Happy New Year!

3...2...1... Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a new year filled with deepening friendships and fulfilling experiences! Happy 2006!

Provision

Something that I never thought would happen to us happened today. God provided specifically for our needs.

I have always read in those missionary biography stories about how God provided specifically, almost miraculously, for people in their time of need. Whenever I read stories like that it lifts my spirit, much in the same way Christmas movies, such as Miracle on 34th Street, do. And just like watching a Christmas movie, I can readily dismiss what happens in the movie with the reality of life: "yeah that's nice for stories and stuff, but it won't happen to me." It's not that I don't want it to happen, but I didn't see the need to get my hopes up for things like that. And after all, God has and does provide financially for us through our paychecks, and provides emotionally through our loved ones, and so on. We've never had to go hungry or naked. I think at a heart-level, the question is not whether or not God could do it, but whether or not he would do it. I find that I also feel this way when I pray for healing.

Well, since I am on the subject, here is a well-know story of this sort of specific-kind of provision. It's a story about George Muller, it's taken from this website:

One morning the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder, and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal, when Mueller said, "Children, you know we must be in time for school." Lifting his hand he said, "Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat." There was a knock on the door. The baker stood there, and said, "Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it." Mueller thanked the man. No sooner had this transpired when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the Orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it. No wonder, years later, when Mueller was to travel the world as an evangelist, he would be heralded as "the man who gets things from God!"

Well, Traci and I are definitely no where near the league of George Muller. But here is what happened to us today. (Now that I've sufficiently over-hyped it, hope it's not too much of a letdown.)

We've incurred some unexpected expenses this last month due to our oven going kaputz. (cost $880 to install a new one in its place) That in addition to a couple of short paychecks we received in the past month have us scraping the bottom of the barrel. So the last few days, I've been thinking about how we will make ends meet this month. Traci and I were thinking maybe we will have to carry some balance on our credit card for the first time, which we really didn't want to do.

Then today, I spoke to my mom and she informed me that some of the people at our church back in Caly gave us a love offering last week and she deposited into our account. I checked the donation and it came out to be $875! (Okay for those skeptics out there, I acknowledge your thought. A part of me joins you in thinking, man, that is $5 short. There is nothing miraculously about that.) Despite the protest of the skeptical part of me, I gave thanks and rejoiced and celebrated God's provision! I called Traci and we celebrate it together. We are so thankful and so humbled by God and his people who gave so generously!

There are a lot of things that God could have done, and this little experience is pretty insignificant, it didn't save any lives and really only affected 2 lives, but it's special to us. Because in it, He showed his love for us in a very personal way. He showed us that He knows our needs and He will take care of us.

I think the best part of all of this is that we weren't expecting it and we weren't praying for it. God simply took the initiative and surprised us with it. It is the best kind of present one can receive at Christmas.













(Btw, no one except Traci and I (and our friend Larry who helped us in getting a new oven) knew that we had a busted oven and how much it cost to replace it.)

Merry Country Christmas to You!

Merry Christmas from small town Idaho! Here is a picture taken of a tractor in mom and dad's front yard.

Maomart

I am finally getting around to posting some entries from things I experienced on my last trip to China. Well, I've got to hand it to Walmart, they are really something. I can't believe that they manage to put in a store underneath People Square in Guiyang. As many of you who have been to China knows, you can find a People's Square in most big cities in China, they were put in place as a symbol and reminder for the communist ideals.

I find this to be such a telling picture of what is going on presently in China: On the surface you still have the rhetorics and the ideals of Communism, but below ground sweeping the nation is the tide of capitalism. Everybody is trying to get ahead and make a buck from themselves. (If you look closely, you'll see in the background of the picture a statue of Chairman saluting the square)

I recently read an article that appeared in the Washington Post that indicatest that the leaders in China are becoming increasingly aware of this apparent contradiction. Here is the article:


China Confronts Contradictions Between Marxism and Markets (December 5, 2005, The Washington Post)
"The Communist Party has launched a campaign among political leaders and senior academics to modernize Chinese Marxism, seeking to reconcile increasingly obvious contradictions between the government's founding ideology and its broad free-market reforms. The campaign involves the allocation of millions of dollars to produce new translations of Marxist literature and to update texts for secondary school and university students obliged to study the official philosophy, officials said. In addition, the campaign will promote more research on how Marxism can be redefined to inform China's policies even as private enterprise increasingly becomes the basis of its economy, they explained. The undertaking, which coincides with an 18-month campaign to reinvigorate the party rank and file, seems designed as a response to frequent complaints about the chasm between official discourse in Beijing -- emphasizing "socialism with Chinese characteristics" -- and the growing reality of often unbridled capitalism in which party officials are eager partners. Unease over this gap has become particularly apparent among university students, who often chafe at their required classes on Marxist theory. A prominent university's party secretary recently told a visitor that his school had resolved the problem by simply teaching traditional Chinese philosophy during the time set aside for the study of Marxism."


I wonder if Mao is rolling over in his grave, I mean in his "Maoseuleum"

Meat Stick Story

I bought lamb sticks from these guys above. I met them on the street corner in the city of Guiyang They are Uighurs from Xinjiang and they spoke questionable Mandarin. What led me on to their lack of Mandarin was the following:

when I ordered lamb sticks from them, I told them that I wanted it a little spicy. "Not too spicy" were my exact words. Then I proceeded to wait as they liberally coated my lambsticks with red spices (I thought it was a bit strange, but I was pretty sure that I made my request clear. Maybe he's putting on paprika was the thought I comforted myself with.)

There was a little girl who had ordered before me and she told him, as he was toasting our sticks, "No spices, please". He also continued to liberally toss on the red stuff. (Must be paprika, right?) When the meat sticks were almost done, I saw he pile on a bunch of white powder as he rotated the skewers. (Hmm, is that msg?) In the spirit of taking in the local culinary traditions, I did not protest.

Finally, my lamb sticks were ready. I was really looking forward to them as it was a rather chilly day and it'll be good to have something nice and warm in my stomach. The first bite was awesome! Umm...Yummy! Then the spices kicked in! (Not too spicy, huh?) It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck my tongue. I felt like I was in a cartoon and I had flames coming out of my mouth. I was puffing out white steam as I desperately inhaled the cold air around me in the hopes to cool my tongue. This was by far, the hottest thing I have ever eaten. I now realized the obvious fact: That wasn't paprika that he was basting the meat sticks in while they cooked, they were peppers!

One funny thing about me is that my head sweats when I eat spicy food, with the amount of sweat directly proportional to the degree of spicyness. So I must have looked funny to be sweating profusely when the temperature is nearing freezing outside.

The inhaling cold air trick didn't quite work, so I was thankful for Dicos, where I washed my mouth out with cold water and then doused down a cup of cold drink to put out the fire. All the while feeling bad for the little girl that ordered before me, boy, she didn't know what she had coming!

Trying out w.bloggar

Found this free blogging tool, w.bloggar that enables me to blog offline among other things. Gonna test it out and see how well it works. Looking for more things to do to help me pass time on my long flights. Maybe now I can blog while I am traveling. Because I really hate doing catch-up blogging after I come back from trips. Well, let's see how this goes. I'll post a review once I get acquainted with it.

First annoying thing: I am trying to insert a picture and there is no browse button. They expect me to type in the path for the picture. What is this? MS-DOS?

Well, folks, it turns out it's for entering the URL of a picture. I guess I'll try to figure out whether or not I can upload a picture from my computer through this program. I'll have to do it tomorrow. Me sleepy now.

Winter Colors - Black & White

Yup, winter in the Northeast has officially began. It's been a good 6 years since I've experienced a Northeast winter.

I took this picture right outside of our apartment door. It is in it's original color. If you look closely at the blurred background at the top of the picture, you can see faint hints of color coming through.

If my memory serves me correct, this is what winter is like here: It is as if you took the world and put it into photoshop and hit desaturate. Winter is life in gray scale. (Now I could never remember here in the US, if we use grey or gray) Anyways, Black and White has its charms as seen in the photo above.

Being a warm climate person most of my life (with the exception of the banishment to Ithaca for college for 4 years) I still hold a very romantic view of winter. We'll see how it holds up over the course of this winter.

Winter Wonderland

So I woke on Sunday morning, brush my teeth, go about my Sunday routine to get ready for church. In passing, I glanced outside and saw ... Snow!

It's amazing how the sight of snow covering everything filled me with a sense of awe and wonderment. It took me out of my routine and made me stop in my tracks to admire its pristine and beauty. I felt like a little kid in awe and couldn't help but grin ear to ear.

I find that as I grow older, I grow more cynical and less things fill me with wonder and awe. Life becomes routine with bills to be paid and responsibilities to be fulfilled. It becomes more about enduring then enjoying.

So it was nice to be surprised again by awe!

It is very cool to go to bed with everything normal (no snow) and wake up and everything is white and covered. It made me happy.

It drew my soul to prayer and thanksgiving. It made me smile and want to exclaim at the top of my lungs,*

"MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE !!!"

May little things in life restore to you moments of wonderment...


Now, back to reality, that is me in the picture... yup, I am the one taking out the trash in the snow. Not so much awe there.
* I didn't actually scream out loud, Traci was still asleep from her late night of finishing some of her final projects