There are Some Weeks One Just Wishes They'd Stayed In Bed!
.....last week was one of them!
Sunday dinner with old friends!
My week started out quite nice! Sunday we entertained some old friends who just moved back to the Lower 48 from Alaska, along with the Directors of Matt 25 and Phil's mom. Phil made up his wonderful Garlic-Mint marinate and roasted three small hens on the "Q". Yummmmmmmm!! The meal also included from our garden, green beans and Butternut Squash with Ginger - Pecan Butter, also roasted on the grill. This recipe was out of our Weber's Art of the Grill cookbook and "Chef Phil" put it together. Oriental cabbage salad and garlic bread was included and chocolate zucchini cake was the dessert! We had a delightful time visiting with Hope and John and catching up on old times.
A Dark Day for Curry County, A Dark Day for America!
The week went down hill from there. I began fasting and praying until elections and had hopes for a miracle! Our election day began early (6:30 a.m.) as I drove the truck while Phil put out American flags at businesses all over town. We ate breakfast out and as we read the morning paper we discovered that once again our County commissioners were pulling a stunt and once again voting to sell liquor at our new event center THAT MORNING. We had no warning. We scramble to get whomever would show up with 30 minutes notice and went to "fight city hall" so to speak. After waiting for two hours and giving a passionate plea we lost by one vote. It was a sad day for Curry County!
The Good News, The Bad News and the Reality of a Deprived World:
On the way to the Courthouse, however we got a call......
Those who read my blog are probably close enough to us to know we have recently been investing a great deal of time in the life of a man whom God is delivering from a life of bondage. What has been amazing is that because of the direction we were able to head him in, four other men's lives have been touched! Two of whom have gone to the same treatment center on his high recommendation and two of whom he has shared the gospel. The good news for Tuesday was that this man had, within 24 hours been able to share the gospel to two other men and one had accepted the Lord!
That evening, however, we received news that the third man, whom we hold dear to our hearts, and whose children I had been actively involve with, was in terrible shape and referred from the said treatment center to psychiatric help. Obviously, I can't share the details other than to say that this was a shocking blow for me. This situation has shaken my world! "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against "principalities and powers....." The reality is that they are alive and well and existing in the church of today!
After a day of deliberately avoiding the T.V. to hear election coverage, we headed for our Emmaus Community gathering with not only the sobering news just mentioned above but that the course of our nations history had just been dramatically altered.
Wednesday, I spent the afternoon meeting with classes of high school students at Clovis High school but was somewhat in a state of numbness!
Enter the Twilight Zone...
Wednesday night was our first DWI class for the month. This is where my week gets REALLY bizarre!! We began to intake our 16 students for the month. We discovered 5 of the sixteen had July birthdays. Well, that's just a little weird, but no big deal. Then two gals arrived and they were mother and daughter and both our students! Then another lady student came in only to discover her estranged son with whom she hasn't spoken for a couple years was ALSO a student. Then another lady registered who lived on our road. At the end of the class the mother and daughter were calling for a ride home. I asked them if we could help get them home and they replied, "No we live clear south of town". "Oh, no problem," I replied, "So do we." O.K. the dialogue got really funny until we found out they were our neighbors! So, we had three students who lived on our road! What a way to get to know your neighbors! But, hey, I think it will be a positive thing.
Morning in the Graveyard
Thursday morning by 7:30 I was sitting in the middle of an old graveyard; the one on the west side of town. Elm trees had been cut down and the plan was to fill the truck full and take home a load before heading to Albuquerque for a four o'clock meeting. I waited for Phil to get some smaller chunks ready for me to load. It was a beautiful, sunny but cold, crisp and breezy morning as I gazed out over the sea of elaborate tombstones. I marveled at them! Some not only had thick marble markers several feet high but the entire grave area was covered in a 4" thick marble slab. Furthermore, I was most amused by the items left on graves. Of course there was the "lovely" bunches of plastic flowers. There were birthday cards, toys, and what appeared to be letters (no, I didn't touch anything! and just a lot of junk. Now, recall I had just read the book "Driven by Eternity". That book makes the "here after" a very real and conscious event and the passages were fresh in my mind.
I'd like to suggest to anyone who would like an interesting dialogue with the Lord to take their Bible and have their "QUIET TIME" in the middle of a cemetery! It will be amazing the insights that will come to your mind! I listened to morning, religious radio and the speakers seems to have words that just fit the setting to a "tee!"
Here's what impressed me the most: those thick, marble tombstone monuments. I guess the idea is to mark a person's existence or life forever and with something that will last. I suppose marble will last a long time because there is probably nothing more dead! That heavy, dead thing is to continue reminding people that the pile of compost below was once a live person! That, itself is ironical to me. Who really cares about those markers except the family members and those VERY close to that person? And THEIR memories exists in their hearts and minds anyway!
Then on the radio a man was speaking about evangelism and about sowing and reaping the harvest. He told about a missionary to India who preached the gospel for - I don't remember how many years - but it was a long time and when he died he only had ONE convert. However, later someone traced that one convert to 13,000 who had received eternal life due to the missionary. Now, we can rightly suppose those 13,000people have influenced thousands more who are walking this earth as a living, breathing harvest of the seeds sown by that one pioneer missionary! This will go on for eternity!! Who needs a marble slab to mark that man's grave when the memorial of his life goes on forever until Jesus returns!
You would have thought the inspirational thoughts at the graveyard helped me to refocus on the eternal and not be so overtaken by the clear and present challenges. My week was laced with dealing with more than one painful interpersonal experience. Life goes on! Hopefully, better next week
Our trip to Albuquerque was beautiful and we enjoyed a lovely meal at Mac Grill. Yummm!!!
Sunday dinner with old friends!
My week started out quite nice! Sunday we entertained some old friends who just moved back to the Lower 48 from Alaska, along with the Directors of Matt 25 and Phil's mom. Phil made up his wonderful Garlic-Mint marinate and roasted three small hens on the "Q". Yummmmmmmm!! The meal also included from our garden, green beans and Butternut Squash with Ginger - Pecan Butter, also roasted on the grill. This recipe was out of our Weber's Art of the Grill cookbook and "Chef Phil" put it together. Oriental cabbage salad and garlic bread was included and chocolate zucchini cake was the dessert! We had a delightful time visiting with Hope and John and catching up on old times.
A Dark Day for Curry County, A Dark Day for America!
The week went down hill from there. I began fasting and praying until elections and had hopes for a miracle! Our election day began early (6:30 a.m.) as I drove the truck while Phil put out American flags at businesses all over town. We ate breakfast out and as we read the morning paper we discovered that once again our County commissioners were pulling a stunt and once again voting to sell liquor at our new event center THAT MORNING. We had no warning. We scramble to get whomever would show up with 30 minutes notice and went to "fight city hall" so to speak. After waiting for two hours and giving a passionate plea we lost by one vote. It was a sad day for Curry County!
The Good News, The Bad News and the Reality of a Deprived World:
On the way to the Courthouse, however we got a call......
Those who read my blog are probably close enough to us to know we have recently been investing a great deal of time in the life of a man whom God is delivering from a life of bondage. What has been amazing is that because of the direction we were able to head him in, four other men's lives have been touched! Two of whom have gone to the same treatment center on his high recommendation and two of whom he has shared the gospel. The good news for Tuesday was that this man had, within 24 hours been able to share the gospel to two other men and one had accepted the Lord!
That evening, however, we received news that the third man, whom we hold dear to our hearts, and whose children I had been actively involve with, was in terrible shape and referred from the said treatment center to psychiatric help. Obviously, I can't share the details other than to say that this was a shocking blow for me. This situation has shaken my world! "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against "principalities and powers....." The reality is that they are alive and well and existing in the church of today!
After a day of deliberately avoiding the T.V. to hear election coverage, we headed for our Emmaus Community gathering with not only the sobering news just mentioned above but that the course of our nations history had just been dramatically altered.
Wednesday, I spent the afternoon meeting with classes of high school students at Clovis High school but was somewhat in a state of numbness!
Enter the Twilight Zone...
Wednesday night was our first DWI class for the month. This is where my week gets REALLY bizarre!! We began to intake our 16 students for the month. We discovered 5 of the sixteen had July birthdays. Well, that's just a little weird, but no big deal. Then two gals arrived and they were mother and daughter and both our students! Then another lady student came in only to discover her estranged son with whom she hasn't spoken for a couple years was ALSO a student. Then another lady registered who lived on our road. At the end of the class the mother and daughter were calling for a ride home. I asked them if we could help get them home and they replied, "No we live clear south of town". "Oh, no problem," I replied, "So do we." O.K. the dialogue got really funny until we found out they were our neighbors! So, we had three students who lived on our road! What a way to get to know your neighbors! But, hey, I think it will be a positive thing.
Morning in the Graveyard
Thursday morning by 7:30 I was sitting in the middle of an old graveyard; the one on the west side of town. Elm trees had been cut down and the plan was to fill the truck full and take home a load before heading to Albuquerque for a four o'clock meeting. I waited for Phil to get some smaller chunks ready for me to load. It was a beautiful, sunny but cold, crisp and breezy morning as I gazed out over the sea of elaborate tombstones. I marveled at them! Some not only had thick marble markers several feet high but the entire grave area was covered in a 4" thick marble slab. Furthermore, I was most amused by the items left on graves. Of course there was the "lovely" bunches of plastic flowers. There were birthday cards, toys, and what appeared to be letters (no, I didn't touch anything! and just a lot of junk. Now, recall I had just read the book "Driven by Eternity". That book makes the "here after" a very real and conscious event and the passages were fresh in my mind.
I'd like to suggest to anyone who would like an interesting dialogue with the Lord to take their Bible and have their "QUIET TIME" in the middle of a cemetery! It will be amazing the insights that will come to your mind! I listened to morning, religious radio and the speakers seems to have words that just fit the setting to a "tee!"
Here's what impressed me the most: those thick, marble tombstone monuments. I guess the idea is to mark a person's existence or life forever and with something that will last. I suppose marble will last a long time because there is probably nothing more dead! That heavy, dead thing is to continue reminding people that the pile of compost below was once a live person! That, itself is ironical to me. Who really cares about those markers except the family members and those VERY close to that person? And THEIR memories exists in their hearts and minds anyway!
Then on the radio a man was speaking about evangelism and about sowing and reaping the harvest. He told about a missionary to India who preached the gospel for - I don't remember how many years - but it was a long time and when he died he only had ONE convert. However, later someone traced that one convert to 13,000 who had received eternal life due to the missionary. Now, we can rightly suppose those 13,000people have influenced thousands more who are walking this earth as a living, breathing harvest of the seeds sown by that one pioneer missionary! This will go on for eternity!! Who needs a marble slab to mark that man's grave when the memorial of his life goes on forever until Jesus returns!
You would have thought the inspirational thoughts at the graveyard helped me to refocus on the eternal and not be so overtaken by the clear and present challenges. My week was laced with dealing with more than one painful interpersonal experience. Life goes on! Hopefully, better next week
Our trip to Albuquerque was beautiful and we enjoyed a lovely meal at Mac Grill. Yummm!!!
posted by Linda @ 7:30 AM
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