Have a nice day

Sitting here in the relative warmth and comfort of our house, we catch a news report now and then on the winter weather in the US. I say "relative" warmth: the thermometer over my desk said the room temperature was 15º this morning...that's Celsius, by the way, or 59ºF...no central heating in the house, so we turn on electric space heaters now and then. Not exactly cozy.

But then, it can't be cozy there in the US, either, if the temperatures are below freezing and the electricity's off. Joy said in her blog that they got the ice, but had not lost power; we learned last night that Abbie's brother is going to move to a hotel in Branson, taking their parents with them "until the power comes back on---two weeks, perhaps".  Abbie had seen on CNN International that Jasper, Arkansas, had the thickest coating of ice from this storm. That's only about 15 miles or less from where Abbie's folks live, so it's not surprising they're in the dark.

Our low temperatures are down to around 50ºF, which is as cold as it gets down on the coast line where we live. But it has snowed (and is probably still snowing) up in the mountains, and a lot of people will try to get up there to see the white mountaintops, which is a fairly rare event here. As you can see from this picture from the local newspaper, it doesn't take as much snow to get people exited here, as it does in a lot of places. In fact, this little amount of snow is already enough for me not to get excited.

So, for everyone out there, have a nice day. Or have an ice day.

"Is he the savior?"

I think I actually shuddered when I heard the reporter ask the question. That was during the second of four interviews (two newspapers, two radio stations) I gave yesterday regarding the inauguration later today of Barack Obama. 

There were a lot of other questions, of course, in those interviews, and I sought to be as impartial as possible in my answers, as befitting my position as consular agent.

"Is he the savior?" This was a question I could not give an impartial answer to. I did something I rarely do in connection with my office as consular officer: I referred to the fact that I am also a Baptist pastor, and I said that according to my views of the Bible and my personal convictions, I could never accept calling any man "savior". We pray for the new President; we desire to see him succeed in dealing with the many challenges facing the US and the world; but there is only One Person I will ever call Savior.

Around noon today, I have an interview scheduled with the television news team. Back on Nov. 5, when it was clear that Obama had won the election of the day before, a TV reporter asked an American tourist visiting Madeira, "Is Obama the one the world is waiting for?"  I shuddered then, too.

Christmas in January

Sounds strange to us, but to the Orthodox Churches, Christmas is in January, on the 7th. Whereas we customarily say, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"---in Russian/Ukrainian they say, "Happy New Year and Merry Christmas".

 Yesterday, the 18th, was almost like Christmas again in our church. The cantata, which we had sung in English on Dec. 21, and in Portuguese on Dec. 24, was sung again last night...in both languages. That is, some parts were sung in English and some in Portuguese. We enjoyed singing it so much, what if we did it in July?