Restaurant Food, Snacks, and Church

We usually eat out after church on Sundays. I had an old friend who is home with the Lord now who always said "I don't work on Sunday, and cooking is work. Heathens work on Sunday and I go and eat in their restaurants." OK, the theology may not be perfect but it works for me too, which brings me around to today's blog.

Eating out at a nice restaurant is very enjoyable. It is something that is special and probably not done by most of us for every meal every day, but on special occasions or when you are out and about and can't go home for lunch or dinner. However, most of us eat the majority of our meals at home. Wives and mothers usually try to feed their families a balanced diet and healthy food, so that an occasional meal in a restaurant can involve a little more fancy fare that usual. When we takes the kids out for a special restaurant meal, we usually let them indulge a little, just like we do. Burgers and fries, the occasional dessert or that not quite perfectly healthy dish that we love, but do not eat often because it is too rich, or fattening or has some other negative factor. But mostly, to maintain our health, wealth and sanity, we usually eat most of our meals at home. Sometimes after eating a really good healthy meal at home, a few hours later, we offer to take the family out for ice cream, or some small snack that will tide us over till suppertime. Nothing big, just a snack and some fellowship and family time, at some little hole in the wall place that is clean and informal.

I think of this analogy every time I hear someone say, and I hear this all too often. "We are going to find another church, because we just aren't getting fed at this one." If people only knew how utterly stupid they show themselves to be when they make a statement like this! The messages the preacher gives to his people are not meant to be their main meals. They are restaurant food. Sometimes they are very filling and taste wonderful. Sometimes they are snacks. Either way, they are not meant to be your only spiritual food. They are to be the things that are special or meant to give a little extra nourishment, but they are not the thing that you live on. It is the same with physical food. If you only ate on Sunday, no matter how much or how good the food was, it wouldn't be enough to get you by till mid-week service or the next Sunday. When folks feast on the Word of God themselves, when they study the Scriptures, they will be spiritually fat and full. Then when they go to church on Sunday it won't really matter whether they get a big meal or a snack, either way it will be something extra and not the main spiritual food. So, if you are one of those folks who aren't getting fed, don't blame the chef. If this week's message didn't ring your bell, rest assured that it probably did ring somebody else's, and please, what ever you do, don't show us your spiritual laziness by making the lame statement that "I'm not getting fed at church." Grow up. Pick up your fork and feed yourself.

This speaks for Itself

Friends

I loved this recent e-mail I received so much that I am going to share it with you. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Hi Rick,
Guess what? Art is going to kill me and I am going to kill you!!!!!!!!!!!!! The other day when you talked to him on the phone you told him that you had pictures of your trip on your "facebook". Well that is just great, Art nor I had ever even heard of facebook, so a few days ago I was bored without Art here to aggravate me and cook and clean for so I decided to see what "facebook" is... I just wanted to see your stupid pictures that's all! In order to go on there you have to fill out some stuff, so I did. I wrote Art's info. I figured it was you that told him about it, that maybe it needed to be his name and stuff. And now, here is the part that Art will kill me and I will kill you over... Every morning when I get up to check e-mail there are dozens and dozens of new people wanting us to be their "friends". How pathetic, all these people we thought we had finally moved far enough away from that we would never have to hear from again are all of a sudden here every morning on my computer when I get out of bed, wanting to be our "friend". I have no idea how to work this whole thing of "keeping in touch" with people you care little about, so I have been deleting the e-mails (trying to hide the evidence from Art, till he gets back and decides if he truly wants to be friends). On a bright note, I didn't put my name, so I have not been getting all these e-mails. In a word, life still works for me, I have no "friends". Your new "friends" wife, Jane

Not me. I didn't do it. I don't want any "friends" either. I'm too computer illiterate to get rid of them once they have taken up residence in my computer.

Toto was the dog in the Wizard of Oz

I was looking at some other blogs today and I realize that I am doing something that some have already found annoying. I am attempting to keep things somewhat generic as to where I am and what I am doing. It has to be this way. Our website has already been checked by the governments of at least 2 of these countries (that we know of). If they think that we are being in any way hostile, they can block us and then nobody can read our stuff or visit our website from here. They did this to a well known Christian man and just mentioning his name may get me in trouble here, so again, sorry about that. For those of you who know who I am, the places and perhaps some of the people you will recognize. No, I have not forgotten their names, I just can't mention them. Some of them are really "flying under the radar," in a couple of very hostile environments. Freedom of speech is not a constitutional right in this country. We ain't in Kansas, Toto. Anyway, to those of you who are wondering why all the cloak and dagger, just because 'dat is how it gotta be. Like I saw on a tee shirt the other day: Elvis is dead. Deal with it. Kinda the same concept.

To the many who have visited us here and know how it is, thank you for all the help you were and still are in the very important realm of prayer. I really miss all of you very much and think and pray for you often. One young man arrives tonight. We really look forward to his being here and hope he stays as long as he possibly can. Another lady arrives in about 2 weeks. We are so grateful for those who are making the sacrifice. Ah, Barnabas, I do so miss you especially, SMDYak. I do get very lonely here at times. There really is such a thing as evolution. If it were not for books, I would probably have evolved into a raving lunatic. Someone once said that our lives are shaped by only 2 things: the people we meet and the books we read. I have found that this is true. We have to meet a Person, and then afterward we need to read His book. Many have read the Book first, then met the Person. One way or the other, the saying does hold true. Stay in The Word, and then learn by reading the books of good, honest, Godly people. College is highly overrated, especially secular institutions of higher learning. If a person can read, he can educate himself better than any school ever could. If a few uneducated fisherman were good enough for Jesus, don't think too highly of your PhD. PhD stands for "piled high and deep." Many things are piled high and deep. Garbage for one example.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today our co-workers gave the both of us a surprise birthday party. This is the first surprise party that I have ever had that was actually a surprise. All the others somehow found their way into my consciousness before the actual event and I had to "act" surprised. That is really hard to do and make it believable. However, today they managed to pull it off without a hitch. Several days ago they invited us over for supper and we accepted. I had no idea what they were up to and I live right next door in a small duplex. It must have been a miracle that I didn't hear anything or walk over there for something or in some way mess things up for them. I didn't even notice when 20 people showed up and sneaked in next door. I am really getting old and deaf and I'm scared.

There is a lot going on here and the next few weeks are going to be extremely busy. People are coming and going every few days. Men on survey trips, groups coming to help for a week or two, a couple of folks coming to stay for several months. Health issues are raising their ugly heads, so it is a very good thing that help is on the way and willing to stay for awhile. What we are doing here is way over our heads and far above our capabilities. If the Lord doesn't do His work, it won't get done. Several years ago a comic strip character made the statement that "God gives us all a certain number of tasks to finish in our lifetime. At the rate I am going now, I can never die." It is not nearly as funny now as it was when I read it long ago. As a matter of fact, there are a great many things that are not as funny now as they were a while back.

People send me e-mails about funny things that old people do, or "how to know that you are getting old." I used to laugh hysterically, but now those things just aren't as funny as they used to be. Maybe I am losing my sense of humor. Maybe someone is trying to steal my body parts while I am sleeping, like in the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." A while back I was shocked to notice that someone took my lovely auburn hair and substituted silver stuff in its place. I also noticed a gap had formed between two of my teeth. How did that happen? I looked in the mirror and it was really scary. There was this old man standing behind me at the sink. Who was that? I think that someone came into my house and installed trick mirrors, because this morning when I was brushing my teeth I looked up and there was this old fat broad that I didn't recognize looking back at me. This is not funny.

I'm Such a GOOD Friend!!

We made a trip up country. It is a beautiful small city of just over a million. I know that to some of you a million is a huge city, but if you lived where I live, one million is barely larger than a village. Anyway, it was a ministry/business trip technically, but we always manage to work in some fun. The couple who is doing recon on the Thai/Burmese border met us there and we spent a couple of days mostly goofing off and believe me, we all needed it. She just found out that she is pregnant, and although she hasn't been hurling, she has been gagging a lot. She is very sensitive to smells and here in this country smells that Americans have a real hard time with are abundant. Things like fish in the market that have been laying around in the sun for a few hours, really weird foods cooking that are basically unidentifiable, open sewers, all kinds of animal poop laying around because livestock roams through town and leave their droppings behind wherever they feel like it, and nobody follows behind with any of those cute little shovels and scoopy things.

Sooo, we all decided to go up the mountain to the very top where there is an ethnic Hmong village. It is a really interesting village and it is very remote, yet there are hundreds of tourists up there and there are all kinds of handicrafts and handmade stuff for good prices. We roamed around up there for a couple of hours and then on the way back into town we stopped at an elephant hospital and rehabilitation center. While "D" and "D" saw an elephant show, we got coffee in a shop and waited for them. We have seen a lot of elephant stuff and we were getting really tired, so we were sitting and waiting for them. We ordered mocha lattes. The first taste of mine and I thought it was a little "off," but I went ahead and drank it anyway. Real bad move. I felt fine for about an hour. By the time I started feeling a little queasy, we were already swinging down the mountain road and the stuff was beginning to gurgle in my stomach. By the time we finally hit flat road I yelled for Mr. "D" to "PULL OVER, I'M SICK!!" He hit the brakes and pulled off the road just in time for me to get the window half rolled down. I hurled about 2 feet out into the parking lane. As I said I got the window rolled PART way down. The stupid windows in this rental car were having a few problems. You would push the down button and it would go down a ways then start back up. So here I am, puking things up that I ate when I was a little kid, and the window starts rolling back up on my head! Somebody said "open the door." Great idea! So this is the thanks that I give Mrs. "D", the pregnant lady, who has a very sensitive nose and gagging problems. Needless to say we drove the rest of the way to the hotel with the windows down. Sorry "D", you really deserved better.