When Helping Hurts

Last year I read the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. It has really changed my perspective on poverty is ways that I am still just now discovering. This book has helped Tim and I have a better grasp on why we need to help alleviate poverty and how to do it in a way that is honoring to God and values the people we are trying to help. This book is great at describing how people who are suffering from poverty think about themselves and the world around them. I really like the description of how the fall of man has affected our different relationships.

I have to admit that up until a few years ago I served the poor and gave money out of obedience to God. While I cared for the people I was helping, I didn't understand that what I was doing could end up dishonoring them and making them feel worse than before. I also admit that much of my work was done with a bit of a god complex. I was deigning to go out of my way to help someone. Instead I should have realized that I had no right to see these people as less than me. By swooping in and saving the day with my time and money I thought I could save someone single handedly (obviously my pride got in the way, but I am using a bit of hyperbole). As you know, this is wrong since only God is the great provider. My attitude kept me from acknowledging His work in me and those He used me to help. Praise God, that I have been saved from those selfish ways.

This book is a must read for anyone who cares about missions work. It is a quick read and is easy to understand. Here is the like to the website created for WHH.

Harry Potter Revisited

One of my goals for this pregnancy was to read completely through the Harry Potter Series. I figured this is a good time to relive this adventure since I am at a place where I prefer comfortable familiarity to something new and different. Really I think the hormones cloud my mind and I can't think straight until way after the baby comes and I am done nursing. Either way, it was also a good time to read completely straight through all seven books. I had not done this before. I started reading the series when there were only four books so there were long periods of time between each successive book. I assumed that it would take me about 9 months to read them since I have kids now and I can't sit for hours a day lost in a book. It only took me about 5 months. So here I am with two and a half months to go (my husband says three but he's in denial) and I have read every last word. Let me tell you: it was even better the second time around. Here are some thoughts put in no particular order.

1. I loved how certain character traits are valued. Some of the big ones that come to mind are loyalty, courage, bravery...I could go on. In the end it is obvious that Harry beats Voldemort because he possesses these traits which his opponent lacks. Many of these traits lead to love, friendship, things like that which are also considered essential to success.

2. I was amazed at how well everything from beginning to end fit together. She has some chiasmic (that's a new word derived from chiasm ) elements to the books that make it even more amazing. What I mean is book one and seven are very similar as well as two and six, three and five, and then book four stands alone. So Harry faces Voldemort by himself in the first and seventh books. The second and sixth deal with horcruxes. Then the last pairing deals with side characters that have special meaning to the plot and shapes Harry's perspective on things. Book four has to obviously stand alone because it deals with Voldemort coming back.

3. I also have to admit that liked seeing all the little hints along the way that I missed the first time around. An example is the mention in book six of the tiara in the room of requirement. I know there were things in the earlier book, but it's too late right now to come up with them.

I'm starting to lose steam so I should probably go to bed (it is 11:20pm here). This whole reading has me excited for the last movie to come out in July.

Saint George and the Dragon

I came home with a picture book for the boys about Saint George. The pictures are beautiful and they love to look at them even when I'm not reading it to them. At the end of the story the dragon is dead and Saint George gets to marry Princess Una. I do find it a bit funny that they only care about the dragon and how it died. They don't care a bit for the last page that shows them living happily ever after. I guess two and four year old boys just want to see a good battle and that is satisfying enough.