Author Intrusion

great endorsements for JitB

“Will and Lisa Samson remind us that Jesus and those who have loved and followed him over the centuries have cared about the poor and about justice. They invite us to discover afresh this truth and this way of life today in our communities and our world.”

Mark Earley, president, Prison Fellowship Ministries

 

Will and Lisa Samson invite you to join them on a very scary journey that begins in the suburbs that could change your life and make a little difference in God’s world.  If interested in taking Jesus seriously I suggest you read this book with a few friends and see what happens.

Tom Sine
Mustard Seed Associates

little girls in Mexico need our help

Here's an opportunity for us to really lend a hand (or a deep pocket) to help girls who are kidnapped for the sex slave trade in Mexico.  If you'd like to donate to help supply building materials for the Safe House going up, go to www.god4girls.com.  If you're handy with tools and can go to Mexico to renovate, go on over to the site as well.  Please, please, please give.  The paypal page is easy and even if it's just a little, it all helps.  What a worthy ministry to support. Gospel undefiled right here.

And pray for these little girls and their families.  Dear Lord, have mercy. Get them out of this and give them peace. Keep them safe and bring them through somehow.

From my friend, Patty Hickman:

Additonally, over this past year we became aware of the plight   of little girls in Mexico who are being kidnapped and forced into the sex slave trade. It is a heart breaking crisis. We found through missionaries we support some donated land and we are working with a woman who has experience in helping these girls out of prostitution. She emailed of their progress this week. They have the land and a house that is still in need of renovation. But she was hit with 400 calls when she got word out on the street, 400 girls begging to be brought home and helped. Her counselors are to the breaking point and in need of a break. One counselor, having worked night and day without rest, resigned, exhausted and desperate for help. This area was reported through a TV news magazine as being Grand Central Station for this evil trade. Then word was out on the street this week that 400 little girls'   bodies were found, murdered by these monstrous men called the Mexican Mafia   who kidnap these children. There are now 2000 children kidnapped in Mexico, their families desperate to be reunited. We are working to rally some Christian   psychologists, and the money to get them over there. We also need to organize   a group of people willing to go in and help renovate the safe house. So we need funds and willing and capable help. I thank you for praying for this project. It is called Girls 4 God. They have to work in secrecy or risk attack themselves. It is a very dangerous work, but God isn?t afraid of anyone and He is the source of our   supply. But this week they?re especially asking for prayers for a covering of protection.

PW Review on Justice in the Burbs. Sweet!

Publisher's Weekly Magazine has given Justice in the Burbs a great review. You can pre-order here. Download a copy of the intro and chapter one here.

Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live Will and Lisa Samson. Baker Books, $14.99 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-8010-6809-6

Award-winning Christian novelist Lisa Samson (Songbird; Quaker Summer) and her husband, sociology doctoral student Will Samson, intertwine fiction and nonfiction in this challenging and inspiring book about justice. Lisa Samson's novella features the Marshalls, a suburban family with all the accouterments: Matt climbs the corporate ladder, Christine cares for their three children, and both are busy with numerous church leadership positions. One day, however, Matt and Christine visit an inner-city mission, and their ideas about how they should be living gradually, but dramatically, change. The nonfiction portion of the book examines the issues these characters (and most of the book's readership) face. The Samsons talk about why God cares what we eat, where we live, how much electricity we use, and to whom we minister. Astonishingly, the authors manage to do this without hitting a sanctimonious note. On the contrary, they repeatedly highlight the heartbreak and complexity of what they refer to as "thinking and living in keeping with God's heartbeat of justice," and frequently acknowledge their own struggles and failures. The Samsons include short meditations at the end of each chapter written by a variety of Christian authors, as well as a series of helpful discussion questions at the end. (Aug.)

New Wineskins interviews Will!

Here's one of the questions from an interview Will had with New Wineskins linked to below.  I love this little blurb from the interviewer Fred Peatross's bio:

Fred makes "ordinary attempts" to evangelize through relational acts of kindness and enjoys praying behind his friends' backs . . .

Gotta love that!

Link: New Wineskins.

3) I don't know if it would be fair to call you an environmental activist but tell us a little about the environmental concerns?

Scripture talks of humanity as coming “from the dust of the Earth.” In this way, concerns about what we eat, what we drive and how much we consume are not dissociated from me. Instead, because I eat food and breathe oxygen and rely on vitamins and minerals from the Earth, care for creation is caring for the future “me.” This frightens some Christians. It sounds like pantheism. I see it as a holistic view of humanity and all of creation. I hope this perspective is being shaped by my attempts to be faithful to scripture and the Christian tradition – time will tell. But because of this hope, I might not think of myself as an environmental activist – maybe more of a kingdom activist, one who sees care for creation as inseparable from living in faithful relationship to God and my neighbor.

caring for the sick

Check out Rick Warren's article on caring for the sick in the latest PDL Newsletter. I'm so happy he's working for compassion and social justice and I wonder how it's really going for him. I wonder if he has even a tenth of the participation in these endeavors he received with Purpose Driven Life. I hope so. If not, it leads me to wonder how many of those millions who bought the book got the first message in its pages: It's not about you.

Way to go Rick! Keep it up. You've got friends in low places praying for you.

Link: Purpose Driven Life.

Psalm 38:6-11 says: "I am bowed down and brought very low . My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed . my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away." (NIV)

Though David wrote this Psalm more than 2,000 years ago, it's a very apt description of millions of people in our world. As I have traveled, I've seen these verses lived out. Like David, many children have lost the light in their eyes; instead of playing outside, they lie in beds or on dirt floors dying from things as simple as diarrhea or as easily preventable as malaria.

intentional living weekends

Okay, so here's a quick thought.  I've opened up my cabin for writer's weekends, but how many of you would be interested in learning more about living lives of intentionality, Matthew 25 lives, Micah 6:8 lives? If this is the kind of weekend you'd be interested in, we'd love to do some  weekends focused on this.

Writer's conferences abound. And I realize not all of the A.I. blog family are writers.  Some of you come here because you're interested in social justice and that makes me so happy! Let me know if this is something you'd be interested in attending.

In addition to spending some time at the cabin, we could spend a little time at Third Street House, tour what's going on in Lexington, and share our hopes and dreams.

With the release of Justice in the Burbs sooncoming (August) Will and I will be available to come speak to your church. The book is also great for small groups of all shapes and stripes.

just so you know

I talk a lot about justice on here, and I usually make it sound pretty grand.  And it is grand. Trying to serve God in new ways is always an adventure.  But it's not all fun and games. In fact, if you really begin to serve people who are disenfranchised or poor or whatever, you'll be betrayed.

We've been lied to a lot recently by people we're serving. Some are pretty outlandish and it's the outcome of a person involved in the cycle of need for years and years. Others cut more deeply because the time invested and the love invested is greater. It hurts when people you've sacrificed for and tried to be Jesus to show their true feelings, and throw your service and love back in your face by bald-faced untruths.

Yesterday was just a day of lies and we're feeling sore around the edges. Okay, I'm feeling sore around the edges. Will is so much more able to handle stuff like this than I am.

So far in this life on Third Street, we've been lied to, excoriated by people we love, had money, bikes and our CD collection stolen from us. So here's the truth of the matter: trying to live a life a justice sucks sometimes. It's not all euphoria and wonder and feeling like everything's so rosy.  And sometimes on this blog I paint it this way because I so want people to serve the poor and the marginalized.

So this is more of the true picture. And we don't have it nearly as bad as a lot of people doing this sort of stuff! We've never been physically harmed or in danger of our lives. But hey, your heart is up for grabs. If you don't mind it being stomped on, this is the place for you.

Slavery: Alive and Well In India, Meena's Tale

From Bob Carlton's blog, the article that appeared in the NYT. This is just a small part of the article. Please read it in its entirety at the link below.

Link: The Corner: NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: The 21st-Century Slave Trade.

Meena was kidnapped from her village in north India by a trafficker and eventually locked up in a 13-girl brothel in the town of Katihar. When she was perhaps 11 or 12 — she remembers only that it was well before she had begun to menstruate — the slaver locked her in a room with a white-haired customer who had bought her virginity. She cried and fought, so the mother and two sons who owned the brothel taught Meena a lesson.

“They beat me mercilessly, with a belt, sticks and iron rods,” Meena recalled. Still, Meena resisted customers, despite fresh beatings and threats to cut her in pieces.

Finally, the brothel owners forced her to drink alcohol until she was drunk. When she passed out, they gave her to a customer.

When she woke up, Meena finally accepted her fate as a prostitute. “I thought, ‘Now I am ruined,’ ” she remembered, “so I gave in.”

Meena thus joined the ranks of some 10 million children prostituted around the world — more are in India than in any other country. The brothels of India are the slave plantations of the 21st century.

Every night, Meena was forced to have sex with 10 to 25 customers. Meena’s owners also wanted to breed her, as is common in Indian brothels. One purpose is to have boys to be laborers and girls to be prostitutes, and a second is to have hostages to force the mother to cooperate.

So Meena soon became pregnant. The resulting baby girl, Naina, was taken from Meena after birth, as was a son, Vivek, who was born a year later.

The two children were raised mostly apart from Meena. Meena alerted the police to her children’s captivity (the police were uninterested), so her owners decided to kill her.

out on the porch

C------ is a homeless man that knocks on our door every so often. He's been getting a bit more eccentric and I'm finding it a little bit amusing. I can afford to. Will always deals with C------ who's been convicted of sexual assault. We don't allow him to cross the threshold, having decided that, with kids, the danger stops at the front door. 

Some people have more lax policies when dealing with people like C, but we're fine with our boundaries, not thinking of it as a lack of faith, but as what we feel led to do by God as people that are asking a lot of their children. The least we can give them is safety in their own home. And when the yard is another matter, that's important. We'll give C whatever he needs, as long as it's on the porch!<g>

Anyway, C came around last week looking for money for something to eat. Another policy? We never give out money.  Food, absolutely.  Money, nope, nope and nope. As usual, Will went out onto the front porch. He was just finishing up making a nice chicken dinner but C couldn't wait another fifteen minutes.

"Well, come on back when you're ready C, and I'll fix you up a plate."

We ate the dinner, cleared the kitchen, watched a movie, went to bed, and at 11:50 C knocks on the door, ready for that chicken.  Will, bless his soul, got out of bed, heated up the meal in a Cracker Barrel container, handed it with a fork to C and went back to bed. Carry out, Third Street style.

Last night during dinner C came back.  He didn't want any of the food, but he had something in his hand.

"Any of your children play musical instruments?"

"Well," Will said, "Gwynnie plays the violin."

He handed Will the box and opened it up. A flute lay inside. "You gave me such a nice supper
the other night, I thought you might like this."

At first Will thought it was gift.

"Of course, I can always use a couple of bucks," C said. "This was my friend's, but he'll never miss it."

Will practically threw the box back in his hands and said we were good on musical instruments.

"Was it a nice flute?" I asked later. (I mean, I'm just sayin'!)

"Nah. It was all spotted and the finish was coming off."

"Well, that's good." I mean, it's not like we would have bought that flute, but it's nice to know it wasn't something I'd have wanted in the first place!

Found out today C came to the house when a realtor was showing the place to prospective buyers. Freaked them out and scared them off from even thinking about buying.

"Just as well," I said to Linda, our agent. "You can't be freaked out like that and expect to live downtown."  Maybe he actually did those folks a favor in the long run!

Pray for C. He's really not so bad. He's kinda sweet. And I wonder what it would take to get C into society as a functioning member and I have doubts that will ever happen. But I do know that Jesus loves him despite all that, and maybe people like C are allowed to stay in limbo to help us understand what the love of God's really like, that never ending, never failing love that keeps loving no matter what.

Of course, Jesus would let C into His house. I often think those bracelets need little slide on letters you can put past the WWJD part.  Like WWJDIHWAWWTK? (What would Jesus do if he was a woman with three kids?) or WWJDIHHTSAF? (What would Jesus do if he had to support a family?) But now I'm just rambling.

Hope you're having a great week!

Amazing Grace: The Movie - The Official Movie Website

Link: Amazing Grace: The Movie - The Official Movie Website.

An estimated 27,000,000 people are still enslaved world wide. Amazing Grace, a film depicting the struggles and victories of William Wilburforce, who led the abolitionist movement in England, comes to theaters on February 23rd.

We'll be there. I hope you will be too.

lisa