Yesterday the stock market was in freefall. The bailout seems to be heavy on everyone’s mind lately. I don’t think it is good, but I am glad for the distraction from the election and politics. But my question today is; how will this affect us? Have you felt financial pressure because of all that is going on? Is this directly impacting you? Have you personally encountered a change in how you are spending your money because of what is happening in the U.S. economy? Personally I am sure my retirement accounts look more like a checking account, hopefully enough to buy groceries for a month or so, but certainly not enough to retire on. As we travel through the ups and downs of life, how is all of this impacting you? What changes are you making, if any, during these times?
Archive for September, 2008
Sean is one of the people that I really admire. He is in his early twenties, and is pushing himself to grow and learn way beyond his years. He has come a long way. Last year he decided that he wanted to become a better Mixed Martial Artist. He is really good at it, and to get better he traveled to Thailand to train at a camp specifically designed for the best in his sport. While he was there training he met Karen. Karen is Thai, and the hit if off. All Sean could talk about when he returned to the states was Karen. They were definitely in love. He was saving to go back to Thailand, and even to possibly marry Karen. About three months ago, before he left to return to Thailand, Karen was diagnosed with a brain tumor and wasn’t given long to live. Sean was devastated. He went to Thailand but decided not to go to training camp, instead he spent as much time as he could with Karen. Before he went back Karen was Buddhist, but there were talking a lot about faith and Jesus. Sean bought her a Thai Bible, and gave it to here when he went out. Last week he sent me this message, I saved it to use in church yesterday, but it is too good to keep a secret. These are his words, and you can see his heart in it.
The story I have for you is about miracles. And to start, what exactly is a miracle? Webster’s online dictionary says that a miracle is an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Do I necessary believe in miracles?? Sure! I follow Christ and He tells us that anything is possible with God. However, to actually see a miracle take place is something that not a lot of us have encountered and may never. I’ve always wondered how great it would be to actually see one take place. You hear stories all of the time about miracles taking place in people’s lives, and they make you smile and praise the Lord. I wonder what it would be like if it happened in my life…
Since coming to Thailand, I have come to experience God in a lot of different ways. Most importantly has been through obedience. Unfortunately some of us (me) really need a good kick in the rear to get us on the right path, and it certainly happened with Karen’s situation. With Karen being here, I’ve had a great time being able to speak with her about God and Jesus. I can literally see God working in her and changing her, right before my eyes. It brings tears to my eyes to actually see how much she has changed. Recently, as a sign of her belief in the Lord, Karen got a beautiful tattoo on her shoulder of a cross (with some other things mixed in it, looks great!). Now I know some folks are against the tattoo thing, but personally I think they’re great, especially when they are about Him.
Karen is off to leave tomorrow to go to Laos and start work again, and I won’t be seeing her for 2 months. We won’t be able to talk on the phone either, just emails again. I’m really sad because I’ve had a great time with her here, and I don’t want to say goodbye, again! I had discussed with Karen about seeing another doctor, and she agreed, however she wanted to see him when she got back from Laos. I felt in my heart that she needed to go before hand, because waiting another 2 months could have a huge effect on treatment. A couple days ago (the 21st) I was thinking that enough was enough, and if I had to drag Karen to the hospital I would before she went to Laos. I didn’t tell her, but I was gonna do whatever I needed to to get her there. Guilt trips, crying, whatever, just get her there! The next day was filled with surprises..
The next day (22nd) we woke up and started talking. I asked her if she dreamt about anything, and she seemed shocked for a second and started to tell me. She said she had a dream about Jesus. How He was with her, and He didn’t look sad at all (as we see a lot in crucifixion pictures). She said he was glowing and just looked absolutely beautiful. She said she had never had a dream like this in her entire life. I asked her why she thought she had the dream, and she said that maybe He was trying to tell her something or trying to do something with her. About an hour later I asked Karen to go to the hospital, after arguing, she agreed and wasn’t happy about it. It took a while to get there from the parking lot, but we did. I spoke with the doctor about what she found out in the beginning of July, and he also confirmed with Karen. He said the only way to see what we could do is if we did a CAT scan and go from there. After some persuasion, Karen did it. 2 hours later, the doctor came in the room with the results…
Nothing. Everything is perfectly fine. The tumor is gone. No more.
A miracle.
He wasn’t sure how to tell us exactly how it happened, but just gave us the great news. Karen looked so stunned, and I began to weep. Anything is possible with God, anything. Graham, thank you for everything you’ve told me. Thanks for your friendship and the kind words before I left and since I’ve been here. God is real, and God is love. I’ll call you soon, speak soon!
Words cannot even do this justice. God is good, God is real, and God is love…
One of my most popular posts is about a photograph by Jean Guichard. (Click Here) I have to admit I did not read the story behind the pictures until I got this comment yesterday…
“Yes this is a fantastic picture, but maybe you should check out the story behind it before you start dribbling on about how the man is so “confident in the protection this tower is providing”. If you had any interest in the real story of the photo, you would know that the man thought that Guichard’s helicopter was someone coming to rescue him, and when he realised his mistake he only just made it back inside in time to prevent this picture being a portrayal of a terrible tragedy.”
That caused me to look up the story on-line. Here is an article I found, you can read it here.
The following report was written by Timothy Harrison and appeared on May 18, 2001 in the Lighthouse Depot publication in Wells, Maine.
“For the first time ever in the United States, the famous French photographer, Jean Guichard, will be making a personal appearance to autograph his world famous lighthouse prints.
“He is best known for his explosive ‘Wave’ photograph of a lighthouse, off the coast of Brittany, France, showing a keeper at the door about to be engulfed by a titanic wave. The photograph is truly one of the most recognizable lighthouse photographs in the world. When first seeing the famous photograph, most people assume that the lighthouse keeper must have been killed.
“In fact, the keepers had been living in fear of death during the 1989 storm and at one point had taken refuge in the lantern room of the tower. Waves the night before had smashed through the lower windows of the tower, causing the structure to flood, washing away everything in its path including the television, table, chairs, coffee maker and even the refrigerator. The keepers in fact were waiting to be rescued by helicopter.
“As Jean Guichard’s helicopter approached the tower he was unaware that the keepers were waiting for a rescue helicopter. Guichard was simply there to take photographs of the waves pounding the structure. The keepers heard the sound of the helicopter and naturally assumed it was the rescue helicopter. One of the keepers opened the lower door of the structure and as he looked up at the helicopter and realized that it was not the rescue chopper, he also realized that a giant wave was about to engulf the tower. He immediately turned about and pulled the door closed behind him. Had he not done so at that second, he surely would have been killed. While all this was happening, Jean Guichard was busy taking photographs as fast as he could click the camera, thus capturing on film the most dramatic action shots ever taken at a lighthouse.
“Since the lighthouses are now automated and no longer have any lighthouse keepers, these photos are now also of historic value and with Guichard’s autograph are sure to become a wonderful collectible.”
The point is, the man was in danger and the lighthouse protected him. It stood up to the waves and the pounding surf and he lived through the ordeal. Life is dangerous, difficult and sometimes extremely frightening, but my original opinion still stands, find a strong tower to take shelter in. One that can stand up to anything the world throws at it, and the proverb still stands:
The Lord is a mighty tower,
Where his people can run to for safety.
My son Jack needed an atom model for a school project this week. His element was Magnesium, and I have learned more about it than I care to know. Jack likes to share what he learns with anyone that will listen, and me being the chosen parent to help with the project was as educational for me as for him. Sometimes school projects are a real pain because of all the effort that goes into them. So earlier this week we headed out to hobby lobby to get the necessary supplies for the project. My ideas and his ideas are usually never the same, so after wandering around the store for about half an hour we finally agreed on a plan. We bought a dowel, some cork coasters, pipe cleaners, beads and tacks, and headed out the door. In the past when the girls had to participate in this project they usually consisted of rice crispy treats, clay models, or construction paper and string.
We finished the model last night, and this morning I got all kinds of grief from the girls about how elaborate Jack’s model was compared to theirs when they had done it. Jack’s had a stand supporting the dowel, the cork was glued to the dowel about ¾ of the way up. It had cool rings, although the weight of the electrons (beads) on the “atomic shelves” (pipe cleaners) made them sag a little. It had holes drilled in the dowel to hang the pipe cleaners off of, and it was about 3 feet tall. Nowhere in the process did I realize how much help I had provided, until it was all over. Jack had given a lot of input, but I fear he didn’t do the majority of the work. He did put the tacks on the cork to represent neutrons and protons. He did do all the research on the project. He put the electrons on the pipe cleaners, but, as my girls highlighted, it was way more elaborate than any of the past models we have made.
I think I may have taken over the project a little. Oops. I wish I would have taken a picture to post here, but I didn’t and he is at school now. All I know is somewhere deep inside I have a need to create and build things… I hope I get Jack gets a good grade!
Today my blog is one year old. When I started I never imagined that I could keep it going for so long. I never believed that people would actually want to read what I write. I thought it would be a good forum to express some ideas in my heart and head as a creative outlet, and it has been. I so appreciate all you that regularly read this, and those of you that come to it by accident. I hope that we have all learned along the way, and I am so thankful to have a forum to work out some ideas and thoughts over the past year. As we go into the second year I am excited to see what God has planned. A new building for our church, new opportunities for us to explore ideas together, discussions about the ups and downs of life, but knowing we are doing it together is the best part.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
I had an interesting evening last night. I realized that as a parent I am likely to tune out after long days and heavy workloads and I sometimes miss some of life’s greatest moments with my kids.
My son, Jack, is 10 years old. Apparently he was a little concerned about something very important to 10-year-old boys. As parents drop their kids off at school early, the boys fly paper airplanes off the stairs. He had no idea how to make a paper airplane! Wow, did I miss that one! I think I knew how to fold an airplane when I was 8 or 9! I love paper airplanes! I can make three different kinds without even thinking about it! My favorite paper airplane story came from an experience in college when a group of friends and I went to see the minor league hockey game in Oklahoma City. We had nose bleed seats because we would rather spend our money on other things. So during one of the period breaks we decided to make airplanes out of the programs. One of the airplanes is a circular tube looking type, and it floats and glides long distances from lofty places… perfect for this situation. We made it and launched it down towards the ice. The guy on the Zambone was doing his job, and about that time he was getting near the goal line. To make his tight turns he would stand up to see over the front of the machine. Just as he stood, the airplane hit him in the butt, fell on the seat, and as he rounded the corner he sat right on it! It was awesome! Perfect to excite all the fans! Until the security guard came up to our location and nearly kicked us out. But this kind of fun definitely should be passed on to the next generation! So Jack and I built three airplanes last night out of college rule so he could participate in the fun at school and continue the tradition!
Then my daughter Hope started talking about what they were learning in school… they are actually studying the 10 commandments! (this isn’t a religious school either!) We had a great discussion about Moses, how the Israelites wound up in Egypt, the plagues, and the Exodus. It was really cool to see how much she knew about all those events, and her questions were awesome! We talked about Jews expecting Jesus to be their king, and their disappointment when He didn’t do what they expected Him to. She had great questions about ancient geography, and why the Promised Land was called “the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey.” She is way smarter than I was at that age, and she remembers stuff I have to look up!
In all this I learned a valuable lesson – National stay at home week (NBC’s motto for this week of premiers) is nowhere near as important as paying attention to your kids! (But I do have to say I can’t wait to see Grey’s Anatomy!) I am constantly reminded that when I go 150 mph all day long, I better down shift and move at the speed of love with my kids!
We have three computers in our house. Two of them are work machines, one of them is a PC. I am a Mac guy, in case the title threw you…
With two bloggers and four kids in the house they are usually on and running something; from homework to games, from Facebook to email, they are going all the time. I have a wireless network set up, something even I can do on a Mac. For a long time I was using the PC for my Bible study software, but thanks to Logos, there is a Mac Beta out so now I only need the MacBook – what a relief!
That being said, the PC was a secondary machine that I kept some spreadsheet stuff on, and it was used by whom ever needed to do whatever, but it was always secondary to the Macs in the house. It must have not liked its place in the line up because last week it rebelled. Everything worked fine, except it forgot it had built in wireless somehow. It cannot find the network, it cannot even find the internal hardware and drivers so it knows it could find the network if it wanted to! I have no idea how to fix it. This happened once before, but we soon realized there is a switch on the outside of the case that you can turn on or off depending on whether you want it to use the built in wireless or not… embarrassingly it took us a while to figure that out that it had inadvertently been switched off, but we eventually did. This time I cannot figure out what to do. The help screens don’t work, and I cannot get it online to download new drivers… I even re-loaded it, and have tried everything I know to do. But this is a primary reason I love Mac’s over PC’s! You can spend (and I have) hours trying to solve problems that you have no idea why they were even created in the first place… For a long time if you chose Mac over PC you felt like you were speaking a different language than anyone else, but those days are over… so my question is this… why wouldn’t you buy a machine that works, instead preferring a quirky, frustrating, time consuming computer that whips you every chance it gets?
And just to finish this post out – what is it about you, that special thing you can do – that you forgot about? We all have certain abilities and talents in us, are you using them or have you forgotten that you can? Reboot your life today, and make sure you are using everything in you that you can to make a difference in the world you live in! (and make the switch to Mac, don’t believe the propaganda PC is selling… check this out…)
The past 4 or 5 weeks have been a whirlwind. It feels like I have walked through a buffet line and realized at the end that my plate is piled so high with food that there is no way I can eat it all in the amount of time I have left to eat! Today I am thinking that the only way to accomplish all that I have to do is to clear the plate off and start from scratch. If only it were that easy! Trish is in “clean” mode, going through all the clutter that has accumulated over the last few weeks, moving things around and making sure that only what we truly “need” is being kept out. Saturday I build shelves in the garage to store some of the things that have piled up out there, keeping our two-car garage from being barely clear enough for one car! It seems these “purging” or “prioritizing” events happen every so often, so we can get back to the process of living.
The way my work flows every once in a while I need a “purge and prioritize” day. A day where I pull off the highway of life and think through where we need to go as a church for the next few months. I didn’t get that day when I needed it, and so I am finding myself behind… I hate being behind! I need to pull off and think through some things, and my mind is so cluttered that I feel like I am running just to stand still. I missed putting a creative planning day on my calendar, and now I am having to plan around other commitments I have made. The kind of planning I need to do only happens in the midst of uninterrupted solitude, free from distraction and the tasks and events that crowd up a schedule. Another lesson learned the hard way. The good news is that I know when I can get alone for a couple hours it will come… the bad news is I am having to try to find a couple hours when this can happen without interfering with the other things that need to be done!
So here I go; I am turning off the cell phone (ouch) shutting down my email reminders (double ouch) and disconnecting from my blog-reader (I’m going to miss all those great posts today) , so I can connect to God and find out where we are going next!
I am going to stop running so I can actually get somewhere!
I am tired, so tired that lately I have been sleeping in one of those “feels like you dream all night” kind of states. When the alarm goes off, it pulls me out of my dreams, and I don’t know about you, but that is hard to wake up out of. Last night at about 12:30, I began dreaming that I heard a repetitive swooshing noise. It was persistent and annoying. It sounded like Sampson, our Shih Tzu, pawing at the side of the bed when he wants up. He isn’t big enough to jump up on it, so he relentlessly paws at the side of the bed, right next to my head so I lift him up. In my dream I was sure it wasn’t that because we were all sleeping soundly, or so I thought. I came to consciousness to realize it was Sampson, and as I rolled over to assess the situation, our other dog Moses, a Rat Terrier, was on the floor as well. Usually it takes a lot to get him up, and most of the time it is a full bladder. So I stumbled out of bed and let them out. This is not a normal routine for them, usually they are sound sleepers, and usually I hear it when Moses jumps off the bed. Not so last night.
The brief interruption didn’t last long, in and out and back to bed. On my way back I must not have shut the door to our room, thus allowing the dogs to roam the house, and usually they wouldn’t be tempted to leave the room because they are pretty sound sleepers. I returned quickly to my deep sleep and was pried out of that sleep only by the alarm.
Before the sun came up, I was on my way out to the kitchen to begin the coffee ritual that is a must before I deal with any family members, and I noticed some dark patches on the floor that were not their when I made this journey in the middle of the night with the dogs. It was twilight, so I turn on a couple lights; I should have left them off. I realized as I surveyed the dark patches in the light that they were piles of dog poop. Pile after pile, and one by the back door! What had happened, I was not sure, but the conspicuous absence of the Rat dog, and the unusual interest in the piles by the Shih Tzu tipped me off. About this time Trish was emerging from the bedroom, and I gave the order, “watch out!” (those are such beautiful words in the pre-dawn hours.) I have no idea how I managed to avoid the bare foot “don’t step in a pile of poop walk” in the dark, but thank God I did! Just what one wants to experience before dawn in the morning… poop scooping in the living room, dining room and hallway, every time I turned around there was more! And this wasn’t the kind that easily picks up with a pile of paper towels either! It was the diarrhea kind that leaves behind a nice smelly reminder – until we get the proper carpet cleaning solution from the store this morning.
The warning went out to all the kids as they emerged from their sleeping quarters as well, and throughout the morning we maneuvered around the leftover reminder of a gruesome night. I am sure the rat dog tried to wake me, but he hasn’t learned the “paw on the side of the bed” technique. Had I been more awake at the time of the discovery I may have taken pictures to share with you! (probably good that I wasn’t more awake.) I am always amazed at what we will put up with because of our love for pets. Trish is on her way back from dropping of the kids at school and stopping by the store for some carpet cleaner, so you know what I will be doing this morning!
Yesterday Kevin (our church’s worship leader) and I were attempting to recruit a guitar player that works at Best Buy that I have known for a while. We went in looking for him, stopped by the ipods and were talking about cell phones and how badly I want an iphone. We didn’t see the potential guitar player, so I pulled out my phone and tried to call him. I had no service in the store, not unusual for this city, cell coverage in a place with a lot of hills is spotty at times. He wasn’t there, so Kevin and I left the store. I tried to call him outside, and then my phone did something really strange – it came up with a message on the screen that said, “Unregistered sim, unable to connect.” I thought that was really strange. I took out the battery, and Kevin messed with the sim card. No luck. It wasn’t going to work. It was late in the day, so I was heading home anyway and figured we could call from Trish’s phone when I got home to solve the problem.
I walked in to the house greeting everyone as I entered, put down all the stuff I was carrying and handed my unusable phone to Trish with the complaint, “my phone is broken. It wont work, something with the sim card.” Her reply, “that’s strange, ‘cause this one does!” and she was pulling a brand new, still in the plastic protective wrapper, iphone out of her pocket! I was floored, surprised, amazed, in shock and awe, and bewildered… I don’t think I even said anything for about 2 minutes, I just stared, in wonder, glancing between the phone and my wife and the phone again!
She had been trying to get me one since my birthday last February, but I wasn’t due for an upgrade and without that it was too expensive. In her efforts over the months, she managed to get a 50% off coupon from the manufacturer, and a $50.00 coupon from AT&T. And with a little work (okay maybe a lot of work) from the guys at the AT&T store, had me all set up with a new 3G iphone for $50.00! How cool is that?
Now I am mobile with email, internet, Twitter, GPS (at times I desperately need) and oh yeah, it’s a phone too!
Thanks Baby, for my birthday present! I’ll text you later!
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