Month: December 2009

A Vacation Worth Waiting For

This is where Andrea and I will be in just…45 days now.  You say, how can a newly married couple in this recession economy end up on a tropical vacation?  Good question!  This was supposed to be our honeymoon spot.  Almost a year ago, I booked flights and paid for bed and breakfast accommodations: I think it was supposed to be from May 25-June 2.  Three weeks before our wedding, though, a little predicament came in our way called Swine Flu.  I know, I know, it ended up being a big scare over nothing; but it was a big deal back then, if you can remember.  We took some counsel over the whole thing, and instead of taking chances during our honeymoon, we decided to stay in Chicago for the week or so after our wedding.  It ended up being perfect, and better than we could have ever expected…especially after what we get now!  Two airline tickets and accommodations that I already paid for a year ago!

Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico is where our vacation will take us.  This old pueblo in the Yucatan Peninsula has about 10,000 people in it, the majority of which still have indigenous Mayan roots.  I originally picked Tulum because of its tropical climate, beautiful scenery, very reasonable prices, and overall quiet feel (from what I have read on the internet).  Our “casita” is about six miles north of Tulum itself on the coastal road, just 150 feet from the Caribbean Sea!  It looks incredible!  We are also staying 4 nights in a little “posada” (inn) in the pueblo of Tulum itself–the real Mexico, as Andrea would say.  We plan on eating a lot of Mexican food (I trust my wife to find the places that are sanitary/healthy!), seeing a lot of neat things,  and enjoying the Mayan Riviera winter (85 degrees, and no rain).

Some attractions we want to see are the Mayan ruins of Tulum (in the picture above), Chichen-itza (one of the seven wonders of the world), cenotes (giant sinkholes of freshwater that are popular to swim in), and the jungle itself–which is practically everywhere that the ocean isn’t.  We are so spoiled to be able to go on this trip!  We certainly don’t deserve it!

Pastor Chris will be picking us up to take us to the Baltimore/Washington Airport at 3:15am–a little payback, I say, for us having to do the same thing for him and his wife a couple of months ago!  Our flight leaves at 5:45am,  and after a short layover in Houston, we fly to Cancun, arrive at 11:15am, and drive 2 hours south to Tulum.  And I had better stop now–I don’t want to tell the story before we get there!  Our hotels have internet, so I bet we will post at least once from Mexico.

Our casita on the Caribbean

A Right Christmas

This past Sunday morning, our pastor, Randy Starr, preached a eye-opening and interesting message about the Christmas season.  Most of us have heard the song I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas that was made famous by Bing Crosby.  Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with the song or the notion of having a white Christmas, but so often we can get the whole point of Christmas all mixed up.  We have a dream of this picture perfect holiday with a cheery family, plenty of brightly wrapped gifts, the annual Christmas concert, lots of feasting, and of course: snow.  Generally, that is the attitude that even most Christians have about the season.  It’s the “White Christmas” mentality.

But in Pastor’s message, he went through several points of the Christmas story that we all know, and showed us how we can even get caught up with the good Christian celebrations of Christ’s coming, and forget about our relationship with Christ.  Why do we have a dream of a “White Christmas” instead of a “Right Christmas?”  Before all of the joyous festivities with our friends and family, why not make sure we are right with that baby that–don’t forget this–grew up to be a man who died on the cross for our sins.  Jesus was not born so we can celebrate Christmas.  Jesus was born because of God’s love for us.  He came to die on the cross for us.  He came to raise himself up from the tomb.  He came to save us.

The first thing we must have in order to have a right Christmas is a true relationship with God.  This relationship is impossible without a certain time in our lives when we were born again–a time when we realized we were a sinner, repented of our sin, and accepted Jesus’ free gift of salvation.  John 3:7 says, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”  It has nothing to do with our works–whether it be communion, baptism, tithing, church attendance, or good deeds (Titus 3:5-Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;).  It has everything to do with being born again.  Without being born again, it is impossible to have a relationship with God.  It is impossible to have a right Christmas.

For us that have been born again and become a Christian, we still can lose the whole thought of having a right Christmas.  We get focused on how this person is going to like the gift I got them, or whether a certain family member is going to visit or not, or whether there is going to be snow on the ground on December 25th.  We judge how well our Christmas season went by those material things.  If any of our “White Christmas” dreams don’t come true, we hang our head low and depress ourselves.  If everything happens just how we think it should go, then we walk around everywhere with a huge fake smile on our face.

However, the real question, before any of the “White Christmas” dreams, is rather, are we having a right Christmas.  Are we right with God?  If we have sin that we are trying to hide from Him, then we are not right.  If we are holding a grudge or ill will against anyone, we are not right.  Any sin that sits between us and God guarantees us of not having a right Christmas.  This Christmas season, try to dream of having a perfect relationship with God, rather than having a “White Christmas.”  It would be so much better of a day on December 25th if we were truly right with our Savior–even more so than a foot of snow, a beautiful tree, lots of presents, lots of family, and lots of food.  This Christmas, instead of saying, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”, say, “I’m happy with a right Christmas.”  After we can do that, I believe God will give us a lot of those other things too.

"It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

…So the song goes; and so it goes here in York County, Pennsylvania!  Andrea has been dreaming of snow for a while now, and fretting a little that we may not get as much here as we grew up with in the Great Lakes region.  However, we woke up this morning to a couple of the first snow flurries of the season.  Not much, but enough to make you want more.  The forecast said that it would probably end around 9:00am.

We drove to church to go soulwinning around 10:00am this morning, and guess what?  It was still snowing a little–and maybe even more than earlier.  We kept saying, “Ahh, it won’t stick.”  Much to our surprise, it began to snow harder, and it did stick!  From what I here, we just got our first snow before our families in Northwest Indiana.  Just a few minutes ago, we took these pictures just outside of our home:

Den Tannenbaum der Speckhals

English- “The Christmas (Fir) Tree of the Speckhals'”

I am a big fan of real Christmas trees.  So that’s one thing that I planned to do when I had my own home.  Locally, there are not a lot of Christmas tree farms, so we went and picked one up from a local grocery store lot–benefits going to the York County Food Bank.  We left the house around noon yesterday to pick out our tree…

After eating some pizza for lunch, we went hunting–for a tree.  Our ceiling isn’t too awfully high, so I knew we couldn’t have some enormous one.  After choosing which type we wanted (Fraser Fir), we had to pick the perfect one.  After just five or so minutes of deliberation, we found “the one.”  It’s a 7 foot tall beauty!

After that, we drove the two miles home, and carried it up the stairs.

Then came all of the light wrapping and decorating, and finally the finished project…

It ended up being far better than we could have expected and more than we deserve!

Mine and Andrea’s wedding presents from each of our respective parents was conveniently our childhood Christmas ornaments that had been saved up through the years.  With that, and some Andrea has collected over the last year, our tree was was abounding with decorations.

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We look forward to having our Christmas tree be a part of our family for the next month.