You’ve been working on a paper or project (or maybe just playing a game) for hours, and suddenly your computer freezes and up comes this huge blue screen with a completely useless error message on it like “Windows has encountered a critical error and will be shut down.” A few seconds later, the whole system grinds to a halt and blinks off.

Ever wonder why the screen is blue? It’s just text, right? No graphics. Kind of like DOS. But DOS was a black screen with white text.

Why aren’t these error messages black and white, too?

I found out today. This is great. Are you ready for this?

It turns out that, long ago, the folks at Microsoft studied psychology and found out that blue is a calming color. Get it? Ever since that day, those “critical errors” have been calming experiences.

I imagine that future versions will come with a computerized voice:

“Hello. This is just a friendly announcement that you’ve lost the last 4 hours of your work. Hopefully your computer hasn’t suffered permenant damage, but if so, computers are on sale this week for $499 at Wal-Mart. Or, Geek Squad can try to repair it for $129/hour. Please be calm. Don’t worry; be happy….”

See what I mean? It’s the blue that makes all the difference.

Turns out AT&T’s basic customer service people are better than the CEO. Why? At least they’re friendly.

The CEO won’t help you, and he’ll threaten you with legal action.

That’s right. The story is all over the internet. (How did I miss it?) It happened about the time I first started having trouble with my phone dropping calls (almost 3 months ago!).

So: Juan, Adrianna, Jeremy, and all of the rest of my AT&T friends, I apologize for being upset because you couldn’t fix my problem. At least you were nice. That’s more than we can say about your CEO, Randall Stephenson.

For the full AT&T fiasco history, click below. Or don’t. It’s long.

Part 1

Part 2

I called them on August 9, talked to Arianna, and got nowhere.

Got busy, and didn’t have time to call back again until 8/18. Plus, Arianna had said they were doing some work in my area so I hoped things might get better. They didn’t.

On 8/18, I talked to Juan, who finally admitted that he couldn’t help me, and put me through to technical support. I was pretty excited. After over 2 months, I was finally getting to talk to someone who could help me.

The tech guy wasn’t very friendly, but I didn’t care. I did say on this blog that I would love a rude person if he could help me.

This guy was a bit gruff, sounded like a Yankee, and was hard to understand. I never could catch his name, though I asked him twice. But he asked me lots of intelligent questions, and even took down information about actual times when I had dropped calls.

He promised that someone from tech support would call me back.

I spent 31 minutes on the phone with AT&T that day.

On 8/23, Jeremy called back from Tech Support. I didn’t take the call, because it said “unknown.” Wish I had.

Anyway, Jeremy left a message saying their technicians had done something and he thought it was working then. As soon as I got the message, I called my husband to test it out.

The call dropped.

So I called back, and left a message for Jeremy.

On 8/24, some other guy called to check on me. He wasn’t from Tech Support. I don’t know who he was. He was nice. I told him that I had left a message for Jeremy, and he assured me that Jeremy (or his coworker) would call back.

Which brings me to today. 8/26.

Charles called back, at 8:45 pm tonight.

I was at pottery class, up to my elbows in clay. Needless to say, I couldn’t take the call.

I had to call my voice mail 4 times to listen to his message. The first 3 times, my phone dropped the call before I could hear the whole message.

The message? Charles said that the tech people discovered that they’re doing work in my area, “upgrading the 3G.” He said that I drop calls during the day because their work interrupts the network.

That totally explains why my voice mail call got dropped 3 times, after 9 pm. Oh, and I had 5 bars at the time.

The best part? They won’t be done working in this area until October 12.

So AT&T’s solution to my problem is for me to wait another six weeks.

Until that stupid voice mail, I had hope. I kept hoping that someone would help me. That they would solve the problem.

Now I’m just angry.

I wanted an orange one, but they were out of orange ones. So I decided that I would take a green one, but they were out of those too. So I was stuck with red.

Anyway, my red phone worked beautifully, for approximately 1 year 2 weeks. Just after the warranty expired, my phone started dropping calls. Like crazy. Sometimes, it would drop the call before it even had a chance to go through.

Since Tim’s phone was still working fine, we assumed something was wrong with my phone. I called AT&T on June 16, and talked to Harley. Harley was very nice and friendly and he “re-registered my phone with the local tower.”

That did nothing.

So on June 17, I called AT&T and talked to Nikki. Nikki was very nice and friendly, too. She tested my SIM card, reset my SIM card, and offered to send me a new (free) SIM card.

That was a good thing, because nothing else helped.

When my new SIM card arrived, it didn’t help either.

Finally I decided that perhaps it would help if I talked to someone in person. So I went to the AT&T store on Haywood Road, where I talked to a nice sales guy, and a manager.

They decided that there must be something wrong with my phone. Since it was out of warranty, I was out of luck. They also offered to sell me some device that would use my internet connection to improve the signal in my house.

I explained that my phone had started having problems right around the time that the warranty would have run out, and that I hadn’t even used my phone for the first 10 weeks that I owned it because I was in Europe. I also explained that I didn’t understand why I should buy a device to improve the signal when the signal was fine a few weeks ago, and apparently was still fine enough for Tim’s iphone to work.

They decided to replace my phone.

Very nice people. Really, I was extremely appreciative. I thought about asking if I could have an orange phone instead of a red one, but didn’t want to push my luck. Especially since they were so nice.

Too bad it didn’t work.

My phone continued dropping calls. I had to use Skype any time I wanted to call someone. It was really embarrassing when someone would try to have a 5 minute conversation with me and we would get cut off 4 times. Very embarrassing. I can’t even order a pizza without getting cut off. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that my cell phone is my only phone. I don’t have a home phone, and I work from home, so I don’t have a work phone either. I had to open a Skype account.

After a few more weeks of hoping the problems would go away, I was out running errands on Wade Hampton, and decided to visit the AT&T store there. After waiting a long time, I talked to a very nice, but very overworked sales lady. She assured me that I had just gotten 2 bad SIM cards in a row. Surely a 3rd one would fix the problem.

It didn’t.

So I went back. I talked to a very nice manager named Rick. Once again, the idea of purchasing a device for my house came up. I explained that my husband got great reception in our house, and so did I. Until this summer.

I still don’t understand why AT&T thinks I should purchase something to fix their problem.

Rick submitted a ticket to an engineer. He said that if I was still having problems, I should come back, and he would call the engineer, and things would happen.

In the mean time, my phone continued to masquerade as a brick. It’s even appropriate, because bricks are red.

The next time I was out on Wade Hampton, I went back and asked for Rick. He wasn’t there.

So I talked to another nice sales guy, who was very sympathetic to my problem. Not sympathetic enough to call the engineer, though.

He was sympathetic enough to offer to sell me another phone. It would be a great deal, and they would even give me an early upgrade, which means that I have to extend my contract another 2 years to get an affordable price on the phone.

I explained again that I didn’t understand why I needed to spend more money to fix AT&T’s problem. Also, after trying 2 phones and 3 SIM cards, how would I know that a new phone would fix things? Finally, there was no way I wanted to extend my contract when I didn’t know if I would ever be able to talk on my cell phone for 10 minutes in a row again.

He was very sympathetic. He took my name and number and told me that Rick would call me.

Rick has not called me.

Meanwhile, I totally don’t understand what’s happening.

I really don’t think my phone is messed up. It works fine when I’m driving on Wade Hampton. Actually, it works fine almost anywhere except my house, and the 385 / Haywood exit.

If there are any AT&T engineers out there reading this, please message me! I would tell you to call, but my phone will almost certainly drop your call. If you send me a number, I’ll call you on Skype.

P.S. Engineer? I don’t care if you’re nice to me, as long as you solve my problem. Thanks.

Actually, I can. I spent two summers in Europe, devoid of chocolate with peanut butter. There was plenty of chocolate, yes. But no Reese’s cups, or any other chocolate-peanut butter delicacies.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Reese’s cups. I like the full-size cups better than the miniatures, but what I really love are the Easter Eggs (and the Valentine Hearts, Halloween Pumpkins and Christmas trees). You see, these special, festive treats have more peanut butter than the regular cups. Some people don’t like them as well, because they want more chocolate in their Reese’s. Those people can eat miniatures any day of the year.

I have to wait until holidays for my optimum Reese’s experience. It’s not fair! Sometimes I wonder how I’ll make it to the next Reese’s holiday. It’s a long time from Easter to Halloween, and they don’t make patriotic Reese’s treats. I don’t know why.

After my penny-pinching Easter egg fiasco last year, my friends intervened to make sure another crisis would be averted.

It started in February. I was visiting my family in Alabama, and Easter wasn’t even on my radar yet. After church on Sunday, Mrs. Rockwell approached, clutching a plastic bag. Mrs. Rockwell has known me since I was about 8, so she’s used to my quirks.

She thrust out the bag. “I don’t want you to be disappointed this year,” she said.

It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. The bag contained Reese’s eggs.

I was so touched by her care and concern that I immediately resolved not to touch those eggs until Easter. I would put them in a place of honor, daily remember her kindness, and consume them only after I had been thankful for a good long time.

Those eggs didn’t make it a week. However, I was very thankful, and I thought about Mrs. Rockwell when I later ate the additional two dozen eggs that I purchased after Easter. [Note: I did not consume the eggs all at once. It took me at least two weeks. I think. And I only paid half price. And I bought a box for my sister, and gave it to her unopened.]

Now to the real point of this post. A week or so after Easter, my friend Amy was shopping at Publix, and she happened across a SUPER Reese’s egg. It was huge.

Amy knows all about my peanut butter egg obsession. In fact, Amy found one for me after my crisis last year. I’m forever indebted to Amy.

Anyway, when Amy saw this massive Reese’s egg, she immediately thought of me. Her other thought, according to her was “Ratio!” Amy’s a science teacher. She knows all about ratios.

If a regular egg is better than a regular cup (which is better than a miniature), then surely this super egg would have an even better peanut-butter to chocolate ratio. This would be the golden egg.

This is not the golden ratio. Go for the regular egg instead.

The picture on the front indicated that this egg did, indeed have a very favorable ratio.

So Amy bought it, tied it up with a bow, and gave it to me. I squealed.

Sadly, I must report that Reese’s is guilty grossly deceptive advertising. As you can see from the picture below, there’s way more chocolate in that egg than the picture showed.

I ate it anyway. And every time I see Reese’s anything, I think about Amy and Mrs. Rockwell. They’re some of the best friends I’ve ever had.

I probably shouldn’t end this without pointing out that my parents put Reese’s eggs in my basket probably every year of my childhood, and fed me more chocolate-peanut butter ice cream than I care to think about. They’re the best parents I’ve ever had.

Now, I’m hoping Reese’s will come out with a dark chocolate holiday treat. Heavy on the peanut butter, of course.

This is particularly notable because Erika and I grew up in Alabama. Lower Alabama, also known as L.A. We eat boiled peanuts in L.A.

I think she is experiencing a little bit of culture shock. There aren’t any boiled peanuts in northern Illinois.

There is corn. Miles of corn. Corn as far as you can see. And very few trees.

Anyway, back to the culture shock. She’s currently living in a very rural area of Illinois. We didn’t grow up in a big city, but it was a city. The city was surrounded by cotton and peanut fields, but we didn’t get out to see them much. In northern Illinois, you can’t miss the corn fields.

So, Erika’s experiencing north-south culture shock and suburban-rural culture shock at the same time.

The other day, while visiting the nearest town, she observed this unusual combination.

You might be a redneck if you transport your mower in a trailer behind your ambulance.

We can just imagine the scene. Man is dying.

Paramedic: “I’m sorry you’re having a heart attack. Just breathe deeply and think calm thoughts while I unhook this trailer and move my lawn mower.”

You can read about it, here.

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!!

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.

I always worried about those people who lived in the mountains, on curvy roads, surrounded by lots of trees and rocks. Miles and miles from the nearest grocery store. What happens when they run out of ice cream?

I’ve always said that my dream home is located on a country road, five minutes from a Wal-Mart.

So anyway, about landscapes. I grew up in lower Alabama, which is relatively flat, and has lots of trees. I didn’t think that we had lots of trees until I visited northern Illinois, where my husband grew up. They have not so many trees.

We had trees, but it was pretty flat, so you usually couldn’t see very far because the trees and buildings got in the way. I think that’s why I always wondered what it would be like to live on a mountain. Unfortunately, my phobia of living more than five minutes away from a grocery story always stunted my imagination on that subject.

This is the view from a high point in Perugia, Italy. I think I could get used to seeing this every day. It’s a great view, but there’s plenty of civilization. It’s not really in the mountains, but it’s got the highest hill in the immediate vicinity. Hence the great view.

Unfortunately, things are a bit crowded. And I don’t remember seeing any grocery stores. They probably look different in Perugia, so I didn’t recognize them.

Still, isn’t that nice?

I’m going through some mission team photos tonight, and I came to this photo.

This is a street sign from Perugia. Well, it’s sort of a street sign. The “street” was more like a passageway, and it was inside the citadel. Anyway, I think the sign is saying that this is the way to the plaza and a particular church.

I think it’s much nicer than our road signs.

This next picture encapsulates many of my pleasant memories from Italy.

I loved walking down open corridors like this. The shade gave us a break from the heat, but we could look out as we walked along, and sometimes we could feel the breeze. And some of us might have wished that we were princesses gliding along in beautiful dresses, sipping iced tea and eating baci.

And then some of us might have remembered that 1) eating too many baci would make us fat and 2) our modern-day “normal” lives are much more comfortable than any princess’s life. Even princesses had to worry about intruders storming the castle. That’s what the citadel was for (protection, not for tourists).

I still wouldn’t mind having a corridor someday.

Dealing with e-mail: ZEB

Like many people that work in the “information economy,” I deal with a ton of e-mail–hundreds of messages every day, and sometimes it seems like I spend all day staring at an overflowing inbox. About a year ago I encountered a blog talking about “ZEB,” an acronym for “Zero E-Mail Bounce.” (It’s a “bounce” because as soon as you achieve it another 10 or 15 e-mails arrive, so it never stays there for long.)

ZEB Master Scott Hanselman writes, “I think it’s funny that we all know the human brain can’t comfortably hold more than 7 digits at once (hence the length of a phone number) but we think that having 5000 emails in our inbox ‘makes sure things aren’t dropped.’” Good point.

My Iteration of ZEB

My current system (somewhat modified from the original) basically uses 3 folders: actionable, active, and archive.

I try to check my e-mail less frequently than I used to, perhaps once every 30-60 minutes, and I quickly scan for important e-mails. If I can deal with an e-mail in less than a minute or two, I take care of it and move the original to the “archive” folder. Otherwise, it goes to one of those other folders.

Actionable

If it’s going to take more than 2-3 minutes, I move it to “actionable” where I can deal with it at a later time when I “batch process” my e-mail. The idea is that you aren’t constantly scanning through the same e-mails over and over looking for things that might be falling through the cracks, so you have less “intellectual overhead” as you work. And, by processing in batches and setting goals (I use a 30-minute timer and aim to reduce the items in my “actionable” by a certain amount — usually 15 items) I work much more efficiently and don’t procrastinate as much.

Active

If it is an informational e-mail that I need to keep track of, but it’s the ball isn’t in my court right now, I’ll move it to “active” for short-term reference. (Example: I might get a request from a client which I then delegate to someone on my team, but when I hear back from my team, I’ll need to reply to the client to let them know it’s done. The ball isn’t in my court, but I know it will be coming back soon and I’ll need this e-mail for reference. “Actionable,” on the other hand, has stuff that is “in my court” waiting for my action.)

Archive

Whenever I finish dealing with an e-mail, I archive it. I see people with hundreds of folders, and it seems like they spend all their time filing and organizing e-mail. But what’s really bad? Sometimes they miss, and drag and drop an e-mail in the wrong folder. Then, when they need it, they spend minutes or hours looking in every folder trying to find that wayward e-mail? Me? I just drop it in my big cardboard box called “archive.” It seems messy at first, until you realize that with the power of modern search tools, I can find anything in seconds. My archive folder now has around 80,000 messages, all of which are stored in the cloud and are fully searchable thanks to gmail. I can access these messages from my phone, my computer, my friend’s computer — wherever I’m at, I always have the e-mail I need in seconds, and I don’t have to spend all day filing and sorting. I love it.

So far it seems to be working pretty well. Right now I have 41 e-mails in actionable, but by the end of today I’m aiming to have 20 or fewer and nothing in my inbox, which will be quite an accomplishment. =)

That’s right. A book, held by your neck. Also known as a book on a necklace. Or should we call it a neckbook? Check it out!

I signed up anyway.

The process was a little more complicated than I expected. Previously, with other restaurants, I would print out some coupon, and show up (only to find out that they’re out of food, but instead of telling you that, they tell you that your coupon is counterfeit even though it isn’t. Thanks a lot, KFC.). Chick-fil-A had a totally different approach. First, I had to choose my location. Then, I had to choose the date and time I wanted to come. THEN I got to print a coupon, and that coupon had my name and e-mail address. There was a link that allowed me to automatically add an appointment to my Outlook Calendar. The day before, I got an e-mail reminder.

Tim and I drove to Chick-fil-A today, anticipating our sandwiches. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were parking spaces available. Plenty of people were eating inside, but there was definitely room for us. The employees greeted us, and treated us like valued customers. [I guess that's not unusual. Chick-fil-A employees are always impeccably polite.]

It was a wonderful experience. Kudos to Chick-fil-A for having a give-away, and for handling it excellently.

This is just another reason why I go to Chick-fil-A on a semi-regular basis, even though it costs a little more than other fast food places. I also love their lemonade. And their icecream. And the chicken.

My parents are out of town, and I’m staying with my sisters. Right now, my role is mostly taxi-driver and cook. My grandmothers both live nearby, so I’m also helping them however I can. Grandmama  is my mom’s mom. She’s almost fiercely independent, even though she is blind and can’t get around very well.

Story:

This morning, Kara and Stephanie and I loaded into the van and headed out to pick up Grandmama and go to church. As we turned onto her street, we noticed a police car. It was parked in the middle of the street, mostly blocking the way. Behind it were cars, people, and firetrucks. The policeman wasn’t there, but some neighbors were standing out in their yard. I rolled down my window.

“What happened?” I asked.

“A fire.”

“Which house? Do you know which house?”

They didn’t.

I squeezed the van around the police car, heart pounding. There were at least three huge fire trucks, and they were right in front of Grandmama’s house. I thought, “There’s been a fire at Grandmama’s house. She probably left the stove on and didn’t realize it. And if there was a fire in her house, she probably wouldn’t get out. She probably died in that fire.” I briefly wondered why no one had called us, but realized there probably hadn’t been enough time. There was still smoke in the air.

But the smoke wasn’t coming from Grandmama’s house. It was the house across the street. The back corner of the roof was black, and the house sported tyvek instead of siding.

I never did see the policeman, but people were out in their yards everywhere. I stopped and asked if everyone was ok. They were. No one was hurt.

I couldn’t get to Grandmama’s driveway, so I parked on the street by the edge of her yard.

I rang the doorbell. Soon she came to the door, I explained what had happened, and we walked across the yard to the van. Then we went to church, even more thankful for Grandmama than when we woke up that morning.

These are big themes in my life right now. I’m frustrated by the amount of clutter (physical and mental) in my life right now, but my progress in simplifying has been halting, at best. Today, I was thinking about how I could simplify, and I had a very freeing thought.

You can’t change what other people expect from you, but you can change what you expect from yourself. Therefore, you can simplify by eliminating expectations for yourself. It’s something that you can do almost instantly, and the results are wonderful.

Think through your task list, and even beyond it to the “ought list.” The “ought list” is that impossibly long list of things you ought to do, hope to do, beat yourself up about, but know you’ll never get to. In my case, my ought list contains the beginnings of projects that sounded wonderful at the time, but no longer hold any interest to me. In many cases, the ought list contributes to clutter in my house. I save things that I ought to use for a craft, and books that I ought to read.

The crazy thing is–no one is telling me to read those books. No one else cares if I read those books. I’m the one that decided that I should read them, and now I don’t want to read them anymore. So guess what? I don’t need to read them. And I don’t need to make those crafts. In fact, I can cut my losses and get rid of the clutter associated with those “oughts.”

You can do it too.

We had trouble concentrating, though. I heard a rumor that some people were listening to Pavarotti, too.

When we arrived at our host church in Fontannafredda, we felt very welcome. Why? Well, there was a welcome sign.

There was a nice comfy seating area, and wifi.

Some people talk about how they love to get away from their computers. They shut down their e-mail. They voluntarily turn off their computers on the weekend.

We are not those people.

I wish I had pictures of the wonderful American military families that met us at the church and served us American food for supper. Instead, you’ll have to be content with a picture of the bookshelf.

The bookshelf  had English books for sale. Some of us spent half our souvenir money on English books there, because we had already read all the books we brought with us. And some of us bought books from that shelf and still haven’t finished reading them because we read our friends’ books instead.

It’s a good thing we studied our Italian in the car, because we definitely weren’t studying now.

Some of us were singing, though. The birthday crew used the wifi connection to sing the birthday song to Megan McCauley. Then the rest of us lost our connections because Dr. Mom’s video chat used up the whole bandwidth. At least we were amused by the birthday crew.

After the amazing American supper, it was time to do what we came to do–proclaim God’s love through song and word. The pastor, Rob Krause, had arranged for us to give a concert in the nearby town of Sacile.

Those are our posters on the doors of the concert hall. The concert was advertised as a free evening of music, a gift to bless the community. We were thrilled that we could give them more than music. We gave them the truth of God’s love. Afterward, we got to meet lots of people, and Rob had some great conversations with people who wanted to know more about what they had heard. It was a wonderful evening.

The next day, Rob showed us around town. He told us the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of the history of the area, and an old Italian man in a striped shirt made sure that Rob told us how the American helicopter placed the angel on top of the tower.

The angel spins when the wind blows.

A friend of Rob’s wanted to give us all pizza for lunch. We didn’t complain.

After lunch, we walked around another neat, old Italian town, and in the evening, we had another concert in a different town. The next day, we had to leave, but fortunately, we weren’t leaving Italy yet.

After two days in very rural Slovakia, we headed to Vienna, Austria.

Thoughts about Vienna:

• Vienna is spelled “Wien” in German.
• In 2008, we did a service in Vienna, but didn’t have time to see anything in the city. That was distracting.
• Vienna is very different from rural Slovakia. I saw no goats in Vienna.
• The music majors on the team were incredible happy to be in Vienna.
• Finally, we were thrilled to hear German. After two days of hearing Slovakian, German sounded wonderful. Compared to Slovakian, German seemed like our native language.

Happenings in Vienna:

We arrived at our host church in Vienna, unloaded a bunch of stuff, checked e-mail, grabbed our concert clothes, and headed off to a nearby town (I think it was called Krems) for supper and a service at a Romanian Baptist Church. The church people took us out for genuine Wiener schnitzel before the service. The schnitzel were amazing–they tasted wonderful, and they were huge. So we stuffed ourselves on wonderful schnitzel, and then we went back to the church for dessert. Really. I think there was lots of left-over dessert.

The people at the Romanian church were friendly and fun to talk with. Their building was new, and they were really trying to reach out into their community. They especially wanted the local German speakers to know that they were welcome (i.e., the church isn’t just for Romanians). Hopefully our service helped with that. We certainly didn’t sing in Romanian!

Kai and Missy Soltau were our main hosts in Vienna, and both of them had just lost a parent. They were kind and encouraging to us, even though they were hurting. They were a walking testimony of God’s grace while we were there, and I hope that we were able to encourage them in some small way.

The next day we had a whirlwind tour through Vienna. There was no way that we could visit everything, so first we drove around, and Kai pointed out the important buildings. We all went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Stefansdom), and we got permission to sing a few songs inside! This was particularly cool, because Haydn and Mozart both performed there. We always try to sing inside cathedrals, but sometimes it doesn’t work out, especially in the bigger ones. This was definitely a big cathedral, but we got permission to sing, and a crowd gathered. We were able to testify about God’s love, and several people asked questions afterward.

After Stefansdom, we got gelato, and visited as many buildings as we could. Then, we went back to the church for supper and did a service at Kai’s church.

Injustice bothers me. I’ll see people who seem to get away with terrible things, and suffer no consequences. Sometimes, my sense of injustice makes it hard for me to function. I’ll become obsessed with an unjust situation, and find it hard to think about anything else.

When I read this passage last night, I thought, “This is injustice.” We rebelled against God, and then rejected the One He sent to save us. We killed the Author of Life. Justice demands punishment. God did satisfy His own justice, but not by punishing us. God showed mercy to mankind and to me personally. He let me live and allowed me to see what Christ was really for.

We killed the Author of Life, but that didn’t stop Him from His purpose. Still, He gives us life.

Thanks, Google, but actually this page is not in Ukranian.

Google thinks the page is in Ukranian.