I have fail but God's grace is enough for me and a short talk to the shirt

I am sitting in the hotel lobby as looking around. There are a couple of females sitting behind the right elevator (as I look at the elevator). I recongize the ladies from Club Havanna, a place where I went yesterday. Above them, in my view of sight, is the Las Vegas casino, which is a small casino that is attached to hotel. As I look, I see the sin tha surrounds the city. I have been told that _______ is one the porn capital's in the world. I have fallen in the as I hang out with the people that do not share the same faith that I do. A problem araise when the Mormon friend sticks to the hotel and does not get out much. He reads for his classes and the Bible and book of mormon and tends not to go out. He has not seen much of the city. I invite him but he does not go so he can save money. So the one problem has been that there are a lot of beautiful women that I often catch myself taking a second look and sometime engaging in lustful talking. In that regard, I have not shown the love of God to the fellow co-workers. On another regard, I have kept myself from getting drink. I have choose to allow only one drink per night that I can slip on for a while.

I need to work on my transitions to continue the story. But while I was doing my daily reading, which at that time I was reading in Luke 7. The first sergeant (shirt) came up to me. She saw that I was reading and asked me what I was reading. I told her the Bible and she was a little astonish. We talk a little about our reading plans. She is doing a New testament reading plan called the 5x5. It is read 5 times a week for five minutes. Basical reading parts of chatpers a day. I also talked about the 3-1-1, which is what I do. I also told her that I am trying to figure out I am going to do in about 18 months or when I get out. But out of the blue, she asked if I was dating anyone. I told her that I was not seeing. She told to pray that God will help me prepare for a wife and that God will provide a wife. I did not tell her that I have prayed and now I am waiting for the Lord to provide. I did example a joke about My friend and his wife-to-be setting me up and the big joke around. Personal, I think it will not work. What did strick me was that she said that God has a wonderful plan for me life. I kinda question it in my mind. I think she meant what the emergent church teaches but I am going to that it that God has a wonderful will that includes my life. It is all about God. Ironicly or maybe a great plan by God, to finish my daily reading with 1 Corinthians 7. This is where Paul urges people to remain single so that they can praise God and not have to worry about pleasing a wife (in my case). He also states that if you are burning with passion to marry. I figure I need to stop hanging out with Kyle and Betsy as a group of 3. I figure that if God wants he to have a wife, she will be someone that I am a friend with first, like Mike and Tegan. I am not going to push the issue any more becuase God knows it already. Well I need to jet off before I pay way to much for the internet.

Deployment Fun.

I finally was allowed to use in the internet. Since I do not get a lot of time and soon time will be non-existent. This first week has been slow. I am current only working my 2nd 12. I might have to come one more time before the whole thing begins. So far I have been sight-seeing and reading the Holy Word. I will have crew show in a little bit before my night is over. I will have a lot of pics and blogs to post after I get down with this depolyment. Later.

It is snowing and it is great.

The ground final is covered with the beloved white water crystals. It started after 2230 yesterday because that is when I got home and it was not snowing then. It appears to be dry as it justs fall to the ground. It is just so great to see snow on the ground. It has been a while. It brings so many memorizes about the good ol' time back in Nebraska. Not really Oklahoma b/c OK snow sucks. The first memory was walking when it was snowing like this. A little flurry just always made a nice trip. Another memory is going to church in this type of snow wonderland. Believe it or not, I have some really good camping times in the snow. In fact, I like (or did like) camping in the winter much more than camping in the summer. It was more about learn to survive and less about trying to keep cool. That is the fun part. As I aged more, I learned to dress better and warmer. During the highest stage of my camping career, I would wear shorts outside b/c I could handle the cold temps better than most of my fellow class mates. The best memory I have was a lying in my tent with snow on the ground. That night I freeze out. My sleeping bag was rated to 0 degrees. It was 5 below. Fun memorizes. So I remorse in the fallen snow, and my cold but beautiful walk to church. Pull up some hot chocolate and get a great movie. We all need to remember these cold days together.

Diner at a Friend's home and God.

My Mormon friend from work asked me to diner tonight. He had invited the local Mormon missionaries. The first part of the evening went well. I was about to tell my sidewalk joke but resisted because they do not know my humor yet. After diner, we talk about how the great apostasy that Amos prophesied was now over b/c of Joesph Smith. I asked him if that have been fullfilled before Christ, he said no. I left it at that. Later he said that when Joesph Smith was looking for the truth, he prayed to God and then a pillar of Light was above him and, God said something and then the Book of Mormon was formed. I asked him, "if Joesph Smith was looking for the truth, then why did he not look in the Bible? Jesus said 'I am the truth, the way, and the life. No one goes to heaven except through me.'" He did not answer my question. Some other things happened and then my friend used 1 Peter 4:6. That was a reason why they baptized for the dead. I looked up the word death in that verse. It meant spiritual died. After the missionaries and my friend went through all the passages the Mormon use to justify that died being baptized. They realized that Jesus, Peter, and Paul were talking about different deaths. The missionaries were speechless. One said that he was going to have to study what I was saying. I told them that the reason I went to the Greek, was because of the mistranslation that can happen between languages. The biggest thing is that they only used 2 verses to tell use that Joesph Smith ended the apostasy. The night ended with everyone leaving and me talking home Shela. She is also Mormon. She asked me what religion I was and I answered Christian. Towards the end on the drive, I said that my parent are more work based salvation. That is what the Mormons believe. I started exampling my belief in salvation by grace by telling here that all works are like dirty rags to God, quoting Isaiah 64:6. Then exampled Eph 2:8-9 that God does it all and finished, as I drove up to her dorm, that Paul wrote in Romans 11:6, if by works then it is no longer a gift. Please pray for Shela that the words I spoke will set in if they are true as spoken by God.

BTW, it is almost 2100 and I need to be at work at 0030. I have not slept yet.

Power went out and picture time in hanger,

It was a fine time today. Woke around 0800 hrs and set off for RAF Alconbury to finish up my uniform shopping. After my trip to Alconbury and then lunch at Popeye's over at Lakenheath. I went to bed, took a 4 hr nap. It was a good sleep until the fighter decided to do a low level fly-by of the dorms. I HATE FIGHTER FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. After waking up and doing the normal work prep. I was talking to my cousin on IM when everything went dark and I still had to shave. That was adventure. Trying running from my mirror in my bathroom, 2 or 3 steps to my sink. The light in bathroom was not bright also. I had a really bad shave. Went to work almost late, without food. Still on the 1 meal diet, losing much weight. Whilst on my way to work, I was going to hit the Shoppette for some grub. BX building dark like building with out lights inside. Weird? So I continue on my dark journey to my work center/ moral destroying work center. They do are without power, great. At least, the hanger I was going to work in for the next 12-14hrs still had power. So we went to do the lube on my jet, and that is why I got this picture. THE END!

I love long point stories with no real ending.

The best quote yet.

I was talking to my Mormon friend's wife about grace. This was a concept that she found hard to fully understand. It started after a talk about the short comings the Catholic church has. She asked me if I believe that there is one true church on earth. I said yea, the body of Christ. Well, she wanted an actually church name, looking for me to say some Protestant church. She found an article talking about the Mormon church and how it the "ONE TRUE CHURCH OF OUR LORD A SAVIOR!" (really loud like a bullhorn). In this lame article, it says, "They are not needed even now (apostles, prophets, and current revelation), it is said by those who claim that the Bible contains the full word of God. This is a sad evidence of the spiritual darkness that came into the world." The whole article is here on the LDS.org website. According to my Mormon friend, the world needs revelation from a prophet to run right. I guess the Holy Spirit can not do it by himself. My question is wonder why did Paul write to Timothy in his 2nd letter chapter 3 verse 16-17, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." What about 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." I think that the spirit can do it by itself. One reason why Mormon's believe that they need prophets now is because that is how God did it before Christ. He also did it John for Revelation. From what I have read, God's Spirit was the one talking through one man to a group. Who would I need someone man to tell me what I can and cannot do when the God-man told me everything I need to know to get to heaven? There is much more for me to learn before I give a full rebuke of the text that I read from the true living Word of God.

This is why I love the Air Force!!

Starting Saturday I will one busy man. I start off by having weekend duty. WD is 2 12hrs shifts. Not knowing if I am washing or lubing I will work another 12 starting at 7am Monday or work an 8 Sunday night/Monday Morning then work another 12 Monday night at 1900. Then I will work another 12 (possibly) Tuesday night or I will work a normal shift Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Simply math says I will work between 40hrs to 50hrs in 4 days, closer to 50hrs. I will also work 11 day in a round with out a break. Please pray that I will not burn out because I will be challenge in a couple of weeks with another terrible work schedule.

A movie review

I watched a movie yesterday before I went to bed. It was called August Rush. It was about a musical genus looking for his parents. It was a good movie. Robin Williams play a serious part and does will. The ending was good but one more scene could have made it better. I would give it a 3.5 stars. It would also be better of Keri Russell knew how to play the cello. There were parts where she was not playing the same as what the music was playing. She also did not do the cello rock. Since cellist do not much room to move. Cellist tend to rock around the chair to feel the music. It adds another dimension to the feel of the music. If you ever get a chance to watch Yo-Yo Ma play, watch the rock. So that was my 2 cents. Cheers!



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Listening to: Yo-Yo Ma - Bach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Praeludium
via FoxyTunes

... and then it stood me up like I was hitting a wall.

The wind here is England has been crazy. It is has been like 45knots or more forever. Working around aircraft does not help the situation. Here is a little science/aerospace engineering. When air moves, the particules say in the line of direction unless an object is in it wways. After the air partucle goes up or down, it returns in the same line of travel as if the object was not there. When you squeeze air, like between the ground and the fuselage of an aircraft,the pressure decreases and the speed stays the same. So try to walk under a fuselage with wind blowing at 50mph. It makes it had to walk.

AWANA Games and more fun on a Sunday

This past weekend (March 3) was AWANA Games at RAF Alconbury. It was a great time. The kids played with my camera and they got some shots like this one to the right. Awana Games and Spark-a-Rama is when clubs compete against each other in Awana games like four way tug-of-war. The Games included RAF Alconbury and RAF Fairford. I went to be a line judge but need up playing with the RAF Mildenhall/RAF Lakenheath kids on the bleachers. Since most of the kids knew who I was, it made it interesting. I am still trying to learn the behaviors of kids. I was trying to get them to listen to the presentation of the gospel. They would not listen but hey they did not interrupt it. I got to take what I get right? Besides bad picture of Chaplain Peters, Levi took a picture of his shirt (left). Now to the games, in the Truth and Training club (T&T) part of the games, we had 2 teams. We came first and last. I think we did good. Here is a picture of both teams after the games. The Sparks were next and they did very well. They did get 2nd behind a good Fairford team.

The differnce in Churches

I have always been a guy who likes the designs of buildings. Today, I went to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the main CoE Cathedral in the City of London. It cost me £10 to get in. I always hate paying to see a church but I realize that having 1.4 million or so visitors every year can do some damage to the church. The details of St. Paul's are unexplainable and everything looks perfect. The pictures on the ceiling are one of a kind. After in awe of the details and see what churches look like back home and in Oklahoma. Where is the detail gone? More churches are going with a contemporary theme. They losses the beautiful craftsmanship. I know that God really does not care about where we worship because we should be worshiping everywhere. It might be the people. It seems that without science, people tend to believe in God and act like his was their king. They believe that God's place of worship should be like the royal palace. What happen to the pictures of what Christians believe? The pictures of Christ death or his birth? What Jesus helping the poor or eating with sinners? One reason I like to tour these cathedrals is to feel the sacredness that is needed to worship God. That awe of coming to the Creator to ask for his direction for our and others lives. I will leave you with lyrics from Matt Redman's Call to Worship and a couple of pictures.

"Come, come let us worship
Come let us recognize what a sacred thing we do
Come, let us bow down"





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Listening to: Matt Redman - Call to Worship
via FoxyTunes

from no work to peeling off a bird

This week is almost over and it was been a hard week work wise. Monday was a normal day at work with some downtime after everything was ready to fly. Tuesday was a harder day. We prepared 11 jets for flight. This is not an easy task. They started to launch out early in the morning also. After a jet came back b/c of an erratic gage, it made the day even longer. That was a 10 hrs day when set and over with. Wednesday morning prove to continue the trend with an 8 hrs tire & brake change. It started with our AGE driver not able to get our AGE equipment to us until like 0130hrs. Then the axle jack was broken. It would be nearly 2 hrs to get another axle jack from the other side of base. SO! Around 0400hrs the tire/brake change started to go. Everything went smoothly with a hiccup with documentation, another 10 hr day. Thursday night I did something that I have never done before. I cleaned off a bird that decided to fly into my airplane. And the bird lost to the INBD tailing edge flap OTBD jack screw (and no one knows where that is). There quite a bit of blood on the connection point where the jack screw attaches to flap. There was some splatter on the aileron. But in the end, I found out that 2 Chaplains I have been able to know have received a line number for Major or O-4. So when you are praying, please give God the praise for Chap. Peters and Chap. Thornton.

Update: I looked at the list and found another Chaplain that I now from Tinker that also made Major.

The Air Force has chosen to destroy America

The Air Force has chosen a new tanker to replace the KC-135, which is what I work. The new model of the 135 is from 1963. The need is great. Some might remember a couple of years ago when Boeing hired at DoD employee if she had Boeing win the contract. That forced the AF to reopen the contract. Northrop Grumman won the new contract and will be using the Airbus A330. How does this destroy America, you ask? It is the money. Airbus is a foreign company. Some of that $40 Billion contract will go to European economy that growing and does not look like it will stop. As the dollar falls to the rest of the world, The AF has decided to send more money to Europe increasing their economy. Airbus has said that they will be built in Mississippi, but the parts are to made in Europe and shipped across. Boeing was the favorite is a US company that deals with only US sub-contractors. They would provide more jobs in the US than Airbus. Northrop Grumman does not built planes but is the US company that is sponsoring Airbus for the deal.

If I could sleep, I would work better.

This week has been a challenge to say the least. Sleep was the issue of the week and lack and quality was the problems. This week I was taking like 3 hrs nap and then wake up wide wake. Thenv3 or 4 hrs later I was died tired. That is a problem when I wake 2 hrs prior to work then try to work 10-12hrs. It had it even harder to stay wake during a fuel load. A lot of extra gas, like 2000 or more pounds of fuel, requires at least 30 extra mins of work. When it comes to inspections, I tend to miss stuff because I can not focus on the area of inspection. I usually do up-stairs so the person downstairs can do a double inspection. A double inspection is when 2 or more inspections are done at the same time. The bad part of the week started Wednesday. I went to bed at 1000hrs and woke up at 1300. SInce I have to go to AWANA, I stayed up. I went to work at 2300hrs. I have been up for 10 hrs on 3 hrs of sleep, I also worked all shift. Went to my 0900 hrs appointment, at that time I have been up for 20hrs. I meet with the Chaplain and then the PMOC lunch that ended at 1300hrs. I went to bed to only wake up 3.5hrs later to attend the Annual 100th ARW Award Banquet. Which lasted till 2130. I would go to work and by God's Grace the work load was none and I was able to get a CB and go home at 0400hrs. I was in bed by 0500hrs. Since then I have sleep 12hrs in 24hrs. I finally feel refresh just in time to attend AWANA games in RAF Alconbury. I will take pictures of all enjoyment.