Month: August 2015

Our Monday morning meetings, rain or dark, we look forward to getting together at 6:30 AM. It is real, comfortable and core. And God is present.

I took Rufus for a walk, and called my mom to join me. It’s a windy day. The sun feels warm after days of rain. It almost smells like autumn. As we got to the top of the hill, Nini and Rebe were driving up. We connected and then we walked on every street of…

Friday night we arrived on the dot for a concert given by Connie Fortunato and the children from the Cluj city dump. This is a powerful story. For a few years now she has breathed new life in the community, with her freedom, lack of social boundaries, joy and vision, all paired with impressive know-how.

After a month of surviving the scorching sun, it’s raining. There’s a mist in the air like in San Francisco, carried over by winds from the Chinteni valley. It smells like wood-fire smoke washed by rain. The sky is grey and heavy with texture. I had no idea I loved rain so much. The first…

A lot has happened this week. Too much. A lot of it great. Much of it just challenging. At times it felt like the ground is shifting from under my feet, and not just due to one earthquake. We had a game night at church, then a psalms-and-pancakes-get-together at Flaviu and Ema, then a baby…

Climbing up the mountain though the Psalms, at Palatca, a flat green valley surrounded and protected by woods, tall young trees, young oaks, we started with our present state. No better place to start than with the present (at the base), facing up our current pain, fear or joy. After our morning team meeting, after…

One day I will write a book. It will pour out like a summer storm with thunder and volume of water. But for now, slowly I am staring to process what happened at the camp. I translated 6-8 hours a day, and I wish that everything that was filtered so carefully through my brain would…

I have always loved dogs—maybe not all dogs—but most of them. Over the years my family has had a couple of them, first Patrick when I was growing up, and then Cafe later on in California. They are a calming presence and can be great companions. During this process of readying ourselves for adopting a…

It is hard to capture into words what happened these past two weeks in Palatca. With the first group, a young church, in so much need for love, grace and truth, and a professor, servant leader in need of healing, the pbc team ministered to the lost, the unchurched. It was a healing time and…