I was able to meet with Trevor for the first time this afternoon. To say that our time was special is quite an understatement. He is very cute, quiet and smiley. Staying in the orphanage until we receive our US Visa, I will visit Trevor periodically throughout my time here.

Over the next few days, I will be working throughout Addis Ababa, but will try to post as worthwhile updates become apparent. On the whole, the infrastructure of Addis Ababa appears to be more developed (or in the process of becoming so) than I recall from last time. Paved streets are becoming a more regular sight throughout, for example. This is a positive sign. Yet, much of this development doesn’t easily transfer to the marginalized in the society, whom LIA works directly with.

Here is me with our little guy:

Trevor Afendi Narducci is officially our little boy and we’re leaving to pick him up this weekend! We will return from Ethiopia on the 26th of February and I’ll be sure to post some video’s upon our arrival. Hopefully, I can post some updates while we are away as well.

Until then…

Kenyan Crisis: Join Us in a Response

Matt 25:40: “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

As an employee of Life in Abundance International (LIA), I in invite you to join us in meeting the urgent physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters who are suffering from post-election violence and instability in Kenya. Utilizing the experience and church partnerships of our LIA-Kenya team, LIA is immediately seeking funding to begin its relief effort in the Mathare region of Kenya, which is home to 500,000 of the country’s poorest people. Our relief effort will include, but is not limited to, the following provisions: medicines, clothes, blankets, food, and shelter rehabilitation.

As always, LIA will work with local churches to provide these provisions. It is beautiful for the Church to serve a desperate and hurting community in this capacity. Please join us in this effort by praying for peace, stability, reconciliation and restoration in Kenya. But don’t stop your involvement there: take action! Contributions to LIA’s relief effort can be made on-line (after logging into paypal – identify your donation as ‘Relief for Kenyan Crisis’ or by mail (please send donations to the LIA USA Office).

Additionally, as they become available, updates will be periodically posted on our website. In the meantime, please review the links below:

Yahoo Video: Violence Continues in Kenya

NY Times: Kenya Crisis Worsens As Opposition Cools to Talks

The Standard

Nation Media

Photo Credit/Caption: Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times /  A volunteer used a whip to control a hungry crowd on Tuesday after food being distributed by the Red Cross ran out in Mathare.

Challenging words for a new year…

“The thing I have to work on in myself is the issue of belief. Gandhi believed Jesus when He said to turn the other cheek. Gandhi brought down the British Empire, deeply injured the caste system, and changed the world. Mother Teresa believed Jesus when He said everybody was priceless, even the ugly ones, the smelly ones, and Mother Teresa changed the world by showing them that a human being can be selfless. Peter finally believed the gospel after he got yelled at by Paul. Peter and Paul changed the world by starting small churches in godless towns.

Eminem believes he is a better rapper than other rappers. Profound. Let’s all follow Eminem.

Here is the trick, and here is my point. Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons. Can you imagine if Christians actually believed that God was trying to rescue us from the pit of our own self-addiction? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood over half the world was living in poverty? Do you think they would change the way they live, the products they purchase, and the politicians they elect? If we believed the right things, the true things, there wouldn’t be very many problems on earth.

But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn’t like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything.”

- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz [pages 106-107]

The most frustrating aspect of my new job has been the acquisition of family health insurance for Erin, Bethany and I. I have now submitted applications to four different insurance carriers, and yet have been unable to obtain reasonably priced health insurance for us. The biggest obstacle that we face is the impending adoption of Trevor. Nearly all insurers consider an impending adoption to be an uninsurable event for parents involved in an adoption process. I must admit that the logic of such underwriting policies fails me, but this is the paradigm within which we must operate.

One aspect that is, perhaps, making this entire situation even more difficult is the tremendously excellent insurance that was provided by Boeing. We often referred to Boeing as the employer with the ‘golden handcuffs,’ meaning that many employees wanted to leave, but the ‘benefits’ provided by Boeing often bound the employee to the stay.

Accordingly, on my health insurance quest last week, I researched the cost of COBRA health insurance for our family (basically, my cost to keep the same insurance that we had through Boeing. The cost = $1,100/month! Remarkable.

According to the United Nations Human Development Report (2007) the average expenditure on healthcare per person (including both public and private funds) in the following countries is:

United States = $6,069

*Ethiopia = $21

Our struggles are largely relative…

*It is important to note that Ethiopia is not the country with the lowest expenditure per capita in this particular context.

…Trevor Afendi Narducci to our family!

In March 2006, Erin and I began the process of adopting an orphan from Ethiopia. At the time, we had recently returned from Ethiopia, and decided to adopt a baby after visiting with the orphanages there (and realizing just how many orphans were in the country and the world). We were also trying to be faithful to what the writer James said, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Interestingly enough, two months after we began the adoption process, Erin became pregnant (immaculate conception) with the wonderful little girl we call Bethany. Throughout the pregnancy and birth of Bethany, we continued with the international adoption process, largely because the U.S. Government bureaucracy slowed the process to a halt.

(more…)

Erin and Bethany are just fine. The rental ‘house’ that we originally moved into was unsuitable for living (hence the firefighters), so we now live in a different location that was safely constructed according to local building codes. Anyway, we are all settled in now and looking forward to what is ahead.

It has been nearly eight months since my last post and I haven’t really missed it. Interestingly enough, I took an eight month vacation from participating in the blog-o-shpere on the whole. Occasionally, I would check in on Jake’s posts to mock him in a more public context, but other than that, I was disinterested. To some extent, I think that I was literally overwhelmed by the quantity of voices, and my inability to synthesize such voices into meaningful information.

On the other hand, I could have just been tired. Our little princess Bethany was not sleeping very well, we were moving and finishing up graduate school, all while ‘trying to save the world’ (read - selling attack helicopters to every country in the middle east). Perhaps these factors also contributed to my blogaversion.

Regardless, I’m back and better than ever (I think)! Recently, we have undertaken some big changes in our life that have been rejuvenating:

1. I quit my job, which was, perhaps, the most liberation I have ever felt!; 2. I accepted a position with Life in Abundance, working in an administrative and donor relations capacity (I’m seriously so excited)!; 3. We are moving to Pasadena, CA in one week to accommodate a shorter commute to the LIA office (let us know when you are in town and we can have you over to the ‘cabin’; 4. We have been working on intentional parenting, which has also been good for our marriage; 5. We submitted our dossier to adopt a baby boy from Ethiopia and should pick up a little guy within the next six months; 6. Bethany is only getting up once during the night, so we are all in a much better mood; and 7. I have been intensely involved with Ronald Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, which has stirred my soul over and over again.

I don’t want to overdue it, so that will be all for now, but I look forward to much more in the future.
Also - I wanted to provide an update on the water purifier project from eight months ago. We raised over $10k and the water purifiers will actually end up in over 100 countries throughout the world. The logistics of the project evolved over time and we ended up partnering with Project C.U.R.E to make the international distribution a realty. This was a very amazing project to be a part of and I look forward to opportunities like this in the future. Thank you for your partnership.

Here is a picture of our family:

Update: $4,240 of $8,000 collected thus far. 

To those that have already contributed to this project - Thank you! It has been exciting to experience the participation of individuals from all over, who are interested in alleviating the suffering of others in a practical way.

If you haven’t yet contributed to this effort, please continue to consider your involvement in this project. We are scheduled to ship the purifiers within the next two weeks and must have the financial resources available at that time.

Again, thank you all for caring about the people this project is intended to serve.