Lord of the Flyswatter

This past weekend we took a skiff ride over to Long Island for some camping.  It was a great time with a hike over to some old WWII bunkers.  I’m not sure what the purpose of the bunker was but it sure was fun to go in and snoop around.  We found an old phone switchboard, but other than that it was just a bunch of old rooms. 

Welcome Home

Welcome Home Again

This photo was taken in complete darkness. I just hit the shutter release on the camera and shined my headlamp all over to illuminate the room.

Housing of Plane Buster

Base for the Housing

This thing was for plane busting but I don’t think it was ever used and is currently in disrepair.

On a side note a new for of corporal punishment was invented, or relived.  Apparently there are groups on the island that are responsible for monitoring the debris washing up on the shore from the Japanese tsunami.  There have been boats and docks, but we didn’t find anything that large.  Apparently there was a flyswatter warehouse or some kind of large supply of flyswatters that have washed up on the shore.  These flyswatters were used for party fowl punishment.  The way it works is sort of like a modified tooth for a tooth system. 

For example if you poke in the fire while I am roasting a mallow and you get ash on my mallow I am legally obligated to swat you, or have someone else swat you.  The place where you get swatted is up to you, but it must be bare flesh that is exposed.  Generally offenders take their swat on the back of the hand, but some may elect the stomach or buttocks.

There is much debate as to which swatting location generates the most laughter from the jury.

I was successful in not receiving any swats.

Thinking of the Prodigal Church

The Wife, not to be confused with the Shema

This is a picture I took outside the Kinda-cottage.  It is not the Shema, but the picture below is.                    

The Shema, not to be confused with the Wife

This is the picture of the Shema on our door to the outside world.  We have one on the other side of the door so that we can say it both leaving and coming. You know talk about the Shema when you sit in your Kinda-cottage and when you walk along the road by your Kinda-cottage, when you lie down in your Kinda-cottage and when you get up in your Kinda-cottage. We decided to write the Shema on the door to our Kinda-cottage.Apparently our group back home has been studying the Shema.  I can't wait for Dr. Chiro to tell me what it means.  You should look up the Shema in the bible and you might get the joke from above. I won't put in on the blog, I'm not going to be that easy but I will tell you where it is.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Thinking of you Prodigal Church

Shelfishness

My wife does not read this blog so I can post a plea for help.

She checks the mail everyday and sees all the post cards and packages all the other college aged counselors get.

She told me she wishes that she would get something from back home.

She has not been feeling that well this week and could sure use some words of encouragement.

Just saying.........

Kodiak Baptist Mission
1944 East Rezanof Drive
Kodiak, Alaska 99615

KBM VIDEO FUN

I would suggest watching these videos on the regular YouTube channel.

The Kids get to see this one every Monday to remind them of what they forgot over the weekend.

This is a video that was made last week.  Sunshine comes every few weeks in Kodiak, last we we had 9 straight days of sunshine.

Every day in the afternoon we participate in a challenge against other counselors. I couldn't get the balloon to pop with the razor so I just pulled out my ball point pin and finished the job off.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Woody Island

Today is the birthday of my eldest nephew, but I have been unable to contact him in the Motherland.  If he reads this I hope he knows he is loved and missed.

This weekend we decided that we were going to go camping on Woody Island.  We headed over around 9 and looked for a secluded spot in the woods to pitch our tent. 

Remember we had three good hours of daylight left so 9 was not that late of a start.  The group of us then sat by the fire eating hot dogs, marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey’s bars.  I’m not the biggest fan of smores in the world; I lean toward solo mallows.  I did however make a discovery that if you take a hotdog and cut it into four pieces you can load a roaster stick up the following way.

Mallow-hotdog-mallow-hotdog-mallow-hotdog-mallow-hotdog-mallow

Of course you have to put the hotdog pieces on perpendicular to the stick to make it all fit.  You end up with perfect marshmallows buffered by hotdog pieces that are hot on the outside and cool on the inside, just like a good rare steak.

Sweet and salty heaven!

After consuming mass quantities of campfire food we bedded down for a long night of sleep.

It was grand.

We awoke and wandered back to the fire with the coals still glowing. Coals are perfect tool for boiling water and preparing breakfast.  However, the rest of the group was huddled around two jet boil devices.

If you are not familiar with the jet boil look it up. It is a self-contained backpacking apparatus that can boil a little more than a cup of water in about five minutes.  I used my camping pot to boil a liter of water (4 cups) in about three minutes and I didn’t even have to use the compressed gas that the jet boils run off of (they are expensive and I am cheap).

Oh well, whatever makes you happy.

We had a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and tea. I brought two kinds of loose-leaf tea and two tea balls, but I could only get Miss A. S. to drink tea with me.  If you are that person, you are awesome and are welcome to my tea stash any time.  This same person woke up with her eye-swelled shut and we never figured out what happened to it. I prayed that she would be healed and several days later she is almost back to normal. 

She didn’t even take a picture of her swollen eye, and it was awesome.

The plan was for the skiff to pick up counselors at around 11 a.m., but it did not show up until around 2 p.m., which irritated a lot of the counselors.  I don’t know why they wanted to get back so fast.  The only thing to do in Kodiak is to sit by a fire and eat or go hiking and we had both of those things to do on Woody.

Again, whatever makes you happy.

As for my wife and me we stayed on the island with some friends who came over on the skiff (not counselors) from Kodiak to feast and hike.  It was a beautiful day full of fellowship and we even celebrated what would have been (the groom passed away a few years ago) a 50^th wedding anniversary with sparking grape juice and home made rhubarb cake. 

I really think the people that did not stay missed out on a lot of fun.

Beatitudes

This week of class we had was awesome.  It was lead by a youth minister from Spokane, Washington.  He shall remain nameless but he has the cutest 2 year old girl I have ever met in my life, but that is neither here nor there.

One of our class days we talked about the beatitudes.  We read the list in the Bible and tried to expand on the list of what Jesus was saying, or at least apply it directly to us as individuals.

This exercise is based on the fact the Jesus always played to the crowd gathered, and his list is not exhaustive.  If you think I’m a filthy liberal for trying to expand the teachings of Jesus I feel sorry for, and will pray for you.

The first part of the exercise was for us to write down a weakness of ours and then try to make it fit in the beatitude.

I wrote down that I often have time feeling sympathy for people who seem to make obvious poor choice after obvious poor choice.

I ended up with:

Blessed are those who lack sympathy for they will be given empathy.

Our friend Mr. O who is completely deaf in both ears and only hears through the modern miracle of cochlear implants said that he sometimes lacks courage to speak about Jesus in groups of people because his speech is not perfect.

He ended up with:

Blessed are those who lack courage, for they will be given the words to expand My kingdom.

Another friend of ours shared that she often feels timid and ended up with:

Blessed are those who are timid for they will be given boldness.

I thought this to be quite an interesting exercise, and I wanted to share it with all of you so that I don’t forget about it. 

So you might get your Bible out, read through Matthew chapter 5 and if you don’t find yourself exactly on that list try to expand it.

Spiders

When Jokes aren’t funny.

Our home in Kodiak was fogged for spiders prior to our moving in and we have not seen many since moving in, however the wife has recently seen more than she cares to see.  She recently saw one within 100 feet of the bedroom so she decided to check the sheets and the pillow before lying down.

When she lay down I sarcastically said, “There is a giant spider by your head.”

She didn’t sense the sarcasm in my voice. 

Any 3^rd grader would’ve told the same joke, but this was the wrong time to tell it.  Apparently the wife was exhausted and left her sense of humor in her pant’s pocket when she got ready for bed.

She proceeded to shake with terror as she felt giant hairy spider legs on her neck, or at least that is what she must have thought she felt.  I will impersonate her when we get back to the Motherland if you really want me to.

As soon as she realized I was joking she started bawling asking me why I would do something like that to her.

I have tried to dig myself out of this hole by apologizing and making the spider equivalent to a dream catcher.  It is a giant rainbow colored spider made from pipe cleaners and kite string to ward off any un-imaginary intruders from our nesting grounds.

Needless to say sometimes jokes aren’t funny.