Please Pray for Our Soldiers
I know many of you already include the brave men and women of our military in your prayers (as I do), but this week has been really tough on us and our friends here. This week 7 soldiers (and good friends) from our church deployed to Iraq for at least a year. Five of them have babies less than a year old. I'm sure if you read the papers or listen to the news, you know that the violence is escalating there.
I am just asking that you keep our church in your prayers, including asking God to help us make sure that we can meet all the needs of the families of these men. Although our church is small, we have great people with good intentions and we have plans in place to "take care of" these families. My main concern is not for the short term, but pray that in 6 months, 12 months, or more that we are still "here" for them. I speak from personal experience. Even in situations where I have the best of intentions, as time wears on, other "things" begin to take priority. I just pray that that doesn't happen.
FSU West - Part II
We still miss Tallahassee (and our Seminoles a lot), but we now have 2 ex-Seminoles here at UTEP (University of Texas El Paso). This week, when classes started Fred Rouse was enrolled and in attendance. Although he will have to sit out this year, he'll still have 2 years of eligibility remaining. If he can stay out of trouble, he should really add some excitement to the team.
The other ex-Nole is Lorne Sam. He sat out last year and is ready to play this year. Although he'll be used mainly as a receiver and returner this year, his goal is to win the starting QB job. Because of his versatility, he will see some (very) limited action this year in that position, but Jordan Palmer (Carson Palmer's brother) is a senior and the starter. Next year Lorne Sam might have a shot though.
All I can say is that we'll take any other ex-Noles.
Floods in the Desert
As many of you know, Lucy and I moved from Tallahassee to the desert because of Lucy's allergies and especially how bad they would get whenever it rained (which happened quite often in Tally). So, we moved to El Paso with an average ANNUAL rainfall of 8-9 inches. Well, about 2 weeks ago when most of the nation was suffering through a drought, the rains came to El Paso. Some areas of the city got more than 15 inches in a couple of days. Yes, that's double the annual average in 2 days. Needless to say, El Paso's drainage system wasn't equipped for that, the ground was rock hard and the damns and levies overflowed. The result was the worst flooding in 100 or 500 years (depending on which report you read) in this area. Thousands have been flooded out of their homes.
After about a week of rain, we did get a week to help dry the city out. But, it started again yesterday, with about 1.5 inches in some parts of the city which was enough to cause some more flooding (in some of the same neighborhoods that were hit the worst a couple of weeks ago). And, now it is coming down very hard again as I'm typing this.
I had been involved in a couple of large projects and just hadn't had the time to keep up blogging (plus when you live a boring life, there isn't much to write about), but hopefully I'll be able to post a little more regularly.
Windows Live Writer
Microsoft has been releasing a number of "Windows Live" applications (mostly still in beta) and some are very useful. On August 14th, they released the beta version of Windows Live Writer which I am using to compose this blog. The program is used to compose blogs and then publish them to whatever blogging server you use (it can even publish to multiple services if you use more than one). There are several features I like about this program. First, there is a built in spell checker (Calyn will appreciate that). There is also a Flickr plugin so that you can insert Flickr images into your blog.
There are some other options that are great, but don't seem to work with Blogger yet (remember, this is the first beta release). For example, it has the capability to insert pictures directly from your computer and also custom Windows Live Local maps (similar to Google or Yahoo maps) directly. The problem is that blogger will not accept the included pictures at this time (except the "Insert Flickr Image" ones).
OK, if the Insert Flickr Image worked, where am I in the below picture? (I know there will be some correct guesses.)
Hello From Guatemala
Hi everyone. I'm sitting in the Guatemala airport waiting for my flight home to El Paso. It's been a busy, but enjoyable (for the most part) week. Although this is my fourth trip to Guatemala, I did and saw things I had never done or seen before.
The main purpose for my trip this year was to produce a "promotional" video for Nancy, the missionary, to use to help her attract some corporate support for her ministry.
The most interesting was spending a day AND night with a family in one of the mountain villages. Having seen how they live on previous trips I thought I had a fairly good idea of it, but until you do it (even for a day) you get a real appreciation for the poverty and hardship (although they never seem to complain). The family (9 of them) and me, Cindy and Jeanne all slept in the same 1-room mud house. Of course, like many of the mountain villages, there was no running water and no electricity. Maybe after I get home, I will post some pictures of this experience.
Another first was visiting the country of Honduras. The main reason for that trip was to see and film an agricultural training center and the work they are doing to help the people of Honduras and Guatemala. While there, I met Mary, a missionary with the IMB, who works with the project.
Two other areas that I needed to film were water projects and reforestation. For this, I had to take two different motorcycle trips (as a passenger) way up in the mountains to see the work and progress in these areas. That was another unique experience. For those of you who have been on one of trips to Guatemala and have taken a pickup truck up to one of the villages, you know how rough the roads are. If you think it is rough in the back of the truck, try the back of a motorcycle.
The weather this time of year in Guatemala was something else different. Teams usually go to support Nancy during the dry season so that they do not lose valuable time due to the weather. But, it is now the rainy season and I did see quite a bit of rain.
The only bad part of the trip is that I finally got one of those dreaded stomach viruses and was terribly sick for a day. At least it was a day when I had no travel away from the ministry center planned. It was Embrace day, so all my filming was of the Embrace program and a little at the medical clinic at the center.
Well, I need to get ready to board the plane. As much as I enjoyed this trip, as always, it will be great to get home and sleep in my own bed.
Two More Days
Only 2 days until I leave for Guatemala (that's exciting)! Cindy and Jeanne (Nancy's sister) fly there tomorrow and will pick me up at the airport on Thursday. I will get to do a couple of things this trip that I haven't had the opportunity to do before. On Sunday, after church, we (Cindy, Jeanne and I) are going back to one of the mountain villages with Jeanne's Embrace family and we are actually going to spend the night at their "house" in the mountains. Then, Monday we are going to the Mayan ruins in Honduras (a country I've never visited before). They actually have tours in English conducted by SBC missionaries.
The last couple of weeks have been rough, but things are almost back to normal. Lucy has been really sick and then I ended up in bed for several days. Then, on Saturday I was out walking and got "attacked" by a dog and bit. It wasn't bad, but enough to draw blood.
I'll write again once I get back.
New Website
I know, it's been forever since I've posted. But I have been keeping fairly busy. I have just started a new personal website and you are invited to check it out at
www.lucyandjim.com. Much of it is still under construction, but make sure you visit the page for Stanle,one of our cats (from the "cats" page, click on Stanley's picture). I've been playing with some new software that animates still pictures to make people, objects, pictures, etc appear to talk. It really is pretty amazing. So, listen to what Stanley has to say.
So, what else has been going on? On April 1st, Lucy and I went with a group from our church on a 1-day mission trip to Provenir, Mexico to paint and do repairs for a new children's home that will be opening. We had a great time and expect to continue working with that facility. I also did pick up the Student Sunday School class and am truly blessed to be able to work with youth again. In addition, I'm leading a men's Bible study at our monthly men's breakfast. The summer promises to keep me busy with VBS and then youth camp. But before that, I still have my trip to Guatemala coming up in just over 2 weeks. I'm really excited about that and being able to see Nancy (the missionary) again and also Cindy Ham who will be arriving the day before me and meeting me at the airport.
Golf update: Lucy is still progressing on learning golf and we've even gotten on the golf course (as opposed to the driving/practice range) and played 9 holes 3 times. She's been sick the past 2 weeks and we haven't been able to play/practice so I hope we won't have to start over from scratch. I think the Lord knows that patience is not my strong point and He is surely testing me. All kidding aside, we are having a great time.
I will ask for you all to pray for my safe travel/trip to Guatemala between May 18-26. God Bless You all.
