i don't do drugs.

i'm never eating refined sugar again.

http://macrobiotics.co.uk/sugar.htm

my new favourite place

i really love the north coast of northern ireland.
i say that a lot, & i really mean it.
i'd love to get married there.
on a nice day, it is the MOST beautiful place
[that i've seen so far in the world].
but.
this weekend we were in ballintoy,
& i found my most favourite place
in my most favourite place [the north coast]:
Ballintoy Harbour.
on friday evening [11pm, & it was still light out.
in fact, it was light until 1am.]
we dandered to Ballintoy Harbour from the youth hostel we stayed at this weekend
["we" = base volunteers].
i have never seen such a raging sea
or listened in awe of such clashing of waves against cliffs.

and so tears came.

As most of you probably know, I made a surprise visit home for a few days. The focus of this trip was to see my sister Emili graduate high school. Therefore I was with my family for most of the time and apologize for not seeing everyone that I would have liked to have hugged. I am so proud of my wee sis though. School was difficult for her, but she pulled through and that diploma is now in her hands. Nicely done, Em!

Being at CB East's graduation yesterday evoked buried emotions that I wasn't fully aware still existed in my heart. For reasons unknown, I felt exactly how I felt at my graduation- stressed, with a shattered heart. After all, it wasn't me leaving my high-school friends and stepping out into unknown territory. I"ve done that already. Was it the mass of blue & white graduation gowns & the choir singing the same songs I sang for three years poking at my being?

No, after some thought, I think I've concluded that these feelings came from seeing faces and being in the presence of ones that I care incredibly about- people that I care so much about, but they either don't feel the same towards me, or are misguiding themselves down a path of destruction that I can't do anything about. Some looked different, and some looked the same, but despite new or same looks, my feelings were just as powerful as last year (and the year before that, and the year before that.......) Feeling this way this year surprised me though, because I thought I had moved past those emotional bondages (traps, boxes, prisons...) Apparently, however, I just needed an instance for them to erupt again.

And so tears came.
But I hid them of course.

And this leads me to URGE you, my audience...
Do not mess with your heart, and do not let it be messed with. Rather, "Guard your heart, for it is the well-spring of life" [Proverbs 4:23] It takes a lot to heal self-inflicted wounds. More than days, more than weeks. Months? If you're lucky. Years? More likely.

not just a boulevard of broken dreams.

It makes me sick how they make millions from our young peoples' misery.

"They"= the producers of music & media drowning my generation's minds with lies of rage, depression, & sex. Life doesn't have to suck, but as they continually enforce the thought that "it doesn't get any better than this", my generation's hope & genuine laughter is churned into their fancy cars and diamond earrings.

This has got to stop.


****I'd like to bring to your attention a mistake that i made in previous posts. My mom kindly informed me that Half the Sky is in fact not an adoption agency, but rather "it's a non-profit organization (based in CA) that sets up pre-schools in the orphanages in China where the government allows them to do so. " Thanks Mom!****

Upon that thought...

[[be sure to read the post just prior to this one in order to catch my drift...]]

...& upon reading about the situation in China is and having my heart shattered, my initial reaction was "I want to help!" These young children so badly need help & want it... in the meantime, I'm in Northern Ireland, relaxing on the sofa, drinking tea & munching on granola at my desire. I am doing nothing to help & that's not fair to those children. 

You see, for the time being I am involved in youth work, & youth work entails helping young people who don't necessarily want to be helped. And so my heart leaps at the thought of helping children who would be totally appreciative of it, who would jump for a hug & never let go. I don't always feel like I'm making any difference in anybody's life here in Northern Ireland. In Sichuan, the immediate benefits of my love would be visible to me.

However, this thought led me to the conclusion that I've been placed in Northern Ireland at this time for a reason! God needs me to do something here and now. If He wanted me to help the young children orphaned by the earthquake in China, He would have me there. In fact, He has my sister there at the moment. We are all meant to be somewhere at the right time. If we can't be in China, we can still make a difference right where we are. I can't be in China, but I am in Dromore, and thus my efforts to love here should be 200%. 

I don't know.

In Sichuan, China, there are 71,ooo people confirmed dead from the earthquake on May 12. 5,000,000 remain homeless as well.

Or you can think about it like this:

The Vietnam war claimed the lives of 58,217 American soldiers.

58,217 killed in a war; 71,000 killed in an earthquake

5,000,000= two-thirds of the population of New York City.

Can you imagine two-thirds of NYC suddenly homeless??

My mom sends me updates from a Chinese adoption agency called "Half the Sky", & this is what their latest update entailed:

"At a shelter in Chengdu, one middle schooler who was evactuated from Wenchuan told our team:

'The first floor of the school disappeared. The second floor became the first floor. Our teachers were too busy ehlping us to have time for their own children. We carried two injured students from the collapsed building to a tent on a mountain top. We stayed in the mountains after that and lived on potatoes that weren't ripe and shared 2-3 bottles of water among more than 60 of us every day. Later, two students died in the tent. It rained and rained. We knew there could be landslides because we knew a big aftershock could happen at any time, but we didn't know what to fear anymore.'

At the Sichuan Children's Activity Center west of Chengdu, our team learned about a boy who feels guilty that he was not able to save the girl that sat next to him in class. When the building was about to collapse, the boy managed to run out of the building. Some of his classmates were not so lucky and he tried pulling his classmate whose leg was tck in the rubble. Unfortunately he did not succeed and the girl later died. Now he feels guilty that he could not save his friend and talks about it over and over..."

WHY?

71,000 people, dead! 71,000 families changed forever. Many parents losing their only child, many children losing their parents.....

My heart literally feels shattered.

Here's what brought the tears to my eyes though:

"A boy arrived at the institution with a bandage on one side of his head. The staff gave him a name and estimated that he is two years old. Every time the institution gate opens he runs to it and says 'baba,' 'mama,' the only words he knows. The expression of his face is one of sadness and fear without security. There was no smile on his face during the whole time we were here."

All this little boy wants is his baba & mama. And he's never going to see them again.

I urge you to read more at www.halfthesky.org