Our Amazing Hannah-bear

Our family has expanded once again. This time we have brought home a sister for Red Baron. The beauty of adoption is that not only is she of a different ethnicity but of a completely different species! Michael and I are very pleased with our selection and are amazed at how much we adore our new "child." We have bequeathed the name of Hannah upon her, as she is our first daughter. We chose this name in honor of my mother. She has been attempting to persuade me for years to name my first daughter Hannah and insists upon referring to our hypothetical daughter as Hannah. However, she may not appreciate our honor, as she is not very fond of rodents. Yes, that's right. Our new daughter is a rodent. Relative to the rat, the mouse, the squirrel, and the capybara (the largest rodent in the world-see picture below from our trip to the SD zoo). You may ask why we would bring home a rodent rather than a cat or a dog, but looking at these photos, I am sure you will agree that she is adorable. And after what Michael and I saw tonight, we have further discovered that she earns the title "The Amazing Hannah-bear." The Hannah part you know. The bear part is pretty straight forward, as Hannah is a Teddy Bear Hamster. But why the amazing you may ask. Because she accomplishes the most amazing feat each time that we fill her food dish. I believe it may be worthy enough to earn us $100 and a T-shirt from "The Planet's Funniest Animals" on Animal Planet.
Being a hamster, Hannah has a fun quad-level home. The top level she has converted into her bedroom where she spends about half of her time. The top-middle level is simply a transitory place that brings her from the top to the bottom. The bottom-middle level holds a platform for her water bottle and her food dish. Finally, the bottom level is lined with bedding and has a wheel on which she can exercise. The wheel is where she spends the other half of her time. All the levels are connected by a vertical tube that she climbs up and down. Today when I filled her food dish, she began by putting one pellet in her mouth, then another, then another. She continued to put all the pellets from the food dish into her mouth, puffing her cheeks out to resemble a chipmunk. We counted eight pellets in all. Now these are not your proportional to her body mass kind of pellets. Think horse pill vitamins for human scale. Most people would gag trying to swallow this thing. And she puffed out her cheeks to fit eight! You may further ask, as I did, did she digest said pellets? No. Instead she proceeded to crawl up the pipe to the top floor of her cage. She had to approach the opening three times, twisting and turning her body in order to fit her engorged cheeks through the opening. She finally managed to shimmy her way up to the top. By the time she squished her cheeks through the opening at the top level, Michael and I were rolling on the floor laughing at her antics. Once her body followed her cheeks through the opening, she found her favorite corner, burrowed into some bedding, and spit out all eight pellets one at a time. So, you may say that she is just a glorified rodent, but she is our Amazing Hannah-bear.
~Shannon

My Big Fat Greek Post

I had my first post-marriage date with God on Sunday. It was a refreshing time. I ended up in Galations 5:22-23, studying the fruits of the Spirit. I wanted to know if there are really nine of them in the original translation, so I consulted my Greek New Testament, a Christmas gift from my wonderful husband. In looking at the Greek, I found out some interesting elements of the fruits of the Spirit. There are two words that can both be translated into English as goodness or kindness, agathosunae and chrestotes. I wondered how these two words differ. What I found in the dictionary lead me to write the following. Most of it comes directly from the definitions of the word and related words found in my Oxford Greek dictionary (the words in bold) but some tidbits I filled in on my own.

What is "kindness" (agathosunae)?
Kindness is community justice.
It consists of those who stand side by side and realize that they have the wealth and power of God and who by birthright are His noble men and women called to act bravely, morally and rightly to all those they stand together with.

What is "goodness" (chrestotes)?
Goodness is the Heavenly City.
Goodness consists of useful, honest, worthy, trustworthy and beneficent citizens who furnish what is needed in their city, including needed answers from the heavens through bold proclamation, whether warning or direction, and who consult the heavens to furnish the needed answer. It consists of citizens lending, giving and borrowing among themselves as needed. It consists of citizens who use items as needed, who are endowed with what they need, who indulge in the things of God, who experience and suffer, who are subject to God, who live under His name, who treat each other fairly, who are wont to be themselves but want for nothing, yet who need, yearn after and are used by God.

No wonder Jesus said who is good but God.
~Shannon

Be-Lated St. Paddy's Day Post

Sigh... I feel like such a failure. I neglected to post on St. Patrick's Day. And yet, I know that I'm not because unlike most of my friends, I AM Irish and don't need to make up for any insufficiencies on the most holy day of the year. So to all my non-Irish friends, I pardon you for your non-Irishness; I hope you wore green on St. Patrick's Day. If you drank a non-Irish brew on Friday then I'm not your friend anymore. ~Michael

But seriously, for St. Paddy's Day, we went to our friends the Morrissey's house and enjoyed a nice night of fellowship, beer and rude limericks. You could tell it was a Christian party when there were at least twenty beers left at the end of the night. I took 2 Harps and 2 Guinness home as parting presents. It's good to be Irish!

But this post could never be complete without my salute to Patrick himself. If you haven't read it, read How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill. It really is a good book and less absurd than it sounds. Patrick, born Patricius in Romanized Britain, became an Irish slave, escaped after 6 years of service and returned some years later as a missionary to Ireland. He loved the people fiercely and gave his entire life to the salvation of that country. What I love about him is his approach. He concentrated moreso on love and peace rather than on sexual sin (which is no small thing still). The Irish always fought amongst themselves up until Patrick. By his death, most of the country was converted and peaceful, though still willing to fight if needs be. (We're warriors at heart!) Patrick was a great cross-cultural missionary because he was humble and was in awe of God. We owe a lot to this man because his service brought about much good in Europe in the years to come as his labors gave birth to a missionary movement during the dark ages. Patrick indeed was a Saint. He was also a great theologian and wrote one book called Confession. I've yet to read it, but it sounds really good.

Ok, that's my St. Paddy's Day post. If any of you drank non-Irish beer last Friday, really, I'm no longer your friend... really.... ~Michael

PS - ok, so I was joking, but seriously, what's wrong with Harp and Bass? At least they have taste! Whereas Coors is colored water and Bud gives people with taste a headache.

A Loved One's Loss

This is Mutuyimana Clarisse, my Compassion child from Rwanda. I just received a very sad letter from her, but to give it proper context you need to know that her father was killed during the slaying between the Hutus and Tutsis. I can't remember which tribe she is from right now. Her mother remarried and she has two younger brothers. The letter I received from her told me that her mother had just passed away. I was shocked when I heard it. In the last letter, she mentioned that her mother was sick, but I figured it was only a cold or the flu. But no, her mother is dead. What shocked me even more was my own reaction. It really shook me up. I even cried a bit. Not out of fear of losing my mother. Not because I distrusted God. Just because... she's my sister and she has just lost her mother. I really experienced compassion with her.

If anyone thinks of it, please pray for her, her step-father and two brothers. I don't have detailed info about her family's economy, but letters I've received make me think that her mother earned quite a bit of money for the family and so life will not only be lonlier, but also have less financial support.

I started reading CS Lewis' The Problem of Pain a few weeks ago. I still haven't gotten past the second chapter, but I remember a point he made, though I won't quote it. He said that if God were to make sure that no bad thing ever happened again then He would effectually eliminate free will. He would also elminate any product of the fall which is a boon our flesh will bear until all things are renewed. I like what Lewis pointed out. It seems true to me. It basically takes the problem of pain away from God in the sense that He might be the source of it. It's by His gift to us of free will, rather, that we endure pain and malady. It may not work for everyone or every situation, but it brings me peace about my sister's loss. It helps me understand that God can fully love us all but not be bound to remove every source of discouragement or discomfort from our lives. In some cases, we might not fully blossom into a full-grown child of God without it, although I don't suppose you could tell that to a child who has just lost their parents, huh? ~Michael

Severely Loved

I'm being a bad student right now. I'm in the middle of my Latino Health Class and writing a post for this blog. But then again, this is the second or third time I've learned about tuberculosis and seeing how I'm infected with it (not active, don't worry) it ceases to impress me any longer. But I have learned something new today. TB is not contractible through food or other objects, only through the air via "droplet nuclei." They estimate that 1/3 of the world population is infected. Crazy, huh? It's not much of a problem in the US because we've dealt with it for the past hundred years and have systems in place to address the issue. But countries like Russia, Brazil, and East Asian and African countries aren't so prepared. A little more info: 1) the stuff they inject under your skin is dead mycobacterium Tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes the illness. 2) Testing positive only means that you've been infected at one time; you could have latent or active infection or you might have just developed antibodies to it or another mycobacterium. 3) If you test positive once, you're assumed to always be positive, so you have to get a chest x-ray each year like me :(. 4) Treatment is usually INH (isoniazid), a nine-month long once/day pill.

In more important news, I'm loved. I have an amazing God who has blessed me with my loving wife and really supportive friends. Sometimes I forget this and feel alone at times. It sounds corny, but it's a really good discipline to keep: count your blessings, name them one by one. So here's some props: Shannon, Erik, Jimmy, James, Noah K, Noah K, Ben, Terrance, Zach, Steve, Jon W, Jon L, Neil, David, Josh, Matt, Tyson, Chris W, Payshun, Chris W, Chris B, Adam, Sean, Emmet, Patrick, Mark... To all of you: You're fierce friends and I love you all. I thank God for every one of you. ~Michael

My Wife is Hot

We went to the zoo yesterday after church. It was really fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't want to leave. My favorite animal was the Mandrill, a baboon-like creature pictured to the right. Their faces are so extravagant. It looks like God sculpted it really, because it has a wash-bucket textured coming from it's eyes down to the nose. They're also the ones with the colorful butts.

Another cool animal was the Tapir. It's apparently related to the horse and rhinocerous, but it runs like a pig and has a nose more similar to an anteater in my opinion. May the anteater is related to the rhino also...

But the hottest animal by far the entire day was the Shannonius McManus. Her keepers have given her a new haircut and she looks very danerous and alluring. Below is a picture of this rare species in her native habitat. ~Michael

Michael's New Job

It was a great first day at Alvardo. My position is a "Patient Care Assistant" or PCA for short. It's technically a CNA, but since I don't have my CNA license, I'm a PCA. Confused? Well you're lucky. There are 28 pages of approved acronyms in the Alvardo handbook (all but about 100 of which I won't have to know until I'm a RN next year).

So it was my first 12-hour shift. It wasn't too bad either. But I never saw the light of day. It was dark when I left for work and dark when I left. Crazy. I guess I really am a night owl. But I'm super tired now, so I'll be heading to bed soon so I can return tomorrow. It was really fun getting to take care of patients. I realized, finally, how horrible it is to be a patient. You'd think that being in the hospital, you'd just love all the attention, but when people are there, they're at their worst: in pain, confused, and scared. All that combined makes life miserable. Most of the patients I cared for might have known where they were, but not many really had a concept of how they were doing. Pain was their focus as opposed to their emotions or mental well-being. I really don't want to be in the hospital as patient, but mainly because I know I wouldn't be able to enjoy all that attention which I'd be paying my kid's college tuition to receive. ~Michael

PS - I almost threw up today, but kept it down at the last moment. Poop really stinks when it's been inside someone for 3 days. ;p