And On A Lighter Note

Don't want to stand in line to get your kid the hot new TMX Elmo doll for Christmas?

Luckily there's an alternative...a good healthy dose of reality...sort of.

Meet "Turleen."




Barefoot, pregnant, cigarette dangling from her lips...press her belly and she speaks.

Go ahead...spoil your kid and get the male doll too...Jer "Wayne"...push his belly and....well...take a guess...and hold your nose.

Available at TrailerTrashDolls.com

Monday Mood

We are trying.
To understand why God is asking us to deal with what should have been such "easy stuff," and why it has instead become "hard stuff."

We are trying to find a course that leads to healing.

But we are wondering why we are having to chart that course alone.

We have reached out.

We have sought counsel.

We have prayed.

And we have lost faith...not in God...but in our once cherished community.

Maybe it is simply the remnants of Monday, what should have been an exciting day. We have our Moldova paperwork done, have met some of our team members, and see great opportunity to say small words with huge meaning to small children with far more huge issues than ours.

"You are His beloved in whom He is well pleased."

But I will admit, I have never felt as "alone" in my faith as I do today.

Thank God for the blog community...bless you.

Hard decisions are ahead - perhaps they have already been made for us - but I know this much, I will trust God...

At least that is something I do not have "to process."

The Good, The Rad & The Just Plain Ugly

I've been doing a little tinkering with this blog's template - always a dangerous thing that can consume hours before I end up getting frustrated and restoring it back to where it was originally - hey at least I make back-ups!

The good: On the side bar you'll notice a new link to "My Photos Albums." That's going to be a semi-fluid connection to on-line photo albums, I think there are two up there now. One of pictures from our last trip to Lakeside, Ohio and the other shots from the most recent Habitat for Humanity house I'm "helping" out on. "Helping" being a kind term since I am not a handy man - perfectly comfortable with that - but I am concerned someone will assign me a job which in 2 years could result in the house collapsing due to my incompetence. I'll try and post something when pictures are added or I put up a new album.

The rad: Is rad even a word? Well, anyway...having Shell living with us is such a joy and occasional flashback. Shell may be 19 years old, but she is a child of the 60's. She's a "hippie chick," something she'll readily admit.

I'll walk into a room and hear music that *I* grew up listening to. She's into all sorts of old rock bands, from the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix. When I was helping carry some of her stuff to our "URMD," - (Upper Rooms Ministry Division) - I noticed a Led Zeppelin poster. I ended up giving her a Beatle's poster that I've carried around since college and which has hung in our garage since Amy and I first moved into this house. In fact, all of my "decorations" ended up in the garage...but that's another matter.

My only disappointment is Shell wasn't interested in the Simon & Garfunkel poster that also adorns an unseen garage wall. I also must confess that I've found myself on occasion "turning the music down" - my music that's now her music. Really, it's been because I'm so deaf I can't carry on a conversation with music playing at a decent "rock n roll" decibel. Really. I'm not THAT old!

At least I haven't shouted, "TURN THAT %$!* DOWN!"

That would be the ultimate irony.

The ugly: I mentioned in the prior post I was thinking of putting a little thermometer-type image on the blog to graphically represent our Moldova fundraising.
Uh...that's not gonna happen. My best effort at designing it is so ugly...it's so ugly it'd make a train take a dirt road...it's so ugly...sorry, I slipped into a bad Catskills comic routine for a sec. Anyway, it's ugly (see below and click to enlarge its ugliness), plus it made me a little queasy. Not because of its ugliness, but because it seems to spotlight "money."

If I could find an adequate way to graphically express the overwhelming "prayer support" we've received, I'd be a lot more comfortable with putting that image up, but there's no way any chart/thermometer/graph could come close to representing the huge outpouring from so many tender hearts.

And even if there was...I'd have to draw it...and it would be ugly.

Passing Into The Positive

It's a good day.

The air is clear, in more ways than one, and there's fun stuff to report.
I feel a bit like Steve Martin from the film, "The Jerk" saying, "The new phonebooks are here! The new phonebooks are here!"

However, we've got our passports! We actually received them a couple of weeks ago, I simply didn't have the time or the proper mood to write about it.



The photos are even fairly decent...keep in mind, you're not allowed to smile - I'm not sure why, maybe it's some type of security risk. I suppose Customs Agents could be lulled into letting some madman into the country if the nutcase had an alluring smile. Then again, they probably figure that after standing in security lines, crammed into tiny seats, having to carry your deodorant in a clear plastic bag for everyone to see, the odds are you're not going to be smiling coming off the aircraft.

We were appropriately dour.



On an even more positive note, I must tell you folks that you are amazing. The comments/emails Amy and I received from the blogosphere over the past week or so have been so encouraging, sympathetic, and uplifting that it's helped renew our spirit, more than I could ever adequately express.

God has an awe inspiring reach.

Along those lines, we're also "stunned" at the outpouring of donations for our CERI Christmas Moldova mission, both financial and spiritual. I was trying to come up with a little graphic - some tacky thermometer - representing the donations/pledges we've received in relation to our "goal." However, I could spend about 6 9 hours trying to draw a straight line and it seemed kind of silly - yeah, I'll probably do it...I only need a few more hours.

As I've mentioned, the trip to Moldova is going to cost us $3600.00, which covers most everything except whatever medications/elixirs/potions I'm going to need to ply Amy with to keep her from getting too freaked out by a 25 hour plane ride.

So far the tally of donations/pledges - strictly from people who read this blog (with a few shekels thrown in by us, which we've set up to do every two weeks) is..."Drumroll please!" $1325.00!!

I'm no math whiz but that's already more than a third of the costs...from blog readers...some of whom we've had no communication with before whatsoever! You people are astounding...I NEVER expected to raise that much money, and I haven't even tried doing my best 23rd hour Jerry Lewis impression!

Seriously...we are humbled and awed. There's no way to adequately thank you, but we're hoping to...by sharing your love with some kids who can really use it. I was going to save this information for another post, but it feels like the right time to me now.

We'll be in Moldova on January 7th...that's the day they celebrate Christmas in Moldova. So we will be sharing and celebrating the birth of our Savior, amid some kids who really need to know that they are His "beloved."

What a gift...for us!

I'm going to be thrilled to try to share that experience with you, if only through my meager words and as many photos as I can take.

Our first "Moldova team meeting" is Monday - 25 people from various churches - so we're very excited to learn more of what to expect.

"My old friend Harlan" sent me a link to a recent NPR report on Moldova. If you'd like to learn more click here.


By the way Harlan, old friend, I deeply appreciated your email and will answer soon...but, as you might expect, it's going to be a long one.

That leads me to the best news of this good day.

I heard from God.

It was actually last night, following a wonderful email exchange with Katy from fallible.com. I realized that the "spiritual crisis" Amy and I are facing pales in comparison to something else, a deep abiding friendship that I was putting at risk of getting bollixed up in our whirlpool of emotions.

We haven't solved our "crisis," but today great strides were made to insure, no matter what, that cherished relationship will not become "collateral damage."

And it didn't require a passport to take the first step.

Yeah, it's been a really good day.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. - Ecclesiastes 7:8

Some Explanation Is Needed.. but....

I had it in my mind I was going to spell things out today about our little spiritual crisis. I started writing from my heart and it got all cryptic again. Then I started writing from my head and it got all complicated.

And although no one can edit my feelings, I have to allow Amy to have the right of first refusal before I post anything specific about this mess...and I don't think she's ready.

So I'm going to sum it up very quickly and move on to other topics for a while.

We've had a major communication breakdown with the elders of our church...it has wounded us...put an unnecessarily and almost cruel strain on some of our dearest most abiding friendships...and left us wandering (that's not a typo).

Decisions have been made, they can't be taken back although we believe our side of the story has not been heard. People who say they "speak with one voice" have refused to "listen" at all.

So.

It's caused us to reevaluate a lot of things including whether we can continue participating in our church. If you've read this blog for any time at all, you will know how heart-wrenching that is for us.

For now, we're stepping back from all our church "duties" and spending more time reading suggested words of wisdom, praying, and hanging on to that which we are certain we can lean on..God and each other.

I am making one vow...the next &*#$ post on this blog is going to about something fun.

If A Blog Is Written In The Forest...

I'm still writing.

You just can't read it.

Some of that is probably good.

I *have* to write. It's the one thing in my life *I* have control over.

In truth, I would like other people to read what I write...but that doesn't negate my *need* to write.

So I'm writing this.

Other stuff I've written over the past week or so, remains in my "draft" folder. Perhaps I'll publish it, perhaps not.

However since the status of my website relies on a number of factors out of my control, I've decided I will simply write. Whatever comes to mind. It's been cathartic if not exactly fulfilling.

For those of you who have emailed me out of concern - once my email started working - thank you. It means a lot, more than I can express now, to have "community" in this odd world of i.p. addresses replacing faces and names. For those of you who wrote and got no reply...believe me...I never received the email.

Anyway...that's all I'm going to write now. One of the other benefits of writing and realizing no one but me can read it is that I can stop whenever I want. No fine tuning...no tinkering...no profundity required.

Maybe that's how it should always be...

At The Tone The Timing Will Be ...

Ah, the timing of things.

Some of you may have noticed this little space disappeared for a day or two. You may have sent me an email to which I didn't respond.

There's a reason for that and it's not that I obliterated my blog or had my server space/domain cancelled due to non-payment - hey, that's happened before.

Rest easy, I wasn't raptured without you.

What's been happening is our little web hosting/design business, The Aspen Group, is going through some shifting - technical stuff - and being the "Philosopher King" of this organization carries the burden of sacrifice. In other words, I've been the guinea pig. That's resulted in the website being up..being down...my email not working, sometimes working...it's sort of a cyber-roller coaster.

Anyway, at this particular moment, it appears the blog is back up and it was simply unfortunate timing that these episodes of digital epilepsy followed a couple of rather gloomy posts regarding my faith.

Rest assured, all is well. My faith is strong...life is good, but hectic, and when I have a moment I'll go into brief detail about the somewhat cryptic posts that preceded all this.

At this moment, the timing is not right.

Amy and I are still processing those spiritual things, but we've overcome the hurdles of actually figuring out what happened and why.

We have been blessed with the opportunity to reflect on many things: faith, church, community and how those things work together and occasionally against each other.

Suffice it to say, for the most part, we are at peace - but we have opened our eyes to new possibilities.

I'm being cryptic again...sorry.

We do expect some changes in our lives spiritually, I don't know if they'll be major things or not. I do know we're not going to rush into them based on emotion. To quote a dear friend, "Emotions are not truth tellers."

I'll post more very soon, but right now - to quote Forrest Gump - "That's all I'm going to say about that."

I do have many things to tell you...some of which I think contain actual bits of wisdom.

No journey is easy...but in the end I believe there is a purpose to all things...even the sudden inability to write about what's been on my mind. So perhaps going "404" for a few days has served a higher purpose.

If you have emailed me recently, I didn't receive it and those emails are likely gone forever. My email is still not working. This too is not necessarily a bad thing, it has provided me with another opportunity to settle into the stillness of God.

I'll tell you more about that too...I promise.

When the timing is right...and, in truth, such things are not really up to me...