Contentment, etc.

As I was reading Philippians 4 this morning, I was reminded again of how badly verse 13 is twisted by so many people. In verse 12, Paul clearly states that he has discovered the secret of contentment in every situation. In verse 13, he gives the secret: "I can do all things through him who gives me strength." Yet, time and again, I hear that verse used to promise strength for all kinds of things that have nothing to do with contentment and everything to do with ambition, etc. I guess that's why you need to remember that "Context is King."

After lunch today, I finished "There Is No I in Church" by Keith Drury. It wasn't entirely ground-breaking, but he brought up some good ideas and I'd really like to study it with our small group sometime.

I tried to install QuickVerse on my new laptop tonight only to find that the book manager doesn't work right on Windows Vista. I called tech support and they said I would have to upgrade to QuickVerse 2007. I was thinking about it anyway, and they gave me a 25% discount, so I went ahead. I had a little birthday money burning a hole in my pocket anyhow.

Essential links

Do you like "Breakout"-style video games? I like playing Vortex on our iPod, but I am horrible at manipulating the click wheel. Bad idea, Mr. Jobs! But now, you can play something like Vortex in reverse online. It's not horribly addictive, so try Plastic Balls 1.5 out.

Do you like to play with GI Joe dolls? Sure you have all the gear for their exciting military missions but what does Joe wear for a day of golf, cross-country skiing or butterfly collecting? Try the collection of hand-knitted sweaters and toques at The Sarah Foster Sweater Collection.

Do you like to key cars that are parked across two spots? Take a kinder, gentler approach with bumper stickers from I Park Like an Idiot. This company pretends that the sticker is for your own car, but they sell them in bulk, so go figure.

Do you like to use "Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords" that you enter? Okay, probably not yet, but that's only because you haven't tried it at Montage-a-Google.

Do you like to watch the world's smallest DJ cut some mad grooves on a tiny Victrola? Okay, nobody really likes to do that, but if you absolutely have to, you can check it out atLejo dj.

Do you think that duct tape is what holds this world together? If so, you might want to also use it to protect your cash. Buy a duct tape wallet at Uncommon Goods.

Post 100: Updated World Map

Ways to Maintain a Healthy Level of Insanity

At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.

Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."

Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write "For Smuggling Diamonds"

Finish All Your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy."

Don t use any punctuation

As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

With a serious face, order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat.

Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."

Sing Along At The Opera

Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme

Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play tropical Sounds All Day.

Five Days In Advance , Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In The Mood.

Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won!, I Won!"

When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"

Do the Hokey-Pokey once a Week, just in case that’s really what it’s all about.

Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."

Lenity: No One Wants to See That

Kudos to Wendie for pointing me to this important reminder of how we should behave in case of a terrorist attack. I almost fell out of my chair laughing!

Baptism Cannonball!

Here are some funny lines from recent late-night TV.
LENO: Presidential candidate Tom Vilsack… not a lot of name recognition. I don’t want to say that Tom is unknown, but his secret service codename is Tom Vilsack. Be honest. Before you came here today, how many had heard the name Vilsack? How many thought it was a pickle?
LENO: Al-Qaida released another video tape from their No. 2 man. This one had a shocking revelation: "The great Satan will soon taste unspeakable suffering from our hands. Oh, and by the way, I am the father of Anna Nicole’s baby.” Not to make light of this poor woman’s death. Now Anna Nicole Smith’s bodyguard is the fifth person to claim he might be the father. With five people claiming to be the father, I don’t think he was a very good bodyguard.
FERGUSON: I was reading about this self help book, "The Secret,” written by an Australian reality producer. Who knows more about spiritual principles than an Australian reality TV producer? One fan of the book said it stopped her panic attacks and doubled her acupuncture business. I’m thinking, "Who’s going to go see a panicky acupuncturist?”

Gladys Hardy on The Ellen DeGeneres Show

U2

This video has some very cool editing. Check it out!

Can't remember the name of that song?

Here is an interesting site. It allows you to hum or sing a few bars of a song, and then tries to identify the song for you. I tried a couple and didn't have perfect results, but it's a cool idea. They are also building a database of amateur renditions of songs, so if you have a strong voice, head on over.

dentist

Tiff and I both went to the dentist today for a cleaning. The entire visit for both of us took only 45 minutes and cost a total of $12. I'm going to miss some things when I return to the US.

Ever since we've lived here, there's been an old mango stump beside the house. Since we had the house treated for termites, they've had to look elsewhere for their food. They found some of it in that old stump. Last year, some of the students hacked and hacked away at the stump but could never cut all the way through. Earlier today, I went and kicked it over. It was completely eaten up in the core. Termites were teeming all over it. I dumped a little termite poison on the existing stump and on the large section that broke off. I wasn't sure if it was flammable, but I tried to light it anyhow. It burned gloriously. In fact, now, some 9 or 10 hours later, it's still burning gloriously. Presumably by morning, the fire will have gone out . . . or possibly have burned down our house.

A lot of people have been asking what our plan is after this term of service. The answer is . . . we still don't know. To make things worse, the whole Asia area is in transition right now. As of March, we will have a new area director Dr. Romy Caringal.

Why Filipinos?

This article by Ed Lapiz gives a little introduction into the culture of the Filipino and might help you understand why we enjoy living with them so much.

Online theology

Want to take a full theology course for free and hear it in words you can understand? Dr. Wayne Grudem has put the lessons for his Christian Essentials course online. It might be worth a listen.

New Prolife Strategy

Prolife advocates have begun to adopt a new strategy whereby they focus more on the supposed effects of an abortion on the mother rather than on the moral implications of killing the fetus. Frances Beckwith explains why this is shaky ground for prolifers and fails to really address the problem of abortion.

Happiness

Do you want to be a happier person? You might need to change the way you're thinking. Betsy Hart explains.

Nothing to say.

I don't really have anything important to say. I just haven't blogged on here for a while. I have been posting more recently at www.xanga.com/sumpteretc. Of course, I didn't really have anything important to say there, either.

We are going to Baguio tomorrow. We need to file an annual report with immigration. I think (hope) that just means paying a few bucks and walking out.

stolen bike

Just before prayer meeting tonight, Glenbert asked if he could talk to me. He said, "You know how I borrowed your bike a little bit ago? Well, I took it to the market, and somebody stole it." Glen is quite a joker, so I wasn't exactly sure if he was being serious, but this time, he was. Apparently, he parked it near the stand of one of our church members, but when he came back, it was gone. Nobody had seen anything. He reported the theft to the police, but I imagine that means almost nothing. Glen has offered to replace it but 1) I'm not sure he can afford to, and 2) we're only going to be here a few more months anyhow.

Tiff and I were talking the other day about emotional attachments, and I mentioned that I didn't think I was too heavily invested in anything. Maybe the bicycle is a small test of that. Honestly, I don't really care that much that my bike is gone. Probably students borrowing it have put more kilometers on it than I have. If I accept any payment from Glen, it won't be because I need it, but because he needs a lesson in responsibility.

This is not a lesson needed only by Glen. It seems like the students often fail to show care for a borrowed item. We bought a computer for the library, and in just a few weeks, the hard drive was corrupted and had to be reformatted. The students didn't care for it as they would if it were their own.

And the problem goes to the macro-level, too. This is one of the things that's wrong with paternalistic missions. If the sending nation is forever subsidizing pastors, building schools and hospitals, the receiving nation never learns to take responsibility. The building didn't cost us anything; why should we take care of it? And that probably goes on the governmental level as well. It's looked on as meddling (or imperialism) if the US government gets too hands-on in another country. But if the US only sends money and doesn't make sure that money is being used to set up systems of responsibility, it's almost sure to be foolishly spent.

Closed bakeries

I don't know what's going on with the bakeries here. For the third day in a row, I've had to walk past two bakeries with their windows shuttered before I could find a place open to sell me pan de sal. I'm going at about 5:30, but they're usually open well before that. In fact, they're often sold out by 6:00. Oh well, I pray while I walk, so I guess I've benefited by having a little longer walk than usual.

This morning, I was reading the passage in Luke where Jesus is comparing the leafing of the fig tree to the signs of His coming. I don't have a very well-defined eschatology, but I usually think of the coming of Christ as a scary thing. The Old Testament prophecies usually talk about the Day of the Lord as a day of doom and gloom. But there's almost always a glimmer of hope as the prophet recognizes that God has a plan to redeem and refine a remnant. I noticed today in the Luke passage a similar gleam of hope. Jesus said, "When you see all these things happening, lift up your heads because your redemption draws near." Sure, the earth will be shaken, and the moon will turn blood-red, and lots of awful things will be happening; but the point is that redemption is on its way. Then he uses the leaves appearing on the fig tree to demonstrate the nearness of the kingdom. Nobody sees leaves appearing on a tree and says, "Oh no, I guess it's all over for this tree." Of course not. They get excited because new growth is coming. So, when things look a little gloomy in this old dying world of us, we just need to learn to see them as leaves on the fig tree and remember that God's kingdom is going forward and it is near.

We had our first apologetics class of the new year today. We're starting to dig into discussing the trustworthiness of the New Testament. This has been my first time to study the dating and authorship of the New Testament books as well as the history of canonization in any kind of depth. It hasn't been too earth-shattering, but it has been interesting to note that there is some pretty good evidence for very early dates of the Gospels and even earlier for Paul's writings.

I couldn't be more embarrassed

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated.You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

New Year's Day

Today was the birthday celebration of Filemon Agapito, our adoptive father while here in the Philippines. He turned 73 today, and he has plans to celebrate 27 more times. So far, so good. A little over a year ago, we spent a week living with the Agapito family out in their rural barangay. Tatang (father) is a mango farmer, who has served as barangay captain (sort of a village mayor) as well as serving on the General Board of Administration for the Wesleyan Church of the Philippines.

The celebration was pretty typical. We began with a mini-church service, then had well wishes for the birthday celebrant from members of his family. He gave his testimony and then we dove into a hearty spread of native dishes.

New Year's Eve

Well, 2006 is almost gone. I can tell by the nearly constant fireworks I'm hearing. And frankly, I'm not too sorry to see it go. The year had some good moments, but it seemed to hold a lot more questions than answers. I am looking forward to a clean slate in 2007 and am hoping and praying that I can make better use of it than I did this year.

I only transported three people to church this morning. When the students are off-campus, nobody is visiting their contacts out in the barangays. So some of the casual attendees slack off on their attendance. Of course, a lot of people are traveling for the holidays, too. I had just picked up my last rider in the barangay and was headed back out onto the main road when one of the ladies hollered at me to stop. Mr. Ambrocio, an older gentleman, had gotten in the back of the vehicle. Neither of the fold-down seats were folded down, but he didn't change that. He was just squatting in the back of the car, and apparently having some trouble doing so. I don't know if he didn't know how to fold the seats down or if he didn't think he should change something on my car. At any rate, I talked him into moving to the vacant front passenger seat.

We didn't have our English Sunday school class last week, so we had our Christmas lesson today. Mrs. Clark taught on the story of the Magi and the flight to Egypt. Pastor Bong preached on John 10:10 in the morning worship service, and we celebrated communion together. The elements today were cookies and Coke. Grape juice is pretty expensive and not readily available, so substitutes are often used. We also ran out of communion cups, so I only had a cookie.

After a nap, I got up and tried to do some thinking about budgeting for the new year. Even though I think we live pretty frugally, expenses don't seem to fall far short of income. I know when we move back to the US this spring, we're in for a reality check. A lot of our expenses are covered here that we're going to have to shell out for when we get back. Hopefully, we're able to still keep body and soul together and still have enough to give to others. I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Well, the fireworks are getting louder. In just a few minutes, we're having our new year's fellowship here on campus. It's not technically a watch-night service, just a little devotional time, some snack-eating and playing games. I personally would rather go to bed and get my new year started right (with a full night's sleep) but I realize that this is probably an important event to some, and I'm sure I will have fun.