Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? The NFL is back in action along with all the college teams. Are you a fan? Who do you root for? If you're not a fan what do you do while the rest of America watches Saturday, Sunday, Monday night, and now Thursday night games?

I'm not a huge fan of football but I do root for the Steelers. There are so many things I enjoy a whole lot more than football. Playing with my children, reading a book, catching up on emails, and I of-course can't forget Pinterest.

LV loves football so sometimes when I help him watch for a few minutes I enjoy asking intelligent questions such as, "How can they keep the grass on the fields so nice?"  "Why do they call it football? Is it because the ball is secretly stuffed with feet?"  "Why do they keep slapping each other like that when they're happy with a play?"  "How do the refs decide when to give a penalty for excessive celebration after a touchdown?" 

Okay the last question really does bug me.  Some teams get away with a lot more than others.

I think my favorite thing about football is this little bit that I like to watch every fall when football season starts.


2. What's something I'll always find in your closet?

Other than clothes I keep a box filled with the letters LV and I exchanged before we were married.


3. Share one of your earliest memories.


I think I shared some of my earliest memories already but in case you missed it.  I remember sitting on Mom's lap at a dinner table when I was only a baby when we were visiting one of her friends. A fawn came and ate a noodle from her plate and I was absolutely terrified.

4. What circus act best describes your week so far?


I'm not really sure. Some type of a balancing act I suppose. So far this week we have all been sick and today is the first day I'm feeling a little better.

5. What's a food you disliked as a child but you love now?

Olives. I used to think they are one of the most awful things anyone could try eating and now I really like them.


6. Describe your summer in three words.


Sorrow, busy, warm.

7. Where were you on September 11, 2001? Will you do anything special to mark the day this year?


I was on my way to the hospital with pregnancy related complications when we saw the smoke from Flight 93 crashing.

We didn't do anything special to mark the day other than remember and pray. On a brighter note I became the aunt to a sweet little nephew yesterday. I won't have any problems remembering his birthday and there will now be something much nicer for us to think of when we hear that date.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

 

Of all the gladiolus I had planted only a few have bloomed and they have all been in the orange family of colors. The way the leaves look I think there was some kind of bug bothering them.

 

Hopefully next year I'll have better luck growing them, both in keeping them alive and healthy and hopefully colors other than orange.

Life Goes On

Everything that comes to my mind to blog about this morning all seems so trivial. After a very emotional, very hard week where we said our final good-byes to LV's brother Melvin it seems almost unreal that we are getting back into our usual schedule, our normal routines, the sun shines brightly in a brilliant blue sky with fluffy white clouds drifting along lazily. The birds are still singing, and the grass is still a lush green.

Somehow life goes on even though hearts are heavy with sorrow. In all this we still say "God is good, always."

Sadness

As I sit here I feel numb and helpless. We just received a message telling us that LV's brother was killed in a work related accident. He has left behind his loving wife, Emma, and their eight children. As well as those six little motherless children that they had moved in to help care for.

We are preparing to go to the family. If you care to, prayers for Emma and their family would be appreciated.

Something Smells Phishy

Over the course of time that we have had email we have received quite a few phishing scams that I always promptly deleted. Everything from fake Paypal and bank account alerts which I knew were not legitimate because when the first arrived in my inbox we didn't have an account at either place, to an assortment of inheritance letters with horrible spelling telling me of distant relatives that I knew didn't exist claiming they passed away in Nigeria in either a plane crash or an assortment of other causes.

Today I received one a little different:

Greetings in Jesus name,

 May this letter find you blessed in Christ. I am writing from West Africa and it is a blessing getting to you in the other part of the world. It is my prayer that you become a friend of me and the local church here. I got your email when I searching online and got into the web site and I know that it is God’s arrangement. I need not silver or gold but the word of God only!

By His grace I am a Believer bought and washed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. I am married with three children. I am a pastor of a small local church non denominational or affiliated to anybody. The church was founded in 2006 and now has about 30 members. I gave my life to Christ in 1987 when I was still in the high school at Zaria. A campus fellowship student by name Johnson was my roommate at school and his life of faithfulness unto Christ and his prayer and teaching me the Bible led me to Christ. This Brother told me then that he sensed that God was going to use me for His cause. I was never ready to hear that because my dream or thought was never in the ministry but to finish my studies and get a nice job. Five years after school and already working I started having the stronger urge and sensing that God was calling me but I kept on putting it off my heart because my job and life was sweet to me and I felt I needed nothing else. One day a guest speaker was ministering in our church and he singled me out in a crowd of over a hundred people and told me that God has called me to the ministry and cannot hide. After he left I told my pastor that I have accepted and my pastor and other elders of the church prayed with me. I immediately joined and headed the evangelical outreach of the church and I saw many coming to Christ in the outreach. I let go of my job in 2005 and returned to Edo my State. I joined a small local church and was assisting the pastor as the second pastor. In January 13th 2007 a pastor of a little church of about five families in my area walked up to me telling me that he is leaving the state to his home state where the Lord has asked him to go and start the work. He said he has been praying for over a month that the Lord has asked him to tell me to take over the little church he founded 2006. I have not had relationship with this pastor before now so it amazed me. He asked me to pray to ask the Lord. I did prayed and without wasting time I knew the Lord ask me to hold that little church and that was how I became the pastor of this church called Victory Chapel. The church is a growing church and we meet at a temporary rented building. We are not earthly rich but rich in Christ, riches that will last for eternity.

 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. The reason why I am writing is to appeal for your assistance in the area of a Study Bible which will be of help to me in my research and study of the bible as well as lesson preparation as a pastor, also bibles for others. These Bibles are very expensive here. I need a Dakes Annotated Reference Bible or a Thompson Chain reference Bible either one of the two. If you cannot get any of these please send me any study Bible which you know has study helps and aids. I would prefer a King James Version. Bibles cost much here as they are imported not printed here. There are many in our local church who do not have bibles and cannot afford to buy. I want to specifically make a request for the elderly ones who cannot work and earn money to buy for themselves. There are 12 of such ones in our church and they are very devoted. Please on their behalf I request that you send them 12 Bibles the very big letters or super large print would be preferable for them because of their sight. Thank you for considering this request. And as you help to meet this kingdom need the Lord will bless you finance abundantly. If you send the bibles through post office a registered postage the bibles will get to us safely. I was told at the post office that express mail international postage or insured mail is safer.

My home and postal address is (Edited to remove address.) Please write when you get my mail. I do not have full access to internet but I can check at least three times weekly. Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days" God bless you and your family as you labour for His Cause

In His Service,

John Izierielkor:

(Edited to remove contact info)

So what do you think? It is different from any I have ever received before since they're not asking for any money and their spelling is surprisingly good. But somehow I'm still getting a phishy vibe from it.

Have you received an email like this? And if you did were you tempted to send Bibles?

The Answer and a Question

So what did we do with Plastic Spray and wax paper? 

A few of you guessed correctly. In the one community we lived we used to spray a new covering with plastic spray to make that it holds its  shape better and when ever we wanted to iron it we had to use a sheet of wax paper between the iron and the covering to keep it from melting and sticking to the iron.

~~~~~

Now I have a few questions for you. Recently I stumbled across a list of fun things for boys to do. Sailor has done most of it but there were two items that I had never heard of before.

1. Make a grass trumpet.
2. Play conkers.

Can anyone help me out?