Pens for Peace
School Supplies for Children in Afghanistan
Distributed by Our Soldiers on the Ground

You may send tablets, composition pads, note book paper, pens, pencils, pencil top erasers, pencil sharpeners, and anything else you think kids might like that you can cram into the boxes. Pack up a US post office large Flat Rate Box (12″x12″x5″), and because it is an APO address, the shipping is $12.95 regardless of weight.

The mailing address is:

Comanche School Supplies
C/4-70 AR
FOB Tarin Kowt (Hadrian)       (This is inserted for the street address)
APO, AE 09380                   (APO is listed for city and AE is listed for state followed by zip code)

Ready for a good summer read?  Here’s a book that kept me going until the end.
The title is: Same Kind of Different As Me  by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.
 
It’s the true story of Ron Hall, a very successful white man that gets involved with a homeless mission in Texas.  He meets up with Denver Moore, a black man who is not a exactly a slave, but has spent his life in poverty and never been to school.  It’s a very inspiring Christian book with a great message about loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Randa Krakow
 

5-13-11

A Book Review by Jan Moore

The subject indicates we should travel light and leave our heavy burdens with the Lord as he will take care of them for us. It was an easy read, all based on the Twenty-Third Psalm.

Chapter 15 was especially interesting to me: Bugs can kill sheep. If they succeed in depositing their eggs into the soft membrane of the sheep’s nose, the eggs become wormlike larvae, which drive the sheep insane. They will deliberately beat their heads against trees, rocks, etc. In extreme cases a sheep may even kill itself. The entire flock can be destroyed by the presence of a few flies. For this reason, the shepherd anoints their head with an oil-like repellent.

When mating season arrives, the rams start head-butting other rams to win over the ewes. To prevent injury, the shepherd anoints the rams. He smears a slippery, greasy substance over the nose and head. This lubricant causes them to glance off rather than crash into each other.

Jesus announced, “I am the good shepherd.” He spread the oil of prevention on his disciples. In the Twenty-Third Psalm, this is the background of “You anoint my head with oil.”

I recommend reading this 2006 “Spiritual Growth” book.

4-10-11
I recently, over a couple of months, read a book by Cynthia Hopson,  I’ve Got Too Many Irons in the Fire, and They’re all Smoking!  Nurturing for Community 2010.  As I read the short chapters  (31 in all for a month of meditations or readings), I realized the author had a different background and different life from me.  She spoke of picking cotton and her mother urging her to get her head out of the clouds and keep up.  Another time her mother physically switched her (at 16) to cure her of her “ugly ways.”  Cynthia grew up  in a real world of hard work, she studied hard, she didn’t lose her dreams,she was active in the civil rights movement.  She has a loving church family, community, and husband of more than 40 years.  She traveled, lectured, taught for years.  I found I was somewhat surprised.  I consider myself educated, liberal, supportive of the feminist movement and the civil rights movement.  I was brutally shocked to realize I almost turned in the book when I realized it was by a black woman.  What was I thinking?  She couldn’t teach me anything?  Not so.  There were funny chapters too, about making sure her kids grew up and moved on.  Practical advice about not getting too stressed out.  I humbly confess I have stereotyped views in spite of thinking I don’t.  Cynthia Hopson loves country-western music. May God forgive me. 

 Sandy Hayes