Tonight's installment of VHS movies from the 90s is The Net. An amazingly dated movie from a technology standpoint, but always thrilling to watch. 

Yesterday was I Love Trouble

Emily watched the original Mission Impossible this afternoon. 

 All from the 90s. All on VHS.  

Mike and I have a ton of places within walking distance of our house.  The weather was gorgeous this afternoon, so we took a walk a few blocks away to our closest CVS.  We have 3 of them within 10 minutes.  I did my homework before going, and walked away with this: 

for a grand total of $ 2.93.  

Definitely excited for the Derrick Rose era.

Emily and I finally have a destination. After months of planning and praying about ministry in Argentina, God has led us to the decision that Mexico City will be our destination. To make it official we signed the agreement with GBIM last Thursday. Tentative date of departure is Fall 2009, but that will depend on support raising. Check back often as things are about to pick up speed (as if they could go any faster already). Thanks to all for your prayers during this time and we look forward to many great things. 

I set a record yesterday for hous working in a day. This past week was a perfect storm of getting everything done before leaving for a week and 2 huge unexpected projects that I found out on Tuesday were due by Friday. Hence my 8am to 11:30pm day yesterday or 15.5 hrs. It was nuts, but at least it's over and I got everything done. (I also have picked up some valuable budget writing skills and learned of the amazingness of Excel's AutoFilter tool. I am such a nerd.) 

I'll also use this platform to hand out the wife of the century award to the one and only Emily McCaman. Not only did she not complain as I logged 53 hrs at work last week, but last night she met me at the office, brought a pizza and just hung out there, doing her thing, keeping me company. It was great. Thanks babe! Sorry to disappoint the rest of you, but this award won't be handed out again until 2108. 

I realized something today about my blogging habits. Most of my posts are along the lines of "today I ate…" and "yesterday I went…"  I don't really blog beyond the ins and outs of life. Not that that's bad (I know that both of you that read this are fully interested in what I are for dinner last night), but I want to blog about other things as well. I want to blog about cultures, and spirituality and maybe even some politics along the way. I realized today why I don't post as much about those things. I don't post that much because I always feel like I have to have everything figured out and then write a well-researched and documented post.  But seriously, who has time for that? And if you do go that route, then the number of posts is going to seriously diminish as well. I just want to throw some thoughts up here every now and then, without writing research papers for each blog. I just want to write, and maybe even have more questions than answers, or not totally thought out thoughts, because I'm a work in progress. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's the way I think. 

So here is my attempt to do just that. I read a Proverb this morning and it gave me some good food for thought regarding social justice and righteousness. Now, the old Mike would just put off posting because he didn't have the time or energy to write a research paper on that topic (besides, I already did that back in college) and just post about my weekend trip. Not the new Mike, though. I'm going to throw out my thoughts, and they may not be right or include all my thoughts, but here they are. Obviously discussion is warranted and encouraged so give me some feedback here. 

Proverbs 10:2 says that "Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from mortal danger."

For a long time now, it has really bugged me that righteousness is translated into Spanish as justice. That just didn't seem to make sense when I first realized that. Righteousness carries all these vertical connotations of personal piety, quiet times and prayer, while justice seems to carry a more horizontal meaning, affecting my relationships with my neighbors, as well even as far reaching as the trade agreements I support through my consumerism. I certainly didn't think they could really be the same concept. 

Back to the proverb. The literary style here is antithesis, where one line is contrasted with the next. Here we see 'treasures gained by wickedness (NASB: Ill-gotten gains)' contrasted with righteousness. It's obvious that those treasures are gained by means of injustice and/or oppression (maybe fodder for another post altogether), but what's interesting is that the opposite is described as righteousness. Perhaps the Spanish does get the translation right after all and we need to start thinking about righteousness more in terms of living right and in harmony with others, treating people fairly and standing up against injustice. Maybe it's time to start looking past just our quiet times as what pleases God and start to think about ways we can live out social justice (sounds like something that Micah wrote about awhile back)

Then again, piety sounds a lot easier than justice, doesn't it? 

My how the time flies. Our last post was May 22nd. What have we been doing since then? 

Building an Argentine style grill (parrilla) of course. Stop by for some meat if you're in the area!  

If ya'll are ever in Columbus, check out the Thai Orchid restaurant on Sawmill, just north of 270.  It's great!  Last night we tried it out with our dinner club (such a nonspecific name) that meets once a month at an international restaurant to discuss missions, our dreams/support for mission in the world and Columbus.  I like a little spice in my food- so it was fabulous.  Just enough for a little tingle on the tongue, no flaming-lips-where-is-my-water-glass kind of thing.  :)  

 Also… for those of you know don't know, Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter died (Maria, 5).  Their teenage son was backing out of their driveway and ran her over.  She later died at the hospital.  Some of the family were outside and watched the terrible accident.  Pray for them!  If any of you listen to the radio, he has a song playing now called "Cinderella and her Prince" (I think) and it's about a father and his daughter.  I think it might be the new Butterfly Kisses everyone plays for the father/daughter dance.  How sad.  Pray for them.

I know I don't need to do this, but I'd like to respond to a comment made about the "Stick Fire" post.  We're on a budget and date night a few weeks ago was grilling marshmallows on the deck.  Mike and I decided when we got married we would not try to continue to live at the level of lifestyle our parents have.  So many people we know or have heard about get married and spend and spend and spend and blow their paychecks and rack up tons of debt.  We could have easily done that.  There's so much fun stuff to do here in Columbus, but we decided that there are more important things to do in life.  Mike and I could have pursued money and found jobs serving this capitalist economy, but we chose jobs that help people.  We love what we do and what we spend our time doing.  There are important things in life and money is just not one of them.  Mike is such an amazing, loving husband, that I have to convince him not to spend too much money on me.  Budgets mean Mike honors our relationship by forming a budget for our spending.  We respect each other by sticking with it.  We honor each other as our bank account grows, because God has given us all the money we have.  We have seen many parts of the world where people are impoverished and hunger-stricken.  I will never in my life forget the night I prayed with a little girl for the peso (30 cents) to buy bread so her family could eat dinner that night.  God help me if I do forget.  So… yes, we could do more extravagant things with our money, but there's too much God has for us in this world to waste life worrying about greenness of our grass is, the size of our house, the luxury of our vacations, the newness of our music collections, the cable TV, the concert tickets, the…  STUFF that takes over our lives.  

I don't think I've had a more exhausting and sleepless stretch than from last Friday until today. It has involved a weekend in Chicago, a trip to Wooster on Monday and a trip to Cincinnati for the Cubs-Reds game last night. I'll try to get some pictures and more details up later, but for now know that I 

• Love my wife incredibly much
• Had a fantastic time with my boys Kyle and Greg
• Think the Cubs are going to have a really good year (for real this year)