We went to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore today.  First, we went to see a show in the planetarium.  They showed us Ursa Major (the bear) and how to find the north star.  They showed us other constallations as well, including Casseopaeia, Draco the Dragon, Casseopaeia’s husband, Cygnus the Swan, and Scorpio.  There are four planets that can be seen right now: Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter at night and Venus right before sunrise.  We got to see how the stars and planets rotate during the night.  It looked like all the seats were moving as the stars moved, but it was only an optical illusion.  Afterwards, we asked them to show us what the sky would look like in Lithuania, and they gave us a sky map to find stars at home.

When we went out of the planetarium, we met up with mom and Emma, who had gone to see a bug show in the IMAX.  One of the scariest parts they said was a closeup of a huge spider.  One of the gross parts was when a praying mantis was eating a fly (of course, everything was in 3D).  We then had lunch with them.

After lunch, we went into a room that explained physics.  I made a tornado.  I played tug of war with two people, but I had an advantage because my rope was attached further away from the pivot point of the beam.  I got to play with balls that swung and transferred energy from one to another.  And I made an earthquake.  There was another experiment that show how balls on short strings swung faster than balls hung from long strings.

My favorite thing in that room was pulling myself up with a rope.  The ropes were attached to pulleys that we attached to a chair.  Each one had a different number of pulleys.  The one that had only one pully was hard, but the one with four pulleys was much easier.

We then went upstairs to see an exhibit about the human body.  We went in a walk through tunnel that was like the brain.  They had a group of tubes.  One group was cold and the other was warm.  When you touched them together, they felt hot.  The warm ones told your brain it was warm while the cold ones told your brain it hurt.  So, you brain said warm plus pain must be hot, so that is what it felt like.  You also got to stick you hand in six different holes and try to figure out what was inside by feel (over the box was a flap that you could life up to see what was inside).  We also got to use a microscope to look at our skin and a computer that showed us what our fingerprints looked like.  I also got to look at how old I was according to my habits.  It said I had the body of an 8 year old, which is what I am.  My dad’s body is like a 39 year old, even though he is only 38.
In another area, Emma and I got to dress up like astronauts.  We got to put robots together and control them.  Another section had a robot like the one on Mars right now.  You sat down at a computer and got to move the robot, while looking through its camera to see where you were going.

Overall, it was a great day.  I really like Baltimore, and I consider it my home city since I was born at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.  It is less than a mile outside of Baltimore.  The house we are staying at is ten miles north of Baltimore in Cockeysville.

This morning we did our first church presentation. We were at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, the parish where Stephanie served as rector before we took this job in Lithuania. It was great to be back home and see friends. I showed a short film about LCC and talked a bit about what we are doing. Many of our major supporters are in this parish and it was good to catch up with them.

This was the first time I had been in an Episcopal service in over half a year. I really miss the liturgy. We do a generic Protestant service at the International Christian Fellowship, which is fine, but I prefer the depth of the theology and beauty of the language in a liturgical service. I can’t describe how good it felt to worship in this way. Just to be there and allow the words and music to wash over me, letting myself sink into the spirit of God. Although I am enjoying our time in Lithuania, I am really looking forward to when I can return to worshipping this way on a weekly basis.

Our closing hymn for the day was particularly appropriate, considering that we were talking about our ministry in Eastern Europe.

Today we woke up in Jersey City and got ready to head down to Southern Maryland. On the way out in the morning, we decided to grab some breakfast, so we stopped at a diner next to the Holland Tunnel. It was classic New Jersey. The owners and most of the workers were Italians, and there was a picture of the owner with Al Pacino.

The menu was amazing, at least for those of us who have been out of the US for a while. I had several things that you just can’t get in Lithuania: Western omlette, corned beef hash, and English muffin. It was like a taste of home. It is interesting the things you miss when you are out of the country.

We then traveled down the New Jersey Turnpike to Southern Maryland, where we will be until mid-week. We will be speaking at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Sunderland, the church where Stephanie used to be rector. This is one of the main parishes that supports us in our ministry, and we are looking forward to seeing friends.

Tonight, some friends took us out for dinner at a BBQ place called Adam’s Rib. Again, this is something they don’t have in Lithuania. I had a rack of ribs and a bowl of chili, two very American dishes I haven’t had in a while. Now if I can just find a nice hamburger . . .

We left Tewksbury, MA, this morning and headed down to New York.  We had a meeting today with the missions staff at the head office of the Episcopal Church in Manhatten.  It was good to be able to share with them about the work we are doing in Lithuania and to know that they are supporting us.  We talked about ways that we can help broaden missions awareness in the Episcopal Church.  We also got to meet a few of the people who help us on a regular basis but whom we knew only by e-mail.

When the meeting was over, we headed over to Jersey City and Hoboken to visit with Stephanie’s cousins.  Unfortunately, the meeting had lasted until 4:00, which meant we started our trip during rush hour.  Getting through the Holland Tunnel took quite a while, so a ten mile trip took an hour and fifteen minutes to complete.  But it was great to see the cousins.  We will get to meet up with them again at a wedding in Albany in July, but I was glad we got to have some individual time with them.

The kids both fell asleep on the floor after the meal.  They are both still jet lagged.  So, we carried them back to the other cousin’s apartment where they are now fast asleep.  I will be joining them shortly.

We have a seven hour layover in Amsterdam and nothing to do but watch the kids play on the playground (which thankfully the airport has). So, I thought I would take some time to blog.

We got up this morning at 3:30 am and grabbed a taxi to the airport. Everything went according to plan, although carrying the bags down the stairs that early in the morning was not how I wanted to start my day. But we got to the airport in plenty of time and got on board the plane. It was a Fokker 70, the same type of plane we took on this route last year. The flight was uneventful, except for the one hockey fan who had been up too late and passed out while walking down the aisle. He was probably just depressed that his Canadian team lost to Russia, while the USA beat Latvia.

We were in row four, which was the first row in economy. So, shortly into the flight, the flight attendants came by and pulled the little curtain so the rich people did not have to look upon us peons. Now, I don’t mind this sort of seperation in airplanes. If you can afford it, you are welcome to such no essential services as larger seats, better sandwiches, and complimentary newspapers.

I have a problem with this kind of division into classes when it comes to essential services, however. But this is exactly how we are set up in America. If you have money, you get the best medical treatment. This goes for everything from preventative medicine to complex treatments for diseases. The rich don’t deserve better treatment; the poor don’t deserve to be left out. (I realize the idea of desert is a complex philosophical one, but I won’t get into it here.)

Overall, I am a capitalist, but only because no one has devised a better system . . . yet. But I do not see capitalism as particularly Christian. There are plenty of warnings to the rich in the New Testament, and 1 John even points out that the rich have a tendency to persecute Christians. One wonders whether a religion that started out with everyone giving away everything they had is compatible with people who hoard tons of money. 1 John — and a plethora of Old Testament passages as well — say not to give preferrential treatment to the rich, but that is exactly what capitalism does. Its basic tenet is that the person with the money gets to make the decisions. That doesn’t seem to stack up well against the Bible.

Surely as Christians we can come up with something better. I wonder what an economy based on the Bible would look like. There has been a lot of people in recent years saying that America is a Christian country. Shouldn’t that mean we make our economic decisions in dialogue with the Scriptures? The Old Testament has a lot to say about a just economy (sabbath years, debt remission, lack of ability to sell land in perpituity, etc.). Maybe we ought to be listening.