kristiapplesauce

Compromise

I didn't come to a complete stop today and it was me who caused the accident.

I simply did not see the other car. Yes, I slowed to the point of crawling and was still pressing the brake as my truck rolled into them, but it was my fault.

Everyone was totally fine and the damage to their car is a slight crunch to the front fender and ours has an un-noticeable bump on the bull bar but let me say it again: it was my fault.

I did not come to a complete stop.

I was thinking about this all day today. Probably because my husband is out of town and probably because I was pumping full of adrenaline then drained of it...but I compromised. I made a hasty decision to hurry up and get home (7 hour round trip) and I compromised. I was only 1 block from home and I was running through my list of to-do's once I got there and just like that - I made the wrong decision. Not because there is such a strong consequence - but because I compromised. But let me assure you - everywhere else I went today (I had 500 other errands to run after the crash) I stopped completely at every single stop. Every single one. Why? Because I was reminded today that it isn't worth it. Just because I am distracted or tired or weary or burdened or because I miss my husband does not give me liberty to be less fervent or to not give my very best effort.

So in my over analytical, self loathing thought process of the day - I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to be a woman of compromise. Big or small. I know that I will survive this insurance fiasco. I know that tomorrow I will fill out the paperwork and these neighbors will get their car fixed....

But how many other areas in my life am I compromising that are going un-checked?

I am praying for renewal and awareness. I hope that my whole life is about righteousness and honor and love and peace and joy and patience and self control and Christ. Today was just a reminder that I need to let go of some things and be careful not to compromise or become too comfortable.

Yeah, I have been a little too comfortable in the areas of compromise and so today I hope I can let it go.

Rape

South Africa's Rape Crisis: 1 in 4 Men Say They've Done It

By MEGAN LINDOW / CAPE TOWN Megan Lindow / Cape Town Sat Jun 20, 10:30 am ET

South Africans received a horrifying measure of just how bad their country's rape crisis is with the release this week of a study in which more than a quarter of men admitted to having raped, and 46% of those said that they had raped more than once.

The study, conducted by South Africa's Medical Research Council, reveals a deeply rooted culture of violence against women, in which men rape in order to feel powerful, and do so with impunity, believing that their superiority entitles them to vent their frustrations on women and children. The men most likely to rape, the researchers found, were not the poorest, but those who had attained some level of education and income. (See pictures of South Africa, Fifteen Years On.)

Researchers interviewed 1,738 men of all race groups, in both urban and rural settings in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, provinces marked by high rates of AIDS and poverty, and the men answered questions about rape and HIV using small handheld computers in order to guarantee anonymity. Of those admitting rape, 73% said that they had committed their first assault before the age of 20. According to the researchers, many of the study's participants appeared to see no problem with what they had done. These findings, says Mbuyiselo Botha, a senior program advisor at Sonke Gender Justice, an advocacy group for abused women, "highlight the lack of remorse among men in our country, and also the attitude that women remain fair game for us." Men, says Botha, "continue to abuse even to the point of getting away with murder."

South Africa has one of the highest incidents of reported rape in the world. The most recent statistics show that 36,190 cases of rape were reported to the police between April and December 2007, though experts believe that number only accounts for one out of nine cases. But the number of rape cases that make it to court - let alone result in a conviction - are far fewer.

Researchers said that many of the perpetrators reported having bullied or been bullied. The study also underscores the huge divide between South Africa's liberal constitution, which enshrines the rights of women and children, and "the realities of a society where poverty, inequality and violence are rife."

Gender advocates say that the 2006 rape trial of prominent politician Jacob Zuma was incredibly damaging to their cause. Zuma, who was elected President this year, was tried and acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend. He told the court that the woman had dressed provocatively, in a traditional wrap-around kanga, and that it was against Zulu culture for a man to leave a sexually aroused woman unsatisfied. (See a profile of South African president Jacob Zuma.)

Zuma's plainspoken views as a polygamist and a traditionalist appeal to many men who feel adrift in a society that defines men by the material trappings they attain, says Aernout Zevenbergen, author of Spots of a Leopard, a book on masculinity in Africa that is soon to be released in English. "Rape is a signal of a society that is sick to the core," Zevenbergen says. He points to South Africa's long history of migrant labor, in which men left home to work in the mines, as having broken apart generations of families. This system set the stage, he says, "for an epidemic of young men who, in the absence of positive male role models, are now consumed by a sense of anger and entitlement."

"What we have are the wounds of men creating wounds in women, creating wounds in children," says Zevenbergen. "Who is going to stop the vicious circle?"

"It's like my brain is on fire"

From the associated press...

Women in Congo speak out about rape despite taboo

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer Michelle Faul, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 14, 12:02 pm ET

DOSHU, Congo – Zamuda Sikujuwa shuffles to a bench in the sunshine, pushes apart her thighs with a grimace of pain and pumps her fist up and down in a lewd-looking gesture to show how the militiamen shoved an automatic rifle inside her.

The brutish act tore apart her insides after seven of the men had taken turns raping her. She lost consciousness and wishes now that her life also had ended on that day.

The rebels from the Tutsi tribe had come demanding U.S. dollars. But when her husband could not even produce local currency, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. When her two children started crying, the rebels killed them too. Then they attacked Sikujuwa and left her for dead.

The 53-year-old still has difficulty walking after two operations. Yet she wants to tell the world her story, even though repeating it brings back the nightmares.

"It's hard, hard, hard," she says. "I'm alone in this world. My body is partly mended but I don't know if my heart will ever heal. ... I want this violence to stop. I don't want other women to have to suffer what I am suffering."

Rape has been used as a brutal weapon of war in Congo, where conflicts based on tribal lines have spawned dozens of armed groups amid back-to-back civil wars that drew in several African nations. More than 5 million people have died since 1994. Women have become even more vulnerable since a rebel advance at the end of last year drove a quarter-million people from their homes and fighting this year left another 100,000 others homeless, according to aid workers.

Now some of the women are fighting back the only way they know how — by talking about what happened.

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A campaign spearheaded by the U.N. Children's Fund is working with local groups to break traditional taboos around talking about the violence. They're using radio stations broadcasting in local languages, and more activists are getting to remote areas.

"Many more victims are coming forward. We receive a lot of SMS text messages and cell phone calls from women who have been raped and need help," says campaign leader Esther Ntoto.

Five months ago, U.N. officials began bringing together women to tell their stories to rooms full of local officials, community leaders, even children. One sign of success is that more men than women have volunteered for training to encourage victims to come forward and their communities to confront the issues.

Video footage of the campaign Women Breaking the Silence shows officials startled by the atrocities recounted. A provincial minister interrupted to ask reporters not to film a woman's face. But she took the microphone to declare: "I am not ashamed to show my face and publish my identity. The shame lies with those who broke me open and with the authorities who failed to protect me.

"If you don't hear me, see me, you will not understand why it is so important that we fight this together."

That woman, Honorata Kizende, described how her life as a school teacher and the mother of seven children ended when she was kidnapped in 2001. She was held as a sex slave for 18 months and passed around from one Hutu fighter to another until she escaped. She is now a counselor and trains others to help survivors of sexual violence.

One of the difficulties is the "huge problem of impunity," said Mireille Kahatwa Amani, a lawyer working at an office at HEAL Africa Hospital opened a year ago by the Chicago-based American Bar Association.

"It's difficult to prosecute perpetrators because they can buy off the police or a judge. There's no guarantee of justice," she says.

Still, with funding from the U.S. State Department, lawyers have interviewed more than 250 victims and pursued more than 100 cases. In 11 months, they have received 30 judgments with only two acquittals. Those found guilty have been punished with sentences of five to 20 years in jail, Kahatwa says.

Her big success this year was against a man who has been condemned to 20 years in jail for raping a 6-year-old neighbor and infecting her with the AIDS virus. Kahatwa says the judgment came just a month after the complaint was filed, a record.

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Kasongo Manyema takes small, careful steps, fearful of unwrapping the cloth tied like a baby's diaper to catch the blood, urine and feces that has been dribbling from her body for 2 1/2 years.

She was 19 then, when men in military uniform attacked her as she weeded her family's cassava field.

A U.N. helicopter has brought her to HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, where reconstructive surgery could help her incontinence and the stench that follows her and thousands of other Congolese women suffering from fistulas.

Fistulas usually result from giving birth in poor conditions. In Congo, they are caused by violent rapes that tear apart the flesh separating the bladder and rectum from the vagina.

Dr. Christophe Kinoma, one of only two surgeons who perform the reconstructive operations in east Congo, says there's a 50-50 chance that surgery can mend Manyema and others like her.

"Yesterday I did five fistula operations and we have more than 100 women waiting here and who knows how many out in the bush who never ever get to a hospital."

Kinoma says it has become the norm for armed men to use guns, knives and bayonets to rupture their victims' bodies. Sometimes they shoot bullets up women's vaginas. Victims often are rejected by their families, contract HIV, and are left to live in pain and shame.

In December, he operated on an 11-month-old baby raped by a 22-year-old neighbor. During one week in February, it was a 12-year-old girl who had been savagely raped by five soldiers. They stuffed a maize cob inside her.

Also treated last week was a 4-year-old whose mother sent her across the road to get something from a neighbor. She was kidnapped by soldiers and gang-raped.

"An American doctor who was here just burst into tears and collapsed. She couldn't believe what the soldiers had done to this child, just torn her body apart," he says.

Kinoma says he may be able to mend the physical damage, "but the psychological trauma never goes away for some." The hospital offers counseling but has no psychologists.

"The 11-month-old I operated on, every time she sees a man, including me, she starts screaming," he says.

The 4-year-old was infected with HIV, and they await results from a test on the 12-year-old. "If three, four, five soldiers rape you, you are almost assured of contracting AIDS," Kinoma says.

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The trauma that haunts these children and women also affects those who help them.

Hortense Tshomba, who has been counseling victims for three years, says she hopes to give them the courage to return to their homes. Many are rejected by husbands and fathers who say the attacks have left them "unclean."

"We try to counsel them as couples. For girls rejected by their parents, we try to intervene. Some families accept them back; others don't."

When counseling does not help, HEAL Africa offers lessons in sewing and handicrafts to teach them to survive financially. She says rejected women who don't get help often are forced from communities and become beggars.

"Sometimes I have nightmares," Tshomba says. "When I leave after hearing all these horror stories, really it's like my brain is on fire. I have to listen to some jazz to ease my soul."

But there are successes like 13-year-old Harriet, who came to HEAL Africa four years ago. Harriet's parents were killed by the rebels who attacked her and then burned down their home in Rutshuru, north of Goma. She nows lives with a woman who counseled her at the hospital.

On this day, Harriet is so delighted she cannot stop grinning, a wide beam that's infectious in its joy. Her fingernails are black with dirt, but she is wearing lip gloss and eyeliner.

"Today, I got my results and I am top of my class," she announces, flaunting a report that shows she averaged 88.5 percent in math, French and English exams.

"When I came to HEAL Africa, I had never been to school. I was 9 years old. Now I'm beating students who have been to school all their lives," she says. "My teacher says I'm very intelligent, that I should go to school in the United States."

As for the future: "I think I want to be a doctor, so that I can help people the way these doctors helped me."

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This just in

We did not come here to fail.

None of my business

You know, it really is none of my business what people do with their money. Really. It isn't. I have come to this reality since we have moved here. There is nothing I can do with how people spend or don't spend their hard earned (or given) money...but I since this is my blog I will tell you my opinion.

This week or month or year or something is Mr. Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday...I guess they are celebrating it all over the world and had a big birthday bash in London. Yay. Champaign all around. You can even go and text message him on a special phone line they set up and for 20 Rand ($2.50) and he has promised to read every single one of them. The money is said to go somewhere. It was also said on the news that the different African countries were having a contest to see which one could send the most text messages. I guess South Africa was loosing. I wonder why. People here can buy potatoes, milk and bread with 20 rand. I for one wouldn't send a "happy birthday" text message to Nelson. I am sure he has enough of those. What I would do is send a message about feeding his people. Maybe that and a suggestion on not spending the billion plus on the 2010 soccer stadiums they are building here. Because the people here don't need that crap -THEY NEED FOOD. They are freaking starving to death. Do you really think they care about his birthday? Seriously.

This is in the news everyday here...

You should probably start praying for us and for South Africa concerning Zimbabwe. Here is a news story I pulled of the Yahoo website, but as you can imagine it doesn't tell half of it. The stories we hear are much worse (sorry Mom).

Zimbabwe opposition reports 4 deaths ahead of vote

By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press WriterThu Jun 19, 2:50 PM ET

Zimbabwe's opposition party said Thursday that it was facing escalating violence as it tries to campaign in the last days before a presidential runoff pitting its leader against longtime President Robert Mugabe.

In recent weeks, party activists have been burned alive or have turned up dead after being spirited away in trucks, the Movement for Democratic Change said. Their rallies have been banned and police have blocked campaign stops.

The violence, restrictions on opposition campaigning and the arrest of a top opposition leader have raised concerns that the June 27 elections will not be free and fair, leading some in the region to wonder whether the vote should be scrapped in favor of a power-sharing arrangement.

Opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's party says more than 60 of its activists have been killed in recent weeks.

Independent human rights activists have implicated police, soldiers and Mugabe party militants in the violence.

Amnesty International said Thursday that 12 bodies had been found across the country and that most of the victims showed signs of torture. The London-based rights group said the victims appeared to have been abducted by supporters of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

One of the worst single attacks came Wednesday, when the opposition said four activists were abducted in Chitungwiza, about 15 miles south of the capital, and assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns, opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.

The victims were forced onto trucks and taken away by militias chanting slogans of Mugabe's party, witnesses said. The bodies were found early Thursday, Chamisa said.

In a separate incident, the homes of three Chitungwiza opposition councilmen and their families were firebombed Wednesday night, but everyone escaped uninjured, Chamisa said. Attempts to reach police for confirmation of the firebombing were not immediately successful.

Doctors at the main Parirenyatwa hospital in Harare said Thursday they admitted victims injured in assaults in several townships on the outskirts of Harare in recent days.

Residents of Harare's well-to-do suburbs reported gangs of militants forcing maids and their family members to attend meetings known as a "pungwe," a colloquial term for night-long political indoctrination used by militants since the independence war that swept Mugabe to power in 1980.

Among those killed in the violence was the wife of opposition mayor-elect of Harare, said family friends, who did not want to be identified for fear of repercussions.

Mugabe has denied being responsible for the violence — but also threatened to return the country to war if he does not win the runoff.

South African President Thabo Mbeki held talks with Tsvangirai and Mugabe in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, but canceled a news conference in South Africa at the last moment Thursday "due to unforeseen circumstances."

South African media reported Mbeki, who has steadfastly refused to publicly rebuke Mugabe, was trying to persuade the two men to call off the runoff and form a government of national unity.

The idea has been raised before, but the sticking point appears to be that Tsvangirai refuses to share power with Mugabe, while Mugabe insists on leading any coalition government. The opposition claims Tsvangirai won outright, but according to official results, he came first but not with the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff.

One Western diplomat based in the region said Tsvangirai remains unwilling to join a national unity government that fails to reflect the result of the March first round or in which Mugabe's party dictates the terms.

Tsvangirai has repeatedly said he would invite moderate and reform-minded members of Mugabe's party to join his government in an attempt to encourage reconciliation.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said that in the aftermath of a contested election win, Mugabe's party is likely to eventually jettison Mugabe and seek the endorsement of neighboring governments by offering roles to the opposition and vowing to carry out economic reforms.

Jerry Simpson, a Human Rights Watch researcher, told reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa, that if a government of unity was formed, it should not include anyone responsible for the current violence, and called on South Africa to end its "quiet diplomacy" approach to Zimbabwe.

At the United Nations, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cited "great international concern" Thursday that Zimbabwe is incapable of holding a free and fair presidential election runoff under Mugabe's regime, and urged the U.N. Security Council to intervene.

"I don't see anything that President Mugabe has done that has been helpful to Zimbabwean people, so maybe it's time for international pressure," she said. Rice was leading a U.S. push to put Zimbabwe's election on the council's agenda this month, which could require a vote if enough members oppose it.

Also Thursday, the Zimbabwean opposition party's No. 2 official, Tendai Biti, was brought back to court for a hearing a week after he was arrested. Police accused him of treason and publishing false statements among other offenses.

"It's all part of harassment," Tsvangirai told reporters during a break, saying time spent in court was time away from campaigning.

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Calloused.

The other day the place where I get my hair done was having a special for pedicures for R60 ($7.50) so Dan told me to get one. I have only had 2 others in my life and those were fabulous so I was so super excited. She soaked and scrubbed and clipped and filed. It was all good until the devil woman brought out the razor thing to cut off the dead skin on my heels and around the balls of my feet. This was actually fascinating and I thought a good thing…I mean who needs dead skin? I do apparently because when all was said and done, I was brand new- ready to go and then called Dan to come pick me up. He however was on the other side of town “stuck” at the hardware store…so since the salon isn’t that far from our house, I started walking home. Yeah, so about a mile into it my feet started screaming at me because I was wearing my trusted leather flip flops -worn in all the right places IF I had calluses. But since I didn’t - I developed HUGE blisters the size of potatoes on the bottom of my feet. Moral of the story: Maybe being a little thick skinned and weathered isn’t a bad thing after all.

The unknown.

I thought I knew. I was pretty sure of it actually. But I was sadly mistaken. Dang.

focus.

This is one of those times where I know, I know for certain that there is a stirring, an opportunity of  drawing near to God that is happening and I can either take it, or chicken out and pretend He isn't speaking...that He isn't doing something and I need to pay attention. I know that for a long time I have been in a haze, that things have been out of focus for me and now certain aspects of my life are coming into focus and lets face it...I am totally uncomfortable. I don't like it. I don't like things about me; I don't like the easy road that I have been going down. Or maybe I do and that is the problem. Either way, I can tell there is change-a-brew'in, and it isn't going to be easy.

Prayer

I was going to send this out to all the people who pray for us (no questions asked) but since most of those people read this...and maybe a little more I am going to be dramatic and post it here instead. Maybe I will do both. I am feeling (which is totally different from discernment I might add) totally fearful. I have been on edge and worried about our safety lately and haven't been sleeping. South Africa as you may know isn't well known for it's safety, so we are in fact a little "out there" and resting and relying on the Lord for His Amazing and Assured protection. But right now...for the past week, I am certainly not feeling it, AT ALL. For our home, for our persons, for our dog. I am feeling (there is that word again) uneasy and nervous...which I know in my head are not of the Lord...but at the same time, the prayers and scripture I read are not chasing the worries away in my heart. So if you all could stand with us in prayer, that would rock. Thanks.