Birthday Camping at Meade Lake

Today (Sunday) is Daniel's birthday, and for his birthday weekend we decided to go camping out at Meade Lake.  It was SO BEAUTIFUL -- it's just this little people-made lake out in the middle of nowhere. It's surrounded by gorgeous trees in fall colors, and it's basically like a tiny piece of Minnesota lurking in the middle of all this corn and cattle. Awesomeness.

We got out there around lunchtime yesterday. Daniel fired up the little stove and I set about figuring out our tent (I still remember how to assemble one!). It was super windy -- nearly blew away the tent once I put it together and before I staked it down! But once we got settled, it was SOOOOO NICE. It was great just to be able to relax and enjoy each other's company with nothing pressing to worry about except whether to nap or go on a walk. (Pressure's on! haha.)

Then some funny things happened. We had planned to arrive in time for a late breakfast, so we brought WAY too much food... and we ended up just having pigs in a blanket for supper instead of our fancy (and healthier) fish-and-veggie-kabobs dinner that we had planned. Then we sat by the fire and chatted and prayed and sang until dark... at which point we realized that it was getting a bit cold and we still hadn't really packed up the food or anything. So we started on that (in the dark, with flashlights) and when we were almost finished we heard some rustling nearby. We shined our lights in that direction and saw -- AN ARMADILLO!!! It was SO FUNNY -- at first I thought it was a possum, but then I saw its little accordion body. I named it Artie. It was just tromping through the leaves, munching on I don't even know what, like it hadn't a care in the world. We started to sort of follow it around, and it ducked through a little culvert tunnel. We got close enough for me to see its cute little ears, and then we took one step too many and it BOLTED! Those things are like little BULLETS, they run so fast! Anyway, we finally got stuff packed up and we decided we wanted to try wrapping potatoes in aluminum foil and cooking them in the coals overnight. So we buried them and went to sleep, setting our alarm for 6:00 so we'd have time to cook breakfast and pack up before church.

It was pretty cold last night -- mid-thirties, I think -- and we discovered that our tent is a much better summer tent than a winter tent, although we combated the cold sufficiently with our blankets, extra socks, and lots of hugs. We finally fell into a good sleep (after some sleep and tossing and turning) at about 2:30am... only to wake up to sunshine and the realization that the alarm had not gone off and it was 7:50 (we needed to be at church, more than a half hour drive, by 9:00). AHHHHHHHH!! So we rolled right out of bed and immediately started breaking camp and stuffing things in the car (which, I forgot to mention, was half-full with compressed cardboard boxes that we've been meaning to take down to recycling but haven't yet). We pretty much got things ready to go when I remembered about the potatoes. I went to dig them out... and I noticed three funny impressions in the ashes... and when I poked a stick around, there was nothing there... and when I walked back towards the tent to tell Daniel, I saw some crumpled aluminum foil. Whoops. Well, I guess Artie at least got a nice hot meal out of our chasing adventures!

Yum, yum, yum... thanks for breakfast!

We booked it back home, ate pop-tarts in the car, and ended up making it to church exactly on time (we almost beat the pianist!). Overall, it was a super fun (and occasionally horribly funny) little outing at the lake. We are excited to go back for attempt number two! =)

Hope you all have had a lovely weekend, and hope you are enjoying the fall colors where you are, whatever stage they're at! (Feel free to call and sing to Daniel -- he loves the happy birthday song!)

Peace out!
~Rebekah

The Long Weekend

Hi there, guys and gals!

It's been a bit since I've written... so a quick update!

• Parent-Teacher conferences were held at my school on Thursday and Friday (hence the long weekend). I was pretty nervous... but in the end, everything went really well, I thought. I got a lot of much-needed Spanish practice, too, as about 75% of my parents were primarily Spanish-speaking. Good times!
• Daniel's parents have been down to visit since Wednesday (and mine were here at the start of the month, don't remember if we mentioned that earlier). It's been super great to have both of them come be a part of our new little establishment here. 
• This morning (while the Jacksons were still with us) we had a really good conversation about "mawwiage" and serving each other. That combined with the other part of the conversation (about my class/school and social contracts) inspired Daniel and me to make a social contract for how we will treat each other! Here's a picture:
  We had so much fun making it together! We're hoping and praying that it will help us to remember to be each other's spouses first before we try to go be teachers and preachers and all those other things we do.

Anyway, just wanted to share a little update. School is going pretty well -- I can't believe we're already more than 1/4 done, and Thanksgiving will soon be upon us. Then it'll be Christmas before we know it, and then spring assessments, and then... it'll be done, and I bet I won't believe it went so fast! But until then, we just keep pluggin' away. =)

Hope you all are well -- drop us a line sometime! We love catching up. =)

~Rebekah

Studiedness and Disagreement

Daniel here.

It's amazing how scholarly most people expect you to be IF you try to disagree with them.

It's funny, but I never have heard somebody with whose position I agree call me out for the insufficiency of the studying and discerning I have done to reach said position. And frankly, I don't think I have done so to others. I only call people to do more more "homework" if A) I have done more "homework" than them, and B) they disagree with me.

It's funny. How powerful are our biases and surety, and our desire that others would see our what we see, how we see it.

It's a funny dynamic, but it sure makes it be really useful to be around people who disagree with you.

Perhaps I should try and encourage even those who agree with me to do better homework, to question the things they agree with me on. It's hard, though, when those things are so near and dear to me. How could I encourage my church friends to question their belief in the Jesus I love?

I can definitely resolve, though, to stay in thorough communication with those ORNERY, LOVING people who disagree with me and tell me to do my homework better!

Autumn

The fall chill is WONDERFUL. I definitely am a Minnesotan -- feeling a slight chill, then pulling on a warm flannel shirt is quite a lovely feeling. Riding bike in the cool air in sweatpants and a t-shirt... where a little sweat, a little chill, and a little heat are all dancing around each other... mixing to form an all around sense of peace, enjoyment, and well being.

Yesterday was awesome, and exemplified what's awesome about being "stuck" down here in Kansas with Rebekah teaching... having the time to be learning and growing, independently and in community, through study and conversation.

• Church:
• Church was powerful and has me really thinking about how I can do the Great Commission (i.e. spreading the Gospel) even in the presence of my substantial aforementioned questions/doubts/unresolved things.
• Got to pray for Neighbor Friend who for the first time in 10 years, by coming to church, is now able to be open about a deep longing for and belief in God that she has felt ridiculed for by others. 
• Had lunch with a few Church folks, got to talking deeply about the state of the church, the hearts of its members, God's work therein, etc.
• Went to the Church's budget meeting, learned more about its workings.
• Got to continue a discussion with Molly, a friend of mine from Southwest Christian HS, about what the Bible has to say about money and possessions and what the goal of life and action is.
• Got to continue studying Quantitative Methods in Economics.
• I want to tell readerfolks about something I just found: It's called Open Course Ware. (OCW)  There's a page called ocwconsortium.org, where you can search for and link to courses from 62 universities, including MIT and Notre Dame. Also, Yale does OCW also, but not through the "consortium". OCW is pretty cool for those of us who want to keep studying but not currently through a university. No credit, just learning, but still cool.
• Got to talk to Bethany and Brendan, along with Rebekah and I, are in a "Homework Club". We miss the homework and feedback of college, so we've created a shared DropBox folder where we put documents that we want feedback on. So last night Bethany and Brendan went through their comments to me on a paper/sermonette I am writing, and then Brendan (an agnostic) wanted to learn about why I believe in God, so we started talking about it. The Homework Club is starting to do its thing, which is pretty fun.

So I realized the other day that we had been (even including this post) blogging with a significant selective bias, notably, a positive one. For me at least, this is partially with the semi-conscious goal of allaying the worries of loved ones who were concerned that going to a tiny town in Kansas with "no job" would wreck me, that I'd be miserable.

And the fact is, sometimes it indeed feels really sucky.

• Like those moments where I ask myself, "what am I even doing right now in life?" 
• Or when I'm sick and tired of washing dishes and doing laundry and setting up bank accounts and auto-payments. 
• Or the 40% of Sunday nights when Rebekah's crying, overwhelmed by her first year of teaching, wondering if this is what she should be doing, wishing for the awesomeness of Church-land to be all week for her. 
• Or when she's working 7am-11pm with only time for meals and other occasional quality time. 
• Or when I'm having to try to explain to people "what I'm doing"... i.e. what's my "job". 
• Or how I'm not able to really do anything about Peru other than check in with Adolfo. 
• Or when I feel like I'm starting over from scratch with the photography business, and don't even want to bother, but know that I should to help us get ahead financially faster. 
• Or when I'm just plain old missing people. 
• Or when I feel like I wish I was spending more time with Rebekah, doing a better job of housekeeping, doing more to earn money, and doing better/more research/study/discussions... but knowing that I can't do MORE of everything if I have nothing I want to cut back on.

So yeah, sometimes it really stinks.

And I realized that I hadn't been sharing that on the blog, I'd been blogging with a semi-deceptive agenda... somewhat treating the blog as if its purpose was to reassure people I'm doing well. And that makes me/us spend a lot of text patting ourselves on the back for things. And that's not really valid, healthy, or helpful.

So, that is not to say that the positive things we've said are fabricated. It's more just like that they are selected, and the negative things are left out. I suppose another factor in this selection is that in a public medium, it's hard to address some of the "negative" things while being sensitive to others. But we can definitely try to be more balanced and honest and representative of our whole reality in our blogging. So that's the new plan.


And autumn truly is a lovely thing, that's no lie.


UPDATE: (from TODAY) I am really not cut out for doing laundry. Forgetting to start one of the two washers I had filled, misplacing my keys and wallet that I needed to finish (it's a laundromat) part way through, forgetting to go pick up loads. I am really not cut out for doing laundry.

Bible, Etc.

My God, My Bible... What kind of truth?
Daniel here. I discovered within the last week that I get a lot more out of listening to the Bible than I do reading it. When I read a passage I've read before, or that's "non-exciting", my eyes just skim faster, and I don't really take it in very thoroughly. But putting on headphones and listening, I am currently finding, is a much more powerful experience. When you think about it, the idea of the texts is that Jesus said all those words, out loud. So it's cool to hear them out loud. I have been finding myself to be somewhat "blown away" by the words of Jesus within the last week. Sermon on the mount? Mind blowing!!! Crazy faith healings? WHA!!???? Jesus is so OUT THERE!


Like I have said before, I know I have a road ahead of me right now of determining my beliefs about the Bible. But I still think it is valid practice to think and live biblically, even if I am not necessarily believing totally biblically. Two reasons why:

1. To work on "thinking and acting" biblically is the most involved way of testing the internal consistency of the Bible. If I am trying to "live and think biblically", then I'm more likely to discover consitency or contradiction within the Bible's teachings on -- for example -- sin, heaven and hell, money, gender, etc. I'm less likely to discover those things if I am "disinterestedly studying".
2. I know I believe in YHWH, Yeshua, and Parakletos. That is the image of God that I have, that has been etched in my soul from my life's story that I will not elaborate here. But is that the only image by which God reveals God's self? I don't know. I'll probably never know absolutely. I want to develop my view on how exclusive and objective my understanding of God is, and not just sit complacently on my comfortable "I don't know". But what I DO know is that one way or another, YHWH is my Creator, Yeshua is my Savior, and Parakletos is my Comforter. Because that image of God more-or-less has the Bible as its source, then seeking to live and think biblically makes quite a bit of sense, even if I am not (yet?) convinced that the Bible has a total corner on theistic truth.

"Work hard and cheerfully as though for the Lord"

In other news, the details of setting up life are proving slightly more annoying as time goes on. I keep telling Rebekah, "it feels like whenever I try to get something done, there's something that happens that means I can't finish until later." But I've been saying (or singing) to myself "work hard and cheerfully as though for the Lord." a Vacation Bible School version of Colossians 3:23.  If I'm doing work I should be doing, then there's no reason, or at least no value, to getting cranky about it.

TNIV: Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Part of me suspects that I'm creating extra work for myself by doing "too good" of a job of certain things, mostly keeping track of finances. But then I reply to myself that it won't always be this bad: once the systems and automated things are set up, the majority of the work I am doing now will disappear. And I have some people in my life whose meticulousness with which they track their money is something I really respect, and have seen the fruits of that borne out in their lives and even into my own. 

More and more community all the time

Both at church and in our "neighborhood", I/we ve been growing closer to the people around me/us. 

We've been hanging with the neighbors a bunch... we've got four metal chairs for "setting" out on our front sidewalk. (People don't "sit" in the South. They "set".) We greet and talk and go on with our days. Rebekah and I have been visiting the neighbor ladies to watch "The Sing Off" (even though we'd probably get better sound on our computers), and we've had some interesting chats about life, finances, food, church, everything. Luchia came and visited church with us, and said she'd never felt so welcomed by a church in her life! 

We are really feeling right at home in that church. We've got 5 weekly things we do with our church: 2 short music practices, 2 bible studies, and 1 Sunday service. The sermons and lessons keep us challenged and squirming -- if you want to squirm too, you can watch some of the Francis Chan videos pastor has played for us, especially "Lukewarm and Loving It". On top of all that there's the usual Sunday group lunch, and the occasional hangout with Pastor Chuck and his wife Debbie, like this week when they called me up to help deliver a bed to somebody out in the countryside, and then we grabbed some fried mushrooms, talking about faith, sin, holiness, personalities, marriage, etc.. It's really crazy and cool to be part of a community, nay, family, so soon in our time here in Liberal.

After delivering the bed, we were all talking so much that Rebekah decided she wanted in on the action, so we invited them in to continue the chat in the living room. During that conversation, Chuck introduced me to a perspective about sin and "being a sinner" that I had not ever heard before, but that seems so far to be defensible within a Biblical worldview (whatever that is, exactly). A paraphrase of that part of the living room conversation:

• Chuck: 80% of the denominational churches will say 'we are sinners, saved by grace', 
• Rebekah: Yeah, like how the LCMS and ELCA say "I, a poor, miserable sinner"
• Chuck: But in all my reading of scripture, I have never found followers of Jesus referred to as sinners. They are called saints. Paul doesn't say "to the sinners at so-and-so", he says "to the saints at so-and-so". Sure, in Romans 7 Paul says "the evil that I don't want to do, I do," but in Romans 8, he says "you were formerly slaves to sin, now you are slaves to righteousness."
• Daniel: Okay, but then what do you call it when Christians do what's wrong?
• Chuck: It's called faults. Mistakes. Sin is a rejection of salvation, it's much more serious, and it's pretty much reserved for those outside of Christ. When we have sin in our lives, we're not right with God.

It was crazy sounding, and totally contrary to how I've always thought and talked. But then again, if the foundational assumption you're working from is that the Bible is authoritative, then he may very well have a case, and I told him so. So I searched the New Testament for "Sinner", and started looking through verse by verse, and I'm not even through one Gospel, so I can't say much yet, but I haven't seen him disproven anyway.

It's crazy to be down here in Bible land for the period of my life in which I had already planned to be inspecting my views of scripture, because like I mentioned earlier, I feel like it is so much more rich and honest to question scripture "from the inside", by attempting to think and live by it, than to question with a telescope from a disinterested distance.

Crazy.

I'm realizing that I'm saying things are "crazy" a lot. And that's true. And you know what, I'm alright with that. Because my primary worry about coming to a small town in THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE was NOT that it would be CRAZY. I'll take crazy any day.

Other News.

In relation to our interesting quest with lifestyle/resource choices, I can think of two notable developments: 

1. Alternative transportation ambitions: delayed/modified. We have discovered that Rebekah is notably more "wobbly" than we had previously estimated. We were noticing that she didn't like taking her hands off the bars, and then one night when she was tired, she got up on the bike, wobbled a bit, and plopped into a bush. After that I just wanted her off the road. So we're thinking that we'll have to put the thing on hold until we can test ride one of those terratrike three wheeled bikes. And depending on how that goes, we may not have any Rebekah-related "alternative transportation" in our near future. Overall, I think this learning experience was a positive one; she appreciated my willingness to drop my energy and daydreams about biking once some convincing evidence was in, and I appreciated her willingness to explore the possibility of becoming "the weird lady on the reverse-trike" in the future.
2. Health insurance: cool! I have been talking to the people at MediShare and applying to participate in their program. It's quite awesome. It's not technically insurance, it's a sharing network. Basically it's Christians paying each others' medical bills. Instead of "premiums", it's a "share amount" that you pay each month. It's a nonprofit, so the money goes to 20% administration costs, and 80% to pay people's bills--no owners or shareholders to take dividends. That fact helps the costs stay down, along with the fact that everyone signs a Christian belief and lifestyle covenant, which contains stipulations (no smoking, no drunkenness, etc.) that lower the overall health costs incurred by the members. And I think it's a cool manifestation of the body of Christ acting as a body. 
• NOTE: The "letter of the law" of MediShare's belief covenant was a bit more than I could swallow outright:  I believe that the Bible is God's written revelation to man and that it is verbally inspired, authoritative, and without error in the original manuscripts. I don't really know what "authoritative" would mean here, and if I don't understand the meaning of what I'm affirming, is it honest for me to affirm it? "Verbally inspired", i.e. that God chose individual words for the authors, I have no particular belief about. "Without error", in my opinion, is either subject to MAJOR interpretation, or is not something I can affirm. 
• I often think about the two very different accounts about Judas' death and the "Field of Blood".  In Mat. 27, Judas hangs himself from guilt, after returning the betrayal reward money to the Pharisees. The Pharisees buy a field with it, and because the money was "blood money" from the betrayal, they call it the "Field of Blood." In Acts 1, however, Judas keeps the reward money, buys a field with it, and then his bowels burst over it, his blood making it the "Field of Blood". Now. I have looked into this some, and have read explanations that he could have hung himself AND had his bowels burst. That's how the workarounds usually go... apologists take two different stories and show how they could be representing parts of the same historical event... But reading up on this event, I have seen nothing resolving the following issues: 1) Did he keep or return the money? 2) Did he or the Pharisees buy the field? 3) Why was it called the field of blood? I'm of course open to input, but the point of my example is to show how the historical inerrancy of all Biblical text is not something I can actively affirm.
• Before enrolling in Southwest Christian High School for 9th grade, I had come up against a similar issue to the one I am now facing with the MediShare belief covenant: Southwest's covenant stated "I will honor God with all my actions", or something to that effect... something I knew was unrealistic in its literal letter of the law. I knew I couldn't honor God with ALL my actions, no matter how hard I could ever try. So before enrolling, I had a meeting with the principal and talked through the stuff, and he said it was okay for me to sign on despite my concerns with the wording. That's basically what I'm doing now, with the MediShare people. The representative said that when HE signed onto the MediShare program some years back, he had understood that the most important thing about the covenant is that a) you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and that b) you live a Christian lifestyle. With both of those things, I'm majorly on board.
• My final thought was: I may not be able to say the Bible is verbally-inspired and inerrant, but I sure do drill its contents into my brain and life quite a bit. It is possible that in the future, something in my understanding or application of scripture could change such that integrity would require me to withdraw from the MediShare program. But for now at least, I can say that I'm on board. I'll hold off on submitting the application for now, though, to be sure I'm reflective, prayerful, and conscientious, not casual or just doing what's convenient.

Parents are coming!

Within two weeks of each other, both of our sets of parents will be visiting us in October! Daddy Jimmy and Danny Jimmy will be going hunting some, which he has been looking forward to ever since he learned I'd be moving near some of the best pheasant grasslands in the country. The summer was a tough one and we don't have a dog, so picking might be slim, but it will be fun anyway. Dad and Mom Schulz will be around for Sunday church, and the J's will be around for Wednesday night Bible study. I imagine we'll all tour Rebekah's now-established classroom.

Non-conclusion

I have no witty way to conclude, or pull everything together through common themes, given that I've talked about some pretty random stuff. I talked about the Bible a lot, so maybe a good concluding paragraph would involve the Bible somehow, but I haven't currently the Bible-related conclusivness to pull such a thing off. So for now I'll just say,

Bye!

~Daniel


P.S. I heard that some people were having trouble subscribing via the normal method, so I added a fairly simple email subscription widget on the top right of the page.

Happy Birthday To Me...

Sooooooo today is my 24th birthday. Since it's my first year of teaching (and therefore teaching is my WHOLE LIFE) I didn't really plan much (read: I totally forgot it was my birthday until I was planning school work for this weekend and saw the date), but I was still happily surprised by a few little birthday sweetnesses from folks. For example, this morning when our worship leader read my prayer request (thanks for another year of life), he took one look at me and then started singing happy birthday (thus leading the entire congregation along too). It was funny and happy. =)

Here's another one: Daniel realized he hadn't gotten anything for my birthday (since I forgot about it, it's not surprising that he did too!), so then he went to the grocery store and got stuff to make me a special dinner!

We had tasty breadsticks with hot marinara and garlic chicken, and he got me some dark chocolate pomegranate seeds for a special treat. Yum! Then after dinner he said our neighbors wanted to show me their new candlesticks they got, so we went over there and they had made me a carrot cake for my birthday -- candles and everything!

Laura (left) and Luchia (right) with me, my birthday cake, and my balloons!

Then to finish off the evening I called back my sister and my parents to chat with them for a bit. Good to catch up, and totally worth not finishing my grading. =)

Anyways, just wanted to share my little birthday surprises, so now I'm going to go finish my lesson plans and go to bed. The end!

~Rebekah