2.5 days left

We've got 2.5 days left to work and lots more to do.

I'm feeling mostly better but i'm really ready to come home.

Web Cam

Here's a web camera that another developer put up in our work area. From about 3PM PST on it updates during the day. You can generally see me with my back to the camera on the other side of the room.

Happy Birthday

I can't believe my little (?) bother... i mean brother... is 17 today. Happy birthday Daniel.

I'm feeling a little better but I'm almost out of my Korean cocktail of drugs. What's actually made me feel the best is the Tylenol cold medicine that I brought with me. I have had to replenish my supply of cough drops.

Things are going well here from a work standpoint, but I am really ready to come home.

Here's a link to a clock to see what time it is in four areas in which I have family:
Personal World Clock

Dr. Doctor

I'm going to try to go to a doctor on base tomorrow if possible. I thought my cough was getting better but now I'm starting to feel it more in my chest. Hopefully there will be somewhere I can go. If not, maybe I'll try a local remedy.

I'm getting to watch Survivor on the armed forces network. I think "The Apprentice" was on at 8, but we were out at dinner. I was starting to feel pretty bad (sweating and coughing) but then we started talking politics and my blood got pumping and I'm feeling much better now.

Have a good Friday. Mine is almost over. Tomorrow is Saturday, but there's more work to do.

Native Cuisine

After 2 full days here in Korea, it's starting to feel like a Little America. I'm feeling very comfortable now in the sorrounding even though it is really hard to order food and even harder to know how to eat it. Starting last night, we went on a mostly native diet. With the exception of breakfast, we're trying to eat the local food. We've had good luck so far. They serve lots of little dishes that you mix and match together with some meat to make your meal. Last night we put the meat and toppings on two differnt kinds of lettuce and rolled it up. It's felt like eating Korean fajitas. I'm getting better with the chop sticks but my hand starts to cramp during the middle of the meal and i get sloppy.

The weather has been great here. It gets up to 60 degrees in the afternoon. The mornings are a bit nippy as we walk to the base, but we soon warm up as we crowd 8 developers and 15 computers into a 10x20 room with no ventalation.

Jonathan is actually trying to learn the language and the culture a little bit. I'm just trying not to get lost or eat the wrong thing.

Hopefully we'll get some sight seeing time, but current plans are to work through the weekend.

Time for bed. Have a good rest of the week.

Home sweet Korea

We made it without incident to Korea. We're staying at the Howard Hotel just outside the army base. This is a very Americanized area but with enough differences that you know something is not quite right.

We ate breakfast on base this morning for $1.70. I've never had biscuits and gravy that cheap before and they were pretty good.

The hotel is nice with a TV and internet connectivity. There are 70+ channels and even a few English ones. Luckily the toilets are not the Japanees style sit on the floor. I did see those in the Tokyo airport, but opted not to press my luck and try to use them.

It's pretty cold here right now compared to the Northwest, but it's not really bad. The worst part is the smeel which some of the others said I would get used to before the day is over.

There's a church right next to the hotel and a large Baptist church just across from the base. Korea seems to be a thouroughly Christianized country so I shouldn't have trouble finding somewhere to worship on Sunday and maybe even Wednesday.

That's all for now.

Be careful what you ask for

Whenever you ask God to bless you or something you are doing, you had better be ready for the result.

My mom tells the story of when she was pregnant with my little (not so much anymore) brother. We all prayed for a little boy after having 2 straight girls. When Dan was born, he had a head of hair that made him look like a little boy rather than a newborn infant.

Well we've been praying for our LTC program which we've gotten started recently. We were hoping for 5-10 participants this year to get things going. Tonight we had 20 who have committed to participating this year. We're still getting organized and things are a little rough, but apparently God wants us to do much more than we asked or even imagined.

So we have our work cut out for us. I'm also in charge of VBS for next summer so I'll be more careful with that one... Just kidding.

Keep on praying.

Let the games begin

With all the exit polls, pundits, and weather forecasts, it's hard to know what is really going on. We'll have to wait and see.

One thing is for sure. This is the most recent election in the history of our country.

Voting Bandwagon

Well the rules of blogging state that you have to have an entry on election day telling people to vote so here is the obligatory blog entry.

Seriously, God has granted us freedom in our lives. We have free will to make our own choices each day of whether to follow Him and how best to do so. In the USA, we are also blessed to be free to choose our leaders. Most humans do not have this freedom at least not to the extent that we do. Though it is good to realize that there are two new countries embarking on the rocky road to self-government.

Whoever you vote for, please vote and please pray that God will bless our leaders to make wise decisions.

The big focus is on the Presidential election, but I think that the local races have a greater impact on our daily lives than the national races. So don't forget to vote for the local candidates and make an informed decision.

A Fridge'd Day

We had a rainy day which we spent inside working on the kitchen. I also made two trips to Lowe’s in support of our efforts. Sean built some really cool roller coasters on the computer game and Joshua did his normal thing of playing with trains while telling stories about Thomas and Percy, watching videos, and drinking milk.

The new fridge is still sitting in our living room while the old one is sitting in our front yard (I need to call Sears about that). Most of my day was spent with running a water line to the fridge and scraping up the old floor. We tried taking the line down and under the house and over to where the fridge is. The first problem was that there was a cinder block wall about 3 feet short of the fridge, but there was a cinder block turned sideways to allow some cables to pass thru. Surely there would be another entrance to get around the wall. Well, there wasn’t, and don’t call me Shirley. So after drilling both the holes (which we now have to patch) we took the hose through the under the sink wall, below the drawers, through the side wall into the closet, along the closet wall, and finally into the cubby for the fridge. Now we just have to prime the floor, lay the tile and move in the fridge. Oh, that’s assuming that we can get the fridge by the bar. If not, then it’s bye-bye bar. We’re going to take it out sometime, but hopefully that won’t be tomorrow.

Back from DC

I just returned from a trip to Washington DC. 30 minutes after landing at SeaTac, Mt. St. Helens did its thing. Sean was very excited about the volcano interrupting.

Someday, i'm going to take the whole family with me on the trip to DC and we'll stay some extra time and go sightseeing.

Mom comes tomorrow. I left the airport today about the same time she lands tomorrow. Luckily traffic won't be too bad tomorrow.

In other news, I may be going to Korea at the end of November. Lots of frequent flier miles. A coworker told me that when he was there it always smelled like someone forgot to flush the toilet. I'm psyched.

Back from CDA

We had an enjoyable trip to Coeur d'Alene this weekend. It was rushed, but Kathryne got to see here sisters, except Bobbie who is at York.

The new van is great. Lots of room and a beautiful ride. We got great mileage and enjoyed breaking it in. Kathryne even dinged the paint on the door at a gas station. At least she says she did. I couldn't see anything, but she's pretty particular about such things.

She says she like to drive it, but for some reason I ended up driving the entire 7+ hours each way.

Another week at work starts soon. Hopefully I'll get over my cold soon without having to visit the doctor.

We turned on our heater tonight when we got home for the first time this year. It rained on us coming down the mountains and into the Seattle area, but it's supposed to be nice sometime this week.

Have a great week.

Beach Pictures

In August, we went to Pacific Beach, WA. We stayed at the naval resort with the Fosters. Here are some picutres from our trip.

We built sand castles, but as the tide came in, they turned into sanctuaries from the waves for Sean.


This is Sean and his friend Maddie swinging on the playground.


This is me trying to fly a kite.

Luckily no one was injured.

Crazy Hair

Here's a picture that some of you have already seen but i wanted to get something up. It was taken and framed in Joshua's Wednesday evening Bible class shortly before he had a hair cut.

Ministry fair

Lots of stuff going on at church. With our newly added elders and deacons, we've had a lot of people with a lot of ideas which require even more people to implement. In order to involve everyone, we're having a ministry fair on October 3rd, before and after morning worship. Each area of ministry is setting up a booth or display describing the various aspects of the ministry in order to inform the congregation of what's going on and to solicit participation.

My areas of ministry are as follows:

• Vacation Bible School
• Leadership Training for Christ (LTC)
• Wednesday night devo coordination
• Office computer maintenance

I'm pusing really hard to get LTC started here this year. We did a VBS in 2000, the year before the fire, and I think it's high time we made it an anual event.

There's a lot to do, an I pray that many more of our members will become involved in the next year that has been the case in years past.

More about our congregation at www.ckchurchofchrist.org.

What's behind door #3?

A new car. Our car shopping last week came to its conclusion tonight when Kathryne picked up our new Toyota Sienna from the dealership. We bought it on Labor Day, but it wasn't on the lot yet. We sat out in it for a while tonight and played with all the gadgets. Some of our favorite things are the way the rear seats fold down into the floor and disappear.

We're breaking it in tomorrow by taking our first trip in it to Coeur d'Alene. Kathryne's sister Janette is there for the week so she wanted to go over and see her.

Keep us in your prayers as we travel as well as all those displaced due to the recent hurricanes.

Posting comments

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Labor Day

Going car shopping. Please pray for us.

Back to School

Sean started kindergarten this week. Wednesday was a 45 minute orientation and today was his first full day. He was going to ride the bus home, but there was no bus. There was supposed to be a bus, but we were misinformed. So he had to wait around until Kathryne went to pick him up.

It's like pulling teeth to get him to talk about what he did at school. I ask him "Did you do this, dis you do that?" and he still doesn't remember. He's already on the right track because he did say school was boring today. I look at it from the standpoint that no one brought a gun or tried to blow up the school. That's a good kind of boring.

He did get to look at some books about volcanoes and earthquakes which he enjoys very much. Just as long as they stay in the books. Visit the website for Brownsville Elementary if you want to find out more about his school.

We have about 10 rolls of film we need to get developed. When we do, I'll post some pictures.

Will this work?

I've never been good at keeping a diary so I'm not sure how long I'll keep this up, but I wanted to try it out and see how I do.

This may be a better way of publishing reports and pictures for family and friends and to have them communicate back.

I'm also considering seeing if the church is interested in starting this as a means of communication.

Let me know what you think. That's what the comments are for.

In Him,
Matt