January has slipped away. February has jumped us. Don’t turn your back on February. It closes out quicker than any of them. We were ill for over half of January so it did seem to pass by quickly. We still have a few residual effects, but doing much better. After comparing notes with others, we most likely had a flu strain which would explain why we couldn’t get out of bed a few days and felt so bad for so long.
We’ve had a number of guests the past few days and will for the rest of the week. First a co-worker from Dallas who came and needed a place to stay for a night, but it turned into two nights. Then, we said goodbye to him Saturday morning and hello to a Pioneer missionary husband and two of his boys on Saturday afternoon. The husband/dad took a 4 a.m. bus to the airport on Sunday and his two boys are here until he and his wife return next Saturday. They’re at a conference in San Diego. So, they’ll arrive around noon on Saturday and we’ll have them plus their other two kids that are staying with another family not far from here. I think they’ll be heading home on Sunday afternoon. They’re beginning a fresh work up in the mountains of Puebla in a small town of indigenous people called the Totonac. They just moved there barely a week ago, but they had to attend this Pioneers conference. It’s near San Diego so who’s complaining?!
Anyway, one neat thing is a Totonacan pastor they know has orange and grapefruit trees and so the day before they came they picked a ton of the fruit and brought it. We’re getting vitamin C by the hour here. It’s amazing! The pastor told them to pick all they want. No charge. A sweet offering from an indigenous brother I’ve never met. I just like thinking about that.
I just finished week 3 of my latest seminary course: Introduction to Theological Research and Digital Literacy. It’s keeping me busy. Lots of figuring out how to search for academic sources and am writing papers and more papers and citing them, putting in footnotes, and bibliography pages, and writing. I should mention, I’m also writing a lot. 🙂
In our classroom discussion groups (online), we write some there too. One of my dear classmates who I’ve had in the last two classes as well, shared a pearl of wisdom that I thought I’d pass along. Sorry, Zach. If you’re reading this, I wasn’t sure whether to cite you as the source or to keep you anonymous or if you were merely sharing what you’ve learned and perhaps the source is ultimately someone else. We in speaking ministries have no qualms with passing along the great words of others, mostly because we rarely invent them ourselves. So, Zachary Reeves who may or may not want to be revealed here, shared the following (he’s a pastor in Ohio btw):
“‘In everything in life don’t just look for answers to situations look how you can reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of that situation.’ More times than not we are looking for the right answer to tell us how to deal with a tough boss, or teach our kids to obey, when the better question to ask is how do I act like God in the midst of this situation of life?”
Think about that. Act on it.
Care to know a little about the Totonac people? Try Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totonac_people
Knowing Your ABCDs 