Global Andy

Some of the scenes are similar to what I witnessed a few weeks ago.   Some of the stats I was not aware of.

Wash and make yourselves clean.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!   Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. ”Come now, let us reason together,”  says the LORD. ”Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson,  they shall be like wool.  ~  Isaiah 1:16-18

Fun little version of a Rube Goldberg Machine version

Carrie Underwood singing “Temporary Home”
Little boy, 6 years old
A little too used to bein’ alone
Another new mom and dad,another school
Another house that’ll never be home
When people ask him how he likes this place
He looks up and says with a smile upon his face

“This is my temporary home
It’s not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I’m passin’ through
This is just a stop, on the way to where I’m going
I’m not afraid because I know this is my
Temporary Home.”

Young mom on her own
She needs a little help got nowhere to go
She’s lookin’ for a job, lookin’ for a way out
Because a half-way house will never be a home
At night she whispers to her baby girl
Someday we’ll find a place here in this world

“This is our temporary home
It’s not where we belong
Windows and rooms that we’re passin’ through
This is just a stop, on the way to where we’re going
I’m not afraid because I know this is our
Temporary Home.”

Old man, hospital bed
The room is filled with people he loves
And he whispers don’t cry for me
I’ll see you all someday
He looks up and says “I can see God’s face”

“This is my temporary Home
It’s not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I’m passin’ through
This was just a stop,on the way To where I’m going
I’m not afraid because I know this was
My temporary home.”

This is our temporary home

Friday night I had the privilege of experiencing IAH – Houston’s Int’l airport named after the 41st president.  (George, you might want to rethink this one.)  Of the countless airports I have visited in the world, it is my absolute least favorite.

If I was nice like my friend Matt, I might sent an open-letter to the airport.  But alas, I fall way short of the standard of Mr. Mikalatos – humorist, author, do-gooder, and overall nice guy.

Here’s my story:  I arrived at IAH from Mexico City Friday afternoon around 5:40 CST.   I was on a United ticket but the international flight was with Continental because they are both under the Star Alliance.   I had an 1 hour and 13 minutes to make my connection.  So I go through customs, wait for bag, re-check it, go through security again and look on the board for my connecting flight.  I knew I had to hoof it because I was at terminal C and had to go to terminal A.  Now IAH has an underground train that goes all the way.  I had ridden that when I first went through the week before.  But as I followed the signs to terminal A it took me to an above-ground train.

I waited for this train but they said it was not working.  When it finally arrives it even stopped again on the middle of the tracks before getting to terminal B.  It was then that I noticed it didn’t go to A but you had to go to another spot to catch a bus to A.  So I ran off the train when it finally rolled into the station.  I passed everyone to make it first down an escalator.  I was like OJ in the airport.  Oops bad analogy.

I had to run down a long corridor, then another, then another, then another.  (Who designed this airport!) Finally I made it where you catch the bus.  It just left.  I had to wait another 5 minutes.   Whent he bus arrived, the driver was kind and took me first to my gate rather than the four others on the bus who had later flights.  I ran to my gate and the two United agents said “you’re late. It just left”.  I had to explain why I was late.  As I did another passenger came running up.  He wasn’t on my bus so I assume he took the underground train. The male United agent didn’t seem to be concerned of my plight.  But the lady showed pity perhaps realizing they could have held the plane for us.  She said, “I am going to get you on a Continental flight.”  She puts me on the flight and prints off a form.  I still needed to show my ID to Continental gate agent to get a boarding pass but I was on….  So I was told.

I went to back through security and back to C.  I was early for this flight by almost 2 hours.  My cell phone battery had died on me and wouldn’t recharge but I paid for internet and skyped Robin telling her I was coming home later than I thought.  When the gate agent arrived, I walked up handed her my official United thingy and explained my story a 2nd time.  She said she couldn’t find me in the system and sent me to the Continental service counter.

The line at the Continental counter was long.  The employees running the counter must have received training from the Post Office.  The longer I waited the more I realized I was gonna cut it close to make this Continental flight.  Finally a lady came off her break and taking her sweet time finally logged-in and called me over.  Again, I explained my plight.  She says I am not in the system.  I decided to plea for her sense of compassion.  No luck.  She said I could call United and so I tried to explain the cell phone being kaput.  I asked if she could call United for me.  She said she couldn’t.  (At this time I was tempted to explain to her the true definition of customer service.  You know that she was hired to serve customers.) She wouldn’t even put me on standby and told me my only hope was going back to United.  I vowed then and there to never do business with Continental again.

So I go back to Terminal A and through security a 3rd time.  I knew at this point, I was staying in lovely Houston for the evening but perhaps United would put me up for the night.  When I got to United’s ticket counter no one was there as no more United flights were leaving that evning.  I picked up the courtsey phone and a nice lady took my call.  For the 4th time I explained my plight and she sounded like she cared.  She looked up in her computer and said “you are on a Continental flight that leaves in 5 minutes”.   I about screamed, ‘what?!?’   I am not sure what the computer deal was but I believe she was right because later I looked up United.com and under my itineraries I was listed on that flight.  My only conclusion is that Continental is incompetent.

It was too late to go back to Terminal C and make that flight – even if I parachuted in with George HW, I had no chance.   The only United person left in the building was a guy in baggage area.  He wasn’t supposed to but he put me on list for 6 am flight in the morning.  I determined that I could go to a hotel and hope United reimbursed me but even if I did, I’d have to leave at 4 am to be back at the airport.  So for the first time ever in countless trips, I sleep at an airport.

I found a chair that was for massages.  Rather lumpy where the massage rollers were but leathery soft none the less.  I felt sorry for myself until I thought of these kids I had met the day before.  See I had visited Casa Alianza in Mexico City that ministers to kids that are displaced and without a home.  I thought of those kids who sleep in parks or under bridges or in sewers.  At least I had a place to sleep and it was only for one night.  They are not safe and are targets for traffickers.  I was safe.  I was warm.  I had my travel mask so even the lights didn’t keep me awake.  (I didn’t really sleep but at least rested.)  My circumstance was not ideal but it was temporary.  And certainly I wasn’t being forced to do vile acts like the women and children who are being trafficked.

I made it to Denver the next morning and I slept on that entire flight.   I made it home to my wife and kids who love me.  Though I wouldn’t choose it, my ordeal was a gift to remind me that life is not easy and even my discomforts are small in comparison to those who need to be rescued.  (I am talking about those in Mexico but could possibly apply to anyone who flies Continental.)

I’m in Mexico City.  Last night, I went to a Safe House for women who have been rescuing from trafficking.  It’s called “Camino a Casa” (A way home).  There are 25 women (though most are merely girls) and some children of these girls.

They were rescued by the government and brought to “Camino a Casa” to leave.  The safe house is ironically a former drug dealers home that was now owned by the government and rented by the Camino a Casa Foundation.  They have a bakery the girls run making pastries to sell.  Some are now trusted to work outside at places like the Marriott.  One girl attends a school.   They receive counseling, physical direction and spiritual direction.  The biggest thing is the workers at the safe want is for them to understand they were victims and that they have value and worth.   The effort is to restore dignity to these girls who most likely have been abused all their lives and bring hope to the hopeless.

Not long after I first walk in, this cute little precious girl of 2 1/2 walked up.  She had the most infectious smile.  Of course I had to pick her up.  I ended holding her for about an hour.  Or when I wasn’t holding her,  she was trying to drag me around with her little hand proudly pointing out things in the house.

I learned when this little girl was a baby that she was burned with an iron by the man who held her mother captive threatening her mother if she tried to run away.  One of the directors, shared how when she and her mother arrived she wouldn’t let a man come near here.  Now a year later she wouldn’t this man leave.

The women at the safe house were precious but you could tell they had lost their innocence.  In some ways the response to me was no different than a teenager  with shy grins.  But for most, the habit of how they responded to men in their presence was there.  In turn, it was an opportunity with to return a smile that wasn’t sexual but one of compassion and love.

We ended up staying there from about 7 to midnight.  We had a dinner with the staff and those who support this ministry.  Sort of Mexico, it started late and went late but that was okay.  (Except I had gotten up at 4 am to make my first flight. So I was glad when they brought out coffee at 11 pm)

I teared up a lot last night.  (And now as I write)  Since  sharing after dinner was in Spanish and I couldn’t follow, I sat there thinkign of these girls.  I started thinking of how often perhaps they had been exploited.   How they were for the first time experiencing people who loved them.  But still how there lives have been forever marked by this horrific crime.

I thought of how Jesus said how if anyone hurt these precious innocent ones that it would be better for them to have a huge boulder tied around their neck and thrown into a sea to drown.  Woe to the world because of these things!  (Matthew 18:5-7)   I thought of the verse my sister-in-law texted me that morning before I boarded the plane.   Romans 12:21 “Do be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by doing good.”

I want to do good.  I want to do what is courageous.  I want to help end this and bring the glory of God and shine the light hope that He brings.

Tomorrow we will lunch after church at the home of a Senator and his wife, Rosi, who is a Congresswomen.  Rosi is the one who started Camino a Casa.  On Monday  and Tuesday (Or Tuesday and Wednesday – not totally sure), we will join a congressional forum on this issue.  These meetings have new life after seeing the faces of these dear girls and thinking of the countless others who are being trafficked in the same way.

Last night, I tweeted (and thereby updated my facebook status):  “Happy Baked Potato Day”.  This caused some confusion.  Farmers were liking it. Moms were thinking they missed this day. And a friend from college who is in the grocery industry wrote: ‘I love important holidays. Makes me proud to be a grocery man on days like today.’   He probably started asking his distributors how they were celebrating this important food holiday.

But it was an inside joke.

See a few months ago, we were reading a collection of Peanuts cartoons to our boys and there was one were Rerun, Lucy and Linus little brother, goes to Charlie Brown’s house to try to sell some homemade Valentine’s.  Looking at the hearts, Charlie Brown says “they look like baked potatoes”  and goes back inside.  Rerun yells after him, “Give them on Baked Potato Day then!”.

The first time we read it I laughed out loud.  (As much as I loved Peanuts as a kid, I was surprised to see how many are not really that funny to me as an adult.  This one was.) I had to explain it to Jack and Drew and then they laughed too.  And as any parent would understand, I had to read this cartoon like 100 times over the next few days and each time they would laugh and repeat it.  Or they just walk up and say it.   Jack would yell it like Rerun.

With Valentine’s Day happening this week, Baked Potato Day naturally had to come in the same week.  So last night we celebrated “Baked Potato Day”.  Robin made a poster and put it on the wall near the dinner table and we had spuds and broccoli.  (And we had mac and cheese for those who like saying “Bake Potato” but not eating them.)

So last night was Baked Potato Day in the McCullough household but you have to wait until August 19th for ‘National Potato Day’.

No not the Radio/TV show of the 50’s…

Been reading the Book of Amos of late.   If you like judgment books, this is a good one as its 8 1/2 chapters full of God venting.   But beware, as it gets personal.

Amos, a shepherd prophet (what a combo!) in pre-Isaiah days starts off with pronouncements from God towards the naughty neighbors.  (Yeah, those pagans and there 3, no 4 sins get what’s coming to them.) But then starting midway through chapter 2, the judgments turn on the house of God.  Judah has disobeyed and followed idolatry.  But Israel?  It’s judgments of injustice… and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

“You sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

“You  trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.”

“You cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you who oppress the poor and crush the needy…”

“You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground”

“You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,  you will not live in them;  though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.”

“You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”

“Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying,  ’When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’ — skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”

I look at my own life.  I think I am not wealthy but when I compare myself to the world, I am swimming in wealth.  I have so much.  I have easy access to stuff.  I think I need things to satisfy me.  Surely I have bought sandals (or coffee or something) without thinking that I could give that same money to help the needy.  Do I leave my corners for the poor or do ‘I sweep up the scraps’ for my own prosperity?   Okay my house is not a stone mansion but maybe it is.   When I buy those cheap clothes do I even think a worker might have been exploited so I could save a few dollars?  Maybe a child?  Do I even think of the poor?  Do I even think of injustice?  Its easy such to turn my eyes.   I am no better than the Israelites.

There judgment was swift by a God who cares for the poor and is a defender of the weak.  In His mercy, He leaves behind some and promises that they will return from exile never to be uprooted again.  (That’s happening in our midst.)   But if God did not spare His the root, how do I think i will escape judgment?  How will the Western church escape our selfish excess?

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! – Amos 5:24

What comes to mind when you think prostitution?  Probably not a good thought.  Some call it a victimless crime which by definition is an illegal act with no obvious injured party.  But its not.  There is a victim… the woman or the child.  The number of prostitutes worldwide is estimated at more than 50 million with 75% being between the ages of 13 and 25.  In surveys, 95% of these women and children say they want to leave.  95%!

It’s really modern day slavery, human trafficking.  It’s a lucrative business and it ranks second worldwide in the illicit trafficking behind drug trafficking and ahead of gun running.  It’s worse because the victims are human beings with value who are used and abused over and over and over again.

Saturday morning, I awoke and thought of Rahab.  (I ended the night thinking of her too while at an iEmpathize event. ) Every time Rahab is mentioned in the bible, her profession, her shame, is mentioned alongside her.  All except the genealogy of Jesus passage in Matthew 1:5.  Why?  Why don’t we say ‘Paul, the murderer’ or ‘David, the adulterer’?  Why is her past always mentioned?

Rahab spared the spies that were sent into the Promised Land and by this saved she herself and her family were saved from destruction. (Joshua 2 and 6).  She acknowledges that the God of the Israelites is the God of heaven and earth.  Her acts of faith are made mention in the Hall of Faith (Heb 11:31).  When James gives examples of those who had faith and works, he mentions Abraham and Rahab.

But she is a prostitute?  (I know some versions tag a note that perhaps the Hebrew word is ‘innkeeper’ but the writer of Hebrews and James don’t follow this supposed translation.) She also lies?   How worthy is this?  Of course, Abraham and Peter for example lied too.  But we cut them some slack even though they lied to save their own hide and in Abraham’s case perhaps even caused his wife to be raped by Pharaoh as a result.  But Rahab?  What a liar!  Even though she lies to save the lives of these spies and God’s people.

But why still refer to her as a prostitute?  Does she always carry this shame?  I don’t think so.  She is referred to as Boaz’s mother in Matthew 1.  There’s a clue.  Boaz who has held honor in the book of Ruth would have been shamed if his mother was shamed.  I think Joshua, James and the write of Hebrews are pointing to her story as one of redemption, and restoration.  God took on her shame.  She was justified and made anew by her faith.  She was a victim of abuse that was rescued by men who treated her with dignity.  Think about it, they could have decided a prostitute, a pagan prostitute was not worth sparing even if they did make an oath.  But Joshua (Yeshua, a type of Jesus), says “Go into her house and bring her out according to your oath.”  He is saying she is worth saving.  She is honorable.,  She has been made righteous.  She is valuable.

In a few weeks, I am going down with a friend to Mexico to be a part of a forum that is the start of a Congressional Committee on helping end this issue in their country.  (Mexican Congress, not US).  It’s a total God-story of how I came to be invited.  I feel like Brian and I are like those two spies  handpicked by Yeshua.  This journey is the beginnings of a partnership with some ministries in Mexico and a network of churches and ministries in Boulder.

Everyone hasn’t weighed in on the name but as I studied this passage, I thought of Red Cord (or Cuerda Roja in Spanish).  Among those who want to end trafficking, they don’t like using the word ‘prostitute’ since it carries a false perception so in many ways using the story of Rahab could send the wrong message.  But I was struck by this symbol, Rahab let down the spies through a window with a scarlet cord (or rope).  It was this same scarlet cord that was to be the symbol that she was to tie to her window when they came back to destroy Jericho.   That cord symbolized her protection, her resuce, her redemption.  A cord is a strong bind of several threads.  It’s hard to break.  Like our partnership, it is made of several coming together as one for one purpose and in this case, of rescuing a woman from this form of slavery.  The cord in the story is scarlet like our sins (Isaiah 1:18) and the scarlet blood of the Messiah by which He rescues us from our sin and shame and redeems us as His own.

So unless I get major pushback, I am going with Cuerda Roja as the name of our effort in hopes that we will be like a Scarlet Cord of rescue to countless thousands of children and women in Mexico who need rescuing.

Last night I had a dream.  Okay in reality it was this morning and not long before my alarm went off. A good friend and cohort of mine had prepared a feast.  A lot of people were there and like most dreams it was a random assortment of people whose are not connected in real life.   I am not sure where we were but it seemed like a retreat house.  It was packed.  But I was frustrated.

You see each time the food came out for some reason I was gone. By the time I arrived, the food was… gone that is.  (And I could tell it was pleasing to the palate only because Rich was the cook but also because everyone was raving about it.) It was right there, but I couldn’t taste it.  People were having thirds in fact and I had none.

So I waited for the last batch to come from where ever it was being cooked.  I waited and waited.  The crowd peeled off.  Robin went back to our room.  In my dream it was late.. way late.   It wasn’t that I was hungry per se, it was that I felt left out.  I felt like deserved it.  I was stubbornly going to wait.

So then it came – huge bins and bins of food.  Ironically in impatience I had gotten up and lost my place again but this time I was determined to get my food.  I pushed my way back to get the food: huge slabs of some kind of meat BBQ’ed.  I remember even BBQ’ed fish and asparagus and other vegatables.  I had decided to grab my own bin and fill it as high as I could with food saving some for future days at this place not knowing how many days that was or if meals were always inculded.  In fact I determined that it was too late to eat but I was still getting food.  I found some aluminum foil to put over the top and starting carrying this scolding hot tray of food.

But the thing was when these bins came out other people had arrived too.  I was so busy trying to not get left out again that I had not interacted with them at all.  In fact, I was sad as I walked away.  These people were joyous and what I realized who they were.  Some were some Burmese refugee families that I know.  Others were some Africans I have met and other people of color.  One couple that had arrived was one I know whose son has been in the hospital of late.  I think some were even those who had been working to serve and prepare the food.

As I woke up it dawned on me… these were the poor, the sick, the needy, the nations, the people on the bottom.  And I was taking more food that I needed.  They didn’t seem to care though.  They were joyous that there was a feast and that thy had somethign to eat.   I was so caught up into myself that I didn’t interact with them.  I was  worse than those who had earlier taken thirds when I had none.

Yesterday I heard John Ortberg speak to a group of pastors in the Denver area.  Ortberg quoted Dallas Willard and said (I’m paraphrasing from my notes) that we can guage how our soul is by whether we are becoming more or less irritated and more or less discouraged.    That when peace dwells within we are less discouraged and less irritated.

Okay it was just a dream but it was real.  My soul seems like the man I was in the dream – irritated, discouraged.  Not sure why other than I am too preoccupied with myself, my own world, my own needs wants.

I am not enjoying the feast that’s available.  I am not willing to wait.  I am not willing to identify like Christ did with those who really are in need.  I am greedy.  I am a glutton.  I am in need of grace.

I hope to wake up.