Miracle

Wow! Mom figured out how to post something on the blog... I didn't think that this would happen until one of us went home to show her how to. It must be the apocalypse. This is surely a momentous day for the cyber world. I little bit about my week: I just had the last of my new classes for this semester, and I think that this is going to be a really busy semester. Tonight I got to go to a Spoken Word (spoken poetry which is really rythmic, almost musical) contest at the only coffee shop in North Minneapolis. It was actually a highschool contest which was organized to send highschool student finalists to a national meet in San Jose, CA. I was quite impressed with these diverse student's abilities and how talented they were in telling their stories. It reminded me of how much crap kids have to go through in the city (parental abuse, violence, unstable families, etc) and made me really sad. This, along with the whole Iraq war thing, has been really on my mind lately. All of those Iraqis who are being affected by our policies. All of those soldiers and families (i think that Jeremiah will need to stay in Iraq three extra months) who are affected. Sometimes everything seems so out of our control. Kind of a downer day I guess. But on the other hand, seeing those highschoolers having a safe place to express themselves and grow was pretty uplifting as well.

Another story which brings me hope is the story of a Native American lady, Sheri, who lives close to us and has taken in three different children from a single mom who has three children which she cares for already. She has basically adopted these three Native American children (unofficially) and has had the oldest one for more the four years. Recently, she has taken a newborn infant into her house. Her name is Savannah and she is the cutest little baby ever. On top of everything, this woman is on dialasis and has some health problems. Yet despite this, she is a great mom to these kids who would otherwise be taken up into foster care. Some of the girls I know have been helping Sheri with babysitting and supplies... it seems that it really does take a community to raise a child. Last week, we got to take two of her kids to the science museum for free. It was such a fun day and really taught me about the importance of male rolemodels for kids who often see broken, unhealthy male-female relationships.

Hope everything is going well with each of you and keep on blogging. matt

Pictures below are all the kids at the science museum and savannah.