Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Heading to Sudan

Hillcrest's team heads to Sudan beginning this afternoon. You can follow the team's blog here. You can also get daily prayer updates if you choose to follow Hillcrest on Facebook. The team returns to Sioux Falls Thursday, December 2nd. Please be in prayer for safe tavels and for God's work to be done.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Learning something new

It's been awhile since I've read Scripture with the use of a Study Bible (my last two bibles were wide margin ones where I made my own notes), but I am enjoying the study bible that I recently picked up and much of its insightful commentary. For instance, as I'm workign through early Exodus and the plagues that God sends to the Egyptians, the commentators note that several of the plagues were in fact designed to directly confront Egyptian deities. Turning the Nile into blood confronts Hapi, the god of the Nile. Hail in the sky attacks the goddess Nut, god of the sky, and so on. Even the passover, where the Egyptian first borns die, attacks Osiris, the god of death, who will be powerless to reverse its devastating effects. It is interesting that the plagues were not just powerful acts meant to deliver the Israelites, but also symbolic of a battle between God and the gods.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

I'm thankful that . . .

. . . we know our children's preschool teachers. Apparently the other day our 4 year old told his teacher, 'Miss Mindi, I don't have a bed'. Wow! What's humorous about this is that he's somewhat correct. He in fact does have a bed, but it has been covered with stuff since we lost our basement. He couldn't get to his bed if he wanted to. But also, this 4 year old actually has a very nice, king, pillow top bed that he sleeps in most every night! It's called my bed! And that might be happening even if he did have his own bed. Needless to say, everyone's looking forward to the completion of this remodel so we can avoid future incidents with social services.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Big weekend at the Hill

It's a big weekend at Hillcrest. Saturday is our annual craft fair, with the proceeds from the fair going to support the Powerhouse Tutoring Center. Sunday we welcome Pastor Julius Badigo who is the Sudanese pastor accompanying our team to Sudan next week as he will be preaching in both services.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Redo Landscape

For the last couple of months, well, ever since inches of water decided to fill up my basement, these words have been at the top of my personal 'to do' list. And someone who makes such lists and loves to cross things off of them, these were annoying thorn as it seemed like I never got to cross them off. I would go through multiple lists, a couple legal pads (those who work with me know I love the legal pad!), and every time I'd start a new list or worse, begin a new pad, I'd have to carry those words over onto the new list. In truth, these two words weren't merely something to cross off a list, they were a series of things, of steps if you will, and once those steps began to be crossed off, then I was closer to the goal. I had to remove old rock, remove dirt, rework the dirt into a (hopeful) grade that would flow away from the house (what a concept!), lay down plastic, etc, etc. The truth is, these steps took time. A lot of time. And lots of rock, but that was an earlier post.

The guys who wrote Made to Stick and Switch likened two sets of goals or to do lists. The first are rather simple- get groceries, fill up with gas, etc. The second are harder- like deal with tax issues. Sometimes I have personal or work goals that are in the second category (though I don't currently have tax issues!), and I find that a it;s helpful to write down the steps that are going to get me closer to that goal. Had I done that with the landscaping project, I would have perhaps felt some success earlier on. And so while I set some work goals each year, some are in that second category, so I've found it helpful to look at those goals and then think through the next six weeks (I thank Bill Hybels for this tool) and identify what are the 6 most important things I need to get done in the next 6 weeks? When I do this for several 6 week periods of time in a row, I find that I move closer to my annual goals? Coincidence?

And, within the last couple of weeks, I was able to cross 'redo landscaping' off of my list. Now onto 'finish basement'!