These Are Days

Several months ago, after talking about the "people in our neighborhood" during Ms. Marie's music class, I opted to quiz my almost five-year-old son about what vocation he might be leaning toward. Without hesitation, Thomas replied that he would like to be an artist. I have to admit, I was a bit taken back by his response. I figured he would choose something a bit more daring, something that might involve the use of a weapon or might be the impetus of courageous feats. And I feel like my assumption does have credence. After all, Thomas does seem to spend an extraordinary amount of his day playing or thinking about Star Wars and waging battles between good and evil. Nonetheless, at this point in his life, he aspires to be an artist and now when he is not busy constructing detailed Lego planes complete with multiple blasters and lightsabers or his new favorite structure (and mine too) - a ship with spider webs jutting off the sides containing prisoners of war like Asoka Tano (if you don't know who she is, you need to brush up on your Star Wars knowledge) - he is usually questioning where paper, pen and often blue tape (thank you Michelle Leichty) and scissors might be found.

Thomas' younger brothers too would love to demonstrate their artistic abilities, but this desire has been temporarily squashed by one very mean mother. You see, I am convinced that a pen or crayon in either Russell's or Elliot's hand will be transformed into a weapon of mass destruction. While their desire to "draw" may indeed appear to be well-intentioned and guileless, do not be fooled by the movement of their chubby arms back and forth in an imitation of coloring, it is a sham. Notice the gleam in their eyes, there is no doubt that they are planning devious acts.

And again, I believe this conviction is likewise founded. For example, last Friday, I innocently gave Russell a peanut, an ordinary item that unless you have peanut allergies cannot render much harm. But oh Russell, no sooner had I turned my back than he proceeded to shove the peanut up his right nostril. No amount of blowing could remove the peanut, so after calling Thomas in from the living room and giving him specific instructions to push his pointer finger into Russell's left nostril and tell Russell to "blow," I retreated upstairs and returned with a pair of tweezers and carefully dislodged the grievous item from his nasal orifice.

And then there is Elliot. For those of you who know him, I feel like I really do not need to say any more. I am convinced that this child will most certainly be the death of me. Last week as the temperatures escalated into the upper 90's, our air conditioner broke. Though we tried to put on brave faces and remind ourselves that many people do in fact live without air conditioning, the heat and the inescapable sweat ultimately became unbearable and we sought respite at my parents' for a couple days. In addition to frequently turing my father's oxygen machine off and then yelling, "BEEP!" my sweet Jelly Nut, after finding himself alone in the kitchen, proceeded to climb up onto my mother's table and relish in the white bowl of sugar he discovered. Apparently when my mother found him his face was smeared and sticky and he was sitting in a pool of the white granulated substance (oh where was my camera?).

The moral of my stories is, as Thomas likes to say, "you never know what is going to happen in the Johnson house."

Dancing for Water

Pop science and pastor's sermons are full of anecdotes about blind men confused by what they see when they are either medically or miraculously (why not both?) granted the gift of sight. So I guess I should not be surprised that I am only now, three years after having my own eyes opened to the tragedy in Africa, beginning to realize the role I have to play. During the year prior to our first adoption, when Beth and I were still a young, free couple in the enchanting city of Chicago, I held two freelance jobs in addition to my full-time employment - proof I had too much time on my hands!

The first was as webmaster for the newly founded Crux Magazine. Crux then existed online as an online journal, but now is "full grown" as Salvo Magazine. It was while performing this job that I remember running across an article by Liam Scheff that, among other things, asserted that HIV/AIDS in Africa is being treated as a sexual disease, but is above all a disease of poverty. Like malaria before it, HIV/AIDS is set to wipe out the impoverished while deaths and even new cases dwindle in the wealthy west. I remember being struck by the idea that above all else, above drug cocktails and condom lessons, the citizens of Africa were in desperate need of clean drinking water.

Perhaps this article affected me so strongly because my other freelance job was with the non-profit Awassa Children's Project, an organization dedicated to housing, feeding, educating, providing health care and AIDS Education to children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Africa. (I actually edited this video for them.) I remember driving into the heart of Chicago after work to Bullet Proof Film and working on their old Media 100 to cut together video images of beautiful Ethiopian children orphaned by the ongoing pandemic.

With this newly found information, I understood what Bono - a long time favorite artist - was doing when he used his celebrity to urge wealthy nations to forgive African debt. And I was proud of our country when George W. Bush promised an unprecedented 15 billion dollars in financial aid to the fight against AIDS in Africa in his 2003 State of the Union Address. However, in spite of understanding the reality of HIV/AIDS in Africa, I let it remain someone else's problem.

Then came Tesi. When Beth first met Tesi, she and her husband were already in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. And after bringing her son home, and seeing firsthand what was going on in Africa, she wanted to do even more about it. So she asked us to dance. Dance you ask? How will that help? Well, we're dancing for a reason, or more specifically for water. She and her sister-in-law started a blog, Dancing for Water, then coerced and cajoled amazing amounts of people into dancing, all to raise awareness for Charity: Water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. (You may even recognize Beth in this video.)

As Beth explained in the previous blog, we have decided to follow in Tesi's footsteps as we adopt our next child from Ethiopia. But tonight, we follow in her footsteps and dance! Or rather, get the boys to dance. As you enjoy the video below, keep in mind why we're dancing and afterward be sure to check out Charity: Water. Donate if you can, but if you can't... DANCE!

What Love Has Done

Several weeks ago I quite literally stumbled across a book I had borrowed from a friend who spent a year of her life using her gifts and talents as a nurse in Sierre Leone, Africa, a country deemed one of the poorest in the world. Shoved under a table in our bedroom, surrounded by empty holy water bottles and forgotten Christmas cards from years past, I pulled out the book, wiped the dust off the cover and looked at it for the first time in nearly two years. Quite honestly, I knew the book was about Africa when I borrowed it but I was ignorant of its content. The work was a collection of essays from a variety of sources including Richard Stearns, President of World Vision, Bono, lead singer of U2, and Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa. Despite the diversity of the authors, their message was a collected cry for the world - governments, churches, individuals - to wake up and unite against the African AIDS crisis. As I absorbed the nature of the book, I broke down and cried again over Africa and the slaughter caused on this continent and her people by HIV/AIDS.

Last night I pulled a book entitled African Kingdoms off its shelf. Skimming its content, I read how missionaries from Alexandria, the commercial capital of Egypt and the spiritual center of the Christian faith in Northern Africa, had aided in the conversion of Ethiopia to Christianity in 333 CE. I saw pictures of churches hewed from stone with names like St. George and St. Mary, with Greek crosses, as well as frescoes of the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well for Christ and the Three Holy Youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, written on the walls. This was the land from which many Orthodox saints emerged - saints like St. Anthony the Great, who in obedience to Christ's words to the rich man, sold all his worldly possessions and retired to the desert where he lived as a hermit; St. Moses the Ethiopian, a robber who converted to Christianity under the influence of an abbot whose monastery St. Moses was attempting to pillage; and St. Mary of Egypt, who after divinely being denied entrance into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem repented of her debauched way of life and fled to the desert where she lived the remainder of her years in physical solitude, devoting herself to Christ through aesthetic efforts.

A few months ago I was painfully ignorant of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa poignantly described as "a tsunami in slow motion." Yes, like so many Americans, I knew that Africa was being hit particularly hard by this disease, but I had no idea that over 34 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have been infected with HIV and that nearly 15 million children had already been orphaned as a result. I knew there was extreme poverty in Ethiopia and that our adoption agency, Holt International, had recently opened up international adoptions from this country, but I did not realize how dire the situation was and continues to be.

Four months ago I had never heard of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city, or of Haregewoin Teffera, an Ethiopian woman and Orthodox Christian who after suffering the loss of her husband and her eldest daughter began to receive child after countless child into her home to nurture and care and nurse the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds caused by poverty, disease, and death, so that these little ones might be granted new life. I had never heard of author Melissa Faye Greene or her work There Is No Me Without You but after crying through the first two chapters of this book, a still small voice began to speak to me about the possibility of adopting a child from Ethiopia. I objected, wholeheartedly and with tears. "No. I can't. It is too hard. I do a horrible job incorporating Korean culture into our lives, how can you expect me to incorporate another? It will be a betrayal of my children. I may never return to Korea." But despite my numerous objections, I knew in my heart what we were to do and hesitatingly I began to disclose to friends my belief that we were supposed to adopt from Ethiopia.

Today we finally sent in our adoption application, which has been sitting on our counter for over three months. The application itself is a bit of a mess - I had to cross out Korea as the country we wanted to adopt from and write in its place Ethiopia and make a couple other adjustments related to this change. I am at peace with our decision and excited about the adventure ahead of us, recognizing Christ's call is often difficult, fraught with obstacles, and a bit demanding as He continues to ask each one of us over and over again to move away from our ordinary and proper places. Leave your father and mother. Let the dead bury the dead. Keep your hand on the plow and do not look back. Sell what you own, give the money to the poor and come follow me (Luke 14:26; 9:60, 62; 18:22). What this means for each one of us will vary dramatically. For some, it may indeed mean selling all they have and living a life of total poverty or living in caves in the desert. For most of us, it will mean striving to create peace filled lives where God has placed us, paying close attention to discern His unique vocation for each of us in the midst of our daily lives, and sometimes following Him to places we would not have thought to go.

Man cannot live by Star Wars alone, but given the chance he will try.

Thomas looking pitiful, missing his mom

With Beth's four day absence still weeks ahead of us, Thomas and I began giving each other knowing glances that reminded me of the glances my sister and I would share in junior high when we knew our parents were going to be out of the house for an extended period. Glances like these are nothing but trouble. Thomas would also occasionally tap the top of his head when Beth was not looking. This is sign language for, "I have an idea. Let's watch Star Wars when mommy leaves." My reply to this is always the "shh" sign - we can't let mommy know!

As you can tell by this public post, our secret rendezvous' in a galaxy far, far away are hardly secret. I think Thomas even guesses as much, but the game is still fun. And it makes our father-son time together all the more exciting. For the past year, depending on the timing of Beth's absence, we've had two other guests at our Star Wars screenings - Russell and Elliot. This has seriously hampered our Star Wars viewing, as these two are only allowed to "watch" the first Star Wars movie. (For geeks, that's chronologically by release date, not episodically.) Watch is in quotes because generally speaking the movie is simply on as the twins play legos, paying little attention to movie Thomas and I are watching.

Daddy's famous yogurt with cinnamon swirl

You see, in my boys' world, the Star Wars movies are "released" one at a time each year on their birthdays. For the past couple years, Thomas and I have had overnights on the pull-out couch for the "release" of Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. With the twin's birthday just a couple weeks past, this weekend was the official Russell and Elliot premiere of the Empire Strikes Back. And three nights was perfect, because we watch the movies one act at a time - usually no more than 45 minutes.

Russell and Elliot getting cleaned up for church

So each night after dinner the four of us boys would go down stairs and snuggle up on the couch. Thursday night was the battle on Hoth. Friday night was Luke's meeting with Yoda and the Millennium Falcon's chase through the asteroid belt. Saturday night was the carbon freezing of Han Solo on Cloud City and the startling revelation of Luke's paternity. It was good times. By that time of day, I had little energy for anything else and the boys really did want to snuggle. Elliot had my left knee, Russell was under my right arm, and Thomas - always wanting to be like Elliot - sat on my right knee. This situation lasted for five minutes before Russell was off to destroy something. Elliot would last a bit longer. And ultimately it would end up Thomas and I enjoying our favorite space opera together.

Stopping by Hy-Vee before church to get food for the picnic

On Sunday, the four of us all went to church. This was a major feat in-and-of-itself, but seemed important to do since it was Pentecost. Thanks to the help of many, many women in the church (but especially Juliana and Angela), we survived. Thomas was great, but of course this was partially due to the fact that I had bribed him with - you guessed it - one final Star Wars viewing. So on Sunday night, as I put the twins to bed, I put in Return of the Jedi for Thomas. (At four, he's still figuring out the plot-line and I think he actually wanted to see what happened to Han.) When the boys were in bed, I came down to join him.

Thomas' new favorite game to play while watching Star Wars is for us to pick characters and voice their thoughts. In the final act of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader's conscious was voiced by Thomas and Luke's by myself. This generally amounts to, "Ouch, that hurt when you cut off my hand," as Luke returns Vader's favor from the previous episode and "Eww, you're uglier than I thought," as Luke takes off Vader's mask. (Once again for geeks, it's a lot like MST3K.)

Thomas held this position for several minutes upon hearing mommy should be home soon.

As we were going to bed last night, I think we were both a bit Star Wars-ed out. And more to the point, I think we were both "missing mommy." It was like the simultaneous full and empty feeling accompanying the consumption of too many sweets. I told Thomas how I was feeling. He said he was missing mommy, too. We decided I may let him watch Star Wars, but Beth's cooking is better. We also decided he was lucky to have both a mommy and a daddy. As I type this up, Beth will be home any minute and the sci-fi free-for-all will be over. I think we'll all be glad to witness the Return of the Mommy.