An Arkies Musings

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week the letter is C. Recently my wife and I took a trip to the Oregon Coast for a family reunion. We flew out of Tulsa, Oklahoma in an ice storm. Our plane was late taking off and we had to jog through the airport in Denver to make our connecting flight. We just made it on the plane, but our suitcases didn't. The rest of the flight to Portland was uneventful. It had been more than 10 years since I had visited the Northwest and the Oregon Coast. Although we had one very rainy day while we were there, the weather was lovely and we had one day of absolutely perfect weather with beautiful blue skies. We spent the day visiting Depoe Bay and the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. DEPOE BAY, OREGON YAQUINA HEAD LIGHTHOUSE COBBLE BEACH On Friday even though the weather was bad we had a great time. The stormy weather made the ocean very turbulent and it was grea...

How many Bibles do you own? I did a quick inventory at my house and counted over 50. I love to collect Bibles. There are eight billion Bibles in the world. That's more than one for each person on the earth. This does not include digital versions of the Bible on computers, ebook readers and iPhones. Over 190,000 Bibles are sold or given away every day. But despite all that, according to a Christianity Today survey, less than 10% of professed Christians regularly read their Bible. What that basically means is that we as Christians are biblically illiterate. In Ephesians 6:11-13 Paul writes, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and hav...

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week the letter is B. My favorite place to visit is Belize. Belize is a small country in Central America. In February 2004, 17 members of my church raised 20,000 dollars and went to San Pedro, Belize in Central America to build a church. While we were there we made lots of friends. We were only in San Pedro for a short time, but by the time we left the walls of the church were finished. During the following months, the church members in San Pedro finished the church building. Below are photos of the completed church. NEW HORIZON SDA CHAPEL BICYCLES AT CHURCH NEW HORIZON SDA SCHOOLROOM During our stay in Belize we learned to love the people, the culture, and the natural beauty. We have returned three times since our first trip, and we have had friends from Belize come visit us in Arkansas. We have made so many friends while in San Pedro. You can re...

I ran across these photos over at the blog A Time To Get . They really grabbed my attention as I had never seen anything like these. They are awesome, I would love to have one. Dream Factory Blow takes the stock micro vans that cram the streets of Japan, and turns them into custom creations styled after iconic American vans of the 1970s. The creators of these vans get an A+ in my book for originality and gosh darn cuteness

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week starts a brand new round of ABC Wednesday. My post is A is for ADRA. ADRA is the acronym for The Adventist Development and Relief Agency . ADRA is one of the charities that I contribute to. Although they are active in over 120 countries around the world, I have been particularly interested in their work in Haiti this last year. A little over one year has passed since the devastating earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti on January 12, 2010. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) has provided more than $4 million in aid, personnel and assets to assist Haitian survivors in the months since the earthquake. Throughout the twelve months that have passed since the January earthquake, ADRA has been focused on managing displaced persons camps, water purification, food, the distribution of non-food items, sanitation and hygiene, psycho...

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week the letter is Z. I am curious to see what everyone posts. Z is a hard letter. My post is Zephyr. In 1936 Lincoln came out with a new lower priced car called the Zephyr, named and styled after the streamlined Burlington Zephyr express train. In 1934 the Burlington Railroad had introduced a sleek new streamlined passenger train called the Zephyr. It broke the speed record on the Chicago to Denver route. Two years later Lincoln tried to transfer some of the train’s glamor to its new streamlined Zephyr automobile by picturing the two vehicles side by side. Several years ago I spent a lot of time manipulating photos to look like paintings. One of the photo/paintings was of a 1939 Lincoln Zephyr that belonged to my Dad. 1939 LINCOLN ZEPHYR Ford Motor Company reused the name Zephyr several times. In the U.S. Ford produced the Mercury Ze...

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me, Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been. What a crazy weekend we had. Sunday was my son's 25th birthday, so we headed to Texas to celebrate. We had a wonderful time visiting and enjoyed spending time with the kids and their new kitten, Polly. Normally when we visit for the weekend we stay until fairly late on Sunday afternoon. Under normal circumstances it is a five hour trip from Mena to Keene, Texas where my son lives. Because a snow storm was forecast for Arkansas we decided that we should leave early. We went out for a Birthday Dinner at Mi Familia and left for home shortly after noon. While we were enjoying our meal the waitress came and told us that it had started snowing. We knew that a snowstorm was forecast for Arkansas, but snow hadn't been forecast for the Dallas Fort Worth area. We decided to cut our visit short and leave immediately for home. The snow wasn...