Encouragment

 AS IN ENCOURAGEMENT

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity and emotions for me.  Tuesday morning I woke up at 3:45 a.m. drove to Michigan and picked up my friends the Lebedevs  (Vladimir and Tonya) who I worked with in Russia almost 20 years ago. 

It was a wonderful trip culminated by taking them to Chicago and going to the top of the John Hancock Building.  It was also a stressful trip.  The kids were well behaved much of the time, but the long trip and the early hours did seem to be getting to everyone.  After a fantastic dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, on the first floor of the Hancock Complex, I drove the Lebedev's to where they would be staying for the night and Amy (who had met us at Hancock) drove the girls home.  Since the family they were staying  with lived in the polar opposite suburbs than us, I did not get home until 12:30 a.m. 

After such a long day on Tuesday, I was wiped out physically and emotionally on Wednesday.  Wednesday night I was supposed to again travel about 50 miles to see Vladimir speak.  This would be their last night of their trip and my last opportunity to see my dear friends for some time.  Yet, I was still very weary and not looking forward to the meeting as much as I had one day earlier.  Still I went and am very glad I did.

Vladimir shared about his work in Russia as a church leader and Bible College teacher and gave an excellent talk on Colossians.  It was so encouraging.  It was especially amazing that he gave this talk in English which is his 2nd language. 

While I was there, I saw Dwayne King who was a missionary in Khabarovsk, Russia at the same time I was.  Dwayne is a missionary pilot from Alaska and a book was written about his life recently.  Dwayne gave me a copy of his book, which had this inscription:

"David, I have great memories of working with you in Khabarovsk.  They remember you and still appreciate your ministry."

That inscription, Vladimir's message and time spent with all 3 of my fellow co-workers meant an awful lot to me.  Words (written or spoken) and acts of encouragement are so vital and important in thriving in this life time. 

In future posts I hope to share more about my visit with the Lebedev's and also to review Dwayne's book

Come back tomorrow for some fragments about my first week of Blogging from A to Z. 

Time to (Re) Make the Donuts.

AS IN DONUTS

April 4, 2012

One of the ways I plan to blog through 26 letters of the alphabet in a mere 30 days is by recycling posts from time to time.  HSD Reweind is already a staple here, so I don't exactly feel that it is cheating.  Today's post goes back to January 2009, when HSD was in it's infancy.  As you read on you will find that we will actually travel back a little more than a decade for this tidbit. 

A few years ago we had a family website and I would write occasional articles on it. Consider it a pre-blog blog. I named those articles Memo: Random. Occasionally I am going to post them here under Random Postings. This one is back 7 years ago from 1/27/2002.



Recently, I have been waking up in the middle of the night, usually around 3 A.M. Most nights, I go right back to sleep, but sometimes I don't even try. This morning was one of those occasions.


I woke up at 4:30 after 4 hours of sleep. My wife, Amy, was feeding our soon to be 3 month old boy. She put him into bed and went back to sleep; but I was wide awake. So I got up, went into the computer room and looked up some things on the Internet.
At about 6, our daughter walked in the room. In order to let the other half of our family stay sleeping, I quietly got her dressed and we went out to buy donuts. I didn't have any cash on me, so we went to a Dunkin Donuts that I "remembered" accepted credit cards.


When we got out of the car,  the store looked how I expected a donut shop to look at 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning: sparsely populated. There was one car in the drive-thru, one customer ahead of me, and one "regular" nursing his coffee in the corner booth.


When it was our turn, I made our order, making sure to get a good variety. I asked my daughter to tell the man what kind she wanted and in language typical of a 2 year old, she said she wanted a white one while pointing to a powdered donut. (If 2 year olds couldn't point it would be a lot harder to understand them.)


When it came time to pay, I pulled out my check card and much to my surprise and dismay was told I "remembered" wrong about them accepting credit cards. They did not!




I rather sheepishly had to admit, I had no actual money on me. My plan was to run to an ATM, get cash, and pick up the donuts. The counter person told me to just take the donuts and pay him back another time. I was reluctant to accept his offer but he insisted.

We took the donuts, went back to the car, got cash at the ATM and came back. By this time, activity at the store had perked up a little. I got in line to pay the guy back. At the same time the "regular" got in line behind me. I thought he was just refilling his coffee but he had come to talk to me.


The man was probably my Dad's age (late 50's/ early 60's). He was the kind of person my daughter would refer to as a Grandpa. To her, there are four types of males (Baby, Kid, Man and Grandpa). He told me that I did not have to pay for the donuts, that he was picking up the tab.


The most embarrassing part of this incident of not bringing cash was the implication that our family was destitute and needed to panhandle for donuts. Thinking this was his impression, I politely declined indicating "I have money." He responded, "No, I've got it. It's for being honest and coming back."


I was still tempted to refuse his offer, but I think I correctly labeled that temptation as stubborn pride thanked him and went back home.




Many thoughts have penetrated my cranium about what kernel of truth to pull from this man's act of kindness. The first thought I had was that honesty must be a small commodity these days when a total stranger thinks it an oddity that needs to be rewarded. Another along those same lines was that honesty should be a given and needs no reward. The third was always keep $10.00 in the glove box for donut related emergencies. Finally I latched onto this:


Honesty, like any virtue should be pursued, taught and praised when seen in action. As a member of our society, the "regular" was simply affirming the ideal of honesty by giving my family breakfast on the house.


As my children grow up, Amy and I will try to teach them many valuable lessons about character. I can think of none stronger than when you spot virtue in our fallen world: be the guy who buys the donuts.


Meanwhile in 2009: The Dunkin Donuts was torn down recently and a new Dunkin Donuts just opened up at the same location. They now accept credit cards at least I "remember" using one there. :)

Back in 2012 again.  I thought of this incident a few Saturday's ago when I walked about a mile and a half with my current 6 year old to get cash from Walgreen's to buy donuts at the donut store around the corner from our house.  I walked all that way because that donut shop does not accept check cards.  It turns out, that now they do and I walked a mile and a half out of the way.  I have been able to pay forward that regular's investment in honesty in several ways over the past decade and will continue to be on the  lookout to applaud the virtuous.

How to say Marshmallow in Russian

 AS IN CAR TRIPS

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

I mentioned yesterday in my Boring post that I would be seeing my dear Russian friend Vladimir today.  He would probably be somewhat hurt if I left it at friend, which he is.  He is my Brother, not only in Christ but I was practically adopted by his family when I lived in Russia and Vladimir and I even lived together in my last months in Khabarovsk, or the Big K, as I grew fond of calling it. 

As you read this, I am probably driving from Illinois to Michigan to pick up Vladimir and Tanya or I am driving them to Illinois where Vladimir has a conference to attend tomorrow.  Do you have a friend that you would drop everything for?  Vladimir is such a friend.  Home schooling the kids makes travelling to Michigan on a moment's notice much easier.

All 3 kids are travelling with me and we will all meet up with Amy once we get back into Illinois. 

Since I am spending the majority of today in a car, I thought I would blog about car trips and some of the things I have done on them.

Marshmallow - 3 years ago a cousin of Amy's graduated from high school in Kentucky.  A large contingent of family members from Illinois travelled to Kentucky for the ceremony. Another of Amy's cousins who is just a few years older than our kids decided it would be fun to shout marshmallow each time we crossed from state to state.  It is now a staple of all interstate travel.

Alphabet Game - Amy and I play this more frequently w/o the kids than with, so it will probably not come up today.  We are getting the kids more interested in playing and sometimes they will "throw a letter" out the window if we get stuck. 

Play-A-Ways - A play a-way is an audio book in it's own mp3 type player.  They are available at our public library.  When we go on a long trip (like this one to Michigan) The kids and sometimes the adults get some Play-a-ways from the library.  Our kids love books and listening to books in the car is one of their favorite ways to pass the time,

Madlibs, Random and other word games.

Random is a game I was taught in 1986.  I have been a devotee for more than a quarter century now.  Here is a previous post about it.  Mad Libs and Random are great games because they are both fun and educational.  I guess mostly fun.

Kid Directed Play.

The kids create games that they play on car rides.  The ones they play most often are the frowning game, which is very similar to Make me Laugh and the Dolphin Game, where they pretend they are workers or animals in a zoo.  Amy and I can entertain ourselves just listening to them.


We do lots of other things on car trips, but that's a pretty good list for now.  I'll be back tomorrow with some Donuts. 

Boring, a nice place to visit.

 AS IN BORING

Monday April 2, 2012

I was a Southern Baptist Missionary in Khabarovsk Russia from late 1992 to late 1994.  I have been thinking about that chapter in my life more frequently recently, as a dear Russian friend of mine is in the states with his wife and I will see him for the first time in nearly 2 decades tomorrow.

Being a missionary, I spent time with other American missionaries when I was in a Russia.  Some of them were from an organization that was headquartered near Portland, Oregon.  The actual name of the town was boring.  No, not as I wasn't interested in the name.  The town's name was Boring. 

I had a lot of fun with that nugget.  I would talk about going into the Boring office.  Maybe settling down there some day and  meeting a Boring girl and making her my Boring wife  having some Boring kids and sending them to the boring schools.  Interestingly enough, I never got bored with the joke.

A few weeks ago I was watching the T.V. show, Homicide: Life on the Street.  In the show Alec Baldwin's brother Daniel plays a Detective who is partnered with a female detective played by Academy Award Winning (The Fighter) actress, Melissa Leo. 

In one episode Baldwin's character is telling Leo's that his wife is from Boring, Maryland.  He then goes into the same kind of Boring jokes that I used to engage in.

Check these out . . .

•   Website with some interesting facts about Boring, MD.
• Website describing Boring, OR as an exciting place to live.

Well I am done with this Boring Post.  Check out some other B posts in the A to Z Challenge by clicking here.

A non-sexy start to blogging A to Z

 as in Abstinence

Sunday April 1, 2012

Hi.  My name is Dave aka Home School Dad or HSD.  You can just call me HS or D.  Whatever floats your boat.

This is my first installment of Blogging A to Z.  For 26 of the next 31 days I will be blogging in alphabetical order.  This is a pretty big to do at the blogosphere;click here to go to the main blogging A to Z page.  Some participating blogs are having a theme intertwined to their A to Z posts.  Not this cat. I am going to stick to what this blog does best, randomness.Some posts may be meaty, even controversial, while others will be whimsical and still others will  be boring.  (Don't believe me?  Stop by tomorrow.) 

Today's word is abstinence.  Abstinence as defined by the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition) means voluntary forbearance  especially from  indulgence of an appetite or craving  or from eating some foods.  This is a fine definition but not the one most people think of when they hear the word.  Most people think of abstaining from sex, specifically from abstaining from sex prior to marriage.  This is the meaning I am referring to.

Abstinence has become a bit of a dirty word in our modern age. In our society, sex is regarded as a rite of passage into adulthood.  Those who want to promote abstinence are often ridiculed, belittled or at least labeled impractical.

But when you think about it, abstinence is immensely practical.  Let's think about abstinence in how it pertains to one of the most divisive topics, I can think of, Following the Cubs or White Sox  Abortion.

Abortion is so divisive, that  the language describing it varies depending on which side of the issue you are on. Those who favor abortion,  speak of a woman's right to choose  and are labeled pro-choice.  Those against abortion use terms like sanctity of life and are labeled pro-life.  These are misnomers if ever there were misnomers.  Most so called "pro choicers" that I know hold life to be very dear.  Many are passionate against war or the death penalty because they hold life so dear.  Nor are prolifers really anti choice.  They want to see women with unwanted pregnancies "choose" to come to term and make "choices" that will benefit themselves, their child, and in many cases married couples unable to have their own children.

So what do you need to have an abortion?  You need to be pregnant.  And what do you need to be pregnant?  You need to have sex. So abstinence is a very practical way to limit the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country and thus the amount of abortions.

Abstinence is practical  in terms of birth control,  preventing disease, even in promoting self esteem.  If you only have sexual relations with one person in your lifetime, there is little chance of suffering by comparison.  It is practical in addressing sexual education for the next generation.This, we did it, they're going to do it, let's have them be safe about it approach is about as effective as the let them figure it own on their own, we did approach.  My kids have been told early on that sex is for marriage only.  Amy and I also have the testimony of our own abstinence during our friendship and courtship to back up our words.

So some of you are probably saying practical schmactical promoting abstinence in this day and age won't work when premarital sex is rampant.   I'd say part of the reason why it's rampant is because of this false idea that abstinence is impractical.  I mean that argument is certainly on the menu at Bob's House of Self Fulfilling Prophecies.

Resistance to abstinence and acceptance of abortion are both built on the faulty assumption that our bodies are ours alone and we can do with them what we want as long as no one (except a fetus) gets hurt.

The truth is that our bodies are a gift from God who created us. God fashioned Adam out of the dust of the world he had made days earlier.  He didn't stop with Adam.   He made Eve from Adam as Adam slept.  After that He instituted marriage and procreation. After that he called it a week.  I think one of the reasons why Biblical creation is regarded as faith or fantasy rather than science or history is to ignore this idea that our bodies our not are own. 

Abstinence prior to marriage is key to building a healthy, happy marriage.  Self-control is possible with the help of God,who according to 2 Peter 1:3  has given us everything we need for life and godliness. I'm not saying abstinence is easy, many good things aren't.  I'm saying that abstinence is worth while.  I'll share more of mine and Amy's experiences with abstinence in later posts.

So that's A.  Come back tomorrow for a boring post.