speaking in tongues

Daniel over at In the Lion's Den did a little post about the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board forbidding missionaries from speaking in tongues. Southern Baptist or not, I would be interested in hearing some of your comments on it. If you have a chance, then jump on over toDaniel's site and leave your two cents.

fyi....I'm turning off comments on this one.

Katrina post yet again

I got to thinking a month or so ago about the first house I lived in over in East New Orleans and was curious as to whether it flooded during Katrina. I tried to track down the exact address of that house on several different occasions but never could. Luckily I remembered to ask my mom when she was in for thanksgiving this past week. The address was 6248 Kuebel Dr, New Orleans, LA. To be quite honest I think it is either the wrong address or google maps are wrong. I can remember running in the front yard and can remember what the houses down the street looked like, and I don't think we lived that close to the square building down the street. I think the house was five houses down from the one google shows. Well, if anybody has a different address then please let me know.

Below is the after picture of that house. It looks to be well flooded. Here is a link if you want to get a better view.

For some reason the google before picture is fuzzy. Once they refresh their satellite photo I will attach a picture to this post.

picture of our old house on Kuebel Dr.

happy thanksgiving

hanging out where the goldfish are edible

Hixson Presbyterian Sunday School

It was our turn to help out with children's church this past Sunday. Leslie was with Elliot in the crawlers and I was with John David in the 3 year old's (give or take 6 months) class. In an effort to help us find our spiritual gifts and to develop a heart for the childrens ministry our church has all the members take turns helping with children's church. I'm certain what my primary (if there is such a thing as a primary) spiritual gift is, and I can tell you emphatically it has nothing to do with helping out with 12 three year olds for an hour. To be honest it probably has to do with me being lazy, but 12 three year olds require a level of energy that I am just not capable of mustering up.

The first time I realized that the hour was going to be a long time was after I had read three books, played legos (check out this link) for a while, and resolved four or five tug-o-war\toy disputes only to look up and see that 20 minutes had passed. Luckily they have this thing, which is oddly missing in the adult service called "snack time". I'm considering going before the next meeting of the session to get the scoop on what happened to snack time. Well, after a little song\prayer snack time began. It kept them occupied for another 10 minutes or more.

I guess I am totally out of the loop because I did not know the words to the snack time prayer song. The funny thing is that another parent happened to walk in right before the song prayer began and jumped right in. I think John David and I were just amused by all the little kids folding their hands and singing. To be quite honest I kind of felt like I did the time or two when I visited a catholic church. You know, not sure when to stand, sit or kneel. Yea, it is kind of an odd feeling to have in a PCA church.

Well, it was while they were eating their goldfish and fruit drops that I pulled out my camera. I'm going to have to keep the camera in mind going forward because as soon as I pulled it out they totally became mesmerized by it. I had to hold the camera way above my head in order to get them all in the shot, so I was not able to get a really good shot. John David is at the top right.

Yea back to the service. After snack time the dipper changes started. Luckily, due to some insurance reasons only women are allowed to change diapers. Normally I would think about raising Cain because of the inequality issues, but I decided to let this one go. ;-) By the time half of the most critical diapers were changed it was time to start cleaning up. I guess the real problem with the whole morning was that we were suppose to get to a bible story, but just ran out of time. I'm not sure it is a realistic possibility that 12 three year olds would all sit at the same time much less sit and listen to a short bible story. I mean, you are really dealing with a 15 second attention span. Well, maybe a bit longer if you are lucky enough to have one or two daze off into outer space for a bit.

homebrew

Liberty Cream Ale

The Christmas homebrew is a brewen.

the outdoor bible

Okay, if you have a second then humor me. This guy will not spam you, so feel free to go sign up. Just head on over by clicking on the image, and please be sure to use my number as a referral. My referral ID is:110657

playbook for the reformed

Here's a play straight out of the Calvinistic playbook for lovers: here

I used it on Leslie this morning. She swooned. Okay not exactly swooned, but I did get a good smile out of her.

pink ball of shame

not my ball
of shame ;-)

brandon living with
the ball of shame

eric playing
in the mud

sunrise over covington

I took this picture early one morning while we were down in the New Orleans area. Enjoy...

katrina damage: lakeway towers

lakeway towers

It is hard to convey just how much damage the hurricane did to southern Louisiana. I guess somehow I was under the impression that when we got there that everything would be back to normal. I was surprised by just how much damage was done on my parent's street and that my parent's house as well as a lot of other homes still had tarps on the roof to keep the water out. I forgot to bring my JumpDrive, so I could not backup my pictures when my camera was full. That being the case I only got a fraction of the pictures that I wanted to. I am hoping Heather will send me the other CD of Rodger's.

The attached picture is of one of the lakeway towers. You pass right by the tower as you exit the Causeway which crosses lake pontchartrain. My mother-in-law worked in one of the lakeway towers before the hurricane. She is now making the daily commute to Baton Rouge. The towers don't look too messed up but you can see where they had to put up a lot of plywood to cover where windows were broken out.

Here is a link to a google map of Lakeway towers.

Funeral

(left to right) lindsey, john david, chelsea, grandma losch

I have not blogged for the last several days due to the fact that we were down in New Orleans for the funeral of Leslie's uncle Gordon. He passed away at the Touro Infirmary during hurricane Katrina. I never mentioned it on my blog because all we knew was that he had died. The circumstances surrounding his death are still largely unknown at this point, but what is known is sad. From what I understand, his body is being released shortly by St. Gabriel. The funeral was held at the St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian church. In spite of the damage to the main sanctuary, it was a beautiful old church and a fitting place for the funeral. Afterwards we headed over to Leslie's cousin Paul's house, which is close to the corner of Lowerline and Freret just across from café Freret. It was a good time to catch up with family. The picture Attached to this post was taken on the front porch of Paul's house.

Protest by Hamilton County Democrats in downtown Chattanooga

Chattanooga Democratic Party protest

Well I managed to get Eric, Ben, and Jason to head down to the protest with me this afternoon. We got there at 11:30 or so. The protest was not very big. I guess there were about 25 people there at the most. To be fair they did have protester on both sides of the street, but very few on the side of the street that is not pictured to the right. Though, they did have quite a few people honking their horns as they passed the corner of M. L. King Blvd and Georgia Ave. I guess they were expecting more people to show because they brought a bunch of extra signs with them. As I was taking pictures they were trying to get me to get a sign and to hold it for just 5 minutes.

Well if anyone else was there then feel free to leave a comment. Either way, if you want to be able to read some of the signs then make sure you click the pictures.

Chattanooga Democratic Party protest

Chattanooga Democratic Party protest

Chattanooga Democratic Party protest

Chattanooga Democratic Party protest

Jason watching the show

Ben and Eric getting into it

democrats gone wild

I think I am going to head down at lunch to take pictures of the "democrats gone wild". I'm sure one or two of you will already be there.

If you are going to be there, no matter what side you will be on, then let me know.

I'm thinking I will probably get some more pictures like this.

halloween wrap up

this is what our street sign looked like on the way
to work this morning

We had a great time last night. It was the first Halloween for Elliot, John David, and I. I am struck by what a great community building activity Halloween is. I can hardly believe it. I was able to meet people last night that I would never have been able to. I am surprised by just how many kids live in River Chase. I really thought that there were only three or so families with kids in our neighborhood, but in reality there must be a dozen or more. I have more pictures than I can put in one post, so I am adding a page to the places section of my site. Feel free to go check out the pictures here.

a must see movie clip