Yo, Wycliffe – hire a better letter writer!

I received the weirdest letter from Wycliffe Bible Translators yesterday. They got my name off some list, I suppose. If you’ve never heard of them, they are a Protestant organization whose mission is to translate the Bible in every single language on the planet. I think (but I am not sure) their goal is to get Jesus to come back sooner, because, you know, the Bible says He won’t return until His Word is taken to every nation.

Anyhoo, the gist of the letter was that I needed to prepare for some “shocking” news: in an East African nation ravaged by civil war for 21 years (they used the code-name “Sacah” to protect their employees there...like I can't figure out that it's probably an acronym for Sundan Africa Call for Additional Help or something like that), the Wycliffe office is running out of money, and they may have to lay off some employees. Horror of horrors, some of those employees are so intelligent and capable, they will immediately get jobs as pastors or bishops in African Protestant denominations.

So please send money.

Frankly, I’m having trouble figuring out why it’s so darn awful for these wonderful Bible scholars to be ministering directly to people. I mean, even if they aren’t locked in an office somewhere, painstakingly working on a translation of the Bible, they’re still bringing the Word of God to people. So if Wycliffe wants money from me, they’re going to have to come up with a better reason than that.

--Sparki

Where have all the flowers gone?

Pop over to Amy Welborn's blog to follow a link and read her comments about a shortage of women in the world. Some 200 million females who should be here walking the planet are not.

--Sparki

Update on Lola & my life as a journalist...

Lola is considerably better (thanks for asking, RO!). She's running around, getting into mischief and still trying to climb up on everything, so I guess that's a good sign. She is turning her head side-to-side a lot more comfortably, but still hesitant to tilt her face up. I'm thinking it's more pychological than physical, but still on wait-and-see mode.

Tonight, I get to travel to nearby Seward (where Saint Gregory the Great Seminary is) to cover Mark Shea's visit to Nebraska. I plan to interview him tomorrow sometime, but tonight, I will take photos of the talks and collect some names/numbers of people in the audience to interview.

I missed Amy Welborn's visit to Nebraska yesterday, mostly because she only spoke to the Legatus group, and the paper wasn't invited, then she left very early this morning. A disappointment -- I would have dearly loved to speak with her in person.

Last week, I interviewed Father Andrew Apostoli by telephone for the paper. I am starting to feel like a semi-important journalist!

--Sparki

Pray for Lola, please...

My husband had the girls out at his parents' place yesterday, and as they were getting ready to leave, Lola dashed off and started up the tree house ladder and tumbled off somewhere near the top, before my husband could get to her.

Usually, we ask my in-laws to put up the ladder, because it's a full-sized one. Not the kind toddlers should be attempting. But my sister-in-law's boys were out there playing, so I guess it wouldn't have been fair.

Anyway, Lola dislocated her elbow (and possibly her shoulder, but if so, it popped in before any of us realized it) and got a bump on her head. She was awfully sore last night, and today is not moving her neck, so we think she may also have some whiplash. Poor thing is in pretty sorry shape. Prayers appreciated!

Sorry to have been MIA -- just busy. De-cluttering the house, freelancing for the paper, putting photos into albums (for the first time since I had Lola!), starting the ornaments we give out at Christmas, etc.

Back soon...

--Sparki

All Saints

Find a way to celebrate the feast today. And don't forget about the plenary indulgence you can earn for the souls in purgatory.

After All Soul's tomorrow, I'm going to get started on Christmas stuff! I can't believe it's November already. Here's what we have been up to:

All Saints Parade at School Zooey's St. Charles Borromeo costume turned out remarkably well. He looked convincingly like a mini-cardinal. I did the whole thing (rapidly) out of thrift-store sheets. Starting with the surplice, I cut the white into two big shirt shapes and stiched those together, then added a long red rectangle, slightly gathered about an inch above the bottom hem, so it looked like he had a red cassock underneath. For the mozzetta, I cut a big circle of red and put a hole in the middle and layered that over the top (think elbow-length poncho). I thought the zuchetto (hat) would be really hard, but I got it on the first try -- I just put plastic wrap over Zooey's baseball hat, traced one section, and then cut out six pieces of red sheet and stitched them together with a little loop of fabric in the middle. Hemmed up the bottom & it was quite convincing. The school took a photo and submitted it to the Catholic paper, and boy was Zooey proud of that! He didn't smile for any of the photos, and when I asked him way, he said, "St. Charles Borromeo never smiled because he was too busy thinking about Jesus on the Cross."

Halloween pretty much went off without a hitch, the only casualties being four rather large holes in Edyn's church dress (caused by safety pins and my over-developed sense of optism -- "What could happen?" was what I was thinking. A ruined church dress!) and Lola's anger/frustrations/tantrums over (1) not being allowed to go trick-or-treating with the bigger kids (Daddy's rule, not mine!), (2) not being allowed to eat candy until she puked, and (3) having to live with the time change. When Zooey got home, he washed off his skeleton face paint and slipped on his St. Charles costume so that he could go to the rectory to trick-or-treat again. A bit of a show-off, I've got there, but at least he likes to play 'saint.'

--Sparki