Tim & Ashley

I have a thing for old stairs. Don’t ask me why.

These are old stairs. Please ignore the graffiti.

These particular stairs were kind of annoying, though. They were too shallow, and too wide. I think they were made that way so that horses could walk up them.

Really.

Some people walked down the old stairs like horses, but some decided it was easier to walk down the smooth slope on the side. Like this.

I confess that, until that moment, I had never considered the difficulties of riding a horse on stairs.

I did have a friend who adopted a greyhound who didn’t know how to go up stairs . . .

So the Perugians (is that what they’re called??) live in a city on a hill with stairs built for horses. Naturally, it could be difficult to navigate the city using modern transportation. I think that’s why we parked in a garage and walked all over.

But the locals seem to be managing just fine. One more picture:

Can you imagine how annoying it would be if you dropped a sock, though? Or other things . . . how embarrassing!!

It’s too tempting.

This is one of those times when I almost regret taking pictures. I think the pictures are supposed to bring back happy memories. They do bring happy memories, but they also bring discontent thoughts.

Really, who wouldn’t want to live in a walled city with a nifty tile roof, surrounded by green trees and a beautiful blue sky? Here’s a closer look in case you aren’t sure.

I think it looks amazing.

However, being a debater, I have to look at both sides. So, observation 1–lots of those old houses probably don’t have air conditioning. Observation 2–it’s hot there in the summer. Observation 3–look at the next picture.

Observation 3–the houses are crowded, there’s graffiti, there’s lots of stairs, and I still don’t see a grocery store. That makes me feel a little bit better about not living in Perugia.

More about the stairs later.

Pulling into the barnyard on a recent visit, my parents found my Grandpa up on his roof. He was up there with a bucket of tar, fixing a leak. Never one to ask for help when he could do it himself, he had leaned out a second story window and affixed a hook to the roof, tied a rope onto it, and then tied a ladder to the rope. Somehow he also worked a small stool into the engineering and when all was said and done everything was tied down so he couldn’t fall very far even if he lost his balance and slipped. That’s my Grandpa!

I think I could start an entire blog dedicated to my Grandpa Omanson and his farm and probably never run out of stories to post.

At 91, he’s not the feeble old man you might expect of someone his age. He lives in Osceola, IL–a wide spot on the road about 50 miles north of Peoria. I don’t know if the road has a name or not. I suppose it does, though I wasn’t able to find his house on my GPS when I visited last. Grandpa, like the others in Osceola, just calls it “the hard road.” “Hard,” of course, because it is paved, unlike many of the roads around there. He doesn’t have an address, either. If you want to send him a letter, you send it to Roland Omanson, Rural Route #1, and it just gets to him. I guess there, the postal carriers know where everyone lives.

Though 6 more digits have been prefixed since he was a boy, the last 4 digits of his phone number are still the original numbers of the party-line his family shared with their neighbors. Party lines, as you may recall, were shared by several households who picked up only when they heard their distinctive ring (or when they wanted to be nosy!)

Osceola, home to perhaps 10 or 12 houses and maybe two dozen people, has a cemetery and a fire truck and that’s about it. There’s a stone marker where the Baptist church used to be, but the church has been gone for several decades. A couple of guys have wood shops, but the main economic activity of the greater Osceola area is farming. (more…)

So I was in a Burger King a couple of days ago, grabbing a quick bite between meetings, thinking about how very unimpressive the place was and how I’d probably never come back. The employees generally acted like they didn’t care a thing about the customer, did their work slowly, and did only the bare minimum as far as I could tell.

The place was empty except for me and a senior citizen couple on the other side of the dining room, and the drive through was slow, so they should have had time to tidy up. However, about 6 feet from my table, right in the aisle, a large drink formed a slowly-expanding pool filling the grout lines and generally drowning the tile floor.

Alack and alas, I sat there for almost the whole meal before someone slinked out from the kitchen with a mop and made a half-hearted attempt to soak it up.

As I was leaving, sipping on the little bit of water that remained in my cup, I was startled by a different employee–one I hadn’t seen before. Apparently she had just started her shift. She was of foreign nationality–I know not what–maybe Vietnamese, and English was obviously not her first language. But, as I rose to leave, drink and trash in hand, she walked toward me and pointed to my cup, then made a drinking pantomime. “More?” This was said with a large smile, which I couldn’t help but return.

And just like that, my whole Burger King experience changed. Yes, they still had unimpressive service, and the dining room wasn’t all that clean. But some nice person just offered to get me a refill, and did so with a pleasant smile, and somehow Burger King was a better place for a moment. I declined, but thanked her, and went on my way. And reflected on the difference a smile makes.

Tim and I are excited about traveling with BJU’s Musical Mission Team in Europe this summer. We served with the team last summer, and the ministry was so exciting that we decided to go back again. As a musician, I love using music to proclaim the truth of God’s word. The team leaves for Europe on May 27, but the preparation started a long time ago. There are so many details, and I’m not even involved in most of the decisions! We meet each Tuesday and Thursday night to rehearse our music. On Wednesday evenings we travel to local churches for deputation meetings. We sing a few songs, report on last year’s ministry, and ask the people to pray for this coming year. It’s neat to see team unity grow as we spend time in the rehearsals and meetings. This past Sunday we sang at a church in Atlanta. It was the first time that we got to sing more than one or two songs, and I think it was a big step in team unity. The pre-service prayer meetings really help, too. And I’m sure the traditional post-service trips to Sonic don’t hurt! This mission team really needs your prayer. We can sing our hearts out, but God is the one who touches people’s souls. It’s the Gospel that saves. So please pray for us. Pray for the details, our health and safety, and that we’ll be able to raise the money that we need. But most of all pray that God will be glorified. Pray that we will be bold to give the Gospel. Pray that people will be saved as a result of our ministry. In addition to praying, check out the official team website. Watch the video about the team’s history here or here or below. There’s also an MMT Facebook group. If you want to keep up with our activities, be sure to sign up for the team newsletter (at the bottom of the homepage).

Here is a video introduction to the Musical Mission Team that Ashley and I put together a few weeks ago.

We started off well in the communication department–posting pictures, sending updates via e-mail and blogs. But as the summer progressed it seemed like we had less and less time to post updates, and the second half of our time in Europe goes pretty much unmentioned on these pages.

So, here’s a stab at recapping the whole 9 1/2 weeks in just a few paragraphs:
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After several days in Ebnat-Kappel, we went to the nearby town of Buttikon. Most of the team stayed at the church, but Tim and I stayed with the Quiring family. We had services on Tuesday and Wednesday night. On Wednesday, the pastor took us to see a Protestant church and a lake in the mountains. We had about an hour at the lake, and some of us tried to hike up into the mountains to see a waterfall (we didn’t make it). Some of the others who stayed by the lake saw a small avalanche on one of the surrounding mountains.

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Hi from Switzerland. I don’t have much time to introduce this post, but her are excerpts from my journal for the past few days.

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So here I am, sitting on a little wooden bench by a stream, just yards away from the 450-year-old house that we’ve been staying in for the past few days. I’m wearing short sleeves but I can see snow on the mountains nearby. I can hear my laptop keys clicking, the stream trickling over the rocks, and the cowbells ringing on the mountains. This is a combination of old and new that I have never experienced before. (more…)

Most of my readers probably already know about the outbreak of pertussis (more commonly known as "whooping cough") on the campus of BJU. At last count something like 40 students have it and nearly 100 are in isolation waiting for test results. On Friday (11/30) the administration announced that as a precaution they would end the semester a week early. 

Instead of a full week of classes this week, we'll have class just Monday and Tuesday and Finals will begin on Wednesday — just 5 days after the announcement. Needless to say things are kind of crazy around here. They've done an outstanding job of managing the situation and communicating with the faculty, staff, and student body, but even so, you can only imagine what it's like on campus, especially at Barge (campus hospital) and UMA (medical offices across the street which are related to BJU). 

As of this posting, the latest news is here.

So far, we're both healthy, though we did both get the vaccine and antibiotics because we both have been exposed to it. We're virtually certain that neither of us have it, but even if we do, after 5 days on the antibiotic we'll not be contagious. And, theoretically, that should prevent us from really getting it ourselves, too.

If you've stuck with me this far be sure to read my next post for my suggestions on how to adapt final exams. 

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