Taking the child in his arms, [Jesus] said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”
Mark 9:36-37

There is a solution that could take care of this issue. The solution was proposed at the 8046 Foster Care Conference: 1-1-1. If one child was taken care of by one family out of each one church in Oklahoma, there would be enough homes for every child in the DHS system to have a safe place to go.

“I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one.”
Ezekiel 22:30

Right now those kids need families and churches to stand in the gap and fulfill our true responsibilities: to care for the orphans, just as God cared for us and adopted us when we needed His help the most. Thank God that He was so merciful to us to send Jesus. Now we have the opportunity to spread His love to these children that need love, more than anything else.

If you would like more information about getting involved in foster care of children, there are a few places you can go for more information. \

You could contact my church with questions, and there are also links to the necessary paperwork you would need if you wanted to start along the road to foster care:
http://www.tcabc.com/
foster@tcabc.com

You can visit the Oklahoma Department of Human Services Foster Care page:

http://www.okdhs.org/programsandservices/foster/

This is also a good site about foster care in Oklahoma, Bridge Family Resource Center:

http://www.okbridgefamilies.com/

So far in this new year I have been cleaning my house, putting away my Christmas decorations, playing with my new Christmas gadgets and starting back at work. I missed my little kiddos. There was a smaller class today, and they were so well behaved. I may not enjoy them quite so much once they’re all full of their vim and vigor again. Of course, they’re also getting older. By the end of the year they’ll be so big and tall… and four.

For Christmas this year Josh and I went down to sunny Florida to visit his family. We had a good time and the weather was beautiful! It felt like Hawaii, except that when we jumped into the swimming pool we nearly froze. I guess the water drops down towards the overnight temperature when it isn’t heated. Josh’s dad bet us dinner that we couldn’t stay in for 15 minutes before we jumped in – but we did.

We always go to Nana’s house for fondue on Christmas Eve. Nana makes us stockings, and she also makes a treasure hunt for our big gift. I love it. My dad used to make us treasure hunts for our birthday parties. I love riddles and puzzles, and I don’t think anyone can be too old for a good treasure hunt. Nana added a new twist this year: at the end of the trail of clues we had to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. On the puzzle was a jumble of letters. Once we unscrambled all of the letters, it would tell us the location of the final gift.

We got to spend time with all of the grandparents, which is always so nice. We also spent time with some of Josh’s high-school friends. We had lunch at Downtown Disney, walked around a little bit and saw amazing Lego structures. I don’t know if anyone else in our group was as amazed about them as I was, but I loved them! They were incredible! Of course, I do play with Legos occasionally, and get paid for it…

One of Josh’s friends made a video of their Mancation to Costa Rica last year, and we watched that. It was a lot of fun, as always, to see them all. Especially since several of his friends have been living in various countries around the world, and one couple is about to leave again for another adventure in South America for an undetermined amount of time.

After Christmas, Josh’s parents opened his presents to them which were board games, so we spent quite a few hours playing Scrabble and Electronic Monopoly (which is more fun because you get to swipe your credit-card – except it is still horrid to go bankrupt, repeatedly, because of your husband).

We also had a great game of mini-putt one night in which… dum-dum-dee-dum… I won! I haven’t won a game of miniature golf in years and I have never won against Josh. It was fun.

But now I’m home again, vacation time is over. Warm weather is but a memory. Happy January 2012! My resolution? Write more often on my blog. Will you read it?

When I was a young teenager, I set a rule in my own life to live by. I would not kiss a boy until I was engaged to him and I would not have sex until I was married. This rule was influenced by many factors, The Bible, my parents, my church, and youth organizations. The real point was that I knew what limit I had set and it helped to set my decisions. As a teenager I had several opportunities to break my self-made rule, but I did not.

In college, I dated several different guys. They were each respectful of my boundaries and I am grateful and honor them for that. When I dated my husband, he respected my boundaries as well. After we had been dating for about five months, he was going to be gone for a week or two on a trip out of the country. We said goodbye and both were very broken up about our parting. He managed, with much effort, to cancel his trip and showed up at my family’s doorstep to see if he could spend that time with me instead. At that moment I knew that he loved me. He valued me more than his own plans and dreams. We were not engaged, but I knew that we would be. I kissed him.

We continued to date, and were eventually engaged. We were both virgins until after our wedding vows were made; promising to be faithful to each other until death. Together we made our vows. Together we sealed them. Together we keep them.

I tell this story not to brag on myself: quite the opposite. I was torn by my desires many times over the years from the point that I made my choice until now. At times I longed to go beyond my rule. I cared for my boyfriends, why shouldn’t I kiss them? I didn’t keep my rule because I was self-disciplined or good. I am sure that the only way I kept that promise was because I had asked God what I should do, and I continued to ask Him for his help and grace throughout the years. I believed that God’s way was the best choice I could make.

My generation has not all followed what God said about sex and marriage. But I can promise that those who have slept with multiple partners, lived together before marriage, had affairs during marriage, experienced break-ups, divorces, and separations: you have endured pain. That road is a road that God did not want you to have to travel, and will help you to stay off of in the future. He will forgive you and bring you through the heartache, the loneliness, and the loss. Only Jesus can carry it all for you. Only Jesus can give you the power and grace to walk with moral confidence and courage. I believe in living a moral and proper life, but I also believe that it is impossible apart from God being involved and at work in your life. Choosing to believe God is the first and most important decision that anyone: child, teen, or adult can make. I hope that making that choice will help you to make other wise choices, including living a life of morality, for your own sake and the sake of those you love.

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.  That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

Romans 1:25-32 (NLT)

But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26 (NLT)

Thor – It was okay, nothing special

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – It was a Pirates movie, and I liked it. I didn’t think it had the same tempo or twists as the original trilogy though.

X-Men: First Class – Good. Loved getting more of the start of the story.

Green Lantern – Mediocre.

Cars 2 – Funny, but not as great as the first one. Although, it was a spy movie spoof, which is always a fun genre.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – My favorite of the Transformers movies. The action was great, and for once the dialogue didn’t make me cringe.

The Conspirator – Interesting and historical.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – I swore I’d be happy if the movie did right by Snape, which it did. I am still disappointed that the fighting scenes were not the best of the series. I was hoping for fancy magic, like Voldemort vs. Dumbledore in the Order of the Phoenix.

Winnie the Pooh – Wonderful! Hand drawn Disney with all my favorite Pooh-bear friends.

Captain America: The First Avenger – Best super-hero flick of the summer.

Sarah’s Key – This was very moving and will stick with you. Definitely a good movie to see.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Great! It would be a good movie even if you haven’t seen the other movies, which a great prequel should be. Makes me want to go watch them all again.

The Help – Another great movie. Both deadly serious and funny. A good balance for a poignant subject.

Favorite Movies of the Summer:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Sarah’s Key
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Help

The final leg of our trip was upon us. On the 8th we drove from Rotorua to Auckland, stopping for another Lord of the Rings site: Hobbiton. We were in for a fantastic treat. After LOTR was filmed, the Hobbiton set was removed and all that remained were the grassy hills of the sheep farm on which it had been built. Fortunately for us, the entire set plus some had been rebuilt for The Hobbit, and the production company was still allowing tours to continue. It was beautiful and detailed and so cool. This was one of the highlights of my entire RTW trip! It started to rain on us again, but I was still able to take a lot of pictures in between cloud-bursts. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to post any of the wonderful Hobbiton photos I took of the set until after The Hobbit comes out.

When we had seen the set and watched a sheep shearing, we continued up the road to Auckland.

On our last day of exploration, Josh and I visited the Auckland Zoo. It was a very nice zoo with all of the favorite animals: 5 lions, 3 tigers, 2 cheetahs, an elephant (they are planning on getting some more so she’s not lonely), giraffes, rhinos, hippopotamuses. There were some extremely loud monkeys that I got a great video of. They make loud hooting sounds when someone is in their territory – and all the people visiting the zoo were obviously too close for their comfort.

We were able to watch the lions come out and find new smells in their pen. Also, the tigers getting fed their dinner and the orangutans being fed their dinner as well. It started raining on the orangutans and they all pulled out tarps to keep the rain off of their heads, much like all the visitors of the zoo watching them.

We had a fabulous trip, taking our time and having a much more leisurely pace for our itinerary than our previous RTW trip in 2009. It was time to go home though, and we got on our airplane and headed back to the USA the following day.

Our second stop in New Zealand was Rotorua, although I’m not sure it was the best place to stay in the central area of the North Island. We still drove quite a bit every day. Our first day was spent driving there from Wellington, stopping along the way at the Rangitikei River, another part of the River Anduin: the part of the river that is between the walls of rock on both sides. I read that you can go rafting down this river, and I would absolutely love to if I can get down to New Zealand when it is not their winter.

We also stopped by at Mount Doom and the Mordor region. It is located near the Whakapapa Ski Area and the Tukino Ski Field. We drove up the mountain and took a few pictures. It was a wonderful time of day as well, watching the sun set behind the gorgeous fluffy clouds. It was the start of ski season and there was some snow on the mountains, but in the summer all of the lava-rock cliffs are barren and created a great backdrop for Mordor. Actually, they must have shot these scenes very carefully because there is so much that is green and good around this area that it would have been tricky to hid it all.

After spending the night in Rotorua, we drove back to Taupo the next day and visited the AC Baths Taupo. They were not the fancy hot-springs in Rotorua, instead it was a nice hot pool that was both indoors and outdoors. It was fun and a lot less money than the other hot springs I looked up.

The following day we drove to Orakei Korako Cave and Thermal Park. It had been very rainy for several days, and when we arrived at the park it was sprinkling. It stopped and we decided to risk it. This Thermal Park was amazing. It reminded me of what I always imagined a volcanic area would look like, except instead of lava bubbling and spraying and pouring out of the ground, it was different types of mineral water. There were a number of geysers and even boiling mud. We enjoyed it, even though we did get rained on before we got back to our car again.

We had lunch at Murano Blue, and tried to wile away another rainy day. We walked around Rotorua and ended up watching The Conspirator at a tiny independent theatre that had about 6 chairs in it and was part of a climbing wall gym; also home to a local church on Sundays.

After two days of airports and flying, we arrived in Wellington, New Zealand from Vietnam. We were so thrilled to be back in New Zealand, which Josh and I have determined is our favorite foreign country. On our previous New Zealand trip we had traveled in the South Island. This time we wanted to do a visit to the North Island. We flew to Wellington, rented a car and drove our way back up to Auckland.

We spend the first two full days of our stop in Wellington and the surrounding area. Our goal was to visit all the Lord of the Rings movie sites that we could on the North Island. We had a guide book and some GPS coordinates, and it was a very fun treasure hunt. To start off our adventuring, we visited the WETA Cave. It is basically a cool gift shop for WETA, the special effects company that created the monsters, weapons, and armor for the LOTR movies. We watched a video on the company’s history, and I am so impressed that they pulled off the LOTR movies. They had very little experience before then, and the scale and grandeur of the trilogy is overwhelming the think about. They did a fantastic job on what they did though. In the shop were a lot of models and miniature collectables. It was fun to look at all of them. I liked the model they had on display for Smaug. It’ll be great when The Hobbit is ready.

After the WETA Cave, we went up to Mount Victoria and hiked in the woods. We think we discovered the spot where Frodo shouted “Get off the Road” in the Shire, and we might have stumbled on the location where they hid beneath the roots, but that was a little more sketchy. It is a beautiful area, and I’m sure that we would hike there regularly if we lived in Wellington. On a side note, Wellington is an artsy, laid-back, filled-with-trees-and-neat-places city. We really loved it, and I think it must be a wonderful place to live.

We stopped for lunch at Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, then caught Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, in The Embassy Theatre across the street. It was a very classy movie theatre (I think sometimes it’s a theatre, as well). It was where The Lord of the Rings premiered in New Zealand. They served popcorn, ice-cream, beer, wine, and more at the concessions stand. When it was over we had dinner at an Irish Pub.

We ventured further afield the next day, finding Rivendell, Isengard, and the River Anduin. Rivendell is located in Kaitoke Regional Park. It was very hard to picture, but the park is beautiful and the trees and tall and still green even though it was winter there (did I mention how wonderful New Zealand is?). We did see an elf though! One of the guided LOTR tours stopped in Rivendell at the same time we did, so we saw them posing for pictures in costumes.

Isengard, also known as Harcourt Park is a fine neighborhood park that reminded me of the style of parks in Tulsa. There was a playground, a disc-golf course, green grass, and many trees. We tried to find the location that we could see in the movie, when Gandalf and Sauruman are walking in the garden. After looking around at different places, we’re pretty sure that we found the spot. The road into Isengard was much easier to imagine. I will say though that they liked to put huge mountains in the backgrounds of their shots, but those mountains are not seen above the trees of the park.

The River Anduin was filmed at a lot of different rivers in New Zealand, but one of the locations where they launched boats from was nearby in Upper Hutt, and we stopped to see it before heading back to Wellington and visiting the Te Papa Museum for about an hour. We were worn out after that, found some dinner and watched another movie: The Green Hornet.

When we arrived in Hanoi it was raining and we were exhausted. We took a taxi to our hotel and then crashed and relaxed. Our bags were delayed (we were tired of carrying them on, but see? Then they get separated!).

In the morning we decided to brave the rain with our ponchos and umbrellas borrowed from our hotel. We took the free shuttle to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and museum. When we arrived there was a very long line running down the block, which we got into. As the line progressed, we were told that we couldn’t take our water in with us, but we could pick it up again afterwards. So I left my Nalgene water bottle at the little stand. I also had to buy a scarf to wear over my shorts, to be modest and respectful.

We continued in line and another booth told us we couldn’t carry our camera in. At least at this booth, when we checked our camera there was a number given to us to pick it up with again later. I didn’t like handing my camera over though. Finally, we paid and went inside the compound. The first stop when you get in is to walk through Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. As we walked in, Josh tried to shake the water off the umbrella and close it, but in the 2 second delay this caused, one of the armed guards yelled at him to stop holding up the line. Yikes.

So inside the Mausoleum, we walk around the corner and there, guarded by five armed guards all giving the people evil eyes, right in the middle of the room is Ho Chi Minh. Lying in state. He died in 1969! It is totally creepy. I was not expecting a body… maybe a nice tomb, a statue, something else.

When we came out the other side we were able to pick up my camera again. Then we walked to Ho Chi Minh’s house, car garage, and who knows what else. Everyone was so excited to see all the things. There was nothing special that I could see. It was a very bizarre place to go as a tourist, actually. Expecially since I am sorely uneducated about Ho Chi Minh. It was really more like the people were worshiping a deity. Especially the videos playing songs to Ho Chi Minh in the courtyard.

We went through the Vietnam museum that is there as well. It’s pretty nice, but we didn’t understand everything. Thankfully there were a lot of English placards.

We decided to walk around the lake back to our hotel, stopping to eat lunch at what was a fancy restaurant in Vietnam, but was still very affordable for us. The food was very good. Then we walked and walked, dripping sweat in the heat and humidity. We tried to find a store to buy some toiletries (toothbrushes, toothpaste, contact lens solution). We found the toothbrushes and paste, but contact lens solution was non-existent in our area of town. We stopped in several places, trying to make ourselves understood by charades, but no one had any.

Once we got back to the hotel, I went to the spa and had a lovely massage (they were also very affordable). Josh and I ordered room service for dinner and watched The Lord of the Rings in preparation for our New Zealand stop coming up.

The next day Josh and I wandered around for hours in the heat, trying to find a history museum. We finally did find a military history museum, but I don’t think that was the one we were looking for. We visited it and learned all about how Vietnam had been at war for ages, with Spain, England, themselves, and us. I still don’t know very much about the Vietnam War though. Their descriptions of our intentions were very biased. “The American Invaders and the Puppet Army” was the description of us and the Southern army.

We went back to our hotel and swam in the pool. Then we had dinner and continued watching Lord of the Rings.

We had finished with Hanoi now, and the next day we were driven up to Ha Long Bay for our 3 day cruise of the bay. The bus ride was three hours long and the seats were extremely hard. My bottom was very sore. We arrived and boarded our boat, then we sailed into the bay. Ha Long Bay is beautiful. There are about 2500 islands jutting out of the water; spires of rock that are covered in trees, flowers, butterflies, and birds. In some areas of the bay there were a lot of boats, in other areas you were alone with the rocks. I think I would have gotten hopelessly lost if I tried to navigate my way through. All the mountains would have confused me and I would start going in circles, I’m sure.

We started our trip by going to the only island that had a beach. There were a number of people there, a lot of them locals. We swam for a while and enjoyed ourselves. Later, we went kayaking through a little fishing village. The people live on floating houses, much like they do in the Amazon. Josh and I had never kayaked before though, and we were very flustered and angry by the time we returned to the main boat.

Our cruise staff were very friendly and polite. We liked them, although when you asked them something, they got glazed looks in their eyes and just smiled and nodded. They could speak enough English to say what they needed to, but not enough to understand and respond to questions.

On our second cruise day we went to a smaller boat, to travel to less frequented areas of the bay. We went kayaking in a sheltered lake, traveling through a tunnel to get there. Then we traveled a little while and went hiking through a cave. After the cave we went swimming off the side boat in the deep, cool water. We jumped off the side of the boat into the water and had fun. After lunch, we visited a pearl farm. They showed us how they grow pearls inside of the oysters, and then we hung out there for a little while before returning to the big boat for dinner.

It was my birthday the next day, and at dinner they surprised me with a large, beautifully decorated birthday cake. It was delicious, too. They sang and cut the cake for everyone. That was special.

On our last cruise day we traveled to Surprise Cave. It was a very large cave, with a nice path to walked through to see all the formations. It was fun to visit. After the cave we returned to the mainland and checked into our hotel for the rest of our Vietnam trip. We stayed at the Novotel, and it was pretty nice. Unfortunately, we assumed there would be some other things to see and do at Ha Long Bay besides the cruises, but there wasn’t. We went to the pool at our hotel and met some Kiwis.

They had an adventure with their ride to Ha Long Bay: their taxi had been stopped by the police, the taxi driver seemed to be getting lippy with the police officer. The officer hit him with his bat, and the taxi driver acted like he was dying. The couple hadn’t wanted to be involved, but had been dragged in as witnesses. They called their Embassy and were told not to tell them anything. Now they were worried that they weren’t going to be allowed to leave Vietnam because of this. We talked with them for a long time, and they were nice.

We wandered down the main street and looked around, then had dinner at our hotel and I had another surprise in our room. A cake and wine for my birthday! The cake was not very good though, but I appreciated the gesture. They must have seen my birthday on my passport.

The next day it was raining again. We just stayed in our room. We watched The Shawshank Redemption and Hulk on TV. I worked on our trip photos, and later I went to get a manicure/pedicure at the hotel spa. I was not impressed with it though. Three girls were doing my nails at the same time, they didn’t massage my hands or feet, and when they finished they told me to sit there for a little while to dry them, and all disappeared. I sat there for probably 15 minutes and no one reappeared, so I walked to the front desk and left. The hospitality seems to be there, but their culture and mine must work so differently that these awkward experiences happened repeatedly throughout our stay until we were frustrated and oh, so ready to move on to New Zealand.

This morning we met with an older man from the Kibbutz and he took us on a brief tour of the living areas. I had given myself a brief tour of their gardens last night, which were gorgeous. Our tour took us to their synagogue, houses, day care center, laundry facilities, and their furniture factory. The idea behind a Kibbutz is for it be self-sustaining, as in everyone is able to work on the Kibbutz and do their job which benefits everyone else. They began in agriculture, and they still do some plant and animal farming, but they also have a furniture factory which builds synagogue pews, and also their hotel.

After our tour we visited the old city of Acre (or Akko). Acre is home to the most sacred site in the Baha’i faith. We didn’t go to it, but we did stop by the Shrine of Bab in Haifa, the second most sacred site. It was very beautiful. We didn’t go inside, I think you’re only allowed in by special permission or something, but we did get some great photos.

We also visited Tel Megiddo, the site where the battle at the end of the world is going to take place. We didn’t stay very long though, just a brief walk up to the overlook and then we left again. I would like to spend a bit more time there in the future and see more of it. It’s all ruins, but there are apparently some very interesting tunnels.

Next stop was Caesarea, where we watched a couple of movies about what the city looked like at different time periods, and how it was built. This city is pretty cool because it has the old ruins, as well as a modern day city. There was a chariot racing stadium, and a beautiful amphitheater overlooking the ocean. Also, there are enormous aqueducts to bring water from the mountains to the city, since there was no water in the Roman time period to drink in Caesarea. All in all, a great place to spend longer in than we did.

That ended our tour, and we went to our last Israeli hotel in Tel Aviv, The Grand Beach Hotel. The next day Josh and I spent in Tel Aviv. We walked through the city a little bit, and there were wedding dress shops everywhere. I have never seen so many in one place before. We ate at a nice place on the beach and watched the sun set over the ocean. Tel Aviv didn’t feel anything like the rest of Israel though, very modern and like every other city.

We continued to explore the Galilee region of Israel today by starting our day sailing on the Sea of Galilee. Our group missed our boat, so we sat for a few minutes along the shore waiting for the next boat. It was very peaceful: birds singing and a gentle rustling breeze in the grasses. The Sea of Galilee is large, but you can see across it on a clear day. It was humid on the day we were there, the air was too thick and a little smoggy, and we were unable to glimpse the far side of the lake.

We stopped in Capernaum next. This is also an archaeological dig site, with a large church built over the house where they think Peter lived.

Our next stop was the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, and the Mountain of the Beatitudes. There was a very nice view from the mountain-top out over the countryside and the Sea of Galilee.

After lunch, we visited the border between Israel and Lebanon. We saw the fences, but there was no fighting anywhere in Israel. It was very peaceful, and would be easy to forget that every neighboring country wants to destroy Israel. I don’t think our guide felt that way. He liked to stop at a lot of war sites, saying that great battles had been fought in various places. We also saw the border with Syria, and looked out from a high point over into Syria. Of course, the other side of the Jordan River is Jordan, so we saw that border as well.

We visited a park, took a short hike and saw a lovely waterfall. Then we continued to Pan’s Grotto, where there used to be human sacrifices to the god Pan. This is also where Jesus said that the gates of Hell could not stand against us.

We stayed in a hotel run by a Kibbutz, which is a fancy was of saying commune. We went to a presentation about life in a Kibbutz by an old Irish man drinking his beer. He had moved to Israel in his youth, but he definitely kept his accent through all the years. It was very interesting to me, how they manage their affairs as a group and pool all their resources. It’s inspiring that people can work together so well, although I’m sure it can be very frustrating at times. It is a socialist democracy in action: everything belongs to the group, and every member is responsible to vote and make the decisions together.