Immigration — idelette

All I want for Christmas is a brand new world.

December 8, 2010 By idelette 1 Comment

In the past 24+ hours, it’s felt like Heaven has been downloading a story to my heart. Background music to this story is Chantal Kreviazuk’s “Invincible” and specifically the words:

I’m not the same old girl, no.
I want a brand new world.

(Can you hear her just belting it out? Love that girl. But, I digress.)

1. The story starts with a post by Mike Todd over on Waving or Drowning called The Theology of the Lottery of Life.

These images are incredibly powerful. Piercing, in fact. There are more. Combined with some crisp, articulate thoughts from Mike. So go read it first, please:

The Theology of the Lottery of Life

2. Ok, now that you’re back; moving on to Phase 2:

My friend and neighbour Alie posted a video on her facebook page last night. It follows the story of Narayanan Krishnan who happens, as I googled him, to be one of CNN’s 2010 Top Ten Heroes. (I can’t find the original video to embed it, so this link will have to suffice. My apologies. Please stay with me … )

Click here to watch the video: Videos Posted by Chennai Expats: Dec 2, 2010 7:40am.

Narayanan talks about the purpose of his life. And I can’t help but think about my own purpose on the earth and then my friend Ellie’s comment this morning: “I didn’t know Jesus was from India.”

3. Follow that with a blogpost by the lovely & candid Laura Parker who lives in Thailand, caring for orphans with her family. She’s raising awareness around the global orphan crisis. Her blogpost is stunning–do yourself a favour and read the whole piece:

We were wrong {The Orphan Crisis}

Two parts grip me:

a. Two years ago a church in Texas ran a full-page ad in The Dallas Morning News with a public apology:

We Were Wrong

We followed trends when we should have followed Jesus.

We told others how to live but did not listen ourselves.

We live in the land of plenty, denying ourselves nothing,

while ignoring our neighbors who actually have nothing.

We sat on the sidelines doing nothing while AIDS ravaged Africa.

We were wrong; we’re sorry.

Please forgive us.”

Wow. I can’t tell you how much this makes me want to cry and sing at the same time.

b. Laura then relates this exercise in missing the point to the orphan crisis and our indifference now. The video that nails it, making me shake at my core, then is this:

That’s my Hudson … Or: That’s my Shay. That’s my Daniel. That’s my Caleb. That’s my Adam. [Insert the name of your own child.]

Now, I ask you … What do I do with this, the pile of Christmas presents on the floor, the sick feeling in my stomach and the question in my heart: What if we are living the completely wrong Love story?

I’m not the same girl, no.
I want a brand new world.

Filed Under: Christian Life, Christianity, Immigration, Inspiration, Justice, Life Purpose, Soul Journey, Uncategorized

This may soon be a very different world

July 27, 2010 By idelette 4 Comments

In the summer of 1999 I spent a week in New York, sleeping on a former newspaper colleague’s couch in Brooklyn.

I remember the two pairs of shoes I bought there: soft gray boots and three-inch platform black sandals. I walked everywhere around the city in my Japanese cotton dress and those black New York City sandals.

On a Tuesday that July, I visited Lady Liberty and Ellis Island, drawn to the stories of pilgrimage, longing and new beginnings.

This morning, while paging through some old writing, I found these words from a plaque at Ellis Island:

“But there was never a period when the spirit of restlessness was so generally abroad over the world as it is now .. And this very restlessness, combined with the ease with which human beings can now travel, suggests that this may soon be a very different world than it has ever been.” -February 13, 1910.

I did not know by the end of that year my own world would be completely different.

Question: What’s been your biggest life change? How has it affected you?

Photo credit: Wong Mei Teng

Filed Under: Global Life, globalgirl, Immigration, Soul Journey Tagged With: Ellis Island, Immigration, moving, New York City, quote

We Are More, by Shane Koyczan: Olympic Slampoet

February 12, 2010 By idelette Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Global Life, Immigration, Poetry, Soul Journey Tagged With: Canadian poem, Olympics, opening ceremony, poet, Shane Koyczan, slampoet, We are More

Intimidation, Identity and the Value of a Woman

December 17, 2009 By idelette Leave a Comment

“If I kill a dog, I will get in trouble. If I kill you, I won’t get in any trouble. No one knows you are here. You don’t exist.”

These threats were made by a human trafficker to Flor, a 37-year-old survivor of modern American slavery, who arrived in the U.S. to earn money after losing a child to starvation in Mexico. She was forced to work 17 to 19 hours a day for no pay in a sewing sweatshop. “People feel if you come in illegally, anything that happens to you is your fault,” said Lisette Arsuaga, with the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking. “Slavery is not an immigration issue. It’s a civil rights issue. There’s no justification for making someone a slave.” (Source: Kansas City Star)

Via SojoMail.
Photo credit: Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department.

Filed Under: Dignity of Women, Global Life, globalgirl, Human Trafficking, Immigration, Justice Tagged With: American slavery, civil rights, Human Trafficking, Immigration, Justice, mexico, modern-day slavery, slave labour

Moving Beyond Stereotypes

November 5, 2009 By idelette 1 Comment

(Via Jody Wiley Fernando‘s fb page.)

As I am pondering the controversy that is currently going on around the marketing campaign for Deadly Viper Character Assassin: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership, I cannot help but think that this is a very important moment in this continent’s multicultural Story. It is clear from comments on Prof. Soong-Chan Rah’s blog that there is a lot of hurt and offense. It’s pretty obvious to me that the authors and Zondervan committed some serious cultural blunders.

When I first arrived in Canada (after living in Asia for nearly five years and loving every moment of it) I was pretty raw as an Afrikaner woman who still carried the sins of Apartheid. I was ashamed at what my people had done in diminishing and marginalizing “the other.” I was stunned, therefore, not very long after landing in Canada, when I encountered a moment of profound racism with a Caucasian man hurling insults at an Asian man at a gas station in Richmond, BC. It dawned on me in that moment that racism itself was alive and well on the earth, and not just in South Africa. I still remember how sad I’d been at that realization and I knew it broke God’s heart.

The controversy around this book, understandably opens up a lot of emotion and hurt, but more importantly, an opportunity for a conversation. In the midst of some chaos here then, I truly believe Jesus can be born. I pray that the parties involved will be able to meet each other and move to a place of Reconciliation. Not for the sake of individuals, but for the sake of a Kingdom that regards everyone as equal. (At my core, I always stand in Hope.)

If you’d like to know more about this conversation:

Here is Prof. Soong-Chan Rah’s open letter to the authors and Zondervan.

Check out sojo.net for more voices on this conversation.

I also liked this perspective from Eugene Cho of Next Gener.Asian Church.

Tonight I pray for true Peace and Reconciliation in this situation that will ripple out into our societies at large. Heal this Land, Lord. May this be a Moment of Surrender for all of us. A Moment of laying down every stereotypical belief and attachment as we acknowledge and honor the Divine in the other.