tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373416912024-03-13T01:36:09.780-07:00kosovacajunkosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-25554545067454698892011-01-21T21:07:00.000-08:002011-01-21T22:58:39.997-08:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">2010, The Year in Review. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">As seen through highlights from my Facebook status updates. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">I know. This is pathetic. But you've got to admit, some of them really are so clever that they deserved to be preserved for posterity, right? No, I guess you <em>don't</em> have to admit that. Well could you at least admit that they deserve deserve something more than the ephemerality of a Facebook status? (Yeah, it really is a <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ephemerality">word</a>.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Jan. 5: Wow, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/books/05paterson.html?_r=1">this</a> is probably as close to fame as I'll ever get. I just got mentioned in the NY Times! </span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Jan. 12: A friend of mine is a wholesale supplier of cigarette lighters here in Makedonija. He buys them by the container from China. He goes through a container, which contains over a million cigarette lighters, every couple of months. This is a country with a population of barely 2 million.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 3: Went ice skating with Lydia. I skate like Frakenstein. What can I say? I'm a Louisiana boy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 5: Taking a break from my latest move in a battle of wits with our dog Cody, aka "Houdini". So far I'm losing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 7: This is the day I've been waiting for all my life! WHO DAT!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 8: I had this really bizarre dream last night. I dreamed -- ok, I know this is really silly -- I dreamed that the Saints won the Super Bowl. Crazy dream, huh?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 13: Just when I think I can't stand another day of winter, God gives us a gorgeous one like today. Ended up hiking up to the ruins of an old monastery above Matka Canyon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 21: Wednesday's the big anniversary. You'd think after 20 years we'd have it figured out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 23: Budapest has got to be one of the most romantic cities in the world. I'm so glad that it worked out for us to be here for our 20th.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Feb. 24: Had escargot last night. They were ok, but give me a half dozen raw erstas on the half shell anytime!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- February 27: Pondering what it means to be an emotional pygmy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 1: Took Luke out in the schoolyard to toss the (American) football yesterday. Lots of neighborhood kids (Albanian, Macedonian and otherwise) gathered round so I ended up teaching them to play and organizing a game. They begged us to play again today, so we did. They're asked me if I could come back tomorrow. Lots of fun!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 5: I'm gonna walk from Matka Canyon to the summit of Vodno then down into town tomorrow. It's supposed to snow tonight so it should be pretty. Anybody wanna come?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 9: YES! IT'S THE REAL DEAL. I JUST SOLD TWO PHOTOS TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER!<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 10: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/134962480/">Here</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/234673772/">here</a> are the links to the photos chosen by National Geographic Traveler:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 11: Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 12: My sweet girl Lydia made me a tiramisu for my b'day! No dad was ever more blessed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 13: I got an invitation to join a group to fight to keep God in America. I appreciate the thought, but actually I'm fighting to let Him out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Mar. 18: Tirana next week, Brussels the week after.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Apr. 11: L&L and I are having fun reading through the books of Kings. We're making a chart and assigning each king a letter grade A through F.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Apr. 22: Luke didn't have to be dragged out of bed to get ready for school this morning. He was up before 5 a.m. -- without an alarm clock -- to find out what was happening with the NFL draft.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Apr. 25: More village visits to measure and photograph wheelchair candidates today.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- Apr. 30: How strange it was to hear the sweet sounds of Plaquemines Parish accents on BBC radio this morning. How sad it is that once again my home state is in the news as the site of an epic tragedy!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 2: Had an amazing, unforgettable daddy-daughter time in the mountains with Lydia this weekend.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 4: Doing the wheelchair distribution today.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 5: That's what I deserve for my vanity. I googled my name and came across <a href="http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/virusc.php?comments_page=3#comments_anchor">the following</a></span> <span style="font-size:100%;">quote: "What Mark Orfila says is complete BS." Apparently it's referring to another Mark Orfila, but perhaps we've got more in common than our name.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 8: Traveling to Spain next week. Looking forward to churros and chocolate for b'fast.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 14: Isn't Spain supposed to be sunny and warm?</span><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- May 24: Almost 50 denar to the dollar. Happy days are here again!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- June 1: Mary made a run to Thessaloniki yesterday and brought us back bougatsa. Yum!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- June 1: Lydia tasting my gumbo: "Wow, dad, you hit the nail on the nose!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">- June 22: Jesus loves me this I know/ For the Bible tells me so</span></p><p>- July 1: Climbed to the top of the clock tower next to the old Sultan Murat Mosque yesterday. I love having guests from abroad because I get to be a tourist along with them.</p><p>- July 4: A question for all my British friends: Aren't you glad to be rid of us?</p><p>- July 10: Got dumped in the lake and embedded a fish hook in my finger past the barb. But a bad day fishing is still better than a good day doing anything else.</p><p>- July 26: Anybody love me enough to do my quarterly financial report for me?</p><p>- July 29: Off to Seattle tomorrow for a month of counseling and pastoral care.</p><p>- July 29: We're about to set out for the land of Pop-tarts.</p><p>- August 1: Sleepless in Seattle.</p><p>- August 3: Over jet lag in Seattle.</p><p>- Aug. 8: Loved watching the Sounders beat Hoston Dynamo 2-0. Till New Orleans gets a MLS team, I think I'm going to be a Sounders fan. Thanks to Craig Mathison for tickets.</p><p>- Aug. 19: I start ADD meds tomorrow. Wonder what the new me will be like.</p><p>- Aug. 26: I'm thinking that if you've gotta be stuck in some strange place in the States, you could do worse than Seattle.</p><p>- Aug. 29: Nervous about the kids starting school tomorrow. Luke is 10 and has never gone to US school.</p><p>- Sept. 16: Aren't those new mint Oreos amazing? I'm eager to get back to the Balkans, but you've gotta admit: America does have its charms!</p><p>- Sept. 17: Thanks to Criag Mathison for directing us toward this great little Eastern European grocery store. We bought some Croatian ajvar, and it turned out to be the best store-bought ajvar I've ever had. But nothing can replace being there this time of year to enjoy the smell when they're making it.</p><p>- Sept. 22: Learning to love.</p><p>- Oct. 10: Sold some more pictures without even trying -- this time to <a href="http://www.bradt-travelguides.com/details.asp?prodid=168">Bradt Travel Guides (to Kosova).</a></p><p>- Oct. 10: IT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT! So I ordered this book on Emotional Intelligence because that's one of the things I'm working on these days, and it came with an online "EQ" test, and I came out like in the bottom 15th percentile! I really am an emotional pygmy. Thanks to all of you who've put up with me all these years.</p><p>- Oct. 12: So I thought that after last year's Super Bowl, the Saints had commenced their millennial reign. Looks like I'll have to revise my eschatology. </p><p>- Oct. 19: <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/americas-best-high-schools/list.html">Newsweek ranked the high school Lydia is attending 14th in the USA!</a> Of course I think she deserves better.</p><p>- Nov. 10: A picture of mine was featured on an <a href="http://swns.com/flickr-celebrates-five-billionth-picture-upload-101131.html">article</a> that came out today noting 5 billion photos uploaded to flickr. Just think: Out of 5 billion photos, mine was one of 16 chosen to illustrate the article! (Mine is the 12th picture as you scroll down the page.)</p><p>- Dec. 10: So I often hear everybody talking about all the idiots on the road. I don't really notice very much. I wonder if that means I'm one of the idiots?</p><p>- Dec. 15: Thinking of a Sara Groves lyric today: "It's been a while since I felt this/<br />but it feels like it might be hope"</p><p>- Dec. 15: Amazing how such a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/5228406312/">dull picture</a> could generate such heated comments. I never dreamed that taxonomy could inspire such passion.</p><p>- Dec. 20: Pondering this from Lewis' The Four Loves: "For many of us, all experience merely defines... the shape of that gap where our love of God ought to be. It is not enough. It is something. If we cannot 'practice the presence of God,' it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness..."</p><p>- Dec. 23: Ok, I know I've already squeezed more than my 15 minutes out of fame out of this, but what can I do? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPoenHA-9e0">This woman</a> just keeps on saying nice things about me all over the place!</p><p>- Dec. 28: The kids and I have this great idea for a reality tv show: Behind the scenes at the county library. All we need is an investor to help us make it happen. Any takers?</p><p>- Dec. 30: Look for Luke & me on tv at the Seahawks-Rams game Sunday night. We should be easy to spot. We'll be the only ones at Qwest Field wearing Saints colors. It'll be Luke's 1st time at an NFL game.</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-61053373732565731302011-01-17T08:17:00.000-08:002011-01-17T08:27:39.876-08:00<span style="font-size:180%;">"Not by might, not by power..."</span><br /><br />It is worth noting that Martin Luther King Jr. preached his last sermon in a Church of God in Christ facility. (The Church of God in Christ is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the U.S.) In some <a href="http://i.usatoday.net/news/_photos/2008/04/02/king-topper.jpg">photos</a> you can see a banner with a Bible verse hanging over Dr. King's head -- a verse which could be considered the theme of the Pentecostal movement since its inception: "Not by might, not my power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord" (Zechariah 4:6). In the early days of the movement Pentecostals took this verse to mean that moving in the power of the Spirit precluded violence -- a message that meshes powerfully with Dr. King's life and legacy.<br /><br />In honor of MLK Day.kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-14864193792529259412011-01-07T12:58:00.000-08:002011-01-07T13:02:11.848-08:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; ">My grandfather was Napoleon Bonaparte Hippler; his grandfather was Julius Caesar Hippler. Apparently I'm genetically programmed more for grandiosity than for greatness.</span>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-26064892492663809092010-05-05T12:01:00.001-07:002010-05-05T12:14:35.338-07:00<a title="photo sharing" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/4581542219/"><img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 2px solid" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4581542219_1c3aa16247_m.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px;font-size:0;" ><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/4581542219/">wheelchair distribution</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span><br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Banquet at the World's End</strong></span></p><p>Today I was blessed to help with the distribution of wheelchairs to handicapped people from the villages of Batincë, Moranë, and Studeniçan. The experience brought forcefully to mind an old Daniel Amos song, "The Banquet at the World's End". This song is a favorite of mine because it has helped me to see a very familiar story with fresh eyes. The story I'm talking about is one Jesus told. You can find it in the Bible in Luke 14:15-24. Here are the lyrics:<br /><br /><em>The beautiful people, all send their excuses:<br />(Real estate and sex lives, livestock and ex-wives)<br /><br />But the poor are coming, the lame are running<br />In their sleazy clothes and orthopedic shoes<br />There's a harelip spokesman shouting out the news<br /><br />"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"<br /><br />There's a string ensemble, and the King's court jester<br />Telling parables and big jokes, to mongoloids and old folks<br /><br />The blind are seeing, the dead are breathing<br />And the mummies dance in geriatric style<br />The amputees are rolling down the aisles<br /><br />"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"<br /><br />Candlelight and party hats, duck and pheasant under glass<br />Aluminum walkers, thin white canes, caviar and pink champagne<br />The bride and the groom waltz on<br />Club foot lane at the banquet at the world's end<br />The banquet at the world's end<br />The banquet at the world's end<br /><br />Say the beautiful people (the poor are coming)<br />"We'll live with the lights out (the lame are running)<br />Leave us alone now because (the blind are seeing)<br />Hell feels like home now" (the dead are breathing)<br /><br />Meanwhile...<br /><br />But the poor are coming, the lame are running<br />In their sleazy clothes and orthopedic shoes<br />There's a harelip spokesman shouting out the news<br /><br />"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"<br />"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"<br />"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"<br /></em><br />The words and music are by Terry Taylor. The song appeared on the Daniel Amos album <em>MotorCycle</em>. </p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-10787789087172812652009-11-07T12:53:00.000-08:002009-11-07T13:29:31.115-08:00<p>Lion truthin</p><p>Here's a little mind game I play sometimes when I'm having trouble falling asleep. Rather than explaining the rules, I'll just give you some examples. (Maybe you already got it from the title.) I think you'll pick up on the pattern. My kids love this too. Ok, so here goes:</p><p>lion - truthin</p><p>badger - goodger</p><p>panther - potther</p><p>hyena - lowena</p><p>donkey - donlock</p><p>tick - tock</p><p>goat - stopt</p><p>Get the idea? Feel free to add one (or more) of you own?</p><p></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-75452135617524446742009-10-07T08:21:00.001-07:002009-10-12T02:10:43.047-07:00<span style="color:#333333;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><strong>Homesick for Egypt</strong></span><br /></span><span style="color:#000099;"></span><br /><a title="photo sharing" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3989672699/"><img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 2px solid" alt="" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2589/3989672699_ffe462d57b_m.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px;font-size:0;" ><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3989672699/">homesick for Egypt</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span><br /><p>I was taking pictures of Farka Lake, and this old Albanan man tending his cows and sheep watched me suspiciously. Finally he asked me what I was doing. "I'm taking pictures of the lake because it's beautiful!' I said.<br /><br />"Yes, it's beautiful," he replied. "It was made by Enver; whereas these politicians we have these days don't make anything beautiful. All they do is destory things."<br /><br />(For the uninitiated, Enver Hoxha was the murderous Communist dictator who ruled Albania from 1945 to 1985. Under his leadership Albania procliamed itself the world's first completely atheist state. His legacy was isolation, poverty and paranoia on such a scale that the tiny country was littered with 750,000 concrete bunkers. And apparently a pretty lake.)</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-15551022802891608952009-09-15T18:29:00.000-07:002009-09-16T11:09:10.093-07:00<span style="font-size:130%;">Albanian imam: <strong>"We would die for America!"</strong></span><br /><br />I was riding around today in the front seat of an Albanian friend's Yugo when he stopped outside village mosque to get out and greet his uncle, the imam. The imam wanted a ride into town, so he folded his tall frame into the back seat of the Yugo. He was older than me and at least as tall as me, so of course I offered to get in the back, but I knew full well that their code of hospitality would never allow such a thing.<br /><br />The imam was carrying a two liter Coke bottle full of fresh milk, which he had obtained for his family's iftar (the evening meal to break the daily fast during Ramadan). "My nephew tells me your American," he said. "I'm going to give you this milk. Make sure to boil it well. We Albanians love America. We would die for America!"<br /><br />I laughed and said, "I'shallah (God willing) it never comes to that!"<br /><br />We had a good time on our ride into town. He hardly let me get a word in edgewise, but I enjoyed listening to him as he told me stories of suffering for his faith during the Communist years and his five years of study in Saudi Arabia. Of course I had to endure a bit of a lecture about the superiority of Islam, but that was ok too. He mentioned that the Koran endorses the Inxhil (Gospel), Tevrati (Pentateuch), and Zeburi (Psalms), so I asked him if he had ever read the Gospel, and he admitted that he hadn't. I pulled a New Testament out of my book bag, and he graciously accepted the gift.<br /><br />I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about his words, "We would die for America." He probably didn't mean to be taken literally, but I do believe that behind the boast was a deep and sincere gratitude for the help American has given to the Albanian people for the last hundred years or so. As an American citizen I can't help but be touched by the love and respect that most Albanians feel toward my country.* On the other hand, I'm aware that my home country like every human institution is fallen and therefore deeply flawed.<br /><br />What about me? Would I die for America? Of course nobody knows what he would do in the moment of decision, but believe that I would be honored to die for the Gospel. I'm pretty sure that I would be willing to die for a member of my family. I hope that if it came down to it I would even be prepared to give my life for a stranger -- American, Albanian, Serb, Iraqi or whatever. But there's no way that I would willingly give my life for any nation-state.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*This is true of the vast majority, but not of everyone. I heard an Albanian radio station here claiming that it was the Jews who brought down the Twin Towers.</span>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-15993621575778093532009-09-14T23:34:00.000-07:002009-09-14T23:38:21.843-07:00<span style="font-size:180%;">Bono a 3 point Calvinist?</span><br /><br />"...U2's 2009 album, No Line on the Horizon, chimes in with,<br /><em>'I was born to ring for you / I didn't have a choice but to lift you up,</em> '<br />with the refrain<em>, </em><br /><em>'Justified until we die / you and I will magnify / the Magnificent</em>. '<br />Who knew that Bono was at least a three-point Calvinist?"<br /><br />from <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/september/14.27.html"><em>John Calvin: Comeback Kid</em> </a>by Timothy George in <em>Christianity Today</em>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-65007487678770833962009-09-10T23:04:00.000-07:002009-09-13T06:07:48.165-07:00<span style="font-size:180%;">Sept. 11: The right way to remember<br /></span><br />When I was in the States I saw lots of bumper stickers that said: "9/11: We will not forget." I'm all for remembering, but I think that there's a right way and a wrong way to remember.<br /><br />The book of Deuteronomy is all about remembering. Over and over God commanded the people of Israel not to forget. Among the things that they were to remember were their years of slavery in Egypt. Whenever they are told not to forget the evil that had been done to them it was usually in the context of a social justice command. Take for example Deut. 24:17,18: "Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord you God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this." In other words, "Don't forget what it's like to be under someone's thumb in order to make sure that you never turn around and do the same thing to someone else."<br /><br />Living here in the Balkans I've seen first-hand the danger of the wrong kind of remembering. Members of every ethnic group have committed enough atrocities against one another that everyone has something terrible to remember; everyone can justify the hatred that his group nurses; everyone can see his people as the victims and the others as the aggessors. Remember when you were a kid and you got into a fight with your sibling and your parents intervened and you and your sibling both said, "But s/he started it!"? As a parent I know how tricky it can be to sort how who really started it and what exactly constitutes "starting it". Much of the debate among Balkans people seems to me to come down to a deadly, grown-up version of "Who started it?". Memories are the chips with which this high stakes game is played.<br /><br />I want to be careful not to be misunderstood here. I'm not trying to suggest that all parties in the recent Balkan wars were equally guilty or that all atrocities were equally atrocious. I certainly don't want to feed that arrogant American attitude which says, "Those guys have been killing one another for thousands of years. If it's not one it's the other. Why should we care?" This kind of statement is not only unbearably smug but also historically inaccurate. The truth is that in the Balkan wars of the 1990s I believe that the Serbs <em>were</em> the primary aggressors, but the point I'm getting at here is that I don't think that we Americans are willing to admit how much we have in common with them. Both of us have caused a lot of devastation in the name of fighting Islamic fundamentalism -- and ultimately fueled its fires.<br /><br />As September 11 rolls around again, by all means, let's remember. Let's remember the destruction, the economic disruption, the national trauma and humiliation, the suffering of thousands who were injured and maimed, and the anguish of tens of thousands who lost family members in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And as we remember let's repent of the fact that our very first response was to turn around and inflict the very same destruction and death on someone else.<br /><br />I'll close with a 9/11 quote -- this one from September 11, 1915. It's by Stanley Frodsham, a Pentecostal pioneer and an early editor of <em>The Weekly Evangel</em> (the forerunner of <em>Today's Pentecostal Evangel</em>.)<br />When one comes into that higher kingdom and becomes a citizen of the ‘holy nation’ (1 Peter 2:9), the things that pertain to earth should forever lose their hold, even that natural love for the nation where one happened to be born, and loyalty to the new King should swallow up all other loyalties. …National pride, like every other form of pride, is abomination in the sight of God. And pride of race must be one of the all things that pass away when one becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. . . . When seen from the heavenly viewpoint, how the present conflict is illumined...The policy of our God is plainly declared in the Word, "Peace on earth, good will toward me." Stanley H. Frodsham, “Our Heavenly Citizenship,” <em>The Weekly Evangel</em>, 11 September 1915, 3, quoted in <em>Shifiting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God</em> by Paul Alexander.<br /><br />As followers of the Prince of Peace, we must make sure that our remembering is not poisoned by national pride. If it is, we will only perpetuate the evil that was perpetrated on us.kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-24315995556826241912009-08-09T06:27:00.000-07:002009-08-09T06:42:48.983-07:00<p><span style="font-size:130%;">AK47 stories: A fright at night, a chuckle in the daylight</span></p><p>Once when we were living in Peja, Kosova I got into a heated discussion with the imam of our local mosque. We were on our way home one night and stopped by a kiosk near our house to buy something. There was a mosque just across the street, and the imam, spotting the name of our organization on the side of my car, came out to speak to me. I kept trying to lower the temperature of the discussion, but hewas really angry. "Go back to America!" he shouted at me.</p><p>When we got home I went to bed and Mary stayed up reading for a while in the living. The power was on that night, and the living room had a big plate-glass window facing the street. Suddenly there was a burst of automatic gunfire on the street outside. Of course gunfire was pretty common in those days, but this time it was so close it shook the windows! Honestly, it sounded as though it were inside!</p><p>Mary is not a fearful person by any stretch, but her first thought was, "Uh-oh, Mark really ticked that imam off this time!" Not wanting to present too tempting a target, she crawled across the floor to the light switch, switched it off, then joined me in bed. </p><p>We didn't hear any more shots that night, and the next day Mary casually brought it up in conversation with a neighbor. "Did you hear some shooting last night?"</p><p>"Oh yeah", the neighbor responded. "The kid down the street got circumcised, so they were just celebrating. </p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-14776246811335919562009-07-08T14:44:00.000-07:002009-09-13T06:10:36.856-07:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">AK47 Stories </span></p><p><span style="font-size:180%;">Peja, New Year's 2000 – Y2K, YWAM, and AK47s</span><br /></p><br />Remember the Y2K hysteria accompanying the dawn of the new millennium? There were predictions of massive power outages; a total breakdown of communication, banking and postal systems; even civil unrest. I found the whole thing mildly amusing. The worst case scenario for our friends back in the States was just everyday life in Kosova in the aftermath of the war. <br /><p>We were surrounded by danger and destruction, but it was a heady time. My friend Nezir asked me whether we would be traveling home to America for the New Year. “Why would I want to do that?” I asked him. “In America a number is rolling over. But for my Kosovar Albanian brothers, this is really a historic moment – their first New Year of freedom.” (This was all true, but I failed to mention another factor: traveling back to the States was totally out of the question for financial reasons.)<br /></p>There was a team of Youth With a Mission volunteers working in our town then, so we invited them to ring in the new millenium with us. Predictably the power went out early in the evening. We ate dinner downstairs in the kitchen where the wood stove kept us warm, then went upstairs to the living room to party, but it was just too cold to do much celebrating. We sat down on the sofas and covered ourselves with everything we could find – including the big fake sheepskin couch covers. We lit a butane lantern and sang praise songs for a while. Most of us ended up drifting off to sleep, but we all woke up just before midnight to the sound of -- You guessed it! -- AK47 fire. We all ran out on the balcony to watch the tracers lighting up the night sky. <br /><p>We were discussing the danger of falling bullets* when a series of tracers came arcing over our house. All of a sudden we heard a loud THUNK as a metal object struck the car below us. We didn’t stop to ask what it was. We were all pretty sure we knew. We all ran back into the house saying, “Man, did you hear that? That was a close call!” We laughed and joked a bit about our narrow escape, but it really had shaken us up a bit. When we settled down a bit, the leader of the YWAM team, who was a great practical joker, pulled a AA battery out of his shirt pocket and said with a straight face, “Are you sure it wasn’t just one of these?” We laughed some more as we understood then that we had been had. <br /></p><em>* I saw that episode of Mythbusters where they debunked the idea that a bullet falling straight down can be lethal. But it’s still a fact that when people start getting crazy and careless with AK47s, someone can get killed. In Albania in 1997 <a href="http://kosovacajun.blogspot.com/2009/05/ak-47-stories.html">(See the earlier post.)</a> the mother of a friend of mine was no her balcony cooking dinner when she was struck by a stray bullet. She died on the way to the hospital.</em>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-31545999483941721092009-07-04T08:29:00.000-07:002009-07-04T20:59:37.143-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjZv9v2LlCjR2hyHO2P2VNIvEYiAlgPfNySQB4TRkcvfVMwqHlLSYUTg90hKb7-g77aTYpDD6g9_OlsV9T2ZKiU2ABlrDzoFhbuBn-_lvon-Pxmsb-tCPvX8tg3Up1W6d3BP1LQ/s1600-h/flag.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpjZv9v2LlCjR2hyHO2P2VNIvEYiAlgPfNySQB4TRkcvfVMwqHlLSYUTg90hKb7-g77aTYpDD6g9_OlsV9T2ZKiU2ABlrDzoFhbuBn-_lvon-Pxmsb-tCPvX8tg3Up1W6d3BP1LQ/s400/flag.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354820747957634194" /></a><br /><p><span style="font-size:180%;">Putting things in perspective</span></p><p>I've got a couple more AK47 stories to share, but I want to pause today to commemorate the Fourth of Julyby posting the lyrics to Ben Shive's song 'The 4th of July" from his wonderful album, the Ill-Tempered Klavier. </p><p>The first star of the evening<br />Was singing in the sky<br />High above our blanket in the park<br /><br />And by the twilight’s gleaming<br />On the 4th day of July<br />The city band played on into the dark<br /><br />And then a canon blast<br />A golden flame unfolding<br />Exploded in a momentary bloom<br /><br />The pedals fell and scattered<br />Like ashes on the ocean<br />As another volley burst into the blue<br /><br />But the first star of the evening never moved<br /><br />We stood in silence<br />The young ones and the old<br />As the bright procession passed us by<br /><br />A generation dying<br />Another being born<br />A long crescendo played out in the sky<br /><br />Yeah<br /><br />This nation, indivisible<br />Will perish from the Earth<br />As surely as the leaves must change and fall<br /><br />And the band will end the anthem<br />To dust she will return<br />So the sun must set on all things, great and small<br /><br />But the first star of the evening<br />Will outlive them all<br /><br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-74006073639425871682009-06-26T15:31:00.000-07:002009-06-26T15:37:18.442-07:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">AK 47 Stories: Peja, Kosova. Flag Day. Saturday, November 28, 1999.</span> <br /></p><em>The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…” Genesis 1:2</em> <p>Kosova was a bit like that that first winter after the war – cold, dark, and chaotic. Mary was 7 months pregnant when we moved there. When it came time to give birth, we couldn’t count on heat and running water at the hospital near our house in Peja, so we went down to Greece. Luke was born by c-section at St. Luke’s Hospital in the town of Panorama near Thessaloniki. My parents met us there and came back to Kosova with us a few days after the birth.<br /></p>We got back to find a thin dusting of snow on the ground. The power was out so I gathered bits of wood from the rubble of burned houses that choked our street to use as kindling to start a fire in the wood stove. My mom, who had grown up without electricity, had no trouble preparing a wonderful Thanksgiving meal – turkey and all.<br /><br />Three days later was Albanian Flag Day. For Kosovar Albanians it was the first flag day of freedom, and boy did they celebrate! They didn’t have fireworks. (A lot of them didn’t even have houses; they were living in UNHCR tents.) But the one thing they did have was AK47s and plenty of ammunition. All day long there was uninterrupted gunfire. <br /><br />The next day my dad was going to preach, and I was going to translate for him. We had decided to go through the sermon together ahead of time to make sure that I knew how to say everything that he intended to say. While we were doing this, there was a sudden burst of gunfire so close and so loud that it rattled the plate glass window that we were standing in front of. “Umm, would we be more comfortable doing this lying down on the ground?” my dad quipped.kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-26490874359164392802009-06-16T03:48:00.001-07:002009-06-16T03:57:41.456-07:00<a title="photo sharing" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3631499357/"><img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 2px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 2px solid" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3368/3631499357_ccd3a0752f_m.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px;font-size:0;" ><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3631499357/">Albania 1997 evacuation</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span><br /><p><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>AK 47 stories: Albania 1997</strong></span></p><p>Mary and I had been in Albania 2 years. Lydia was 10 months old. In the poverty and instability that followed the fall of Communism a number of pyramid schemes had been flourishing in Albania. Money was pouring into the country in the form of remittances from the hundreds of thousands of Albanians who had fled to Italy, Greece, and elsewhere. Their relatives on the receiving end of all that cash were “investing” it in the new “companies”. As people saw the neighbors getting rich, no one wanted to be left out. This capitalism thing was turning out to be lot easier than anyone had thought. Then in the spring of ’97 it all came crashing down, and the nation was enraged. Many accused the government of having stolen their money. </p><p>Unrest began in the South of the country and began spreading towards the capital Tirana where we lived. For some reason disgruntled citizens decided to express their discontent by looting the military arsenals. Suddenly the country was awash with weapons. Teenagers were taking tanks for joy rides. Children were playing with hand grenades. And of course, there were a lot of AK47s floating about – hundreds of thousands of them.</p><p>Our team leader Rodney Tilley had the foresight to get the moms and kids on our team out before things really got out of control. Mary, Lydia, and others flew to Greece and were taken in by AoG colleagues at a campground outside Athens. A few of us stayed behind hoping things would settle down. </p><p>March 12, 1997 was the most memorable birthday of my life so far – the day that the rising tide of anarchy engulfed Tirana. Instead of birthday candles I witnessed the terrible beauty tracer bullets arcing across the evening sky like bright red shooting stars in reverse as everyone in town tried out his new toy. It didn’t take long before the game turned deadly. During the weeks and months that followed there was widespread looting, rape and murder. However, there were many more victims of stray gunfire than of criminal intent.</p><p>Rodney decided that those of us who were still there needed to join our colleagues in Greece. Our passports were worth thousands of dollars on the black market; AK47s, by contrast, were selling on the street for $5, and ammo was free. Some of our Albanian brothers would probably give their lives to defend us if necessary, but it wasn’t fair to ask that of them when we could just leave. When Mary and Lydia had left they had taken only an overnight bag apiece. Not knowing when (if ever) we would be able to return, it was quite a challenge to whittle my luggage down to the airline’s allowance. </p><p>Then someone started taking potshots at airplanes coming and going from the Tirana airport, and the airport shut down. At this point the U.S. government decided to send the marines in to get Americans out. I was told that they would allow only a single carry-on bag per person. The airline's limit suddenly seemed generous. I stuffed my one bag with personal documents, photographs (This was before the digital era.) and a change of clothes.</p><p>Our team leader ordered me to move into the international church where I had been doing youth ministry. With a tall iron gate and a full-time security guard, he felt that the church was a lot more secure than my house. That evening the security guard called me to share his dinner. I politely declined at first. “You have to!” he insisted with a twinkle in his eye. “We’re fellow war veterans now.” We sat down together in the big empty church and ate bread; strong, white cheese; and a boiled egg apiece.</p><p>Later that evening some guy in California called to check on a friend of his who worked with the International Church. He was watching on CNN as the British navy was preparing to conduct an evacuation from the port city of Durres, about 45 minutes from Tirana. He urged me to make my way to Durres, assuring me that the Brits wouldn’t refuse to take an American passport holder. I declined, preferring to stay in Tirana and wait on my own government to get me out.</p><p>Not that I felt all that safe there. The church had computers and lots of musical equipment, so I was expecting looters to show up at any time. Eventually a young man with an AK47 did show up at the church, but he wasn’t a looter. He was the rebel of my youth group. (Anyone who’s ever done youth ministry knows that there’s a rebel in every group.) “Hey Mark, would you like to shoot my gun?” he asked. I refused. “Well why don’t you come home with me?" he said. "I’ll protect you!” Again, I refused. (The church was eventually looted, but it happened weeks after I left. Surprisingly, most of the stolen items were eventually recovered.)</p><p>I set up a cot in the attic, but I didn’t get much sleep. The chorus of AK47 fire swelled and fell but never ceased. It reminded me of a chorus of dogs barking all over the city, calling out to one another and answering. There on the attic I could hear the occasional bullet pinging off the roof. It occurred to me that it would be a terrible night for any poor bird trying to fly over the city.</p><p>This was before the era of cell phones (at least in Albania), and the missionary community relied on 2-way radios for communication. I listened in horror as a nightmare scenario unfolded on the dock in Durres for those who had participated in the British evacuation. The landing craft was overwhelmed by Albanians, who were just as desperate to get out as anyone else. It ended up being forced to pull back leaving a mix of frightened ex-pats and angry locals on the shore. The British government had organized a convoy of vehicles to transport its citizens from Tirana to the port, and all these vehicles were taken as a consolation prize by local thugs who had failed to get on board the ship. With their cars gone and their rescue boat unable to dock, the Brits and other foreigners spent the most terrifying night of their lives there on the dock. One missionary was grazed in the head by a stray bullet. I talked to others who had to be treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the experience.</p><p>(By the way, years later I hosted a short-term team from the States, and the team leader turned out to be the guy who had called from California and urged me to join the British evacuation. I had the chance to tell him in person what bad advice he had given and how thankful I was not to have taken it!)</p><p>The next day the rebel of the youth group showed up again and invited me for a coffee. Amazingly, we actually found a café open. We were sitting there under an awning sipping our cappuccinos when the American helicopters came flying over. They were enormous, very loud, and flying very low. They looked like ships crossing the sky, one after the other. Everyone stopped shooting and whatever else they were doing and stared at the sky. I turned to my friend and said, “I think my ride’s here. I’ll see you later.”</p><p>The evacuation was conducted from the US embassy housing compound, the perimeter of which was well secured by heavily armed young Marines. The order and discipline inside was in sharp contrast to the fiasco in Durres the evening before and the chaos all around us. Before loading us on the helicopters, the Marines offered us juice and doughnuts, diapers, and medical assistance for whomever needed it. They also put a stamp in our passports which required us to reimburse the government for the expense of airlifting us out. If we failed to do so, our passports would become invalid. All things considered, it wasn’t a lot of money – about $300 if my memory serves me correctly.</p><p>One of Marines was carrying a big rocket launcher or some such thing on his shoulder, and a fellow evacuee asked him, “What’s that?”</p><p>“Sir,” he deadpanned, “That’s in case we need a large hole in something.”</p><p>The helicopters dropped us off on the USS Nassau, which was waiting in the Adriatic. There was a table set up for registration and orientation, and there were even postcards for sale with a picture of the ship. Amazed, I asked the guy who was signing me in, “How many evacuations have you guys done?”</p><p>“This is the first one, sir, but we practice this all the time!” he replied.</p><p>The ship docked in Brindisi, Italy. From there my teammates and I made our way by ferry then bus to join the rest of the team near Athens. After waiting there a couple of weeks it became apparent that the situation was going to remain unsettled for some time. We decided to return to the States for fundraising a year earlier than we had planned. But before doing so, we made an exploratory trip to Macedonia, which would become our next place of service.</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-84677346888903145102009-05-16T22:41:00.001-07:002009-05-16T22:41:04.396-07:00AK 47 stories<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/583900193/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/583900193_dbabf819a6_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/583900193/">kalashnikov</a> <br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span><br clear="all" /><p>Last time I went to get my hair cut, my barber told me that he had seen a clip of me on the internet shooting an AK47 assault rifle. This came as quite a shock to me. I did shoot an AK47 once, but I hadn’t been aware that the incident had been filmed. I have a couple of photos on my laptop, which I’ve shown to friends, but I’ve been very careful to keep those pictures off the web. My barber said that he found the clip by googling “AK47 kallash”. (“Kallash” is the Albanian nickname for the AK47 Kalashnikov.) I tried this and didn’t find anything, so I don’t know whether or not the incriminating footage is really out there or my barber was mistaken. Anyway, this incident got me thinking about my AK47 encounters here in the Balkans. I’ve decided to post some of those stories, so keep watching this spot in the days to come.</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-38661218970982654362009-03-25T13:44:00.001-07:002009-03-25T13:44:48.645-07:00Mavrovo church<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3146240109/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3246/3146240109_8767211701_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3146240109/">Mavrovo church</a> <br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span><br clear="all" /><p>God outlives the houses we build for Him.</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-58936109735122345572009-03-16T12:14:00.000-07:002009-03-17T22:31:42.943-07:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">Deja vu from a Muslim sermon</span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">When I was a child, family devotions was a daily ritual in our house. My father, who has most of the New Testament committed to memory (Seriously!) was really big on memorization. In addition to scripture memory he sometimes had us memorize poems -- like </span><a href="http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~tbushey/quote.html"><span style="font-size:130%;">this one</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;"> for example. Another of the poems I remember learning was called "If Jesus Came to Your House." Click </span><a href="http://blessingsforlife.com/favforwards/jesustoyourhouse.htm"><span style="font-size:130%;">here</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;"> to read the text.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">Last Friday I was riding around in my new STL car listening to a Muslim sermon on a local Albanian radio station. Preaching just as passionately as any Pentecostal I've heard, the imam posed a strangely familiar question: "</span><em><span style="font-size:130%;">What would you do if Muhammad came to your house?</span></em><span style="font-size:130%;">" Although this version wasn't delivered in rhyming couplets, the similarities were almost too striking to be coincidental. </span></p><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">"Would you put away your worldy magazines and blow the dust off the Qu'ran?" </span></em><span style="font-size:130%;">the imam asked.</span><em><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Would you hide the alcohol?</span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Would you switch off the soap operas?</span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Would you turn off the techno music?</span></em><span style="font-size:130%;"> (At this point in the sermon I turned to the young Albanian riding with me. "So Muhammad doesn't like techno?" "Apparently not," he chuckled.)</span></p><p><em><span style="font-size:130%;">Would you change your modern European clothes?"</span></em></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">Both the Christian and Muslim versions seemed to reflect a fairly shallow spirituality. But to give credit where credit is due the Muslim version at least gave a nod to social justice, challenging the listener to consider whether he would help the poor neighbor that he had heretofore ignored. I looked back at the text just to make sure, but the Christian version is sadly lacking any reference to loving the neighbor.</span></p><p><br /></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-30736286000990667412008-12-25T00:46:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:53:04.950-08:00<p><span style="font-size:130%;">Interesting intersection</span></p><p>The Prime Minister of Kosova announced yesterday with the unanimous backing of parliament that a major street in the capitol is to be named after George Bush. George Bush Street runs into Mother Teresa Street and intersects Bill Clinton Street.</p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-15137852769056481242008-12-22T08:42:00.000-08:002008-12-22T08:57:09.297-08:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">A violent variation on the Christmas story</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">(This is a piece I wrote for a Christmas newsletter back in '05, but I liked it so much I thought I'd try to put it back in circulation.)</span></p><p>I’ve got a great idea for a new kind of Christmas pageant. I would set up the front of the stage with all the usual elements — shepherds and star, sheep and swaddling clothes. For tradition’s sake, I would stick with three wise men, and even allow for some singing angels — though the Bible never tells us how many wise men there were and nowhere says that the angels sang.<br /></p><p>Granted that there are more important points at which our familiar image of the nativity isn’t quite accurate. After all, childbirth at its best is a bloody, painful affair. I’ve been in the delivery room twice, and let’s just say I’m glad I never had to coach Lamaze in a barn! But just for effect, my pageant would feature the sweet, sentimental, sanitized version that we all know and love. At least at the beginning...</p><p>Then the curtain at the rear would open to reveal a scene as nightmarish as anything dreamed up by Stephen King. (Hey, since I’m merely imagining here, I don’t have to worry about budgetary constraints, right?) A woman in the agony of childbirth... A hideous monster poised to devour the baby... A fierce struggle between otherworldly beings with drastic consequences for the inhabitants of earth… Silent night indeed!</p><p>Front stage, the “Hallmark” version of the Gospel account; backstage, Revelation 12 in all its horror. So you’re still wondering what does Revelation 12 have to do with Christmas? Think of Herod’s genocidal jealousy as the precise point at which the spiritual reality of Revelation 12 protrudes into the flesh-and-blood reality of Luke 2. Superimpose the slaughter of the baby boys in Bethlehem recorded in Matthew 2 onto the angels’ announcement in Luke 2 and suddenly “Peace on Earth!” sounds more like a war cry than a Christmas carol. </p><p>According to the last verse of Revelation 12, the war didn’t end when the Dragon failed to devour the baby. He has now declared war on “those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” (Rev. 12:17 NIV) Let us consider this Christmas a challenge to reenlist, a call to arms — but always with the weapons of the Lamb, never with those of the Dragon.</p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">For the basic idea of the connection between Revelation 12 and the Christmas story, I am indebted to the book <em>Wild at Heart</em> by John Eldredge.</span><br /><br /></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-25065337424877755772008-12-21T13:10:00.000-08:002008-12-21T13:20:37.774-08:00<p>Worth watching! </p><p>Thanks to Glen Davis for tipping me off to this:</p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3hM</p><p>P.S. One of you technically literate types help me out here. What do I have to do to embed a Youtube clip in my blog like you all do? </p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-3118746040218073762008-11-27T21:37:00.000-08:002008-11-27T21:39:08.768-08:00<span style="font-size:130%;">Read <a href="http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/11/26/macedonia-betting-gambling-oped-cx_sl_1128lee.html">here </a>about the surprising way in which the recession could make Americans more like Macedonians. Fascinating article!</span>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-35078564399088470512008-11-23T13:15:00.001-08:002008-11-23T22:33:26.488-08:00<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3052334356/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/3052334356_0216276329_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style=" margin-top: 0px;font-size:0.9em;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosovakid/3052334356/">100 Years of the Albanian Alphabet</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/kosovakid/">kosova cajun</a></span> <p><span style="font-size:180%;">On the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Albanian Alphabet</span></p><p><span style="font-size:180%;">Part III</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">(For Parts I and II scroll down.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">After Gjerasim’s death, his family and friends carried on his spiritual, educational and patriotic program. The movement that he was a part of came to be known as the National Rebirth (“rilindja”, sometimes translated “renaissance”, which is just the French word for “rebirth”). It is striking that Gjerasim and other key leaders who had experienced a personal, spiritual rebirth helped to make possible a national, cultural rebirth. Gjerasim’s influence on the Rebirth was such that his hometown of Manastir (Bitola) and his later base of operations, Korça, became twin epicenters of the movement.<br /><br />The crowning achievement of the Rebirth was the Congress of Manastir, a gathering of Albanians in November of 1908 to establish the alphabet. Gjerasim had been dead 14 years by this time, but the conference was hosted in the Qiriazi family home by Gjerasim’s younger brother Gjergj. Their two sisters Sevastia and Parashqevia also participated as well as Grigor Cilka, the pastor of the church that Gjerasim had founded in Korça, and several other evangelical believers. In fact the only non-Albanian present was missionary Violet Kennedy. (She was an observer without voting rights.)<br /><br />In a recent interview in the Albanian Tribune, scholar Reshat Nexhipi said that Manastir is for Albanians what Mecca is for Muslims. Here is how Dr. Nexhipi replied when asked why the Congress was held in Manastir: “Because, in addition to others, the patriotic Qiriazi family operated here, five members, three men and two women, each more patriotic and civilized than the other. Especially Gjerasim, without which Manastir probably wouldn’t have turned into a center for the National Albanian movement and the birthplace of the alphabet. The two sisters – Sevastia dhe Parashqevia – were the most emancipated women in the Balkans and beyond. They spoke 8 languages, Parashqevia was the only female at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.”<br /><br />So what about the alphabet? How can it be that the alphabet wasn’t established until 1907 when Gjerasim was already distributing Scripture portions in Albanian in the 1880s – not to mention the baptism formula in 1462 and the Meshari in 1555? Of course Albanian had been reduced to writing long before the Congress of Manastir, but there was no agreed-upon standard alphabet. The language was sometimes rendered with Greek characters, sometimes with Cyrillic, sometimes with Arabic, and sometimes with Latin. Naturally there were competing interests advocating each of these options. And even among those who favored Latin letters, there was no consensus as to precisely which letters and what each one should represent.<br /><br />The Congress ended up agreeing on a Latin-based alphabet with 36 characters, each representing a single sound. The choice of Latin characters was not without controversy. In the aftermath of the Congress, Muslim clerics in the city of Elbasan led demonstrations insisting that use of anything other than Arabic letters would make them infidels. (Ironically Turkey itself switched to a Latin-based alphabet in 1928 as part of Ataturk’s reforms.)<br /><br />Although the Albanians are still divided by religion and by national borders, their unified alphabet has helped them maintain ethnic identity in the face of overwhelming pressure from fierce enemies. And the choice of a Latin-based alphabet was a gesture which revealed the delegates’ desire to place their nation in a European/Western cultural framework.<br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />I want to be tentative here, because I’m expressing a conclusion that as far as I know is original to me – always a dangerous undertaking – and one that I have reached only recently. There’s a good chance that I’m overreaching here. If so, I’m willing to be corrected.<br /><br />Christian missionary work has often been accused of being an arm of empire. This is a legitimate charge – one that we must not only repent of but continually guard against. But the story of Protestant missions work among the Albanians seems to stand in sharp contrast to this all too familiar narrative. Rather than being a steam roller that crushed indigenous culture, the Gospel seems to have functioned as a subversive force that undermined empire and fostered freedom for an oppressed people. If this is true, it's not because those early missionaries to the Albanians had a healthier missiology than anybody else; in fact, it has much more to do with the historical circumstances in which they worked. The Gospel always seems to work better from a position of weakness than one of strength.<br /><br />I can think of a host of caveats with which to quality this thesis. Of course there were a thousand other forces battering the Ottoman Empire by that time. (Even if the Gospel played a significant role in the Albanian Rebirth as I am arguing here, that movement was only one of a multitude of nationalist movements.) Of course there is always a dark side to any nationalist movement. Of course the Protestant missionaries -- and Gjerasim himself -- had their flaws. But despite all of this, it’s a really wonderful story.</span></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-48637706891684394672008-11-23T08:18:00.000-08:002008-11-23T22:36:38.675-08:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet</span></p><p><span style="font-size:180%;">Part II</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">(Scroll down for Part I.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">Buzuku notwithstanding, during those 500 years of Turkish rule, most Albanians adopted Islam. Conversions at the point of the sword were the exception rather than the rule, but there was always pressure. Christians in Turkish territory paid much higher taxes and were treated as second class citizens. The empire was organized along religious lines, so that when an Albanian, a Greek, or a Serb converted to Islam, he was said to have become a Turk. By the same token, an Albanian who belonged to the Orthodox faith was automatically considered Greek. <br /><br />In the 19th Century as the Turkish Empire began to unravel, Albanians (along with the other Balkan peoples) began feeling intense ethnic pride and a hunger for freedom. In the case of Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks, for example, religion was a unifying factor in their struggle to break free. However, Albanians were divided among three faiths: Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim. All three of these had been used at various times in history as a force for domination by foreign powers: Catholicism by Rome, Orthodoxy by Greece, and Islam by Turkey. None of the three allowed worship in the mother tongue at that time. For Catholics of course Vatican II was still 100 years away. The Greek Orthodox Church of that time alternated between denying that the Albanian language even existed and calling it "an accursed language." And Muslims must worship in Arabic to this day. In light of all this it's no surprise that many Albanian patriots came to see religion as a divisive and damaging force. A poet by the name of Vaso Pasha summed up the feelings of many of his fellow Albanians with the famous line, "The religion of Albanians is Albaianism." (Communist dictator Enver Hoxha would quote this to justify his decision in 1967 to make Albania the world's first constitutionally atheistic state.)<br /><br />This was the historical context in which a young Albanian man in the city of Manastir (present day Bitola in Macedonia) was introduced to a living, transforming connection to God by Protestant missionaries in his city. His name was Gjerasim Qiriazi, and he discovered in his new faith a relationship with the God who spoke his language. He went on to study at a Bible school in Bulgaria after which he was sent to Skopje (where I now live and work) to pastor a Slavic congregation. From here he went to work for the British and Foreign Bible Society, which three hundred years after the Meshari, had begun working to translate the Scriptures into Albanian. Gjerasim traveled throughout the Albanian lands to distribute the Word of God in his mother tongue.<br /><br />In the course of his travels Gjerasim rejoiced with his fellow Albanians as, for the first time in their lives, they held in their hands the printed word in their own language. But he also lamented the fact that so few of them knew how to read it. These experiences awakened in him a new passion, which led to a new pursuit. In 1892 in the city of Korça, he and his sisters opened the first ever school for girls in the Albanian language. (The first Albanian school for boys had opened just five years earlier in the same city.) Gjerasim also planted a church in Korça and established the Albanian Evangelical Brotherhood. <br /><br />Gjerasim’s life motto was, “Friends for God; light for the people; blessings for the motherland.” His faithfulness to this course proved costly. In 1884 he was captured by brigands and held for ransom for six months. Their brutality left him with health consequences for the rest of his life. Just as Pharisees and Sadducees found common cause to oppose Jesus in his day, Greeks and Turks managed to unite in opposition to this seditious book salesman despite their hatred of one another. He had to fight fierce opposition at every step. In 1893 he survived an assassination attempt, apparently sponsored by elements in the Greek Orthodox Church. As it turned out, his enemies could have saved themselves the trouble; he died less than a year later at only 35 years of age.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">To be continued...</span></p><p><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></p>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-3971950096176665132008-11-20T09:04:00.000-08:002008-11-23T13:20:31.971-08:00<p><span style="font-size:180%;">On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet</span></p><p><span style="font-size:180%;">Part I</span><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /></span></p><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Disclaimer: I recently helped to organize an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Albanian alphabet. As I was writing a letter to my friends and supporters about this event, I felt compelled to help them understand its significance, but the letter I was writing was getting much too long and complicated. So I decided that I would write a blog post that would fill in some detail for those who were interested. Then when I set out to write this entry, once again it started getting away from me. I recognize a fundamental problem with what I've written here. If you're Albanian or someone who works with Albanians, you probably won't see anything here you don't know already know. If you're <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">not</span> an Albanian or someone who works with Albanians, you'll probably just find all this tedious. I guess I'm writing it for my own benefit as much as anything. I want to put into words what I've been learning. I'm no historian and no Albanolog, just a friend of the Albanians. If you disagree with my interpretation of events, or if I've gotten something flat out wrong, feel free to let me know.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I have a map of the Balkan Peninsula from the year 1850 -- an original, not a reproduction or photocopy. It was a gift from a friend in Taos, New Mexico, and I treasure it highly. The word "Balkan" or "Balkans" doesn't appear anywhere on my map; instead the title is "Turkey in Europe". That's what they called this part of the world back then.<br /><br />One of the interesting things about my map is that it captures a snapshot of a very turbulent time when the Turkish Empire in Europe was on the verge of breaking up. On my map the southern part of Greece is not colored in because it was no longer part of Turkey in Europe; it had gained its independence in 1829. In the years that followed the rest of the Balkans would also tear away from Turkey.<br /><br />By that time Turkey had ruled this part of the world for almost 500 years. At the very same time that the sunlight of the Reformation had been breaking through in Western Europe, the dark cloud of the Turkish empire was descending on the part of the world we now know as the Balkans.* The infamous battle of Kosovo Field, which is usually considered to mark the beginning of Turkish rule in the Balkans took place in 1389 -- just five years after Wycliffe's English translation of the New Testament.<br /><br />But there were rays of light that reached the Balkans around this time. The earliest existing fragment written in the Albanian language dates back to 1462 and consists of the following words: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" -- 5 centuries <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">to the year</span> before the Catholic Church <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_ii">officially decided to allow the liturgy to be recited in local langugages</a>. And the earliest book in Albanian was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshari">the Meshari of Gjon Buzuki</a>(the Missal) a prayer book completed in 1555. The Meshari contained excerpts from the Bible, Catholic liturgy and catechism translated into Albanian.<br /><br />The Meshari was completed in 1555, just 38 years after Luther had nailed his theses to the Wittenberg Door. By this time the Counter-Reformation was in full swing, and the Catholic Church was busy banning books which dared to translate the Word of God into the vernacular. Nevertheless Gjon Buzuku, the Catholic priest who compiled it, had the foresight to recognize that if Albanian Christians were going to resist the Islamic tide sweeping their lands, they needed God's Word in their own language.<br /><br />Here is his own explanation of his purpose found the in postscript of the Meshari: "I, Don John, son of Benedict Buzuku, having often considered that our language had in it nothing intelligible from the Holy Scriptures, wished for the sake of our people to attempt, as far as I was able, to enlighten the minds of those who understand, so that they may comprehend how great and powerful and forgiving our Lord is to those who love him with all their hearts. I beg of you from today on to go to church more often to hear the word of God."<br /><br />To be continued...</span>kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37341691.post-4484855365059686802008-11-12T06:59:00.000-08:002008-11-20T10:16:05.380-08:00Ok, I really like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_bell">Rob Bell</a> and all, but is it just me or does he sound just like Kermit the Frog?kosovacajunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09640258022585567529noreply@blogger.com5