I wanted to give an update of what I see God doing these days. I am truly encouraged in so very many ways.

FIRST, Jeff's health has been improving gradually. He has been working for a company called Shimadzu, located in Canby, Oregon, doing quality inspection and metal working. He often works 5 ten hour shifts in a week which is challenging. Even so, he is very glad to be working. He has been there as a "temp to hire" since July 11th, his 64th birthday. We are hoping he will be hired as a permanent employee when he has satisfied the 500 hour temp requirement. The main purpose of his working is to secure health insurance for us both. We thank God for the measure of health He has given us in these months since we took early retirement from WorldVenture. Thanks for praying for us!

SECOND, I see God at work in people and regions we so reluctantly left in 2008. You may recall that we had several midtermers living and working with us our final year in Uganda/Sudan. Jaclyn Konczal came freshly graduated from N. Carolina State University in Feb. 2007 and stayed until Feb. 2008. She developed some lasting relationships with the nationals there in Adjumani. Her heart led her back recently for a brief visit. This past summer Jaclyn bravely traveled alone and spent about a month in Adumani (with the assistance of Pastor Henry Vuyaya of Liberty Baptist in Adjumani and Idha Michael, a university trained rural development expert who is employed by Mercy Corps in another region of Uganda, but who grew up in Adjumani) helping the women in the village surrounding Liberty Baptist Church build an oven and start a bakery project which they named The Beloved Bakery.

I cannot tell you what a great testimony this project will be to the people of Adjumani! Pray with me that God will protect and sustain this labor of love to sustain women who often have little or no income and carry such a great burden of responsibility to feed their families and pay school fees for their children. Many of the women participating are widowed or abandoned by their husbands. The gospel will be not only heard but seen as a result of these women working together. The site chosen for the bakery is right outside the door of Liberty Baptist Church.

THIRD, I've been in touch with a young man, Thomas Bell, who is seeking appointment with WorldVenture in October this year. His focus is development and discipleship in Southern Sudan. He already spent a year in Kajo Keji west of the Nile in S. Sudan and recently moved to Nimule, S. Sudan, the border town we passed through whenever we entered or exited our work area in S. Sudan. Thomas has not waited to be appointed by WorldVenture to begin building relationships as you see from a portion of the communication I recently had from him:

We've launched our program and have over 50 clients. We're having to turn people away by the hundreds, just about everyone in Nimule wants to open a savings account at the very least. I'm confident we could be serving over 1000 people with loans and 10,000 with savings within a few months if only we had the funding. Our team is learning very quickly too but I'm even holding back for what we can fund until we get our processes for the "nuts and bolts" down.

We've also had lots of interest in some of the other side projects for construction, power, water and sanitation. I've been to a number of the churches around town and had the opportunity to teach in some village churches, though the last one nearly destroyed my Hilux and cost a few million UGX to repair.

Its been a great blessing to be here and I hope to continue the work here for many years to come.

I highly recommend you follow Thomas Bell's journey in the coming days. Check out his Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1302050

I think you can understand why my heart is so encouraged these days seeing the love and good works He continues to inspire in the hearts of both mundu/kawaja (white folk) and Ugandan and Sudanese folk...and the building of kingdom community that has been our hope and dream. This kingdom community will indeed be one of interdependence and love which spans the planet, not to mention earth and heaven. These are just two instances of what is happening over there. I know there is so much more.

So then, be encouraged as I am. And pray for these folk joining hands and hearts to make the love of God known to those who need to be touched and embraced after years of strife and war in the dawning of peace in N. Uganda and the new nation of South Sduan. God is raising up men and women for such a time as this.

Grace and peace,

Michelle Theisen

LIVING INTO THE MYSTERY

April, May, and June passed like a warp in time! Jeff has his own story to tell of those weeks which have slipped by so swiftly. If you want to know more, ask him.

Significant happenings in my life recently:

* I began volunteering in a refugee program as a class room aide for a month long summer camp for Bhutanese, Iraqi, Sudanese, Ukranian, and Cuban children who are launching into the American School system. We are trying to give them a boost in English and math skills and to love them and welcome them to our community.

* I watched from a distance of 10,000 miles the birth of South Sudan celebrating their birthday and independence today July 9th.

* I've begun caring for my adopted Mom and Dad who live in Mt. Angel so am making weekly trips to walk with them through all the challenges of being dependent on others to survive and thrive as they reach into their 8th and 9th decades of life.

This morning I realized I am launching into a new favorite book that makes me want to share it with everyone who is interested in finding that quiet place to learn more of the mysteries of life and creativity.

The book is called A Circle Of Quiet, by Madeleine L'Engle. She writes, as the book cover declares, in an "attempt..(to) explore the meaning of her life..."

I love this passage I just read this morning:

"personally, my intellect is a stumbling block to much that makes life worth living: Laughter, love, a willing acceptance of being created. The rational intellect doesn't have a great deal to do with art. I am often in my writing, great leaps ahead of where I am in my thinking, and my thinking has to work itself slowly up to what the "superconscious" has already shown me in a story or poem. Facing this does help to eradicate do-it-yourself hubris from an artist's attitude towards his painting or music or writing. My characters pull me, push me, take me further than I want to go, fling open doors to rooms I don't want to enter, throw me out to interstellar space, and all this long before my mind is ready for it.

There's a reason for that, chaps!

While Alan (her son) was in school, his science teacher was an inept young man who kept blowing things up, remarking through the stench of chemical smoke and the crashing of broken glass, 'There's a reason for that, chaps!'

I must be willing to accept the explosions which take place deep down in the heart of the volcano, sending up occasional burst of flame into the daylight of consciousness."

This passage made me laugh out loud with joy! It tickled my weird sense of humor, especially in her description of the inept science teacher. (I have memories of high school chemistry class where I have a vague memory of blowing something up myself and feeling so inept and appalled.) The joy comes from sensing the mystery of which she speaks and the expanse of what is opened by living into the mystery.

THIS NEW SEASON

God heard the desire of Jeff's heart to find honorable employment and to take care of his wife of 41 years as I need health insurance. As of April 7th Jeff will be employed at Eastside Plating helping the Quality Assurance Manager in efforts to develop greater teamwork in the area of producing quality in their production lines.

I believe my part in this new adventure is to be Jeff's greatest cheerleader and prayer warrior. My challenge is to not worry or fear as I have in the past concerning Jeff's health issues but rather to believe that God is in this and that He will fulfill his purpose for us (Psalm 138:8 and Eph. 2:10). Choosing trust over anxiety and fear has always been my greatest challenge. Having watched Jeff's journey through breakdown and the courage that has brought him to this place of launching into a new season of life is truly an inspiration to me.

LEARNING FROM KIM

I love this story from a La Arche community member:

"I learn a lot from Kim"

I learn a lot from Kim, whom I live with at L'Arche. When Kim was wished a Happy 41st Birthday she responded, nonchalantly, saying, "Thanks. I don’t look it." In that moment she ministered to me, teaching me what it means to be free, to be young in spirit, to tell your own story, to resist society's expectations of what it means to be a certain age or fit in a certain category. I was also touched when Kim announced her first home was here at L'Arche in Richmond Hill, her second home was in Markham (her family home) and, quite proudly, "My third home is in heaven." Although we couldn't help laughing about the mortgage on that third home, I realized a deeper theological truth--that she wasn't seeing past, present and future, but was truly living out God's vision, seeing beyond set time lines and seeing the bigger picture. When Kim was cutting tomatoes for dinner, rolling her eyes she exclaimed, "Ha! And, they thought I was handicapped!" She then went on to say how she's been proving people wrong and learning new things all along. In that moment, I realized that I too had bought into a hierarchy of people, that I had been competing and that I had been buying into "us and them" boundaries--none of which are part of true community.

Janna Payne, L'Arche Daybreak

LIFE SO FRAGILE

Last week we came face to face with this reality as Hannah, carrying our first grandchild, suffered a traumatic miscarriage in her 12th week of pregnancy. Why? Not yet known. Not sure it will ever be known. But "how" Hannah and Dirk have responded in their grief is inspiring as they indeed have had a glimpse of God surrounding them, carrying them, giving comfort and perspective through their pain. Through Hannah's writing she has been able to share that grace experienced.

Grieving is not finished in a week, however. Life returns to some semblance of normal but from time to time the grief can wash over us like a tidal wave like the tsunami that hit Japan this week...perhaps to remind us how fragile is life...to lead us to look to what is eternal.

I noted in my journal the day of the miscarriage these words from Psalm 139 The Message:

"Like an open book, You watch us grow from conception to birth. All the days of our lives are spread out before you, the days of our lives prepared before we even live one day."

Twelve weeks our little grandchild lived on this earth in his mother's womb but now in heaven for eternity. It causes me to wonder and acknowledge that God's ways are so often hard to fathom. But it also leads me to trust in God's perfect love; he is the potter and we are the clay. We have been shaped in new ways because of the brief coming and the sudden leaving of a little baby, a child of God, we had opened our hearts to and will never forget.

Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen | Video on TED.com

Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen | Video on TED.com

LISTENING

A friend recently said that he had been talking for 30 years and thought it was time he started listening. I was impressed by that resolve.

Today I ran onto a TED video of Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist and composer, who challenged me to think outside the box. She also opened my mind to the greater potential of ourselves and others if we learn to listen with our whole being. She uses music/percussion to express deep truths.

I'm processing so much lately and want to really listen to hear truth about myself and life in general but specifically related to what I am experiencing these days. I desire to listen more profoundly to hear from God as he speaks through his word and through others. I want to listen so that I not only understand him, but myself and others and have a deeper compassion that comes from truly listening.

A question a dear counselor once repeatedly asked me during weeks of therapy was: What is reality? He would never answer the question for me. But always posed the question so from time to time 30 years later I continue to ask myself the same question which I think is answered when we seek to listen.

I especially want to listen and learn to walk through the reality of aging, now that my body is weakening, with grace and peace not succumbing to despair but staying present in love and life.

Probably most important,t I want to learn to listen to others to hear and understand rather than to always feel like I need to do something to fix "IT". So if you talk to me and I start to offer advice, please stop me and remind me to just simply listen.

Listen
by Author Unknown

When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen.
Not to talk or do-just hear me.
Advice is cheap. Ten cents will get you both Dear Abby and
Bill Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself. I'm not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But, when you accept as a single fact that I do feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince
you and get to the business of understanding what's
behind this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are obvious
and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand
what's behind them.

So, please listen and just hear me. And if you want to talk,
wait a minute for your turn;
and I'll listen to you.