O Ye of Little Faith

Have you ever let yourself get ‘down’ about something, even when you know it is irrational?

That has been me lately when I have contemplated the status of my website, www.vietnam-air-rescues.com and the sales (or lack of) of my eBook.

I know that these things take time, that I have to search out better ways of publicizing the site, blah, blah, blah, but I had the feeling I was working and writing in a vacuum and worse yet, that no one knew or cared. Crazy huh?

Today God broke up my pity party not once, but twice, by sending me an extremely uplifting statement of support from David and a rash of endorsements/comments/encouragement from Kenny Fields, the last guy I rescued. Thanks, Lord, I needed that!

Reminds me somewhat of Elijah, who allowed himself to get in the same sorry frame of mind when, after defeating the 450 prophets of Baal, he whined to the Lord that he was the only one left who was true to God and God answered him that He (God) had 7,000 others who had never bowed the knee to Baal. So much for self-importance!

Anyway, it is amazing what a little bit of encouragement will do to make the sun shine brighter, so to speak. I guess that is the old ‘glass half full, glass half empty’ syndrome.

Must be a moral in there somewhere about never knowing when a friend or neighbor might need a word of encouragement. (Note to me: Look for opportunities to encourage others.)

So now, I feel rejuvenated and ready to slay the dragons arrayed against me again.

Longfellow put it this way—”Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.”

Ah, but the waiting part is sometimes so hard!

More later

Dave

In From the Cold

Whew! What a week! We got caught in the great Ice Storm of 2007.

Our electricity was iffy for a few days, going in and out. We lost internet connection and then phone lines; finally the electricity went out (at 7 pm. Tuesday) and stayed off.

We toughed it out that night (the low was 14), but the following day was too much, so we began looking at motels. Alas, all were full in our town, but we found a room in a nearby town (30 miles away) by out waiting those who had been smart enough to make reservations.
Finally, at 7 pm, someone failed to show up and we were in! What a blessing.

The next day, with ice and snow everywhere, we returned home to check on the electricity (still out) and managed to get a room in our home town. The following morning (Friday), with the electricity still out at the house, we asked to extend and were notified that others had made long term reservations and we had to give the room up. What to do?

We had hoped that perhaps our homeowners insurance would cover the costs of eating out and living in motels while the utilities were out, but no dice.

So, there we were, no motels anywhere nearby. We discussed driving to somewhere else and staying there until the thing got over, but we were smack dab in the middle of the bad weather, which was all around us for several hundred miles. Even talked about flying to somewhere warm.

Then we had a thought. I am retired military, why not try a base? The closest base was full, due to the weather, but we found another one, 80 miles away. We got a 2-bedroom suite at half the cost we had been paying for a motel room. God is good.

We jumped into our car and headed there, arriving just in front of a new snowstorm. Craig, bless his heart, checked on the electricity situation daily for us. On Sunday, Craig told us he would make another swing by to check, but we called a neighbor and found out that the electricity had come back on late Saturday night.

Then, when we checked our phone messages, we found we had a call from the credit card company. Someone, somewhere, had picked up our card number as we played motel tag and was charging wildly all over—New Jersey, Nebraska, Illinois, the internet.

So, our card is cancelled and we have to fill out an affidavit identifying which charges are ours.

Hearing that the electricity was back on, we jumped back in the car and headed for home. How wonderful to be back in our own 'hacienda'.

While all this was taking place, I had given some thought to those pesky ‘stars’ that kept wandering around on the website. Now that I am back home, I have replaced them with the hyperlinked word ‘more’ and things seem to work better.

BUT I discovered that my buttons at the bottom of the page had gone bad, so I had to replace them as well. All is now back in order. Check out the site—www.vietnam-air-rescues.com.
I still have to figure out how to get the film to run from the main page. Oh well, another project for tomorrow.

Dave