Magnetic Personalities

Playing army with the boys…”You can’t hit us unless our eyes are open, Dad.” Suffice to say, I lost (but at least I didn’t trip over my teammate…).

New Things

Consider this situation: Your seven and nine year old sons’ favorite toys are magnets which they accidentally drop through the crack in the back porch of your house (and you live among people who have literally no prior exposure to magnetism). 

Since this happened today and since I have never been one to leave well enough alone… when a Pal friend found the magnet and asked what it was, we launched one of the most fun half-hours that I have had in Pal so far. Here is an abbreviated transcript:

Pal friend: “What is this?”

Me: “A magnetic.”

PF: “A wha…huh?”

Me: “Watch, see this nail in our house…”

PF: “A Ge!” (the Pal phrase for ‘Whoa DUUUUUDE.” Or “Far out, man” if you are of the 70s persuasion)

Me: (the science teacher in me bubbling to the surface, sensing a willing audience…) “Noah, get those other magnets, a nail, and a wire”

What followed was a space of time filled with “A Ge!”, chuckles, and “Try this’s”.

Think about it, how does a magnet work? If you had no experience with one, would you not also marvel that one side attracts so forcibly and the other repels?

In honor of the upcoming election year, I thought we’d share this photo of our friend who is running for Ward Council. He is holding a letter which we helped him with that he hopes to file with the governmental office in town.

Chronic

So, as you might have gathered from the above story about magnetism, I have a debilitating and chronic illness. I guess the first step to resolving a thing like this is to acknowledge the problem. So I must admit that I am an Explainer. Oooh, I saw you cringe there. Yes, I am one of those kinds of people. So the other day, a Pal friend asked an innocent question about something (that we cannot help with) and, instead of just saying ‘nope, can’t do it.’ I literally explained the poor fellow to sleep. It softens the sting to note that he had been up all night the previous night hunting and that he was one of a larger group sitting in a room that is normally used for sleeping, but still….

And that brings us to how you can pray for us: we are really feeling the need for wise lips and open ears these days. We really want to be clear and appropriate communicators both in what we do and in what we say so that the Pal people will be all the more ready to hear the truth when we are able to give it to them.

Thanks so much for keeping us here,

Nate for the Cs

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