If I were a perfect Christian, I would always be upbeat and positive. I would always be confident in the Lord's protection and provision. I would never become fearful, worried or distressed. But I am not a perfect Christian.
Some days are better than others. Sometimes I am able to enjoy the day in a relatively carefree manner. But when funds start to run low and I don't know where my next paycheck is coming from, I start to think about just how close I am to the possibility of a disaster which will leave me homeless and living in the street or in a homeless shelter.
On past occasions, my depression has become so severe that I have contemplated suicide. I've also experienced physical symptoms, in recent years, which I know are direct results of the depression. Shortness of breath, an excessively fast heartbeat, tingling in my extremities (such as my fingertips) and other similar symptoms have accompanied some of my episodes of depression.
It's possible, of course, that those symptoms have been tied to the hypertension I discussed in an earlier blog post. But it's also possible that at least some of the hypertension is directly attributable to the depression. Stress is listed as one of the causes of hypertension, and an unemployed person who is running out of time and money is generally under a lot of stress.
Nevertheless, the Lord has taken me through those times of depression, and I'm still alive and kicking. Well, alive at any rate. I don't do a whole lot of kicking.
Considering the fact that I've been unemployed for the bulk of 2007, I have done fairly well in comparison with similar experiences in the more distant past. But I've still had moments of anguish, despair and fear during the past year, and even in the past few days.
When I experience such moments, I find that the best way to find relief is to fight back. I have to actively speak positive thoughts which are full of faith in Christ, even though those thoughts may not reflect the way I am really feeling at the moment.
Sometimes, I remind myself of various scriptures which encourage me. At other times, I sing a little song to myself. It goes like this:
God is gonna' take care of me,
even though how is hard to see.
Faithful to him, I have got to be,
for God will take care of me.
In the middle of the darkest night,
I have got to put up a fight,
resist the Devil with all my might,
for I'm walking by faith and not by sight.
Is it a magical formula which instantly makes all of my worries disappear? No. But it does seem to help a lot.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Saturday, November 11, 2006
An Urgent Plea for Help and Prayer
The following blog post may be of interest to people searching for terms such as Christian music, Christian art, Christian ministry, Christian charity, Christian benevolence, emergency funds, Chicago Christians, etc.
Introduction
Background Information
Health Issues
My Other Blog
The Christian Artists' Resource Center
More About Me
The Chase
My Contact Information
Concluding Comments
Postscript Re: Print Sales
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever had an iron anvil dropped on your head? Neither have I, but I think I have a pretty good idea what it would feel like, because I've felt that way a number of times in my life, and I feel that way now. I'm writing this blog article in order to explain why that is the case.
Now, you may be from the "cut to the chase" school, and you may just want to know what the main topic of the blog is all about. Well, that's why they make scroll bars and internal links and anchors. You don't have to read this entire blog post if you don't want to do so.
You can scroll to the bottom of the post right away (or click "the chase") and you can get all of the basic information you need without bothering to get any background information which would help you to put this urgent plea into its proper context.
I'm providing preliminary background information for the sake of those who are inclined to be skeptical about pleas for help, and who feel that they need to know a lot more before they will donate anything to help a person in need.
Back to Introduction
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
If you've read all of the other blog posts on this site, then you know that my primary passion in life is using my artistic talents (as a musician, writer, poet, photographer, pen & ink portrait artist, digital artist and more) as a means of doing the best I can to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, achieving the goal of making a full time living pursuing that passion has been much easier said than done. Consequently, I have struggled with finances for a substantial portion of my life, and I've often found myself working at jobs which paid poorly and which had little or nothing to do with my passion.
For the past nine months, I have been working about 30 hours a week as a telephone surveyor. It is hardly what I would describe as my dream job, but I desperately needed a job when I was hired there in the middle of February 2006, and I couldn't afford to be very choosy. Since losing my job as a legal assistant in the middle of October 2005, I had been unemployed, with the exception of a couple of very brief temp assignments doing office work.
I'd been very active in my job search, particularly in terms of responding to classified ads I had found at CraigsList, but I hadn't managed to find an office job despite my numerous job skills, which included a typing speed of 65 to 70 wpm, as well as fluency in Microsoft Word and Access (with more limited knowledge of Excel and Powerpoint).
What's worse, my former boss had successfully challenged my application for unemployment insurance benefits, and I'd never made a huge amount of money at that job to begin with, so I had very little money to live on. I was beginning to get desperate.
I might have been evicted from my apartment for non-payment of rent if it had not been for a monetary gift which I received from the church I was attending (and still sometimes attend). But that money only went so far. I didn't want to have to go to that church and ask for similar help a second time, partly because I didn't want to be an excessive burden on any individual or church, and partly because I wasn't sure that they would have said "yes" if I had done so. (Not that they aren't generous people, but their financial limitations had been apparent to me from the time when I started attending that church.) I hated having to accept charity from my church, but I would have hated being thrown out into the street even more, so I was grateful that my pastor saw my need and responded to that need.
Nevertheless, if I hadn't gotten the job I have now, it seems likely that I would have been in serious trouble. After all, it's not as if I was living in luxurious digs to begin with. When you've been evicted from an inner city YMCA because you can't pay your rent, you know that you've gotten pretty close to rock bottom, and you know that the chances of finding another landlord willing to rent to you are extremely slim.
My phone surveyor job does not allow me the option of working a full-time,40-hour work week, but I could have had a work schedule of as many as 35 hours if I'd so chosen. It might seem as though I should have chosen to work the full 35 hours available to me, but there were a couple of reasons I didn't choose to do so (although I may still do so in the future, if necessary).
One reason was that the person who taught the training class I took told us that she highly advised that we limit our shifts to 30 hours a week initially. In my experience, it was good advice. The job can be pretty intense in the sense that it requires one's full attention from the moment one clocks in to the moment one clocks out.
Back to Introduction
HEALTH ISSUES
It didn't help that I went through a period of several months last year in which I was experiencing a lot of dental pain which made it much harder to concentrate on the job. That front tooth still needs work, although the pain eventually diminished considerably after at least a couple of months of constantly dabbing Anbesol on it whenever the pain became almost unbearable.
During the past week, I've experienced additional dental issues as a result of the fact that a crown put in by a dentist some time ago recently fell off. The remaining part of the tooth is so sharp that talking on the phone has recently been very uncomfortable, and sometimes downright painful, for me.
Dental insurance? What dental insurance? The company I work for provides virtually nothing in the way of job benefits such as health insurance or paid vacations. Having had jobs in the past which did provide such benefits, I definitely wish that my current job offered such benefits as well. But one takes what one can get when jobs get scarce.
This fall, not long after my dental pain had begun to subside, I caught a cold which seemed to be going around. I've finally gotten over that cold, thank the Lord, but it took a very long time to do so. Despite the ample use of sanitary wipes when starting every work shift, a large room full of roughly 100 telephone surveyors is a place where colds are easily spread from one person to another. A cold may seem like a trivial thing, but when one makes one's living talking on the phone, constantly coughing and hacking and sneezing can be a real trial.
And of course, there have been issues pertaining to high blood pressure and to the fact that I've been need of a hernia operation for several years now.
Now, I don't want to leave the impression that I spent all of 2006 suffering from various ailments, because that isn't the case. And I certainly ought to acknowledge that my health issues may seem trivial to some people suffering from life threatening or debillitating health problems far worse than mine. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I have inadequate money with which to deal with these issues, the health issues I'm experiencing might seem relatively trivial.
As a conservative Christian, I generally tend to vote for candidates who oppose legal abortion and other things I consider to be bad for society. But I admit that I am inclined to support the idea of "universal health care" (provided that some of its shortcomings are addressed), for obvious reasons.
Back to Introduction
MY OTHER BLOG (NOW DELETED)
Another thing that occupied my time during the first half of 2006, after getting my new job, was that I set up a second blog at a site hosted by LifeWithChrist.org. Unlike the blogs I've written at this site, I got a lot of traffic and comments on that site. I'd begun to feel that I'd found a loving community of fellow Christians. The positive feedback I got about many of the articles I'd written made me feel very good. Previously, I'd felt pretty cut off from the Christian community (even when I was regularly going to church). The blog gave me the chance to communicate some ideas I'd been wanting to share with others for a very long time.
Eventually, things went kind of sour for me, to the point that I deliberately deleted my Life with Christ blog and washed my hands of it, but I don't regret the time I spent on that blog. I like to think that I planted some seeds of good thoughts which will eventually bear positive fruit.
The time I spent working on that blog was motivated by a number of factors. One of the primary factors was that I hoped to be able to establish connections with people in order to communicate my vision for an ambitious Christian ministry of the arts to be known as the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
Back to Introduction
THE CHRISTIAN ARTISTS' RESOURCE CENTER
There isn't adequate space here to describe my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, so if you're interested in the idea of a comprehensive Christian ministry of the arts, I invite you to open and print and read the following PDF files (if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader or another program capable of opening PDF files):
Proposal re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center
To Do List re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center
I believe that once I am able to implement my plans for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, I can begin to make at least part of my living by selling a variety of products I have created (such as full-color flower & garden photos to be sold in the form of fine art prints, greeting cards and other projects), as well as products I'll create on commission (such as pen & ink portraits based on people's photographic portraits), using an e-commerce website I have been planning to set up for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
(To see an online gallery of my flower & garden photos, please visit this web page. Keep in mind that the web hosting for that site is free, and I don't have any control over the contents over the banner ads on the site.)
I've registered the domain name www.artisticchristians.com, and I've paid for hosting services which won't expire or need renewal until August 2006. That's the address (or one of the addresses) which I plan to use for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
My plans for that web site go far beyond merely meeting my own material needs by selling my art and photos on the site. I also hope to develop it into a web site (and, eventually, a far more comprehensive ministry) which will benefit many other artistically talented Christians as well.
If you take the time to read the preceding "to do" list, you will soon understand why I say that setting up such a web site and doing the many other things I felt needed to be done in order to turn my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center into a reality is and will be a very time consuming project. (And I've added many more items to that "to do" list since that time, as a result of things I've learned via my ongoing research into the project and its requirements.)
I still feel that that's a goal I need to pursue. I've gotten some very positive feedback about the project from some very well-known and talented Christians working in the arts.
In helping me in my time of temporary crisis, you will also be investing in the possibility that the vision expressed in the "first draft" PDF files listed above will come to pass.
MORE ABOUT ME
If you still feel that you need to know more about me in order to persuade you that I am a person who is sincere about serving the Lord, I would invite you to read earlier articles in this blog (such as this article about drinking water and Christian missions), and to visit my other website at www.markpettigrew.com, and to write to me if there are any things which aren't answered in the process of doing so.
Back to Introduction
THE CHASE
O.K., either you're the type of person who has a short attention span and/or very limited time (in which case you probably skipped most of the previous paragraphs), or else you've read the preceding information. Either way, the bottom line is this:
Tonight, I reached into my "fannie pack" and discovered something that really shook me up: My wallet was gone, along with all the ID cards in the wallet at the time and approximately $600. Ouch!!!
Was my pocket picked? Did I inadvertently lose the wallet in some other way? Frankly, I'm not sure. I've tried retracing my steps, and thoroughly searching my apartment, but so far, I haven't been able to find the wallet or its contents.
To some people, $600 is a small amount of money, but not for me. My take home pay for two four-week pay periods is slightly less than $1,000, and that's assuming that I qualify for the bonus my company offers for extra productivity on the phones. (I have good reason to believe that I won't qualify for that bonus when receiving my next paycheck.) In short, I'm pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, with only a small amount of extra money with which to pay for an occasional luxury such as a cappuccino at McDonalds. I haven't had a working TV set in 2 years, because replacing the broken TV just hasn't been my highest priority.
Fortunately, I do still have my ATM debit card, so I don't have to worry about a thief using that card to access the money I do have in my checking account, but that money is very limited. It should keep me fed for the next week or two, but it won't do much more than that. And rent is due soon.
What I need is to raise some emergency funds, fast. I don't want to ask for exhorbitant amounts of money from anyone. But if I could get a one-time donation of just $10 from 60 different people or churches --- preferably from people who share my values and goals --- that would replace the lost and/or stolen money.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking: Hey, dummy, what were you doing carrying $600 or so around in your wallet? Well, I'd just cashed my paycheck recently at the bank down the street, and I hadn't yet gotten around to depositing the money in my own bank. Ironically, right before the incident happened, I'd been planning to do just that, because it occurred to me that losing the wallet could create major problems for me.
As for the question of any "carelessness" which might theoretically have led to the loss and/or theft of my wallet, please don't go there. Believe me, I'm probably going to be beating myself up over this for a long time, so there's no need for anyone else to remind me that I might possibly still have the wallet if I'd been more careful.
If you're wondering why I provided the preceding background information about myself prior to adding this section, it's simply that I felt that it was necessary in order to help readers to better appreciate why I am in the position of needing to ask for help, and why I feel that I deserve such help (to the extent that anyone deserves charitable help).
Of course, if you're the type of person who doesn't share my interest in achieving the goals stated here, then you would have no particular reason to think that I deserved help any more than anyone else. It's all a question of what's most important to you.
Back to Introduction
MY CONTACT INFORMATION
Mark Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue
Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60610
(773) 509-8126 (Voice Mail) or (312) 643-1336 (Home Phone)
mark_w_pettigrew@hotmail.com
(Those are underscores in-between the first name, middle initial and last name.)
Back to Introduction
SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS ABOUT FAITH (and the LACK THEREOF)
It would be wonderful if we Christians had all reached a state of perfection where we walked in perfect obedience to the Lord and perfect faith in the Lord. The reality, though, is that we're all works in progress.
In many respects, I think I've lived a morally exemplary life. I've never used illegal drugs. I've never been drunk. And believe it or not, I'm still a virgin at age 50. (Fun? No, not especially. But then again, I don't ever have to worry about STD's or AIDS or unwanted pregnancies caused by my actions. I like to think that my obedience to God in that area will eventually prove to be a blessing for me in other ways as well.)
So do I think I've achieved perfection? What, are you kidding? I know my weaknesses all too well.
Having trouble trusting God to provide me with my needs in stressful times such as these is very close to the top of the list of my imperfections. I still become fearful when it looks as if I may lose my home or be unable to pay for essential living expenses or be forced to resign myself to never achieving my career goals. In times like these, I want to have faith, but it isn't always easy.
So regardless of whether or not you respond to this plea with any type of financial help, I would greatly appreciate your prayers. I've survived worse crises than this one, but I'm tired of dealing with setback after setback after setback. I want to make a real positive difference in this world, and it would be much easier to do so if I had adequate material resources with which to meet my needs and with which to invest in the attainment of my goals.
Back to Introduction
POSTSCRIPT: If you feel that you ought to get something in exchange for your donation, I'm willing to discuss the option of selling you one or more prints based on the flower & garden photos shown on this web page. I have digital files on CD-R disc for all of those images, and I can easily take them next door to Wolf Camera to make prints from those files. I can easily make 8x10 photo prints of those images and then send out the prints in standard Priority Mail envelopes ($4 for shipping and handling) at the post office.
If you would like a print of one or more of those images, just send me an e-mail message to that effect and let me know which image or images you want to order (specified by the number shown beneath each image). Then as soon as I receive your money order in the amount of $25 for each print, I'll have the print made from my digital file and I'll ship it to you. (The price of $25 would be so that I can make somewhere between $10 to $15 from each print sale after deducting the cost of making the print and the cost of the postage).
If you're thinking that this is a pretty amateurish way for me to sell my photo prints, well, you're right. Believe me, it isn't the way I wanted to do things. I have much more professional plans in the works for the future. But right now, I really could use some help.
Back to Introduction
Introduction
Background Information
Health Issues
My Other Blog
The Christian Artists' Resource Center
More About Me
The Chase
My Contact Information
Concluding Comments
Postscript Re: Print Sales
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever had an iron anvil dropped on your head? Neither have I, but I think I have a pretty good idea what it would feel like, because I've felt that way a number of times in my life, and I feel that way now. I'm writing this blog article in order to explain why that is the case.
Now, you may be from the "cut to the chase" school, and you may just want to know what the main topic of the blog is all about. Well, that's why they make scroll bars and internal links and anchors. You don't have to read this entire blog post if you don't want to do so.
You can scroll to the bottom of the post right away (or click "the chase") and you can get all of the basic information you need without bothering to get any background information which would help you to put this urgent plea into its proper context.
I'm providing preliminary background information for the sake of those who are inclined to be skeptical about pleas for help, and who feel that they need to know a lot more before they will donate anything to help a person in need.
Back to Introduction
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
If you've read all of the other blog posts on this site, then you know that my primary passion in life is using my artistic talents (as a musician, writer, poet, photographer, pen & ink portrait artist, digital artist and more) as a means of doing the best I can to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, achieving the goal of making a full time living pursuing that passion has been much easier said than done. Consequently, I have struggled with finances for a substantial portion of my life, and I've often found myself working at jobs which paid poorly and which had little or nothing to do with my passion.
For the past nine months, I have been working about 30 hours a week as a telephone surveyor. It is hardly what I would describe as my dream job, but I desperately needed a job when I was hired there in the middle of February 2006, and I couldn't afford to be very choosy. Since losing my job as a legal assistant in the middle of October 2005, I had been unemployed, with the exception of a couple of very brief temp assignments doing office work.
I'd been very active in my job search, particularly in terms of responding to classified ads I had found at CraigsList, but I hadn't managed to find an office job despite my numerous job skills, which included a typing speed of 65 to 70 wpm, as well as fluency in Microsoft Word and Access (with more limited knowledge of Excel and Powerpoint).
What's worse, my former boss had successfully challenged my application for unemployment insurance benefits, and I'd never made a huge amount of money at that job to begin with, so I had very little money to live on. I was beginning to get desperate.
I might have been evicted from my apartment for non-payment of rent if it had not been for a monetary gift which I received from the church I was attending (and still sometimes attend). But that money only went so far. I didn't want to have to go to that church and ask for similar help a second time, partly because I didn't want to be an excessive burden on any individual or church, and partly because I wasn't sure that they would have said "yes" if I had done so. (Not that they aren't generous people, but their financial limitations had been apparent to me from the time when I started attending that church.) I hated having to accept charity from my church, but I would have hated being thrown out into the street even more, so I was grateful that my pastor saw my need and responded to that need.
Nevertheless, if I hadn't gotten the job I have now, it seems likely that I would have been in serious trouble. After all, it's not as if I was living in luxurious digs to begin with. When you've been evicted from an inner city YMCA because you can't pay your rent, you know that you've gotten pretty close to rock bottom, and you know that the chances of finding another landlord willing to rent to you are extremely slim.
My phone surveyor job does not allow me the option of working a full-time,
One reason was that the person who taught the training class I took told us that she highly advised that we limit our shifts to 30 hours a week initially. In my experience, it was good advice. The job can be pretty intense in the sense that it requires one's full attention from the moment one clocks in to the moment one clocks out.
Back to Introduction
HEALTH ISSUES
It didn't help that I went through a period of several months last year in which I was experiencing a lot of dental pain which made it much harder to concentrate on the job. That front tooth still needs work, although the pain eventually diminished considerably after at least a couple of months of constantly dabbing Anbesol on it whenever the pain became almost unbearable.
During the past week, I've experienced additional dental issues as a result of the fact that a crown put in by a dentist some time ago recently fell off. The remaining part of the tooth is so sharp that talking on the phone has recently been very uncomfortable, and sometimes downright painful, for me.
Dental insurance? What dental insurance? The company I work for provides virtually nothing in the way of job benefits such as health insurance or paid vacations. Having had jobs in the past which did provide such benefits, I definitely wish that my current job offered such benefits as well. But one takes what one can get when jobs get scarce.
This fall, not long after my dental pain had begun to subside, I caught a cold which seemed to be going around. I've finally gotten over that cold, thank the Lord, but it took a very long time to do so. Despite the ample use of sanitary wipes when starting every work shift, a large room full of roughly 100 telephone surveyors is a place where colds are easily spread from one person to another. A cold may seem like a trivial thing, but when one makes one's living talking on the phone, constantly coughing and hacking and sneezing can be a real trial.
And of course, there have been issues pertaining to high blood pressure and to the fact that I've been need of a hernia operation for several years now.
Now, I don't want to leave the impression that I spent all of 2006 suffering from various ailments, because that isn't the case. And I certainly ought to acknowledge that my health issues may seem trivial to some people suffering from life threatening or debillitating health problems far worse than mine. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I have inadequate money with which to deal with these issues, the health issues I'm experiencing might seem relatively trivial.
As a conservative Christian, I generally tend to vote for candidates who oppose legal abortion and other things I consider to be bad for society. But I admit that I am inclined to support the idea of "universal health care" (provided that some of its shortcomings are addressed), for obvious reasons.
Back to Introduction
MY OTHER BLOG (NOW DELETED)
Another thing that occupied my time during the first half of 2006, after getting my new job, was that I set up a second blog at a site hosted by LifeWithChrist.org. Unlike the blogs I've written at this site, I got a lot of traffic and comments on that site. I'd begun to feel that I'd found a loving community of fellow Christians. The positive feedback I got about many of the articles I'd written made me feel very good. Previously, I'd felt pretty cut off from the Christian community (even when I was regularly going to church). The blog gave me the chance to communicate some ideas I'd been wanting to share with others for a very long time.
Eventually, things went kind of sour for me, to the point that I deliberately deleted my Life with Christ blog and washed my hands of it, but I don't regret the time I spent on that blog. I like to think that I planted some seeds of good thoughts which will eventually bear positive fruit.
The time I spent working on that blog was motivated by a number of factors. One of the primary factors was that I hoped to be able to establish connections with people in order to communicate my vision for an ambitious Christian ministry of the arts to be known as the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
Back to Introduction
THE CHRISTIAN ARTISTS' RESOURCE CENTER
There isn't adequate space here to describe my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, so if you're interested in the idea of a comprehensive Christian ministry of the arts, I invite you to open and print and read the following PDF files (if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader or another program capable of opening PDF files):
Proposal re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center
To Do List re: the Christian Artists' Resource Center
I believe that once I am able to implement my plans for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center, I can begin to make at least part of my living by selling a variety of products I have created (such as full-color flower & garden photos to be sold in the form of fine art prints, greeting cards and other projects), as well as products I'll create on commission (such as pen & ink portraits based on people's photographic portraits), using an e-commerce website I have been planning to set up for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
(To see an online gallery of my flower & garden photos, please visit this web page. Keep in mind that the web hosting for that site is free, and I don't have any control over the contents over the banner ads on the site.)
I've registered the domain name www.artisticchristians.com, and I've paid for hosting services which won't expire or need renewal until August 2006. That's the address (or one of the addresses) which I plan to use for the website for the Christian Artists' Resource Center.
My plans for that web site go far beyond merely meeting my own material needs by selling my art and photos on the site. I also hope to develop it into a web site (and, eventually, a far more comprehensive ministry) which will benefit many other artistically talented Christians as well.
If you take the time to read the preceding "to do" list, you will soon understand why I say that setting up such a web site and doing the many other things I felt needed to be done in order to turn my vision for the Christian Artists' Resource Center into a reality is and will be a very time consuming project. (And I've added many more items to that "to do" list since that time, as a result of things I've learned via my ongoing research into the project and its requirements.)
I still feel that that's a goal I need to pursue. I've gotten some very positive feedback about the project from some very well-known and talented Christians working in the arts.
In helping me in my time of temporary crisis, you will also be investing in the possibility that the vision expressed in the "first draft" PDF files listed above will come to pass.
MORE ABOUT ME
If you still feel that you need to know more about me in order to persuade you that I am a person who is sincere about serving the Lord, I would invite you to read earlier articles in this blog (such as this article about drinking water and Christian missions), and to visit my other website at www.markpettigrew.com, and to write to me if there are any things which aren't answered in the process of doing so.
Back to Introduction
THE CHASE
O.K., either you're the type of person who has a short attention span and/or very limited time (in which case you probably skipped most of the previous paragraphs), or else you've read the preceding information. Either way, the bottom line is this:
Tonight, I reached into my "fannie pack" and discovered something that really shook me up: My wallet was gone, along with all the ID cards in the wallet at the time and approximately $600. Ouch!!!
Was my pocket picked? Did I inadvertently lose the wallet in some other way? Frankly, I'm not sure. I've tried retracing my steps, and thoroughly searching my apartment, but so far, I haven't been able to find the wallet or its contents.
To some people, $600 is a small amount of money, but not for me. My take home pay for two four-week pay periods is slightly less than $1,000, and that's assuming that I qualify for the bonus my company offers for extra productivity on the phones. (I have good reason to believe that I won't qualify for that bonus when receiving my next paycheck.) In short, I'm pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, with only a small amount of extra money with which to pay for an occasional luxury such as a cappuccino at McDonalds. I haven't had a working TV set in 2 years, because replacing the broken TV just hasn't been my highest priority.
Fortunately, I do still have my ATM debit card, so I don't have to worry about a thief using that card to access the money I do have in my checking account, but that money is very limited. It should keep me fed for the next week or two, but it won't do much more than that. And rent is due soon.
What I need is to raise some emergency funds, fast. I don't want to ask for exhorbitant amounts of money from anyone. But if I could get a one-time donation of just $10 from 60 different people or churches --- preferably from people who share my values and goals --- that would replace the lost and/or stolen money.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking: Hey, dummy, what were you doing carrying $600 or so around in your wallet? Well, I'd just cashed my paycheck recently at the bank down the street, and I hadn't yet gotten around to depositing the money in my own bank. Ironically, right before the incident happened, I'd been planning to do just that, because it occurred to me that losing the wallet could create major problems for me.
As for the question of any "carelessness" which might theoretically have led to the loss and/or theft of my wallet, please don't go there. Believe me, I'm probably going to be beating myself up over this for a long time, so there's no need for anyone else to remind me that I might possibly still have the wallet if I'd been more careful.
If you're wondering why I provided the preceding background information about myself prior to adding this section, it's simply that I felt that it was necessary in order to help readers to better appreciate why I am in the position of needing to ask for help, and why I feel that I deserve such help (to the extent that anyone deserves charitable help).
Of course, if you're the type of person who doesn't share my interest in achieving the goals stated here, then you would have no particular reason to think that I deserved help any more than anyone else. It's all a question of what's most important to you.
Back to Introduction
MY CONTACT INFORMATION
Mark Pettigrew
30 W. Chicago Avenue
Room 1212
Chicago, IL 60610
(773) 509-8126 (Voice Mail) or (312) 643-1336 (Home Phone)
mark_w_pettigrew@hotmail.com
(Those are underscores in-between the first name, middle initial and last name.)
Back to Introduction
SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS ABOUT FAITH (and the LACK THEREOF)
It would be wonderful if we Christians had all reached a state of perfection where we walked in perfect obedience to the Lord and perfect faith in the Lord. The reality, though, is that we're all works in progress.
In many respects, I think I've lived a morally exemplary life. I've never used illegal drugs. I've never been drunk. And believe it or not, I'm still a virgin at age 50. (Fun? No, not especially. But then again, I don't ever have to worry about STD's or AIDS or unwanted pregnancies caused by my actions. I like to think that my obedience to God in that area will eventually prove to be a blessing for me in other ways as well.)
So do I think I've achieved perfection? What, are you kidding? I know my weaknesses all too well.
Having trouble trusting God to provide me with my needs in stressful times such as these is very close to the top of the list of my imperfections. I still become fearful when it looks as if I may lose my home or be unable to pay for essential living expenses or be forced to resign myself to never achieving my career goals. In times like these, I want to have faith, but it isn't always easy.
So regardless of whether or not you respond to this plea with any type of financial help, I would greatly appreciate your prayers. I've survived worse crises than this one, but I'm tired of dealing with setback after setback after setback. I want to make a real positive difference in this world, and it would be much easier to do so if I had adequate material resources with which to meet my needs and with which to invest in the attainment of my goals.
Back to Introduction
POSTSCRIPT: If you feel that you ought to get something in exchange for your donation, I'm willing to discuss the option of selling you one or more prints based on the flower & garden photos shown on this web page. I have digital files on CD-R disc for all of those images, and I can easily take them next door to Wolf Camera to make prints from those files. I can easily make 8x10 photo prints of those images and then send out the prints in standard Priority Mail envelopes ($4 for shipping and handling) at the post office.
If you would like a print of one or more of those images, just send me an e-mail message to that effect and let me know which image or images you want to order (specified by the number shown beneath each image). Then as soon as I receive your money order in the amount of $25 for each print, I'll have the print made from my digital file and I'll ship it to you. (The price of $25 would be so that I can make somewhere between $10 to $15 from each print sale after deducting the cost of making the print and the cost of the postage).
If you're thinking that this is a pretty amateurish way for me to sell my photo prints, well, you're right. Believe me, it isn't the way I wanted to do things. I have much more professional plans in the works for the future. But right now, I really could use some help.
Back to Introduction
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Drinking Water and Christian Missions
When Jesus talked to people during his brief earthly ministry, he described himself as the "Bread of Life" and "Living Water". By comparing the unseen needs of the human soul with tangible and universal physical human needs everyone could relate to, Jesus made it easier for people to visualize their "hunger" and "thirst" for the type of spiritual fulfillment which only Jesus could offer to mankind.
By feeding the hungry and healing the sick, Jesus earned the credibility he needed to have when claiming that God genuinely loved people and cared about all of their needs.
Christian missionaries have long recognized the link between missionary endeavors designed to lead to spiritual regeneration and charitable acts pertaining to fundamental human needs such as food and drink, housing and medical care.
While tragedies such as drought and famine are clearly to be avoided whenever possible, such tragic events have sometimes had positive aspects as well. Such events have caused people in desperate need of help to be more receptive to new ideas introduced by missionaries who have cared about those disaster victims enough to respond to crises with fresh arrivals of outside food and water.
In many third world countries, problems pertaining to lack of safe and plentiful drinking water have led to all kinds of evil results, not the least of which has been the rampant proliferation of various diseases with which those in more developed nations seldom have to deal.
Medical missionaries, in particular, have recognized the pointlessness of trying to combat diseases without addressing the causes of those diseases. Consequently, one of the first things missionaries often do when visiting such countries is to help build new wells in order to alleviate many of the problems caused by the lack of adequate and safe drinking water.
No doubt, that type of traditional work will continue to be needed for a long time to come. But just as the invention of the airplane forever changed missionary work by making it possible for missionaries to visit remote villages deep in the jungle without having to spend months and months trying to get to those locations, there are now new technologies which seem to have a great deal of potential in terms of providing short-term and long-term solutions to drought conditions.
I just read about a company named Aqua Sciences, located in Miami Beach, Florida. According to an article I read in a recent national magazine, Aqua Sciences makes a product (available in several sizes, capabilities and prices) which is capable of pulling vast quantities of safe drinking water out of the air on a daily basis. It can be powered in multiple ways, including a diesel generator or local AC power.
Once a community has begun to produce adequate crops for the purpose of creating biodiesel fuels in addition to meeting all of the community's nutritional requirements, a switch from regular diesel fuel to environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel might enable such communities to continue to generate drinking water without further contributing to a depletion of the world's oil reserves. (That's my idea, not something found on the Aqua Sciences web site. But I'm guessing that their machine could be modified at some point so that it could use biodiesel fuels.)
Their largest model (measuring 40 feet x 7.7 feet x 7.8 feet) is capable of extracting up to 1,200 gallons a day from the air, depending on environmental conditions. With its reverse osmosis module included, the unit "can provide emergency water for up to 3,000 people per day." (The reverse osmosis module "can provide up to an additional 8,000 gallons/day from an existing source dependent upon conditions.")
The company's web site says, "Aqua Sciences, Inc. is poised to transform the water industry while making a positive humanitarian impact on the world's capability to deal with crisis situations on an emergency or long-term basis. Its success will be measured not merely by the company's profitability, but by its continuing contribution to the world's safety, health, and quality of life."
Unlike a physical well, which is a permanent structure and which therefore can only serve one village or region, an Emergency Water Station from Aqua Sciences is a portable unit which could easily be towed by a large commercial truck from one village to another, making it suitable for short-term disasters which temporarily overwhelm the normally adequate capabilities of local water systems. The website mentions the applicability of the company's machines to disasters ranging from hurricanes to terrorist attacks on a city's water supply.
The company's home page says, "According to the United Nations, between 5 and 9 million people per year die as a result of lack of access to safe drinking water." That's something which should concern every Christian and every church.
Undoubtedly, national and international secular relief organizations will find it extremely useful to be able to generate thousands of gallons of drinking water on the spot, even in areas afflicted by extreme water pollution or lack of adequate drinking water due to other factors.
However, Christian missionaries and mission organizations have been in the international relief business for far longer than any secular government or international organization. It seems to me that Christian mission organizations should therefore leap at this new opportunity (provided that Aqua Sciences' claims are found to be credible) to meet the fundamental human need for adequate drinking water throughout the entire world.
Bringing safe drinking water to regions of the world will open new doors to evangelistic missionary endeavors, to be sure, but our motives should ultimately be to obey and serve Jesus, regardless of whether or not such altruistic efforts result in conversions. Charity should not just be the carrot on the stick which lures people into the church in order to furnish our pastors with captive audiences and new sources of donations. Rather, charity should be a sincere expression of the love for all people which results from a full appreciation of the love and mercy God has extended through Christ Jesus to each and every one of us.
For more information, visit http://www.aquasciences.com.
By feeding the hungry and healing the sick, Jesus earned the credibility he needed to have when claiming that God genuinely loved people and cared about all of their needs.
Christian missionaries have long recognized the link between missionary endeavors designed to lead to spiritual regeneration and charitable acts pertaining to fundamental human needs such as food and drink, housing and medical care.
While tragedies such as drought and famine are clearly to be avoided whenever possible, such tragic events have sometimes had positive aspects as well. Such events have caused people in desperate need of help to be more receptive to new ideas introduced by missionaries who have cared about those disaster victims enough to respond to crises with fresh arrivals of outside food and water.
In many third world countries, problems pertaining to lack of safe and plentiful drinking water have led to all kinds of evil results, not the least of which has been the rampant proliferation of various diseases with which those in more developed nations seldom have to deal.
Medical missionaries, in particular, have recognized the pointlessness of trying to combat diseases without addressing the causes of those diseases. Consequently, one of the first things missionaries often do when visiting such countries is to help build new wells in order to alleviate many of the problems caused by the lack of adequate and safe drinking water.
No doubt, that type of traditional work will continue to be needed for a long time to come. But just as the invention of the airplane forever changed missionary work by making it possible for missionaries to visit remote villages deep in the jungle without having to spend months and months trying to get to those locations, there are now new technologies which seem to have a great deal of potential in terms of providing short-term and long-term solutions to drought conditions.
I just read about a company named Aqua Sciences, located in Miami Beach, Florida. According to an article I read in a recent national magazine, Aqua Sciences makes a product (available in several sizes, capabilities and prices) which is capable of pulling vast quantities of safe drinking water out of the air on a daily basis. It can be powered in multiple ways, including a diesel generator or local AC power.
Once a community has begun to produce adequate crops for the purpose of creating biodiesel fuels in addition to meeting all of the community's nutritional requirements, a switch from regular diesel fuel to environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel might enable such communities to continue to generate drinking water without further contributing to a depletion of the world's oil reserves. (That's my idea, not something found on the Aqua Sciences web site. But I'm guessing that their machine could be modified at some point so that it could use biodiesel fuels.)
Their largest model (measuring 40 feet x 7.7 feet x 7.8 feet) is capable of extracting up to 1,200 gallons a day from the air, depending on environmental conditions. With its reverse osmosis module included, the unit "can provide emergency water for up to 3,000 people per day." (The reverse osmosis module "can provide up to an additional 8,000 gallons/day from an existing source dependent upon conditions.")
The company's web site says, "Aqua Sciences, Inc. is poised to transform the water industry while making a positive humanitarian impact on the world's capability to deal with crisis situations on an emergency or long-term basis. Its success will be measured not merely by the company's profitability, but by its continuing contribution to the world's safety, health, and quality of life."
Unlike a physical well, which is a permanent structure and which therefore can only serve one village or region, an Emergency Water Station from Aqua Sciences is a portable unit which could easily be towed by a large commercial truck from one village to another, making it suitable for short-term disasters which temporarily overwhelm the normally adequate capabilities of local water systems. The website mentions the applicability of the company's machines to disasters ranging from hurricanes to terrorist attacks on a city's water supply.
The company's home page says, "According to the United Nations, between 5 and 9 million people per year die as a result of lack of access to safe drinking water." That's something which should concern every Christian and every church.
Undoubtedly, national and international secular relief organizations will find it extremely useful to be able to generate thousands of gallons of drinking water on the spot, even in areas afflicted by extreme water pollution or lack of adequate drinking water due to other factors.
However, Christian missionaries and mission organizations have been in the international relief business for far longer than any secular government or international organization. It seems to me that Christian mission organizations should therefore leap at this new opportunity (provided that Aqua Sciences' claims are found to be credible) to meet the fundamental human need for adequate drinking water throughout the entire world.
Bringing safe drinking water to regions of the world will open new doors to evangelistic missionary endeavors, to be sure, but our motives should ultimately be to obey and serve Jesus, regardless of whether or not such altruistic efforts result in conversions. Charity should not just be the carrot on the stick which lures people into the church in order to furnish our pastors with captive audiences and new sources of donations. Rather, charity should be a sincere expression of the love for all people which results from a full appreciation of the love and mercy God has extended through Christ Jesus to each and every one of us.
For more information, visit http://www.aquasciences.com.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Ten Resolutions for Life
A few years ago, around the beginning of the year, I found myself thinking about the custom of making New Year's resolutions. As everyone knows, the one thing which can be safely predicted is that such resolutions will usually be broken before several months have passed. (There are exceptions, of course, but I suspect that the exceptions are in the minority.)
I had heard (probably while watching a TV news show) that the tradition of making such resolutions started with the Babylonians. Those familiar with the Old Testament know what God thought of Babylon. The city was regarded as one which was built on evil and on a rejection of God's moral law. Historians tell us that the ancient land of Babylon is now Iraq, a nation with which Americans are now very familiar. In the light of history, it's hardly surprising that our attempt to bring the virtues of democracy to that land has met with such resistance.
As I contemplated the ungodly origins of the tradition of New Year's resolutions, I decided that it made more sense to make resolutions which would guide and direct me for the rest of my life. I decided that I wanted those resolutions to be based on my Christian beliefs.
Perhaps you will benefit by reading those resolutions, so I am presenting them here for your consideration.
I had heard (probably while watching a TV news show) that the tradition of making such resolutions started with the Babylonians. Those familiar with the Old Testament know what God thought of Babylon. The city was regarded as one which was built on evil and on a rejection of God's moral law. Historians tell us that the ancient land of Babylon is now Iraq, a nation with which Americans are now very familiar. In the light of history, it's hardly surprising that our attempt to bring the virtues of democracy to that land has met with such resistance.
As I contemplated the ungodly origins of the tradition of New Year's resolutions, I decided that it made more sense to make resolutions which would guide and direct me for the rest of my life. I decided that I wanted those resolutions to be based on my Christian beliefs.
Perhaps you will benefit by reading those resolutions, so I am presenting them here for your consideration.
TEN RESOLUTIONS FOR LIFE
© Mark Pettigrew
- I will begin and end every day by expressing gratitude to God for my life --- not only with respect to those things in my life which I deem good, but also with respect to the bad things which nevertheless help to shape my character and make me into the person He wants me to be.
- I will not derive my sense of personal identity from the flawed perceptions of other fallible human beings, or from my own fallible comparisons between myself and other human beings who may have life callings which differ from my own. Instead, I will seek to derive my sense of personal identity from my real identity in the eyes of God, who has created me in His image, and who loved me so much that He sent His son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that I might be saved.
- I will try every day to life a life which honors God, by obeying His commandments (even when doing so is costly to me), and by seeking the genuine welfare of others above my own temporary personal pleasures. I will seek to live according to the Golden Rule, by treating others as I would wish to be treated.
- I will seek to fully use the talents, skills and abilities God has given to me in order to make the world a better place. However, when temporary circumstances (including the unjust acts of others) prevent me from being able to fully utilize particular talents, I will remind myself that God sees and knows all, and that He is a just God who never expects us to exceed our own capabilities. I will make the most of the opportunities and resources which have been given to me, even when those opportunities and resources are more limited than I would prefer.
- I will remind myself daily that even though there is no guarantee that I will be protected from trials and tribulations, God can be trusted to take care of my fundamental material, emotional and spiritual needs. In times of stress, when fear threatens to overwhelm me, I will cry out to Him for help, rather than finding comfort in drugs and other forms of escapism which offer no real solution.
- I will try to develop and maintain a lifestyle which is conducive to good physical health, but I will place a higher priority on my spiritual health, since one's body dies, whereas one's spirit is eternal.
- I will stay in touch with my emotions, but I will seek to control my emotions rather than being controlled by those emotions.
- I will seek to grow and improve every day, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually, in order to make the most of the limited time I have been given on this earth. I will seek to spend a minimal amount of time in activities which are frivolous and unproductive.
- I will treat my life with the seriousness it deserves, but I will also seek to maintain a sense of humor, and to keep things in their proper perspective by reminding myself that I am but one among billions of people, all of whom have needs and desires which are as legitimate as my own.
- When I fail --- and I very likely will, since I am a fallible human being --- I will not use that failure as an excuse for giving up or for beating up on myself. Instead, I will humbly acknowledge my failure, and I will ask forgiveness from God and from any people I may have wronged. Having done so, I will then resume my efforts to stay true to my original commitments.
The above list is far from perfect, but I think it's a pretty good starting point.
Perhaps it will be useful to you, too.
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