hmmm...

Jon(left) and Adam(right)
dressed up in full Dumb&Dumber garb for prom last year.

What do I talk about after the events of the last week here in this little town of Willmar? My mind has been so centered on the grieving that seems to have settled on this town like a cloud. Jon and Adam have been in the newspaper everyday since the accident. Amazing guys that everyone seems to have connected to in one way or another.

Jon's funeral was breathtaking. His parents continue to be a source of comfort and support to Jon and Adam's friends, as well as to Adam's parents. The viewing for Jon was held at our church Sunday night. Over 600 people came to visit with his family. This was an emotional night- Jon's best friend didn't want to leave his casket. He stood there, focused on Jon's face. No doubt, hoping his eyes would open and he would say it was all just a joke. Empathizing with his pain, we cried.

The funeral itself was also at our church- completely packed the place out (around 1000 people). The pastors gave an impacting message about Jon's life- his integrity, compassion, love for others... and how his relationship with Christ was the most important thing in his life.

"Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me." God does not always do what we want or expect Him to do... this does not make Him any less Loving, Holy or Sovereign.

Matthew and I were priveleged to help out, by creating the video that played during the funeral. He put it together- I only scanned pictures. But still, it felt sacred somehow. I felt like I was holding leaves of gold. Now that Jon is no longer here, there will be no more pictures.

Yesterday was Adam's funeral. I didn't go because I only knew of Adam through other people. Matthew was there, though, and said there were even MORE people than at Jon's. People were sitting on the stairs, extra chairs were brought into the aisles and set up in the foyer. They ended at the cemetary, where all of the students were given blue and white (their school colors) balloons to release.

This has really impacted our community. For so many people, it will take awhile for the sting to wear off. My prayer is that when it does, the legacy these guys left behind will not be laid aside or forgotten. That their friends and family will fill the empty places in their hearts with the love of their Creator... the only thing that will truly 'fit'.

This was the last picture
of the video shown
at the funeral.
Right before this picture,
we showed video of Jon
during worship at
youth convention.
So appropriate, I think.

update...

Jon Bonnema passed away this morning. Please pray for the families of these three guys, as well as for Shean, their friend that was driving the car. He has a tough road ahead of him emotionally.


Jon is on the left, Shean in the middle, and Adam at right. This is a recent shot of them with some of their basketball teammates. Yesterday morning they were on their way to meet up with friends to go to the state tournament when they were involved in the car accident.

what just happened!?!

These last two days have been really surreal. I'm really earning my 'sleep in till noon' Saturday this week!

Yesterday myself and Kelli (one of my sweetest friends in the whole world) and I sat with Stephanie, a girl from our youth group, in the hospital while she had a baby. I got to know Stephanie at youth convention last fall. She was in my room with three other girls. Not quite sure how I missed the whole pregnancy thing. Either my observancy radar was down or she didn't even know she was pregnant at that point.

In any case, the poor thing was induced at 12:30am Wednesday morning, then in labor from 5:30am until 10:30pm. That's a LONG time to be in hard labor for a girl her size. They eventually had to do an emergency c-section because she wasn't progressing. Thankfully both she and her little boy are healthy and doing really well. I'm so glad that Kelli and I were able to be there for Stephanie. It can be hard reaching out to students when they are at a tough point in their lives... most often all they need is someone to be there, though. My ministry yesterday was rubbing Stephanie's back and massaging her feet with lotion. Oh, and I gave her my hand to squeeze during contractions. So that was yesterday- we left last night at 11pm.

This morning I woke up to the amazing news about the CPT captives being freed. Hooray!

Then I got a phone call at work from Matthew. Three highschool seniors (best friends) from Central Minnesota Christian School were injured in a car accident on their way to school this morning. They collided with a guy on his way in to Willmar. All of the details are still a bit unknown- what caused the accident. The driver of the other car was okay- brought to the hospital and released. In the car with the students- Shean Gerdes was brought to the hospital and released. Adam Mickelson was killed in the accident. Jon Bonnema, the third person injured in that car, goes to our youth group. He was airlifted to St Cloud where he remains in critical condition. When he arrived there, they said he was brain-dead. He has actually improved since then, by a miracle of God, and is showing some activity in his brain as well as breathing a bit on his own and moving around a bit.

Tonight we held a prayer service at our church for the three boys and their families. Many students as well as relatives and family friends came to spend time lifting them up in prayer. We even got a call from Mike Bonnema, Jon's dad, from the hospital in St Cloud. He called to give us an update, and to encourage US! God is taking amazing care of that family! I'll keep you guys updated on any news.

And now.... I'm exhausted. I apologize for the lengthy entries lately. Kudos to you that have actually read them straight through! You win a... hamster. Hey! Hamsters are cool- don't look so disappointed!

Free!

I was so excited to wake up this morning to GOOD NEWS! The remaining 3 Christian Peacemaker hostages have been freed! After so many months of uncertainty, clouded with sadness when their fellow CPTer Tom Fox's body was found 2 weeks ago... there is rejoicing around the world. So many friends and family members have been waiting anxiously for news... and now their hearts can take a deep breath- and smile.

Statement By Loney Family

"Oh, what a joyful day this is!

"We have just learned that James is coming home. He has been released unharmed, with his companions Harmeet and Norman.

"We would like to thank everyone for their support and prayers. At this time, we would also like to express our deepest sympathy to the family of Tom Fox.

"Please let us rejoice in this family moment as we prepare for the days to come."

CPT Statement: CPTers Released

23 March 2006

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been safely released in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope, fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted in Baghdad.

We rejoice in the return of Harmeet Sooden. He has been willing to put his life on the line to promote justice in Iraq and Palestine as a young man newly committed to active peacemaking.

We rejoice in the return of Jim Loney. He has cared for the marginalized and oppressed since childhood, and his gentle, passionate spirit has been an inspiration to people near and far.

We rejoice in the return of Norman Kember. He is a faithful man, an elder and mentor to many in his 50 years of peacemaking, a man prepared to pay the cost.

We remember with tears Tom Fox, whose body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, after three months of captivity with his fellow peacemakers. We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion.

Harmeet, Jim and Norman and Tom were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.

Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. In the spirit of the prophetic nonviolence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves so that, together, we can continue the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace.

Throughout these difficult months, we have been heartened by messages of concern for our four colleagues from all over the world. We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?

With Tom’s death, we felt the grief of losing a beloved friend. Today, we rejoice in the release of our friends Harmeet, Jim and Norman. We continue to pray for a swift and joyful homecoming for the many Iraqis and internationals who long to be reunited with their families. We renew our commitment to work for an end to the war and the occupation of Iraq as a way to continue the witness of Tom Fox. We trust in God’s compassionate love to show us the way.

Living through the many emotions of this day, we remain committed to the words of Jim Loney, who wrote:

"With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.
With the love of Christ, we will resist all evil.
With God’s unending faithfulness, we will work to build the beloved community."

sad news...

I wish I didn't have to report sad news back to you... but I have an update on the Christian Peacemaker Team Members (CPTers) being held in Iraq. Tom Fox's body was found March 10 in Baghdad with gunshot wounds to his head and chest.

Tom, and 3 other men involved in CPT, were kidnapped November 26, 2005. A few days before Tom Fox's body was found, Al-Jazeera television aired footage of the three other activists appealing to their governments to secure their release. The hostages seen in the video dated Feb. 28 were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32; and Briton Norman Kember, 74. Their fellow CPTers, I'm sure were sad to notice Tom missing from the video.

"Tom Fox was 54 years old. He came to Iraq with the Christian Peacemaker Teams -- a non-missionary organization that has been documenting the abuse of Iraqi detainees, working with the families of prisoners and promoting peace. The CPT were the first to publicly denounce the torture of Iraqi people at the hands of U.S. forces, long before the media revealed what was happening at Abu Ghraib. " (democracynow.org)

This reflection was written by Tom November 25th, the day before he was abducted:
-- The Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs (financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project. It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why are we here?

If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the realm.

I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" in the word "agape". Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as "never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow human beings."

As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorist", but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages.

It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.


***Please pray for the remaining 3 men still in captivity, the family of Tom Fox, and his fellow CPT friends. I will check the news websites more often to give you up-to-date information when possible. If you would like to read more about Tom Fox, go to: http://www.cpt.org/.

Workin it 2...

Well, we managed to survive the weekend. It's taken me this long to work up the energy to post something. The trip to Duluth was a lot of fun. We spent time with the students playing games, ate lots of junk food, and even got a little shopping and exploring in- it was quite relaxing, actually.

The reason we are so wiped is the traveling portion of the weekend. We drove 4 hours up there Friday and 4 hours back on Sunday. As soon as we got back, we hopped in our car and drove 2.5 hours to my sister's (Teresa) house for a little birthday party for her and my nephew, Nicolas.

Already exhausted at that point, we tried to leave around 8-8:30, and stepped outside to a blizzard. Aye carumba! I had no idea it was even supposed to snow! Realizing we had a headlight out, we headed to Target, who does NOT sell headlights. Then we hunted down a Walmart, found one there, and got outside to about a half inch of snow on our car. We decided it wouldn't be very safe to drive 2.5 hours home with all the Minnesota crazies on the road, so we turned around and went back to Teresa's.

The next morning we woke up with every intention of leaving at 8am to get to work only a couple of hours late. We flipped on the news to find that nearly all of the schools in the twin cities were closed, there were accidents blocking every interstate we needed to take, a foot and a half of fresh snow on the ground, and wind whipping it all over the place.

Finally we left at 11am, with the car bottoming out the whole way down the street. Being the responsible people we are, we couldn't miss work! The roads were horrible. We were scared for our lives, and we were only going 35 miles an hour down the interstate! After seeing cars, semi's, and a plow peppering the ditches, we stopped off at a mall to wait it out. We talked to one girl at a store that said it took her 3 hours to get to work that morning, and she only lives 20 miles away. Some stores weren't even open because the people couldn't get there. We finally got home around 6:30 that night.

So that's my scary driving story.

On a brighter note, Matthew and I went to work out again last night. We did really good- honestly. We worked so hard that we decided to reward ourselves with a new exercise outfit for each of us. We're still working on the shoe thing- so expensive! I looked at some today at Foot Locker that were on the cheaper side- at 59 frosties! I'm so cheap- maybe I'll go check Payless tonight. My other Payless runners will be ecstatic.

Workin' it...

Last night's workout was quite the ordeal. I did not break out the leotard- actually I already gave that away to my 5 year old niece, Zoey. It took me about 20 minutes just to find my sneakers, which I bought at Payless 7 years ago. Note to self: go buy new shoes. It took me another hour to get Matthew off of the computer and into his gym clothes. For the next 15 minutes he proceeded to prance around the apartment in the jogging outfit his bro, Gord, bought him for Christmas.

We were quite fortunate to have our neighbor Sally (who happens to be a personal trainer at the Y) go with us to show us how to work the weight machines. We proceeded through the checkin process, where we were assigned cards with our pictures on them. Somehow I managed to get one with yet another way to spell my name wrong, Cristian. Interesting.

All in all, the work out went really well! I'm really excited to get into shape. We're going to go with Sally again next week so she can show us the cardio machines. It's so helpful having her there, because she's set up workouts for us and helped us find our individual settings for each machine.

I have to run now. We're leaving in an hour for Duluth and I haven't started packing yet. Have a good weekend, folks!

wobbly bits

Matthew and I got a membership to the YMCA last week. We are going to go tomorrow night for the first time. Reason I'm telling you this? Because we need to be held accountable. There are a million excuses I can think of to NOT go... but it is 100% necessary. We need to get into shape.

What happens if I get in there and don't know what I'm doing? Will they revoke my membership? I have this fear of looking like a moron while working out. When I was in gymnastics for all those years we never used all these crazy machines- throwing my body around was enough of a workout! I know everyone is all sweaty and smelly, but I would rather not be the evening entertainment... the one that everyone watches from across the room.

I'll have to dig out some of my old gymnastics leotards. Perhaps the aqua blue spandex one. That'll be a big hit- especially with the coordinating floral print spandex shorts! Hey, if they're gonna stare anyways...

Anyways, the reason I brought this up... PLEASE keep me (us) accountable in the exercising department. If you live in the area, feel free to join me, or drag me to 'the Y' (as all the cool kids refer to it as).

Duh-looth not Doo-luth

Friday we're going to Duluth for the weekend! I'm quite excited. We're taking about 40 students from the youth group to stay in chalets and go snowboarding and skiing. AND, I don't have to pay for it (well except for my food). In honor of the trip I decided to go in search of snowboots to go with my groovy snowboard pants. In 5 minutes I was in and out of our one department store in Willmar with a clearance pair of black boots for $14.99 (reg $59). In honor of this happy occasion, I am now wearing my snowboard pants and boots around our apartment. I am so cool.

I'm feeling a little guilty leaving our puppy behind, though. She gets so sad when we are not here. We're talking, refusing to come out of her kennel, sad. Perhaps she remembers the time we left our neighbors in charge of her, and they completely forgot about her- left her in her kennel for 3 days. She had no food, so she ate her own feces *shudder*. That will NEVER happen again... hopefully she doesn't remember that incident. Maybe I could dress her up in her little courderoy jacket and pass her off as a highschool freshman. 'Ah, she's just really short- and hairy.'

Okay, I'm done.

Yeah I know...

I've come to my blog several times in the last 2 weeks, intending to post, but not able to. I became entranced at the site of the little ipod picture and somehow decided subconsiously not to post. I want one- an ipod I mean. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not a vain, 'I have to have that' sort of person. I'm especially not into electronics. But I love music, and am really sick of listening to our local radio station at work. Even the Christian station drives me up the wall. Everyday they play the same songs over and over and over. It's a little mental game I play now- I've counted the same song 4 times in one day, however I'm guessing they played it while I was out to lunch or in the bathroom or something. I think it bugs me because there are so many amazing artists out there, that are not being heard. Instead, the stations overplay mediocre songs until you want to scratch your eyes out.

So my plan is to get my free ipod *hip hip hooray* and then listen to that at work. I bet there's a way to hook it up to the speakers on my computer so it's like a radio. Am I right?

Anyways...
Matthew is on his way back from the twin cities right now. He had to take another day off of work because of his Canadian/US paperwork. This time they sent us a letter saying his 'fingerprints expired' (he just had them done 3 months ago). The letter stated that if he didn't show up for his appointment, they would consider his application 'abandoned'. It feels like they are desperately trying to get us to miss the hoops they continually throw out there for us to jump through. They are already 2 years late on his permanent residency application. Stinkers.

At least he got some good exercise out of it. He went to the Mall of America and walked the entire mall- almost 5 miles, then popped over to IKEA for some meatballs. Tasty... AND, he said he got me a little present. Sweet, right!? Perhaps it is a ipod case for when mine comes in the mail :)