Fish-Bag!

We like to buy salmon fillet's from Costco. They come individually wrapped, in a large 're-closable' (zip-lock) bag. A couple of months ago, Tracy opened the freezer to get some salmon out for dinner that night, and there was no salmon left, but the salmon bag was still there! I happened to be walking by, and needless to say, I was correctly chastised for leaving the empty bag in the freezer the last time I pulled out some salmon. Tracy handed me the empty salmon bag and said, "now throw this away!" Nick was within earshot, and he and I thought it was pretty funny. Tracy headed down the hall to another room, so I thought it would be even more funny if I put the empty 'fish-bag' back in the freezer, so I did!

Within just a few hours, Tracy re-discovered the fish-bag. And of course I heard about it! I thought that was that, and life would now continue as normal, prank-free and happy.

I don't remember if it was the same day, or the next, but I'll never forget that night when I went to bed. I pulled back the covers, and there on MY PILLOW, was the stinky fish-bag! Ewwwww! The fish-bag battle was on!

Nick was very amused by the fish-bag fiasco. He suggested that it should show up on mom's computer keyboard. Her desk has a keyboard drawer. So Nick placed the fish-bag on her keyboard and closed the drawer. Not long after we heard the now common cry, "Ewwwww, stinky fish-bag!"

Not long after, I was at work one day innocently going about my business. I opened my portfolio (which sometimes comes home with me), and what had I brought to work that day? Ewwwww, stinky fish-bag!

I decided to hide the fish-bag in the glove compartment of my truck for a while. I went home and we laughed long and hard about the 'fish-bag portfolio incident'. Nick kept egging me on, trying to get me to put the fish-bag in Tracy's side of the bed, or some other spot for her to discover. I kept claiming that I had thrown the fish-bag away, but he didn't really believe me.

A week or two later, Tracy suggested that we put the fish-bag in Nick's luggage when he went to Africa. I immediately dismissed that idea, thinking that would be gross, and he wouldn't want to find the fish-bag there. But after another week or two, while at work one day, I envisioned Nick opening his luggage in Africa, and finding a 'stinky fish-bag' with cards and letters inside that he could read during his trip. Tracy thought that would be a great idea.

So I cleaned out the bag so it wouldn't be 'stinky' (it was never really stinky anyway, each salmon fillet was vacuum-sealed inside a separate bag). Then we each wrote three or four notes to Nick, and put them in the now famous fish-bag. Nick's Grand-ma even wrote some notes. Tracy slyly hid the surprise in his luggage on Monday night before he left.

We did hear from Nick last night that they did get their luggage (see this entry on the Northside Mission Ministry blog for more on that story). Tracy texted him, "Bags yet?" he texted back, "Yep Christmas in july". She replied, "All your stuff". He just texted this morning saying, "Yep everything- where did we put batteries- i think there gone".

No news about the well-travelled stinky fish-bag! I'm looking forward to hearing about that.

7/21/09 - 2009 Malawi Missions Trip

We got up at 4:00 AM on Tuesday and went to church. The plan for the day was to deliver 30 Youth Group Mission Team members to LAX where they would begin their long journey to Malawi, Africa. We offered to pull a large trailer full of luggage with our Toyota Highlander. We arrived at Northside at about 5:15 AM. The entire team was soon packing duffel bags with donations, weighing luggage, tagging luggage, packing luggage into cars and onto the large trailer. I figure there was about 1,320 lbs of luggage on the trailer alone! This flurry of activity took a little over an hour. We took team pictures, and then a small caravan of vehicles headed out to LAX. The Northside Youth Group has been planning and preparing for this missions trip for at least the last 6 months.

Tracy and I had the privilege of taking our Nick, John (the Youth Pastor), Sarah (John's wife), Layla (Sarah's BFF) and Nic (another Nick!) in our car - 7 seats, 7 people, it was cozy. Needless to say, we didn't drive up the Grapevine grade at 65 MPH. It was more like 40 MPH at a few spots. When we stopped near Bakersfield, one of the other drivers looked at the trailer, and our little Highlander and said, "you would think they would have had someone with a V8 pull that thing!". I had to agree.

Somewhere near that point, John the Youth Pastor realized he had forgotten a camcorder. So he got on the phone and within 30 to 45 minutes, we had a camera ready to pickup just off Interstate 5 in Castaic (just North of 6 Flags Magic Mountain). That detour only took 15 minutes, and we were off again!

We had a rousing good time on the way. There was a fair amount of nervous excitement in the car, which made for some good traveling-fun. I learned a lot about the Bachelorette, the latest iPhone tricks, a few words in 'Malawi-ese' and got to know some great people for the first time!

We all met up near the airport, so we could all drive in and unload at the same time. We needed to do this because you are not supposed to camp-out in the unloading zone waiting around for others to arrive. The caravan all hit the road together with just another mile South to the airport. We were all looking good, except for the one car that got on the North-bound freeway entrance (they arrived at the unloading zone safely after everyone else was probably gone).

Just as we were entering the airport, we were stopped at a security check-point. The Security guy motioned for me to stop (I guess we looked a little suspicious with our big trailer full of something mysterious covered by large tarps). He asked me what I had. I told him we were a part of a group of 30 people who were departing for Malawi Africa on a missions trip. He immediately understood and told us to go on through. I'm sure he heard a similar story from the next 8 cars.

When we found the international departures- Lufthansa Airlines drop point, I felt like we were on a Swat Team prepping for an emergency situation. We were double-parked, with a small bus also double-parked in front of us. The trailer was sticking out into the lane of traffic to our left (there was not enough space for me to pull forward and get the trailer out of that lane). We all jumped out and immediately began ripping off the bungee cords and tarps covering the luggage. Then we hauled 30 bags off the trailer and made 3 piles of ten bags each on the sidewalk. Everyone had their carry-on bags out of the car, and Bobs-your-uncle, we were ready to go. We gave Nick a very quick hug, and told him we loved him and to have a good time. We said goodbye to everyone else, then jumped back into the car and hit the highway. It wasn't exactly the way I wanted to say goodbye, but oh well, what cha gonna do?

Check the Northside Short-term Missions blog for details on their trip. The blog will be updated frequently while the team is gone.

Nick sent us a text message yesterday. He said, "Arrived late yester - bags have not - having an amazing time - love u both"

We can't wait for his next text message!

Attitude

Ever notice how much someone’s outlook makes a difference in how they do things. A good example of is Tiger Woods, he simply knows he can win. I bet a major part of his ability to win, has to do with the fact that he knows he can. One small example from my life came years ago. When I was downhill skiing back in my younger days, I came to realize something. As I was headed down a challenging hill, I would sometimes find my tips crossed, or for some other reason I would get off balance and begin to fall. I discovered that if I gave in to the thoughts of falling, I would usually fall. But, if I ‘knew’ I would recover, then I usually did recover, and avoided falling. I suppose some would just call this the ‘power of positive thinking’.

I saw this quote that goes with this line of thought –

• “If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Gandhi

Here are some other famous quotes –

• “Don’t think you can, know you can” – Morpheus
• “Do, or do not, there is no try” - Yoda