food for fish

Well we made it home.

I have lot to say, but I'm at work, and my pictures are on the camera, as soon as I have time at home I'll give a big update on the "little trip that could."

We are ready for Chicago.

This is our last night here I'm sad because I have made some new friends that I want to know better but I know that Alexis and will see them again in October. Praise Jesus for everything it was a short but significant trip.

Prayer time and devotion.

Well we're off to the retreat, won't be writing much here, I'll do some mobile picture posting, otherwise the next time I write here may not be until Tuesday when we're back home. Thanks for everything! Check back for picture updates. I uploaded some pictures from this trip on my facebook, click here to see. They're not the best shots as I was walking and sometimes running at the same time, most of them are in Kraków, the first few are in Zakopane.

Yesterday Jordan and I had the privileged to meet a Polish Pastor in Kraków and we had a great conversation. We talked about Polish culture, the church, the catholic connection, the protestant connection, and how it has all looked historically. I was so pleased to speak with someone who is genuinely interested in dicipling his people, who understands relationships being key to reaching people, who listens without giving "ideas" about everything. It was a very pleasing conversation that gave me hope that we have connections in Kraków that are not only in the same book, but on the same page as us and share similar values. The greatest thing was his support of the minstry Alexis and I seek to do in Kraków, to simply create friendships, and be able to sit down with our Bibles in cafe's and homes and grow in Christ's character and power. Ephesians 4 is our calling, and there is a receptive community in Kraków for it, praise Jesus.

At a small group.

This has been one of the more interesting trips I've made, and quite an introduction for Jordan to missions and Poland. All of our flights went well, no trouble there, except for checking in in Portland (stupid "easy checkin" wasn't so easy because it couldn't process my passport for our international segments) and we had to wait over 20 min to get help. After the check in was complete everything was fine, we made it to Krakow with out any trouble, all our bags, everything was good.

We stayed in Krakow until about 9pm local time and ran a few errands with Denise, ate at KFC and gave Jordan a quick low-down on ministry, poland, and the week ahead.

Our first full day (Monday) was full of moving everything from the apartment the church here has been renting to Denise's house (about 30 min away). This made for a long day, of multiple trips in her car, she stayed at her place cleaning while we drove back and fourth with all the stuff. On the last trip of the night we loaded up a desk and a table on top of the car and attached it to the rack.

We got a bit over half-way to Denise's house and KABOOM.... something fell off... but it didn't fall all the way off. After we finally reached a good place to pull over (about 1/2 a mile of dragging) we realized that the table had fallen partially off and we had dragged it, one of hte bungee chords we had used to hold it on had snapped. Not only did the table fall off, it busted the passenger side far rear window (not the door window but the one behind it) and at the same time gave a few scratches to the car. To this moment we don't quite get how this all happened, especially the angle at which the table fell, it seems it woudl've taken out the passenger side-view mirror instead. Anyway it's about $190 to repair it... ouch.

So today, I got the pleasure of going to the car dearler and figuring out how to make an appointment, find out the cost, and do all of this in Polish... yay me. Thankfully there was a guy who spoke English and understood my broken Polish when English wasn't working. It was a little challenging but a good one.

Tonight I'm meeting with my old roommate from 2003/2004 who I lived with here in Poland, he's now married and has a daughter as well, so I'm very excited to see them and have a good conversation. This is really what I thrive to do, serving physically is all great, but the relationships, the connections, and the truth that God brings out in all of it is amazing. So with the moving piece behind us (we have one last trip tomorrow, and we did one load today) and the retreat coming up, I'm excited to see Jesus in all of it.

Keep us in your prayers, the broken window I believe is a blessing in disguise for something, not sure what yet... but it will be good. The weather is yucky, it's pretty much hanging around 32-35 making for a nice slushy mess.

Thanks for your prayers, support, and interest in all of this... I'll have more pictures up soon, looks like I'll have time tomorrow to upload some good ones.

A take on being the salt of the earth.

Ok we're in Krakòw all is well. But we are tired for sure. Denise is on her way to pick up up. But is stuck in traffic. whoop. We would have taken the bus to her place but she insisted. More to come later.

We are tired, and to think it's just getting started!

Just two more hours and we'll be leaving for Krakòw amen.

On board and very full. Got a call from Isaac H and got a little pre trip prayer. Blessings to all! Thanks to everyone who made it possible! Give glory where glory is due.

Almost ready to get on the next plane to Germany. Than we are onto Poland!

Meet Jordan.

Here we are at Portland airport ready to go through gate E4. United flight 250. See you there.

With sin all around us, and many times living inside of us, it can be quite daunting to be motivated. Just a random thought... as I am struggling to love, encourage, and speak graceful truth to myself and friends.

I have a lot to say about a lot of different things.

But it seems the practical stuff, is what people like to read... although to me it's all practical and life applicable... huh... just thinking "out loud", wondering what the next direction for blogging is...

I am a daily user of Windows Vista, both at home and at work. Yes it's true, and I'm not ashamed. I have had very few problems, except for our home Media Center (due to me being a bit over zealous with some things and breaking the program guide and Media Center's ability to download information for some reason, requiring a re-install, but I'm better off anyway because I did a clean install this time).

You see, I love using the newest stuff, even in beta. I'm a power user, and I just like new stuff. I'm also a purist, I use essentially just Microsoft Software (office 2007, IE7, etc) and google for all online stuff, of course theres a random program made by random, inc. I essentially remove anything I don't use. I don't download random things I don't need simply because they may be "cool". I have free virus protection that runs a scan each night, and that's it, I hate virus scans that are "on" all the time. Most of all I practice safe internet browsing.

Guess what? Everything works, all my hardware and software. Granted it's all new, but both of these computers had XP originally, and they both run perfectly well. Just a little blurb on Vista, because I think it deserves a good look by the "MS haters".

I love it, of course I see past the visual elements, but at the same time, things under the hood make it quite cool. For example when I did a fresh install on my Media Center computer, at first my dual HD tuner didn't quite work right (it detected only one tuner), after about five minutes a little pop-up said "Windows has found a solution to a problem" I clicked on it, and amazingly it realized that there was a new driver, it installed, and all is well. Anyway, I know this won't convert anyone, but I just wanted to be on a soap box for a moment because I like it.

Sometimes I struggle with the general cynical and jaded attitude of my peers. I'm really grieved by other Jesus followers who look at life as if the glass if half empty. But it goes deeper than that, many times my generation hangs onto the seams of life with just the logical, western mind-set that we have to climb the proverbial ladder of success before we even be in authority over anything. Not that we desire authority, but for most authority for some reason is how they view their confidence and relation to the rest of the world.

The truth is, we have been given all authority, to do even greater things than Jesus did. Yet we let the world system tell us we don't, we need this paper, and that paper, and X years of experience. Bump that, bump it all, we need to realize what we are called to, seek wisdom from those that have gone there before, learn from them and experience it for ourselves!

If you know that you are called (and all followers are called) then step into it. Of course you'll make mistakes, that's why we have mentors (Timothy and Paul), that's why we week wisdom, and that's why we submit ourselves to grace-filled truth tellers (or as I said the other day, butt holes for Jesus) - people who we have given permission to point out the boogers in our lives and the blind spots so we can have more confidence and authority to speak Jesus' gospel.

I was called to be a pastor over four years ago, this created a fear in me because I had never thought about it before and I've always been afraid of rejection. But now, even though I'm not "ordained" or "licensed", I am doing pastoral kinds of things, such as mentoring, being relational with others, and allowing God's voice to be heard and his flock cared for.

PS check out this new blog I found, fits the topic of this post quite well, none the less, I love what he has to say - it's grace filled truth at its finest!

On the 16th I and a friend leave for Poland on my 5th trip and his 1st trip back to Poland! This will be one of my shortest trips, but I hope for it to be quite strategic as well. Alexis (encourage her to post some more on her blog) wants to go so badly, and in November we'll be going as a family, so that is quite exciting!

Right now the snow in the southern part of Poland is not unlike being in the cascade mountain resorts. Although avalanches and those kinds of things seem to be more rare, mostly because it's much drier which I think makes it more stable, the weather here in the Northwest can be so unpredictible and change from wet to dry and cold and warm so quickly that avalanche risks are high.

The one thing that I am most excited about is talking with my buddy Chris (Angelized form of his name), he and his wife had a baby last July, so we have a lot to share, plus the Lord has really been brining us together in vision and hope. In fact, I need to email him right now and get a few times to meet on the schedule.

Now this is interesting...

I haven't quite wrapped my head completly around it, but on the surface this makes sense... of course it opens the door for things which are not a part of God's plan for our lives... and at the same time, we simply can't regulate morality, but we must speak the truth anyway... what a conumdrum.