FROGLEGS

As it’s the Christmas season and gift giving is one of the things on my mind, I’ve sprung into action by putting together a list of stuff over at boxedup.com. Seems to be the best aggregator of links to stuff you’d like.

Feel free to check out my list (don’t feel like you need to buy me anything), set up your own list and let me know of your existence (make me a friend).

Note to relatives (esp. parents and siblings): If you set up a list and make me a friend, your odds of getting something from me on your birthday just went up exponentially. I love you, but I have a horrible memory for these things.

Funny side comment: We watched “Shrek the Halls” last night with Sophia. It was funny that the whole thing was about telling the Christmas Story (which they mentioned once and then substituted the indicator “the” with “a”) and sharing the meaning of Christmas and at the end of it, they never really got around to it. Rant is tucked snugly behind the following link.

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Sophia-Christmas, originally uploaded by jonah.bailey.

We’ve been ill the past couple of days, thus no posts.

But we’re having a relaxing morning together. Hopefully later on we’ll feel well enough to go and spend time with the Bowles.

I’ve got a job interview on Monday in Madrid.

As those of you that receive our newsletter know, we have been underbudget on our support for almost 4 years. Sometimes it has been a deficit of $800 a month, but more recently (and as the dollar has gotten weaker and weaker against the Euro) it has been closer to $1700. Obviously, if we aren’t fully supported, we have to make a lot of cutbacks in spending. We’ve been able to get by up until now, but the coming year is looking like it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) financially.

I’d like to add at this point that we are supported by a lovely group of family and friends that give sacrificially on a monthly basis to make sure that we can be in Sevilla and devote a majority of our time to our community, the poor and those that don’t know Jesus yet. There are not words that can express our thankfulness to God and to these individuals. They are all among our favourite folks in the whole world.

That said, we’ve got to have more income. Thus the job interview on Monday. We won’t be moving or anything, but the interview is in Madrid.

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I want one.

Don’t ever buy stuff on an airplane. It’s a racket.

While we were in the US, we stayed with my Mom for most of our time in California. She spent a few months in China earlier this year. In fact, she had just got back a few days before we arrived in Bakersfield. While in China she discovered, as most do, that you can get a crappy version of pretty much anything at various shops selling counterfeit products for a very cheap price. She brought back 2 crates of what she calls “junk” to use in different mixed media pieces she is planning.

One of the things she brought back was a cheap set of battery powered iPod speakers. She paid about $5 for them. I used them and I can attest that they are “junk”. Turn them up more than a quarter of the way to a decent volume and you get a load of distorted mess. They aren’t really a counterfeit of any name brand product. They are just really badly manufactured speakers.

On the way home on our Iberia flight, I saw this in the inflight shopping magazine:

That’s $80 for something that cost $5 in China. And not just that, it’s eighty bucks for really really really bad speakers. If you are ever tempted to buy something on any airline flight. Remember this: They are ripping you off!

Does anyone know of a website chronicling just how much of a rip-off inflight shopping is? Iberia has got to be up there in the rankings of “most malificent highway robbers”. In addition to terrible (and terribly expensive) electronics, they also charge 10 euros ($14.66) for a sandwich. And the food (which we got for no additional charge)we got on the trans-Atlantic flight was seriously inedible. It was picture worthy.

Seville. I wonder what concepts/feelings/images that word/name bring to your mind when you hear it. Not to be self-centred, but I suspect that many of you, my dear blog readers, are familiar with it because of your relationship with myself, my wife Heather and/or my daughter Sophia. Seville is a sort of out of the way place. As far as tourism goes, it really is a secondary spot. And if it weren’t for tourism or us, why would you come? Let’s be honest: it is a once great city that once dominated not just the European continent, but the western hemisphere as well. In many ways, it’s a has-been city.

In spite of all that, we regularly get enquiries (mostly from Christians) to come and visit/stay with us. Probably more than 50 a year. Most years, we have a surplus of 20 or 30 people (some of them complete strangers) staying at our house for varying periods of time. I usually have 10-20 meals or coffees with complete strangers every year. Most of these visits are interruptions in our daily lives and the rhythms of our community. Usually, the strangers we meet don’t “get” us, who we are trying to be or what we are trying to do as a community. Many times, they go away with more questions than they came with and we never hear from them again. For some reason, I make myself available for these interruptions time after time. Is it really worth it? Why not just let all these email enquiries float off into the cybernetic stratosphere?

I got an email this week that reminded me why I should consistently make myself available for interruption.

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