Most of you know Zsila. She is one of my very closest friends. We were roommates at A&M, in the same sorority, spent a summer together studying & traveling in Western Europe, and she stood beside me at my wedding. I have now known her for almost 10 years and we have seen each other through many good times and many bad. She is in residency in Houston but in April spent her time serving in the medical field in Ghana. I would recommend spending some time reading her blog from her time there (the link is posted below).

The reason the title of this post is “Zsilita” is because, when we were in Europe, we started adding “ita” to the end of our names which, in Spanish, denotes a smaller version of something. So hers is Zsilita and mine is Casita (which we want it to mean “little Casey,” but it actually means “little house”!). Well, what she has been doing in Ghana is truly amazing and I thought, “I can still call her Zsilita because she’s cute, but this is NO SMALL PERSON.”

Please read her posts and let them take you away for awhile to a totally different place where God is moving and turning thousands to Himself.

http://prayforghana.blogspot.com/

I’ve recently been reprimanded by multiple people for not updating the site frequently enough. I have aspirations to be very committed, but for some reason it falls through the cracks. I often have thoughts I’d like to share and often read stuff that would be worth the while posting…I don’t know what the blockage is. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time working on the computer during the day, that when I get home I don’t feel like adding to it ??

Anyway, as usual, I’m reading a number of books at once – typically a variety of genres. Sometimes I finish them, sometimes I don’t. They usually have to captivate me to get me to the final page. So right now I have a book in my kitchen, a couple on the coffee table, and one on my nightstand. I’m reading two books pertaining to my job in Community Ministries. One is entitled “First Impressions” by Mark Waltz. It’s about how to make good first impressions to newcomers who visit your church. The second is called “How to be a Great Cell Group Coach” by Joel Comiskey. I actually haven’t started this one yet, but I think it’s about how to be a great cell group coach. The third book I’m reading is by my very favorite author, Philip Yancey. It is “The Jesus I Never Knew.” I’ve chosen this one, because I need a bit of refreshment. I want to read about Jesus instead of watching horrific overplayed news stories about death and destruction. And lastly, I’ve recently started a book that has been on my shelf for years. It’s one of those that I know I should read and I really want to read, but I haven’t gotten to it. It’s the one on my shelf that you can’t miss because it looks like it takes up an entire shelf of its own. It’s the one I sometimes stare at, wonder if I should start it, and walk on. It is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” I think it’s about 3700 pages long (okay, maybe around 800). I finally came to the place where I could freely admit (and be okay with) the fact that it may take me seventeen years to finish it.

All of that to say, I will TRY to begin posting interesting thoughts/facts/ideas, etc., that I find in my readings. I know some people don’t really like to sit and read, but enjoy learning new things, so I will attempt to share small nuggets with those of you who fall under that category. On that note…

I read a couple of chapters from “The Jesus I Never Knew” this afternoon. A paragraph to enjoy and think on…

“I learned about incarnation when I kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, I discovered, is no easy task. I had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. I pumped in vitamins and antibiotics and sulfa drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow. I filtered the water through glass fibers and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light. You would think, in view of all the energy expended on their behalf, that my fish would at least be grateful. Not so. Every time my shadow loomed above the tank they dove for cover into the nearest shell. They showed me one “emotion” only: fear. Although I opened the lid and dropped in food on a regular schedule, three times a day, they responded to each visit as a sure sign of my designs to torture them. I could not convince them of my true concern. To my fish I was deity. I was too large for them, my actions too incomprehensible. My acts of mercy they saw as cruelty; my attempts at healing they viewed as destruction. To change their perceptions, I began to see, would require a form of incarnation. I would have to become a fish and “speak” to them in a language they could understand.”