Baby sitting for the weekend

This weekend Lisa and I are baby sitting Dana and Jesse. We saw a movie: Fly Away Home. We had to fast forward the beginning because there is a car accident and the mother dies. I didn’t think it was appropriate for a 4 year old. But the rest of the movie was quality. It is about a young girl who lives with her estranged father after her mother dies in a car accident. While living there the daughter finds some goose eggs. She raises the geese and then teaches them the migration route so that they can be set free.

Pele

I couldn’t sleep so I started reading on Pele.
I heard about his legendary status,
but I did not know how this guy transformed the world with his playing.
Check this out:
“J.B.Pinheiro, the Brazilian ambassador to the UN was quoted as saying, “Pele played football for 22 years, and in that time he did more to promote world friendship and fraternity than any other ambassador anywhere”. And who could contradict him? In warring Nigeria a ceasefire was declared when Pele came to play in Lagos in 1970. The President of Brazil declared him a “national treasure” to thwart any potential transfer to a European club.”

Pele scored 1281 goals in 1363 games.

The next World Cup is in Germany in 2006.

Los Lonely Boys

Lisa and I just bought Los Lonely Boys album. We were captivated by their song
“Heaven”

Save me from this prison
Lord help me get away
Cause only you can save me now
From this misery
Cause I’ve been lost in my own place
And I’m getting’ weary
How far is heaven
And I know I need to change
My ways of livin’
How far is heaven, Lord can you tell me
Cause I’ve been locked up way too long
In this crazy world, how far is heaven
I just keep on prayin’ Lord
Just keep on livin’, how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me, how far is heaven
I just got to know how far, how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me
[translated from Spanish]
(You that’s in a higher place
Send me down a blessing)
Cause I know there’s a better place
Than this place I’m livin’, how far is heaven
And I just got to have some faith
And just keep on giving, how far is heaven
I just wanna know how far

In their official web site they describe themselves as the following:

” It’s kinda crazy, we’re like the Mexican Beatles,” Henry concludes. “People always ask us what kind of style we play. I tell ’em it’s a cross between Stevie Ray meets Santana, Jimi Hendrix meets Richie Valens, or the Beatles meet Ronnie Milsap. I call it my music burrito theory. What we’ve done is made like our own tortilla, right, with all the knowledge of all the greats that are out there, I can’t even think of ’em all right now, but we put ’em inside the tortilla, fold it up in there, we make our own burrito and we’re sellin’ it to the world, y’know?”

Frank Turner

Detriot anchorman returns to faith after a battle with drugs and phone sex. He was rehired in 2000 after being raised from the dead like Lazarus as Turner describes.
In the Detriot Free Press:
“During an interview at his Channel 7 office, Turner talks candidly about his faith and his career. “I cannot segment my life,” he says. ‘I cannot leave my brown skin at the door when I come in here. I can’t leave my married heart and my marriage commitment at the door. I can’t leave my maleness at the door. When I sit down in that chair, I am a married, brown-skinned male who is also saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.'”

Visit to a church in Iraq

Pastor Jule has a dream of planting churches in Iraq and opening a Bible college to train pastors! This guy is pretty cool.

Another Good Book

Arabs in the Shadow of Israel
A friend recommended this book. My wife and I started reading it last night. It had a great summary of the history of Arabs. More to come.

Check this out!

Net Bible
I haven’t had time to explore this web site. It is very interesting. Let me know what you think.

Alexsander Menn

Last night I read in the book “Martyrs”, ed. By Susan Bergman, about Alexsander Menn. He was a Russian Orthodox priest murdered on September 8, 1993. His story is so captivating that I could not put the book down until I finished the chapter on his life. He was Solzhenitsyn spiritual advisor. He tried to enter seminary at the age of 13 but was rejected. At the age of 14 he wrote the first draft for a book on the Life of Christ. As a teenager he was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, Latin as well as many other European languages. He was passionate about Christ and stood up against the many injustices in Russian society. A couple of months before he was assassinated he was interviewed on the radio.

He said, “I believe that everything that is of value in Christianity is valuable only because it belongs to Christ. If it doesn’t belong to Christ, it belongs to the same degree to Islam or Buddhism. So every religion is an attempt to reach God. But Jesus Christ is the only answer.”

This guy was brilliant and joyful. He lived his life in full confidence in Jesus Christ. What a guy!

Happy Father’s DAY!

We had a great Father’s Day weekend. Last night my mother, grandmother (on my dad’s side), brother, wife and I took my father out to dinner and a movie. It was a blast. We ate at Chadwicks 203 The Strand, Alexandria, VA 22314, (703) 836-4442. On thing made us want to return. Every month they do a fundraiser for a community in Guatemala. They raise enough money to pay for health insurance for a local restaurant employees and their families. There is a nonprofit that was founded by two Americans that served under peace corps that organaized the program. I will write more once I find more info. It was great. I was really impressed.

Then we went to see “The Terminal”. It was the best acting Tom Hanks has done. They had a lot of funny moments and it was based on a true story of an Iranian guy that has been stuck in France for 10 years (so my brother tells me). The funny thing is that my wife’s father had the same thing happen to him. He had lost his passport in Malysia and was stuck in the airport for four days b/c it was MLK weekend and the embassy was closed.

Today we did breakfast with my pops, lunch with my father-in-law, back to my father for a evening visit. It was a fun day, but I am worn out. The whole day the food was incredible. I can’t complain about all the traveling b/c the food was worth the effort.

Arrested Development

Don’t you love those songs that you listen to until the tape disintegrates and the song is burned into your memory. The song comes in and out of your life. This morning I woke up and this song was in my head:

Africa’s inside me
taking back her child
she’s giving me my pride
and setting me free.

Africa’s inside me
taking back her child
she’s giving me my pride
and setting me free.

“Africa’s Inside Me”