A Quick Update

I got Maggie a little precious moments figure thing of a teacher at her desk and a See's Candy gift certificate. She liked that very much. She got me some of the greatest books ever. There are three of them. The first is a Bible Dictionary with definitions of the words used and the Greek or Hebrew pronunciations with a quick description of their usage. The second and third books are commentaries for the NIV Old Testament and New Testament. They are awesome and filled with information of every verse. I'm extremely happy to have them.

So you all know, Maggie and I are leaving to go to Hume Lake Winter Camp with the youth group Thursday through Sunday. It looks like a lot of fun. We, along with a friend of ours named Scott, will be councilors at the camp. I ask for your prayer for all of us because we always need it and this is Maggie's and my first time being councilors. I'm not sure whether it's Scott's first time or not, but just go ahead and pray for him too. I'm certain it will be a great time and we'll all grow closer to God, so just pray for a ministry of the Holy Spirit to be present within us and all the leaders at the camp. Don't forget to pray for the kids either. They need prayer for their ears and hearts to be opened and for their ministry to each other.

As you all can see, I posted a news thing from KHouse.org up there at the top of the page. It's Christian and I like the site and Chuck Missler.

Alrighty then. You all have an excellent New Year if I don't post till then.

Christmas Time is Here

The season has finally arrived and tomorrow is the big day. Maggie wants to wait fifteen more minutes and open presents, but I told her we have to wait till morning. She's sometimes too cute for her own good. I can't let her open the present I got her until Christmas morning, otherwise the morning would come and she'd be sad cause there wouldn't be anything to open. I'm excited about tomorrow as well. I can't wait to see the expression on her face when she sees what I got her and I can't wait to see what she got me. I'm really looking forward to spending the day with my family and eat prime rib....mmm. It's my favorite time of the year.

Only problem with this time of the year is that I haven't had time to do much lesson planning for Sunday, but I have confidence that I can get it done. Friday is a day off and that is where I'll catch up on things.

We saw the Return of the King today and I must say that it is the awesomest movie I have ever seen in my life. The effects were brilliant, the story delivered a power packed punch, and Legolas is awesome. We saw it today with Mike. It was his third time seeing it. His first time seeing it was in IMAX theatre down at the Edwards by the Mills. I envy this accomplishment, but seeing it on our local screen was still good enough for me. Really awesome movie and I recommend it to everyone to see; and if you don't like it, don't tell me, cause I'll think you're a psycho for the rest of your life.

Alrighty then. Well, I hope you all have wonderful Christmas days and take time to remember who it's really all about. I love you all.

Prayer

People please, I need prayer for spiritual strength and wisdom. I can't say what it is that I need it for, so this is an unspoken prayer request, but specific in it's direction. Just so you know, my faith is not in jeapordy or anything like that. Thank you all.

Men's Breakfast

Well, I did the men's breakfast thing yesterday and it went really well. I was dang nervous beforehand, but once I got going, the nervousness went down to about half. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I gave a message yesterday morning at the church's men's breakfast. It was basically on living your life for God and not allowing yourself to stop growing for Him. It went well I think. They listened intently, they laughed at my jokes (They actually laughed!!), and by the end of it, I felt I had gotten the point across. It was cool, but I had a heck of a time staying on my outline. I ended up kind of winging it because I lost my place, but I eventually came back around to the conclusion. Anyway, I'm happy that's over, but I really enjoyed it.

Got Half the Lights

Well, I went to Target last night and of course they didn't have the lights that I needed, but I got smart and asked the guy helping me to put a call through to the Target in Apple Valley. They ended up having only half the lights I needed, but that was okay because they were the mini multi colored chasing lights, and those were the ones I needed the most. The front of the house looks okay even though the larger ones don't go all the way across. This should do fine. The Target people made it clear also that they didn't plan on re-ordering any more lights this Christmas season. So, that settles that and so ends my pursuit of lights.

Oh, and I figured out how to link to a really great debate we were having on Roland's blog before it archived. Take a look: Here. The words of Roland that sparked the debate were as follows:

wired

My body is in such a state of joy from being stuffed with Carl's Jr tonight that I'm wired and doubt I'll get a good night's sleep. I worked a 9 1/2 hour day today and I sure could use it too. Tomorrow won't be much better. Shopping season is here. My store is in a slightly upscale neighborhood and the amount of money that people drop there boggles my mind sometimes.

That reminds me. There was even more good news about the economy today. I just love how everything that is good for the country is bad news for Democrats.

posted by Roland at 11:40 PM

Christmas Concert and Tree

I forgot to mention Saturday night and the Christmas concert. For those of you reading this that don't know what I'm talking about, we went down into Azusa and watched and listened to Azusa Pacific University's choir sing. I must say that that was the most enjoyable performance I've seen from them yet. We go every year and it's always a great experience, but this time the jazz band made a special appearance and really "jazzed" things up. The bass player was the most impressive. He moved up and down the neck of that giant bass and danced while making an awesome sound. So yeah, the concert was great. Afterward we went to Benni Hannah (uncertain of the spelling). It's Japanese food prepared right in front of you. Great show and great food. The only thing that let me down was that there was just not enough fried rice and the steak got cut into giant pieces. That's not the greatest thing when you only have chop sticks. Makes it very hard to cut the steak. Anyhow, we spent the evening with family and had a heck of an enjoyable time. I look forward to that every year and this year gave me even more to look forward to.

In answer to my mother's question pertaining to the tree: no, we have not yet had time to pick one out. I think that next weekend will be the appropriate time, unless something else is planned that I don't know about, or we're just to dang busy, or Jesus comes back. So, hopefully next weekend will be our moment of dead, dirty, and spidery tree adoption. There's just something about having a real tree though, it's just better that way.

I went to Target yet again tonight in an attempt to find more of the same Christmas lights. Need I say that I found none? Well, I found none. I asked about them and they told me that there would be a shipment coming in tonight and that tomorrow would be my magic day. I can walk in, go to the Christmas light section, and get the Christmas lights I need. Pray for me. I ended up going to both Targets, and Wal Mart looking for them. I came to a conclusion tonight: the worst Target is not as bad as our Wal Mart. I must have faith now that tomorrow is my Christmas light day. By the way mom and dad, Margaret at Golden Gate Chinese says that since you guys don't come in anymore she doesn't like you either. :-)

Christmas Time

Well, the night is young and I'm ready for bed. Maggie's already sleeping on the couch, which is a bad thing. She's nearly impossible to wake up. Oh well. We got a Digital Video Recorder, which is like TiVo, but for Dish Net. It's pretty awesome being able to pause, rewind and never miss any show I want to see and it was all free thanks to autopay. All you have to do is be signed up with the top 100 or more and have autopay enabled for your account and you're set. So, we pause it every time we need to get up, then resume and watch till the commercial, at which point we just fast forward back to live mode or the show again. It's pretty cool. I recommend it.

So, it's Christmas time and Maggie and I are brainstorming about what to get everyone. It's not a huge deal, but there're just so many people. There's Mike, Leah, Cyndi, Mom, Dad, Maggie, Maggie's Mom and Dad, her nieces and nephews, and whoever we picked from the drawing. I drew Maggie's brother Jeremy, which is easy. So, pray for me that I don't rip out my hair, go into convulsions, and break down into shock trying to figure out what to get people. We're pretty good though. We've figured out what to get for about 20% of the people we have to shop for. Not bad, but 100% is ideal.

Best news of the week, we put up our Christmas lights. We didn't have enough strands however, so I need to make a trip back to Target insanity to find more. We went last night in search of more, but found nothing but pushy people and empty shelves. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow. I just didn't feel up to it tonight. I don't take crowds well, especially rude crowds.

Okay Fine, An Easy Question

What's your favorite color?

Christian Question

20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 2 Peter 2:20-22 (NIV)

So, what do you think about once saved always saved?

Christian Question

I was listening on the Christian talk stations today and during my listening a question came to mind. How involved are Satan and his demons in our lives? Are they constantly tempting us, trying to make us stumble, or is it mostly human nature that's causing us to stumble? Just a question. You guys let me know.