will dress for peanuts...

This is Spirit week at BAICA, and today was character day. The teachers were characters from Peanuts, the comic strip.

Who am I?

We were made for it...

This may be random, but I am convinced we were made to worship. At the very core of our nature, we were made to worship. Which is ironic because we're also inclined to sin, it's inherent in our nature. Is that possible, to have a fundamental nature in which we're going to sin, but at the same time that we are meant to worship.

I am convinced of this from my own experience and what I see in others for a couple of reasons:

1. Worship is a time in which joy becomes much more frequent in quantity and quality.
2. When believers are not worshipping, they desire to do so. They talk about, and long for the next worship service or time to gather to sing to worship.
3. #1 and #2 apply for those that believe. For those who are missing out at the moment, worship also fills their life, but it is often worship of something material, of this world, or not of God. Money, vanity, desire, power, etc.

So if it's a part of us -- worship, shouldn't it be easy to love the Lord with all that we have?? Ah, but no, we're also inherently sinners, which causes problems...so how do we resolve this or live with this??

personal ad...

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights, lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy, I'll be waiting....




Normally, I don't publish personal ads like this on my blog. I felt this one was ok though. See the next blog entry for a great picture of this lovely lady...she's my kind of lady...

picture of the mystery woman...

She reminds me of Mable

I miss you alot Mable!!


Over 15,000 men called the Atlanta Humane Society to answer the ad.

I'm an idiot for not doing this sooner...

So this week and this past week has been a revealing time for me as a teacher where I have realized a very important fact. I said realize because I already knew it but was too dumb to bring it into that small part of my brain which accounts for the part that operates my awareness of things. Anyways, that thing is: PHONING PARENTS!

In different cases last week and this week, I decided just to talk to the parents about their child acting up in my class, which was them either not doing homework or a poor attitude or irresponsibility. I didn't try fighting with the student and telling him his grade would suffer or that by not doing his homework, he would never gain enough intelligence to even apply for a drivers license or be allowed to order a BigMac (just kidding, I don't say things like that).

Let me tell you, it works great. Yes I realize that I am lucky in the sense that in these cases, they are situations where the parent cares. The kids DID HAVE their homework the next day. I feel much more relaxed about the kids, and their status in my class now. I think I'm going to make this a much more common practice. Parent involvement is great! Hurray parents!!

good weather + fruit pie = great days

So today was an excellent day, and awesome Spanish church still hasn't even happened yet. That's tonight. I went to sleep yesterday, and it was summer. I woke up today, and it was fall. A storm had come through last night, and really cooled things off. Big time. It is optimal running weather. So I went, for a good long while. It was great. Then I baked a plum pie. Here's a picture of it:
see, I've got your tastebuds salivating all the way from the Southern hemisphere...

new school website

We're more up to date now, even with a picture of yours truly:

www.baica.com

good news and bad news

You always give the bad news first, then finish with the good:

-the bad news: The BAICA capital campaign that has been going on to raise funds for the new school building -- which we have to be in to get official approval from the Argentine government or risk being shut down, has been lagging behind. So apparently the deal is, if we don't get some serious donations by this Saturday, we might have to shut down BAICA.

-the good news: I was able to spend this past weekend with Grandpa, who was here from England visiting. We don't get to see each other much, since we live across a big pond from each other, so it was great getting to spend time with him.

mvp of the week

Congratulations is in order for Mel J, who receives the MVP award for the week for fuzzinargentina.blogspot.com. Mel J flew through a 15k last week, reinforcing the fact that she's earned a new name of "Wheels Jeffries"...and of course, for finding enjoyment in running. Congratulations Mel J, our MVP of the week!

great devotion

If you have time, and want to, please read the following. It was written by a friend, Father Roy Rihn, of San Antonio:

Reading: I Corinthians 13:1-13
Today’s Second Reading gave us one of the gems of world literature: St. Paul’s paean to love in First Corinthians. It ranks right up there with Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy in Hamlet and with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Love! One of the world’s essential needs, yet so full of mystery. Have you ever wondered why, with all our progress in science and knowledge, so many of the world’s truly essential needs remain impenetrable mysteries? For instance, energy. Our scientists know what energy does, but not one of them can tell us what energy is. We know, thanks to the immortal equation E=Mc2, that everything in the universe is energy in one form or another – but nobody knows what energy is. Or take light. Light is everywhere. There could be no life without light. We know what light does. But nobody knows what light is. The overriding life’s goal of Albert Einstein, the consensus greatest mind of the 20th century, was to understand what light is. He never did. Or time! Almost anybody can tell you what time it is, but nobody can tell you what time is.

Love! Talked about, sung about, written about by so many, love is also an impenetrable mystery. We know what love does, but nobody can tell us what love is. St. Paul’s essay on love that we heard so ably presented a short while ago confirms this. He first tells us how essential, how necessary love is. Then he tells us what love does (or refrains from doing). But he never tells us what love is. He couldn’t, not even under divine inspiration. The best he can do is, first, tell us how essential, how necessary love is; and, secondly, how we can recognize love by what it does or does not do. Let’s take a closer look at this.

First, Paul tells us that even our most praiseworthy actions must be motivated by love before they can have any meaning, any value. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” In none of this is Paul trying to tell us what love is – he is simply telling us that nothing we do, even the most praiseworthy, has any value or meaning unless it is motivated by love.

Second, Paul tells us what authentic love can do in some of our ordinary life situations. “Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast; it is not proud. Love is never rude; love is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Note again that Paul does not give a definition of love in any of this: he is not trying to tell us what love is (even when he uses the verb “is”). Throughout, he is simply telling us what real love does – or refrains from doing – in the daily lives of Christians.

It is so safe, so non-threatening, to hear all this about that impersonal abstract we call “love”. But really to hear what Paul is saying, substitute the first person singular pronoun – the one all of us use hundreds of times a say – substitute “I” for “love”. So let’s do this. I am going to pause after each statement in order to let it “sink in” to my own full awareness – and perhaps into yours.

I am patient … I am kind … I am never envious of others … I never brag on myself … I am never proud … I am never rude to others … There is never any self-seeking in anything I do or say … I don’t easily get angry … I let go of the wrongs others do me and forget them … I never take delight in the sins and failings of others … I trust everyone … I never lose hope … I never give up or cop out …

I don’t know about you, but there were very few (if any) of the above statements that I could say honestly. I am a long, long way from loving and forgiving like that. But I do not lose heart, because I know that God loves me unconditionally, just as I am, and forgives me unconditionally.

cool photo

I took this downtown this past weekend.

my buddy...

I couldn't believe this creature exists here too in Argentina:

Then he asked me for a donation of money for, none other than, himself -- for taking the picture with him. That's when I pretended to not know Spanish and walked away.