I mispell things!
just a reminder to be in prayer for the members of the youth ministry who will be down in diriamba, nicaragua starting friday. we will be leaving friday morning, july 28th @ 3 a.m. and getting back friday evening, august 4th at around 12:00 midnight. thanks for your prayers.
[tags]missions, nicaragua, youth ministry, parkview[/tags]
eric sent me an email wednesday but i didn’t see it until today. i figured i would share it with y’all because many of you know and love eric & hannah.
Tis Eric and i´m just letting you know that hannah and i are still alive and having a great time. you will be shocked when you get here because of the change in political majority of the country. today there was a sandanista rally in managua and we were driving back from boaco. on our way back to diriamba we saw hundreds of busses carrying thousands of sandanistas back to thier home towns. I don´t know if nicaragua will be better off with a liberal victory or a sandanista simply because the sandanistas may not take defeat too quietly.
Hannah and i met some teenagers from new orleans and have made friends with them. We have also gotten to know their cousin very well who happens to be the grand-niece of the presidente de nicaragua. Everyone in the youth will love her and her the same, i hope it´s ok that i invited her to come hang out with us that week but she speaks fluent english so she won´t be too much of a burden if she decides to join us.
As much fun as the old people are we can´t wait for the youth to get here.
-Eric and Hannah
there’s a story about the writer g.k. chesteron, whose conversion to CHRISTian faith caused a stir in great britain at a time when smart people (and chesterton was brilliant) weren’t supposed to believe. so he’s standing on a street corner in london when he’s approached by a newspaper reporter. “sir, i understand that you recently became a CHRISTian,” the reporter says. “may i as you one question?”
“certainly,” says chesterton.
“if the risen CHRIST suddenly appeared at this very moment and stood behind you,” the reporter inquires, “what would you do?”
and chesterton looks the reporter square in the eyes and replies, “HE is.”
brennan manning, posers, fakers, & wannabes, p. 115.
over the past two years pam and i have been struggling with what it means for us to live simply. we don’t have our answers at this point and we definitely aren’t living simply yet but we are being challenged by what we are learning. we’ve been inspired by some amazing people and thoughts, such as:
there are many other people, books, and thoughts that have been challenging how we have thought life should be lived.
right now, pam and i are trying to figure out what all this means within our lives. we see living simply as vital for our spiritual development but we’re not completely sure what a simple life looks like. we’re not planning on turning amish (though i have huge respect for them) and i don’t believe that we will be joining a commune anytime soon (though the thought of an intentional community is pretty appealing sometimes). we are just trying to sort out what we have been experiencing for the past couple of years.
what has been changing for us has been:
these are just a few of the things we are working on bringing into our lifes. we don’t always accomplish them but we do try. they won’t make us simple but it is at least a start.
our black cat (oreo) is the strangest creature i have ever been around. the stupid cat eats flowers. every time i buy flowers to bring home to pam the stupid feline begins eatting them. i found some gladiolus today while buying some contact solution for adam and i thought i would be safe buying them since they are four feet tall and tons bigger than the stupid cat. apparently the size of the flowers merely gives the cat more to chew on because she has already started eatting them. i have a scratch on the back of my neck right now because the pain in the rear cat tried to go after the flowers and jumped up on the back of the chair i was sitting on.
it’s things like this that have caused us to refer to oreo as “satan’s little helper” (with a nod to the simpsons).
every now and then you fall up (which means something bad happens and fixing it turns into an advantage for you). last week the fam and i went to go on vacation to stone mountain, georgia. we were real excited about the trip because 1) it would be fun, and 2) my parents had recently acquired a pop-up camper and we were going to get to use it. unfortunately our dream of a vacation at stone mountain ended about 70 miles north of mobile, alabama when the engine in my truck “gave up the ghost.” my truck threw a connecting rod and though this could be fixed it would cost more than putting a new engine in the truck. so we headed back to mobile and my dad started making a few phone calls some of his friends to find an engine for the truck. the engine he found has a hefty price tag to it … it’s free if my dad and mom will drive an r.v. to savannagh, georgia for the guy who owns the engine. so basically my parents get a free trip to savannah, georgia for a vacation and i get a free engine.
this was great but then the deal got even sweeter earlier today. this afternoon my dad called me and said that the guy who owned the “parts” truck that had my new engine in it is simply going to crush the “parts” truck after the engine is removed from it. therefore, the guy said i could have anything i want off of it. so my dad started listing things from the “parts” truck that could be put on my truck, such as:
of course, all of this is possible because of my “wheelen, dealen” dad. thanks dad.
just a friendly reminder to pray for our friends that are in nicaragua over the next few weeks, you can pick one of these up at church tonight as a physical reminder to pray.
it doesn’t take a genius to see that religious people to be more narrow than broad.
brennan manning, poser, fakers, & wannabes, p. 90
we hang out with the “street kids” in diriamba, nicaragua every year when we go to nicaragua. as a part of this we give out as many basketballs as we can. in order to do this, we have to have the basketballs. so if you would like to bring a few or even a hundred basketballs to the church i’ll make sure they get to the “street kids” and they will be very appreciative.
the goal of work is not to gain wealth and possessions, but to serve the common good and bring glory to GOD.
richard foster, the freedom of simplicity, p. 149.