Quadragesimations

Well, I just turned in my weekly assignment for International Politics and was so relieved to be done until March 14^th because of Spring Break. Then I realized I have a paper due Friday. Ugh. And I was going to write it on a book I’m reading but I won’t have time to finish the book so I’ll have to change topics. It just never stops. Well, hopefully this weekend will be slower.

Well, we were ‘posed to get 7-10 inches of snow over night last night and be snowed in. I awakened at 5am to check the Fed Govnt status and was not happy to discover the storm was “postponed” so work was not canceled. I went back to sleep for a little while and dreamed a helicopter came to get me out of bed and drag me to work—obviously I was really wanting a day off! Oh well. It did snow really hard all day, but stayed so warm it didn’t accumulate on the roads, so we didn’t even get to leave early. It was just wet and ugh and made me much more ready for spring. It is pretty in the neighborhood where I live though, cause it accumulated here.

Ambassador Hanford leaves for Vietnam tomorrow, so I spent a lot of my day making random preparations for them. I am very excited to see the results of their trip and negotiations for religious freedom.

I had a random moment today I haven’t really figured out yet. One of the things the Ambassador asked me to do was run to pick up his shoes which were being re-soled. Happy for some mindless work, and knowing it was necessary, I didn’t mind the errands at all. As I approached the State Dept on my way back, I was thinking about my role in this whole Vietnam process—from memo-writing to errand-running, playing a small role to facilitate progress toward freedom in that tyrannical Communist nation. Having made a re-visit to the Price of Freedom military exhibit at the Smithsonian this weekend, I was thinking about the Vietnam war… lost because Americans did not recognize their cause and not because the cause was not worthy nor because the battles were unwinnable. I often think of that while I am reading letters pleading with the US Govnt to intervene in cases of torture, imprisonment, and death of Christians in Vietnam. I think of how much their blood stains America’s record. Not because of what we did in Vietnam, but because of what we failed to do because we had the power but lacked the will. While I did not plan nor forsee involvement in Vietnam when I came to work with the Religious Freedom office, I think it may be what stands out the most to me in retrospect. I almost feel I am playing some tiny part in stopping the flow of blood that has not ceased since we abandoned the Vietnamese to communism so many years ago. Today as I carried Ambassador Hanford’s shoes back to the office, tears came to my eyes. The “shoes errand” was the most insignificant and unchallenging task I’ve had the opportunity to do to prepare the way for this historic trip to negotiate freedom for Christians in Vietnam. It may sound strange to you… but somehow it symbolically captured it to me—“preparing the way” seems rather literal when delivering the shoes the Ambassador of freedom will wear. Maybe I’m just so visual it made it seem much more real to me. As I pray for his mission’s success, I am confident this is a divine appointment in every way. While I cannot share details of the negotiations, I am confident that pastors will walk out of prison, churches will be opened, and souls will be saved as a result of this trip. While all this would certainly have been possible without my role, I am humbled and feel privileged to have played a part in the past few weeks of work leading up to this point, and I feel just as involved as if I were the one getting on that plane tomorrow morning. Well, I’m not sure that made any sense in the telling…but I wanted to at least try to share the overwhelming sense of thankfulness to the Lord I felt today in my contemplations…