Turn to leaflet insert 3b in your songbook
Today has been a pretty rough day. Every sunday after service we kind of divy up the responsiblity of taking people home. Most people on the island don't have vehicles. So me and Morty get our designated route each sunday. Well on my way to take a visiting family home today I ran out of gas. So as I contimplate the correct action, as I have a Samoan family and Steven (Steven works at Am. Sam Comunity College as a library assistant director), I smile and stay cool. As I've run out of gas before I knew that often times you can go a little farther if you only wait a minute and turn your car back on. So luckily it worked and we made it to the gas station. Then I went to eat with Philip and Jaime. After exiting the restaraunt I tried starting my car and it wouldn't start, just clicked once. So I lifted the hood and tinkered and tried again. Still nothing. So I closed the hood of the car and asked God to start my car. Click. But then on the second try it started. I guess there's some lag in the communication. None of this would have been that big of a deal except that I've been fealing pretty crunched for funds recently. And by recently I mean the entire time I've been here. I hadn't really planned to pay the premium for a car and then to buy tires and stuff. So most of my paychecks since I've gotten here have gone towards Morty and the subsequent two tires I've purchased. I've always intended to save for retirement when I got out of college. As it stands I haven't started. Furthermore my student loans should be coming in pretty soon to add further monetary stress. But there's always a bright side.
As I was about to post this blog I was listening to Jonathan Storments sermon posted on the Richland Hills CoC website. He talks a little about his recent visit to India and the poverty there. Now I would definetly considere myself to be poor, but not everyone does. Like Storment I'd planned to graduate college and make some serious cash, but after a change in degree plan and some other stuff, I find my self below the poverty line. Which is fine, I'm the one who signed up for it. One thing that is different here than in the states is that wealth is not necessarily measured on an even scale. They take age into the calculation as well. Though I don't have near the income of some wealthier Somaons I think a lot of Samoans think I'm sort of wealthy. I am the only 22 year old that I know that has a car. Of course I'm also the only person under 40 I know (on the island) with a masters degree. So maybe for the only time in my life I'm wealthy and smart. To compound the whole money issue I'm not sure how much I can "get away with" giving to the church. Now as a base I guess I start around 10%. But I do use my car for some church functions, so can I deduct my tires from my bi-monthly giving? Or what about gas? Hmmm. What about 1/7 of my tires because most of my driving on Sunday is chruch related? I don't know what you do and really don't want to know. I do know that if you break giving to God into a 10W-40 form then you may have defeated some of the purpose. So far I can surmize three reasons that God wants us to give. 1. Trust- If you give then you have to trust that God will help you out if you find yourself in a bind. 2. Respect- so often we say that our blessings come from God but do we believe it. Or do we believe our paychecks come from the direct deposit to Simmon's First? 3. The church's opperating budget- It's nice to have stuff at church, like a building and things of that nature. Which brings me back to the sermon. I'm fine. I'll make it. And I heard the best invitation song ever. Storment asks for everybody to stand and then you here some guitar feedback, at which point Philip realized that it was Weezer. "If you want it, you can have it. But you've gotta learn to reach up there and grab it." Which is true. Then we realized the program for playing the sermon on the computer moved to the next mp3 file on the list, Weezers photograph.
Paul Murphy
Colarado almost killed Georgia by the Hillal method this past weekend
Today has been a pretty rough day. Every sunday after service we kind of divy up the responsiblity of taking people home. Most people on the island don't have vehicles. So me and Morty get our designated route each sunday. Well on my way to take a visiting family home today I ran out of gas. So as I contimplate the correct action, as I have a Samoan family and Steven (Steven works at Am. Sam Comunity College as a library assistant director), I smile and stay cool. As I've run out of gas before I knew that often times you can go a little farther if you only wait a minute and turn your car back on. So luckily it worked and we made it to the gas station. Then I went to eat with Philip and Jaime. After exiting the restaraunt I tried starting my car and it wouldn't start, just clicked once. So I lifted the hood and tinkered and tried again. Still nothing. So I closed the hood of the car and asked God to start my car. Click. But then on the second try it started. I guess there's some lag in the communication. None of this would have been that big of a deal except that I've been fealing pretty crunched for funds recently. And by recently I mean the entire time I've been here. I hadn't really planned to pay the premium for a car and then to buy tires and stuff. So most of my paychecks since I've gotten here have gone towards Morty and the subsequent two tires I've purchased. I've always intended to save for retirement when I got out of college. As it stands I haven't started. Furthermore my student loans should be coming in pretty soon to add further monetary stress. But there's always a bright side.
As I was about to post this blog I was listening to Jonathan Storments sermon posted on the Richland Hills CoC website. He talks a little about his recent visit to India and the poverty there. Now I would definetly considere myself to be poor, but not everyone does. Like Storment I'd planned to graduate college and make some serious cash, but after a change in degree plan and some other stuff, I find my self below the poverty line. Which is fine, I'm the one who signed up for it. One thing that is different here than in the states is that wealth is not necessarily measured on an even scale. They take age into the calculation as well. Though I don't have near the income of some wealthier Somaons I think a lot of Samoans think I'm sort of wealthy. I am the only 22 year old that I know that has a car. Of course I'm also the only person under 40 I know (on the island) with a masters degree. So maybe for the only time in my life I'm wealthy and smart. To compound the whole money issue I'm not sure how much I can "get away with" giving to the church. Now as a base I guess I start around 10%. But I do use my car for some church functions, so can I deduct my tires from my bi-monthly giving? Or what about gas? Hmmm. What about 1/7 of my tires because most of my driving on Sunday is chruch related? I don't know what you do and really don't want to know. I do know that if you break giving to God into a 10W-40 form then you may have defeated some of the purpose. So far I can surmize three reasons that God wants us to give. 1. Trust- If you give then you have to trust that God will help you out if you find yourself in a bind. 2. Respect- so often we say that our blessings come from God but do we believe it. Or do we believe our paychecks come from the direct deposit to Simmon's First? 3. The church's opperating budget- It's nice to have stuff at church, like a building and things of that nature. Which brings me back to the sermon. I'm fine. I'll make it. And I heard the best invitation song ever. Storment asks for everybody to stand and then you here some guitar feedback, at which point Philip realized that it was Weezer. "If you want it, you can have it. But you've gotta learn to reach up there and grab it." Which is true. Then we realized the program for playing the sermon on the computer moved to the next mp3 file on the list, Weezers photograph.
Paul Murphy
Colarado almost killed Georgia by the Hillal method this past weekend
posted by Paul Murphy at
5:43 PM
3 Comments:
"...the only time in my life I'm wealthy and smart."
Paul I do believe you left out good looking.
By
Anonymous, at 9/24/2006 9:16 PM
That trust part is really hard. And there is something special about money that drives people in a way that few other things do.
Trust is hard when it comes to money. You see I can look on a website and see how much money is in my retirement fund and watch it grow each quarter as interest is applied. However, God doesn't have a website to show me what my investment in him is doing. I just have to remember that everything I have on earth is going to decline one way or another and that the only thing I have of value is what I've given over to God.
I haven't had a steady income in over a year now. I was blessed with a job here and there to keep me cashflow positive. Whever I got worried I thought to myself "God didn't lead you here to fail".
So my words to you Paul, as a friend and as a brother, are that God did not lead you to Am Sam to fail. I think you know this already, but it's always good to hear it from someone else.
Peace out
By
DK, at 9/24/2006 10:44 PM
Oh, I forgot to mention that you still owe me for the Kareem Abdul Jabar basketball card that you destroyed. You should have never taken it on the trampoline. With interest, you now owe approximately $5321.43. But I'll defer the loan until you're making some serious change.
By
Philip, at 9/25/2006 12:29 AM
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