Belinda's Visit with Her Mother

Belinda is enjoying her visit with her mother!  Tonight she attended the monthly birthday dinner at the clubhouse.  As you can tell, they enjoyed a luau.  It was a fun time of great company and really good food!  Yea, God!!!



Hello from San Antonio!

Gethsemane Lutheran Church

Oxford UMC

Oxford UMC

We've had a wonderful, relaxing weekend here in San Antonio. This morning, we attended two church services, just because we could!  First up was Gethsemane Lutheran Church on the north side of San Antonio.  Such a nice group of people!

After the early service we made our way home and happened upon Oxford UMC www.oxfordumc.org, which was getting ready for its contemporary service.  We decided to check it out and ended up going out to lunch with the pastor and his wife and a retired Army chaplain and his wife.  We really enjoyed the good company and good food at the Sarika's Thai Restaurant and Sushi!

After a stop at the market, it was back home where we are enjoying the rest of our lazy weekend in San Antonio!

Happy National Cheesecake Day

Charles' sister, Jackie, pointed out this morning that today is National Cheesecake Day!  Hope your day was a tasty one!

A triple-header in Helotes

 
Several weeks ago we had the opportunity to worship at the Helotes Hills UMC in the small town of Helotes, not far from where we are living.  Charles mentioned to the pastor that he was available for preaching should she ever want a Sunday off - turns out today was one of those Sundays!
Charles preached three times this morning - 8:30, 10:00 & 11:00!  The 8:30 and 11:00 services were in a traditional format while the 10:00 was a service called "Purely Praise."  This is the first time that Charles had preached three times in the same church on the same day which was quite an experience for him.  Belinda was present for all three sermons, something not every preacher's spouse could have said!

After the service we drove around a brief while, finding ourselves at a nearby Logan's for some familiar comfort food :)  Since it is too hot to do anything outdoors (100F at 5:30 p.m.) we're staying inside and enjoying the Olympics from London!

Let the Games begin!

The Games of the XXX Olympiad of the Modern Era are underway!

THE OLYMPIC CREED

Pierre de Coubertin got the idea for this phrase from a speech given by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games. The Olympic Creed reads:

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

Seminar today in San Antonio

 

http://www.txorgansharing.org/Quilt/

Today Charles took advantage of one of the many educational opportunities in area by    attending a seminar conducted by the Texas Organ Sharing Affiliance. The seminar was about the "Best Practices in Organ and Tissue Donation."  Lots of interesting material! In the materials provided today was a poem that sums up why being an organ/tissue donor is so important:

"To Remember Me"
The Day will come when my body lies upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.  When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my death bed. Let it be called the Bed of Life and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.  Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has pain. Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk. Explore every corner of my brain.  Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window. Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow man. Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God.  If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

Robert N. Test, in the Cincinnati Post

Field trip to Kerrville

Charles went with the CPE program members from the San Antonio VA on a field trip to one of the VA satellite facilities in Kerrville today.

The facility has a nice chapel with some really nice stained glass windows.  It also has a small, but very interesting museum dedicated to American veterans from WWI to today's vets.