China

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I Need Those Batteries Now

These days you can’t go very long without needing a bunch of batteries to replace ones that have worn out.

There is a clock in the sanctuary of my church that reads 5:05. That’s not the current time; it’s been showing that time for a week now.

It needs a new battery.

I wear a mic when I preach and every week I take out the batteries and charge them so they are ready to go for the next week.

I’ve been noticing that even rechargeable batteries can’t be recharged forever.

What would we do without being able to quickly pop in a new set of batteries to run our clocks, lights, mics, vacuums, you name it – even our drones?

Especially drones!

I have two drones and the batteries in them don’t last very long.

The battery in my little drone only lasts about seven minutes and the one in the bigger drone only lasts about ten.

I don’t get much flying time before I need to replace them.

The problem is they don’t take standard AA batteries. They have their own shape and connections so you can’t just go to the store and buy new ones.

You usually have to order them online and they generally come from China which takes a long time. … Replacement batteries for my little drone arrived the other day and I’d been waiting for them for two months!

I think it’s China’s secret way of crippling the west. If they just hold out on the batteries,  we in North America will be at their mercy.

Forget weapons and armies, they’ve got our batteries!

And the batteries for these drones are a step backward in technology. You don’t want to overcharge them; that will damage them.

You don’t want to recharge them if they still have some charge left in them either. They have a memory, so they will only remember to charge for the shorter amount of time.

And you don’t want to let the battery run down too low because, if it does, it won’t take a charge at all.

My brother found that out the hard way; that’s why he has two batteries on order right now.

We need batteries to be more reliable and to last longer. They can figure out how to get a car to run on batteries for an hour; we need someone with that kind of know-how to make our drone batteries last that long.

The keyboard I write this blog on needs a battery to power it. I’ve had it for over a year now and I still haven’t had to change the battery … That’s the kind of battery life I’m talking about.

And while they’re at it creating a better battery, they should make sure we can just leave it sitting around for a month or two without fear of it draining all on its own.

After all, it’s not like the energy produced by Niagara Falls, where we have to use it right after it’s produced.

Here’s the thing: This week I was reminded that a Christian has everything we need in us for life and godliness – that everything is the Holy Spirit. He never runs out, never has to be recharged. We just have to use Him and work with Him to produce in us the character qualities that God wants to see in us.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need recharged right now? Leave your comments below.

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How Your Purchases Make An Impact

Have you ever thought how much we consumers are getting ripped off in our purchases? I know everyone has to make a living, and demand will drive the price of a product, but I hate paying more than I have to.

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Recently, I purchased an optical audio cable through Amazon. The price was unbelievable at $2.99 so I had to order it. I should have ordered 100 and gone into business. The same cable at Best Buy or Future Shop would have cost me between $25 and $35.

How can I possibly get that cable at such a low price unless someone is making about 90% profit on it or there is some factory worker in China making about $.50 a day?

I can see it all happening … Some guy wakes up at about 4 am, rolls up his sleeping matt in his thatched roof home that’s on stilts in the country. He gets on his bicycle and rides down dirt roads, past flooded rice fields, and arrives at a huge factory at about 6 am.

He puts on his uniform and joins an assembly line of people putting together wires they have never seen before, have no idea what they are for, and have no use for them themselves.

He then repeats that ritual six days per week to provide for his family.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting about 4-6 weeks (feels like 46 weeks) for this piece of wire to arrive in the mail. I’m happy that I finally have it now, but I was really tempted about two weeks in to just break down and purchase the cable at full price.

I’d also be okay paying $25 for the cable if I knew that someone in perhaps Aylmer, Ontario was in his garage hand-making these cables, one at a time. But my suspicion tells me that all these cables are made in China by the same guy who’s making $.50 per day.

I guess I shouldn’t be too quick to make these assumptions; I haven’t even tried the cable out yet. What if my 3 buck audio cord doesn’t even work? I didn’t by it from a store where I can take it back. I can’t call up the factory worker in China who made the thing; he may not even have electricity in his hut, for all I know.

One comforting thing is that, for the amount of time it took for my package to arrive, it shows that their postal service is as bad or worse than ours. And there was some saving in the packaging.

The cable in the store was all packaged in a box, with a see-through window to view the product. It was attractive and gave all kinds of information about the product, probably including where it was made. My product came in a small knock-off ziplock bag, inside a 4×6 bubble pack envelope.

There was no product information, but the bag was clear plastic so I could see the entire product. I’m happy that I only paid a fraction of what it would have cost me in the store … I’m just saying there’s a rip-off going on somewhere!

Here’s the thing:  Regardless of what cable I purchase, I’m making an impact on someone. The difference is in the kind of impact I’m going to make. And you can live in such a way that your faith shows up very little in your life or you can live in a way that your faith is very prominent in your life. You will have an impact on people, either way. What kind of an impact do you want to make?

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of impact does your life make on others? Leave your comment below.