Seeking Refuge

Yesterday, Myanmar did something for the first time in 20 years.

It held an election.

This country has been in turmoil for many years. 20 years ago when it had it’s only election in the past 50 years results were overturned since those in control wouldn’t give it up. You might know the country as Burma for that is how most countries, including the US, still recognize the name as.

So it might look like having an election would be a step into have democracy, but it seems that it is adding to the tension that is already there. News sources are coming out that the results were predetermined to keep the military regime in power and threatening people in this “free” election.

Over the past several decades, hundreds of thousands of Burmese people especially in the Karen ethnic group have left the country to live in refugee camps in Thailand. Just yesterday, over 10,000 Karen people left the country because of the elections and persecution from the government.

I’ve just learned about this country and it’s turmoil over the past few months due to an organization that helps international refugees. Some of those the flee to Thailand are helped by the UN to be relocated to start a new life. Get a chance in another country for safety, freedom, and raise a family. About 20,000 refugees from Burma are relocated to the US each year and some of them are placed in the Oklahoma City area. The Oklahoman did an article (& link includes video) about refugees in OKC (Link).

Jennifer over the past few months has been working with a family from Burma that was relocated here this summer. They don’t know any English, this is a new country, new culture, new everything for them. Their children are in school here. Jennifer is spending time with them befriending them and helping them with English.

Here is a video about The Spero Project which Jennifer volunteers with and our church partners with:

 

Radical Living

Over the past few days, I have been immersed in lots of numbers at work. Over 20,000 of them. I was checking the calculation for reinforcing for about 2 miles of retaining wall so I created a spreadsheet to input the parameters and get it to calculate the pounds of steel. There’s a lot of rebar in 2 miles of retaining walls!

A week ago, I got a call from Pastor Mike McDaniel asking if I can help him make a spreadsheet for Grace Point members. We went to Grace Point for about 5 years while living in Arkansas. We still call them our home church.

They are going through a sermon series as well as reading through the book Radical by David Platt. I haven’t read the book, but I will need to since I’ve heard it is more of the application of Crazy Love by Francis Chan which I loved. I have heard of Platt for a couple years now since he is a rising young evangelical leader and has an amazing passion for God’s Word and teaching it. I have listened to a few of his Secret Church sessions which are fours hours of lecture on a topic. Great deep listens.

The point of Radical is not seek after the American Dream, but after the things of God. That might require you to give up stuff that you cling on to like your comforts. If you make more than $34,000 a year you are in the top 5% of world of wealth. In the US, we consider if you make less than $22,000 poverty. We consider two cars, a HDTV, cell phones, internet, and air condition as the basics of life, while most of the world wants clean water and food to eat.

This past week, Pastor Mike challenged the church to three things:

1. Eating Less. Living like they do in Africa. Just eat Beans & Rice. The ultimate Dave Ramsey meal! And to drink just water.
2. Living on Less. Using the ABC Budget: Absolutes, Basics, and Comfort. It shows you what is a need and what is a want. It’s surprising how much of your expenses are a want/comfort and not a need.
3. Ask God Your Next Step.

Kind of funny that I listened to the podcast yesterday and already this week, we have had Mexican rice & beans and Chicken & Rice so we have been doing that without realizing it!

The ABC Budget is what I helped Mike make. Radical ABC Budget is what a pdf file of it looks like. If you want an Excel file of it, contact me and I’ll send it to you or Email Grace Point. Also, I encourage you to listen to the podcast.

If you have questions about the ABC Budget or want other budgeting spreadsheets I’ve made, contact me. It is important to live on a budget.

Let’s dare to be Radical.

 

The Past Month

It has been one month since I’ve blogged. The past month has been pretty busy. We were in the process of packing and closing on a house. Two weeks ago we closed on it and moved into it. A week ago, we had family visit, helped friends move, and turned the rental back to the landlords. All next week, Jennifer & Lily are going up to Kansas City and Macon to visit her family and my mom. So I will be home with Oscar and Abby all week.

Like Jennifer put on her blog, there hasn’t been anything really jumping out at me recently to blog about. Maybe since we have been busy with the house, we haven’t had a chance to really think about blog topics.

Since this is just a short blog post, I figured I would give some recommendations from our home purchase experiences if you live in OKC:

If you are looking for a Realtor: Brian Russell. He is not only a friend and our small group leader, but a great Realtor. He did a great job helping us understand the process, take care of a lot of things for us, and help us find our home.

For a Mortgage Lender: Josh Litsch with Prime Bank. Josh is also in our small group and Prime is a small bank. They offer low fees and a great rate without any points. If you are looking to refinance, I highly recommend him. Josh can probably beat any rate & fees that you are offered elsewhere (we looked at 5 different banks/lenders).

Both of those guys were great to work with, very professional, and made the home purchase go as smooth as possible.

Hopefully I will soon get back to blogging more often and back to normal topics of family & faith, but until then enjoy this video of Lily a few days ago:

 

My 2000th Tweet

I first started using Twitter a few years ago when it was new off of the prodding of @JeradSears although he didn’t really use it until now.

Although I wasn’t sure about it at first, I have grown to like Twitter. Now @JenniferLettner & I prefer Twitter to Facebook for most things.

If you could just use Twitter.com I probably wouldn’t stick with it, but I use TweetDeck & have four lists that make it easy to sort tweets.

Facebook has gotten annoying with Applications, Relationships, Becoming a Fan of the strangest things, & being more cluttered than Twitter.

Twitter you are limited to 140 characters to say your thoughts, links, pics, or whatever, but able to connect with others to be in the know.

You do have to follow some rules and not just post anything. Stuff Christians Like posted: Christian Twitter Guidelines http://bit.ly/9NGme3

Anyways, this is my #2000 tweet & all lines have been 140 char. I hope you join Twitter & follow me @lettner! May the tweet be with you!

 

Getting Rid of Cable

Update 11/16/10: New Blog Post about 2 months after we got rid of cable.

When we got married and for the first five years of marriage, we didn’t have cable. We just had rabbit ears to watch the networks. We weren’t that big into watching TV for we would mainly watch movies on DVD. There was several times during our marriage that we considered getting cable but it always was around the time that we visited Jennifer’s family where the TV is on all waking hours. We watched so much TV that it burnt us out.

When we moved to OKC, one of the agreements with us moving was to start getting cable with Jennifer staying at home and Lily about to be born. So the past year, we have had cable with DVR and internet through AT&T Uverse. We love it. It helped so much especially when Lily was born and up at all times to watch something on the DVR while rocking Lily. We have recorded many movies that have been on, reruns of TV shows; it has made it that we rarely ever watch live TV. It really helps with sports for I will watch a football game in an hour & a half (it irritates family how fast I go through games).

But we are considering scaling back when we move. We currently have 200+ channels and watch probably a handful. We still prefer watching movies, but we have grown to love DVR. Most of the shows we watch or on a network or easily on the internet. Plus the aspect of saving $50+ a month seems like a good idea.

We are still trying to decide, but what we are thinking is that we will get rid of Uverse and get Cox Internet. But we love DVR so probably buy a TiVo HD DVR. It will cost some upfront to make this change, but it will pay for itself in a few months with savings. I already have all of the equipment for Cox Internet. We would keep our Netflix which we can stream through our Blu-Ray player. Also for sports, if it isn’t on a network, I should be able to watch it on ESPN3.com.

What do you suggest to us for saving money on media entertainment?