Why is there no post from Friday? Because I got home from the office at 6:45pm, decided to nap, and slept from 7pm to 7am.

Why is there no post from Saturday? Because I decided to add WEP encryption to our access point and ended up locking myself out. I just reset the access point stuff today and attempted (unsuccessfully) to upgrade my firmware. AHHH! I think I should have not been allowed to graduate. I don't know enough to be a computer major.

I had nothing scheduled this evening, so worked on paying bills and then picked up my sister Susan for a quick outing--her first EVER trip to Starbucks. We had chai and hot cocoa and general sister discussion. Very enjoyable!

I'm looking for some good material on IIS server stuff. I need to start with the basics. If you know of any good sites or books, let me know!

Todays' quote, credited to C.S. Lewis: "There are two kinds of people: those who say to God 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, 'All right then, have it your way.'"

What Auntie Gisela shared:
1 Corinthians 3:11-13 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.

Often I read this verse and think of my own life. What I am building my foundation with? But another perspective is how this verse applies to my interaction with others! What we do builds into others' lives. Each time I meet someone, I deposit something onto their foundation. What am I laying down there? Is it straw or hay? Or is gold and costly stones? I need to be careful of what I lay on other people's foundations. At the same time, I also need to care enough about my brother or sister to confront them about the hay and straw that is endangering their foundation.

I can't seem to put it into strong enough / clear enough words here. I'll meditate on it some more and maybe God will give me better words.

Praise: My newsletter is close to completion! Want to get a copy? Leave a comment with your email address OR (probably more secure) email me with your snail or email address!

Okay, so this is not what Auntie Gisela shared about yesterday, but I'm really excited. My pastor from Frisco actually made it to visit the office today! It was so strange to see him at my office instead of seeing him at church, but it was such a blessing to have him visit. Pray that God will speak to him and that he'll know what God wants him to do with what he learned today.

I love mornings. That is, I love mornings when I can get myself out of bed. It usually takes some convincing to tell my body that I love mornings, but if I can get myself going, it's good. It's misting heavily outside...enough to be beautiful, but not near enough to soak you. I went for a jog and then sat on a (wet) bench and talked to God. There were birds singing and rabbits hopping around. One only needed to add a few stars and the morning would have been perfect.

I'm in a really pensive mood this evening--having heard much and shared much at a birthday supper this evening. I continue to think about the fact that even though you cannot scientifically explain why prayer works--it works. It makes a difference. Today is an example. I have been so factual. So full of head knowledge. Today I took time to seek God before I started my day. And each part of my day has had some piece of interaction with God.

Tomorrow I'll share with you what Auntie Gisela shared this morning about wood, hay, and stubble and community.

Praise & Prayer: Pastor John is coming to visit the GFA office tomorrow morning. Pray that he will be blessed and challenged.

Okay. I think I've figured out my entire audience. My parents read my blog via email. K. reads it at the office. Jen reads it. Rach reads it. I think Essa reads it sometimes. I think that is my total audience. I'm working on this delinquent newsletter, so hopefully that will get awareness up. If you're reading this blog and you're not on the list of subscribers, maybe you ought to post a comment so I know you're here!

This week: Pray for strength from God and discipline for me to get up and have my time with God and RUN in the mornings. Also pray for two schedule/activity plans I need to have done tomorrow for my coordinator.

Whee! We did it! We successfully pulled off a suprise party for K.! A big thanks goes to Karen and The Perfect Touch in Anthony, Kansas. Without her help and patience, this would not have been as wonderful. The cake turned out well. It wasn't purple ribbon quality by any means, but was a fair job for the first cake decoring job in 8 years for this blogger. The party members enjoyed a great game of Balderdash and are looking forward to when we can finish up the first round of the game.

J. and I gave Susan her bumper sticker today. We first mounted it on magnetic sheeting (to make it removable) and then gifted her. The sign on the trunk of her car now reads: I'm not in Kansas ANYMORE! Thanks to the Hoovers of the Hoover Sign Company in Harper, Kansas!

George Verwer visited the GFA office today and spoke to the staff, encouraging us.

An exerpt from a brochure he wrote on prayer: "Samuel Chadwick, one of God's great men of past years, taught that Satan's greatest aim is to destroy our prayer lives. Satan is not afraid of prayerless study, prayerless work, or prayerless religion--but he will tremble when we pray."

I know I don't do enough of that. What about you?

Phillipians 4:5-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

We heard a tape this morning of Bro. KP talking to the students at our seminary in Southern India. He was telling them, "God said not to worry, but to pray in all things. So go. Get a notebook. Write down what you're worrying about and start praying for it. If you don't have a notebook, we will give you one."

So... got a notebook?

The ways God works...
Today was a full day. I started off testing some procedure in the Missions department, but just as we were starting that, the receptionist paged me over the intercom. They were having phone problems and had just gotten disconnected from the GFA Sri Lanka leader for the second time in two days. Meanwhile, the air circulating unit for the office was still not working... so the IT office was 87 degrees this afternoon.

This evening, three staff members were baptized by Bro. KP. After that, I ran a few errands, picked up the mail, and found a package from a college friend! The friend (who I'll call "Me") mailed me a pair of Rocky Mountain jeans that her mother had found in a thrift shop in Marienthal, Kansas. I tried them on and found them to be a nearly perfect fit!!! A huge Praise the Lord as my current jeans were wearing out and I didn't have a nice pair that fit. I was dreading shucking out $50 for another pair of jeans that fit and God provided! Also tucked in the box with the jeans were modeling clay, Ramen noodles, green tea bags, and black streamers! Oh the joy!

Pray that God would provide me with a nice pair of khaki dress slacks that fit!

Do you ever have those days when things are going okay and you have a plan for what is going to happen next and everything is going right until suddenly, you find yourself wanting to do something that YOU want to do. You try to convince yourself not to do it because you know that you'll get sucked into spending more time than you want and that something is not at all on your plan list, but you end up doing it anyway.

And 45 minutes later, you find that you were right. The activity wasn't that great anyway. You used up a whole bunch of time that was allotted for something else and now you feel kind of rotten. Well, that's how I feel anyway.

Aren't you glad that God gives grace? We just have to humble ourselves and come before Him for he opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Continuation of the mountain...

So here I am...walking along in my Christian life... and oh- wait- wow... uh... there's a mountain there in front of me. Um, God? I don't think you meant me to come this way, did you? I mean, see the mountain? You've promised to prosper me and give me a plan for good and blessing. Mountains are hard to climb and they're rocky and painful. So...this mountain can't be your will, right? God?

Often I see the mountain. The big problem. This pile of rock and dirt that stretches higher than I can see. I see the mountain as a problem. But Jesus saw the mountain as a place to spend time with God. And that's what I should see. Each mountain is not a problem, but a tool to draw me closer to God and more like Christ.

How does Ezra put it? "When I face a mountain, I know what I'll do. I will not quit. I will try to climb over it. Or maybe find a way around. Or perhaps tunnel underneath. Or just stay where I am. Or turn it into a gold mine with God's helping hand."

Here's a question for you. How did Jesus know what to do in John chapter 6 when he was faced with 5,000+ people to feed? Think beyond the pat answer of "He was God." Even Jesus (who was fully human) spent time alone with the Father. If Jesus (who was fully God) spent that time alone with the Father, how much more must we (who are fully human) spend time with the Father? Read John chapter 6.

I need to learn to walk away and be alone with God. Especially when God has asked me to do something and I have done it and others seek to give me glory. Jesus, seeing that they were about to make him king (give him the glory), left. He got away. He returned to the mountain. How much more so I. Atleast Jesus deserved the glory.

Guest blogger tonight: Stephen G.
uh..... Hi
Tonight .......... For the last several nights I have been traveling a lot.
Tuesday we drove up to Topeka KS a three hour drive from where we live.
Wensday I paged for the House of Representatives and traversed over 800 stairs.
That night we drove another 3 hours home.
Woke up in the morning and drove another 6 hours to my sister's Dorinda house and plan for a busy week. Tomorrows Blogger will be uhhhhh.... Somebody from somewhere. Blogging on somthing.

I have two network logins for my computer. One for myself and one for helpdesk. Helpdesk has full permissions to Dorinda's Outlook and Exchange account.

However, today I was playing with how permissions would work between a department coordinator and his administrative assistant. So I pretended that Dorinda was the coordinator and Helpdesk was the administrative assistant. I was conversing with my sister via IM at the time...

[dorinda] It's almost as bad as having dual personalities.
[Librarian] I hope that isn't the standard practice! There's got to be better things for you to do with your day than log in and out of accounts.
[dorinda] that's not standard, but I needed to figure out some delegated permissions stuff for one of our coordinators and his administrative assistant. So... I pretended that helpdesk was the admin assistant and dorindag was the coordinator.
[dorinda] So I was busy assiging things to myself and inviting myself to meetings.
[dorinda] Then I would tentatively suggest new meeting times to myself and decline my meeting invites.
[Librarian] you are working on that dual personality pretty hard!
[dorinda] I even canceled a meeting with myself.
[Librarian] Well, as long as you don't forget to invite yourself to a meeting, maybe you'll be ok.

I took a few moments this evening and added comment capabilities to my blog! Whee! Now, you can click on the comment section at the bottom of each blog and leave me a note with your thoughts, prayers, and ideas! Katie- if you could try it too... I would really like to make sure it works.

Pray for my sister Susan as she prepares to move to this area on Thursday. She's got a lot of work to do before she comes. Pray for my Mom...her daughter is moving a long ways away from her. At least she's not going to India!

My thoughts tonight: it's late...I'm going to bed!

Also...yesterday was my half-birthday and I escaped unscathed!

From this morning's Bible reading: "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Galatians 5:13

Random question overheard this afternoon in Kroger. Teenage boy asking his father: "Dad, what do they make beans out of?"

Someone definitely needs a trip to...to... that is a good question! Where do they grow the majority of the beans? They definately don't feed the world off of our 3 bu/acre soybean crop.

Today was a typical day. Got to work. Prayed with fellow staff members for needs on the field and at the office. Helped Pat do five minute staff training for the staff. Headed up to my desk. Read two emails. Got one phone call. Picked up a two-way radio and headed out to help C. with a printing problem. Worked on and off with C. for about three hours. Worked on another printing problem. Tried to figure out how to assign permissions for a specific Outlook subfolder. Sat back down at my desk. Directed a couple helpdesk tickets. Then I... um... I need to keep track of my days better. Somehow, between lunch and the oral surgeon checkup and lots of other stuff, my day was full!

I bought Fig Newtons last night. I was wanting a cookies I could smoosh with my tongue. They work really well! They're just the right size to fit in my not-opening-very-wide-mouth. Mmm...mmm.

Well, it's Wednesday night and I'm sitting at my cousin's new computer. Very speedy--at least compared to my machine at home which is a P1 with 40MB of RAM. We've just finished back massages and cleaning out the lint from the dryer and folding clothes. We tried to watch _Children of Heaven_, but the DVD from Blockbuster was damaged. Do I get a free rental for that?

Now Sam is going to do exactly what his mother tells him to do--without any hesitation or excuses. Way to Go, Sam!

Mouthy update: Tomato Soup for supper tonight. Still can't get more than one finger in my mouth. Oral Surgeon tomorrow. But I can almost sound normal. But my smiles aren't normal. But I CAN smile.

I went to work today-arriving just after prayer meeting and heading straight for my office. I worked catching up until 11:30 when I started feeling nauseous. I stopped for lunch and nap...eating for about half an hour (it takes a while to eat macaroni two noodles at a time) and then napping for four hours. I returned to work for about two hours and am now ready for bed again. Praise God for grace...and sleep.

Tomorrow morning is a special time of staff prayer. The office will be closed from 8:30 to noon and we'll be spending time praying for each other and focusing on God. Pray that my heart will my right and my energy focused.

Okay. When is this swelling going to go away? Please pray that I can be in the office tomorrow. Well, now that the annoying MTV half-time show is over, I guess I'll return to my comfy couch. I'm watching the Super Bowl on my little 13" TV with rabbit ears. Most of the time, I have to listen to the commentators to find out who has the football. Snacks? I keep forcing my lips far enough apart to spoon in lukewarm soup or peppermint ice cream (Thanks, John). I keep imagining those people who are watching this game on their huge screens with lots of chips and pop and people.

But more than that, I'm imagining the people who are worshipping together right now for evening church. Isn't it great to be a part of a community that has FOR REAL what no others can ever effectively create? The Church -- the body of Christ -- is what everyone is really wanting. They just don't know it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLESSA!