My Random Thoughts

Just a quick reminder today. The compassion bloggers are in El Salvador right now. Please remember to keep them and their families in your prayers. If you are interested in what the bloggers are saying, please stop by the Compassion blog. They are updating their daily.

As a person who does sponsor a child through compassion, I can tell you it life changing and you will be a better person for it.

It is time again for the Compassion bloggers to go on another trip to document what Compassion is doing in another country. This time they are heading out to El Salvador. Shaun Groves who is heading this trip has asked us who support Compassion for some help. Instead of me trying to paraphrase what Shaun had said, I will just copy it here.

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 It’s that time again. I’m heading out with another group of bloggers to see the ministry of Compassion and tell the interwebs about it (El Salvador, NEXT WEEK! Nov. 9-13th). Hundreds of kids will get sponsored! I’m sure of it. But we need your help.

 Could you please…

 1. Pray.

-To see the names and faces of the bloggers going with us visit http://www.compassionbloggers.com/elsalvador

-Pray for their families they’ll leave behind, their spiritual and physical health, their ability to take in a lot of information and experience a lot of emotions and find the words to write about it.

 2. Twitter.

-Please send your followers to our trip’s page using this link: http://bit.ly/CBElSalvador

-Please tweet any specific posts you’d like to pass along using the hashtag #cbes

- If you ask your followers to sponsor a child, please use this link: http://bit.ly/Give1Life

 3. Facebook.

I’ve created a widget for Facebook pages (works on Myspace and blogs too). It displays pictures, videos and posts from our trip as they become available.

No need to know what the heck a widget is. Just go to http://bit.ly/Give1Lifeand click “Facebook” to add this widget to your Facebook wall.

 Thank you for praying us through this trip and spreading the word.

 -Shaun

 Blogger Manager

CompassionBloggers.com

Compassion.com

<a href=”http://compassionbloggers.com/trips/2009-el-salvador”><img src=”http://drop.io/download/public/fh89m9jflpen83lbh2dc/0f72a5ff6495d902781abd32213ca5d80eeb633b/e04c1020-addc-012c-3ccf-f48f8b378c9d/e13e19b0-addc-012c-93ad-f1833e6e53d0/v2/thumbnail_large” width=”200″ height=”200″></a>

PRICELESS!

The light turned yellow, just in front of him.. He did the right thing,stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection,dropping her cell phone and makeup. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched,fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door.She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer

was waiting with her personal effects. He said, ”I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder,the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally…I assumed you had stolen the car.”

Priceless.

(thank you mr matteo for sending me this in a e-mail)

Thomas

As I watched the World Series, I wondered if the season is just to long. When I se fans in the seats wearing winter jackets and looking like they are freezing, how can they be enjoying the game. Just think if Colorado was in the World Series, Denver is expected to get over a foot of snow today. How many games would have to be postponed because of snow and could weather? How could there be an other Mr. October when most of the World Series will played in November. Baseball should seriously consider shorting their season or cut out the wild card games so the World Series could be played and completed in October.

Thomas

How do you define love. I think that this defines it perfectly.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (The Message)

3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (New Living Translation)

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

At times I am not the sharpest cookie out there. All you need to do is ask my family and friends and they will back up that statement. However, there is one thing that I would never think of doing and that is to bringing a hand grenade to airport to catch a flight. So when I read on govgab that twenty one hand grenades have been brought to airports since July, all I could do is just laugh. What are people think when they bring their hand grenade to the airport? Do they think that it would be a good conversational piece on the flight to where ever they are flying to.

I now wonder how many hand grenades do not get caught and actually make it on the plane? How many guns are caught at the airport and how many make it on the plane? Another thing to add to the list why I will not fly.

Thomas.

At the beginning of the year I started a routine where I would at least three times a week start my morning off by reading at least a chapter from the old testament. I started of with Geniuses and I am working my way forwards. As I have been doing my reading I have seen myself in many of the people written about in the Bible. I see myself the sinner who needs forgiveness for his sins. I also see a legalistic God in my studies. I struggle seeing a loving God who will forgive and forget my sins. At times this is not best way to start my day because it messes me up. Since I struggle with forgiving myself for my stupidity, I tend go through the day not seeing God forgiving me for my sins. It weighs me down.

Just may be I need to change my routine and read the New Testament in the morning and read the Old Testament at night. I just wish that having faith and trusting God was easier for me.

Thomas

There has been a discussion at work on what our policy will be this year if you become sick. The reason why this issue is being discussed has to with the supposed swine flu. It is a rarity that any of the people whom I work with will call in sick. Our employer does not offer sick pay so many of us cannot afford to miss a day or more of work Last winter all of us ended up sick with in a very short period of time. We all tried to work through it. You would have been surprised to walk into our office and see it filled with a bunch of guys wearing their winter jackets in a warm office. In fact, one day I wore two winter jackets at one time trying to remain warm. The agreement we came to was that we would take off so not to get the rest of us sick. I do not see any of us following this agreement. One has to do with no sick pay. The other has to do with our work environment. One year I had the luck to catch strep throat. I finally went to the doctor, on a Tuesday, when I could not speak any more. The doctor told me that I was contagious and I had to spend the rest of the week at home. I handed my boss the note and went home for the rest of the week. The next day my boss was on the phone wanting to know why I was not coming in to work. I cannot see this same boss excepting that we need to be off for more then a day because of the flu. I guess the easy thing to say would be get a flu shot. The thing is there are some local doctors advising people not to get the shot. There is no guarantee that you will not catch the flu even after taking the shot anyways. It will be an interesting winter.

Thomas