Subhan Allah!

Something special has occurred. Hence, the post title. Subhan Allah is an Arabic expression for praising God for unexpected mercies.

My prayer group and other friends, including some who read this blog, have been praying for Maha, a friend of mine in Bahrain who calls me "Mom" and whose teenage brother and a large number of his friends were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night in May 2008 and accused of a crime they did not commit (trumped up charges about an illegal action taken that night in May against someone who had actually died the previous fall -- oops, the police forgot to check out that detail thoroughly). They had been jailed ever since. I don't know about the other young men, but Maha's brother was beaten regularly almost to the point of losing his eyesight. It was called interrogation. Every trial date during the intervening months was postponed, followed by a new "interrogation." It seemed to be a matter of ruling Sunni intimidation of the larger Shia population. Outside international investigation, including an international justice specialist from the United Nations, did not help. Western embassies were reluctant to speak up.

Without divine intervention, the likely outcome would have been the one that has happened in the past: 15 years, life, or death. (The last such group was convicted in the late 1990s, and the sentence was capital punishment.) So, prayers were the only medium available. I personally know people who prayed for these young men regularly in Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, Lithuania, Morocco, and the United States.

Earlier this week the prayers were answered. Maha's brother and the other young men have been released! They were declared innocent by the court and also given a royal pardon. Maha tells me that in Bahrain people flocked to the mosque the night before the pardon to pray for the young men; they prayed until the crack of dawn. She also told me that nobody really expected the outcome that all of them would be declared innocent and freed. (My comment: Wait a minute here...if you pray, don't you expect an answer? I do!)

These young men are now considered heroes for not caving in to the government. Blessedly, they are getting their old jobs back. Their families are celebrating as Arabs know so well how to do!

Many thanks to everyone who prayed for these young men. Sometimes, in international matters, our first, last, and best hope is God.

7 Quick Takes Friday #3

It's Friday! It's Friday! Thank God, it's Friday! Here is my contribution to the quick takes Friday meme. My first quick take will tell you why I am so happy that it is Friday.

1. I have to travel again on Monday, returning on Friday, and leaving again on Tuesday. I figured that would give me a full day at work today (minus a heavy load of meetings, of course) plus a full day a week from Monday to catch up on all my paperwork and email. Silly me! Next Monday is a holiday; there is no work! (I have to write in my calendar book: DO NOT COME TO WORK. Otherwise, I forget it is a holiday. No wonder my neuroscientist daughter says she is worried about my brain!) So, I stayed and finished everything! I got home after 11:00! Worth it, though. I am going to have a real holiday in a week! It reminds me of the time that my boss called me at 2:00 in the morning, then asked what I was doing up so late! My response? "Talking to you!"

2. Friday is a great day not only because it is the last working day of the week but also because it is the Muslim holy day. Since I have many Muslim friends, I frequently enjoy Friday. One of these friends took me to his home for lunch. All his family had gathered, as they do every Friday, for a family meal of couscous with vegetables and chicken. Yummy! And amazingly, we managed to get there, eat, relax with friends, and get back to work, all within the allotted lunch hour.

3. Today was a day of discovery. First, I discovered that there were some problems with my travel arrangements for the next two weeks. From that I discovered that I should enroll my admin assistant in a geography course. Looking at my arrangements for next week, the flight was excellent: comfortable departure time from California and arrival time at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. Then I noticed the hotel: it was in Seattle! (Wrong Washington!) After that, I figured I had better check my arrangements for the following week in Nebraska. Good thing that I did! My flight flew in very nicely to Omaha, but the hotel was in Iowa! Yes, indeed, I am looking for a course in geography for my assistant.

4. I don't normally get much relaxing time during the week, but last night was an exception. My co-teacher for catechism came over so that we could plan our lessons. Since we have the same age group (teenagers in first-year confirmation) as last year, we have a lot of materials that have already worked successfully, so it took us very little time to work out the syllabus for the year. Then, we ordered in pizza, looked at my pictures from Korea (laughing at my Tae Kwon Do lesson -- short, uncoordinated people attempting martial arts moves look funny in pictures), and had a long discussion about just about everything under the sun with Donnie. I discovered that co-teacher had a friend who has an autistic child, and since I have a friend who is both mother to an autistic child and a PhD holder with a background in special education, I was able to network them. (I love closing those links to make chains that help people!)

5. I got a good lesson in remembering everyone, not just some folks, on my trips abroad when I dropped into the parish office on Thursday enroute to work. I always bring little things to my secretaries and chocolate for Fr. Ed. This time, the parish staff oohed over the German chocolate I brought Father. They clearly would have liked some. One of the staff was actually leaving to visit her brother the same day (!!) in the same part of Germany (!!). I told her where she could get the same chocolates so that she could bring some back for the staff. Next time, I will bring chocolates for Fr. Ed (who is addicted to them) AND for the staff!

6. Cats in Jordan talk. I am serious. They have about a dozen different sounds: differing ones for jumping up, jumping down, wanting attention, expressing dissatisfaction, requesting food, and so on. American cats just miaow -- or so I thought until recently when I noticed that the abandoned cat that we took in from our local streets has now developed a "vocabulary" of 5-6 words. It seems that Murjan (Arabic for coral; he is white and red, like coral), our alpha cat, has not only been grooming the little girl; he has also been teaching her to talk! What a great big brother!

7. When I am done with this blog, I am going to answer one of the emails I read today. It came from the vice president of an organization over which I presided (as president) 15 years ago! He wanted to know if I was still working at my organization. How well he knows me! I have a considerable amount of wanderlust in me, so it is an immense surprise that I have been in my present position for four year. A surprise and not a surprise because for some reason God clearly wants me in this job.

And now I am going to go contact my old friend and former veep. I wish you a weekend full of good times with good friends! And if real people are not around at this time, then remember that a good book can be a good friend, too!

7 Quick Takes Friday #2

I did not really think that I would (1) have time to do the 7 quick takes today or that (2) I would have seven things to mention. I was wrong on both accounts. I love it when I am wrong about such things!

1. I might as well jump in up front with the confession: I spent a day of physical and spiritual debauchery last Saturday prior to leaving for Kiev just a couple of days later. In the morning, we picked up Doah at his group home, then he, Donnie, and I honored the invitation of one of my employees to attend an Assyrian (Chaldean) festival, associated with his church, in a city to the north of us. We had some great Middle Eastern food and managed to observe the Sheikhani (a fun but tiring circle dance associating with the town of Sheikhan) but escape before becoming a part of it. (Usually I get pulled into it, and then everyone gets to laugh at my two left feet.) We got back to our home town just in time for our Saturday Roman Catholic mass and immediately after mass left for a town to the south, about an hour away, arriving just as the sun was setting, i.e. perfect timing for iftar (the Muslim breaking of the fast – it was still Ramadan), to which we had been invited by one of the supervisors who works for me.

2. One of my colleagues traveling with me had made the arrangements at a four-star hotel here in Kiev and was excited about seeing it, getting to soak up luxury. I did not have the heart to tell her that five-star hotels here are like good (but not necessarily luxurious) hotels in the USA and four-star hotels are less than one would expect in the USA. Four stars means that you do get those little soaps and shampoos that I like to bring back to the homeless shelter (they are the perfect individual size). You also usually get a hair dryer and a real bed, not a couch-like bed. Other than that, one would not call it anything special. My colleague was disappointed, but it was about what I had expected, and I am happy because I do have access to Internet here although I have to pay by the minute.

3. I had forgotten how much walking one does in a former Soviet country. Public transportation is excellent, and you can get anywhere very inexpensively, but you do walk – between transfer stations, to/from the nearest metro, etc. Yesterday we had great difficulty finding a place we were supposed to visit because we had poor directions, and neither of our phones worked so we could not call. (With cell phones universally available, the pay phones have all but disappeared from the streets.) By my calculation, we walked more than three hours all told, and I ended up very sore. I guess I need to do more than just think about getting in shape. After all, this body belongs to God as much as it belongs to me, and I don’t want to be someone who forgot to tend God’s property!

4. For those of you who have been following the story of 19-year-old orphan Katya of Tula, she needs some help. We still do not have her in the USA where she can be helped. Everything seems to be on track, but Russia is a country where business takes place slowly. Now, she has lost much of her hearing (in addition to her sight). She must raise $1000 for the kinds of hearing aids that she needs. If you have spare change or know someone who is looking for a good cause, this young lady is a good cause. The person to contact about Katya (whose real name is Tatyana Tusova) is Ken Wilcox at Orphan Cry.

5. If I had any doubt that sitting beside Maxim (the Ukrainian who thought I was Russian and then, realizing that I was a foreigner in a somewhat unknown land, offered to have his driver take me and my colleagues to the hotel after dropping him off) on the plane was pure coincidence, then that doubt was removed this morning, when the driver, Volodya, popped up out of nowhere as we were leaving the hotel. He happened to be driving by and stopped to confirm that we wanted to be picked up at 4:00 in the morning tomorrow as we had indicated when he dropped us off two days ago. Volodya’s surprise appearance comforted us because we had found that our cell phones for some reason do not work here even though they were supposedly turned out and had not been able to reach Volodya to confirm while running around town. We would have called from the hotel in the evening, but we did not have to; here was Volodya in person! While we could also have called a cab from the hotel, knowing that we will not have to deal with an unknown company in the middle of the night but will have someone reliable waiting for us is one of those extra-nice spoiling I seem to get from God from time to time without knowing why. I did not do anything to deserve anything special, but what a nice feeling to have it happen!

6. The next thing I have to do before tumbling into bed this evening early in order to leave at oh-dark-hundred is to translate a letter Fr. Julio sent to me from Colombia. It won’t take long; it is an update to the sponsors of children in Colombia. (And, by the way, Padre Julio is always looking for more sponsors as there are many children in need of help in Colombia.)

7. And now I am going to stop so I can translate the letter and get some sleep for my wee-hours-of-the-morning trip. Germany, here I come!

In the event that I am incommunicado over the weekend, I wish all of you a great weekend – restful and spirit-filled!