Storms.

I had a restless night last night, listening to the winds howl and the rain collide against the bedroom windows. I keep checking the calendar, to see if it really is almost June...and yet there is snow in the forecast? Yikes!

And then I began thinking about the days and nights we spent with the Karen people. We were fortunate to be there in very mild weather. No rain. No winds. It was warm and mostly sunny, and our only concern was overheating a little bit on our short walks through the jungle. Even the nights were lovely. Cool, but calm and relatively quiet.

That isn't how it always is there for the people trying to live their lives there. They, too, have to deal with nights like last night, where the winds are whipping and the rains are beating down...only they do it in their modest huts, on their dirt hillsides... And I am certain they do it with the same admirable grace and humility that they manage in their everyday lives.



We brought a few little gifts along on our trip, mostly for the children; books and crayons, dolls and small toys…and we spent most of a day sitting with these two young girls, sisters, in their family's home. They sat quietly with us, all day, drawing pictures, getting their nails painted, and playing with a few little toys, all the while listening to all the talk around them about the enemy that threatens their very existence. How do those girls sleep at night? I stayed up last night, worried that my new planter wasn't going to survive the storm…and then worrying that these beautiful young girls won't survive the storm that surrounds them…

I am going to update our website soon, I promise…and I am going to include a gallery of images from our trip with Partners. All proceeds from any print orders in that gallery will go toward their goal of "free, full lives for the children of Burma."