Thanks!!!

Thank you to all who took time out of your routine to offer up a prayer for our little Gabs. Today her fever was gone and she was back to her old, lovable, sassy self (although she still has to shake the pneumonia). What good friends I have!

On a another note, I am ready for Winter to realize that technically it is Spring here in Toledo. My three year old, Aylah, called me on the phone today with similar irritation and told me that she wanted to go to the beach and get water in her eyes and nose. Sounds great to me! I stepped outside tonight and got snow in my eyes and nose.

Gabs

I haven't been able to blog recently.

Our youngest girl, Gabrielle, or "Gabs," as we call her has been sick and running high temperatures. In fact, last thursday as we were letting the kids play outside while the weather was pleasant, I heard Sandra cry, "Nathan!"

I came around to the front of the house and saw her holding up her little one year old body. She was unconscious, and her lips were blue. I gently shook her and called her name, but she was unresponsive. Sandra picked her up and cradled her. We saw her eyes roll back into her head and her body started convulsing in seizures. I have never bee so terrified--for the first time as a parent, not knowing what was going on, I was afraid of loosing her.

Sandra told me to call 911, and the paramedics took her and Sandra to the hospital where they where her temperature was brought down. She is doing better, but she has not been able to shake the fever.

Tonight our five year old son, Malachi prayed: "Jesus, I know you're the goodest man ever. I remember when Gabs was born and I saw her and she was so cute...she still is so cute. Please make her to not be sick any more."

I ask any readers of this blog to mention her in your prayers!

Anbar

I was sitting in my Hebrew teacher’s Sunday School class with my soon to be wife, Sandra. After 45 minutes of picking apart the grammar of an ancient text, revealing intricacies of interpretation with application still relevant to today, he opened up the floor for questions. The same people raised their hands that day, just like every other Sunday. And just like every other Sunday, I rolled my eyes as each hand shot up, knowing that each hand represented not a question, but an attempt to showcase insight. That day one old granny raised her hand. When it was her turn she asked her question: “Do you think the American military can establish a democracy in the Middle East?”

Ripples of chuckles swept the room, for this question was certainly off topic—but she had asked the right person. My Hebrew teacher had spent years in the middle east, learning firsthand the nuances of the Hebrew language. He had been on archeological digs, translated the Dead Sea Scrolls, and rubbed shoulders with Uzi toting Israeli soldiers (by the way, uzi, in Hebrew, literally means “my strength”—how ironic)!

The man with many degrees tactfully held his tongue. To this day I do not know what his answer would have been to the elderly woman with intriguing insight. But I know what my answer would have been.

I try to be optimistic…it is easier to live that way. But I also know there seems to exist a mindset in the Middle East that has both positive and negative elements. Take for example the Jewish people. Their tenacity for survival as a people inspires me to no end. From the exile in Egypt, to the divided kingdom, to the Babylonian exile, to the Syrian exile, to the Diaspora, to the Holocaust, to today this people has never lost sight of who they are, but they also have not lost sight of who has wronged them in the past…and this could quite possibly a mere national defense mechanism. All that to say, if people, if rivalries, if forms of government (dictatorships), have not changed in thousands of years, how can a super power such as America change them overnight.

As I watched President Bush’s address to the nation tonight I was reminded of that evening. Have things changed? I don’t know—how dare I presume to know the political climate of a place I have not been, of a subject (war) which is foreign to me, with the little knowledge I have being based on a tainted media—but as our president talked of Anbar and the success that had been achieved by the military in the province of Anbar, that sinking feeling came back. If it is true that Al Quaeda has been extricated from Anbar and that its citizens are aiding the military with insider information, I had to fear for those citizens. With a gradual troop withdrawal on the horizon, do the citizens of Anbar truly posses security? Things don’t change overnight! Once we are gone, based on the history of the Middle East, does not it seem likely that the ratted out members of Al Quaeda will com back with a vengeance. I am at a loss. Certainly our troops cannot remain there forever—that in itself is another ethical dilemma, another blog post. Look at the report that came just moments before tonight’s address.

Like my professor, I don’t often make political statements…and this blog follows suit. It is a call to prayer, for wisdom in difficult times, and tonight, for the people of Anbar.