A Golf Course, a Wedding, and Baptisms

In all my life, only once did I ever play a round of golf. It was so long ago (1971) that I don't remember how many holes I played or how many shots I took. My golf score was probably higher than my bowling average, though, by which you can conclude that neither one is anything special.

But I have just spent three weeks on a golf course, linguistically, at least. However, I don't think that translating 23,000 words of a contract for the construction of a golf course would help my game if I were to go out and play for the second time in my life. It does mean that I'm glad to get back to doing some other stuff...like blogging.

The Wedding

There was a wedding in the middle of my golfing experience. Orlando and Lequicha (leh-KWI-shah) were married on Sunday afternoon, June 17. Many pictures were taken...but not by me. I was busy during the ceremony, but I did get a picture of the flower arrangements and Abbie practicing the music.



The entrance to the church was also decorated and both doors left wide open during the ceremony.



Same Scene One Week Later:
The Green is Blue!


When we built the new church building in 2004, we came upon a problem: either our auditorium was too small or the baptistry was too big...there was no way to conveniently put a suitable baptistry under the podium, as is the solution in many churches. So we put it at the front door, and most of the time it is covered with a green lawn-type carpet. Not only does a person have to be baptized to be a member of our church, even visitors have to at least walk over the baptistry to get into the auditorium! Of course, they don't realize what's under the green unless we tell them.

The Baptisms



It all started with Fábio (far right), who showed up at church one day a few months ago, saying that he had just moved back to Madeira to be with his family. He had been living for a couple of years in Brazil, and it was there that he was saved in the 1st Baptist Church of Fortaleza in November. He asked for baptism. Then, Lúcia (standing next to Fábio) said she wanted to be baptized, too. Actually, she accepted the Lord a couple of years ago, and was baptized by a fellow believer who was visiting the island. Although she was satisfied with her faith and profession, she felt it was right to be baptized in the presence of the church where she wants to serve the Lord.

Then came Michael. He showed up a month or so ago, saying he and his brothers had been looking for a Baptist church since they moved to Madeira in November. Their grandfather was from Madeira, but emigrated to Venezuela, where their father was born, and they, as well. Their mother is Brazilian, and their parents are doing mission work in the Dominican Republic, where they have lived for 9 years. There are 13 children in the family! Having finally found a Baptist church (they had been to other churches here where they were not comfortable with the doctrine and practice), Michael brought his brothers, Gabriel and Stephen, at the next opportunity. (Michael is to my right and Gabriel to my left...if you think they look a lot alike, it's because they're twins.) Stephen, 21, is two years younger and already baptized. It's a long story, but the twins were the only ones in their family that had never been baptized. So they heard about the scheduled baptismal service and wanted to be in on it.

Then Vagner and his wife, Márcia, who had accepted the Lord in October, but because of his job (a soccer player) had not been able to attend our services, began to attend as soon as the season was over. They heard about the baptismal service and wanted to be baptized, too! Each of the six gave a marvelous testimony of their coming to faith and their desire to follow the Lord. "I come empty-handed to God, but I come to serve the Lord with my life," said Michael. The other testimonies were just as beautiful. So we went out and baptized them.



That's Gabriel being baptized (I know because of the order in which the pictures were taken) and the rest of the baptismal photos are here.

Otherwise, not much has been going on in the last few weeks.

Anniversary, of sorts

The fireworks we hear going up from the parish church in the next valley to the west of us remind us that it is the eve of the feast of St. Peter, the patron saint of the neighboring parish. It was four years ago on this night that we were awakened at 5:45 a.m. by the sound of a loud crash. By the time we got dressed and got out to the street to find our car on its side after having been thrown against the street light post, the driver of the car that had lost control and hit our parked car was nowhere to be seen. He had been celebrating throughout the night (drinking) at the feast, and lost control on the curve. Fortunately for him, he was not injured; fortunately for us, he was tracked down and showed up a few days later to report it to his insurance company. We never drove our little green Opel any more.

Conjoined Twins

This is an actual, unretouched photo (no Photoshop here) of Andrea and Kristjan's children, Mikkai and his sister Kaija. While the two are very close as brother and sister, they are not as close as it may appear at first sight in this photo taken at church the other day. It would have been impossible to line them up this way on purpose; in fact, I couldn't get them lined up and standing still in any fashion. The result is this apparent monster of a 2-year old boy with a girl's head growing out of his side. Sort of a throwback to Adam and Eve?

Yesterday

Since yesterday was Friday, it was a normal workday at the consulate, but I opted to take a day off. The day before was a national holiday (Corpus Christi) and I had taken off Tuesday and Wednesday also. For one thing, there was not a lot of work going on at the office; for another, during the week preceding the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (May 25-27) and the 4 days the US Congressional delegation was here for it I worked 10-12 hours a day - no overtime, so I figured I had some compensation time due me; and thirdly, the deadline for delivering the translation of a 22,000-word contract was only a week away, and I needed to get as much done as possible this week, so I spent my week at the computer.

There was one awkward moment during the time the delegation was here. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado was one of the 15 members of Congress to attend the NATO conference. On Sunday night, he came into the suite we had set up as a temporary office for the delegation, where they could use laptops connected to the Internet. He is one of 10 or so candidates for the Republican nomination for President, and now and then he appears on the TV (such as the debate the other night). On that Sunday night, the TV in the control room was on CNN International and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart came on. It's a compilation of pieces they do throughout the previous week in the US, and wouldn't you know it? Rep. Tancredo was still sitting at the computer when Jon Stewart ran a clip of Tancredo's statement on immigration and proceeded to take him to task in his typical satirical style. How odd! Seeing the same man twice in the same moment. How awkward! Do you dare laugh at such political humor when the "victim" is sitting 6 feet away from you? To tell the truth, I didn't even hear what was said on the TV, but Rep. Tancredo did turn in his seat and comment he "had seen it already". I'm sure he had.

Back to yesterday: one of the goals for the day was to get through another couple of thousand words of translation. On that score, I struck out. Never even got to it. But I did end the day with what I considered four major accomplishments, and in this order: 1) I filed my US tax forms. No, I was not late in filing. Taxpayers residing abroad have an automatic 2-month extension to file, so it was only due next Friday; 2) I repaired the flush mechanism in the toilet tank, which involved a quick trip to the neighborhood hardware store for a replacement bolt, followed by a not-so-quick replacement of rubber washers in a couple of the faucets in the bathroom to complete the bathroom repairs; 3) We went to the supermarket and bought groceries. - If you don't think that's a biggie, then I won't try to explain it to you; and 4) I finished reading a book.

Reading a book? That in itself is an accomplishment. It wasn't "have-to" reading on theology, pastoral counseling, or a Bible commentary; and it wasn't purely "recreational" reading either, a novel or collection of short stories. But it was thought-provoking and creatively written, and quite apart from the challenge it presented to set ideas I might have in regard to my relationship with God, I found myself delighting in the turn of phrase and imagery of language. It appealed to the writer in me. Last year alone, I got paid for translating over 200,000 words, which I figure makes me a professional writer. Of course, that's merely putting someone else's ideas into another language, so is that original thinking and writing? Is that creative?

Maybe that explains why I blog. Obviously, you are reading this. But even if you hadn't read it, the writer in me would have written it, anyway.

Mike's Musings - 2

(Bad link fixed, 6/2)


This is the second of articles written by Mike Rogers, who was informed in January that he has non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Mike and his wife, Debbie, are life-long friends, and as he takes time to ponder on life and the world in the light of his illness, I said I would post his thoughts. This article was sent to me April 1, which tells you how far behind I am. Mike's first article, which explored the idea that the world is the way it is, and not the way we wish it to be, is posted here. This article he has entitled "If There Is a God..."

Having said that the universe is the way it is, the question arises: What is God doing? And especially, Why? We have all heard of people who said something like, If there is a God, why doesn’t He stop war? Or, why doesn’t He stop suffering? Or, why does He allow children to die?....



....But He does not guarantee the outcome we desire. He may not intervene the way we want. If He does nothing, is He to blame? If He does something not as good as desired, is He to blame? If He grants our wish but it is ultimately harmful to us, is He to blame? Since He created the universe and bad things happen in it, is He to blame? Perhaps in our perplexity, the real question is, why did God create such a lousy universe at all? For that matter, does God even care? Is He impartial? Is He fair? Is He just? Is there really a God? Read full article.