himself last year on Sinterklaas. And maybe that's why his teen-aged daughter went into hysterics on the front lawn after she found him. The goodhearted neighbor tried to get the girl into her house. When we heard the commotion, I went over to help. The neighbor got the girl's cell phone, stepped outside, and began calling the girls' family members. Other neighbors came, but they also left. I stayed with this grieving girl I did not really know. I stayed once the police woman came. I stayed until the rest of the girl's family finally showed up. And because I did not really know them, I do not really know anything else.
Now I do know, though, why I woke up with such a tension headache this morning and why I ripped out all those nasturtiums. They'll grow again next spring.
Thank God death no longer has the last word. Not even such a death on such a day.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10