Time with Adam

I'm really enjoying homeschooling Adam again.  We do all of the normal subjects but have been doing extra things like spending a lot of time outdoors with daily walks.  We're loving reading really good books, too (currently 'The Hobbit' before the movie comes out soon!).  As he's had time Steve's been enjoying doing Science projects with Adam as well. They've researched what to plant, built a little glass house and have a whole crop of sprouted veggies on the porch.  They'll start a project about 'clean water science' soon.  I'm studying marine life with Adam and we've had lots of fun examining tide pools on the beach.  Adam wants to start an ant farm that he saw in town next.  If only Mom wouldn't make him do math every day.............

Some of our conversation today:

Me: (reading from 'Story of the World 1' by Susan Wise Bauer) "Shamshi-Adad wanted the people of Mesopotamia to be afraid of him.  He was a dictator-he didn't allow any of the people in his new kingdom to ask questions about his laws and his commands.  He just wanted them to obey him immediately."

Adam:  (interrupting) That's just like YOU, Mom!

(I HAVE been talking to him the past few days about taking his own sweet time getting around to doing what I say!)

Me: (When I could read again without laughing.  It took a couple of minutes.) "How did he get them to obey?  He killed anyone who wouldn't do exactly what he said!" So do I do that as well?

Adam:  Well, maybe you used to have more children than you do now?  I think maybe you actually had 10 to start with........!

Taking a contemplative break during a walk

(Homeschooling is SUCH a rough life for kids!)

Questions......

I had an interesting discussion with a few people the other day about the city where FS is located and it's impact on people.  It doesn't seem to leave people unchanged.  It's such a crazy, dirty, vibrant, sad, poverty stricken, enthusiastic, heart rendering, historic, hard, wealthy, colorful place of fragile beauty and 'in your face' pain.  There's just no where else quite like it!

The city and especially the area where FS is makes people ask hard questions, too.  It seems to make people either reach deeper for answers or, sadly, we know of those who have walked away from their fai-th because the questions were too much.

Questions like:

"Where is G0d in the night sky?
Where is G0d in the city light?
Where is G0d in the earthquake?
Where is G0d in the genocide?

Where are you in my broken heart?
Everything seems to fall apart
Everything feels rusted over
Tell me that you're there"
                   -by Jon Foreman  ('Vice Verses'-Switchfoot)

Or maybe phrased a bit more like this for our city:

Where is G0d in the stolen women?
Where is G0d in the homeless children?
Where is G0d in the poverty?
Where is G0d in inhumanity?

Where are you for their broken hearts?
Everything has already fallen apart
Everything feels hopeless forever
How can you be there?

These are valid questions and ones that we have had to face daily.  And there are no easy answers----except to struggle with it. And not to stop.

As our Rachel said at the end of the conversation I mentioned, (about those who have stopped asking and have walked away) "Let's not let that be us!"

P.S. Today is FS's 11th birthday of offering Freedom!

Another sad day......

Monday was a sad day at FS.  We wish we could have been there with them but were there in our hearts.  On Sunday the call came that another of our beautiful young women had killed herself.  Who it was was a shock, however; a lovely, bright 22 year-old named Shanti (it means 'peace') who had started in screen printing but had been promoted and was working happily in the office for the past six months.  She had even just given out wages to the entire staff on Friday.  There was absolutely no warning.........

She was found hanging from the ceiling fan that was still going inside her locked room.  The last phone call on her phone was apparently from her boyfriend who it is rumored had just broken off their engagement.

Suicides happen far too often in the district where we live.  They also seem to be somewhat glamorized by the young; a final, terrible statement to those who have hurt them.  When life has been hard sometimes hope is scarce and things that 'shouldn't' become too much.

She didn't have to die, however.  She had a loving community of 200 at FS that would have surrounded her. That community is now devastated by the loss.

Maybe somehow the knowledge that others cared so much for Shanti and would have been there for her will keep someone else from following her path.  May HOPE reign..............