Finances [Man Talk]

It has taken way too long, but I'm finally getting around to the man talk on finances.  Ricci and I are right in the middle of the Radical sermons/book so I may have a Finances part 2 talk afterwords.  We're reevaluating our financial situation right now. In the mean time I wanted to talk about the basics. I'm going to use "man" language so if you're a girl reading this, don't be offended.  There's no swearing, I just not gonna sugar coat anything.  Man Talks are meant to be honest whether or not they make you feel good.

  As a Christ-follower, we are called to tithe.  I think a lot of people are not properly explained what this means, so I'll attempt to break it down here.  Tithe literally means a tenth (or ten percent).  If you receive income, you owe God ten percent back through the church.  This helps provide for the needs of the church and the pastor.  When I say "owe" I mean that ten percent is the baseline minimum that we should be giving.  If you don't tithe will it keep you from salvation?  Will God send plagues to eat your flesh?  Um...that's silly.  I mean God has the power of plagues so He could do it if He wanted.  And honestly if you are unwilling to give God back ten percent of what He has trusted you with, you might want to really question your salvation, but finances tend to be more a question of obedience and your attitude toward God.
Note: I'm going to talk about our family's finances a little here. Not with numerical detail but in regards to things God has laid on our heart and how we've responded.  None of this is to brag, but just an attempt at transparency and what God has done in us.

See, God gives us everything we have to begin with.  Our jobs, the money from those jobs, the food, clothes, cars, places to live we pay for with those jobs, etc.  We don't own any of that stuff.  The Bible says that you and I are stewards of it.  God has trusted us to use those resources wisely.  When you shift your thinking from "God why do I have to give you my stuff?" to "God thanks for everything else you provide us with!" it makes it a lot easier to give.

This is where we start to really be tested. Ready?  When you see that God is still providing for you in spite of that ten percent, He will often challenge you to give more.  This is what we call "offerings".  He commands us to give ten percent to the church, but often he wants us to give more.  It's very easy at this point to once again say, "No God.  That's my 90%. You said you only needed 10%!"  How selfish of us!

We cannot outgive God. Try it.  Ricci and I give our tithes from the gross on our paychecks (before taxes, etc.).  I don't say this to brag, just to share our conviction.  The point of the tithe is like the first fruit offerings from the Old Testament.  God wants our first and best, not the rejects and leftovers. God then laid on our hearts to give a higher percent than ten for every paycheck.  It made us nervous.  It made me sweat a little, because we don't make that much when you count up the cost of rent,utilities, etc.  But we obeyed, and you know what? God provided for us.  He gives us enough to live on.  Another reason we give tithes and offerings on the gross is so that if there's a tax return we've already given God his share on that.

I had this idea that "Hey since I've already tithed, that money back is ours to spend how we like".  We were thinking about getting a nice new computer.  Ours is getting old and Ricci could use the new one for some blog design and photography processing. God laughed at me.  I didn't think that was very funny.  I had already given God his due and more right? Shouldn't we get to spend this on whatever?  Apparently not.  God laid a cause on our hearts that used most of that money.  At first we were frustrated but God totally blew us away.  Besides providing for our needs (this wasn't really the question since we were going to buy a computer), He allowed us to help someone out and in turn be encouraged and blessed in spirit beyond what we could have hoped for.

Some of you may be saying, "After I pay all of my bills, I don't have ten percent left over for God." There's a couple of things wrong with this picture:

First I don't know that God demands we give out of our gross (though you would then have to tithe from your tax return or the money you owe the IRS), but if these are part of our first fruits to God (besides our hearts, attitudes and other intangibles) then we have to make tithes and offerings non-negotiable. No question, we do it.  The easiest way to do this is to give tithes and offerings as soon as you get paid.  That way what you're left with is what you get, and you don't have to worry about spending what's God's.  Sometimes Ricci and I forget the check book at home or something like that.  We're not the perfect example.  But we make it a point to remember and not spend our money down to the point that we cannot give to God.  Factor it into your budget so that it's already taken out of your expendable money.

The second problem with the previous statement: If you've given God what's his and then paid your bills and you're finding that it's hard to make ends meet, you might need to reevaluate your spending.  I'm not saying it's always easy.  Sometimes God will put people in situations where we have to rely on others to help us.  But before you put yourself in this category look at what you're paying for.  So much of what we spend the money God has entrusted to us is unnecessary.

Going out to eat? please. Cable? come on. Internet? not essential. Cell phones? you could go without it if you needed to.

There are other things too, but there's no way I could write everything here. I'm not saying these things are bad or sinful, just that you wouldn't die if you gave it up. Sometimes we are doing great and then God asks us to give to something up.  If you can't afford it, chances are you're going to have to sacrifice something.  We recently had to give up netflix.  We didn't want to.  I drug my heels. But the Holy Spirit kept telling me to get over it.  That's just one example, but you kinda get the idea.

These aren't just suggestions for married people either.  In fact if you're a single guy and you don't tithe now, what makes you think marriage will change that?  You need to be an example to others and if a godly woman looks at you and sees you aren't tithing, she should move on because you are not showing her that you can lead your family in the area of finances.

So in closing:
Give God what's His: At least ten percent, but possibly more.
Make giving non-negotiable.  It's a command so do it. Simple.
If you're giving properly and the ends don't meet, see what you can cut.

 I could give lots of other advice on saving money, but that's a whole other subject.

Orevwa (Haitian for goodbye)

Haitian Creole

So with the team recently coming back from Haiti, and reading more about Mosaic Village I decided to see what resources were available online for learning Haitian Creole.  Don't freak out, we're not moving to Haiti.  Actually I haven't even felt a call to be part of a trip to Haiti.  But I also haven't heard God say "Oh by the way, Josh, I'm never gonna call you to do anything in Haiti so you can just mark that one off the list."

My point is, I checked it out because knowing a language is simply equipping yourself in case God calls you somewhere.  Especially for us because we know that we will be involved with missions at some point.  I've seen on the website for Doctors Without Borders the need for French speaking aids for work in Chad, Niger, DRC, and Haiti and it got me thinking.  So then when I saw that the Hendricks were learning Creole prior to their move to Haiti I decided to see what resources were available.

The first place I turned was to Rosetta Stone.  I could never actually afford Rosetta Stone, but from what I understand it is the best and fastest language learning software and the Texas A&M libraries have copies of Rosetta Stone in several languages.  So I looked, but they do not have a version for Haitian Creole.  My next attempt was the TAMU libraries to see if they had RS in French.  Haitian Creole is based on French with a mix of African languages and some others as well.  So French would be the next best thing. Unfortunately TAMU libraries did not have French Rosetta Stone. I made a purchase suggestion that they buy it, since they do have Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese.  But that could take a while, so I started looking online.

And that's when I found Byki. Byki is a division of Transparent Languages and offers a lot of different languages.  For all of their languages they have the "express" version, which is very basic and the "deluxe" version which is more in depth.  The great thing about this is that the "express" version is free.  If you decide you like their method and want a full knowledge of whichever language, you buy the deluxe version ($50-70 as opposed to $130 for lesson 1 with RS).  I'm really excited because they have Afrikaans, a derivitive of Dutch/German used Namibia and South Africa. But that's off topic.  The best thing I found though, is that right now the full amount of resources for Haitian Creole are available for free. That's right.  For freeeeeeeeeee (thank you Bedtime Stories).

So if you're interested in learning Haitian Creole head over to Byki.  You can either download the express version of Haitian Creole which right now has the full thing, or you can register for Byki Online which allows you to use the same materials from the web without using hard drive space.  Byki also has several Twitter accounts for daily phrases in some of the languages. Sorry I know it sounds like I'm gushing but I'm really excited.

I think everyone should have to learn more than one language. I really do.  Go to Europe or Africa and as any random kid how many languages they know.  They may not be perfectly fluent, but I'll bet they can converse in at least two if not three or four. Heck, go down to south Texas where the population is mostly Hispanic.  In America, most of us don't live near an international border so we get this haughty attitude of "If you're gonna live in this country, learn the language!" That's an acceptable attitude if you aren't a Christian.  I'm not saying we shouldn't have an official language, but as a Christian we are called to look out for aliens and treat them like any other person.  It's hardly Christ-like to have the attitude "I'll share Jesus with you if you'll learn English first!"

Don't get me started on the political hot-button issue of immigration. If you really want to know my opinion I'll talk with you about it.  But this is not the venue.  Basically I think everyone should obey the established laws.  That said, people from another country are still PEOPLE. Not trash. Not dogs. They need Jesus just like we do. 

So check out Byki, download some software or follow a twitter account, learn a language, and be equipped for God to use you in a cool way.  I don't think Byki is a Christian organization I just suggest them because they have free resources.  If you have resources that allow you to still be wise with your money go for it.  See if your library has a copy of Rosetta Stone or other tools.  If you know anybody that works for the DoD and had to learn a language they probably have a copy.  It doesn't matter what you use, the point is to let God use you.

Radical dude!

This was a phrase often followed by "Cowabunga!" when I was younger.  I was a big fan of Ninja Turtles.  But that is not what this post is about.  If you've been to our family blog you've seen that we're about to start going through the "Radical" series by David Platt.  We put this off for a while because everyone who recommended it was changed.  That sounds dumb, but what I mean is, we weren't ready to give up our selfishness.  We could see this series made people really question a lot of things in their lives and we weren't ready to that yet.

One of the families that it really made a difference on was the Hendricks. They talked about it a lot.  And not only because of Radical, but definitely out of a series of God-orchestrated events which included Radical they are now moving to Haiti. See what I mean?  Anyway I was reading through their blog, as well as the blog for their new mission-community-connection-whatever organization Mosaic Village and I finally stopped fighting it.  Ricci and I are going to start going through this series and I'm pretty sure it's going to rock our nice little boat.  I told Ricci this feeling is the spiritual equivalent of knowing you have to go get a shot.  You know it's gonna hurt. You might cry. And it might even be sore for a while. But you also know that it's good for you so need to just suck it up and do it.



In unrelated news, Ricci and I were in HEB getting hot dogs for my work party for the 4th of July.  I grabbed a package of Hebrew Nationals, because they aren't horrible for you.  Basically they're kosher dogs.  Upon flipping the package over I counted how many franks there were so I'd know how many packages to get.  "1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Okay there's...wait...seven?" I counted again, because it was an odd number. There were definitely seven. "Why would they have seven?" I asked. And then simultaneously Ricci and I looked at each other and said "It's a perfect number!" and then couldn't stop laughing in the meat section of the grocery store.

So there you go. Something serious and something light. Have a great day

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I folded the Bellezandra blog.  I need control too much.

But I have started a new blog called Android Orange.  It'll be more what I wanted to do with Bellezandra. SciFi/Tech pulp.  Short stories, so I don't have to worry about publishing them before I know the end.  And hopefully some of you will contribute to it eventually.

That's all for now.


-J

Xbox 360 Elite Arcade. sort of.

I decided to revive my brother's Xbox 360 Elite (black one) from the infamous Red Rings of Death, a hardware failure generally due to overheating.  He took the hard drive out of it and put it in a new one so there's no way to save games, but I figured I'd give it a shot just to see if I could fix it.  So I brought it back to college station, opened it up and got to work.  I pulled the CPU and GPU (central processing unit and graphics processing unit) off the motherboard and replaced the thermal conducting paste.  This basically makes a better thermal conduit between the processors and the heatsinks so the they cool off faster or better.

Naturally the next step was to put it back together and see if I had fixed the problem.  Oh wait, that's right I left all the cables in Waco.


Fail....

I'll let you know if I get some cables to test it out and get it fixed.

Week In Review

Here's the sum up.

Last Friday night we went to see Toy Story 3 with Trent & Andrea. Definitely worth your money to see it in theaters.  I kinda want to go watch it again.  And I may have done that with only two movies in my life.

On Saturday we ate burgers and watermelon with the Loyds, Amys, and Bucks.

Sunday MW came to stay for the week. That was fun, but now she's gone again. 

Been watching/listening to World Cup 2010. Did you see the game against Algeria?  Was that a nail-biter or what? Landon Donovan scored in minute 91.  One goal made the difference between going home and coming out on top of the group. Crazy.  So we play Ghana on saturday and England plays Germany.  Missed out on how the Group Play ended? Here's the brackets for the start of knockout.  Two teams advanced out of each group and are placed on opposite sides of the bracket.  That way they can't face each other again unless it's at the final game (first/second or third/fourth).  Personally I see Brazil or Portugal/Spain winning it all.  I'd love us to win but I'm just excited we made it out of Group Play.  For us to win we'd have to beat Ghana, Uruguay/S.Korea, then probably Brazil to face whoever's the final team.  Yeah right.  But good luck to Donovan, Bradley, Dempsey, Howard and the rest. USA!

Also been praying for the Haiti team from LHBC.  One of the group was sending out tweets, but the last we got was yesterday morning.  Pray for their safety, their perseverance in the heat, and their attitudes to reflect Christ to those they minister to.

Alright gotta get back.

Long Overdue

Holy Swiss-cheese Batman! Long time no update.

I'm evaluating my priorities a lot lately.  Trying to figure out what's important, and what I should and shouldn't be spending my time on.
 
Gardening has been sort of a failure with the fluctuating weather and the destructive dog. 

I've been spending a lot of time watching/listening to the world cup.  The world cup is cool, and honestly this year it's anybody's guess who will win.  There's nothing wrong with having some pride in your country and enjoying competition.  But we can't let it be more important than God's work.  And we can't let it make us act more excited or crazy about a football (that's soccer) game than the fact that God sent his son Jesus Christ to die for for us and then empower us with the Holy Spirit to be free from sin.

Right now our church has a team in Haiti that's working with JoyHouse. If you want to be involved, pray for them and for their work and you can also follow on of the team members on Twitter @BrianPauler.

There's more going on with the med school process too but it's hard to explain and hard to talk about.  Suffice to say, waiting on the Lord is very difficult.


Maybe this week I'll get around to another Man Talk.  I want to talk about Finances.  Anyway, if I get around to it you can read it, if not I probably got busy with other stuff this week.  But I'll leave you with this thought that I get convicted over often:

If you're wondering whether or not God is your first priority, look at how you spend your time and money.  When commitments conflict, or when you have to choose between what you want to do and the morals you claim, what do you choose?

David Attenborough, Life, and Returning home

That's right kids, it's almost here.  On June first BBC America will release the real version of LIFE to dvd.  Not the one with Oprah.  Psh!  Life narrated by the one and only Sir David Attenborough.  Those three letters mean he was knighted. Let's see Oprah do that!

When Discovery Channel decided to air Life, they had Oprah narrate it instead of using DA's original narration, much like they did with Sigourney Weaver on Planet Earth.  Nothing against Sigourney, I just think we need to let experts do their work.  If we need rescuing from a parasitic facehugging alien species we'll call you Miss Weaver.  Leave the documentary writing and narration to the man who has been the writer of more nature documentaries than you can shake a stick at, and a narrator of even more than that. He was also a senior manager at BBC and the controller of BBC Two

And also his older brother Richard played Hammond in Jurassic Park and Santa in Miracle on 34th street.  So let's keep the American female personalities away from our nature shows and let the man do his thing.  I mean really he's 84 and still doing this? That's amazing.



-----

Moving on, I left Ames today and I've checked into my hotel in Des Moines.  As I was pulling into the parking lot I heard a noise that sounded like the very fabric of reality being torn asunder.  My car shook and I almost lost control of my bodily functions. Then just as quickly it ended and I tried to make sense of the chaos that had started and faded so abruptly. Then I remembered I was across the street from the airport...

Then it happened twice more in about a minute but I didn't pee myself rest assured.

I can't wait to get home.  I'm not excited however about flying out at 6, but what can you do?  At least I'm going home. 

By the by, the first chapter of The Bellezandra is up.  Yu can find it here.  Let me know if you like it. Or if you hate it.  Either way I'll keep working on it.  Maybe I'll put the second chapter up befre the end of May.  But I wn't get much of anything dne if my stupid, piece f junk "O" key keeps ignring me!!!


o  oooo oooooooooooooooo

Okay it can work if it wants t.
crap.

Day 1 at NVSL

My first day was more or less uneventful. I'm pretty sure that's how it will stay.  It's a nice facility, because it's their brand new building.  They have windows which makes me jealous.  And the rooms have negative air pressure to keep you from letting possibly contaminated air into the hallway.  Basically a vent in the lab ceiling keeps sucking air in so you have to push harder than you'd think to open the door out into the hallway.  The cool part about that is the indicator to make sure it's working.  Above each door is a plastic dome on each side of the wall with a hole for air.  Within this dome system is a clear pipe with a slight slant towards the hallway.  This pipe contains a bright pink ball (like ping pong ball size).  When the doors are closed, the negative air pressure brings the ball up the pipe, through the wall and into the lab room.  When a door is opened the negative pressure is dispersed coming in the doorway and is not enough to keep the ball in the room so it rolls out onto the hall side of the door. Simple yet awesome.

Other than that it was kinda hum-drum diagnostic work.  I don't have to shower in but I do have to shower out.  I don't get to wear my own clothes in the labs.  I wear provided scrubs.  That would be neat if they matched. Or coordinated.  Or fit.  I had a maroonish (not quite fuchsia) top and purple pants.  Which would have been acceptable if I hadn't spent the first half of the day trying to keep them up.  I finally figured out how to cinch them up enough to stay on.  But this further reinforces my confusion toward the "sagging" trend that I so often see in my neighborhood.  If these guys are tough like they say, and looking for fights as they often seem, wouldn't having your PANTS ON THE GROUND get in the way of not getting beat up? Haha.

Anyway, the coolest part of my day was after work.  I went to Olde Main Brewery and Restaurant, the same place I went for dinner last night, with a guy at NVSL named Leo.  Leo knows the owner and the brewmaster so I got to go down and see where the fermentation and everything takes place.  It was pretty cool to see the whole process and hear nerdy beer talk.

Alright well I'm off to eat dinner and maybe work on some more Bellezandra story and sketches.



***Just to reiterate in case you missed it in my bottle cap talk:  I drink beer from time to time (it's expensive, so not often), and even less in public, but getting drunk is never okay.  The Bible is pretty clear.  If I'm with somebody that I might offend or cause to stumble in their walk I don't drink.  If you have an issue with that email me and we can talk about it.

Arrival

This morning I left the Easterwood Airport to fly to Ames, Iowa for some work training.  I always forget how awesome clouds look from above. This isn't as well lit as I'd hoped but you get the idea. It was pretty sweet.

I'm not sure what you think of when you think of Iowa, but I honestly was hoping for something like this:

This was not the case. 

It's cold and rainy here.  It's as though by going north I went back in time to January or something. Oh well.  I do have a very nice room.  Here's my humongous bed.  This is bigger than our bed at home.  That's my backpack in the middle so you can have a frame of reference. It's pretty swell other than the howling wind outside my window. But I can overlook that.

And also I have a large desk and wifi.  You probably already knew that though because we both know that I wouldn't pay extra just to have internet at my hotel.  I'm cheap.  Anyway, I got some writing done on Bellezandra on the way from DFW but it's surprisingly hard to write or draw during turbulence.  I was thinking Um...hello? I'm trying to shade with a bic pen here. It's difficult enough as it is without you shaking the whole plane Mr. Airpocket!  I'll try to post some later and then put the link on here sometime this week to the site.

Today I don't really have much to do. Just get here and get settled.  And get some sleep too.  Tomorrow I have to start training.  I have to shower in and shower out every time I enter/exit the lab this week.  In my head I see something like Andromeda Strain.  But knowing how glamorized CSI is for lab work, I assume government diagnostic facilities aren't much nicer than mine.  I couldn't find the book I wanted to bring this morning and I almost grabbed Richard Preston's Panic at Level 4, but then thought Nah, I don't want to have nightmares about giving everyone Ebola or something because I'm clumsy.  I won't be able to take my phone into the lab so I'll update this tomorrow evening.  Well, my tummy's getting angry and I'm tired so I'm going to find some food and a nap.  Catch yall on the flip side!


(....what does that even mean?)


****UPDATE*******
I forgot to give a shout out to MW, who may as well be my sister.  Thanks for keeping my baby girl company this week.  You're awesome.