Posted in Uncategorized

a flat story.

Posted on by Wick

Long ago, in a world covered completely in maple trees, a thought was thought. This thought was one of the most powerful thoughts ever known to man, but it couldn’t be contained in a single mind, and so it was shared. In those days, there was a serious problem that was growing more and more urgent every day. Gravity was growing more powerful.

Every day brought new stories of how the increased gravitational pull was impacting this world and it’s inhabitants. Birds were now walking around on the ground, causing massive disturbances in traffic flows as they didn’t know how to use common cross-walks. Baseball fields were forced to shrink the size of the playing field, as the ball wouldn’t go nearly as far as it used to. Elevator cables made strange noises, and weary people began getting healthier as they were forced to use the stairs on a regular basis.

But one thing that began happening without much notice — were the cakes. Only slightly at first, but over time it became more and more noticeable. Cakes were not rising. No matter how many eggs were added, or how fluffy the batter seemed; as a cake was baking in the oven, gravity pulled at it to the point of become simply a flat cake. Not much taller than a shallow pan.

Well you can imagine the chaos that ensued. No one wanted a flat cake. It was too difficult to get the perfect “frosting to cake” ratio once the cake became deflated. It was always either too rich, or not enough. Birthdays were lost to tragic fits of childish rage. Parties began to be things of the past, as too many embarrassed mothers saw a flat cake as their own personal defeated attempt at motherhood.

That is, until one woman saw an opportunity to change the world.

It was, after all, a special occasion. Her daughters’ birthday. Her daughter, Phoebe, deserved to be celebrated by everyone. Her mother loved her with a love unparallelled in any other stories illustrating motherhood. She was special, and the world deserved to know why. But her mom knew this would only happen by solving the problem of the flat cakes.

That’s when it hit her. Maple.

As a child, she’d read an ancient story about a people at the beginning of time who’d purposefully planted maple trees all over their planet. How this tree that literally “bleeds sugar” could be used to do great things for humanity. She labored intensely to brainstorm the perfect combination until finally she emerged triumphantly from her kitchen, yelling to the world, “I’ve done it!!!” (Which also happens to be the phrase engraved underneath the giant statue of a Shortstack on that same planet, if you ever happen to visit.)

Sure enough, not only had she solved the problem, but she had done it in such a way that these flat cakes covered in pancakessugary maple syrup have become a staple. A meal to be eaten all year long, in celebration of the girl who inspired it all. Phoebe.

And now through circumstances that are hard to explain in a Craigslist ad – God has not only allowed us to know of this amazing recipe, but has also given us a sweet little girl named Phoebe to bring home from Africa. The problem is….it cost about as much as traveling to Planet Shortstack to adopt a daughter from Africa. Thankfully, God has been providing so far, and will continue to. We hope that you will consider coming to celebrate this incredible little girl (our Phoebe, not the fictional Phoebe from the silly story), and help us raise money to bring her home — one plate at a time.

Details: Help us raise money to bring our daughter home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Africa. We hope to travel in 9-12 months. We’ve paid over $14,000 already as God has provided….and are trusting Him for the other $17,000!!!!

7:30am — 11am
Moundford Free Methodist Church — 1803 E. Mound Rd (Next to LSA)
Breakfast — Pancakes & Sausage, Drinks

Adults – $8/plate
Kids – $4/plate
Kids 5 & under — Free

Espresso Drinks – $3

TELL YOUR FRIENDS! Join the event on Facebook!

Posted in Uncategorized

shaken.

Posted on by Wick

We had a great morning.  Beautiful weather on a laid back Sunday morning, eating breakfast outside in almost 70 degree sunrise. Slowly cleaning up from a weekend of “Sabbath” with a small group of our teenagers.  Once we were all packed up, we gathered down by the beach for a few words and final moments of silence before getting on the road.  Some clouds began to move in, but we were thankful for a peace-filled morning…

teensbeachThen we loaded onto the bus.  I was excited to be making great time.  We’d be back to the church parking lot with enough time for me to clean off the bus before my family was even out of worship.  It was beginning to sprinkle, and there were some clouds to the south…along with some gusty winds…but nothing we haven’t seen before.

Then it happened.  Something you don’t want to happen when you’re driving a tall 25-passenger wind-blown bus full tornadowarningof teenagers in the middle of Illinois.  An alert went off on several phones at the same time:

All of a sudden, the gusts of wind and darkening clouds all seem a bit more dangerous.  A bit more “real”.  Driving through small-town Illinois, surrounded by cornfields and farmhouses.  There was a split-second chance to stop at a church, but gone before I realized it.    Finally, I saw a sign for a “Rest Stop”, and decided to pull over.   The bus was getting tugged at pretty good.  It was much smaller than I thought it might be, but as we unloaded the bus and piled into the building full of vending machines, I felt I’d made a good decision.  (Even as the maintenance gnome came out of his closet to see what the noise was & laughed at our fears.)

We waited for 20 minutes or so, until the “Tornado Warning” was downgraded to a “Watch”.  Things looked like they’d settled down a bit, and we headed back out.  Only 30 minutes from home.  A few minutes out on the highway, we tornadowarning1noticed a rainbow on the left.  It was a cool moment.  Until we looked on our right and saw the coming storm.  Around this time, a new alert hit all the smart-phones:

Awesome.  By this point, we were truly in the middle of nowhere.  Nothing but cornfields on the right and left for many miles.  The next exit was 5 miles away, and there was nothing there to seek shelter in.  Here the wind was not simply gusting….it was a wall of force, pushing the bus to the left every few moments.  Water began to come in sideways through the closed door.  I asked someone to locate the nearest….anything.  A gas station was located at the next exit, but was a few miles off the highway.  We finally made it to the exit, but turning right into town meant turning directly IN to the storm.  Still, the exit was incredibly high ground, and I couldn’t stay where I was.  So off we went, toward what definitely seemed to be a mass of clouds that wanted to make contact with the ground.

White knuckles gripped the steering wheel in prayer so filled with adrenaline, I was shaking when we finally stopped at a gas station, under a shelter not much more than the bus itself.  But still, it felt safer to be on low ground, surrounded by structures.  We waited the storm seemed to pass around us.  I breathed slow.  We were all obviously relieved just to be what felt like  “out of harms way”.

After 20 minutes or so…we heard reports that the threat had passed.  Blue sky was beginning to appear, and rain was sparse. We got back on the highway, and by this point I’d pretty much decided to go as slow as legally allowed.  So tornadowarning2driving about 45 MPH, we entered our county around 11:58am, when these alerts hit all the phones:

Thankfully, it was almost 12 Noon.  The weather looked incredibly ominous still, but the rain had stopped and we had visibility.  We were almost home.  I took the first exit, deciding to drive through the city instead of around it on the corn-field surrounded highway.  We finally made it home around 12:30 as the sun broke through on the rest of the day.  We hugged our families, so very thankful to have made it.

As we watched updates on areas impacted as the storm continued to travel northeast…our thankfulness continued to grow.  We were shaken, for sure.  But we join in prayer for those areas hit so much harder than we were…

Posted in Different Learning

how the US is fighting world peace.

Posted on by Wick

A news update I’ve become aware of (that you may all already know, because you watch the news), concerns the future of the US and our World in a way that seems to matter.  “UNESCO” is the “United Nations Educational, Scientific, & Cultural Organization”.  It was launched many years ago under the premise that you do not bring peace about by enforcing a cessation of violence, but by developing minds and hearts together.  Literally “building peace in the minds of men and women”.  More specifically, it came together in the mid-40’s, “In their eyes, the new organization must establish the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” and, in so doing, prevent the outbreak of another world war.”

unesco-sign-and-buildingSounds like a pretty important effort, right? One that we would not only want to join, but help be an influential voice within?  And we did.  Until 1984, when we left because UNESCO’s goals were found to be different from our own.  But in 2003, (after we were attacked horribly in 2001, and remembered why it’s important to connect hearts and minds globally), we rejoined.   President George W. Bush stated, “As a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United States will return to UNESCO. This organization has been reformed and America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights and tolerance and learning.”  Ever since 2003, we’ve been a big part.  Even as recently as a few years ago, the US Contributions to the UNESCO budget made up over 22% of their operations.

They’ve done great work to connect the scientific developments across the globe.  Along with cultural education/sharing/protection, encouraging/promoting rights to eduction and especially of girls/women.  They do some pretty incredible and VERY important stuff – for more specifics, check out their report from last year. Education for children, power for powerless, food for hungry, etc.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is, back in 2011, UNESCO voted to allow Palestine participate as a nation.  That went against a 1990 US Policy that amounted to “If you invite _____ to the party, we’re not coming.”  At the time, some feared that it was a first step into crazy things like Palestine joining the UN.  I get it, as a group, Palestine definitely has problems with stability.  Some with long-standing land-conflicts..and some from the “Fatah vs. Hamas” conflict within.  I’m very limited in my knowledge/understanding, but I don’t like a lot of what I’ve learned about the Hamas side of things.  That being said…would I still want to invite them to a global conversation on how to better humanity around the world?  I think so?  After all, look at the list of nations who are part of UNESCO…we were cool sitting at a table with North Korea.

There was a grace period of a few years, where we had opportunity to keep our involvement/funding.  But now we’ve officially lost our “vote” as a part of UNESCO.  Whether it was just a final plea for our finances or not, the Director-General made some very powerful statements about why the US needs to stay connected to UNESCO.

So what’s my rant about?  I just think it’s important to note that most of the world disagrees with us on this one (in the 2011 vote, out of 159 nations, 13 sided with us).  That in order to protect “our own interests”, we’re actually modelling the very behavior that in the 1940’s we set out to combat.  That the “interests of humanity” worldwide must always be more important than the “interests of a nation”…if we’re to avoid roads of world war…or even continue living on this earth as the growing collective humanity that we are.

So how do we communicate all of this…something I hardly understand myself…to our children?  I’m not sure, but it starts with prayer.  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”, not as interpreted by one nation…but for all.