Tag: Book Recommendations Page 8 of 11

Worthy Reads

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On September 11, 2014

In Other

Now that learning Kiswahili is my focus, I won’t have as much time for reading these days.  But here are some great books I’ve read from the past few months.

Escape from North Korea by Melanie Kirkpatrick

Riveting account of the prison that calls itself a country, those who manage to escape, and those that help them get out.  Don’t read this book if you want to stay comfortable with your life.  

The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller

Probably the best marriage book I’ve read, and I’ve read many.  “We are always, always the last to see our self-absorption.  Our hurts and wounds can make our self-centeredness even more intractable.  When you point out selfish behavior to a wounded person, he or she will say, ‘Well, maybe so, but you don’t understand what it is like.’  The wounds justify the behavior.”

“Longitudinal studies reveal that two-thirds of unhappy marriages will become happy within five years if people stay married and do not get divorced.”  

“Marriage by its very nature has the ‘power of truth’–the power to show you the truth about who you are.”

Good stuff, that.  I could fill this whole post with amazing quotes from this book.  A must-read for singles especially, but really, pretty much any God-fearing person will celebrate this book.  

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Brilliant, insightful read.  Though it’s a work of fiction, it’s told from the perspective of an autistic teenager.  Fascinating glimpse into the way these unique individuals see life.  

Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan

The subtitle reads:  A gay son’s journey to God.  A broken mother’s search for hope.  This is a beautiful memoir, full of honesty, hope, and so, so much grace.  

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

If you told your teenagers that you wanted to discuss nihilistic and post-modern philosophy with them, their eyes would probably roll back in their heads and drool would start coming from their mouths.  But if you handed them this book (if they haven’t already bought it themselves, since it’s a teen best-seller), they might be much more interested.  

This book is essentially nihilistic philosophy packaged in a funny, witty, engaging novel.  I know…it doesn’t sound possible, but that’s really what it is!  The main characters (who are teenagers) even quote philosophy to each other.  Seriously, this would be an amazing book to discuss with your teenager.  But don’t hand it to her unless you are ready to read it along with her.  

Jesus or Nothing by Dan DeWitt

So after you’ve read The Fault in Our Stars, next read this one with your teen.  This is a short, to-the-point, apologetic for Christianity versus, well, everything else, but especially nihilism.  It speaks the language of college students and would be a great gift for those students living in the trenches.  

“If the entire show is the result of blind chance, then there really is no reason to trust our mental faculties–which are just one small part of the show.  If our brain is itself an accident, then any argument we develop to the contrary can only be considered just another accident.”

“I often hear statements like, ‘I’ll only accept what I can prove scientifically.’  This is, of course, a philosophical statement.  It cannot itself be proved scientifically.  You cannot see truth through a telescope.  Is it thus false based on its own logic?  It is certainly begging the question.”

How the West Won:  The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark

Okay, so I probably bit off more than I could chew with this book.  This is a looong book (though not as long as it first seems because half of it is end notes).  And I am only a minor history buff and not a major one.  Thus, I skimmed large sections that did not interest me.  

However, I still am highly recommending it because parts were utterly fascinating to me.  Stark re-examines the way we view history and brings out the biases that pervade how it is taught.  I especially loved the parts on slavery, the Arab world, the so-called Scientific Revolution, and the founding of the New World.  Totally different perspective to what I was taught, and yet very well researched and cited.  

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus:  A Devout Muslim’s Journey to Christby Nabeel Qureshi

I’ve read many books over the years on Islam.  Hands down, this is the very best one.  Qureshi knows what he is talking about since he grew up Muslim, and he shares the basics of Islam and how it compares to Christianity while telling his own inspiring, incredible story of coming to know Jesus.  If you have a Muslim friend, you must read this book.  

Things Fall Apartby Chinua Achebe

This is a classic.  How did I live in Africa for so long and not read this book?  This is the heart-wrenching story of a tribe in Nigeria, before and after the coming of colonialists and missionaries.  So insightful into the worldview and culture of Africans.  Very, very thought-provoking for us as missionaries.  

And since we so desperately don’t want to make the same mistakes as those who went before us, Gil and I are reading multiple books on culture and worldview.  This is the best one so far:

Cross-Cultural Servanthood by Duane Elmer

Definitely a must-read for anyone involved in missions or cross-cultural ministry.  Convicting, insightful, and life-changing.  

“Ask me what is the first precept of the Christian religion, I will answer first, second, and third, Humility.”

“People usually don’t act randomly or stupidly.  Those from other cultures may think it random or stupid, but from the local person’s perspective, they’re thinking or acting out of a larger framework that makes sense to them….Too often we assume others are foolish or illogical simply because their reasoning is not self-evident to us.”  

Recent Reads I Recommend

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On February 11, 2014

In Book Recommendations

Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick makes me want to throw away all the other parenting books and blogs and articles I’ve ever read.  I thought it was a bit repetitive and I found her sample parenting “speeches” she would give to kids to be long-winded and not very realistic (for me), but the heart of this book is amazing, refreshing, and life-altering.  I need to review it every year.  In an age where everyone seems to have a “system” for churning out “good” kids, Elyse gets down to the biblical basics of parenting–and probably most of us have it wrong.  This book went deep to my heart….with conviction but also blessed relief.  It is a must-read for every Christian parent or teacher.

“At the deepest level of what we do as parents, we should hear the heartbeat of a loving, grace-giving Father who freely adopts rebels and transforms them into loving sons and daughters.”

“We have far too high of a view of our ability to shape our children and far too low a view of God’s love and trustworthiness.”

I read The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge because it was written by a girl I knew in college.  It is beautiful and haunting and I would recommend to anyone.  Sarah tells the story of how at age 27, as a graduate student at an Ivy League school and a very bright future ahead of her, she lost everything to breast cancer.  Intertwined in this memoir is the story of how God brought redemption to her suffering through her chance connection to a Somalian refugee family.  You will be blessed by this book.

Teaching Redemptivelyby Donovan Graham takes the subject that is near and dear to my heart–Biblical worldview–and demonstrates clearly and concisely how it should form Christian teaching.  As someone who has been involved in education for my entire adulthood, I found it incredibly interesting and thought-provoking.  Highly recommended for anyone involved in Christian education.

“[G]race cannot be comprehended, let alone lived, in an environment so permeated with a philosophy of life that says, ‘Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work harder next time and you’ll get it, nobody gets something they don’t deserve.’  If we want our students to live the gospel after they leave school, then we must help them experience it in school.”

The Rage Against God is written by Peter Hitchens–brother to atheist Christopher Hitchens–which is what makes this book so interesting.  Part memoir, part history lesson, part apologetics book for the existence of God–I found it fascinating.

“Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak.  Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law.  Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power.  And, in an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principal obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power.”

If Son of Hamas  had been written as a book of fiction, I would have dismissed it as far too far-fetched to be realistic.  I mean…seriously?  A son of one of the founding members of Hamas, who becomes an Israeli spy, who becomes a Christian?  How ridiculous is that?  That’s what’s so crazy….it’s true!  It reads like a spy novel, but the entire story is true…a biography, in fact.  Totally captivating. 

True Religion: James 1:27

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On September 19, 2012

In Other

In 1990, for the first half of ninth grade, I lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Ethiopia is a fascinating, beautiful country with even more beautiful people–people full of grace and dignity that is not seen anywhere else.  Its history goes back thousands of years; it even has links to King Solomon, and it is the only African country to have successfully resisted foreign rule. 

However, in 1990, Ethiopia was being ruled by a tyrant, and the city was full of horrifying things for a 13-year-old girl to see, even one who had already spent many years in Africa. 

There were sections of the city where the islands in the middle of the road, usually covered with carefully manicured grass and flowers in developed countries, had been turned into toilets.  Except without the toilets.  On a regular basis, you would see dozens of people–men and women–doing their business on the patches of dirt in the middle of the road.  The smell was so bad that we always had to put our car windows up. 

Beggars and homeless lined the streets.  Of course, to a certain degree, this is common in Africa, but usually (as in Tanzania), the beggars are only adult disabled people (which is horrifying enough, of course.)  But in Ethiopia in 1990, the beggars were children.  They were filthy, in rags, and covered with disease.

I remember once I was waiting in our car while my parents ran into a store for something.  Two small children came up to my window with their hands outstretched.  The older one, who couldn’t have been more than six years old, had one eye that looked at if it had grown five sizes too big.  It protruded out of the eye socket and sort of hung there, limp.  Flies covered it.  And if the burden that this small child was forced to carry was not enough, she held the hand of an even smaller child. 

That image has stayed in my memory for my whole life.  I believe it’s one of the things that compelled me back to Africa.  One does not see such a thing with her own eyes and not be profoundly affected for the rest of her life.

And yet, in 1990, this was before the AIDS pandemic hit Ethiopia like a tsunami.  So for those children on the street?  Things just got worse.

Today?  “81 percent of Ethiopia’s people live on less than two dollars a day, and 26 percent live on less than a dollar a day, the marker of absolute poverty in the world.” 

“By 2010, between twenty-five million and fifty million African children, from newborn to age fifteen, would be orphans.  In a dozen countries, up to a quarter of the nation’s children would be orphans.” 

We are adopting from Ethiopia.  And our agency asked us to read this book:

There is No Me Without You is part biography of one Ethiopian women’s quest to save the orphans of her country, and part history of the AIDS orphan crisis throughout Africa. 

It is a deeply moving story and I highly recommend it. 

“On dirt floors, in shacks and huts across beautiful Ethiopia, children sat cross-legged together, quietly starving.  Experts dubbed them, ‘child-headed households.’  UNICEF noted that the ‘survival strategy’ of the child-headed households was ‘eating less.'”

However, I need to warn you before you pick up this book:

If you are positive you would never want to pursue orphan adoption, then you should not read this book.

If you want to remain complacent about the orphan crisis in the world, then do not read this book.

Because I promise you, this book will completely turn your world upside down, as you sit in your bed weeping at midnight, unable to put it down.

“Mekdes soon told her [adoptive] mother [Mikki] about the day her aunts took her to [the orphanage].  ‘Yabsira cry a little.  I am scream.’

‘Why did you cry, baby?’ asked Mikki. 

‘I don’t know this Ethiopia.  I want my Ethiopia with [Grandfather] and Fasika.  I don’t want new Ethiopia.’

‘You were sad,’ said Mikki.

‘No hope, Mommy.  I have no hope.’

‘Oh, honey….’

‘Because no one told me, Mommy.’

‘Told you what?’

‘That you are here in America.  I will not feel so sad if I know you are here.’

‘Yeah, I was here getting ready, getting your rooms ready.  I was here, me and your daddy, waiting and getting ready.’

‘I am cry because I don’t know you will coming.’

Of course, for most of Africa’s ten million, fifteen million, twenty million orphans, no one is getting a room ready.  No one will come.”

(I need to add one other comment if you do decide to read the book.  Though the author gives powerful and convincing data regarding the history of AIDS and ARVs in Africa, I do believe she is somewhat one-sided.  I am not an expert, but I do wish she had been more fair in her approach to patents and ARV’s, and especially given more time to applaud the work of President Bush’s PEPFARprogram, which really has made a significant difference in Africa.)

I Love My Kindle

By

On July 21, 2012

In Other

I am now a reading fiend.  Gil told me that he read somewhere that Kindle users read 70% more than non-Kindle users.  Totally true for us.  The first year Gil got his Kindle, he met his goal of reading 100 books in One Year.  Oh yes.  I am expecting a thank-you note from Amazon any day now.

Here are some recent recommendations:

I have mentioned before that I grew up in Liberia, a country that later was ravaged by 15 years of brutal civil war.  This is the story of an ordinary woman (now a Nobel Peace Prize winner) who lived through it, and mobilized thousands of women to help stop it.  The subtitle says, “How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War”–and that’s exactly what happened.  It’s horrifying and devastating to read (especially since she speaks of places where I walked and played), but ultimately hopeful.

Whew.  A depressing read, but I now have a passionate desire to burst into some US foreign policy meeting, ranting and raving.  I still like When Helping Hurts better, but this was also a fascinating book.  Very recommended for anyone interested in Africa.

“Over the past thirty years…the most aid-dependent countries have exhibited an average annual growth rate of minus 0.2 percent.  Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, the poverty rate in Africa actually rose from 11 percent to a staggering 66 percent.” 

This was a free Kindle download, and I got it intending to read it to Grace.  I’m glad I didn’t, because it would have been too emotionally intense for her.  But it’s perfect for a 10-year-old.  Beautiful, creative, and simply told.  I will be looking for more by Kate DiCamillo.

What I did most recently read to Grace was The Secret Garden, which I remembered loving from my childhood.  And though she loved it, and it sparked good discussion on a pantheistic worldview, I would recommend to wait until your daughter can read this one herself.  That is, unless you happen to be particularly good with a Broad Yorkshire accent (‘Nowt o’ th’ soart’). What on earth?   Rather exhausting as a read-aloud!

Seems way too crazy to be true, but it is.  An 18-year-old high school graduate from an affluent family–popular, class president, homecoming queen–leaves her upper-middle-class life to live in a poverty-stricken village in Uganda.  Over the next 4 years, she adopts thirteen little girls.   Katie Davis is a modern-day Amy Carmichael or Jim Elliot.  Though her youth and naivete comes through, one cannot criticize her incredible passion for Christ.

“People often ask if I think my life is dangerous, if I am afraid.  I am much more afraid of remaining comfortable…  I am surrounded by things that can destroy my body.  I interact daily with people who have deadly diseases, and many times I am the only person who can hep them.  …  I am much more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy.”

This is a re-read of one of my top 5 favorite, most influential books of all time.  And I love it just as much the second time around.  This book profoundly changed my life.  Philip Yancey is a master storyteller and an engaging, talented writer who isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions or say it like it is.

“During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith….The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room.  ‘What’s the rumpus about?’ he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. 

Lewis responded, ‘Oh, that’s easy.  It’s grace.'”

Chocolate and Milk

By

On June 7, 2012

In Adoption, Book Recommendations, Race and Diversity

 “We were not made to make much of blackness. We were not made to make much of whiteness. We were not made to make much of self or humanity in general. We were made to make much of God.”

I grew up pretty much oblivious to race.

My childhood neighborhood in California was multi-ethnic.  My best friend was Indian.  Then I spent six years in three African countries. 

Back in California in high school and college, I spent 8 years doing ministry in multi-ethnic neighborhoods.  Camp counselor for two summers for kids who were mostly black and hispanic.  Worked four years for a black employer. 

As an adult I spent seven years teaching kids from all kinds of ethnicities.  Spent nine of the last eleven years in Tanzania.

As I was growing up, white people were kinda boring to me.  Travel and cultures, that’s what fascinated me.  The fact that Gil is half-hispanic?  Dream come true. 

So adopting African children was just sort of obvious.  I mean, we wanted to adopt, we were living in Tanzania, and there are two million orphans here.  So should we adopt from Africa?  Duh.  The fact that my kids have dark skin was just….beautiful.  And though I always loved the idea of raising a family that mirrored what heaven will look like, I never set out to be a billboard for race reconciliation. 

But I’ve been thinking. 

Grace and I have been making our way through the American Girl books.  And Addy is a little girl living during the time of the Civil War.  She’s a slave; she escapes to Philadelphia, but continues to live with segregation even in freedom. 

I want Grace to know these things.  She is African but has an American passport.  One day it is likely she will live in the States.  She needs to know.

But did I ever realize how difficult it would be to read her stories about white oppression of black people?  Sitting there on the couch, my arm around her, her Mommy in every way, with nothing but the color of our skin separating us. Teaching her how people who looked like me made people who looked like her into slaves.  And then even when that was over, wouldn’t even let them use the same bathroom.

I never knew how hard it would be. 

And then I read this book (not to Grace!).  And I know it’s controversial and not everyone likes it, but I personally was deeply moved.  Because I am white, and my daughter is black.  Because I have “help.”  Because even though I knew the history, there’s nothing like seeing it through the eyes of someone else through a story.

Since I’ve always thought multi-ethnicities were so cool, I think I unintentionally ignored the pain that so many have experienced (are experiencing) because of their race.  Even, often, at the hands of those who call themselves followers of Christ.  And since we live in Africa, I never fully, truly contemplated the discrimination my own kids could face in America. 

John Piper, one of my favorite-ever authors, and who also has an African-American daughter, recently published this book:  Bloodlines:  Race, Cross, and the Christian. 

It’s not my favorite Piper book.  But as a theological treatise on why Christians should intentionally pursue racial reconciliation?  It’s excellent. 

“That I am chosen for salvation in spite of my ugly and deadening sinfulness…that my rebellious and resistant heart was conquered by sovereign grace….if these truths do not make me a humble servant of racial diversity and harmony, then I have not seen them or loved them as I ought.”

“When we feel or think or act with disdain or disrespect or avoidance or exclusion or malice toward a person simply because he or she is of another race or another ethnic group, we are, in effect, saying that Jesus acted in a foolish way toward us.  You don’t want to say that.”

My favorite section was on inter-racial marriage.  Really, really good stuff.  Especially because inter-racial adoption is so similar. 

“As long as we disapprove of [inter-racial marriage], we will be pushing our children, and therefore ourselves, away from each other.  The effect of that is not harmony, not respect and not equality of opportunity.  Separation has never produced mutual understanding and respect.  It has produced ignorance, suspicion, impersonal stereotyping, demeaning innuendo, and corporate self-exaltation.” 

I humbly recognize that, growing up in my privileged, white life, I will never understand the oppression that minority groups have experienced in America.  But yet, God has entrusted me with these beautiful children.  So it is therefore my job to do everything I can to try to understand. 

Somehow, our family must become a picture of racial reconciliation.  Somehow, I must teach my kids how to love, forgive, and reach out beyond racial lines.  Somehow, I must teach them how to understand the challenges and history and sorrows of their race, even though I haven’t experienced it myself. 

I am inadequate for this task.  The weight of the burden is heavy.  But yet, it is important and necessary.  And worth it. 

My kids are sitting on the kitchen floor drinking chocolate milk as I write this.  I think chocolate and milk make an excellent combination, don’t you?

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