The Hole in Our Gospel

My latest booksneeze.com acquisition is the book by Richard Stearns, entitled The Hole in Our Gospel. He is the president of World Vision U.S.
This issue is something I have struggled with. On one hand, the suffering of the poor people around the world is a heartbreaking and desperate situation, one that Mr. Stearns gives us insight to throughout this book. On a...political, or patriotic...note, I believe that our money and attention needs to be focused on the poor in our own country. The downtrodden outside our own door.
The biblical and moral teachings that the author touches on are very important in ones faith walk, and the way he intersperses those with the stories of families and people in other countries shows the reader where his or her faith walk should lead.
The problem with this book is that there are so many different needs and organizations in this world that it's hard for the average christian to help them all. It's very easy for the 'monetarily blessed' to pass around money to different non-profits. The people struggling to make ends meet, who still give 10% to their church, sometimes that 10% is all they can afford.
At times, this book seemed to be an advertising ploy to get the reader to donate to World Vision. If it weren't for the biblical teachings, I probably would not recommend this book to anyone. As it is, I say read it. If you feel compelled to give to a philanthropic organization, more power to you. If all you get out of it is a closer walk with God, than this book was worth it. 

Summer Plans

Never go quite as you want them to. But we are plugging along.

The kids had church camp to start off the month of June. That went better than expected. We got 12 new baby chickens, bringing our total to 50. Then we lost a couple, and now we're at 48.

After church camp, we did Girl Scout camp. Except I got sick the last day, so we missed the water fun. But the good news, I guess you could call it that, is that we finally got Emma into the eye doctor. She inherited the bad eyes that run in the family, all the way back to her great-grandparents. So we got to order her glasses.

The week after all this, we started VBS at our church. Now, our church home is small, compared to most. Beside my 2 lovely children, there are two others, and that's it for the youth program. Pastor had put up signs around our community, inviting children to come have fun for a week at VBS. Monday morning, it was just the 4 kids that are there every Sunday. But, with lots of prayer and perseverance, we have grown to 9 children. Which may seem small to most, but we did have one boy ask if he could come to church every Sunday. I would have to say that's a win.

Oh, yeah, and we got a goat...

Next week is the boy's birthday. I was going to have a big party, but with all that has been going on, I didn't get the invitations out, or anything planned, really. So we decided to have a couple of friends over, grill some burgers and chicken, and let the kids play on the PS3. Rob is getting a lot of games for his birthday.

I am currently trying to multitask, with helping out at VBS, reading my booksneeze.com book, another Jennifer Crusie book, and take care of the animals. So you should see my review of The Hole in Our Gospel soon.

Crazy Month!!

May was hectic to say the least. And it looks like June is not going to be any easier. My calendar is already booked, and it's only the 2nd. The good thing, though is that school is out for the summer. I passed all my classes, and held onto my 4.0!! YEAH! The kids both got promoted to the next grade--we all knew that was going to happen.

Some friends of ours have opened a feed store here in town, and I have been helping out over there a few times a week. Seems like it may turn into at least a part time job.

Mike and his Ritual team from the Elks Lodge went to the state competition. Mike brought home the Most Impressive trophy for his chair. Unfortunately, the team as a whole did not win, but they did pretty good. I was very proud of Mike for all his hard work practicing for the competition.

This past week was very stressful for me. I woke up Friday morning with a pain in my side, that felt suspiciously like a kidney infection. I've had lots of those in my life. I was just going to power through it, but ended up going to urgent care. After a 2 hour wait, the doctor there saw me for 2 minutes and said "go to the ER." So I went. And waited another 2 hours to be seen. Then I got drugs to numb the pain, and had test after test done.

So here I am, dying from what I know is a kidney infection, in pain, patiently waiting for some more pain medicine (if you can call crying in agony patiently waiting) when the doctor comes in and basically tells me there is nothing wrong with me. In a very rude tone. Then the nurse comes in with my discharge papers and a couple of pills. No water. Thanks, stinky people.

And of course, it is a 3 day weekend, so I have to wait until Tuesday to do anything. Finally get an appointment with a very cool urologist. All he did was look at my test results from the ER, and say, "You have a kidney infection." DUH!!

Now I have the antibiotics I need, and more answers that the ER was unable to give me. There's actually more on the urology visit, but I will save that for later because I am tired.

What a month. Let's not repeat.