Birthday surprise fishing trip

 It was Paul's birthday (orange) so Gary took several friends and men from church on a Halibut trip.

 It takes a lot of weight fishing in the high tide currents of Cook Inlet, and it is a lot of work bringing that weight back up from the ocean floor to change bait.

 Bringing one up now.  We each got two which is the limit.

This one is about 25 or 30 pounds.  It is possible to get one 300 #s.

Debt thoughts

Not many folks talk about this, that the US spends more on defense than the next 17 nations combined. (We are 11th as a percent of GDP @ 4.7%.)

If i was loaning money to a neighbor and he spent it all on guns and ammo... i would be a little worried about trying to collect that debt.

Are we really intending to pay off our debts??? Or, do we really have to worry about paying it off?

Another thought; "the borrower is servant to the lender" i wonder if the lenders to the US are controlling what is happening in this country behind the scenes.

That is probably enough crazy thoughts about debt.

A person with zero debt is free from many worries.

Coicidence or Connection

A few months ago a book was recommended that shows many connections between natural disasters and market crashes; and how the US treats Israel. Since i like to study the markets and am also a fan of controversies and conspiracy theories it caught my attention. The book is As America has done to Israel by John McTernan. He starts out by showing how we supported Israel in the earlier days of the new nation. But later during the reigns of four or five recent presidents we have been methodically telling Israel to give back land and settlements. Often on the same day or day after we do this bad things such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and market crashes happen! Is it just an interesting coincidence or is God really trying to get our attention? Perhaps monitoring this type of news can help the decision to go long or short the markets.

Exodus and Exile

We are living during very trying times lately and for several years now. I found an interesting introduction to Lamentations written in the Message Bible by Eugene Peterson that might have a parallel application to 'what in the world is going on anyway??' I will copy one paragraph:

"There are two polar events in the history of the Hebrew people: the Exodus from Egypt and the Exile into Babylon. Exodus is the definitive story of salvation into a free life. God delivered his people from Egyptian slavery (in about 1200 B. C.). It is a story of freedom. It's accompanied by singing and dancing--an exuberant experience. Exile is the definitive story of judgment accompanied by immense suffering. God's people are taken into Babylonian slavery (the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. marks the event). It is a time of devastation and lament. It is a terrible experience. The two events, Exodus and Exile, are bookends holding together the wide-ranging experiences of God's people that fall between the exuberance that accompanies salvation and the suffering associated with judgement."

We hear the Exodus story a lot in churches but rarely hear about the Exile. 2Kings 23 shows how bad things became in Israel before the judgement of exile. The way things are becoming in this country and world, are we ripe for judgement or exile ourselves?

This is kind of a negative posting, but it is something i just noticed this summer while reading and a light went on and it had to be written to remember it... Seventy years after the exile God was gracious and let a few go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and the walls (Ezra and Nehemiah). Yet those who went back to the promised land were slaves and had to give their harvests to foreign kings. (Nehemiah 9 and check out v. 36, 37.) Maybe these difficult days can be explained by the exodus AND the exile story.