Bags For Freedom

“For Freedom” is printed on my new bag. One might think that this is just an ornament like the buttons, but this is not the case. “For Freedom” bags and accessories are created by people (mostly women) at Sak Saum in Cambodia who have escaped human trafficking or other abuse and poverty.

I had read about Sak Saum in the German Christian woman’s magazine Lydia and immediately thought that it was a wonderful cause to support. I browsed their website and fell in love with a bag which wasn’t offered in the German online shop where a smaller range of their items is being sold. So I started the order procedure directly on the Sak Saum website, but got stuck when it came to entering my home address – it didn’t accept any addresses outside the USA. However, with a bit of patience (from my first e-mail until I got the bag it took 27 days), a PayPal account and the kind help of Sak Saum staff mainly in the USA the beautiful bag is now mine :)

Shortly after this first order I bought a messenger bag for Hermann at the German online shop. Both bags are of excellent quality and certainly worth their price! If you would like to buy bags or accessories from them you find the list of (online) shops on the “Where to buy” page on their website. Unfortunately there are not many shops outside the USA yet, but I hope for all bag lovers around the world that this will change by and by!

The Doctor's Lady by Jody Hedlund - Review

Obviously they existed even during the 19th century – the true Christian missionaries to the Native Americans. Those, who showed them the love of Christ without trying to convert them to their own “superior” Europeanism in the first place, a mistake many missionaries all over the world had made, even until well into the 20th century.

“The Doctor’s Lady” is a historical romance novel based on the story of a missionary couple who had lived with the Nez Percé tribe for several years. The novel describes the long and exhausting journey of the main (fictional) characters, Priscilla and Eli, across the North American continent during the first half of the 19th century. Apart from the strains of this journey, they also have to deal with the growing complications in their relationship which started as a marriage in name to make it possible for them to become missionaries.

It is one of those books you can hardly stop reading once you started and which makes you rejoice and suffer with the characters. It’s exciting from the first to the last page! Very highly recommended, just like Jody Hedlund’s previous novel “The Preacher’s Bride”.

10 Years Ago Today...

… at about 3pm CET my brother phoned my parents and me from work and told us to turn on the TV. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. We saw how the smoke came out of one of the towers and assumed it had been a horrible accident. Then we heard the screams of the people and the horror-stricken voice of the reporter when another plane crashed into the second tower. It was surreal to me and I had the feeling that this was not really happening, but at the same time I knew that it was something much worse than an accident. We saw the people waving from the windows, climbing alongside the façade of the building and jumping or falling in a desperate attempt to save their lives or even to die a quicker death. Eventually the towers collapsed and then we knew that it was over for all the many people who had still been inside. By and by we also heard about the other hijacked planes and more people killed.

In the following years many more people – and many of them innocent - died in the attempt of the free world to defend its freedom against those who just abuse our liberty and tolerance to install cruel dictatorships. However justified this defence is, as it is the duty of a state to defend its people, we should not fall into the trap of wanting revenge – at least not those among us who are Christians!

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” - Romans 12:17-21

Crime Time

I’m a great fan of criminal stories – both as books and films. One of my favourite crime series at the moment is “Criminal Minds”. This is mainly because of two special characters, Dr. Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness). Both are hyper smart and have special gifts – Reid has got an eidetic memory, for example. Here are some scenes of the series with both of them:



There are other crime series with freaks and nerds (when I use these expressions, I always mean this in a positive sense), like Navy CIS (McGee and Abby), Psych (Shawn) and of course Numb3rs (Professor Charlie Eppes a.k.a. David Krumholtz):



I think I like them, because all of them – regardless how big the difference is – are closer to my own self than any of the “normal” characters :)

A Tragic Story

I read through this book almost without putting it down. It is the beautiful but sad memoir by Turkish human rights lawyer Fethiye Çetin on her grandmother.

Here is the description from the cover:

When Fethiye Çetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian and an Armenian, that her name was not Seher but Heranuş, that most of the men in her village had been slaughtered in 1915, that she, along with most of the women and children, had been sent on a death march. She had been saved (and torn from her mother’s arms) by the Turkish gendarme captain who went on to adopt her. But she knew she still had family in America. Could Fethiye help her find her lost relations before she died?

There are an estimated two million Turks whose grandparents could tell them similar stories. But in a country that maintains the Armenian massacres never happened, such talk can be dangerous. In her heart-wrenching memoir, Fethiye Çetin breaks the silence.

Patrick Swayze (1952 - 2009)

This morning I heard on the radio that he had lost the battle against cancer. I find this particularly sad because he was one of the few celebrities who despite having been one of the “sexiest men alive” he remained married to Lisa Niemi who had been his wife since 1975. The video below shows the couple dancing – very beautiful:

Green Pastures

This is a project Hermann and I have been supporting for a while. I had met the initiators, a US American couple, in 2004, just before the project was starting and – thinking of my own mentally disabled brother – liked the idea immediately. “Green Pastures” is a centre for children with special needs in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. Here they do not only get therapy, but also the parents and relatives can meet and receive information about their child’s particular needs. Meanwhile they even have a day-care centre, where the children can acquire some abilities which in western countries would be taught in special schools. Thinking of the fact that in many countries of the former Soviet Union disabled people are at the lowest end of society and many children are hidden by their parents because they fear the “shame”, not to talk about therapy or schooling for such kids, this centre makes a remarkable difference and I hope that by and by it also contributes to changing the view of the local society on disabled people!