Travelin' down the road, goin' East, goin' West

Well, thanks for the comments. Yes, Peg, we all stand on the porch and wave like crazy when someone leaves. The odd thing is that lots of people are back-door folks, where we often forget to leave the light on. So when they leave by the back door, we stand there. But the folks that know us well, know to look up when they go out the driveway, and we'll be standing there!

I'll never forget the picture of my tiny grandmother, Lao Lao we called her, standing on the porch of Torrey Lodge, waving a little white handkerchief to send us off. Nowadays it seems people are pretty quick to shut the door, sometimes before we even have gotten in our car! It always makes me wonder what important task my visit was keeping them from doing . . .

Our travels . . . we got to Tallahassee, stopping at Panera Bread along the way for Becca to do her on-line French class. It was always nip and tuck seeing if we estimated the trip right for Becca or David to go on-line at the appropriate time. We have stopped at libraries, community colleges, and Panera Bread. Becca's class is MWF and David's is TTh, so sometimes we were sitting around waiting, and other times we were rushing to get plugged into internet. So Panera Bread has free wireless. Borders was 6 bucks an hour, so we figured we were better off spending our 9 bucks for an hour and a half on refillable coffee, 2-4-2 sandwich deals and lemonade. After this trip, I am thinking of buying stock in Panera Bread, that is IF I win the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes, which isn't likely, since I don't get that stuff any more, but hey . . .

What I DO get are a million solicitations. When the firemen called, I was really nice--since the firemen saved our stuff, I sent them a donation. After all, our firemen are volunteers. Then the police called, and a policeman once saved me from a bad situation, so I gave another donation. Now I have somehow gotten on every bleeding heart list imaginable.

Is that how people feel when they get OUR bleeding heart letters? Dear me.

"Hello,isthismrs.smitharoo?"
"Umm . . ."
"yes,thankyou.thisispattycallingforpoorlynandtimwhoare
(gasp for breath)inberlanery,germany
(they never get my town right)andcanIputyoudownforadonationfor30buckswhat'syour
creditcardnumber."
"No thanks, things are pretty tight right now." IunderstandperfectlycanIputyoudownfor20dollarsthenplease?
"No thanks, I am thinking of not even praying for them anymore because I don't have time."
"Yesofcourseyour10dollarpledgewillbeagreathelpandwe'llbesendingyoua
decalcalled'Ihelpedsavetheberliners'foryourcontribution . . .
"NO, I am maxed out."
"Yesofcourse,butonly10dollarswillreallyhelp."

Now of course if I do agree to ten measly bucks (can't even feed the fam at Mickey D's for that, much less Panera Bread), I will get a letter which will remind me how expensive it was to send me that letter, and won't I consider increasing my GENEROUS pledge by 5 dollars?

Click.

So today as I was taking Becca and David to plant trees on someone's property (the government is paying a person from the church for this tree planting project, which is why they don't have much leftover money to give us to educate our son Timothy--he should be planting trees instead of going to college), I was listening to our Christian radio station.

After listening to and from the tree farm, I now have a new way of raising the approximately thousand bucks a month we need to get out of furlough purgatory and go back to he.., oops, Berlin. It's called WEST vs. EAST. So far people in the listening audience who live in the WESTern part of their broadcasting area are leading the giving by 1556 dollars in pledges, and we just know that listeners in the EASTern area (that's folks who live near me, ahem!!) definitely are going to want to COME BACK UP FROM BEHIND and tie it up with their pledges!! This is really exciting!! Oh, there goes the phone, and it's someone from the EAST!! Oh, it's getting thrilling!! (Whoever is doing the share-a-thon must not get out much.)

So I think I'll call each of the folks who get my prayer letter. "Hey Mary!! We have a new game in raising support! It's called West vs. East. Now YOU live in the East, and so far the East supporters are trailing our West supporters by 300 dollars. Now I just KNOW you want the East to catch up with the West! Can I count on your support? Thank you so much!!" Then the music will start in with Michael W. Smith, "Go West, Young Man." (Yes, they really did put that song on.) Mary's heart will bleed, along with her pocketbook, and she will pick up her cell phone and call in to our mission, just in time because anyone who calls in from a car cell phone, without causing an accident, there is a wealthy (and bored) supporter who will MATCH that support for 25 dollars or more, THIS HOUR ONLY. Of course it might work better if we do south vs. north--we just got back from the south, and believe me, they know how to do missions conferences and dig deep. I could call all the northerners and get THEM riled up about catching up . . .

That's it. We just need to get the phones up and running and we'll be on our way in August!!

I switch to the OTHER radio station in my listening area. They are advertising the gift of the month!! For your pledge of 50 dollars or more (they do 5, but I like 50 better), you can have this incredible magnet that says, "Lyn and Tim need YOUR prayers." Let your family and friends know, you have class on your refrigerator. Display this fine magnet with pride, and help support our ministry. It looks really great next to the prayer card of Tim and Lyn. Impress your friends and help keep us on the air, I mean, IN BERLIN.

Na, I think I'll go back to praying about it. Pretty low-key. Besides, can you picture Tim on a phone-a-thon? He'd end up forgetting all about the money and just ministering to the folks who called. Poor guy. He's a much better missionary than fund-raiser. Na, it would never work. Guess we're back to the Holy Spirit . . .

I'm back in Tallahassee, where a church that never met us, decided to support us because God is at work in Berlin. And we're getting three new teammates from that church, because when they came to pray with us for a week in Berlin, God changed the direction of their lives. Now THAT's a cool deal. Much better than a gift of the month or a pledge to catch up.

Well, until next time (if you're still reading, that is!!)