"God bless you!" from Mother Teresa - maximum cards that I created with American stamps and Macedonian postcards, about this Albanian-Macedonian nun who felt (also) Indian in her soul

Thank you, Ana from Macedonia, for these 2 postcards! 

If I had more postcards, with various designs, I could have created more maxicards, but hey! :) .

"Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu^[1] (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was a Catholic nun of Albanian^[2][3] ethnicity and Indian citizenship,^[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.^[5][6]

By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools."

CRISIS OF FAITH:

"Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."^[81] Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk.^[82] Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith:

Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."

"With reference to the above words, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator (the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) indicated there was a risk that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence.^[85] Many other saints had similar experiences of spiritual dryness, or what Catholics believe to be spiritual tests ("passive purifications"), such as Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a "night of nothingness."^[85] Contrary to the mistaken belief by some that the doubts she expressed would be an impediment to canonization, just the opposite is true; it is very consistent with the experience of canonized mystics.^[85]
Mother Teresa described, after ten years of doubt, a short period of renewed faith. At the time of the death of Pope Pius XII in the fall of 1958, praying for him at a requiem mass, she said she had been relieved of "the long darkness: that strange suffering." However, five weeks later, she described returning to her difficulties in believing.^{[86"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa]}

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Please visit:  http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

WWF maxicards about Kampuchea/ Cambodia: The Banteng (Bos javanicus), The Water Buffalo or Domestic Asian Water Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), The Kouprey (Bos sauveli), The Gaur (Bos gaurus)

Stay away (or at least stay alert) from the crowds...including celebratory crowds, pilgrims, rioters, etc.

Not only bulls can create a deadly stampede.

Best wishes to the people of Cambodia! 

A country whose history is written in deep blood, especially because of their own countrymen, The Khmer Rouge members.

Read about the genocide: it's mind-boggling how the local power-players (and several countries!) have shifted alliances among them. Foe-turned-friend-turned-foe-turned....

What a tragedy...The Killing Fields...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

On a more peaceful note (but remember the Latin adage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum ):

UL(upper left image): The Banteng (Bos javanicus), also known as Tembadau, is a species of wild cattle found in Southeast Asia. Banteng have been domesticated in several places in Southeast Asia, and there are around 1.5 million domestic banteng, which are called Bali cattle. These animals are used as working animals, and for their meat.[2] Bali cattle have also been introduced to Northern Australia, where they have established stable feral populations.[3] *

UR: The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovine animal, frequently used as livestock in southern Asia, and also widely in South America, southern Europe, north Africa, and elsewhere. * 

LL: Kouprey (Bos sauveli, from khmer [kuː prej] 'wild ox', also known as Kouproh or Grey ox) is a wild forest-dwelling ox found mainly in northern Cambodia but also believed to exist in southern Laos, western Vietnam, and eastern Thailand. It was discovered in 1937. *

LR: The gaur (pronounced /ˈɡaʊər/) (Bos gaurus, previously Bibos gauris) is a large, dark-coated forest animal of South Asia and Southeast Asia. The largest populations are found today in India. The gaur belongs to the Bovinae subfamily, which also includes bison, domestic cattle, yak and water buffalo. The gaur is the largest species of wild cattle, bigger than the African buffalo, the extinct aurochs (the ancestor of domestic cattle), wild water buffalo or bison. It is also called seladang or, in the context of safari tourism, Indian bison. The domesticated form of the gaur is called gayal or mithun.

Thanks, Wikipedia.org - my most favorite website!

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Happy PFF (Postcard Friendship Friday)!

Please visit: http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/

Happy Thanksgiving! The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) - a dorincard/maximum card/maxicard/MC that I created using an Avery label to absorb the postmark ink. The postcard is very glossy - the postmark might have been ruined by that glossiness.

The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) species from USA is NOT the ancestor of the domestic turkeys that we butcher and devour every Thanksgiving Day.

"The domestic turkey [...] was domesticated from the South Mexican subspecies of the Wild Turkey."

So we have our domestic turkey from the other United States: The United Mexican States - Spanish:  Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)).

"Turkeys are popularly believed to be unintelligent, with claims made that during a rain storm turkeys will look up until they drown. Despite this image, the turkey is no more or less intelligent than a comparable animal,^[6] and while the birds will look at the sky for up to a minute during a rain storm, this is due to a genetic nervous disorder known as tetanic torticollar spasms.^[6] Other jests include that it is clumsy and too stupid to realize it can't fly, but both traits are due to modern breeding that makes turkeys much heavier than their wild relatives.^[6]"

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_turkey}