January 2010
Reality Check #7January 29, 2010
Note: This post was actually ready yesterday but Yahoo! went crazy and wouldn't let me update for some reason. I'm back anyways.
This post is a result of several recent conversations and a book I read about a week ago. It's a very, very liberating thought and one that has already helped me a whole lot, but more about that later.
The thought is this: I am Baptist, yes, but I am not saved because I am a Baptist. I am saved because I believe in Christ Jesus and have accepted His gift. See? There's a difference. Therefore, my primary goal in life is not to get people to become Baptists but rather to be saved. There is plenty of time after they're saved to teach them doctrine and all of that. The most important thing is that if they die they know they're going to Heaven.
So last night was the most amazing visitation in my life. Brittany and I made it our goal to share the Gospel with every house we visited. It was so much fun!
Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be Baptist, I think that we are the closest denomination to what the Bible teaches. But if we ever move away from Biblical teaching, I won't be a Baptist any more.
It feels so good to say that. Take care veryone!
Country of the Week #7 - Italy
January 27, 2010
Population: 60,231,214
Capital: Rome
Primary Language: Italian
Main Religion: Catholic
Behind the Scenes #7
January 25, 2010
Sorry about the lack of updates, folks. It's been a pretty weird two weeks. First the cruise and now it feels as if I've been back in Mexico forever, not just six days. Sprained my ankle my first day back because I jumped out of a van in high heels and twisted my right foot almost ninety degrees. It still hurts, I've definitely done some damage but no one has an ace bandage so it was just like, 'meh, whatever, put some ice on it'. Then I walked around on it the next day and haven't really worried about it since. The only day we've had hot water in the house was Wednesday morning, something I'm beginning to think of as one of God's little miracles because nothing has been coming out of those pipes since that morning. The good news is that the Dorr's are going to call the washing machine guy and have him fix my washer so I won't have to lug my dirty clothes to Mrs. Dorr's house every Thursday.
The reason there were no updates on Friday was because Brittany and I went up to Alamos to participate in FAOT, a world famous music festival held up there annually. It was amazing. It rained so we went into a museum where we met a newspaper reporter for a newspaper up in Obregon. For whatever reason (probably because he was bored) he interviewed us for quite awhile. He studied in the University of Washington State and spoke good English so between the three of us we talked about a majority of things. He said his article will be online in three weeks and gave us a URL to go check it out. I'll let you all know if it actually gets up there. lol It was definitely worth going though, we might go again next Friday.
We lost a boy last night. Ramon went home after a small clash with authority. It's a long, sad story, one I've seen repeated so many times in the ministry. We knew it was coming for awhile, he'd been mentioning it and he'd gotten mixed up with a girl so it was really just a matter of time but as with all of these things, you never stop hoping that he doesn't follow through. But he did. So he's gone and we're all numb. It's like losing a family member to marriage or something, we'll see him again but he doesn't live with us. We'll get over it eventually.
My newest obsession is makeup. A long time coming, I know, I'm what, 21? Yeah, and everyone is looking at me funny these days because I actually care about whether or not my eyeshadow matches my clothes. I've even got some pink lipstick. It's...astounding. I'm really liking it though. I'm buying myself some eyeshadow for my birthday. ^^
I promise to get more faithful with the updates again, I'm trying to be more frugal with money for the next couple of months until tax returns come in but I'll still be able to make it out and leech off Super Mas' wi-fi. I swear there will be a new Country of the Week this week. And I've already got the Realty Check outlined in my head so if we do end up going to Alamos this weekend I'll post it on Thursday or Saturday. But it'll be there, I promise.
Take care, everyone!
Behind the Scenes #6
January 18, 2010
I keep writing the date as 2009. I can't help it, it's just what I've been doing. I had to go through and change all the years for this month's posts because I'd set them all as 2009. I always have this problem at the beginning of the year.
No posts last week because I was out of the country. I did bring my laptop with me but, miraculously, didn't even open it all week. It sat in my backpack on the cabin floor the whole time because internet would have cost $.75/minute. I love you guys but you all don't pay my credit card bill so I wasn't that dedicated to getting online and posting things for you to read. The trip was fun, I've got pictures that I haven't done anything with yet, will eventually but since this is going to be a hectic day I'm not going to upload them until maybe Thursday. If then.
I head back down to Mexico tomorrow. Looking forward to the trip, yes. It's going to be hard. I'm not sure exactly when my flight is (I have the email just haven't really read it) but I know that I fly through Chicago (yay!) and land in Tucson sometime in the early afternoon. I'm thinking I'll actually get to Navojoa via bus sometime early, early Wednesday morning.
So today I've got to get packed, put away the massive amounts of stuff I've pulled out over the month I've been here and go to Wal-Mart. I've started my laundry so when that gets out I won't have any excuses left. I'll just have to do it.
The update schedule will be back to normal this week. We'll have a new country of the week on Wednesday and Reality Check will be up on Friday. I've been working on collecting material for a new series of articles but it's going very slowly so I'm not going to announce much about it just yet.
Keep in touch! If you don't want to go to the effort to email me, please leave a message in the shoutbox. (A shoutout to Mrs. Snow who does an excellent job at that!) I know this blog really isn't a whole lot but I know a lot of people do read it and I want to know who you are!
Thanks, everyone! Adios!
Reality Check #6
January 8, 2010
When it comes to standards, when is the point in time where we need to take a step back and say, "Alright, we can or cannot do such a thing"? You can't deny it, over the years standards have changed. And they haven't changed for the worse, they've changed for the more modern. If standards hadn't changed since the 1800's I'd still be wandering around in hoopskirts which would simply be unpractical. If I were to travel back to the nineteenth century I'd get a lot of strange looks dressed how I am right now, blue jean skirt and cotton shirt, but my clothes are perfectly modest in this day and age. But you know the people who started dressing the way we do now were probably looked down on by the people who dressed in a way they considered much more modest.
To be quite honest modesty is different in everyone's opinion. There is only one definition but everyone's idea is different. To some people having your shoulders uncovered is unacceptable while to others it's alright. Some people don't mind skirts that come up over their knees while they sit and others won't wear skirts that are shorter than floor length. Other women don't mind wearing pants. I don't, personally, but I'm not you and you're not me. I'm not going to judge you for what you do. But when was it that someone looked around and noticed that things had to be changed?
The standards principle also applies to such things as movies, music and lifestyles. I know plenty of people who won't listen to anything but hymns. Then I know some who will listen to anything with a 'Gospel Message'. Then there are others who listen to whatever and claim it doesn't affect them. Different people have different standards. But when did it change?
Everything changes gradually. I don't think a lot of Christians, Baptists like me mostly, can handle things changing drastically. We all need time to accept little changes and then, after a few months or a year, the new standard is in place. I write all of this to say that I think standards are changing again. In ten years or so, Baptists (one of the most staunch groups on dress standards I think) will be dressing in a way that, if they knew what it was, would shock them right now. I'm not advocating it and I'm not saying it's right. All I'm saying is that if we're not careful about what we do, things are going to start changing and we'll never get them back under control. Decide what your standards are, stick to them and don't let anyone ridicule you for them. It's not their problem anyways.
Country of the Week #6 - Austria
January 6, 2010
Population: 8,210,281
Capital: Vienna
Language: German (National Language), Turkish, Serbian
Religions: Roman Catholic 73.6%, Protestant 4.7%, Muslim 4.2%, other 3.5%, unspecified 2%, none 12%
Behind the Scenes #5
January 4, 2010
A trip to the Capitol in D.C. last week inspired me to figure out what exactly we pay our congressmen and women to do. It turns out they mostly spend their time renaming post offices and authorizing the creation of stamps in memory of people I've never heard of including, but not limited to, Malcolm X's wife. (Note: I have nothing against the woman, it's just the only stamp I remember.)
They also like awarding accolades to people which is no problem except a.) there are a lot of people accoladed and b.) none of them are me. They also pass laws requiring manufacturers to label hand bags with their country of origin (H.R. 1480).
Is it just me or does this seem to be wasting a bunch of time? I know, I know they do more important things than just approve stamps and whatnot but there are a lot of stamps being approved and some of the bills I've found that might actually be semi-important (returning some stolen bells to a church in the Philippines and the "Freedom to Bank Act" (which starts, and I quote, "To sunset Federal laws and regulations which treat the American people like children by denying them the opportunity to make their own decision regarding control of their bank accounts and what type of information they wish to receive from their banks, and for other purposes.")) are just sitting there because no one will touch them. There are scores of these.
I'm at the age where I'm realizing that I don't know enough about this subject to really completely understand it but I can still look at something and know there's something wrong about it. This is, after all, my government.
H.R. 1436 is a bill that seeks "To provide for the evaluation of Government programs for efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability." That's a good thought, thanks Congress! It continues, "Congress finds that—inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and unaccountability in Federal programs undermines the confidence of the American people in the Government and reduces the Federal Government’s ability to adequately address vital public needs;". Oh right. Right, that's why I don't appreciate you guys! It's also because you waste time and money, thankyouverymuch. If you read the whole bill it's a mass of obvious information that someone should have realized over 200 years ago.
H.R. 1432 is also a fascinating bill that seeks "To reduce youth usage of tobacco products, to enhance State efforts to eliminate retail sales of tobacco products to minors, and for other purposes." Very important, I agree. The way the bill suggests to deal with the problem is ridiculous. It seeks to punish the store owner for selling tobacco to a minor. Why not punish the minor? The only thing that happens to the minor who actually buys the tobacco product (illegal, by the way) is that the police tell on him/her to their parents if they can! If the address of the minor is not attainable well, they did their best but just couldn't. Whoop-dee-doo. This provision is taken care of in the first three pages of the bill and the rest is how they're going to implement it.
Alright, two things here. First off, it seems to me that if they want kids to stop smoking, they need to punish the kids that are actually smoking, not the people selling the tobacco to them. I realize that they shouldn't be selling the tobacco to them (I would also argue that they shouldn't be selling it at all) but if someone wanted me to stop smoking but was punishing my provider, I'm not all that affected by it, am I? What's wrong with punishing the kid? Secondly, if it is unacceptable for a minor to do it, what makes it acceptable for an adult? By banning minors from smoking the government is sending a mixed signal. They're saying, "We know it's not a good thing to be doing this but..." I fully understand the concept of being an adult and having a free will but either something is wrong or it's right! It can't be both.
To access all of the current congress' bills that are being discussed you can go to GPOAccess.gov and click on 'Congressional Bills' under 'Legislative Resources'. The system is a little complicated at first but becomes much clearer after awhile. The Senate and House also have their own websites with a directory of current bills called Thomas.
Reality Check #5
January 1, 2010
This is the best time of year to touch on this subject and I'll tell you why. Because this time of year, of the whole year, is the time when people are most willing to make a change. They might not be ready for it and, usually they fail, but January is the month with the most best intentions and I for one plan on jumping on the bandwagon.
I've already explained my new year's resolution and, to be honest, I've had good success with it already. But this post isn't about new year's resolutions, this post is about realizing something that needs to be realized and talked about.
What, exactly, do you believe? It's something that I think about when I've got some spare time on my hands. What are my beliefs? What forms the core of my thinking? Your beliefs will form your opinions and your opinions form what you think about. What you think about forms who you are.
For one, I believe the Bible. I believe that it was written down by men who were inspired by the Holy Ghost to do so. It is the Word of God and our sole authority for whatever we do in life. I believe the Bible is infallible and is complete therefore does not need to be altered or re-written. I believe that a little more than 2000 years ago Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins on a cross. He did this for me because I cannot redeem myself. I believe that by accepting and acknowledging the fact that He did so, I can have assurance that I will go to Heaven when I die.
All of these are things that I believe and these beliefs form my opinions. If someone were to ask me, for example, for my opinion on fate I would say that God has His perfect will for us but He created us to have a free will and what happens in our future directly depends upon our walk with God and therefore, ourselves. So, no. In my opinion, there is no such thing as fate. If someone were to ask me for my opinion on abortion I would have to tell you that a fetus is a human no matter how small and every human has a soul that has to go somewhere when it dies and to kill a human is murder so therefore abortion is murder no matter how you're trying to justify it, that would be my opinion based upon my belief that the Bible calls killing another human murder.
I understand, of course, that not everyone is going to share my opinions, not even the people who may share some or all of my beliefs. We're all different, we've all experienced different things in life and we're all going different directions. I don't get upset or frustrated when people don't share my viewpoint, I may think that they are a little bit stupid, but I'll let you live on in what I consider to be idiocy if you'll do the same for me.
I say all of this to say, what exactly do you believe? Can you sit down and pinpoint exactly why it is you think the way you think? You might be surprised at how hard it is the first time to sit down and name everything you believe. You may find some things that surprise you. I know I did. But it is a worthwhile exercise, one I think we need to consider more often.
Happy New Year, everyone! I pray this year will be a success for you, remember who you are and what Christ has done for you and be sure to tell others about Him every chance you get!
