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I got a bug! No, I'm not sick, well, actually I am sick, but nothing that I won't get over in a little time. This is a different kind of bug.

I'm told that when people start to get tattoos they just have a way of wanting to get more and more. Sure you can fight the urge and many people I know only have one that they got in the service years and years ago, but it seems that people with tattoos, want more of them.

I imagine that this is the way an addict feels when they get that itch in the back of their mind saying that they need to use again. Once they use, they don't feel it quite so badly. I'm coming off my high from my recent trip but am almost certain that in a month I'm going to want to travel somewhere else. My passport stamps look strangely alone in that this book.

Next trip, I don't know where it will take me. Maybe Israel, China, Australia, all would be equally amazing. I just have to listen carefully to where God is leading me. I'll go where he calls and be glad to do it. So my next adventure is out there, and I can already feel the itch starting. I need to go somewhere. Nevermind the hours in a plane or the week of sickness after. Those are a small price to pay to see the world in the hands of God.

Missions

I'm not sure what to expect of the next few weeks, but it will see me in 3 foreign countries and travelling over 14,000 miles. I'm not really excited about the trip in and of itself. I'm more excited about what it is God wants me to learn, see, do, while I'm in Cambodia.

A year ago now, Ted Albreicht spoke at my church and invited people to look into missions work for themselves. I began dialogue with some of the council because I felt like it was something that I was supposed to do. Moving ahead til now, I've raised the money and about have my stuff packed.

So, Why am I not excited? If anything I feel a bit fearful. Not for my own health, for the success of the trip, or for even my safety; I'm afraid of what it is that God has in store for me. Too much of my life I have sat and watched other people do things and this is really my first time that I've followed the prompting that I needed from the divine and went.

What will I see? What will happen? I'm not sure, but it is not an overwhelming fear, more like the kind you get when standing on a bridge about to jump into water from some great height. It's been done before by others and you aren't afraid of success, just how you will change as a result of the leap.

Here I go, I'm leaping.

2011

Run a Marathon
Find gainful employment
Own my own car
More time with God
Noticable character changes
Teach a church class
Repay much of my debt
Get my own place
Finish my book
Go on a mission

Year after year sneaks by me and I barely seem to notice them anymore. I have achieved a point in my life that I really want for nothing. Still, I have yet to figure out how to get rid of some of my basic needs, you know the kinds: food, water, oxygen. Someday I will be called home and not need these things anymore, but for now, I'll work with them.

The above list is 10 things that I set out to accomplish in 2010, and sadly, I only managed to work my way through 3 of them; and set up the fulfillment of a fourth. Much of my debt is gone, I worked through a book with a group of guys at my church that I facilitated the group and I've managed to rid myself of some of my less than attractive character flaws. Just a couple though, after all, if I change completely will I even know who I am anymore.

Those two led to a third that I accomplished, spending more time with God. I went to church about the same number of times but I believe that I spent more time in prayer and contemplation. I involved myself in men's ministry to a point that I was all but required to pray for guidance on many occasions. And the fourth thing, I am heading on a mission here in the first part of February to the lovely country of Cambodia.

Four of ten!! The pessimist in me is screaming that I'm a lazy, no-good failure, that my exploits in 2010 mean very little and I shouldn't bother patting myself on the back, but the screaming optimist within me is shouting that I've made steps. I'm getting there. There is still a ways to go, but the end is in sight. So for 2011, I've managed to come up with a few things to replace the old.

Top 10
Run a Marathon (no injuries this year, please)
Go on that Mission (leave Feb 3rd)
Get a car (el Camino if you please)
Find a place to live
Pay back what I borrowed
Climb a mountain higher than 10,000 feet.
Go on a packing trip for more than 4 days
Visit out-of-town friends more frequently
Finish both of my books (yes, I'm writing 2 of them now)
Begin discipleship with someone

2011 is a week over, but that isn't that far behind.

Living by Faith

I know this has been beat to death by Pastors and Priest alike over the last 2000 years but I haven't had my stab at trying to inspire someone so here it goes.

I have recently picked up the book "The Robe" for about the 5th time in as many years. It was recommended to me by my grandfather back when I was in college and really struggling to believe in... well, anything, let alone Christ. He told me it would give me a different perspective on what it meant to be Christian, but not just as a title, but as a person. This of course meant nothing to me and the pages went by with little impact on my life.

The book is centered around a young Tribune named Marcellus in Rome around the beginning of the common era. Without giving away too many of the details, the main character comes into contact with this revolutionary by the name of Jesus. Marcellus being of high integrity, and for a Roman, good moral fiber, recognizes the strength in this "criminal" and seeks to find more about him.

As I've read the book before, it's a tale about a guy finding out stuff about another guy and decides to believe in his teachings and become his follower, yadda yadda yadda.

This time is somehow different. Not only have I been reading it as a story, but a semi-historical account of someone who was actually in and around Jerusalem and Galilee at the time Christ was crucified. He himself witnessed the crucifixion, but not the resurrection. Hearing accounts of this man Jesus, he discovers that he is risen and finally believes.

I cannot help but rewind one fact over and over in my head. He is interviewing witnesses who knew Jesus. How easy would it be to look into the eyes of Peter or Thomas, hear their empassioned testimony, maybe a few anecdotes, and believe? Truly believe.

Look back at my first sentance for a second... Pastors and Priests for 2000 years... Jesus met with how many after the resurrection. They told their friends, they told their friends and somewhere down the line, someone told me. I'm hearing the same story that someone who legged it around the Sea of Galilee with the Good Teacher told his friend. Somewhere it would have been disproven long before now if it weren't totally and absolutely true, so why do I doubt.

I think that we are allowed to doubt, because without doubt, how could we have faith.

Little Conquests

It's been a battle to keep my head above water some days and I was really having a tough time with some things last week when I saw something completely random that got my mind to wandering. My church is on a busy road that runs east-west through Springfield and into Eugene, along it there are 4 different school zones, so naturally the amount of kid traffic on the road is... entertaining at times.

I was driving to church the other morning and there were 3 kids sitting at Page Elementary School. This isn't at all strange, in fact there was nothing strange about what they were doing at all. They were just sitting there, on top of the newspaper recycle box.

First glance, they were out of the ordinary, just sitting, but I looked again and noticed that they were all very young, about 5 or 6. They had bikes strewn around the bottom of the box, which stood about a foot taller than the tallest of them, and they were sitting on top, just talking. What an accomplishment that had to have been for all of them to be on top. They had to climb, no, they had to conquer that box, and they did.

I began to remember some of the many things that I had to conquer in my youth. I still remember the sense of achievement that went with each one of them, but think about what it was that my friends and I did, and it's not impressive in the least. Spelunking in the storm drains near Costco, climbing a hill that is all of 10 feet high, swinging on a rope out over my grandpa's pond and not getting wet, they don't strike me now as any major undertaking, but then, I was Sir Edmond Hilary, Neil Armstrong, and Marco Polo all rolled into one.

Fast forward to me still sitting in my car out in front of my church. I couldn't remember the last time that I felt accomplished the way a simple thing in my youth could bring out the inner explorer within me. I decided that I need to discover something new, explore the unknown. I need to conquer something again.

When the Past Bites You!

I've been worse. I've been better too, but for sure I have been far worse. I hit bottom a few years ago and have been crawling back ever since. I've sweat, bled, and strained half the muscles in my body to get back to where I am today. My body aches most days, I have to drag myself out of bed many times, but for the most part I feel ok with where I have gotten to.

Today I was cleaning out my email and I came across some gems. A few funny ones from my brother, including a Christmas List and a fruitcake recipe, some old friends sent things that said they needed cheering up, and one that caught me so off guard it was like being hit in the face with a bat.

I'm still working on becoming a screaming optimist, that hasn't changed, but reliving the email that once brought me to tears, just did the same thing to me again. All the anguish that I went through that day came back to me and I didn't imagine that I could feel some of the things that I went through.

Fishing in the Rain

For some reason this morning was cold. By cold, I don't mean a brisk early summer chill that you need a light coat on, it was frigid. The kind of day that I zip up the Mountain Hardwear and make sure I have a stocking cap handy. To add to the lovely temperature, it rained. Not just a little here and there, but the kind of rain that you expect in late October when the only ones crazy enough to be outside are inside Autzen Stadium with 50,000 of their closest friends. Rain that soaks through layers, to get to other layers to soak through so it can chill your bones to the brittle fracturing point. Cold and Wet. A late May day that is cold and wet.

So what do you do on such a glorious sit on the couch and watch cartoons day. Why, you go fishing of course. I don't know how to fish from a bank, I'm not sure that I have the patience for it anymore, we drift, in a boat, in the MIDDLE of a river so all that good cold rain can fall not on the trees above you, but straight on your dumb ass that is stupid enough to be sitting in the middle of it, wearing shorts no less. That's right I wore shorts. I thought it would break, but who is the idiot now.

Today's yield wasn't one of the best that I've come across but that really isn't the point when it comes to fishing anyway. We caught a couple early on, and then just the cast and reel routine for much of the day. There was one point, while along the golf course, that made the whole day worth the trip. For about 20 seconds, just 20 seconds of a 2 and a half hour trip, excitement was abound in the Fiberglass Clackacraft. My dad cast to the port side and convincing himself that he was going in a tree, let out a soft swear word and released the bail. The lure no more than hit the water and craziness broke loose. What looked like a small log and grabbed the lure and was heading off down river. It was all I could do to reel my line in as quick as possible and stand up to get out of my dad's way. I was headed to the back to get the net ready when the line snapped. Line, swivel, lure, and tomorrow nights feast took off down the river. We stood in complete silence for a few seconds then went back to it.

Just 20 seconds made what could have been a terrible day in the rain worth the whole ordeal. We did even catch him, and he gave us something exciting to talk about. I did later catch 2 trout which by comparison are barely dinner, but you can eat them nonetheless.