Busy, busy, busy

Trinity and I have been quite busy lately and time has gotten away from us. It has been a whole month since we last posted. Sorry! So, let's see what we have to report about:

I am preaching this Sunday morning at our church. I am not nervous about it yet, but I am sure I will be Sunday morning. I preach all the time at our alternative worship that we have on Sunday nights, but it is not nearly as many people (and it is mostly people that I know well). Sunday morning is a different story - there will be all kinds of people that don't know me well. It is going to be fun though.

One week ago I got my wisdom teeth removed. That was not fun, and I lost a coupld days of my life. I was in bed all day Friday, and most of Saturday. Sunday morning and night I went to church, but I was very crabby! Then, back to school on Monday. I had a couple of papers due this week, but the professors graciously gave me extensions so I could take my time as I was recovering. I turned the last one in this afternoon. The last one that I got an extension on that is, I still have more due before the semester's over!

Speaking of the semester, I only have one more to go! I will register for my very last semester of classes next week. I cannot wait to be finished. I have found myself dreaming about all kinds of things to do when I don't have school anymore. At this point my plan is to keep the job at Druid Hills that I have now and get another part-time job for fun. I really like working at this church and I want to keep working there, so this seems like the best thing to do.

Trinity has some news about school too. She switched her major from Social Work to Political Science. She is still interested in Social Work, but it worked out better for her schedule to change it to Political Science, and then she plans to get her Masters in Social Work. Trinity has really been liking her job a lot, especially with her new boss, and it has a lot to do with politics, so that is why she thought Political Science would be a good fit. Speaking of her job, she got a new job title (which is basically a promotion) and a raise! Her new boss is really impressed with Trinity and is giving her lots more responsibility. They had a party/fund-raiser a few weeks ago to celebrate the 90th anniversary of women's right to vote that Trinity did a whole lot to put together. It turned out great and I was really proud of her. So, her new job title is Program Manager. Send her an e-mail and tell her congratulations if you have a minute.

I guess that's all the updating for now. I'm off to work on my sermon!

Thinking of Home

I am sitting in class (Human Behavior) and thinking of "home." It is a chilly, cloudy, rainy day (which Tim loves), but I do not like so much. It is taking everything I have to stay at school today. I have been dreaming all day of going home, getting in some comfy pajamas, making some hot tea, pulling out the sofa bed, climbing under the covers, and watching a movie. But for today this must continue to simply be a dream. Midterms are the next 2 weeks and missing class wouldn't be the best decision in the long run.

I have also been missing "home" in a different way. I love living in Atlanta and it has changed Tim and I so much (probably some good and some bad =), but the truth is that sometimes it is hard. Relationships, especially deep ones, take time. There are days that I want to give up and revert back to what is comfortable and easier...to spend time with people who already know us.

Thank you for loving and supporting us on this journey as we struggle to find "our home."

Kudos to Trinity (and a little preaching!)

I'm really proud of Trinity and I just wanted to let you all know about a really cool thing she helped do last night for her job. The League hosted a forum on women trafficking. Trafficking means many things, but to boil it all down, it has much to do with prostitution of young women and girls, sometimes as young as 8 years old! These "prostitutes," better known as victims in my opinion, are forced into their prostitution, basically through modern day slavery. The women that were on the panel discussed their efforts to combat this through the legal system. They have successfully put somewhere around 30 pimps behind bars, but this only scratches the surface of this terrible epidemic in Atlanta. And Atlanta only scratches the surface of it in our nations cities, not to mention internationally.

Even now though, the only way for the victims to get help out of their bondage is for them to be arrested as prostitutes! Imagine, an 8 year old girl being held legally responsible for being a "prostitute!" As if there was any choice in the matter for her - that is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. The saddest part to me is that while many people might be sympathetic to the plight of an 8 year old, they are not so much so for a 13 year old, or a 20 year old. This is plain and simply outrageous as far as I'm concerned, and they are just as much victims as the 8 year old. Would you ever say that the slaves were responsible in any way for their bondage? Neither should we say it about most of America's prostitutes!

Anyway, this post turned out to be a lot about the problem discussed rather than about how proud I am for Trinity and the League for all the work they did to put the forum together and get over 50 people there, including someone for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution! That just goes to show how good the forum was though, because it got me thinking more about the issue than about the forum itself! To get back to the issue one more time, I need to say that this is seemingly a problem in every major American city, not just Atlanta, and the politicians need not ignore it anymore. Politicians from both parties are too caught up in their "baby-kissing" games to help real-life babies out of their misery! I say this not to discourage but to challenge us all to use the democratic voice that we have. As Jim Wallis says, for better or for worse, it is the nature of politics to see which way the wind is blowing and just follow it - but the good thing is that we get to decide which way the wind is blowing if we want to.

So, I know I'm getting a little preachy hear, but the women at the forum just inspired me. They are just regular people like you and me, and one of the women ended up having a meeting with President Bush about this, and now Attorney Generals from states throughout the country are building cases against these pimps! That's amazing, and it makes me believe that there is more to life than our daily grinds, IF we choose to go out on limbs for others. And if you ask me that's what the gospel is about - doing unto the least of these...

Pictures

Twister in the car

Frances & Grant napping together

The guys

John & Yoko on their perch

Welcome to the Zoo!

We've always intended to keep updating the other website we had, but it was not very easy site to work with. This one is much easier, so we should be able to keep it updated much more often. And, since it's easier, Trinity will be able to do it too. So, welcome to our new and improved website: The Honse Zoo!

Trinity and I are back in school for the year. I am almost done, with just one more semester after this. I can't want to finish school for a while (or maybe for good!). Trinity still has some time to go, so we're not looking at moving anytime in the near future. We have really settled in here in Atlanta, and have many good friends and a wonderful church. But who knows where we'll end up when Trinity gets done with school.

We have also had a few new additions to the Zoo recently. You all already know Twister and Frances. Well, our first additions to the Zoo were two fish, named "the guys." Some neighbors here in the apartments moved back to Lawrence, KS where they were from originally, and they were afraid that the 6 year old goldfish might not make it. So, we took them in, and we promised Ashlee (our former neighbor) that we would not name them. She believes that naming fish is an omen on them, and that they owe their long life to the fact that they never recieved individual names. A little wierd perhaps, but we have promised to honor her wishes ;)

Then, a good bit later, we got the idea to get birds. Actually, I got the idea, and Trinity wasn't too fond of it. A friend of ours has a really cool bird who can do some tricks and knows all kinds of words. I thought that was pretty cool and wanted one since we met their bird. Well, Trinity didn't think it would work out too well with Frances in the same house, but I did some research and many people said they could in fact live happily together. So, we went to the pet store and came home with two Parakeets, which we named John and Yoko. They haven't learned any words yet, and they will only sit on my hand if I have food, but they're working on their people skills.

We thought that this would be the end to our Zoo additions, but then the very next weekend a friend called with an animal emergency. We went over and she had found a kitten who had some pretty bad injuries. We coaxed him out of his hiding place in the back yard and took him to the vet. He had severe burns on all four of his paws, and was not able to walk for the first few weeks we had him. The vet had a few theories as to what could have injured him, but we will never know. We gave him some intensive care for a few weeks and he is as good as new now. We had not intended to keep him, but after all the hard work taking care of him, we couldn't part with him, so we named him Grant (because we found him in a neighborhood called Grant Park).

That sums up the residential additions to the Zoo, but we also have many other visitors as well. Allison and Wes from church got a Great Dane puppy named Ella. She is about to outgrow Twister! Kevin (also from church) also got a puppy named Memphis, and he looks just like Twister. We also saved an abandoned baby squirrel a couple weeks ago. Trinity found it on the sidewalk almost dead and just couldn't bear to leave it there. She brought it in and got online to see if there was anything we could do. Little did we know there is like a whole wildlife emergency underground network! Trinity took the squirrel to a woman who specializes in baby squirrels of all things, and she had like 10 others that she was taking care of!

Well, I guess that's enough update for now. Please check back often to see what's going on with us. Also, what's cool about this site is that you can make comments on our posts! See just below these words and click on the word comment. So, we'll make a deal with you: if you want us to update it often, then you all have to make comments! It's only fun if we know you're checking it out. No comments, and no updates. Does that sound like a plan? Alright, let the commenting begin!