THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR CHRISTIAN

"Steve Austin, astronaut: a man barely alive.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.
We have the technology.
We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man.
Steve Austin will be that man.
Better than he was before.
Better, Stronger, Faster!"

Remember those words? They were the intro to the 70s TV hit "The Six Million Dollar Man" starring Lee Majors. Man, I loved that show!

Some of you know that my co-workers and I have been going through a bit of a crisis the past few weeks. It was discovered (by accident) that the private Christian school I am Principal at was being sold to another Christian school in total secrecy. We are under the ownership of a church denomination, and the local church whose campus we occupy is struggling financially. In addition to that, our school has been experiencing a steady "trickle" decline in our enrollment. Nearly all the Christian schools in our area are experiencing similar declines in enrollment. Times are tough, economically, and people who would like to make sacrifices to send their kids to Christian school are finding it more and more difficult to do so. So, the district governing board for the church decided to sell our campus in order to make their ends meet. All of this makes good business sense, although there are many problems with how the deal is going down, how it is being handled, and thankfully many parents are fighting to save our school to preserve it the way it is.

On top of the distress over the unknown future of my--God's--school, there is the added personal stress about where my children will go to school, and whether or not I will even have a job. The facts we do know don't give me any comfort in this regard.

So needless to say, I've been spending a little more time on my knees than I was in my blissful ignorance four weeks ago. Of course there are the typical spiritual questions, especially: "WHY??"

I believe I've received two answers to that question from the Lord. The first one I cannot be specific about, but suffice it to say that God does want Christians to take a stand for what is good and righteous, and to fight evil. I think of James 4:7--"Resist the devil and he will flee from you!" So my colleagues and I are taking a stand and I believe God's justice will prevail. I also believe it will be done in a way that no man can boast when the victory is complete, so that only God can receive credit for a miracle. Psalm 60:12 says, "With God we will gain the victory, and He will trample down our enemies."

The second answer the Lord gave me, though, is much more important: God wants to make us "bionic Christians." What in the world do I mean by that? Well, we have to remember that God wants what's best for us. Sometimes that means He has to allow us to go through very trying times like these to strengthen our faith. And it's vitally important that as we go through these trying times, we act righteously and upright in response to the arrows sailing past us!

In one of my favorite books in the Bible, Job 17:9 says, "Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger."

Isaiah 40:29 says, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak."

If we respond to these attacks in a Christlike manner, and if we rely solely on Him, God will make us stronger in our spiritual walk, just like the bionic man!

I remember a t-shirt my cousin had when we were kids. It had a big dust cloud with arms and legs flailing from inside, and the caption read, "Be patient. God's not finished with me yet!" However many days remain for me on this earth, by God's grace, He will always be working on me. He wants to make me "better, stronger, faster!" (Cue "Six Million Dollar Man" theme)

TOP 10 SIGNS THAT SCHOOL HAS BEGUN

10. The house is quieter during the day

9. The house is messier.

8. Laundry is building up.

7. Disney Channel is no longer automatically "on" after 4:00 because its viewers in our house are doing homework

6. There are fast food wrappers in the trash after dinner.

5. Checks are running out (fee for this, fee for that).

4. You can't find a sharpened pencil in the house to save your life.

3. Empty stationery supply aisles at Target.

2. One word: TRAFFIC!

1. Suddenly and out-of-the-blue, your kids seem "smarter"!

Obviously, I made all those up. Yes, school has begun! One of the biggest and most positive changes at school this year is uniforms. This is my 9th year at the school where I am the Elementary Principal. In all those years, we have only had a strict "dress code," which of course is always difficult to police. I had parents constantly coming to me, asking why we didn't have uniforms. Last year, I decided to form an exploratory committee made up of teachers and parents. We found a uniform company and styles that we felt fit perfectly with our school. The uniforms are really more of an official "school attire" than actual "uniforms," because we gave our students and families several mix-and-match choices in both style and color. So far, it has worked out beautifully. The kids all look great, and the parents are thankful (including Susan) that there is no longer a "fight" in the morning over what will be worn at school that day.

The next biggest change, which is still to come next week, is that the school is taking its own school pictures. I'm nervous about it, but I think it'll turn out fine. We found a company that assists schools with this by selling us the equipment and giving us pointers with sample pics that we send to them. What's great about it all is that the profits are almost totally and completely ours!

The kids are adjusting well to getting back to the school routine. Emily is in Fourth Grade, in a Third-Fourth Combination class and Matthew is in First Grade, in a First-Second Combo. Combo classes are never our school's first choice just for P.R. reasons, but we've done it before and our teachers do a terrific job with it. We do Combo classes out of necessity when we don't have enough students at a particular grade level to create an extra class. Both public and private schools across California are experiencing a drop in Elementary-age enrollment. For private schools, our toughest challenge is the economy as it affects people's ability to pay tuition. This year, our Elementary school has two straight Kindergartens, one straight First Grade, one First-Second Combo, one straight Second Grade class, one straight Third Grade, one Third-Fourth Combo, one straight Fourth Grade, and two straight Fifth Grade classes.

Oh yeah. Here's a picture of Emily and Matthew on the first day of school, in their terrific uniforms!

ONE MONTH AND COUNTING...

I KNOW! I KNOW! It's been too long since my last post! Forgive me!
Summer vacation is over and I went back to work full-time on Aug. 18. This week, my teachers returned and school begins Sept. 3!

Our family is doing great. Christopher is now five weeks old (as of Sunday, Aug 24) and is maturing gradually. For the past couple nights, he has slept better so we are sleeping better. Last Friday, we took him to his first baseball game. Back in mid-July, following our church's Children's Ministry musical performance, we won four door prize tickets to a Quakes game for August 22. I took a picture of him with my cell phone (above).

Emily is growing in maturity and stature (and darkening in hue!). She is looking forward to starting school. She will be in Fourth Grade (can you believe it??), assigned to a Third/Fourth Combination class. Matthew is starting First Grade, and is assigned to a First/Second Grade Combination class. Combo classes are not our school's optimal situation, but the decreased school enrollment California schools are experiencing across the state have mandated that situation and our school has done it before; our teachers know how to make it work and of course there are some great advantages to such a setting!

Susan is feeling much better. She has decided not to return to work until Nov. 1. She had a hernia during pregnancy that requires surgery to fix, and this will give her more time to recover and spend more time with the baby.

Me? I always look forward to a new school year. I love kids and my teachers and colleagues, and I usually love working with my students' parents. I learned that I will be teaching TWO Junior High Bible classes--both 7th Grade. So I'll have many of the kids I had last year, which is nice. But teaching two classes as opposed to my usual one will make my job as Elementary Principal a little more challenging. Yet I know that God is in control and I put my trust in Him! I am not worried in the least! I work with a great bunch of people who are all devoted to God's work, and it is a true joy to work with them every day!

ENTERTAINING ANGELS

This week has been exhausting, to put it mildly. I haven't seen or spoken with very many people since Christopher was born, but those whom I have spoken to have all asked that magical new baby question: "Are you getting much sleep?"

Did you know that a recent survey found that more people are sleeping less than six hours a night, and sleep difficulties visit 75% of us at least a few nights per week? A short-lived bout of insomnia is generally nothing to worry about. The bigger concern is chronic sleep loss, which can contribute to health problems such as weight gain, high blood pressure, and a decrease in the immune system’s power, reports the Harvard Women’s Health Watch.

And when did I have time to research this? In the middle of the night on any given night this week, of course, while Christopher and I were sacrificing our need to sleep (well, at least mine) for a little bonding time!

But wait a second. Let's put things into perspective, here. This week has not only been exhausting, but it has also been extremely rewarding and even encouraging.

On Sunday night (July 20--"birth" day) at the hospital, Christopher slept OK. I would say he slept better than Susan and I would have expected him to. He was just so quiet and hardly ever cried! That was good and gave us the impression that he was going to be an angel in this regard. When one of the nurses asked how baby was doing, I foolishly said, "He's great! He's so quiet!" The nurse ominously replied, "That could change." What? What was she talking about? I know my son! He came into the world with hardly a whimper and when he was awake he would sit there and take the world back in. Besides, this nurse obviously didn't know what a quiet baby I was! So far, Christopher was behaving just like his namesake Daddy (we share the same first name, btw).

Turns out that nurse knew more than I did. In fact, I now believe she is one of those "angels among us" that Hebrews 13:2 said we might encounter in our lives--because she had this divine wisdom that said (to me), "YOU don't know what you're talking about!"

Well, OK, so I don't really believe she was an angel, but you get my point. She was right and I was wrong...sorta. You see, Monday night (July 21, our first night home), was rough. Tuesday night was even moreso! Between the two of us, Susan and I got a total of about 5 hours sleep COMBINED those two days! Wednesday night was a little better, but by now, Susan was starting to get sick. Rewind back to November 2001, immediately following the birth of our son Matthew: Susan comes down with PNEUMONIA!! Now, July 2008, she's complaining of labored breathing and has a pretty deep cough.

So we made a total of FOUR visits to various doctors and health care providers/nurse practitioners this week for both the baby and his mother! Yeah. That's fun right there. And here's another little fun nugget of epiphany that I discovered this week: Doctors GUESS! I mean, most of them aren't those angels spoken of in Hebrews, right? They're book-educated and they can't "look into" the depths of your body's well-being like God can. So what do they do? They collect data from you and then they make an educated guess as to what's wrong. That's fine and it makes sense to me. The only problem is, I've found many times that their first "guess" winds up being wrong. And in the case of Susan, it turns out that the first TWO "guesses" were probably wrong! The first doctor--at Urgent Care--looked at chest x-rays of Susan and said they were clear and so was the sound of her lungs as she breathed. Okay, so she's just recovering from having a baby and she needs to "buck up" and not complain. We got it. Except the symptoms got worse, so she went in again. This time, a doctor said she definitely had postpartum asthma which, if left untreated, could BECOME pneumonia. Aha! So that's probably what happened to her back in 2001. Good! Now we're AHEAD of that curve! He prescribed an inhaler for her...

...which hasn't helped. As of today, she's still feeling ill and having trouble sleeping because of the labored breathing. We covet your prayers.

Ah, but what about Christopher? I am thrilled to report that as the week progressed, his nighttime sleep patterns improved! He eats, sleeps, and poops (and poops, and poops, and...). Yesterday he did spend a lot of day time being awake and alert, just checkin' things out. And this afternoon at 5:45 p.m. PDT, he'll be exactly one week old...one week I wouldn't change for a ride on the space shuttle.

Oh, and one more thing about entertaining angels: I think we have one.

The Waiting Is Over!

Christopher Martin was born on July 20 at 5:45 p.m., weighing 7 lbs 8 oz and measuring 20 in. in length. While he was born very quickly, there was some initial concern.

Susan had woken up on Sunday morning at around 2:30 with very hard contractions, but they were sporadic in their timing. She took a bath and paid attention to the continuing contractions. At around 7:00 that morning, she told me that we needed to take the kids to Nana and Papa's so they could take them to church while we did some heavy duty walking. She knew that this was going to be the day Christopher arrived.

We spent about 2 hours walking around the Ontario Mills mall, and the contractions continued but again, remained mostly sporadic. They averaged about 10 mins apart, however, so we figured we would go in to the hospital anyway.

At Labor & Delivery triage, they determined that Susan was not in labor, and that she was only dilated 2 cm and 20% effaced. We were so discouraged! However, Linda, one of the alert nurses on duty, noticed that the baby's heartbeat was sinking very low about every 10 minutes or so. We could hear her discussing this with the doctor behind the curtain. Next thing we knew, the doctor was performing an ultrasound! There was our fully-developed baby right there on the screen! So incredible! What the doctor was trying to determine was the amount of fluid in the uterus. Turns out the reading was "borderline," and so they decided to go ahead and induce. We were admitted at 2:30 that afternoon, and by 5:45 Christopher was here!

Today is his due date (smile), and he is doing wonderfully. Leave it to the Lord to have all three of our children born on Sundays, and this one born on the 49th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing--just to let me know that He is with us (me, being a huge NASA geek)!
And so, without further adieu...

WELCOME TO THE WORLD, CHRISTOPHER MARTIN!

BATMAN AND ME

Movies are an interesting phenomenon in western culture. Usually, there are "rules" to movies and storytelling. USUALLY, the rules include: "Don't over-hype a movie or people will be disappointed after they see your film." Case in point: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I liked that movie just fine, but the aforementioned rule ended up trumping the general audience's appreciation of it. Having been a Batman enthusiast since I was growing up in the 70s with Adam West's television show, and upon experiencing HUGE "hype" with this summer's sequel to the excellent "Batman Begins," I feared the rule would trump this film as well.

But the funny thing about SOME super-hyped movies is, they break the rules. "The Dark Knight" is the perfect example of such a rare exception.

This movie has been so highly anticipated since "Batman Begins" left theaters in 2005, it was almost DOOMED to failure! But not only does it "not fail," it separates itself from its excellent predecessor and surpasses it--far exceedingly so!

The drama is not upped "one notch"--it's upped about a hundred fold! You've heard all about how moving a performance the late Heath Ledger gave in this film. That's true. But ALL the castmembers give jaw-dropping performances! Aaron Eckhart is downright perfectly cast as the conflicted Gotham D.A. Harvey Dent/Two Face. And Christian Bale deepens the characters of Bruce Wayne and Batman. Gary Oldman also shines--moreso than in the previous film.

It'll be hard for the reader to trust me on what I am about to say, because I've already revealed my hand that I am a Batman fan; but bear with me: THE DARK KNIGHT is not only very possibly THE BEST superhero film ever, but it should rank up there as one of American cinema's BEST films in the past 10 years. Yeah, it's THAT good. I venture to say that if you aren't a big "comic book/superhero" movie fan, you'll STILL love this one. It's "Shawshank Redemption" good.

I guess I'm trying to say that I loved it, and hope you can share my enthusiasm.

But please bear in mind two very important things about this movie before you rush off to see it:
1. It is LONG for a film of this genre--about 2.5 hours in length, so plan accordingly.
2. It is NOT for young children! There are some disturbing images and themes in this movie, including the threat of violence against children.

Oh, the waiting!

We are very anxious for our third child, Christopher Martin, to be born! He isn't due until July 22, but Susan has been saying she's "ready" since the end of June! Needless to say, she is starting to get impatient, and I am starting to get anxious to hold the little guy!

Our kids spent the night with Susan's parents last night in the hopes that "maybe" it was the right night for Sooz to go into labor (she had visited the doctor yesterday morning, who "stripped her membranes"--this sometimes leads to labor within 24 hours). Well, Susan did have some "hard" contractions last night, but alas, they went away.

It makes me think of the scripture: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of eagles..." (Isaiah 40:31)

And also: "Be still and know that I am God..." (Psalm 46:10)

We covet your prayers as we learn to "wait upon the Lord."

It's time to get with it...

I'm thrilled to be starting our family's first Blog!

Welcome to the 21st Century, right?

My plans for this page are:

1. Keep family and friends posted on our family's activities with photos and commentary,
2. Post my not-so-eloquent musings on things going on in (and outside of) the world,
3. See if I can actually maintain a blog page!

These are (and will continue to be) the "best days of our lives." Why? Because that is our outlook. While many in this country wallow in fret, I hope this blog can be a tiny little outpost of positive thinking. You'll let me know if I stray from that, or if you find my musings a little more than "naïve."

Enjoy the ride. It all starts right...






NOW!