Karen Mains Blog

David and I have flown to Africa to visit the native land of the Global Bag Project. Since we will have intermittent internet connections during the next few weeks, I will have to suspend my blogging until I return. http://bit.ly/I60Wdw

David and I have gone up to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario for some 39 years. Rather than have a cabin on a lake, or a vacation getaway, we have returned to this little stone town with its four theatres and amazing cultural life, inviting friends and family and acquaintances to come with us. Theatre in this environment, with the finest repertory company on the North American continent, has enriched our souls. Will Shakespeare is part of our family history. http://bit.ly/IWhq8H

Every day I try to read a little from literature that is richly written and that stirs my soul. These last months I’ve been slowly perusing and underlining the book How to Read a Poem by Edward Hirsch. Poetry has always been a difficult genre for me to understand, but the author is a master teacher and suddenly, as I study his writing and the samples he includes, this world of literature is opening to me. Poems are becoming comprehensible, astounding, soul-shaking and renewing. http://bit.ly/HUYAAv

Friends and Strangers chronicles the beginning of the journey into self-knowledge, a painful odyssey particular to the work of the middle years. This narrative focuses on the ages from 38-45. Each of us has hidden areas, lies we tell to ourselves that we don’t know we are telling. The work of the Holy Spirit is to continually bring us into truth. In this book I begin to look at truth through encounters with strangers, people I meet along the way, brought to me by God, who have rich gifts to give that shake my smug thinking. I am convinced that no encounter is casual, as each has the potential to move the ground beneath our feet, which is never as solid as we like to think. http://bit.ly/aGYzoz

Good reads for this week. http://bit.ly/aGYzoz

We would love to get to know you better … Won’t you join us on a Voluntourism Journey to Kenya? David and I will leave from Chicago on Friday, September 28 and land in Nairobi on Saturday, the 29th. The 10-day experience will end on October 9 when many of us will fly back to the States. The voluntourism program, a careful balance of focused tourism and hands-on interaction with our African friends, is open for registration. Contact Karen Mains via e-mail at karen@hungrysouls.org or our Mainstay Ministries office phone (for further questions and a live voice) at 630-293-4500 . http://bit.ly/w99WP2

Cathie Clark is a friend who helps out in the Global Bag Project room and stretches her income, like we are all doing, by pinching pennies and surveying the sales at resale shops. But I don’t know anyone who has the spiritual gift of helps more than Cathie does. http://bit.ly/Hu3WBj

“Just work it,” urged my friend Lois Shaw. I had been telling Lois how I was discovering the advantages of being a white-haired lady.

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Countless pastors have recommended this classic resource as the meaningful example of how the Holy Spirit ministers to and through us to make other people feel truly welcome and deeply wanted. http://bit.ly/GWwxdi

The voluntourism program, a careful balance of focused tourism and hands-on interaction with our African friends, is open for registration. We are looking for men and women who can contribute their skills to the on-going growth of Global Bag Project Kenya. http://bit.ly/w99WP2