Posts Tagged ‘pictures’

Interview of the Month: Bethy, World Services

Friday, June 19th, 2009

I feel that this is a watershed moment in my young life. You see, I project that in ten – nah, make it five years – World Services will be open to the public. We’ll (gasp!) know where they live and that won’t be all. Dream the impossible dream with me and picture this:

Facebook

Karen Zerby is excited about the new GN I just finished. ILY Family! xoxoxo
(Steven Kelly likes this)

Twitter

KingPeter @JuanRS my flight lands in Rio in 2 min. r u sure sum1’s coming 2 pick me up? GBY!

Yup, that’s the bright and shiny future I envision. It’s gonna be awesome.

At that point it’ll be like “so you’re going to WS? Sweet, I hear Miami has some awesome national parks” (I don’t know why I chose Miami, it just came to me) and I’ll have to figure out what to do with all the time I devote to speculating where those WS’ites might live.

And when WS people come to visit for meetings and stuff, what will there be left to tease them about? And what will they have to be all cryptic and mysterious about? There won’t be any point to rifling through their bags looking for their passport to check the stamps, or immediately grabbing their wrist when they first walk in the door in the hopes that they didn’t change the time on their watch yet, or offering them beer after beer in the hopes of…..dang, this actually getting to be kind of a depressing prediction. It’s like all the fun will be gone. Oh well. Change isn’t always easy, is it?

Back on topic.

Until that day arrives, savor this moment with me. My cousin Bethy, daughter of co-administrative head of the oft-publicized NRM The Family International, (hah, this is such fun) longtime member of World Services and all around cool cat, has agreed to let me probe her mind and share these probings with you. I’m excited!

You’ll notice that this interview wasn’t posted in typical Interview of the Month format. Bethy and I cheated just a little bit and did the interview beforehand and now I’m posting it all in one shot. The reason is that naturally, this interview had to get checked over by other WS bunny rabbits to make sure that Bethy didn’t give away vital information as to her whereabouts. It’s a tricky process and a very slippery slope. See, if she slips and says something like “and sometimes when the weather is nice I like to go out for a walk” this would clearly imply that the weather is at least sometimes nice where she lives, which considerably narrows the field of where WS could be located. With that kind of information, it would just be a matter of time before someone connects the dots.

Well, I think I’ve said all the foolish preliminary things that I felt I needed to say to preface this interview.

Enjoy!

Oh, one more thing. At the bottom of this post there are PHOTOS of real live WS people. I should add here that to my overly inquisitive eye, they’re all looking pretty tan. What can we learn from this?

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Glad game #8: Combo night

Friday, March 27th, 2009

For some reason, whenever I think “bonding night” I think “dress up”. I think this was the last time the schedulers put me on bonding night, for obvious reasons. Nyna and Christie were real troopers in coming up with the inspiring wall signs that really made the evening come alive. Savor the details in these photos, there are many to be savored.

Sam and Boo fresh from the pages of the Heavenly Helper book.

Phil and his memory set card.

The rebellious ones looking very worldly. I think Angel might even be wearing makeup.

Eva said this was an exact replicate of a sign she used to wear for real.

Clara looking quite unrepentant.

Night snack, not to be missed.

And finally, my favorite photo of the evening. The timeless and much-loved TIV lift.

Heh. Heh. That was a fun night.

Glad game #7: Clara and I no longer look like this

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

2008 started out pretty rough for us in the looks department. Praise God that hair grows. Makes me miss Clara.

And here’s another offloading of one of my Google notes quotes:

“I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.” ~ English professor, Ohio University

Glad game #6: Trick or treat

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

I have a lot to say about a lot of stuff. Much of it is much more meaningful than what usually shows up on this blog. Easygoing posts are much easier to make – they require less thought and less humility. But hey, thinking and humility are two things I’m striving for so once I get a grip on what I’m trying to say, I’ll post it and hopefully it’ll be a blessing.

But in the meantime, here’s a few more trivial tidbits of stuff that makes me happy from last year.

See — I never got to trick or treat on Halloween when I was a kid. I’ve done the dress up thing and yeah, that’s all well and good. But last year I felt an instinctive and intrinsic need to experience the practice of trick or treating. As always, my friend Chuck was there to support and share the journey of discovery with me.

Thankfully, we live with a number of families who around 8:00 at night can be counted upon to be in their rooms putting their loving children to sleep. We came to see them as our prime targets. In order to make sure that my first trick or treating experience was satisfying, we sent around this email to prepare the hearts of our Home members.

Jules and I, as you know, did not have a traditional childhood. We never got to celebrate Halloween the way God intended it to be celebrated.

All that to say, we’ll be shadowing your doorway on the night of October 31’st, in full costume, baskets in hand, waiting….nay…yearning for that joyful moment when all our childhood dreams will come true.

And if not.

We’ll toilet paper your doorway.

Much love,
Chuck and Jules

The night arrived and we commenced. We tried to project ourselves back into our childhoods and costumed as we felt we would have dressed at around age eight – a ballerina and princess, respectively.

The first door we knocked on was in and of itself, a reward. Just look at the happy faces. We also scored some awesome sugarless popsicles from these guys.

The next door was slightly less rewarding in that Doehler felt that sunflower seeds was all he could spare.

These guys were fully satisfactory. We scored real, unhealthy candy.

I’m not sure if there was full understanding of what we were trying to do by the child at this door. But she was a good sport and was, in the end, convinced to give us candy.

Here is where we encountered a challenge. But it was a challenge we quickly rose to. A certain someone who shall remain nameless for the shame that still abides with him did not come to the door. After repeated knockings he stuck his head out and told us in so many words to scamper off. We responded like so:

As you can see, it was a rewarding teamwork effort that left us with mixed emotions. And here are the cumulative fruits of our labors.

All in all, I felt it was a healthy sampling of what it’s like to trick or treat and my character is now that much more rounded out for having experienced it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn’t tried it yet.

Glad game #4: Marky’s tattoo

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

That Marky chose me among women to design what will now be a part of him until he leaves this earthly life and his earthly shell, I’m very thankful for that. It’s something I have done that will not pass away, at least hopefully not for a very long time. Sniff…..now I miss him. Like the deserts miss the rain.

Glad game #3: Our daughter Emi

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Chuck, Michelle and I all have something very, very special to praise the Lord for. This gift of His love came into our lives in late 2008 and filled a void in each of our hearts that we never even knew we had. You see, since we don’t have children, the Lord in His wisdom gave us a little Emi to fill our void so that we could experience the magic and wonder of raising a tiny little human being in His nurture and admonition.

But for serious, Emi is a treasure that I’m truly thankful for and here are some reasons why.

1.) She’s very small. I like that. I don’t know why, I just do.
2.) She is chilled. She’s very chilled. But she’s also a hard worker. She’s a chilled, hard worker. She should be an RS.
3.) I find her to be hilarious. Here are some examples:

TallGoddess: you could totally be in leadership
Emi: no thank you
TallGoddess: ah hah, now it’s settled
TallGoddess: you will be
TallGoddess: only people who don’t want to be in leadership end up there
Emi: ahh so now i just have to “want to be in leadership” and by saying so will end up not
TallGoddess: it’s too late
TallGoddess: the Lord has you marked
TallGoddess: He just has to break you first
Emi: oh I believe he already has
Emi: in HALF!
Emi: which is my logical reasoning of why I’m short

And then today — she sends this email around to our loving Home seeings as her back is out and she must lie in bed all day (pray for her please).

In pondering about my “situation” and thinking of how I could speed up my healing process, the idea was brought up in how I would enjoy it if everyone would draw me “Get Well Soon” cards, I honestly believe it would cheer me up immensely.

I know it will take some time and effort, but the results of it would be fruitful, inspiring, unifying, and quite possibly make us bond even more as the Team that we are (no pun intended).

I would recommend drawing the card upside down with the card facing the opposite direction, and possibly with your left hand if you’re right handed and vice versa (with your right hand if you’re left handed) as that would portray a more childlike result and thereby exude more sincerity in the card you are drawing.

Speaking of drawing, if you happen to use color pencils or markers, in light of the recent economy and the constant need to minimize our spending, I want to emphasis the need to be sparse in your haphazard coloring. I would suggest drawing arrows to the desired colored object with the note stating the color. (i.e. Picture of Lamborghini. Arrow to Lamborghini saying “This is Electric Yellow” and so on…) As I believe the effort is two-fold, in that the Lord will continue to supply through your earnestness to be a happy Ragman for Him AND that I would know what colors you want your object of desire to be.

I will inform you that I am quite adept at reading colors; due to the daily toddler flashcards I have been doing, so there should be absolutely no glitches along that line…a real testimony in itself! PTL! TYJ!

I hope this explains it real well to make this card-making process a reality.

I will be praying for you desperately….while in bed.

Thank you.

–Emi

Yup. Emi brightens my life on a daily — and sometimes, when she’s really on a roll — hourly basis. I’m including a nice photo of her here because it encapsulates another prominent feature of hers that I like; she really, really enjoys beer.

Glad game #2: Walrus Day

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

In 2008, Chuck and I, with the help of our friends, perfected the art of Walrus Day. It’s something I’m deeply grateful for and it goes like this.

Step 1: Wake up on freeday.

Step 2: Eat a large breakfast and drink a caguama.

Step 3: Take the empty caguama bottle you just drank and trade it at the corner store for a new one.

Step 5: Steal the boombox from the other Home.

Step 4: Go to the beach, drink your second caguama, and lie in the sun like a walrus while blaring metal.

Man, I miss summer. A couple weeks ago we went out on a boat and saw real walruses and noticed that they do a great deal of barking. If its warm enough to fit in a Walrus Day before I leave, we have so definitely got to include the barking.

Notice that we work with the 27% mas caguamas. I’d say on the overall, it helps to make Walrus Day about 27% more fun.