lukenisly.com

Well, I just realized that the last post on this blog was in Mexico. That was a long time ago. I am not in Mexico. Much water has made it’s proverbial voyage under my bridge. Now I am at home working, learning,  and teaching. 

Recently while reading Hans Mast, I thought about how politically involved he is considering the fact that he is a Nonresistant Mennonite. This post and the comments to it really got me thinking about it more. It is interesting to see what one “liberal Mennonite” has to say about the ACE curriculum used in many of our schools and the way that many young people coming into RBC are not so sure about nonresistance anymore.

Looking at the history of the Anabaptists, it is easy to see a trend toward losing this valuable piece of the Gospel. Most often, all but the most conservative Anabaptist churches have become caught up the the popular wars of their day, for example, some Mennonites on both sides in WWII.

As we become more acculturated, it becomes more difficult to hold positions that are not popular to the general public. At the moment, it is pretty easy for me to take a nonresistant position. But if the US would get into a total war that had the population behind it, then it would be much harder for me to hold that position in the face of outsiders.

Recently I was wondering to myself, Who are the great men and women of our day?  There tends to be a disconnect between the great men of history and our ability to be like them today. We think that they were on some lofty level spiritually that we could never obtain, but they were just real, average people like you and me. Our callings are different, but we can be the great men and women of our day.

God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Take that and go with it. The world needs people who are filled with life that comes from God. Follow Him and He will fill you, use you in great ways whether or not you can see results.

This week, I plan to by His grace, “…Work heartily as to the Lord and not as to men.”

A few random pictures from life here. 

The “die”chotomy of life and death. The little one, Jodie named Rosamund. 

Alvin on his 12,000 peso horse. 

Frank. Aww…. isn’t he schnuck? One of Jodie’s students.

Jacob is an 11 year old kid that drives to school every morning. He is in my class.

This is Jason with his horse

This is Celia. She is an eight year old kid in my class. 

This is Rosamanda. She is not in school, but her 3 brothers are. 

Guess what? We are actually safe and sound in Mexico. Below are a few pics

Here we are before we go. Dorcas, Floyd, Laura Conley, Jodie Kooistera, Caleb Crider, Rose Mary, Virgil, and myself.

Nislys feeling all cheesy with the sun in our eyes.

Sitting and waiting to have the van fixed

We decided to sing some of our songs while we waited. It was very warm.

Sitting at a Resturant when we should have been at our destination hours before. Enjoying some weak humor.

At the border

Orientation

Sorry there aren’t any more recent shots, but at least you know now who we are with and that we are safe. Sometimes I wonder if teaching English does something to the “sound” part. The group here is great! It is good to have some more experienced teachers here as well.

I am teaching from 8 am to 2:30 pm then from 8:15 pm to 9:30 pm. So it tends to be a pretty full day. I am getting into the swing of things slowly. Teaching is work. Strange eh? All you do is sit around and think…. ha ha ha! well, strangely enough, you have to stand to teach and besides that you have to play soccer or some wild game for at least half an hour a day. Oh, and the other thing is that bad company corrupts good manners, so that can be a problem with the teachers here…

This weekend we are planning to go deeper in and to Copper Canyon as well. That means 3 days and 3 nights on the road. We will be sleeping at motels so that is a bit of a bite because it is always more interesting to stay at someone’s house. It should be interesting. Mexico is usually.

Why Men Are Happier (a woman’s perspective) –

What do you expect from such simple creatures?   Your last name stays put.   The garage is all yours.   Wedding plans take care of themselves. Car mechanics tell you the truth.   You can play with toys all your life.

   You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.   Same work, more pay.   Wrinkles add character. You can open all your own jars. 

 New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.   One mood all the time.   Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.   A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.   You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.   If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.   You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.   The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.  

No wonder men are happier.

 (Slightly abridged)

Thanks to http://www.pharocattle.com/

I don’t know why I get all these brilliant inspirations from farmers.   

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

——————————————-

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant sho uld be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ants house where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.  The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008!

Thanks to http://barmbarranch.com/ 

We all know who we are talking about, so no need to comment further. On the other hand, to quote an unnamed acquaintance, “At least the Democrats are Christian. They believe in taking care of the poor.” 

Bibles

Time to go home. All aboard the Gospel ford Dodge. 

Kathryn playing in the water

Cornerstone Mennonite Church leaving ceremonies. Check out the details here. 

“Time to go home Caddie.”

“Goodbye!”

Becca

Gotcha! Reading blogs again!

Title credits go to Sheri. 

I decided tonight to post some pictures that have been waiting to be published for a while. Sometimes I think I should get a Picasa web album because it would be easy…  They are fairly random, but somewhat interesting. 

Sometimes you just have to make a dash for it

Tornado clouds past us. This is in the general direction of the destruction that we helped clean up a week later (below).

the cows seem unconcerned after the storm. Interesting how my cows I sold to the neighbor still hang out close to the house. 

Heavy metal

White clover

Monzy

The front yard

A tulip fetus

Monzy with my own heavy metal in the background. I just sold it recently for scrap price. If I was a real redneck, I would have bought a motor to put into it. Since I am lazy and don’t feel like doing all that work, I just sold it for too cheap. Oh well, At least there is another spot to mow and I didn’t have to haul it off. 

Nathan’s new bike and Umphy

Hey!!! Don’t you take a picture of me!/ Cheese for the camera

Mom and Dad biking

We all biked up to the Smiths one Sunday evening. They were generous enough to feed us popcorn. 

David Sommers on a Wednesday evening

Saturday morning pancakes

Nathan waking up and servant Mom feeding him some milk

The tornado damage we helped to put into piles. This is about 1/2 hour south of our house. A trailer house blew up against this other house that is still standing. Archie McGurik is quite a character and already had the trailer house’s i-beams cut up for scrap and the rest of it mostly dismantled. 

What used to be a trailer house

My praying parents

 Chadwin looks into the window of the men’s restroom.  

Nathan, Christopher, Mark and myself went to Joplin to buy Nathan a bike. Of course we had to stop and eat too.   or maybe just to drink… 

Nathan ponders his purchase    

Also this weekend we had to got to go listen to Rachel sing.  I am sure she sounded good but we could hardly hear her because she is was out on the side and they put the mikes right in the middle and up close so about all you could hear was alto. 

Tomorrow I have off so I can go sell some puppies. I hope I make more money off of them than just paying for my gas to Goodman.    

What do you do after a hard day’s work?     It is called balancing on the ball. I know it looks like I am touching the couch but the point is to balance.                  Oh, never mind, the point is to get to the couch on the ball. I told you we had a hard day!                                                   Oh, we got Nathan two goats today down in the boonies South of the metropolis of Valeda. Nathan is so excited about milking them that he can hardly wait to get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. If I am going to be that excited tomorrow morning, I better get to bed now.                                        Good night, Luke