Cook Weekly - 26 janvier 2009

We would like for you to pray for our African boss, Isaac Keita, (pronouced Kay-tuh) the President of the Seminary where we teach (FATEAC) and his wife Rachel and family.

* He's in the throes of finishing his doctoral dissertation from Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL. Imagine trying to write a book in your 3rd language.
* By an administrative error his son, Asaph, was enrolled in medical school as a foreign student and is being charged over $1,000 extra, by his home country of Guinea.
* Because he received wrong information, another son, Paul, was not able to take his English as a 2nd Language test this week, which is necessary for application to law schools in the states. The exam is very expensive and they've already paid for it once, but now may have to pay again.
* This week Isaac received news that because of the lack of Great Commission Fund gifts, support for FATEAC is being significantly cut. This places tremendous pressure on Isaac who wonders how he'll pay his teachers.
* One last request is for Rachel. She has been very sick the last couple of days with the flu and now it seems to be going into Malaria.

Please pray for this family. If you would like to give support to FATEAC financially click here.

Sincerely,
Matt and Cindy Cook
FATEAC Team

Purposeful extended families

The time has come for Junior to move back home. (google "moving home" and see lots of sites on it) The time has come, not in that child's life, but in our American culture. The culture has moved to the point that rugged individualism and the demanding cry for personal space must be usurped by more important demands: community values in life and economic pressures of single family living.

Perhaps the extended family is not the genetic family, but includes other person(s) with similar values and sub-culture. Perhaps it will incorporate multiple families who can share space, incomes, and household responsibilities. There can't be a “host” family and a “guest” family. That would be tiresome. Rather, functional responsibilities and realistic expectations with a system of formal communication (for grievances) needs to be set up.

What was it like to have a roommate in college? Horrible? There were bad times, but it was one way to pay the rent. You also had a significant impact on one another. Could we move that impact for good even as families get older? Communities are segmented and need to be reestablished: children would have closer playmates again; adults could have live-in mentors; conflicts could be mediated from outside the nuclear unit.

There are problems with this proposal and it will work for very few in the long run. It is a proposal for consideration, nonetheless.

COOK Weekly - le 19 janvier 2009

Dear friends and family:

God has been so faithful to Matt and I as we are readjusting to a quiet house. We've had company the last 2 nights, to help ease the pain of missing our children. We are thrilled to tell you that our church has asked us to be the spiritual leaders for the worship team at church. We're not sure exactly what this will all entail, but are praying that God will guide us in how to best fill this role. The worship teams here are mostly young adults ages 20-30. There are already about 4 organized worship teams who practice twice/week and sing once/month. They have an excellent pianist (I know that's amazing) and drummer and sometimes add an African Djembe or bass guitar. So, they've already made great strides in how the "do" worship.

Pray with us that we will have wisdom in our ministry to the local church and that this church, which is a leader in the community, will be a worship model that other churches will want to emulate here in Cote d'Ivoire.

Serving Together,
Cindy Cook,
for Matt too!
FATEAC Team


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The transmission of personality to children...perhaps

Children inherit lots of traits from their parents. Some of those traits are temporary in the parents. Say a person was going through a very wild stage in her life and conceived a child. That child tends to be more wild than children conceived at other times during that mother's life (this is an personal unscientific observation and not an established fact). Previously, all I could do was (however unsatisfactorily) attribute this to the transmission of the soul from parent to child. I have become increasingly uncomfortable separating out qualities to only one "part" of the human being because I believe so strongly in the interaction of the person.

This news article talks about that lasting impact of chocolate (for two weeks) in genes and could even be inherited. Why not think, then, that the lifestyle choices a person is making could be inherited as well by the offspring of that time period.
Could we also suppose that genes change with time? I'm not the same "person" (identical genes) today that I was 20 years ago. I like this idea (I wonder if it will be proved some day.)

I like it because sanctification, the process of not just imitating but being more like God, takes a long time...even generations. It just makes sense that the lifestyle choices we make affects our genes which enables more lifestyle transformation AND that these changes are transferable to succeeding generations.

I have never been one for a "theistic evolutionary approach to creation" but I certainly see microevolution in effect. Here is an example of that in a holistic manner. Evolutionary sanctification. Interesting.

Food choices stamped on genes - study

Food Choices Stamped on Genes - study

AAP January 16, 2009 06:41pm

THAT chocolate bar you've consumed won't only affect the way you fit your jeans, new Australian research shows it also has a lasting effect on your genes....

Cook weekly - 12 janvier 09

FATEAC Value: “Community” defines how we learn, make decisions, mature spiritually, and prepare for ministry. Community is enhanced by living together.

Problem: 2/3 of our community at FATEAC, the seminary in West Africa, is dispersed in single family dwellings around Abidjan.

(1) They cannot fully participate in the communal maturation valued at FATEAC.

(2) Their wives find it difficult to participate in the women's program-thereby stunting their future ministry.

Part of those students need to live elsewhere for ministry reasons. Many simply cannot be accommodated on campus.

Solution: Complete the second dormitory. That would allow another 25 families (more than 1/3 of our student body) to live, worship, pray and study together as well as hold each other accountable.

In December, we had a team from the Queens Herald Church resurrect that very project. Thanks for giving to our “work special fund” as almost $1000 of that fund was used to purchase construction equipment.

It was a great start. If your church wants to know about partnering with FATEAC, please write. We're opening the roadblock, enlarging the bottleneck, taking the door off its hinges that is restraining the African church from being all it can be...through trained leaders!

Thanks for praying with us, and giving to these projects.

Matt & Cindy Cook

FATEAC Team, Cote d'Ivoire

Matt & Cindy


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- Our significant financial need, at this point, is still to purchase a car in Abidjan,. Click here. ("Matt Cook Vehicle special")<https://www.cmalliance.org/give/onlinegiving.jsp?project=43-46-05005&projectName=Approved+Special&projectDesc=Vehicle+Matthew+Cook&projectNumber=43-46-05005

Love, thoughts-physical displays of affection

Alright, there are lots of levels of meaning for physical displays of affection: body language, proximity, cultural expressions of affection, etc. These comments are only part of the picture...

Physical displays of affection are part of the integration the wholeness of the "love" (commitment, shared experience, emotions, social expectations, etc.) The human person is an integrated whole (think of psychosomatic illnesses - the mind affecting the body). One part of the person affect the rest of the person. So, all parts should be moving the same way; participating in their aspect of the same activity. When it comes to love, all the parts of the person should be coordinated and progress together. Think of the disparity of an intimate relationship without touch or of casual sex. Both extremes exist, but both are dysfunctional because it separates the integration of the person. We cannot name all the components involved, but let us at least consider verbal affirmations of love, emotion, attraction, commitment, physical expressions of love, shared history, and dreams of a future together. We see examples all around of one component of love running ahead of other components: "Puppy love" is when dreams of a future together run ahead of shared history (a school girl day-dreaming about a fellow with whom she has never spoken). Old marriages which have lost their life and passion have progressed in other areas, but not in attraction and dreams of a future (I wonder if one or both partners dream of the loss of that "obnoxious" partner), Sex without marriage (marriage being the formal, religiously sanctioned, socially public, and legally binding commitment) tries to simulate intimacy like a crutch simulates walking. In summary, it is the balence of all these components (and more, probably) that enables healthy relationships. Physical expressions, to enable and not to cripple a relationship, should be harnessed up with all the other components. That is why some fathers tell their children "Don't say 'I love you' unless you are ready to ask 'Will you marry me?'" It is to maintain consistency. And why the Bible has always taught that sex is only for marriage. It is allowing the whole person to move ahead in a consistent and coordinated manner.

Physical displays of affection augment the "shared experience" unique to the couple. Hand-holding, kissing, sex (and everything in between) offer a means of unique shared experience between people who are building other areas of the relationship. As the level of exclusiveness increases in the couple, so does the intimacy of the action. That is another reason why sex is reserved for those who have promised a whole life together. They regularly experience something together into which no one else is accepted. They form an exclusive bond that is regularly renewed by this action. Sex without the commitment doesn't make sense in this regard: it is trying to create an exclusive shared experience in an open sort of way - into which others are admitted. (In what logic does that goal make sense?)

African Theology

Living on the Seam of History: African Christianity

An extremely interesting set of 7 posts to a blog giving a very brief overview of some published contributions to evangelical theology coming from Africa. (Most of the contributions are by friends of mine...it's a small world in African evangelical scholarship.)

Love, thoughts 2

"Love" is deformed by the "live with each other for a decade to see if we are compatible" idea. That idea is stunted by the lack of commitment. Shared experience without commitment doesn't foster the level of relationship necessary because it doesn't foster trust. It assumes mere natural compatibility is sufficient for a long term relationship, but, I think, that everyone intuitively knows that it isn't. Those who are living a "till lack-of-love do us part" recognize that the moment will arrive. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other side, a commitment to stay and love results in that as well but it has to be continually conscious. Too many divorces are inevitable by the time the lawyer or counselor is called in. The divorce started 10 years earlier when the couple didn't solve the small problems. Disfunctional living cannot be sustained. (Of course, we all have disfunctionality...I'm talking about significant disfunctionality. Unfortunately, I don't know how to tell the difference.)

Commitment is necessary for trust. Trust is necessary for commitment. I see an analogy to a children's toy: two objects are on a track. When one is pulled away from the second, the second backs away from the first by a hidden mechanism. When one is pushed toward the second, the second moves toward the first by that same hidden mechanism. That analogy functions for people in a relationship, because the people recognize that there is an emotional penalty for being closer to the center. There is an awkward moment when one takes a step toward the middle ("John, I love you") but the second doesn't make the similar step ("John, aren't you going to say anything?").

Not a very clean conclusion, but I have to work on other stuff.

Abidjan CMA Team

This neither proves nor disproves my earlier discussion on love, but is an interesting cultural commentary on it. Notably, Dopamine is also a crucial indicator.
________________________________________________________

From The Sunday Times

January 4, 2009

Scientists discover true love

John Harlow and Brendan Montague

SCIENTISTS have discovered true love. Brain scans have proved that a small number of couples can respond with as much passion after 20 years as most people exhibit only in the first flush of love.

The findings overturn the conventional view that love and sexual desire peak at the start of a relationship and then decline as the years pass.

A team from Stony Brook University in New York scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that about one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship.

Previous research suggested that the first stages of romantic love, a rollercoaster ride of mood swings and obsessions that psychologists call limerence, start to fade within 15 months. After 10 years the chemical tide has ebbed away.

Related Links

• The science behind love

• The complete guide to marriage

The scans of some of the long-term couples, however, revealed that elements of limerence mature, enabling them to enjoy what a new report calls “intensive companionship and sexual liveliness”.

The researchers nicknamed the couples “swans” because they have similar mental “love maps” to animals that mate for life such as swans, voles and grey foxes.

The reactions of the swans to pictures of their beloved were identified on MRI brain scans as a burst of pleasure-producing dopamine more commonly seen in couples who are gripped in the first flush of lust.

“The findings go against the traditional view of romance – that it drops off sharply in the first decade – but we are sure it’s real,” said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook.

Previous research had laid out the “fracture points” in relationships as 12-15 months, three years and the infamous seven-year itch.

Aron said when he first interviewed people claiming they were still in love after an average of 21 years he thought they were fooling themselves: “But this is what the brain scans tell us and people can’t fake that.”

One pair of Aron’s swans are Billy and Michelle Jordon who, 18 years after they met, still make their friends envious. The couple, who live in Newport Beach, California, hold hands all the time. “It comes very naturally,” said Michelle, 59.

Lisa Baber, 40, and her husband David, 46, from Bristol, say they still feel the same frisson as when they got together 17 years ago.

“He was crazy and so exciting, he whisked me off my feet,” said Lisa. “That excitement is very much alive. We make sure our lives are always changing.”

Other couples who have kept their passion include Tony and Cherie Blair and Michael and Shakira Caine. Michael Howard, the former Tory leader, and his wife Sandra have been together for more than 30 years.

Aron said he and his wife Elaine, both 64, have a strong relationship but were a little jealous of the swans. “Their relationships are intense and sexually active, too, without many of the downsides of first love,” he said last week.

Why take risks? Because your dopamine isn't regulated

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,00.html

Kind of interesting

Love, thoughts 1

Love is not emotion, nor simply commitment. It is a large and complex array of stuff. I want to work out a few of the stands, however. I'm talking about the marriage kind of love at this point, although parts of it apply to other kinds of love as well.

Love is a commitment to "watch each other's backs" in a no-holding-back commitment. This should go first, because it is very important and frequently forgotten when couples interact. There are at least two elements here, but I've included them together. Have you seen a couple say "I'll leave if you want me to leave" "You can leave if you want to." ? (Like on "P. S. I love you") They are just trying to protect themselves from the pain of rejection if the other wants to leave. The nature of love is to be vulnerable to the other, to not hold back in expressing your commitment, because the other is caring for you (even if it doesn't feel like that in the middle of a fight). It is caring for the other so that they can express their commitment to you in a vulnerable manner. It is assurance that your partner will not walk out on you and you will not walk out on your partner. I'm talking about more than physically walking out: it is a metaphor also for abandoning the hope you have in your spouse that they will succeed or abandoning the commitment to speak well of your spouse to others. Two things that irritate me in this regard: when people whine about their spouse to just anybody (sometimes people need a close friend with whom they can verbally work out problems with the spouse -- that's different from whining); the other is when people joke about leaving their spouse because they say that they don't really like them anyway. They may use the joking genre, but sometimes the joking genre only works because their is an element of doubt in all parties.

Love is an enjoyed shared history with the promise of a shared future. This is the new part that just hit me this week. (I'm a little slow.) The idea came from watching old movies of someone who leaves their fiancee to begin a new relationship with another person with whom they have just had an intense experience (survived a plane crash; survived a hostage crisis; etc.). The shared experience from which others were excluded is important here to perpetuate the relationship. This is the reason why dating has occurred in our culture (although it has gone horribly wrong, in my opinion). This is why advocates for arranged marriages say that "love grows". It takes time. This is also why sometimes "Love fades". When the experience, even in a marriage, is not an enjoyed one, then the shared history is one of stress, discontent, distrust, loss of respect, etc. We say that they have fallen out of love when, in fact, the past indicates a less than pleasant future. The continuity between the past and the future cannot be overemphasized here...

Love is the promise of a shared future. If the past was enjoyable, then the future promises to be good. We humans don't even need that temporal tie, however. [OFF TOPIC: "Love at first sight" is a hope for a shared future that doesn't involve a shared past. Is there justification for an enjoyable future? no. Is there sufficient justification even for that hope? no. Nonetheless, people are illogical enough to have such a hope swell up within them and commit themselves unreservedly to another person without any confidence of an enjoyable history together nor the other person's commitment. It makes no sense, but some people do it.]
This "hope" or "promise" is not only logical, necessarily. It depends on the person. We are complicated creatures and our minds do things without our control. (Take psychsomatic illnesses, for instance.) The power of the subconscious/illogical/uncontrolled part of the person is immense. Some people are healed because they believe they will be healed. (This is even quite apart from Christian healing when God heals the individual, which is something different.) It is preferable if this "hope" were based on a positive shared history, but it isn't always. It is the daydreaming of the school girl who writes her first name with the boy's last name "just to try it out". We "try out" in our mind the future (frequently idealized) with that person. We process millions of non-verbal clues in the world around us and in people around us that cannot be summarized in conscious thought which provide us with hopes and dreams. These non-verbal clues and unconscious decisions provide clues into the mystery of "falling in love"

I don't have any more time today.

COOK Weekly - le 5 janvier 2009

Enclosed is a New Years letter in pdf format with pics of our great time with family and friends. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love,
Cindy and Matt


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  - Our significant financial need, at this point, is still to purchase a car in Abidjan,.  Click here.  ("Matt Cook Vehicle special")<https://www.cmalliance.org/give/onlinegiving.jsp?project=43-46-05005&projectName=Approved+Special&projectDesc=Vehicle+Matthew+Cook&projectNumber=43-46-05005