You can kinda make out a little bit of her face. It looks like she’s got pretty chubby cheeks. Wonder who she gets that from.
And that’s here little fist beside here head.
Liza had a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, and both her and Story are doing great. She’s measuring a little big right now (Story is, not Liza) but they keep telling us that doesn’t really mean much right now.
I can’t wait for her to be here.
Faithful readers of this blog (both of you; thanks, Liza and Mom) know that my posts tend to vary and shift between serious and mildly humorous (or at least sarcastic). This particular post is going to appear to be of the latter variety, but let me assure you, it is most certainly of the former.
Some of you know that I have a mild to moderate interest in scary movies. If you begin to break that genre down into its sub-genres, you might discover that my interest can quickly evolve into a full-blown obsession, especially when it comes to zombies. That’s right. I’m talking about the walking dead. Everything from Romero’s original masterpiece to those awfully embarrassing SciFi Originals that they show early on Saturday mornings with titles like “Rave to the Grave” capture and grip my interest like a rigomortic fist. But it doesn’t stop with movies. In fact, I’ve been playing a video game recently (with some of you and your husbands) all about surviving the zombie apocalypse. I even own The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks in both print and audio format.
And that brings us to the purpose of today’s post. I know that not all of you take the threat of zombie attacks seriously. However, because I care so much, I don’t want to leave you completely unprepared.
So, I’d now like to offer you (according to the back cover of The Zombie Survival Guide) the…
TOP 10 LESSONS FOR SURVIVING A ZOMBIE ATTACK
1. ORGANIZE BEFORE THEY ARISE – Don’t wait until you hear lifeless, monotonic moans down the street and fingernail scrapes on your windows while you watch frantic news reports about the outbreak of some unknown virus. If you do, it’s already too late. The time to prepare is now. So, stock up on your canned food, bottled water, and ammunition. Clean your guns and sharpen your machete. Plan your escape route to your secluded safehouse/fortress and pay attention to the following 9. You’ll thank me later.
2. THEY FEEL NO FEAR, WHY SHOULD YOU? – Sure. They’re a never ending horde of beings bent on your complete destruction, but that’s no reason to get all worked up. Being scared will just cause you to panic, make rash decisions and ultimately result in many mistakes, which leads to only one thing: you becoming one of them. Instead, stop. Take a deep breath. Remember your training. Listen carefully. Communicate effectively. And keep moving.
3. USE YOUR HEAD: CUT OFF THEIRS. – The only way to be sure a zombie is down is to destroy their head, the brain in particular. It’s that simple. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
4. BLADES DON’T NEED RELOADING. – I know a lot of you are real gun aficionados, and that’s fine. Firearms are a good form of protection against the undead. Of course, they just have two problems: a. they’re loud and b. they run out of ammo. Blades don’t. So long as you keep them sharp, you’re golden. That’s why I have three swords, two spears and a machete in my house.
5. IDEAL PROTECTION = TIGHT CLOTHES, SHORT HAIR. – Zombies aren’t too smart, but they are persistent. And the first thing they do before they bite you is grab you. Don’t make it easy for them.
6. GET UP THE STAIRCASE, THEN DESTROY IT. – Zombies aren’t good problem solvers. They can’t climb unless something is in place to make it easy for them. So, why not get elevated and then make it hard, as close to impossible as you can. Just don’t burn it down. You’ll probably end up destroying the whole place and then you’re out of luck. Plus a flaming zombie isn’t necessarily a dead one.
7. GET OUT OF THE CAR, GET ONTO THE BIKE. – This lesson is actually similar to the one about guns and blades. Cars are noisy and run out of gas. Bikes aren’t and don’t. Plus, they’re much more maneuverable.
8. KEEP MOVING, KEEP LOW, KEEP QUIET, KEEP ALERT! – This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
9. NO PLACE IS SAFE, ONLY SAFER. – Don’t get too comfortable. Always have your guard up. Fortify and prepare as much as possible and keep watch. I don’t care where you are. Bonus: some of the places you might think are the safes (police precincts; army bases; hospitals) are probably the least. Don’t go there.
10. THE ZOMBIE MAY BE GONE, BUT THE THREAT LIVES ON. – Something made them zombies in the first place. Just because they’re not here right now, doesn’t mean they’ll never be.
I hope this will prove to be helpful for you. If you’d like to find a little bit more information about how you can best prepare for the survival of the human race, you can find it here.
Thanks for reading and good luck out there.
So, we, at Student Life, have decided to begin hosting a student video competition. We’re calling it the Screening Room. You can find out all about it here.
I know that hardly anyone who reads this blog is a teenager, but a lot of you know teenagers and work with teenagers. We’d love it if you’d pass this along to them and encourage them to make a video and submit it. There’s some great prizes for the winner, and it’s a chance for a lot of people to see their work. Below is a promo video for the competition that some of the guys threw together.
SCREENING ROOM VIDEO COMPETITION from Student Life on Vimeo.
During college I had the privilege to serve as an intern and associate youth minister for the senior high ministry at FBC Jackson, MS. During the four years I was there my pastor was Dr. Frank Pollard. I just learned that Dr. Pollard passed away this past weekend. He had been battling a number of illnesses, and knowing him, I know he’s much, much happier where he is now. You can read a brief story from the Jackson newspaper here.
To honor the passing of this great man of God, I’d like to share two particular memories of Dr. Pollard.
He was one of the most humble, gracious, godliest and friendliest human beings you could ever meet. Nowhere was this more evident than in his preaching. However, if I’m honest, I can’t tell you anything specific about any sermon he ever preached except that he often liked using Dr. Seuss to close. One of the things I do remember, though, is where he parked. FBCJ is located in the heart of downtown Jackson. It looks a bit different now than when I was there, mainly because across the street from the main building is a large multipurpose/education/youth building and parking garage. For years, especially while I was there, this building did not exist. Instead, there was just a parking lot with a tower connected to a skyway that you could take to the main building to avoid having to cross the main street, since it was often busy. Because I was in school at the time, I rarely worked in the mornings. I usually showed up after lunch. For the entire time I was there I would often be in the tower waiting on the elevator or something and looking back at the parking lot. Whenever Dr. Pollard arrived, he would park at the far end of the lot and walk the whole way across. It was a little thing, but a lot of the churches I’ve been to have assigned spots close to the church for the pastor. Dr. Pollard always considered it more important for other people to be able to get close. For some reason that’s always stuck with me.
A second thing I remember about Dr. Pollard is something I heard second hand that he had said, but eventually got him to confirm it. You see, Dr. Pollard could have been a really big deal in the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) but all of the politics of it seemed to never really be for him. Well, there’s this story that Dr. Pollard was at the convention one year and was cornered by a group of the SBC leaders including some people that were presidents of seminaries some of you attended. They were confronting him about taking some stronger political stances within the convention, as this was still during the time that the fundamentalists had come to power and were fighting to get rid of all of the moderates and liberals, or at least to shut them up. Anyway, one of them finally got frustrated enought that he said, “Frank, when are you going to get in the ballgame?” Dr. Pollard simply replied, “I’ve been in the ballgame, but you guys have been too busy fighting under the bleachers.”
We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is a generation of them that we are beginning to lose. This is the nature of things. I pray that the rest of us will have the strength, wisdom, humility and passion to follow their examples.
Today is World AIDS Day. Not quite as celebratory of a day as we recently experienced with Thanksgiving, but one that people will commemorate around the world in various ways. Some will wear a red ribbon to show their awareness and support. Some will go to Starbucks and purchase one of their specialty holiday drinks so that $0.05 can be donated to the (RED) campaign. Some will give a speech. Some will examine patients. Some will stand in line for their ARV’s. Some will slowly and painfully pass from this world to the next. And some will go about their day blissfully unaware that any of the rest of this is happening at all.
What will you do?
The vast majority of the people I’m surrounded by on a daily basis are lucky enough to have not really been affected by the AIDS pandemic in a personal way. Many people I know haven’t even ever come into contact with anyone who has HIV/AIDS. On some level I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful that my city, my state, my country hasn’t been so ravaged by this disease that it is commonplace, that part of a person’s daily existence is a constant state of fear over when it will strike, when their luck, or the luck of a family member or friend, will finally run out. On some level I’m thankful that on World Aids Day there are a lot of people who can’t think of a single person with the disease that they can do something for, that the extent of their involvement really is ordering a grande peppermint mocha or joining a Facebook group that at least says they will. I’m thankful that this discussion of this disease can be dealt with in such a manner that junior high students in my country are more educated about it than the presidents of other nations. I’m thankful that we can make movies about it that make us cry and give Oscars to actors “brave” enough to play such a role with true, heartfelt empathy. I’m thankful that some of our largest companies can jump onboard with a campaign that spends more money on promoting awareness of the disease than it raises to help fight the disease. On some level I’m thankful for all these things. I really am.
However, I understand that the world in which I live, in which AIDS is a cause for action and not of death, is not the real world. I’m lucky. I’m blessed. That’s the only thing that separates me from those who live in constant fear and ignorance of this disease every moment of every day.
I understand this because I am not one of the people I’m surrounded by that have not been affected by the AIDS pandemic in a personal way. But again, I’m just blessed, lucky, in that the way in which I have been affected is in perhaps the most positive way possible. AIDS didn’t take a family member from me. Instead, it gave me one I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Most of you have heard me talk about or have read my writings about my youngest brother, Alfie. Alfie is of the Tswana tribe in South Africa. He is four years old (He’ll turn five in January), and his adoption by my parents became official in September of 2007, though he’s lived with them since he was about eighteen months. Alfie is also one of the millions of children around the world that have been orphaned because of AIDS (in fact, a child is orphaned by AIDS every 14 seconds. How many orphans does that make in the amount of time it’s taken you to read this post so far?).
Alfie’s biological father is unknown and his birth-mother died when he was just a baby from AIDS. She was just another one of the thousands living with the disease made more complicated because they are stricken with poverty as well. I don’t say that to make light of her death, but to express the general attitude that is often taken towards those with the disease. When she died, Alfie was sent to live with his uncle who has children of his own, lives in a squatter camp outside Pretoria, and works as a day laborer if he can. He also has a drinking problem. Alfie has very bad allergies. So, you can imagine that a squatter camp wouldn’t be the best environment for him to be in. When my parents found him, he was really sick. They offered to take Alfie to get some medical treatment and to stay with them until he was better. This led to my parents wanting to adopt him. For a number of reasons, it was a really long process, but now he is a Kinsley (to be fair, I’ve just vastly oversimplified his story. Perhaps at another time I can do it justice, but that’s not really the point of this post).
Alfie is lucky. He’s blessed. His story is definitely not typical for these children. He comes from a continent that is ravaged by the disease. It still carries a heavy social stigma with it so that most people don’t want to talk about it and complete ignorance is the norm. I’ve sat and talked with other AIDS orphans who actually contracted the disease from their mother before she died. I’ve listened to their stories, their fears, their worries. I’ve heard them talk about how much they hate their medication, though it’s the only thing keeping them alive. I’ve seen the marks of the witch doctors on children they are “treating,” the same witch doctors that often prescribe to older men with AIDS to have sex with the youngest virgin they can find in order to be healed. I’ll allow you to take that to its conclusion for yourself. I’ve knelt beside a “bed” in a shack in a squatter camp and held and prayed for a young woman no older than myself and prayed for strength in healing as she faces the final stages of the disease.
In some ways I’ve had the opportunity to stare the monster of AIDS in the face, and I’ll tell you this: it scares the hell out of me. Literally. It makes me cling to the things of Heaven, the things of God, to Him and His wisdom and His will and His plan and His timing. I have to trust him. It’s too big for me to deal with on my own. Every country in the world is affected by HIV/AIDS. Every single one. Some, like mine, have stemmed the tide. Others, like Alfie’s native country, are on the verge of being awash in it. Still others are struggling to keep their heads afloat.
But I do what I can, and I hope you will too. Today, I hope you wear your ribbon. I hope you buy your peppermint mocha and join your Facebook group. I hope you have some conversation with someone who didn’t even know there was a World AIDS Day and open their eyes.
But if you want to think about maybe doing a little bit more, here’s some suggestions for you.
1. Sponsor a Compassion child. I know. It seems like there are tons of us within my circle that won’t shut up about Compassion. Well, there’s a reason for that. We’ve seen it first hand, and we know that it works. Some of those hit hardest and most affected by the AIDS pandemic are those who live in poverty. Compassion is releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. They focus on working with a child holistically throught their local church in six areas of development in their life: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, economically, socially and physically. For $32 a month you can help a child in one of Compassion’s 25 countries to ensure that they are educated and have access to all that they need so that they not only can avoid being a victim of this disease but of all the other trappings of poverty. I have other posts here you can read to hear about just what it’s like to sponsor a child, but I want you to hear me clearly right now. If you don’t sponsor a child with Compassion, you should. It’s easy and it changes their life and will lead to lasting change in their family, community, country and eventually, the world. Do it. Please. You can, very easily, by clicking here.
2. If you already sponsor or, for whatever reason, don’t feel like you can right now, then consider giving toward’s Compassions AIDS iInitiative. I give an additional $8 a month to Compassions work to fight this disease in addition to the children I sponsor. For that little bit (which goes a much longer way than the 10 cents that would be donated to (RED) if I spent that 8 bucks on two Starbucks) I’m able to be a part of making sure that communities are educated about AIDS and that those who need treatment are able to have access to it when they wouldn’t otherwise. Incidentally, the first prority in Compassion’s AIDS initiative is to promote abstinence before marriage and faithfulness inside of marriage. So, if you’re worried about condoms being handed out all over Africa because of your 8 dollars, then consider your fears relieved. Right now they do focus this work on the continent of Africa but have plans to expand it further to all of the countries in which they work. You can find out more about this by clicking here or read a blog post about their work by clicking here or on their blog in my blogroll at the right..
3. Contact your local hospital or health clinic for information about volunteering with AIDS hospice care.
4. Pick a country in the world to which you have some connection and find out how to be inolved there. You can do so by searching the various AIDS foundations through the World AIDS Campaign website by clicking here.
5. Forward this post to someone you know who is one of those going about their day blissfully unaware. Rock their world a little bit. Enlighten them. Make it happen.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I think we should pray. I’m a huge believer in prayer. I believe it actually affects change in the world. What if all of the millions of Christians were united in prayer today for God to intervene miraculously in the world with regards to eradicating AIDS? I believe He’s listening.
I know that right now a lot of different ideas are being thrown at us about how we can and should be involved with various causes around the world. That’s great, but I know that it can either be overhelming or just become part of the noise surrounding us. I also know how easy it is to become cynical about it all.
So, my hope is that you can sift through the noise and discover where your involvement can be most effective.
Thanks for reading.
