Haiti Update

Just a quick update to let you know things are still progressing with "Churches Helping Churches." They have hired an executive director named Thomas Kim. He has been a pastor in a Presbyterian church and has a lot of international experience. He will be working with the pastor in Haiti, as well as getting things set up to organize staff, volunteers and donations.
One of the first things they will be working on, will be to contribute money to Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale Florida, a church that is already established in Haiti. They have also added some new stuff to the website www.churcheshelpingchurches.com if you're interested.
I"ll continue to keep you posted.
Thanks, Paul

Thursdays Child - John 2:1-11 1st Miracle

Welcome to another Sunday edition of Thursdays Child. I'm excited about it after last weeks disappointing look at our Christian community. This week is fun because I was able to see Jesus as the obedient son. Instead of typing it all out, a summary the wedding feast miracle would read, Jesus, his mother and some of the disciples were at a wedding feast. Jesus' mother came to Him and told Him they had ran out of wine. He asked her "What does that have to do with us?" "My time has not yet come." She told the servants "Do what he tells you." He told the servants to fill a bunch of pots with water. All of a sudden the water was wine.

My question is, why did He make the wine? He told her no, it was not His concern. Was there more dialogue than is written? I am only going to base this theory stricktly from this scripture in the book of John. I haven't searched any of the other books. I'm thinking she could have said something like "You may be God but I'm still your mother young man." What I've really been wondering is, Did she give Him the "MOMMY LOOK?" You know she had to have one. I don't believe there is a parent in history that doesn't.

What do I think? I think she gave Him the look, raised her eyebrows at Him or whatever, immediately turned to the servants and said "Do what He says." and she walked off. In other words this conversation is over, you will do it. Then like a good boy, He hung His head and told the servants to go get water.

Was it an appropriate use of His powers? Who knows? Who cares? I think it has more to do with Deuterotomy 6:16. Honor thy mother and father. His mom told Him to do it, He did it. Not only did He make the wine He made the best wine possible.

That just gave me a thought. If you've ever known someone having self esteem issues and told them "God don't make junk." This is a good example of that. Even when the people were already drunk and the less expensive wines were usually used God made the best. He is perfect He can't make less than the best.

It was fun to look at Jesus as a momma's boy, but most of all it was interesting to see that even though He was God, He was on this earth as a human and had to live according to the laws set up for us

Thanks for searching with me again, Paul

Thursdays Child -Rapture Theories...Gone Sour

Well, I've taken a bit of a detour from the Thursdays Child. I had to relieve some of the pressure building up, if you remember the post, Spontaneous Combustion Declining. I thought this week would be a good week to get back to it. James MacDonald at Harvest Bible Chapel posted an interesting blog this week about the rapture. To refresh your memory he is one of the ones who started churches helping churches, mainly for the people of Haiti. He is going through Revelation at his church. He gave scripture supporting the post tribulation rapture. Matthew 24:29,30. All of chapter 24 talks about the end times but verses 29 and 30 say "immediately after those horrible days end, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then at last the sign of the coming of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens, and there will be a deep mourning among all the nations of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man arrive on the clouds of heaven with power and glory.

All of us who were taught a pre tribulation rapture were taught 1Thesalonians 4

I got interrupted that's why this isn't posted on Thursday. I decided since I wasn't writing I'd check out more pre-trib scriptures. What I found really bothered me. I found a whole bunch of web sites supporting both positions. That wasn't necessarily the disturbing part, I mean isn't that what we're all doing. What I did find, was that some of them would go so far as to undermine and talk bad about the other. This won't be cleared up 'til it happens, if it happens. And we won't know until then. So gee, can't we act like children of God? Does the phrase Love One Another ring a bell? I did come across a prophetic one that said the body of Christ will join together and there will be no more talk of the rapture.

What I would like to remind everyone is that it boils down to we are suppose to live like it will happen now, or maybe now, or now or......

What I really wanted to share with you Thursday when I started this post is, on James MacDonald's post he coined the greatest phrase,

Don't be a part of the planning committee, be a part of the welcoming committee

Thanks for searching with me, Paul

Rainy Day Window Washing

Rainy Day Window Washing

A Short Story

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Herbert has been washing windows at the inner city high rise apartments for as long as he can remember. Although he has to be old enough to retire, or darn close to it, he is the type of man who has worked for so long that he couldn't imagine not going to work every day. He cleans the windows in a couple of other buildings,and they help pay the bills, but he considers the high rise "his baby." Even though he doesn't know many of the people there by name, he thinks of them as family. He has watched over most of them since they were babies, and is now watching over the new babies that continue to move in. He has helped parents dodge possible disasters, kids playing with matches, eating paint chips flaking off the wall, overly excited teenage boyfriends making unwanted advances to the some of the girls. Because of his age, management has hired an assistant for him. They have him take care of the upper floors, but still he is no match for Herbert. Some weeks Herbert has to go up and help him because Tony seems to have more important things to do than work, like partying, and uh, partying.

One day, while Herbert was cleaning on the thirteenth floor, Terrance, a four year old who was suppose to be taking a nap, started screaming at the top of his lungs. Julie, his mom came running in and tried to comfort him, but to no avail. She asked him over and over what was the matter. He just kept pointing out the window saying there was someone out there. She looked three times just to make him feel better, but all she could see was rain tapping against the window. She tried to convince him that it must have been the rain or a dream, but nothing was going to make him feel better. There would be no more napping today. That night Julie talked to some of her friends and found that the same thing had happened to some of them. Nobody had seen Tony, so they just shrugged it off to coincidence. Over the next couple of weeks the nightmares increased, so the moms on the thirteenth floor started asking around, and the rest of the building didn't seem to be experiencing anything unusual.

Just when they thought the rain would never end, finally a few days of sunshine. Everyone spent as much time outside as possible, even if it meant going to the park during naptime and having an earlier bedtime at night. They forgot about the nightmares since alot of the kids hadn't had naps.The sunshine gave a much needed break to the rain, but unfortunately it was short lived.

Maria is one who will never forget the day it rained the hardest, the year of the wettest spring on record. She laid on the couch to doze a little bit after putting Olivia, her two year old daughter, down for a nap. Fortyfive minutes later she woke to the loudest pounding she had ever heard. Disoriented, she jumped up, stumbled over her shoes she had set next to the couch, and realized the sound was coming from Olivia's bedroom. As she threw open the door she heard the pounding coming from Olivia's window. Instinctively, she looked toward the window. When she did, the pounding stopped, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of an image that appeared to be a person pass by the window. Immediately her focus turned to Olivia. She ran Olivia's buck bed, jumped onto the bottom bed, looked up at Olivia, and found she had somehow wound the mini-blind cord around her neck. She frantically started unwrapping the cord. She could feel a pulse in her neck, but could tell she wasn't breathing. She grabbed her, lifted her off the bed, laid her onto the floor, put her fingers under her chin, lifted her little blue face to open her airway, and started blowing into her mouth. After three of four blows, Olivia let out a couple of coughs, gasped a few good breaths of air and was breathing on her own again. Later that evening, after a trip to the emergency room to make sure Olivia was ok, Maria was telling Julie what had happened, the pounding, the image outside the window. "Could it have been the rain on the window making it look like a person?" They wondered. "Or do we really have guardian angels?" Neither one of them could think of a logical explanation. So Maria decided to investigate further in the morning.

After a hurried breakfast Maria got the kids dressed, and headed downstairs to the high rise office. When she got there the office was abuzz talking about yesterday's rain. She finally cornered the secretary, described what had happened, and asked who she could talk to. Immediately the room fell quiet, and all eyes were on Maria. The maintenance supervisor led her into his office where they could talk further. They talked for about thirty minutes, he listened intently as Maria told him everything that had happened over the past couple of months. When she finished, he explained to her that he has only been the maintenance supervisor since the first of the year but he had heard other stories similar to hers. Since he didn't know if any of the stories he had heard were true he could only recommend for her to go to the local newspaper for more details. She thanked him for his time, went back upstairs, dropped the kids off with her mom, and headed over to the Gazette.

Once the receptionist heard that Maria lived in the high rise on Center Street, she knew why she was there. She directed her to the basement to the archive department. When she arrived an elderly woman probably in her mid to late seventies greeted her,and led her over to the microfiche, where she had the article ready for her. Maria looked at her puzzled, and she explained that the receptionist had let her know she was coming. This has always been a popular story so it never gets buried too far back. The headline from April 17th 1935 read, "Window Washer Falls To His Death." Stunned, Maria sat back in her chair and continued to read. It was reported that Herbert Gonzalez, who had been the window cleaner of the Center Street High Rise for twenty eight years was caught in a sudden rain storm while cleaning the windows on the thirteenth floor. Upon inspection of his safety equipment it was determined that his death was caused by equipment failure due to the extremely wet conditions.

Dazed, Maria left the paper and walked to the park where she sat for most of the afternoon. All she could think of was how fortunate she is to still have Olivia. She hates to think how that day would've turned out if Herbert hadn't pounded on her window. How do you thank someone who has been dead for eighty years? You do it by keeping his memory alive. Not only have they convinced the manager to honor Herbert on the eightieth anniversary of his death by putting up a plaque by the thirteenth elevator dedicating the thirteenth floor to him, now, whenever there is a "nightmare" on a rainy afternoon parents make sure they tell their kids that they have a guardian angel named Herbert watching over them keeping them safe through the storm.