The picture above is in the Philippines and I took it when driving to a village church on the island of Bohol to preach. What great memories.

food for thought...

Yesterday had President Elect Obama choosing pastor and author Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration January 20th. Ben Witherington has the story and his thoughts on his site http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/

Check it out.

Faithful # 2

God has done it again. He has proven himself faithful.
School's first semester is over, and I am so thankful that God made a way for me to get stuff done on time. I didn't arrive at the end of the semester with backwork still to be done or the sad feeling that I could have done better. Oh the sweet feeling of accomplishment!
I'll now be working on campus with the custodial team, part time. It's really an answer to prayer... the only thing I'm struggling with is how I'll continue to work with the Stitches team and keep the relationships I've built with the families. How does he want this to work?
Icing on the cake: I got a call that someone gave an anonymous check towards my tuition today!

I'm reading the latest book by Rob Bell called Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

it blows me away...

I'm just realizing that I've been here in Oregon just over five months. Craziness

sheesh...

school was intense this morning...

if asked to describe the feeling i have right now, i probably would say its something along the lines of heavy or thoughtful or maybe just intense. perhaps this is what it feels like to fear God, to be in awe of Him; apologies, i'm not too sure of how to categorize what i'm thinking and feeling.
i've questioned before why the israelites wanted a mediator instead of a direct connection with God, but i'm thinking that i understand, a piece of it anyways. honestly, i wonder if i would respond differently. it seems easy for me to question their response, but on days like today i'm not so sure i would be doing anything different. not to say that all my earings would go into a pot and come out a golden calf, but today i felt the presence of God a few times and it has come close to wrecking me.

Beginnings

I was reminded yesterday of a day almost a year ago when I was talking with a friend of mine, telling him that the books I was reading weren't making me want to dig deeper into the Word, but were actually discouraging me from searching for answers in the Bible and causing me to question things that I should've known as truth. I didn't see what obviously needed to happen... for me to stop reading them and instead focus on Scripture.
Now I'm at Bible College! Who would've thought? This place is amazing, the community incredible. I've never had or heard of Christian leaders (in the place of honor like my teachers here) who take the time to get to know each individual personally and care so much about the details of my life. I've been here almost 11 weeks already and I'm blown away by the Jesus I see at school.
Thank you Lord for bringing me here.
Tomorrow we leave for camp! I hear its the Disney Land of camp grounds... we'll see!

Letters to my former self

I'm just wrapping up a book called Here's to Hindsight (Letters to My former Self), written by one young lady, a musician named Tara Leigh Cobble. I've heard mixed reviews from people around me as I've been reading it, people who've read at least a part of it, but I think I really it. I appreciate Cobble's honesty and I enjoy her writing style.
My favorite line is in the middle when she's relating how she feels so at home in a bookstore, and says she likes the religion section but says its so bipolar, so much good and yet so much crap.
I don't know if I would purchase the book, but if you can borrow it then do it.
(Ashley Harpham has a copy and I'm almost done with it.)