food for fish

I have finally moved away from Blogger, after six years, we now have our own domain reachpolska.info and I have moved my blog to travis.reachpolska.info.

Please update your favorites, RSS news feeds (if needed, depending on what feed you originally subscribed to, some of you may automatically move over, if you see another post after this, that says welcome, then you have nothing else to do), and anything else referring to foodforfish.blogspot.com and point it to travis.reachpolska.info.

Thanks!

Okay, so as of right now I am beginning the task of moving this blog over to my own hosted site, travis.reachpolska.info, the address has been changed for a while but the content is still here at blogger. So over this weekend things may get a bit bumpy, I think I have a way of keeping the feed address the same, so everyone who is subscribed in a news reader, or via email, shouldn't need to make any changes.

On another note, the big family things that went down on Thursday is, while very hard to walk out, is probably in the end a good thing. Romans 8:28 is what everyone invovled in (who are Christians) is hanging onto.

Thanks for your prayers!

My wife and I just learned some terrible news (the kind that gets your hands trembling) about a family member. No one is dieing, and no one has died. The ramifications are huge, the wake from this news will cause many to feel anger (such as I do), frustration (such as I do), and either move people closer to relying on God or cause people to shut down and continue on like nothing happened, yet slowly becoming more cold.

I wish I could explain it, I wish I could express how I feel in my spirit about the fears that have finally become reality, due to people dwelling on the problem, rather than expecting God to fulfil the needs.

The affect this has on Alexis and I will be one of spiritual and relational challenges.

Please pray for understanding, leaning on God's word, how Alexis and I should participate, how the people involved should move, for God's discernment, for healthy confrontation on questions.

Lord I ask for your truth, your wisdom in how I should personally minister in the depths of this event. I know what you have said in my spirit, and I have a tension with others on how to healthily administer the truth. I ask that you give me, all of us, a clearer understanding, and that most of all that circumstances do not tear apart your kingdom. I pray for wisdom in dealing with resources and relationships. I humbly submit to learning a new level of trust in you, and in the people you have placed around us. May the shortfalls of the world NEVER determine the call, relationship, or love we have for one another.

In the power, authority, and love of Jesus I pray. - Amen - Make it so.

For a lot of Christian men there is a struggle to keep sexually pure. Now I realize that there are a lot of definitions of "purity" out there, it seem that some think masterbation is okay, and others think dressing in a sexually attractive way is okay, while some believe that not talking about any of these things is okay as well. Yes, we've heard this over and over, and I am still not convinced that the Church at large (the full body of Christ) has really taken this on. As I speak to more and more men I realize the need for a new Church culture that speaks Truth and Grace into the suxual purity issue.

I guess I take a hybrid, or middle of the ground, approach to these things. I believe that most of the time people don't take a deep look into the reasons behind these struggles. We, in the Church, have taken the appraoch of "think no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". When, from what I observe this has lead us to isolation, shame, doubt, and in many cases deep wounds that fester anger and fear, Jesus instructed us to not have even a hint of lust. Yet he forgives.

You see, I know that the enemy plays with this part of our lives because it is so destructive towards our ability to relate to God, and to others. We can easily become isolated and cut off and then allowing people to Love us, and for us to Love others becomes increasingly hard due to the shame that surrounds our heart. So I ask, what is the root of these "problems", how do we replace these desires with healthy ones? What is a healthy desire?

I am far from the answer, only recently have I began to fully grasp the freedom of exercising true freedom in this area. My past makes it difficult, but I know that He who is in me, is stronger than he who is in the world.

While this is a short chapter, it's still full of amazing things. Such as verse 2 " Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!" and verse 7 "Remember your leaders who first taught you the word of God. Thank of all the good that has come from their lives, and trust the Lord as they do." and verse 17 "Obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and tehy know they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this joyfully and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit."

Wow, some grea things to ponder over, especially concerning the pieces about leadership. Today there is so much distrust in Church leadership (and in many cases well deserved), and to trust takes trusting God first.

Okay so with our new Poland focused website pretty much up... I've fallen in love with using Word Press, and have decided to re-launch, re-brand, and re-focus food for fish... I'm kinda sad to see the name change... I might incorporate it somehow.. But I will converting this blog into my own personal blog, called "Living as a foreigner" for now, while I import, design, and tweak, you can see a test version here (right now, it's absolutely nothing but the default install of Word Press).

And sometime in the not to distant future you'll magically be transported to there when visiting this site... and hopefully the feed subscriptions as well.

Stay tuned....

I have been looking at a lot of my old posts, and boy some of them are embarrassing. However, I have to realize, they are me. Now that we almost have a missions blog up, this place will become more about me, back to its roots. Sure I'll have snippets of our missions things, but in general, I'm ready to start delving deeper into my walk, and my observations of life.

So, for whatever reason, my stomach/intestines feel like they are in a knot. I tried the throne room, nothing moved. When random things like this hit, my job becomes terrible. I just want it to go away. I say to "it" - Behave and be normal, in Jesus' name.

Oh man, I have a huge list of things to do, or things I need other people to do...

A lot of it retains to our poland trip(s), donations, database, new website, emails, getting our team together, fundraising...

Then there's the home, fix the bathroom drawer, touch up the paint where the mattress scraped the wall, bleach the living room drapes, organize the garage, vacuum, dust, get garbage service again (that's a story), complete fish tank do-over...

And there's the Forge (our young adults ministry), contact our core team, setup meeting, get schedule for speakers setup, create database, contact new folks, layout messages for the coming year...

Finally the car... ug.... get estimate for fixing peeled paint from dump-truck rocks, get estimate for bumper fix from unknown person backing into me and running, see what the squeeling noise is (buddy thinks it's the timing belt, oh fun), get oil changed.

Thank God we learned what boundaries were at a young age... We do nothing, but what we feel we have energy for, on Sundays, and either Monday or Tuesday night we go on a date, usually something simple like coffee or dessert, but always something.

So, we've gone ahead and purchased our own domain name now: reachpolska.info

You'll notice (if you visit my blog) it now redirects to travis.reachpolska.info. I'll be slowly updating everything to reflect this change, for now everything should be pretty transparent. Eventually we'll have information on our missions on the main page of http://www.reachpolska.info/.

Stay tuned!

Okay, so I have some strong opinions on what we need to do about oil, so I am far from un-bias on the subject. However, I feel that I am trying to be balanced and moderate in talking about it as well. Recently I received a letter from United Airlines, it was an open letter to all airline customers and written by all of the major US airlines. It talked about how oil speculation is taxing on $30 to $60 per barrel of oil. Well upon further research the evidence seem to be there. So I followed the link in the email to Stop Oil Speculation NOW, which by clicking this link, brings you to a very easy form that will send either an email or letter to your state and national representatives, you can even customize it. I added a couple of paragraphs on how this is personally effecting my family, and how I also see the need for our government to somehow use oil industry profits, and put more of its resources towards renewable resources and clean-burning (it's out there, - sorry must register to view, but great article!) oil-based energy.

Anniversary roses, and fine dining coming up. Praise Jesus for "creative" financing and some anniversary gift money.

Today Alexis and I are celebrating our 2 years of marriage... Not much of a celebration... but we'll do something. I think anniversaries and birthdays should be paid holidays. It's been amazing, hard at times, but worth the pain. Not much else to say. Time to head home!

My wife is a seriously amazing woman of God. I don't mean that she is saintly, or a push over, or just a "nice church wife". I mean she seriously listens, obeys, talks, and has a relationship with God. It's her relationship, not mine, it's her walk and her talk with Him, it's personal for her, and she obeys when He asks her to. She listens for His voice on all matters, and is not afraid to bring up something that might be controversial.

Her passion for our work in Poland and here at home is nothing but excellent, and her love for people, even though it gets hard, never wavers. She may complain, but she doesn't give up, even when she feels like it. Her ability to be a lover, mentor, home-maker, wife, mom, and friend all at once is a feat that goes un-sung.

I thank God almighty for her, and I seek his face in joy for bringing us together, keeping us together, and allowing me to serve together with Him and her. Because of her willingness to learn, be stretched, and to love in spite of her feelings on things, we have become only stronger, and she has become a bright star in the sea of God's children.

I just read an article that made me sick, sick because it contains both truths and extreams... It also is down right un-graceful, last I checked, Jesus was full of grace. It is true that our God is both vulnerable and has authority. I'm sure that the quote from Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church - Seattle) was not meant to be what the article makes it out to be. The gospel makes it clear that Jesus wants us to be both weak and strong, to allow him to fill our weaknesses in faith, and to allow kill our pride (false strength) in order to love him and people.

In my observation most people in the Church have true points to make, but they get stuck on one facet, they see one side to the whole picture. We serve the infinite God, his ways are far beyond our ways, and personally I would rather keep my sights on serving him where I feel passionate instead of being critical of one another. I believe in correction, but overall I believe in pointing people to a more full picture. Let's make our picture of Jesus bigger than ourselves, He's vulnerable (weak in some people's eyes) and strong, beyond our understanding.

Stay moderate, keep a healthy open view, while listening to the extremes, and gracefully speak truth to the areas that bring a more holistic picture of the true God we know.

You know how many times I have heard people say "No way" when I talk about long term missions (heck, even short term missions)? I would say 9 out of 10 times. Sometimes I even get people laughing, like they think I'm joking. So, for those of you who have have laughed when I asked that, let it be known, I wasn't joking.

It boggles my mind that people can be so closed-minded (in my opinion afraid of the unknown, which is what most of our life with Christ is) about serving God in another place.

And then God reminds me, just as much as I don't understand "them", "they" don't understand me. So I digress, I drop little seeds with people to open their minds to hearing God's heart for another people-group. I of course agree there is plenty of work to do here in America, yet if we all took a short-term trip to another place outside our culture, saw another part of the Church, then maybe, just maybe, we would have a bit more passion to be his hands and feet to America and beyond.