Urban Camouflage

Sometimes it's fun to be the center of attention, the life of the party. And sometimes you'd rather avoid notice. Here are some clothes, created by Dutch designer Desiree Palmen, to help you do just that.

A Lesson Best Learned. . .

There’s a well-known saying: “A lesson best learned is learned the hard way.” But few know the rest of the saying: “But for a fool, it’s the only way.”

The best way to learn a lesson is not from our own experience, but from others’. One thing I love about reading fiction is the ability to gain insights into human nature from a different perspective. When well-written, we see things that we may otherwise be blind to in our own lives.

Several months ago I finished the last book in Dean Hughes' Hearts of the Children series. The main characters are cousins growing up in Utah and Germany during the turbulent ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Separately and together they experience the Civil Rights struggles, the Vietnam War, Watergate, marriage, spousal abuse, divorce and imprisonment. Along the way they make choices, some right and some wrong, and learn about themselves, their faith and life.

If there was one theme I found repeated over and over throughout the books it was how often a character couldn’t see something that seemed so painfully obvious. Gene, who is wounded both body and soul in Vietnam, is unable to turn to his veteran father for help. Kathy, so committed to making a difference while serving in the Peace Corps, can’t see that her earnestness reinforces the very barriers she is trying to break down.

In reading their stories I recognized just how frequently I do the same thing. Closing the book, I resolved to do better to seek out others’ advice and really listen. Too often I think I have already thought things through, that I already know all the angles. And too often I’m wrong. Being a little (or a lot) humbler, actively looking for advice and listening allows me to learn from others experience. I don’t want to be any more foolish than I have to be.

Arroz con Menestra

I spent two years in Ecuador as a missionary, and learned to love the people, the culture, the land and the food. Well, a lot of the food. We'll leave guatita (cow stomach) out of this. Cui (Guinea Pig) is okay, however. But my favorite is arroz con menestra (rice with stewed beans ), carne asada (grilled meat) and patacones (plantains).

Since returning home eighteen years ago I have tried making it myself on a couple of occasions, but never to my satisfaction. Flash forward to tonight. Here in my "crash pad" I have several roommates, including Omar who is originally from Costa Rica. He is also a pretty good cook, and has generously shared his creations from time to time. I told him that one day I would return the favor by cooking arroz con menestra.

Tonight I finally did and it was quite a success. Maybe I have just forgotten what it tastes like, but it seemed to come out just right. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. Hmm, I wonder if I can find a good recipe for seco de chivo (kid--no, not that kind of kid--stew) or arroz con pollo (good ol' rice and chicken).

The Story of Panama Jones (Part 2)

When my senior year of high school began Amigos announced that they were considering opening a program in Brazil. For some reason that really struck me, and suddenly I was fascinated with Brazil, even taking time during a free period to try and learn Portuguese.

I was also fortunate enough to be accepted into the Honors English class. I enjoyed the discussions with the other students and appreciated the latitude Mr. Wood, our teacher, gave us to be creative. So when he assigned an essay on wisdom, I knew I wanted to do something more.

I decided that instead of writing an essay I would instead write a short story to illustrate the topic. The Adventures of Panamá Jones was born! What started out as a short story soon blossomed into a full-blown 40+ page novella! I still think of submitting it to a publisher some day, although lengthened and with quite a bit of revision.

The title makes it sound like an Indiana Jones knock-off, but that's really the only similarity. The story is about an American teenager (pretty much me, and written in first-person) who decides to travel up the Amazon River, starting at Belém (Portuguese for Bethlehem) at the mouth, then visiting the gold mines at Serra Pelada ("Naked Mountain") and onward, finally finishing high in the Andes Mountains. As I wrote, the symbolism of the names of these real places stood out to me. For example, I used Serra Pelada as a metaphor of the depravity man is capable of. I also (very) loosely based the novella on Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) as Panamá journeys on. In the course of the story Panamá learns wisdom and comes to understand his place in the world and beyond.

The night before I was supposed to turn in the first draft (really only the first two chapters) I managed to click on the wrong command and successfully deleted my entire story. I stared at the screen in utter disbelief. But it was indeed gone. So, the next day I did something I had never done before--I cut school! (Oh, the horror!) I spent all day re-writing it, finishing barely in time to turn it in and feeling that the first draft now forever lost to mankind had been better.

In the end I got an "A" but Mr. Wood felt I had taken too many liberties, including having Panamá visit a city of over a million people on the banks of the Amazon River. He felt that was too much to be believed. But Manaus is a real place, founded during the rubber boom of the late 19th century, and today the cultural and economic center of the Amazon Basin. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction!

Amigos ended up not going to Brazil that summer, but in the end I wasn't able to do Amigos a third summer since my family was moving to Oregon. But I never lost my fascination with Brazil, and eventually I spent two months there during college doing a study abroad. But that's another story.

And now you know the true story of Panamá Jones.