I now know where my next home is and it’s time to bring my readers into the loop. My nomadic life began after an extraordinary summer as chaplain-in-residence for the marvelous Frost Valley YMCA Camp in the Catskill Mountains. Before leaving for camp, I’d arranged to rent, upon my return, a room in a beautiful private home. What a shock to discover the home’s owner had changed her mind in my absence. Only later did I learn the octogenarian had unexpectedly eloped two weeks before!

My nearby daughter took in her suddenly homeless mom for some weeks until I rented a room from a young Catholic nun who provided child-care on weekdays. Delightful children gave a great start to my busy days, but that stay proved short-lived because of a garage sale.

Garage sale? Okay, so I was living out of state because, when my youngest son finished high school, I’d moved to Wisconsin to complete my bachelor degree at Marquette University and stayed a couple of years beyond graduation. My family home in Indiana I’d rented with the proviso that I maintain the large garage for storage. Now, renter gone, it was time to put the house on the market. Are you following me so far?

I watched a shopper who looked Chinese studying with interest the variety of merchandise on sale in my garage and yard. Approaching him, I noticed a leather belt he’d wrapped around his waist had about 6” to spare. And the jackets my young sons had outgrown fit this mid-50s gentleman perfectly.

He’d been in the U.S. only two weeks, I learned, doing graduate studies at Notre Dame University. Following my ad in the South Bend Tribune, he’d turned south on U.S. 31 and kept going to a certain cross street. I suppose the distance was something a person of his background would take in stride, but I was stunned to realize this university professor had come the more than seven miles via bicycle.

We made opportunities for conversations the next evening and each time I returned to South Bend to prepare to sell my home. One day he popped the question, “Joan, would you be willing to go to my university in China to teach English?”

“Oh, Liang,” I quickly responded. “I don’t qualify – I’ve never been a teacher.”

He insisted I was a very good teacher, had taught him “so much.” His inquiry was serious and in just 11 weeks I was on the plane to a country I knew little about, having been coached in only a few phrases of the complicated language, including, of course, “Where’s the bathroom?” My first time to live abroad.

The commitment to a year of teaching expanded to two and then three – each year in a different school in a different city. Really hard to believe a quarter of a century has passed since the unexpected invitation to live in a foreign country.

Afterwards, I visited my scattered children and their families, with an extended stay in Louisville where a second baby was expected and grandma was asked to help out. One day an envelope addressed to me found its way to our Kentucky mailbox. Inside was a job description I had not sent for. “Someone’s been reading my life history and I haven’t even written it yet,” I proclaimed.

Hired as Executive Director of the Office of Haitian Ministry by the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, I’d placed ads in church bulletins throughout the diocese. By the time I arrived, 23 responses offered a room for rent. What a treat to visit each and choose with whom I’d become a housemate.

Following my year of service there, which included several weeks in Haiti administering our guest- and humanitarian-service-house, I accepted a short-term assignment to organize the Washington Office on Haiti in DC while helping with advocacy work there. I can tell you I loved living in our nation’s capital and working in the only non-government building on Capitol Hill – across the street from the Capitol Building in one direction and from the Supreme Court Building in another.

My residence, five miles away (a healthy walk occasionally,) was another room in a private home, just a few blocks from the zoo and from Rock Creek Park – both fantastic venues for my exercise hikes. In that room (no cell phones available as yet) I received an unexpected phone call. Someone in Sonoma, California, someone I’d never met, wondered if I’d consider coming out west to be live-in caregiver for her 87-year-old mother.

I lived in Sonoma from 1992 to 1997, when I went to live and work in Palestine-Israel for a year, with several months to prepare for departure. Afterwards I remained intentionally homeless as I traveled this country performing my one-person dramatizations of life in the first century in Palestine. Often I stayed with friends or family, often had no idea of where I would lay my head that night until 1979 when I purchased a small Winnebago.

Note: I could write a full column about any of these vignettes if readers make the request.

My second departure from the paradise that had been my home from 2002 to 2011 was to Owasso, Oklahoma for an undetermined length of time and I had a week in mid-November to get ready and a week in December to finish vacating my apartment. Whew!

The sweet availability, generosity and energy of Sonoma Valley friends supported me beyond belief through the impossible tasks I faced in the allotted time. I could not enjoy things I especially love in town or even contact friends who knew nothing of my move. In fact, I literally ran out of time.

But all was definitely not lost. True to the character and integrity of the Sonoma Valley Peace and Justice group, one of the several members who’d given untold hours to the work said to me on Christmas Eve, “Joan, we’ll do the rest. You just finish packing up your car so you can get on the road to Oklahoma. We’ll come in on Monday and leave the place empty and spotless.”

And I listened to him. I felt exhausted, frustrated and deeply embarrassed. But I accepted the incredibly loving offer, worked until late that night and several hours in the morning and then hit the road on Christmas Day for the 1,800 mile drive to my next home.

More than 75 arrests later, this gentle yet powerful peacemaker is coming to share a meal and some conversation with you in our neighboring town of Kenwood. Please post Sunday afternoon, February 12 on your calendar at once so you won’t miss out.

I consider John Dear to be one of the most effective, outspoken, knowledgeable and downright courageous peacemakers at work in this 21st century. I’m in good company – Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated John Dear for the Nobel Peace Prize. I invite you to come listen to a few of his insights, perhaps purchase one of his many books and take in some of his sweet and generous presence.

Folks who choose to become better informed and involved by investing resources in conferences, demonstrations and seminars are accustomed to finding Fr. John Dear among presenters and/or participants. I cherish memories of warm, personal conversations with John in diverse locations including Miami, Florida; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the “School of the Americas” in Columbus, Georgia and the Desert Flats in Nevada where the testing of atomic bombs took place in the 1950s, leaving a disastrous legacy of health and environmental consequences.

This peace activist’s life is crowded with studying; teaching; priestly assignments; public speaking at every possible opportunity and prolific writing – articles, columns and a whole library of books.

John will tell us much and answer questions about his latest, “Lazarus, Come Forth! How Jesus Confronts the Culture of Death and Invites us into the New Life of Peace.”

From another piece of John’s work, I glean that peace work follows well upon the Christmas season. He wrote: Jesus was born to homeless refugees in abject poverty on the outskirts of a brutal empire. On that night, a chorus of angels appeared to impoverished shepherds, singing “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!” The child grew up to become, in Gandhi’s words, “the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world.”

On Sunday February 12, come to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church and Hall at 9000 Sonoma Highway in Kenwood for the 4 p.m. discussion with John Dear and pasta dinner. Admission is free, although donations will help cover travel costs for our special guest.

Let me close with one of my favorite stories about John Dear:

In December of 2003, when John was assigned to be pastor of several scattered small churches in northeastern New Mexico, he naturally carried along his oft-expressed opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. His position didn’t sit well with conservative Catholics there, even though his opinions were in concert with then-pope John-Paul II. I have been in awe ever since receiving by email John’s report of a morning in November titled “Soldiers at My Front Door.” Excerpts follow…

I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three-block-long town in the desert. Last week, it was announced that the local National Guard unit based in the nearby Armory was being deployed to Iraq early next year. I was surprised the following morning to hear soldiers singing, shouting and screaming as they jogged down Main Street, past our St. Joseph’s church, back and forth around town for an hour.

At 6 a.m., they woke me with their war slogans, chants like “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and “Swing your guns from left to right; we can kill those guys all night.”

John wrote that he understands young people preparing to go to war need to “psyche themselves up for the kill. They have to believe that flying off to some tiny, remote desert town in Iraq where they will march in front of someone’s house and kill poor young Iraqis has some greater meaning besides cold-blooded murder.

“Most of these young reservists have never left our town, and they need our support for the “unpleasant” task before them. I have been to Iraq, and led a delegation of Nobel Peace Prize winners to Baghdad in 1999, and I know that the people there are no different than the people here…

“Suddenly, at 7 a.m., the shouting got dramatically louder. I looked out the front window of the house where I live, next door to the church, and there they were – 75 of them, standing yards away from my front door, in the street right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming to the top of their lungs, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

“Their commanders…were egging them on. Astonished and appalled, I suddenly realized I do not need to go to Iraq; the war had come to my front door. Over the years, I’ve been arrested many times in demonstrations, been imprisoned for a “Plowshares” disarmament action, been bugged, tapped, and harassed, searched at airports, and monitored by police. But this time, the soldiers who would soon march through Baghdad and attack desert homes in Iraq, practiced on me. They confronted me personally, just as the death squad militaries did in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s, which I witnessed there on several occasions.

“I decided I had to do something. I put on my winter coat and walked out the front door right into the middle of the street. They stopped shouting and looked at me, so I said loudly, publicly for all to hear, ‘In the name of God, I order all of you to stop this nonsense, and not go to Iraq. I want all of you to quit the military, disobey your orders to kill, and not kill anyone. I do not want you to get killed. I want you to practice the love and nonviolence of Jesus. God does not bless war…God does not support war. Stop all this and go home. God bless you.’

“Their jaws dropped, their eyeballs popped and they stood in shock and silence, looking steadily at me. Then they burst out laughing. Finally, the commander dismissed them and they left.”

Meet this Jesuit 4 to 6:30 p.m., Sunday, February 12 at St. Patrick’s in Kenwood. Call Dan Vrooman at 490.2127 or David Carlson at 707.293.7159 with any questions or perhaps to offer a donation for the festive meal.

At 3 p.m. that Sunday in the same location, the Emmaus community will offer a unique inclusive liturgy. As always at Emmaus liturgies, the public is welcome to be present.

I feel truly, truly sad that I must miss this entire event. Especially since, as a member of the board of the Emmaus Community, I was one of the folks who chose to invite him! Sure hope you and all your friends can be there in my stead. Next week I’ll reveal why I cannot attend.

Rather, dear readers, there is much to be gained from shopping locally. I won’t belabor the issue with more verbiage you don’t need or want from me, but it seemed important to confirm my personal dedication to supporting our local businesses – for the good of us all.

There’s another important message I bring you in some form year after year because I believe we all profit from reminders of this critical issue. Many of us need reminders because we haven’t been there ourselves and have no idea how unbearably difficult it can be to survive the first holiday season after a major loss.

Unless you’ve been there you likely can’t appreciate what a difference it makes when holiday celebrations include and embrace the lonely, the maligned, the disillusioned, the sorrowful, the worried, the confused, the widowed, the evicted, the foreclosed, the divorced, the grieving, the infirm, the homeless, and even, perhaps especially, the addicted.

I grant these are busy days. All the more reason to enrich such days with the inclusion of someone hungry for connection. Going this week to see a special holiday theatrical performance? Who might be thrilled to be invited to join you, whether or not it’s “dutch treat?”

Do you still bake cookies at this time of year? It might take more time and be more complicated. Some frustration might appear. But an invitation to join you for this long-standing tradition might also be the very thing to lift a certain person’s spirits.

Or how about asking a busy mother to allow you to share your baking activity with her child or children, giving the mom a precious piece of unencumbered time to catch up with her own holiday requirements or just to relax in a hot bubble bath?

Going out some evening to drive around looking at beautiful light displays? Who can you imagine might like to tag along? Christmas caroling? Making Hanukkah rounds? Visiting the homebound? Any of these little things might fill the gap – or a big part of it – for the lonely.

Even watching television, playing a board game or working a jigsaw puzzle while sharing a cup of hot spiced apple cider might be a welcome diversion for one whose holiday season is especially difficult this year.
For every marriage that ended in 2011, whether through death or divorce, there is at least one survivor whose entire world has been turned upside down. For every parent who lost a child in 2011, whether through death or alienation, there is at least one person working through debilitating grief. You can make a difference for that person by just picking up the phone. “I have some gift wrapping to do this afternoon and it would be much more fun if I had some company. Are you free?”

When one is widowed, usually there is lots of attention in the beginning, which is welcome and wonderful. Very often, however, friends quit calling as they get involved with their normal routine again.

With a divorce, many folks just don’t know what to do. Sometimes they ignore each party for fear of offending the other. Sometimes they shun the separated folks through moral condemnation. And some friends, not knowing what to say, simply stay away.

Please remember lonely friends, at holiday time especially. Include singles for your dinner parties and other celebrations. I’ll always remember an open house I planned one year on the Sunday between Christmas and New Years. One gentleman and then another took me aside to thank me profusely for including them because that party was the only holiday event in which they had been included.

Once I spent nearly a year with a feisty 90-year-old who still lived in the home her departed husband had built some 60 years before. Rose loved to give the place a fresh look periodically by changing the curtains and thought nothing of climbing up on top of her TV to reach the curtain rods above.

One thing she hadn’t thought about for many years, however, was dressing up her lovely home for Christmas. When the Boy Scouts selling trees in her home town of Norwich, Connecticut heard about Rose, they enthusiastically agreed to not only deliver a tree but also to get it all set up in a stand for just a small extra donation.

Rose’s eyes glistened as we unpacked dusty cartons I’d brought down from the attic. Precious memories spilled forth with each ornament we unwrapped and ceremoniously placed on the tree. Soon we found ourselves singing Christmas carols and building a fire in the long-unused fireplace.

For how many others can you make this a merrier Christmas or a happier Hanukkah season?

Let me also suggest you put yourself in the role of receiver when contemplating holiday gifts. For example…

Would you yourself rather have one more appliance for your overstocked kitchen or a couple’s pledge to bring fresh produce from their garden once a week throughout next summer?

Would you rather have one more shirt in your overcrowded closet or a little jar to open occasionally and randomly select a slip of paper on which the gift-giver has chronicled a cherished memory of something you once did.

Would you prefer a new laptop carrier or a promise from a friend to clean your car inside and out on a day of your choosing?

What if a trusted neighbor committed to being your “Laundry Fairy” for a couple of months; just provide a house key and they’ll keep tabs so that you come home regularly to freshly folded linens and clothing?

How creative is your imagination? I bet you’ll come up with some beauties as you prepare gifts in honor of Jesus’ birthday?

But with crayons, when I goofed, there was no real way to correct my mistakes. Pencils were another story. On the end of almost every single pencil was this wonderful tool called an eraser. This enhancement of the popular writing instrument had been introduced back in 1858, when someone received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil. Hooray for Hyman Lipman!

Soon users recognized the typical eraser got used up much more quickly than the host pencil. So some other inventor designed a snug-fitting eraser cover that could even be replaced in the unlikely event the pencil lasted longer than this new, larger eraser.

I graduated to fountain pens with ease, but found the fun of maneuvering the little lever to suck up a fresh supply of black liquid from the inkwell was actually fraught with danger as any and every slip-up meant permanent damage to clothing, desk, carpeting, floor, anything taking the spill.

Eventually I started pounding on the keys of a typewriter in residence at our family home. Since I couldn’t afford the heavyweight high-rag-content bond paper professional secretaries used for business letters, specially designed typewriter erasers containing abrasives tore right through my papers. So time and time again I rolled in fresh typewriter paper to begin once more a school report or a letter because my addiction to perfection would not allow errors to mess up my output.

Never in the many years since have I had a typing lesson, though I learned to hunt and peck fairly rapidly. That slowed painfully in my sixties when I decided to teach myself to type with all ten fingers, working from a cumbersome hard-cover book that defined standard finger placement. My speed has picked up only a little, but the bigger advantage is to be able to look elsewhere while my fingers are recording.

A genuine heroine in the history of hiding written errors is Texan Bette Nesmith Graham. Though she had worked up the ladder to the highest position open to a woman in the 1950s (executive secretary to a bank president,) Bette’s earnings barely met the needs of a single mother. So she had developed a tradition of earning Christmas shopping money by painting holiday scenes on the bank’s windows.

The bank had equipped secretaries with newfangled electric typewriters and Bette had learned it was now nearly impossible to erase blunders. One Christmastime it occurred to her that “with lettering, an artist never corrects by erasing, but always paints over the error. So I decided to use what artists use. I put some tempura water-based paint in a bottle and took my watercolor brush to the office. I used that to correct my mistakes.”

Bette’s secret use of her correction fluid, which she improved with some help from her son’s high school chemistry teacher, was scorned by supervisors but regularly borrowed by other secretaries. After five years, in 1956, she opened her own company to market Mistake Out, later changing the name to Liquid Paper. When she sold the company in 1979 for a very healthy sum, her 200 employees had been making 25 million bottles of Liquid Paper per year.

What a boon was correction fluid. Now whole words, even sentences could be made to disappear if your hand was adept at flowing the white liquid onto just the right space. One had to be diligent, however, to always close the bottle quickly and tightly lest the contents begin to coagulate from exposure to air. Since I wasn’t always so diligent and what might be considered excessive frugality prevented frequent purchase of fresh bottles, I often struggled to make a paper look good even with little uneven patches of white stuck here and there.

Assorted correction products have evolved, and my favorite of all is a case shaped to fit the hand that easily dispenses a white strip on which one can immediately write. These are especially valuable when I’m working (always in ink) puzzles such as Sudoku and the DoubleCrostic featured every Sunday in the pink section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

In the 1970s, when I earned my living by helping manufacturers and medical offices achieve effective space management and filing efficiency, I acquired an IBM Selectric typewriter. Oh, my! Had I died and gone to heaven? Many of the features made little difference to my clumsy fingers, but this machine’s capacity to correct my mistakes without leaving a trace seemed magical. No longer need I agonize over the slip of a finger. No more retyping of text-laden pages of detailed proposals I prepared for my customers. What a relief to be able to correct mistakes without a trace of the error left behind.

I was teaching English in China when I decided it was time to own a laptop computer, though I’d never used one. So I asked son John to select one to have ready for my training during a summertime visit of three days. This preceded Windows and Mac, so it was necessary to learn all kinds of codes to even open a page or save anything. John taught me in the evening and I practiced while he was at work. Phew!

During my layover in Kyoto, assorted Japanese businessmen oohed and aahed over my 6.4 pound Toshiba 1000 as I continued my practice. Little did they know what a neophyte they’d approached. Fortunately I found a patient, competent graduate student in China who regularly “held my hand” to get through many a computing mistake and to connect with a local printer.

In my 60s I also learned that my lifelong position of having to be right was a mistake. How many, many times had I felt the need to prove someone else wrong so I could be right? The correction of that huge mistake was not quick. Nor was it easy. But it was undoubtedly one of the most life-enhancing corrections I’ve made in my entire lifetime.

Two years later, his body still carrying his ideal weight and his face etched with self-determination, Jonathon shares with me the dream that has become his senior project at Sonoma Valley High School. Only rarely did a heart-melting smile explode through the serious demeanor characterizing Jonathon Wieland, as the details of his fascinating history come forth.

One of sixteen children his mother birthed throughout three marriages, Jonathan shared his early years with mom, brother and sister. Those years took on huge dimensions when the six-year old moved with his family into the house of mom’s current husband. There were lots of other folks living in this house, people to meet and sort out, twenty-one in all. Though stepdad drove a taxi from pre-dawn until long past sunset, there was never enough money to support such a household.

There was no electricity. There was no heat. And nothing came out when you turned on a water faucet. Occasionally a bill got paid somehow and there’d be lights or warmth or baths to enjoy, but that never lasted long.

Sometimes, when money was good, variety, especially rice and beans, broke the monotony, but most of the time the only things to eat were baloney and bread. Only baloney and bread.

One or another person shared the space that was supposed to be Jonathon’s bedroom. An older child of stepdad one night, somebody’s uncle next. Jonathan did not at all like the effect on his own family unit of all these people and their lethargy. By the age of ten, he absolutely knew he had to get out. But how to do it was the question.

In fifth grade, the lad decided he had enough knowledge and resources to ride his bike to school and what a vista that opened up! Realizing that no one in the house cared one whit about how he spent his time so long as he was home by bedtime, the youngster began exploring, riding a little further and further into San Bruno neighborhoods he had not known existed. He found it exhilarating.

Awesome to find a college nearby and a prison just beyond it. And a little sort-of secret pathway directly from his elementary school encircling the prison leading to entirely new arenas for exploration; Jonathon’s private little “shortcut to freedom!”

New landscapes to investigate, new adventures. Once he noticed a nicely dressed woman unloading a trunkful of paper bags and, laying his bike aside, helped carry the groceries into her home. He was stunned to be rewarded for the pleasure with a bottle of Gatorade. Though the geography of the area dictated his comment, “Everything was uphill,” I found that to be a gorgeous metaphor for this kid’s life. He followed a simple guideline on these adventures – just to always be sure to know the way back home.

Then came the day for giving up the way back home and separating himself from the dysfunction of that home. His loving mother understood his need and wished him well, asking only that he keep in touch. Starting in seventh and well into ninth grade, Jonathan lived responsibly and deliberately on the streets, flatly refusing offers of residence in other households; an inescapable aversion to freeloading lingers from the 21-person nightmare.

The waif was truly frightened throughout the first week. Then, “I figured what I had to do was to stay in school, to get myself scheduled on a daily basis.”

just joan: “Did you write out the schedule?”

“No. I had very little paper and wanted to keep that for school.”

There was one solid base of security and support Jonathan knew he could call on. The family had traditionally spent holidays at San Rafael Hall and the folks at this shelter knew him. Indeed, they welcomed him profusely. Even though no beds were available, Jonathan could count on breakfast and dinner seven days a week.

Resourceful, the adventurer found spots to sleep in bushes, trees, on the ground; got a job cleaning up construction sites; took advantage of the U.S. Marine Corps’ free coaching in wrestling and football, a sport that brought him great fulfillment. Be aware this was never considered freeloading as Jonathan had a genuine enthusiasm for becoming a Marine when old enough.

Jonathon’s brother’s probation officer was stunned when a chance encounter revealed the story. It seemed incredible to him that Jonathan, a Capuchino High School freshman football team member he knew, had been on the streets on his own for more than two years. Jonathan hesitantly agreed to look into the merits of Hanna Center as his next step.

In the school computer lab, the researcher concluded, “even though there’s no football, Hanna would be the best thing for me.”

In March of 2008, the probation officer delivered Jonathan to Hanna’s Sonoma campus with Mom along to see what her son had in store.

“Okay, it seems pretty normal here,” the newbie perused. “I can live with the dress code and other stuff…”

Fast forward: Today Jonathan is energetically preparing for his senior project. Watch for posters all over town and notice his collection bins for the needy. I’m confident Jonathan will reach his goals and distribute hundreds of pounds of much-needed clothing and non-perishable foods to guests in Sonoma’s SOS homeless shelter and to his breakfast-dinner companions at San Rafael Hall in San Bruno.

At age eight, Johnathan dreamed of paddling a small boat along a foggy shoreline in the company of four other boats. Everyone on board these little boats was singing and he joyously joined in.

In 2011, Jonathan’s search for a summertime scholarship led to a remarkable Alaskan sea Kayaking adventure. “On the 6th day,” he reports, “I found myself in the exact situation I had dreamed of a decade ago. This time we were singing Hakuna Matata from the movie Lion King.”

The fulfillment of Jonathan’s dreams will come through the participation of multitudes of Sonoma residents. You’ll have opportunities galore to read the flyers and fill up the bins, bringing gorgeous smiles to yourselves and to the determined and purposeful face of one remarkable young student.

I have found it heart-warming to track the growth of the Self-Help Credit Union founded in 1984 in Durham, North Carolina. It enriches my life to know that my deposits had some small part in the success stories told in Self-Help newsletters by North Carolinians who are thriving homeowners, dynamic entrepreneurs with solid small businesses or flourishing non-profit service organizations.

Before their wedding day, Self-Help founders Bonnie Wright and Martin Eakes completed their broad education including, for Eakes, a Yale law degree and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton. As they pondered their life together, a vexing problem kept demanding their attention.

“Why is it,” they pondered, “that people with the greatest need just can’t seem to get loans to fulfill their dreams. People of color. Single moms. Rural folks. Families with wealth of character but few financial resources. Are these people really such terrible risks? Is there anything you and I could do to make their dreams start coming true?”

Well over 70,000 such dreams have come true as the Self-Help Credit Union has loaned nearly six billion dollars so far. The default rate on these loans is – believe it or not – only 1%. How can that be? Answering this question is easy, too. Self-Help didn’t just hand out money. Creative imaginations came up with so much more.

Some folks want to become homeowners? Great! Let’s hire people who will teach household management and budgeting. Others want to start their own businesses? We can hire folks to offer training and tech support. More than that, how about we find a solid building in need of repairs, bring it up to code, and make it beautiful. And how about offices in the building for these entrepreneurs and community rooms where they can network with each other and have shared access to expensive equipment such as copy machines, paper shredders and fax machines.

To date, this outfit has acquired and renovated 24 such commercial buildings, most in North Carolina, but a significant property in Washington, D.C. and another in Oakland, California.

The interstate outreach is an outcome of Martin Eakes’ discovery in 1998 that some of their borrowers were locked into abusive loans from other lenders. Appalled, this man of integrity talked with many industry leaders in his state and helped formulate the Coalition for Responsible Lending to stop predatory lending practices in NC and nationally. This coalition of 120 financial institution CEOs and 86 organizations representing 3 million North Carolina citizens worked together to bring about the enactment in 1999 of the nation’s first state-wide anti-predatory mortgage lending law. Through subsequent efforts, Eakes helped some two dozen additional states to pass similar laws.

In 2002, Self-Help created a research and policy affiliate, the Center for Responsible Lending whose attorneys, researchers, and policy analysts study and report on predatory lending matters and monitor legislative and regulatory activity in state capitols and in the US Congress. CRL listens to peoples’ stories, researches their issues, and partners with citizen groups and legislators to promote fair lending, saving American families more than 4 billion dollars annually by curtailing predatory loan practices.

An article in the March 10, 2008 edition of Forbes Magazine entitled, “Subprime’s Mr. Clean” and written by Stephane Fitch and Matthew Woolsey opens with “You may not know folksy North Carolina consumer advocate Martin Eakes, but he sure has rattled the lending industry.”

And the rattle in California has been huge. Eakes’ vigilance brought Self-Help to Oakland in 2006 after he had observed the state’s financial crisis and flailing Credit Unions while the working poor lacked access to responsible and fair financial services. Following its stated mission “to create and protect ownership and economic opportunities for…low-wealth families and communities,” Self-Help had developed a California Initiative.

Because the Self-Help Credit Union had always invested the totality of it’s funds in community development and had followed its charter’s requirement to annually set aside 10% for a rainy day, it had the resources to invest in development for California’s rainy day.

I had the privilege of hearing Eakes himself explain all this at Stanford University exactly two years ago. In a subsequent interview, when I asked what he’d like to say to my readers, he told me, “Well, we’d love to have your support. We believe this is a terrific opportunity for California. And someone outside the state trusted us enough to provide a $30 million grant. We have so far $75 million in assets for the project with a goal of $300 million by the end of 2010. We depend on people willing to entrust Self-Help while putting their assets to work for good.”

Next week just joan will provide easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions for moving your money. In preparation, you can start now making a list of all automatic deposits and payments currently handled through your present financial service providers (banks.)

There is also considerable value in a local financial relationship; when the Sonoma Valley Bank was shut down, I moved a checking account from West America to the Exchange Bank and have been quite content with the excellent service there.

Because Martin Eakes and Bonnie Wright had the crazy idea that if they helped low-income families to help themselves, if they taught them a few things and provided ongoing support, the gamble would pay off and everyone would win, we are winners, too.

When Self-Help made its first loan in 1984, employees used part of their salaries to come up with the $1700 laid-off workers needed to start their own bakery. First thing, the jubilant bakers raffled off a chocolate cake and gave the $77 proceeds right back as first payment on their loan.

Like I said, moving money is a piece of cake! Be sure to come back next week for detailed instructions.

In the heart of Katutura is the children’s safe haven founded in 2005 by MaryBeth Gallagher. The gate to the Bernhard Norkamp Center (BNC) opens at 1330 and the lovely women on guard watch closely to see that only currently enrolled children enter. These have come from their morning schools and, depending on the distance, only some have had time to stop at home to change out of their school uniforms.

Gorgeous smiles and high energy suggest gratitude for this loving environment and great hunger for the learning offered here. While students continue arriving, the kids organize themselves for entertainment, — jump rope, playing cards, keep-away with a soft ball made from a stuffed sock, even plaiting each other’s hair into teeny-tiny braids.

Shortly before 1400 they are called to attention for the reading of a children’s picture book. In a surprisingly orderly fashion, they plop themselves on the rough paving bricks of the center’s courtyard, grouped by grade level. I cherish memories of the few times I was the reader remembering well the tug at my heartstrings when pre-teens and teenagers, macho boys, sophisticated girls, begged for the book to be turned so they could enjoy the pictures, too, just like the little kids.

At “The End,” the youngsters line up one grade at a time to wash hands and bring back from the small kitchen their free lunch. For many, it’s their first meal of the day. On alternate days they receive a simple sandwich or an unpretentious pasta dish, both accompanied by a piece of fresh fruit.

At 1430, students line up outside their classrooms, having washed hands again after depositing their garbage and utensils in appropriate places.

To qualify for registration at the January start of a new school year, each youngster demonstrates a desire to learn. This yearning provides one of our most effective tools for classroom management; three absences in a given month will likely cause a student to be expelled – forever. (Exceptions for illness and family emergencies are considered.)

Students are aware that misbehavior means risking being sent out the gate and missing roll call, intentionally delayed until class time is nearly over.

In two good-sized classrooms and six small rooms with tables and chairs crowded strategically into every corner, volunteers from abroad teach Mathematics and English, with an emphasis on reading. While it’s the official language of Namibia, English for these native sons is their third or fourth language, the tribal tongue being their first and the language most spoken where they live.

In the beginning, the BNC, which we happen to “know” stands for Best Namibian Children, was a center for after-school games and fun activities, with an ever-present sprinkling of remedial reading. Until one of the volunteers threw out a monster-sized gauntlet.

“What we offer these children is wonderful,” Grandma Cathy intoned. “They learn good manners, teamwork, sportsmanship. But, MaryBeth, we’re not really preparing them for their very challenging future. Katutura’s schools are not giving our precious young friends a good education and we have an opportunity, perhaps even a responsibility, to bolster their education.”

BNC’s founder felt profoundly challenged. To give up daily soccer coaching, to find so many volunteers to teach, to take on school administration along with teaching, to reduce the population from 350 to a meager but manageable 150, these were not easy concepts to consider. Yet in her compassionate heart of hearts, MaryBeth knew Cathy was right; better to give a few dozen children a solid launch into a better future than to provide fun and games for a few hundred. As part of her enticement, Cathy had offered to become co-director of the new after-school school that officially opened a year and a half ago.

Report cards told the tale. A thrilling portion of my ten-week service came when beaming youngsters brought us their end-of-term reports in August. MaryBeth’s characteristic hoots of excitement sounded throughout the neighborhood as she saw last term’s 40s jump to 60s, even 65s and 70s and 70s becoming 95s. Not 100 percent of the kids improved, of course, but most did.

Bear in mind that only two of the volunteer teachers are long-term and they are both at the same time the administrators, hosts to a continuing stream of visitors, active advocates for students who get ensnarled in a malfunctioning system, purchasers of lunchtime foods, and confronters of an unrelenting parade of unexpected challenges. Volunteers come in all sizes, all ages, from many homelands, some long-anticipated and others totally unexpected yet willing to teach for a day, a week, even a couple of months. Experienced teachers and students of education are invaluable as they can take charge of a classroom. Other folks might co-teach, assist a teacher, have private reading sessions with kids who are struggling and even help out in odd moments by taking on mundane tasks like sharpening a bunch of pencils (always used in Math classes) or verifying the ink supply in a bunch of donated pens (always used in English classes.)

Every effort is genuinely appreciated and richly rewarded as volunteers depart with hearts overflowing with love and heads overfilled with memorable treasures. I’m actively seeking new volunteers and already have four giving the idea serious consideration. What about you?

Might you enjoy an African vacation that might include a safari in famous Etosha, a National Park for over a century, home of 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and even one species of fish.

Of course, you’ll need to cover all your own expenses, although you might be surprised at how many friends would enjoy experiencing your adventure vicariously by offering financial support to your generous participation in the life of Katuturan children.

Not sure when I’ll return to Namibia. It may be several months. Your visit might, but won’t necessarily coincide with mine. Let’s talk. No commitment expected or required.

Email me with your interest, your questions, your curiosity, your wish to meet over a cup of coffee. Reach me through the Sun’s web site sonomasun.com or my own justloanonline.com or drop me a note at The Sun, 158 West Napa Street, Sonoma. Africa calls.

I am so grateful that Miki Kashtan, a prime trainer of Compassionate Communication and co-founder of the Bay Area Office of NonViolent Communication took the time to explore the situation and share her reflections in the following blog post:

“The OccupyOakland I visited on October 15th was not a protest. You could say that I knew it, because I had read about it before I was there. I still couldn’t understand it fully until I saw what it meant. I suspect the same is true elsewhere, though I will not presume to know.

“A protest, in some fundamental way, engages with the existing power structures. What I saw, instead, was a parallel existence. This was not a march attempting to make something happen through demands and goals. What I saw was a gathering of people without any urgency, setting up camp, providing free services, engaged in the activities of making life happen, engaged in educating each other, curious to learn, and intent on inclusion. In an earlier post I was expressing some concern about the absence of a vision. What I saw in the park changed my perspective. I was fully humbled. There is absolutely no absence of vision. In fact, what was so compelling for me in being there was seeing a vision being lived out. They are not making demands. Instead, in their own small way, and however imperfectly, they are creating the world in which they want to live. There is free food being served 24/7, there are supplies of all kinds, energy created by people pedaling a bike, and everyone appears to be part of an incessant conversation.

“I see an astonishing potential for this form of action that I hadn’t considered previously. It makes for a movement that has no clear end point. There is nothing someone else can do in any immediate way that will give the people gathered at the park in Oakland what they are already creating for themselves. I can’t imagine what would happen, or a set of actions on the part of anyone, that would lead people to say “Now we are done and we can go home to our daily living.” They didn’t seem particularly interested in that form of daily living that has become the norm in this country. It is, in fact, that very form of daily living that this movement seems to me to be challenging.

“Is their core method a conscious choice on anyone’s part? Whether or not it is, the result is confusion for many. I was confused enough to not see their vision until I was there. Having been there, I now know why I didn’t see it. The vision is not being articulated, it is only lived, as best the occupiers know how. The action is broad enough, and the articulation is sparse enough that many of us can interpret the actions as manifestations of a vision we have. Indeed, many, including myself, have done so. I can certainly see what is happening as an example and precursor to the vision of a world based on caring for human needs. Some are also urging the movement to follow specific strategies, to articulate certain demands, to go for certain goals.

“The lack of clarity about the difference between demands and vision continues. I am still wishing that some vision, or many visions, were articulated even in the absence of demands. I still suspect that many would find it hard to express the positive vision they are trying to live. I imagine that were they to do so, perhaps more people would grasp what they are trying to do and be inspired, because vision tends to attract people. No accident that one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speeches was about dreaming. That being said, I don’t know what is true. My humility grows daily about this movement.

“There is also a way in which talking about ‘a movement’ is misleading. Yes, there is a tremendous amount of thought and care that’s being put into coordination, logistics, and all other aspects of continuing this massive experiment. And yet much of what happens, including actual protest actions that are taking place alongside and within this attempt to step outside the norms of living, happens through people taking spontaneous, autonomous steps.

“What is most striking to me of all is how much I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone, anywhere, has the capacity to predict what could happen as a result of this new form of action. This movement has outgrown our capacity to categorize, analyze, and predict. It’s already bigger than anyone’s decision-making capacity. No one can tell the people on the street what to do. I feel a slight bit of discomfort, and a whole lot of curiosity and interest in accompanying this surge. In this moment, more than anything, I see this movement as part of a large wakeup call that life is issuing to itself.

“The people who took possession of the Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland are creating a small-scale experiment in living without relying on large institutions. Anyone can join, anyone can contribute, anyone can challenge, and anyone can talk. Why would that ever want to stop?”

Miki tells us she returned to OccupyOakland for the newly created Nonviolence Caucus meeting daily an hour before the General Assembly. Like me, you might be eager to read Miki’s future reflections on her blog, The Fearless Heart:www.baynvc.blogspot.com/