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| sorry. it doesn't look like this blog is going to get active again anytime soon. it had a good run. i just don't have time to blog anymore. parting thoughts: i plan to get back into hula. gmail has changed the way i like to function within email. i had to start using outlook recently for work and i wish that it was more like gmail. i now have 3 computers: 1 personal and 2 for work. i need to streamline my life. i finally joined facebook. i love mild houston winters. but my office is always cold. half the people in our office (the female half) use space heaters even in the summer. which is such a waste of energy to be running the a/c and space heaters at the same time. after living in europe i'm much more conscious of reducing waste and recycling more. i'm in another season of growth with a new set of challenges. hasta luego. | | |
| guess where i am? back in virginia for debriefing. during the opening session we played an ice breaker where they asked us questions and if your answer was yes, you went to one side of the room, and if no you went to the other side. for example, did you live in an urban city? did you have a positive experience with your supervisor? did you have running water and reliable electricity? for that question, as i was going over to the yes side, i realized, hey, i had more electricity there than i'm getting here in the states! yes, that means that we still do not have power at our house in houston. it's now been a week and a half! i may be a night owl, but there's no being a night owl when you don't have electricity. i've pretty much been going to bed soon after it gets dark and i don't mind waking up early b/c i want to take advantage of the sunlight. i've gotten used to taking a shower by candlelight and sleeping with the window open, with the sound of our neighbor's generator humming next door. oh! and on sunday our service was held outside b/c of damage to the sanctuary and we had MRE style communion. here's what it looked like:  
there's a little serving of juice in the cup, covered by a piece of foil. then a wafer on top of the foil, and a plastic film over the wafer. i totally wanted to take a picture of my cup during communion, but i thought that might be disrespectful. it wasn't hard to find a picture on the web. interesting, huh? | | |
| our power went out at 11pm on friday and we're not sure when it's going to come back on. some people got power back as early as saturday morning, lucky dogs. my dad's church got power back today, so here i am at the church, enjoying the a/c, hot food, tv, and internet access. :) the last time i left my house was thursday morning to get gas, so being able to get out today had the excitement of going on a field trip! man i was getting bored. on the bright side, yesterday i was so bored that i finally did a bunch of filing that has been sitting around for a few months. my desk looks a whole lot neater thanks to ike. once sunset hits though, options are even more limited. i went to bed at 10pm last night, which is normal for some people, but very early for me. and that was after reading for awhile by flashlight. guess what flashlight i was using? (this is aimed at aabc dallas folks.) that flashlight/lantern that we got at the church retreat that one time. the lantern feature is pretty handy.
2 sections of our backyard fence blew down, but other than that, we had no other damage. that's the nice thing about having no trees on our property. some leaves and small branches from other people's trees blew into our yard, but nothing major, nothing like what we saw driving from our house to the church. huge trees completely knocked over, and lots of big branches splintered on the ground.
guess what my dad did on friday in anticipation of ike? he mowed the lawn. he said he was afraid he wouldn't be able to mow it for at least a few days after the storm and by then the grass would be "really high" (he mows the lawn every week). and then yesterday as we were looking out the window he said, "man, i'm so glad i cut the grass." what is it about men and their lawns? does anyone else think this is really funny?
which reminds me of the time that mitzi tried to mow the lawn. why in the world mitzi would want to do that i don't know. sometimes mitzi gets these weird/amusing ideas in her head. so i guess she mowed the lawn. then my dad remowed it right after she was done.
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| it's been awhile since i've been in houston for a hurricane. i was in greece during tropical storm allison and was in dallas during rita, which didn't hit houston hard anyway. some of my family had plans to evacuate to dallas, but eventually changed their minds due to the overwhelming traffic. rita evacuation was a bigger disaster than rita itself.
so here we are, preparing our house for the hurricane, the tv constantly on with non-stop weather coverage. we've already received several calls and emails from family members who are aware that the storm is approaching. my work events have been cancelled since yesterday. and considering i only started my new job on monday, it's almost as if my schedule (or lack of one) hasn't changed much at all despite being employed.
i liked the houston's chronicle's "word of the day":
hurrication - evacuation from a major hurricane turned into a short holiday
even if you don't evacuate, the time off work is nice. but boarding up and shopping for supplies is not fun. i went to fill my gas tank at walmart yesterday morning, and despite quite a line of cars, things moved along rather smoothly with employees out there to direct traffic. but i decided not to actually go into walmart, seeing the full parking lot. our house already has a lot of food.
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| today in church, every person got a disc containing the entire new testament in mp3 format. we are supposed to listen to it for 28 minutes each day, and after 40 days we will have heard the whole NT. the discs were produced by an org called "faith comes by hearing". they provide audio new testaments to villages and churches among the world's poor and illiterate. they often partner with wycliffe after they've done written translations. super cool. anyway, in church they showed a video about FCBH's ministry, and of course there were amazing stories of those who were able to hear scripture in their own language for the first time, and the spiritual transformation that occurs afterward. so powerful is the Word of God.
anyway, during the video i thought about how the Word of God is often compared to food. and how we in the west have an abundance of both spiritual food (numerous bibles in various translations, with new ones constantly coming out, devotionals, Christian literature, conferences, etc.) and physical food (huge grocery stores filled with products from around the world, oversized portions, restaurants on every corner). and we WASTE a lot of both. today at lunch a girl at my table threw away over half her meal. (no judgment on her specifically is intended. it just shows how we often have more food than we can eat.) and many Christians who have owned a bible their whole lives have never read the whole thing. not even close. while some people are desperately craving to know what God has to say, but don't have access to scripture, others have access everyday but don't care enough to pick it up. please don't let your food go to waste. read the bible. it's GOOD!
then there's spiritual obesity where we take it all in (bible studies, retreats, etc.) but never burn the spiritual calories by living it out. are we hearers/eaters, but not doers/exercisers? both physically and spiritually, it's unhealthy.
Lord, show us how to redistribute our wealth. and help us not take what we have for granted. | | |
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