Coming attractions: Is Rusty Lopez anti-male, anti-fathers or anti-family?

I know, I know, I promised you two weeks ago that I will be publishing here an article on why persistent suitors become passive husbands. Well, you see, I have been busy designing two websites on teaching English through the Internet (it's called cybermissions) and I haven't found the time to sit down and write the article. But I am doing the research for the article. I used to think that there was only one reason why persistent suitors become passive husbands but I am finding out there are actually two or three reasons why (based on my readings of James Dobson, John Eldredge, Bill Hybels and Chip Ingram). Hope you will be patient as I try to find the time to write this article, okay, okay?

One other article I will be writing about is tentatively titled "Is Rusty Lopez anti-family or anti-male?" I am sure a lot of you have seen the billboards of the Rusty Lopez company showing only a mother, her son and daughter, with the words “Family matters.” Where is the father in this advertising poster? I don't know if it was by deliberate design (this is redundant, right?) by Rusty Lopez and the ad agency which created it, an honest mistake, or a reflection of the realities of the Filipino family today, but such an advertising sends the wrong message that Rusty Lopez is anti-male, anti-fathers, or anti-family in the Philippine and Biblical context.

I don't really care about Rusty Lopez; my shoes are Marikina-made and Mr. Quickie-repaired (over and over again!). But I do care about the right view of the Filipino family. Hey, more on this later, okay, okay?

Can unwed mothers avail of benefits under the Solo Parents Welfare Act?

Through an anonymous comment posted in my article on "Support for an abandoned woman and her children," I was informed that in one case, the DSWD refused to extend assistance to an unwed mother. This unwed mother was required to present either the death certificate of the spouse or of a decree of annulment of the marriage.

Section 3, paragraph [8] of RA 8972, in the Definition of Terms, expressly includes unwed mothers (and unwed fathers!) as among those included in the term "solo parent" and thus they can be recipients of the benefits of this law. The said paragraph defines a solo parent as an “unmarried mother/father who has preferred to keep and rear her/his child/children instead of having others care for them or give them up to a welfare institution.”

For the benefit of those who have not yet read it in my Legal Updates blog, I am reprinting here the article on “Support for an abandoned woman and her children.”

One question that has been repeatedly asked me is, “How can a woman and/or her children, abandoned by the husband or live-in partner, get support for their financial needs?” Here’s a brief primer on the issue of support.

What law governs support?

The specific provisions of the Family Code of the Philippines on support can be found in Title VIII, Articles 194 up to 208.

What does support consist of?

Article 194 of the Family Code defines “support” as comprising everything indispensable for sustenance, dwelling, clothing, medical attendance, education and transportation, in keeping with the financial capacity of the family. The education of the person entitled to be supported includes his schooling or training for some profession, trade or vocation, even beyond the age of majority. Transportation shall include expenses in going to and from school, or to and from place of work.

During proceedings in court for legal separation or annulment of marriage, how will support be provided for?

Article 198 of the Family Code provides: “During the proceedings for legal separation or for annulment of marriage, and for declaration of nullity of marriage, the spouses and their children shall be supported from the properties of the absolute community or the conjugal partnership. After the final judgment granting the petition, the obligation of mutual support between the spouses ceases. However, in case of legal separation, the court may order that the guilty spouse shall give support to the innocent one, specifying the terms of such order.”

How much is the amount of support to be granted?

Article 201 provides that the amount of support, in the cases referred to in Articles 195 and 196, shall be in proportion to the resources or means of the giver and to the necessities of the recipient.

Can support be reduced or increased?

Article 202 provides that support in the cases referred to in the preceding article shall be reduced or increased proportionately, according to the reduction or increase of the necessities of the recipient and the resources or means of the person obliged to furnish the same.

When can support be demanded? When shall payment be made?

Article 203 provides that the obligation to give support shall be demandable from the time the person who has a right to receive the same needs it for maintenance, but it shall not be paid except from the date of judicial or extra-judicial demand.

Support pendente lite (while the case is being heard in court) may be claimed in accordance with the Rules of Court.

Payment shall be made within the first five days of each corresponding month or when the recipient dies, his heirs shall not be obliged to return what he has received in advance.

What options, if any, are there for the person obliged to give support?

Article 204 provides that the person obliged to give support shall have the option to fulfill the obligation either (1) by paying the allowance fixed, or (2) by receiving and maintaining in the family dwelling the person who has a right to receive support. The latter alternative cannot be availed of in case there is a moral or legal obstacle thereto.

What rights, if any, does a family relative or a stranger have when he or she renders support to the abandoned woman and her children?

Article 206 provides that when, without the knowledge of the person obliged to give support, it is given by a stranger, the latter shall have a right to claim the same from the former, unless it appears that he gave it without intention of being reimbursed.

Article 207 also provides that when the person obliged to support another unjustly refuses or fails to give support when urgently needed by the latter, any third person may furnish support to the needy individual, with right of reimbursement from the person obliged to give support. Article 207 shall particularly apply when the father or mother of a child under the age of majority unjustly refuses to support or fails to give support to the child when urgently needed.

What other laws provide assistance to women abandoned by their husbands or live-in partners?

Republic Act 8972 or the “Solo Parents Welfare Act of 2000” provides benefits to single parents. For more information, please refer to my primer on RA 8972 .

Republic Act 9262 or the “Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004” provides under Section 5, paragraph (e), sub-paragraph (2) that it is a crime to deprive or threaten to deprive the woman or her children of financial support legally due her or her family, or to deliberately provide the woman's children insufficient financial support.

How can this right under RA 9262 be availed of?

The abandoned woman and/or her children can ask the Family Court to issue a Protection Order. Section 8, paragraph (g) of RA 9262 states that the Protection Order will “direct the respondent to provide support to the woman and/or her child if entitled to legal support. Notwithstanding other laws to the contrary, the court shall order an appropriate percentage of the income or salary of the respondent to be withheld regularly by the respondent's employer for the same to be automatically remitted directly to the woman. Failure to remit and/or withhold or any delay in the remittance of support to the woman and/or her child without justifiable cause shall render the respondent or his employer liable for indirect contempt of court.”

For more information on this matter, please refer to my previous article on Protection Orders also in this blog.

What if the husband is working abroad and refuses to communicate with and support the woman and her kids?

The problem here is that the husband is outside the jurisdiction of Philippine courts. One solution can be, if the husband returns home to the Philippines for whatever reason, the abandoned woman can immediately file a petition for Protection Order under RA 9262 and at the same time ask the court to issue a Hold Departure Order under Section 37.

Another long term solution is to ask Congress to pass a law or for the appropriate government agencies (like the POEA) to implement regulations similar to those imposed on Filipino seamen, that is, as part of the employment contract, a certain percentage of the husband’s salary is mandated to be remitted to the family here in the Philippines.

Legal lessons from Willie Revillame and Liz Amoro; emotional abuse, and psychological violence

Everyone in the Philippines has probably read, heard or seen in newspapers, radio and television reports about the ongoing court battle between popular TV host Willie Revillame and his estranged wife Liz Amoro. They're locked in a court battle for declaration of nullity of their marriage, and last week, Willie had to post bail after Liz's criminal complaint for psychological violence under Republic Act 9262 was filed in court. It's terribly sad to see two people who previously loved each other standing toe-to-toe in a bitter court battle.

The only good thing perhaps out of this issue is that through the wide media coverage (of what is supposedly confidential proceedings!) Filipinos are learning a lot about RA 9262, our country's landmark law on domestic violence. The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women and various women's groups fought and worked patiently for ten years before RA 9262 became law. Summer 2005, through the DSWD Region IV-A, I conducted seminars in RA 9262 for barangay officials, day care center workers, etc. in Laguna (Victoria, Alaminos, Lumban, Kalayaan), Sto. Tomas, Batangas, and Cavite City.

Psychological violence under RA 9262

As I mentioned above, according to media reports, Liz filed a criminal case for "psychological violence" against Willie. RA 9262 penalizes “psychological violence” committed against a woman and/or her children by her intimate partner. Section 3 of RA 9262 provides:

“Psychological Violence” refers to acts or omissions causing or likely to cause mental or emotional suffering of the victim such as but not limited to:

1. intimidation
2. harassment
3. stalking
4. damage to property
5. public ridicule or humiliation
6. repeated verbal abuse
7. marital infidelity
8. causing or allowing the victim to witness the physical, sexual or psychological abuse of a member of a family to which the victim belongs
9. causing victim to witness pornography in any form or to witness abusive injury to pets
10. unlawful or unwanted deprivation of the right to custody and/or visitation of common children.

In my lectures on RA 9262, I have pointed out that "psychological violence" or "emotional abuse" is quite broad and open to misuse. What guarantees, however, protection for men charged with psychological violence is the 1987 Constitution's provision for the presumption of innocence.

Effects of psychological or emotional abuse

Neil Jacobson and John Gottman in their study “When Men Batter Women” relate the insidious effects of psychological or emotional abuse as follows:

1. “Emotional abuse is harder to live with than being beaten and it means something different to women when it occurs with physical abuse.”

2. “Despite the pain and bruises inflicted by punching, kicking and worse mayhem, it is the scarring left by an emotionally abusive husband that is more likely to trigger a battered wife’s decision to leave her spouse.”

3. “Emotional abuse is more oppressive, particularly when it is frequent. It can be present every day, every waking hour, 24 hours a day. What men are doing with emotional abuse is almost like mind control.”

Patricia Evans’ book “The Verbally Abusive Relationship” (published in 1996) is considered to be the most definitive resource on the topic of emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse checklist

ALIVE provides an “emotional abuse checklist” based on “Getting Free: A Handbook for Women in Abusive Relationships” written by Ginny NiCarthy (Seal Press, 1982). The emotional abuse checklist (available at http://www.thingsarelookinup.com/) provides more than 70 questions to measure whether or not a woman is being subjected to emotional abuse by her intimate partner. The questions “flesh out” so to speak the enumeration of Section 3 of RA 9262 on what constitutes psychological violence. The checklist is divided into the following major sections:

A. Are you isolated?
B. Is your attention monopolized by the abusive person?
C. Does your partner claim to be all powerful?
D. Does your partner enforce trivial demands?
E. Are you exhausted, debilitated or dependent?
F. Do you feel humiliated or degraded?
G. Does your partner threaten you?
H. Does your partner occasionally indulge your wishes?
I. Does your partner do things that make you feel crazy?
J. Is your partner emotionally distant or neglectful?

Some of the questions under the major sections cited above are the following:

Question 01. Does your partner ridicule or insult people you like?
Question 03. Does your partner become angry or upset, dampening your enthusiasm, just before, or during a social event you’ve looked forward to?
Question 07. Do you feel uneasy about being with your partner and your friends at the same time?
Question 08. Do you feel nervous or frightened of what your partner will say or do if you are even a few minutes late from work, shopping, the hairdresser, or visiting others?
Question18. Does your partner insist that activities take place in precise ways or at precisely designated times?
Question 69. Does your partner groan, complain or ridicule you, when you cry, worry, or ask for emotional support?
Question 75. Have you given up asking your partner for companionship?
Question 76. Have you stopped asking for empathy or emotional support?

These and other numerous questions from the emotional abuse checklist provided by ALIVE are meant to help women being subjected to emotional abuse. While I do not necessarily endorse everything that ALIVE stands for, this checklist is very helpful and insightful.
Going through the emotional abuse checklist can really crush your spirit. The questions in the checklist describe an uncouth, emotionally distant and verbally abusive man who demeans and ridicules his wife. How radically different is the picture painted by the Old Testament book of Song of Solomon, specifically in chapter 4, where the man by his words and actions cherishes and treasures his wife, as follows:

1. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.
2. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
3. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
4. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.
5. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.
6. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
7. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.
8. Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
9. Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
10. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
11. Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
12. A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
13. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
14. Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
15. A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
16. Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

Emotional word pictures as a communication tool for increasing intimacy between husbands and wives

Last Sunday morning, on my way to church, I rode on an Ayala-bound FX taxi from Countryside, Pasig where I live. While we were speeding along the stretch of C-5 in Pasig, the FX taxi driver, on two or three occasions, through his cellphone, engaged in lengthy conversations with a woman (presumably his wife judging from the topics of conversation).

The FX taxi was full of male and female passengers. I was seated in front beside the door, with a sleeping male passenger between me and the driver. Since the FX taxi driver was speaking in a loud voice (instead of trying to just whisper into his cellphone), everyone in the taxi could hear his dialogue with the woman at the other end of the line. At the end of each call, he would say sweetly, “Love you!”

I’m sure all the women passengers in the FX taxi were sighing and swooning over with emotion, hearing this macho driver saying, “Love you!” to his wife loud enough for everyone to hear. I’m doubly sure that the male passengers, on the other hand, were squirming in their seats, totally embarrassed by this FX taxi driver’s very public and loud display of affection.

And me?

I was holding on tightly to the hand rail above the front right door, and bracing both my feet hard against the floorboard. You see, it was raining a bit that morning, and the stretch of C-5 from the newly-opened SM Hypermart near Julia Vargas, the flyover in Bagong Ilog in Pasig, and the bridge marking the boundary between Pasig and Makati, was wet and a bit slippery. The love-struck FX taxi driver was holding his cellphone against his ear with his left hand, while holding on to the steering wheel with his right hand.

A simple miscalculation on the part of this amorous driver, a piece of rock on the road, a jaywalking pedestrian, another vehicle suddenly stopping or swerving, any of these things could have caused an accident. Despite the interesting conversation that I was hearing from the romantic FX taxi driver, all I could think of was, “So this is the way I’m going to die, on an FX taxi that gets sideswiped by other vehicles on C-5, or gets crumpled ramming a Meralco post, or jumps off the bridge at the Pasig-Makati boundary, hurtling all of us into the muddy waters of the Pasig River below, and the last words I will hear would be the amorous FX taxi driver’s ‘Love you!’ …”

What we have here is a failure to communicate …

Gary Smalley and John Trent, PhD, marriage counselors and popular seminar speakers in the US, have written a book entitled “The Language of Love” (copyright 1988; Published by Focus on the Family Publishing, California; distributed by Word Books). You can find copies of this book in Christian bookstores (OMF Lit, PCBS) or in National Bookstore branches. For the last 35 years, Smalley has spoken to over two million people in seminars.

(If you’d like to learn more about Smalley']’s concepts, books and seminars, please surf over to his website www.garysmalley.com/. Dr. Trent’s website is http://www.strongfamilies.com/, and his blog is http://drjohntrent.wordpress.com/.)

Smalley and Trent, before discussing what their book is all about, point out the differences in the brain structures of men and women. These differences are responsible for all the miscommunication problems between men and women. Please surf over to my previous article “Do wives really want their husbands to share their thoughts and emotions with them?” where I discussed the differences between men and women.

(Other Christian authorities, like Martin and Deidre Bobgan, dispute Smalley and Trent’s “left brain - right brain” ideas. Please read with discernment anything that I recommend to you in this blog, okay?)

Word pictures for increasing insight, intimacy and understanding

In this book, Smalley and Trent present their concept of “emotional word pictures” as a communication tool for increasing insight, intimacy, and understanding between husbands and wives. At the outset, they say that “everyday words” are not enough. On page 9, they state their case for using emotional word pictures:

No matter who you are or what you do, you can’t escape the need to communicate meaningfully with others. And without exception, we all will run into the limitation of everyday expressions.

In a world awash with words, can we find a way to add new depth to what we say? Can a wife find a method to penetrate her husband’s natural defenses and get her point across so he will long remember it? Can a man express himself more vividly or say the same old thing in a brand new way? Can men and women say more by using fewer words?

To all the above, the answer is a resounding YES! Largely unused in marriage, homes, friendships, and businesses is a tool that can supercharge communications and change lives. This concept is as old as ancient kings but is so timeless that it has been used throughout the ages in every society. It’s a powerful communication method we call emotional word pictures.

Smalley and Trent, in page 17 of their book define emotional word pictures as “a communication tool that uses a story or object to activate simultaneously the emotions an intellect of a person. In so doing, it causes the person to experience our words, not just hear them.” They add, “Whenever we need to communicate important communication with another person, word pictures can multiply the impact of our message.”

Five reasons why word pictures work

In pages 21 to 28, Smalley and Trent give five reasons why word pictures work effectively:

1. Word pictures have been time-tested by the world’s greatest communicators.

2. Word pictures grab and direct attention.

3. Word pictures bring communication to life.

4. Word pictures lock thoughts into our memory.

5. Word pictures provide a gateway to intimacy.

To support their thesis, Smalley and Trent cite the Old Testament story of the prophet Nathan confronting King David about his murder of Uriah and his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. Instead of directly accusing David, Nathan told him the story of a poor man whose sheep was stolen by a rich and powerful neighbor. The story appealed to David’s sense of justice reinforced by his background of being a shepherd in his youthful days. When he demanded to know who the covetous neighbor was to have him answer for his crime, Nathan then said, “You are the man!” As Psalms 51 tells us, David was reduced to tearful repentance and sorrow over his sins.

(If you’re a classic Literature buff, you would probably remember Shakespeare’s words in Hamlet, “The play’s the thing, to catch the conscience of the king.”)

Smalley and Trent also point to the Old Testament book of ”Song of Solomon” as a classic example of a man and woman using word pictures to communicate with one another. Consider for example, Chapter 4 of the book, where the bridegroom graphically, romantically describes each part of his lover’s body.

(If you want to understand “Song of Solomon” on the basic level of a husband and wife’s sexual relationship, I recommend to you the book “Romantic Lovers, The Intimate Marriage” by David and Carole Hocking, published by Harvest House Publishers.)

Examples of word pictures

In Chapter 16 of their book, Smalley and Trent have listed down some “101 life-tested word pictures” as a guide. Some of these examples are:

1. My husband treats me like a roomful of priceless antiques. He walks in, picks me up, and holds me with great care and tenderness. I often feel like I’m the most precious thing in our home. He saves the best hours and his best effort for me, not the television.

11. My wife’s love is like a huge glass of ice tea on a hot summer’s day. It’s cool and crisp and its refreshment restores my strength and quenches the thirst of dry, dusty soul.

15. Life’s problems sometimes make me feel like the captain of a sinking ship. Often, the closer the ship gets to going under, the more those around me dive overboard and leave me to save the vessel by myself. I’m thankful to have a first mate who stays by my side no matter what. If it weren’t for her and the quite, gentle strength she always uses to encourage me, I would have given up and jumped overboard a long time ago.

Seven steps in creating emotional word pictures

Some of you might be thinking, that’s well and good for people who can write, for those with the natural talent or facility with language, for the AB English majors or those guys from Batangas or Bulacan with the natural flair for words and poetry. Well, in Chapters 5 and 6, Smalley and Trent discuss the seven steps in creating emotional word pictures. These are:

1. Establish a clear purpose.

2. Carefully study the other person’s interests.

3. Draw from the Four Inexhaustible Wells – the Well of Nature; the Well of Everyday Objects; the Well of Imaginary Stories; and the Well of “remember When”

4. Rehearse your story.

5. Pick a convenient time without distractions.

6. Try and try again.

7. Milk your word picture for all it’s worth.

On a personal note, around ten years ago, I wrote to a former high school student who told me that she was willing to be a doormat for her family, remain unmarried, and just serve the needs of her elderly parents, her brothers and sisters all her life. I wrote to her, and among other things, I told her:

Some people react to their fears by closing their hearts to all possibility of loving and being loved, scaring away, turning away anyone who even dares to come close … So what’s the answer? Maintaining an ice-cold veneer that will proclaim to the world that you don’t need anybody else?

Refusing to acknowledge that you need to love and be loved in return? Dumping your heart into a strongbox and throwing away all the keys? Burning all the drawbridges to your heart to isolate yourself from every possibility of being hurt and being disappointed?

Putting on an armor of emotional invincibility and sophistication, just laughing at the things that so concern other people, wondering why one person can get so all worked up about another person? Deny that you are emotionally affected even though a cold hand clutches your heart?

Well, well, well, I didn’t realize at that time that I was practicing Smalley and Trent’s emotional word pictures … Words (emotional word pictures even more so) do have power. As one modern translation of the Bible says, “Death and life are in the power of our words.” Or as the King James Version of Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

Marital tension will exist despite good communication skills

But it is a serious mistake to think that if we start and continue to use emotional word pictures to our spouses (or boyfriends and girlfriends), all of our communication problems or all marital tension would cease to exist. I think it was Dr. Larry Crabb who said (either from his book “Finding God” or from “The Marriage Builder”) that a lot of times, marital tension will exist despite the use by either or both spouses of good communication skills.

Why? Because men and women are fallen creatures, sinful by nature and by choice. Genesis 3:16 says, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Reputable and fundamental Bible scholars tell us that the phrase “thy desire shall be to thy husband” does not refer to a woman’s sexual desire for her husband.  

Rather, it refers to the perpetual conflict between a man and woman as the woman tries to wrest and maintain control of the relationship, which has been ordained for men. This interpretation is based, as these Bible scholars say, on the similarity of words and grammar of Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. The latter verse says, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

Moreover, it is wrong to believe that the Old Testament prophet Nathan's use of "emotional word pictures" in confronting David was solely responsible for the latter's turn of heart. The Bible says that men and women's hearts are “deceitful above all things” and without God's Holy Spirit convicting people of sin, no repentance is possible.

Nevertheless, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, will do well in learning from Smalley and Trent what emotional word pictures are, their power in increasing intimacy in a relationship and how to create such word pictures. The book is a little bit expensive but hey, what’s a little expense if you want a better relationship, right? Get the picture?

Well, well, well, word pictures. I wonder if that amorous FX taxi driver last Sunday had ever read Smalley and Trent’s book. I arrived safely in church last Sunday, but we could have met an accident because that love-struck driver was exchanging emotional word pictures rather than minding his driving. A simple miscalculation on the part of this amorous driver, a piece of rock on the road, a jaywalking pedestrian, another vehicle suddenly stopping or swerving, any of these things could have caused an accident.

I wonder, if ever I ride again on that FX taxi driven by that amorous driver and we meet an accident and we all die on that wet and slippery road, could someone please ask Congress to name that C-5 bridge between Pasig and Makati after me? “The Gerry T. Galacio Bridge of Sighs.” Now, that’s a word picture!

Coming attractions: Relationship tips from the "Transformers" and Mr. Bean

I am currently writing drafts of two articles which you might enjoy reading one or two weeks from now. These articles are tentatively titled "Transformers: Why do persistent suitors become passive husbands?" and "Relationship tips from Mr. Bean."

"Transformers" as you may know is the title of the blockbuster movie that is currently showing in theaters worldwide, while "Mr. Bean" is that bumbling and stumbling, lovable character on television played by British actor Rowan Atkinson. Anyway, I haven't finished writing these articles yet since I have been tied up working on a cybermissions project. I also am in a bit of daze waiting for this Saturday's "To Have and To Hold" marriage and relationships seminar with Chip Ingram at Greenhills Christian Fellowship. I already have my ticket. Hey, hope to see all of you there!