A Life Focused on Christ First

For my class "Practical Christian Ministry" at CCBC I have to read a book called "On Being a Servant of God" by Warren W. Wiersbe. The focus of the class is to teach you how to have an effective ministry, and the book by Warren Wiersbe is to give you the advice that he wishes he was given when he first started out.

I'm not very far along in this book yet, but every single chapter so far has been a treasure trove of information. Some things seem like common sense, but still things that we need to be reminded of because of how often we forget. Other points that he brings up are things that I have never thought of before, but every one of them I can see helping someone who is either in charge of, or helping out a ministry.

Some of these things, however, I can see being a huge help in not only a ministry, but in your own personal life too. And as I thought about it, it all made perfect sense. Every one of us has a ministry of our own, we are called to it as Christians and we serve in it if we know it or not. Every Christian is called to carry his cross, spread the gospel to the nations, and to love our neighbors. So this gives me an entirely new outlook on this book, not only can it help someone out in a ministry, but if they apply the same things to their own life then it will make a dramatic impact in your life as well.

I could give an overview of the entire book, but that would take too long, so I want to focus on only one chapter. Chapter seven deals with how our main focus in ministry is to put the Lord first, not people (Col 3:23-24). Here are a few reasons why:

You will be motivated to do your work and not look for excuses.

If you work just for your salary, you will never do your best as long as you feel like you are being underpaid. If you minister just to get recognition you will never do as much when people don't show their appreciation. The only motivation that will take you through the storms and keep you on the job is, "I'm serving Jesus Christ."

You want to do your best.

Most of us would do something for somebody we really love, when we really care about somebody we work hard to give them our best. If you are serving God as number one in your life, then nothing will be too great a sacrifice for you, and you won't even consider it a sacrifice. Look at what Jesus sacrificed for us because He loved us so much, imagine how we can serve God if we show Him the same type of love and devotion.

The burden is light.

Matthew 11:30 Jesus says "For My Yoke is easy and My burden is light." I would rather have Jesus Christ as my master than anybody else. He provides the power I need to serve Him, and the forgiveness when I mess up.

You stop watching other Christians and passing judgment on what they do or what God does with them.

People watching is a popular pastime among Christian workers (and just among church goers), but it's a dangerous one. If you keep your eyes of faith on Christ and seek to please Him alone, you won't have either the time or the desire to watch others. Have you complained because God gave others a better deal than He gave you? Perhaps the people don't seem to work as hard as you do, or maybe they haven't' been in Christian service as long as you have; yet God bypassed you and rewarded them abundantly. Satan can use a thing like that to get a foothold in your life, make you bitter, and create problems in your ministry. But if you work for Christ alone, you won't be bothered by what other workers do or what God does for them. Nor will you try to make bargains with God to be sure you get your rightful share. If you do, you'll be the loser because God still gives His best to those who let Him write the contract.

John 21:22b
"what is that to you? You follow Me." It shouldn't matter to us how God treats others, all that matters is that we follow Jesus. With or without reward, with or without suffering, with or without recognition, we need to just follow Jesus.

Ministry isn't easy, but you make it more difficult for yourself if you serve people instead of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't please everybody, so don't even try. Just live and work in such a way that your Master will be able to say, "You are My beloved servant in whom I am well pleased."

<(((><
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Google's Grand Central: First Impressions

I got my new Google Grand Central account invite today, so I quickly went to setup the account. Setup is simple, first you pick the phone number you want, then you enter your current phone number, they call you and you type in the code they give you. Then you proceede to your personal info and you are done.

I haven't had time to give this service an indepth review, but I did get some strong first impressions.

The goal of this service is "One number for life". GrandCentral gives you a phone number, and you use this as your public phone number. Give it to everybody, friends, family, co-workers.

Then in Grand Central you can add up to 6 of your current phone numbers. These numbers can be home phones, cell phones, work, or anywhere else you commonly hang out at. Grand central will tie all of these numbers into your single grand central numbers. If your home number changes, no problem, edit the number in your grand central account and all calls are automatically routed to your new phone number, nobody needs to be informed.

But, you want customization, right? If your buddies are calling you, you may not want them to reach you at work, but only on your cell or home phone. You don't want people from work to call you and have the office ring, or your spouse to call you from home and have it ring the home phone. You setup various groups, and you tell each group which phone you want them to get ahold of.

This is what groups are for. You assign your contacts to a group, family, work, friends, and others. You cannot, however create your own groups, and I see that as a huge limiting factor. You can adjust the settings on an individual contact basis, but if you have several peopole that you want to have the same setings for, it would be much easier to put them all in a custom group.

Quick Rule

There is a quick rule setting that will override all of your current settings. You can have everything route to voicemail if you don't want to be disturbed, or temporarily route everything to a new number. Then you just turn off the quick rule and everythign goes back to normal.

Custom Greetings

You can setup a custom greeting for each group, so if someone from that group calls and goes to your voicemail they only hear the message that is for that group alone. You can create a custom greeting on a per user basis, just like YouMail (see my previous coverage). One more advantage that YouMail has over Grand Central is that they have a huge selection of pre-recorded messages. These messages don't have the personal touch of recording it yourself, but they are fun for friends and family. With Grand Central you can only record your own messages.

Ring Back Tones

Grand Central offers free ring back tones, called Ringshare, so people calling don't have to listen to a boring normal ring. When Google bought Grand Central they limited this service by taking away the mp3 uploading, to protect themselves from copywrite no doubt, and you have to choose from their library of approved licensed ring back tones. This collection, well, it sucks. You can choose from the rings of 6 different countries, 4 sound effects, and 4 voice recordings. Very limited, no music or anything. If there were more rings, and a huge selection of music then this would be awesome. But at least you do get the chance to assign each group, or individual, it's own ringshare.

Spam Blocker

The entire Grand Central community flags spam messages, and telemarketers and they get added to a spam filter. If someone from this spam filter calls you, their call is not put through to your phone. You can select if you want this service on or off and also you select if the message left by the person is deleted or put into a spam folder. For those of you who hate telemarketers, this is a good way to do it. It's just too bad they can't protect your actual home number, they can only protect the Grand Central account. So, if you constantly get plauged by telemarketers, you may want to consider this free service.

Visual Voice Mails

There is a nice web interface that shows you all the calsl that you ahve and who it is from. This way you can skip straight to the messages you want to hear. You can also save these messages forever and forward them to others.

Block Callers

You can set certain individuals to be blocked, then the person will hear a standard "number out of service" message. It isn't customizable for what message to play, but it works all the same.

Web Call Button

Now this is a neat feature for a business website. You create a button and the person clicks on it, enters their phone number, then Grand Central calls their number and your number. So it puts your customers in contact with you without giving out your number. When you activate this service, it adds itself as another group and you have all the same options. You can change the ring they hear, have a custom voicemail, and select which, if any, phones it rings. If you don't want it to ring your phone you can have it go straigt to voicemail.

Give it a try! Just click this button. Your number is protected as well.



Overview

I can't see this service being useful for an entire family, at least not until you can have custom groups, and I do see some limitations for things outside of business. If you have one phone number that you give out, that rings your home and cell, what if the person at home keeps answering before you can get to it on your cell? You would have to be careful how you setup which group can call each phone.

Overall, I think it would be really helpful if you could create custom groups, but the fact that you can unify all of your phones, and voicemails under a single number can be really beneficial.

YouMail vs Grand Central

It is hard to compare these since they have differnt goals to them.

YouMail is a lot more customizable for voicemails. The visual voicemail works the same, sending you voice messages to your email and allowing you to forward the messages to others and save them for life. With thousands of pre-recorded messages it makes the service more fun. They are trying to allow you to have the same voicemail settings on any phone under your account, including your land line phone, but you still have seperate numbers to deal with.

Grand Central works great for merging all of your numbers and voice mails into a single place, and if you ever change a phone number you just change it in your grand central control panel and you will never have to worry about letting everybody know. I can see this being very usefull for any single guy or business man who is out a lot, but for a family number I don't think it would work as well. Each member in your family would have to have their own account, then maybe it would work better, although if two accounts use the same home number I don't know if Grand Central would complain or not. Grand Central does have a much smoother, nicer looking website, but YouMail's website isn't bad either. Both take a simplistic view on things, which is the way it should be for services such as this. A simplistic website allows for easier customization and navigation.

So as far as which service you should use, I can't tell you that. Decide for yourself. Just keep in mind that Grand Central is in beta testing mode and you can only be invited by a current member. Both services are free so there is no harm in trying them, but there is no way to combine the services to use both.

I'll write a more in-depth review later if I find things that are different than I mentioned here.

P.S. Another benefit of this service, you can click a call button in your address book, enter your phone number and then it calls you, then that person is called. A great way to get ahold of people if you can't make a long distance call.

Until next time, this is Jon signing out and wishing you happy voicemailing!

<(((><
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Movie Warning: The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass is a movie that is coming out early December of this year. It looks like it will be a very enjoyable fantasy movie, and it is being made into a trilogy, so it should be a great series.

Or maybe not...

I got this warning today in an email that directed me to the snopes.com page about this movie. Here is what the movie is really about.

[Collected via e-mail, October 2007]

There will be a new Children's movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won't hear on the regular TV.

---

[Collected via e-mail, October 2007]

I don't just generally dismiss a movie or book just because someone 'says' it's meant to be something else...but this is worth knowing if you plan to see it (or plan to take your kids).

"Hi! I just wanted to inform you what I just learned about a movie that is coming out December 7, during the Christmas season, which is entitled THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It stars Nicole Kidman and it is directed toward children. What is disturbing to me is that this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called HIS DARK MATERIALS written by Philip Pullman of England.

He's an atheist and his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. I heard that he has made remarks that he wants to kill God in the minds of children, and that's what his books are all about. He despises C.S. Lewis and Narnia, etc. An article written about him said "this is the most dangerous author in Britain" and that Pullman would be the writer "the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed." Pullman said he doesn't think it is possible that there is a God and he has great difficulty understanding the words "spiritual" and "spirituality." What I thought was important to communicate is what part of the agenda is for making this picture. This movie is a watered down version of the first book, which is the least offensive of the three books. The second book of the trilogy is THE SUBTLE KNIFE and the third book is THE AMBER SPYGLASS. Each book gets worse and worse regarding Pullman's hatred of God. In the trilogy, a young girl becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium. Another character, an ex-nun, describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake." As I understand it, in the last book, a boy and girl are depicted representing Adam and Eve and they kill God, who at times is called YAHWEH (which is definitely not Allah). Since the movie would seem mild if you viewed it, that's been done on purpose.

They are hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie, that they will enjoy the movie and then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven.

If you decide that you do not want to support something like this, I suggest that you boycott the movie and the books. I googled a synopsis of THE GOLDEN COMPASS. As I skimmed it, I couldn't believe that in a children's book part of the story is about castration and female circumcision.

After that, snopes goes into some details about the facts of these claims. You really should check it out.

http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

Spread the word, don't let people support this movie.

<(((><
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YouMail: Replace Your Mobile VoiceMail Service

As I spend time searching the net, viewing other's blogs and visiting tech, or geek websites, I occasionally come across very usefull services. Technology was designed to make life simpler and more organized, however, it seems that it can often do the opposite. So when I find a piece of tech out there that adds functionality, simplicity, or fun to your life, then I love to share it with others.

Like this website, YouMail.com. This is a free website voicemail service for your cell phone. Since it has the word "FREE" attached, I decided to give it a try.

Getting Started

Getting started was easy. I just entered my phone number for my cell phone, and they sent a text message to my phone with the password. I was then asked the model number of my phone, and then was directed to type in a number on my phone, call and hang it up. Then I just had to go to a setting in my messages area and change the voicemail number to the new phone number. Don't get too discouraged by all of this. By picking your cell phone and service, they give you step by step directions for your specific phone, so there isn't any guess work involved.

Then, you just simply go online to their website and I can either record a greeting directly onto the website, upload a file from my computer, or select a message from their selection where they boast 1000 + messages.

Mulitple Greetings

For my default voicemail I just use my own voice to give a simple message. Then I setup groups that will have some of the other fun messages, or even just for an individual. The selection is pretty neat, and you can upload your own .WAV files to add to their library also. I don't think that all of them are appropriate for a voicemail message, but they can be fun anyway, great for friends and family members to laugh at.

Cool Greetings

The sound library, called "Cool Greetings" allows users to rate the files. Although it appears that as of now you only get to rate a file once. If you change your mind or hit the wrong button, there is no way for you to re-rate it. Also you can add things to your favorites, but, as of now, you cannot remove them from your favorites. With each sound file is a link to use this file. You press that and you are taken to your YouMail control panel and the file is added to your list of current voicemessages. You can delete files from here if you don't want them anymore. The website does seem a little slow sometimes, especially in the Cool Greetings area, but it's nothing to shake a dial-up modem at.

Contacts

Once you have the files added you can assign them to a group or to individuals. One of the two biggest things I don't like about this service, is that you cannot upload your contacts from elsewhere. You have to enter them individually. This service does seem to be updated frequently, so I wouldn't be surprised to see something implimented before too long. Even something like Plaxo's Address Book Widget would be nice, but that is limited in that it only gives email addresses I believe.

So you add your contacts, then if you wish you can assign someone to a group, so they receive the same voicemail as the group gets. If you have a message, or greeting, assigned to a user and to the users group, you can set the group setting to either overwrite the individual greeting, or to play both greetings.

I have 3 groups setup. Friends, Family, and Work. I have a couple people in each one with a specific greeting. Then I have a couple family members who are not in the family group because I wanted them to have a special greeting without annoying them with 2 messages. Especially since one kind of long and they have no relation. The 2 message thing I could see being useful for businesses. If you have multiple clients, you can have a message for everybody, then at the end play a specific message for just that person.

Another downside that I hope gets fixed soon, if you add a phone number to a user, then remove that phone number and add it somewhere else, even to a different position on the same user, it will not let you. It says that you can't reuse a number. So you have to delete the origional contact that had that number then re-enter the updated info. If anybody from youmail reads this, PLEASE fix that.

My Tests

I have tested my voice mail from several phones, and they all work perfectly. After the normal number of rings I'm directed straight to the voicemail message that is assigned to that phone. There is no delay so nobody would even notice. Now, you can sound professional to those you work with and to your boss, sound all loving to your family, but be goofy to your friends all at the same time.

Some other really neat features of this service is that you can have mulitple phones under the same account, so the settings are all the same no matter which phone is called. They can even support Land Lines, although I couldn't get this setup since they don't support Vonage yet. That's the other big thing I didn't like about this service that I mentioned earlier. So I can't tell you how well the land line version works, if anybody tests it out please leave a comment with some details.

Since this service is web based, you can access all of your voice mails and missed calls online. You can save these message forever, or even forward them to other friends when a goofy or cute message is left. The messages can also be retrieved through your phone or even be sent directly to your email inbox.

Ditching

A unique feature that I have not heard of before, is called "call ditching". You select the ditch icon for an individual and then it plays the specific message for them and hangs up without allowing them to leave a message. There are even several pre-recorded messages just for this service. You can get a disconnected message, or some funnier or annoying ones. This would be useful for an ex-boy/girl friend that just doesn't get the message, or for pesky telemarketers that you don't want calling you anymore. I haven't tested this service out yet and don't plan on using it on anybody so I don't know for sure how well it works, but I don't see how there would be any problems. Maybe tonight I'll try to ditch myself and see if it works from my other phone...

I have been reviewing this service for about 2 days now, and so far I have had no problems, although I have not had anybody call to leave a message for me, so I have to leave the messages myself. It's pretty bad when the only person you can get to leave messages for you is yourself. Oh well. For some fun I should put my dad's voicemail message to be "The person you are calling right now cannot come to the phone, please leave a message after the beep... and don't forget to vote for Hillary Clinton." That would probably spark some interesting messages that my dad would leave on my phone. =:)

Just for the record DO NOT vote for Hillary Clinton. I in no way endorse her or her views and would NOT want to see her become a leader of our nation. That was meant strictly as a joke! You may now continue...

Use it!

From what I have seen so far I would recommend others to use this, however, you may want to hold off for a bit. While researching this service from others sites I discovered another, similar, yet more powerful site. This site has been bought by Google, so they promise to keep it free. It has a different purpose and direction, but all the functionality of YouMail is included, plus a whole lot more. The down side is that it's in beta testing and you have to be invited. Hopefully by mid-week next week I will have my invite and be able to test this one out as well. After I do that I will be sure to write a blog about it and give my opinion on the service.

If you do want to jump on this site, the address, once again is http://youmail.com/.

Now to go find a special message for my wife!

<(((><
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Building a fence

Several weeks ago I put up a safety gate by the stairs in our basement. This, of course, is to keep Malikai from getting access to the stairs, bathroom, or storage area in the basement.

We had a problem though. We can't use a tension gate (I really wish I could though, about half the price) because the slats in the stairs are too skinny. Malikai would only have to get the gate to move a half inch and the whole thing would fall down. So we got the kind that you screw into the wall. The only problem with this, is there are no studs near that area of the wall. So I bought a drywall anchor and used that to attach the gate to the wall.

Right away we could tell that the gate was too heavy for the anchors, so we would not be able to open and close it. We just leave it closed and climb over it. Everything went fine... until, that is, Malikai started to shake the gate. Now he loosened up the anchors and got them to move around in the wall. This resulted in a hole that was big enough to put my finger in.

As you can see, that isn't a small hole. The result is that the gate was very shaky. It was still holding up, but with every shake it was tearing up our wall even more. So, what do you do in a situation like this?

I got some slats of wood and used those to screw into, and attached the wood to the single stud that is on that wall. It holds better, but the weight of the gate is still too much for that wood to hold to the wall since the stud is at the far end of the wall. Maybe using another anchor to attach the wood to the wall might help? The gate holds a lot better now but it puts a lot of strain if I try to open or close the gate, so I have to keep it closed all the time still. The entire project cost me ~$5.00 (not including the price of the gate) and about an hour's worth of work. Malikai liked to sit near me while I was working, although he didn't really like the sound of the drill too much.



And here is a picture of the finished product.



Just because I can't help myself, here are a few pictures of Malikai for you to enjoy.







And the cutest picture yet...




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Family Problems: Awaiting Further Prayer

I have temporarily taken down the other 2 articles dealing with this issue because several people have been concerned that I might be in the wrong and it could have been considered a case of degradation of character. That is the last thing I want; I don't want to continue the same things that are happening to Danae and I, I want it to stop.

I still, however, want to post some of the information for the following reasons:
1) I want people to know the truth about things that are being said about Danae and I
2) I want to use the information to give advice or receive advice from others who may be going through a similar problem
3) This blog is basically like a journal to me so I want to post about major events that happen in my life, and this, I believe, could fall under that category

I'm not sure exactly what information I need to take out of the previous posts before re posting them, but I'll prayerfully consider all my options.

Danae and I have been so worried about people calling DHS on us again, that we just went ahead and called them ourselves today. You may think I'm joking, but I am serious. We just called to let them know what was going on and to get some advice. After that I called our church to get advice from one of the pastors there. I'm really glad that I did that. I got a bunch of verses to read up on and I will make sure I do that tomorrow. Also, we got the name of a lawyer to call that can point us in the right direction for anything that we might need for any possible legal action against us.

This really sucks, you know?

I have been assured in a text message that there will be no legal action taken, so that will be a good thing if it is true. I already have enough knots in my stomach about this whole situation anyway without adding the stress, expense, and time required for a legal case.

In case the other two posts never reappear, the very quick run down is that I disagreed with several things that a certain individual was doing and I told that person they were not welcome at our home. I know this sounds like a harsh reaction, but when events have been going on for years and apology after apology is given and then gone back on, trust is broken and the responses have to escalate each time.

It was comforting today to be able to talk to a pastor who agreed that the course of action mentioned above was appropriate, nothing and nobody should slander or tear down my wife or child (Nothing bad was said against Malikai, just against Danae and I). I hate having this situation, especially with someone I have been close to for many years but events just cannot continue the way they are.

What is it that I'm expecting? A repentant and loving heart, and to be treated like an adult and parent. I don't expect anybody to just bow down and agree with whatever Danae and I do or say, but to have a loving heart about it and to respect us as parents and adults.

Also what we did today regarding this was to hear from someone who has a friend that used to be a DHS worker, so she called and got some information. Even the DHS worker said that we are doing everything right. She gave us some advice of things to do that would help us out as parents and as potential victims to another DHS investigation, but nothing that we are doing could be used against us. Even the main issue that is being brought up, if we should use baby wipes or give Malikai a bath, she said that is perfectly fine. We were given this persons number so we can talk directly later if needed, but I really hope that nothing further develops in this whole situation.

A friend of our family has been praying for us in this whole situation, and today God spoke to her heart while she was reading the Bible. She wants me to pass along a message to the person who is causing us so much strife right now, so please, if you are reading it, this isn't from me. I know that you hate it when I quote scripture, but Danae and I said we would pass this message along so I am.

Isaiah 59

Separated from God

1 Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.
4 No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
5 They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.
6 Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
8 The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Sin Confessed

9 Therefore justice is far from us,
Nor does righteousness overtake us;
We look for light, but there is darkness!
For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10 We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate places.
11 We all growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We look for justice, but there is none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know them:
13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD,
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14 Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands afar off;
For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
15 So truth fails,
And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Redeemer of Zion

Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him
That there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
17 For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak.
18 According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,
Fury to His adversaries,
Recompense to His enemies;
The coastlands He will fully repay.
19 So shall they fear
The name of the LORD from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun;
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.
20 “ The Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”
Says the LORD.

21 “As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.”

Well, that's all that I have to say today, please pray for this situation. I know that Danae and I will be praying, for us to make the right actions and to resolve this conflict.

<(((><
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Danae's Birthday!!

Birthday's, a day filled with fun and excitement, where everybody you love gets to celebrate your life. Today was Danae's birthday, so, of course, we planned a fun filled day!

Well, as most plans go, you spend time coming up with a plan, and then scrap the plan last minute to do something that was completely unplanned. Sometimes this is fun, sometimes annoying, today it was mostly fun.

So the day started off like any other day, I got off work and got home by about 7 am, then went to sleep. By 10 am I was up taking care of house stuff and making phone calls dealing with potential legal issues and feeding the baby. This lasted until about 3 in the afternoon, when Danae and Malikai took a nap, and I had planned on doing stuff around the house. I ended up falling asleep in front of the TV until Danae got up and woke me up.

So the plan has been to go to a Japanese restaurant, specifically a sushi place, to get Danae a nice meal. Danae has been looking forward to this for awhile, but today, well, Danae was in the mood for chicken instead. I found it an odd turn of events but didn't complain since I would much prefer chicken over fish any day. So we came home and ate dinner while watching Dirty Jobs and just relaxing with the baby.

Later in the evening Danae opened up the gifts that my family bought, and the one that I bought. I got Danae a comfortable set of headphones to use with the computer. Time and practice will tell how well they work. My mom got Danae the DVD series "Planet Earth" and the sequel series "The Blue Planet". Danae was happy receiving these gifts, now we just need to make the time to watch them.

Following the opening of gifts we played a World of Warcraft for a couple hours and then proceeded back to Dirty Jobs while I gave Danae a foot rub and cuddled with Danae while watching TV. Then we will finish the night off with Bible Devotions.

Even though the day started off depressing, and none of the plans that I made worked out, the day ended nicely and Danae and I had a lot of fun. I have tomorrow off as well so we will see what happens then.

One last time, Happy Birthday Danae!

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Malikai happy

I am testing a new feature where i can post a blog via a text message from my cell phone. Isn't technology cool? Isn't my baby cute?

It's Official: Winter is here!

Lately the weather here has been getting colder, for the most part. We still have days where it is really warm but the feeling of winter is in the air. Well, it became official this Sunday, I woke up to a white wonderland outside. Okay, it wasn't a wonderland, but it was white and cold. Hard to believe that just the day before it was in the 80's. Colorado sure does have strange weather patterns.

The snow was nice and wet, so it stuck real well, which made it perfect to build a snowman. We didn't build one, but somebody did, and it kept being modified throughout the day and the next day. First we just saw the snowman, the usual 3 snow balls stacked on top of each other, but then it had a nose and eyes just randomly appear throughout the day. Monday was nice and warm so the snowman slowly started to fall backwards. So I leave for work and there are a couple of girls playing with the snowman, and I had to come back because I forgot something and the girls had knocked over the snowman and were kicking him. It looked like a violent scene from a gang movie. The poor snowman just laying on the ground getting pink boots smashed into its face...

So the snowman is no more.

Well, if snow doesn't make it official enough, I went to the store to get the food we were taking over to some friend's house and what did I find? EGG NOG!!!
So yeah, Winter is officially here.

Malikai enjoyed the snow for a little while until we put his feet on the ground and since he kicked off his sock, he didn't like it too much.

It's too bad that Malikai is too young to really enjoy the snow, making snow angels or a snowman would be a real adventure for him, and fun to watch him do it for the first time. Only 4 more years until I will be taking Malikai skiing with me!

A Drive Through Corn Land

Last week I took some vacation time and Malikai and I drove through Nebraska to visit my family. The trip was okay, we had fun playing games and watching movies together. It is kind of different being there without my friends. Mark, the only friend that I had there that keeps in touch with me from time to time, has gone off to college in another state. I'm glad that he is able to move on with his life and do something, but it sucks not being able to visit at all.

On Friday night we went to my brothers High School football game. He is a senior and this is the end of the year, so it was an important game to them. The game was pretty action packed and the score was close the entire time.

My brother is in the center there, number 73. He did a good job at tackling and, as far as I could tell, made a big difference in the game. Sadly, they lost their game, it was close, with the winning touchdown being blocked at the one yard line. It really sucked since my brothers team has not won a game in over 2 years, and with the last game, next week, being a really good team, this was their last chance to win.

Friday night after the game was depressing because of the loss, but we were still able to enjoy some rounds of UNO and some conversations. Saturday I left really late and didn't get home until after 11 pm, and even though I enjoyed my time in Nebraska it was nice to be back home, esepcially after a long road trip.

In Other News

Sunday, during the snow storm we went to church and then went over to some friend's house for lunch. We used an in-door grill to grill up some burgers, played Baulderdash and watched Transformers. It was a great time together, with lots of good conversations. We talked about everything from work, to babies, since they are new grandparents themselves. We will have to do it again sometime soon.

Desert was a delicious, home made apple crisp with ice cream on the side. We could really use that recipe.

Sunday night I should have stayed up late to get used to my night shift work schedule again, but I was just too tired so I went to bed fairly early, after trying to catch up on world of warcraft, which was the only time I would get to play in a one week period of time. Hopefully Wednesday or Thursday night I will be able to play again for a short time. Speaking of Thursday, the gate that I put up for Malikai in the basement is being pulled out of the drywall, so on Thursday I will be going to buy some wood to reinforce how the gate is attached. I still have to find my power drill though or it will be a long tough job. Actually no, I would buy another cheap drill before attempting that by hand. Then I have to figure out a way to gate off the stairs on the main floor. There is no easy way to do it, so the best thing might be to just get one of those play yard things that we can use inside the house for Malikai. I will have to find out what works and what is available.

I'm making some plans to remodel my basement some, I am going to turn it into a home theatre room, with a dinky 19 inch television! My wife doesn't think that I will ever get around to finishing it, so that adds an extra challenge to the project. Hopefully I can get a circular saw for Christmas and then I will start working on building the bookshelves and cabinets to hold the TV in January. One of my reasons for doing this is I want to be able to cover everything up so Malikai can have a room that he can be completely safe in, not being able to get into any wires or lightup electronic devices. We will put a toy chest down there and it will be a great family room, fun for everyone.

Tomorrow is Danae's birthday and we are looking forward to going out for some sushi. Hopefully we can get a babysitter for Malikai so we can enjoy the evening out alone. Thankfully I only work that morning, I have that evening off so we will have plenty of time to do things.

What will Danae get for her birthday? Will the restaurant be fun?

Stay tuned to find out what happens for Danae's birthday!

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Long Time Between Updates

Yes I realize that I have not been keeping up on writing my blogs as much as I would have liked. There are a lot of things that go through my head almost daily that I want to write about, I just don't take the time to sit down and write them. I will try to make the time to do this though. I want to write blogs often for a couple of reasons. One is that I like to keep people updated on the events of my life. The other reason is that I like to be able to look back on the blogs myself to see what I have done, almost like a life journal. So here is another entry in the life of Jon.

Two weeks ago Stephanie (Danae's sister) came out to visit. It was a fun and enjoyable time, where we went to church, the zoo, out for hikes, and various other places. Even though there were some sister fights and tension (as expected between sisters), for the most part the visit was very enjoyable for all of us. One day, we had a great oppertunity to drive through the mountains. It was a beautiful sunny day and the area that we went into had a lot of trees that were changing colors. It really shows the creativity that God has to make everything the way that it is and just the beauty that is in things that no artist can fully capture. How anybody could say that it is all here the way it is by accident is beyond my comprehension. Sadly, I left my camera home that day so I cannot share with you the awesome wonders of God's nature that we saw.

While at the zoo, one of the first animals that we got to see was the giraffe. Something intereting that I learned is that the giraffe has valves in it's blood vessels in its neck near the head, so that when it lowers its head down and back up it does not pass out from the blood rushing to its head and then a sudden rush of the blood rushing out of its head. My question to evolutionists is this, how did the giraffe know that it needed that? How did the DNA in the giraffe's body some how create this necessary body part that the giraffe could not survive without? It just makes no sense to me! The theory of evoultion is so fairy tale like sometimes that it stuns me to see how intelligent people could even consider it to be true. Anyway, enough about that.

So Malikai seemed to enjoy himself at the zoo a lot. There was one animal that was making a weird noise and Malikai tried to mimic the noise. It was funny to listen to. Every time the animal would make the noise Malikai would try something similar, but other than that he was pretty quiet all day. The zoo that we went to was nice, but it did make me miss the San Diego zoo. Now that is a nice zoo! At least it was the last time I went there years and years ago.

During the last couple of days we were enjoying playing some games, both UNO with custom rules, and baulderdash. The UNO game was interesting. The rule we had was that whoever won a hand, got to make up a new rule for the game. My rule was to have an undo card, that whenever you want you can play a 0 and make the last person take back the card they played and skip their turn. The girls, however, made different type of rules. Danae's was that you had to go outside and burp loudly whenever you play a wild draw 4. It did make people want to play the draw 4 less often, but I didn't enjoy the burping outside. Stephanie had a rule where you had to do an UNO cheer anytime you played an 8. So have some fun with these new rules and play a new exciting game of UNO!

The Saturday before Stephanie left I got real sick and had to call in sick from work. The bad thing was that I couldn't do anything all day because I was sick, but Danae and Stephanie took advantage of having the car so they went out for a few hours to go for a hike and a drive through another mountain road that is tucked away behind Garden of the Gods. So I stayed home with Malikai, mostly slept and watched movies but it was nice to have a day off from work. The following day I was feeling better so we went to church and then followed that with lunch at Cracker Barrel, which was some great food, but Malikai started to fuss a lot and was annoying the other people around so I had to just go pay for the food and sit in the car with him while Danae and Stephanie finished up their brunch. Malikai is getting really hard to take places sometimes, which makes me wish that we had a baby sitter so Danae and I could do things together.

While Stephanie was here we bought our two cats (see the previous blog) and we finally decided on the names. Mine (the bigger gray one) we are calling Merlin, and the smaller female we are calling Kunkali, or kali (pronounced collie) for short. Malikai is doing great with the cats, he seems to be enjoying them a lot. He still follows them around and tries to play with them. I'm glad that we made the decision to get the cats. Now the next big decision, to de-claw, or let them claw? As long as we stay on top of trimming their claws they are not destructive, but even with the claws trimmed it still hurts. We will wait and see what we will do.

Also that week I had a job interview. I have got to say, that was the strangest job interview that I have ever had. The first thing that really got me was that he asked for previous websites that I have built, so I pointed him to ETM and he spent a lot of time looking through the articles, he said he was just trying to figure out what I believed. After he mentioned something about how other Christians reply to his question about the sabath I asked if he was a Christian, and he was, so it started a 5 to 10 minute conversation about the Bible and what we believed and stuff. I know that it isn't the politically correct job interview discussion, but it is nice to have a conversation with a brother or sister in Christ like that. Then later he encouraged me not to take the job, because I would lose my security clearance if I did that. So yeah, the stragest interview that I ever had.

I had a good feeling about the company, people and job, but I never got called back so I think they picked someone who was asking for less money. The job would have been nice, but I'm kind of glad that I did not get it. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I have finally decided what I want to do for the time being. I want to be a Windows Sys Admin, those jobs generally pay better and I'm good at it too. I just hope I can get into a job that will give me some serious Unix hands on experience. So if you have a job and you want to hire a Sys Admin, preferably in the Colorado Springs area, contact me! In the mean time, I updated my resume for this position I am going to pursue and I have been applying at a few jobs. Focus on the Family just happened to have a similar job opening show up on their website so I applied for that. Of all the jobs that I applied for, that is the job that I hope I can get. Even if they don't pay as much as some of the others, I would look forward to working in a Christian environment and especially at a job that is so close to my home. In the summer I could ride a bike to the job in about 20 minutes, or be lazy and drive the 5-10 minutes to the building. Some friends of mine know someone that works there, so hopefully I can get ahold of that person for a recomendation to help get my foot in the door.

We will see what happens, just please pray for me that I will find the job God wants me to be in. The shift work that I am doing now is tiring me out a lot and my sleep schedule has been completely off this last week. I don't know how long I can keep up these hours and the long drive. Plus, the longer you have to drive each day the higher the chance for an accident, especially when tired after a 12 hour shift. This week someone from our building got into a head on car accident outside work and is in ICU. Please pray for her, for God's healing if He wills, but most importantly that their family will be comforted and that she will come to know the Lord if she doesn't already. It just goes to show that you never know what may happen that will take the lives of a loved one, or a co-worker, or even ourself. No matter how tragic the incident may be, it is so much worse that we, the body of Christ, did not take the oppertunities that we had to share the gospel message with them. The latest statistics say that less than 2% of Christians evangelize (quoted from the Way of the Master) so if we don't reach out to those that we know, the chances are that nobody will.

Romans 10:13-15

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear
without a preacher?
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad
tidings of good things!

Oh that we may preach the gospel boldy to this lost world. I heard a quote from Charles Spurgeon that said something like "If this world does leap into the lake of fire, may they do it by leaping over our bodies trying to stop them, if they do want to go into the burning pit of hell, may it be with our arms wrapped around their knees trying to hold them back.." Why do we let this world blindly walk over the cliff of eternity into the pit of hell while we stand by and watch? How can the Christians of this world be so cruel? How can we care about our own comforts so much that we would not get up from our lazy boy chairs in front of our televisions or computers to stop these people from running into eternal damnation! How cruel the body of Christ has become in these last days... we have all the authority and power of the world, we can heal the sick, cast out demons, and offer Jesus's blood stained hands to these people to bring salvation and eternal healing, but we would dare not do that because we would be made fun of or feel scared.

How many people do crazy stunts for the feel of fear? Going on roller coasters, jumping out of an airplane, doing insane jumps with skateboards and motorcycles, we even go to horror movies that have the very purpose of scaring the living daylights out of us, but when it comes to saving the dying....

I guess in the end it doesn't really matter... let those who live in their sin spend an eternity in a place seperated by the grace of God, a place where they mourn over the truth they realize they have rejected, a place of nashing of teeth and burning of flesh... none of that really matters as long as we Christians are comftorable.

Really what it boils down to is a simple mathematical equasion. (m > c) Where m is our concern for our own comfort, and c is our concern for others. If we could just learn to care more about the lost than ourselves, to have a heart full of compassion then no excuse will keep us from sharing the gospel. Like a firefighter who runs into a burning building to save a family of 4, knowing that he may die and not even save them, but his care and concern for them is far greater than his concern for himself. Or like the Chineese Christian who recently went missing while trying to smuggle Bibles into China, the concern for getting the gospel to those who needed it far outweighs the concern for himself. We in America rarely face such drastic consequences, so what are we afraid of?

A lot of why Christians don't share their faith is because of the churches today. The churches teach that Christians should live rich and happy comftorable lives (which, by the way, is nowhere in the Bible). So that is what Christians do, they try to get rich, be happy and comftorable. That is why this generations churches are producing Christians that will tell God on the day of judgment "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' and then be told by God "'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (Matthew 7:22-23)

I will end here and say good night. May God bless you and give you the compassion to reach out to the lost.

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