Mai And Me

I stopped watching not long after I wrote this! It's from June 18, 2012.

We all have routines. As I have mentioned before, I get up early, drink my now only cup of the coffee for the day, check my e-mail/Facebook messages, read the Bible and eat breakfast, usually about in that order. While I eat breakfast, usually yogurt mixed with frozen fruit and oatmeal, I watch television. I don't have cable or digital so I'm limited to about ten channels, roughly half of which are in English. I often watch VAN-TV, the Vietnamese American network which arrives in my apartment on channel 55.2 or right between several Spanish language stations. That might seem odd as I don't speak Vietnamese but I am preparing for my second trip to Vietnam on July 3 so I like to think it acclimates me to hearing the language. There is another reason I watch that station. Several times a week in the morning, VAN-TV airs a show called VFit which I'm assuming stands for Vietnamese Fitness, and it's located here in Houston. VFit is in English, which a plus as my knowledge of the Vietnamese language, as I mentioned, is limited. The show has two hosts who do all the demonstrating and explaining. One is a guy named David Nguyen but he is immaterial to this story. The other is a woman named Mai Phan...... and she is why I watch. She is enthusiastic and always smiling. She has a terrific interaction with her unseen audience and explains the routines and exercises in a clear and concise manner even though she is working out which can't be easy. Mai comes across as being very wholesome and extremely likable. And I can't go on without throwing this in there- she is very attractive. Every guy knows that never hurts!

I'll be honest. If you want to find workouts of any type imaginable, it's all there on youtube. Truthfully, I doubt you could ever watch all of them as there are thousands upon thousands and some of them are excellent. But, they don't have Mai Phan. Let me make a clarification here. She is very pretty but there are plenty of pretty women on television that don't present themselves in a way to make them appealing. Mai has characteristics which come across in her show that make her, and let me go back to that term I used before, attractive. The way she carries herself makes me believe she is the kind of person most of us would like to be around. I think the same applies to the way believers carry ourselves. Do others see in our behavior characteristics of Jesus? Paul, in Titus 2, wrote his Christian brother who he called his true son in the common faith, about teaching others in the church how to act. Paul instructed Titus to teach slaves to behave in a manner towards their masters 
 so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
I watch that fitness show because of Mai Phan, who I doubt I will ever meet in this city of five million people. She gives me a reason to watch. The bigger issue is whether I give the people in my orbit of life the same encouragement to pursue the life of Godliness I purport to lead. I know I have miles to go which is applicable because this has to do with fitness and I'm trying to run the good race which Paul described in 2 Timothy 4:7. Mai has an advantage over me- her own television show. Well, that and the fact she is stunningly beautiful. I guess I'll just settle for writing a blog!

Applicable quote of the day:

“Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest.”

Christian Dior  God bless, Steve Luke 18:1 www.hawleybooks.com E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com