These are the words of my mother for the site HollysFund.com:

Hi! I’m Heather Sortore. I have known Holly for 5 years. I do Physical Therapy on some of the residents were Holly works. Holly is a med tech with a great deal of responsibility on her job. It is also very physically demanding. she gives residents baths, passes medication, dresses people, undresses people, cleans them up, makes beds, and serves meals. She goes above and beyond the call of duty to help her residents. She loves them all. Holly is a good , hard working woman.

Holly Fannin is also my friend. when I found out she had stage 3 breast cancer my heart went out to her. Holly is a gentle easy going woman that lives on a very modest income. She lives in a trailer with her twin sons that just graduated from high school. The assisted living facility she works for recently sold after she has worked there for eight years. Holly lost 3 weeks of paid vacation. She now has no vacation time and will start chemotherapy treatments after the cancer has been removed from her breast. She is going to try and work during her chemo. She could not afford health insurance since she lives on an income below the poverty level. Even though she frequently works double shifts and many long hours. My friend has had a run of very bad luck.

However, I am convinced God wants me and my son Cody to do what we can to help her. Cody is talented in creating websites so I asked him if he could make a website for Holly. Cody graciously agreed. I thought if enough people see her website and start to pray for healing, financial relief, and God’s grace maybe God would see fit to hear our prayers for Holly. Then I was reminded of the scripture Matthew 18:19 & 20 which says, “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” So please pray with me for Holly and her family. Let’s see God’s mighty hand move on her life.

Holly is a humble woman and when I told her about me and Cody’s plan. She said, “she did not want to burden people with her problems.” I reminded her that we are supposed to carry each others burdens. I said people like to help each other and if enough people gave her even a dollar she might be able to get the rest her body needs while recuperating. She might be able to pay some of her hospital bills. Holly agreed it would not be a bad idea and Mike which was working with her on Independence Day said it would not hurt to let as many people as possible know about her situation.

If God lays it on your heart to pray for Holly, Please Pray. If God lays it on your heart to give to Holly then give as God has blessed You. Thank you for being God’s servant in whatever way possible.
God Bless,
Heather Sortore

I actually wrote the whole site in PHP for a few reasons, 1) obviously so that I could easily edit the pages without opening Vi in SSH, or using FTP to upload and download pages, just go to their edit page online and update them. and 2) if the site is a success I would like to move it over to allowing others in need to create their own donation pages so that they too can get help.  I know the community of people online, I’ve worked online for a long time and I’ve seen their generosity, show that generosity to a stranger and lift her up in your prayers, in sharing her story, in donating to her cause.  In the Gospel of Mark there’s a story of a paralyzed man who couldn’t go see Jesus where he was teaching, but four of his friends carried him, cut a hole in the roof and lowered him down to Jesus… because of the faith of his friends he was healed.  Will you be that friend to Holly?

Rose and I saw the 10,000 BC the other night, and it reminded me of a theory I’ve heard a few times, but as most people have done didn’t put much credit into it.  The theory is that when Atlantis sunk or was destroyed or whatever the inhabitants escaped, mostly to Egypt, a few to South America, and some others scattered elsewhere.  Where you really lose me on that whole theory is that most of the scholars who promote such ideals also say that the inhabitants of Atlantis were of humanoid alien decent… What I don’t find completely impossible is that the stories, and myths of Atlantis may be based on fact.  Even supported by biblical stories, which is where the tower of babel comes in on my way out there theory.

Ok, so let’s start with the story itself from chapter 11 of Genisis:

1 At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words.2 As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Let’s make bricks and bake them to make them hard.” So they used bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar.4 Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”

5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built.6 The Lord said, “Now, these people are united, all speaking the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. They will be able to do anything they want.7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not be able to understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.9 The place is called Babel since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.

This doesn’t speak of exactly how advanced they had become… or what means they were using to build with but what we do see is an amazing statement from God as pointed out to me by Adam Gray “They will be able to do anything they want.“  They must of been rather advanced in what they were doing to warrant such a statement, or at least developing quickly.  Even the Romans had steam engines, it wasn’t for over a thousand years later that steam engines actually came about in real usage, but archeology has shown that the Romans were using steam engines in their time.  The technology was lost because slaves were much cheaper and more widely usable, and shortly after the Roman collapse you get the dark ages.  So why couldn’t the same of happened after the tower of babel?  Because of this it seems logical to me that much of the stories and myths behind the city of Atlantis could be true, based on the Babylonian city where the Tower of Babel was being constructed.  When it says that God confused their language it also says that he forced them to spread throughout the earth.  This kind of makes me wonder if there wasn’t a time when the earth did have one large land mass where everyone lived for a time.  Similar to what some would say Pangea was (which is also completely possible since the continents do fit together like a giant jig saw puzzle) but moved apart rapidly by God when confusing the people.  It would help to explain why we get several different buildings of Pyramids around the world about the same time.  Maybe they were trying to finish what they set out to do in the first place, building towers to the heavens… it has been said that both the Egyptian pyramids, and the Aztec pyramids were built to honor their gods… I don’t know for sure, nor do I have any real proof or scholarly writings that support my theories, they’re just random weird theories that I have.

Finally a business bold enough to show that they don’t put the all mighty dollar before everything else! At Kieffe and Sons Ford they believe more in a good strong moral value than the dollar value. Recently in southern California a radio ad has been running for Kieffe & Sons Ford. We’ve been laying down and letting the minority rule on issues of feminism, and religion for too long! I agree with Kieffe and Sons when they say “sit down and shut up”

Did you know that there are people in this country who want prayer out of schools, “Under God” out of the Pledge, and “In God We Trust” to be taken off our money?

But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Now, since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians who believe in God, we at Kieffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don’t just tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess maybe I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case, then I say that’s tough, this is America folks, it’s called free speech. And none of us at Kieffe & Sons Ford are afraid to speak up. Kieffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond: if we don’t see you today, by the grace of God, we’ll be here tomorrow.

I hate it when I don’t know what I feel… and generally when I’m like that I go straight here and blog about it to sort things out and understand myself a little better.  I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately and I have absolutely no clue what to do… Simply writing this my mind instantly goes to the question “In what do you put your trust?”  Which will make more sense once I start explaining my conundrum.  Ok, so I honest to goodness love coding… Websites is what I really know, specifically PHP but I love expanding that knowledge base of codes and working with them.  Even (and call me crazy) but I really, really enjoy debugging a script… When I put up a new site and it comes up blank, or there are errors coming out the yin yang you’ll see me light up as I stick a CD in the player and start opening 3 or 4 different browsers, my SSH program, FTP, and start pulling up pages and pages of code in GoLive CS2.  I know I’m not going to be leaving that spot (not to eat, to sleep, or anything) for the next 15-20 hours (generally if it’s multiple problems with PHP configuration on the server, and in the code).  I love delving into the endless task of creating better code… but I can’t do it right now with MTV and I really don’t know why.

There are a few problems I have with my job… first off being that the majority of the sites I work on are done in Ruby on Rails I don’t have the slightest clue as to what Ruby looks like on the code level, or it’s capabilities.  It is a programing language which generally speaking means the limits are your imagination and knowledge of how things work… and they have some people working on the code that really know what they’re doing so I can tell them to do whatever I want and they’ll get it done… The problem is I’m only a small portion of the process.  When a new site is launched I generally come in and do my run through testing out every aspect of the site possible and giving my report on what went wrong, what I thought didn’t fit, errors I got, etc.  Which is fine, and I know it’s a necessary part of the equation… just after so long I start seeing the same site over and over.  I don’t easily get distracted by the visuals of a site, I see it for what it is on a code, and functionality level.  I can find flaws, flukes, and annoyances with any website… but what’s the point if I can’t sit down with the designer of the site and say “ok, why did you choose to do things this way?”  Sometimes “problems” that I find with sites really aren’t problems at all they just annoy me, so I’ve got to tell some guy to change his work because I don’t understand why he did something one way.

Sometimes I think my boss puts up with me only because he feels the same way as I do about how fast sites are kicked out from MTV, and how unoriginal they are.  I only know that because of what he said to me when he called me back after several months of doing nothing with them.

So here’s my conundrum.  I like what I do for MTV sometimes, when there’s something new to be done… I also get paid fairly well for working with them, especially seeing as I make more money than most of my friends.  I need the money for rent, the server I just rented, getting my car legal, my motherboard is dying on me slowly… it never was very great it was a cheap $75 motherboard that was only supposed to be for a few months till I could get a good Asus board that never happened… But I can’t for the life of me get the motivation to do my job with them.  I look at the emails from them, I know the tasks that I have before me and I just stare at them and can’t bring myself to even begin to think about doing them.  I would much rather be coding the new site agapebeacon.com which is a huge task… I’ve got a good months worth of work ahead of me for that if it was the only thing I was doing… the problem comes in the fact that I’m not very good at multi-tasking.  That’s sort of a lie I work with 20 different programs at once to accomplish a task on a regular basis, but I’m very linear I do one thing at a time.  If I’m working on agape I’m working on that, if I’m working for MTV I’m working for them… I can’t do both at once, I mean I could easily do both at once it’d be more efficient, I just can’t do it.  So the problem comes in this… I want… or more so need to build this website, I would have to say that it’s something that I was born for, and as the last several posts of mine have said every moment in my life has lead up to this point, which will in turn lead up to another point, and so on and so forth… The problem comes in the fact that I “need” the job with MTV, without it I’m not making any money, but with it I’m not making any progress on this site.  I can’t keep working 5-10 hours a week with MTV they won’t put up with it forever… or maybe they will I haven’t talked to them yet.  I also don’t really want to quit working for them… as I said I like the job… I just wish I could work it when I needed to, kinda sorta felt like it you know?  Which also BTW doesn’t generally work out so well.  They have me on board because I pay attention to details, and when I go to do something I get it done right… I’m not really the fastest person at this stuff, and would say I’m pretty slow sometimes… so that can’t be what they like about me… but they’ve gotta like me because they put up with my eccentricities, which is a lot.  I’m not exactly sure what to do because I’m afraid if I go to them and ask to work like every other week so I could do their stuff and my stuff they might finally be like “you know what, don’t bother we’ll find someone else.”  then a part of me would be glad because I could focus on my projects… only then I’d have no money and it wouldn’t matter because I’d lose my server and my sites.  Which then goes back to the beginning and my question “what do you put your trust in?”  I’ve been in situations like this a million times before… often choosing to do my own thing where there is absolutely no glimpse of hope for making money and God has always taken care of me…

I don’t know, I’m just rambling on… I don’t suspect I’ll get any answers from this, or really expect much of a response from anyone I just had to put it down in writing before I lost my mind thinking about it

Ok, I wanted to run this past all my Facebook friends first before doing something rash like actually buying anything :-P  So the “Christian Facebook” as I’ve deemed it for now is taking shape!  I mean it really is… Instead of being foolhardy and attempting to code the thing from the ground up with PHP and MySQL I’ve decided to take a little help.  I’ve enlisted the help of a rapid development framework!  The site is still “PHP” so to speak, but my side isn’t very much PHP unless I’m defining a new object that isn’t included in the framework.  It’s object oriented which means I use objects instead of PHP… it’s actually much faster too.  Problem is it’s new to me, so there is a bit of a learning curve as might be expected… not to mention I’m using the beta version of the development framework I’m working with because it has all sorts of necessary features, functions, and doodads that aren’t available in the stable version… also they change a large number of the objects so the stable versions documentation is no help at all… and the Beta’s documentation is just starting to come together.  So try and learn a new programming language with no real help… Never the less the site is still coming together very nicely!

In fact things are developing so fast that it’s time to start thinking about what the site should be or look like.  What I need from you guys is your opinions on these matters:

1. Profiles - I was thinking StumbleUpon esque, very simple, not the main feature of the site.  But would like to know if you guys would prefer them more robust like with MySpace or Facebook.  Of course you’d still be able to customize everything the other way but it’d be limited to only a few photos, preferences, etc.  (check out http://archmaille.stumbleupon.com/ for more details on what it might look like, plus a signature wall for your friends, 5-10 photos instead of 1)
2. name of site - I’ve been racking my brain and praying about this… I wanted something that sounded ancient (me?  ancient?  No way) Kind of wanted something to show like old forum type of thing you know?  Because that’s the main purpose of the site to gather Christians together.  Then I started thinking lighthouse, or beacon… finally came up with “AgapeBeacon.com”  (oh, and another thing is it has to be available, things like GodSpace.com and everything went through my mind, the owners of the site aren’t using it, but want like $2k for me to buy the domain from the, I can’t afford that).  AgapeBeacon.com is available but wanted to see everyones reaction to it before getting it.
3. Niche - Ok, so yeah, I was thinking social networking all along… but not necessarily Facebook, MySpace type of site.  The main thing I was going for was the discussion board.  A place where Christians can go to find sound advice about life.  I have a lot of ideas and things set in motion for the discussion board… but how do you guys feel about that.  Is a massive forum really what is needed?  Or something different.  Forum is sort of underplaying the functionality of the site since it will be much MUCH more than maybe what you guys would think of as an online “forum” like PHPBB or whatever.  I mean for starters much more in depth personal profiles, networks, and calendars to help organize off site events.

Thoughts feelings suggestions?  I was kind of lucky, as I am with my job anyways to only work 1 hour with MTV.  Of course I could of worked more if I called them and said “Hey I’m out of work send me more!”  But I appreciated the time to fiddle with and learn the new framework.  I’m going to be doing much more work with MTV this week, and every week preceding of course.  I’m going to need the money as I’m actually going to rent a server for this site (hoping for over 10k users, maybe into the 100k range some day and that can’t be done on a shared hosting plan.  Yeah sure I get over 2,000 visitors to all my sites combined on a daily basis, but it’s not the same thing).  I also will need the knowledge.  That’s one thing that has been amazing about working with MTV, I’ve learned SOOO freaking much!  They’re always like “hey can you do this?”  And I’m like “Yeah sure no problem!”  Come to find out it usually is if it’s off my usual path of interest.  But I get the opportunity to research and learn new things.  Oh, and also development with the site will be slower… we’re talking one month or so before I have something you guys can all jump into and check out.

Lifehouse’s Everything Skit

Katie just showed this to me… and I loves it! Watched it like 10 times so far and cried every time… Even though we cannot defeat our own sins and make it back to God on our own will he is willing to step in the gap and take on our sins to defeat them, and death for us so that we can be with him.

How many of you got to see the lunar eclipse this February?  I did, but just barely.  I would of missed it had it not been for my aunt Val.  She called Jordan to tell him about it, we were both on a conference call for work.   We dropped the phones and headed out side, I then sat out there for more than an hour as a bright full moon slowly disappeared into darkness.  I assume the term Blood Moon comes from the iron red color the moon turns as it is blackening behind the shadow of the earth.  It really was great to watch, and I allowed it to completely consume me… everything washed from my mind… other than the desire to share the experience with someone (besides the fact that it was freezing cold outside and would of been nice to have had someone close to keep warm with), and the wondrous beauty of it all that God controls the universe.  He places the stars in the sky for nothing more than his own, and our own entertainment.  He paints the sunsets, and sunrises just to wash the canvas clean and do it all over again the next day.  He plants a tree to watch it age and wither some day becoming soil and nutrition for another tree.  He spends hundreds of years layering clay, pressing it together to form rock sediment only to wash it away with water, using the same slow methodical processes that created the rock to take it away and place it elsewhere for another time.

The wonder of it all, right there under our noses every day for our pleasure… and yet so many speed right past it.  Some of us analyze, scrutinize, or simply ignore the wonders of this world… yet few truly enjoy it.  You know I’ve heard God described before as “gloriously wasteful” it’s so true.  How many varieties of caterpillars do we really need?  I mean honestly, one would suffice.  A couple types of trees for the different weather types, one color of horse, a single race of humans, one shape of snowflake, one breed of cat… I get the feeling that God is as giddy as a small child running to their parents showing off their latest creation.  He makes so many amazingly beautiful things grabbing us by the shoulders to say “Hey!  Look at this!”  Only to skip off joyously spinning the next intricate spider web unlike any other before it, beautiful, sleek, unique, and yet the next day it will be destroyed by the morning dew never to have human eyes look upon it.  Oh how much we miss in this life!  So many things were created just for you, and yet you walk blindly past them, or crush them on your path to get to work on time… Don’t you see what you’re missing?  Not in a hundred life times could any of us fully capture the amazing things that God has created around us if we spent all that time searching for them all, yet so many don’t search at all, but rather ignore, or hide from them.  Last night it was raining, I love the rain!  I really do love it.  It was close to 3am and I had just finished up some work and turned off the computer to notice as I was crawling into bed some bright flashes of light signifying a storm, shorty followed by the soft pitter patter of rain drops crashing against the roof, and windows of my room.  Something inside me longed to experience the rain…. something else urged me to stay in my nice warm bed, simply enjoying the sounds of the light tapping on my windows.  The side of me that desired to experience the rain got more and more curious as I crept into the kitchen to watch out the large kitchen window into the woods out back…. but it wasn’t enough… that side of me still desired to be out there in the rain.  I finally conceded with an impossible task… if the kitchen door would open quietly as to not wake anyone else I’d go out… seeing as this has never happened I was pretty safe.  Only this time it did.  The door opened dead silently as I slipped out onto the deck in my boxers walking around in the middle of the night as the frigged rain slowly began to soak my hair and run down my back.  Even though it was much colder out, especially with the rain, than I generally like things to be something inside me was happy out there in the cool night air standing face upwards as the rain ran down my skin.  An inescapable smile crept across my cheeks as I praised God for his glorious wastefulness of the world around us.

Have you ever felt like you were being groomed for something? My whole life is full of desires to being raised for something epic. I always wished that the world waround me was nothing more than a facade, that I was being raised for something greater. Of course as many young boys imagine I wanted that raising to lead to the life of James Bond. Though I still kid myself often, I am no fighter. It took me four years of wrestling to become merely good. Brook picked up what took me forever to learn in less than two. Even though I learn things quickly and apply them gracefully I’ve never been one to have the heart to crush another man physically.

So needless to say much of my desire for the world around me to be nothing less than my training ground to be the next Bond, or Jason Bourne.  Will never come to fruition.  However I’m starting to see more and more every day just how planned out my life has been.  If not the life of Bourne, then I envied so the upper-class who could afford to have their children take piano lessons, or go to space camp preparing them for their futures.  Even at a very young age I could see the importance of such raisings.  Before many of them even understood, I saw connections being made, preperations set, and a life being sewn.  Me admiting envy of thses kids whose parents not only cared enough, but had the foresight to prepare them in such a manor is an understatement.  Much like the kids I speak of… I too have been blind to my own special upbringing.  The difference is that my father knows everything, created everything, and knows the deapest desires of my soul - hidden even to me.  It is not I who should be jealous, for my Father has abundant resources, limitless connections, and has placed me in this very moment in time to reach my potential to the fullest.

I was always sad when I was younger thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up… I always wanted to be a part of something much larger, a big part in a big story.   Not simply a small character lost in the pages of life, but one remembered, and heard.  It took me a long time to realize it, but it seems that’s exactly where I am headed.  It seems my upbringing will lead to greatness, even if not in the eyes of men, simply living my life to reach the end and hear the story of those I encountered along the way say simply that I made a difference in their life for good would bring me the greatest joy.

It was Shakespeare who wrote those words so long ago when Ophelia is speaking to Hamlet begging him to cast off his nighted colors. Ophelia had a much reason for asking her son to move on from mourning the death of his father. It had been a long sad season, and it seemed Hamlet was purposely dragging it out to shame his mother for marrying so quickly after his fathers death.

I was at my grandma’s funeral today… which felt odd in the first place because I never really knew the woman. With 8 children of her own, and 20ish (never got an accurate number on that one, it’s between 20 and 24) grand children there’s very little I even remember about her. And yet, people like Jim are showing more compassion, and sadness than myself… why is that? I guess I’ve never really been one to mourn death in the first place… especially not for a Christian. I don’t know, death doesn’t stir emotion for me though… Don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not… I know it’s important to mourn, and there are things that I do, death, simply isn’t one of them. Well physical death isn’t at least. As those of you who read my stuff regularly know that physical death, or Christians who simply refuse to come to life evokes all sorts of emotions in me. That’s why I’ve decided that I want a meaningful funeral, symbolic, and emotional… I only pray that I live a life worthy of one such.

I want a viking funeral… a funeral fit for a king, but only if I live my life deserving of one so. I want a three day party full of stories, and memories. Followed by floating a wooden ship with my body on board down the Missouri river, set afire.  Now don’t get me wrong, mourn if you must… but I don’t want that to be the theme, nor do I want a procession so boring that anyone dread wanting to come.

There was another reason for this post too… I am casting off my nighted colors when it comes to the whole sullen loneliness I had been swallowed up into. As it turns out God is good… I know, it’s obvious, it’s only been written a thousand times, in a million different ways, but I still forget it often. Not more than a few hours after I wrote my last entry I found an old friend Adam Gray. Me and Adam sort of drifted apart in High School… no fights or anything, just hanging out with different groups of people. Anyways we found each other on Facebook and ended up hanging out the next day. It’s good to talk with someone who’s a truly good Christian guy, with many of the same morals as myself. Some one that I can actually talk to, and discuss this life with. God knew what my heart needed, and He had it in the works before I ever knew I needed it.

You know… it wasn’t long ago that I could clearly hear the voice of God. “whether you turn left, or right you will hear a small voice behind you saying ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” I can’t remember where that verse is… but I’ve experienced it. I’ve lived my life to a level where at every turn I felt God’s hand directing, and heard his voice saying “go here, move there.” Now I can’t, even when I want to, which is always short lived and quickly passed up on for laziness or temporary pleasure. Oh, I’m making good money with MTV, and I’ve got big plans for my own stuff… none of these things were established by me, but I feel now that any effect God has on my life is coincidence rather than a purposeful mission… It’s the reason why I go nuts over decisions of life and what I am to be “when I grow up” the reason why I am in a rush to find someone to love.

I miss the peace, I miss the pure joy, I miss the carefree nature of resting in Gods hands… and yet I don’t have the motivation to even find my way back. I’m shipwrecked, marooned on a lonely island, I’ve even got a boat to get off… I hate it here… and yet I can’t find the motivation to leave. Picking up the ores and setting off for better land seems like a life threatening venture. I know that there is life out there somewhere… I know it because I’ve lived it… and yet I am lost, and content to stay lost worst of all! The whole reason why I moved back here to Parkville was because I felt lost, and ever growing distant from God in Bonner Springs… I looked to Jordan as a guide out of my light haze, finding nothing I kept sailing by my own ambition without waiting for an answer from God and moved back here… only to find myself still at a loss, still marooned, still alone, and still no one as a compass to guide myself by. I moved back here so I could be at my old church, go to mens group, and everything like that to get my bearings… going to church here has only brought up painful thoughts of Jessica, oh sure, a little bit of reconciliation… but every week I have to face the fact that I didn’t have what she wanted, I couldn’t take care of her, I wasn’t good enough. I’ve not attended one mens group since I returned… I need to… I should, I know I should, I know I need to… but it all feels so pointless… so void.

Sometimes I lie in bed and cry out to God… but I have not the strength to do more than cry… I still lay there on my deserted island, far from my Lord… clutching my ore, but daring not to use it. Not so long ago I was sure, I was confident, I knew where I’d end up… even when I didn’t know where I was going, it didn’t matter because I was following my Lord, and now, I won’t find my way back.  Sometimes I think the worst part about it all is that I know exactly what my desire is, and what I want… just not how to get to that point… which didn’t used to bother me, I’d take it a step at a time following God… now I’m petrified of leaving without knowing my destination.