What an exhausting week and yet not really much happened that is worth updating y'all about. How do those weeks happen? Friday night rolls around, your house is a mess, you're exhausted, and yet when you look back at what you did that week there's really not much that you remember? Thankfully, after a week like that comes Saturday. For the most part Saturday wasn't a very memorable day, either, but it ended on a good note. We went to a friend's house for dinner. Altogether there were five couples there. Technically, the host wasn't physically present - we found out upon arrival that he was taken to the hospital on Friday for pneumonia - but he urged his wife to continue with the gathering in his absence. We had a marvelous time. It was sort of potluck style - we brought dessert and deviled eggs (ohh, my mouth waters just thinking about them!!). An Indian couple brought a tasty rice and chicken curry (Joanna - her mother tongue is Telugu - we thought of you!). Other dishes included steak (it's been so long since we've had beef and it was very delicious), chicken (marinated in some sort of yummy-awesome-sauce), peanut noodles (unexpectedly delicious as Susan generally doesn't like peanut-flavored dishes), salad, as well as a completely fabulous and somewhat spicy eggplant and vegetable curry. It was great to hang out, relax, and talk with people of such different backgrounds but united through Christ. Two of the couples will be in our Bible Study resuming next month and it was nice to gather socially outside of the study. We were so blessed by the hostess' hospitality and can't believe we haven't imposed on them more :) Today after church we visited the would-be host in the hospital. It turns out that he doesn't have pneumonia after all (although the doctors don't know what caused his coughing fit that took him to the hospital in the first place). We told him all about the gathering yesterday and he reminisced about how he and his wife used to do things like that more often. We'll just have to encourage that type of activity more in the future - with us invited, of course! He ended up coming home from the hospital around 5pm and alls well that ends well. Now for another week...

Labels: NY

Another fun-filled week of adventure (and, yes, it was blazing hot... again). On Monday we went to a friend's house for dinner. Walter is one of Ivan's coworkers whom we met in DC, since he was in the same LL.M. program as Ivan. Now they work together at Ernst & Young and we all hang out on occasion. Our original plan was for Susan to come into the city around 6pm when Ivan gets off work and enjoy a leisurely stroll to Walter's apartment. However, work on Monday turned out to be crazy-busy and neither Ivan nor Walter got off work until closer to 8pm! That doesn't happen very often, but it left Susan hanging around E&Y for two hours with not much to do. By the time 8pm rolled around we were very hungry. Walter's roommate started working on dinner, so we didn't have to wait too long, before we were served a feast. Walter is from Peru and his mom owns a restaurant. You can guarantee he's a good cook! He fixed us "Spicy Hen" (Ají de gallina) which is a phenomenal Peruvian dish served on rice and potatoes (here's a recipe, not from Walter, but worth a try - let me know if you do). We enjoyed a great dinner with Walter, his roommate (who's working on a law doctorate S.J.D.), and Benjamin (another E&Y coworker).

On Wednesday, Ivan preached his second (and final) sermon for the summer. We're going through a series on "A Biblical Worldview" and his topic was "A Biblical Worldview of Work and Money." Since Ivan has been preparing for this sermon for about a month, we've had lots of time to apply what he's been learning to our own financial situation. We've been quite spoiled these days with an ample salary that doesn't require us to count our pennies and be extra careful. That has led us to be somewhat wasteful in several areas, so we've buckled down and created a budget to help us trim out the fat. Again, Ivan took the day off of work so he could spend the morning finalizing his notes and the afternoon practicing his delivery. Ivan's not a huge fan of topical sermons, so he was hard pressed trying to find one passage to focus on for the sermon. In the end, he had three points and had to settle for one main passage per point: Work (1Thes 4:11-12), Save (Pr 6:6-9), and Give (2 Cor 9:6-7). Here is the handout in case you're interested. Apparently you can order a copy of his sermons on CD ($3), but the Wednesday Night sermons aren't available for download from the church website (www.ns-bc.org). But, I highly recommend this sermon if you're interested in revisiting your perspective on work and money and compare it to Biblical examples.

Now, as if those two highlights of this week weren't enough. There's more. That's right: more! Today the ladies of our church gathered at a member's home for a pool party and bbq. It was so much fun - we wish we could do that more often! The catch is that the house with the pool is an hour away. Susan decided to carpool with some friends and ended up with three other ladies in her car. We enjoyed great conversation on the way out there and it really helped the drive go by much more quickly. About 30 ladies were there and we enjoyed fun games in the pool (which was a nice relief after being in the hot sun), great food, a wonderful devotional message prepared by Rayna. A few of us even tried out the trampoline briefly! Before we knew it, time had flown by and it was already 7pm. We piled back into the car for the long ride home. The conversation was more subdued, because I think we were all a bit tired, but we had a quick and safe ride back home.

Labels: NY

Another month has begun. So far this summer we have enjoyed rather mild temperatures with short, enjoyable bursts of rain. Well, August has decided to buck the trend and be a "real" summer month. Wowsers, it's been hot! And humid! Anyone missing CA yet? YES! WE ARE!! We finally bought an air conditioner thru-the-wall unit for our living room, so we hung up a curtain across the hallway and manage to keep the front of the house a fairly decent temperature. We turn off the AC when we go out and it's not uncommon to come back to a house that's 87 degrees. Blech. Unlike CA where it's almost certain to cool down at night, we've been getting no relief after the sun goes down. So, we've started to sleep on a mattress in the living room. We don't like running the AC 24/7, but that's what it's been this last week. "Welcome to New York."

Labels: NY