Melissa and I have been getting the Christmas boxes out and the kids have been begging for the tree to be set up.  It’s not up yet, but surely tomorrow we will get to to it.  The box it’s in is sitting on the living room floor – so that’s progress.  My first throw away for Day 34 was easy.  Years ago we bought a toy train that is meant to be set up under the Christmas tree so that the little engine and two or three cars would make loops around the edge of the tree skirt.  This was one of those rookie parent mistakes!  You think, “Oh, our little toddler will just love it.”  And then you’re surprised at how much your little toddler LOVES it … and how he treats the things he loves.  And how difficult it is to get the engine and all the cars to connect and to line up on the track straight enough to actually move every time your toddler decides to pick up the pretty train (once every 39 seconds).  And it doesn’t take long before your toddler has loved that train to death (less than one Christmas season).  So the only solution is to pack it away each year with the Christmas stuff, pull it out each December, look at it and think, “I’m going to fix that thing someday now that the kids are old enough to leave it alone,” and then pack it away for another year.  This year I simply aknowledged reality and the train is now in the trash can.  The second Throw was much more difficult.  A week or so ago, Melissa cleaned out the laundry room.  She brought me a quilt from the storage cabinet and asked if I wanted to keep it.  “My Grandma Gross made that for me.  I used it throughout my childhood.  Of course I want to keep it.”

That blanket kept me warm many winter nights in my drafty bedroom on East Hendricks Street.  It’s really the only thing I have that reminds me of Grandma.  So for the past week it sat on the arm of the couch and each time I looked at it, I imagined storing it away for my kids as a memento of their Great Grandma Gross from South Dakota.  But the sad reality of life slowly crept up on me and I realized that my four kids simply never knew their Great Grandma Gross and they never will really know her … at least not on this side of heaven.  And if I keep the blanket for them, would it provide any sort of true connection for them?  Will it help them know the feisty, lively, sweet woman herself?  All it will prove to them is that they had a Great Grandma who once sewed together a musty smelling quilt … with holes in it (now that I look at it closely).  It’s not really that attractive either.  Into the trash!

I started sorting through a box of books I found in the shed (there are many more out there!).  I found some books from seminary days that I might want to keep.  One of the possible roles I could end up playing in Haiti would be a teacher at the Emmaus Seminary which OMS runs just outside of Cap Haitien.  I don’t know if that will ever become a reality, but it’s something I need to consider.  But it’s been so long, I don’t remember which of the books were really worthwhile and which could be tossed.  I guess I can flip through them and keep the ones with the most highlighted passages!  Of course, there’s always the possibility that what I found dull or worthless back then, I might find profound and highly relevant today … so it might take some time to sort through those. I’ve come to the conclusion that at least part of the benefit of setting a goal for myself of throwing, giving, or selling something each day right now (even though it might be a year and a half before we actually get to Haiti) is the chance to stroll down memory lane with at least a bit of leisure.  If I waited until the month before moving, I’d have to toss things left and right without much of a glance.  Things that could be given away would end up in the trash.  And things that belong in the trash would go without any review.  As I have started to look over these things, I have come to a deeper appreciation of just how blessed my life has been!

Which brings me tonight to my first Bible.  It doesn’t seem right to throw away a Bible, and yet I have collected numerous versions over the years and I can’t keep them all.  (Melissa and I have a friend who apparently could use a study Bible, so I am going to keep my eyes open for one I can give her.)  Besides, this one is ratty and the pages are falling out.  Is there a proper way to dispose of a Bible? There’s no date in the front of this Bible – no indication that it was given to me by anyone in particular and, honestly, I have no recollection of how or exactly when I received it.  But it has a lot of passages underlined – very familiar verses now that were once brand new to me.  Many of the things I underlined are the more challenging bits of Scripture – the ones that got me fired up as a young Christian … and which are only now becoming realized in my life!  For example: “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.” (Phil 3:8-9) My high school Sunday School teachers, Tom and Marcia Kuhn, were the first folks who personally challenged me to read my Bible on a regular basis – they suggested a chapter a day.  Before that, I had never heard talk of a ‘quiet time’ or ‘daily devotional’.  They got me reading chapter by chapter through the New Testament when I was a junior in high school.  It wasn’t long before I realized that the Bible wasn’t just some dusty old story book, but rather a vehicle through which God could speak to ME, directly.  What a discovery that was!  (I had the same revelation … a re-revelation?? … on the trip to Haiti and I got all excited about Scripture again – like I hadn’t felt in years.) It was Hebrews 11:1 in May of 1985.  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”  Memorial Day weekend of that year brought news that a good friend of mine, Phil Palmer, had died in a car crash.  It turns out I had seen him just an hour or so before the accident.  He had driven past my house that Saturday night just as I was returning from a bike ride.  He rolled down the window and we chatted for a couple of minutes as I leaned on the handle bars of my bike.  Later, I tried to recall that conversation and I couldn’t.  The only thing I clearly remembered was the last thing I said to him:  “See you later.”  Just minutes later, he was speeding down Old Cemetary Road, on his way home, when he hit a pothole.  As an inexperienced driver, he lost control of the wheel and plowed the car into one of the few trees along the road with enough force to literally tear the car into three pieces. After hearing the news that Sunday afternoon, I went for a long bike ride, thinking and crying all the way.  After about two hours, my butt started to hurt, so I headed home.  As I was approaching the house, I found myself praying, “God, if Phil is really in heaven and if I will really have a chance to see him again, could you please give me some sort of sign?”  Please understand that my prayer was not questioning whether or not Phil was a believer – he was and I knew it.  My question really meant something like: “God, are you real?  Is there really such a place as heaven?  How can I be sure when I can’t see you and I can’t see heaven?”  For several days I was questioning God – alternating between being mad at him and doubting his very existence.  I think it was a day or two after Phil’s funeral when I finally felt ready to pick up my Bible to resume my daily chapter reading, and I was ready to read Hebrews chapter 11!  And when I read “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen”, it was God’s voice that I was hearing in my head.  I know it’s a cliche, but I seriously almost fell out of my chair.  I had my sign.  I look forward to meeting up with Phil again some day. This morning I was reading in Matthew and I came across an answer I needed.  Not an answer to a question I’m asking – an answer to a question I’ve been asked.  Several people have asked recently, “Why in the world would you want to uproot your family and move to Haiti?”  Because I made the mistake of letting God show me the people there!  And once you’ve seen poverty and minimal survival like that, it puts new meaning to Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:12 – “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”  I see those faces in my mind even now and think, “If our places on this planet were reversed, whatever I might want them to do unto me, I guess I better do!”  There are still 1.3 million Haitians living in tents, unable to rebuild since the earthquake. One Post Script to my story of God speaking to me through Scripture after Phil’s death:  It wasn’t too many weeks after Hebrews 11, that I was heading into James for the first time:  (Just as relevant now as it was then) “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Then there’s always Luke 12:48 – “From everyone who has been given much, much will be expected; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  I have been given much!

Just to recap:  My wife and I are looking for God’s direction as we make plans to move our family down to Haiti to become full time missionaries.  We figure our first step is to sell the house and then find a cheap, cheap apartment or mooch off a relative for the next year or so to pay off debts and have the time to raise financial support.  As part of this process, I have challenged myself to throw away, give away or sell at least one item from the house each and every day.  I make a record here of the items to help keep me accountable and because this process is getting me thinking about things in a new light and I know that if I don’t write these things down, they will be lost to me forever.  So it turns out that in Giving, Throwing and Selling, I am discovering just how complicated my relationship is with THINGS.  I started a month ago today and have barely made a dent in my possessions so far- plenty more shelves to clear and boxes to explore!  Today’s entry is a bit different because it spans two days…Last night Melissa and I went to our small group Christmas party.  We went out to eat with the four other couples and then went back to Karen and Jeff’s house for dessert and a “white elephant” gift exchange.  So “white elephant” means junk around your house that you no longer want – so right up my alley.  Now usually, people are told “white elephant” and at least half can’t resist going out and spending a couple of dollars on something that the other participants will actually want.  Not our group, apparently.  Each year we play the game where you can steal each others’ gifts or choose to unwrap a new one; our folks brought the kind of presents this time that had everyone scrambling to instantly “regift”!  (The only exception really was a “coupon” for a lunch with one of the couples.)   Last night we drew numbers and then one by one unwrapped packages revealing used candles, old books, a dried up coconut, and some bath salts that carried a distinct “old lady” smell!  And that list doesn’t even include the junk Melissa and I brought!  I took some musical spoons – in their original box.  Undoubtedly a collector’s item.  And we took a glass jar full of the ingredients for vegetable soup.  It’s one of these deals where the various ingredients are layered real pretty in the jar and the whole thing is finished off with some blue gingham material over the lid and a wooden spoon tied on with a ribbon.  It looked so pretty we never did eat it. (I think it was a gift from Melissa’s cousin, Angie.)  It was sitting on a shelf in the display cabinet in our kitchen, so it was a perfect candidate for white elephant. Our small group leader, Steve, was the first to unwrap the soup mix at the party and originally he kind of wanted it.  Then he read the label stuck on the bottom of the jar:  “Best if used by July, 2008”.  I maintained that technically, it didn’t say it wouldn’t be good to eat in 2010 or 2011, just that it was best in early 2008, but Steve decided to trade it away anyhow.  Somehow, by the end of the night with all the gift swapping, the soup ended up back in our hands.  So while Lee was trying to sneak out of our hosts’ (Jeff and Karen’s) house without the bath salts, I went and left the soup mix on the kitchen counter.  Jeff was right behind me, though, and put the mix right back in my hands.  So when I walked out, I set the jar in a corner on the porch and Melissa and I made our way to the van.  Karen spotted it there, picked it up and came running after us.  I almost mowed down Keri as I burned rubber to get out of there.

But it was all for naught – this morning the soup mix was in our mailbox at church!  So as soon as I hit “publish” on this post, I’m going to drive it over to leave it on another porch – the one belonging to its rightful owner:  Steve.  He opened it.  It’s his.  How am I supposed to unclutter my house if stuff comes back to me??  Man up!

During the summers of 1995 and 1996, I was working in Saudi Arabia.  The work I was doing there is nothing which I can describe openly on the world wide web, so if you don’t already know, I have to leave you guessing here.  I wasn’t working for the CIA or anything, and I would gladly tell you in person, but not here… who knows who might be listening in… Anyway, Saudi Arabia is a fascinating culture in many ways, but the most striking – and obvious – culture shock for a Westerner like myself has to be the role and treatment of women.  Who decided the women should be dressed in solid black literally from head to toe in a country where temperatures regularly top out over 100 degrees?  The men, I assume.  They get to where white.  Also, the women are not allowed to drive and they are not allowed to speak to any men outside their family members.  If you asked a Saudi man, he’d likely tell you that these rules are in place because they put women on a pedestal! So at the local mall in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, there is a McDonald’s and it has several cash registers with a line formed of hungry customers formed in front of each.  But you don’t jump into which ever line is shortest, you get in line for your order according to your gender.  The registers are labeled “Men Only” and “Women Only”.  Likewise the food court seating is segregated as well: Men, Women, Famlies.  “Men Only” businesses are abundant.  We used to play laser tag at this awesome arena, but no ladies were allowed.  (The Saudi men were real easy to pick off as they ran around in their white robes … under blacklights in an otherwise dark arena.  They were typically poor losers, too.)

So one of my souvenirs from Saudi was a triangular sign which states “No Women – Women Cannot be Seated or Served Here”.  When I came across it the other day, I thought, “Now, who would really appreciate this sign??”  Eventually, it came to me…  Our son Dats’ good friend, who also happens to be the son of our small group leaders.  To preserve his privacy, let’s call him “Jelly Bean”.  Poor Jelly Bean has three younger sisters – and no brothers!  He needs that sign.  So when we went to our small group Christmas party last night, I brought it along to give to Steve and Keri to pass along to Jelly Bean.  When I saw JB at church this morning, he told me that he loved the sign.  May he get many years of good use out of it!

My wife’s cousin, Angie, came by the house today to lend a (much appreciated) hand with all the work there is to be done.  Ida (age 7) has had some weird illness this week – with a high fever, loss of appetite, tiredness and sore throat but, thankfully, no puking – so we’ve had to make arrangements for care this week since he wasn’t able to attend school since Tuesday.  Grandma Trudy watched him two separate days, I stayed with him on Wednesday, and Melissa stayed with him today.  I got a good start on our bathroom project when I spent Wednesday at home and Melissa has been working at finishing it up.  One of the walls needed patching, the tub needed caulking and the whole thing needed new paint. So Angie came over to help this afternoon.  She’s always been very supportive, but even more so since we started talking about moving to Haiti.  In fact, I had had hopes she would be a part of our team for the October trip, but it wasn’t meant to be.  She did drive the team to the airport, though – we just couldn’t get her on the plane!  Apparently her husband, Phillip, stopped by our house at some point today, too, and offered to work on reroofing our garage for us if we would buy the materials!  (Their teenage sons got volunteered to help, too.)  That’s just incredible because it has to be done and left to my own devices, I wouldn’t know the first thing about where to start (besides ripping the old roof off the rafters, I mean).  Melissa said Phillip’s offer just about made her cry.

I guess in the course of conversation as they worked around the house after lunch, Angie mentioned that she has been looking for a new lamp for an office space, so Melissa offered up a brand new lamp that I had put aside for a stained glass project (which was fine by me!).  She just needs to get a shade for it.  They even made sure they got a picture, so Angie could appear in my blog!  So here’s a great big “Thank You!” and a shout out to Angie (and Phillip (and sons)!).  The lamp is nothing compared to all you’ve given us over the years.