This week just keeps being super busy! Lots of people time this week before I leave. Got to start working on packing at some point here. Still need to get ready for my homeschool classes while I am gone. Making sure I get good time with the family this week too. I am really going to miss them while I am gone. I am looking forward to the trip and can't believe it is here already. Three days and counting! I can't believe Scott Brown won. I was very surprised. Now my prediction that at some point soon the news stories will pivot from looking at this as a defeat for Obama and see it as a gift to Obama if he moves toward governing more from the middle. We'll see if I'm right. No time for a long blog post today, still working on getting things nailed down for while I am gone. Obviously there will be no posts next week at all while we are in the Dominican. Remember to pray for us while we are gone.

I thought that Nate did a great job on Sunday. I enjoy Nate's speaking anyway, but I really thought he hit it out of the park on Sunday. It was a great reminder of how much we still need to gospel and need to remind ourselves each day of what Christ has done for us and how much we need Him. God says, "without me, you can do nothing." Nate made that point so well as he reminded us of our constant need to remember Christ's forgiveness and allow that to humble us and be gentle toward others. I look forward to following up and building on that in two weeks after we return from the Dominican Republic.

This last week represented what you can call "one of those weeks." First, the phone stopped working. We didn't change anything, it was working one moment and wasn't the next. I tried to trace the maze of wires that cover the basement but did not find anything wrong. Time to call in the experts, who in this case are Mac. Mac came over and in short order found that ice off the roof had pulled the wire out of the box on the outside. A few snips and splices and we were back in business. So then the toilet began to leak. Ed LaPointe was going to be dropping by to chat anyway and our chat became a toilet repair and visit. With Ed's help we got the toilet seal replaced and everything, shall we say, flowing. :) While I am learning more and more home repair skills, it is so great to be able to call on my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ to help with such things. The body of Christ is God's means for supporting us, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. How have you connected to the body of Christ recently? Is there support you can offer? Is there support you should ask for? I am thankful for my brothers and I hope I can offer the same amount of support to others.

We want to be praying for all those in Haiti today, including pastor Henoc who visited our church several years ago. Also think of all the missionaries visiting the country including the pastor from Andover, ME. Haiti has suffered for a long time from terrible poverty and neglect as its leaders have failed to provide a stable country but instead have been plagued by corruption and power-struggles. They have also been hit by several natural disasters. I do not believe they are under any kind of special curse like Pat Robertson says. Their society does have many ills that a turn to the Bible and Christ could help begin to alleviate, but as for curses, they just live on the same sin-cursed planet as the rest of us.

I have been meaning to write about the movie Avatar which I went and saw last week and hope to get a second shot at this week if possible. However, this will be no movie review. Instead, you should check out this article about the Pandora Blues. It is about people that become depressed after watching Avatar because the planet Pandora created in the move is so beautiful and wonderful, and they feel that life here is so awful. They long to live in the fantasy world where all is beauty and peace and harmony. The thing is, that is what we are created for, and we can live there, just not yet. The new heaven and new earth that awaits God's people will make the fantasy of Pandora look sad and stale. Isn't it tragic that so many people are so unhappy with their life here now that they would lose their footing by watching a computer animated fantasy, yet refuse to turn to the love of God who offers meaning in life here and a glorious life to come. I am waiting for the day when I experience something much more wonderful and fulfilling that either this life, or the fictitious world of Avatar. For the record, I enjoyed the movie immensely. I looked at it as just that, a movie, a story, a piece of entertaining and very well made fiction.