about that time…

yup, it’s that time.  time for me to do my annual / semi-annual blog update.  [for MUCH more of the day to day, visit: ROSINDAMU ]

i will confess it makes me sad that this is as often as i can seemingly bring myself to post, because in my dream world brain i would love to post more often, but as reality has it, i’m apparently not that guy.

but i figure it’s the beginning of 2013 and i can do a brief, “here’s what’s going on”

So here’s what’s going on in my world:

• Family: In short things are well and at peace.  Kids are doing well in school, reading lots, going to be playing some soccer here in an indoor winter clinic / league.  Tommy is an avid reader, sports expert, lego creator and overall smiley, ticklish, enjoyable, go with the flow fella.   Louis is our focused, geography oriented, also avid reader who has a tendency to be a little more clear on what he wants and how he’d like to see us get there .  Great kids both of them!  We consistently enjoy them, the things that they create and the fun(ny) things that come out of their mouths.  Jayne is doing well also.  She is coming off of a stress injury in her foot and is getting back into her skates slowly.  Her roller derby team, the Cornfed Derby Dames, is practicing again and gearing up for another season.  Her photo business continues to thrive but at a reasonable pace as to not be too overwhelming for her which is great.  She’s a great and patient mom to our boys and I’m always thankful for her sacrifice and hands on involvement with them.
• Me: I feel like I am doing as well as ever.  I am enjoying my careers, living out some dreams, getting some things done and enjoying my family and friends.  I continue to part-time pastor our campus church with my 3 co-pastors, which is generally a lot of fun!!  It’s been so good and stabilizing to see God at work over the past 20 years that I’ve been involved here at BSU as both a student, staff person and pastor.  I really love what we have going on and what we’re dreaming for the future.  I also work as a registered nurse at the local mid-sized hospital working in the Intensive Care Unit.  I thoroughly enjoy this work, the hands on nature, the (sometimes) intensity, the complexity, and the people aspect, both with my coworkers (whom I can’t say enough about and whom I love to work with) and with families and patients.   It is super encouraging to have found a good niche to work in where I feel useful, fulfilled, competent, and can excel.
• Dreams / Fun: I think it was in this past year that I had some sort of epiphany in which I have become a much less worried person.  I’ve probably always had a tendency to be somewhat more on the serious side, at least in my heart.  I think this past year, for whatever reason, I’ve had the realization that life is really short, and that a lot of people spend that life worried about a million inconsequential things.  We really are here today and gone tomorrow, and as such I want my life to reflect my creator with his Joy, Love for people, Sacrifice, and Enjoyment of what he’s given and where I find myself.  I think I’ve freed myself up to dream more, and feel less guilty about it, or less insecure about it. I’ve tried to become less worried about dumb stuff.  I’m enjoying relationships more and trying to take myself less seriously.  It’s been a really good year and I’m really looking forward to this next one.  A couple areas of dreaming/fun…
  • Chicken update: Our chickens are doing well and have so far survived the winter (we’ll keep our fingers crossed).  This spring we’re probably going to revisit our coop project for chicken coop 2.0.  It will be a fixed coop and our chickens will only get to be only occasional free rangers in the whole of our backyard  Sad for them, but too much chicken poop for us to handle!!  So that will be a good compromise.  We’ll rework the coop with some lessons we’ve learned along with some good wisdom gained from others.

• We’ve got a trailer!  Yup one of them there RV’s!!  Well okay, not a motorhome, but a “vintage travel trailer” that we are going to be working to refinish over the next couple years.  It is an Argosy, which was a subsidiary of Airstream (the aluminum polished vintage trailers you’ve seen on the road), but the Argosies are painted. We’re actually pretty excited about this as the polish is a TON of work to keep up on!  So we’re gutting now, and hope to have the frame and exterior work done by next fall so the winter and spring can involve interior renovations.  We’ll see!!!

• 2013 Goals / Hopes: So I’ve known this for a while, (my family and friends have probably known it longer) but I am generally a dreamer and a starter.  I don’t do so good on the finishing end generally.  Character flaw?  Maybe/Maybe not? Who knows, I’m not too hung up on it anymore.  It’s part of me and my make up, I’m not as naturally good at finishing as I am at starting, but I am willing to start, which I guess others have trouble with!!  Anyways, 2013 I’m calling the year of Completion.  Not like in a Mayan Calendar sense, but a year in which I’m going to try and complete a bunch of stuff that have loose ends around my house primarily.  So I’ve got a good list, I’m organized, and I’ve got my wife solidly behind this idea .  One project is even done, which you can go over to Jayne’s blog and check out if you’re so inclined.  Louis’ birthday present (yes his birthday is in September. see what i mean?) is done and on his wall.  Check box one, DONE.  So anyways, we’ll see how this finishing thing goes… Pray for me Here’s a pic of his bookshelf…

I think that’s most of what I have to say.  I am a thankful man.  I have a beautiful family.  The best friends a guy could want.  We have food in our pantry, clothes on our bodies, and an amazing (though unfinished) home to live in.

Most of all however we have a God who is present to us and is our friend.  One of my co-pastors shared in his message yesterday that over Lazarus’ grave was inscribed “friend of Jesus.”  I was struck by that and it made me smile.  We can be friends of Jesus.  Not in some cheesy, weird, sugary way either.  It’s amazing and exciting for me to know that Jesus likes me.  He wants us to have a friendship and more than that, but that friendship part has things in it that I often think we / I miss when I think about how I relate to God. Child of God, yes sure, but friend has a voluntary willingness to it that includes the part about Jesus actually liking me, right now, where I’m at regardless of how ugly my life might be.  And I really dig that.  A friend of Jesus, pretty cool.

Let’s go get em in 2013!

mark out.

the youngsters…

i’m sure there is lots to catch up on related to tommy and lou, i’ll try to hit some highlights here.

tommy ro

• tommy had a good summer. he (and lou) swam on the Catalina Club swim team which had it’s challenges (prescription goggles and headaches to name a few) but for the most part was really good.  Tommy even won the “Most Improved” swimmer award for his age group, which was pretty exciting and encouraging for him.  He walked away with a decent number of ribbons from the summer and had a generally good time.(how about that last name )
• he started 4th grade this year, which is hard to believe.  only 1 more year in elementary, then off to middle school!! what the what!???  man time flies!  he’s doing great however, still loves to read and does well in school.  He’s gotten the classroom job of computer helper and so is well on his way to becoming gigabot jr.
• One fun thing that Tommy has gotten into has been cooking.  He actually reminds me of me when I was about his age.  He especially likes to cook breakfast which he does well with all on his own.  I’m talking eggs, bacon, toast, the works!  He also likes to eat and is adventurous (like me)

• Lastly Tommy has become Mr. Sports.  The question, “Can I watch some Sports Center?” is commonly heard around our home these days and Tommy does have his own fantasy football team.  He clearly knows more about sports than I do on all fronts and with all sports, though I’ve still got a few things I’m able to teach him.  It’s been fun though to hear him talk about obscure players who I know nothing about, but who he seems to know quite a bit about!

Mr. Louis…

• oh mr. lou.  well lots to say about this little guy who despite his small stature has quite the large personality.  where to start.
• well, louie swam this summer as well.  not as accomplished as t.ro, but at the same time pretty impressive the he stuck with it and did alright.  we saw a lot of 8th, 9th, and 10th place ribbons   who even knew they made those???
• lou loved our trip to d.c. and rafting in wv.  more to come on that later.
• He continues to be Mr. Geography.  He loves the states, state trivia, countries, lists, demographics, and all manner of weird factoids related to geography.  I regularly fail his tests related to any number of geographical questions.
• He’s doing fine in 1st grade, behaving well, and doing good.  It could be a really rough day when he fails to meet his teachers expectations and doesn’t get such a hot score on his behavior chart though!  Look out world!  But he is motivated to obey and behave at school, so I guess that’s positive right?!
• His birthday is coming up soon and he’s excited about that, so good times there.  We’re going to sky zone in indy to do some trampolining!!
• With Lou it’s all personality.  He’s got tons of it, and here are just a few pics to prove it!!

So that’s all for now right there, I’m sure I’ve forgot a lot, but someone can bring that to my attention.

Latest Greatest in Chickenville….

Well, it’s time for a chickeny update.  Here’s what I’ve got:

It’s safe to say that we’ve settled into life with chickens.

Here’s our routine:

• about 7am one of us let the chickens out of their coop (side note: yes my auto chicken door is not functional yet.  i’m having motor issues and one is being shipped as you read).
• about 9pm the chickens go back into their coop on their own, or when it gets dark out.  Then we close up the coop to keep the coons out.
• once a day in the afternoon we go out and retrieve on average 2 medium eggs, light brown in color.  they’re subtly beautiful.
• once every week and a half I spend 20 minutes cleaning the coop, and replenishing their feed.
• once every couple days we refill and clean out the ole water bowl

What’s up with the coop:

• Well I put in a laying box, which the chickens don’t use.  So I’ll probably just take it out and redo the siding on that portion of things.  A for effort.
• I’ve got all my arduino code ready to go, just waiting on an appropriate motor to drive my stupid door.  Then I should have this in/out thing automated so we won’t have to manually go and let em out and lock em up at night.
• Gonna put in a chicken window so we can more easily see what’s up in there, and also move our egg access door to a handy place for reaching in to grab eggs, that makes sense right?

Positives about chickens:

• chickens are funny and ridiculous
• chickens are actually pretty
• chickens make yummy eggs
• 

Negatives about chickens:

• chickens sometimes go crazy and make lots of noise
• chickens poop on your deck until you get a scarecrow
• chickens will attack sometimes

All told, we like our chickens and we like being chicken owners.  They are our pets, have their own personalities, quirks and spice.  It’s been really fun so far.

Liberia. Life Changing, again.

Well, it seems crazy, that it’s been 3 months since we returned from Liberia, but it has.

In short Liberia was awesome and amazing even for the second time.  I was struck again / afresh by a good many things, but want to highlight several here.

First off though, what did we do while we were there?  Great question.  Our team consisted of two physicians (Jeremy and Jason) the nurse (me), one of my co-pastors (Neil), and then a fella from our community who is a school teacher by profession (Tyler).  So basically there were 2 “tracks,” the medical track and the Vacation Bible School Track.  Jeremy, Jason and I saw patients in the clinic all week and Neil and Tyler did some work projects on a vocational school we’re building there and handled the 2 day VBS with roughly 100+ kids.  The work was steady, but not as overwhelming as in years past which was somewhat nice, though we had all prepared ourselves for much more.  I think it was a credit to the clinic being open on a regular basis that things weren’t totally swamped.  There is a full time nurse and midwife present on site which enables locals to come by for care more often than just when the “white doctors” show up.  The acuity of the patients seemed at a lower level and more manageable as well.  We saw many men, women and children with malaria, pregnant women, a variety of orthopedic issues, and many other random ailments.  It was rewarding to be able to help as we could in a place with such limited resources.

The Vacation Bible School was a big success as Neil and Tyler were absolutely beloved by the kids.  They talked about the story of Joseph and introduced many of the kids to puppets for the first time.   It was pretty amazing that many had never seen a puppet before and were awed by them.

Things out at the property continue to go well.  The clinic is up and practically fully functional, the vocational school is framed up and walls are almost all finished and should be functional here soon.  The rubber tree plantation continues to thrive and many of the trees will be ready to harvest in a year or two! It’s exciting to see the progress of many years of labor on the part of our Liberian brothers and sisters and the generosity of our church back here in Muncie.

So that’s some of what we were up to, now onto the stuff the Lord impressed on me while we were there.

The Kids

The children were everywhere.  Walking everywhere.  All ages, all the time.  Some with shoes, some without.  Most had clothes, some did not.  Some carrying food, supplies, or their baby brothers and sisters on their backs. Lots of smiles, loved to play and try to communicate.  Beautiful.

[NOTE: THIS IS WHERE I LEFT OFF AFTER WRITING THE FIRST HALF. I'M GOING TO BE BRIEF SO THAT I CAN ACTUALLY GET THIS DONE!!!]

The Community

Out in the boondocks as they are, people really need each other, for everything.  Everyone has a job(s) and each person is essential in survival here.  It’s just how it is.  It is really humbling to see the people living in a truly interconnected way and makes quite a stark comparison to the spirit of individualism and independence we seem to idolize here in the west.

Thankfulness

Another thing that is striking is simply the general attitude of most folks.  The believers there in the area where we were working at the clinic have an overarching positivism that flows over into all they do.  Despite being such a hard place to live and exist, smiles are the norm, friendliness is common, and the Spirit of the Lord is present.  Again, all of this lends me perspective about my own life and the way I approach my problems and my relationships.  There is lots to be thankful for to be sure.

———–

Okay… so HERE  is a link to a bunch of pics from our trip!!  Enjoy!!

It’s been a while…

I realize it’s been a good while since I’ve posted anything here, so prepare for an onslaught…

So here’s the teaser. Prepare for some updates on:

• Liberia
• Chickens and the Coop
• Kiddo’s
• Summertime trips and happenings

Deep breath, here we go!

as smart as a chicken in a thunderstorm …

if you hear me say this to you, well i’m sorry, it’s not a compliment.

those chickens are cute, but pretty dumb.  standing in the rain instead of walking up their plank, which they go up and down all day long normally, isn’t that bright.

 

cool little bench / coffeetable

i like it…

Essence Bench