Doug Van Pelt

Eddie Van Rigg

I am typing this with one knee on our church sanctuary's stage, while my pastor wails through a marshall. I'm about to start "jamming" on a couple of his old 80s metal band songs. The band was Shelijan. The songs were "Get Serious" and "Very Very Christian." Oh my...did he ask the wrong guy to sing(?!) or what!? James, the Starbucks barista on drums, is definitely taller than Shelijan's original drummer -- Karl Ney (who later played for Guardian).




Now I am in the office the next morning. I'm tired. That was fun last night, but what in the world am I doing singing old 80s metal tunes?! Oh boy. Oh my...




I am digging the ramblings of the fellow bloggers from the bloggers' tour. Seems as if we are all battling/processing/experiencing the "re-entry" phase of seeing suffering, poverty, crisis (yet actual help, aid, and care yielding results) upclose and personal. It's not always easy going back to the grocery store and seeing shelf after shelf of food and remembering that the best meal most kids had at a project on a daily basis was a mug of porage. We have so much, they have so little. It takes awhile to grasp that. I'm not sure it ever settles in. David Kuo references Bono's experience of compartmentalizing Africa and its memories. We're all kind of broken and figuring out ways to explain it, respond to it, and so on. Acknowledging you're "wrecked" is one thing. Learning to walk anew with your "heart limp" is another. Shannon talks about a type of "survivor's guilt" that she's feeling. I made a joke about what our group is going through, referencing the movie Waitress, saying that Jenna would have made us a pie that was called "We Can't Forget The Poverty We Saw And We Wouldn't If We Could Pie." I don't think anyone liked my joke, though.


By the way, if you'd like to help release one child from the ravages of poverty by sponsoring a child, go here.