Defying the odds.

Today, Penny passed the exam for her Learners Permit! Penny continues to defy the odds she comes out of. The first one in her family to reach the 11th grade. The first to get a learner drivers permit. The first to stay on a path that will open up door of life and possibility and joy. I am proud of this girl. This young woman (18 in March). Today she is my hero!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2012 in review (better late than never!)

Image
Email inbox cleaned out. Check. 2012 Journal overview. Check. Mandatory New Years FB post. Check. Blog update. Eeek. When did I go from be super-blogger to hardly ever thinking to come on here and update this once-loved world of blogging? I could put it on my new years resolutions list, to blog more...alongside my "keep in better contact with friends and family over the world, exercise, start eating better, simplify, etc" But instead, Im just going to start with this blog, today, and see where it takes us! I hope you enjoy 2012 in review... I mean, let's start with what is really most important in life: coffee. You think I'm kidding? Well, maybe I am supposed to have lots of pious and missionary-ish things to say, but coffee really is a pretty significant part of my life. It feels familiar in my hands, which helps me in life. It's warm when Cape Town winter invades my rickety, old apartment building, my Toms as Im walking to the train station, or my
Read more

another abundance.

1 Corinthians 4.9-13 ..for it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted we endure it. When we are slandered we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world… I think I must have fallen asleep during this lesson in Sunday school class. Somehow, I missed this part. Because over the past few years, I have faced some difficult days and for whatever reason, the framework I was using to understand those confusing times wasn’t the one above. I thought hard times were a sign that I
Read more
Image
There is an underweight little girl with matted patches of hair growing on her 4-year-old head that bears my name. She’s dark skinned and beautiful, like her unwed, teenage mother; but her foul mouth and distrusting eyes definitely come from her dad. And from both her parents she probably inherited her predisposition to drug addiction. When I see little Ashley, I start to ache. I stare at the barren wasteland of her little life and wonder how we received the same name but dramatically different circumstances when we came into this world. I never know what to do with the immensity of unmet need that she carries with her, and so I just default to sweeping her up into my arms and holding on tight. She never fails to respond, her frail body making my arms feel very strong and wholesome as they wrap around her. Today I was in Capricorn with Beth Rapha, handing out soup. Ashley walked by with her aunt Maya and apparently another grandmother than the other two I’ve known all this time. She st
Read more