Swimming to Thailand Update

Just wanted to do a very quick posting to give you an update on the total so far.

Today I received another $750.00 donation, bringing the grand total to $1,320.60.

Thank you so much! This is so encouraging, and it's only day nine! The truck will cost about $8,000 Cn so that's my goal. We're getting there!

I am missing my ice caps very much, but I do have to admit that the swim itself, each morning at 5:45 a.m. is quiet and soothing and rhythmic and centering and kind. I still have to push past the 19 laps mark to make it all the way up to 23, so it's not like it's easy. But for 25 minutes every morning I am in a water-space of solitude. And God swims with me.

I am missing Thailand these days, and the inspiring, beautiful family of orphans who live there. Perhaps because I'm thinking about them and about raising the money for the truck. Perhaps because my heart has been wrecked by leaving a piece of it half way around the world.

I miss them. I am swimming in it.

Some Things Need No Defending

SWIMMING TO THAILAND UPDATE: Believe it or not, within the first five days of my swim I was/is already up to well over $500. Thanks to someone who wanted to match the money part that I'm contributing, and another person who just supports me whatever it is I'm doing....my Mom. Check out September 1st blog for more details.

Labour Day. It's been a very good day.

Most of last week was like that actually. Truly big and wonderful and bright. On Wednesday last, my early morning swims brought yet another bonus. City sunrise. And I had my camera, and caught it happening.

I've been listening to Steve Bell - Canadian music artist - a lot this summer. His Solace album has brought me, well, a great deal of Solace. And then recently, I slid in the Symphony Series CD. And this song, Pleasing to You, just sort of caught the mood of that sunrise.

Pleasing to You – Music and Lyric by Steve Bell
adapted from Psalm 19

The sun comes about
With a force and a strength
Bursting out from the ground
Like a hound to the race
It’s the same every day after day
Unto ages unending
I believe there’s more to this than were getting

It again rose today
As I’ve come to expect
Like the bridegroom awakes
From his honeymoon bed
To the one that he loves
And the object of all he can offer
I believe there’s something good here to ponder

The law of the Lord is right
A blazing light
Ever making wise the simple
The wisdom of God is whole
Restoring the soul
And the honour of His people
What can gold mean to my heart
When much sweeter fare by far
Is the counsel of the Holy One
My rock and my redeemer
And my God

The heavens proclaim
What I’m trying to say
Night after night
And day after day
There’s no time and no place
No speech where the truth is suspending
I believe that some things need no defending

The music is bright and big and wonderful, like a feel-good musical, and it's been lifting my soul over and again as I've played it loud and much. I'm pretty sure it's at least part of what gave me so much energy and a sense of well-being all the way through to Friday morning. After all, the psalmist is dead on. The wisdom of God is whole, making wise the simple. I have sensed much of His wise presence in my simple thinking and being over this summer. And even though I barely understand anything that He's allowing, He owes me no explanations. Some things just need no defending. Because He's God. He's already given me by far more and away than anything I could repay Him for. I'm His. And He's God, and I'm not. And all week I was not just resting in that, I was delighting in it too. Deeply. In a way I haven't really known in almost a year and a half.

But things did get stressful on Friday. They called me from where my Dad and Mom are now living, and wanted me to get there quick. Dad was not good, with all the symptoms of sudden onset pleural edema, easily and quickly fatal for a person my Dad's age and in his general, post-stroke condition. By noon, however, his vitals were all evening out again, and the crisis was over. He was up in bed, with an oxygen mask, but smiling and wondering if Ken could come down and fix it so he could get that classical music radio station set up again, since the power outage reset the configurations. Okay.

The weekend played out and was full of a few extra visits down to see Dad and Mom, some heavy duty physical labour (moving a friend on Saturday and moving my office on Monday), having weekend company, and a Sunday morning service, and just a lot of what makes my life so full right now. By Sunday morning I was feeling a bit rattled, hard to grab my thoughts, and obsessing about having a nap.

Which I did. Two hours Sunday afternoon. Early to bed Sunday night. And I still felt uneasy this morning.

Ken made his way with me gently through the day. We moved the furniture parts of my office down to the new space. It was a big job, requiring all our combined strength, a serious dolly, and all the patience of our 31 years of marriage experience in working together. He stayed with it with me the whole day. And it eased my uneasiness and brightened me.

I am going to bed ready.

Tomorrow is on it's way. A new day for the sun to come about with a force and a strength like a hound to the race.

And I believe there's something good here to ponder.

Swimming to Thailand

I am swimming to Thailand.

Well not really! It's too far and there's sharks and stuff. But this morning I did begin something brand new.

Between Tuesday, September 1st and Friday, October 16th I will attempt to swim a total of 30 kms. That's 23 laps, there and back, across the width of the Waterloo Swimplex shallow end, once each day for 30 days. I'll be swimming Monday to Friday, not counting stat holidays.

I'm doing it to buy a truck. A covered pick up, to be more precise. It's a new vehicle for the children who live at Hot Springs, so they can get to school without getting rained on or baked in the sun.

If you know me or have been following this blog or attend Highview Community Church, or any or all of the above, you already know about the 15 amazing kids Highview has adopted in sponsorship through an organization called Asia's Hope.

Countless children are orphaned and abandoned in South East Asia every day. AIDs and poverty and a weak-at-best social infrastructure, leave so many innocent victims just barely trying to survive. Without help, there's no hope.

Asia's Hope is grass-roots, non-denominational and indigenous. There is no huge budget for fundraising and advertising. Churches, businesses, Christian organizations and individuals are desperately needed to actively partner with Asia's Hope to provide a consistent level of financial support.

Highview connected with this amazing organization in the winter of 2008 when we were first introduced to Suradet and Yupa, a young pastor and his wife who had voluntarily taken in 13 children into their family. Eighteen months and three trips later, I am more passionate than ever about what is happening in a very small village in northern Thailand, and the 15 children, and their caregivers, who live at Hot Springs.

So I'm swimming to Thailand.

I've ridden in the back of the truck that is currently used to transport the children back and forth to school and any other outings. It was kind of fun for me. Novel, intense, feeling the hot wind whipping around me and the other sweaty little persons squished together back there. But it wasn't raining. It wasn't rainy season when it rains all the time. And I just did it once.

I've been in the front of the truck, in the passenger seat on the left, and heard the grinding of the gears and felt the strain of the engine climbing the hill up the lane to the house. They live in the foothills of the Himalayas and, well, it's hilly. Puts a huge strain on any vehicle. This one is wearing out.

So I'm swimming to Thailand.

If you swim 23 times back and forth across the shallow end of the Waterloo Swimplex pool, you've swum just a tad over a kilometer. So, I'm going to do that 30 times between now and September 16.

And I'm asking for sponsors. You don't have to put on a bathing suit. You don't have to get wet. You can just do some simple math, put a dollar amount beside the number 30, and multiply it. All the money will go through Highview Community Church and directed to Asia's Hope for the purchase of a new truck for Hot Springs. Any donations over $10 can be receipted for income tax purposes.

To sweeten the pot and make it that much more of a challenge for me, I am giving up ice caps for the duration. Yes. You heard me right. The money I normally spend on ice caps, I'm putting in the pot. If I take a simple approach and calculate 30 x 3.51 I get $105.30 (Well actually, that's what Paula just hollered out to me when I asked her to do it on the calculator).

But wait..there's more! I am also willing to contribute what it is costing me each time to swim. At the per swim rate (I have a pass, but we won't worry with that), it's 30 x $5.00 which comes to $150.00 (I did that in my head).

So, on top of doing the actual swim, I'm giving up ice caps AND contributing $255.30 of my own.

That's only to show how serious I am. And really, its such a small thing to do.

Last night my Mom called and asked me about my swim. She wants to sponsor me. My first sponsor. I love that about my Mom. She believes in me no matter what crazy things I try.

As I watched the sky get pink with dawn this morning, swimming back and forth beside the immense floor to ceiling windows, for my first of 30 swims, I realized just how lovely it was for me. Clean, warm water. A clean change and shower facility. A parking lot that was well cared for in a community that even has a swimming complex like this. I ate breakfast later and it wasn't rice. I didn't see one child alone and begging on the street as I drove in to work. What a different life I lead than my beautiful friends on the other side of the world.

So if you want to join me in the swim, I would gladly accept your sponsorship. You can contact me through the comments option on this blog. You can e-mail me a rabreithaupt@buildingbiggerhearts.ca. Or you can simply mail a cheque, payable to Highview Community Church per Swimming to Thailand to Highview Community Church 295 Highview Drive, Kitchener Ontario Canada N2N 2K7.

And thank you.

I'll let you know how it's going as the time goes by.

Falling Forward

"Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears.
For your work will be rewarded,
declares the LORD.
They will return from the land of the enemy.
so there is hope for your future,
declares the LORD.
Your children will return to their own land."
Jeremiah 31:16-17

I spent the day with papers all over my desk, binders opened on top of each other, my computer screen layered with windows. It was an ordered chaos of strategic planning and visioneering, as interwoven and interdependent as the papers and binders and windows themselves, each element resting with delicate precision on the life and intentions of the other, in order to manifest in the vibrancy of another ministry season at Highview.

I love this time of year. It's when we get to set it all up, like a giant connection of dominoes, or a childhood game of Mousetrap. This is the careful, thoughtful part, where the ideas and conversations and prayers of last season have morphed into the building blocks of this season, and are now being set up, piece by piece according to the plan, ready for go.

In just a few weeks, some master gong of convention will sound off the beginning of this particular season, and the first domino will nudge, the ball is released, and the rest all falls into line. Fast and furious, it will seem by the end of it, but wild and wonderful and unpredictably predictable while it runs, with constant rapt attention while we watch to see if it all works like we hoped it would.

I love it, because it points us forward. Dominoes only fall one way. Forward. The ball only rolls one way. Forward.

It's a gift, this forward motion. Like gravity. It keeps us where we are supposed to be. Eyes intent on where it's heading.

Although.

It's not quite so clear where it's all going. We can plan it, we can set it up. But there's this randomness to our human experience in this post-fall, pre-heaven interim. There's an unexplainable Wild Holiness that engages dynamically without consulting us. I know. He does. He has.

So.

I am wild with hope this time around. And thoroughly surprised by the joy of it again.

Happy Birthday Mom!

For my Mom, who turns 82 today.

I celebrate you, Mom, for your life and legacy.
For always believing the best of me, and being a strong voice in my childhood for the strength in each of us.
For knowing and using your spiritual gifts of Faith and Giving, even without ever having attended any seminar on the matter.
For delighting the simplest of things and teaching me that there is joy in ever day if you look for it.
For demonstrating tenacity and loyalty in an age of convenience and self-servitude.
For showing me that it is possible to live a life in which there is no bad word for any human being.
For giving generously to global initiatives, long before that was the "new cool" thing to do.
For telling me about Jesus and being there when I gave my heart to Him.

I hope our ride in the country today, the only thing you've asked for your birthday, brings you joy and fills your soul.

I love you Mom.

Ruth Anne

A Severe Mercy

For you O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our back. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Psalm 66:10-12

Hold me together, Yahweh
Let it never be said that I trusted in vain
It's Your reputation that makes me outrageously brave.

Hold out Your mercy to me
Go ahead and correct me for the sake of Your name.
It's not much of a threat but my hoping is keeping me sane,
Again and again.

In Your love remember me.

Steve Bell

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
Make level paths for your feet,
so that the lame may not be disabled,
but rather healed. Hebrews 12:12-13

Though you were ruined and made desolate
and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
and those who devoured you will be far away.
The children born during your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing,
'This place is too small for us;
give us more space to live in.'
Then you will say in your heart,
'Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren:
I was exiled and rejected.
Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
but these -- where have they come form?'

Isaiah 49:19-21

Morning by morning, I wake up to find
The strength and the comfort of God's hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him amazed,
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways,
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me.

Carolyn Ahrens

In repentance and rest is your salvation.
In quietness and trust is your strength.

Isaiah 30:15

Only with You, Abba.
Only You.
Else all is lost.

RAB09

Time Away from Time

It's so easy to fall into a time warp continuum when everything around you reminds you of nothing related to the clock or schedules, but only to the rhythms of the created order and the holy hush that wraps you up in it.

It's all about the light, I think, or the water. Or the light on the water. And being away from everything else for days at a time.

It's all around you but comes inside you somehow, until you are breathing with it. Breathing the wind. Breathing the colours.

There's a timeless patience everywhere. In the rocks. In the way the trees bend their growth with the prevailing push of westerly unseen forces.


It's in the time-doesn't-matter way you wait to be friends with small creatures who can teach you so much if you stop and watch them long enough, coaxing them, patiently. Until they trust you, which feels good in a very simple sort of way.

And it's time to connect with the Timeless One, who for eternity has loved me, as startling as that is, but as clear as it becomes, when you have time.

Time for the Light to shine warm and wonderful on the stilling waters of my soul.

Time for the Pneuma-Wind to breathe fresh into me again. Time to regain some trust in myself, as timid and cowering as I feel.

Time to be sought out and pursued by the Patient One, who waits for me to catch up with Him.

It's not enough, of course. It's never enough time in the place away from time. Three weeks blurs into what feels like a mere few days. And I would never think that it was time to come home again.

Except it is.