LTIA Part 4...Trodding through Tuesday

If we thought our feet hurt after our tour of the monuments and standing around the Holocaust museum we had no idea what was in store for them. However, we arose on Tuesday looking forward to the days events. On a personal note I was super tired from the previous evenings gab session. I wasn't a part of it, I unsuccessfully was trying to sleep through it. Finally around 1 I had to turn around and sush them all to bed. It was rediculous, but a couple cups of coffee and a pep talk from some of the staff members and I was good to go.

My memory verse for Tuesday was Psalm 33:4 - "For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth."

Some of our lectures that we had were on Secular Humanism and Creation vs. Evolution.

It's the events of the day however that were the most exciting for me. We split off into a couple of different groups based mostly on whether or not we had a meeting time for our senators. Fortunatlely for the SPG's Levi took charge of that and called ahead to make our appointment time.

Our first stop though was at the Faith in Action building for a meeting with Tim Gueglin from Focus on the Family. The walk to the building was a hike from METRO and in order to make sure that we arrived on time we were walking at a pretty speedy pace, which only helped my make-up to melt, but once we arrived at our destination, the AC was nice, and as you can see below the brownstone that houses FIA was lovely. Mr. Gueglin spoke to us about the NEED for strong families in America and more pointedly the NEED for strong fatherly leadership. In the absences of true leadership people will look to anysource that they can to lead them, like government programs that take of their lives for them...hmmm, sound familiar to anyone. He also encouraged us to try and make a difference where we can by getting involved. Part of that naturally comes with knowing what the issues are that effect people and their lives.

After our audience with him we made our way to Senator Cantwells office. Honestly I had no idea what to expect in meeting her. Already knowing that we have two different world views I wasn't sure how exactly that would go down. To say that she was cordial to us would be about the best that I could say. Though she was a little bowled over that she had 10 constituents from he state in her office, much to her chagrin she realized that we were not on her side. We had unanimously come to a decision that Tim would be our intial spokes person. He wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea of meeting her, and prior to meeting her he asked me how he should open it up. Well if there's one thing that I learned while being an enlisted person in the Navy, and being a woman in a mans world, it's that flattery will get you everywhere. Nothing overdone mind you, but if you find yourself in a conversation with someone who is in a position of authority like that the best way to engraciate yourself is to start with a compliment i.e. "Thank you for your service" something to that end. But he did a fine job of opening up the discussion.

Prior to us leaving for the day we were encouraged by the staff, on behalf of Concerned Women for America, to lobby against the passing of the Burris Ammendment. This ammendment was made by the Illinois Senator and it's a provision that would allow for abortions to start taking place on military bases, Bill No. NDAA-FY2011. For many years this has been against the DOD but alas that is not the way that our current leadership wants to see things go. And while it's advocate would have you believe that the ladies that get pregnant in the military have no options that is just not true. They have them, and it involves going off base, and in the case of over seas assignments being sent back to the states. However, this should not be an expense that is put on the burden of the tax payers to foot the bill for, which we will. So this was our mission: Lobby with Senator Cantwell against the Burris Ammendment.

Tim started to, but knowing that she wasn't going to budge he didn't hit it to hard, and instead started to talk to her about energy alternatives. Then he opened up the floor to the rest of us. Nicki wanted to bend her ear on the Durbin Exchange Ammendment, which would make it hard for credit unions to offer the free services that they do to their customers. They would basically have to start charging customers fees on their debit purchases, this was all done to help offset the cost of the bail outs. One thing that though, credit unions did not accept any bail out money and they did not help contribute to the financial melt down that other banking institutions did, because they did not lend to their customers irresponsibly. Nicki works for a credit union so that was her platform. Once she was done though I jumped in on the issue of the Burris Ammendment. My experience as a woman in the military put me in a unique position to speak not only from my faith POV but from one of practical knowledge of how it would affect the military in the long term should this ammendment pass.

Honestly I had no idea what I was going to say when I opened my mouth, and she did try and sway me with her own false flattery saying that I looked to young to have served in the military, please!!! Really, give me a break! 31 looks a whole lot different than 18 does and once I figured out that she was trying to throw me off my game something other than myself took over and I went to work, talking about how to begin with sex isn't even allowed in the barracks and then how and ammendment like this will have repercussions with command readiness. Seriously, it may have been my voice coming out, but those words weren't mine I barely remember all that I said. What I do remember distinctly is that the more glazed over her eye became the more I wanted to sit there and continue lobbying on behalf of the unborn lives that would suffer from this ammendment. I may not have been able to get through, but after that I was super pumped and wanted more. "Carolyn Pivarnik goes to Washington".

Once we all regrouped it was time to go to the USS Barry at the Naval shipyard. Which may seem close on a map, but not when you have to hike there, and yes I mean hike. Maggie was a trooper, she was in heels all day! I looked down at my feet as we were walking and my ankles were the size of grapefruits, no joke. They were huge! I sported cankles for the rest of the week. But those that had never been on a Naval ship before enjoyed the visit, we got there right before they secured for the day. I chose to stay on deck instead of move and melt some more from the heat. Resting in the shade of the battleships gun I talked with Tim R. about his experience with going to talk to the humanists. As an advanced student that was what he got to do that afternoon. Personally, I'd rather lobby, but it was an interesting experience at best for that team of students.

We returned to LI for dinner and fellowship. Our dogs were barking and Miss Nancy, upwards in her 80's, bless her heart made it through the whole day without complaining (she even got a ride from a kind stranger that saw our group) which definitely put things into perspective, but that knowledge still didn't do much to alleviate the pain from my blisters. However, if I lost sleep the previous night, this night more than made up for it. I forgot to add though that the girls dorm is right underneath a dance club. So every night we were accosted with the ever changing beat of 80's hip hop, country, and other various dance music. It was a flash back for me most nights of the party life style that I used to live in, every night that is except for Latin night, but still it was only by the saving of my MP3 player and some Joshua Bell (violinist) that made the reverberating beat drown out of my head and help me close my eyes for som much needed rest. Wednesday was just a few hours away, and no less eventful.

Whidbey News Time publishes LTIA article

Here is the write up from the Whidbey News Times, just in case you didn't click on the attachment in my last post.

LTIA Part 3...Monday's Martyrdom

Day number 3 was off to a bang to start off with for we started with the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag,
of the United States of America.
And to the republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, with liberty
and justice for all.

Really, who doesn't get invigorated by simply saying the pledge of allegiance? Sadly I remember it slowly getting faded out in school while I was growing up. Sure we had a flag hanging right above the blackboard, but little was done to recognize it. Sadly here is an article that talks about a town in Massechusettes that won't allow the pledge to even be said/

Memory verses for the day, Isaiah 40:31 ~ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up their wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. & 2 Samuel 23:3 ~ He that ruleth over men, must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

This being the first full day we first had our lectures on the Evidence for God, the Resurrection and in Inspiration of the Bible. Bro Ken also brought us a lesson on martyrdom, in preparation for our trip to the Holocaust Museum (you won't be seeing a lot of pictures from here because photography was not allowed, but here are some pics of us waiting outside).

When you enter the museum the first thing that they do is hand you an identification card. For the afternoon you are assigned a person that was affected by the Holocaust. Some are survivors, some are not, some (like mine) were able to escape the Nazi regime. The identification card takes you through 3 different stages of the persons life during the Holocaust. These stages correspond to the 3 levels that make up the time line of the museum. That way you can try and experience the museum on a more personal level than other museums. They also lined us up single file and escorted us to the elevators. From beginning to end the curators have the museum set up so that you can try and get the full "experience", which included shoving 40+ people into the elevator that came to pick us up, not unlike the cattle cars that the Jews experienced on their ways to the concentration camps. The person escorting us tried to claim that this wasn't the design, but please it was, and really why hide it. It's a very effective tool in trying to communicate what it would have been like.

My person was Dora Unger and here is her story.

Dora was born January 7, 1925 in Essen Germany. Dora, her parents, brother, aunt, uncle, and two cousins lived together in her grandfather's home in Essen. The Ungers were an observant Jewish family, and when Dora was 8, she began to regularly attend meetings of Brit HaNoar, a religious youth organization.

1933-39: In October 1938 a teacher, with tears in her eyes, came to me at the municipal pool, saying "Jews cannot swim here anymore." Just weeks later, on November 9, Jews were arrested and their property destroyed. A neighbor tried to protect us, but that night as our family huddled together, Nazis spotted our house. Suddenly, an axe flew through the window, landing on my head. A few days later, we fled for the Netherlands.

1940-45: In Amsterdam, as refugees, my parents were not permitted to work and so could not provide for me and my brother. I was sent by a Jewish aid organization to the Buergerweeshuis, an orphanage which had 80 Jewish refugee children. Just after the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, "Mama Wysmueller," a Dutch woman who worked to rescue thousands of children by arranging their passage to England, came and told all of us to get dressed. We were taken by bus to a pier and put on the Bodengraven, a boat. Dora spent the remainder of the war in England. Her parents and brother perished at the camps of Sobibor and Auschwitz. Dora emigrated to Israel in 1946.

There were quite a few moving displays. Anything that was blocked by a gray slab wall was only to be viewed if the person walking through chose to. There was sensitive material behind those walls. Like behind one was a video of the experiments that Dr. Mengele performed on the infirmed, the disabled and the children. Very tough. I did look behind all the walls though. Behind one particular wall was a display of shoes that had belonged to people that were sent into the gas chambers. And there was another moving display that was actually broken up between different floors. It was a display of photos from families that had lived in one town in Europe. This town was completely annihilated and all that is left of this place are the photos that were discarded and left behind during this tumultuous period in history. Not since that time has the town ever exhistedd again and no Jews have ever returned to that part of Europe.

I also had a surprisingly personal experience in the museum. With all the other walls that have different names of people that died, or did the killing, at the end of the museum there is a lone white wall that has the names of those people that helped Jews escape the Nazis. Now rewind with me for a second. Over 10 years ago I went to NYC with my drama club and during our tour of Ellis Island I misspelled my families last name in the computer system and was hence unable find my families history of going through there. Well this time I knew how to spell it and decided to take a shot at seeing if I had any distant family members that would have been on the side of the "good guys". And guess what (seriously if you haven't figured it out you haven't been following along)? I did find my families last name on that wall!!! How far removed we are from one another I'll probably never know, but it was pretty amazing to see it up there and to know i came for a family that was willing to do what was right. I am, or at least I like to think of myself, as the type of person that takes up for the "underdog" and fights for what is right. And i like to think that had I been alive back then that I would have done the same thing.

Upon exiting that final display there is a quiet reflection room, where an eternal flame burns in remembrance of the dead and the survivors, and a place for people to sit and contemplate what they had seen and experienced for themselves.

After we returned to LI for dinner and a lecture from the LI staff on social networking. It was an end to our first long and emotional day. The picture below displays the sentiments of what we should all do in order to make sure that something that atrocious never happens again.

On a side note the article that Levi wrote to the local newspaper on our experience was published in today's edition. Here is the link for you to read it for yourself. Good job Levi!

ONLY...A Testimony

Psalm 72:18 ~ Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.

Have you ever read something once and never had it register completely? Have you ever been in need or searching for some comfort and then found it in that exact same reading?

The answer for me to both of these things is yes.

Recently I've had some things come up for me that were unexpected and didn't go along with my plans and in so looking for comfort I found it, where I should have expected it, but didn't for my lack of faith.

I was tired from a long hot day at work, we have no A/C up north so when the heat does come there is little to take respite in, and I tossed and turned trying to get comfortable. Unable to do so my restless spirit opened my Bible and turned to Psalms. It's what I've been reading in lately. Though some are imprecatory, they are also a great source of comfort when searching for understanding and comfort. Psalm 72 was where I was at and though I was enjoying it, I also felt like I would probably be reading a while until I felt better, until I got to the end and v.18 was there.

In the silence of thoughts it felt like the first time that I was reading the word "only". Four little letters, but such a wonderful thought in the middle of the verse. God ONLY doeth wonderous things. Think about it. It's all He knows how to do. Now I can't explain why the unpleasant and even unfair things in life happen, which they do, except that God means to work them out for good, Romans 8:28 ~ And we that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. I fell asleep that night at peace and happy that the Lord had shown me something from his word. And as it happens most times, once God gets your attention with something it seldom leaves that thought behind. So Psalm 72:18 became my meditation for the rest of the week.

Now we arrive at Friday. The week got better. I got some of my financial things figured out and things were definitely looking up. I got my mail and there was an envelope from Sallie Mae, my previous money supplier for my school loan. Back in April, knowing that school was going to have to go back on hold for a bit, I made the point of paying them off first, for what I owed. They are ruthless at getting money back and I just wanted to make sure that I didn't have those loose ends tying thing up. So my first thought was "Great, another bill." However, to my surprise, it was instead a reimbursement check. Now I was never good at Math, but I know how to add. So how I made this mistake I don't know, but I did and boy O boy what a great mistake! A mistake worth $1,975. My finances are still being worked out, but this will be a huge help in setting up some new things that I need to take care of. It was also a blessing to know that I had something tangible to put to my latest batch of prayer requests. God is never a day late and a dollar short when taking care of our needs, and it lifted my spirits tonight.

Whether it's money, relationships, school, bills, car problems, lonliness, heartache, illness, or a new opportunity God cares about your "only", for He only doeth wonderous things, and it does my heart quite well to know that nothing the Lord does is mediocre.

LTIA Part 2...Liberty and Lightening bugs

Sunday June 20th was Fathers day, and it was also our 1st whole day with LTIA. It was a scortcher. Really I don't know why we bothered putiing on makup because it really all melted off, but in any case resistance was futile and we caved in everyday. I also recited my first memory verse for the week 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

The day started with church. Decked out in our Sunday duds we attended services at Crossroads Baptist Church, where we listened to a rousing message from Pastor Kenny Baldwin on how men are to be mighty men of valour. Even though the message wasn't designed for women it offered up some encouragement as to what to look for and expect in the future from my husband.

LTIA Class 2010

After we returned for lunch, dinner and lecture on world views how they are formed, how to choose the right world view, and worl view warfare strategy. Intense, but necessary for what we would be facing the rest of the week.

After dinner we got ready and went on our night walking tour of the monuments. I've been to DC a number of times, but a night walk of tour of the monuments was new to me. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend it. For one, the heat is less intense, although the humidity still hangs around it's less brutal than when the sun is full on in the sky.

We started off at the Jefferson Memorial where Bro. Ken brought us a lesson on it's history and what Thomas Jefferson believed concerning the role of God in our government. We closed it off by singing a patriotic song (forgive me for forgetting the song we sang here the only 2 I remember are what we sang at the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument).

Jeffeson Memorial Fact: On the inside walls are four inscriptions of Jefferson’s writings describing his beliefs in freedom, education of all people, and the need for a change in the laws and institutions of a democracy.

Thomans Jefferson Quote: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Sadly Joel did not have his hunting gear with him

After we made our way over to the Licoln memorial. Personally, and I have no tangible reason to feel this way, but the Licoln memorial is my favorite. I'd like to be there sometime just by myself and enjoy the silence between the columns and his speeches engraved on the walls. After our lesson here, we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Lincoln Memorial Fact: the 36 columns surrounding the monument represnt the 36 states that were in the union during the Civil War.

Abrham Lincoln Quote: "The best gift God has given man is the Bible. It is by all odds the most influential book (or rather collection of books) in existence. The Old and New Testaments have held men together spiritually through the centuries. Three hundred and fifty years ago, in 1611, fifty four devoted English scholars and churchmen, assigned to the task by King James I , gave to the English speaking world a monument of noble prose, on which so many of us have been brought up. The Bible has been translated into more than 1,150 languages. In short, the Bible has had the most dramatic career of any book in the world."

The Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's Inagural Address

Next it was onto the Vietnam Memorial. Unique to the last few monumnets is that there is no mention of God within their architechture. He is either omitted entirely or any referance is dwarfted by the uplifting of man over God. A stark contrast to the first where God is magnified. The silence surrounding this monument in particular warrents no hymn or song, because there is nothing to be glorified here. Surpisingly, I witnessed a slew of teens in tears. Over what I don't know, possibly a family member they never knew...they were all to young to ever grown up with the aftermath of recovery from the vietnam war. But still littered throughout the memorial are cards, flowers and stuffed animals letting the soldiers, sailors and airmen know that they are not forgotten.

Vietnam Memorial Fact: Designed by Maya Ying Lin, a 20 year old student at Yale University. Her design was the result of an earlier class assignment. She only received a B grade on the assignment, but a jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selected her design. There are 58,195 names on the wall.

USS Forestal Tribute

Reflections in the wall

As we travelled to our next destination, the WWII memorial, the lightening bugs started to come out. Half of the SPG's had never seen them before, so trying to capture them on camera was not as easy as they had hoped. We would have had an easier time if we had Mason jars with holes in the top. Seeing them brought back memories from the summer spent at my Grandma's in PA. Nice to see that the pleasure they bring to people has not changed.

I had never been to this memorial before, it was being built when I lived there, but I never got to see it's completion. Having family that served in this war made it a little more personal to me, rather than just a monument to commemorate people that I didn't know. I took pictures of the columns that had the states names, in which my family member had served from.

Finally we closed the evening off with the Washington monument. Facing the flags that encompass the monument with our hands over out hearts here we sang the Star Spangled Banner. Interesting to these hymns that were sung was that upon their completion we were rewarded with applause. Not that this was our goal, but it did boost our spirits a bit. Here we even had strangers join in. There is something about our Nations capital that brings out peoples patriotic spirits. Even if they don't want to be the ones that initiate patriotic fervor they recognize the need to pay tribute where tribute is due.

Washington Monument fact: No building in DC is allowed to be taller than the Washington monument.

George Washington Quote: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."

Today's government would like to have people believe that our founding fathers had no desire to have God involved in the affairs of government, but that is completely the opposite of what thier desire was. They knew that we needed His governance in our affairs and that because of God we could live with liberty in the land of the free and the home of the brave. David said in Psalm 119:45 ~ "And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts." Because our forefathers saught out the Lord precepts we have been able to enjoy liberty in this country for the past 234 years. Unless we let God back in the involvement in our affairs I shudder to think of what will happen in the next 234.