Do you love?

Have had a nice weekend so far.. about to go to bed, and before bed I like to read. This is how Richard Rohr begins his 2nd Chapter in Everything Belongs, hope you get something out of it. He quotes, ofcourse, an awesome famous dead guy:

‘Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animal, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better everyday. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love’

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’

have a love-ly week, my friends

Next adventure: Thailand + Cambodia

Hi friends

From early March to mid April this year Rachel, myself and our little girl Mali will be travelling around Thailand and Cambodia. It’s mainly a holiday, but thanks to some friends at TEAR & Servants, we also have a chance to visit a couple of groups trying to make a difference to in a sustainable way:

1. Mekong Minority Foundation in Northern Thailand (in and around Chiang Rai & Nan provinces, http://minorityleadership.org/). These guys ‘aims to equip, train and empower marginalised people to develop sustainable solutions to the complex problems that impact their communities. Due to globalisation and modernization, tribal communities are facing unprecedented issues of poverty, transmigration, trafficking and exploitation, debt and environmental destruction’

Can you find where we're gonna be, Mali?

2. TASK (http://www.task.org.kh/). They work in ‘Mean Chey District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which is one of the poorest Districts in Phnom Penh. It has a population of about 200,000 people. The majority of these people are Khmer, some Vietnamese, and a minority of Cham (Khmer Muslim). TASK works with approximately 2500 people per month through a range of integrated health and development projects’

I would really appreciate your thoughts & prayers for us over the next 6 weeks as we travel on planes, trains, buses, taxis & tuk-tuks. More importantly I hope we will learn more about these places and people, and the projects that are empowering them to look after their families & communities for the long run, and how we might be able to partner with them in the future.

You are our friends, and I value your input in our lives. Whether you are agnostic, atheist, christian, buddhist, liberal, conservative, reformed, socialist, capitalist, charismatic, catholic, orthodox, emergent, evangelical, anglican, presbyterian, anarchist, green, labour, muslim, hindu, jewish, single parent, rich, poor, gay, lesbian, hetero, metro, emo, normal, weird, black, white, yellow, red, brown, aussie, indigenous, .. you are our friends, and I appreciate you sparing a thought or saying a prayer for us.

Thanks heaps & hope to catch up soonish!
Peter