Cheerful Gift, part 2 - the rest of the story

After years of ministry, I have found a new calling: scam-baiting.

Those of you who have received a real email from me know that my signature line is: "SPAM is evil... who really ever buys something from a spammer anyway?" I hate SPAM. I hate what SPAMMERS have done to an otherwise great tool for communication of information.

Well, apparently, there is a large group that has some fun with the SPAMMERS. They are called spam baiters... or 419ers.

So, what is scam baiting? Well, put simply, you enter into a dialogue with scammers, simply to waste their time and resources. Of course, in doing so, you also keep the scammers away from real potential victims.

Honestly, I don't have the guts to do this. (Although read the section about "Is it dangerous?"). But I would love to do this. So spend some time and so some research. Maybe we should all join the 419 team.

iPhone? Big Deal!

Yea, you may have an iPhone, but I will be able to talk to Jesus.

Cheerful Gift from God

Dear in christ,

May the peace of the almighty father be with you as you read this massage, as it is obvious, that this massage will meet you with great surprise.
I am Mrs. Juliet Bine from Liberia. I am married to Mr.Jean Bine who worked with Liberia embassy here in Ivory Coast for nine good years before he died in the year 2004.

We were married for many years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only Eight days. Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $(2. Million ) USD Two Million Dollar in a Metal Truck Box as a Family Valuable in a Finance Security Company here in Abidjan.Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Eight months due to cancer problem.

Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or a God fearing person that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church or a God fearing Person that will use this fund for orphanages, hospitals, schools, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavor that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that "Blessed is the hand that giveth". I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my late husband's relatives are not Christians and I don't want my late husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers, I really want it to be to the Glory of God and the service to humanity.

I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision.I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace".I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband's relatives are around me always. I don't want them to know about this development.

With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the relevant documents that will legalize you to have access over this fund.I will also issue you an affidavit that will proove you the present beneficiary of this fund in the Finance Security Company.I want you to always pray for me because the lord is my shephard.

My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life and pray to God to forgive me my sins.
Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for another church or a God fearing person for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply.

Remain blessed in the Lord.
Your's Sister In Christ,
Mrs. Juliet Bine.

___________________

To be continued....

Gender Battle

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."

"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora") because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.


The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computador") because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and,

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

I'm sure you know who won!

(I got this off a blog of one of my former seminary professors)

By the way...

If you ever get the honor to meet them, Rachel and Ali are a couple of good eggs. (Here is a picture of me, Laura, Mdog, Rachel and Ali hanging out when they were in Athens!)

I have a bionic leg

That is really what they call it.

But it sure doesn't feel that way!

surgery

I'm about to leave for surgery.

I would be lying if I told you I had the "peace that passes understanding." In fact, I don't. For some reason, I'm pretty nervous.

But my feelings are fallen. "My heart is deceitful among all things." Because God is with me.

Learning to "walk with God" with only one good leg is a bit harder. It requires you lean into something -- crutches, if you will: your friends and community... even God Himself.

the knee, part 2

[When we last left our now lame hero, SuperRev, he was given a medication to make him forget... but because of his incredible superpowers, he remembered absolutely everything. "@#$@#!" yelled SuperRev. He didn't really hurt, he just wanted the Evil Dr. Emergency-Room to know that he Evil medicine wasn't working. Now, the saga continues.]

So nurses make or break a hospital. Yea, I guess you need a good doctor, but it's the nurses that make the stay bearable or a living hell. I had 3 great nurses, and one that got her training from Ed Debevic's. She was pretty surly and complained about how understaffed they were and how much she had to do and how she could do what she needed to do if only they had enough staff, but because they didn't "this might hurt." [It did]

But the others were very gentle and compassionate. I remember one saying, "Wow, that must hurt. I know this is hard, but you are doing a great job." A note to any of my readers who may be in the medical field: that thing where people fall in love with their nurses... I can see why that happens. And you know, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. (I say that as a married pastor.) Maybe it's true for women as well, but sickness is very emasculating for guys. You are weak. You are needy. You hate to ask for something but you need it. When someone is proactive and shows compassion and treats you like a human being... it really does stand out and it does have an effect. To be honest, it's very healing. It makes you feel stronger. So all of this is to say, "Thanks to the nurses at Magruder Hospital. You rock."

So the doctor gave me that IV medicine that "would make it so that I would not feel or remember the pain" [ha ha] and set my knee. According to the X Rays I had just dislocated my knee, but he admitted that when he popped it back, it wouldn't stay. So he was about to send me home (on the 4-hour-car-ride) but when he got me up... well... I screamed like a 6-year-old girl.

Upon seeing me scream like a 6-year-old girl, the doctor came to the conclusion that he "might not have completely diagnosed my ailment." He then sent me down for a CT scan only to discover that I "may have done more than simply dislocate my knee." By now it was 11:30 PM and he still was going to just have me drive home then (4 hours) to see my doctor in the morning. After my wife and I begging to be admitted for the night (rather than loading me into the back of the van and having my wife drive through the night), he decided that might be best. (Where do these guys get their training?)

So I slept the hospital, and my wife slept on a couple of chairs in the room. Other than the occasional pain shot and some Morphine to keep me calm, it was a very uneventful several hours of sleep.

To be continued...

The knee, part 1

Well, if you have not heard, this past Saturday, I was in a biking accident and blew my knee out. "Biking accident" makes it sound like I was on the Tour De France but it was much less dramatic than that. We were on Put in Bay and rented those cheap bikes where you have to back pedal to stop -- remember when you were in elementary school? I had to make a sudden stop and I was on the top of the circle and pushed back.

I heard this loud pop.

I felt this excruciating pain.

The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground with a police officer hovering over me. She was asking, "Are you okay?"

I mean how do you answer that question and not be a smart aleck?

"Sure I'm okay! I always lay in the street, surrounded by people, holding my knee and screaming!"

Fortunately, the Police officer was right there, she called the EMT and they were there in minutes. They cut off my favorite pair of pants, secured my leg and loaded me in the ambulance. They said that they would put a splint on me but since they didn't have a hospital, that is all they could do is secure the leg. It was then that it hit me that I was on an island.

Surrounded by water.

Very choppy water.

Now, the funny thing is they asked me if I wanted to take the Life-flight Helicopter. I mean, I blew my knee... it's not a gunshot wound to the chest or anything. So they loaded us on the jet boat (yes, we all had to pay for the tickets, including the EMT person), they wedged my bed against some chairs, and across the water we went. [SPLASH! JUMP!]

They took us to the hospital in Port Clinton and admitted us to the Emergency room. My wife told me the hospital was really small, but all I can say is they had some nice doctors, nurses and some really nice ceilings -- no water marks and mostly drop ceilings. They used can lighting rather than a lot of Flurescents. You notice these thing when you are laying on your back for a day.

Like most emergency room visits, the majority of time was spent waiting. They did some X Rays, poking and prodding, they gave me meds for pain and the emergency room doctor tried to re-set my knee. ["Now, we are going to give you this medication and you won't remember anything. You won't be asleep, but you won't be aware of what is happening" -- for the record, I remembered EVERYTHING.]

To be continued...

The Discovery of the Century!

For Jared and Tobias

Will it blend?

Don't you wish you could do this?

Sprint Boots 1,000 Customers for Excessive Complaining

Hundreds of cell phone customers are being given the boot, accused of being too high maintenance. Sprint-Nextel is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers on grounds the clients call customer service too often and make “unreasonable requests.” The 1,200 people getting dropped will have to find a new carrier by the end of the month.

Why didn't I think of this?

Giving has been a little down.

Blue Like Jazz... the movie.

Yep.

From Donald Miller's blog.

"Steve Taylor and Ben Pearson have been in Portland for the past week and we’ve pretty much completed the screenplay for Blue Like Jazz the movie. We’ve been working on the script for about a year, either with me flying to Nashville for a week at a time to sit around a table and hash out the story, or with Steve and Ben coming to Portland to stay at my house. When studios became more excited about the screenplay, we felt the need to wrap it up, and in the last few days we’ve pretty much done so. And I dont know if I’ve had more fun, or been more challenged, with any other writing project. I’m excited to see how the guys end up shooting the story.

To say we’ve given the book a Hollywod treatment is an understatement. The book itself would be, of course, difficult to turn into a movie, and so we took creative liberties. But in my opinion, the movie will be infinitely better than the book. Essentially we’ve taken the major, real life characters from the book, and gave them a story all their own. The end result is provactive and humorous and in my opinion quite moving. I cant wait for people to see the film.

We think production will be able to start next year, and the film will be shot on location in Portland. And I am as excited about showing off my town as I am about telling the story. I will keep you posted."

"...not well liked..."

"In contrast, Diogenes, one of Antisthenes most famous followers carried the cynical philosophy to its farthest extreme. Diogenes was not known merely as one of "The Dog Philosophers," his personal nickname was "The Dog" and Plato referred to him as "Socrates gone mad." He denied all physical wealth and pleasure; he lived in a barrel and his only possessions were a robe to cover himself and a walking stick. There is an antecdote of questionable historical accuracy that demonstrates the character of Diogenes: One day Diogenes was sitting on a hill next to his barrel enjoying the warm rays of the sun when he was approached by Alexander the Great. Alexander asked Diogenes if he was the infamous Diogenes of whom the Athenians had spoken. Diogenes replied that he was. Alexander asked Diogenes if it was true that he had no desire for anything. Diogenes looked up at Alexander and said that he only wanted one thing, with that he asked Alexander to move a little to one side because he was blocking the sun. After the encounter, Alexander reportedly stated that if he could be anyone other than Alexander he would want to be Diogenes. Although Diogenes' behavior was sometimes amusing, he was not well liked in Athens primarily because of his writings encouraging incest and cannibalism."

Sort of a strange way to close a paragraph, eh?

The Kingdom

"Here at the cross is the man who loves his enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gives his robe to those who took his cloak, who prays for those who despitefully use him. The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come."

(John Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, p. 51)

Wanna Race?

Preaching again

Wow, this weekend will be the first time I have preached in 4 weeks. I hope I don't suck.

I guess A. now knows how celebrities feel. I mean, one moment you are in front of the camera and you are looking great. Hair is nice, makeup great, expression perfect, lighting right on...










But then you let your guard down once... and some guy with a camera snaps a picture and it makes it on the cover...