The Holidays

BUSY! I have gone off and neglected my dear readers (the few of you that are still hanging on for some glint of intelligent discourse, I apologize.) First things first. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I had a great Christmas and we got snow!... on the Second day of Christmas. Here is a picture of the aforementioned snow and Yamato on our mythical rope swing. That is Leander down on the ground, probably wondering what the tensile strength of that rope is (note for dad: I tested the swing first before sending my roommate flying over the void. The rope is actually four strands tied into a double loop with a overhand on a bite around a very stout tree limb, for it to fail, at least two strands would have to break.) We had much festivity and merry making for Christmas. There was a community party with a gift exchange an an impromptu Christmas pageant complete with costumes and a Virgin Mary with some shaky credentials (a married pastor from Ghana we call Uncle Timothy.) Robert and I even had our stockings hanging in my room for Christmas morning (thanks mom!)

Speaking of Robert, I had my first visitor here at ARI. Robert, my elder brother, stopped by on his way home from Korea where he taught English for the last year. He stayed for a week and we got to spend Christmas together then go on a journey to the North Island of Hokkaido (kind of Japan's version of Alaska.) We traveled by train and overnight ferry and had a roaring good time. To keep ourselves occupied we would talk, read or play one of our many games of Rummy. The weather stayed with us on the boat and met us in Hokkaido so we had snow and ice for three days, a lot for a couple of boys from West Texas. In Hokkaido we stayed on a farm run by Raymond Epp, a friend of ARI who came to lecture a few weeks ago. He invited me out to visit and offered us a place to stay. He has four sons between 2 and 14 and we had a lot of fun playing guitars and banging pots and pans, their mother even joined in and hit a plastic bucket with us. Ray is an organic farmer with a CSA (community Supported Agriculture) program near Sapporo. He is a Mennonite farmer interested in local economies and peace making through food, so we had some great conversations, and some even better food. Here is a picture of his middle son at our Sunday morning home church service. We did not get to stay for very long because of train and ferry schedules but our trip was definitely worthwhile and exciting.

We made it back to ARI for one more night before we had to get Robert to the airport. Now that the numbers have dwindled at ARI we stave off loneliness by eating a LOT of great food and lingering over the meals to talk and share stories. It is a new feel to the place but a nice small community. On the to do list is create an ARI version of Monopoly, knit a scarf, and sew my new tarp that I got for Christmas. Very exciting.

I have been learning some great lessons on loving people and being open to share time and a smile. Whenever I get tired or jaded about life I just sit back and remeber that the greatest commandments were to love your God and love your neighbor. When I come back to that center everything is easier to deal with. There is a lot of stuff going on in our lives, and in our world, if we can come back around to caring about those around us it seems more manageable. One of my good friends had a quote on her facebook wall that she got from Storypeople.com, it went something like this, "maybe love your enemies is too hard at first, let's start with 'don't bite' and go on from there." I have liked this quote since I read it several years ago. It helps me re-center when I think too hard about all the big problems and the frustrating moments in life. So for now, let's just start with not biting, and see where it gets us headed. Peace and Love.

Mike