Happy Birthday, Kelly....and more thoughts on Nepal

First and foremost, I must wish my older sister a very Happy Birthday today! If you don't know her, her name is Kelly. She gives the best hugs in the world. She squeezes so hard that you wonder at times if you're supposed to beg for mercy, but she lets go just before that point when you think, for a split second, you may just pass out in her arms. She is a master cook, a gracious hostess, a hospitality guru, and most importantly, she loves Jesus with all her heart, soul and mind and SHOWS it! Happy Birthday, Kelzy! Love your hair, love your shoes!

Now, back to me. Remember me? I'm Kasey, the baby of the family, the one who can never sleep and ends up writing blogs in the middle of the night that make about as much sense as Barbara Walters after a novocaine shot.

Here's the thing upsetting me at the moment. I woke up tonight at 3 a.m. as I do almost every night (or morning, I suppose). I have a friend who I've recently met who has a very clever line of t-shirts called "I Will Not Apologize"...check them out at www.iwillnotapologize.com. There are several witty ones such as "I will not apologize for my coffee breath" or "I will not apologize for going green"....things that we get tired of feeling the need to apologize for. So, the reason I woke up is because my mind won't shut off several of the ideas that I have for new t-shirts. Here's the thing I find a little bit ironic, but mostly disturbing. My wake-me-up thought was this: "I need a t-shirt that says 'I will not apologizing for feeling the need to constantly apologize for everything I need to apologize for'." (If I hear, think or even type the word 'apologize' one more time, you reserve the right now, or at any time, to pinch the back of my arms....it's very painful, trust me). Do you see now how the Barbara Walters analogy plays into this blog. Cute, huh?

Well, I'm awake. It's 2:12pm in Nepal time, 3:33am in Kasey time. It's going to be a full day for me today. I am planning to go to one of the final Farmer's Markets downtown with my kids. TJ, I'm sure, will wear his Nebraska football helmet. We'll walk around and I'll people watch while we follow our routine of coffee stop, rye bread stop, breakfast sandwich stop, curb stop, train stop and Mommy's-exhausted stop. Later on I'll be tailgaiting for the first time in my life (other than last year at this time while down in Texas, tailgaiting with the Longhorns AS a Longhorn fan FOR the Texas vs. Nebraska game...did I mention that's when I met Matthew McConaughey?) That's no lie.....I give you Exhibit A for Amazing....


So yeah, Ummmmmmmm, where was I? (P.S. We ARE snuggling a little bit, aren't we?)

Anyway, I'm tailgaiting and then later going to the NE vs. Missouri Homecoming game with my friend, Sabrina. Here's the thing...I will see the 85,000 plus fans in the stands and will, undoubtedly, be a little bit upset with our society, myself included. Spending all that money to watch college kids play a sport...the skyboxes, the entertainment, the advertising, the news and journalism. I think of ALL the money that goes into sports and our society's love affair with it, and then my heart goes to Nepal. I don't want to have this judgmental mentality of our culture and society because we have been blessed beyond measure here in the United States. I love the country I live in. I love the freedoms of speech and religion I have. But I often wonder if we have gotten so lost in those freedoms that we forget the lack of freedom elsewhere. If all of those 85,000 people gave just one PENNY, that $850 would support a sex-trafficking monitoring station for almost a half of a year! That may not seem like much, until you consider that 10,000 girls are trafficked each year between Nepal and India. And if even one girl was intercepted from that life of horror...ONE girl; that ONE penny will have literally saved a life.



I admit this openly: I am full of judgment and hypocrisy...it's not just a little bit; I am filled to the brim of my mental being with it. This is horrible insight into myself that I am trying to shake. I am trying to find the balance of having a passion and a heart for a people, a culture and a mission, and understanding when other's do not share that same passion. I am praying daily that God wipes me clean of that. There is nothing beneficial in it; only a tool for Satan to distract from the work that really needs to be done. I find a tremendous about of joy in the work being done by people in all parts of the world, in all parts of our country, in all parts of each state and city and town. It has never been more apparent to me than now, that people need the Lord. People NEED Him.