Today, I am in the middle of my mourning, and also loving my life. I always got encouraged by my mom, and God has blessed with a great friendship realm. Sometimes, I just sit and laugh at the friends who God has put in my life. The one that probably gives me the biggest chuckle is my best friend Matthew Smith. He is the Executive Director of a non profit organization. He is one of my closest attempts to see, feel, hear, and get great encouragement from a walking Jesus, (other than my dad) here on this journey we call life. We have been through a lot together ever since 94' when we hit it off, and time has continued to keep us bonded together. His faith, hope, and love for his friends and the community of Omaha has and will remain strong. He sacrificially gives all he has to pouring out his heart to the less fortunate of the Omaha community in this small way of showing them Jesus.
Here is a great way that you can support, encourage, and give through your time, talents, and resources. Mosaic Community Development is a nonprofit organization that helps out in the community with a "Creative Educational Center", serving food to the less fortunate "Life on the Brick", teaching "English as a Second Language", and encouraging people going through "Life Transitions."
444Volunteer Spotlight
Thanks! from Matthew Smith ED
As our name indicates, we are a ‘mosaic’ of people who selflessly and generously give of their time and resources to serve and be amongst the poor and disenfranchised of our city. This month we wish to highlight our volunteers as a whole instead of one individual. We do this to recognize the significance of each piece as it composes a whole mosaic movement that touches lives. At the heart of MCD is a desire to be with those who are forgotten by society and demonstrate the love of Christ in a relational capacity. All of our volunteers are committed not only to providing a useful service that benefits the community, but more importantly they take time to value those they encounter in service. Our mosaic of volunteers loves to hear stories of those served and share their own. It is in this effort to be with those who are suffering that we serve in the most significant ways.
This is the 3 days of the year that I dread...
My heart is saddened of the past events...
Time has not been on the side of letting her go...
People change, people forget, people get re-married...
I try and let my mind think to the past...
I am filled with emotion....
I begin to cry... I will never forget my mom...
I wake up to this day with my dad in my ear...
I am relieved he is still here on earth...
I am ok wishing my mom a very Happy 68th Birthday...
as she is spending her day with Jesus, and her parents in Heaven. My life will go on, I will still remember the joy she brought to alot of people...
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Well, I got home from work on Sunday night for the second week in a row, where we did not have one table come in for dinner at My Martini. I left at 9pm, and was talking to a friend on the phone, and I was like, "Oh my god Cheryl there is someone in my house". Of course, I unlock the door, and the first thing I see is bellows of incense smoke, tons of empty be-vo bottles on the floor, and 3 sets of very surprised eyeballs staring at me.
Well, Afif and Jen left my place about an hour after I left for work, Jen picked her man Nick and decided they wanted to hang more and called up Afif, and he said, " I am driving by Randall's house", and Jen said, "so am I, let's just hangout there and wait for him at his place." Good times had by all, and Afif and we finally got to meet this hockey player stud that Jen just adores and always talks about. So here is my question, Why are hockey players so big, this guy was huge, and I watched my p's and q's, cause he would squash me like a bug.
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This weekend Ed, was there in form, but not person. The Billy Graham Foundation taped Ed and staff for a couple of days and will be putting it on prime time television this January. The church is really looking forward to this , since it will give us more exposure. This weekend, was really low key, and the castle themed set was taken down, and you could tell they were getting ready for the big Christmas Extravaganza.Fellowship Church.com, and will be on prime time news in January, I will let you know when. The weekend worship was good, but a very slowed down, somber approach, and the message was a small excerpt of part of that video. The church was really excited, because it will give a lot of exposure to FC on national television. I am getting ready to revise my whole web page, and add some new stuff, take out some old, and just plain revamp. Well, the reason why none of my FC bloggers have been updating is because some big wig put the kabosh on that. They can blog personally, but I guess too much info got out and they can not blog on a business stand point any longer. Last weekend, Ed had two big announcements, someone invited him to a board meeting to sit in on, as the meeting started, it was really a surprise, and someone anoymonoushly gave us 1,400 acres of prime land in east Texas, and we will be building a conference center, and camps for our kids. Also, we finally found a permanent building for the Uptown Campus, in North downtown Dallas for $8 million, for only 40,000 sq feet. Personally, I think it is too small, but we will have to wait and see. From the December 2, 2005 print edition Real Estate Fellowship Church buys building in Arts District Christine PerezStaff Writer Condo developers are doing their part to find new uses for vacant office space in downtown Dallas. Now a booming Grapevine mega-church is doing the same. Recent Company News » Capstone Commercial» Fellowship Church» Staubach Co.Latest News Fellowship Church has snapped up a 44,300-square-foot office building on 2.1 acres in the Arts District for its new urban campus. The church paid Levco Enterprises $4.3 million for the property at 2809 Ross Ave., near Boll Street on the eastern edge of downtown Dallas. The new satellite location will seat 1,300 and include 20,000 square feet of children's programming space, a bookstore and coffee shop with street access. Dallas-based Beck Group has been tapped to design the interiors. Susan Gwin with The Staubach Co. and Damian Rivera with Capstone Commercial put the deal together. With attendance topping 20,000 in Grapevine, the church made a decision last year to expand into other parts of the Metroplex. It opened a 110,000-square-foot campus in Plano in January, as well as a temporary location at North Dallas High School in Uptown. In March, it opened a third satellite at Alliance in Fort Worth. The campus locations operate as fully functioning churches with their own staffs, bands and programming. Sermons by senior pastor Ed Young are filmed on Saturday nights at the Grapevine campus and shown on theater-sized screens on Sunday mornings at the satellite locations. Terry Storch, pastor of Fellowship's Uptown campus, said the Arts District location made a lot of sense. "We are a creative church inspired by the arts," he said.
Yea, I know but it sure does suck sometimes. Today was a very hard day, everybody was like trying to give me advice, and I was not asking for it. This Spanish man was having a really bad day, and was just not letting anybody know it, but me. He walked in, greeted him, I read the drink menu, let him know he could stay at the bar, or go to the counter, and where he could even eat it. So, at the end of his miserable attempt to eat, drink, and be merry, I just kept on pissing him off. He said to me, "You know you are not a very nice person, and I told him I wanted to know what I did wrong, and he said, " you are just not a happy person" I did let him know I was in a great mood, and the other guest at my bar, told him to leave me alone, and then he decided to leave.
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Well, today if my car was a padded rubber room car, I would of fit right in. I work and live just 3 miles from both jobs, (today DFW). I left work at 355pm and got home at 630pm. I got rear-ended not 5, not 6, no not even 7 times, but the magic number ladies and gentlemen for today is 8. YES, you read right, eight times, I got bumped in the butt.
(Right now I am laughing, why do I do this to myself, but I guess, in the end, I don't mind a good laugh on me). shane don't even
One guy kept on bumping me 5 times, and by the 5th bump, I got out of my car, and went and kindly asked him, "are you trying to get my attention or what," he had no clue what I was talking about, so I asked him, if he could start using his breaks, cause "you have bumped into my car 5 times", and he said, "I sure didn't know I did that". So I switched lanes, and of course someone else decided to be a dumba**, and bump me 3 other times. By this time, I was literally coming unglued-LITERALLY. I finally realized that I was sliding as well, and this nice red mustang let me use his bumper to stop with, and all that took 2 1/2 hours to drive 3 miles.
I was running through my popular reads, and came across this article in the Omaha World herald...Enjoy
Published Wednesday December 7, 2005
Churches dark on Christmas Day?
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country.
Even though the holiday this year falls on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, expecting low attendance on what they call a family day.
Critics within the evangelical community said they were stunned by the shutdowns.
"This is a consumer mentality at work: 'Let's not impose the church on people. Let's not make church in any way inconvenient,'" said David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Hamilton, Mass. "I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing."
Locally, a spot-check of Omaha churches showed that several may offer more Saturday Christmas Eve services, but are still having at least one Sunday worship service.
"I guess we know our people and know what the crowds will be," said Pastor Tom Fraley of Trinity Church Interdenominational.
Trinity will have three Christmas Eve services. Normally, they have one Saturday service and three Sunday services, Fraley said.
Christmas Eve services normally have a higher attendance than Christmas Day, he said. "I guess people vote with their feet," he said.
Other large Omaha churches offering multiple Christmas Eve services include King of Kings Lutheran Church, with six Saturday services, and one Sunday service, and Westside Church, with two Saturday services and one Christmas Day service.
Nationally, the megachurches closing on Christmas also plan multiple services in the days leading up to the holiday, including Christmas Eve. Most normally do not hold Christmas Day services, preferring instead to mark the holiday in the days and on the night before. However, Sunday worship has been a Christian practice since ancient times.
Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., said church leaders decided that organizing services on a Christmas Sunday would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 1994, and only a small number of people showed up to pray, she said.
"If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don't go to church, how likely is it that they'll be going to church on Christmas morning?" she said.
***Among the other megachurches closing on Christmas Day are Southland Christian Church in Nicholasville, Ky., near Lexington, and Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside Dallas.** North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., outside Atlanta, said on its Web site that no services will be held on Christmas Day or New Year's Day, which also falls on a Sunday. A spokesman for North Point did not respond to requests for comment.
The closings stand in stark contrast to Roman Catholic parishes, which will see some of their largest crowds of the year on Christmas, and also have a tradition of midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and mainline Protestant congregations such as Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran churches, where Sunday services are rarely canceled.
Cindy Willison, a spokeswoman for the evangelical Southland Christian Church, said at least 500 volunteers are needed, along with staff, to run Sunday services for the estimated 8,000 people who usually attend. She said many of the volunteers appreciate the chance to spend Christmas with their families instead of working.
"If we weren't having services at all, I would probably tend to feel that we were too accommodating to the secular viewpoint, but we're having multiple services on Saturday and an additional service Friday night," Willison said. "We believe that you worship every day of the week, not just on a weekend, and you don't have to be in a church building to worship."
World-Herald staff writer Jason Kuiper contributed to this report.
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Saturday and Sunday was my two not normal days off. I got home from working at my Martini @ 1am, slept, and awoke by 8am Saturday morning. Here is my weekend in review. I took a hike at Lake Grapevine, washed my car, met friends for breakfast, went to the bank, grocery shopping, cleaned my apt, shaved my head, and all by 3pm when my buddy Afif and Jen came to hang for the rest of the evening. Sunday I went to church, and was on my way home when Afif called, and wanted to know what I was doing? I said, "heading home and chilling." I pull around the corner of my complex and I see this black Eclipse sitting in front of my apt, and I am wondering in my head, now why would that be there?? Afif decided after all he was not sick and did not want to stay home by himself, so of course we watched football all day & night. We did have a good time. This weekend was the conclusion of the whyi series. Ed discussed why it is he and others have a hard time trusting others and God, because of his humanness. Trust is a God thing, and a good thing to have, and how all of us have been wired for faith, it is just a matter of trust.
Papa is just about out of the hospital, and he is doing much better, he had a heart attack the night he was in the hospital, but is recovering better. I was able to catch up with John & Kate McNutt who are best friends of the Dalke's and John told me had passed on my regards. They have been staying with a family from the church and getting ready to rent a place for a while, till they figure out what to do next. The Red Cross has been very helpful in this time of need If you would like to donate any funds you can contact the Rolling Hills Bank here. The fund is called the Dalke House Fund, and it has been set up for assistance. Please continue to pray for them, and Papa. Thank you
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