Photo by coljay72 Colin Jackson

Our family had a year of “things”. You might call them problems or challenges but whatever they are, it has been a year of them! The last week or two have had one “thing” after another. Each seeming to hit with a hard blow. The latest last night left my son without the car that he just got titled in his name. Accidents happen, they say.

We all have them. Things that just keep happening. Illnesses, unexpected financial hits, job loss, car accidents, medical treatments or surgeries, family challenges, the sandwich generation, and for others, natural disasters or man-made trouble just keep happening.

Share it

Sometimes you feel like you are the only one facing something, but as you get talking with others, you find five more people that are dealing with the exact same thing. It doesn’t make your trouble go away but you don’t feel quite as alone when you start talking with others.

I don’t have any brilliant advice to give you today. I can just tell you what I do. When I get hit with another “thing”, I don’t keep it in. I let people know selectively. You know who you can trust and you know who you feel safe with.

Dig Deep

If you feel overwhelmed with a “thing”, share with those you trust and then dig deep. You think you don’t have any more reserves, but if you are like me, you do. Dig deep and you will find them. This is also when I grab a devotion book, put on Christian music, grab the Bible, and talk to God. That’s my way.

In Psalm 138 (the Message translation) , David says:

When I walk into the think of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand, strike my foes. With your other hand, save me. Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal, don’t quit on me now.

For me, the foes are the troubles or situations I face. This quote in my Bible has a note from a friend, who had sent me to the passage in August 2006 when some other “thing” was bothering me. My friend said:

Remember that faith is a saving faith of grace. Though this world is hard sometimes, He has overcome! And one day every tear will be wiped away.

Again this is my dig deep strategy. Not necessarily yours, but it is my way of moving on.

So today, whatever you are facing, share it with someone, then dig deep. And you will find ways to keep moving on.

Then I saw a Facebook note by Coy Sawyer at 89Q and his concern about people he knew there… and it touched me. Then I saw a comment by a friend, Ellen, from church saying her daughter who was in the Dominican Republic on another mission trip was safe and they would be used to help the people in Haiti. I replied that I was glad her daughter was safe but it still didn’t quite get it.

Then I saw, almost simultaneously posts from Jim Rosenberg saying:

This from Bonnie Bissonette at NTC: The NTC Foundation, 1000 W. Campus Drive, Wausau, WI 54401, will accept donations for the NTC Haiti Relief Fund, in recognition of the 8 current Haitian students and the dozens of former students now living in Haiti. This is a local connection for an international disaster. Thanks, Bonnie and NTC!

And from Jaclyn from Wesley Methodist (my church) announcing Anyone who would like to can meet in the sanctuary to pray for all of our friends and loved ones in Haiti in the aftermath of yesterday’s devestating earthquake. The prayer meeting is at 6:30 tonight.

And then I made the connection. Many of the international students who are part of our every Sunday worship come from Haiti. Jaclyn and her parents have housed the students for several years. Some of them volunteered for Wausau Whitewater too. Suddenly there was a connection and it was personal.

Faceless things happen all around us and we become immune to what is happening because there are so many tragedies all around the world every day. People talk about how everyone just talks social media but doesn’t do any thing. This is an opportunity to make a difference.

I just talked to Jaclyn on the phone and she said that this is such an information gathering stage where no one knows who is safe and who has been hurt or killed by the earthquake so the most important need first is to get that information. She set up a group for our church and a discussion page so people can post about people they know who are safe or give status updates: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=28642116979&topic=13581&ref=nf

Jaclyn told me that the mission team that was in the Dominican Republic has been rerouted to go help with the earthquake in Haiti.

On Twitter, the hashtag #haiti will get you information about the latest in information coming through Twitter. Worldvision is on the ground in Haiti. The RedCross is collecting funds through texting 90999 with donations of $10 for each text. More is explained in the White House blog. Here’s another Tweet that just flew by: RT @BuzzEdition My son is being deployed to #Haiti for disaster relief within a few hours #FortBragg #82ndAirborne > Our prayers 4 u all.

Now this tragedy isn’t faceless for me anymore. It has a face, it has faces, and now it becomes something I can do something about. I can pray for the people who have lost so much, I can pray for the rescue workers, I can donate, I can spread the word. Social media is a powerful tool but instead of talking about it, we can use it.

What can you do? How can you help? Stay in touch. My signature line is talk to me, I talk back… somehow that seems a little odd right now. But talk to me… I will talk back.

Update from Jaclyn: Yele Haiti,  founded by Wyclef Jean, right now the website says 100% of donations will go to earthquake relief: http://www.yele.org/

Postcards on the road

Sometimes we are blessed to have someone come into our lives who changes it and then we can’t find enough ways to say thank you. Today I want to introduce you to one of those people in my life.

Note: This post was sent out last year about this time. The things I have learned about blogging and communication since then makes me want to let it go again. Enjoy! (Mike was also Wausau Whitewater’s President this year and he took most of the year off from his career to make things work and deal with the economic challenges of the year. If you like his instrumental music, you can buy from MySpace Postcards and all his Contemporary Christian music with vocals is at his regular MySpace page or direct from Michael.)

(Mike’s not on Facebook or Twitter so unless someone reading this tells him, this stays my secret, but you can let it go viral, order music if you like it, and help me pay him back for giving so much time to Wausau Whitewater and decreasing my load.)

The rerun part: Though I’m a professional resume writer with 25 years experience, 11 of those years have also been tied to Wausau Whitewater as the Operations Manager. It was through Wausau Whitewater that I met Michael Schroeder (Mike). He came first as a freestyle competitor in the days when Wausau’s freestyle events were mainly Pro Rodeo events around 1999 – 2001. Pros such as Eric Jackson, Jimmy Blakeney, Tanya Shuman, and Eric Southwick put on a really good show and I just figured that was the way freestyle events were meant to go. But Mike and other paddlers really wanted to have an event geared for citizen level freestyle paddlers. Mike lobbied me and the board of Wausau Whitewater and before I knew it, he was running the first ever freestyle citizen’s event in 2002. He followed that up with the freestyle side of Wausau Whitewater Weekend and then in 2004 founded the Midwest Freestyle Championships. Along the way, we grew to be good friends.

I was really fuzzy about what Mike did for a living for awhile. Normally, I’m pretty curious about occupations. It just never came up. At some point though, I learned that he was a professional musician. During our many conversations, I did find out that he was a Christian. In 2003, he recorded his first CD, A Witness. My life had more downs than ups back then and his music as well as his phone calls helped me turn the corner.

Mike continued to expand his contemporary Christian music with more projects (Fuel for the Soul, the Way, and the Christmas release, The Reason for the Season) as well as tours throughout the country, www.michaelschroeder.com

It has been fun being his friend through all of this, watching his career grow. In summer 2008, we were taking virtual walks together, he was in his city walking in the woods and I was in Wausau walking to the river, and we would meet on the phone to walk and talk about Wausau Whitewater projects and some of our own endeavors. It was during those walks that he told me about this new project, a total instrumental project inspired by a trip he took to Europe some years ago. He called it Postcards from the Road and promised I could have a demo of it when it was ready.

I’ve always loved the contemporary Christian music and didn’t know how I would feel about a project without any vocals. But I love this one as much as any of the others. My friend’s musical voice comes out just fine without any words. The jazzy selections like Amsterdam make me smile. Ones like Nadine made me relaxed and thoughtful. You can hear some of the selections from his MySpace page for the project, http://www.myspace.com/michaelschroeder2

Perhaps in another post I will share some of the lessons I learned from Mike. For now, it is enough to say that meeting him blessed my life.

The family room had always been underused ever since my sons grew up. Our living room, dining room, and kitchen all blend together and that is the area we use the most. The family room was largely being ignored. One of the pluses of the upstairs family room is that it has its own source of heat, the gas fireplace. Unfortunately, shortly after I moved upstairs, the fireplace decided to die. I had our supplier’s repair people in multiple times and despite replacing a critical part, it kept failing.

Finally, I spoke to Jim Hurtis, with Hurtis Heating & Air at a Christian Business Leaders Breakfast that we both attend regularly. I asked if Hurtis also installed fireplaces. He said they did and I took his business card with a plan to call him. After a consultation appointment to discuss my needs, he offered to send his repair team to assure that the existing one was dead or maybe get it to limp along for a few more years. His team came and assessed the old fireplace but between the rusted bonnet, the cost of potential replacement parts and the uncertainty of the life left in my old one, we agreed to buy a new unit. Monday, September 14 was installation day. Mark and Rick arrived in the morning and removed the old unit and installed the new one which looks much better even without being finished. My family of carpenters is charged with the finishing but if they take too long, I will be hiring someone else.

The true test will come when the weather turn cold but I am already feeling pleased that I chose Hurtis to solve this problem. Rick and Mark were patient throughout the process and taught me how the unit worked including demonstrating how to turn the pilot off and on so that we can save that gas and heat until we really need it. My office that I have loved so well in these warm months with the adjacent deck and large windows overlooking the city will once again be a warm place to work in the winter months.

Choosing the right partner to work with you to solve your problems makes a big difference and I am careful to select people who go the extra mile with their customer service, Jim Hurtis and his team did that for me! I would not hesitate to refer them to anyone else who needs heating, air conditioning, or even a new fireplace.