Silence

The long bout of silence does not indicate that nothing is happening.  With a year between jobs under my belt, it has been easy to not post.

The greatest lesson for me with this drought of work is that I am sure God is in control of my life.  He has allowed me to gain insight into the vast array of emotions that come with not being associated with a job and corporate identity.  I am pretty sure that my worth is not in the job that I do or don't have and that there is much more than seeking the material things that own us.

I do say that I am ready for Him to show me what He wants me to do next.

As always, my prayer is that He will make it clear to me what He wants me to do and that I will do it.  The question that comes to mind is whether there is something else that I should be praying for.

School Safety and Life Altering Events

The Next Phase

It has been 6 months since my gig at The Planet ended.  I have been working diligently to get the next work gig up and running and everything is slowly working toward fulfillment.  Our School Safety Audit software is in the final stage of development and we are poised to clinch the contract with the State entity that will be managing this monumental task of collecting the data from over 1500 school districts.  My prayer for this is that we are able to be the clear choice for the data collection solution.  If and when this happens, all of the time invested will pay off in a big way.

That being what it is, Cyndie and I are now somewhat empty nesters.  Our last J is now attending college with the middle J and both of them are enjoying their classes.  They have both been back home each weekend to wash clothes and bless us with their presence.

The icing on the cake is that we are now going to be Grandparents.  The oldest J and his lovely wife in Florida are expecting their first child.  They started letting nature do it's work a few months ago and from the Dr. reports, everything is looking good.  We have been praying for their children for over 3 years now and it will be cool to get to see the first one we have to touch sometime in May of 2008.

Our church family is as healthy as it has been in 2 years and we are within months of moving into our new building.  I toured the new building yesterday and it is everything we could have hoped for.  The actual date of move in is still contingent on many factors so we are still doing the work we are called to in the at the high school campus.  The transformation of our congregation into a place where the hurt and lost can find  God has been bumpy because we are shackled with many old views of what a church should be but we are being faithful and God has been faithful to do what He says He will if we seek His face.  The emphasis on prayer that has grasped our attention is paying off.  There is a wave of momentum that is building as our members are experiencing the promise of answered prayer.

One of the recent sermons on payer  opened my eyes to something that has made a substantial impact on my own prayer life.  In the writings of Jesus found in Luke 11 verse 8.  The word boldness is from the Hebrew word Chutzpah and is the only time it is used in the New Testament.  Chutzpah takes the term persistence to the raw edge of our understanding.  The definition in Wikpedia is:

In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame. But in Yiddish and English, chutzpah has developed ambivalent and even positive connotations. Chutzpah can be used to express admiration for non-conformist but gutsy audacity. One common English adaptation of "chutzpah" is "hoodspa," which has a mostly positive connotation. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to." In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration.

One example given of the ultimate of chutzpah is: "A boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for leniency because he is an orphan."^[1]

This gave me a new appreciation for the personality of the Jewish people.  They really get Chutzpah and use it in many aspects of their life.  For some reason we as Christians have given this trait a negative connotation when asking for results in prayer as well as our requests to others.

Chutzpah is now a word that I am incorporating into my prayer life as well as my interaction with others.

Mission Lazerus

Just got back from a 13 day trip to Honduras.  The youngest J and I went down to Mission Lazarus in Honduras with a group from our church.  We were both on the "advanced" team which was a group of 10 that went ahead of the rest to get things organized and ready so they could hit the ground running.  There were multiple missions to be accomplished so much work was needed to make sure we got the most from our time there. 

One group was in charge of getting the food ready.  We took two guys who fight like an old couple that were in charge of cooking for our group  of 56.  They ended up cooking lunch and dinner for at least 70 people each day.  We fed the interns at Mission Lazarus as well as another group that was there to do the same thing we were.  The guy that went down on the advanced team spent a day in Tegucigalpa at the Costco buying meat and other items that were not available in the small town of San Marcos de Colon.  They bought fresh produce daily in this quaint town situated in the mountains.

Another group took food and clothing to people that had been singled out by one of the preachers of the church in San Marcos.  We took approximately 40 bags of clothes and the food was purchased locally that was distributed to these needy families.

Another group facilitated a vacation bible school for the children of the school that is supported by Mission Lazarus.  The school serves approximately 250 children that cannot afford to attend the private schools.  In addition to meeting their academic and spiritual education, the school feeds all of the children two meals a day.

Yet another group was preparing medical supplies for a medical mission group that arrived after our second group.  They saw over 160 people from two towns the first day and over 260 from another town the second day.

The last group which is the one that I worked on was there to build some cabins on the Mission Lazarus property which will be used for other volunteer groups that go there to build orphan homes and minister to the folks in whatever way they are called.  There were a few buildings already in multiple phases of construction and we were able to get two more up and ready for a roof to be installed by the paid workers on the ranch.

The first children's home is nearing completion on the property and the 6 children that they are already housing in other facilities offsite will be living in style for Honduras when it is completed.  Another volunteer group started the structure and local craftsmen are being paid to complete the task.  The quality of work by the local workers was surprisingly up to standards in the states.  They are using lap siding on the interior walls and I watched a carpenter measure a board to cut out for two 1 inch pipes that will be for a sink and he drilled the holes right the first time and the board fit like a glove.

Below are some pictures from the trip.

Jay in Teguc at the car rental place with the airport to his back.

Views from our Hotel at the top of the hill in San Marcos de Colon

Me next to one of the 50 houses that we built after Hurricane Mitch back in 1999.  There were no trees when we built them and the community is flourishing quite well.  Note that the belly in this picture is gone.  I lost 10 pounds and 4 inches in the waist on the trip.  Shows what honest hard work can do for the body not to mention the soul.

We took a little time for a horse ride around the ranch before the rest of the team arrived.

A photo of Jarrod's house.  It is situated on 12 acres of land.  He bought it a few years ago for 22K USD. 

Jay nailing studs on day 3.  We left this wall down on the ground and let the rest of the group nail the top plate.  They raised the wall within an hour of arriving.  This gave us plenty of work for multiple groups of workers.  Some started raising more walls while others started nailing siding.  Another group started building the roof trusses while another started on the steel work for the porch that wraps the entire structure.

Things really started hopping once the main crew arrived.  This is the upper deck/ballroom of the hotel where we had breakfast each day.  It is surrounded by glass and overlooks the city of San Marcos de Colon.

On our last day everyone went to the construction site.  Here some of the kids are finishing up the roof trusses for the second house while others just hang out.

This guy was my shadow on the construction site.  He is at least 10 years older than me but kept up and fetched my saw more than a dozen times an hour.  It kept me from having to bend over and exert energy that was best spent thinking and cutting wood.

Here is a view of the first cabin from the front.  The porch is not yet constructed in this photo.  We left that work for the guy in the photo.

This is a shot of the second cabin as viewed from the first one.  The coolest thing about this structure is that I did not nail a single nail or cut a single board for it.  The volunteers that we trained on the first cabin did everything themselves.  The only thing I did was build the template for the roof trusses.  Jerrod asked me to leave the template for future groups on the other cabins that are to be built.

This is me and one of the local workers Juan.  He is a concrete worker and keeper of the toolshed key.  This photo shows how my gut disappeared after 10 days of hard work.

So much for so long dry spell

What can I say?  Time off has been agreeing with me.

Since leaving my job in March, I have been doing an assortment of things that have been a blast.  Nothing to actually generate income yet but that will come in good time.

I am sitting on the balcony of the Omni hotel overlooking the Gulf of Mexico down in Corpus Christi.  I am here for a convention for school police personnel.  Back in April, I spent a couple of weeks working on a business plan with a company in Conroe around school safety and security work.  We applied for a grant through the state of Texas to help fund the plan but were denied.  The exercise was well worth the time invested because we crystallized the business plan and are now headed to the bank for financing.

Speaking of exercise, I have been going to ISOFitness for almost 3 months.  The draw to this place is that it is a 30 minute workout once a week.  My body was like a wet noodle when I left the first session and I hurt for 3 days.  Even though the workout has continued to be intense, the ongoing pain has been reduced to 1 or 2 days.  The exercises are short and intense with a personal trainer.  They work each muscle group to a breaking point and move to the next.  I started the program to get in shape for the work trip we are taking to Honduras at the end of this month.

In regard to Honduras, Jay and I are going a week ahead of the main group along with 7 others to get materials in place and prepare for the work we will be doing when the other 49 folks show up.  This is the largest group we have taken to this particular part of the country and we have big plans to complete 4 buildings, take food and medicine to many families and facilitate a vacation bible school for the local church.  Of the 58 folks that are going, half are adults and half are teenagers.  I am excited about getting to go on the advanced team with Jay.  The little bugger graduated from high school last week and will be headed off to Sam Houston State University in the fall.  Cyndie and I are partial empty nesters come September, meaning that the last two will still be coming home from college to wash clothes and fill up their gas tanks.

On the better half's job front, she is still scheduled to be 1/2 time in her teaching role at Mitchell Intermediate.  This is not something that she is looking forward to.  We are still praying that there will be a reprieve and something will happen to allow her to work full time without having to be substituting for the other half day.

Jay sang the school song at his graduation ceremony last week.  He sat on the stage throughout the first portion of the program and then took his seat among the other graduates to walk up on stage.  After he got his diploma, he took a seat back up on stage until the end when he sang.  Because he had celebrity status for this event, we also got the royal treatment.  We received a gold parking pass which brought us right up next to the Woodlands Pavilion as well as 5 seats on the 3rd row center stage.  The pictures that I took are awesome.  They are posted on Cyndie's xanga.