RockTheDesert

Works For Me Wednesday - Don't Waste Those Veggies

This post is part of a blog carnival called Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by Shannon at her awesome blog, Rocks In My Dryer! Join the fun by reading, commenting, and submitting your own post!

My husband attended an after-funeral gathering on Saturday while I was still out of town. At the end of the event, the hostess urged him to take home an entire, uneaten, huge, overflowing veggie tray from a big box store, complete with baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, mild peppers, and two kinds of dipping sauce. A cornucopia of crunchy, healthy goodness. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is completely full right now. We took the tray apart, separating the veggies into their own individual ziploc bags. We've been snacking on the veggies for lunch for 4 days now. I noticed that they are starting to not look quite as fresh. I decided to get creative with them and use them in recipes - why not?

Broccoli: steam in boiling, salted water for 5 minutes - should be shockingly bright green and still have a good bite to them. Toss with cooked (al dente) rotini pasta, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, pinch red pepper flakes, generous dash Tones Italian seasoning, handful parmesan cheese, dash pepper, salt if needed. My sons and husband scraped the bowl clean last night - no leftovers.

Carrots: steam in boiling water until very tender - don't you love their lovely orange hue? Mash or food processor 'til fairly smooth. Spoon into 1 cup storage containers. Freeze until you need carrots for carrot cake or winter soup. From the recipes I've looked at, you can substitute at least 1 generous cup of mashed carrots interchangeably in most carrot cake recipes. Try The Pioneer Woman's Carrot Cake - I'm going to try it today!

Cherry tomatoes: slice tomatoes in half. Add chopped scallions, finely chopped cilantro to taste. Add 1 finely chopped, seeded serrano chilie. Squeeze juice of half lime over all. Salt to taste. Awesome salsa for your eggs or top a salad with it, sprinkle with mexican cheese, crushed tortilla chip for great light lunch salad. I've also tossed this with leftover pasta, leftover chunks of chicken, chopped mild peppers (from the tray) - makes a different pasta salad.

Sugar snap peas: stir fry always works with these. I'm thinking of making fried rice for my sons for lunch today - if I chop these coarsely, I'll use in place of regular peas. Yum!

These creative twists on my veggie tray work for me - hope they work for you too!

Watercooler Wednesday - Pop Goes The Church

This post is part of Watercooler Wednesday, a creative think-tank which gathers weekly for conversation at Randy Elrod's Ethos blog. Check out Randy's latest WCW post HERE.

I had a lot of time to read while traveling to and from Romania last week. I could hardly stop reading my brand new ESV New Testament. I love this version. I underlined tons of scripture that I had memorized or was familiar with.

I also was able to read "Pop Goes The Church" by Tim Stevens, from beginning to end. I thoroughly enjoyed the read. If you go to the Pop Goes The Church website, you can read Chapter 4 - A Tale of Five Churches. Basically, Tim lists a set of five choices which every church has about how to deal with pop culture surrounding our churches: 1. Condemn; 2. Separate; 3. Embrace; 4. Ignore; 5. Leverage.

You probably don't even need to read Chapter 4 to determine the answers to these  questions:

• Which one of these choices describes your church's response to pop culture?
• How about your own personal response to pop culture...do you imitate pop culture, or are you creating culture?

Take a minute right now to check out Tim's "Leading Smart" blog. It's one my top 5. He posted an article recently called "Why Pop Culture Is No Longer Popular" which in some ways seems to refute the premise of his own book. Great post and lots of good comments.

Positive Post Tuesday - Michael

This post is part of Positive Post Tuesday, an every-Tuesday blog carnival at Brody Harper's excellent "...in case you were wondering" blog!

So, the theme of PPT is to write something nice about someone or something. Today, I thought I'd give a PPT shout-out to my son, Michael. Last year, while completing his junior year at Phoenix Christian High School, he also worked at least 20 hours per week at Chick-fil-a, saving every penny so that he'd have enough money saved to be able to go on back-to-back mission trips to Tanzania and Rwanda with e3 partners. Michael is a man of God. He's loving and kind. He has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh at everyone's silly stories and jokes. Michael is a really hard worker. He has a learning disability so he has to work twice as hard as the rest of us to get through his school work. Michael started working out with the football team about two years ago, arriving at school for zero hour at 7am daily. He made me laugh when he'd bring home pithy comments and quotes from the weights coach, Coach K. Example: when talking about eating healthy foods, Coach K said, "if you eat crap, you're gonna look like crap!" Michael ended up being the equipment manager for the team instead of a player (he got tackled twice and that effectively ended his football career) and even earned a PC letter for his efforts! I'm really proud of Michael. He is on the tech team at church - pretty much the best visual presenter we've ever had. He's got a great instinct for running our Easy Worship slides. Michael also has a blog where he posts artwork and "reviews" of his favorite albums, songs and movies. He is the reason that I listen to  Relient K, Alkaline Trio, and other cool bands. I wish everyone could meet Michael. He is truly a gift from God!!

Michael and the Tanzania team visited a leper colony one day. Michael carried this baby around with him all day. When you have leprosy, no one touches you. That's probably the worst part of the disease, not being touched, hugged, loved on. This baby doesn't have leprosy yet, but leprosy typically takes up to 15 years to manifest itself. There is a cure for leprosy and the WHO is working to eradicate it worldwide.

Here's Michael all dressed up as the Chick-fil-a cow. He loved it!

Being equipment manager is a huge job, especially in the summer. He had to run water bottles out to the team constantly. By the way, #90 really is that big and tall!!

20 Questions With Photo Answers

I found the following "meme" on a blog called La Petite Belle - it's a featured Typepad blog. The rules are simple: answer each of the 20 questions - plug your answers into Google Image Search - then upload the photos to blog in place of written answers...the photos themselves are the answers!

1. Your Age On Your Next Birthday

2. A Place You'd Like To Travel

3. Your Favorite Place

4. Your Favorite Object

5. Your Favorite Food

6. Your Favorite Animal

7. Your Favorite Color

8. The Town Where You Were Born

9. The Town Where You Live

10. Name Of A Past Pet

11. Name Of A Past Love

12. Best Friend's Name

13. Your Screen Name

14. Your First Name

15. Your Middle Name

16. Your Last Name

17. Bad Habit You Have

18. Your First Job

19. Name Of Grandmother/s

20. College Grad/Major

So Tired...

Must get some sleep. Romania trip was wonderful. The people. The food. The Hotel Magnus. E3 Partners.

Our team of 32 North Americans along with our talented translators, shared 1200+ Gospel presentations. 330+ first time professions of faith in Christ. I was really happy to be able to do follow up visits with brand new believers, encouraging them, praying for them. I sampled rose petal jelly, sweet-boiled walnuts, fresh fruit off of trees in courtyards we passed through.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I visited with a woman named Neculina. Well, I did a follow-up visit on Thursday. She said she had prayed and asked Jesus to be her Savior after we left on Wednesday. Then she read the Bible - Gospel of John - like I had asked her to. She now wanted me to talk to her husband. She woke him up from his afternoon nap and brought him outside. I talked to him for quite a while. He had a lot of questions and pushed back a lot on the whole salvation by faith alone (no works required for salvation). I gave him a Bible and a pair of reading glasses. Then I used those free gifts to explain to him the free gift of salvation. He finally got it. Prayed to receive Christ. We showed him how to read and study the Bible. He was extremely grateful. His name is Marin - 78 years old!

More later - I'm so tired...

When in Romania...

Today is Watercooler Wednesday! Gather around the 'cooler with some creative geniuses and leave comments, be inspired, and read Randy Elrod's latest post!

I'm in Galati, Romania on an e3 partners short-term mission trip! When traveling to a foreign country, there are interesting cultural twists to observe. As the old saying goes, when in Romania...do as the Romanians!!

One example: when entering a home, you must take off your shoes and leave them at the door. This is because they have rugs and carpets on their floors that must be swept - with a broom - and you want to minimize the amount of additional back-breaking labor for them (no electricity = no vacuums).

In your foreign travels, what cultural twists have you observed? Are there any that you liked enough to adopt for yourself/family permanently?

I've only got 5 minutes on this shared computer...gotta go!

Romania Journal

Another day is coming to a close in Romania. It's 9:25 pm and we just returned from eating dinner at Emmanuel Church. Roast beef simmered for hours in tomatoes, garlic, onions, parsley - so good! Of course they served rice pilaf, corn, peas, vegetable soup, bread and for dessert, a massive hunk of the best watermelon ever. These church ladies know how to lay out the spread!!

Since this is an e3 training trip for me, I worked with a different team today in a city called Tecuci. A city of about 50,000 with only about 100 known evangelical Christians. I went to an appointment in the morning with a 74-yr old woman named Nadia. She was one of the most animated, full-of-life people I've ever met - she dominated the conversation, in a good way, with stories. She used her hands and her facial expressions just about told the stories! I hardly needed a translator. We were at her house for nearly 3 hours. We shared our testimonies, we shared scriptures for her - "come all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest..." This woman has been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders for a very long time. She also admitted her biggest sin is unforgiveness. She literally could not understand forgiveness of her sins. We prayed for her at the end of our time together. That was the only time I saw her cry. She invited me to come back to Tecuci with my family and to stay at her house...pray for Nadia - we gave her a Bible and we each signed it with a personal message.

The weather changed dramatically today - it was raining when we walked outside to the vans. I had an instant flashback to my previous Romania trip in 2005...That was the year they experienced a 1000 yr flood. Alyssa and I ended up in a village about 2 hours from Galati which had no paved roads, no electricity, no running water. It also had massive amounts of thick, slippery, impossible-to-drive/walk-in mud. One of our nationals assessed the situation, disappeared for a few minutes, then returned with "the village boots" in his arms. Yes. He was thoughtful enough to go knocking on doors, asking to borrow boots that we could wear so we could walk in the mud. Someone else on our team was wearing flipflops - I gave her my tennis shoes to wear and I gingerly slid my feet into the pair of village boots that was handed to me. I lived through the experience, slipping and sliding up impossibly muddy hills, slipping and falling down impossibly muddy hills, pretty much slipping and sliding all day 'til mercifully it was time for the evening meeting...Good times - great memories. Thankfully, there was no need for the village boots today. My crocs were pretty slippery on the sidewalks and I nearly took down the team a few times before regaining my balance, but all in all, the rain wasn't a nuisance.

I won't be able to post pics 'til I get home - no picture card reader on this laptop. I haven't been so great at capturing pictures so far - tomorrow I'm going to concentrate harder on sneaking my camera out at just the right moments. We'll see how that goes.

Romania Journal

So, here I am, in the lobby of the Hotel Magnus, blogging contentedly, enjoying the hi-speed internet and complimentary laptop use! We arrived safely Saturday evening at about 8pm. The bus ride from Bucharest to Galati was painfully tedious and boring. The bus was extremely warm with no hope of more than an occasional waft of cool air from the over-worked air-conditioning. So, we all mostly slept. I think it took us 4 hours to travel 120 kilometers. Every time I closed my eyes, I concentrated on the rhythm of the driving...it felt like we were driving over speed bumps quite frequently, down country roads, stopping for pedestrians, slowing down for in-town traffic, speeding up again, more speed bumps, and on and on it went. There is not a freeway connecting Bucharest (capital of Romania - main airport) and Galati. We just drove through the countryside then through towns on regular streets. 

Our room has really cold air-conditioning - actually colder than at home!! I slept really well. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of hot water. We're heading in to breakfast in about 5 minutes...then a team meeting...then we'll load our entire e3 team into vans and head to Emmanuel Christian Church. So far, so good. I'll try to start taking pictures of places and people today and upload later.

Thursday Thirteen - 13 classic movies

Today, I'm joining a sort of blog carnival called Thursday Thirteen - actually, in blog terms, it's a meme...I'm not sure what a meme is, but I think it's something good. For bloggers that is. So, here's my list of 13 classic movies compiled with the help of the AFI lists of their top 10 movies by genre. I have to admit, I've not seen most of the movies on their lists...but I intend to see the following 13 classics before the end of 2008 - care to share some popcorn & a flick with me?

Thirteen Classic Movies I've Never Seen 1....Adam's Rib, starring Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn.  Romantic Comedy. 2....Roman Holiday, starring Gregory Peck & Audrey Hepburn. Romantic Comedy. 3....It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert. Romantic Comedy. 4....The Searchers, starring John Wayne & Jeffrey Hunter. Western. 5....Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman & Robert Redford. Western. 6....High Noon, starring Gary Cooper & Thomas Mitchell. Western. 7....The Pride Of The Yankees, starring Gary Cooper & Teresa Wright. Sports. 8....Vertigo, starring James Stewart & Kim Novak. Mystery. 9....The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart & Mary Astor. Mystery. 10..Dial M For Murder, starring Ray Milland & Grace Kelly. Mystery. 11..To Kill A Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck & Frank Overton. Courtroom Drama. 12..Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O'Toole & Alec Guinness. Epic. 13..Gone With The Wind, starring Vivien Leigh & Clark Gable. Epic.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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WFMW - Tote Bag's Surprise Solution

This post is part of Works For Me Wednesday at Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer blog. Check out Shannon's WFMW post called "Paint Jars."

I've got this totally cool straw tote bag that was given to me as a gift from a good friend. Not to drop names or anything, but it's from Brighton. It's my only bag from Brighton. My others are from Target, Walmart, Ross, etc. I'm not a purse-shopper. In fact, I hate purses because not one of them meets my needs perfectly. This straw tote bag is big & roomy, leopard-print-lined, and has sturdy leather handles.

The problem with the bag is that everything gets lost in it. Everything. My keys. My wallet. My pens. My spare change. My lipstick. Everything. Well, one day, I was super-busy at work, gathering things to take downstairs, talking on my phone, drinking a big cup of cold water, making copies, you know, all the essential multi-tasks. My hands were full, my arms were full, my cup of water was now almost empty and clenched in my teeth. I somehow slurped down the water then I tossed the cup in my straw tote bag which was hanging on my arm. I headed down the stairs, down the hall and started searching for my keys to the auditorium. Found 'em. Opened the door. Tossed my keys back in my purse. I was totally surprised when I heard the keys hit the bottom of the empty cup. I stopped dead in my tracks. The solution to my messy, unmanageable purse might have just occurred accidentally...I put my stuff down on a table. Unloaded my purse. Started dropping all sorts of treasures from the bottom of my purse into the 16 oz red plastic cup. From that point on, searching for things in my purse was a pleasure, not a pain. I carried that purse and that cup for at least 2 years. Every so often the cup would crack or split open and I'd replace it with another one. This worked for me and if I were to carry this purse again, first thing I'd do is stick a red cup in it!

WCW - Snapshots of Romania

Today is Watercooler Wednesday at Randy Elrod's Ethos blog. Join me and other imaginative bloggers around the watercooler for fun, enlightenment, and entertainment. Click HERE for Randy's post called "When Nature Screams."

My life is all about Missions right now. I'm in the CPC training process with e3 partners ministry. That means that I get to experience on-the-job-training on two separate mission trips. That, in addition to boot camp, will conclude my training process. So, if my blogging is infrequent in the next few months, it's because I'm struggling to find a decent internet connection somewhere in the world.

**Before you continue reading or move on to another blog, please leave a comment and answer these 2 simple questions: have you ever been on a mission trip? if you could go on a mission trip anywhere in the world, where would that be?**

OH YEAH, one more thing, I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd pray for our team from July 11-19. Click HERE for a printable prayer calendar. Thank you!!

I just finished packing for my first training trip. I leave Friday morning at 8am, heading to Romania. I will join the rest of our team at Dulles airport in Washington D.C. We should be in Bucharest at 1:40pm on Saturday. Then we'll board a bus and head north & east to Galati (pronounced Galatz). Alyssa and I went to Galati on our first e3 mission trip 3 years ago. I'm excited to be working with the same church, Emmanuel Christian Church. Check out their website. It's written in Romanian, however, there's a button to click that translates it to English! Pretty high-tech!!

I'm not so excited about the bus ride from Bucharest to Galati. The bus is comfortable enough, but we'll have to stop for dinner about half-way there. Last time, we stopped at "McDonalds." Everything was kinda similar and kinda not. More toward the "not" side.

Galati is located pretty much on the banks of the Danube River. Industrial shipping is a main economy for the area.

Here's a view of the Danube at night - I found this pic using Google - we were nowhere near the Danube after dark - e3 policy!!

An interesting component to our trip in 2005 and to my upcoming trip will be the mobile art team. Ted VanNatta is an artist who sets up his easel in various locations in the villages - near the town square, along a busy road, near a popular market, etc. He draws beautiful depictions of Bible stories while his other team members engage groups of bystanders in spiritual conversations.

Here's a typical afternoon discipleship meeting.
In 2007, the new church was able to build a brand new building and it was immediately filled to over-flow capacity!

Rwanda Stories - It All Adds Up

Dan (being a true engineer at heart) decided to work up some interesting numbers for me to post.

First and foremost:

• 1 true, living God drawing people unto Himself through the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed boldly in love...

In no particular order:

• 27 North American "missionaries"
• 5 states represented
• 28 Rwandan Ministry Partners
• 850 lbs of ministry materials crammed into:
• 16 additional suitcases (Evangecubes, tracts, clothes, crayons, bubbles, proclaimers)
• 3 lbs pancake mix, 144 slices pre-cooked bacon (breakfast food for two days in Kigali )
• 56 feet of laminated Creation posters
• 10,309 air miles each way
• 51-1/2 hours travel to get to Rwanda
• 35 hours travel to get home
• 288 Kinyarwanda Bibles
• 1800 beaded Gospel bracelets
• 1200 liters of drinking water
• 8 Mother Church Pastors
• 8 Mission Point Leaders
• 1 day ministering to 300 orphans in Celphar Orphanage
• 4 days in Ruhengeri at EER Guest House
• 344 Rwandan villagers whom we trained in evangelism and discipleship for the new churches
• 8 brand new churches planted
• 95 yr old man - oldest person to receive Christ
• 8960 Gospel presentations
• 3872 1st time professions of faith in Jesus
• 872 Follow-up discipleship visits
• 4 youth group/weekly Bible studies strengthened in 4 secondary schools (high school)
• 2000 secondary school students attended discipleship at schools daily with our youth teams teaching, preaching, encouraging, sharing life, discipling fellow students
• 600 dollars given to each mission point for roofs

It all adds up to 1 incredible, life-changing, e3 mission trip...the details are incredulous to look at - the numbers seem almost exaggerated and certainly out-of-proportion - that's because God's numbers are His work, His miracle, for His glory. We would love to have you join us on an upcoming trip!   We're heading to Burundi in August, Rwanda in January, and Burundi in March.Think about it. Pray about it. Then just do it!!

Rwanda Stories - In The Red

It seems that from every e3 mission trip I go on, a memorable theme emerges. This time, for me, it was all about God's provision. He is, after all, Jehovah-Jireh, God our Provider. He definitely intended for us to really know that about Him by the end of the week.

Before we left for Rwanda, we knew that our trip was over-budget by over $4000. This was mostly due to out-of-control airline costs which seemed to go up every day before we finally had funds from everyone to purchase them. Also, a few months after setting the final price for the trip, we found out that part of our budget needed to include leaving behind $600 per church site to assist with the cost of putting a roof on a new building. Great. Another $4800 in the red. Dan and I decided that we'd pull that amount out of his support account when we returned home. We were prepared for the trip to be even more in the red due to fluctuating prices and a lot of unknown expenses that we might incur. We knew that God would provide for our needs. He had already provided an incredible team of North Americans and Rwandan ministry partners. We'd had safe travel. All of our luggage arrived with us. These were all small miracles. Then God started to get really creative. He made Toyota Land Cruiser available for Dan to drive which meant that we could cram 6 team members in that vehicle with him and save over $2000 by not having to rent another van. He ended up spending $110 on fuel. That's quite a savings! Somehow, with God's provision, the budget ended up in the black AND we left that additional $4800 for roofs. That was a huge miracle!!  When God provides, He provides generously, abundantly, without holding back, and all for His glory!!

  More on God's provision in my next post...

Philippians 4:19 "You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus. Our God and Father abounds in glory that just pours out into eternity. Yes." THE MESSAGE BIBLE

Rwanda Stories - Sunday

Our E3 trip to Rwanda is an epic tale of God's faithfulness. God's plans were carried out according to His will and purposes. We were the message-bearers, the servants, the foot-washers, the encouragers, the hill-climbers, the disciple-makers, an eclectic team called together for 10 days of travel, ministry, partnership, and celebration! Each team member was a blessing to the team in various ways throughout the week. From words of encouragement to chocolate and popcorn, to cold medicine, to smiles, to hands clasped in unity, to utter silliness, to despair and fear, everything we brought to the table was ultimately for God's glory and to make His Name known to the Rwandans we encountered.

I was the leader of Team #1. This is a picture of Team #1's Mission Point church site. Our task for the week was relatively simple: share the Gospel with everyone we met while walking throughout the village, invite new Christians to a discipleship meeting in the afternoon, equip the new church with materials and resources to continue the ministry after our team is gone, and help to establish a brand new, baby church by the end of the week!!

The church plans to rent this site until God provides a way for them to buy the land and building...asking price is 1,000,000 rwandan francs - about $2000 US dollars. On Sunday morning, we worshipped at the Mother Church which was several miles away from here. On Sunday afternoon, our team met with the Mother Church Pastor (Charles) and the Missions Point Pastor-in-training (Jean Claude), along with a group of about 50 church members (from the Mother Church) at the Mission Point for a time of prayer walking. We walked over the entire site, praying that God would do a mighty work in this village during our four short days of sharing the Gospel and building His church. By the end of the first day, we were humbled and amazed to see how abundantly God began to answer our prayers!
My two team members, Rachel and Sara, along with their ministry partners Jane & Maureen, are telling the story of Creation and using a 7 ft wide laminated poster to share beautiful, bright pictures which show what God created each day!

Rwanda - My First Wordle

I am a full-fledged Wordle addict after just one visit to Wordle.net - aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
I typed in as many words as I could think of to describe our recent e3partners mission trip to Rwanda. Next I'm going to have our entire team submit 20 descriptive words to me and I'll create a Wordle which I might have made into a team T-shirt!!! This is a great find - thank you Mark Jaffrey & Jim Drake for posting about Wordle and giving me yet another addiction to overcome!

Click on this thumbnail to see the full-size version - I think you'll love it!!

American Flag...Creative Expressions

Happy Independence Day!!! July 4 has always been my favorite holiday. I've got great memories of parades, fireworks, backyard bbqs, the beach, friends, family - celebrating freedom is pretty sweet! Just for fun, I spent some time on Google, looking for creative expressions of the American flag - some of the images are a little too big for the column - just click on the pic and it will open in a new window. Enjoy!!

"Freedom has a scent, like the top of a newborn baby's head" - name that tune!
Faith Ringgold is an African-American artist, renowned for her painted story quilts.
This pizza looks pretty yummy, although the blue corner is a little suspect...
This one made me laugh...
Love this mosaic.
Aren't the shells pretty???!!!
This one's sort of subtle...
This one is beautiful, don't you think?
Classic example of why the world needs HOA's!
This cake looks a little too sweet for me...maybe just a small piece with homemade ice cream on top!
I've got to get me a couple of these!
I need one of these right now - not for the rain, but for the heat!
I'd be itching like crazy in this vest - but it is awfully cute!
I really love stained glass - this is so cool!
I'm off to a BBQ with friends and family...grilled ribeyes are calling my name!

WFMW - Big Bear Best Rice Ever

This post is part of Works For Me Wednesday at Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer blog. Today is the "recipes with five ingredients or less" edition. Shannon's got some yummy-sounding recipes posted HERE.

A few years ago, my parents went on a little weekend getaway to Big Bear, CA. They stayed in a lovely condo within walking distance of downtown. They had a fantastic dinner one night which included this rice as a side dish. When my mom got home, she dreamed of this rice and finally called the restaurant to ask for the recipe which they graciously gave to her.

BIG BEAR BEST RICE EVER

Ingredients:
2 cups long grain rice (jasmine rice is in the original recipe, but I rarely have it on hand)
4 bouillon cubes - I use vegetable
3 garlic cloves, chopped or minced
8 cups fresh baby spinach leaves (1 whole pre-washed pack from grocery store)
1 cup freshly grated parmesan or asiago cheese

In dutch oven, combine 4 cups water, 2 cups rice, 4 bouillon cubes, and garlic. Cover and bring to a rolling boil.  Reduce heat to med low (keep a small simmer going) and cook for 20 minutes or until all water is absorbed and rice is tender and fluffy. Add all the spinach to the pan, then re-cover with lid for 5 minutes. Stir now-wilted spinach into the rice along with the cheese. Adjust seasonings to taste with salt and pepper. Enjoy!!

WCW - Clergy-wear

Today is Watercooler Wednesday - I'm happy that I'll be able to contribute to the discussion at Randy Elrod's ETHOS blog today. Join me and many others in our pursuit of creative enlightenment by commenting and adding your own blog post! Click HERE to read Randy's current WCW post!!

About a month ago, Alyssa and I were shopping for supplies for our E3 mission trip to Rwanda. Sadly, we were unable to find any life-size posters containing dark-skinned Biblical characters. We found plenty of Swedish Jesus pictures and lots of overly cute Noah's Ark depictions, but nothing that we felt had the right feel or look or sense of one mankind/one human race.

After browsing through way too many Christian stores than should be allowed, just when we were at the point of utter exhaustion, frustration and insanity, we came upon the exclusive "clergy-wear" section of a particular Christian store. Check out this amazing cap...and then tell me what your favorite item of "clergy-wear" might be - have you seen any must-haves in line at the grocery store or any gotta-get-me-one-of-those while waiting for your morning sbux? Any great ideas for clergy-beach-wear? Be silly, have fun, throw down your favorite fashion idea for clergy and let's get the creative juices flowing!!

The Art of Evangelism

I typed in the word "evangelism" today and was amazed at the number of resources, articles, opinions, definitions, etc. that flooded my screen. This article by Guy Kawasaki, written to a secular, sales-related audience, draws strong parallels (not accidentally) to what Christian evangelism is all about. Here's an excerpt to get you thinking...

The Art of Evangelism

Out of curiosity, I went to SimplyHired, a vertical search engine for jobs, and looked for openings containing the keyword “evangelist.” Amazingly, there were 611 matches--and none were for churches. It seems that “evangelist” is now a secular, mainstream job title. Indeed, the first eight matches were for evangelist jobs at Microsoft--go figure.

As people hit the streets with this title, they need a foundation of the fundamental principles of evangelism. Fulfilling this need is the purpose of today's blog.

1. Create a cause. As the previous blog called “Guy's Golden Touch” explained, the starting point of evangelism is having a great thing to evangelize. A cause seizes the moral high ground. It is a product or service that improves the lives of people, ends bad things, or perpetuates good things. It is not simply an exchange of things/services for money.
2. Love the cause. “Evangelist” isn't simply a job title. It's a way of life. It means that the evangelist totally loves the product and sees it as a way to bring the “good news.” A love of the cause is the second most important determinant of the success of an evangelist--second only to the quality of the cause itself. No matter how great the person, if he doesn't love the cause, he cannot be a good evangelist for it.

Click HERE to read the rest of the article!!