Dan Cooley's Blog, page 20

3 Early Christmas Questions

I’m sneaking Christmas Carols like a teenager does smokes.  It’s part JoLynn’s fault. She bought me shotgun shell Christmas lights for my birthday. What a wife.

Playing the carols bring up some interesting questions…

1. Why would God leave gold streets, awesome power, and an angelic army and go… here? Dirt streets, baby power and Roman soldiers laughing at crucifixions seems like a lousy location for a vacation from heaven. Which begs the question…

2. Where do you go when you want a vacation from heaven? And if you left heaven as God for earth…

3. Why not blast some bad guys on your entrance? Instead of appearing to shepherds, why not land on the head of some unsuspecting Pharisee?

In so many ways, Jesus was one bizarre baby. Maybe the most bizarre fact is that He would come at all.

I got tired of trying to motivate myself to write about Bible Zombies. It’s hard to write about zombies while playing Christmas Carols.

So I’m starting a collection of Bizarre Christmas Stories. Shoot any suggestions my way. And don’t forget to save the shells.

BTW – Bizarre Bible Stories 2! hits the shelves in two weeks. Stay tuned to CNN or FOX News for further developments. . . if I get sued. Otherwise just check back in here, your local bookstore, or Amazon.

Mennonite Hunger Games

Not Mennonite? Me either. This kind of makes me sad I’m not.

This is my daughters latest post on her latetoeveryparty blog. I changed the title. Dad’s privilege. Click on her blog to comment or follow.

Mennonite Hunger Games
Posted on August 22, 2014

“About Mennonites: The Book for Outsiders” is coming along nicely. Many people have been sending me their idea’s and insights about their Mennonite heritage.

 One thing I have NOT received is recipes. So out of complete frustration and ignorance, I took liberty and drew some assumptions as to why.

 You know what they say about assumptions…

  Among Mennonite circles any birthday, Christmas,  Easter, engagement or new baby is an excuse for a family gathering. Family gatherings are an excuse to eat.  Forget the reason why the family is gathering, all the focus is on the FOOD. The exception to this is 1 time out of the year when it’s Oma’s birthday. All your thoughts should be on Oma.

 ….And on Jesus Christmas and Easter time….of course…

 Here’s a tiny piece of the chapter rough draft so far.

 The most competitive place in all of Mennonite society (possibly the world) is a Mennonite kitchen. Mennonite women are lovely. However, they are extremely competitive. At an event like a family gathering, these women are all forced into one room where rivals are formed and cut-throat cooking insues. Some Mennonites might not indorse war but with Manno-women, all bets are off in the kitchen.

 The Mennonite Hunger Games. Sort of.

 “How is this possible?” you might ask. “A group of people known for taking  a serious and personally ethical stance for centuries! What would make them willing to put all of that aside?”

 Recipes.

 Mennonite women DO NOT share recipes; they carry them into battle. (Weapons usually needed around Christmas, Easter and Birthdays.)

 If you ask Aunt Anna how she made her Schmauntfatt, she’ll innocently smile and sweetly offer,

 “Oh just take a lump of this and smidgen of that, Nah Yo!?”

 Fantastic, another detailed Manno-recipe to add to your collection.

 Don’t trust her.

 Aunt Anna will not give you her full recipe. Everyone loves it. It was passed down by her mother on her death bed, who got it from her mother on her death bed, who got it from her mother right before hopping the last horse and buggy out of Russia. How dare you ask a close family relative for her Schmauntfatt recipe. How. Dare. You.

 Yes, you said your vows and married her favorite nephew.
Of course, Aunt Anna might be the children’s god-mother.
Yes, you gave Aunt Anna one of your kidneys.

 Who cares? The only woman getting their hands on Aunt Anna’s Schmauntfatt recipe is the one who sits beside her during her last few moments on earth.

Other things I’ve included for the outsider about food:

The Manno-Food Conspiracy
My views on Mennonite Cookbooks
The show “Wipeout” Holdeman Style
If Oma is sacred, the kitchen is holy ground.

Did sprint steal their rotting-flesh-zombie commercial from God?

Have you seen the Sprint TV Ad, where the guy claims to be “undead?” The girl responds, “Like a zombie.”

“Whoa,” he says, “Let’s not go putting labels on people.”

Then his ear drops off.

Here it is: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7qGD/sprint-unlimited-my-way-zombie

It’s right out of Zechariah.

Here it is: Zechariah 14:12 (NLT) And the LORD will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

Now that’s not a verse you will find on the First Baptist church marque.

Why not stick the reference on the bottom of your next birthday card and see if anyone looks it up?

Am I reading this wrong, or does the LORD send a zombie plague on a bunch of people who fought against Jerusalem? Is the coming zombie apocalypse something sent from God to stop the bad guys?

This passage in Zechariah is all about the coming of the Messiah to reign on the earth – something that hasn’t happened yet. As a Christian I interpret it as his Second Coming. So, we may yet see zombies. Maybe the lesson is, “Don’t mess with Jerusalem, or your ear may fall off and your eyes rot out.”

If that is true, it would mean that Jesus loves His followers enough to return to rescue all those who believe in Him, that He keeps His promises, and that He is powerful enough to defeat entire modern-day armies with a simple plague.

But who cares? We want zombies. And it sounds like here we have them. But what I want to know is. . .

Did Sprint steal their rotting-flesh-zombie commercial from God?

Was it a Dream, or Not?

Have you ever had a dream so real, that when it was over you weren’t sure it was over?

I used to have a reoccurring nightmare in grade school. I was running away from something or someone – zombies? – and trying to get back to the safety of my classroom. And, I kept falling. I’d be outrunning the dark evil pursuing me, and then fall and it would get closer. Every time I fell it would get closer and then right when I fell for the last time and the evil was leaning over me, I’d wake up, breathing heavily, and unsure if I was in my bed or dead.

We have an old recording of “The Christmas Carol” we listen to each Christmas. In it, the narrator paraphrases from Dickens, “Marley’s Ghost bothered Scrooge exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked through all over again, “Was it a dream or not?”

Ezekiel had a dream like that. A nightmare of waking up on Zombie breeding grounds. Even when he writes about it, it reads as if he still doesn’t know if it was real or not.

Here’s how he starts. . . Eze 37:1 (NLT) “The LORD took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the LORD to a valley filled with bones.”

Now that’s fairly weird – dream or not. Ezekiel was a pastor about 570 years before Jesus was born. God brings Ezekiel to this valley, and they walk through the old bones – human bones we find out later – which were scattered all over the valley. Then God asked Ezekiel a simple question.

“Can these bones live again?”

Was God was playing with Ezekiel? Of course dead decomposed dried out bones won’t live again. But then, God was there, and He seems to enjoy doing the impossible. Ezekiel wisely passed the buck.

He answered, “Well, God, only you know if they can live.”

That’s when things got weird.

God told Ezekiel to “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! 6 I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

I’d love to see that – at the theater. But Ezekiel was right in the middle of the bone valley. Which makes me wonder – where did these bones come from? Was this an ancient battle scene? A mass, shallow graveyard? Who were these bones from? Were they pre-Nazi Philistines, or giant Goliath relatives, or unlucky slow-runners drowned in the valley from the aftermath of a Tsunami?

Not that it matters.

Anyway, Ezekiel was stuck there in the middle of the bones when he heard “a rattling noise all across the valley.” The bones got up and started attaching themselves together. In time an entire skeleton army surrounded him. Then muscles, veins, tendons, and bloody innards started attaching themselves to the bones. Finally they got covered in skin. Even zombies don’t want their innards falling out.

Thankfully, “they still had no breath in them.”

But not for long.

God then told Ezekiel to 9 “Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”

At this point Ezekiel may have wanted to stay silent. But God was bigger. . .10 “So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.”

I’m guessing this bothered Ezekiel exceedingly. He had to be wondering, “is it a dream, or not?”

It’s either a zombie nightmare or a zombie reality.

God went on to tell Ezekiel that these bones represented the nation of Israel. God said that the nation looked dead because it was dying in exile. The bones coming to life were a picture of how God would bring the nation back to life. This happened in 539 BC when God brought the nation out of captivity and back to their land – and again in 1948.

But who cares about God watching after His people, keeping His word, redeeming us, protecting us, and never giving up on us? We didn’t read this far for life-changing, sin-removing, problem-solving, eternal hope.

We want zombies.

Was it a dream, or not?

So Many Christians. So Few Lions.

We had a Cooley family reunion at our place last week. My brother and two of my sisters, with their spouses were here early enough to make a run up the Jemez Mountains. We are missionary kids. Pastors kids. We married believers. We don’t like lions.

We stopped in Jemez Springs for coffee and a snack. We were eating outside when a gal was having trying to start her car. You could hear the starter solenoid clicking – it was going nowhere.

My brother Dave and I went over to give her car a jump. As we were hooking things up, I couldn’t help but notice her shirt. Emblazoned in bright letters on a black T-shirt were the words. . .

“So many right-wing Christians. So few lions.”

Once we got her car running I said, “I couldn’t help but notice your shirt. It’s my kind of surprise humor. But you need to know – we came to help you because we’re all Christians.”

She looked a bit embarrassed, saying “Oh, my friend gave me this shirt. I forgot I had it on, I was just looking for a black one this morning.” Then she rambled on a bit, and we got into a short but great conversation. Doing good really does break down the barriers.

Her name is Amy, and she went to Westmont College – an evangelical school in Santa Barbara. We discussed the change in her journey and beliefs, and I was able to leave her with a Cottonwood Church pen with our website on the side. I wish I’d have thought to pray with her, I’m sure she would have been good with that.

So, if you can spare a minute, please pray for Amy. A bad battery in Jemez Springs when the only help around was 8 lion-hating Christians can’t be a coincidence.

Daughter’s Awesome COMPASSION Post

This was posted on my daughter Megan’s blog. If you don’t follow her, you should. We were able to go see our compassion child – this is her take on the day, way better than I could write it.
 
Compassion Sunday: Bregard’s Story
Posted on July 11, 2014

This Sunday at our church is Compassion Sunday (For more information visit Compassion International).

Last week I was able to visit my family’s compassion child, Bregard in Port au Prince, Haiti. As we drove out to his house we passed a place where the body of my friend’s brother  was left on the street only a few days before. It’s a bad area. I couldn’t help but think, “How close does Bregard live to here?”.

Byron, our friend who’s lived in Haiti for 7 years (with mcmhaiti.org) told us this was the same route he used to take to drop off the trash at the dump. He quit taking it there after a gang started making him pay to use the road. He said if the car would stop on the street people would climb into the back of the truck and start going through the trash. I couldn’t help but think, “This is my 4th time here, would Bregard have gone through my trash?”

I’ve read people’s opinions about Compassion both positive and negative. Here’s what I learned to be true for Bregard.

1. Before Compassion called his father to say he had a sponsor, his father was looking into orphanages to place him because he could no longer provide for his son.

2. Before Compassion the family was separated. His mother and siblings were living in the mountains, his father in the city looking desperately for work. Due to his limited education, construction is the only job he could apply for and because he has asthma, this made finding a job in an already difficult economy, impossible.

3. After the earthquake, Bregard and his dad were living out of a tent.

4. This year when we visited, we found the whole family together again. His father has a job and the family has a sturdy home built on a hill. The placement of the house allows a breeze to run through it, which keeps the home cool and the mosquitoes to a minimum.

5. Without Compassion, Bregard WOULD be an orphan without an education and without any healthcare. Something else I learned is that if Bregard has any health issues, Compassion pays 80% of his expenses.

6. Before we left his house we swapped prayer requests and prayed for each other. I asked Bregard to pray for one of my friends who has cancer. I had a prayer bracelet and gave it to him. I told him it was my reminder to pray for my friend and now it’s his reminder.

 

7. I believe that because of Compassion, Bregard is my friend. My friend has a whole family. My friend has a good  education. My friend has a bright future.

 

 

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Caleb English Camp Teacher

 You can watch an extremely SHORT video of Caleb Cooley teaching at mcmhaiti.org English Camp here. I thought there was much more recorded, but that’s’ what you get with an old man operating a smart phone.

We are all back, all healthy, no one got the “bent man” disease, and we even got the old Isuzu Trooper running – potentially a greater miracle than that of Lazarus.

Enjoy!

UTube The (Insane) Love of God

For those not on Facebook, here is the link for the Haitian ladies singing The Love of God in Creole. My dad used to sing The Love of God beautifully – he sang it at Megan’s Child Dedication. Anyhow the Haitian ladies we work with sing it at morning devotions and it brought back good memories. For the insane reference, read the lyrics through to the end.

Lyrics – in English!

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

God gave His Son to win;

His erring child He reconciled,

And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure—

The saints’ and angels’ song.


When hoary time shall pass away,

And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,

When men who here refuse to pray,

On rocks and hills and mountains call,

God’s love so sure, shall still endure,

All measureless and strong;

Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—

The saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

Verse 3 was penciled on the wall of a narrow room in an American insane asylum by a man said to have been demented. The lines were discovered when they laid him in his coffin.

One Small House

Megan and I were able to visit one of our Compassion International kids yesterday. We went to the office first where we met Bergard, our sponsored child, and his dad. I had met them once -before the earthquake. Their house collapsed, but they were not home at the time. They were in a tent for a long time, but now have a house.


Anyway, we got the Compassion talk, met the director and office staff, and took off to go see the rest of Bregard’s family and new house. It was LONG drive, we had to go by citi soli, which is pretty sketchy. He now lives real close to the house we built a few years ago. His house is the long one with the red tin in the center most of the way up the hill. It is large enough for two rooms. U walk into a room with a dining table, chairs stored underneath so there is room to walk around it. Behind it is the bedroom. Made from rough machete cut 2x4s and tin.


I have a good friend here named James, who I’ve been able to work on cars with and give lots of clothes to, as he also has that skinny tall physique. Anyhow you can pray for him. His brother died the other day, the funeral is tomorrow. A gang held the body for ransom. WE drove by the spot his body was at, under tarps on the side of the road, on the way to Brigard’s house.


Jon and I replaced a generator/city power 2 house switch this morning – with the city power running. They have no cut-off switches here. Even if it had been Winnipeg cold I think I’d have been sweating.


Thanks for your prayers,


Dan

Cooleys in Haiti

Today is the first day of English Camp. We have 13 here from Cottonwood. Today is the first day of English Camp. It is going super smooth. We have 13 here from Cottonwood, but with all the interpreters, summer staff and support help we have almost 40 workers for the 400 kids who were signed up. Most of our workers are working with the kids- teaching English or Bible or doing Sports, that kind of thing. Kids are divided up between boys and girls and then go through different stations. Megan is working in the Kitchen, Caleb is teaching Bible, Jon is doing repairs somewhere, and I’m writing you.

English Camp is kind of like a Vacation Bible School, but with an emphasis on learning English. . .  and twice as long. . . and with interpreters. . . and all outside. . . without AC. . . and with two meals a day.

I guess it’s really not like VBS at all.

It sure is cool to watch your kids serve this way. The kitchen is a brutal place to work. It’s a normal sized kitchen, supper hot and crowded in there, with 400 breakfasts and lunches to prepare. They do seem to have a lot of fun working together, and the new sink should be a help. Caleb has a great interpreter, they should have a lot of fun working together.

Megan just walked by and asked, “Are you still doing nothing?” So, let me say that working in the kitchen is really easy. There is food whenever you want it, drinking water close by, no kids screaming at you, what a life.

Dan