Ripe Mango Chronicles

Last night I held a seven month old baby boy, who couldn’t have weighed more than 10 pounds. He was literally skin and bones. His skin hung loose over his fragile little skeleton. I was shocked to hear that he was looking so much better than he was just a few short weeks ago. My mind started to wonder what he must have looked like a few weeks ago if THIS was better! As I looked into the eyes of this precious baby I knew only one thing; it wasn’t right. No baby should ever have to suffer the way this tiny little boy was suffering. No baby should ever have to go hungry for days on end. No baby should have to sleep on a dirty cement floor. There is so much more, we were created for so much more. I hope this little baby gets to experience the “so much more” part of life. When I see Hannah and Jeremiah, their happy smiling faces, and their chubby arms and legs I realize that their lives were saved. There is no question in my mind that they would have died if we had not taken them in. But wh...

Dave Matthews says, “You and me together, we can do anything.” The Black Eyed Peas say, “One tribe, one time, one planet, one race, it’s all one blood… we are one people.” Zac Efron and the rest of the High School Musical gang say, “We’re all in this together.” The Bible says that we as Christians form one body; all parts working together in harmony. There is a Haitian Proverb that says, “Many hands make heavy loads light.” I think we’re on to something here. We’re not meant to carry our burdens alone, we’re not meant to face the dark corners of this world by ourselves. We were created for community. We were created to support each other, to love each other, to share in the joy and laughter of those around us but also to help carry each others' burdens, to take on the pain and suffering of our fellow man. We were created to work together, each and every one of us working together to make this world a better place. Are we? Are you?

Can our sins be used for good? Romans 8:28 says, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.” In John 20 Jesus says, “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” I’m sitting here thinking about this, thinking about the wording of that. “If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” We need to DO SOMETHING with our sin. I’m a visual person, so let me paint a picture for you: picture a garbage dump, it’s smelly, it’s gross, it’s massive, the pile just keeps getting bigger and no one knows what to do with all that useless garbage stinking up the neighborhood. Then some genius comes along with this brilliant idea: Recycling! Who would have thought we could convert waste into a reusable material. But that’s not all this genius came up with. Not only are we going to recycle, but we’re also going to reduce our waste and reuse what we can. Stay with me here and you’ll see where I’m goin...

I recently read the book Blue Like Jazz. The book itself was very scattered and I found it hard to follow, but there were random quotes and thoughts throughout the book that really got me thinking. The writer talks about living in the woods with a group of hippies for a short period of time. Through that experience he was changed: he didn’t make a conscious choice to change, he just did. He was still the same person but he was different. He had seen the world through the eyes of someone completely different from him, he had learned to appreciate the thoughts and views of a group of people he had never before cared to associate with. In the short time he had spent in the woods he had started to absorb the culture, the attitudes, the passions of those around him. For a few months after he left the woods he becomes this in-between guy, this part hippie part yuppy guy. After a while he goes back to hanging out with his yuppy friends, and absorbs their culture, attitude and passions again t...

God has been speaking to me over the past few weeks. It's always a wonderful thing when God speaks to you, although sometimes it's painful. No one likes to be told they're doing something wrong. As much as we try to pretend, no one truly enjoys being criticized. Yet, the Bible says we are the clay and God is the potter. We need to be pliable and allow God to form us and mold us into the person He wants us to be. Which means sometimes God needs to let us know when we start down a path He hasn’t laid out for us. I am so accustomed to my way of doing things, to my way of thinking. I am set in my ways and to be completely honest I don't want to change. Change is hard. Change takes effort. Change takes energy. Change hurts. Change is humbling. Change means I have to be willing to say, "I need to do something different, because what I'm doing isn't working." I like to think I have it all together. I like to think, "I have arrived." I like to think...

It's been a strange week for me. I've been sick with a very bizarre illness. I usually like to keep my illnesses quiet for my mother's sake. I don't like to make her worry, but I am better now and this story is just too interesting to keep to myself. It all started with a little tiny dot on my side. It must have been itchy, but I don't really remember. I'm often scratching so it didn't really stand out, except for the fact that it kept growing. It took about 4 or 5 days before it really went wild, but on that last day it went from a couple inches wide to a small dinner plate sized, red, itchy, swollen, hard area of weirdness. I went to Grant and Sandy's to see what Grant thought (he's an Advanced Care Paramedic and quite handy to have around!) He told me it looked like some sort of bite that I was having an allergic reaction to. He told me to load up on Benedryl for the night and recommended I get down to the clinic first thing in the morning. Thankf...

Today was strange for me. I sometimes think I'm running out of "firsts" when it comes to the kids at Hope House but then something always happens and I think to myself, "Well, here's something new." The kindergarten kids usually stop by my office when school lets out. Steevenson is a bit of a tattle tale so I am always well informed if one of the other HH kids in his class gets into trouble. Today was no exception. He let me know that one of the girls got in trouble today for showing a boy in their class her underwear. Apparently the little boy asked if he could see her undies, she said sure and up went her skirt. This little incident reminded me that I've been meaning to have a talk with the kids about their "private areas", what's OK and what's not OK, and of course what to do if someone tries to touch their private areas. And so I spent the afternoon with the kids (in separate groups according to sex and age) talking about these thin...