June 28, 2011

66 days.

Introducing "Southern Pigskin"...

With only 66 days 'til the beginning of football season this article (passed along by my wonderful mother) it seemed rather fitting to share this extremely well written story about true southern football pride. Enjoy.

In the dog days of summer, with the season close, it's time to again explain the relevance, and importance, of college football in the south.

Simply put, it’s different down here. Just ask former Heisman trophy winner Frank Sinkwich.

“I’m from Ohio,” the University of Georgia legend once said, “but if I’d known what it was like down south, I would have crawled down here on my hands and knees.”

Football in the south is an interesting beast. It’s not a game, it’s not a pastime…it’s a way of life. It’s a mixed drink of family, religion, politics and pageantry, spiked with shots of antagonism, arrogance and pride.

Critics label our view of college football as naïve and tendentious. Our response? We couldn’t agree more. Southerners revel in regional bias and why shouldn’t we? In the south, we transform a vast picnic area into The Grove. We see a stadium on the river and bring a Navy. We take a plain desert stone and make it magic. We have The Chop, The Chomp and The Ramblin’ Wreck. We root for the same team as our dad, the same team as his dad and say “to hell” with the team of your dad’s dad. We call players by their first names, anyone on the athletic staff “coach,” and to the chagrin of media pundits and those who just don’t understand, we say “we.”

Southern football is why my grandmother spent fall Saturdays in orange capris, blue Reebok classics and alligator jewelry and had a football card of Danny Wuerffel taped to her dresser. It’s the same reason why my mom can’t watch the fourth quarter, my dad won’t watch the first quarter and my uncle and his two sons have walked around Valdosta, Georgia with a little more pep in their step since December 7, 2002.

Southern football isn’t tailgating, it’s all-nighting. It’s not about painting your face; it’s about painting your chest. It’s not about grills, it’s about cookers. Inside the stadium, you don’t talk to your neighbors, you yell at them. Those around you aren’t strangers; they’re 85,000 of your closest friends. You don’t go on the road when you travel to see your team play…you go home.

Down here, you’re not born a boy or a girl; you’re born a Gamecock or a Tiger. Down here, college football is just as entrenched in our culture as Jesus, sweet tea and barbeque sandwiches. We say “Yes Ma’am” and “No Sir,” but we also say “Roll Tide,” “War Eagle” and “Pig Sooey.” Down here, two plus two equals third down and six.

Southern football is why you drive through Wrightsville, Georgia, and see “The Home of Herschel Walker” on Highway 15. It’s why hundreds of adults in the state of Alabama are named “Bear.” Southern football is Billy Cannon, Bo Jackson and Archie, Eli and Peyton Manning. It’s Bobby Bowden, Vince Dooley, Eddie Robinson and the Ole’ Ball Coach. It’s detergent boxes under toilet paper, frat boys in team-colored pants-it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molley Hatchet in button-down shirts, Southern Living with a cowboy hat; it’s a clash of styles that produces a scene often imitated but never duplicated. Ever.

The setting? So picturesque you don’t want to touch it, yet so enthralling you just can’t let it go. It’s a similar one in Knoxville, Tennessee, Starkville, Mississippi and Blacksburg, Virginia, and it has been for years.
Southern football is Erk Russell joking, “We don’t cheat at Georgia Southern, that costs money and we don’t have any.” It’s John Heisman saying, “It’s better to have died as a young boy than to fumble the football.” It’s Bobby Dodd saying he’d rather face the lions in the coliseum than the Tigers in Baton Rouge. And it’s Clemson fans stating they would rather be on probation than lose to Furman.

The players, the coaches and the rivalries are captivating here in the south. Florida-Georgia weekend causes more people to call in sick on Monday morning than the stomach flu or strep throat. Alabama-Auburn divides households, neighborhoods and the entire state and The Egg Bowl is a true late November tradition. The storylines are just as alluring. Think “The Choke at Doak,” “Lindsay Scott!!” or the 1961 Clemson-South Carolina game where a group of USC students impersonated the Tiger football team in pre-game warm-ups, catering to the crowd and the band before flopping all over the field and mocking Clemson’s agricultural background with milking hand motions.

Though the press tries to hype the last week in the regular season as rivalry week, every week is rivalry week.

Something down here makes this game different. College football has a legitimate influence on state government, a major affect on commerce and local economies and is the lifeblood and pulse of God’s country.

Perhaps former Tennessee Volunteer radio personality George Mooney put it best.

“Southerners are proud of their football heritage, their schools, and their teams. And they share a deep pride that goes with being from the South,” he said.

It’s a match made, and currently outplayed, in heaven, Down Here.
-B.J. Bennett

We all know my heart will always bleed red and black but in case you need a reminder...


Copyright EKH


June 27, 2011

June 24, 2011

"How Steve Jobs Accidentally Empowered the Persecuted Church"

This is a really well written article by John Dryer that I had to share...

Steve Jobs has designed some fantastic products.

But that’s something everyone already knows.

What most of us don’t realize is that some of the product decisions Apple has made in the last decade have had a positive, though largely unintended impact on believers in closed, persecuted countries. These are fellow followers of Christ who will never touch an iPhone or use a system named after a big cat, and yet they are now using technology heavily influenced by choices Apple made over the last decade.

 

What the iPod Meant to the Big-C Church


15 years ago the dominate medium for music and audio was the CD. Then MP3 ripping technology came along and we started converting all of our CDs to MP3s our computer (or, if you were a sinner in the 1990s, you downloaded them from Napster).

Shortly thereafter, the first MP3 players came on the market, but those early models only only had around 128 megabytes of memory, meaning you had to choose which 25 songs you wanted to listen to at one time.
Then, out of the blue, came the iPod with its $400 price tag and radical new interface, and it – as Apple is fond of proclaiming – changed everything. But the significance of the iPod wasn’t the Apple-y-goodness of its clickwheel. No, the iPod was revolutionary because it made gigabytes the new norm for storage capacities.

So why did this matter for the Church?

Well, there are still plenty of people around the world who live in cultures that don’t have a written language. Even if they do have a written language, illiteracy rates are high in many poor countries. This means that it costs millions of dollars to bring in a team that can create a written language out of their spoken words, translate the Bible into that newly created writing standard, and then teach everyone to read it.

The obvious solution was to translate directly into spoken words and give those cultures audio versions of the Scriptures. The problem was that doing so required dozens of CDs and a large playback device.
When the iPod came along, it was suddenly possible to carry a few dozen solar powered Bible in a backpack across the Amazon, the African plains, or the mountains of east Asia. Missionaries could hand such devices to any person anywhere in the world, and that person could hear the Word of God.
An even bigger bonus is that while customs agents often confiscate Bibles and CDs, they don’t care about MP3 players.

The iPhone Changed Everything… Again!


When the iPhone came out with its $600 price tag and single-button interface, it too was loved and ridiculed around the tech world. But as important as its interface was for the future of phone design, the iPhone’s more long-term legacy is that it pushed HTML5 audio and video into the mainstream.

HTML5 media allows web developers to show users audio and video without using plugins like Flash or RealMedia (remember them?). HTML5 video had been around for a few years before the iPhone, but it was never a viable technology since it had such low adoption and there were all kinds of debates about whether HTML5 should use a license-heavy format like H.264 or an “open” format like Ogg/Vorbis (or Google’s new WebM).

But that’s a debate for the rich people of the world to have.
The persecuted Church just need a common standard for video. MP3 had long become the audio standard, but it was only when the iPhone came along that MP4/H.264 became a reasonalbly reliable standard format for video. For the first time, someone could make a video file in H.264 and know that it would work on almost any device.

And Now, the iPad


A few years later the iPad came along and it too was supposed to change the way people lived their lives and did their work.

But like the iPod and iPhone, the significance of the iPad is not really what rich people do with them, but the file format that Apple chose to distribute its content. In the case of the iPad, it was Apple’s choice to use the ePUB format for its ebooks that is beginning to have an impact in digital Bible distribution.
Prior to this decision, it was difficult to know what format to choose for distributing digital copies of the Bible. Adobe’s PDF is great for sending formatted documents that almost any computer can read, but PDF really only works on large computer screens because the text cannot be reformatted to display nicely on small devices like a cell phone.

There are other ebook formats out there that can reflow text such as Amazon’s AZW which it uses on its Kindle platform (or MOBI which Kindle also supports). However, these more proprietary formats are not very helpful as mechanisms for delivering digital Bibles and Christian reading material because they just don’t have wide enough adoption.

But ePUB is a perfect format for a universal book format. It’s basically just a ZIP file with a bunch of HTML webpages inside. Now that Apple has adopted ePUB (along with Barnes and Noble’s Nook), it is becoming a standard for in any ereading device.

Seminary for $79 at Walmart




The man you see in the picture above is one of the members of the Digital Bible Society. DBS specializes in collecting Bibles and theological material and distributing that material in closed countries. They started with Chinese language materials 10 years ago that they distributed on tens of thousands of CDs.

In the picture, Ken is holding up a $79 Ematic Color eReader.
It has a 7” color screen and 4GB of capacity (expandable via microSD).
It can play audio in MP3, play video in MP4, and read books in ePUB.
Sound familiar?

Ken and his team are preparing gigabytes of Bible, Christian books, and videos like the Jesus film and putting them on devices like the one from Ematic as well as microSD chips that today’s Bible “distributors” can hide in their socks allowing them to sneak biblical materials into highly dangerous countries.

I had the chance to meet with them and some other ministries a few weeks back (they needed an HTML5 player), and they showed me an incredible array of James Bond-like devices that various ministries around the world are using to smuggle these materials in all manner of dark places.

One man talked about being interrogated by secret police for meeting with people and giving them Bibles. Then, through a thick Arabic accent, he said to the group,
“H.264 and ePUB are gifts from God.”

Is the Church Really Behind Technologically?


Occasionally, I hear tech-savvy Christians saying things like, “The church is so behind technologically.”
In one sense this is true.

Most churches simply can’t afford to buy every single new device Apple or any other company produces. But this problem is really unique to those living in the richest country in the world. We debate the finer points of Android vs. iPhone, CDMA vs. GSM, and USB vs. Thundercats (or whatever).

But outside our aberration of wealth, technology for the church takes on an entirely different significance. Pakistanis interested in Christianity can’t take a Bible home without getting killed by their family members. But they can take a microSD card from a missionary, plug in into their phones, and – like Nicodemus long ago (John 3:1-2) – hear from Jesus in the dark.

And this has been happening for quite some time.

When the Egyptians abandoned hieroglyphics for the emerging standard we now call “the alphabet,” Moses jumped on it (Ex. 34:27; Deut. 31:9). When the Hittites invented iron-smelting (around 1200), David snuck in, stole their technology, and then beat them down with it (Judges 1:19; 1 Samuel 13:19; 1 Sam 22:1; 2 Sam 12:29-31). When Alexander forced everyone to learn Greek and when the Romans paved Europe, the Spirit commissioned his disciples to go into all the world – using those roads – and share the message of Jesus – using the common language of Greek – with everyone (Acts 1:8). And we all know the story of the printing press.

Personally, I find it amazing that God has repeatedly used technology as a means of furthering his church. He is perfectly capable of working through dreams and miracles and yet he chooses to use the tools made by those who don’t yet know him to glorify himself and draw men and women to the Savior.

And that changes everything.


http://donteatthefruit.com/2011/04/how-steve-jobs-accidentally-empowered-the-persecuted-church/

June 21, 2011

June 21, 2011

6.21.11
A big day for us. Not only is it the first day of Summer (though everyone knows that happened around March for us Southern states) but it is also Nathan's birthday and it is our one month wedding anniversary. I'd say that is a pretty eventful day.

Most importantly I want to celebrate my husband. The Lord is so faithful and has blessed us abundantly by bringing the two of us together. How we got reconnected, dated and became engaged is just mind blowing and there is no denying that the Lord's hands were in it completely. It still blows my mind. My prayer is that I never forget that beautiful fact. 

Nathan, thank you for being the absolute best husband. You never fail to be the chief repenter in our relationship. My prayer is to have that same vulnerability and humility which you exemplify.

Your love for sports is simply contageous and because of it I can proudly recite the names of many NBA players and days without First Take or PTI simply feel a little weird. Sport's news is now a daily read not to impress you but because your passion for "the game" is just too contageous. Though you have a passion for sports your life isn't defined by wins and losses. I'm so grateful for this balance.

You are the best Sous-chef I could ask for and have the culinary creativity I often wish came more naturally to me. Here's to a future of always asking for some olive oil and red pepper no matter where we are.

Everyone who meets you cannot deny your servant's heart, your constant willingness to help.

Most importantly I love your heart for the gospel, for the way the message of grace overflows into everything you do and is shared with everyone you encounter.

You daily strive to be a man of God and for that I am utterly grateful and so blessed.

These words don't begin to scratch the surface but I think they definitely say a lot.

Happy Birthday Nathan!


Reece's Peanut Butter Cake

It took Nathan and I a while to come up with just the perfect cake for his birthday. The only requirement: chocolate and peanut butter. Dynamite combo. 

The Result.

What we did:
-Snatched a box mix of the triple chocolate fudge cake (Got to whip out the new Kitchenaid mixer. Perfection)
-Used that to make two 8" round cakes
-In order to secure the two layers together we simply used a fudge icing (a lot of it)
-The most important and delicious part of the entire cake was the peanut butter frosting
-After a good peanut butter frosting coating we added just a few Reece's peanut butter cups (the mini ones)
  • 1 cup confectioners' sugar
  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
(As recommended by another site, we doubled the frosting recipe)
Success.


June 17, 2011

Conviction

My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
June 17

This was hugely powerful and convicting. A must share.

The Uncritical Temper- "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matthew 7:1
Jesus says regarding judging - Don't. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person's place.
There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
As a girl this was especially convicting. Why as girls are we specifically awful at this, especially in the Christian community for some reason. How often do we hear, "we really need to pray for so and so because..." or "have you heard..."? Praise the Lord (literally) for his forgiveness and grace because I know this is not a sin I have defeated (I know "sin defeating" is not something I can do on my own nor will ever be able to do until HE comes again...one of my favorite verses: "Behold, I am making all things new." Revelation 21:5) but am daily being tempted toward.

"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue." Proverbs 31:26
...that is what I want for myself, my goal.

What would happen if we broke this cycle, got rid of the measuring rod?

June 10, 2011

Working Woman.

It's true. After a week of praying through the decision with Nathan and asking God to just shout an answer from the sky (though that didn't happen)... I made the phone call this morning and said yes to my first "real" job.

Beginning May 15,  I will work for ABC Printing/Davis Sign Company doing just about everything for them. More updates to come as details begin to be a little more definite.

The Lord has been so faithful and provided for us with more than we could have even imagined.

Ephesians 3:20-21 
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

June 8, 2011

Recipes of the Week (so far)

 Salsaaa
  • 10 Medium of 6 "Big Ugly" Tomatoes Chopped
  • 1 Bunch of Cilantro Chopped (Use about a half)
  • 1 Large Vidalia Onion Chopped
  • 1 Yellow Pepper Chopped
  • 1 Red Pepper Chopped
  • 1 Green Pepper Chopped
  • 2 Jalepeno Peppers (I leave this out!)
  • 6 Cloves of Garlic Minced
  • 4 teaspoons of Salt
  • 4 Tablespoons of Sugar 
  • 4 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice
Just combine all of the above ingredients in a bowl, use your hands to mix together and whala! 
    Best if made the night before but can be served the day of as well.

    Tip: Use a Vidalia Chop Wizard (this is the best tool ever)! It will cut your prep time in half and makes evenly chopped veggies.

    Thanks to Momma Hart for this delicious recipe!

    We ate this salsa with Veggie and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips from Trader Joes. Just trust me...they are delicious and go great with some Sabra hummus (a staple in our house)!
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Cilantro Pesto and White Bean Quesadillas

    Ingredients:
    • Leaves of 12 Cilantro Stems
    • 1/2 Cup of walnuts (N and I passed on these just for this go-round)
    • 1/2 Cup freshly grated Parmesan Cheese
    • 1/4 teaspoon Minced Fresh Garlic
    • Olive Oil
    • Black Pepper to Taste
    • 1 Can White Beans, Drained (15 ounces)
    • Butter or Vegetable Oil
    • 4 Cups shredded mild white cheddar cheese
    • Whole-wheat Tortillas
    Preparation:

    In food processor (we used our new blender), combine cilantro, walnuts, parmesan cheese, garlic and pepper. Pulse to combine. Slowly add just enough olive oil to make a thick pesto. Puree until smooth. In a medium bowl, gently combine beans and pesto. Layer tortilla with pesto mixture and cheddar cheese and place a skillet coated with butter or vegetable oil. When cheese begins to melt fold the tortilla in half. Brown on each side.

    This was divine. Thanks to Nathan for having a huge hand in this dinner and to my sister-in-law Tommi for this recipe!
     ------------------------------------------------------
    Homemade Pizza

    Ingredients:
    • Whole-wheat pizza dough (at Trader Joes for $.99)
    • Marinara
    • Spinach
    • Tomatoes
    • Any cheese you have in the fridge
    Preparation: 

    Preheat oven with pizza stone (thanks Shelby and DJ for ours)in the oven. Begin spreading out the dough to form about a 12" circle. Simply add the ingredients and put in the oven 'til cheese is bubbling. Note: With the whole-wheat crust be sure to leave in for a good bit so you get a nice crispy crust...it's a little hard to tell because of it's natural dark color. 


    Hopefully the coming recipes will have pictures to make these posts a little more colorful!

    June 5, 2011

    "Ya Mon"



    Nathan planned an amazing honeymoon in Jamaica at the Sandals Whitehouse resort about an hour and a half outside of Montego Bay. The resort was set right in the middle of a 500-acre wilderness preserve which gave a spectacular setting-mountains right beside crystal clear ocean. Perfection.

    Day One: Sunday, May 22 (Let the adventure begin...)
    Though it was an early morning for both of us Nathan and I just couldn't wait to board our plane to Montego Bay and begin the journey. Little did we know that it would be a little while before we made it to our final destination.

    As we waited at our gate to board our plane we enjoyed a nice little breakfast and reminisced about the wedding festivities. After some time a Delta employee begins talking over the loud speaker about how it is her goal to keep all Delta customers accurately informed. She proceeds to tell us that there is a work stoppage in Montego Bay and that our flight has been canceled. Everyone around us (including many other newlyweds) goes into panic mode trying to discuss all the options. What seemed like moments later another Delta employee announces (in a very rapid manner) that in fact ALL flights to Montego Bay have been canceled for the day. Without any hesitation there is a mass exodus of people (with the exception of Nathan and I and another very sweet couple). We began making phone calls and decisions for Plan B. I was even looking up hours of operation for the World of Coke and ideas for fun things in ATL while Nathan was dealing with accommodation logistics. About 30 minutes later yet another Delta employee informs us that our flight to Montego Bay has been reinstated and will begin to board shortly. Praise the Lord. After quite the ups and downs, Nathan and I receive first class tickets and are finally Jamaica bound!


    After a pretty short and easy flight over to Montego Bay we had a not so easy (though I slept most of the way) drive to Whitehouse full of windy mountain roads, pot holes galore and crazy Jamaican drivers.

    Alas, we made it and enjoyed a remarkable and very relaxing vacation in one of the most beautiful settings.



    Some Highlights
    -Beach reading: The Amber Room (N) and Karen Kingsbury (E)...we kept each other updated of our very different books over lunch


    -Seeing so clearly the Body of Christ as we met three Christian couples while at the resort with similar hearts and passions.
    - Our glass bottom boat tour: Snorkeling without getting wet! (...and our awesome Captain who found starfish, a sea urchin, and a porcupine puffer fish)





    -Nathan getting to water ski in the ocean


    - Cranberry juice and morning glory muffins
    - Simply our time together whether it was watching basketball games, dinner dates, working out, or life size chess games and beach bumming


    I am so grateful for the opportunity we had to be away and relax!