In the "Biz"

Today was one of the days that I spend doing numerous tasks that take forever but I feel like not much got accomplished. Periodically, I have to do paperwork: letters of confirmation to churches where I am going to speak in the next month, letters of introduction to pastors who request more information prior to making a decision about support, and sometimes letters of reminder to folks who haven't followed up on what I've already sent. It seems so simple, but it takes so long.

I'm never quite satisfied with the wording of these letters. I have to sound both enthusiastic and persuasive, yet not effusive or pushy. Somtimes I'm reminded of English class as a student where I had to write drafts and then re-write and polish the final draft to perfection. Of course, in English class, I didn't then have to mail them all out to pastors.

On days like today, I sit at my desk surrounded by commitment forms, stamps, envelopes, address book, address labels and my printer, whirring away with all my communication. I think how odd it is no one ever talks about the business side of missionary life--all the paperwork. I prefer people, but this is important, too.

In other news . . . My digital camera died last month and I just got a new one yesterday. I'm having a bit of fun playing with it's special features (I upgraded in quality) so you can be the beneficiary of all my practice!

Also, yesterday I changed the address of this blog. You may notice in your browser's address bar it says, http://www.arielrainey.com/ which is my new domain. For those of you who regularly check-in, the old address will just automatically forward to this one, so don't worry about making any changes. Profuse and profound thanks to my brother who walked me through the last steps of the whole process of forwarding the blog to the new site!

Survival of the Fittest

Did you know that "survival of the fittest" was not a term used by or about Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species. (I didn't, until I started writing this post and did a quick google search!). I don't believe in evolution, nor do I support anything Charles Darwin claimed in his writings, but I have used the term "survival of the fittest" in conversation. I learned, only moments ago, that Charles Darwin didn't coin that phrase, preferring instead "natural selection" (meaning that animals will biologically select the fittest for mating purposes). Actually, it was an economist, Herbert Spencer, who gave us the phrase "survival of the fittest."

Why all this history and (useless) information?

Well, I had a meeting in northern Virginia yesterday, and I drove the Capitol Beltway on my commute. There is a certain section of 495 West that I really find dangerous. If you are driving along 495, headed toward Maryland, and just after crossing the Potomac and passing exit 39, you will see signs for the I-270 split in two miles. At that point, there are approximately 4 lanes of traffic and all but the right lane will split into I-270 toward Frederick. The right lane (or slow lane) will become two lanes and go on toward Silver Spring. So, everyone has two miles to decide where they're headed and change lanes if they need to. At this same point, two lanes of traffic are entering the Beltway from route 190, which is quite a main road. There are hundreds of cars pulling into that right lane trying to figure out where they are headed. This is where it gets hairy: at any given moment, twenty-five cars are changing lanes. They are crossing both left and right and doing it around tractor-trailers that are changing lanes, too, hopefully more slowly. Did you ever play Frogger? It's the same idea--watching in all three mirrors for the momentary opening in the lane next to you, while also making sure no one else gets there first, while also making sure your speed is sufficient to make the jump but not have to slam on your brakes once you get there, while also watching the guy ahead of you in your current lane in case he slams on his brakes to let someone else in. AUGHHHH.

What drives me crazy is those cars that drive 80 mph in the far left lane (fast lane) and decide at the last minute to drive across five lanes of traffic to slide right in front of everyone else just before the cut off. They can't be bothered to slow down and change lanes in a reasoned and responsible manner. No, they'll just drive like a maniac and whip in right in front of me. I am always amazed--shocked, I tell you--that there aren't more accidents in that two miles stretch that rivals Nascar for cutthroat intensity!

The Capitol Beltway, my friends, is survival of the fittest.

New Jersey Weekend

Yesterday I preached at my uncle Ron Pettibone's church in Lambertville, NJ. He has recently taken the pastorate at the church there, so Mom and I went up for the whole weekend to visit Aunt Ambra and Uncle Ron in their new home. (Plus, my aunt wanted help doing a yard sale on Saturday--you know how I feel about those!)

The service went great yesterday; I was very impressed with the folks of the church. They are great people, totally committed to the church there, which will really help the rebuilding effort they've got going on. Plus, the town there is absolutely charming! Want a pleasant weekend jaunt? Go to the twin towns of New Hope, PA and Lambertville, NJ, split by the Delaware River. Beautiful!

Some of you know my Aunt Ambra's humorous malapropisms (fancy word for switching around words and their meanings). This weekend was no exception. She gave us this expression: "I'm sweating pistols!" I guess that means sweating even more than bullets!

Posting a couple of pictures

My niece Olivia (11 months) :

*these two photos by Amanda Vogt

My niece Sydney today on the bike trail:

I'm sure you can understand why I love spending time with these two cuties!

At the Car Wash

Lately, I’ve been traveling up and down Maryland’s highways to meet with pastors and our district leadership. I enjoy driving and no doubt, you’ll have the chance to read about some of my road adventures in upcoming blogs.

Now that the weather is cooler, I don’t mind as much where I park, but when the heat was so oppressive in the last few weeks, I would end up parking under the trees in my yard, hoping to keep my dark car cooler. The main disadvantage is that pollen, acorns, sap, and bird droppings fall freely on my car. I don’t like driving to meetings with a dirty car, in case some pastor might actually notice. I try to be professional, you know.

So the other day, I filled up my gas tank, getting a discount on a car wash. I thought, “Perfect!” and I rolled right up to the car wash area. I had to roll down my window a bit to enter a numeric code, and the automatic track starting pulling me forward.

Now, this is probably the time I should mention that my car, while a wonderful financial deal, was damaged and rebuilt before I bought it. The damage was not extensive and has been almost perfectly rebuilt, but the one tiny problem is the driver’s side window. (It doesn’t go back into its correct track, unless I roll it all the way down and all the way back up, while the car is stationary.)

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that when I rolled the window down partway to enter the car wash code. It wasn’t until the water jets started spraying the car and me in the driver’s seat, that I realized the window hadn't gone back up into its proper track. It was about two inches off from the rubber seal, so water was spraying all over my left side and running down the inside of the car window, door, and seat. About the time that I yelled “Aaaahhhh” and looked over to see the problem, the soap was spraying in. Of course, I was dressed in a business suit, so I started worrying about chemicals on my clothes and on the car seats.

After the soap came another round of spraying water, cold and wet. I was yelling again, when all the sudden I noticed the huge wax canisters coming up after a one-second respite from spraying hoses. The wax really scared me; long term damage to my upholstery and my person was completely possible! The only thing within my reach was a canvas tote bag, so I grabbed it and threw it up against the window, causing pens and small change to dump out all over me, but it did manage to catch most of the liquid wax.

It was probably only a minute and a half by the time the automatic track dumped my car wheels out on solid ground, but I was soaked, hair dripping into my face and adrenaline pumping. I had to take five minutes to wipe down the inside of the car with napkins rustled up from the glove box.

I chose to park my car in the bright sunshine when I got home, rather than under the trees. I figured that the car would dry better that way, and I wouldn’t need to wash it again anytime soon!

Ladies Retreat Weekend

What was the best part?

Seeing old friends?
Playing rummy til 1 am?
Hearing amazing testimonies of God's grace?
Talking to Sister Goggin Bartles, one of my heroes?
The gorgeous weather in West Viriginia?
Laughing and laughing and laughing?

I just can't pick one . . . but I can say that I had a great time at the campground with the wonderful women of Pasadena Assembly of God, as well as the other ladies who attended the retreat. We had a lot of humorous moments, and we had fantastic times of worship. I felt like I was able to let go of some burdens and enjoy the presence of God.

Are you a flasher?

Ha! Got your attention with that title, didn't I?

This morning I went to my home church office to get some work done. I'd asked Pastor about using an empty office at the church to make my phone calls and do general work like that, because it's quiet and free of distractions. Working out of my bedroom means that I always have a dozen things that I could do instead of working. Pastor readily gave me the approval, and this morning was my first (very successful!) work time there.

On the way, however, driving over the back roads to the church, I passed a cleverly concealed police car. I saw him clearly, but the steep hill in someone's yard provided the perfect cover from the oncoming traffic. Then I faced the dilemma: should I flash my lights to the opposite traffic, warning them that the cop was there?

Traveling as much as I do, I often see people flash their lights toward my lane of the highway, and I admit, I've often slowed down based on their warning. And, in the interest of total honesty, I've also flashed my headlights in warning to others.

This morning I didn't, though. I felt like, in the interest of safety, people flying along the backroads probably deserved to get caught, I mean, they should be encouraged to slow down.

The Yard Sale

Where else can you do so much work for such little pay?


Today my mother, my sister, and I had a yard sale in our front yard. Doing this required many steps:

• cleaning/sorting through the basement, numerous closets or bookshelves, and boxes of seasonal clothes to find the perfect yard sale items
• Boxing them all up
• Clearing off the porch so that the yard sale boxes could be stored there until today
• Pricing all the items, usually involving much discussion with other family members, sounding something like this:

Me: How much for this?
Sarah (wrinkling nose): You'll be lucky to get fifty cents. Who would want that?
Me: But its brand new. Someone gave it to me as a gift; it just wasn't really my style.
Sarah: I can see why they gave it away.
Me: Yes, but the purpose of this event is to make money, and someone might want this.
Mom: You could make more on ebay.
Me: I don't know how to do ebay and I've already been holding on this for years. I want to get rid of it.
Sarah: Then ask for a quarter.
Me: Did I not say I want to make money?
Mom: Actually I kind of like it, maybe we could make a trade.
Me: (sighing) Fine.

• Carrying all the stuff out this morning at 7:00 am and setting it up all over the yard
• Selling all the stuff to yardsale vultures who ask "will you take $5 for all of them?
• Cleaning up all the leftover stuff at 2 pm and hauling most of it to Goodwill
• Boxing up the good stuff, in hopes of fetching more money at consignment shops or the illustrious Ebay
• Stacking all those boxes back on the porch.

All that for $30.

What a concept.

Beautiful Weekend/Interactive Poll

Happy Labor Day weekend to all! September has begun with a pretty promise of cooler weather to come, and its supposed to be this pleasant all weekend. Normally, our family tradition is to go camping on three-day weekends with our good friends. This year, with Dad's surgery, we knew there was no way that we could do it, although my mother was particularly disappointed not to do this "family tradition" while I'm home to enjoy it.

So, all that to say that as I type, looking wistfully out the window at the cool breeze blowing through the trees, I envy our friends down in Virginia at their campsite.

I started reminiscing about old camping experiences, and we have had some real doozies! My favorite memory would be hard to choose: the year Mom's dental situation had her doped up on painkillers the whole weekend. . . the time in Missouri that Sarah was trying to run up the big hill to the bath house . . . . the night Julie ran smack into a deer on her way through the dark
campsite . . . so many memories to choose from.

For me the most memorable (not necessarily positive) experience was Labor Day weekend 2001, when we drove to West Viriginia in the middle of the night, once Dad got off work. Our friends had thoughtfully set up our tent for us before our arrival, but we arrived in the pouring rain around 2:00 AM to find that the tent and bedding was completely soaked. In order to get in out of the rain, we hunkered down in the tent, trying not to touch the tent walls or move into range of dripping leaks. Mom mutinied and went to the car to sleep for a few hours, but it would get hot and stuffy, so with periodic window-opening, I think she got bitten up by mosquitoes. It was a pretty miserable night for all of us, but the rest of the weekend was great.

Now for the poll: what is your most memorable camping experience?