{{ POSTCARDS FROM FAR AWAY }}

Now my favorite coldplay song has a video.

So we're preparing to head out to Seattle for a week for Vacation. I'm pretty pumped about this journey to the upper west corner of the country. We will definitely be taking a ton of pictures. If you remember a few Christmas' ago I did a picture series with Manta (my mini santa) and some of you seemed to enjoy it so I figured I'd give my artist ability a nice little workout. This time I'm not taking Manta. It isn't Christmas. This time I'm taking someone unusual. I'm not sure who yet. Maybe Janet Reno. Maybe Creflo Dollar. Maybe Billy Graham. I just do not know yet. However, if I were to decide on taking the Snapple Lady wearing her Snapple hat, she might look something like this...













More on this tomorrow as I narrow my list.

peace out.

The last few weeks of weigh loss have taught me several things about myself. one of the main things is that even the times when I don't "over eat" I still "over eat." I've learned a lot about how much my body actually needs verses how much my mind thinks that I need. I'm still at 212. I haven't done anything differently and I so I guess maybe I've hit "the plateau" and so my goal over the next few weeks is to further refine what I eat (now that I know HOW MUCH to eat) and work out more often. I have recently fallen in love with the Elyptical (sp?) machine and fully appreciate its ability to make me hate life for several minutes and then feel really great.

During my time at the gym I've started using my ipod to listen to things other than music. I think that my mind is often so jammed with music that I struggle to quite myself. So I've switched to sermons and NPR. NPR has some great, free stuff on itunes. This American Life and Driveway Moments currently attend my workouts with me.

Just in case you were wondering...YES, the coconut M&M's are delicious! Big thanks to Ryan and Liz for introducing me to them. They don't help with losing weight, but they definitely help fulfill my desire for tastiness.

Chuck Lawless, Dean of BGS here at Southern, posted a great article on prayer on his blog. Check it out by going to SBTS.EDU and clicking on blogs at the top. I haven't had Dr. Lawless in a year and a half and I still love that guy.

I've got one more day left of my preaching class and I can't rave about it enough. What a great class and what a great professor. Another example of a summer class that I wish I hadn't taken in the summer. It is bittersweet not to get to preach for York. It is a great relief knowing I don't have to worry about it, but I would have loved the chance to have him correct/challenge me. He's great stuff.

We leave for Seattle next Tuesday afternoon. I'm so pumped about Seattle! from what i hear, the houses we'll be visiting are quite amazing...and who can deny that the landscape of that area is great? It should be a great vacation. Plus i love flying and love airports so that part gets me giddy as well.

My car is ok for the moment. I hadn't driven it around for several days other than just around campus (its what I do). And so I guess that contributed to its struggles the other day. Still, it shouldn't be drained after two days of light driving. So I'm sure I've got some figuring out to do in terms of how to handle this. Selling the car is an option in the far corners of my mind. What I wouldn't give to freed from this cash depleting, global warming contributing automobile. i would seriously ride the buses if I knew how they connected so that I could get to work and other places when I need to. Unfortunately I'm not street smart with transportation so I'd end up hopping onto a bus that would drop me off in ohio when all I needed was a ride to Prospect, Ky.

The Redsox stink.

i stink. i changed flavors of deoderant and I don't like it. I smell like a hungarian airline stewardess. this is true as I've dealt with hungarian airline stewardesses on many occasions.

Anyway, I'm off for some time of productivity.

Peace out.

Here are today's top five songs in video form.

JayMay - Gray or Blue



Coldplay - Fix you



Kings of Leon - Manhattan



Copeland - No One Really Wins



Iron and Wine - Boy with a Coin



Peace out.

So my blog has changed. The frequency. The tone. The ramblings. All of it has changed. And that was on purpose. For one, I enjoyed blogging my life and I know that some of you weren't comfortable with it. I never wanted blogging to become something that generated the thought "oh, he'll just blog about that..." That isn't a thought that I'm fond of. The second, more important, reason for shutting it down/changing it up a bit is that I realized that I cared way too much about it. A large part of my day was spent updating and thinking and improving my blog. My blog became a god. Stripping away my time. Actually stripping isn't the right word. My blog just accepted the time an energy that I freely chose to give it.

If you had asked me several minutes ago what I thought about expanded gaming in KY I would have answered something like this..."while I'm against gambling, I don't see another way for the state to save its horse racing industry and the many jobs connected to it." Now, my answer would be different. I just had a conversation with David. David does a lot here in KY. One of the things he does is is lobby. He's a lobbyist and he's responsible for kentuckyfamily.org. I had a great conversation with him a few minutes ago. My answer to expanded gambling is no longer the same. Big thanks go to David for answering my many questions.

I'm down to 212. My pants sag. I've moved down a belt notch. In fact now my pants bunch up because of my belt. This is kind of embarrassing, but it is a better problem to have than the opposite...which I guess would be my pants not covering my whole waist...and me having to connect two belts together to equal one giant belt.

Had dinner with the Northrup's. Had a great time. Their house is really cool. And Dave reminds me of my brother in law over in Baltimore. I think maybe it is his hair. I don't know. They talked with us through some of our adoption questions which was a great blessing. I'm sure there are more conversations to come.

Must go now though. I think that Lexi be fiddin' to call me.

Peace out.

Dr. York just got us all pumped up about preaching.

And then informed us that we won't get to preach this week.

I can say that I already love this class. I think that I'm going to try and meet up with Dr. York sometime soon. He's a trustee for the IMB and I would love to talk with him about missions.

I can't say enough how truly blessed I am to be at Southern. These professors are just amazing. I pray that I never get to the point where I feel comfortable complaining about professors or something that Southern does. I love this place.

"Will you count them worthy of your service whether they are or not?"

Pretty much just had my face rocked off by Philippians 2. Just thought I would share that.

Also, just thought I'd share that Alexis and I have our initial interview with our candidate consultant on Tuesday, July 28th. This is great news!

Also also, I had a great breakfast. Chilean apple. Kind bar. Venti misto.

I've been plagued/blessed/haunted by the thought of what I most desire. As I've mentioned before I believe that Dr. Ware is correct. We do what we most want to do. Decisions. Attitudes. Thoughts. Actions. Words. I'm forced into wondering what is it in those moments that I most want? Maybe this sounds cheesy to some. thats fine. I've never claimed to be an anti-fan of some good cheese. I can say though that this thought has served to keep God's glory before me. What is it that I want to do most? I find that it is easier for me to respond poorly when God isn't on my mind and thus my desperate need to memorize and meditate on scripture. literally thinking through the thought of "in this, what is it that I want to do most" I'm taken to Exodus 15:11. Do i believe it, or not?

"Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?"

My prayer is that more and more and more the thing that I most want to do in life is glorify a God unlike any other. The GOD among gods. Majestic in holiness. Awesome in glorious deeds. Doing wonders.

For the record I did some bible code stuff earlier this morning and discovered that Paul actually would drink venti mistos if Starbucks had been around back in the day.

For the record, for those who are tempted to misunderstand the previous comment about bible code stuff, rest assured...I wasn't serious.

But i do love me some mistos.

and mentos.

but not at the same time. mint and coffee tends to taste not unlike a big bowl of green beans.

or ham.

Peace out.

First things first. The National League sucks at winning all-star games. Sure, home field advantage in the World Series is actually a myth (home field advantage teams have only won 50% of the time since the All-star game "mattered"...). That fact aside, the American League is pretty amazing. Just ask Brad Hawpe.

Yeah, I know that this is NOT a sign of how much a church cares about missions. And yes, I know that there are probably a lot of factors involved that I just don't know. I get all that. Nevertheless, 400 SBC churches in South Carolina gave $0.00 toward Lottie Moon in the last fiscal year. $0.00. This The number would be much more bizarre if I had included churches that gave under $50. like I said, this is not necessarily a sign of how passionate and missions-minded a church is. But it is a crazy number. 400. Give or take two or three as my eyes sort of went cross-eyed while I was counting. SBCers get a paper each month I think. And this past one listed every SBC church in South Carolina and the amount they gave to Lottie Moon. If those 400 churches had given just $1000, that would be something like 88 billion dollars (public school system in south carolina...). Maybe not 88 billion, but enough to send something like 10 more families overseas.

Just in case you missed it, Michael Jackson, apparent king of the world, died sometime ago. What a waste of news coverage. He was a great talent for sure. But he was also really scary. Greater men have died with much less fanfare.

We'll be meeting with our candidate consultant for the first time on July 28th if all works according to plan.

We'll be leaving for Seattle just after meeting with our candidate consultant for the first time if all works according to plan.

So Michael and I are reading through Philippians and it is pretty much blowing my mind. I'm trying to get Michael to slow down though and actually soak in what he's reading. He's on chapter 3. I'm still in chapter 1. He was reading yesterday down the water front and some random lady stopped and asked him what he was reading. He got to share with her what he had just read from Philippians! God is definitely blessing Michael with great conversations about the gospel.

I did have a friend a few days ago who said "if you were to ask me why I follow Jesus, I think that my number one reason would be because of the life he lead... how good of a man he was." Interesting.

I think that I am secretly obsessed with RUN DMC. Go figure.

I can't even get away from Michael Jackson when trying to watch Coldplay...



Well I'm going to go now and do some reading and sermon watching or class.

Peace out.

So I've been waiting for my friend at starbucks to come back. The man with cancer. Ben. I've been looking forward to our conversations. He came in yesterday. I had just cleaned the bathrooms. It was cool though. however, he went in the bathroom came out, got his drink, and immediately left. He never immediately leaves. I went to the bathroom to scope out the damage.

I guess if I had managed to poop ON the toilet and ON the floor, I would have left immediately too.

I haven't written in a while. I blame this on several things.

1) Global Warming. It is a safe bet that somehow or another global warming has contributed to my absence. Need an excuse? Global Warming.

2) I've been on learning/growing overload and I have really struggled to cleanly put it together and explain it all. I think that I've tried on here, maybe not. I've certainly tried to verbalize it, and I feel as though my words failed to capture what I'm learning. My faith is changing. I believe that God is pulling me out of the Christianity that I've lived in for a long time. a christianity that I think I created to pacify myself. An easy christianity. He's pulling me out of it and it is awesome. It hurts sometimes but it is awesome. Sort of like pulling apart a really messed up piece of velcro.

Again, I'm lost trying to explain it. So I'll give up trying again for now. Perhaps God will give me words to express this. Perhaps not.

Class starts again in a week. preaching. I'm looking forward to it. I've been reading Dr. York's book on preaching with bold assurance. I'm not sure how you can read this book and (as I'll find out) take this class and step away from Southern Seminary and still manage to preach crap. But it happens. Crap. Everywhere.

I felt the need to spark a conversation with another customer a few days ago. I think she mentioned the heat. She's old. Drinks decaf coffee. She doesn't like the humidity. So I jumped on the chance to talk about the heat in Cambodia and our conversation took off. Here are the results of our conversation...

1) First thing she does when she walks in is smile and wave at me and say "HEY GEORGE!"

2) She told me that she really liked me and wants to make sure to get our address overseas so that she can mail us encouraging notes.

3) Found out her husband is really ill. Weak. He fell last May while standing in the living room and broke his neck. Her retirement is spent taking care of him 24/7. He isn't paralyzed though which is good. Even better, she is bitter about having to take care of him. She loves him.

People all around me have such interesting stories and such great needs. I'm so blessed to be a place like Starbucks that promotes me talking with people beyond just the typical "hello" and "thank you"...

My cat is so dang lazy. I will give him props as he chanced a lightning bug around the apartment last night. But he just sleeps. All the time. And he only eats when I go into the kitchen. I think he has some sort of separation anxiety. Strange.

My friend Michael shared a conversation with me the other day that went something like this...

**********

Michael: GEORGE! I have something to tell you.

me: ok, whats up?

Michael; I got to share Christ with a friend of mine the other day!

me: thats great! what happened!? Tell me about it!?

Michael: he just called me up randomly one day and asked if I'd like to go out and talk. I said sure. So we went out and he just started telling me about how frustrating life is. He was really down. Really sort of depressed and confused about life and his direction. And I just started telling him about Jesus!

**********

How awesome is it that!? God planned it this way! He's so good. If that conversation happens 6 months ago, Michael wouldn't have had anything to share with him. But Michael did. Michael shared his faith! Shared the hope he has in Christ!

God so knows what He's doing!

i miss my friend nick. He came to visit me again for the 4th. He's been up here to see us more than just about anyone else we know. He's awesome. I heart Nick.

My weigh is down to 213. Just 3 more pounds and I'm no longer considered overweight by the IMB. This is good news. I think that I might actually want to keep going though. I wonder what I'll look like if I dip into the 100's? I hope I will look nothing like Screech from saved by the bell.

Health = same. Experience pain and discomfort but am told I'm healthy as a...something really healthy. So thats good.

Thought about starting to run. Running, I hear, is good for you. Then I remembered that I hate running. My desire to do it faded quickly. The only time that I've ever seriously wanted to run was back in middle school. I bought some gatorade gum and I don't know what they had in it, but it made my legs tingle. Made me feel like I needed to run.

Ok, this is all for now. More later.

oh! PS. I am really afraid of Brock Lesner. that guy is one scary dude.

I love the fact that my perception of life is drastically changing. It is a change that is necessary for a believer. it is a change that is necessary for someone willing to die for something greater than himself.

I can't help but be completely shocked by Lottie Moon's statement. "I am immortal until my work here is done." What a great understanding of life and work and God. I've been so blessed by the lives of William (don't call me jim) Carey, Adoniram and Ann Judson, Bill (don't confuse me with William) Wallace, Lottie (even better than Warren) Moon, and Jim Elliot. What a strange and wonderful thing God is doing to me.

In other news, if you are a customer at starbucks and the barista asks you nicely to keep your dog outside (because we can actually be shut down by the health department should they find out we had a dog in the store) please do not feel the need to call our district manager and tell them that the barista refused you service. ESPECIALLY if you then buy a drink. Buying a drink and drinking it is not the same as refusal of service. Just something to think about. Consider.

4th of July is upon us. I dont recall what we did last year. Maybe we went out with the Falls' or something. Not sure. this year? We're headed to a cookout with a master chef! Should be really quite awesome. My best friend Nick is coming! He's bringing BEANS!

Current favorite Starbucks drink: Grande Misto. Nothing special or exciting. but tasty and great.

Congratulations to the LA LAKERS for winning the 09-10 NBA Championship! Sure, they haven't played it yet. But adding Ron Artest to an already tough team pretty much ensures it. So congrats.

Michael Jack died. Don't know if you heard. The media coverage has been a little soft. They must not care about him much. Actually he's made so much news that none of us have heard much about North Korea firing more missles.

Not sure if you believed me or not, but GLOBALPOST.COM is the greatest news site out right now. love it.

Just ate one of the new KIND Bars at Starbucks. Mango Macadamia. i really like these bars. Not as much as globalpost, but I like them. Besides, eating globalpost is much tougher. you know.

More later.

Alexis just called.

I'll start this post by saying that I greatly appreciate my wife. More than typing letters into a blogger-box will ever be able to fully convey. She's so great. I'm not sure if she realizes that she does this. Maybe she does. Maybe not. But she has pushed me to scripture in a great way over the passed few weeks. I can't explain this next statement right now because I don't really understand it all yet. My faith is changing. Maturing. Growing up in ways that I've not known. And in my attempt to work it out and explain it, she's pushed me to the Word of God and for that I'm more than grateful. She is wonderful!

If I had to try and squeeze what I'm learning into some brief sentences they would look something like this...
1) I've been a man of very little faith.
2) My life is not my own.
3) God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.

I can tell you that I've come under great conviction for my lack of sharing the gospel. This is why I hate "relationship evangelism"...I don't actually hate it, but I do hate the apathy it can create. I begin to think that I'll talk with them about Jesus later. And then I feel ok about this because I'm "building a relationship." I wonder if I walk this world as one eager to share Christ with those around me. I'm not sure I look at people and see what God sees. To a degree i think that all of American Christianity has this problem...otherwise we'd actually share the gospel with people. If I truly believe in what the Bible says is true of sin, death, hell, Jesus, salvation, etc...how in the world can I so flippantly live this life? I either don't believe it (which I do) or I'm living in sin (I am). I would venture as far as to say that my heart is truly breaking for people. All people. Not just those I'll serve a few years from now...but those I should be serving who live and work right beside me right now.

You see I thought after Michael became a believer, my mission and purpose at Starbucks was all but done. I did what I was there to do. Michael was the reason I was first taken to Starbucks. And he has an incredible, growing faith in the saving work of Christ. And so I assumed I was done. I'm not. I'll never be.

If I try and explain what I'm learning and how I'm changing it will, right now, sound more like a giant pile of verbal vomit. Unorganized and messy. Unlike real vomit, this pile is pretty much awesome. Also unlike real vomit, this pile isn't pink like that time that girl threw up outside of the library at Summit Drive Elementary School when I was in the 3rd grade. Perhaps one day I will work toward explaining it all. Perhaps not.

I had a conversation the other day with an old friend. Kinjal Poonatar is his name. I knew him back in middle school. I don't remember much from him, just that we were friends and then not friends and then he became a boy scout and checked trash cans at Fall for Greenville. He's smart though. Philosophical. He wasn't fond of my anti-global warming comment on facebook. So we chatted about it a little bit. The conversation shifted quickly into a discussion of religion. He made a statement like "all religion is altered by man and driven by man" and asked which Christianity was he supposed to look at because the Catholics had done a number on Jesus. I agreed with him that man can do some serious damage to religion. Then I agreed with him about religion. All religion is man centered. All but one. Every other religion in the world centers around man. Live better to experience liberation. Do good to build up karma for the next life. Do do do do do do do. Man man man man man. Christianity, as seen in the Bible, is not this way. Rather than being built upon what man can do, Christianity rests in what Christ has done. We talked through this for a while. He doesn't believe my statements. he began listing religions that aren't man-centered. His list, however, was nothing but man-driven religions. I look forward to chatting with Kinjal again. I'm not sure if he is anymore, but he was Jain back in the day. Jainism is an offshoot of hinduism. If followed properly it is a religion of extreme legalism. So much so that those who following closely refuse to farm for fear of killing some sort of life (insects, etc.). I'm not sure Kinjal is Jain now.

in random news, how come when I pet Dudley he quickly cleans the spot I just petted? I wash my hands. He's a cat. He poops in an igloo...he's the dirty one. Whatever.
















The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore, I will hope in Him."

I've been raving about GLOBALPOST.COM. I LOVE IT! GREAT SITE! It is sort of like worldwide news with greater detail to the many different cultures out there.

CLICK HERE to watch a video I watched this morning about Slum Tours.