Yard Sales!

Eric and I have started to develop a hobby in finding things for our apartment at a cheap prices--mostly through going to yard sales. We seem to be developing an appreciation for shopping due to our proximity to dozens of tempting local stores, especially Goodwill. The only thing which can beat the deals at Goodwill is the yard sales. Every weekend in Tucson signs are at all the intersections pointing to yard sales in the various neighborhoods around here. We don't have to go outside of a 5 miles radius and can hit 6 or 8 yard sales in one day. (One time we hit 15 yard sales on a Saturday!)

However, we found out that the early bird truly does get the worm and the early birds to compete with in this case are Mexicans who come over the border with trucks. They will literally offer a price for the whole sale and load their truck with everything! In the beginning, we didn't have the energy to get up on the weekends but this past Saturday our alarm went off at 6 AM and we managed to hit a mega church yard sale when it started at 6:30 AM.

The church yard sale was loaded with cars the moment we showed up. People were everywhere and I hardly felt like the early bird at that mega church sale. I felt more like I was part of a migrating flock or a swarm of chickens fighting for feed. Our goal for the day was two shelves to organize our small apartment. Sadly we did not find anything at that first yard sale. We did find a humorous game to entertain you in moments of deepest privacy. It was discussed in one of our recent meetings that in GAP your only private moments are on the toilet if the door has a lock. So this item looked like it would be a very fun present to buy for a friend - toilet golf!

We ended up getting one shelf at a yard sale and a second larger shelf at Home Depot-- a store I (Eric) am growing in appreciation for as I start trying to build things around the house. It seems almost everything in our apartment is taken care of except art for the walls.

Praises: It is a good feeling to have filled our apartment with furniture and have it organized. Praise God for the ways He has provided in neat ways even with such a temporal thing as furniture.

Prayers: May God continue to grow us in delighting first and foremost in our knowledge of Him and His kingdom.

House Fun

Here are two little videos that show some of the fun moments we have at houses. Again remember we cannot show faces otherwise we could show you a lot more of the fun we have.

This first video is when some Javelinas came looking to eat some trash we had neglected to empty. They made a big mess! For this video we were indoors shooting outside because Javelinas actually can be pretty dangerous if they get angry and decide to charge. So be careful! But we had some fun shooting them from the safety of inside the house.

This second video is a video of launching model rockets. It has been so long since I have launched a model rocket. It was really fun!

Praises: We have arranged our schedule so we can start taking church membership classes. I was sick yesterday and a friend prayed for me and now I feel much better! I have to confess that I was sort of doubting God would answer his prayer because of times in the past that I have not felt any better. But not this time, God really seemed to intervene and make me feel better! Bethany had a group of girls over yesterday and enjoyed the chocolate fountain with them!

Prayers: Bethany and I are wrestling with some of the theology in our membership classes such as "double predestination" and "reprobation". In the past I have always taken the path of A. W. Tozer or C. S. Lewis who conclude resolution on matters of free will and predestination are not our responsibility to resolve. But because we are looking to join a church which often incorporates TULIP theology into their teaching I feel obligated to look into these questions again. Perhapes I will post on this again later. We also are starting at a house which we have not been to in a while. The house has a new teen girl who seems to antagonize everyone in the house to do their worst. Please pray for order, fun, health, learning, and revelation of Christ both for the kids and us. Your prayers make a difference! Thanks for much for praying!