I thought I would post some trick or treat photos and a recent one of Max, since I haven't in awhile. Here you go:

A friend sent this to me, thought I would share. You may have seen it, but its worth a second read.


The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.Are you laughing?Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it ... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards.Honestly and respectfully,Ben Stein

Update

I haven't written in awhile, just too damn lazy, but I thought I would update on the family a little.

Mason: Doing great in school and actually seems to be branching out a little. Mason is pretty much a keep to himself kind of kid, but I had a conversation with him last night and he seems to be getting bolder and more open. I think his mother sending him to just about every extra class the WDM school system offers, is a big reason why. He loves the classes and is really learning. He had a science class that ended yesterday. I asked him what his favorite part of the class was, he said his favorite part was learning about the next class that starts in Jan. Living in the future. He is also in a sign language class and I'm amazed at how much info he retains from the class. I only know 1 sign language phrase, but I can't show it to him or I'll get yelled at. I was looking through the WDM section of our paper and saw a picture of Mason in his science class. It's always a little surprising when you see someone you know in the paper, but to see your own kid for the third time is really surprising. I'll try to take a picture of the paper and post it, but it might not come out very well.

Makiah: He really loves school and is learning his sight words faster than Mason did. I think it helped to work with the flash cards with Mason in view of Makiah, because he all ready knows some that he hasn't worked on in school. Their minds are so open to learning, I wish mine still was. Makiah has had strep several times this year, so I think the tonsils will be removed if he gets it again. The little guy goes from being the sweetest kid, hugs and I love you galore, to me wanting to smash him into the freezer for rest of the week. I know Mom and Dad are laughing their asses off, but it aint funny.

Max: This is our climbing monkey. He went to school with Marcy last week to have lunch with the boys and fell off his chair and split his lip in 2 places, and got the Shrum bloody nose. (Mason gets bloody noses all of the time) He got caught on the kitchen counter with the candy cabinet open this morning. This last weekend, he was climbing on a storage tub and jumping off. It's only about 18 inches high, but he seems to have no fear of getting hurt. If he does and starts crying, I just ask him if he wants to go to bed, he says no and stops crying. Not sure how much longer that will work, but I'm using it until its dead.

Marcy: Marcy is still working at our church and seems to be enjoying it. The money isn't as good as the good ole days of a full in-home daycare, but she is happier and that is worth a fortune right there. She is on a painting and redecorating kick right now, so the house has a little more color than it did just one week ago.

Me: Same ole shit. I am going to Houston in Nov. to do a physical count of a warehouse we have there, that I'm looking forward to and I'm not. I like to travel, but this warehouse is so messed up that I think I'll be more frustrated while I'm there than I am now. I told my rep I was going to be there and she was fine with it, but her boss is none to happy about my visit. Probably because they don't know where our stuff is and don't want me to see that. Trust me, I all ready know. I bought a new dishwasher and it will be delivered on Friday. Sad state of my life, that is the most exciting news I have, a new freaking dishwasher. Long gone are the days of all night parties, lots of girls and crazy fun. (Wait, I never had any of that) I got my "contribution" report from church the other day and realized I have spent $800 dollars on mission trips so far this year, with a $150 deposit now due on my next one. I never totaled it before, but seeing that, makes me think I need a second job to support my habit:)

Well I need to get back to work. I hope you are all doing well. I've got more rants, so I'll post again soon.

Back home

I wanted to let everyone know, that we made it home and are back to work and settling back into the routine. Friday, Sept. 21st, was our last day to work and I spent the morning at Church Rock working on the roof of the parsonage replacing shingles. Luckily, I spent the morning working with Roland, a Navajo from the area. We had a great talk and he told me how he had just returned to the area from a town about 1 1/2 hours north of Church Rock. He went up their after he was threatened, and nearly attacked, by 2 guys that he had fired for being worthless. Roland was a painter and these guys were assigned to his crew by his employer, but they didn't know how to do much of anything. He happened to be in Home Depot with his boss after he had fired them and they were just about to beat him when his boss pulled a gun and told them to leave him alone. He headed out of town to let things cool off, but now was back home to be with his family. I asked him if things had settled down, he said no, but he was happy to be home. I hope things work out for him, really cool guy. He invited me come out early next year and he would take me camping and fishing on the reservation. That would be cool, I'll see if that will work out for next year. I was surprised when he said fishing, since I hadn't seen even a creek since we got there, but he assured me there were lakes further back. We then proceeded to an area that has been dubbed "Kid Canyon" by one of the ladies in our group due to the number of kids that live in the area. When we got there we only saw a few kids, but there were a shitload of dogs, most in pretty bad shape. We handed out some of the toiletry packets that we had, (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes and some other stuff) plus some Bibles. There were a couple of dogs that were none too happy that we were there, made me a little nervous. When we left, Deke said he had something that he wanted to run by us. He said he wanted to go buy some dog food and go back to kid canyon and put down some food for these malnourished dogs. John and I agreed that that would be good, so off to Walmart. When we got there, the suggestion was to buy a bowl for food and a bowl for water. My suggestion was several bowls for food and one for water. Reason being, there were a bunch of dogs that were really hungry, I figured one bowl was a Micheal Vick fantasy of one big dog fight. I was shot down most unceremoniously. After we bought the food, we headed to Tolaki to pass out more packets and now feed a few dogs. I felt a little like a Jehovah's Witness, but without the preaching. We saw people in their yards (If you want to call a patch of dirt a yard), but when we knocked, amazingly there was know one home, must have been the time machine out back. A few answered and we gave them the packets and Bible's if they wanted them, and all did. Not sure if it was because they wanted to read it or because it was free, either way, they got it. We came to the house Frank lives in, he was the guy Chris and I worked on the church roof in Tolaki with. He had 3 big dogs and 2 puppies that we saw. We asked if we could feed them and he said sure. Deke and John put one bowl of food down for the 5 dogs and a fight broke out almost immediately. (It's so good to be right, but being the Christian that I'm trying to be, I said nothing) There was the Alpha male dog who was hogging the bowl which had enough food in it for 10 dogs, but I'm guessing by looking at them, they don't eat very often. The 2 puppies weren't getting anything, so Deke took a pile of food for them. Before we left, the Alpha male had his bowl and the other 2 big dogs had chased off the puppies for the other pile. I see it in Mexico as well, but I don't understand why you have pets if you can't afford to feed them. Seeing the reaction at Tolaki just reinforced what I knew was going to happen with all of the dogs at kid canyon, which it did. I didn't go to KC the second time, but I spoke to a few of the ladies that went up with Deke and John and they said the dogs were going at it pretty good. I was really uncomfortable with the door to door thing, if you know me you know that ain't my thing, but we were welcomed most places pretty warmly and since we weren't preaching to them, we didn't get the same looks I used to give people who came to my door to preach to me. We had Navajo Taco's for supper, which is fried bread with meat (there was hamburger, beans and something else in the "meat", might have been mutton since they seem to eat a lot of that), lettuce, onions, tomato's, cheese and then you had salsa or green chili's to choose from. I had the fresh green chili's and that was great. We got on the road home about 9:00pm or so. We drove through NM and into north Texas where we pulled over for some gas at about 1am. We found a closed gas station, but the pumps still worked and since it was the first place we had seen in a half hour, needed to fill up. I got out to pump the gas and grabbed a hold of the pump, only to realize that bright lights, plus middle of nowhere Texas, plus 1am equals a shitload of bugs. The pump was covered in bugs that I now had crawling all over my hand. I jerked my hand away and since I had to pee really bad, tried not to piss myself. I knocked the bugs off the handle, since I didn't think hundreds of bugs in the gas tank would help our fuel economy, and began the filling process. As I mentioned, I needed to pee really bad, so I set off to find a bathroom, but as I mentioned, the station was closed. Now any of you who have traveled with me or Brian know, we don't have the largest bladder capacity, so I wasn't going to be able to wait until we got out of middle of know where Texas to pee, so I went behind the building to, well, do my business. There are a few things that scared me about this option:



1. There were several, I'll guess lonely, truckers in the area that I though might find it entertaining to see a guy pissing in public. I had no interest in recreating the "squeal like a pig" scene from Deliverance, so I was concerned.

2. Did I mention there were bugs? I didn't want them on my hands, you can bet I don't want them anywhere else.

3. The last thing that caught my eye was a sign that read, "This premises has 24 hour video surveillance."

Well I went anyway, behind a dumpster, just like the good Lord had intended. We finally stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX and got a few hours sleep before we hit the road again. We stopped off at a McDonalds, we travel in style and only eat at the finest establishments, and I had a good laugh, even though John didn't see the humor at first. If you have been to a McDonalds anytime recently, and you have unless you are a vegetarian or a communist, you might have noticed that all of their drive thru windows are put in for the SUV's of this country. That makes it more fun for a car of smaller stature to give their money and receive their purchase. Lets focus on the second part of that. The Prius is small, so the bottom of the drive thru window is the top of the Prius window, so when you reach out, you reach out past the window frame and then up. This would then tell you to bring your purchase down and in. Take into account that we are driving a lot of miles and a little sleep, and you might do like John and forget the down part. He grasped my EXTRA LARGE Coke (nectar of God) and pulled it into the car, without the down, and proceeded to dump said nectar into his lap, rendering it less than desirable. My first instinct was to laugh, which I now know was incorrect (live and learn). He was less than happy at the outcome of the "in" move. I realized my error in my reaction and stifled further snickering. The kid working the drive thru appeared to be 8 years old, so in his stunned look, asked John if he wanted napkins. Seemed like a silly question to me, my response would have been "No, I'll just soak in it Madge." (How many of you oldies got that reference?), but John just said yes. The fetus handed John about 5 napkins, to soak up an extra large Coke (nectar of God) which John responded with "Keep'em comin." The kid handed him a wet towel, which didn't help John's mood. He sped off and pulled into the parking lot so he could get the ice out of his crotch. Since we were hauling all of our dirty clothes with us, he had something to change into, so as he put it, he went into the truck stop bathroom and he "got to get naked in front of a few truckers" (see my "squeal" comment from above). After about 100 miles, he thought it was funny, just in time to be pulled over by a Texas State Trooper. It seems that those signs that say "Speed Limit 70" are NOT a suggestion, but a rule. (Live and learn) The guy walked up to the car and introduced himself as a Texas State Trooper, which seemed a little redundant since we had been watching his flashing lights for a short time. He asked for John's license and said he'd be right back with a warning, which was good news. I feared a ticket my push John over the edge and we'd do a Thelma and Louise (another damn reference) The cop was back a few minutes later with a warning and gave us a piece of info that will be valuable should you drive in Texas, or at least the very tippy top of it. "The speed limit is 70 mph, we'll give you 75mph, but anything over that, we'll stop and visit with you." Good to know. The rest of the trip was good, I dropped John off in Kansas City, he was meeting up with friends to go to the Chiefs game on Sunday, and I headed home. I had a great time on this trip, but I know its the return trips that make all of the difference. You start to see the same people over and over again, they begin to know you and most importantly, trust you. That is when the real connection is made. They are used to people making a one time trip, they look for people to come back again and then they connect with the people who come back a third time. After that, its like family, which we are, one God, all brothers and sisters in Christ.

God Bless

Thursday

Today was a pretty uneventful day. We worked on the tub surround in the parsonage and I painted a little. I guess I had a little excitement with the painting. We were painting the peak of the church, and I had to climb about 2 stories up and lean over to paint. I don't like heights, so I was a little shaky. After I did one section, the other Mark on the trip volunteered to do the next section, my hero. We had borrowed the ladder from a local lumber yard called Gallup lumber, so we took it back and I had a chance to talk to the owner, Michael, for awhile. He had let us borrow this huge ladder for free and does a lot of things to help out with the mission. He is a really cool guy and later came to where we were having dinner and we gave him a plaque expressing our thanks. He said he would put it up in the front of the store, where I noticed he had several plaques from other organizations. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures from today, but I didn't think anyone would want to see pictures of me working in a bathroom and I don't have any of me on the ladder from hell. There are several things that I'm going to miss when this trip is over. The first is being referred to as a young guy. I am one of the younger people, but I think I'm older than most people think. I think my bald head and protruding stomach must scream out late 20's to early 30's. If they only knew. Another thing I will miss is the daily connection with the people I'm working with. A lot of them have shared their stories and they are amazing. To hear people's triumphs and struggles and how they have gotten through it with their faith is inspiring. I didn't share my story this year because I didn't think I had a story, but after a evening with several of the ladies on the trip, who asked for my story, I'm told I do. I owe the base of my faith to mom and Miller, since they were the ones who drug me to church as a kid. Then, when I fell away, I would say that a lot of it was do to being drug to church for all those years and for me being arrogant and thinking I could disprove the existence of God, which I did in my mind. The thing I've realized is that I was using today's world to cancel out everything I had learned as a kid. I'm from Missouri, show me. I didn't think I could be shown, so I didn't open my eyes, mind or especially my heart. I met Marcy and I wanted to impress her, so I said I would go to church with her, even though I had no intention of ever believing again. I thought I could fool everyone, I had with so many other things in my life. Well little did I know that this was all in God's plan, that this was step one in a process to bring me back into the fold. I went to church, I listened and thought, are these people serious? I had never been to a church with live music, so I right away thought, cult? I've been to a lot of church's in my day, thanks to Miller's job and friends, and I had never seen anything like this. I can't just take the word of these people, so I started to look into religion and this God thing on my own. I read a book called A Case For Christ, written by a man who was a non-believer. He talked to scientists, religious leaders, historians and all kinds of both believers and non-believers. The case was overwhelming that Christ did exist. It's written, in non religious books, just regular books, that there was a man who was called Jesus Christ and that he performed miracles. I can't tell you everything in the book, but it is a good read, especially if you don't think God is real. I know where your coming from, I was there, but look into it before you discount it. In one of the devotions given tonight, there was a quote that I don't know exactly, but it said that you are put in a place, not to move someone from 1 to 10 in their faith, but maybe from 5 to 6. I wanted to thank Marcy from moving me from a -100, to a positive number. I'm not sure where I am on the scale, but I'm climbing. For those of you who read this blog, just to see what I've done, you just got a short faith story from me. With all of the stories I've heard this week, I wanted to get that off my chest, now back to the cursing and crappy pictures:)

Wednesday

WOW! What a day. I started it off with a 6:15am hike to an old cemetery up a winding road, in the dark. There are a few places I don't like, hospitals, unless its for a baby, Walmart, ever, and cemeteries. My family had a stretch where we were together every year for a funeral. First for my mom, then my dad, then there were my grandmothers and a grandfather. These were some of the finest people I have ever known in my life. They taught me so much, were always there for me and gave birth to more of the finest people I've ever known. I know I'm biased, but I wouldn't trade my family for anything in the world. On top of me not liking cemeteries, I sure as hell don't like them in the dark. We finally arrived just as the sun was coming up, so we were able to read the headstones. They were all pretty recent, early 2000's up until just last month. One that caught our attention was of a Navajo lady, I can't pronounce or spell her name, that had lived to young age of 117 years old. Can you imagine what she saw as she went through her life? We wandered around and started finding headstones from 1920's and the 1930's. There were a lot of war veterans, from WWII, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. The place seemed to be over run with native grasses and plants, so some of the markers were buried in plants so you couldn't see them. If I'm buried in the ground, I sure hope someone will come and at least uncover my headstone(plus drop off a fresh coke every once in awhile). We made it out to Tolaki and Chris and I started work on putting in a tub surround in the parsonage. It went well, but since we were only working half day, we were only able to replace the drywall and put up one section of the surround. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but Chris has a clue, so I do what I'm told. I feel like we are working pretty well together, I hope he feels the same. We came back to Rehoboth and had lunch with some of the Navajos and then headed out to Red Rock state park for a hike. This place in incredible. Here are some pictures, but you know the scoop, can't do the place justice. The first picture shows John checking out the map to see how far and which way to go. The rock behind him is common to what we saw throughout the hike. The second is more along the way. The third is of our destination. It's called church rock because it looks like church steeples. I don't see it, but hey, they didn't ask me. As you may remember, church rock church is one of the places we are working, this is where it got its name. The hike was really cool, lots of ups and downs and a total elevation change of 700 feet. I'm in terrible shape, but I actually surprised myself and did pretty good. There was one time when I was pretty winded, but we took a rest and I was ready to go. Thankfully we had water so I didn't pass out from dehydration. Don't worry Marcy, I put on lots of sunscreen so I wouldn't burn. If I hadn't, I would be a crispy critter right now. I'll include several more pictures at the bottom, but look at the one with the goats. These crazy bastards were walking on the smooth rock face and stood right on the edge. There wasn't anything to eat around there, so I don't know what there were doing there, but they are goats, who are you going to complain to? We made it to the base, or as close as we could and made it back safely. We finished the day with a little shopping, a great dinner and a church service at a local church that one of the ladies that has been working with us at Tolaki had invited us to. I'm going to save that story for another time because I am really tired and want to go to sleep. I'll write more Thursday.










Crazyass goats.

Is it Tuesday?

Man, my days are all mixed up. Today started with a 6:30am hike with John up a hill, in the dark. There was just enough light to make you feel you wouldn't step in a well, but an ankle twister wasn't out of the question. I'm happy to report that there were no accidents, but I thought we might have to fight off a dog/wolf at one point. We saw him running down a path between us and the interstate, so the lights from there were just enough to see him, but not enough to tell if he might come after us. At the last second before I screamed like a girl, we saw its owner, so he was changed from the dog/wolf category to just the dog category. It was kind of pretty up there, but the area reminds me a lot of El Paso, brown and dusty. The mountains are pretty cool, but after that, kind of plain. It's great to be able to visit places like this, but it makes me appreciate the beauty of Iowa, yes Iowa. The work day consisted of Chris and I climbing back on the roof of the church to finish the shingle job. Here is a picture of Chris tying our safety line to the steeple. Chris says this is us putting our lives in God's hands. The picture doesn't do the slope justice, it is really steep. You can't set your tools down, because they will be on someones head below, so you have to keep them in your belt, tied to the rope or go back and forth to the flatter roof of another section of the church. Mitzi, Chris's wife, took a picture of us both holding our ropes, so when I get that I'll post that as well. You can see the dark spots on the roof and that was what we were replacing. The wind was blowing again today, but nothing like yesterday. There was a section on the back side of the roof that was pretty big that we had to replace, but all worked out well and we were able to move onto the parsonage and the garage. The slope there was much flatter on those, so our ankles were saved. I told you about our improvised ladder, so here it is. I think it was a roof rack from a van, but I could be wrong. We got back, had supper and then our devotions. The devotions are one of my most favorite things we do. You really get to know people, here about their faith and draw you closer to both them and God. We have had 5 different people tell their stories, 4 of them had me in tears and one was just plain powerful. These are good people that I can learn a lot from. The 2 that spoke today talked about the deaths of people that were close to them and how it affected them. It brought back a lot of memories of mom and dad and the last days we spent with them. Not going to write about that now, but someday I might. John, Mitzi and I went out for a little shopping after that and had some good conversations about our experiences. Mitzi and I are working together at Tolaki, but John is at Church Rock, so it's good to hear how it's going over there. That's my day, but I saw something yesterday that I forgot to mention. You see a lot of people hitchhiking around here, sticking their thumb out, as you would expect, but Chris and I saw a guy yesterday that was using a tactic I have never seen before. Instead of sticking out his thumb, he was sticking out money. Maybe this is common, but I have never seen it. We didn't pick him up and another mile down the road there was another guy with just his thumb. I wanted to tell him he better stick out some cash or get on the other side of the guy with the cash, because if I pass on the cash guy, thumb guy is screwed. Tomorrow is our half day, but I'm not sure what we are going to do. I'll let you know tomorrow. Goodnight.