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Well, I knew it was mistake to call this blog *daily* breadcrumbs since it has been almost 10 days since I posted anything. That’s not to say I haven’t been doing any “chewing” it’s just that time has had to be devoted to other things.
I‘m still in New Zealand waiting for a police report from Papua New Guinea. Today, I put a plan B into action since plan A seems to be on the go slow. I appreciate the many people praying for this situation and well admittedly it is VERY frustrating for us we are confident that God is in control and He is using this situation for His purposes.
As we prepare to leave New Zealand we have spent a lot of time listing things for sale on Trade Me (it’s a NZ based auction site, Ebay has very little penetration in this market). It’s been interesting watching the different sales, how much they go for or whether they sell at all. Of particular interest to me is how we can list an item for a week and have it go through unsold without even a sniff of interest and then relist it the following week and have two bidders go to war against each other for the privilege of being the next owner of our stuff.
It just goes to show that it’s a matter of timing. Waiting for the right person to come along who recognises the value of what you have on offer and clicks on the button. One of the great things about online auctions is you significantly increase the pool of people browsing through your stuff and there by increase your chances of catching that willing buyer. For us though time isn’t something we have a lot of at the moment so everything is being listed for $1 reserve. This means that some items are going for rock bottom bargain prices. From our perspective though it’s one more “thing” that’s been disposed of to a good home and turned into cash (albeit less than what we hoped but still more than what we had with it sitting unsold)
What has this got to do with “Outreach” (which if you bother with the category listings is one place where this post is being filed, along with “Miscelanelife”? If you’re trying to communicate a message (and obviously the most important message from my perspective is the saving grace available through Jesus Christ - otherwise know as “the gospel” - but this principle is valid whatever you’re trying to broadcast) then timing is of the essence. It may take some time to find that “right person” who recognises the value of what you have to share.
We’re just in the process of final packing now, this includes the computers (well, the one we’re taking). One thing I’ve been playing with recently is a portable version of Firefox. It’s free and open source and can be downloaded from here. There are also portable versions of Thunderbird, Openoffice and others.
How it works is you install them on a USB flash drive. This means you can plug it in to any PC, the portable apps menu will automatically start and you can run whatever programs you’ve installed on the flash drive. They will run independent of the machine that is hosting them and will not change or affect anything on that machine. You can have your own email, bookmarks, etc loaded on the flash drive so effectively you can use it as “your” computer and then when you’ve finished unplug the drive and go on your merry way.
I did a field test last weekend when we went away to visit some friends. It worked just great. I’ve also been able to set things up so that my bookmarks, email and address book are actually stored on-line which means any changes, additions or deletions I make using the portable apps is synced with my other machines. It means that while we’re staying at other people’s houses (firstly my parents and then Gorgeous’ parents) we can still carry on with our “e-life” without having our own computer or potentially messing up our parent’s machines.
One way to earn a bit of money when you’re a student is to sign up to take part in psychology studies. I was driving along today thinking about one that I was part of. It had two parts. To begin with you were taken into a room with 3 other participants where were asked to talk about some random (can’t remember what it was) topic. You were then given a sheet of paper where you had to , based on your first impressions, indicate how trustworthy you felt the other people might be in different situations like lending money, advice on relationships, etc.
We were then ushered into separate rooms where we were going to do some more tests. These tests involved looking at various pictures of women and rating them along with whether or not we would be interested in having a “relationship” with them. Anyway, before I started doing this one of the graduate students conducting the experiment came in with the results of the first part of the experiment. It turns out I come across as a very shifty person because the other three guys rated me very low in the trustworthy stakes in all situations. Needless to say I was mortified and I was trying to figure out how they all could have formulated such a low opinion of me????
After we had finished the second part they came clean and said that they had fabricated the results of the first part to try and manipulate our self esteem! So while I was the unlucky one to pull the “everyone hates you” straw, one of the other guys got the “everyone thinks you’re a star!” straw. The whole idea was to investigate how feelings of self worth effect choice of partners. The hypothesis was that someone with lower self esteem would see relationships with “the beautiful people” as being unattainable and set their sights lower. I don’t know whether the results I produced backed that theory up or not but thinking about it today as I drove along with Cutie in her car seat in the back made me think about and PRAY about her future husband.
Obviously I want the very best for her, but there are things I can be doing right now that help ensure that she doesn’t end up falling for some “dead beat”.
I can show her how a good man treats women with love and respect through the way I treat her mother
I can help build up her self respect through words of encouragement, quality time and opportunities to excel in the things that she is good at
I can introduce her to the One who loves her even more than I do so that she can discover the security of knowing Him
Yeah, that’s because they are pizza crumbs. We had pizza tonight and I just have to sing Gorgeous’s praises. One pizza she makes is Thai Chicken Satay and it is DELICIOUS (If you ask her nicely over at philoxenos she might share the recipe with you all). You know the saying about how the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? Well, tonight it would have been better to go a different way because my heart was experiencing heavy traffic on that route.
It never ceases to amaze me what comes out of any kitchen under her control, especially when you consider we have 3 children under the age of 4 and the limited budget she works with especially when you consider that today hasn’t been very good with the children and the ongoing delays with the documentation for my visa. I know many of you are praying for us and I thank you heaps for that. Please pray a special blessing for Gorgeous (and if you want to be specific please ask for that blessing to be in the form of Little Buddy sleeping more than the current 2 -3 hr stretches) Thanks to you all.
Gorgeous and I put on a farewell concert for our friends and family over the weekend. It was great to have everyone together and have a chance to speak words of appreciation and encouragement. Among others, we sung some that I have written over the years that have been used in various churches including our current fellowship.
This one was written about 10 years ago. I don’t recall the circumstances surrounding how it was written but the sentiment ten years on hasn’t changed. All sorts of things can befall us in life, good things and bad things, some as a result of our own actions, some because the sun and the rain fall on everyone (Matthew 5:45). All these different experiences can be used as an excuse to move away from God OR to come before once again and put Him in His rightful place and offers ourselves to Him (Romans 12:1).
We’re in the final stages of leaving now so that involves a lot of saying good bye to various people. We had our last Sunday at our church this weekend and in the afternoon we put on a bit of a concert for our friends and family. At one point during the day I was talking to some more senior members of the church and one thing they said, “well I guess we might not see you again” meaning if and when we return they might no longer be living. The wife quickly corrected herself saying, but of course we will see each other again.
What a wonderful hope we have, it makes me wonder whether we truly live with the hope or do we at times slip into “grieving like the heathen”. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 And I mean that no just in the sense of people dying but also in our attitude towards the things of this world.
I think it’s a bit a stretch to accuse 6 month old children of lying and some of the comments take the fuzziness of the science to task but here’s an interesting link that gets you thinking just what might be going on in that little tikes brain.
Years ago (hmmm, we’re talking about 17 years ago) I worked for a Christian media production house. While the main focus was on radio we also did video and television production which is the area that I worked in. One of the programs we did was about prominent Kiwi Christian sportspeople. This was when Michael Jones was still in the All Blacks (the priests of New Zealand’s state religion ;) ) so he was one of the people we interviewed. We also interviewed Chris Nicholson (beware this link goes to a PDF file (sorry only decent info I could find)) who is a dual Olympian competing in cycling at the Barcelona games and also the short course ice racing in the Winter Olympics in that same year.
As a cyclist he spent a number of seasons on the European circuit and mentioned how he was often under a fair bit of pressure to get a good rank in a race because the resulting prize money would mean he would be able to eat, etc. Our interviewer remarked that this must have been quite good motivation. His response is something that has stayed with me and influenced my thinking ever since.
As a worship (as in music) leader in my church I often think about what is “true worship” and also the context in which it occurs and how to foster it. It’s likely to be something I come back to frequently, so since this blog is kind of a big mind map for me (which you get to peek into) I thought I’d better get a starting point.
This is what I wrote recently in a letter expressing interest in some church jobs in California that might be available and just sharing a little bit about my attitude / approach to ministry.
One of the local news web sites I visit is NZ Herald. They’ve recently started some blogs as part of their site. Just a variation on the old opinion columns really. Anyway, this morning one of their headings caught my eye. The blog it was part of is called “Blonde At The Bar” and is obviously one person’s take on relationships and the singles scene in Auckland. Most definitely not coming from a Christian perspective, but having browsed through some of the old posts provides some interesting insight into the mind of the “modern woman” (well, at least one of them).
At the end of 2006 in faith we started a process that, Lord willing, will soon be completed. Well, at least the first stage of it anyhow. Those of you who also follow Gorgeous’s blog will be aware that we have been preparing to move to the US in order for me to begin working towards a Masters degree at a seminary in San Francisco.
Gorgeous and I have been discussing about how we should refer to each other and also our children. We are conscious of the potential public reach of these blogs and so want to do our best to minimize any potential for unpleasantness like ID theft, stalking, etc.
Notice (maybe) that when you hover over Scripture passages on this blog it displays the verses in a little box? Just in case, you haven’t noticed try it now with this reference : John 3:16.
In the last post I quoted 1 Thessalonians 5:17. It made me remember something a worked out one time. If I remember correctly I was sitting on a ferry going from Shenzhen to Zhuhai (near Hong Kong). I was thinking about 2 Peter 3:8.
I tend to spend a lot of time on the computer and a good proportion of that time I’ll have a least one one web browser open. The main browser I use is Mozilla Firefox however I have nothing against the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 7). But I do like the wide range of plug ins available for Firefox. One I’ve just installed tells me when the Muslim prayer times are (5 times a day)
We’re currently in the final stages (hopefully) of shifting to the US. It means a lot of things but because we are only planning to take what we can fit in our 9 pieces of luggage we take on the plane (plus a three drawer filing cabinet that will be shipped over) we’re having to sort through all our stuff and see what makes the cut. We’re also emphatic that my parents only get lumbered with the minimum of things that they need to store on our behalf (mostly it’s financial records that have to be kept for seven years for tax purposes at which point they can be thrown out) which means anything that isn’t coming with us needs to be either sold, given away or disposed of in some fashion.
In a sense all marriages are cross cultural. You take a man from one family context and put him together with a woman from a different family context and viola you’ve already got TWO points of difference and potential perspective. This situation only gets more “interesting” when the two individuals are from different parts of the globe!
Thankfully in my situation English is our shared mother tounge however that is not to say we are always speaking the same language. Accents and idioms can some produce some “unfortunate” confusion. I’d like to share some of ours and no doubt it’ll be something I come back to from time to time.
The Logos Bible Software (www.logos.com) is more than just a electronic Bible, it is a total e-book platform that allows you to work at the level you are comfortable with. For instance, if all you’re wanting is a very portable way to carry around multiple Bible versions and an easy way to search for particular words (rather than using a concordance) then Logos will most definitely do the job. However, if you wish to delve deeper into the original languages (Greek / Hebrew), visually represent divergence in translations then it is a very straight forward process to upgrade your package for extra functionality.
