Flagstaff

We made it to Flagstaff, Arizona. That was the goal for today.

Addendum: (this is more for my memory) The fog in Central California when we left Fresno was unbelievable. At times we crawled at a snail's pace. Other times, a California Highway Patrol car lead a pack of us through. Fining a Denny's was impossible (Denny's has been a regular morning stop for us since we know exactly what to expect. Allie likes the way they poach eggs for her). Denny's huge yellow sign was totally hidden in the fog. We got lucky and found one on the edge of Bakersfield. The manager was incredibly professional and personable. I felt sorry for him because he expected a big day since so many travelers were on the road over the Thanksgiving weekend, but no one that wasn't a regular could see his sign.

The fog was thick until we crested Tehachapi Mountains.

Allie has been doing awesome. Keep praying for us...

Meanwhile, check out this video from Aaron created yesterday. It's been fun having the kids around.

Fresno

Made it to Fresno last night. We'll leave early this morning heading for Bakersfield. From there, we'll head east through the Mojave Desert and up over Tehachapi. We'll stop somewhere in Northern Arizona or maybe even New Mexico.

Leaving

We're heading to Florida in the morning; six days on the road. We'll head south on 101, cut across on 20 to I-5. Switch over to 99 in Sacramento and spend the first night in Fresno is all goes according to plan. I'll leave updates if we have internet in the hotels.

See you then.

Allie's Latest Trick

Happy Turkey Day

HT: Los

Prayer Update on Haley...

Please keep praying for Haley Compean. Below is an update from her mom, Kelli.

Dear Friends and Family,

Today we learned the cause of all of Haley’s symptoms and poor health.  It is not Thyroiditis.  The results of her MRI showed a very small pituitary adenoma.  This is 90% accurate so that means there is still a 10% chance it is something else.  What does this mean?  It means she has a very small, non-cancerous brain tumor which makes up 20% of all brain tumors diagnosed.  It is very curable with surgery, done through the sinus passages. 

At this point we have not yet spoken with her doctor so we don’t know how urgent the surgery is, if it can wait, or for how long.  Likely it will mean a return to the states for the surgery to be done there.  We are not considering having any kind of brain surgery here but you never know what will open up. 

Please pray.  We are very optimistic and praise God that if she has to have a brain tumor, this is a good one to have.  In some ways it is all very surreal but we have peace and know that God is going to carry us through this.  Even Haley is more concerned that this will interfere with the coming hockey season and her active senior social life, than the implications of having a brain tumor.  Please pray for continued peace, for good communication with the doctors and for facilitating appointments across continents and oceans so that we are not wasting time or resources.  Please also pray for provision, wisdom and good relationship with our insurance company who has already proven to be kind and quick responding.   Pray also that our family will continue to be at peace with each other and be open and honest with each other.  Praise God and pray thanksgiving for the wisdom of the doctor in ordering what I had thought was a wasteful and expensive test. 

Happy Thanksgiving and Blessings to you,

Your servant,

kelli

Calvary International Fellowship

Compean Missionary Page

YouTube - father and son free-styling

It's gettin' stupid up in here...

Some things I'll miss about Eureka

• Cold summer mornings.
• Fog.
• The smell of marijuana in the park, in the street, sitting parked at a red light.
• Redwoods.
• Banana slugs.
• Cold summer afternoons.
• Fog.
• Old Victorian houses.
• Burning Victorian houses due to an out of control meth lab or indoor marijuana growing project.
• The Pacific Ocean.
• Random earth quakes.
• My sister and her girls.
• Amy's Delight Diner.
• Cold summer nights.
• Crab season.
• Fog.

Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget -- *combined*!

Barry Ritholtz sez,

In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

Via: Boing Boing

A Moment in a Day with Allie's Family

Calvary International Fellowship: Prayer Update

The Compean Family have become very close friends of mine over the years. Ed and I served in South Sudan together and at the Shepherd's Staff Missionary Training School in Mexico. Haley is special to me because she thinks its cool that I was in the Marines. At least she did when she was middle school aged. She wore the USMC sweat shirt I gave her proudly.

Her family now serves as missionaries in Kenya. And Haley is having some medical challenges. Would you join me in praying for her?

Dear Friends,

Please be in prayer for Haley. We thought we had come to the end of doctors visits, but in the last week her symptoms have gotten much worse. The endocrinologist is not ready to diagnose her with thyroid problems yet, though that seems to be were everything is pointing. He wants to rule out all other possibilities, and we appreciate the his looking at other possibilities,  but when he suggested a MRI we realized how serious this can be. Please pray that God would touch Haley.

Please pray as we continue with the building project. The landlord that Calvary International Fellowship currently rents from has begun tearing down the church building leaving the place in shambles. Please pray as the building begins the warfare is heating up. Please pray as we do our best to get out of the current building an onto our own property. Please pray for safety and security as the church works on building a meeting hall. We believe God is directing us to get the children’s ministry building foundation poured and a roof up to begin meeting in. God willing we should be able to do that by January or soon after. As we meet in that hall we’ll move begin the main sanctuary.

Shalom!

Calvary International Fellowship: Prayer Update

Compean Missionary Page

Aquarium Drunkard: MP3 Blog, Music Blog » Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash :: 1969 Sessions

 

For a free MP3 download of the Cash/Dylan rendition of Just A Closer Walk With Thee, click on over to Aquarium Drunkard. The rest of the collection produced in the Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash 1968 sessions is also available for you fans of gravely voiced crooners.

Aquarium Drunkard: MP3 Blog, Music Blog » Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash :: 1969 Sessions

via: boingboing

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Thankful for: Charity

My daughter has been staying with us for the past few weeks. While I've been out of town, she's been a huge help to my wife. Allie loves spending time with Charity. Allie's so content to be held by and play with her.

Charity has gone through things in just a couple of years that nobody her age should. I'm proud of her for the way she's handled so much of the adversity she's experienced.

Growing up ain't easy.

Columbus Rap

This is totally worth watching. My kid is finally getting a clue about history.

I said, "No, Aaron, Christopher Columbus did not come over on the Mayflower. Columbus's boat was booked for India, and he got lost, but didn't want to ask for directions."

Thankful for: Aaron

I picked up Aaron at the airport today. I can't stand the idea of him living on the other side of the continent. That's why we brought him out to help us move back to Florida.

He's doing amazing stuff with Urban Youth Impact. He mentors inner-city kids. He makes videos for the ministry. He's passionate about helping make things right in the life of others.

Not only is he actively employed with a faith-based organization, but he serves at his church in many ways.

I want to be my son when I grow up.

Court Trip

I’m sitting in the victim-witness waiting room waiting for the assistant district attorney trying Paul’s case. Two girls are transfixed on a computer screen watching videos on the Internet. I’m amazed at how much and how quickly a mouse can be clicked. Anything else manufactured by man with such low-cost materials could never take such usage.

Nothing holds the girls attention for more than a few seconds. It’s hard to find anything to adequately distract the mind from where you are waiting; the victim-witness waiting room. There’s too much gravity in this space. Reality weighs a ton here in the victim-witness waiting room.

I enlisted a few people to pray for me today; I thought I’d need it. I prayed for myself today, and I prayed for Paul:

Lord, I pray for Paul. Protect him and hold him in Your hand. As he walks through the consequences of past events, please walk with him. Lord, make him aware of Your Presence. May he learn and know that You are a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Thankful for: The End of a Great Day

 

Today was a great day of brainstorming and vision casting. I'm thankful for the guys I work with and the board at Shepherds Staff Missions Facilitators.

You know that feeling you get when a good movie comes to a great end. That's what I'm experiencing now.

The End - a set on Flickr

Re:Lit | Porn Again Christian | by Mark Driscoll | Chapter 4 - A Practical Theology of Pornographic Lust

I've gone a little while without reading and posting some points to discuss from Mark Driscoll's e-book on porn.

This chapter is a heavy one opening up with a look at Adam and Eve, making a few stops in Proverbs, visiting the New Testament, and ending with a story about a young lady that experienced the cleansing, healing blood of Jesus after being used and brutalized by dirty old men.

I love Proverbs. The wisdom found there is not just about sin management, it's about the difference between wise behavior and folly. Folly or foolishness leads to sin and bondage and addiction and, finally, death. But wisdom also calls out to us; pursues us. We need to let wisdom catch us and then put wisdom into regular practice. We need to develop an appetite for wisdom rather than an appetite for lust.

I've heard Driscoll teach about Adam and Eve before. Driscoll says that God did not give Adam a standard of beauty, he gave Adam a wife. The wife God gives you IS your standard of beauty. That is why God says don't covet your neighbor's wife (or any of his other stuff). God gives us what we need and if we think we need something that He gave someone else, well then, we think we're smarter than God. That's folly; the kind of foolishness where we tell ourselves we can't learn anything from God.

Driscoll goes on to give extreme examples of where that folly can lead and the people that can be hurt.

Sex is not a toy. When sex is treated as anything other than sacred, death is the result. Whether it's abortion or abuse or a cavalier attitude that is caught by the kids God loaned to you to train, injury and death are the result.

Think it through.

Re:Lit | Porn Again Christian | by Mark Driscoll | Chapter 4 - A Practical Theology of Pornographic Lust

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The TSA Does Not Like Your Luggage - Boing Boing

I'm sitting in the Oakland airport enjoying free wi-fi. I made it through security with no major frustrations which is not always the case. I came across this post and thought how much fun it would be to have luggage that looks like this:

A set of carrying cases molded with a gun, an axe, or a knife, designed by PinkWolf, and I can't read French well enough to figure out anything else about these slick, screw-you-TSA suitcases. (Via NOTCOUTURE.)

The TSA Does Not Like Your Luggage - Boing Boing

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Book Review: Billy

Book title: Billy
Authors: William Paul McKay & Ken Abraham
Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2008
264 pages

Billy is the life story of Billy Graham as told to a reporter by outspoken atheist, Charles Templeton. A has-been reporter, Deborah Matthews, is sent to Templeton on his death bed with one assignment: get dirt on Graham. Matthews is pressured and threatened by her editor with an ultimatum: deliver scandal or hit the bricks.

The story is told from Templeton’s point of view. Charles Templeton and Billy Graham were close associates in the early years of Graham’s ministry. Charismatic evangelists, both, were filling venues with folks hungry for the gospel of Jesus. Despite success and an incredible ability to influence people, Templeton grows skeptical and finds himself at a crossroads; a crisis of faith. He is plagued with doubts and questions. If God exists, how could he allow the evil of Auschwitz and Nagasaki? Can modern science and the Bible exist in harmony? Is Jesus of Nazareth really the Son of God? These unanswered questions left a vacuum of doubt in Templeton so great that he would no longer preach a Bible he couldn’t believe.

Templeton’s departure from ministry and the faith shakes Billy to the core. Graham, himself, is at a crossroads. Can he preach if he can’t provide answers to Templeton’s challenges?

Few in American culture are ignorant of Billy Graham and his success. McKay and Abraham weave the story of Graham’s journey masterfully. They develop their characters endearingly – Billy, Ruth Bell, Templeton, and Matthews – in a way that readers grow affectionate toward each one.

Billy is one of the best biographies I’ve read in a long time. I’m looking forward to being disappointed by the movie because the book is always better.

Technorati Tags: Billy,Graham,Thomas Nelson Publishers

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On Earth as it is in Heaven » Blog Archive » The Unfashionable Quiz

Tullian posted this list from his book over on his blog today:

YOU MAY BE TOO FASHIONABLE IF . . .

1. You can look around at church and notice that everybody is basically the same age and they look and dress pretty much like you do.
2. You can’t stand singing a worship song that was “in” five years ago—much less singing a hymn from another century.
3. You’ve attended a conference because it promised to teach you the next big thing for how to grow your church.
4. You’re goal in spending time with non-Christians is to demonstrate that you’re really no different than they are and to prove this you curse like a sailor, drink like a fish, and smoke like a chimney.
5. You’ve concluded that everything new is better than anything old OR that everything old is better than anything new.
6. You’ve concluded that the way Jesus lived is more important than what Jesus said OR that that the things Jesus said were more important than the way Jesus lived. 
7. Your only idea for changing our culture is to elect a certain kind of politician.
8. The last time you got a raise, you immediately started planning how you were going to spend the money on yourself.
9. You’ve concluded that everything done by the church you grew up in was way wrong and you’re now, thankfully, part of a hip “community” that does everything right.
10. The one verse you wish wasn’t in the Bible is John 14:6 where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me.” That’s way too exclusive!

On Earth as it is in Heaven » Blog Archive » The Unfashionable Quiz

what the...?

what is this sign bush and crew is flashing?

The Seven Births

I'm taking a free online course in biblical theology. The instructor, Dr. Gerard van Groningen, tells a story about a young woman being introduced to the Bible for the first time after coming to faith in Christ. Dr. van Groningen, not wanting to start her off in the "deep end" set up a reading schedule through what he refers to as the seven births.

1. the birth of the universe (Genesis 1)
2. its rebirth with Noah (Genesis 6:1 - 11:32)
3. the birth of God’s people with Abraham (Genesis 12:1 - 25:18)
4. the birth of the people of Israel in Exodus (Exodus 1:1 - 12:30)
5. the birth of Christ (Luke 1:1 - 4:13)
6. the birth of the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:1 - 29)
7. the birth of the church (Acts 1:1 - 2:47)

This method focuses on the organic nature of God’s revelation.

Susan's Journey

Here's a recent post from the charming and beautiful Susan's blog:

What are we really, really thankful for? Family? Yes, that's one thing. I think we need to be thankful for our parents, brothers or sisters, and grandparents. We need to be thankful for where God has placed us regardless of if we had a happy or sad childhood. I am so thankful for my mom and my dad. I'm thankful for my husband and my kids. I'm learning to be thankful for the past and the very life He has given me here and now.

What about our bodies? Well, that's a different story isn't it? We all have a complaint about how we look, about our weight, or about our hair. What if we decided to give thanks to the Lord for our bodies?  Psalms 139 says, I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Everyday I challenge you to give thanks for who God has created you to be and the body he has given you to take care of.

Give Him thanks for the life He has given you with your family. Be thankful and not live in the what if's. You will gain a new perspective of your life and who the person you are now and who God wants you to become.

Susan's Journey

Say it ain't so

HT: Between Two Worlds

Thankful for: Veterans

I can kill two birds with one stone here. I'm thankful for both veterans and my father's selfless example of service to this country. Walter Richard Mondok served twenty years in the U.S. Marines. His duties took him from Morocco, where he worked at the U.S. Embassy, to Saudi Arabia, to Viet Nam where he ran patrols and saw friends die. He returned home to a country that reviled him and spit on him.

He served in Japan and at the Marine Recruit Training Depot in San Diego, California. He served his last tour of duty here in Eureka, CA, where he opened up a local recruiter's station.

I'm proud of our veterans and owe them a debt of gratitude. But my father's service fills me with a sense of honor I can't adequately put into words. His family immigrated here from Czechoslovakia before Hitler's invasion of that country. He is the first generation of Mondoks born in this country, first in his family to complete high school, and first to join the U.S. Military. Two of his nephews and two of his children followed his example and joined the Marines right out of high school.

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