Hi, Friends,

  I have not said 'hello' to you for a month.  Sorry about that!  As you might imagine, lots has happened in these last four weeks.  The most important set of events has happened around my having surgery and trusting the healing process.  I did not find the experience to be especially painful but it was definitely irritating and bothersome, especially for the first five days.  Now the experience is pretty much over, I am much benefited by the surgery and feel better than ever.  I can sleep better now and not have to get up so often during the night to urinate.  So all the bother has been worth it. It took until last week for all the bleeding to stop and now all is normal.  All that in one month.  Alleluia!

  After about four days following the surgery (one month ago today) I started into my work at this laptop computer and phone work to begin the organizing of fund-raising events for two building we really need at the retreat center in Nairobi.  So far I have two events, one in a home on May 14 and on May 27 a much bigger event at a nearby country club.  I also have a radio interview coming up.  The taping will be done on May 13.  When it is aired I do not yet know.  The interview will be about what life is like for me in Kenya.  I also have the names of foundations who give grants to places like my situation.  So I have lots of letter writing ahead of me and hopes.  I keep thinking that somewhere along the road I need to hit a homerun with one or two people who will identify with my story  and contribute big time!  I am looking for 1.8 million!!

   Then on Good Friday afternoon the first copies of my book arrived.  I got to hold a copy in my hands and see the finished product for the first time.  I must say it is smaller and lighter than I had imagined it would be.  I really like it that way, more inviting to the reader, more likely that women readers will find it convenient to slip it comfortably into their purses.  At this date 700 copies have been sold.  I am told by the publisher that that number is very good for the first month--and it is only three weeks it has been available for purchase.  I am really pleased with this.  I did write the book for everyday John Doe and Mary Smith, not for scholars.  So I think people in general are finding it quite readable, get taken in by the opening story and statement of the overall theme of the book, and then launch in.  I have autographed about 30-35 so far.

  Also, I have been working on and making noteworthy success with my efforts to lead a pilgrimage to Italy next November.  I do hope we pilgrims get a chance to get close to Pope Francis.  I have already imagined what I will say to him if that opportunity comes up!

  This evening I was watching ABC Evening news and saw an excerpt from an interview with Bruce Jenner that is to be aired soon.  I remember his being an Olympic runner and champion, a 10 events (decathalon?) champ I believe from the 1980s.  I was very taken by the pain in his eyes and face, the suffering he has undergone because he was born with a woman's body yet had various male features. He performed as a man in the Olympics back 30 years ago. What is so striking to me is that he was born this way ; he did not choose to be this way.  He had/has no choice about this.  He was 'given' this particular kind of body.  This is what he inherited  and had to learn to deal with.  I do think God is saying something bigtime to the whole world through our hearing about this, about now having to deal with the fact that some human beings have to cope with this, not by their choice, but by the laws of nature that expressed themselves this way.  They were "dealt these cards" and now have to play the "game of life" with this reality. They have no other choice, except to commit suicide.

   What would any of us do if we were in this kind of situation?    I sense that so many still think people choose to be this way, that they have control over the kind of body they get and its biological, instinctual inclinations.  Stories like this challenge all of that kind of thinking.  Hearing a story like this is a really strong 'wake-up" call to society.  As Pope Francis keeps urging, we need to be like Jesus, to listen with care and humility and have immense compassion toward our brothers and sisters, especially those who are the modern day lepers of society and suffer one of the greatest of all sufferings:  the feeling of not being wanted, not being permitted to belong, of being told they are unacceptable and unlovable.

   Before we look at the actions of such people, we need to learn who they are by listening to them, by listening closely to their own story of seeking to be understood and accepted, and so being very slow to make statements or judgments about them but to keep asking questions, keep asking such children of God to open up and show us their heart, their soul, with their fears and their hopes.  Is this not what Jesus did for the Samaritan woman at the well and for Peter after Peter had denied three times knowing him??

    It seems to me that this interview with Bruce Jenner is a good opportunity for such listening and learning, of suspending our opinions and judgments, and to keep asking God's Spirit to lead us all to have hearts of mercy in imitation of Jesus, to enter into the world of the people who live with this overwhelming reality and sense something of the pain they go through in their being  shamed and rejected, to sense something of what is visited upon them by family members at times, by employers, by so very many of the general public.  I am not saying anything about lifestyle or ethical concerns here.  Before we get to the actions of a person, we need to learn who they are, what is it like to be them, and to feel something of what they feel.  I am sure this is what Jesus calls anyone who claims to be His follower to do.

  Enough!  I need to go to bed.



Bernie Owens