Friday, November 27, 2009

Mechanial Misadventures Managed

Yesterday was...fun.
I was on my way to the Fletchers for Thanksgiving Dinner. The Fletchers went to Forefront, my home church, and I randomly ran into them at Northwood church, the church I now attend. On my way there, as I was driving down the interstate, my power steering went out. My first though was, "Ugh!" I pulled off the interstate (conveniently there was an exit right there with a gas station), turned off my car, turned it back on, and expected it to be all better. It was not. So I called my mother who was in Georgia with my uncle who is a mechanic. It was decided that my serpentine belt had broken and that the damages would cost about $200 to fix. Well I don't have $200! With nothing left to do but call Roadside service, I called Fletch to inform him that I would not be at dinner. Well, the Fletchers had other plans.

After picking me up, Fletch took a look at my car and scrutinized the damage. No auto shops were open on Thanksgiving so they took me to their family's. I ate, played cards with AJ and Jewls (Fletch's daughters, 12 and 9), and watched Star Trek in their home theatre (it was nice). Then they took me back to their place, gave me a warm bed, a hot shower, breakfast, and hot tea. At 9:00am, Fletch went back to work on my car. Finding it MIA.
Although I had asked the owner if I could leave the car overnight, it had been towed. $250 to get my car back. But Fletch the Amazing, contacted all the powers be, getting the owner to tell the tow company that I had permission to be there and they released my car without fee. But more than that, they let Fletch work on my car in the lot so that I wouldn't have to tow it out of the tow lot. But after finding wood, going to the scrap yard, looking under hood after hood for the parts, and an assortment of other minor complications tat I won't bore you with, my car is fixed and I am home.
Financial damage: $60
Thank God and His servants, the Fletchers

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Mmm Thanksgiving!

So the Thanksgiving season is upon us!
Yesterday I went to Walmart and they were sold out of cranberry sauce! I went to get my oil changed and the place was packed with pre-road-trip customers. Today is my last day of class before Thanksgiving break. Tomorrow I'm going up to Fort Worth for Thanksgiving dinner.
Yummy!
My time in Dallas is slipping away faster and faster!
and that's crazy!
Months ago it seemed like I would be here forever.
And now I'm down to counting weeks!
Two weeks til my friends get in and the next week I'm homeward bound!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The National Missionary Convention

This past weekend I went up to Peoria, IL to go to the National Missionary Convention. It was an awesome time to hang out with friends from the Mid-Atlantic Christian University (my undergrad), to meet other people who were interested in missions work, and to hear words of wisdom from seasoned missionaries. The convention was set up with two main sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening, and three workshops, one before lunch and two after. The rest of the time was dedicated to meandering thru the endless rows of booths.
Pioneer Bible Translators had a interest dinner on Friday night. We had a restraunt that we rented and then packed out. Two of the larger tables, seating 8, were taken over by the MACU students!
The whole weekend was awesome and I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to attend!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Woah! We've been here THREE HOURS

You know those conversations where time just gets away from you.
A couple weeks ago I had one painful conversation. Generally time crawls when life is rough. But this conversation was just so horribly stressful that time lost meaning. When we finally stopped, we looked down at our watches (I actually have cell phone) and thought "Dang, that was a long time."
But yesterday I had one of the more marvelous ones. I had a lovely conversation with my coach that was constructive all the way around. We talked of wonderful things like future plans, ways to improve structures, and nurses who think its fun to try and figure out how many times they can stab you with TB until your test reads positive!
And I left with peace from God.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Supporting Vampires

So today I went to see the Vampires (Carter Blood Care) so that they could suck my blood (remove a pint) to feast on (save lives). I was a little (a lot) freaked out at the beginning (half hour)but it wasn't that bad.
The worst part was probably the finger prick. The lady told me I needed to try to not be nervous because if my pulse went too high they couldn't take my blood. (I needed to give blood so that I can figure out my blood type for PBT). So I began to hum quietly to myself because that's what I do when I'm bored and I wanted to trick myself into believing that I was bored and not panicked. Little did I realize that my hum was swelling into a crescendo as the needle approached my finger and stabbed my flesh. The lady asked me if I was humming because I was nervous. I at first thought, "What a stupid question. Duh, that's why I'm humming." But then I reminded myself that there are no such thing as stupid questions... only stupid people (that was a joke.)
Finally, they have me in a chair with my arm on a pillow waiting to be bitten (pierced). Another woman comes over and talks me through everything she's doing patiently. She gently laughed at me because I was "watching her like a hawk." It's true, but I feel like the fact that she was about to steal a pint of my blood justified my keeping a close watch. After the needle was in and my blood was gushing out of my body (flowing into a bag), I decided small talk to be appropriate.
"Is this what you wanted to be when you grew up?"
A laugh and a short career history followed.
"And what do you do?" she politely and perfunctorily replied.
"Uh, I'm a bible translator."
At the end of our conversation, she took my name and phone number and will be discussing the possibility of supporting me to her husband.
How awesome is that?
Pray that that conversation goes well.
A good day I think!

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Mosaic Covenent

So I just had my mind blown!
I sat down with a Messianic Jew and discussed whether or not Gentiles should follow the Mosaic Covenent. A lot of the arguments came down to the interpretation of the text. However, there is one correct interpretation of the text and it is either mine or his. And if it's mine, whatever. But if it's his, then there are things that I'm commanded to do and not to do that I'm not obeying. And if God desires me to do these things then I intend to do them. So step one is to find out if God desires me to follow His law. Sure I have a lot of other things going on but I think pleasing God is worth putting in a few more hours.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Convert to Dorkyism

Crazy day today.
This morning I woke up to the sound of a text, which told me I forgot to put a support letter in a support letter. Genius, huh?
I moved out of my bedroom into another bedroom (btw, I have moved more in the past four months than I had the years I was a Navy Brat. What is this!)
Then the field methods group that's studying Arabic went to an Arabic restraunt with our Language Consultant for lunch, followed by coffee and dessert at her house. Now, 6 pm, I am still stuffed and in two hours I have to go to the PBT house to greet a new PBT recruit to Dallas with dessert and apple cider. While yummy, my tummy hurts!
11:30 - Dessert was AWESOME. Well, at least the night was. My stomach wouldn't let me indulge much more than I already had, but three glasses of Apple Cider were definitely delicious. Also, we played this wicked game called Telephone pictionary. AMAZING. But my housemate informs me that I am now a GIAL dork. But I say: If dorks have this much fun, I should have converted a long time ago.

Friday, November 6, 2009

12 Touches

So I heard somewhere that people need 12 touches a day. And I'm sure whoever said it threw in something about how they read it in a study and it's SUPER good for you. Well I don't know about all that, but today I went in to get a full physical for PBT and I DEFINITELY got in my 12 touches!
Between all the routine of hands on my arms, neck, stomach, back, legs, and ankles, and I also got some weird thing done where they stick stickers all over your body and attached miniature jumper cables to all of them to see if I had heart murmurs, I think I'm done with the doctors for a while... until Tuesday that is, when I have to go get my TB testing done, confirm that I have my tetanus and Hepatitis A (otherwise, get those, too), and confirm that my blood test went well. ... and Thursday when I have to get the results for TB. ...and when every I go the Red Cross and they actually have time to suck my blood.
Oh doctors...