A letter from Liz and Doug Searles, home from Poland
Decembr 2011
Dear Friends:
Please use the following in any way you wish. Here's a recent article from the Pacific Northwest.
Greetings in this time of Advent waiting in hope -- that warm green space where we are to pitch our tents.
After one of our recent presentations, a new friend asked: "Do you feel optimistic about the future for Roma people – the Gypsies in Europe?"
We were reminded that optimism and hope are not the same.
Optimism is a feeling that things will improve based on some earthly knowledge or proof. Hope, however, is about a yearning expectation. We hope for "things unseen." Hope yearns in faithful expectation that something miraculous will heal what is broken.
Advent hope is fulfilled in the miraculous birth of Christ in the hearts of a yearning universe. Sometimes when we are feeling the least optimistic, hearts dead and cold, we tenaciously cling to hope.
Our hope is that the Prince of Peace will transform hearts and minds and turn them away from loathing and exclusion, and turn them towards Advent love, peace and justice.
No matter how dark and cold and blustry your days, even (and perhaps especially) when optimism seems impossible, keep pitching your tent in that warm flat sunny green space that is the land of hope.
The time of miracles is not in the past!!
Liz and Doug Searles
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 198
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 277
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