4-H Fun

So last night we went to the Somerset County 4-H Fair. I know, I was shocked that there is 4-H in NJ, but it is the "Garden State" after all. There was plenty to do and everyone was having fun until it started pouring down rain, in a freak Summer Thunderstorm. Now, you would think this would ruin the rest of the evening, but for a 2 year old this was possibly the only thing that could top being half eaten by a llama (which had happened earlier in the day). At first I was trying to keep out of all the rapidly forming puddles, and under the cover of the tents, but my son had other ideas.

As that tiny 2year old force of nature dragged me out into a much greater force of nature I realized that all that energy I expended trying to keep dry was making us both miss out on something awesome. I think God is like that sometimes, he will let me work and work at staying dry, only to "shower me in the end anyway, and then let me realize for myself that it was what I needed all along.

Once I let go, I had an awesome time running through the rain and doing handstands in puddles while my 2year old splashed approvingly (I was getting into the Olympic spirit with the handstands). I am working on letting go more and just enjoying God's awesomeness, whether its a rain storm, or what assignment I will wind up with next.

NOTE: I had never been to a 4-H Fair before, and had no idea what it stood for. Driving there in the car my wife and I came up with: Horticulture, Husbandry, Hanimals, and Hippies. Apparently that is not what it stands for, but we saw plenty of all of those. Have your own idea of what the 4Hs are, leave a comment.

Radio Remix

Since getting back from Germany, I have been doing a lot of driving while on leave. To go along with that, I have been listening to a lot of radio. It's not that they don't have radio in Germany, I just never new what they were saying except for the random, "blue jeans", or "coca-cola". So, anyways, it is nice to be able to understand the "jibber-jabber" as Mr. T would stay.

Today I was listening to the local Christian station by my Mother-in-law's house, and a woman called in and told a story about how God had made an impact at a difficult time in her life. What stuck out to me was as she was encouraging others with her story she said, "God will help you anyway he can." This sounded wrong to me, but it took me awhile to figure out why.

For God to help me anyway he can seems to imply that there are ways he can't help which doesn't fit with my conception of an all powerful deity. I think though that we sometimes think of God like that, as if in our crazy mixed up world he is doing everything he "can". I put limits on God as to what he does and does not care about, or how much he is willing to give or far he is willing to go for me.

The thing is, God has no limits, and he proved how far he is willing to go through his son Jesus. I rewrote the original statement to capture how I think God really works: "God will help you anyway he will." God won't do what he can for me or what I want him to do for me, he will do what he wills for me, any limits on what or when he will help are there by his design. I'm working on getting that.

Swimtastical

I am by no means the expert in Special Forces, but I have been in some ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) "Team Houses". Coming from the general purpose force, these pads are like the Shangri' la of military livin', they are where all the cool people want to be. Team Houses usually have satellite phone/Internet hook-ups, and all the toys the rest of the force can never get.

Today we went and visited the CSSM Beach Mission in LBI (Long Beach Island). After the morning program at the beach, we went back to the "Team House" for lunch. It was an awesome time and good to catch up with some old friends. It was definitely where all the cool people where, there was however a conspicuous lack of gadgetry. To help fix this I thought it would be fun to come up with some "Godly gadgets" to bring the mission's team house into the next century.

In no particular order I give you:

The Prayerator: This handy piece of gear will take random phrases from the Bible and combine them with events from throughout the day and produce a world class prayer fit for any occasion (still in development).

The iRosary: For the Catholic mission trip, these cross shaped mp3 players, are the must have gear for the discerning music aficionado.

What, you don't need gadgetry for the team house to be cool? How can that be, I mean the SOF guys have it. Oh well, its probably for the best, I just wanted to bring up the iRosary, I made up the Prayerator (I think it could sell well though, so if there are any computer programmers/ engineers out there that want to team up, I'm just saying.)

Verbonyms

A verbonym is a combination of two things that the Army loves, Action and Acronyms. Sometimes they are referred to as acroverbs, but don't bother looking either one up, as I don't think Mr. Webster is hip to my lingo yet.

Having just undergone a Permanent Change of Station, or "PCSed", I was reminded of verbing acronyms (the irony of the word verb being a noun is not lost on me I assure you), and thought it would be fun to try and come up with some Christian verbonyms.

Here's my list:

NIVed: To reference the same verse as someone else but in a different translations, such as the New International Version. This basically works for any translation, and would be used as follows; "I was using the Message to make a really strong case for predestination when he started NIVing me."

IHGed: A spiritual sign-off abbreviation, In His Grip/Grace, is used to end e-mails or text messages. As in, "My laptop was running out of battery, so I IHGed my e-mail real quick and clicked send before it died." -I got this one from SCL, check out the link for the whole post.

DBed: The devotional Our Daily Bread, put out by the millions through rbc ministries. "I don't have much free time, so I have been DBing it in the mornings."

VBSed: The favorite Christian pastime, Vacation Bible School is essentially a verb. "I could sleep for a week, I have been VBSing it up since June."

SCLed: The mainstay of sarcastic Christian humor, Stuff Christians Like is more than a blog its an action blog, a verblog if I may. "The youth minister SCLed up the whole retreat, it was pretty awesome."

Have some to add to the list? Leave a comment and do your part to increase the acroverbology of this site.

Up and Running

Well, the family and I survived the move from Germany back to the states, and are now in a new house with Internet hooked back up. What that means is that the posts should start rolling again. A three week trip to NJ is planned for the rest of August, so there will probably be many leave themed posts, as well as continuing with the PCS theme so stay tuned.