Today was such a great day. I spent the night with Ruth last night and we got up and made chocolate chip waffles. (I say we, but all I did was set the plates and forks out, Ruth did all the work. :0) They were oh so awesome. And then I went to Leah Scott's basketball game and even though they lost by 2, she played really great.
I went home and went jogging and while I was running past that doctor's office on Monroe I saw a bunch of people from Northwoods having a garage sale. They were just finishing up raising money for Camp Charis so I helped them load up and take stuff to Goodwill and I went and hung out with the Wrights for a while. And then while I was running back home, I passed one of the homeless guys that hangs around Crowder Road a lot, and he was eating McDonalds in the CVS parking lot, and he was so nice. He told me hello and talked about what a beautiful day it was and how he just loves being out in this weather. I thought to myself, now, that's pretty awesome. He's a homeless guy and yet he can find so many things to be thankful for. Whether or not he wants to be homeless, (because I know some of them scam you) it was still really neat to get a pep talk about thankfulness from a homeless guy. A lot of things happened today that reminded me to be thankful. I got a magazine today from the Voice of the Martyrs and I read articles about people in Loas and Indonesia who are being beaten and thrown in jail and killed by the hundreds simply because they refuse to renounce Christ. And they're still thankful. They ask for prayer that they will be strong and be lights in all the places they go. Wow. How dare I complain about anything? And me, Lori and Mom went and saw Miss Saigon at the Civic Center tonight (it was INCREDIBLE, by the way). For those of you who don't know the story about that, it's about the Vietnam war and an American GI falls in love with a Vietnamese girl and they live together for a while. When the US flees Siagon, the two look desperately for each other, but neither of them can find the other, so Chris leaves Kim behind. He tries to find her for almost a year, but can never get word to her in now Communist Vietnam. She has since fled Saigon and has his son, which he doesn't know about. Two years later Chris marries an American girl and tries to forget Kim, but he later finds out about Kim and his son, so he and his wife, Ellen go to meet her. Chris' wife doesn't want to take them to America because she knows that Kim is still in love with Chris, so the two decide that they will just financially support Kim and leave her and her son. Kim knows there is no hope for her son, who is already shunned by society because he is half American, so she kills herself so that Chris will be forced to take her son with him. It's a really sad ending, but it showed how desperate the situation was and how bad it is in Vietnam. Bad enough that a mother would kill herself just so that her son would have the hope of a better life in America. When I think about stuff like that, my problems seem so trivial. Most of the earth does not have it as good as we do, guys. From homeless guys, to persecuted Christians, to people in places like North Korea, China, Iran and Vietnam life is really tough. Next time we start complaining about how horrible our lives are, let's try to put it into perspective. I'm so guilty of complaining a lot about stupid stuff, so if you hear me start, just tell me to shut up. Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed now, but I'll see a lot of you in the morning. I'm excited about hearing Daniel and Aaron's solos. That's exciting. Arrivederci prinsapesas!