My neighbor, my friend

I have a great next door neighbor. His name is Juan.

Juan does not speak the greatest English. I don't speak the greatest Spanish. We became good friends by being good neighbors.

Juan helped me build my patio. Okay, I helped Juan build my patio. When I wanted to tear down the wall to my back yard and put an RV gate in, I watched as Juan did 90% of the work. He even provided the gate! As I struggled to paint the 1/2 wall around my patio, Juan came over with an airless unit and finished the job in a very short period of time. When Gina wanted 3 tons of gravel added to the back yard, Juan was right there with a shovel. The list goes on.

I can't help Juan as much as he helps me. He mostly doesn't need my help. I try, but my efforts are limited, just as my skills are limited.

People who know me, know that I can do a lot. I'm what you call a pretty handy guy. Juan, however, is a craftsman. He does a lot of things well, especially if paint is involved. He must own 4 airless systems.

Juan just bought a welder. A MIG unit. He is teaching himself how to weld. Once he has it figured out, I'm going to make him teach me. :-)

Juan has 3 kids. They are 17, 7, and 5. They are good kids. Respectful, friendly, nice to be around. Not many kids like that around these days.

Why am I sharing all this information about Juan? It's my way of giving him some small portion of the respect he is due. Juan is a good man. I am proud to be his friend.

This Christmas, we choose to give the gift of God's Love

The Community Group I belong to with our church is helping a family out for Christmas this year. As we prayed for guidance and for a family that would benefit from our support, the Lord revealed to us a family in our own group that was in need. In fact, this family had not attended our group lately because they could not get a babysitter.

I will not go into detail of the needs or circumstances of this family. Suffice to say that they love the Lord, could use some help, and we are all being blessed by giving them a hand.

How strange it is that so many Christian brothers and sisters do not speak up when they could use our help! Is it our fault? Do we somehow exude a vibe that says "We will help you, but we will look down our noses at you while we do"? I don't really think so. I think the American Dream that says "hard work can accomplish anything in America" takes root in us at a tender young age, and we somehow feel we have failed if we need help. Somehow, many seem to feel that accepting help from the government is more palatable than accepting help from Christian brothers and sisters. After all, they paid the government taxes for just such a time as this, didn't they?

I don't have any profound answers, which is almost always the case. I do know this; extending a hand of assistance to another who needs it allows the miracle of the season, the "Giving is better than receiving" rule, to manifest itself completely. When you share God's love, God blesses in so many ways that it is impossible to describe.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for this opportunity. We love You. We praise You, We give You thanks.

Amen.

Camping in the Weekender!

I consider myself a simple kind of guy. I enjoy simple things. Camping, cooking, eating, meeting new people. This last weekend, I was able to enjoy each of these. A real treat. Gina and i went to a gathering of a bunch of trailer enthusiasts at Buckskin State Park near Parker Arizona. There were 40 odd trailers there, ranging from minimalist 4' x 8' teardrops to classic Airstreams from the '50's, and almost everything in between. A significant number of them were home built, and most of the old ones had been significantly remodeled. The weather was a bit cooler than I would have liked, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

We arrived at 5:30 Thursday evening. It was a bit windy, so we set up camp (that takes about 10 minutes with the Weekender), made and ate dinner, said "Hi" to the folks that were already there, and retired out of the wind in the trailer. It was about 7:30 by this time, but too cold to sit outside. Oh, and we had all 3 dogs with us. So, with nothing else to do, we watched the 1st hour of a movie. By 8:30, Gina was out of it (she was a little under the weather), so I stopped the movie and we went to sleep. We were not quite toasty in the camper, but with the blankets we had, we did just fine. Had to get up once for a potty run (both us and the dogs), but otherwise had a good, restful night. Didn't get up until after 7:00 Friday morning! Made sausage, eggs, and hash browns for breakfast. Yum.

Friday was a beautiful day, once the sun cleared the mountain ridge (about 9:00). Clear, the wind was gone, and the temperature kissed the 70 degree mark most of the day. I met a friend from a forum I belong to (www.camp-cook.com/forum), and enjoyed the meeting immensely. Friday evening I cooked mushroom and beef stew for dinner, to be served over noodles. We ended up adding a can of green beans to make a complete meal out of it, dumped the noodles into the stew so they would stay warm, and chowed down. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

Saturday was not the best of days, weather wise. Overcast and cold, we had to use the 12volt electric heater all night. We made it, though, with its help. Stayed in the trailer until 8:30 to avoid the cold. I had intended to make biscuits for breakfast, but forgot the ingredients, so we ate left over sausage and has browns stirred into scrambled eggs. Not bad at all! Kind of a skillet breakfast.

Saturday night there was a campfire, with a gentleman singing and playing his guitar for a while. By 8:00 it was too cold, so we went back and watched the rest of the movie.

Sunday morning we got up, broke camp and headed home, chilled a bit towards the bone. We stopped by McDonald's and had a gourmet breakfast of sausage biscuits and hash browns. We were home in time for lunch and had leftover stew. All in all, a pretty tasty meal.

I don't know how to post pictures in this blog, so if you want to see all the neat trailers you will have to follow this link http://s734.photobucket.com/albums/ww347/cliffmeister2000/Buckskin%20State%20Park%20Gathering%202009/

God Bless,

Cliff