learning french

Wife options

 - You see nowadays marriages are arranged that way - like traps. What is the natural way? The lass is ripe, she must be given in marriage. It seems very simple if the girl is not a fright and there are men wanting to marry. That is how it was done in olden times. The lass was grown up and her parents arranged the marriage. So it was done, and is done, among all mankind - Chinese, Hindus, Mohammedans, and among our own working classes; so it is done among at least 99% of the human race. Only among 1% or less, among us libertines, has it been discovered that that is not right, and something new has been invented. And what is this novelty? It is that the maidens sit round, and the men walk about, as at a bazaar, choosing. And the maidens wait and think, but dare not to say: "me, please!" "No, me!" "not her, but me!" "Look what shoulders and other things I have!" And we men stroll around and look, and are very pleased. "Yes, I know! I won't be caught!" They stroll about and look, and are very pleased that everything is arranged like that for them. And then in an unguarded moment - snap! He is caught!

- Then how ought it to be done? - I asked - Should the women propose?

- Oh, I don't know how; only if there's to be equality, let it be equality. If they have discovered that prearrenged matches are degrading, why this is a thousand times worse! Then the rights and chances were equal, but here the woman is a slave in a bazaar or the bait in a trap. Tell any mother, or the girl herself, the truth, that she is only occupied in catching a husband... oh dear! what an insult! Yet they all do it and have nothing else to do. What is so terrible is to see sometimes quite innocent poor young girls engaged on it.

TOLSTOI, Leon - The Kreutzer Sonata

I don't think I have anything left to say.

Currently Reading The Death of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories By Leo Tolstoy see related

Be honest

I've just finished reading a book called "A Road to Reality" by K.P. Yohannan. For those of you who don't know who the guy is, he's is the founder and president of a missionary organization called Gospel for Asia. They train and send native missionaries because they believe it is the most effective way to reach the most unreached. Native missionaries know their language, culture and live on the same standards as the people they're reaching. That means you can fully support a GFA native missionary with a US$30 monthly support. We probably waste 30 bucks on nothing, don't we?

Reading that book was very challenging to me and I would recomend it to anyone who really wants to go beyond entertainment Christianity. I know I do. But it gets hard if I'm really serious about it. I mean... how am I really involved in the Great Commision? Sure...I'm involved with Crusade so that must mean something...but am I really praying for my campus as much as I should? Am I praying at all? Am I really concerned with those going through life without ever hearing the Good News that God is for us? When I take my personal plans to the Lord, am I ruling out the possibility of being sent by Him to a place that might not be as comfortable as I'd like? And if believe God's sending me the workplace how can that further the Great Commission? Am I a witness to my peers? Do I look for ways I can share the Gospel with them? How do I manage the money I make? Am I supporting others who are willing to go? Since my expenses reflect my priorities in life, is God glorified by how I spend my money? I sing I surrender all to Him over and over, but do I really? I don't think so.

What would it look like if the Christian church truly surrendered to God's will and plan and put them as the priority of their lives? What kind of impact we would make, were we truly the body of Christ on this Earth? Christ's hands and feet and mouths? But unfortunatelly we're way too busy trying to make our lives work out. Way too worried about our own happy endings and how to behave so maybe God can give us what we've been longing for (which a lot of times might end up being something other than God Himself). Yeah...it is pretty discouraging to look at my own life and see all the wasted potential multiplied by the spread of irrelevant self-centered Christianity all around.

But there's hope. It gives me so much more reason to praise a God who chooses to work through such fallen creatures. A God who still has everything in control, despite our best efforts to ruin it all. A God that never gives up working in my life no matter how long the road to reality might be for me. I just have to keep taking my baby steps and He'll keep showing me I'm not quite there yet....until that great day. But I sure need to open my eyes to the reality that some of my beliefs and values and desires might not be true biblical Christianity and whenever I find this out, I should be willing to repent and let those beliefs and values and desires go. May God helps us all.

I dunno ni da

SO here I am in Brazil. Nothing really different except for the fact that some of my closest friends and boyfriend are on the other side of the Earth right now. Let me tell you my last night saga to find them on the phone. Tiago is in South Korea for CM2007...pretty exciting huh?

But when he last contacted me he was in Frankfurt, waiting for his flight to Beijing. In China, he would have to pick another plane to Busan, South K. So, as a worrier as I am, I HAD to call the hotel and find him. The problem is that I didn't know his room number. And English is my second language. And they speak Korean there. And Koreans say L instead of R. And Tiago's last name is Ribeiro. So yeah..... it was pretty confusing...sometimes frustrating. My first try ended up with a "If you want to talk to somebody you have to come here" from the hotel guy. But I kept trying.

After over an hour and several calls to the same Korean girl who would answer the phone with the same Korean nonsense phrase, they connected me to a housing coordinator who - thank God! - speaks a lot better English than the hotel guy and was able to put the letters R-I-B-E-I-R-O together. She found his room number and saved my life.

When I heard him saying "Alô?" (hello in Portuguese) I was soooooexcited!!! Omg! I mean... I found him in South Korea! That was amazing. I feel like I can do anything now lol....Find anyone anywhere. Tiago just called me and he said he was looking for some information at the hotel and this Korean staff woman saw he was from Brazil and said out loud: "Brazil? Tiago? There's someone crazy looking for you in Brazil!" lol...... So this is what I call: Impacting the nations...

So yeah...I feel so much better now that I know he's fine and having a great time there. Not knowing anything was really bad. But now I can focus on my life, go do my stuff and sooner than expected he'll be back here with a ton of stories to share and a ton of vision to cast.

CM2007 is glimpse of Heaven and I totally wish I could be there. For further information on what I'm talking about: www.cm2007.net

They even stream videos live. It's awesome!

10 things I hate about xanga

A little insight on what's going on in my mind right now (when we talk again, it might have changed, probably. Do not worry.)

1)I hate blogging.

2)I hate attempting to make sense in words all the mess inside myself.

3)I hate the internal pressure to post something new so people can 'catch up with my life'.

4)I hate having to explain what's up with me to people who don't even bother to ask.

5)I hate the feeling that leads to blogging. It's a need to share my heart followed by no one around/available/interested to listen.

6)I hate that friends come here to know about my life and feelings because that's basically the only 'deep interaction' we have.

7)I hate that I have to check friend's blogs to know how they're doing because they can be more honest typing to the world wide web than talking to me.

8)I hate the fact I am sitting here writing this post because keeping it all inside is only making things worse.

9)I hate to think that this is doomed to become an emo (aka I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare) blog.

10)I hate that I can't be completely honest because I know there are people reading it but then again I want to be honest for the same reasons.

***

I put up a mask and pretend everything's ok and, believe it or not, my closest friends buy it. I'm taking no initiatives, except for this one.