Moving to another blog

I am now going to focus my blogging efforts to La Mision Ministries blog site. You can find us at http://www.lamisionministries.blogspot.com/

It will be the website of Erin and me in La Mision, Mexico. La Mision Ministries is the non-profit that we started.

We moved to Mexico on January 15th, 2009.

See you there!!!!!!!!!

Answering the Call

So, after a lot of prayer and a lot of thought and a lot of pondering....

Erin and I have decided to move to Mexico.

We visited in October and were invited by Gustavo and Elizabeth Pacheco to come down and live in their building so that we might serve the community of La Mision.

It is exciting. We will be leaving in the middle of January and we feel very unprepared.

But as I remember my buddy, Toby saying about Moses that God did not call him because he was prepared....God prepared him because he answered the call.

So off we go. We need to raise money, set up all of this new insurance, learn Spanish, and then move down to a country that we have never lived.

That scares us a little. We get flooded by different emotions. At times we are so excited, at times we are scared. We often get hit by them at weird times.

We are now at a place where we need to pray to God because He can see stuff that we can't. He has called us (we believe) and so therefore He knows that this is where we are supposed to be. We know this.....but sometimes it is much easier to blog the blog, than it is to wog the wog....

So we answer the call.

Has it been since May 5?

Sorry to disappoint my loyal blog fan(s)....

I can't believe it has been so long since my last blog. I guess I have taken some time to learn, to grasp and to ponder more of life and what it has to offer us.

Here are some things that I have learned.

Life doesn't get any better than this. If we are happy, and we are not encountering pain, it merely means that we are not truly living. We are not on the tracks of the train of life. Instead, we have derailed and are driving to disaster. Happiness is good. But life is not only the search to be happy (just ask Will Smith). Life is rather the encountering and maybe even seeking pain and hardship so that we might truly live.

Do I do that? No. But I want to.

Life also forces us to take some risks. I don't like to take risks unless they are guaranteed or they are worth the risk. So much of our lives are built around only taking risks that are not worth it and are way too safe.

Live a little. Take some risks. Be a friend, don't just demand friendship. Love someone who won't love you back. Give up something you love....just to not hold it too much.

Life is a funny thing. I am sitting here tonight at my computer. The light is low, my wife is asleep. I have the choice to think about all of the amazing things that I have. Everything that I enjoy. But I also have the ability to dwell on the things that I don't have. Who I want to be. Who that movie star portrays...

I usually choose the opposite. Why?

Why do I believe the lies. Why do I derail off the train tracks of pain and life and the richness of joy and living.

I don't know.

But I continue to search for the answers...

GVG (God-Vision Goggles)

It's Cinco De Mayo. Here I sit at my computer in Sunny Seattle. Last night, we began something. A church service with a full band that was the start of something new. Something fresh.

Six months ago, I had a dream to start a church. I pictured doing something big and having it start in West Seattle.

Now, I think that God had other plans. My dream had my friend Toby preaching. My dream had a full band. My dream was to have it start in West Seattle.

God seems to have made this come true. Last night, we had a church service in Burien, which is south of West Seattle, and my friends, Jeff and Isaac, and Toby were there.

This is going to be big. The foundation has been laid. Our hearts are open and honestly put before God to see what he is going to do.

The big issues are things of this world. I don't have a job that I love. Jeff has one, but on the other side of Seattle. Isaac doesn't know where his next one is going to be.

It seems as though the resources are coming from the church where Toby is working....which is a huge blessing. We have a sound system, a place to meet for free, and that takes away some of the risk.

But I believe that God is working on us to reach a people that we don't even know yet. It's like I have to trust Him like someone trust's night vision goggles. You can't see anything, but when you hit that switch, all of a sudden, you see things you couldn't before. God gives us GVG's. I can feel it! I believe it! My job is to be faithful...


(disclaimer--I have only used Night Vision Goggles in video games)

In the egg

As I try to figure out what life is all about, I catch myself coveting people who I think have life figured out. I covet the rich person because I believe that they don't have to worry about money. I covet the person who is popular, because they never have to worry about friendships and having people let them down. I covet the person who is happy, because they don't have problems.

But as I think about this, I know that this is an illusion. In the news, we are constantly reminded of the people who are rich and famous who are addicted to drugs, are constantly unfaithful, and who are seeking after something they can't hold onto like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of it.

And as I think about this trap that I fall into so often, I am reminded of a story of a boy who has a egg that is about to hatch. He looks at the cracks beginning to form in the egg and he gets excited. As he sees the beak of the bird, he becomes aware of the struggle and hardship that the baby bird is going through. In his mercy, the boy assists it by helping the bird to break its shell.

Unfortunately, what the boy did not understand, was that the chick needed the struggle to build the muscles in its wings so that it could fly. The bird was never able to recover.

We are like that bird. We pray for God to take us out of that struggle and pray for his mercy. But it is God, by His wisdom, that He leaves us to struggle so that we might be made strong, both in character and as a human.

A slave.

What is a slave? When I was in high school, we held an auction to have a freshman as a slave for a day. You would be bought by a senior and have to do his/her bidding for the day and carry their books and open their locker. It was humiliating but fun.

That only lasted a while since it became uncool to say the word "slave." Now, the only thing I even see that is close to slavery is on TV or in the movies. I hear that it still goes on around the world even today....but I find it difficult to imagine what it would be like to be a slave.

The brutality, the lack of freedom, no vacation, no trust. Day after day. Just work. Obey. No escape.

In Philipians, Paul refers to himself as a slave to Christ. That paints a different image than what I believe my Christianity tipically is lived in these United States.

Today we find Christians living out their faith more that they are ENTITLED to the throne than they are a SLAVE to Christ.

Let's compare what that looks like.

ENTITLED

Heir

Good should come to you

Do what you want

Get what you want

Serve when it is convenient

Listen when you want

Eat at the good house

Be served

Talk with only the other entitled ones

Live as though you are privileged

As opposed to...

SLAVE

Do what you are told

Don't ask

Don't complain

Obey

Eat among the poor

Listen to your master

Be ready to go

Live not for yourself

As I read the Bible, I continue to see that we need to trust that God has a plan for our lives and that we must serve Him completely....as a slave serves His master. Our Master is one that is worthy to be served. He will be fair, and he will not disappoint.

While it is true that we have inherited the Kingdom of Heaven, we still must serve our Lord until that time comes when we fully get to take part in it.

We must obey, we must listen, we must be ready to do His will. And when we do, we will more fully understand what it means to love, to hope, and to live.

Brushes With Fame....

So, I noticed that some people are starting to read my blog and I hope that continues to grow. In an effort to increase comments and my reader base, I will list some people that I have met that are famous. If you are famous and reading this, please comment and then I will add you...

Some of these famous people are very famous and some are locally famous. Let me know if you want additional information on the chance encounter.

(I don't count rock stars like Madonna at her concert or Bill Clinton and Hillary when I was at the White House....they were there and I was there but not really as a chance meeting)

Charlie Brown. (the actual guy who the cartoon character was about)
Jeff Siemen --Vikings Linebacker
Billy Graham....twice
Rosie O'Donnell
Sally Struthers
Vicki Lawrence
Michael Damian
Alan Thicke
Ed McMahon
Fred Couples
Shaun Alexander
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Michael Douglas
Anthony Hopkins
Joanna Kerns
Carol Burnett
Oprah's Lawyer
Cindy Crawford
Tony Oliva
Sig Hansen (I think that was the Deadliest Catch captain whose truck I parked)
Mark Harmon
Tim Meadows (made him laugh)
The Village People (said hi to the native american)
Bill Maher (he ignored me when I said hello....he is dumb)
The wife of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams
Oh....and his kids were in my youth group.
Dallas Raines
Johnny Mountain
Jean Enerson
Andrew Cuomo and his wife.....who is a Kennedy


That's all I can think of for now.