February Highlights

Looking back, these are some of our blessings from this month.

Twice a month our church goes out into the neighborhoods to visit those who need encouragement and to share the gospel.  In February, Charlie was the prayer partner as one of the men in our church led a young man to the Lord.

We attended a Valentine's Banquet in our church.  In addition to a fine dinner served by the teenagers and an excellent message on marriage, there were also some games.  Charlie and I won the word game and came home with a prize.

Charlie flew to Iquitos, Peru, and from there took a boat downriver to Mazan where he and a couple other men from IPM held a pastors conference.  While they were there, God answered these prayers:

The town of Mazan

• Safety for the men when their boat hit a log at full speed and had to pull over for repairs.
• Encouragement and growth for the pastors who attended.
• An ability for Charlie and the other speakers to complement each other in their teaching, thereby giving more in-depth understanding of the subject matter.
• God is growing His church in the Amazon.  One church Charlie attended was almost double in size from his previous visit last summer.

While Charlie was gone, I went through the small neighborhood where we live and invited the ladies over for a morning coffee.  Six women and one teenager came, and it was a good time of getting to know each other.  When they left, I handed each one a rose.  It is my hope that this is beginning of some lifelong and eternal friendships.

Our church held a missions conference while Charlie was gone.  By the end of the conference, they came within a few hundred dollars of meeting last year's goal, and they decided to raise their faith promise giving by 28%.  This is a huge blessing to the missionaries who attended who are raising support to go abroad.  They can now add our church to their list of supporters.

Charlie arrived safely home on Sunday afternoon, in time to celebrate together with our church on their victory of raising their faith promise goal.   

Saying "Goodbye" to Facebook

In 2008 I joined the thousands of older people who joined Facebook.  In the beginning, I found it a helpful tool.  Through it, I:

• regained contact with old friends and caught up on their lives.
• learned of prayer requests and was able to pray with meaning and understanding.
• quickly heard of important news in the lives of friends and family.
• used it to reach out and encourage the hurting.

Over the years, however, I have had increasing difficulties with using Facebook.  These have been some of my concerns:

• I met people who spent way much too much time on Facebook, and I wondered if I was adding to their temptation to misuse their precious time.
• I even wondered if I was encouraging an addiction or participating in their sin by being on Facebook without saying anything.  Yet things written can be so easily misunderstood that I did not want to have that conversation except in person.  And how could I have an "in person" conversation with someone who lives thousands of miles away?
• More and more people are linking articles and videos rather than sharing personal information. I joined Facebook for the personal information.  Today as I scrolled through my news feed, I counted.  The fifteenth item was finally something personal.
• Statistics tell us that heavy social media users are less happy than those who are not.  
• I have different levels of openness with people that I know well compared to people who are just acquaintances.  Yet Facebook links all of them together, so that I find myself sharing at a more superficial level than I would with my close friends.
• I did not join Facebook for the private message function, but I find myself using that more than anything else. Won't email work just as well for that?
• Most of my life is not worth sharing.  When it is worth sharing, I can put in a blog.
• Facebook is finding more and more ways to advertise to me while I am reading the news feed.  

When I first noticed some of these issues, I decided to reduce my usage. I told people that if they wanted to be sure I saw something, they needed to tag me.  Of course, that is not the way most people operate, so I found that people assumed I had seen or read something when I had not.  Even though I have told people that I was reducing my usage, people expected that I would be there frequently.

This week, some of the issues hit home in a new way.

• I have limited time.  I want to see if my time benefits from not being on Facebook.
• I have limited roaming data.  This week my roaming data maxed out while I slept.  I believe that it was because Facebook was busy downloading photos that I did not request and did not even view.
• I have a limited capacity to interact with people.  Sociologists tell us that we have a capacity to keep about 600 people active in our lives. If I am on Facebook with my 400+ friends there (and it could easily be more than that), will I neglect the needs of the people who are right outside my door?  
• I miss the old ways of sharing information.  This week a friend asked me, "Did you hear about what happened to ______?"  I had because I had seen it on Facebook.  But when she said that, I thought, "I would have rather have heard it from you first."  Maybe if everyone knows I am not on Facebook, they will think to call me when they have important news to share.  Then again, maybe not, and maybe that is fine too.  I never used to think there was a problem with catching up after years of being apart.

So Facebook and I are going our separate ways, at least for a while.  It will give me time to listen to the sweet voice of God and see whether HE wants me to be on Facebook.  If He does not, I will not be back.  If He does, I will, though I will need His guidance on how to make it work better in the future.
 
I still want to stay in touch with people, but I am hoping that telephones, email, and mail will be enough to get the job done right.