{{ POSTCARDS FROM FAR AWAY }}

You know those times in life when you someone goes into your bathroom and pees all over the place and makes a giant mess including some kind of ointment packet trash and everytime they leave your bathroom your heart rate sky-rockets because you know they've just made a mess and you get to clean it up? Thats been going on for a while at my store. I used to get angry. But something happened. We are to share the gospel with all who don't know. But sometimes I feel a deeply specific burden to share with someone...and thats what happened. I stopped getting angry and bathroom-destroyer and started praying for him. I decided to sit down with him yesterday. We talked for a long time. Turns out he had prostate cancer and surgery to take it out. The doctors failed to do so and failed to tell him. He got another doctor to go in to check it and found that not only had they left the cancerous prostate in, but the cancer has started to spread throughout his body. As far as doctors in Louisville know, he is the only person to have that same prostate cancer surgery TWICE. He has five to ten years to live. And then he explained his bathroom messiness. **WARNING...THIS ISN'T PRETTY** The second surgery eliminated his ability to pee properly. So what he does is he has a permanent hole in his stomach. He carries a tube around everywhere he goes. He uses the ointment stuff to cleanse the tube and then sticks the tube into his stomach. He pees through a stomach tube. I learned a great deal about this guy and I'm so thankful for it. I'm thankful his honesty and for the doors that God is opening.

In other news, GLOBALPOST.COM (linked on the side) is now my new favorite website. It is a company in Boston that has people all over the world. The people either write in or make videos of news stories. They then send them to globalpost. Good stuff. Quality stories. The reporting, to this point, has been solid and honest and, in some cases, fun.

Will write more soon about spiritual learnings. God is teaching me SO MUCH! Will share soon.

Also, got word from the scholarship. You know, nothing huge...JUST GOD PROVIDING EXACTLY WHAT WE NEEDED! God is way too good to us.

More later.

Of the books that I've read over the past few months, nothing has moved me or challenged me like the simple, small book from Dr. Akin called FIVE WHO CHANGED THE WORLD. The book contains accounts of men and women who faithfully gave themselves wholly to the work of Christ around the world.

Bill Wallace, a missionary I had not heard of before yesterday, is now a personal hero of mine.

"It doesn't make any difference what happens to us. The only important thing is that when it does happen, we be found doing the will of God." - Wallace (not the scottish william wallace...)

I heard a stat today that has really bothered me ever since. The average seminary graduate spends roughly 6 minutes in prayer a day. 6 minutes. "Prayer is our greatest responsibility and our most neglected opportunity."

I can't say that my average time in prayer helps this average. In fact, I'll admit that to this point I've done some damage to that average. It is funny to me (in a very sad sense) how mighty we expect God to move and how great God is...and how little time we actually spend with him. 6 minutes. We spend more time each day in the bathroom than we do in communication with our God. God has greatly convicted me of this today. This and a host of other things that I don't have time to fully explain right now.

"Prayer is the key to EVERY great spiritual awakening in history." just as the Moravians.

"Satan fears nothing from a prayerless religion... Satan trembles when we pray."

6 Minutes.

PART One -



I haven’t blogged in a while again. Part of it is that I feel as though I’ve lost some of my bloggin’ mojo. Part of it is that I’ve yet to find a way to properly describe/explain the stuff that God has been teaching me. Before I get to the meaty stuff allow me to catch you up on some things...

CLASS - New Testament I. Probably one of the best classes that I’ve ever taken. The gospels have so much more depth than I give them credit for. Mind blowing stuff. I’m insanely thankful that Dr. Cook was my professor and that he felt so compelled to literally walk us through the gospels.

My preaching class is next. probably the one class I don’t really care to take. I know that I will probably like my professor so thats good. It isn’t that I’m afraid to teach in front of people. I used to do it two and three times a week. I think it is the audience that I’m not looking forward too. Seminary students. 55 of them.

LIFE - I went to the SBC pastors’ conference on Sunday night. Good stuff. Heard from JD Greear and Chuck Colson. There was a third guy, but we were out buying mini donuts and water. one of the things that I REALLY appreciated from Greear is that he said that everyone who joins his church knows that unless they experience a specific call NOT TO, they are fully expected to serve two years over seas. I love this! I’m sure that there are some out there who think “he can’t really do that” but yes, yes he can. Why? The Great Commission. Boom goes the dynamite.

Chan and Platt spoke yesterday and, of course, they were awesome. Platt’s talk was so powerful! Each year a host church is responsible for funding the pastors’ conference. This year they are short something like 30K. The host church got up after Platt to take an offering and said that there was NO WAY that they could, after hearing Platt, take up an offering for the Pastors’ Conference. Instead he urged the people there to give to the Missions Boards! This was unheard of and powerful and awesome!

Went with the Falls’ to Sari Sari and it was delicious. I know of no other couple who are so willing to go to hole-in-the-wall food crazy food places. Filipino food this time. I think that we’re going to head over to the Vietnamese Kitchen sometime again soon too. So if you’re interested and would like to try the best tasting iced coffee that I’ve ever had...join us.

My car exploded. not really. But sort of. I noticed one day that the battery sounded like it was having some issues. Struggling to start. That night I asked Alexis not to go inside our apartment but to listen and tell me if it sounded like the battery was dying. She agreed. I jumped in and started the car. Sounded good. Started to slow. Then started clicking. I poked my head out of the car door at Alexis and she said “yeah, that doesn’t sound good.” $500 later we have a new alternator. I praise God for clearly leading me NOT to take Hebrew. if I had taken the class, that $500 wouldn’t have been available. It couldn’t have happened at a better time. And I couldn’t be more thankful for the friends who went out of their way to jump my car, follow me to the car place, buy me lunch, pick me up after class, and drive me back out to get my car.
I’m still not healthy. Doc said if I’m not completely better by the end of this week that I have to go to a specialist. This won’t be fun.

Work is good.

Alexis is awesome!

SPORTS - John Smoltz pitches this Thursday for the Redsox. jodie Meeks will hopefully be drafted in the first round on thursday.

GOVERNMENT - What can you say? On a local level, whats up with Sanford disappearing? I did watch an insanely disturbing video on the news of a young girl in Iran. She was shot by the police there and someone recorded it as the people around her tried to save her. They couldn’t. Really disturbing. Neda Sultan. The situation there is HUGE! Many people are saying that its similar in scope to our Boston Tea Party. And now I’m hearing all over the place that people want the US to somehow show support for the people there. Which makes me wonder why we elected the one man who wouldn’t. But whatever.

I don’t have as much time as I wanted to write out the long part about what I’ve been learning and about how my faith has been changing and growing. So I’ll have to do that tomorrow. I have to go now and begin getting ready for the B21 Panel at Sojourn. Hearing that we’ll get some books from the guys on the panel. this makes me happy.

My car broke again today. $500.00 later its better. It was one of those things that just needed to be fixed. No ways around it. Alternator was busted. Went to a quality shop though. May be my new favorite place to go if ever in car fixin' need.

So this morning my New Testament class was discussing Demon Exorcism. As class started, it began getting cloudy. The storm outside grew stronger as the class went on. Then just as my professor said "now lets look at some lessons we can learn from Jesus the Exorcist" lightning struck and thunder sounded and the lights went out. Several people chuckled at the irony of the situation. And it was, indeed, quite ironic. Class went on after lunch without power. We sweated (literally) through some other stuff in the New Testament.

This class is one of those that I wish my wife could be with me. The professor is SO GOOD! The material is AMAZING! The class is an intro class...and usually prof's just skim books and don't spend too much time in them. Not this class. We did the books in the first day and have spent the last few days being taught the Bible. Easily one of my favorite classes. I hate the test. Very hard, but I love the class!

This is all for now. Too much work to do. Perhaps reinstating this blog on a week of class was a bad decision. Look for improvements and posts next week.

B21! Should be excellent!

So I haven't blogged in a while. The break was nice and necessary. I did manage to send out an email or two during that time to keep some people updated with life here in Louisville. Things are definitely interesting...thus the blog returns. I enjoying blogging. And so I blog.

I can update you on some Cambodia news. There is a more than good chance that Cambodia, as of right now, won't be our future destination. This has been tough to swallow as Alexis and I love that country and those people. I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to confidently say that our hearts ever completely left that country. I pray that one day God will allow us to serve and love those people. We heard about some of the restructuring a few weeks ago. Rumbles and speculation. While nothing was certain this did give us time to consider life in another part of the world and God used this time to open our hearts to His work in other countries. So while we are both saddened by these turn of events, we cannot see this as a negative. Our job is to go where He leads even if that doesn't look the way we want it to.

This doesn't mean that Cambodia is never going to happen. It does mean that our path there may not be as straight as we imagined.

All in all, God is sovereign and our lives are not our own.

I'm sitting in my New Testament class. Dr. Cook is teaching. He is the pastor of 9th and O here in Louisville. I've only been in the class for a few hours and I can tell that I'm going to regret taking this class in such a fast paced, information over-load fashion. I'm loving this stuff and can only hope that I don't miss stuff. He's a good professor.

I've not yet recovered from my health issue. It seems to be the most stubborn health issue ever invented. I've been on antibiotics for almost a month now and the pain isn't gone. I'm not sure what the next step is beyond antibiotics. I'll be calling my doc soon enough.

If you've not yet heard, you can download a free live album from Coldplay at their site. Coldplay.com. The link to the album is in the top right corner. Look for the butterfly.

Work is good. Sherry fell and quite literally broke her face. It is a long story. Suffice it to say that she fell in a parking lot and smacked her face on a curb. She came back to work and kept telling people that she "had a fight with a black top" and just to make it interesting, as the customers made their way to me to receive their drinks, I would inform them that "the term BLACK TOP is actually Sherry-slang for gang member." This spiced things up a little. Also, Ginny's apartment was the victim of a poorly discarded cigarette. Her apartment caught fire thanks to the smoking man below them. Ginny and her husband lost everything. I didn't need to spice this one up.

Well thats life at the moment. I probably won't be blogging as much as I did. Nor will I blog constantly about random political issues. the new and improved blog will not be more of the same...I don't think.