Low Country Blogger Meetup

On Thursday I met up with a wonderful group of people who are part of the LowCountry Bloggers group. We met at the Glass Onion on 1219 Savannah Hwy. I have only been associated with this group for about a year now with regards to attending the meetups. My blog at http://jcmoffitt.blogspot.com has been listed with LowCountry bloggers website for quite some time and I had not even known it.

I believe that my introduction to twitter by a dear friend of mine is what awakened me to this group of folks who use Twitter to communicate about every day happenings both personally and professionaly. I remember when my friend introduced me to twitter the first time. At first I was really resistant because I felt that it was just silly to micro blog. I was very content with my occasional spurts of blogging here and there when I had the time. Once I installed the Twitter client and started using it I was hooked. Micro blogging allows you to be spontaneous and to post thoughts about this and that with a limit of 140 characters. Making a statement and confining me to 140 characters was somewhat daunting since I can be long winded.

One of the nice things about being a part of the LowCountry Bloggers group is that I am part of a community that has something in common. We all love to write about whatever it is that we write about and most of us seem to be addicted to technology in one way or the other. Every month the group gets together to eat and talk and take pictures. I have only attended three or four of these meetings but I have enjoyed myself each time. I can not speak for anyone else other than myself but it is easier for me to communicate through the written word from the comfort of my recliner and laptop vs meeting complete strangers in a social setting. The thought of doing that can be scary at times.

Thanks to Twitter and blogging I have met folks like Heather Solos, Don Lewis , Jared Smith and others which means that my social network has slowly but surely been expanding. Just like the Star Trek intro says "Going boldly into strange new worlds", Just today I spent some time on Vox looking for other Lowcountry bloggers and added them to my neighborhood. One of them I actually know through the LowCountry Bloggers group and one of them I did not. The cool thing is that we all have something to contribute not only to the blogosphere but also to one another. Until just recently I had not realized how tunnel visioned that I had become by only focusing on my blogs and not really paying attention to others. I guess that I felt as if the "blogosphere" was so huge that it was like a forrest that was too scary to even wander into. There is no way that any of us can have the time to read all the blogs that are out there nor will we be interested in everything either.

The food at the Glass Onion on Savannah Hwy was very good. The business card describes their food as "soulfull food". I am not sure that I understands what that means however I will say that what I ate was very tastey. I ordered their Gumbo which was spicey but not over the top. I enjoyed their world famous banana bread pudding with a touch of whiskey as well. Both the gumbo and desert were delicious and I am looking forward to taking my family there one day soon. The restaurant is in an excellent location in West Ashley and it appears to seat between 50 + people. Our meetup started at 6 pm and sometime between 6 pm and about 7 pm the place started to fill up pretty quickly. Heather had already arranged to reserve 3 or 4 tables for us and those filled up quickly. The staff was very busy but they were very courteous and did an excellent job of filling all of our requests in a time manner. I would highly recommend this establishment to anyone.

If you are a lowcountry blogger I would highly recommend that you try to attend some of the LowCountry Blogger meetups. They happen monthly and Heather Solos does an excellent job in coordinating the effort and finding us a different place to meet each time. In the three or four times that I have attended the meetups everyone has been very cordial, friendly and helpful. I have not had a problem in finding something in common with folks at my table and jumping into the conversation. I am thankful that this group of folks are here and that I can be allowed to expand my horizons and learn more about other folks and the things that are of interest to them.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Thoughts on presidential news conference

I do not pretend to understand politics in Washington however I did decide to listen to the first presidential news conference this evening. In the next few days there will be plenty of qualified and unqualified political analysts who will be sure to analyze what was said tonight and what the Treasury Secretary will say tomorrow.

Whether or not we voted for the current president or not one thing is certain. Our current president has inherited a huge mess. We may or may not like the man for whatever reasons however he is the man for the job in this next 4 years and we should support him.

One thing is for certain folks, things are certainly a huge mess. Lots of folks just like you and me are losing jobs left and right. The President stated that it was as if everyone in the state of Maine has lost their jobs. Lets assume for a moment that all of the people who have lost their jobs subscribe to Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman and they have 3 to 6 months of emergency funds saved up. Will that be enough time for things to turn around or not? The only problem with that assumption is that it is not reality. I am thinking that the percentage of folks who are not living from pay check to pay check is extremely low.

The president spoke of a three pronged plan which over the next year will begin to stop the current recession from spiraling completely out of control. He promised that there are no pork barrel spending or wasteful earmarks for this 800 billion dollar bail out package that he is trying to get passed in congress. The president stated that there needs to be new thinking in Washington and private sector accountability. The president also spoke about entitlements but he never came out and said anything about all of the wasteful spending in Washingon.

I agree with the president in that he has inherited a mess and that he is not solely responsible for the administration of the last 8 years and the mistakes that were made to get us where we are today. Never the less our president and former senator was part of the problem. Our government wants Corporate America to become accountable for how they spend government bail out money and not use it for frivolous private jets or ski trips etc.

The same government that promotes a new administration and a new way of thinking is not addressing the problems within the white house itself. Does our government and its leaders really identify with how every day Americans are living and being affected by this economy?
I believe that our leaders who are supposed to be elected by the people and have the interests of the people at heart are far removed.


Yes, our government has lots of problems and I would say that it has strayed far far away from what our founding fathers meant for it to be.
I also believe that after 200 + years of being a young nation that we all must take responsibility for where we are at. We are one of the richest nations in the world however we are desperately dependent on the middle east nations for more than half of our crude oil. Capitalism is wonderful compared to communism or socialism however if there are not enough checks and balances in place then greed sets in.

It is the age old story of the rich get richer while the poor get poorer and the middle class working stiffs like us get stuck with the bill. Are we all Americans and are we all in this together? If so does that mean that the rich Americans are obligated to do what they can do to help or does that mean that they are shielded from the immediate results of the recession? How many of us Americans are willing to admit that we too are part of the big picture with regards to being greedy?

Most Americans, including those whom we label as poor are richer than most folks in a third world country. It is a crying shame that the richest nation in the world has a growing population of homeless people which some of them are actually veterans of foreign wars. How long will we pursue our capitalistic entitlements at the expense of others around us? It is one thing to support our families however when we do this at the expense of our family values and it starts to affect our children and how they are being raised then we have to start looking at our motivations for having to have a bigger house or newer car.

All I am saying is that our capitalistic system has birthed a materialistic self centered and self absorbed generation that is bent upon feeling good and grabbing up whatever worldly goodies that we can. I am also agreeing with our president in that our Federal Government nor the private sector are going to be able to be solely responsible for fixing our economy. It is going to take each and every one of us to do our part.











James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Sleepless in Duck Ditch

It is 12:43 am Tuesday morning and I am sleepless in Duck Ditch USA. I am watching a rerun of The Closer on TNT. I am sleepless in Duck Ditch because my sleep habits have been screwed up thanks to pnuemonia. I thought that I had a garden variety cold as of last Friday. Typically my colds start out in my head and then move into my chest which causes me to have a day or two of coughing which screws up my rest. This process typically takes one or two days and then I am done with it. As I entered day 4 today I realized it was time to suck it up and go to the HealthFirst Clinic in North Charleston. We like this clinic because it is Christ centered and they move you in and out of there very quickly. They also work with folks who do not have health insurance and allow them to set up payment arrangements on their bill.

Luckily for my family and thanks to my new employer I now have a full time job with benefits. It seems that the whole family was in serious need of these medical benefits since we have all been in and out of the health clinic since the insurance kicked in December of 2008. The alternative to this was just not going to the clinic and just waiting out the symptoms in hopes they will go away. I feel sorry for folks who are already barely making ends meet in this economy and then having to their rent money or car payment money so they can take their loved ones to see the doctor. I have no clue what the current percentages are but I can only imagine that a lot of folks live from pay day to pay day and do not have the magical emergency fund of three months of income that is set aside for these types of emergencies. I am not saying that saving money or having an emergency fund of some sort is impossible. These things are possible if you make very wise financial decisions early on and set up a strict budget that you follow. If you wait until later on in life to make these changes and committments then it is more painful to keep the committment and will take longer to reach the goals.

Grace Fellowship Church in Goose Creek is hosting a 3 day revival February 5,6 and 7 starting at 7 pm. Mitchell Louper is the guest evangelist and from what I have heard is is a very dynamic speaker, singer, preacher and evangelist. I am hoping I feel better enough to sing on the praise team all three nights. We are hosting the revival so that means other churches in the area are going to be meeting with us at our sanctuary which means we should have a full house for three days. Singing in front of home folks seems to be easier than singing in front of a bunch of folks I have never met before. All we can do is make a joyful noise unto the Lord and hope that everyone else will be doing the same thing and not be paying attention to any screw ups.

My Katy has out patient surgery last week and is now trying to recover. Katy has been approved to pursue her Masters Degree in Special Education online so she has been very busy with studying and such things as that. It is hard to believe Jan 2009 is done and now we are into Feburary and Valentines day will be upon us.






James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Low Country Blogger

As you can see at the top of my blog page I am proudly showing off my LowCountry Blogger banner. That means that I am one of many Lowcountry bloggers here in South Carolina. Heather Solos is very instrumental in bringing together all of the Lowcountry bloggers and working with everyone to gain exposure as well as to encourage and facilitate face to face meetups for folks. I have been to several meetups in 2008 and enjoyed them so much I plan on trying to make as many meetups as possible in 2009l. My hat goes off to Heather as she does a bang up job.

Yesterday was January 20th and the lowcountry saw some snow. That is right we had snow flakes coming down here on Kiawah Island where I work. I had been telling all my twitter friends that I had been praying for snow and they thought I was crazy. They are not wrong about my being a bit touched however it did snow. I am wondering if I should pray for bags of cash to fall out of the sky one bill at a time. I probably wont pray for that because that means I would have to share with everyone.

Typically when I blog I write a LOT of stuff. Today is going to be a micro blog and I will probably surprise a lot of folks since this wont be 8 paragraphs long. Have a good week folks, what is left of it.






James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Happy New Year 2009

It is hard to believe that I have had this blog since 2002. That is seven years of sharing stuff from the heart. I also can not believe that it is 2009. Time flies when you are having fun and as fast as time is flying by I must be having a huge party. New Years eve was spent at church with friends as we practiced songs for Sunday service. Wednesday nights are traditionally practice nights for church and then when we can afford it we go out with the gang and get a bite to eat. We did the same thing last night. Once practice was over we hopped in the Durango and took our daughter over to her friends house and then headed over to Texas Roadhouse for supper. Once that was done we headed home and spent the rest of 2009 watching the idiot box and camped out on the Internet.

I have spent some time in 2008 getting familiar with new social networking technologies by joining Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace, Friendfeed, Twitter etc.
Once you join one social network you will find that it is very enticing to join them all. One of the things that I like to do on Facebook other than read what everyone else is doing is to play my favorite game "Bowling buddies". This is a Java driven game where you can dress up your bowling avatar and pick out their clothes, shirts, pants, bowling ball colors etc. Just in the last 4 months I have played almost 400 games. My highest score is 209 and I will not stop until I reach the magical 300 mark. I hope that I do not get carpal tunnel syndrome over this but if I do at least I am having some fun. Last night Gizmo started playing it to see if she can beat my score. So far she is up to 168 so I do not feel too threatened. One of our church friends, Brie who is now living in Germany has a 220 score which means I am in 4th place while Brie is in 3rd place.

The year 2008 was the year that our family got really involved in a hobby called Geocaching. Geocaching is like being a modern day treasure hunter in which you use hand held GPS devices and go out and find a cache. Katy, Justin and I like doing it the most. Katy (Gizmo) has really gotten into the preparation part of this hobby which is to log on to the geocaching.com website and find the new caches and download the way points into the GPS. Once that is done you can also print out the logs and hints and history for each cache. We have a special plastic notebook that we keep all of our paperwork in when we hit the road. Geocaching is good for building teamwork and patience. Geocaching is cool because you can combine technology with the great outdoors and even get some exercise doing it. The harder the cache is to find the more exercise you get. There are two levels of difficulties by which a cache is graded by. One is the size of the cache 1-5 (nano, micro, large) and the difficulty in which the terrain is to get to the cache. That means that a 1-1 cache is going to be an ammo container sitting on the side of the road with a large red neon sign saying find me. Most of the time we stick with caches that are not nano or micro caches (very tiny and difficult to find) and we try to select caches that are 3 or lower in the terrain level because neither of us are physically able to climb trees or scale hills.

Team building and patience go hand in hand. Katy and I found out very quickly that it works better if I drive and she runs the GPS in the vehicle and the laptop computer. You do not have to have a laptop computer with a broadband card but it makes it much more convenient if you do have one. I do the driving and then when we get close enough I start to use the hand held GPS to get the vehicle as close as I can to the cache. Once that is done we get out of the vehicle and then we start looking for the cache. Using the GPS, hints and common sense goes a long way for finding the caches quickly. Same days are better than others when it comes to teamwork and patience. Let’s just say that it takes a lot of work from all of us. We have a good time getting out of the house and visiting the many different cache sites. We normally take some pictures along the way that we can share online as well.

Thanks to my new job and medical benefits Kristina and I have been able to upgrade our glasses for the first time in about 4 or 5 years. We are both very thankful that we can see much clearer now. Katy has been struggling with finding something more than doing substitute teacher openings here and there in Berkeley County which has forced us to make some hard decisions within our budget. Hopefully 2009 will not be as difficult on the economy as the experts are predicting but if it does we may have to make some more difficult changes in our life style. One of the things we are doing immediately is going back to being a one car family. That will reduce our car insurance bill, gasoline and vehicle taxes at the end of the year. That was a difficult decision because it is going to cause a lot of inconvenience with regards to getting around. Generally speaking we are going to have to figure out how to get by with less income and cut out all waste in our budget. We have struggled with that in the past but we are slowly but surely learning how to live within our means.

I am hoping that Katy can find a better job with more hours and I know Katy desires to pursue her Masters Degree and ultimately get her teacher certification which has been harder to do than she first imagined. We are hoping for more stability in these areas this year and we are determined to make the right choices and decisions to help that along.

We wish each and every one of you folks a very prosperous and safe new year in 2009. I hope that your dreams and aspirations are realized as you too work towards your goals and dreams this year.

God bless




James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Merry Christmas

Rise and shine and give God the Glory, Glory. Emanuel, God with us, that is our theme for this Christmas morning. Christmas IS and always has been about Jesus. Christ gave to us grace and mercy and in return we give him our love, respect and adoration. Christ is the true meaning of love, not the thing we call love. The love of God lasts for all eternity. For God so loved the world he GAVE his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God loves you and me and for that I am forever grateful. It will take me a life time to begin to glimpse how much God loves me and longer still for me to learn how to love him back.

This morning was probably a small let down for my two teenagers in that they did not get exactly what they wanted. What they did get was some presents under the tree which is a small token of our love for them. The kids are old enough now to know that money does not grow on a tree and they also know that if it did someone burned our money tree to the ground. The important thing is that we have a roof over our heads, food for our stomachs, clothes on our backs and all sorts of extra stuff that we really do not need to live. We live in a very materialistic and capitalistic country that tries to dictate to us through media that we have gotta have this and that in order to be successful and happy. Do not get me wrong, I love cool presents just like the next guy but those gifts only bring so much happiness and after a while that happiness turns to boredom as I look forward to the newest gizmo or gadget. I think if we were all honest we could admit to being affected like that as well.

The JOY of the Lord is my strength. Knowing that God loves me gives me JOY eternal. God is the same today , yesterday and forever. God never changes or falters. God is always there and I know that I know that if I need him he is only a prayer away. I know that I know that HE is in my heart and that HE fills me with the power of the Holy Spirit which enables me to love God and my friends and family. His Holy Spirit enables me to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The Holy Spirit gives me power to go on no matter how tough this life gets. I try to thank God daily for my family, my friends, my church, HIS love and providence for my life and all the other things he fills my life with. I try to pray for my friends and family and ask God to remember them and bless them from on high.

Today I remember my Jessica. In my minds eye I can see her smiling face and her saying "OH DADDY". I say MY Jessica because she will always be my girl. I know that she does not really belong to me however God entrusted her to me and Katy for a short time here on earth. Life has certainly not been the same since Jessica's Homecoming but I am assured that I will hug her again some day. Jessica loved Christmas time like most children and I remember how her face would light up as she would open each gift. Jessica's spirit was a very bright and joyful spirit that held that magical mixture of hope and fun anticipation. I heard on the radio how hard it is for adults to really get into the Christmas spirit and that is because we have lost that child like wonder about it all.

Christmas is about receiving cool presents and worshiping the Christ child. Just as Christ has given us an awesome eternal gift of love and joy lets remember those folks around us who are not as fortunate as ourselves. There are those around us who have lost loved ones and are grieving this Christmas day. There are those around us who are suffering from depression and all sorts of addictions. There are those around us who are suffering from lonliness. You and I can not touch all of these lives all by ourselves but if each of us will take the time to care and give we can reach out to the people within the community of folks that God has placed us in. Sometimes a 10 minute phone call can bring moments of joy and hope to someone. Just knowing that someeone remembers them and cares and that their life really does mean something more than they think.

Merry Christmas to you and yours from the Moffitt Family.

God bless


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Merry Christmas 2008

Breakfast has been consumed and the trip out to the boardwalk was uneventful. There is very dense fog on the island at the moment and it reminded me of some horror movies I have seen in the past. I almost expected some monster to come out of the fog with a chainsaw in its hand. I guess that means that I have seen way too many horror films and thankfully enough nothing appeared out of the fog.

I am drinking my Hazelnut Cream coffee that a friend of mine bought me for my birthday. Life is good and I am glad that I have friends that love me and are thoughtful on my birthday. I am enjoying the coffee so much I even offered it to some of my select coworkers. I would love to offer it to everyone on the boardwalk but that would mean I would have to get out of my chair and make a fresh pot. I am way too comfortable to do that and the selfish side of me just does not want to go through too much of this good stuff and risk not having enough for myself.

The network is running smoothly and everyone is nestled safely behind their glowing monitors and that means I am taking the time to do some much needed blogging. I missed my calling in life which would be to write full time for a living. Then again, I love technology so much that if I wrote for a living I would not get the satisfaction of solving all the problems that I solve and enjoy the fact that my talents enable others to enjoy using the technology themselves. The thought of having to write for a living means that some of the leisurely relaxation that I get from writing would go out the window. Writing is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. That is what one of my editors from years gone by reminded me of each time she would critique my writing.

Christmas 2008 is almost upon us and while it is 17 shopping days to Christmas the retailers have been pushing the holiday on us for the last 60 days. That in my opinion totally ruins the spirit of Christmas for me. The idea of Christmas to the retailers is to separate us of our money in return for lots of stuff to put under the tree. No, there is nothing wrong with giving or getting presents. The only problem I find with all of this is the focus is all wrong. Instead of saying Happy Holidays or Merry Xmas it should be Merry CHRISTmas. Christmas is about the Christ child, Emanuel, God with us. We have heard this story through the centuries to the point that it has just become a fable or wise tale that we celebrate. The only problem with that is the important significance of who Christ IS has been lost for the sake of having fun, drinking and being merry.

Our Christmas will be a somewhat frugal one. There will not be a lot of presents under the tree. We told our children that if they receive one present per child that they should count themselves blessed. Our children are teenagers so they understand that money does not grow on trees and that times are extremely tough. Just because Christmas may not be filled with lots of giving and getting of cool presents does not mean that we can not find other ways to give to one another and it not cost a lot of cash.

Just yesterday I registered online to become part of the Freecycle distribution list in Goose Creek and Charleston. Freecycle is sort of Craigslist but it focuses mainly on the giving and receiving of stuff that others are getting rid of. If you have something that you are no longer using and you want to bless someone else who does need it you offer it up on Freecycle. The whole idea is to keep the landfills to a minimum and gift the item to someone whom you chose to give it to. You offer the item up and go through the responses and decide who gets it. You are not obligated to fulfill any sort of requirements when choosing who gets it. Last night someone offered up a fake Christmas tree that they were getting rid of. They labeled it as a “Charlie Brown” looking sort of tree but it came with lights and red bows and a stand. Yes, it is used and slightly worn but it is quite functional and with a little bit of care it will work great as our Christmas tree this year. That also equates to a 40 to 50 dollar savings in my budget. That is 40 or 50 bucks that I can spend on a present. How can I go wrong with that?

One of our Christmas presents this year will be our move from the bottom of the hill in Goose Creek to the top of the hill on the other side of Goose Creek near Walmart. I know some of you are thinking, what is the big deal with that? If you have ever heard of Jeff Foxworthy you have heard the “you must be a redneck if” jokes. One of my favorites which fit this paragraph says “You must be a redneck if instructions to your house include turn off the paved road”. Well, instructions to our house, for the last 7 years has been “go to the end of the road, drop off the pavement, go around the old oak tree and find the next to the last trailer on the left at the bottom of the hill”. I guess that means we must be rednecks.

Yes, we are so thankful to have been able to move to a much nicer dwelling than the double wide trailer however I want to make sure to remember that we were living at Suburban Lodge at Ashely Phosphate and I -26 when we found it. We moved to Charleston in June or July of 2000 because our daughter Jessica had taken ill with cancer. We chose Charleston and MUSC for her treatment because it was closer to Bluffton than Memphis Tennessee. My wife and I were crammed into an efficiency with two beds, one bathroom and a tiny closet with our three children. We were living on top of one another and it seems as if we all stayed sick with colds all the time because of the close living quarters.

We were new in town, our credit was not the best and we did not have any savings that would afford us to move into a rental home of any type. We were not destitute because I did have a job still and was getting paid so we were at least able to pay rent somewhere.
Katy was part of a Circle of Friends distribution list in Charleston so she put out a plea asking those ladies if they knew of a place for us to move to. Much to our surprise our friend Shannon wrote us back and told of us a double wide trailer that was then available. Little did we know that our family and her family has several things in common and one of them was the fact that they had a child who had passed away.

What I am saying is that we have not forgotten where we were 7 or 8 years ago nor have we forgotten the huge blessing that Shannon and her family were during those 7 or 8 years as they graciously provided us with a place to stay and worked with us on the rent when times were extremely tough.

No matter where you live there are always some positives and negatives. One of the negatives with living in a double wide trailer surrounded by trees is that every time the weather would go south and there were threats of severe thunderstorms or possible tornados we would have to pack up the family and head for church. Much to my families dislike and much to my neighbor’s amusement this big chicken decided I would not sit still and take the chance that something might blow through the paper thin walls of that trailer and hurt me or my family. One of the things that precipitated my dislike of bad weather is that I was raised in NE Texas near the Oklahoma border and I have seen my fair share of tornados and severe weather and I have seen first hand what it can do to a mobile home. What do all of the weather warnings issued by NOAA say? If you live in a mobile home evacuate immediately and seek safe shelter. Need I say more?

The positive now and it is a huge Christmas present to all of us is that I am not acutely aware of the weather now. That means that when it rains outside I do not hear it because we do not have a metal roof 4 feet over our heads. I am not ignorant about the weather by any stretch of the imagination but I do feel somewhat safer which means that I am not quite as sensitive to it. That means that I get more sleep and my family is not inconvenienced by the bad weather drill of gathering the pillows, blankets and whatever it was we wanted to take with us into the vehicles for the mad dash to the church.

I could write more however I need to get back to the regularly scheduled work day. Whatever you do remember to take a deep breath and realize that you do not need to get sucked into the Christmas madness with all of the hectic shopping and parties. Do what you can within your means and do not go into debt just for the sake of giving a special present. Sometimes that special present needs to be taking the time out of your busy schedule to be with your loved ones and saying how much you love and appreciate them.
Keep Christ in Christmas and be thinking of ways to include HIM in your festivities.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. Be blessed!!



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Jammin4Jesus 2008

The weather forecast for Saturday November 15th was calling for rain and lots of it. The only problem with rain is that it was going to seriously screw up the plans to have a first annual Jammin4Jesus festival to be held at the Folly Road Park on Center st. I remember praying several times the week before the event asking God to clear the skies for the event because I knew how much work had been put into the planning. As I left Goose Creek that rainy Saturday morning it appeared that Jammin4Jesus would be rained out.

As I drove I remembered how I had made a commitment to be there and I decided that I would honor the commitment no matter what. I figured if it did rain I would not be the only person there and so off I went. As I drove closer and closer to Folly Beach I reflected back on a conversation that I had with the organizer of this event. I sent an e-mail to the organizer Tyna and asked her what the fall back plan was in case of rain. Tyna told me there was no fall back plan and not to worry because the rain would not ruin the festival.

The closer I got to Folly Beach the more I began to doubt that the event would not be rained out. It appeared to be getting more over cast by the moment. What I did not realize is that I was in for a surprise. Just as I crossed over one of the bridges coming onto Folly Beach I saw sunshine breaking through the clouds and I could see clear sky. When I saw that I smiled because I knew there was hope for the event to go forward.

Jammin4Jesus 2008 was sponsored by Bethany United Methodist Church and all of the proceeds from the event went towards the James Island outreach ministry foodbank and Ronald McDonald House in Charleston. The dream or vision for this ministry event originated back in either late August or early September within Tyna as God began to speak to her and motivated her to find the time to make those connections that would enable her to bring her vision into reality. Jammin4Jesus was not designed to be a church event but rather it was designed to be the type of event that would break the traditional and denominational barriers in order to attract those folks in the community on Folly Beach that may not be associated with the local church.

In order to facilitate this outreach event on Folly Beach there were several local praise teams that showed up to share the ministry that God has given them. As I listened and watched Crossroads, Exposed, Seacoast, Unmasked and Station 15 during their scheduled times on stage I was able to see how each individual and group brought something different and unique to the event. The main theme throughout this evangelical event was that God has done a work in the lives of those who were there to do their thing and their desire was for anyone that would listen to understand that the same God that has set them free from the pain and heartache of this world could do the same for anyone who was listening.

My role at Jammin4Jesus was to help MC the event and because of that I was able to walk around and talk to other folks who were there as volunteers and I was able to speak to the vendors that were donating their time, talents and services for this event. I remember one vendor in particular who was selling costume jewelry during the event. I happened to walk over and talk to this one lady and her friend and she told me how a little girl came into her area and was captivated by a small bracelet. The little girl looked up at her with a wistful glance and told her she had 3 dollars and wanted to know how much this particular bracelet was on the table. The vendor knew how much the little girl really loved the bracelet so she picked it up off the table and took the 20.00 price tag off of it and told the girl to keep her 3 dollars and that it was a gift.

I remembered standing in the park listening to Unmasked doing their routine and over heard a gentleman who was in biker gear asking the police officer who was working the event some questions about who was sponsoring the event and was it a church event. I do not remember what the policeman’s response was but I know that the gentleman who was wearing the biker gear seemed to be impressed and intrigued about the event in general.

I was particularly impressed that one of Tyna’s friends , Mike, came down all the way from Ohio with a truck load of sound equipment and portable stages and donate his time and talent to make sure that Jammin4Jesus would have the sound equipment needed for the event. Mike brought enough equipment with him to set up two full stages. When one band was doing their thing the next band could set up their equipment and be preparing for their time slot.

All in all Jammin4Jesus turned out to be a huge success. The rain held off until 4 pm and even though Station15 was only able to sing one song they were thankful for the opportunity to be there. As I helped the band members to cover their equipment with tarps and tear things down I apologized to the leader about their being rained out. Instead of being bitter or disappointed about it all of the band members were just thankful for the opportunity to be there and said they would not have it any other way. I stood there with them in the pouring rain holding an umbrella thinking to myself how cool it was to be hanging out with a group of people who have true servants hearts. No one was there that day to make a name for themselves but instead they were there to share with the world what God had done for them and to share his love with others.

In the days to come I will be sharing some pictures and video from this event. I will also be setting up either a blog and/or website for Jammin4Jesus so that you can get a glimpse of what God is going to do through his people in the next event in 2009.


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com

Out with the old and in with the new

Did the 2008 Presidential election turn out the way you wanted it to? As for me and my house the answer is no. Despite the fact that our candidate lost I am comforted in knowing two things. The first thing is that God is still in control. Who God is and his word remains the same no matter who the world leaders are. The second thing that I realize is that the new president will not have any more or any less ability to fix things than the president before them. Yes, the president is a very important person in our form of democratic government however they are not a dictator and they do not have absolute authority as to what goes on. I was telling a friend of mine the other day that instead of voting for a president during the next election what we need to do as a nation is go to capital hill with a bucket full of pink slips for all of the corrupt and lobbyist dollar chasing law maker in office. I think if we fired all of those people and replaced them with some folks who still believe that the law makers and decision makers are supposed to be working for their constituents. I know, the chances of that happening are about as slim as hell freezing over.








James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Jammin' for Jesus Folly Beach November 15th

The month of November is a special month because of several reasons. One reason is because we Americans celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday and typically we get together with friends and family away from work and enjoy some time of fellowship. Another reason for November to be special is because I celebrate another birthday and grow a year younger. Last but not least another reason November is special is because the first annual Jammin’ for Jesus outreach which will be happening on November 15th at Folly River Park on Center Street at Folly Beach. This will happen from 11 am until dusk and there will be all sorts of activities and music teams from area churches there. If you are a music minister or involved in a musical group, puppet ministry etc and would like to participate please write sailboatmt@comcast.net and let Tyna know you are available.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Stressful Changes

I have heard that too many changes all at once can be stressful. In the last couple of weeks we have experienced a lot of changes as a family. We recently moved from a trailer that we lived in for 7 years and in order to move from there into our new place we had to make some tough decisions and sacrifices. One of the hardest decisions was to downsize the pet farm. At that time we had two dogs, a cat, a bird, two puppies and a kitten. We are now down to Angel the lab and Peaches the bird. It was very difficult for us to say good bye to our beloved pets but the new residence only allows for us to have two pets and they also put a very steep pet deposit in place which made it necessary to severely reduce the number of pets we took with us.

The other thing that was stressful for the teens was to uproot from their schools at Sedgefield and Goose Creek High School and make the move away from their friends into new schools at Westview and Stratford High School. I am sure that Justin and Kristina will find new friends eventually but I am sure that they sorely miss their friends from the other schools. I know that Kristina keeps in contact with several of her friends in person as well as through MySpace and e-mail.

I drove in to work early this morning and it is a dreary rainy dark looking day. It was good to go to bed around 10:30 pm last night because it enabled me to wake up at 6 am and get an early start on my day. That includes driving from Goose Creek to Kiawah Island which usually takes about an hour depending on traffic. The earlier I start out the easier the traffic is which makes my morning commute much more bearable. Speaking of change my new job as an I.T. manager for a resort rental company has been quite stressful. I found myself walking into somewhat of a mess and I had to hit the ground running with little to no training from the previous I.T. person that was here before me. When I arrived that person had been gone for two weeks and I had to depend on feedback from the technology provider company that was being utilized until my arrival. When I arrived here there was a back log of workstation problems that took me about 4 weeks to resolve.

On my drive in this morning I prayed for my family and my church, my nation and I am quite thankful for many things. I am thankful for Katy and the children. I am thankful that God has blessed me with a family who loves me and friends like you who care about me. I am thankful that I live in America and that I can enjoy the freedom of speech and religion and the right to vote for my leaders. I understand that our system is probably messed up beyond all measure however I also know as a naturalized citizen that if it were not for my adoption parents I would have never made it here. I also realize that no matter how screwed up the American form of government is or how many crooked politicians may be in office it is a far cry better than living in some socialist or communist country where we would not have any freedoms that we take for granted.


I am thankful that each American can go out and vote tomorrow during the presidential election. If you are an American I would encourage you to do what a lot of other citizens in other countries can not do, go VOTE. If you feel hopeless, and that your vote does not count then please know that you are probably not alone. All you can do is educate yourself the best you can and make the best decision you can. There are websites that are dedicated to providing us with a comparison of each presidential candidate and where they stand on the issues.

Your decision to vote will enable the democratic system to work the way it is supposed to work. For the people and by the people means that we vote people into office that we think will best represent us in our government. If you do not vote then you have robbed yourself of a privilege that you have as a citizen and you will not be able to complain about who makes it in office. The bottom line is this, your vote counts.

I am thankful this morning that I can go to church on Sunday and that my family and I can take part in open praise and worship. I am also thankful that other folks like you have the right to go worship God or not worship God. That is what is great about our country. We do not have to worry about our government forcing us to worship one particular religion nor do we have to worry about them throwing us in jail just because we do chose to worship.

I am thankful that I am employed this morning. There are a lot of folks out there that are being laid off or are having a very difficult time finding gainful employment. Our economy is struggling at this time and businesses and people alike are learning how to live more frugally than before. I am hopeful that our government leaders will be able to make the right decisions and the tough decisions that will enable our economy and citizens to get back on the right track.
I am hopeful that our government leaders will realize that downsizing and making budgetary cuts is not just limited to the poor and middle class Americans. All of us need to make some sacrifices for the greater good of all.


I am thankful for technology and that I can use it to write these words and share them with you. If it were not for the advantages of technology and the Internet or World Wide Web I would not be able to share my thoughts with you nor would I be able to know all of you, my friends and fellow cyber citizens.







James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com

Roll up your sleeves

I heard this the other day and I have to agree with it. We do not change who God is because of who we are or what we believe however if we read God’s word and follow its principles God changes us. That is a powerful thought worthy of our meditation. How often is it that we bargain with God about the things in our lives? Dear God if you will do this and that then I will do whatever you ask of me. Are we really willing to do whatever God asks of us? Do we really mean what we are saying or are we fooling ourselves into believing that God does not know the intent of our heart when we say those things?

Our hope is in Christ and in who he is both to our world and in our lives personally. If we chose to believe that we are in control and that we determine the purpose of our lives then God is not in us. The truth of the matter is that we need God in our lives and we need his power, love, grace and mercy. The problem is that we are so busy with the things of this world that we choke out time with God that is so precious. Time with God gives us strength and hope and power. Only God can give us the peace that passes all understanding. Only God can restore us into his own image and make us more like him. God loves us without measure and he pursues us on a daily basis. God pursues us relentlessly. All we have to do is to slow down, take a deep breath and just listen.

Our lives are not our own. God gave us our lives so that we can live for Him and him alone. God has a purpose for our lives and that purpose is to love him and glorify him in all that we do and say. I want to encourage you to purpose in your heart to do something today that will give honor and glory to God in your life. One way that you can do that is to slow down and find time to spend with God. If you take the time to build a relationship with your creator he will bless you beyond measure. When you invest of yourself in anything you are usually blessed in return. How much time do we spend doing everything else but spending time with God? How much eternal reward will we get for doing those things?

Today I read something in my Values for Men devotional. It said this and I quote “Once we make the decision to trust God completely, it is time to get busy. The willingness to take action- even if the outcome of that action is uncertain- is an effective way to combat hopelessness. When you decide to roll up your sleeves and begin solving your own problems, you’ll feel empowered, and you may see the first real glimmer of hope.”

Those words really resonate within my life. I can not begin to tell you how many times in my life I have felt despair, depression and hopelessness because of the circumstances in my life. Some of these circumstances were things out of my control and some of them were there because of poor decisions in my life. No matter the reason the emotions were real and they were and are hard to deal with. Several years ago a dear friend of mine listened to me lament about how horrible and hopeless my credit rating was. I told this friend that this and that had happened in the past and that there was absolutely nothing that I could do to make this situation better. In my mind there was no hope and even thinking about the situation made me angry and depressed and despondent. I did not even want to hear that there is hope.

I am thankful that my friend was patient enough with me to listen and to allow me to have those feelings. My friend did not belittle my situation or tell me to get over it. What my friend told me was that they too had experienced these types of issues in their life and that there is hope at the end of the tunnel. One key ingredient of that hope was to have faith and believe that I could be a part of the solution and that doing nothing about it was the worse thing I could do. I do not know how long it took me to come around but somehow I chose to believe that there is hope and that I could do something about our credit problems. I chose to ignore the feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and despair. I chose to stop being a victim of my own feelings and to roll up my sleeves and do something.

The first thing I had to do was to educate myself about credit. What is credit, why is it important and how does it affect me and my family. Once I began to educate myself and to learn the things I needed to know I was empowering myself to take action. Knowledge is power but only if you apply the principles of that knowledge. You can apply that principle to Godly living. How can we live for God when we do not know what the instruction manual says? How many times have we purchased a new electronic gizmo and not know how to operate it? What is the first thing that most people do? They pick up the manual and learn how to do what they want to do with the new gizmo. That is exactly what we need to do with the Bible. We need to open up with the anticipation that God is going to show us how to be who he wants us to be. Once we do that he will open our eyes and illuminate himself and his will for our lives today.

Please allow me to encourage you to empower yourself and add quality and quantity to it by spending more time with God. How much time you spend with God will be up to you but I can tell you that you will never spend too much time. The more time you spend the more you will be blessed. God will restore your soul, give you direction for living and fill your heart with peace that you will not find anywhere else.

My God bless your richly as your purpose to pursue him today.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
jcmoffitt@gmail.com

Duck Ditch Update

It is Sunday morning and I am sipping on my first cup of coffee. I have 30 minutes before I get ready for church and then that weekly routine will happen once again. That routine includes going to the church, turning on all the equipment in the sound booth, sanctuary lights, fans, AC and unlocking all the doors. Soon after that folks start to arrive and then we get ready for our praise team practice just before church. We have 45 minutes to iron out any bugs that might exist for the musicians or vocalists and it also serves as time to warm up the vocal chords.
Since I logged on last it appears that Gather has done a remake of their website. From what I can tell I do like it. The interface seems to be clean and efficient. School is back in session and the teens are back to the grind.

In the last two weeks I have started a new job as an I.T. manager for a resort rental company on Kiawah Island SC. This is a full time job with benefits after 90 days. From what I can tell the folks are very nice and I think that I will enjoy the job once I get it under control. Lets just say that I have stepped off into a huge mess. It appears that this company has been rotating through I.T. people for the last 3 years. This will be my first "management" job in a LONG time so I will be sucked into doing "management" types of things such as putting together a budget and going to departmental meetings which I would just rather not have to do. Oh well, all I can do is the best I can do and leave the rest to God, right?

The drive to Kiawah Island takes approximately 50 minutes one way so I am spending more time on the road now. I have a friend of mine that is suggesting that I look into audio books. I guess that is an idea and would make the time fly by. I try to spend part of that time praying and meditating if I can. What else is there to do and what better thing is there to do when driving? LOL... We all need to pray that God will protect us when we are behind the wheel of our respective automobiles with some of the driving habits of those around us. It seems that when some folks get behind the wheel of their automobiles they transform into some sort of tasmanian devil.

Speaking of driving , my 16 year old alien princess is taking drivers ed this year in high school. We have been letting her drive our new car very recently and from what my wife said she is doing pretty good. Before I know it my insurance rates will go up and I will need to figure out how to get her a used car to drive around town. I need to find an older car that is made out of solid steel so that when she gets into her first accident she will be safe. Hopefully that first accident wont happen but I wont be surprised if it does.

I can not wait for the presidential elections to get here and finally be over. All of the political garbage is really screwing up prime time TV and I am not very happy about that. Every time I turn on the news all I hear is what seems to be a bad soap opera being played out on TV. How can we know whom to believe anymore? Obama or McCain, is that really all we have to chose from? Cough.... Personally I am not impressed by either person. This year I will probably be voting independent for Ron Paul. I keep seeing signs for him around our community so I am assuming that he is still in the running. I guess I have my head stuck in the sand with all of this and I know that is probably not good. I also know that Obama is very charismatic and he has a huge demographic following that is just enamored with his "It is time for change" rhetoric. What I believe is that IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE.The problem is that my idea of change in Washington is not what the politicians have in mind and I am sure Obama is in that boat.

I typically do not write about my political view points because most of the time it winds up getting me riled up. I am not sure that our founding fathers intended for things to turn out the way they have. Somewhere in the declaration of independence or whatever document it was I heard the words "For the people" uttered. As far as I can tell all I can see in the Washington DC political circles is "it is all about me" attitude. All I see is special interest groups who are lining the pockets of the people who are supposed to be serving their constituents and maninpulating them into writing or supporting laws that are tearing down the very fabric of our society.

In case you did not know this I am a very conservative right wing bible thumping fundamentalist that believes that marriage is between a man and a woman and not what the gay activists are trying to shove down our throats. No, I am not a homophobe. I have no problem with someone choosing to be gay. What you do in the privacy of your own home is none of my business. What I do have a problem with is people who are promoting the idea that homosexuality is normal and that we need to change all our laws to endorse it.

I told you that I can get riled up but be that as it may I said what I said, I believe what I said and if it offended some of you then I am sorry. I fully expect to get some hate mail because of what I said but that is the price you have to pay for being transparent with your thoughts. Amen?

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
jcmoffitt@gmail.com

Jesus Connect Ministries Web Site

I am happy to announce that the Jesus Connect Ministries Website has been revived by my friend and co laborer in Christ Reynold DeGuzman. Reynold and I have been involved in Internet ministry for about 15 years now. Jesus Connect used to be a BBS system located in Houston Texas back in the early 90's.

For those of you that do not remember what a BBS actually is , it is a personal computer that runs BBS software and has a modem. There were and still are BBS lists out there that you can download and you can plug in a phone number and use a BBS client software (hyperterm) and log on. Those were the good ole days and I remember them quite well. I ran a BBS called Cross Connection BBS and I remember running it on a host of various hardware platforms. The first machine that I ran Jesus Connect BBS on was a 286 with a 300 mb Western Digital Caviar harddrive with 4 mb of ram. I also ran Jesus Connect on an x86 with MFM drives. Those drives got so hot that I could heat my condo from that alone.

Jesus Connect Ministries got its start in the BBS world and as the World Wide Web took off Reynold ported the BBS contents over to HTML and we were able to enter into the global audience. If you can get on the Internet and surf the web then you could find Jesus Connect Ministries. There were several men and women other than Reynold and myself who helped to make this ministry effort possible. Some of us are still around and some of us have moved on to other things. Our friend and co laborer in Christ John Searcy went home to be with Jesus several years ago. His wife Nancy still lives in the Houston area with her family.

The "new" Jesus Connect website is a mixture of OLD content from yesteryear and new content. I would encourage you to visit and look around. If there is something that can be added or changed that would make it better then let us know.






James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Rattlin Pinz Fund Raiser

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James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Carta Express Parking daymare

Rant Mode On:

I ride Carta Express from the Super Kmart parking lot on Rivers Avenue to downtown Charleston almost every day.  I have been riding the bus service since it started up in January of 2008.  All in all I have been a pretty satisfied customer especially since the service is free to MUSC and C of C employees.  Our employers pick up the tab so that we can save gas and wear and tear on our vehicles.  How can you go wrong?  Of course there is an ulterior motive here in that parking spaces downtown are becoming as valuable as gold.  It all goes back to supply and demand.  The more cars and the less spaces to put them in drives up the cost of parking.  Someone smarter than me figured this out long before I did and cooked up the Carta Express idea.  

Since January the ridership of Carta Express has exploded. Now they are packing us in those buses like rats in a metal box. You can either cram your body into those small seats or you can stand on your feet with other folks while the bus makes its way downtown.  You have to expect that to happen when Carta was not prepared for the ridership to explode like it did.  Gas prices went through the roof and everyone saw Carta Express as the solution to saving some bucks on the gas expense.  

Once the ridership started to expand it caused the spaces for people to park to diminish in the parking lot opposite of Super Kmart and Texas Road House.  Not only that but some of us LAZY riders decided we could not walk for 3 minutes to go stand in line so we cheated and parking on the opposite side in the Kmart Parking lot near the middle driveway and just walk straight over to the line bypassing the semi long walk.  Kmart got smart to our ways and started posting nasty grams on the offender vehicles and warned us that they would start towing.  For some of us , like myself, I got wise and decided that walking for a few moments was a lot less inconvenience than having to bail my SUV out of the impound lot not to mention having to deal with whatever damage that might happen to my vehicle during the towing episode.  

A few months ago an email went out to the College of Charleston warning us NOT to park on the Super Kmart side of the parking lot near the store because they would start towing us without further warning.  Ok, we get the picture.  Several weeks later we get another notice that Carta wants us to start parking all the way down to the end of the parking lot near the Japanese Steak House away from Texas Road House and the middle of the parking lot.  Again, we all complied except for the few rebellious folks that insist on gambling with their vehicles on the wrong side of the parking lot.  

Tonight when I get off the bus and walk a few moments over to my SUV I surveyed all four tires to make sure none of them were slashed.  Some of the unlucky drivers who have been parking at the end of the parking lot by the Japanese restaurant have been greeted by flat tires around 6 pm after a long day at work.  Just last night we got off the bus to find N Charleston PD on the scene because one of the nurses found her 93 Honda Accord missing.

When I got to my vehicle I find a nasty gram from Texas Road House telling me that I should no longer parking in their parking lot and that I need to cease and desist doing so.  The only problem with that is that there were no other spaces any closer than where I was parked.

I went inside to the restaurant and found the night manager who referred me to the district manager who apparently became angry about all the Carta bus riders from filling up his parking lot.  The only problem that I have with that is simple.  There are no signs delineating which part of the parking lot is designated for what stores.  Not only that but Carta gave us permission to park on that side of the parking lot to begin with.  I think that Texas Road House management and Carta management need to figure out what they are going to do with parking since the ridership is only going to keep growing with the ever rising gas prices.  

The girls at the front counter asked me if I would like to eat dinner there since I was already in the restaurant.  HA!!!   I was thinking, think again friend, I am already steamed about the nasty gram, I certainly am not going to stop and eat dinner now.  

Rant Mode off:

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Out with the Old and IN with the New

I met up with some Lowcountry Bloggers last night at the Northtowne Restaurant in N. Charleston and had a good time. I am not much on meeting new people but it does not take too much for me to warm up and start talking. Having met Heather ahead of time made it easier and my buddy Jared from the Web Creation dept at the College was there as well. Most of the folks are on Twitter and so I have learned some things about all of them over time. One of the ladies there congratulated me on my new job and I was like "How the heck do you know about that". She laughed at me along with my wife and reminded me that if you put it out on Twitter the whole Twitter world knows. Ooooopssss , that means that the cat is out of the bag folks. I do have a new job and I start it officially on August the 18th which is 17 days away. Until then I will be training my replacement Tim.

I have been at the College (College of Charleston) now for two years. I spent one year in Computer Operations helping with maintaining requests for jobs to be run on the Alpha Cluster, printing reports, delivering reports and whatever else needed to be done. The person that was responsible for server support who had been here for 9 years moved back to Scotland and that left a huge whole in that department so they replaced me with a full time employee named Richard and then allowed me to backfill the server support analyst position. There are two of us that manage 200+ servers and we stay pretty busy.

I will be working for ResortQuest on Kiawah Island starting on the 18th. I will be responsible for managing 4 servers and 80 users in three locations. I will be on call 24x7 to provide network support and end user support when needed. They are providing me with a laptop and a crackberry device (Blackberry data device) so that they can reach out and touch me whenever they need to. Having been in the I.T. industry for 19 years and worked in six different industries I am no stranger to being on call. I am virtually connected to the Internet most of my waking hours anyway so I am very accessible. Maybe I am too accessible now that I think about it.

I am pretty pumped up about having an FTE position again for the first time in many years. Most of my employment has been contractor status with NO BENEFITS. I can not tell you how badly that sucks. If you are sick and have to stay in bed, guess what, NO pay for you. During holidays when the employer lets the employees have a day off and pay them, guess what, NO pay. If you need to take a much needed vacation as a contractor, guess what, NO pay. I think you get the picture by now. Being a contractor has its advantages however for a long term solution it is not a good idea.

I spent some time during the interview speaking with my new boss and he genuinely seems to be concerned about his employees. That was like a breath of fresh air to me and I am looking forward to working for someone like that as an employer.

Krisitna just got back from church camp for one week and now she is in band camp for the next two weeks which consists of 12 hour days Monday through Friday. Kristina wants to be in Marching Band at Goose Creek High School and she is doing this with one of her friends named Barbara. I am hoping that her doing this will motivate her to raise her grades up which will be necessary for her to remain an active participant of the marching band. I think that ALL extracurricular activities at any school should have a mandatory rule that states you MUST have good grades to participate.

Well, it is time for lunch and then I need to take the trainee over to change tapes for the weekly full backups this weekend. I hope you have a good day and a wonderful restful weekend.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Mobie Blogging

This will be my first blog written at 65 mph. No, I am not driving, my wife is. That is a good thing since one of us needs to be in control of this automobile. Thanks to Verizon Wireless broadband I am able to do some blogging and check e-mail while on the road.

This has been a hectic last couple of weeks at work. We are gearing up to implement an ERP system where I work which means that we are going to rip out al older legacy system that runs on OpenVMS with apps written in Focus and Cobalt and replace it with a Linux server farm with Oracle database backend. Our test servers and new EVA are in place and we have spent the last couple of weeks getting everything ready for the test envirnoment.

We are 21 miles out of Columbia SC and we are planning on stopping at Fuddruckers to get lunch. We picked up our daughter and a youth from church at the church camp they just attended. Well, the wife just told me she is too tired to drive so I need to wrap this up for now.





James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Fun-tastic Family Reunion

Courageous Kidz Fun-tastic family reunion

This is the third annual event for Courageous Kidz that I am aware of.  I help support this organization in what ways that I can because of my relationship with  Debby Stephenson aka Flash.  We met Flash in 2000 when our daughter was diagnosed with Astrocytoma.  Jessica Ann was 9.5 years when she was diagnosed and that is when we met Flash and Happy Days and Special Times.  Everything happens for a reason and for a season according to the Bible and for whatever reasons the SEASON for Flash at Happy Days ended several years ago.  No matter what was said, in the end Flash was determined to do what God has empowered her to do which is to reach out to kids with cancer.  Since then Courageous Kidz organization was born and now Flash is continuing her mission.  

Today Courageous Kidz is celebrating three years of being in existence  and many families and children , kids with cancer and their siblings are having a lot of fun with the many activities that have been planned such as water slides, a cook out, boat rides, pony rides etc.  They are out in the heat and humidity having a blast and I am sitting in the clubhouse with the air conditioning hoping that the mesquitoes will never find me.  I must have sweet blood because I think they can smell me a mile away.  While I am in here away from the organized madness outside I am able to do what I enjoy doing which is to write.  One of the Courageous Kidz volunteers , Rhoda, is here as well doing arts and crafts with whatever kids who wander in here.  I am afraid that if I were to go to the table they are at and sit still that the teens will paint my face with some sort of ridiculous picture or colors.  Who knows, maybe I should so they can have fun.  NOT.....

My 16 year old princess alien Kristina Lynn has decided she is bored and does not want to get wet and have fun with the rest of the kids.  I can not say that I blame here however I am surprised that she has not joined the giggling, squirming and screaming mass of children who are having fun with reckless abandon.  Maybe that has something to do with her staying up until 6 am with one of her friends this morning and not getting any sleep.  When I discovered my alien was not having any fun I sent her on a mission with my Blackberry Curve to take pictures of all the activities which I will share with you all later on this afternoon or evening.  I typically bring my digital video recorder with me to events like this but I decided to give that a rest this time around.  There is usually more than enough pictures and videos to go around anyway.  

I have not blogged much lately because I have been insanely busy with life.  Between work, church and family responsibilities I do not have much time for blogging which is just not right. In a perfect world I would have a job where I could just write when I feel inspired to and get paid for it.  I love technology and I have been working with it for 19 years to support my family however I enjoy writing about family and Christ related things the most.  I write about technology as well but I would rather talk about things of the heart.  I believe that no man is an island  and that we are all connected to one another.  We need one another in one way or another.  We are all built and designed for relationships whether it be superficial or in passing.  Having been married for 19 years and having four children from the ages of 13 to 21 I am never short of having something to write about.  We all have our own unique stories to tell and I have fun telling ours.  My hope is that my sharing our stories will add value to your own life and story.  That is the neat thing about being able to self publish on the world wide web via web pages and my several blogs.  All it costs me is my Internet connection and a little bit of time.  

My daughter is back with my Blackberry so I am going to attempt to use the bluetooth protocol to transfer the pictures off the device onto my Macbook so you can see them.  Please stand by....

 

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Friendfeed

I just do not get Friendfeed.  I understand that when I post something to my blog or whatever that if I have it linked to my friendfeed that people that are subscribed to me will see it and be able to follow me.  When I look at my friendfeed site all I see is feeds from the other people who I am not subcribed to, or am I ?  

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Life is good

Parenting with Grace

How many times have we looked at our children and thought this.  "I have raised you the best way that I know how but you act this way anyway?"  You do not have to be a Christian parent to have that thought.  My wife and I have been married now for 18 years and for several of those years we home schooled our children.  Due to the scope of this short article I can not go into the many reasons why we would not want our children in a public school.  What I can say is that our decision to home school included the desire for our children to get a good education minus the garbage that children in public schools are exposed to.  I will write a book on that later. 

We are encouraged by the word of God in Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. Does that mean if you train them according to the word of God in the way that they are to live that they wont make mistakes or sometimes disappoint us?  Of course not, our children will drive us crazy sometimes because of their choices which are either made out of rebellion, ignorance or peer pressure. 

I have four children.  My oldest son Jeremy is 21 and lives in Ohio.  My oldest daughter Jessica went to be with the Lord when she was 10 years old.  Had she lived she would be 17.  Kristina who is now 16 and Justin who is now 13 both live with their mom and I.  I love my children with all my being but I have to say that there is nothing more challenging than raising a teenage daughter.  My princess loves me in her own way but sometimes it is not very easy to communicate with her in such a way that fosters peace in our home. 

As I have learned how to be a father I am reminded many times of my relationship with my heavenly father.  God loves me unconditionally and gives me the grace that I need for living each day.  On many occasions I can see how it is necessary for me to emulate grace , mercy, longsuffering, meekness, gentleness, patience with my children no matter what it is they have done.  I know that because I am reminded of how often my father in heaven has done the same thing with me.  How many times have I made stupid decisions or rebelled against his word knowing full well that I was not doing the right thing?  Did my heavenly father reach down from heaven and scream at me or lose his temper with me and severly punish me?  At times he has had to chastise me and set me back on the straight and narrow but once the discipline was over I always knew that he loved me and that his plan for my life is perfect.  

My desire has always been to break the generational curse that I grew up under.  My parents raised me the way they did because their parents and grand parents raised them that way.  Some of what they did was good and I benefited from it greatly.  However there were some things that they did that I would not dare to do with my children today.  My parents took us out of an orphanage in Aschofenburg Germany when we were 1 and 2 years old.  They provided for us the medical benefits that we did not have in that orphanage.  On the other hand there was not a lot of love and encouragement when we needed it the most. 

Hopefully my words have stirred up your heart as a parent and you will take the time to share your stories with the rest of us.  God bless

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Out of Coffee

I woke up this morning to the automatic alarm clock called the bladder. I announced to my body that I would exert just enough energy to take care of business and then go back to sleep. I zoomed through that process and headed for my favorite recliner and discovered that someone had left the fan on in the living room over night. Two thoughts ran through my mind as I thought about that. The first thought was that I was glad the fan did not short out and catch the house on fire and the second thought was to wonder how much that jacked up the electric bill by running all night. I don’t think that floor fans suck that much amperage so I did not spend too much time contemplating that. I landed in my recliner fully expecting to go to sleep and catch some extra snore time. My mind had other ideas and decided it wanted to ramp up and start thinking about this and that so no matter how much I fidgeted and tried to position myself in the recliner with my eyes shut it was a no go for visiting the sandman. I guess my bladder and the sandman have an understanding. When it is time for me to get up and go potty the sandman has to leave and go visit someone else in their dreams.

Seeing as sleep was over I figured I would start my day out with some much needed decaf coffee. That is a hoot huh. Why would anyone NEED decaf coffee? Some would think that decaf coffee has no caffeine. If you think that you are mistaken because decaf does have caffeine. I think it is just more of a psychological thing in that it is a daily ritual that I follow. In order for life to be normal I have to go to the restroom and have a cup of coffee in the morning. I do not care if anything does or does not happen those things must take place. My sweet wife was still playing tag with the sandman in our bedroom so I took it upon my lazy self to wander into the kitchen and was greeted by a mess. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the kitchen was a mess. One side of the sink was full of dirty dishes and the other side was partially full. I did some quick load balancing and filled up one side so I could use the other side to wash out the coffee pot. The coffee pot builds up a brown residue in the inside of the pot if all that is done to clean it is to do a quick rinse job. From what I could tell that is exactly the method that has been used to clean the pot. I engaged a wash rag and soap to do this quick clean job since there were no sponges in sight.
The coffee pot was clean and the counter around the coffee pot was clean again so I filled the pot with water from the filter because we are on well water and we have to use a filter to keep the water from smelling or tasting like rotten eggs. I don’t think that rotten eggs and French vanilla go well together so I opted to use the filtered water. Stage three would include finding coffee and coffee filters and since I normally do not make the coffee or much else for that matter in the kitchen I started to scan my surroundings for the rest of the items I needed. I located a container on the counter that had a very tiny amount of coffee sitting in the bottom. After all that preparation and overcoming the recliner potato syndrome I was being rewarded with NO coffee.

Not to be thwarted I decided to go gently wake up the wife with “Honey where did you hide the coffee this time or are we out?” Gizmo told me through the fog of waking up that we were indeed out of coffee. I was thinking to myself that this could not be possible. It took me several moments to come to the realization that bad things do happen to good people even if it was just being out of coffee early in the morning. I grabbed my keys and wallet and headed outside to find that there was dense fog all around me. I decided to hop in the Honda Accord since it has the most gas in it and zoomed up to Food Lion to get the things I needed for a quick morning treat. Luckily for me there were very few shoppers dragging around the store in search of stuff that they needed. I grabbed up everything I needed in my two arms and dumped them on the counter and waited for the cashier to magically appear. Once he did I paid for my loot and scooted back out to the parking lot to head back home. I stopped at the cleaners to get my cleaning and was proud of the fact that I had my cleaning receipt to hand to the young lady at the counter. I am notorious for showing up at the counter and saying “I don’t know where my ticket is but my name is….” Then the poor person working the counter has to go search all the tickets for my name instead of just scanning for the large numbers on the ticket that makes it much easier for them to find my stuff.

I am safely back home banging on the keyboard and drinking coffee at last. By this time on most days I would be at the office banging on the keyboard answering e-mail and checking on the many servers that I maintain with the many applications and systems that run on them. Luckily for me I am starting a four day mini vacation in which I plan on doing whatever it is I WANT to do. I plan on being as selfish as my wife and family will allow me to be within reason. I am figuring that some of my activities will include but not be limited to a trip to the county park for a swim in their pool, a movie, a trip to Myrtle Beach to visit Fuddruckers and the beach and perhaps a show at South Carolina Opry . I told my wife that we will bond so much in the next four days she will be anxious to see me go back to work on next Tuesday. When we are not doing those things I assume we will be doing low budget items such as playing Monopoly with the children or some cards with friends of mine.

All in all I am content with life as it is and I am happy to have a few days off in which to enjoy my family and do some fun things other than work. You know what they say, all work and no play makes James a dull boy. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and that you do not allow Friday the 13th to ruin your day. Just remember that if something bad does happen to you on this date that it really does not have anything to do with the date but that life just happens. Take it on the chin, clean up the mess, make the wrongs right if you can and just go on. Tomorrow will have its own unique problems that you can deal with tomorrow.


James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

I am proud of my wife and I want to say a few things about her. There are many things to be proud of over the last 18 years and because of who Katy is I am a much better person. Many years ago Katy taught me that It was ok to love again. She has shown me over the years that she loves me unconditionally and that she is willing to stick by my side no matter what. You remember the wedding vows I am sure. I guess in this day and age the traditional wedding vows no longer hold the meaning and commitment that they once did however with regards to my wife and I we meant them with all our hearts. We have been through a lot in the last 18 years. We have experienced serious family illness with our angel Jessica and then we experienced her passing. We have experienced the difficulty of depression and have seen how it can devastate a family unit and cause other things to be neglected. We have experienced financial difficulty during times when we desperately needed money in order to pay bills and try and keep things afloat. Our personal relationship with one another was strained and tested to the point of almost breaking. The pain and trauma of all those things would have blown most marriages and relationships wide open. Despite all of the garbage my gizmo and I were committed and are still committed to one another and to our kids. Our faith while shaken became stronger and stronger. Like most we questioned God at every turn wondering why things had to be the way they are. We begged for Him to do a miraculous healing in our Jessica but also in our finances. At times God seemed to be far away and distant. Sometimes I wondered if the pain and trauma of living through the experiences we have shared were really worth it.

As I look back at our experiences in the last 18 years I can see how Katy’s faith in God and her undying faith in me have helped her to get through a lot of junk. I remember how Katy spent endless days and nights tending to Jessica’s needs both at home and at the hospital. I remember how hopeful she was for Jessica’s recovery despite the negative projections and prognosis from the doctors and hospital staff. I remember how she would help Jessica do some of the most basic things in her end days because she could not do them. I remember how Katy and I both have struggled in the last seven years to find a semblance of normalcy within our family as we have struggled to pick up the pieces and go on. The fact of the matter is that we will never be normal and our family has lost one of its members. Those memories will never fade into the night and will always be fresh in our minds. The pain of grief has lessened over the years and we have learned how to endure it and to function during the darkest hours when grief rears its ugly head.

Katy has shown me how to be selfless despite my natural instinct to be selfish. Katy has shown me that things are less important than my relationship with her and the children. Katy has shown me how to serve my family by serving me and the kids over the years. Katy has done without fancy clothes and new things that others take for granted to make sure our kids have the basics. Katy worships the ground our children walk on and would do anything to help them to have a better life. Katy has shown herself to be a godly woman who is a virtuous woman. Katy is a lady with a lot of class and dignity.
I am proud that despite the grief and depression in the last 7 years that she has attempted to pursue her dreams of being a certified teacher. Despite the obstacles that others have placed in her path she has been plodding along and doing the things she needs to do to gain this goal in her career. Katy experienced a setback in the last two years because she wound up in the wrong work environment with the wrong people and allowed someone to tell her that she was not worthy of teaching. That was devastating to Katy but she managed to get beyond that and is now again pursuing her teacher certification. I am proud to say that she is going to spend the next two years pursuing her Master’s degree and teacher’s certification though Phoenix Online University. Katy was academically and financially cleared to get registered and will be starting within the next seven days on her first courses.

Thank you for all that you do my gizmo. Life would not be worth living without you in it. You have added quality and quantity to my life and I know that you are a gift from God and I cherish you more than all the money in the world or what it offers.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
james.moffitt@comcast.net

Relationship Evangelism

How do we reach people for Christ and fulfill the great commission? I submit to you that we do it through relationship evangelism. In years past our mentality has been that if we build it they will come. We build the church building and the church programs and then open the church doors and the masses will come to us. Over the centuries that thinking has been forced to evolve. The problem with that thinking is that going to church is no longer an activity that is as important to the family unit as it once was.

One of the reasons for that is because as time has marched on there has been a continual erosion of the family unit and an increasingly dangerous trend to redefine what the family unit really is. Over the years technology has increased and the ability for our being entertained has increased as well. In other words there are many more distractions in this day and age. There are more fun things to do than to go to church.

There are several ways to attract people to church. One way is to market the programs that you have created in the hopes that they will come and that you can provide them with whatever it is that they are looking for. Different people and different families have different needs. It is almost impossible to provide for all of those needs. Some mega churches who have lots of members and ample funds for these programs are more successful than some smaller churches. It is almost impossible for smaller churches to compete with the mega churches due to the lack of funding it takes to run them.

Be sure to visit the link above to see the rest of this article on my associated content website. Thanks



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net