Meet Lionel

Isn't he a beauty? A few months ago, Hubby's last grandmother passed away. Last month we received $1000 as an inheritance from her estate. Despite the natural desire to pay bills, we thought we should do something to honor Oma's memory. The idea to create a family tree wall was born...as well as the idea of a tent trailer to make our own family memories. Hubby grew up 'going to the cottage'. I vaguely remember going camping once as a child. Suffice it to say, the only times we've gone camping as a couple/family have been my staff retreat with uber campers....in other words, people who knew how to cook and set up camp. We don't have money for cottaging or inclination to camp, so a tent trailer seemed like the perfect compromise. Thanks to the wonders of Craigslist and the desperation of a man getting divorced, we got this dirt cheap. 'Lionel' is one year younger than Hubby and I. He favors the orange and brown look and smells like an old canvas tent...all musky and such. (Not moldy however!) He is spontaneous and ready to travel when we are. And for us, the blessing of getting 'Lionel' is being able to be open-handed with him. We wouldn't have spent the money if not for Oma and it is not like 'Lionel' is so new that we'd worry about others using him. So, anyone want to go tent trailering with us?

And now a word from our sponsors...Pookie & Bear

My last post was a bit 'angsty'. So here are cute pictures of the girls to make up for it!

Dressed in our Indonesian finest!


Riding the roller coaster at our local May Days Fair


Water Park fun with buddy Mikah!


Pookie with a baby chick


Bear's last day of preschool


Ahhhh...don't we all feel better now?

***SIGH***

Be ye so warned, this post is a rant and will probably be the longest post that I have or will ever write.

Last night the church I attend decided to vote down the idea of women deacons. WOMEN DEACONS! Not an issue about gay people or women pastors, or any other relevant issue... DEACONS. The vote was 33% against, 66% for, but the board had required a 75% for. So, here are my thoughts, and I speak only for myself.

Thought #1

This was obviously a highly charged, emotional issue for this church. It seemed to me that the people against it were folks who a) are not in leadership, b) have been hurt when not affirmed into leadership and c) may have some overcompensating scale of balance within their own relationships. Never mind the fact that I think they lack vision.

Thought #2

The argument for against was based on two positions:
~The bible says men
~Having women deacons is a slippery slope to gay marriage and parades

The logic for this is completely beyond me. Context people! It irritates me to no end when people pluck verses out of the bible and use them out of context. Yes, I agree that Paul said that women should not speak etc...but that is like someone hearing me say to Hubby, "You are disgusting! Get that "appendage" out of here!" You might think, "Uh oh, little bedroom trouble?" But if you had seen/heard the whole context you would have understood that Hubby had stuck his foot on me with his torn off toenail that was oozing pus. (true story). Context is everything. Secondly, women deacons = gay marriage? That is such a far leap that it makes me laugh and then want to hit someone. Two separate issues folks!

Thought #3

The church is a congregationally led church, which means that ultimately decisions are made/voted on by the members of the church...which includes women! So apparently women have enough spiritual discernment to vote in a church meeting, but Heaven forbid she has enough spiritual discernment to sit on a deacons board. And secondly, if we are saying that the Deacons Board, who are men of God whom we voted in, come forward with a motion to include women on the board, a decision that took 5 YEARS and you vote it down...what are you saying about the men on the board?!?!?! Accordingly to the NO team, this makes total sense. Perhaps I'm a bit slow...

Thought #4

What does that mean for me as a woman who has been and still is in leadership and is raising two daughters?

Thought #5

Right after the NO vote, the church introduced a new committee: a Social Justice committee. Does anyone else see the irony in that? I was going to suggest that the first issue we address is women in leadership, but with my keen sense of discernment, I thought it wasn't really the time.

So where to go from here? The image that kept coming to my mind was water flowing. If you see a stream of water flowing, you assume that it gives life to everything it touches/passes. But if a rock gets put in the way of the water flow, the water has to adjust. A boulder was just dropped in the living water of this church. So, the way I see it, there are 3 options:

1. We hope a big ole hand(enter God) swoops in and picks up the boulder and tosses onto the riverbank...so it can watch the water flow on by.
2. The water gets stopped by the boulder and everything on the other side of the boulder dries up and dies for lack of water
3. The water flows around the boulder and joins again and rushes with more force. Eventually the current of the water will become so great that not only does everything get the water it needs, but either the boulder gets moved and/or it gets eroded down to a grain of sand.

I will admit that my first reaction was to disengage with the church. But all day this image of the rushing water (option #3) has been forming in my mind and heart. So we will see. But I really hope that none of the NO faction get in my way for a while...for their own good.

A difficult decision.

Hubby and I grew up very differently. He grew up in a Christian family with a stay-at-home mom and went to Christian school. I grew up in a Non-Christian family with parents who did shift work and went to public school. Both sets of parents loved us, supported us and gave us what we needed(not always what we wanted).


When we married, we vowed to raise our kids with one of us always around and send them to public school. It is part of our philosophy as Christians to actively engage our community and live out our faith in the midst of that. Plus, we knew that we couldn't afford Christian school and refused to put that kind of strain on our family finances.


Now Pookie is in kindergarten and everything we believe in is being severely challenged. To cloud the issue further was the VERY generous offer by my parents to pay for the girls to go to our local Christian school.


Here's the deal. The school that Pookie currently goes too is big. Her kindergarten teacher shouldn't be teaching kindergarten at all. Pookie's self esteem has taken a nose dive since starting kindergarten due to peer interaction. However, we have made some relationships with other families, one of whom has come to church with us. Now, this could have all happened if she had gone to Christian school for kindergarten. In no way do we think that Christian school is perfect, or issues like bullying and bad teachers couldn't happen. But when a school is focused on building, encouraging and teaching your children to love God and others, it is just a different vibe. And the other thought is that I really couldn't picture Bear functioning at the school Pookie goes too. Bear currently goes to the Christian preschool with 8 other kids. To crossover to a public school into a class of 22...I don't know if she could have done it.


The reality is that we need to decide whether our life philosophy is more important to us than our child's well being. And frankly, even just writing that last sentence makes it abundantly clear what our choice should be.


And as a good friend commented to me today, it is not like we are locked into the Christian school for life. If Pookie or Bear wanted to go back to public school, we would make it happen.


Thoughts? Prayer please!

R.I.P. Goldie

Last night we walked into the girls' room to find our goldfish, Goldie, lying at the bottom of of his tank. Goldie is our goldfish who we've had longer than we have had our daughters. He started out as a tiny little thing in our 20 gallon fish tank with 6 other buddies. He survived 3 moves, outlived more than 15 other fish and snails, made it through the last 2 summers when we lived at camp and only fed him once a week or so and thrived in a tanks so dirty you could barely see him.
To be honest, for the last couple of years we have secretly wanted Goldie to pass on. We wanted new fish, colorful fish to enjoy. Goldie had gotten so big that we couldn't add other fish because he would kill them...and goldfish can only live with other goldfish. So, about a month ago the tank needed some serious cleaning. So we bought a little goldfish tank and put Goldie in there and moved him up to the girls room. Then we bought some neon tetras(the furious five) and some other kind of pink fish, which the girls promptly named pinkish and pinkie. Goldie was not impressed. You could tell. Plus, I think he was lonely way up in the girls room and not in the living room with us anymore.
So last night when I announced the death of Goldie, I was worried about how the girls would react. There was a moment of silence, which I broke by saying that we would flush Goldie down the toilet. The girls excitedly ran downstairs, thanked Goldie for being such a good fish and flushed him to fish heaven. Two minutes later they were talking about a new fish, Hubby suggested a Siamese Fighting Fish. We'll see what happens when I get home from work today....