Wide spread Hypocrisy

I don't really know how to start this or even more so what it is exactly that I want to say. I live in washington, so pretty much by the time that I got up and had my second cup of coffee and checked my twitter, there had already been news of the sadness in Connecticut. By the time I picked my wife up from work the news from China had already come out. First and foremost I want everyone to know that my heart yearns for the hearts that are broken, bleeding, or extinguished. I am disgusted at all news affiliates who feel it appropriate to interview a child about what happened. I agree with a tweet from joe bereta.

Joe Bereta‏@joebereta

A motive will not provide closure. Details will not help us understand. Stop interviewing kids. Embrace them. Protect them. Spread love.

from there I diverge from this pathway and I explore something very different. I am a youtube watcher, there have been countless videos trying to explain what happened, the tragedy, the sadness. There will be countless people who will shout at the top of their social network lungs that they have the answer, that they are outraged, that they are an expert. There will be info graphs, there will be MEMES, jokes, commercials, videos and bleeding heart statuses and tweets stating that they are hurt the most. There will be people who shout about how this is the final straw, this is the worst tragedy ever and then they will try to quantify it with weighted numbers from a study someone else did. 

Why, what will it solve, why are you angry. Don't pretend like you feel their pain, you know what they are going through. Now comes the hard part of this post. Here comes the scary part, here comes the part where I give my opinion and open myself up to everyone else's opinion. Why are we all hypocrites? Why do we call it a tragedy because it happens to kids and we pick a villain, in this case a gun or a knife. We say that its the implement that did the killing. We forget that there was a person who wielded that weapon, we forget that people kill people and not guns, or knives, or bombs, or ships. But guess what else kills? We do, all of us collectively commit widespread genocide  everyday. Everyday people die and we all, each and everyone of us could do something about it, but instead we only see outrage when the news and social media tell us to.

Now I would like to give you some perspective about some things, all these facts can be found on the internet from reputable sources and if I neglected to put a link to a fact simply google search it and see if I am correct or not. In 2012....this happened
deaths by gun by country

Japan 48

Great Britain 8

Switzerland 34

Canada 52

Israel 58

Sweden 21

Germany 42

United States of America 10,728

Total 10,991 among 8 cherry picked countries

To give you some scope that less than .0003% of the US population, conversely there were 35,900 deaths in car accidents over three times as many. 1,897 people died from stabbings. Now I can't say that I am completely in favor of gun control, I love shooting guns just as much as I love throwing darts in a basement with a pint and some friends. I also can't say that stricter gun control is a bad idea, did you read the facts that I just presented? But that is where my unrest on that issue ends. For those of you who are going to spend energy trying to place blame on a political party, people group, or inanimate object, you... should punch yourself in the throat. 

Now lets revisit what I said about us all participating in mass genocide and not even batting an eye about it on a daily basis. Just guess how many people die every year from pooping, well specifically diarrhea, yes shitting themselves to the point of death. 1,500,000 yes you read that correctly 1.5 million people die every year from diarrhea, most often because they don't have access to clean drinking water. A smaller 655,000 die from malaria die every year, again a curable disease for which there is a vaccine available. How about things that happen right under our noses, even here at home, men and women with breast cancer die every year, 39,920 to be exact. Men with prostate cancer who find it, 28,170. each of these diseases gets one month out of the year where people care about it. Lets ramp the sadness back up in 2012 two hundred and twenty two combat related deaths for America, 158 veteran suicides. We aren't even at war anymore. Do you remember that genocide thing that happened in Darfur, over a six month period 70,000 people died, Bill Clinton said that not intervening was his biggest regret during his presidency. 

Now that your warmed up to what you should be upset about everyday lets get to the heavy hitters. Remember these things are happening every day, they aren't happening just when they are in the news they happen all over the world, over every second on the clock. Human Trafficking 30 million, your impotent 10,000 gun deaths feels pretty petty at this point doesn't it? Did you know that the average age of a child involved in sex slavery is between 12-14 years old? Now here is the big hitter, the big bambino of sorts, guess how many people die of hunger? 10,000, 1 million, 2? Well in a tangible number 16,000 people die of hunger. PER DAY! That makes 5 million 840 thousand people every year starving to a point of death.

This is not to diminish those who have felt loss today. This is not to berate everyone who doesn't quit their job and go feed the children and hold a cool cloth on their head as they die like a Mother Teresa. I am not saying that we shouldn't be an uproar about a few dying under sad circumstances. Purely I am pleading with you that you hold on to this outrage and you send letters to millionaires and billionaires, politicians, celebrities, delegates, the United Nations. Do something Be outraged, Do not let this sadness die because there is so much sadness that deserves our attentions, that are insulted when we tumble, tweet, status and blog about finite seldom tragedy as their world is ending. Cherish your life, every time your baby wakes in the night to wake you up, cherish it. Every time your wife asks you to do the dishes or the laundry, cherish her. There are far worse villains than governments and taxes, an isolated incident deserves just as much of our attention as wide spread sickness, famine, death, disease, tyranny, injustice.

I am a bleeding heart, I don't have the ability to save all those who need saving, I cry just thinking about all these numbers the large ones just as much as the small ones. So I leave you with an unrelated note about who is writing this to you.

I love my wife and I love my son.

mark.

Today in which something sad happened

That something sad happened and honestly I didn't see it coming. Today I was going to be a good boy and do something that I have been putting off for years. Today I was going to keep up my part in a bargain that I made back in 2006. I was going to write. While I have made attempts at this at times past I have always found myself lacking in the follow through. Today was going to be my day, today I was actually going to do it. The email, yes email I know that it isn't exactly pen pal status but we are talking baby steps here. The email was returned no such address.

six years go I was introduced to two little girls in a park on the west side of a field. These girls were playing on the other side of a chain link fence and they came running up smiling at the person who was with me at the time. They at the time had no idea who I was and certainly had no idea what they would mean for my life. I was in Cuarnavacca Mexicali, Mexico. Nallim was four and half, and her sister then Rebecca was a mere two years old. When we crossed though the gate of the fence and entered into the playground there were two slides, three swings and only two out of the three support bars connected properly with the ground. It was janky to say the least, but it was clearly a palace that only Shell Silverstein could imagine. "mya muah mua" was said to me by the taller of the breakable little girls, the girl whom I had come with was only worth laughter at my expense and as I only spoke the spanish taught to me by a band by the name of Offspring, if it wasn't numbers 1-6 then it sounded like charlie browns director. When finally I was able to get an answer out of someone I learned that I was to push harder and from on the plastic seat of a jenky park swing I was given a smile that I will never forget. For five years I went down to see that girls smile and her younger sisters, later meeting and falling in love for her caring mother Gaby and her hard working mother who I know prays for me and everything in my life every night. Over the last few years I had gone Gaby would make us a cake for her birthday and on the piece of card board she would right us prayers for our lives.

Now I have a child of my own, and for two years now I have had to tell myself and Gaby an excuse neither of us believe but both of us accept as to why I can't come down to Cuarna vacca with my family in early april. Now I have a boy of my own who smiles at me, and a child that I choose to raise on the mission field. The mission field can be dangerous, dangers that I can not imagine and I will need prayer for this part of my journey. This is a job for a small family. A husband and wife who have lived in the same house for over 20 years to make sure that their daughters can grow up near where the missionaries come every spring. Today in which something sad happened.

There is a thorny tree that blossoms the most beautiful red flowers that grows just inside my favorite front gate. bugambilia is how it is spelled but bugamvilia is how it is said, with love and admiration for a desert flower that blooms like fire. Inside that gate lives that family and today I tried to write them a letter and the address that I had didn't work, but that wasn't the sad part. The sad part was that I couldn't remember spanish, while I know after a day or two of speaking a majority of it would come back to me, but for now it is all gone. I have lost the ability to speak to the family that I love so much, while I know that there are things like Google translator that do a better job than I ever could have, there is still something to be said for the broken spanish that conveys desire and effort. That was my sad day, but tomorrow is chapter two in which mark breaks out his work book.

My Descent Into Insanity

I have been a father now for just under four months and up until this point I have been pretty upset with the amount of information that is not being passed down through the generations. I have been upset because all the things I thought that I knew were wrong or just at least fairly incorrect. Now however I am at a point of insanity. Now I am at a point were I truly feel I have been done a disservice by the previous generations as far as raising a child goes. Guess what world This is my first child and much to contrary belief I know absolutely nothing about what it means to take care of another human life! Sure clean it if it poops, cuddle when its upset, feed when cuddling doesn't work. (which really tells us a lot about people who emotionally eat.) Past that I am utterly unaware!

You would think that your child would give you some cues. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Mexicalli Mexico and I would say that I am fairly used to talking with and communicating with people who do not speak my language and vis versa. You can use hand gestures, you can use body language, you can even just use facial expression. With a baby none of those things are useful. There is happy, middle ground, sleepy, and cut your throat upset. up until now we had only a few times been met with the last of those emotions and felt as though we might in fact have a handle on what it meant to be a parent, thinking well I guess the really hard part must come when he is a teen and realizes he hates our stinkin guts. But holy can of man eating sand worms was I wrong. Over the past two maybe even three days, our beautiful, well behaved son Rory has started to be inconsolable at night until he again finds himself either fed or asleep, and post mid-day nap finds himself in an even worse state. When he would scream in his car seat all the way up to Seattle we just thought that it was due to a dislike of his car seat. This however is different, no matter how much cuddling, bouncing, singing, swaying or shooshing we do there is nothing but time that can console him. Todays tirade was solved by removing his pants and bending his legs so that he could fart. (hehe I spelled fart) Tomorrow we may find ourselves with no such luck. I can't help but think that we could have been more prepared for this moment, if nothing less than being warned that it was inevitable. My mother in-law muses about the year she spent up all night reading books and watching the sun rise while holding her crying whaling son, but everyone says every baby is different. Yet our baby is looking more and more similar to those babies we were so glad we didn't have. I feel unprepared for this outcome.

Also, everyone says when your pregnant you'll glow, and you will love it, its such a magical time. Like the magic of, how many times can you puke before you need to go to the hospital? Like the magic of loathing the idea of being pregnant because you feel like you may have actually killed your wife. That is just being pregnant, a part of this process that I had .0001% involvement in. Once you actually get the baby there are a whole new set of misnomers to deal with. "Its your heart living outside your body." No its having a baby and being responsible for something that can't yet take care of its self. Now yes when I had to spend a few hours away from my son helping some friends move I did miss him but I wasn't worried he might die, I just missed him like you miss skittles when you reach the bottom of the bag. Now here is the crux of this rant, the sentence "so mad I could punch a baby." is wicked true and the part of this that I am most upset about.

Honestly I think its totally normal and natural to get frustrated with a baby, all they do is take, take, take and take from you and they only occasionally pay you back with a smile or finally the first giggle. Then when they decide to go on a tirade at 4am all you want to do is shake them, scream, cry and ask them to finally please tell you what they want. No one has ever told me that they felt that way. Man rule is to never screw with a guy who is crying because he will probably kill you, that should be changed to never mess with a new dad, because he is cried out. When I wake up to my son crying in the night and I know that my wife is getting no sleep and there is nothing I can do to fix it, upset does not even begin to cover the torrent of emotion that I feel. Last night I was going to call the cops and have myself sent to prison for life, minority report style because I had the thought of screaming back at my child. To anyone who has a child who hasn't felt that way please hear me when I tell you its normal.

The dialogue between generation has to be opened up, we can not live in a place of "young hooligans" and "old fogies". We cant let the future generations see us as the enemy, and a place marker for I have to do better than those before me with less help than they have. We have to treat our next generation as our only hope and trust that to be true. We need to warn them of our own mistakes and not smother them with stories of our triumphs. We can't tell our children the way they should do it, more we should let them know how we did it so they can make an informed decision. Key factor is the transfer of information, not just telling them what to do because we know better. I wish I had been told that my son would probably scream bloody murder and that there isn't anything I can do about it. I wish I had been told that when he does scream I might run out of patients and thats when I would have to love him the most. That just because I got angry doesn't mean I should kill myself.

So ill equipped for life are we. One baby can try my patients to the breaking point. One baby, one good baby can bring me crying to my knees. Never in my wildest dreams can I imagine the amount of pain that God feels for all his children, who unconsolably scream and reject his comfort. How he tolerates my one unrepentant ever sinning sole without picking me up shaking me and screaming at the top of his lungs for me to just listen. But instead of escalating the turmoil, he whispers in the darkness. He calms my spirit and gives me the patients that I need to proceed with life. Ever present, always giving my God never abandons me even when I run from him.

Yesterday florida was windy. Why do I know that florida was windy, because when it is windy in Florida, they have problems with their internet. Why does wind interfere with the internet in Florida, well... here ends my knowledge of florida. But to explain why I know what the weather and the internet are like in Florida are like is because I had a skype call with a couple in Florida. They are the regional directors for Latin America and the Caribbean missions. As Malia and I have been looking to get into long term missions we have been unable to determine what and where we would be serving. We have obviously spent time on our own to see what we might do and thinking about what we would like to do, but it is nice to talk to someone who is in the know with what our options are. There was alway a chance that something would happen. Not the world would end or something like that. Like something would happen in the sense that they wouldn't be able to accept us because they don't want a family, or because they just weren't accepting new missionaries this year or something. Much the the contrary they seem to be really excited to add new missionaries. We talked for about an hour and a half, they had a lot of information for us and they generally seem very nice and excited at our decision to join missions with the convenient church. 

What does this mean for us at this point. Well really it doesn't mean anything we have certainly learned a lot more than we knew last week, but everything can change at a moments notice, or even at no notice at all. We are accepted to missions short term for now and we will soon find out where we are going and what we will be doing, but for now that is all we really know. We might not be able to raise the money. Between the down economy, kickstarters, youtube, friends, family, our own money, micro enterprise, the church, or anything else that we can think of to make money fundraising might not be enough. We are currently looking at South America and there is always a chance that we could be pulled out as soon as we arrive due to drug wars. There are a million things that could happen to us that would stop us from being able to serve abroad. There are a million things that could go wrong but everything only has a 50/50 chance. 

Just as scary as the chance that something could go wrong is the chance that everything could go right. We could find ourselves in location that will require us to be there for our entire career as missionaries. We could find ourselves serving in a country that loves and celebrates our arrival. A location that takes care of us and we could have people who support us throughout the years. Rory could love living in the jungle, being home schooled, living on the mission field. We might never come back, it might be perfect. This chance is scary because we are fallen and the idea that the lord would bless us without us being deserving scares me. For those of us that fall into shame and despair, we don't understand how to accept the gifts from God. We will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can read the bible I can accept the love of Christ and know that he died for my sins and that all has been forgiven and that no matter what I have done God will always be there for me. That doesn't me that there isn't still the chance that the other shoe may drop at any moment. I am learning to trust God more as I am unable and unwilling to stand ever ready for something tragic to happen. He will take care of my family and I know that, but the fear of both failure and success are still ever present.

I understand that as christians we are always on the mission field. I often think that all churches should have "You are now entering the mission field." on the overhang of the sanctuary doors just like the church in El Centro, who's floors I have ever so lovingly slept on for many years on my way into Mexicalli in early April, so that you see it every time you leave. But as some are called to the mission field in Detroit, others to Compton, some even in their own town, My wife and I feel called to international missions so that is where we are headed. God has blessed our path this far and we pray that he bless it further. For myself, my wife and my son we are looking at a potential year left here in America before we are able to head off on our adventure. This year will be packed, probably even more than the last and we can't wait.