A SUMMARY 2018

On this last day to the Gregorian calendar, it’s good to reflect on what has happened since the beginning of this year.

First, I want to tell you about the amazing success story of Children Under the Bridge.  This year we have grown from the original 35 children to about 200.  We started skills training for the girls most likely to be swept into prostitution.  We continue with basic education, literacy and social skills for all the kids.  We have secured the support of local business people by being careful not to compete with their means of income.  We developed better relationships with medical practitioners and pharmacies. And we started the great enterprise of the coffee bike.  We now have 20 coffee bikes, all self-sustaining entrepreneurial businesses for women who were once forced into prostitution in order to survive.

For all of you who have supported these efforts in Jakarta, YOU have shown grace by being God’s hand and feet in the world.  YOU have rescued women and children from impossibly tragic lives.  YOU have redeemed those whom God’s loves. YOU cannot be thanked enough. We will continue, with God’s permission, to reach into this community.  Celebrate!

Secondly, this year has been a transition year for Rosanne and me.  We sold our home of 18 years in May.  Since then we have been “houseless” but not homeless. We continue to travel back and forth to Italy where we hope to find a more or less permanent residence in 2019. As a result of this change, I have limited my teaching seminars.  Next year I will only be in Dallas once (February), Virginia Beach twice (March and June) and Australia (Melbourne in August).  South Africa might be squeezed in again late in the year.  Rosanne and I will host two teaching tours in Italy in September.  We are really excited about this as these will investigate the enormous influences that shaped our Western world thinking.  All of this transition is a good thing.  The wear and tear of weekly travel is coming to an end.  That means I have more time to think and write, and perhaps in 2019, I will finally finish the two books that have been on my Desktop for more than a year. We’ll see.

But rest assured, there is no plan to stop writing Today’s Word.  That personal journey continues, hopefully richer and deeper than ever. So if you are a supporter, you can expect to have Today’s Word show up every day except Shabbat.  I have also decided to keep the blog going although I may not comment on your contributions as often as I did.  Some people deserve special thanks in this effort, Cyndee and Mark in particular.  Today’s Word would not be possible without them.

Finally, sometime after the first of the year I will probably “clean” the email list again.  I write for those who want to follow this journey and who are willing to help it along, so I’ll probably remove those who don’t seem to be active participants any more. You don’t have to worry about this.  It only affects the email list.  My work is always available on the web site.  But, of course, supporters are important, so I hope you will continue to support this communal journey.

It would be a real pleasure to see each of you face-to-face.  Since you are spread over 65 countries around the world, that’s not likely to happen—yet.  But you could show up in Dallas or Virginia or Australia or Italy. Just let me know in advance, okay? 🙂

Thank you for a wonderful year.  Now we go forward, one verse at a time.

Skip

BTW, if you want to have the entire 2018 Today’s Word edition in one Word file, here is the link to purchase it.