Misc and Meals from the Heartland

The toilet seat in the bathroom at work is broken. I don't mean that you can't put it up or down, but that it is snapped in half on one side. Now, if you need to sit down (sorry for the too much information part of this), you have to make an ass pillow out of toilet paper so the two sides don't decide to come together while you are seated and rip a gash in your ass that will be hard to heal and hard to sit down with. What are people doing in there that they snap a toilet seat in half? Perhaps it's better to not know.

School. OK, I hated school when I had to go, but I may hate it more now than I ever did. The boys come home with more homework than I ever remember doing when I was a kid. They both have spelling words that we have to study every night, plus they both have to read 20 minutes a night. We have to be there making sure they read and Makiah has to read to us, otherwise he will just say he did it, wonder where he got that trait from? Mason will read if you tell him to, so at least we don't have to police him. Mason also has 10 minutes of "Positive math," whatever the hell that is. I'm guessing dad's red face and constant whimpering does not fit into the Happy math, or whatever it is. Sounds like the stuff you always hear comedians talk about, how we just try to make everything so happy and easy for the kids, well that ain't the real world, so do your negative math. I know math sucks, that is why God invented calculators, buy a good one and never have to do it again. I hope we can get into a better rhythm because after a busy day at work, the last thing I want to do is 4 hours of homework. They can't do all of it on their own, how do you tell yourself to spell a word without looking at it to know what it is. Well now you just saw how to spell it, hardly a challenge.

I saw something today that will NEVER happen to me. I saw a guy with stuffed animals in the back window of his car. Not one or two, but the whole back window was full of them. It could have been his wife's car, but I'm not driving the car if you are going to do that. You might as will pull over and let the ass kicking begin, cause that is reason enough to have it kicked.

We went to Makiah's first soccer game yesterday and it's good to see that our team will be the one getting the snot knocked out of it for another season. My mom use to say "get the snot knocked out of them" instead of getting the shit kicked out them, so I wanted to use it there. Obviously, the language is a bit nicer and I think she might have been trying to take the sting of getting beaten so badly. In this case, shit is actually the proper term. I don't keep score, but my guess would be 32 to 2, and I'm only slightly exaggerating.

I went to church Saturday night and our minister was talking about the Meals from the Heartland food packaging that is happening this weekend. I know I've talked about it before, but if you are new to my blog, you might not have heard about it. Meals from the Heartland teams up with Kids Against Hunger to assemble food packets for hungry people all over the world. I was fortunate enough to participate in building the meals with my church a few years back and it was not only easy, but a lot of fun. MFTH has taken it too an all new level. Last year, they asked central Iowa to step up and build these packets, and they did to the tune of 4 million meals. Think about the number of people fed do to the efforts of Iowans who care. This year, I don't know what their gaol is, but lets hope we surpass that. I'm heading down Sunday night with my Juarez mission group. Not only will I have a great time hanging with my friends, but we get to do something for people we will never meet, but who we love and want to help. I've mentioned it before, but my minister hit on it this weekend when he answered the question, "Why help people so far away, when there are so many here that need help?" God doesn't tell us to serve our geographical neighbors, he says to serve His children. It doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that Americans are God's children and the rest are on their own, although we as Americans act that way alot. No, he says in Matthew 25:40, "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." I bring this up because as I sat there, watching the same video I saw last year, I just about had the most severe allergy attack I've had in awhile. The video was shot last year when they took some of the meals down to Haiti, the only 4th world country in the western hemisphere. The meals were in the back of a truck and the people were lining up to receive their meager allotment of the packets. As the line grew, people at the back of the line were getting worried that they weren't going to receive anything, so the pushing began. Now remember, this isn't the day after Thanksgiving at a suburban mall in the US where people are trampling each other to get the toy of the day. No these are people trying to get food, something that they have nothing of and tomorrow, when this truck is gone, they still won't have. The crowd got so crazy that they actually shut the doors of the truck until it calmed down. I have seen this video before, but I think I watched it without LOOKING at it. Saturday, I looked into the eyes of the people on the screen and man it hit me hard. My fat ass can't make it from breakfast until lunch without complaining how hungry I am, and these people haven't eaten in days, maybe longer. To watch the mothers reaching their hands out to try and get a packet, which they probably won't eat but give to their kids instead, was heart breaking. I can't get the images out of my head. I will spend Sunday night doing what I love to do, hang with my friends and serve a God who has guided me on this path. That service, along with the thousands of other people packed into the convention hall in downtown Des Moines, will send hope and love to Haiti, along with some much needed food. I defy anyone who asks me, "why there and not here?" to watch that video, look into those eyes, and ask me that question again.