Sundry statements

I didn't forget about posting my book list from 2011.  I will do it...soon.

Amos and I have been married for six months now! :)

Here is a good article about the recently departed Christopher Hitchens.

Crazy story: A friend of ours, who lives just a few doors down, is five months pregnant.  And she just found out two days ago!  Sophia and Philippe have been married for almost six months, and she had no idea until recently that something might be up.  Sophia is half Japanese, so Philippe is calling it a "ninja baby." haha!

Others' thoughts...

I've read some good posts on other blogs in the last few days and months, and I thought I'd share them here. :)

We Need Boring Christians via Relevant Magazine
I'm slowly becoming "unromanticized" about living overseas, and I think it is good.  And yes, I still want to go.

On Thriving While Living/Traveling Elsewhere via Voye'm
Knowing why you're there and learning to react appropriately

Challies.com via Tim Challies
Amos says Tim Challies is one of the most widely-read Christian bloggers, and he reads his site almost every day.  I've started reading his blog, too, and I really like it (maybe because I agree with most of what he says, haha!).  Anyway, Challies is a youngish Christian writer who writes from a conservative perspective; he also links to several other useful and interesting posts.

List of unusual deaths via wikipedia
Because I'm morbid and a friend posted this on facebook in the middle of my writing this post.
Example of an entry:  2002:  Richard Sumner, a British artist suffering from schizophrenia, went into a remote section of Clocaenog Forest in Denbighshire, Wales, handcuffed himself to a tree and threw the keys out of his reach.  His skeleton was discovered three years later.  There were signs that he may have later changed his mind.

For Christian Men: The Lessons of Herman Cain via Al Mohler
Integrity is essential, in both men and women.

Church-Planting among the Unreached: Gritty Wisdom from Brad Buser via Gunner Gunderson (four parts)
Thoughts and tips on living and ministering cross-culturally with other workers.  I need to read this again because when I found these posts, I actually started at part four and didn't get a clear picture at first of what Brad Buser was trying to communicate.

True forgiveness

These are rather rough, semi-formed thoughts, but I wanted to share them anyway.

I was reading parts of Isaiah 53 last night, and the last verse struck me:

...yet He bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
-Isaiah 53:12c

We all know that Jesus took our sins upon Himself.  We all know that the Father will forgive us if we accept the work of Jesus in our place.

But do we ever think about the fact that Jesus is talking to the Father for the ones whose sin drove Him to the cross and ultimately the grave?  The ones who were behind such anguish that He pleaded with the Father for another way to pay the price?

Sometimes when we forgive, we hope never to see the person again because of the pain or betrayal.

Yet Jesus not only paid for our forgiveness, He continually brings our needs and requests before the Father.  He talks to God about each of, asking that we would be made more like Himself, that God would orchestrate the events of our lives for His glory and "for our good always."  Jesus talks about each of us, having forgiven us, having overlooked the initial willful rejection of Him, having drawn us to Himself with His love, and now having us in the palm of His nail-scarred hand.

Merry Christmas, from our ever-loving, ever-living, ever-forgiving, ever-interceding Savior.

Joy to the world!!!  You need not be condemned to hell for your sins.

Our neighbor, Soren

Soren is our neighbor.  If you just thought, "Soren Kierkegaard!" yea!  I'm not alone.  I've never met anyone named Soren before.  I've actually only talked to him once, even though I've been married and lived here for almost six months.  We don't see a lot of him, and I frequently think that he must be irritated by hearing my oft-repeated Owl City songs through the thin walls.  Hopefully he has headphones.

Anyway, our little house is rather small and shares a wall with Soren's.  His house is the mirror image of ours, so our two bathrooms have a common wall.

Tonight I was washing my face in our bathroom, I could hear Soren doing something in his bathroom (try not to think about it), and Amos was in the kitchen.  In the process of getting the Crock-Pot down from its perch on top of the fridge, Amos knocked over the cereal container, making a lot of noise that he thought I could hear.  I didn't hear anything, though, until he yelled, "Don't worry, I'm oh-kay!!"

Without thinking of our neighbor, I raised my head, facing the shared wall, and yelled back, "What are you doing in there?!"

I'm guessing that Soren either thought,
"Should I respond?  What is she talking about??"
or
"Weirdo.  I gotta move."

Don't...

I don't have much to say.

Ummmmmm, I finished some little crafty projects.  I think they look nice.

Zeus is still alive.  Sometimes he sleeps under his heater. :)

I had an interview today for a high school right down the street.  I'll find out by Friday if I got it.

I'm reading The Arabs by David Lamb.  I was disappointed to learn that he didn't write any more books about the Middle East, though he did write an updated version of The Arabs.

Amos and I went to our church's Christmas party on Sunday.  One of the best parts was watching a guy in a motorized wheelchair pull kids around the ice rink behind his chair.  It was awesome. :)

Only eleven more days till Christmas!

The little house

And finally, pictures of our little house. :)

The front, complete with clover and a rose bush :)

The front room with bookshelves and a coffee table/bookshelf

The other side of the front room, with more books :)

The small kitchen with announcements and missionary prayer cards

The other half of the kitchen with shelf, bridal bouquet, and Christmas tree

Master bedroom with the quilt I made and curtain I need to finish

The other side of the room

Our backyard.  The hammock takes up a lot of the space in the summer

Finally, our little Christmas tree with Amos' present! :)

Windy

Amos and I have wanted to go to the Huntington Library and Gardens for a few years now, but it is really hard to get tickets for their free day. Our friend Rachel had several free tickets that she was giving away, so we decided to take a trip this morning!

We left a little before 10:00 and headed down multiple freeways to Pasadena.  As we got closer to our destination, we started seeing splintered trees and severed limbs along the edges of the freeway.  Getting off on the surface roads, we saw more downed trees and blacked out traffic lights.  We drove up to the gates of the Huntington only to be told by two cheerful guys that the gardens were closed because of the power outages.  We decided to drive back through some other roads to see more of the cracked and dismantled trees.  Amos commented that I was just like my dad, who loves to check out all disasters.  One day Dad took off work to go check out the broken and flooding Folsom Dam; "you have to see these things while they are happening!"  The terms "ambulance chaser" and "rubbernecker" come to mind.

Anyway, we took some pictures of the carnage.  You can click on them to see a larger version.

This tree is being held up by the powerlines

I don't think this tree hit the house, but it was close

Road block!

More powerlines and road blocks...

If you look on the left, you can see the asphalt that was cracked by the tree roots

Just stuff...

1. We sang this song from Sovereign Grace in church today.  I am a big fan of Sovereign Grace music as it takes lyrics from both Puritan prayers and the Bible.

2. My brother Scott and sister-in-law Ashley are waiting to adopt a little baby from Uganda.  My old IBEX friend Nate and his wife Miriam have been waiting over two years to adopt two babies from Rwanda.  Gunner and his wife Cindi adopted one little boy from Uganda several years ago and two boys and one girl from Rwanda this summer.  Please pray that Scott and Ashley's baby and Nate and Miriam's babies come home soon.

3. I don't know what to do with my free time sometimes, but I feel like I should DO something with it... *sigh*

4. In other news, Christmas is only a month away!  As our pastor said today, "we set apart the days to celebrate the birth of our Savior."  Our Savior; the Muslims' Savior; the Hindus' Savior; the atheists' Savior; your Savior; my Savior.

Zeus

Well, there's a blog post title I never thought I'd use!  We decided to name our new fishy friend Zeus.  Amos ordered him a personal heater and thermometer today so that 1) he can be warm, poor guy, and 2) so we don't accidentally fry him. :/  When it's cool in the house I tell Amos, "I'm going to put the sweater on Zeus."  No, I don't mean a literal sweater, with holes for his tiny fins, but that would be funny!  His "sweater" is a fleece blanket folded a few times and secured with a binder clip around his bowl to keep him warm.  We also turn on a light above his bowl for a little extra heat.  Yes, the poor fish needs a heater if he is going to survive in our little home.

So far Zeus is a good fish.  He swims around or hangs out in the bottom of the bowl with the little flattened marbles.  Zeus does have a problem, though; he won't eat his food.  There are so many water-logged pieces of fish food at the bottom of his bowl right now!  Apparently bettas can go about two and a half weeks on a hunger fast before they will actually eat their food.  I think they are fed different food at the store because Zeus really doesn't like this kind, even though it is specified as betta food.  He will suck it in and spit it back out a few times before it slowly sinks to the bottom.  We have another type of food that he likes, but some websites say it's like candy and he needs to eat his "real food."  Hopefully Zeus will give in soon!

Here are some photos of him.  Hopefully you can still see what he looks like.

Zeus, chillin' in his sweater :D

He's a very nice color...

Our fishy friend, Zeus the betta fish

Ferdinand? Bertram? Jonah?

Call us sick, call us morbid, call us weird.

One of our friends just got a betta fish, and she accidentally killed it by not putting enough water conditioner in the water when she introduced her pet to his new home.

Poor Charles.

Charles' death inspired Amos to get his own fishy friend.  Our little fish has a big, round bowl and some blue and green flattened marbles for landscaping (waterscaping? aquascaping?).  He likes to stay right below the surface of the water like a miniature submarine.  Amos is afraid the poor dude is going to freeze and give up the ghost, so he's looking into a heater for him, which is probably a good idea considering how cold it gets in our little house.  Apparently one brand of heaters has a tendency to boil fish, so we won't be getting any of those.  I didn't know this, but companies also make tiny, leaf-like hammocks for bettas that come attached to a suction cup so you can stick it to the side of the bowl.  Whoa.  One reviewer says his fish loves it and looks "as deliriously happy as it's possible for a fish to look."

Alrighty then.

I came up with a few names for the fish, but Amos hasn't officially approved any of them.  First I thought that Bertram would be a nice name.  Then I thought of Jonah (my personal favorite), and finally Ferdinand.  We shall see!

I just hope he doesn't end up christened Bluey or something weird like that. ;)

11/13/11

1. Amos and I attended an India meeting at church today.  We are going to Bangalore, India in July!  I'm so excited!  Amos is going to make a promotional video for our ministry partners (they have a Bible college and a children's home).  I'm going to teach a writing class and help the kids with homework.  I saw pictures of all of the kids last week, and I can't wait to go over and meet all twenty of them! :)

2. I am making this for dinner! :)  It should be reaaaaaaaaally good.

3. Friday was my brother Scott's birthday.  He's twenty-seven!

4. On Thursday I had an interview.  I should find out tomorrow or Tuesday if I got the long-term sub position.  I really hope I get it!  I think the decision has been made already, but please pray anyway.

5. I finished A Chance To Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael by Elisabeth Elliot...which reminds me that I need to renew the other three books I checked out!

6. Amos and I have been married for four months now!

7. There are a lot of exclamation points in this post! ! !

"It has a little stink in it..."

Amos has several side jobs.  One of his jobs is a temporary job editing photos for our old IBEX professor, Todd.  Another is creating a website for our old IBEX friend, Lexi.  Still another job is hauling around porta potties mobile restrooms for his coworker Ryan.

I know what you are thinking.

"Uggggghhhh, porta potties!  Nasty green closets set up at flea markets and construction sites, dirty as can be, and twice as smelly."

Yeah, that's what I thought when Amos told me about it.

However, these are different.  These restrooms are very nice.

I was describing them to my mom one day.

What I said: "They're really nice, they're big, and they even have a little sink in it."
What she heard: "...they even have a little stink in it!"

Haha!

Anyway, this last weekend Amos was hauling one of the units up to Fresno for a wedding.  It was quite the adventure.  We got up at 4:20 am, took showers, packed our stuff into the car, and headed for Master's, where Amos had parked the truck and unit.

We got everything transferred to the nice, brand-new, diesel Dodge Ram and were up in Fresno by 8:30.  After talking to the wedding coordinator, we started setting up.  The unit has a freshwater tank for washing hands and flushing, so we ran a garden hose across the street to "fill 'er up."  Unfortunately the first car that drove by cracked the hose in three different places!  Water was shooting all over the road and running into the little field where we set up the restrooms.  Soon we were avoiding mud puddles and tracking dirt into the bathrooms.  One of the set-up guys for the wedding found another, heavier hose for us to use, so we set everything up inside, topped off the tank, and were off to a fun weekend!

The rest of the weekend included a free upgrade to a bigger hotel room, taking naps, watching TV (British TV shows and college football, mostly), going out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, sleeping in, and eating waffles and powdered eggs (gag!) for breakfast.  It was fun. :)

All in all, we had a great time in spite of early mornings, my cold, and mud puddles.

Amos' parents, Barb and Lester, wanted to see some pictures of the units, so here they are!  Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Early morning Fresno, behind the trailer

The handsome husband, looking a little cold

The bathrooms, complete with mats and palm trees! ;)
Notice the little lights to let you know if the stall is occupied.

Inside the ladies' stall