2022 – July part 1

The rudeness continues.

No more than a couple of days after that guy showed up at our doorstep and chewed out Maryia before I came to the door and he left Arabella was outside playing. She took the dog outside to let him go to the bathroom. As is normal for her age, she loves singing and was outside singing one of the songs she knows. Then from our backyard, a guy yells at her “SHUT THE HELL UP”

Uh.. what?

Okay. Hmm. What? We asked Ara where the voice came from and it was behind our house to the right. We looked up the person who purchased that house (no more than 3 months ago) and it came up as the same person who came to our door. I looked him up online and saw that he runs his own business of sorts. He is a ‘wellness coach’ and helps people be mentally happier. Ha! Really?! Are you kidding me? The same person that… no you have to be kidding. I kid you not. We found his Instagram page and even watched a few of his posts. I wonder if he is on the spectrum or something. I don’t say that light-heartedly. I mention this because he made a post talking about how he can’t cope if he forgets something from his house before he goes on a walk and has some other obsessive disorders.

Funny part? When he walked from our house he walked in the OPPOSITE direction of his house. He walked across the street in the wrong area. He didn’t want us to find out who he was. We did. Now we know.

Anyway! Let’s get on with some other updates. This is the view of the girl who brings me a coffee while I’m at work. She is trouble I tell ya – trouble! After finishing up work on Friday we had a nice long weekend for the 4th. The next day we went to Good Shepherd Community Church and their 4th of July picnic. The food was good and we took a photo before we walked around to see what else they had.

They had the local police show up and were giving tours of vehicles. Okay.. nothing so bad. They also had a car show going on. The car show was in the back parking lot of the church. Everyone who went was registered to appear. We started to notice a lot of bumper stickers about Trump 2024 or maybe talking about the love of guns, and then we saw the truck with the flag (photo above). This may have gotten my blood boiling. I pulled the flag out and took a photo. This wasn’t the one one that they had – there were others.

Look: I get it. You don’t have to like who is president. We all lived through the Trump era and not everyone was a fan of that (at least I wasn’t). I never said, “He’s not my president” or anything. He was elected and was the president (for better or worse). The same can be said for Joe Biden (the current president). I did vote for him, but there were a lot of people who didn’t. Let’s consider the next thing. What does Let’s Go Brandon mean? It means: “Fuck Joe Biden”. Okay, so how would ANY church possibly allow this to be presented as part of the car show and event that the church is hosting?

What if I was a Democrat and new to Christianity and saw this? Is this the kind of witness we want our church to be? It wouldn’t matter if it said it about Trump, or Obama, or anyone. What is wrong is the message and the fact that the church allowed this.

I just cannot. This is not working out.

Can someone please tell me if this is how things are going to be from now on?! My level of frustration with both looking for a church and finding what we have found within the church is just exhausting.

Christian Nationalism is terrible.

I also for quite a while I’ve felt super un-patriotic. Fitting considering it’s the 4th of July. This year (since we like watching the fireworks) we decided to go to shows on the 2nd, 3rd and on the 4th too.

The first night was in Independence Oregon (yeah same as last year). The second night we went to the Oregon Garden (we sat right outside the area because they were charging an entrance fee). On the third night, we went downtown and saw the big show for the city of Portland.

After the 4th things started to quiet down. We took a hike to a waterfall or two, went to some malls, and found the kids some new shoes. Nothing too major.

Then I got a text: “Hey How’s it going” to which I replied, “It’s Monday How about you?” then I got the photo (above) of Emily and Breanna in front of our house.

Emily decided to drive down from Seattle (where she was for her husband’s work trip) to come to visit. We spent most of the day letting the kids play. Then Emily worked remotely in our kitchen for a little bit before having to leave. It was nice to see my friend and let the kids catch up.

just Pray