Welcome to the real world

It feels like we've been living a disconnected life these last two weeks. We finally got broadband internet on Friday (only to have it go down Friday night and all day Saturday). But we're connected now. Feels good - like I can breathe again.

Saying Goodbye

We left Philadelphia for Baltimore on Wednesday - it was sad to say goodbye to our friends we've been living with since we returned to the States in January. Monday we leave for the UK, so this weekend we're seeing family and saying goodbye. I don't think I'm very good at saying goodbye. It's kind of how I feel about saying "thank you" - I want what I say to be genuine, and not the sappy cliches you get in movies. Problem is that in the moment, I can only think of the cliches, you know? I guess there's more to leaving well than words, though.
Monday is also Somer's birthday, and since we'll be spending the day traveling I'm working on a creative way to make her birthday special. Well, I'm actually not working on it yet, 'cuz I don't have any ideas. Any help out there?

Prayed Into a Home

We've been in London for the past week, hanging with a group of young people from Texas and Philly. They came to pray for Camden Town. We came to be with them, and to look for a house while they prayed.
And did they pray! Or more accurately: Did God respond!
Both Somer and I and our team leaders John and Kathy signed leases on apartments this week. We found places that are about 4 blocks from each other (a mere 8 min, 15 sec walk at a leisurely pace - thanks Jason for timing that!). Our flat has an interesting layout - only one 'normal' bedroom with a door - the other bedroom is a studio style - with a dividing wall separating it from the rest of the living area. But it has tons of windows that face southwest for that all-important winter sunshine, and a decent kitchen. Plus, as soon as I saw the living space, I envisioned it filled with friends having a good time and experiencing the welcome of Jesus. It's very close to the Camden markets, and on the same street as a primary school (don't know yet, but it's possible that it could be Andi's school - we'll find out in September). May manage to get up a few pics when we return home.

Prayer for Dummies

I'm preaching at River's Edge Community Church on Sunday morning. Looking at Jesus' words to his disciples about prayer in Luke 11. I'm working from some notes for a sermon I gave last year at City of Peace in London, though I think I have a slightly different perspective this time around. In the middle of support raising, I'm finding it very difficult to pray, even as I have a great need to be connecting to God in prayer. I'm also feeling a bit like the shameless guy who bangs on his neighbor's door in the middle of the night...I've become rather shameless in my requests to God these days. Also feeling like I need to hear the truth that God is not in the business of giving his children scorpions and rocks; he gives good things like his Spirit to be with us.
So yeah, Prayer for Dummies...that's where I'm at.

The Empire Strikes Back

I promise, this will be the last post about Settlers for a while. But I felt compelled to share that the setback suffered at Mark's hands last week was merely temorary. I returned to top conquering form on Thursday evening, soundly defeating our friends Dave and Erika, who are both seasoned players. That's it, I promise...on to something else.

A setback in the empire

Yes, it's true, last night I was defeated by my brother Mark at Settlers. The string of 6 consecutive wins has been broken.

Settlement

I just won Settlers of Catan for the fifth time in a row. Settlers is our favorite game, by far. You normally need 3-6 people to play, but in London we played with our imaginary friend Joe (that shows how much we love the game, not how insane we are). Sometimes Joe won.
But for the past two weeks, I've been on a role. My friend Tim can't touch me...Somer just sits and knits between turns, and my brother Mark had a bad case of malaria strike his settlements.

Crabbing on the Wye

Visited some long-time family friends who live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland on Saturday. The crabbing exploits of Wye River Web are legendary, so my brothers and I thought we'd try our hand at it and see if his skills would rub off on us.

Here I am on the dock, helping the Legend himself load the boat for our final run of the day. As we pulled in the last traps, we were caught in a heavy downpour. As the rain splashed on the surface of the river, the sun came out and caused a rainbow to appear on top of the water. It was beautiful, and almost the perfect ending to the day.


The perfect ending came a few minutes later, once we had arrived back on shore, put some dry clothes on, and started to steam the crabs. They were huge! Somer bravely holds this example - unfortunately the camera angle fails to show how close the crab is to me! The Legend had indeed come through for us.


The girls also got in on the boating action. Here we are flying back to shore. My brother Andrew is piloting the boat.





Somer also has a couple good pictures, including a nice close-up of a crab, over on dailyofferings .

Fort-Worth

Hangin' out here in Fort Worth, snaging the wi-fi at Trinity Bible Church. The Lord is in this trip, it would appear. After only two hours here, I had decided to extend my stay for two more days in order to meet with another church on Tuesday evening. Then I called a friend of a friend to see if we could connect while I was here - and wouldn't you know it? I was sitting at the Borders not 200 yards from his house!! He popped over and we had a good long talk, with lots of stories of God's power on display.
So far, I love this place.

The gospel in the emerging world

So went the title of the missions conference at River's Edge this past weekend. I had lots of fun showing how the culture emerging in the West looks very different from what came before. Used clips from Star Trek, Seinfeld, and a song from Pedro the Lion to stir people's thoughts about how their assumptions about the world might not match up with the assumptions that are becoming prevalent in my generation.
In one memorable moment, I had compared George Bush to Captain Kirk, intending to show why he was so disliked, but several people thought I was trying to compliment to Bush.

Sunday morning was great - I was exhausted, and yet seemed to have lots of energy for the sermon. I think the Holy Spirit showed up. Focused mostly on God's love showered upon "the wrong people".
Thanks River's Edge - I love being with you guys and look forward to being back there in a couple weeks to worship with you again.

The Gospel in a Far Away Land

I'm preaching on Luke 15 at River's Edge on Sunday. Actually, I'm speaking at their mini-missions conference on Saturday night too. Luke 15 is where Jesus tells three stories about lost things - a shepherd with a lost sheep, a woman with a lost coin, and a father with a lost son.
I've got a couple ideas bouncing around in my head at this point on the passage. In no particular order, they are:
The passion of the shepherd/woman/father to find what was lost.
The rejoicing is over finding the lost thing, not what was never lost.
The identity of the lost/not lost things - the sheep, the coins, the brothers - they are the same except in their relation to the shepherd/woman/father.
The dissimilarity of the father as compared to the shepherd/woman - the father waits...he doesn't go into the far away land to find his son.

Any of these strike you as particularly powerful? Any aspect of these stories that I didn't mention that really catches your attention?

Reunion

Our high school reunion on Saturday was fun. Had great crabs from Crab Shanty, and saw lots of people we hadn't seen in ten years. Somer has a good picture over on Daily Offerings.

DaVinci Code

Somer and I went to the DaVinci code with a High-School friend and his girlfriend on Sunday. We had a really good time with them. The movie was so-so. Probably my favorite part of the book was the working out of all the codes...a movie can't contain the same level of complexity and detail, so I felt like it suffered. I think if I hadn't read the book, I would have been a little bored at the movie. Like the book, the character development was extremely thin and the plot twists felt a little contrived. However, I enjoyed remembering the story from the book and filling in various details and remember plot twists before they happened.
Being a follower of Jesus and someone who trusts the traditional Christian telling of the life/death/resurrection of Jesus, I was a little surprised at how 'uncontroversial' the movie was. In comparison to the book, the movie made a fairly week argument for the assertions that Jesus had children through Mary Magdalene, and that the church violently supressed this reality through the centuries. Langdon (male lead played by Tom Hanks) was portrayed as skeptical of the claims for a Jesus-Mary Magdalene union, and kept calling them 'myths' and 'theories'.
Kelley asked under the last post what I thought of the movie, and I guess my overall impression is that it wasn't all that great.
BUT - like I said, we had a great time with our friends. After the movie, we went to DuClaw Brewing Company for dinner. It was fantastic. I got a sampler of seven of their in-house brews. It was really good to get re-acquainted with our friend and get to know his girlfriend a little bit. They are a great couple - they let us ask really personal questions and didn't hold it against us. Thanks guys - see you on Saturday at the reunion!

Oh, yeah...I haven't mentioned this here yet. Our High-School reunion is Saturday night. Have no idea what to expect. We'll keep you posted.

Back in Baltimore

We love Baltimore. It's a great town, and more importantly, it has that lingering feeling of 'home'. We're staying with my parents and youngest brother, Mark, in the house I grew up in. On Saturday, Mark graduates from High School, so we're throwing a big party.
We're here most of the month, telling the God/us/London story to anyone even remotely aware of our existence. Feeling a bit like Gideon must have felt after God cut his force down to 300, and hoping for similar displays of our Father's glory as our goal of being fully supported by August 18 races toward us.

Final Piece

My last glassblowing class was two weeks ago (a make-up from one I missed during our visit to Arkansas). I actually made two pieces - this is the only one that survived. My first drinking glass of the night fell to the floor and broke into several large pieces as we attempted to transfer it from the blowpipe to the punty.
But, this was worth it! It's about twice the size of the other drinking glass I made - holds a full pint-and-a-half. The bubbles are part of the glass, and though not intentional, I like the way they look.

Learning the faith

I received an e-mail today from friends who want to give to support our ministry in London. Part of the reason they were drawn to support us is that they have two young children around the ages of our girls, and they like the idea of being connected to people that their children also have a connection with. I love this!
As I've said before here, I want my children to learn the faith by practicing it alongside us. Here's an example of another family putting the same concept into practice. Their kids will grow up knowing that they have a connection to some other kids on the other side of the world whose family is trying to follow Jesus and tell people about him in their own neighborhood, just like their family is. My kids will be blessed because they'll grow up with friends who pray for them because supporting and praying for our family is important to their family.
Thanks guys - you've been an encouragement to my faith today.

Goths

Under the previous post, Amy asks "I'm curious to know your views on the goth scene".
To be honest, I don't know as much about it as I'd like. Camden has a very visible goth presence, so I'm hoping to get to know and better understand goth culture once we're living there.
I do know this: I doubt goths feel welcome in many western evangelical churches. Goth culture seems to be about creative self-expression and a commitment to not allowing mass media/pop culture to determine 'me'. Most churches I've been in allow creativity only within a narrowly defined (though unspoken) framework. Churches that are on the more creative side tend to be massively influenced by pop culture - and that's not necessarily a bad thing, though it does tend to exclude goths and others who are living in cultures that are decidedly anti-pop culture.
There's a church in Camden Town called Glorious Undead that's committed to living for Jesus while remaining within the Goth scene. They have a great article about Just Being Goth, which attacks many of the steriotypes surrounding the subculture.
Do I have any Goth readers who'd like to weigh in?

Jesus Loves Me, 'Yes' or 'No'...

Sing to the tune of the children's song "Jesus Loves Me", after each support call, no matter the response.

Chapelgate Missions Conference Festival

You ever get that feeling like you really should know a person? Their face is familiar, but you just can't place them.
Welcome to the past week of our lives. Somer and I met at Chapelgate and spent our formative high-school and college years there. We recognize most of the people there, and at one time knew their names...but often we find ourselves having to ask for their names. We've been warmly welcomed, and most people don't seem to mind, even if we really should know who they are. It helps that my hair is much longer, and Somer's much shorter, than when we left Chapelgate, so most people don't recognize us either!!

Thanks to all you Chapelgaters who have welcomed us back!

Here's to 200 more!

Just noticed this is post number 201. Not that anyone's counting. I've had fun, and hope you've enjoyed the stories. I keep saying this, but I really want to learn to be a better story-teller, and want this blog to be part of that process. So thanks for following the first 200, and here's to 200 more.