Long Island

Hello!
Sorry for the lapse in blogging. We haven't had much internet access til just recently. We are out on Long Island and are currently sitting at a Travel Clinic as my teammate Joshua is getting some shots. I had a New York Bagel this morning and it was quite tasty. We also recently got lost in rush hour traffic in Manhattan. So we took an inadvertent tour of Manhattan. It's been fun being on the island here and the people are real nice. Their accents are fun too.

So it turns out that the greek word for faith is actually a verb. In greek, you are actually able to "faith" something. Now, in our translation, we substitute words like hope, trust, love, or something like that. I think that this has implications on theology. I think it means that things cannot be solely up to God, hence the free will. We do need to do something, we need to "faith" it.

How about the good old problem of evil and how does a loving God work with all of that...

It's incorrect to say that God created evil. At least I think so. However, going back to that free will deal... I think that god created us with the ability to choose evil. Maybe evil is only a by product of our choices and our sinful nature. Cuz if we all chose the right thing 100% of the time, there wouldn't be any evil...so in a sense, it's created from ourselves and from the choices that we make. That kind of gets God off the hook for creating evil.

Whew, ok, that's enough of that.



I'm not sure what this is trying to say... I guess it can be up to interpretation. So, here it goes...
I know that the United States was not founded on Christian principles. That was stated over and over again by our "founding fathers". So I don't think that's what the pin is talking about.
And I don't think we can call ourselves a Christian nation, because Christianity isn't the law or the current system of government...so that's not it either...
And I know the pin isn't saying that we should put our patriotism on an equal level as our faith in God because it says that we shall have no other gods.
I guess it could mean that as Christians, we should be reminded to pray for the United States and to remember that Jesus died for the people in that country.

But I guess because that doesn't put an emphasis on the world and makes it seem like Jesus only died for the U.S. and not the world, I don't really like the pin. But maybe I'm just interpreting the pin wrong!

Ok, well, I think I'm going to go and...sit here some more! Ok, peace!

soup hotdish and little kids

We are here in Toledo, OH and we have a bit of a down week. We do not have too many programs this week so we have been able to relax and lounge a bit. Two nights ago, we made a meal that rivals the Indian cuisine that I had in Malawi, our Brazilian Cross Mark Thanksgiving meal, and my mom's Mary Alison Hotdish.
The five of us each had a six dollar limit and we dispersed throughout the grocery store to try to spend our money wisely to make a meal. We met back up and all we had was carbs and some fruit. So we redid our meal desires a bit, I put my want for Easy Mac aside, and we got rice, some coconut sauce for the rice, chicken, some red Thai sauce for the chicken, grapes, a baguette, sharp cheddar cheese, a couple of big bottles of ice tea, and some ice cream. It was exquisite!! So good. To top it off, we each had a cup of ginger tea that complimented the ginger spices in the Thai chicken that we prepared. Good food.

Today, I just had some soup. It actually tasted like tater tot hotdish in soup style.
+=

It was good! It really tasted like tater tot hotdish!! So that's about it I guess. We've had some good conversations. Mainly, can we do anything as individuals to save ourselves? Or should it be up to God? If we say that it is our choice, then is our salvation dependent upon us? Would we rather have our salvation up to us or up to God? Hard questions...u should comment

1st Post!!

This is my first post. To start off, I thought I would share with you one of my new favorite creatures of the rural world of Indiana. Here he is..

His name is Fez (I'm not sure on the spelling). He is a 135 lb Chocolate lab. I just weighed myself this morning and I weigh 135.5 with clothes on. Fez is very kind and lovable...and he's big.

We are traveling down to the Toledo area today and will be there the rest of the week. Team life is fun, but it's pretty tiring too. So that's it for the first post. I hope all is well! peace and love!