January 2005
Dear Family and Friends:
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! So many of you welcomed me,
indulged me in luxuries, and cared for me during my months in
the United States, July to December 2004. Very humbling to be
blessed by so many: family; old friends; new friends; new church
families; and strangers who patiently assisted this often discombobulated
individual who was readjusting to stores, using credit cards,
the airport machines, and the highways. Quite remarkable to enjoy
the hospitality from coast to coast: on the mountainsides and
plains, and in the valleys of the vast United States. Republicans
and Democrats. In the rural areas, ex-burbs, suburbs, and cities.
Was sometimes hard to be traveling so much and to be away from
family. Yet, I gained understanding of Mark 10:29-30 “I
tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers,
sisters, father, children, or land for my sake and for the sake
of the gospel who will not be repaid a hundred times over, houses,
brothers, sisters, mothers, children….”
My saddest observation while home was the seeming disconnect
between personal choices to use more and more oil, and almost
everyone acknowledging our oil dependence having a negative effect
on U.S. foreign policy and recent wars. Approximately one third
of the vehicles on the suburban and urban roads are oversized
four-wheel drive to mainly negotiate tarmac and cement roads.
Now also hummers/humvees! The speed limits have gone from 55 miles
per hour 15 years ago, to 65, 70 in Michigan, and 75 in the west.
I zipped through Los Angeles’ rush hour traffic in the carpool
lane, which required just two people per vehicle, passing thousands
of individuals in their own cars in the five lanes to the right
of me and fellow mission co-worker, Dorothy Hanson. Sad, yet hopeful:
Americans do not have to wait for politicians to carpool, drive
smaller cars, nor slow down. |
