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| From Anse-a-Veau Feb 2009 |
Typical driving. This is from a recent team from Linwood Community Church going to visit their Sister Church in Anse-a-Veau.
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| From Les Anglais Feb 2009 |
Solar Power at work in Haiti.
Thank you to Savana for the B/W concept.
I am about to go play 9 holes of golf. I haven’t played golf since I lived in Chicago more than 4 years ago!
Today is also the first spring training game for our beloved Cubbies! So, in celebration, enjoy this video of Drew made in April of 2008…
Rob
Several weeks ago, we mailed out “Annual Giving Statements” to all of our donors. If you did not receive your statement, please let me know.
If you did not receive a giving statement, then you may not have given! Feel free to start now :-)
Rob
Drew has been into drawing people recently. Here is his latest. It is a self portrait, that he gave “to tessa”.
Here is a video of Drew and Tessa directly after watching their cousin Toby wrestle… Thanks Toby!
To watch in HD, click play below, then hover over the bottom right corner, and choose HD.
If you can’t see the video below, or to watch it larger, click here.
I have been thinking lately about the potential of not being on the cutting edge of social internet technologies. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am in no means on the cutting edge. Yet, I am always amazed at how far ahead I seem to be of my network. Sure, I blog, I twitter (while driving), I embed, I FB, I youtube, I FriendFeed, I syndicate, I Google everything, I upload pics, I rss, I iPhone constantly (just ask Becky!). I even know what digg and technorati are. I know, it is a shocker to some, but I even email! Yet, the truly cutting edge people that are successfully harnessing the power of Web 2.0 would look at my list and laugh.
What if the day comes when I can’t keep up? What is circumstances prevent me from keeping up? Seriously, I fear this day is coming. For a control and social information freak like me, this is a nightmare that a deeply fear. How soon will the day come when my kids are surfing circles around me?
I remember, not long ago, when I was chatting with a friend and was wondering why anyone would ever want/need internet on their phone. I mean, is that really necessary? uh, yes!
Recently, my pastor David Miller played the following clip as an intro to his sermon. Yes David, God is not done with me yet. Ironically, I had just watched this video the week prior. Weird how that happens. This may or may not be new to you, but if you haven’t, you have got to see it…
Rob
To watch in HD, click play below, then hover over the bottom right corner, and choose HD. To watch it large in HD click here (requires a fast connection).
We have been involved in our Church’s (McGregor Baptist Church) mission’s conference called GIC (Global Impact Celebration) over the last few days. Their purpose is to encourage their missionaries (we are one of the many missionaries on site) and challenge their people to “go” both locally and internationally.
We have been amazed and perplexed these last few days.
Amazing Blessings…
Johnny Hunt (President Elect of the Southern Baptist Convention) offered up a phenomenal look at 2 Kings 7. If you weren’t there, you missed out. Hopefully it will be available online soon.
We have been amazed (not in a surprised way, but in a overwhelmed way) with the blessings on us from our church. We enjoyed McGregor’s “Blessing Mart”. All the missionaries were invited into a big room and allowed to “shop for free” from all the stuff that was donated by the church congregation. Let’s just say we don’t have to buy shampoo or batteries for a year (also, printer paper, over the counter medicine, clothes, cleaning supplies, food, soaps, toothpaste, toys, clothes, sippy cups, etc etc etc) Wow wow wow. What a blessing!
Our church has recently had to close their bookstore. We were given the opportunity to go in and pick through the stuff that was still there. There was lots of stuff! We picked up many books, music cd’s, Bible study highlighters, etc etc etc. Wow wow wow!
Perplexing Paradox…
Stationary Christians. Ineffective Christians. What a paradox. The question we are asking… Why do so few people go? We are not surprised. Scripture tells us, “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”. Yet, why? I know, all the typical reasons come to mind. But shouldn’t the church (universal) rise up and reach the lost world. It’s not, and that is perplexing. Am I going? Are you going? Have you considered going? RMI President Dan Shoemaker says, “God is not looking for people who are willing to go, but planning to stay. He is looking for people who are planning to go, but willing to stay.” I like that.
I don’t mean to make you feel guilty if you are planning to live in the United States for the rest of your life. “Going” can be here or there! Yes, we do need many many many more people overseas, yet that is not necessarily my point here. If you are ’here’, are you truly having a Kingdom impact? If not, you are not “going”. Think…Who can you say that you have impacted in the last year? I mean really impacted. Can you name someone?
My intention is not to deliver a self righteous (holier than thou) rant here. I am asking an honest question of myself and of you. I have just as many, if not more, hang-ups and fleshly fears as you do.
Rob
So, I thought I would get our taxes done… but, the TurboTax site from Intuit online is having outage issues. Wow, can you believe a company as big as Intuit is having this issue right now, in the heat of tax season? My research tells me the outages have been an issue since about Jan 27. Yikes. Everyone is getting their w2’s, but no one can login.
Can you imagine the exec’s frustration at intuit with their tech people? Wow. Brad Smith, President and CEO of Intuit is not going to be happy.
H&R Block’s “TaxCut Online” and “TaxACT Online” must be really pulling in the customers.
I have already started my file with TurboTax, but can’t login to continue. I am sure they will say something about heavy traffic is “taxing” their servers, yada yada yada. That is a poor excuse in our day of technological advancement.
Anyone else frustrated?
Rob
2/3/09 Update:
Well, apparently TurboTax is out doing damage control. As you can see in the comments, “Julie”, evidently a TurboTax employee, very politely apologized on TurboTax’s behalf for the outage. Thank you Julie for taking the time to comment. It says a lot when a company communicates with their clients! I have been on the TurboTax site this morning and was able to continue working on my file. There was some sluggishness, but for the most part, it seems it is up and running. I will be interested to see if I have access tonight once all the home users try to login in.
So, I was curious. How many homes are for sale directly around my home? Ugh, as you can see, there are “several”. The market is flooded and therefore the value of our home is in the gutter. I know, many of us are in this boat together. The market around us is especially bad!
Each icon represents a house for sale. These are all within a mile or so from our house.
Rob
33936 Real Estate Listings and 33936 Homes for Sale - REALTOR.com®
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/
Screen clipping taken: 2/2/2009, 2:27 PM
Our teams are going to love this, especially when it rains!
Watch in HD (requires a fast connection)
To watch in higher quality, click play below, then hover over the bottom right corner, and choose HQ (for High Quality).
Rob
