Today

Since late in the afternoon of Friday, 5th (fifth) day of this January, I have been inspired (or inaudibly commanded) by God to set myself up to be hospitable for reasons that I have made up because of my ignorance of the real reason. Somehow or other, on Friday, I came up with this great idea: I can easily set my self up to provide protein to my guests. I am a phenyleketonuric. This means that I am allergic to phenylalanine which is an amino acid. I understand that amino acids are building blocks for protein, so I must take care to ensure the exclusion of protein from my diet. Consequently, I am quite ignorant of the proper methodology that is commonly applied to the preparation of protein-laden foods. All of that is to say that when I realized I could add protein to my meals through things as simple as cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and boxes of Macaroni & Cheese, I thought to myself, "Why didn't I think of this earlier? It is so simple!" So I went out and purchased such things. Amazing are the problems that a man can solve if he puts his mind to their solution, but I wasn't even thinking about this problem when the solution came to me!

This morning I woke up sometime a bit before 5:30 and I determined that I was likely to be visited today by at least a couple of particular people, so I rose and began to clean my home. Fortunately, I had already purchase everything that I would need for the stir-fry two days ago when I thought that I was supposed to, and of course the protein food was still remaining.

So I got all set up and went to church and my ministry there went quite well, perhaps better than ever before. I even got around to talking to a person with whom I had not previously managed to converse, but the particular people about whom I was thinking did not show up and I did not think that these people had sufficient information to just show up at my home, so I decided to invite the drummer and his wife to my home and the whole meal (even the protein) went over quite well. The picture below illustrates our activities:

1. Eating
2. Chess playing (un-timed)
3. Chess playing (timed)
4. Video watching (on computer)
   

Don't you wish that you had been there?

I wonder if my cooking skills are being built up to the point of actual hospitality or if they are just to be used for the purpose of facilitating fellowship.

I still seem to be having difficulty with blessing my neighbors in any way other than prayer. I don't mind leaving the women alone because they could lead me straight into trouble, but I am sort of bugged by the fact that I can't seem to make any kind of connection with the single man who lives next door. I'll read your suggestions about this if you type them for me.