Rick Beeman

What a great new year’s it was. I think, it was probably one of the best new year’s experiences for me ever. It’s a fitting end to what has truly been a remarkable a year. A year that God showed his faithfulness to me time and time again. It was a year where I reaped what I had sown the previous four years. Professionally and Spiritually it was my best year ever. Psychologically, it was a big comeback year. Healthwise, I’ve never been more fit, or mentally, more attune. The only thing I really didn’t peak at was emotionally. Im still tired of living alone. But I just have to trust God that it will change soon. I think each part of loneliness today, will be multiplied into 10 parts of joy tomorrow. That is just the way that God works. That’s why he holds all your tears in a bottle and counts them. I had several options where to go for New Year’s tonight. But the television show Im trying to get off the ground, Rock N Royal. Seemed to be the best bet. Hassan’s, the music...

I really don’t have much to say tonight. Im becoming pretty anti-social. I like to come home at night and relax. Although I am going out to a big party tomorrow night for new years. I was going to go to the local Bahrain Cinema Club tonight. They show art house movies on Wednesdays. Then I got to chat with Ms. Florida and two hours later we were finished. I would much rather chat/connect with someone online than sit through a movie. I am not an invalid. I do go out often with friends. On a typical week I go out to lunch or dinner 4-5 times with different friends and then play squash 2-3 times a week with different folks. That is in addition to being in close contact with the 20 employees I interact with at my office. That said, my social life online is much greater than my social life in the real world. Why is that? Perhaps its because Im a really fast typist and can express myself much better with typed words. Or because the online thing is my portal of communication ba...

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you can probably tell Im very passionate about a lot of things in this life, my faith, my work, my value system, my children, I’d like to be passionate about a love interest, but I might have to wait on that one. Because of my passion and confidence in God, sometimes my attitude may come across to some as self-righteous. If it does, I apologize because that is not my heart at all. I think the compensate for that, that is why Im so open with my hurts, pains, and frustrations. Its interesting that preachers, unless they are caught, very rarely (at least according to my observations) share their downfalls or struggles. I wonder why that is. Do they need to keep a certain image in tact so their congregation isn’t disillusioned? Are their parishioner’s faith that dependent on God’s conduit? If so, that is pretty sad. Our faith needs to be built upon our own relationship with God, not someone else’s. I think I don’t have that same restricti...

I was having a really down day today. I was just zapped of emotional energy. I go in waves, sometimes Im super positive other times Im a realist. Its important to note that I never go into the pessimistic mode. I think if you are a pessimist and a Christian, something is wrong. I have long talks with a dear friend here who tends towards pessimistic thinking but is one of the strongest most knowledgeable Christians that I know. Something is wrong with that line of thinking. But I don’t think I’ll be able to convince this person of that overnight. God needs to do a work. So the first thing I did today was interview Adam’s mother, Rebecca. Rebecca is in town just for Christmas and couple days after and is heading to Qatar tonight to resume her battle to gain custody of her son. The story is quite tragic and I think the reason why it affected me so much is that her son was physically abducted. Whereas I believe my children were psychologically abducted. So I could relate to he...

A very nice day for me today. It was a day off of work for me today, a holiday. It’s the last day of Ashoora, where the Shiite Muslims beat themselves in penance. The Sunnis don’t celebrate this, as they think it is rather silly. I went by a small village in the afternoon and I saw a bunch of cars. I didn’t think the festivities would be until the evening. So I decided go have a look. In this small village, which looks very middle eastern, they was a big crowd watching the guys in a parade. The Imam (or Mosque pastor/priest) would have a microphone and be singing prayers to Allah, the men in the parade behind him would either respond or rhythmically beat themselves. It was actually kind of cool to listen to, though I don’t believe in what they are doing. There were thousands of me, in this tiny little village. The parade was men about 10 to a row, that must have been 200-300 rows deep. I couldn’t really tell because processional went on and on and on. I watched for about 20...

I ran across some interesting news today. It confirms what I’ve been thinking all along. Forbes magazine, a very reputable magazine ran a survey and declared that Bahrain was the friendliest country in the world. Really? I found that very hard to believe that Bahrain, as tiny as it would be the first at anything. I did not dispute its findings however. Bahrain is an incredibly friendly place, which is even more surprising considering the negative stereotype of the Middle East. I think it hones back to what I’ve been saying since day 1 in the blog, and finally its been validated. Im quite thrilled about that. Yahoo picked up on the story and spread it throughout the Internet. Canada, last year’s winner was #2, and the U.S. was all the way down to #10. Here’s the article if you want more details: http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/worlds-friendliest-countries-lifestyle-travel-canada-bahrain-hsbc.html Bahrain seems to be 50% Indian. The joke is that if Indians were to leave tha...

It turned out to be a very nice day. You know it feels so good to have the prayers of others. I can physically feel when someone is praying for me. It feels very comforting and relaxing, like a spiritual xanax. I’m very fortunate that I have this blog, and Im very fortunate that others are motivated to pray for me through some of the information that I share on it. I think that is reaping and sowing coming back to me. I’ve made quite an effort to help people over the years and I think this is one way that it is coming back to me. So I want you readers to know two things. You are appreciated. Two, the prayers that you pray for me are going to come back to you eventually. I believe that karma is a biblical principal that works all the time in the form of reaping and sowing. Oh yeah, off-topic, but speaking of Karma, I was in the mall last week, eating next to a guy in a wheel-chair. I noticed the brand name on the wheel chair was…Karma. Can you believe a wheelchair company wo...

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi said that. I adhered to that principle today. I was really feeling sorry for myself. Normally Im pretty positive and loving life but every once in awhile I crash. Thankfully this crash usually only lasts one to two days. Maybe its my emotional time of the month. So I cried out to God. “I don’t like this God, its not very fair. Why aren’t you doing all the things that you said you would do for me faster.” I know the verse in Isaiah, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” You know I’ve been claiming that verse for years now, Im tired of waiting. I expressed all of this to God this morning and throughout the day. I guess you could say Im going through my emotional/spiritual time of the month. I know that God is faithful, I know I will emerge from this funk soon. So this isn’t a sign of rebellion or rejection of God. I just believe that when we are hurting we need to cry out to God. I rejoice...

Im not working on any big projects at the moment at work. Its mainly just managing the company and waiting to hire a couple of new sales reps. This will make sales rep #6 and #7. Its kind of frustrating because the people that I want to hire aren’t necessarily agreed upon by management. Race and religious affiliation are huge factors in hiring here, unfortunately. It’s a commonly accepted practice. The terms all men are created equal doesn’t apply out here. It’s American idealism that is only shared with a small percentage of the global population. The only thing that is close here, is all Muslims are created equal sometimes. That is shown upon during the call to prayer. They line up in a line with no difference in socio-economic status or race. The ritual for praying is that they face mecca and kneel and put their face to the ground, then stand up again. This takes place over and over again for the 30-45 minutes of prayer 5 times a day. If you think about the physicality...

What a wonderful day that it turned out to be. Remember I have been really missing my kids lately. I have this incredible screen saver on the Mac, which takes my photos from iphoto and creates a mosaic, so hundreds of pictures create a mosaic which then morphs into the actual photo. I find myself watching that for long stretches of time. It is mesmerizing and entertaining. The pictures are mostly older, when I was still married. It makes me long for earlier times. The pictures are quite sentimental. I never went through my photo album to delete pictures of X. So she would pop up on the screensaver both individually and as a family every once in awhile. It was so reminiscent of earlier times. I hated to delete those pictures because it felt like I was deleting a part of my history that is/was very dear to me. Maybe by deleting them, I was convincing myself that I was permanently erasing her from my life. I go through these periods where Im still delusional that someday m...

The late night last night is really catching up with me now. I usually hope the Raiders will get blown out early, then I can go to bed and still get a decent night’s sleep. But last night they had the gall to win with :35 seconds left at 3:30 am my time. Of course I had to stay up to watch it. I even screamed when they scored their touchdown. Who screams for a 5 win 9 loss team that has lost more football games over the last six years than anyone in football. Why? I guess because my expectations are so low, that when they generate even the most minute portion of excitement, I have to get my yelp in. But every time I get too enthused with a sports team Im following, I have to remember what Jerry Seinfeld said about sports. We are all rooting for laundry. That’s what is comes down to, we cheer for the uniform and just whomever seems to be wearing it at the time. We just have this inner need to think we are better than someone else. Keep in mind…im describing myself with this...

Nice and quiet day at the office today. I think things are slowing down in December with all the holidays. We have Christmas coming up, but Muslims generally don’t celebrate that, but some do. Our office will be closed for the Christians, but the Hindus, and Muslims still work. I know that seems unfair. But during Ramadan, the Muslims got time off of work and the Christians had to keep going. So it evens out in the end. Im not really sure what holidays the Hindus observe. They have so many Gods in Hinduism. But one thing about the Indians, they are very hard workers and extremely bright. Ashoora is right around the corner. That is the festival where the Shiite Muslims, cut themselves for penance for killing the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson 1300 years ago. It’s a strange festival/observance. I have pictures of last year’s Ashoora in the photo section of this blog. Not too many Muslims work around this holiday. But it’s only a holiday for Shiite Muslims, the Sunni musli...

I worked so hard the first year I was here. It seems lately, Ive been sooooo relaxing. Its been a lot of fun. I had fun when I was super busy, and I’ve had fun when things have slowed down. December is a big month for holidays here, both Bahraini national days and Islamic holidays and the traditional Christmas of course. I’ve learned how to relax and enjoy myself. If you look back at the first part of this blog, last November and December for instance. You would see that I was a bit of a workaholic. I’d stay late at the office, or work 6 day weeks through the weekend. Generally log about 70-80 hours a week. I didn’t complain about it, I chose that kind of routine. Coming home to an empty flat depressed me. Now…I love coming home to an empty flat. Don’t get me wrong, Im anxious to be in relationship and married again, and I probably will be sooner rather than later. But now Im adjusting to my lifestyle and Im content with whatever I have, because Im living my life right. T...

I slept in til noon today. I know that sounds bad, but I didn’t get to sleep til 5am. I wound up talking on the phone with family and friends after I got in. So I skipped church. Its hard for me to get motivated to keep going to that church after they rejected or decided to pull their affiliation from my group. Its so short-sighted, because I went out to dinner with two girls that God has really spoken to through the group. Their walks have been strengthened and invigorated. OK…enough of me bellyaching. Im supposed to go to coffee with the elder that was influential with the decision tomorrow so I’ll just hash it out with him. I got together with the Basketball coach for lunch. I really like the guy. He has a very distinctive sense of humor and an obvious heart for God. Its nice because he doesn’t mind going through the entertainment (coupon) book and finding meals for buy 1 get one free coupons. So we had a nice lunch and I told him all about my trip. He’s very intereste...

Im sitting in the Dubai airport Business class lounge. Im getting pretty used to this travel thing. I really kind of enjoy it. It again just goes to show you that anytime you are in the center of God’s will…and I know that I know that I know that I am in the center of God’s will he gives you physically and mentally what you need to thrive. So that is exactly what has been happening. I certainly feel called to be in the Middle East for this season. How long the season will last, only God knows. When I first felt the call as most pastors or missionaries will tell you, my first concern was the children. God told me very clearly that he would take care of them. Im absolutely certain, without going into details, my being here is the best things for the kids. Primarily to avoid conflict. I will have a renewed relationship with them soon, God has assured me of that. I went to a midnight movie last night, why? Because I could, Im on vacation. So I walked back and played on the c...

I felt really really dumb today. I was so beat yesterday. I could barely finish my blog. I set the auto wake up call for 7:20 to give myself plenty of time to make my 9 am appointment. So I just collapsed. I remember waking up and seeing light outside my room. Knowing it was daytime I was pretty perplexed as to why my wake up call didn’t wake me up. So I looked at the non-digital clock next to bedstand, the arms said 5:30 Am. So I gladly thought whew, another hour plus to slumber. Happily I went to back to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and still there was sun outside my window, and still my wake up call didn’t happen. I looked at the clock next to my bed and it said 5:30 am…What???? So I jumped out of bed and turned on my computer pretty horrified to see that it was 11:30 am. I had overslept and missed my meeting. Now this is a nice hotel Im staying at…The Grand Hyatt. This sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen. What made it worse, is that I couldn’t contact the g...

Im so wiped out today..but it was a truly fantastic day, I’ll try to go through as much of it as I can before falling asleep. I got to Dubai and hug out in the airport business class lounge long enough to eat breakfast. Then I was off to Zayed University. My father had a classmate from Evangel University who is now the provost at the school. He wanted me to meet with the dean of the media department. It was a very interesting meeting. Then I swung back to the hotel. I decided to splurge a bit. The Bollywood Producer Im meeting tomorrow is staying here, so I decided to stay here to, to make it easier. This place is amazing. Normally I don’t like to stay in nice hotels by myself because it makes me sad that I don’t have a special person to share it with. But I got over it this time. I took a 20 minute nap…that’s it then I was done. Then I went for a vigorous workout in their great facility. I mean state of the art. Then they have a great indoor pool. I went for a nice swim and...

I am feeling amazingly blessed right now. I’m headed off to dubai and I’ve just been bumped up to Business Class again. Im a gold member (the highest) on Emirates air. I guess one of the perks is automatic upgrades when coach/economy is full. No complaints for me here. It’s the fourth time in the past year I’ve been given a free upgrade. Its only an hour flight, but still its nice. I have to really eat the meal fast. By the time we reach cruising altitude its time do descend. I have figured out a way even when flying economy to get a business class-like seat. I wait until the last minute to book my seats online, then I choose a row of three with one of the seats occupied. Since the middle seats are the last to go, it’s a pretty good bet that unless the flight is sold out, I’ll have an empty seat next to me. It worked the last time I was going and coming from Houston. Its 3:50 am, and I was able to get a couple hours sleep before my flight. I’ll hang out in the business class ...

I am an addict. But let me clarify before your imaginations run wild. I have a very addictive personality. So its easy for me to get hooked on certain things. Most notable was a negative addiction to pornography in the late 90’s which I have chronicled here. That was my Achilles heal, read was. So now that I know my personality I know what to be cautious of. I avoid drinking, drugs, and gambling because I think I could easily be ensnared. So what am I addicted to now?…the Internet. No…not the adult internet just the regular information access. I think its my link to home or my security blanket. I came back to my flat tonight and there was no internet. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was kind of funny because it was just so sad. I didn’t know how to properly function. Im not on the net all the time, I just want to know its there, then I can do my other things. But without having access to it, I felt like I was in a fog or going in circles. I know it seems stupi...

I know I’ve posted this before, but I feel somewhat compelled to post again since I am essentially going through similar circumstances but by mindset has completely changed. Ive had about three lowest of the low rock bottom experiences in my life and this is a story of rock bottom #2. I can’t feel too sorry for myself, because it might have been traumatic for me, but I’m sure the loss of one of my children or close family members would be much much worse. We all have are levels of grief of pain, but this is a story of my tragedy. Im not writing this to talk about X or make her look bad. Instead she’s a character in my life that had molded and shaped me. This is more about my choices, perceptions, and reality. I don’t want to make her look bad. I have forgiven her, in fact I pray for her most every day. More than any other person in the world in fact. So bitterness is not intended with this. I don’t want to pick a fight. That said, the second rock bottom I visited was after ...

The church today met at the Convention center. Apparently there was a school fair that kicked the congregation out of their normal hall. That’s the problem with churches over here. Not too many buildings are dedicated to worship of anything other than Islam. So often times the Church gets second fiddle to events and Pastor Graeme has to scramble for another venue. On the bright side, we are free to worship. We couldn’t do this in Saudi Arabia of Afghanistan. So you just have to count your blessings. We did have a church luncheon afterwards to that was kind of nice. I played squash with Darren after. Boy I do love that game. He’s been kicking my butt lately, but I played him evenly this time to a draw. You know what. Im not feeling the blog tonight. So Im going to cut it short. Whenever there is a lot going on in my life that is not appropriate to share, I just have a hard time writing. I know it might not seem like I practice discretion when I post, but I actually do. ...

I made a comment in this blog a couple of days ago that I just didn’t plan on celebrating Christmas, or maybe was I chatting with someone? I can’t remember. I told my kids that I would celebrate Christmas over thanksgiving. Christmas used to be my absolute favorite holiday. Why? Not because of the presents, but because I loved the warm sentimentality of family. I loved waking my kids up early and seeing how excited they were to open their presents. Planting reindeer tracks, or reindeer poop, leaving Santa markings all around. Many many fond memories. That is why this divorce has been so difficult. I loved being a dad and I loved being a husband. I mean really loved it. I valued that much more than I valued my relationship with God, which was sin I realize. That’s why it was so awkward for me to be divorced, I had to get an entirely new identity. So that identity had to take hold to experience a whole new way to celebrate the holidays. Christmas has always been about the...

Had a really nice day today. I didn’t do much in the office. Its just kind of this weird position Im in. Im still in title the General Manager, but title only. So my job is being adjusted on the fly. God is doing some amazing things in my life. Throughout this whole transition process I’ve had an extreme amount of peace in my heart. I know by this time next month I’ll be living somewhere else. It might be Bahrain, it might be somewhere else. I gave my notice that I’m leaving the apartment. So I will have a new place to call home the middle of the next month. I knew that December would be HUGE for me. God spoke it into my heart. That’s why Im not stressed about the details. God has always come through for me before and this time is no different. By noting down his faithfulness through this blog actually strengthens my faith. And putting it out there for the world to see, Also kind of puts me really out there. But it something Im doing by faith. I guess its like Elijah ...