Saturday, January 27, 2007

Report from the Mission Field











A good missionary friend of mine sent a report and these pictures, and I thought it was worth sharing with whomever might stumble upon this blog:

This planet is a vast place and most people will spend their lives and not be able to see much of it. My wife and I have been blessed with sufficient retirement funds to go periodically on different mission trips. We are now in South Africa helping close Missionary friends, Joe and Mishael Newell, (like an adopted daughter and her family) with their work. They head up a program that trains young adults to go out and minister with the local churches to the surrounding provinces. The program is called NOMADS. We will be helping them train the young people as well as helping around the training center. Now, here is the interesting part of this.....the training facility is on a real African hunting game park, where wild animal roam around, however, no cats or predertors or elephants (the destroy too much property). This is an intense 2 and 1/2 weeks of training in all aspects of travelling around the country (in teams of 4-5). We have met some incredible people whose vision is to spread the gospel in many ways, including this game park. We have and will also work with some of the orphanages here. Some of the babies are HIV positive or have AIDS. There is such a need in this country. While we are here, we will see some incredible sights. We are truly blessed to have these opportunities. Should you want to know more about our travels, please comment.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Shuttle launch as seen from Space Station


For the space enthusiasts among you, here is a picture taken from the Space Station the moment the shuttle was launched. This is something, we don't get to see every day.

White Lie Cake

One of my (many) daughters-in-law sent the following article. I thought it was so cute that I decided to publish it here:

WHITE LIE CAKE
Have you ever told a white lie? You are going to love this, especially all of the ladies who bake for church events.
Alice Grayson was to bake a cake for the Baptist Church Ladies' Group in Tuscaloosa, but forgot to do it until the last minute. She remembered it the morning of the bake sale and after rummaging through cabinets, found an angel food cake mix and quickly made it while drying her hair, dressing, and helping her son pack up for Scout camp.
When Alice took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was horribly disfigured. she said, "Oh dear, there is not time to bake another cake."
This cake was important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church, and in her new community of friends. So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake.
Alice found it in the bathroom-a roll of Toilet paper. She plunked it in and then covered it with icing. Not only did the finished product look beautiful, it looked perfect.
Before she left the house to drop the cake by the church and head for work, Alice woke her daughter and gave her some money and specific instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened at 9:30 and to buy the cake and bring it home.
When the daughter arrived at the sale, she found the attractive, perfect cake had already been sold. Amanda grabbed her cell phone and called her mom. Alice was horrified-she was beside herself.
Everyone would know! What would they think? She would be ostracized, talked about, ridiculed! All night, Alice lay awake in bed thinking about people pointing fingers at her and talking about her behind her back.
The next day, Alice promised herself she would try not to think about the cake and would attend the fancy luncheon/bridal shower at the home of a fellow church member and try to have a good time. Alice did not really want to attend because the hostess was a snob who more than once had looked down her nose the fact Alice was a single parent and not from the founding families of Tuscaloosa, but having already RSVP'd , she couldn't think of a believable excuse to stay home.
The meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust old South and to Alice's horror, the cake in question was presented for dessert! Alice felt the blood drain from her body when she saw the cake! She started out of her chair to tell the hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor's wife said, "what a beautiful cake!"
Alice still stunned, sat back in her chair when she heard the hostess (who was a prominent church member) say, "Thank you, I baked it myself."

Alice smiled and thought to herself, "God is good."

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to provide information, humor, advice, spiritual guidance, comfort and support for seniors.

I am a senior myself, and if it hadn't been for the fact that recently I got involved in a service to seniors called Reverse Mortgage, I would have missed out on a lot of good stuff that is available to seniors. I am located in Rancho Cucamonga, Southern California, which offers an exceptionally complete Senior Center. Using this as inspiration I will endeavour to share with my readers any useful information I find, and you, the reader, are encouraged to contribute to this blog. If you don't know, how, don't worry, I don't know much myself, but I am sure that together we will figure it out.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer them. I sure hope, this will take off - see you soon.

If you have any questions about reverse mortgages, please go to our website:

http://www.reverse4freedom.com