So I haven’t posted anything on Politics for a while but I couldn’t resist this one. I heard mention of this on the radio today but didn’t realize it was totally real. I got something from the Census Bureau in the mail, I assumed it was the Census form that I have heard advertised a 100 times. No, it was just this letter.
Dear Resident:
About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.
Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau
Cuando reciba su formulario del Censo del 2010, visite 2OlOcensus.gov para obtener ayuda sobre cómo completarlo.
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How much did it cost to send that to every address in this entire country? Is it free for the Federal Government to send it since the Post Office is part of the Federal Government? Will 50,000 more people respond because they sent this out and spent 100’s of millions in TV and Radio ads telling us the Census is coming. Seriously, I thought we had a huge deficit right now and this is how our broke government is spending our tax dollars. I am furious about this and you should be too!
One last question mister census taker, Why is it in four different languages? I think it is very discriminating to choose 4 and leave out the other 20 or 30 languages represented in this country. Do one or do all, don’t pick and choose which ones should be included on a whim.
That’s my rant for the week, I wont complain again for a while.
I realize that my last post left a lot of detail out so I decided to make it a 2 part series…
In my attempt to be open and real I don’t want to point blame anywhere but on myself. The fact is Jenni and I grew up in such different environments that we developed habits and responses to things that are totally different and not always complimentary. I want to express that I am really sorry for my lack of emotion and expression in so many years of our marriage.
Jenni grew up around constant conflict and I grew up with passivism (I made that word up) and conflict avoidance. When I was rude or unthoughtful Jenni would quickly let me know. When Jenni would get upset with me sometimes she spoke to me in an abrasive tone. This was how she learned to cope in her home growing up. I, however learned to shut everyone out when things were uncomfortable. I never really saw open conflict in my home so I didn’t really know how to respond to it in marriage. I would respond by shutting down and avoiding her and our issues. Jenni did not have any ill intent in her communication with me, but I perceived it as an attack and would totally retreat. Over the years I harbored these feelings of bitterness but never talked about it.
Jenni became very aware of how she communicated with me. She really worked hard at not letting things bug her so much and to bring them up to me in gentler way. She has also really become an incredible supporter of me, very selfless in so many ways. She is an incredible mother to our children and an extremely devoted wife to me.
Over the years I was pretty lazy about working on my issues and being able to communicate my feelings to her. So I didn’t really progress, I just tried to do all the right actions when it came to serving Jenni or our kids. Actions with out the intimate interaction is pretty useless. It’s like “truth and law” with out “love and grace”.
The more Jenni understood of herself, the better she got at being a safe place for me. In the last year I finally started to let her in to my inner world. I am still pretty guarded at times but it is something I am aware of and working on. The great thing now is that I trust Jenni with my feelings but I still have to dig down and uncover what I’m feeling.
With every level of new awareness we have a greater obligation to work on ourselves in order to be better as a couple. My only reason for sharing these thoughts is encourage someone else who may be experiencing similar challenges in their life. If one person can find some healing then it’s all worth while.
This week-end we headed out to Lincoln City with the family. It’s always hard to get away but thankfully Jenni does a good job of scheduling these things for us every quarter or so. She is so great too because she packs up our whole family while I’m at work. I get home and we hit the road right away. It’s quite awesome!
This week-end started out rough but ended great. Jenni and I had friction on the way out-of-town and didn’t really talk about it until Saturday. I broke down after a tiff regarding the children. I was holding back and not talking about feelings I had experienced. Any of you guys ever do that? Ha Ha…Don’t even tell me you haven’t.
Basically I am still experiencing some bitterness from the way Jenni interacted with me during our early years of marriage. There is still junk in my emotional life that I need to deal with and things I need to process and forgive Jenni for. It is strange because I already forgave her for something that seems so much bigger and uglier.
Here is the deal: Even tiny bits of bitterness left unchecked can destroy you! The issues I need to forgive are being controlling, speaking harshly to me, being selfish and so on. These were things that happened over time and I never spoke up to let her know how it affected me. I just tried to deal with it silently, alone. Now, 6-8 years later I am still feeling the effects and trying to continue dealing with it alone. If your saying, “why would you do that?” I don’t really have an answer.
I at least told her what I am feeling so now we can process it together and she can make adjustments to help me heal and forgive. It’s my job to let her in and share these feelings when they show up. Satan wants me to suffer silently and be bitter, God desires me to be whole and for our relationship to thrive.
What do you need to bring out in the open? Walk with me and find forgiveness for the one you feel bitterness toward.
I shouldn’t say he “gave” the money away as much as he put the money in OUR hands and challenged us to make it work for God’s glory. And if we’re being technical about it, Matt actually gave us what HE was tithing to the church… so he LITERALLY gave his tithe TO the church.
Matt handed out an envelope of different amounts of money to every adult in attendance. We have seven weeks to take that money… invest it… and turn it around to help those in greater need.
So… here are the details:
On April 4th, which is Easter… we at Church at Bethany will be making an IMPACT Offering with every cent that comes out of this experiment. This unknown total amount will be distributed 50% to the homeless & low income students of the Beaverton School District (local) and 50% to Children of the Nations (global).
So, how are we going to make an IMPACT? Here’s what Matt suggested on Sunday:
1. Sell Some Stuff – We all have things setting around in our garage or storage unit that could be sold in a garage sale or on eBay! You could donate also donate cars, rental houses, or even stocks. Like the early church did in Acts–bring the proceeds to the church on Easter and make an IMPACT!
2. Stop Monthly Fees – We all have things being charged monthly to our credit or debit card that we don’t use. Cancel or downgrade your Netflix, Health club, internet, phone, wine of the month club, or season tickets. Ask yourself do I NEED this monthly fee? If not cancel it! Give your savings on Easter and make an IMPACT!
3. Invest – Buy yarn and knit a sweater and sell it. Have your kids operate a lemonade stand. Take a little bit of money and combine a skill that you have and give the proceeds on Easter to make an IMPACT!
We are still talking about how we as a family are going to make this money work for us so that we can better give. We decided to open this up to our greater family… YOU. We want to ask you for two things:
1. SUGGESTIONS! – We really want to hear your ideas of how we can make this $50 not only double, triple or even quadruple… but maybe even quintuple? Maybe if your suggestions are REALLY awesome, the quintuples might have sextuplets!
2. GIVE! – We’d like to invite you to partner with us and give generously. Matt’s goal for our little church plant was to give away $7,500 on Easter Sunday. Brian and I would love nothing more than to write a check that could cover the majority of that. Here’s the deal though… though we’re using a PayPal button and you could easily use your credit card… we’re asking you to PLEASE not give from credit. We don’t want you to give what you don’t have… so please, if you partner with us, only partner with REAL money you have.
I’ve made it easy but placing this little “donate” button here below. And of course we’ll update as we go!… will you partner with us?
Today, Jenni and I got the privilege to guest post over at RefineUs.org. Justin and Trisha are GREAT friends of ours and have built an amazing ministry out of their story. Talk about beauty from ashes.
If you didn’t know, Justin and Trish were an instrumental part to the restoration of Jenni and my marriage. They are good people… OUR people.
Here’s an excerpt from our post:
When we got married (Brian was 26 & Jenni was 22), our thoughts and concerns at the time were about one thing: Our STATUS.
We’re not saying we didn’t love each other or that we shouldn’t have gotten married… we’re simply stating that our new “status” was more attractive than thinking about the reality of what marriage meant.
It wasn’t till after we divorced our old marriage that we FINALLY began to talk about these things. We talked about our dreams, our desires, our goals… and soon realized we both wanted …
I never actually proposed before we got married the first time. I have been reminded for the last nine years by someone to be left unnamed. So I decided this would be a perfect time to make up for it and step up my romance game. Last night was our 10th anniversary from our first date and it was our small group night. Perfect time to do a real proposal and get video proof. Here it is for those of you who haven’t seen it yet on Jenni’s blog.
I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with a woman who loves God and who is constantly striving to be a better wife, mom and friend. Love you honey
So after a long summer and fall break from speaking at Churchatbethany, I told Matt Payne (my pastor) I would cover for him on December 6th because he was going a New Thing event somewhere in the East . I accepted the responsibility before Thanksgiving and anticipated spending a decent amount of time over the Holiday to prepare. Well, I also forgot that I was due for all my continuing education for maintain my Oregon Life Insurance License.
By Friday night after Thanksgiving I was texting Matt to see if I could get out of speaking because I was feeling way too overwhelmed. He said he had no back up plan and that he was confident I could pull it off (inside he was probably freaking out just a bit). Besides all that, I am in charge of our Christmas Tree Fundraiser and that kicked off on Thanksgiving weekend and goes through the 13th of December (come buy a tree we have tons still available).
So I decided to focus in one thing at a time and just get it all done. By no0n on Sunday (Thanksgiving Weekend) I was totally done with my continuing education (so I thought). We then had to drive from La Grande back to Portland which takes about 5 to 6 hours with kids and stops. So I had all week between, work, kids and Christmas tree fundraiser to get my sermon ready to go. I had it edited pretty well by Friday morning and finished it totally by Saturday evening. Then I got to practice it a few times that evening and Sunday morning. I felt like it went pretty well, even though my nerves still mess me up when I get in front of people. I felt like I did a better job with the delivery this time. People seemed to be engaged and tracking with me. The biggest improvement I think was because I personalized the message more. It helped me to deliver it more from memory and do less reading from my notes.
The message was on Scripture and how we use it to grow in our own faith but also how to include family and small group in our spiritual growth. The main point; the scriptures are all about Jesus, every story points to him. The only way to really experience him is to fully immerse yourself in the scripture.
The podcast should be up soon here on the Church site. Feel free to give me some constructive criticism if you are a seasoned speaker. The main thing I really messed up was not having a transition for the worship team to know when to come up at the end but of course you can’t hear that on the podcast anyway. It was totally awkward and kind of funny. That’s how you learn though, Right?
Whats your most memorable or embarrassing moment as a public speaker?
Birthday’s are awesome…It’s fun to have everyone acknowledge you one day out of the year. Even if your birthday represents an age that feels old or you thought you would never reach.
Last Thursday (Nov. 19th in case you want to plan for next year) was my birthday and I got a ton of “happy birthday” wishes on facebook and twitter. But i have to say, the best two presents I got were:
Waking everybody with a sound
That’s been likened to sawing
Some call it snoring
All the best husbands do it
So our wives have something to tweet about
As if the bobbleheaded conversation
sprinkled with some speculation
covering the sanitation habits of the generation
that we’re raising all across the nation
…wasn’t enough
(some choral wailing)
Kids are upside down in nearly
Every single family picture
It’s probably better that way
Definitely better than attempts
to fish for sharks from the car
I wonder whose genes he got?
Should this be rhymed with bergamot?
Maybe, but probably not
Though citrus-scented gas
Might be a winner
(some more choral wailing)
(Love)
Love never gives up, never looks back
Never gives up, never looks back, never gives up…
(endures)
(Love endures)…
Waking everybody with a sound
That’s been likened to sawing
Often called snoring
And if I’m not sleeping through life, you’re not going to either.
All the other gestures were awesome and truly appreciated! I am blessed with more quality friendships now than at any other time in my life.
Last week I started a new job with a company called CarHelp. I will be doing business to business sales introducing our network to automotive service providers around Oregon and SW Washington. It’s a unique challenge being pretty much a start up company. I am excited about it but it also means that I will not be seeing the family nearly as much as I have gotten used to. Blogging will also be more of a rarity for now. Soon I should get into a routine and get back on track with regular posts.
What should we do with our $50?
