Chaos and Grace in the Slums of the Earth
Note: In March I traveled to Bangkok to write about the "slums of the earth" for Christianity Today. This month, that story is their cover. Here is a small excerpt from it: For the first time in history, one of every two people lives in a city. Some 860 million of...
Tribute to Danm
Danm's funeral is this afternoon. She was the grandmother of the family who Shelly and I lived with when we first moved to Haiti, with whom we've stayed very close for these past ten years. I wrote about Danm in my first book, especially in a chapter "Us....
Do You Know How a Baby Comes Out?
My brother and sister-in-law just had a baby (yea!). He told my almost 8-year-old daughter and I the story on speaker phone. It was special to listen together. After hanging up, I realized that we (her parents) had neglected to tell my daughter quite how the whole...
WHAT CAN WE SAY? Theology for Murder and for Living
(First on Huffington Post.) “Fred,” I ask in Creole last Friday in Port-au-Prince, “do you mind giving us a quick campus tour before we sit to talk?” I work with a nonprofit focused on education in Haiti, and Fred is one of twenty-five Haitian seminary students we...
How Should “We” Tell “Their” Stories? 6 Guiding Principles In Response to Kony 2012
How should we tell stories about people we're trying to help? Individuals, churches, missionaries, and nonprofit groups should ask this regularly. The answer is inextricably bound to the very justice we're trying to promote. The question now has a perfect case study....
My Hypocrisy, To Dust?
"From dust you were formed, to dust you shall return." Those are the Ash Wednesday words. Ashes were rubbed in a cross on my forehead. Maybe on yours too. I gave up soda for Lent. The weeks leading up were busy. Ash Wednesday was here; I hadn't given much thought to...
Two Years After the Earthquake
My thoughts, prayers, and work, my sadness and hope, are with people in Haiti today. I'll be there all next week. A few links while reflecting on the earthquake and the two years since: 1. Today I did a "two years later" interview on Patheos that is here. 2. This...
Just Before the Earth Shook
Just wrote a blog for InterVarsity looking back on their Urbana conference, which I attended with two friends from Haiti just two weeks before the earthquake two years ago. (A theme of twos in that previous sentence.) Thinking back on that event, what has happened...
The Better Beard at Christmas
(Wrote this for InterVarsity's blog.) I’ve never donned a beard or red suit for Christmas. So far that’s my personal line. But something happens when you have kids. Categories of cool, kitsch, hip, tacky, etc., no longer matter much. It’s a short distance from this to...