Neufelds’ Fiesta [video blog]
Last night we went to a Mexican Fiesta. Click the graphic to see the videoblog…
Jim
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Mexican President in Calgary
And in other news…Vicente Fox Quesada, the President of Mexico, was in Calgary yesterday. He and his wife Marta Sahagun de Fox joined a prestigious group including Vladimir Putin, Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Costner and Prince Philip who have all gotten white Smithbilt cowboy hats as a welcome to Calgary. Yes, that’s what we do around here.
Fox’ appearances were by invitation only (and we weren’t invited). He spoke at the University of Calgary, and has gone on to British Columbia today.
Alberta and Mexico do a lot of trade – over a billion a year. They have a lot of ties, especially when it comes to energy. The oil industry is, of course, big around here, as it is in Mexico. Mexico’s oil and gas company, Pemex, is one of the 100 biggest companies in the world (that’s not just oil companies – that’s any company).
Apparently Fox spoke about his government’s accomplishments, and about strengthening ties between “us and them”. There’s currently a picture of Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin on Fox’s website.
Fox has been president since December 1 2000. He was born in Mexico City. He was a route supervisor for Coca-Cola, and eventually took charge of Coke’s operations throughout Latin America. Now you know.
Studies, donations, and fiestas
Good morning! I’m just stopping by to let you know what we’ve been up to lately. But first, I wanted to share this cool picture from fellow bloggers at MexiText of a Mexican wedding with a mariachi band. You can click the photo to see more pictures of theirs on Flickr.
As you may know we’ve been sick, and I’m afraid we still are – Shari and I, anyway. So it’s been pretty hard to get the work done we need to. We’ve been trying to get done what we can.
I’ve been trying finish my course. This week I sent in my first (smaller) paper. It was on Open Theism (“Does God know the future?”). So now I’m working on the thesis and outline of my last (bigger) paper. After the paper I just have an exam, and I can start on the last course (please pray that the other 44% can be raised for the tuition – see Prefield Training).
We’ve also been trying to get our presentations together from our trip. We’re working on a new set of information mainly for individuals, as well as church presentations. Our next church event is in just over 2 weeks.
On top of that is all the other paperwork that goes along with the job. There’s always lots to do.
Tonight we’re going to try to go to a little Mexican fiesta – this time to see fellow Mexico missionaries, the Neufelds, who are in Canada for a few weeks.
After my earlier optimism, we just found out that September was the lowest month of donations for our ministry since January 2004 (and probably the 3rd lowest month since we started with CAM)! With the rising expenses that I recently mentioned in our prayer requests, we’re finding that we need more wisdom and faith from the Spirit in the weeks ahead. Please continue praying that more people would catch the vision for the work in Mexico.
Still, pledges continue to come in. I know I have at least two more to add to the list. Praise the Lord for each of these people! 😎
CoolRuler [free software review]
CoolRuler is one of those little programs that every once in a while makes something a whole lot easier. The concept is quite simple, really. CoolRuler is a little ruler that appears on your screen. It can be horizontal or vertical. It can measure in centimeters, inches, pixels, or a custom measurement. You can move it around the screen and put little marks on it just where you want them.
There are all kinds of reasons why you might want to use something like this. If you’re working with graphics online or emailing to a friend, you might want to measure how big the picture should be. If you’re writing an academic paper, you might want to see just how big those margins really are. Anything that’s going to stay on your computer, or be printed out, might need to be measured with CoolRuler.
Sure, you may not want it now, but the day will come when you’ll remember what I said and go looking for it. So why not just get it now? It’s a tiny program available from FabSoft. Click here to go to the CoolRuler download page [edit: looks like the link is no longer available. Sorry! Contact me if you’re interested in Cool Ruler.].
How life slooooowed down…
A little over a week ago, we all got sick. You all know what it’s like, I’m sure. Actually, we can’t complain because for the last few months we’ve all been quite healthy. But all of a sudden life had to slow waaaay down.
It’s been pretty busy in September, so perhaps God knew He needed to slow us down a little somehow. However, we’re looking at an even busier month in October, so we’re hoping we can get over whatever-this-is soon so that we can gear up for that.
Last night, still not feeling well, we went to bed early. First, Hannah got up and informed us that she wanted it to be morning. Sorry, Hannah, you’ll have to take that one up with God.
Next, Nathanael woke up screaming, and I had to calm him down. On the way to his room, Hannah informed me that her tummy was hungry. Then I took care of Nathanael and went back to bed. By this time it was almost 5am.
*Phew* Yes, I hope we’re all feeling better soon. Then we can all get caught up again on all the things that we’re falling behind on. Oh, don’t worry. We’ll pace ourselves! 😉
Did Jesus judge or not??
I got another good Bible question by email, so I thought I’d share the answer with you. The basic question was, why is it that Jesus says in John 8:15 that He doesn’t judge anyone, when all through the Gospels He seems to be doing a lot of judging? Here’s my answer, see what you think (note – you may need to click a link to see the rest of the answer. It’s a long one, so I’m using the blog’s extended text feature):
Great question! There has been a great deal of confusion over the concept of “judging” in the Bible, since there are a number of passages dealing with it. And it’s actually a very important concept.
There is I think a very good answer to your question, but let’s make things even more complicated by adding two more passages. You quoted from the KVJ, so I’ll do the same:
For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son (John 5:22)
And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. (John 9:39)
Now of course we really have a problem, because these verses clearly make it sound like Jesus is a judge.
For it to all make sense, we must understand that there are different meanings for the word “judge”. In fact, there are times when different words are used in the Greek (the original language of the New Testament). Here are some possible meanings of the words, then we’ll come back to our passages. We’ll do this by contrasting different types of judging: