Return Home

Just got back from May Camp with the Arabic Baptist Church. It was a great time to get to know the whole May Camp crew from all over the US. It was a great time of fellowship. Lisa and I helped out with the youth group. My favorite session was when one of the youth leaders, Nader, gave a talk on how to understand your Arab parents. There were a lot of similarities to the Latin American experience. I will update more later.

May Weekend

Today the Shiblie family learned what it is to blog. They were amazed that people would do such a thing and they wanted to be included in someone’s blog. So here is a shout out to Amy and Cindy.

Wedding Day

It is the day after my little sis got married. There could not have been a better day for the wedding. The weather was perfect, and the ceremony was beautiful. My parents were incredible. My father and mother worked so hard to make it a wonderful experience. Everyone that attended the wedding had a wonderful time. My favorite memory at the reception was when the Syracuse friends got together and danced flamenco. Erik was the best of all.

Wedding Events

Yesterday I had an incredible conversation with a table full of Latinos and one Anglo brother. My brother-in-law (future) had his bachelor party and we all met at Dave and Buster’s. It was a table of 20 people from Erik’s life. There were some amazing people gathered. There was a couple that used to be migrant workers picking crops. One day when the wife was sick, she told her husband, “I can’t do it anymore.” He went back to school and became a teacher. Then she went back to school and became a teacher too. They both are teachers now in a ghetto school teaching poor kids. That was amazing.

Then I met a saxophone player/high school teacher. His school’s graduating class is made up of about 1/4 undocumented immigrants with 4.0 grade point averages. There was a story of one girl who is from Guatemala and she came crying in his class room b/c she can no longer go to school because colleges and universities can no longer accept undocumented students b/c of the new laws passed. There was nothing he could do. How can we help these kids that don’t have a future after high school, but have worked so hard?

Then another of Erik’s friends works as a teacher in a juvenile detention center. He just returned to El Salvador to visit his family. At the table we talked about how surprised we are that the Americans are surprised at the soldiers in Iraq abusing prisoners, when we ourselves know people tortured by American trained Salvadoran soldiers at the School of the Americas.

Invest.
Agitate.

God Bless you Sis

Linda,
May you have a great wedding. Lisa and I have been praying for you and Erik. We love you lots and I can’t believe my little sis is going to be a wife now. I guess I can’t make fun of you anymore without Erik ready to take your place in the wrestling ring. Erik, you and Linda will create many more fun memories and we look forward to you being part of the family.
Much Love,
Julito and Lisa

L’Academie de Cuisine

Yesterday we took students to L’Academie de Cuisine. We learned how to make different types of Mole. I have alwasy wanted to learn to make mole. I got to accomplish one of my dreams! It was so much fun to be with the kids and work together to create a meal, in the end we all shared the different types of moles we made. There were four different kinds: pork, chicken, seafood, and lamb. They were so tasty. In one of the recipes we used hoja santa (holy leaf). When I told my tía about it she says, “You made the holy mole.”

Protest vs. Invest

Check out this article by Rudy Carrasco. Here is a quote I particularly like:

But from the vantage point of my home, next to a corner store in a black and Latino neighborhood, what I see is a generation carrying picket signs in their hearts but running no businesses, owning no property, creating no wealth, tempted to commit crimes, and doomed to wallow in poverty. The very kids who should be disciplining themselves, saving money, working long hours, practicing how to write a business plan, and learning how to win investor confidence, are instead walking around complaining. They talk about what can’t happen and who is against them, preoccupy themselves with endless conspiracy theories, and otherwise squander their God-given time, talent, and opportunities.
Urban youth today know the protest side. They need to be taught — and practice — the investment side.
Let’s think about it another way: We go into the city and teach a poor kid how to fight for justice, but not how to invest for the future. A better-off kid gets trained to invest, then comes into the city and learns about injustice and how to fight it. The better-off kid is well-rounded because she knows both investment and protest and thus is able to take care of herself and her community as she seeks what is right. But no one stands up to teach the poor kid about investment, so that kid grows into an adult who does not know how to effectively take care of herself or her community. Is that just?

Homelessness

I got a question. Yesterday I was traveling to visit various kids doing community service for their graduation requirment at the school I teach at. I ran across a guy asking for money on the street. He was an Anglo man asking for money in Falls Church. Do you think that a black man would be taken off the streets in this suburban neighborhood? Or would he be treated the same as an Anglo guy? I would like to do a study.

108506018154257227

Yesterday I read this great article by Brian McLaren. This quote made me think about the important need for me to do some serious study and take action:

Our previous president had a love affair with a young Jewish intern. This was despicable to many of us, disgusting, dishonoring. Our current president also has a kind of special affection – with Evangelical Christianity. Many of us have an infatuation with him that may eventually hurt us as much as that young intern was hurt after her infatuation. Our current president certainly knows how to use our Evangelical language to woo us. In his State of the Union address in 2002, for example, he said, “The need is great. But there’s power, wonder-working power … in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.” He was borrowing from a popular hymn well known to nearly all Evangelical Christians, but he substituted “the goodness … of the American people” for “the blood of the Lamb.” Does that turn of phrase bother you? I do not believe the president meant to idolize the American people and imply that we are the world’s redeemers – that would be a blasphemous assertion for a Christian to make! I do not believe he had evil intent. I believe he very sincerely feels that America is in some way God’s chosen nation, so our hearts are a redemptive force in the world, like “the blood of the Lamb.” I believe he is sincere and well-meaning in these kinds of statements, but I also believe he is dangerously wrong. And if we do not see and name the danger, I fear we will become unwitting conspirators with it.

You can read the rest of the article here:
A Christian’s Reflections in a time of war

108498031269549062

Every Wednesday some friends gather for a book study/Bible study. It is made up of third culture people and we feel the need for something different in church. Some things that I believe we need in a church is one that is committed to justice, love and hope.

Here is a sight that is dreaming of a multicultural church. There is a need for pastors that can lead and develop such a thing. So friends start to study maybe God is calling you.

Vivid Church

Comment on what you think is necessary for such a church.