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Ana Iris Medina, d. 9/11/2001

Sep11

AnaMedinaAna Iris Medina had 10 (or maybe 14?) brothers and sisters and consequently, a huge family, in New York and Puerto Rico. She was 39 years old when she died on this date five years ago as she began her day’s work at Aon Consulting, an insurance company, on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center. She left behind an eleven year old son, Leonardo Acosta, and her 87 year old mother, Monserrate Acosta. Ana was the caretaker for both of them.

On September 25, 200l, The Village Voice listed Ana Medina as “missing.” Her relatives were still looking for her, hoping that she might be still alive. They told newspaper reporters that she had a “pedicure with a mint-green color and white designs” and that she loved to watch her son play baseball. She also liked salsa music and dancing. By October 6th, Ana’s 40th birthday, her family knew that she would not be found in a hospital somewhere; she died in the World Trade Center. The family gathered to remember her at the small Pentecostal church she attended.

I found this note at legacy.com:

February 28, 2002
Dear Mom
hi its your son leony.I have benn very loney with out you.It has been a little strange that youre not with us anymore.You will always and truly in my heart.
Leonardo Acosta (Brooklyn, NY )

Leonardo Acosta would be sixteen years old by now. I imagine he’s still missing his mom.

Today is fifth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York City and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. I thought it was important to remember those who lost their lives to some men’s misguided and evil sense of religious or cultural duty. You can click on the image to read more tributes to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

You Are Who We Say You Are

Aug25

A Malaysian woman who was born into a Muslim family wishes to become a Catholic and marry a Catholic man. So what’s the problem? According to sharia law, she’s just not allowed to disavow Islam, even if she’s been baptized as a Catholic. So my question is: in their world would I be allowed to submit to Islam? If so, why, since I was “born Christian”? If not, how can Islam be true for all people?

“In rulings in her case, civil courts said Malays could not renounce Islam because the Constitution defined Malays to be Muslims.

They also ruled that a request to change her identity card from Muslim to Christian had to be decided by the Shariah courts. There she would be considered an apostate, and if she did not repent she surely would be sentenced to several years in an Islamic center for rehabilitation.”
From the NY TImes article on the case.

New York Times: Once Muslim, Now Christian and Caught in the Çourts.

Read more about this story at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

Fighting for Dear Life by David Gibbs and Bob DeMoss

Aug19

I can’t imagine that this book, which purports to tell “the untold story of Terri Schiavo and what it means for all of us by the attorney who fought for Terri,” will change any minds about the sad life and judicial murder of Terri Schiavo. You see, I’ve signalled already that my mind is made up about the subject. I agree with author and lawyer David Gibbs that “the quality of a person’s life and the hearsay testimony of a spouse who has moved on to another committed relationship regarding end-of-life medical treatment wishes should never again become the basis for which life can be ended.”

So, you can read this book in order to reinforce your own opinion about the Terri Schiavo catastrophe and to get more facts to add to your arsenal of arguments whenever someone tries to convince you that Terri was already dead or didn’t want to live when the court ordered that she be deprived of food and water. For instance, Michael Schiavo testified in court in 1992 during the medical malpractice trial that eventually ended in a $2 million award for Michael to use to care for Terri:

“I believe in the vows I took with my wife–through sickness, in health, for richer or poorer. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m going to do that.”

He then refused to allow Terri to receive rehabilitation therapy. In fact, Terri Schiavo “received absolutely no rehabilitative services, swallowing tests, or therapy of any kind between 1992 and her death in 2005.” And Michael began living with his new companion, Jodi Centonze, in 1993. Do these actions sound like the acts of a loving husband who should be trusted to give truthful testimony concerning Terri’s wishes or make decisions about her medical treatment or have anything at all to do with his abandoned and handicapped wife, Terri Schiavo?

Did you know that Judge Greer, the judge who made the decisions in Terri’s case, never once went to see her nor did he ever have her brought to his courtroom?

Did you know that a number of people, non-family members including Mr. Gibbs, claim to have seen Terri interact in a meaningful way with other people respond to her environment?

Did you know that Michael Schiavo refused to have Terri evaluated by an independent physician after 2002 even though her family asked repeatedly that she be re-evaluated?

Still not convinced? If not, you could read the book and argue with it. I’ve done that before with other books. However, I warn you that Mr. Gibbs’ arguments against the travesty that was Terri Schiavo’s death are irrefutable. But, then, I was already on Terri’s side.

A few other items of interest in the book are: Mr. Gibbs’ opinion of living wills, answers to some frequently asked about Terri Schiavo’s case, and some ideas on what Christians, and others who deplore the direction our society is headed as exemplified in the Schiavo case, can do to change that direction.

I saw this book on the new books table at Barnes and Noble last night, and I hope lots of people pick it up and read it. Maybe an inside view of what really happened to Terri Schiavo will change some minds. Maybe we’re not as far gone as I fear we are. I pray not.

I received a review copy of Fighting for Dear Life from Bethany House publishers. Thanks to them and I do hope my pessimism about the effects of such a book won’t keep them from publishing other books that defend the sacredness of all life.

Open the Kimono?

Apr10

I sometimes glean the most interesting tidbits of information while playing taxi-driver and listening to NPR in the van:

—Jeffrey Skilling testified in someone’s Enron trial today, and according to the NPR reporter Skilling said he told someone at Enron to “open the kimono”. I gathered that this particular idiom meant to tell all, disclose all the secrets (to the stockholders, in this case, I think). I tried Google and got 41,000 hits on this phrase, but it’s new to me. WordSpy says it means “[t]o open a company’s accounting books for inspection; to expose something previously hidden.”

— Jacques Chirac gave in to the socialist students in France and rescinded the new law that would have allowed employers to let employees with in the first two years of their employment. So now when they graduate the students are guaranteed to retain the job that they are likely not to be offered in the first place. Makes sense to me.

— Beginning May 1, you can get the latest episodes of LOST and other ABC TV programs the day after broadcast date via streaming video on the internet for FREE. You’ll just have to watch a few commercials with your program. Or you can buy the commercial-free version from iTunes for $1.99 per episode. I say LOST is the thinking woman’s (man’s) soap opera, and so missing an episode is a major loss for fans. I’ve already paid six or eight dollars for missed episodes, and I’ll be happy to watch a few commercials if that’s what it takes to get the shows I failed to videotape for free.

— Finally, I learned that lots and lots of immigrants and supporters marched and demonstrated throughout the U.S. in opposition to a recently passed House immigration bill. At least, I think they were opposed. They seem to like the part of the bill that gives amnesty to immigrants who are already here, but they hate the rest of the bill that would make it harder for new illegal immigrants to come here. I don’t really know what I think about the entire immigration issue, but I’m not sure how you can organize a demonstration to oppose and support a bill both at the same time. Too confusing.

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Mar14

I can’t reproduce my original non-review. My server went down and apparently lost all my posts from last week. However, I am still concerned about the allegations that Ms. Scheeres makes in her book, Jesus Land: A Memoir.

I didn’t want to believe the story that Ms. Scheeres tells. Stereotypes and caricatures abound in her memoir. All the Christians, and most everybody else in rural Indiana where Julia Scheeres grew up, are hypocrites, child abusers, racists or simpletons. About half of her book is about her life growing up in a Calvinist Christian home with parents who were negligent and emotionally abusive when they weren’t being physically abusive. Ms. Scheeres has three older siblings who seem to have escaped the abuse she chronicles, and she has two adopted brothers who, according to the author, bore the brunt of the physical abuse that took place in the home. (I know I keep qualifying my statements, but I can’t help it. I do not know whether to believe the story that Ms. Scheeres tells or not.) The two boys, who are black, are repeatedly beaten by their doctor father, and one time David, the brother Julia loves and is close to, has his arm broken when Dad hits him with a 2×4. Her other brother, Jerome, is abused also and becomes an abuser in respones, sexually molesting his younger sister, Julia. As the situation at home gets worse, David is sent to a Christian school for troubled teenagers, Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic. Julia becomes the focus of her parents’ abusive behavior, and she rebels, sleeping with her boyfriend, running away from home, and finally getting arrested for being out after curfew. Of course, none of the trouble she finds herself in is her fault. At seventeen years of age, she tells the court that she would prefer to join her brother David at the Christian school in the Dominican Republic rather than go home or declare herself an “emancipated adult.”

The school, a sort of Christian reform school, is filled with more racism, abuse, and spiritual hypocrisy. One of the junior staffers is a college-aged girl who is obsessed with abortion. She spouts anti-abortion platitudes constantly even when unborn babies and abortions are clearly not the issue at hand. The male staffers are all racists, male chauvinists, and abusers. Teenaged students at Escuela Caribe are punched, slammed against walls, and forced to participate in midnight calisthenics, all in the name of Jesus and in the hope of teaching them to respect authority and love the Lord.

The most disturbing abuse that Ms. Scheeres documents in her book is spiritual abuse. Counselors and house parents force teens to mouth words of repentance and faith in Christ in order to earn points toward release from the school. Even though the James Frey debacle has placed a pall of suspicion over the memoir genre, and even though I have grown up immersed in evangelical, fundamentalist, and Calvinist Christian culture and have never witnessed anything like the kind of abuse that Ms. Scheeres tells about in her book, I am forced to believe that New Horizons Youth Ministries may have been guilty of a serious betrayal of the trust placed in its program by parents and their children.

Then again, maybe not. See the post below, reposted from a few days ago because of my server issues. I emailed New Horizons Youth Ministries after reading Jesusland because I was disturbed by the story that Ms. Scheeres tells in her book. The email below is the response I received.

I continue to hope that someone with more financial and journalistic resources than I have will investigate Escuela Caribe and New Horizons Youth Ministries. If Julia Scheeres is telling the truth, young people and families who are already vulnerable and hurting are being further abused in the name of Christ. Such a travesty is unacceptable. If, on the other hand, Ms. Scheeres is lying in order to make a buck or get revenge against her parents or for some other reason, New Horizons Youth Ministries deserves to be exonerated.

New Horizons Youth Ministries, the ministry that runs Escuela Caribe and two other schools in Indiana and in Canada.
The Truth about New Horizons Youth Ministries, a website that posts the stories of former New Horizons students, many of whom say that they also were abused and mistreated at Escuela Caribe or one of New Horizons’ other schools.
Julia Scheeres’ blog.
International Survivors Action Committee, a volunteer group that is dedicated to monitoring reports of abuse at youth treatment facilities.

Response to Jesus Land

Mar14

This email, which I am posting in its entirety because I think it’s only fair to hear both sides of a story, is in response to my email asking some questions about the allegations in Julia Scheeres’ book, Jesus Land:

Dear Sherry,

I have been forwarded your email and will take the time to respond at length
to your concerns if you do not mind. I think this email will be the body of
a response that we will need to make in light of this injurious book written
by Ms. Scheeres.

I have been with New Horizons since 1981 but had left to attend seminary
during the year she was a student. I did return in 1987 to take over as
director and was the director there for the past 18 years ending this past
summer. I have not read this book but will cover some issues that have come
up due to this. Please note I will not be negative toward any former student
as we love the kids God has sent our way over the past thirty-five years. I
am also married to a former student who I met when she returned to work as a
staff member in 1982.

I would begin by informing you that we require all prospective parents to
call four parents of students that have been in the program over the previous
two years, they are given all names any who are happy or upset with us.
Also, our board is made up of parents of former students, former staff and
former students who oversee our work.

Please understand we work with the more difficult to manage youth, not Sunday
school kids, the kids that get kicked out of school, kicked out of other
programs and even kicked out of church. We take the more difficult to manage
kids in the DR and the more manageable here in Indiana.

I would like to answer your questions, yes Julia and Dave were students at
Escuela Caribe. No, a student was not impregnated by the preacher, he did
get emotionally involved with a girl, was kicked out, and she being 18 got
together with him post program, they married and then divorced. It was a bad
year and I was called to return there due to these issues and became the
director.

We have had cases of typhoid, but it is usually para-typhoid but no this is
not commom there and I have had three girls born and raised there and in my
20+ years there, never had typhoid.

No we are not a cult, do not use psychological control, not a boot camp, not
emotional control, we confront issues and deal with reality. What she writes
about is more than twenty years ago. This is not us now. Yes in the past we
had more strong armed tactics, took crisis to the end, did not give up till
we had submission. I personally took the tactic that I would take the heat
of the teens wanting no staff to be abused or struck and would take a kid
down as needed.

What we have done is we have training in TCI or Therapeutic Crisis
Intervention for all our staff that have to deal with student crises. This
is a two man take down procedure that was developed at Cornell University but
is secular and I have developed an in house training as well.

Let me point out something if I can. In the past few months, we have had a
student hold a knife to his throat and hold a house hostage, a student who
double punched a summer staff who stood up to disrepect toward a woman, a
girl who had to be restrained till 2 am and then had to be sent to jail to
settle her down. This is our life and some of the kids we work with,
oppositional defiant, conduct disorder and borderline personality disorder
type kids. Many of our youth are not ones who have crises, do well, settle
their issues and go home, the latter two groups create pain.

We are a therapeutic residential care facility and are licensed in the State
of Indiana and we seek to abide by those guidelines in the DR. We have
licensed therapists and counselors alongside our staff. Do note that our
culture is moving toward a no touch policy with youth and since 1997 when we
really began to back off in crisis my staff in the DR have been assaulted,
kicked, spit upon and attacked, before that no staff member was ever struck
when I was director. Here in Indiana we have police in the grade schools and
we see a five year old being handcuffed and taken from a school in Florida.
Yes, our culture has changed.

We love our kids, we invest our lives in helping youth and families in
crisis, it is a thankless job but we are called to do it. I will say that
Ms. Scheeres visited our school under false pretenses, then returned to her
blog and maliciously lied about a couple at our school. I do not believe her
stories or renditions. Yes there have been things that have gone wrong,
staff that have crossed lines, but things have been dealt with and handled
with families. In Indiana we call the sheriff when a student gets out of
control. I could not do that in the DR and had to be the end of the crisis.
I am good at what I do and committed to youth.

There are many people on our campus all through the year, college groups,
church groups, we have day students attending school at Escuela Caribe,
missionary kids and others, church groups from northern Indiana have been
coming to our school for 14 years each January and stay for three weeks on
our campus and work alongside our kids and even eat in the houses. Many
parents and former students are rallying to our suppport during this time as
well.

The negative website was shut down by the man who launched it. It was going
the wrong direction and in his words was being used to sell her book. The
content was stolen and put back up in another site. This did not settle well
with the small group of negative students and they turned on him as well.
Their blog is declared for hatred and revenge, any former student who is
positive is kicked off thus they started their own blog at NewHorizonsStaff-
Students@yahoo.groups.com. The four or five negative former students have
gone there to give their input as well. We have current staff on there as
well as two current mothers of students.

I am going to ask a former student as well as some others to connect with you
if they would like. We will be putting together a group to deal with this
stuff as we do need to address this as a ministry.

Thanks for your concern. I know this all looks bad and we are not perfect,
but have made so many changes that this coming up now is really old hat but
hurting real time. Many former students call me now and it has been great to
reconnect and hear of their lives. I had a former student in my home this
past weekend, had been abandoned on a church’s steps in Chicago, severe abuse
and thanks to his time with us, over three years he has been married to the
same woman for 14 years. He and I remodeled my bathroom while we revisted
the past, he was the most abused by life boy I had dealt with, ran away 4-5
times down there as well. He is disabled, not completely normal, but calls
us family.

Blessings to you and please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,

Charles P. Redwine, D.Min.
COO New Horizons

I am sorry that your comments have been lost (apparently) by my server. I still think this school should be investigated in light of the serious allegations that Ms. Scheeres makes in her book. I’m sure Mr. Redwine and those who work at Escuela Caribe and New Horizons Youth Ministries would welcome such an investigation by responsible journalists. WORLD Magazine? Christianity Today?

I will try to re-post my initial reaction to Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres later today.

Behind the Burqa

Jan31

The full title is Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom by “Sulima” and “Hala” as told to Batya Swift Yasgur. I’ll do a quick review in light of the fact that this book is propaganda, not in a bad sense, but propaganda nevertheless. The purpose of the book is to “anger you, frighten you, and ultimately, inspire you with the compelling and suspenseful stories of these women.” The author wants you and me to care about the plight of Afghan women and about the difficulties of illegal immigrants who are seeking asylum in this country, and she even includes an appendix at the end of the book on “how you can help” with ideas, addresses, and websites for those who want to do something in response to the stories in the book.

I already find that I care just as much or more about what is happening to the people, especially the women and children, of Afghanistan as I do about Iraq. I would say that reading The Kite Runner last year was responsible for bringing my interest in Afghanistan to the surface. So after seeing Behind the Burqa in the bookstore, I was interested in reading this account of two sisters’ lives in Soviet and Taliban ruled Afghanistan and of their escape to the United States. My evaluation: the book is good, well-written, and accomplishes the purpose the author set out to accomplish. I did come away from the book wanting to do something to help those who flee to the U.S. to escape persecution only to be trapped inside our immigration system. I’m not sure what that “something” will be yet, but the appendix again suggests several websites to go to for more information about helping both Afghanistan and asylum seekers in the U.S. I don’t know enough about them to recommend all these organizations, but if you are interested, I would suggest you check out the websites for yourself.

Women for Afghan Women
Equality NowEquality Now
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights
Hebrew Immigration and Aid Society

Easily Led

Jan23

It is no surprise that conservative Christians admire these books (Chronicles of Narnia). They teach us to accept authority; to love and follow our leaders instinctively, as the children in the Narnia books love and follow Aslan. By implication, they suggest that we should and will admire and fear and obey whatever impressive-looking and powerful male authority figures we come in contact with. They also suggest that without the help of Aslan (that is, of such powerful figures, or their representatives on earth) we are bound to fail. Alone, we are weak and ignorant and helpless. Individual initiative is limited—almost everything has already been planned out for us in advance, and we cannot know anything or achieve anything without the help of God. The Passion of CS Lewis by Alison Lurie in NY Review of Books, February 9, 2006

Why do supposedly intelligent liberals confuse two easily separable issues? “Conservative Christians” (and all other Christians that I know of) do preach that “alone we are weak and ignorant and helpless.” We believe that we are dependent upon and subject to the authority of God through Jesus Christ who is the Lord of all creation. It does not follow “by implication” that these same Christians follow all male leaders instinctively or fear and obey any impressive-looking Joe who comes along with a strong voice and a nice haircut. In fact, following Christ often impels the Christian to reject or respectfully disobey authority, although we are told in Scripture to be careful to obey lawful authorities insofar as they do not contravene the law of God. I really think that’s what makes the liberals who do have some influence and power angry and scornful. Like Peter and John, “we (Christians) must obey God rather than men.” They want us to be “poor, undereducated, and easily led,” and They keep trying to find the right buttons to push so that They can do the leading.

And just who are They? Well, Allison Lurie is a Pultizer prize winning novelist and an editor of children’s books. I’ve never read any of her novels–which probably suggests that I’m bound under the authority of male novelists. Another author who has been critical of the male and female role models in Narnia is Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials books, who says that the Chronicles of Narnia are “monumentally disparaging of girls and women.” I’m assuming he would prefer that children read his books which are monumentally disparaging of Christians and the Church. A couple of quotes are sufficient: ” That’s what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling.” And “the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.”

So do the Narnia books disparage girls and exalt all male authority? I find it difficult to make that case. Aslan is exalted; The White Witch/Jadis is defeated. Lucy leads the children to Narnia; Edmund is the traitor in need of redemption. All four of the children become kings and queens in Narnia. Throughout the Chronicles, the girls are generally the ones with the level headed common sense needed to get the children out of whatever predicament they are in. The boys are sometimes brave and sometimes foolish, just as boys are. All of the children in the books are called to follow and obey Aslan, not just any male authority that happens to come along.

And conservative Christians are smart enough to know the difference between Christ and George W. Bush.