Jake Malloy

A while back I posted about our move to Kenya.  Things are going quite well.  Linked is a more itemized list of the things we will be paying by term.

We are still trying to raise the needed money to finish out the program.  If you or someone you know or a group of which you are a part would like to help, please email or facebook or call me.

We would be thankful for any donations, but additionally we would encourage the gift of an interest-free loan that we could repay after the end of the program.

Check out the link for the wide range of options from $9 (for a term of clinic fees) to $1100 (for the last term of housing).

The italicized lines are the classes I will be taking.  It would be great if a group would sponsor a class and pray me through it.

Again, for any additional information, please feel free to ask.

For Parkade Baptist Church “Battle for America” Concert of Prayer:

Have mercy on us, O God, according to You unfailing love and according to Your great compassion. I am sorry that we have not taken seriously the exhortations of Your Scriptures that teach us that a person will be known by his or her fruit and that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ, we do not belong to Christ.

On behalf of these people, as a member of this Body, I repent of the lack of Spiritual fruit produced be we who label ourselves ‘Christian.”

I apologize that the commandment of love You set above all others we have treated so lightly, Forgive us, please, for not loving You with all our hearts because our earthly treasures consume us. Forgive us for not loving with all our souls because we corrupt them and treat our and others’ souls as if they were not eternal. Forgive us our unloving minds that spend little time studying who You are. We repent of using our strength to serve ourselves rather than serving others with the strength You provide. Forgive us, Father, for creating a structure where Christians are expected to be consumers rather than productive servants.

And please forgive us for valuing our own time and privacy too highly to get to know our neighbors so we can truly love them.

Restore to us the joy of Your salvation and grant us a willing Spirit to sustain the unity of the Body that we so quickly forfeit. Forgive us for fragmenting the Body Your Son prayed would be one.

Forgive us for poorly following our Prince as people of peace. Forgive us for giving in to fear and scarcity and media hype rather than trusting that Your love protects and sustains us.

We apologize for ignoring Your example of patience that wants all men to come to repentance, while we selfishly discuss the end times.

Forgive us for being a people imfamously unkind.

We repent of the hypocrisy of claiming goodness and high standards yet actually practicing the same behaviors of unbelievers.

Lord, be faithful though we are faithless. We put our faith in politicians and just militaries and a blessed nation rather than You. Rather than being faithful members of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have more in common with American nonbelievers than Indonesian Christians. Our King, teach us to live as faithful members of the Spiritual Society, ambassadors and ministers of reconciliation to bring Your life and light to the ends of the earth.

Teach us to let our gentleness be evident to all as we battle powers of darkness, not with weapons of this world, but with divine power.

Finally, Father, forgive us for utterly disregarding self-control and being slaves to this self-indulgent system. We apologize for only giving lip service to Spiritual disciplines. Forgive us for storing up wealth and neglecting to pay fair wages, for living in luxury and self-indulgence. We are sorry we ignored Your command to give our extra clothes to those who have none.

Let us not be found as goats among sheep, but let us turn from wickedness and find life. We trust that Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. We are those who claim the indwelling of Your Spirit and we repent our lack of proof.

Strengthen us to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Find JR.’s prayer for the “least”

Thank you for being patient since I haven’t posted in over a week.  More to come soon.

What of the introvert in a world that progressively values extroverts?

“I’m a type A, goal-minded, progress-oriented person. Most leaders are.” - Dan Reiland (http://leadershipblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/leadership-blog-interview-dan-reiland.html)

In a presentation to high school teachers a speaker said an outcome of being bullied is being introverted.   Is it a bad thing? 

Teachers, preachers, entertainers - and maybe that’s the connection, everything is viewed through the lense of entertainment or power, which the world sees as extroverted personas.

two movements : scientific/progressive movement then entertainment paradigm

We normally understand opinions to be deviod of truth value, which is to say we cannot evaluate an opinion as true or false, because it is an opionion.  Most of us have heard someone stop a discussion with “It’s my opinion, it can’t be wrong” or “She’s entitled to her opinion.” 

In reality an opinion is merely an ill-defined or ambiguous statement that holds a truth value that is inflexible once the parameters are expressed. 

First a non-example:  I like cheese.  This is not an opinion.  It is either true or false.

Example: Cheese is good.  This is a typical opinion.  It is a value judgment.  This is often considered the end of discussion, because it is an opinion. 

However, under the statement lies a definition.  In this example, it is the definition of good.  For other opinions it may be the definition of ugly, tasty, boring, etc.  These definitions carry within them plenty of room for discussion. 

In our example, I may mean that “cheese is good” because cheese tastes good to me.  And I mean by “tastes good” that the reaction on my tongue causes pleasure in me.  There is ample room for discussing whether tasting good causes something to BE good or whether it causing pleasure makes it good.  All this would be lost if we demand opinions have no truth value and are neither right nor wrong but simply opinions.

This gets particularly important in settings where many shy away from conversation and feel justified behind the safety of opinions.  Arenas such as politics, religion, and philosophy carry many closely held beliefs.  We manage civility by dismissing differences as opinions.  And in doing this we lose a great opportunity for discussion.

As best I can tell this was written in 4th grade.  I thought it would be appropriate as my last Monday as a first year teacher.

THE FUN PART of SCHOOL

by Jake Malloy

The best thing about school is three o’clock.  At three we get out of school.  We all can go home and relax.  No one has to listen to teachers anymore.  The best part of school is the end.

I have had a love-hate relationship with school as far back as I can remember.

Saturday Asante turned 6 months, and we had a nice relaxing day together.  Sunday Parkade had a little visiting time for us to talk  about Kenya, and it was Mother’s Day.  We enjoyed a nice evening.  Monday started up American Gladiators which did not disappoint.  And Tuesday was our three year anniversary.  We had a good dinner and time together.  Wednesday was a much needed night at home and Thursday was delicious steaks at JR’s ending with some Wii.  Tonight is Prince Caspian.  All along working through the last week of teaching before finals.

Also, to update my memory and index card posts, I found two programs that seem pretty hopeful.  The first I discovered reading Wired this month.  It is Supermemo.  Its strength is in the algorithm that decides when your material will be reviewed.  There is a free trial.   The second, Bryce showed me.  It is Before You Know It, which seems to be mostly language based.  Its strength is a good-looking application.  There is a free version, but the deluxe version promises that you can add your own cards. 

I also noticed this week that it seems Google Reader keeps all read material from the beginning of use.  This is a great feature.

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This was a requested post, but I have a feeling I’m going to go a different direction from the requestor’s intention.  The only guy’s head I know is my own, which may or may not be much like other guys’.  So I figured I would try a stream of consciousness post for this.  This will be the closest to inside my head I can share.

What normally happens when I think about/try to do this is I think about the typing rather than other other thing.  I think that I type too slowly to catch up or that more than one thing is going on at once but I can’t won’t be able to type it other than one at a  …time.  Why my brain just slowed down (to catch my typing) I don’t know. know. Sometimes when I’m thinking of something, some part of my brain tries to catch finish my sentence and normally gets it wrong and its that is annoying.  There are people like that who want to dont have the patience to wait for you to finish so they try to anticipate your line and mess it up that makes things take last longer than they would otherwise.  Im not sure.  [break]

[I’m going to try to think of a topic first and then begin typing as the topic continues]

I really have high hopes for the summer for time off for a break from thinking about many things for short periods of time and being able to finally concentrate again.  I hope that happens I’m going to need it to happen if I’m going to study well at NEGST.  I feel like I’m my mind is a blog or a reader or something that only deals with short chunks of thought separated interrupted messed up all the time, too busy but I’m not even busy now I just can’t have to retrain my brain to slow down, think on one thing enjoy a thought savor it.Â

I have this idea that medium sized cities should be restructured in a sort of centralized/de-centralized way with areas of high density and low density.  This would sort of break the city into many smaller parts and would also save a lot of green space.  In my plan this would divide into 1 square mile chunks. 

It would also probably have an elevated rail system connecting major centers.

It would make use of vertical space for housing and parking. I bit like a big city being meshed into a rural setting, with high rises and purposely undeveloped land.

Tonight Tiffany and I celebrated our three years of marriage.  I cannot express adequately the blessing she is to me.  In Oklahoma, I’m not sure I would have lasted without her.  And now she is excited to venture to Kenya with me.  Tiffany is a terrific encouragement to me.  She thinks highly of me and believes I can succeed.  People who expect the best from you and see it in you are people to hold tightly.

Tiffany, thank you for persevering and convincing me to get married.  Thank you for enduring these years even in the scary parts.  You are a rare treasure.  You have simultaneously sharpened me and softened me. Ninakupenda.