Robster23's Xanga

sorry xanga...

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:45:17 GMT

I've come to the conclusion that at least for me and my circle of friends... xanga has died.
Therefore, feel free to visit my new blog at:
http://roberdeau.blogspot.com/

hope you enjoy!

I'm so excited :)

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:29:41 GMT

I just got off the phone with one of my friends from Lagniappe and we had a great chat about how things have been since I left last summer. I have had the opportunity to go back numerous times in the past few months, but unless you really ask specific questions, it is really hard to see the whole picture. One of the reasons for this wonderful conversation was that I was recently given the opportunity to share about my experiences at Lagniappe last summer as a construction intern for Lagniappe Church on the Gulf Coast at Grace Pres in Starkville. If you live in Starkville, I hope you'll come to Sunday school and get to hear me and the other students that were involved in summer missions during Sunday school (9:30ish a.m. ! ).

In other news, school is getting tougher as deadlines are approaching. Everything seems to be stacking up a bit. Fortunately, if things continue to progress as they have, I won't have to do all that well on my final exams (a great place to be in, I must say).

Next semester's schedule really is a blessing. I don't have any class on Mondays or Fridays!!! Of course, my parents would say that now I have no excuse not to come home every single weekend, but I see it from a different perspective :). I can go on a road trip or to Lagniappe on most any weekend! I will say though, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are looking rather ominous.

Scary to think I would be graduating in two weeks had I not co-oped a few years ago... everything would be so different.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference
~Robert Frost

Lagniappe Internships

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:30:08 GMT

I'm going to use the free advertisement of the internet to the people who read this (I guess you get what you pay for).
Last summer, many of you know that I worked at Lagniappe Church in Bay St. Louis, MS. We did construction work and worked with a lot of volunteers from all over the country. I have done many things with my summers since high school. Let's do a little recap:
2002, 2003, 2004 - Twin Lakes Summer Camp
2005 - Alpine Camp for Boys
2006 - Co-oped in East TN
2007 - Lagniappe Construction Internship

I have to say, all of those things played a particular role in my life at the time, but I really can say that my summer at Lagniappe was one of my favorites. I didn't make much (only what I raised from friends and family (thanks! if you supported me last summer :) ) compared to co-oping at an engineering company, but it was soooo much more rewarding in other ways.
If you want to minister to families and build lots of relationships you would never have the opportunity to make.
If you would like to live with 13-14 other people your age for 24 hours a day for 12 weeks
If you want to do construction work and get sweaty all day long
If you want to meet people who are real, but not perfect
If you like working with people from around the country
If you want to hear a real Gospel message every Sunday and see people living it every other day of the week
If you want to learn new things about construction that you've never had the chance to learn
If you want to see how the Gospel changes relationships and allows us to see our brokenness and accept God's grace
If you have a passion for helping people in a time of need
If you don't know what you're doing this summer yet...

Then I challenge you to consider spending this summer at Lagniappe- it is not the only place that God is working, but it is a place that he is working. Please let me know if you want more information
If you want to read Lagniappe's blog, go to http://lagniappechurch.blogspot.com/

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:39:42 GMT

I've got to do better about this blogging thing. Bloglines.com has made it incredibly easy to read other people's blogs, but they have yet to make something that makes it easier to blog!
The past two days have been Peter's Roommate Appreciation Day (parts 1 and 2). Last night we got to go to Dave's Darkhorse Tavern and get some pizza for the man. I can't believe it has taken being in Starkville this long for me to finally go there.
I'm gonna miss Roommate Appreciation Day next semester if I move out. The jury is still out (I credit Robin for that phrase) on whether I'll be living on campus or not next year. There's a program called 'Engineering Mentorship' that would allow me to have a tutoring session for two hours per week and help people with the more basic classes in engineering (i.e. Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Statics...) They offer free housing and a stipend to all the students who are in the program. There is that fear that 'O Crap, what if I don't know how to help this person? What if I have forgotten everything?" Well, I hope this isn't true, but we'll see. I'm really excited though and I think it fits my personality quite well.
I need to post a few pictures soon.

50 some-odd pages later...

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:27:53 GMT

You know... someone told me I would be busy this semester, but I didn't think they were that serious. :)
Well, Peter and Jason, two of my wonderful roommates, and I spent a large portion of our week being eaten by the ESD (Energy Systems Design) Monster. This monster has the ability to down many hours of your day in one helping! Also, I think the ESD monster is eating a large portion of the rainforest considering how much paper we use in that class. Before you know it, your whole afternoon is gone. My professors always talk about the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Energy, but I don't think they've proved the Law of Conservation of Time yet, cause I don't know where all those hours went.
Well, this week is over and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Being home right now for a short trip right now, I will get to go to my home church tomorrow! Always a great experience. I miss being at home for long periods of time when I can actually build on the relationships there. Honestly, I'm tired of always being asked, "so how long you got left?, what are you going to do when you graduate? How's State?" I mean, I can't blame people for asking, considering they never see me, but I just wish I could GROW in those relationships, but right now, that just doesn't seem real possible considering I am at school and they are in Jackson.
I came home this weekend to see the parents, and I'm glad I did. I do regret it being so short, but I am glad I didn't bring my car because that means I can't go anywhere and make a bunch of plans. I am here and I'm stayin' put!
In small group last week, we talked about Romans 1:1-17. The following are verses 16 and 17:
"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith.""

I just hope I can say that, too.

Roberdeau

This year I will...no,wait ... He will

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:04:43 GMT

For some reason, I have a curse for New Years Eve. Only 3 years in my life have I ever done anything at all except sit at home. One was spent in Gatlinburg in like 4th grade crying (I was homesick! ... shut up! ;) ) I got to go to a friends house in '05, and I went to Urbana for a HUGE missions conference for last year ('06).
Well, this too was another of those cursed years where all the plans I had fell through and I ended up at home... :(
It turned out to be a really good start to this year because it usually lets me reflect on the past year and spend some much need TAWG (Time Alone With God for all you Twin Lakers out there) because it was humbling not to have anything else that I needed to do. TAWG and a long list of 'resolutions' were the fruit of this time. Resolutions are a funny thing though. I mean, I am pretty good at changing stuff like: what I eat, how much I exercise, and whether or not I write down prayer requests, but it's the internal stuff that is much harder to change.
It is hard to change the relationships we have with people
It is hard to change the motives we have
It is hard to pray for things that have been the same way our whole lives
It is hard to break habits that have been there for years (I mean, I've only gone to bed before 11pm a few times in the past decade!)
But seriously... real change doesn't happen from within. It comes from the outside.
If we are going to see real change in our lives, we have to go to the One who changed us in the first place.
See what Ezekiel 36:21-25 says:
24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. 30 I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine.

So this puts a new perspective on things doesn't it? It looks like most of what God wants to do in our lives is what He will do. I just pray I don't get in the way.

A Powerful Story

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:58:26 GMT

From Adam and Ellen Hoover, members of a recent MTW Medical Missions team:.

Greetings from Augusta, Georgia! Ellen and I are writing to report those things which God accomplished through and in us while in Ethiopia and I must say, there were a few surprises.

For starters, here is what our days consisted of. It began with a cold shower or no shower in the morning, followed by prayer and Bible study, breakfast, and then on to the day’s clinic site. At the clinic we saw 100-150 patients a day, of whom thirty to forty percent were HIV positive depending on the clinic site. In addition to HIV/AIDS [patients], we saw people afflicted by tuberculosis, leprosy, rheumatic fever and other diseases not commonly seen in the United States. We were able to provide medical care to many of these patients and in some cases, cure them, or at least reduce their suffering. And while the medical portion of this trip was worthwhile and produced many satisfying results, I was struck with how short a distance medicine could reach toward healing the hurts of Ethiopia, and by extension, the suffering that is common to much of Africa. It became clear to us that the gospel is indeed the only hope we have to offer whether in Africa or the United States. In the past, we theologically understood that Christ is our only hope, but in Ethiopia that wonderful truth took shape like never before. The rest of this letter will explain the process Ellen and I went through to arrive at this conclusion.

While driving through the city on streets crowded with innumerable automobiles, donkeys and people we noticed a curious thing. There were dozens of people lying on the side of the road, some covered with blankets, others exposed to the elements, and all seemed completely resigned. The first day or two I didn’t think much of it and imagined they were maybe homeless or just sleeping. I felt sorry for them and maybe some detached compassion welled up inside, but assuming that they would make it, at least for a while, I was not gripped with concern for their welfare. I had not yet realized that they had lost all desire or motivation to live. For them there was nothing to look forward to or hope for, but we didn’t yet know much about the plight of many HIV-positive Ethiopians.

One of my first lessons came from a frail, emaciated and dehydrated woman in her fifties. As I slowly assisted her from the waiting area to our exam table, I noticed her head was tilted all the way to one side, practically resting on her shoulder. I didn’t realize it was because she no longer had the strength to hold her head up straight. As she sat down, she told a story that had grown somewhat familiar, though I had not yet connected it to the people I saw lying on the road. When she learned that she was HIV positive, her husband left her and due to the extreme stigma associated with the disease, most of her family had abandoned her too, and friends also became scarce. Utterly discouraged and alone and now in the end stages of AIDS, she came to us seeking pain medication to take the edge off of her suffering. She refused to take the life-prolonging drugs offered to her free-of-charge by the government. She did not want to prolong her life. Before us sat a woman who wished death would come, and the sooner the better, for there was not a brighter day to come or a few more precious moments to spend with beloved family and friends. No graduation of a child, no grandchildren to see born, no pleasant night to spend under her own roof. There was not that one more event to make it to or last pleasant experience to look forward to that would drive her on. Her drive to live had been conquered; not by the intensity of her suffering, but by the lack of any hope that the future held one last stab of joy or delight. I asked if I could pray for her and then share with her the hope found in Christ. She refused. She seemed angry with God. We gave her pain medication and IV fluids over the next several hours. She seemed to be feeling better after being rehydrated, but her chronic diarrhea would soon take away even that benefit. She left the clinic and as far as I know no one was able to make headway in sharing the Gospel with her. She left feeling better but still without hope. I can only pray that God will soften her heart because soon she will die.

Driving back that night it dawned on me why people were lying on the side of the road; many of them, like the lady we treated, were waiting for death, even hoping for it. They had lost hope of any future happiness and wished only for their misery to end.

And so this is what we learned. Hope for the people of Ethiopia and the continent of Africa can only be found in Jesus Christ. There is not even the faintest illusion that it can be found elsewhere. That may seem obvious enough, but in America this truth can be covered over; we can bandage ourselves and our society in such a way that makes us look well enough, and we can find diversion from misery with entertainment. But in Ethiopia, suffering and misery is as bare and obvious as an open wound, infected beyond hope of healing. What cure is there for despair? Certainly none that the finest western medicine or technology has to offer. We learned that we must see ourselves as those people lying on the side of the road, without hope but that Christ has died in our place and risen again, and that we too shall rise to be with Him where He is one day. To see otherwise is just an illusion. Should we then go to ends of the earth with our medicines and skills? Absolutely. But to do so without making Christ pre-eminent in our treatment will accomplish almost nothing, whether in Ethiopia or the United States.

We love and appreciate each of you for your support of our endeavor to further God’s kingdom and for loving us as friends and family.

Time off

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:52:35 GMT

Merry Christmas guys and gals. I hope you all are enjoying your time off from work/school as much as I am so far.

Last week I was given the chance to work at Lagniappe for a week with MTW (Mission to the World) and RUF. This is what we built! For more pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/JLarroux/RUFBlitzBuild

It is amazing how quickly one can learn a lot about construction. I mean, only 7 months ago I had very little construction experience and now I find myself much more confident on the worksite in in leading teams.

In a few days, I'm going to get the chance to go to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis! Actually, I was not looking to be actually go to the game, but just to go hang out in Memphis with some people, but then someone offered me a free ticket! So, now I am going Lord willing :)

Pursuits for the holidays:

Definitely want to read more, be in the Word more

See people that I've not seen in a while

Increase the mandolin playing skills (much needed improvement)

Try not to think about next semester too much, which could be brutal (I like it when people can 'be where they are' and not dwell too much on the future and the past).

~By the way, If you are looking for a really great sermon series, I've got one for you. Check out Lagniappe Church's podcast on ITunes. Jean Larroux has a series on 'Things that ARE NOT in the Bible.' You may be asking yourself, 'Well, Rob, I usually like to hear sermons about things that ARE IN the Bible.' Ah, you are wise, but sometimes we have deceived ourselves into thinking that many 'Christianisms' are Biblical when actually they may not be. i.e. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, 'God helps those... who help themselves.' Also, many people would say that Christians shouldn't judge people's behavior, but Jean seems to elucidate a Biblical view on judging a lot better than I ever could have. If this sounds like something you'd like to hear more about, just go to ITunes.com and type in Lagniappe under podcasts ~ (that's enough for my commercial)

Hopefully in 2008, blogging will pick back up. It feels like a lot of people slowed their blogging to a hault. I want to hear how all of you are doing! I'll hopefully do my part by updating more often, but don't leave me by myself! :)

Isaiah 9:6-7 " For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:32:06 GMT

The Cost of Christmas...

Sarah from Lagniappe showed me this article and I really got a kick out of it. Hope you enjoy it too!~Rob

Cost to buy all items mentioned in song up 4% in '07 to $78,100, according to PNC report.

At least the partridge in the pear tree doesn't cost more this year.

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- While the origins of the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" may be a mystery, one thing is certain: It's getting more costly to buy your true love all the items mentioned.

It would cost $78,100 to buy the 364 items, from a single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, repeatedly on each day as the song suggests, according to the annual PNC Christmas Price Index compiled by PNC Wealth Management. The cost is up 4 percent from $75,122 last year.

Buying each item in the song just once would cost $19,507, up 3.1 percent from last year's $18,921. And shopping online would be costlier, with the total for the 364 items costing $128,886, up 2.5 percent from last year's $125,767. You would spend $31,249 online for each item just once this year.

Though a humorous look, PNC said the index mirrors actual economic trends. PNC has been calculating the cost of Christmas since 1984.

Helping push the cost up this year is the minimum wage hike, which bumped the cost of eight maids a-milking from about $41 to nearly $47.

"They have not had an increase since 1997," said Jim Dunigan, managing executive of investment for PNC Wealth Management. "The good news is, if you're a maids a-milking, they will also see an increase in 2008 and 2009."

Higher food costs pushed the six geese a-laying from $300 to $360. And reflecting higher gold prices, those five gold rings will cost $395, up 21.5 percent from last year's $325.

"The cost of the gold rings in this year's Christmas Price Index reflects the general trend of increasing commodity prices in the Consumer Price Index, including gold," Dunigan said. "In addition, increased fears about inflation and the value of the dollar may have led investors to turn to gold as a safer place to invest their money."

Not everything is more costly. The price of a partridge ($15), two turtle doves ($40) and three French hens ($40) remained the same, as did seven swans a-swimming, at $4,200, and nine ladies dancing, at $4,759.

PNC checks jewelry stores, dance companies, pet stores and other sources to compile the list, Dunigan said.

If one had $78,000 to splurge for Christmas, there's "probably a Mercedes or a Hummer in there someplace," Dunigan said. "The key there is you'd lose the romantic value."

"I'm sure there's something on the list for everybody," he said. "If it was my wife, she'd probably go for five gold rings."

As for the origins of the carol, which has been around for hundreds of years, some contend the song was a coded way to teach aspects of Catholicism. According to such claims, the six geese a-laying represent the six days of creation and the 10 lords a-leaping represent the 10 Commandments.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:47:04 GMT

I learned in Tech writing you are supposed to mention your pictures before inserting them into your document...

I decided to participate in no-shave November (okay, I admit it, I started a couple weeks early). This can be clearly seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Me participating in no-shave November

Today we got a vacuum for 10 dollars! I was pumped, because we were planning on spending like 60 dollars on a new one from Walmart (which we were sure would break soon). Figure 2 shows Jason vacuuming the living room with a grin on his face. Actually, when we first got it, the little brush wasn't spinning and I thought my roomies had gotten us a crappy deal. Fortunately, we three engineers fixed the problem in no time!

Figure 2. An over-ambitious Jason Simmons vacuuming the living room floor (Why can't we all be this excited to vacuum?) :)

Well, Robin tagged me, which means that I have to say 8 little known things about myself, so here goes:

1. I've had 4 different ear surgeries, not including tubes
2. I've been to Belize and South Korea
3. My least productive time of the day is the afternoon
4. I won the science fair 6th, 7th, and 8th grades for my category
5. Favorite number? 23
6. I used to HATE chocolate, and now it is slowly (emphasis on slow) growing on me
7. Have been at summer camps for 10 years
8. Have two parents, one sister, one cousin, one aunt, and two grandparents (and more distant relatives, but those are the close ones)

I now tag Daniel Monroe., Caitlin, and Mr. Jason Collins, and Mr. O'Brien!