[Oe List ...] OBAMA

[Adam Thomson]

 From Adam Thomson, Dover UK

This is one time when I would like to say "my fellow-Americans..." - 
but I cannot, since I am a Brit. This is one way of saying how 
absolutely overwhelmed and pleased I am with the result of the 
presidential election 2008.

I watched this morning (5:00 am local time) as Obama gave his speech, 
and tears were streaming down my face in sympathy with Jesse Jackson, 
Oprah Winfrey and many others in the Chicago crowd and around the 
country and world. I have not felt so moved for a very long time.

This is the week when I celebrate my 70th birthday. But the 
celebration that is really significant - even within my personal 
context - is the election of Senator Obama as president. I will be 
raising a glass of the best champagne money can buy to him and to the 
United States later today.

I classify this event is one of the most important in my life, along 
with joining the Movement in 1972, and getting married to Gayle in 
Chicago two years later. Memories came streaming back when I saw the 
Chicago skyline (even in the dark) on television earlier today: I am 
so grateful for having made the decision back in 1972 to abandon my 
career in Caracas and travel to Chicago. And I am so grateful that 
those whom I feel privileged to call my US colleagues (on these 
lists) and who were able to guide me to theological maturity and 
render me fit to serve in the world. For that is indeed what happened to me.

I am not sure whether I will see these US colleagues ever again 
(maybe I can convince Gayle that we could visit the USA again 
sometime following this forthcoming regime change), but I can only 
express again my exquisite gratitude for having met and worked with 
these colleagues, and having spent some of the best years of my life 
in the United States.

I now say, with as much emotional force as I can, "God bless the 
United States of America".

The best is yet to come.

Love to all

Adam, with Gayle in Dover UK.

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