NO COMMENTS
 

Happy Halloween!!

Well today is Halloween and I am at home going to wait for Trick or Treaters to come and beg for candy.  Jennifer is up in KC visiting family and I'm here with Oscar and I need to study for the LEED test I have on Wednesday morning.  Here is a picture of Oscar's costume (he doesn't like it too much):

NO COMMENTS
 

Stained Glass Masquerade

Sunday night I had a great time at BodyLife group at the Toto's.  It was great discussion talking about the sermon where we are starting to talk about real true Christian and not being fake or like a stinky cooked rat served up to a guest to eat.  To be a real Christian you first have to have a faith in Christ.  We have faith in many things, but the only thing that stands through it all is Christ. Then we got to have love. Love for God and love for others.  We are known as Christiansas haters (gay hater, abortion hater, Disney boycotter, etc.) but not known for our love.  "God's love leads us to repentance" Romans 2:4 Christ was known for his love.  He reached out to the lepar, talked to the Samaritan, protected the adulturer. He didn't approve of sin, but he loved the sinner.  We (I) am so easy to judge others, while not looking at ourselves.  We too often say "Turn or Burn" or Bible thump, but not get to care for the person and feel their pain. I guess one reason is that it is tough, messy, painful, unpleasant . . . to get real with someone. This is something I need to work on becoming... more caring, more compassionate.  Like Jennifer, I am introverted.  I hope I can let down the mask, be real and let others be real around me. I want to be know for loving God and loving people.  I hope they know what I am for, not just what I am against. That's my thoughts...


NO COMMENTS
 

Perception of Christians

At church today, we started a series on 100% Real Christianity through what Paul said in Colossians.  It was powerful and I probably will talk more about it later. We watched a video on people's perception of Jesus and Christians.  Everyone has a positive thought about Jesus, but 49% have a negative perception of Christians (only 3% positive and the rest are indifferent). Here are some videos I saw on YouTube that were on the same lines of what we saw in church. 



NO COMMENTS
 

I Love Early Voting!













Well, Jennifer and I voted today!  I highly recommend early voting.  In Benton County here in Arkansas, they have early voting 8-6 M-F and 10-4 on Saturday.  There was a constant flow of people coming and voting, but we didn't have to wait at all to vote.  There was probably 8 employees working and 20 polling stations.  They were the electronic voting stations like that one on picture on the left. But it was easier to use that that picture shows it to be.  Most people have probably already used one, but it was my first time. It was so easy to use and I really liked the machine. There is also a paper trail which is nice.  While you click on a candidate to vote for, it prints it on a paper that you can see, but is behind a piece of glass. Then at the end, it has you review your choices and then vote to submit! For me, it then come up with a warning screen saying that you didn't vote for every position, do you want to still submit or go back? I didn't know who to vote for Centerton city attorney or city council so I left that blank instead of just voting for the name.  So the whole process took about 10 minutes which is so much better than waiting over an hour on election day outside to vote! Two years ago, I voted after work and it took 45 minutes of waiting before I got my ballot & it wasn't a presidential election. 

With that said in long format, I highly recommend you vote early if you can!  But please only vote if you are informed!  Don't vote on age, race, gender, looks, popularity, etc, but vote on who you think would be best to serve their position.

For me that is:
John McCain/Sarah Palin (R) for Pres/VP
Sen. Mark Pryor (D) for Senator
Rep. John Boozman (R) for House of Rep.
No to Lotteries in Arkansas
Yes to Not allowing Non married couples cohabiting to adopt.

Reasons: I think McCain will be better than Obama even though I don't really care for McCain, I really wanted Mike Huckabee
Pryor and Boozman have done a pretty good job of serving their people. Both voted for the $700billion bailout which I was very opposed to and wanted to vote them out of office for it, but they only had opponents in the Green party and when reading each of their websites for views, there was no way in my right mind I would vote for them.  
Lotteries are wrong and hurt economy. You may dress it up and say it is for scholarships, but if you just save that money you spend on lotto, you will have paid for your child's college & have a retirement.
The last is my personal belief that I feel that a child will be raised better with a married couple. 

Sorry this is so long, especially for my first blog, but I hope you enjoyed if you read some or part of it!
-Michael

1 COMMENT
 

Weekend Update with Sarah Palin

NO COMMENTS
 

Palin's Opening Act on SNL

1 COMMENT
 

Jesus is My Friend