WFL?

So, I've been thinking a lot about football. (I've found that it makes great background noise for me while I'm studying, by the way) But not in the sense that you may think. As Stephen and I have been watching a game, I would see a big guy run the ball downfield or possibly thrown over a pile of men resulting in a big touchdown. Then this adult man engages in some kind of strange behavior like flexing his muscles that resembles an animal marking his territory in the wild. I keep thinking "What an ego! A woman would never do that." Stephen just chalks it off to the nature of football and the men who play it.

So, I started thinking about what football would be like if typical women actually played professional football. She would never flex her muscles to the crowd after a touchdown to show her ability to dominate. At best, she may pose for some good camera shots. Possibly, she may do a fun little dance that included all of her teammates. If there was a dispute between the quarterback and one of her receivers, the receiver would simply be ignored and never be thrown the ball. "It's the principle of the matter," she would say. That is, until the two have a long talk about the problem and cry together for at least an hour. Then everything would be fine. If the opposing team hurt one of her friends. She would tackle them at the next opportunity . . . for sure she would talk about them and get the team fired up to defend their friend. There would be no cheerleaders dressed in skimpy outfits that barely cover places that need to be covered. Maybe there would be men dressed in football uniforms. Or a lot of mascots . . . I love the mascots. And, the band at half-time would be televised (at least in my opinion).

Ok, I know that it looks like I'm dogging on women, and for sure, I'm not. I was just pondering. For myself, I know that we enjoy being beautiful even in dirty situations; we are hurt by conflict with close friends; sometimes we need to cry; we are fierce when a friend is hurt and will stand bravely with her. For these reasons, I say the above, knowing that the accuracy is probably off. What do you think?

We Belong at the Zoo

Stephen and I went to the Atlanta zoo for my birthday. We had a great time relaxing and just hanging out together. I thought I would add these pictures to add a little happiness to our blog. Hopefully we'll have many more smiles to add in the future.

The one on the left is the bedroom, and the one on the right is the office.

Here are two views of the kitchen and part of the living room.

Pictures of Damage

Ok, I am posting just a few of our pictures to give you an idea of what our apartment looked like when we went down to New Orleans. This is a view of our living room from the front door.

Closure

Thank you all for praying for me and Stephen as we traveled back to New Orleans to view our apartment. I know that it has been a while since our last post, and several updates need to be noted. I apologize for the delay in posting, but we have been extremely busy and very tired. Nevertheless, I will begin with a very short synopsis of our visit to the Big Easy. We will put some pictures for you to see as soon as we buy a cord to connect our camera to the computer (we left the other connections in our apartment in NO). Upon driving into the city, we were in awe of the devastation and the landscape. Familiar places appeared quite unfamiliar and foreign. So many trees were down. Power was off, so stop signs replaced red lights. Almost all of the grass, bushes, and short trees were brown as if Round-Up had rained from the sky. A layer of dirt and other nastiness was on the roads and all other ground surfaces. This dirt was laid as the horrendous flood waters receded and had dried into a cracked covering that made everything resemble a dried-up, barren desert. The air smelled of decay and death. We are still trying to get that smell out of our memories. The flood waters had picked up random boats and deposited them miles from their homes. We saw a boat on I-10, others randomly spread out in medians along roadsides; we even saw a jet-ski on a sidewalk. Strange things, very strange indeed.

I won't describe our apartment too much. I will let you see the pictures when we get them up. Basically, the water picked up almost everything and threw it around the apartment. The entire ceiling (insulation and dry wall) fell down on top of our things. The only visible ceiling was the wooden rafters. One side of our cabinets fell on top of the counter. The coffee table was hanging on the corner of the kitchen cabinets. Almost everything was unrecognizable. We were barely able to walk through the wet muck into all of the rooms. The kitchen was unaccessible. We couldn't find particular pieces of furniture although we were sure they were in specifc rooms. Needless to say, the apartment was risky to be in, so we stayed only a few minutes. Nothing was salvagable, so we left with nothing more than we came with, barring a bad smell and some pictures.

We spent the rest of the day helping our friends from the second floor move their stuff out. They were able to take almost everything, although they have to sanitize most of it. We were glad that their things were ok.

The highlight of the day was when my boss from the seminary (who lives north of the lake) let us take showers at his house before we headed back to Georgia. He also provided a wonderful meal for all five os us. We were so happy to smell better, eat well, and have some good fellowship.

Again, thanks for all of your prayers for us. They were greatly needed and greatly felt. Please continue to intercede for us as we continue to transition into our life. By the way, we have been provided with housing in Decatur, GA and will live here for who knows how long. We still have no idea about our future but are content in the fact that we know the One who does. I'll try to be more recent in our posts.