I Like Clean!

I had a meeting with Pastor Joel this morning but when I arrived at the appointed time, 9am, he wasn’t in his office. In a few minutes he showed up and asked if I knew anything about automatic sprinkler systems - one of the sprinkler zones in his backyard had been on for over an hour and a lake was forming under the swing set.

We walked to the backyard, looked at the control box and tried a few things, but the lake kept growing. Joel decided to give Dick Van Eck Sr. a call. Dick suggested that the valve was probably defective and should be turned off manually. We did that and the water stopped flowing!

While we were in the backyard, Jonah was running around eager to get in the water and take advantage of this new opportunity. Little Izzie wasn’t so sure.

This brought me back to a time six years ago when Troy and Quinn were at our house and the side yard was flooded. It was Quinn who thought it was a great opportunity so she walked right into the mud. Troy cautiously watched from the patio and pronounced, “I like clean, her likes dirty.” But as you can see from the picture below of December 2003, Quinn likes clean also.

Old and New at the Postmas

At 7:30 am Friday, a crew from Vargas Tree Service came to remove four liquid amber trees from the front yard. For years we have enjoyed the beauty of these trees – the brilliant green in spring time, the bright red and orange as the weather turns cold, and then the Christmas lights outlining the branches of the multi-trunked specimen by the driveway. However, the sidewalks and even the driveway are loosing the battle against the brute force of the trees looking for water in a desert environment.

The city of Anaheim now and then grinds down the raised edges of various sidewalk sections and last year built a concrete ramp in one spot to allow pedestrian to pass our house without fear of tripping. And now the ramp is already cracked. We decided that the offending trees had to go.

But there was also new life at our house Friday morning. At 8:30 am, Mary and Julie arrived to clean house carrying a laundry basket holding a three week old kitten. It had been abandoned. Krystal had taken it home as a project for Nicole, but Nicole had other priorities. So Mary now is bottle feeding the kitten and carrying it around during her daily whirlwind of activities.

It was a beautiful day at 628 S. Shields Dr., Anaheim.

HE IS RISEN !

HE IS RISEN !

If you're unclear about the significance of this, please read "Surprised by Hope - Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church" by N. T. Wright.

Wellness Walk with Will

Early in the week, Will already enrolled Eva and me to join him at school for the Wellness Walk on Wednesday. Each time you complete a circuit of walking the perimeter of the school grounds, over ¼ mile, you receive a Popsicle stick. The student with the most Popsicle sticks is the winner.

Kristen, Eva and I were happy to encourage Will in his effort to promote wellness but were also relieved to see the 40 minutes for the Walk come to an end. We asked Will how many total sticks he had submitted. Will’s comment, “I don’t know. I just gave them to Coach. He’ll count them.”

Obviously, Will is motivated more by participating in the event than by the competition.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Tuesday evening we all went to the movies except for Lindsey - she had homework for school to complete. We selected Monstors vs. Aliens 3D. We all loved the 3D effects but the adults thought the plot was a bit drawn out and were glad to finally see the credits on the screen.

Once at home, we all donned our 3D glass for a photo op.

Lilly - AIRBORNE!

Eva and I drove from Anaheim to El Paso yesterday. We got on the road by 5:45am and after eleven and a half uneventful hours, arrived at the Rietkerk home to find only Lindsey home. The other kids were at various birthday parties and Kristen was enroute to pick them up. Everyone was happy to see us. Lady was so excited to see us that she jumped up and down for 5 minutes upon our arrival but Lilly was so tired she didn’t even acknowledge our presence when she finally got home.
This morning we attended Coronado Baptist Church, then ate a delicious ham dinner at home and finally went to the park and played ball and had Lilly show us her rock climbing skills. After she climbed to the top she convinced us that she was destined to follow in her father’s footsteps and GO AIRBORNE!

Stretcher Bearer - Part 2

To understand this title, you may have to refer to my posting of March 18.

Tonight our Men’s Group met at church for our regular weekly time together. After our study time, we go around the table and ask people if they have a praise comment or a prayer request. One of our members mentioned Meneuch (he attended a couple of our weekly meetings in the past) and wondered how he was doing. Meneuch is Iranian and a former Muslim. When he converted to Christianity, his community disowned him.

I met him that first time he stopped by Anaheim CRC and helped him get gas for his car and paid for his hypertension medication. The next Sunday he was at church and our deacons helped him with food, information and some gas money. But he needed a job. In a couple of weeks he was evicted from the room he was sharing with another fellow because he couldn’t pay his share of the rent. The homeless shelter in our area is provided at the Fullerton Armory and this is where he slept at after that.

When I returned from Switzerland, I saw Meneuch at church. He told me that he needed help with his car – it wouldn’t start, was parked at the Armory, and was in danger of being impounded. He had an opportunity for a job in La Jolla as a maintenance man at the Marriott Hotel and that he had an interview scheduled and needed his car to get down there in the next few days.

We used my AAA policy to get his car towed to a garage where they promised to work on it on Monday. They got the car running on Monday but then it died Monday afternoon. Tuesday, Meneuch gave me a call and asked if I could help. We got AAA to tow the car back to the garage and they worked on it on Wednesday and finally determined the root cause of the problems. And fixed it!

This past Sunday morning, Maneuch was in church and told me that things had turned around – he now has a 30 hour/week job in La Jolla.

As I helped Maneuch, I kept thinking about opportunities we have to be “stretcher bearers”. You don’t just pull a person out of harm’s way, but you hang in there looking for ways of helping him get back on his feet. One of my rewards was Maneuch’s response when he saw me Sunday. With a big smile he greeted me, kissed me, and said, “Jesus is smiling at you”.

Amen!