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“Mommy, some of my stuffed animals are wet,” Toby said as he crawled up on to his bed to go to sleep Wednesday night.  Sure enough, upon close inspection of the bottom corner of his bedspread and a few stuffed animals, we discovered that Toby’s bed – very close to a window – had experienced several “drips” from a small leak in the window frame.

“When did you first notice this place was wet?” we asked Toby.  “Hmmm.  This morning when I woke up!” he replied.  “Oh, so this has been dripping all day.  So did you just forget to mention it this morning?”  Since such things are of minimal importance to a 4 year old, Toby shrugged his shoulders and said, “Hmm.  I forgot.”

This sealed the case.  I had to break out the ladder and go out on the roof to inspect.  Mind you this was during a mild and brief reprieve in the driving rain we’ve had since early Tuesday – some 10 or 11 inches in all.

This story is really a continuation of the report I gave Wednesday afternoon – OK after Storm Fay.  Now it seems that more events have unfolded and we haven’t escaped the storm entirely unscathed.  Toby’s window leaked.  Another upstairs window leaked through the wall down onto the ceiling in the foyer.  And then just yesterday – after four solid days of wind and rain – we discovered two small areas of our carpet in the living room were soaked.  No leak from windows or up above to blame on this one.  It’s still a mystery of exactly how “the seep” allowed water intrusion into our carpet but I’ve gotta guess the wind blowing rain at 40mph into the west exterior wall (good ol’ semi-porous Florida stucco wall at that!) had something to do with it.

We’re making repairs today and finally are drying out.  Definitely we’re thankful this was not a serious flooding issue nor even a big inconvenience.  But it does make us have greater respect for these types of storms.  . . . And we’ll be querying Toby for a report more often after rain.

We’ve seen a lot of this radar screen the last few days.  Tropical Storm Fay skirted by Orlando this afternoon and now is slowly crawling up the Atlantic side of Florida.

Thank the Lord it was pretty much a non event here where we live except for buckets and buckets of rain. 

We did notice, however, one of our windows which was facing the direction of the driving rain seems to be leaking around the bottom seals.  I’ll be climbing up on a ladder to check that out in the next day or so.  Ah, the joys of home ownership!

Tags: storm, fay, rain, home

So we all have been watching the Olympics. If you’re like me, you try to follow a few updates on the internet rather than having to sit through the many hours of commercials (some of which are very creative yet very highly repetitive!) on NBC.

Ever wonder what the average Chinese person views on the internet? It’s a fact that China has more internet users than any other country in the world. Actually, China has more internet users than America has people! Whoa.

But I point your attention to these two articles by the BBC. It is a well known fact that China and many other countries have elaborate filtering systems to censor and block what their people view and can not view on the internet. For example, if you go now to the New York Times on the web, you will see certain content that someone in China will not see. Sometimes entire sites are blocked.

This creates challenges for believers both in the country and out. Yet, as history has shown, these articles describe how motivated Chinese web users are learning to circumvent parts of the system. Viral and peer to peer sharing of information has allowed web content to multiply and morph almost instantly. This is good news for the Message we try to communicate via the net.

BBC Article: Great Firewall of China
BBC Article: Policing the Web

Olympic athletes are put on a pedestal – literally and figuratively. The world craves success sometimes more than they do.

Whether or not they are viewed as winners, each Olympian experiences struggle and triumph.

At a time when each athlete’s personal story is under the spotlight, this web site features a few competitors who have experienced ultimate victory.

I particularly point your attention to Rwandan distance runner Dieudonne Disi. He has experienced horror and tragedy. Yet, Christ has changed his life with powerful comfort and forgiveness.

The Struggle and Triumph web site and corresponding DVD are works of Campus Crusade for Christ’s sports ministry – Athletes in Action. This is an incredible tool which you can use to introduce sports minded friends to the message of the gospel.

You can view video clips, read the personal stories and see the contextualized gospel presentation online or on the DVD. We highly recommend the DVD.

Tags: athletesolympics struggle triumph aia video story