My Crazy Parents...

Crazy Citrus Mom...

Crazy Airplane Dad...

Rob

Thanksgiving

Grandmom and Pop-Pop Thompson came down from NJ to join us for Thanksgiving.     The day started out with citrus from the neighbors trees.  First grapefruits.  Drew helped Grandmom  cut them and squeeze the juice.  We hade a great citrus breakfast along with sticky buns from Chester's (brought all the way from NJ.)

 

Pop-Pop took Drew for a ride in the tractor.

Grandmom and Tessa snuggling...

There's nothing like eating your Thanksgiving dinner on the lanai!  It was a beautiful day!

Friday we went to Bass Pro Shops... pics to come...

NASCAR weekend

This picture is for Drew. I love you buddy! Daddy

Congrats to Peter and Rachel...

...on the birth of their little boy, Brian David.  He was born at 11:59 am on Thursday!  He 8.0 pounds and 20.5 inches long.
Mom and Brian (as well as Dad & Luke) are all doing well.

Is this the picture of a future pilot?

 

Rob

Becky and Tessa are famous...

In youtubeland, it may not be saying much, but check this out...  Tessa's Birth Video has just passed 23,000 'views'!  (No, I have not spent the last week hitting play...play...play.) 

How cool is that?  If you have seen it, you know how it praises God. 

Well, I think it is cool...

Rob

Righteous Indignation...

I am angry.

You know, it angers and saddens me when preachers preach without rightly dividing the Word of God.  I just listened to a sermon, that really tickled my ear (note 2 Timothy 4 reference), and then it just tee'd me off.  After a very long intro that was really nice to listen to, he turned to Philippians 2.  Wow, great passage, but the preacher totally missed it.  He either lied (which I highly doubt), or was totally unaware (which is really sad). 

The "lead conversant" said the letter was written to the whole city of Philippi, not specifically to the community of believers.  Did he read verse 1?  "...to all the saints...".  How could he say that?  Did you see the use of "brothers?  The entire context is the body, that's the beauty of Philippians.   This is so obvious, it is not easy to miss.

Then, he talked about chapter 2, and said that Paul was saying..."look, you don't have to acknowledge anything, but if you simply believe in the tenderness and beauty of humanity...if you have any encouragement, or comfort, or sense of community, or any tenderness in your soul, if you are soft person..."  What?  Everyone of those statements in chapter 2 include Christ and are only possible in Christ, and yet the preacher said it was about the embracing and appreciating the human spirit.  He followed up with some good points...but I didn't hear them.

Hank Fortener at Mosaic..sorry dude, you blew it big time.  I love you brother, but next time spend more time in the text before you have your 'conversation'.

This is one of those occasions of righteous indignation.  Right?

Rob

I miss Wawa!

If you haven't lived in South Jersey, you don't understand, you can't understand, so don't try.  If you have lived there, you immediately "get it" and agree with me.  It is a culture in it's own rite.  it is a lifestyle that I miss.  Somewhere between redneck and yuppy, but by self admission more redneck .

What is Wawa?  Well...Don't ever compare it to 7 Eleven, I will be personally offended and get in your face.  It is a small convenience store that represents home.

It has been said, Wawa is...

"wawa makes my life. its my indulgence, and i would be nothing without it." erin

"its not a deli...its a lifestyle" jon

"The deli that will change you forever upon entering. The deli that has served me for 18 years of my life. I love wawa and i'm in withdraw without it." alfonso

This past Sunday a friend brought 2 of these travel mugs as a gift for Becky and I from their recent trip to NJ.  Now, everyday, on my way to work, I get to drink from my Wawa mug.  Thanks!

I miss "home".

Rob

November Slice Available...

See it here.

podcasts...

So, I have just recently starting listening to podcasts.  The most recent from Andy Stanley is phenomenal in my opinion.  If you haven't listened, you should.

So far I have subscribed to...

• Mark and Miller Show (wow, you guys rate up there with Stanley and Bell, way to go!  Oh, btw, the new theme song is really swell)
• Andy Stanley (North Point)  (What's up Andy?  Great going yesterday with Judgement Call!)
• Rob Bell (Mars Hill)  (recently read his book velvet elvis.  Pretty intense, good points, refreshingly honest, but scary in some places.  My post on this.)

I won't have time for too many, but any good ones that you have appreciated that I might be interested in?

Rob

Fun in the "Cold"

 

Quote of the day:

Mommy:  "Drew, what happened to your hair?"

Drew: "It got wrinkled"

It's been "cold" here since Saturday.  "Cold" means, for example, it was 57 degrees today at 8:30 am but will probably go up to 76 degrees by this afternoon.  It's finally that time of year where I can turn off the air conditioning and throw open the doors and windows for the next 5 months at least.  The kids love it.  Our lanai is screened in and they play out there all day.  Drew rides his tricycle like a crazy man!  Tessa just runs around following him.  Drew insisted on socks, hat and "sweat coat" this morning to play-- it was a little cold for his liking!  In a few hours, their outfits will be too hot and I'll have to change them into shorts and T-shirts.  I only have a few warm things for them to wear.  Guess it's time to buy a few more pants and long-sleeved shirts.  Of course, it's supposed to be a high of 85 degrees on Saturday!

On another note, Drew has been potty-training for a month now and is doing pretty well.  He's gone a few times in public bathrooms, but most of the time gets too nervous once we get in the public restroom.  He wears underwear all day unless we go out or to church, then he wears a pull-up.  He even does great in underwear at the babysitters! He does a pretty good job of keeping his pull-up dry when we go out. We haven't attempted bed-time in underwear yet.  Thought you might get a laugh out of this picture!

Becky

Free tool that has changed my life...

I have used gotomypc for a very long time.  It allows remote control access to computers.  For instance, I regularly pull up my home desktop at my office.  I have often used it to pull up my bookkeepers monitor at home to troubleshoot.  Very cool.

But, I have made a switch.  I dropped the fairly expensive gotomypc like a lead balloon in favor of logmein.  logmein is free!  It also gives me some features that fit my needs much better.  Chat, Whiteboard, laserpointer, add many computers to one account, easy, secure, etc... One limitation is that the free version does not allow transfer of files from the remote computer to the host computer, but I find that I don't really need that.  gotomypc is certainly a more robust option, but I just don't need those additional options.  Plus, free is almost always better!

The best part is that I can install logmein on all of rmi's computers so that anytime I need to, I can pull up their computer screen and provide support.  Here is a screen shot.  I haven't gotten everyone installed yet, but soon I will.

One example is that I have been working with Chrissie Coreano in Guatemala on their field bookkeeping.  So, when she has a question, I just pull up her screen and work away.  Very cool.

What  a huge help to my ministry.

Rob

Decision Made...

I am not going to Haiti, at least not today.  The Arlington team is not going at all, because the road is just not passable.  Not only is the river enraged and impassable, but the road itself has been taken out in 3 locations.  So, there is no chance in getting the team out to their sister church.

I may still go for a few days next week, maybe on Monday or Tuesday, to work with our bookkeeper down there.  No decision on this yet.

For the RMI blog post (letter from Dan, more pics and details), click here.

Here are some more pics.  Click on them to see a few more pictures.

  Here is one of our vehicles coming through a river/waterfall.

These boulders came down and blocked a mountain road. Note the "Flood Line" on the house in the background!

Rob

To go, or not to go, Pray for Haiti...

The flooding persists.  TS Noel has come and gone, but the rain has not.  I may or may not be going to Haiti today as planned.  A decision will be made in the next couple of hours.  So sad if I and the team from Chicago can't go!  Up to this point, the road to the village I would be visiting is impassable due to a raging river that we need to cross (there is no bridge. so the water levels must decrease, and the mud must dry out enough so that our 4 wheel drive vehicles can navigate across).

Here are 2 pictures from 2 days ago with the kind of destruction that is so common due to the rains.  This is not the road I was to take, but it gives you an idea as to what the rains have done.  This is a very, and I mean very typical sight.

Rob