Breakfast with the Bolinger Fam

Hey here we are at the world famous Knotts Berry Farm Ranch House for Breakfast. The biscuits are yummy. My Sister and her kids joined us and my parents. Pray for my Dad as he is a great and funny man but he is loosing his eyesight. From 2 or 3 years old he has lost sight in one eye due to an accident on a farm in Oklahoma. Now he has been diagnosed with glaucoma and has just had a Cataract removed from his only one good eye. So he has been a little depressed the vision isn't as immediate as he had hopped. The Doctor said it'll improve a little but now much. Anyway we had a blast at breakfast and then my Sister and us went on into the Knotts Amusement park for a grand fun time.

Crazy Carver's

You gotta love the Carver family. Mark and Kimie have two cool kids and they just blessed our socks off. We had a great time of fellowship and shredding beef together. There wasn't a breaking of bread but tearing flesh. Ha Ha Ha Ha. We did have sweet fellowship in our Lord. Pray for this couple God is moving and Kimie is from Hokkaido. It'd be cool if God would call them to Hokkaido. He hasn't yet and they are doing a great job here. They are going to come to Japan in December and visit Mihoko and I in Kamakura. I can't wait.

Merry-go-rounds an memories

The kids grew up riding the merry-go-round at South Coast Plaza and they went for a spin. Nathan is all grown up I don't think I'll get him back on there until he gets a girl friend or has kids of is own. He's cool now. Jane had a quick hello with a friend Natalie Tanaka.

Back in California

well we made it back and the kids waisted no time getting their bikes out and riding them around. The weather was in the high 80's. Whew it is hot!

Family

I am unable to upload pictures until I get to a better connection. But for now I just wanted to say that we are so enjoying being with family. My biological family and my spiritual family. The design of the family is created by God it is his institution. No evolutionary model can explain the dynamic of the family. If it is about survival of the fittest we would have wiped out our families long ago. Sibling rivalries have left a wake of familial destruction around the globe. But there is forgiveness in the human race that for many who surrender to the logic of the God given model and reconcile with their family find a peace and joy that cannot be explained in rational terms. Those who forsake the family and go after self-enslaving lifestyles find a tremendous vacuous void in their soul even those at the pinnacle of life will testify of the pin-drop silence of loneliness and emptiness they feel. Family is God's design to illustrate to us humans a metaphor of our relationship with God. It is a marriage first and then a family ensues for all eternity. For those of misrepresentations of family and bad examples of souls trapped in violence and anger this was never the intended model but the worst case scenario. With the advent of the church after the resurrection of Christ we find that the Church is the new metaphor of the relationship we are to have with our God. The Church is seen as a body with many members all making up a person hood known as the Bride of Christ. She is a mess outside of scripture. In the Bible, the intent and design is beautiful but with sin still plaguing humanity we have a bloody violent mess of a representation of the bride. But the beauty is in that Jesus loves her and has chosen her and he will clean her up and she will be presented in heaven not in her own righteousness but in Christ's. She will be beautified and cleaned because of the work of Jesus. Today the emphasis is on the outward appearance and we are physically augmenting the church with abnormal nonspiritual growth and the silicone injections of entertainment were never the intention of the Lord. It is a plight of a false sense of security that the size of the congregation indicates a healthy physiology. When in fact the opposite is true. The emergent church is clear evidence of a bride in need of a visit to the emergency room to be healed instead they are on the fringe of society sitting in their own filth not seeing the groom for whom she should be preparing herself for. We find that they are more preparing themselves to entertain the world and look like the world than the eternal citizen of Heaven not part of this world. That is why we are seeing the the abnormal persons of the world try to look normal when they are not. The Family is designed by God to be distinct from any other form or union. Let no man or woman or other type person put asunder. The cool thing is even if our society capitulates to the terrorist demands of homosexual community they will never be normal. A label still won't pacify and satisfied until they repent and seek forgiveness and change from their wicked ways. It is not that I am declaring it to be so but their separation from God and his original design for the human being is what they are looking for and need. Until they see that no matter if we elevate them to the highest status in humanity they will always have a sense of abnormal. That is what they are in God's eyes and you just can't change an unchangeable person. He has always been and will always be the God of the universe the creator of all matter and substances and the Lord of humanity. When all is said and done every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and King. I am so thankful we have family but I am so much more thankful that God has called me into his family and it isn't because of me or my special abilities and talents or lack there of, it is because of the simplicity of Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. Peace out.

Does the tooth fairy exist?

Well Rachel yanked another tooth out of her head. That is 8 in the last 3 months. She can't eat foods that you have to bite in the front. Corn and Popcicles are the worst. But I was going to put the tooth in a little jar that we keep her teeth in and she said not daddy I want to put it under my pillow. I said you don't believe in the tooth fairy do you. She smiles a big toothless smile that would light up a room and says, "Oh, but I believe in you daddy." So I am waiting til she goes to sleep and I'll sneak in and put some money under her pillow and put that yucky tooth in the baby teeth jar. Ravi Zacharias says that wonder as a child is one of the building blocks for character. Even though we know the truth we play along to the notion of what if it were true. This I believe builds faith for a future walk in Jesus. Jonathan in the Bible had that sense of hey lets just go and see what God will do. Paul tells us faith is the substance of things hoped for. We live in expectation of a great God who is love and truth and has promised to bless us. Do we look for the blessings? Have we lost the wonder effect of I wonder if God would...Pray about it and step out in faith looking at your heavenly daddy and say, "Yea but I believe in you."
The second picture is my cooking result as our last meal here I have to throw out some food but I was able to put to use most of it. We were pretty proud of our meal. The veggies were great and the Hawaiian Chicken was great. (Prepackaged boiling packets) The only thing I cooked was the potatoes. The kids are so excited about coming to the states for a little while. But they are torn as they were talking the other day saying they were going to miss their new friends here. God is good and we'll keep looking up to him believing he will bless and work in the hearts and lives of those around us. God bless you all

Iruma Air Show

Hello everyone. Today was the Iruma Air show actually it was the JITAI Japan's self defense forces putting on the show. The jet planes of the Blue Impulse were there. They are like our blue angels. It was amazing and from our apartment window we had about a half view. If we had gone up on the 8th floor of our neighbors building we probably could have seen more. There were others already doing that and it was crowded everywhere. This was way more crowded than the Matsuri last weekend. But we were able to see paratroopers jumping out of big C-130 type planes and the heart stopper were the Blue Impulse jets. Man they were good. They were also loud. There was turning and switching and rolling and that was just me trying to get a good picture with my little digital camera. It was frustraiting like trying to catch a fly by hand. But it was a great show. The picts are far away but when you click on them you can see a small speck of a plane or a fly and that is what I think I got.

Aunt Tomi

Today we had lunch with Mihoko's aunt Tomi. Mihoko's Mom has 5 siblings and Tomi is the youngest. Anyway, we got together and had a great lunch. She is so much fun and we just laughed so much. She treated us all to big parfait ice creams. They were yummy. We had the opportunity to share with her Rachel's dream and Mihoko's dad's testimony of receiving Christ. Her daughter received Christ back last April when Mihoko came to visit. So God is at work and keep praying for Tomi and her Husband. They are great people that I hope to see in heaven some day. We love you Tomi. Thanks for the wonderful lunch and the sweet fellowship.

Autumn is here burrrrrrrrr

Hey a few picts from my back balcony where there are a few trees turning red. Actually the first two I ripped off from my brother-in-laws website. I didn't have good ones to post. There are other places here in Japan where the colors are absolutely gorgeous. My brother-in-law Mark uploaded some great pictures in Washington state of the colors there. He is on the upper right in his blog "on target".

Nathan loves wakuwaku from NHK

Hey guys just a few picts of Nathan who has gone bonkers with a NHK kids program called Waku Waku. It is a 15 minute show on how to make cool stuff out of milk cartons and pet bottles. He has been collecting so much garbage that one of our balconies is just full of stuff. It is kind of embarrassing. We are going to have to reduce the amount of trash. But here he made a Shinkansen train out of a pet bottle. Cool eh? He is so proud of it. Keep it up Nathan your developing skills and talents for the Lord to use later on in life. But the garbage pile is something we all can go without.

Jane is an amazing girl

Jane loves to play pretend. I caught her the other day on our patio using our laundry rack for drying clothes as a counter for take out chicken. I think she was hankering for some chicken strips or something. She was making a lot of noise so I snuck up and took her picture. When she discovered me she started to throw chicken at me (plastic clips for holding clothes). She is one of our emotional ones who with the elequence of an 8 year old will tell you what is exactly on her mind. She is only 4 but will ask you a hundred questions. Travis and Michael the other day teamed up on her and asked her too many questions and she couldn't respond but all they did was teach her how to ask more questions in a different and nagging way. She'll just watch me make my coffee in the morning and say why do you have to have two creams and two sugars? Isn't one enough? Why do you need sugar at all? Mom says it'll make you fat. It is challenging to wake up with the enemy using your kids as a missile into your heart. So I had to create a rule of no questions until Daddy has had at least one cup of coffee.

Mando Matsuri

Well the Mando Matsuri came here to Iruma and it was a blast. The sights sounds and smells were greatly over stimulating to the gaijin senses. The people were excited and the food was great. I ate some Carne Asada beef ka-bob it was awesome. I wished I had bought more. The drummers were many and the Mikoshi arks were all decorated and ready for the parade and the Dashi floats were gased up and ready to be pulled with the live bands playing traditional Japanese Matsuri Music. The Oni (Demon) guys were out scaring away evil and dancing up on the Dashi. It was a cultural delight as I have never see one up close. Mihoko doesn't care for the festivals for her personal reasons. She was with Rachel in the hospital and I was free for a couple of hours to shower and walk around the town before going back to spend the night at the Hospital. I was supposed to help out at the "Plaza De Amigos Del Mundo" Stage making announcements in English. But in light of Rachel and my voice almost gone I saw this as God saying not this year. My voice was so raspy and course it was hard to talk and harder for others to understand. Guess what the very next day my voice came back. So I know who is in control here. God has plans for us here and it isn't being a celebrity. The Ladies in Kimono's were all decked out for the parade dancing. It is hundreds of ladies all from different groups or societies wearing costumes and dancing in unison. The drummers on the taiko drums practice their art form of drumming in unison together and hammer out tribal type songs. There were a dozen or so troops of Taiko drummers. There were 3 main stages with a talent show on one and rock bands on another, and then the Plaza was the main stage where our new mayor spoke and the beger meister from Germany Iruma's sister city also spoke. I was more fascinated with the Japanese translator speaking fluent German with an accent than anything else. I lived in Germany for two years so I realized I have forgotten all of my German. I understood how some American Japanese guys feel when they come to Japan and don't speak any Japanese. I am of German descent and "Ich Spreken zi kine Deutch". Even that don't sound right? Anyway, Next week is the Iruma Air show. The Blue Impulse Jets were flying overhead Today practicing their maneuvers. It is wonderful to watch. They fly with such precision.