God's Family

I’m not a car guy.  This is a well-recognized fact by anyone who knows me.  Unfortunately, Saturday morning our car decided to not start.  This resulted in me opening the hood, looking at the battery, and scratching my head.  Within minutes, I was texting my buddy Mike, telling him we may want to bum a ride with him later in the day for a party we were all going to.  He called me right back, and said he’d be over in a few minutes to see what he could do to help.  Turns out a simple jump start did the trick.  Not sure exactly what the problem was, Mike offered us his car if ours went on the fritz.    

After working throughout the day Saturday, Sunday morning found us again with a non-starting car.  This was more problematic, as we had a full day of visiting and church activities planned in Lynden, a good half hour drive away.  A quick jump start from our neighbor didn’t get things running, and I made a call to cancel plans for visiting my grandparents that afternoon.  My grandparents (in Lynden) told me that they would drive down and see what they could do.  Thankfully, my car ineptitude isn’t hereditary, and I’m blessed with a Grandfather who is quite handy with all things mechanical.  After a longer charge (and some apple pie and visiting) we got the car running again.  The plan was to drive up to Lynden and bring the car by Grandpa and Grandma’s, where we could check the battery and a few other things to see what the problem was.  

Becoming more nervous about getting up to Lynden to teach the rest of the week, my wife called her former roommate, Yuanita, to see about borrowing her car while she was away on vacation.  The answer was yes (no surprise, if you are noticing the trend), and we stopped by the Bosscher’s to pick it up on our way to Lynden.  Doug, the patriarch of the family, stepped out and tested the battery and cleaned up the terminals.  From here, we continued on and had the battery fully charged at my grandparents.

That evening, we met with our small group from church.  This resulted in multiple offers of rides if needed.  After church, one of the elders walked us to our car to make sure it started, and to jump start it if need be.

What I thought would be a weekend of annoying car problems has really shown the family we have found around us.  Each of these people was willing to do whatever the could to help us.  Even to the point of dropping their own plans.  I love having people I can call family, despite different races, ages, and political leanings.  It’s really helping me redefine what I call family.  

Return of the blog?

I recently read an article (which I now cannot find) stating that the more means of communication we have (phones, facebook, twitter, texting, IM, blogs, skype, facetime) the less we actually make an effort to say anything.

This is my effort to change that.  Yes, I've blogged twice in the last year.  Yes, I've made the 'start blogging again' effort before.  Yes, I assume that because I just spent 45 minutes changing the background and fonts on my blog that I will pay more attention to it.  Here's hoping.

To start with, I will say that I'm going to spend this evening sitting at Woods Coffee talking with the high schoolers at my church.  I'm a youth leader now.  Weird.

I'm torn between blogging about whats happening in my life and my thoughts on whats happening in my life.  I suppose a little of both would be good.  More to come.  Soon.

The trying again Ogukuo 

Dr. Bob told me a story...

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who has been a practicing dentist for 35 years.  I'll call him 'Dr. Bob'.  Dr. Bob was telling me of a patient of his, a 34-year-old man, who had literally been seeing him his entire life. 

On one of his last visits, this patient told Dr. Bob that he had googled him to find out what his political views were.  His patient looked at him and said "You're one of those tree-hugging environmentalists, aren't you?".  Dr. Bob acknowledged that he was; and knew by the way his patient said this, that he may be in for a bit of a discussion.  But his patient instead told him, "Eh, you're ok, anyway."

After telling me this story, Dr. Bob made a good point: all it takes is a long-lasting relationship with someone to overcome political differences.

Now I think of that story whenever I encounter someone who I don't see eye to eye with.

_______ of the day:  What do we have to lose?

Ogukuo    

New Job!!

To echo my wife, I hate starting a post with "well, its time for another update", but what else can I say after 3 months of silence? Sorry folks!!



The biggest news of note is a new job for me! Tomorrow is my last day at my current job, and I'll be starting at Logos Bible Software next week! It's happened pretty quickly, and I'm excited about the change. I really like my job here, but it was time to make a decision to either try to advance here, or find another way to advance. I think Logos is going to be more in line with what I am looking for for a career. I'm starting in Customer Service, which is kinda bottom of the heap, but I'm hoping to learn the company there and see what openings come up in the future.



So, again, I'm making the claim to blog more regularly. Once I start the new job, I'll be off by 2:30 every day, so I'll be home by 3 most days and hopefully this will give me a bit more free time to do things like blog and read and paint and relax. You know, the things that usually indicate "having a life".



So, again, I'm promising to blog more often, and hopefully even update my blog format, as I realize it is horribly out of date. I think half the blogs I have linked don't exist anymore!

_____ of the day: I really, really want to explore Patos Island!!

The 'new frontiers' Ogukuo