Problems are for Solving

Today Theresa and the kids painted over the graffiti (see previous post for picture). Seeing as how we live on Orange St., we chose orange for the base color this time.

Theresa said today that she’d actually be disappointed if nobody tagged our garage again, as she’s kind of enjoying the potential creative outlet of doing our own garage. I’m not sure if she’s crazy or just joyful–but I love her either way.

Here’s a picture of the victorious orange-washers:

And one of my wife putting on the finishing touch: our house number.

Vandals, beware! You cannot touch us–we are armed with weapons of our warfare of which you do not know. May this orange wall be a reminder to us of the shield of faith which deflects the flaming darts of the evil one!

To be continued . . .

And suddenly a blog post will appear here!

I haven’t posted a non-book-review-post in quite some time. Life hasn’t been as busy as I’d like to think, but I’ve been unmotivated to write anything new. Or even to adapt something old.

One thing of note that has happened is that our house has been visited by someone in the neighborhood. At least, I assume he/they live in the neighborhood.

Twice.

Twice in the last month our garage has been “tagged”? with graffiti. This past Thursday Theresa and the kids went out and whitewashed the back of the garage (which faces the alley behind our home) and Friday night (yes less than 48 hours later) it was hit again. And last night (or the night before–I didn’t go in the alley yesterday) it was updated just a tad and more was added to our neighbor’s garage.

Here’s a photo of our garage:

Definitely not Picasso. Not even that creative for graffiti.

We’re going to repaint it. This time we’re painting it orange. Maybe it will be less attractive of a scene to spray paint. We don’t know if this is the average juvenile delinquents doing vandalism or gangs marking their territory, and we may never know. We’ve discussed various options of what to do in response, and for now it’ll be painted orange. I’ll post another picture when that’s done.

May God use us as an instrument for change in this neighborhood.

It’s my birthday too –yeah!

See this—it’s a blog post! Most of you probably thought I forgot I had a blog. For the most part . . . I did.

Today is my 37^th birthday. I’m officially in my upper 30’s—still a kid for the most part I’d say. I have been abundantly blessed.

Today my wife gave me a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, which I’ve wanted for a while. You’ll see that it’s been added to my reading list in the sidebar. I’ve got two there that I’ve finished and can add at least one more now.

The children gave me panda themed homemade gifts in honor of the main present. I have wonderful children and we’re looking forward (see countdown in the sidebar) to the arrival of Little Engine in a few months.

News items:

The house on McClure is listed with a realtor. We pray it sells quickly.

The Ben-Ezras are officially in the neighborhood. They have to move one more time to the real house, but we’re enjoying having them two doors down.

Code Enforcement got me a birthday present too! A beautiful bright orange “Notice to Abate� sticker on the door of the McClure house. Crystal pulled it down, but we have limbs to move. Thankfully my friends the Aringtons are going to help out because . . .

I leave town tomorrow (plane @ 5:50 AM) with Moriah for San Antonio. I won’t be back until late Saturday.

TC and I had a date this week for the first time in a while. We saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and I came away with at least one sermon illustration.

Praise God for his abundant blessings. Hopefully now that the McClure house is on the market I’ll have some time to write again.

The other day I was talking to a friend around lunchtime about a house. It was important to my friend that the home be in a “safe� neighborhood. That was only days after I got an inquiry about another house that asked if the neighborhood was “safe.�

I know that I am weird on this, but I don’t believe in safety the same way most people seem to speak of it. I’ve only had my car broken into one time in the twenty years I’ve been driving, and it was while it was parked eight feet from my parents’ front door in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs of a small city. My stereo was stolen in a “safe” neighborhood.

Since 9-11-01 it seems that people in the United States are consumed with this issue of safety but it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter what is done to protect us, people who are willing to die in the process of committing a heinous act will always be able to do so. There is no way to humanly protect everyone.

Every night when I put the children to bed safety is on my mind. That’s because we sing a short song that is the text of Psalm 4:8:

I will lie down in peace

In peace and sleep

I will lie down in peace and sleep

You alone O my LORD make me dwell in safety

I will lie down in peace . . . and sleep

God alone makes us to dwell in safety. There is no safety apart from Him.

I live in a neighborhood now that many people consider to be not safe. I sleep peacefully every night and fear no man—because God is watching out for me. Because he makes me to dwell in safety, I can lie down in peace . . . and sleep.

I wrote earlier about last month’s game night. We had it later in the month last month because the normal Friday (3^rd Friday) was my anniversary.

Game night for May is tomorrow–May 19^th. It’s at 6:00 PM at my house and supper is provided and children are welcome. My home is in the University East neighborhood. If you’re interested in coming (it’ll be fun!) you can contact the game night organizer here.

We do this every month (and I’ll post stories about it so you can get a glimpse of it) on the third Friday–so even if you can’t make it in May, let us know and we’ll make room for you another month. See you at the gaming tables!

I live in the 2^nd district of Peoria. I have a councilwoman whose national politics seem (from a private conversation we had months ago) to be as different from mine as night and day.

Because of things like this, I wouldn’t even dream of running for her seat. Her local politics are well in line with what I would have in the city government and I’m glad that she represents my district. She is all about community. We don’t have to agree on everything to agree on what’s important for Peoria.

Councilwoman Van Auken—keep up the good work. May we see a sense of community return to and grow in our fair city. May our local businesses prosper and may we help one another to prosper by frequenting those local businesses.

(BTW, I wrote yesterday about shopping locally and some of the reasons I think it’s so important.)

People, “non-people� and “family� all congregate at Ebenezer House (my home) one Friday every month for game night.

We used to meet at our church’s building but thought that the homey feel of being in the neighborhood was nicer. Plus we’re hoping this becomes as much of a neighborhood event as it is one our church enjoys.

Game night is something that we enjoy and is different each month. Many different people come and we play different games* each month. We start with a meal, thinking that this is important that eating together breeds the right kind of fellowship for the competition of games later.

This month we had the Ben-Ezras and Lansberrys as usual, and we were joined by Pastor Ben-Ezra (Seth’s dad), two adult singles and a family from our church and a new family who found out about the event from a local homeschool e-group.

Seth taught a group of people Tikal and then settled in to play Tigris and Euphrates with another group of us. The kids love Fireball Island and I know a game of Inegenious broke out in the kitchen.

We broke up late this month (we start at 6 with dinner and usually get done about 9 or 9:30) but everyone had a great time. Part of community is doing things together and game night is just one more way we’re building relationships and being with one another in a way that challenges us to pursue love and good works together.

* There are specific types of games we play. We go for something that is at least three players, as many as six or eight, and that is easily taught. (Easily taught is no the same thing as easily mastered, btw.) We look for imaginative games. Most of the games we play are not produced by Parker Brothers but by European game designers (the Germans are well known for games like Carcassonne). You can find all of the games we’ve played (and many more) at Just For Fun here in Peoria.