religious imagery in culture

for those of you who have enjoyed the group effort of whatsomeonesaw, a new project along the same lines has been started entitled religious imagery in culture. the title is pretty much self explanatory... check it out if you so desire.

a well earned week at the cottage...

dog vs. self

ever have one of these days?

Jehovah-Rapha (The Lord your Healer)

We have been overjoyed and filled with praise... for the physical healing He has done in our close friend. Amen! A cancerous tumor bigger than a football... gone!

Yet so saddened and worried for a little baby we love so very much! May You heal her too! May we be surprised at Your power again!

Please, please pray with us, for this little baby.


Mark 1:40-42 Then a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." And Jesus, moved with compassion, put out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed." As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.

identifying with poverty

i've always wanted to do this, especially with our youth.
a christian author by the name of criag borlase... author of "God's Gravity: The Upside Down Life of Selfless Faith" (i've never read it but i'll plug it since i'm talking about him...) is setting out to live on $1 a day for a week. his reasoning for this is simply because 1 in 5 people in the world live on this much or less to sustain themelves. and 50,000 a day die of malnutrition. that wipes out Sarnia in a day and a half.

but i always thought this would be a great exercise for our youth and leaders, or our small group, or some type of community to really understand and identify with those who are experiencing the slow death of malnutrition and poverty.

you can check out his reasoning behind this "stunt" (his word) and track his blog throughout the week here...

it seems that great ideas are flowing now that i only have 2 months left to implement them in our youth ministry... maybe i'll try to squeeze this one in before i go. and maybe i'll ask you all to join us too.

all that said, i wouldn't even know where to begin.
and how do you choose between soap and food or toothpaste and transportation on a given day?

it's got me thinking anyway.
we'll see.

the ultimate prank

ok, i know.
it's juvenile.
but it's also funny.

check these videos out.
here and here.

a photo essay of our life...

yes, it's true. the house sold... papers signed, sticker up... sold.
the new owners take posession on August 28th but we'll be long gone by then!
we get our new place in Vancouver on September 1st, which means we'll be homeless for a week, living the life of the streets. just kidding... we're road-tripping west with a stop for a few days in calgary to see our new niece and nephew along with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.

with the sale of our home we've started putting things in boxes for storing or packing. it's a lot of stuff to go through and it's hard to know what to take and leave, but as you can see, some decisions are easier than others...

while going through our stuff we came across our own personal action figures that were bought for us a couple of years ago by a friend. she was in ikea and saw these in the children's section (and believe it or not they were even packaged together...)

lydia is back to work 2 days a week and doing a great job as a nurse!! she is in a different unit now as the hospital has had a lot of shuffling going on over the past year. she has already secured a job out west at the hospital across the street from Regent. way to go lyd!!

and of course, with all the work going on in our lives we have to make sure we find lots of time to play. we've been at the beach quite a bit as the weather has been great this past week...

and what good is the beach if you can't eat a little sand while you're there?

God's terrible grace.

i have wrestled with whether or not i should post this, but i guess i just need to get it off my chest...

when lydia works night i usually take the opportunity to watch about 3 or 4 tv shows at once, flipping back and forth between channels. one of the shows that unfortunately caught my attention was a special that was taking place on dateline where they were trying to catch internet predators by having people pretend to be young teenagers inviting these predators over to their house while their parents are away. when the men would arrive in the house they would quickly be met by the host of dateline who would sit them down and talk with them. the reactions of the men were mainly denial, and some quickly responded with an apology and a promise to never do this type of thing again. then men would leave the house and breath a sigh of relief, thinking, "wow, that was a close one", only to be tackled by about 6 cops, have their picture taken, and be sent to jail. this whole show was disturbing, but i had a sense of peace that justice was being served and that i was seeing these men get caught red handed. but then, at the end of the show the most horrific thing happened. the last predator they profiled was a 40 year old man who believed he was coming to meet a 14 year old boy. the man got out of his car and walk around to the other side and took his 5 year old son out of the back seat and proceeded to walk to the house while holding his son's hand. when the man went inside, the dateline host immediately explained what was going on, so as to not frighten the young boy, and the man was swarmed by cops while the boy was whisked away by a female cop to keep him from seeing what was happening to his poor excuse of a dad. i couldn't help but weep for this boy. i felt sick to my stomach. i turned off the tv. i just stopped and thought, "what the hell is wrong with this world?". it made me so sick.

obviously this bothered me deeply for the next while and when i was trying to fall asleep i couldn't get this guy out of my mind. then the good Christian thought of "well, Jesus died for Him too." came into my mind. it made me so angry. i was furious that God's grace wouldn't stop short of this man... seriously, i'm even ok with God forgiving murderers, thieves, and liars... but i have a short list of people that i think should be taken straight to an eternity of suffering rather than a few years in jail. yes-- we're all sinner, and yes-- i can even say that i'm no better than the murderer or the adulterer. but i would like to think that i'm better than a pedophile. i would like to think that i'm not the same as a rapist in God's eyes.

how is it that something so beautiful as God's grace can seem so terrible within a different context?

if you care to check out the story of Dateline catching predators, you can do it here.