temp changes

Well when I left Asia last night it was 77 degrees warm (25 C) and this morning when I arrived in Budapest it was 29 degrees (-1.6 C). Burrrrrrrr! Of course it was especially biting since I decided to stay in short pants and short sleeves as it was unbearable last night to think about an 11 hour flight in jeans and a long sleeve shirt. Now I am reconsidering, but of course I have no access to my clothes since they are being held for the Skopje flight this afternoon. At least it is warm in the Airport, although the TP is terrible.

The best breakfast in the whole world

I have new favorite breakfast . . . it's the local noodle shop. The noodle soup is to die for . . . more taste per spoonful than anything I think I have ever eaten in my whole life. And being a terminally fat person, that is alot of eating.

When I transition later this week, I will really miss the food . . . but my waistline will be relieved that I am returning to a saner style of eating.

I wonder if I could open a noodle shop in the Hairy Armpit?

A Mountain of Flowers

My brother told me. I did not believe him. There simply does not exist a mountain of flowers. But there does and there is and I went there. Here is the story in pictures:

The 2000 curve road . . . with no brakes!

The amazingly beautiful and picturesque road to Mae Hong Son is known as the road with 2000 curves. It requires patience, skill and more than a bit of foolishness . . . especially when we cleared the first humongous mountain range and started down the other side and discovered that my brother had no rear brakes on his bike! And he was riding double! Needless to say this is a recipe for disaster.

So we stopped and I took the passenger, and allowed my brother to lead at a speed that felt and was, less lethal. We were about 17 kilometers from Pai and so our goal was to reach a motorcycle shop without dropping the bike, or going off the road into one of the ravines. I on the other hand, was struggling with a second rider . . . which greatly affected how my bike was handling and to be honest, my brakes aren't the greatest in the world either.

Long story short, we found a bike shop, he changed the brakes, and off we were again on our wild adventure on the 2000 curve road.

As the afternoon progressed, I could not help but think that my life is much like this 2000 curve road. It has shifted direction and focus and passion and means and methods and priorities and resources at least 2000 times. And admittedly, there are stages of this life where I seemed to be headed downhill into lethal curves with no brakes with which to stop or even control the pace at which I move.

I also was wondering if I kept good brakes on my life, would I have chosen the same paths that I have thus far, or would I have chosen a different road here and there had this life a more controlled pace? On the other hand, I am fairly certain that far less would have been accomplished in my life to-date, had I stopped and thought about it too much.

Every curve is different. Each one has risks and thrills. Each one is potentially lethal. Each one can take you to a breathtakingly beautiful vista.

Fireworks on the 21st floor

Last night was a magical night. As we headed for the rooftop of the Pornping Hotel the excitement was energizing. On the rooftop . . . literally the 21st floor of the hotel . . . we enjoyed a reservation-only atmosphere and fabulous meal they prepared for us right there on our table. The chicken, fish and pork kabobs were only the beginning of a meal fit for a king.

The fireworks are going off all over the city, which of course we had a front row seat being on the roof of the tallest building in the city, and there were an endless stream of fire balloons lighting the sky for hours. On the other hand . . .

It can be very interesting to be at the same height and level as the fireworks explode all around you. It is one thing to watch fireworks from the York fairgrounds and quite another thing to experience the fireworks 21 stories high in the breezy Asian night.

It was a great memory to make with my brother and Asian friends. One of the sad and unfortunate things that occurred, is that some of the Westerners got upset about the fireworks being so close (and granted sometimes they were close), but if that is your attitude, why don't you just stay home?

If only the rats would eat the cockroaches

There are several stereotypes of Asia that I have heard from friends who have lived in this part of the world . . . that seem to be perfectly true. Asian bathrooms can be interesting places, but nothing tops the rats and the cockroaches . . . both which seem bound and determined to chase me whenever I am in the same room as they are. It is disturbing to have rats and coackroaches be so aggressive toward me. Generally people find I have a gentle and lovable soul . . . perhaps these carnivores don't have socializing on their small minds?

As I was returning from the computer mega-store here today and I came into the kitchen area to take the stairs to my room, there was a ginormous cockroach guarding the door. It was huffing and puffing and it was not about to allow me passage to the stairwell. I was afraid to move at first (who knows what a startled cockroach the size of a small horse might do??), but then I decided to make a break for it. I faked going right, then double-pumped an imaginary piece of bread to temp it with, and then jumped left.

Whew! I made it to the stairs, but did not linger, in case it wanted revenge . . . and as I thought about this close encounter on the way to the third floor, I thought, wouldn't it be nice if the rats (in the same kitchen – roughly the size of the local elephants) would eat the cockroaches! At least one fright would then be gone.

Looking the wrong way

Looking the wrong way.

Looking the wrong way while crossing the street can be deadly. You know you are in a foreign country that you are not accustom to when you are constantly looking the wrong way while trying to cross the street. Here in this part of Asia you drive on the LEFT side of the road, not the RIGHT side of the road. And while this sounds simple enough to adjust to . . . having looked the wrong way several thousand times over the last 7 days, has convinced me that I will need some time before looking this other way will feel correct.

I need to successfully make this mental shift, or it's going to get me killed, maimed, hurt, damaged, and hell . . . it has already scared the life out of me about a half dozen times!

As I sit here thinking this afternoon, I have come to realize that I need to look at life in a different way as well. I need to see reality in an alternate manner than I currently do . . . I am locked into a bad pattern and I have been doing this particular way so long that, I cannot seem to make the leap to a new dimension.

It is dangerous to be in such a rut, it can maim your heart, damage your soul, crush your spirit, and make you a slave to fear. Being startled over and over emotionally takes a heavy toll after a bit. If you don't make the jump to the new reality, then you can only stay stuck in the same old way that you have perceived reality all the years before. Then all the things I listed above are your future.

So a fresh perspective is the order of the decade. You have got to stop looking the wrong way.

Sumo Mania

The World Championship of Sumo Wrestling just occurred here this past weekend. Sumo Wrestling is to the uninitiated, just a bunch of overweight bullies pushing one another around . . . and granted there is a measure of that going on. But when you see the explosive power of these two giants coming out of their stance and colliding . . . you wonder that the building does not shake and fall!

I included this video of one of the mighty falling . . . literally!

There were competitors from Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, Russia, Japan, Thailand, USA, Ukraine, Mongolia, Malaysia, Hungary, Hong Kong, China, Brazil, and others.

Perhaps I have a new career in the making?

Hungarian TP

I thought I had returned to Russia to be honest with you. It has been many years since I have been forced to use paper this coarse, rough, unfriendly and painful. If you can imagine posterboard thickness and sandpaper grain, then you have a good idea how bad, painful and useless one finds Hungarian toilet paper.

At least this is the case in Ferihegy Airport in Budapest. Perhaps in the private homes of Budapest, there is a much more pleasing process to be experienced, but the one at the airport hurts.

When I encounter this style of displeasure, I am always tempted to take some and write a letter to someone on it . . . it certainly would be pen-proof and durable.

Perhaps I will write the local government in Budapest about this issue . . . or take the whole roll (it's industrial size) and start a petition against such abuse on the general public, especially the traveling public. I imagine that everyone in the airport would gladly sign it.

The White Temple

The White Temple is one of the most startling artchitectual complexes in the world. It is one man's vision and understanding of the world shaped by his Asian culture and his Buddhist upbringing.

Here I am standing in front of the main temple on the site. It is an amazing building. And you are not supposed to take pictures inside and so I did not. But in the creator of the White Temple's understanding of god, humanity must go through hell, in order to reach heaven. Here is his depiction of hell.

It is a really graphic horror . . . one that will give you cold chills. And the other horror that evangelical Christianity does not address in any adequate manner, is that that this fellow's perspective that you must go through hell to reach heaven is the mainstream understanding of the majority of the world. I am not stating that he (they) are correct, only that evangelicals are the miniscule minority with the PollyAnna concept of reality.

The wealthy culture surrounding Western Christianity makes it a destitute thought-system in the two-thirds world. We have sacrificed so little, suffered too little, been hungry so little, been thirsty for clean water so little, lacked for so little, that we have little to offer the two-thirds world which is in a daily sumo-wrestling match with these life and death issues.

The perspective of the world we say we are called/trying to reach is, you have to go through hell to reach heaven. We say that Christ already has, so that no one else is required to do so. In the 2/3's world few of them have heard of Christ's perspective. So do they now go through hell and stay there, or do they reach heaven? And whose fault is it either way?

It seems to me that we do not seriously believe our own theology. Not when 95% of what we make in life is spent on us, and only a tiny fraction of "the church" lays down their life for these said beliefs. No wonder they don't believe us, even the few that get to hear.

The 50 foot Buddha

The biggest Buddha in the world.

I almost wreck the motorcycle! We came around this curve and there was a 50 foot buddha on top of this huge boat right on the mekong river. Like I said, I almost wrecked the bike this thing appeared so suddenly. It is impossible for me to give you a proper feel for how big this thing is . . . it was an amazing sight to see, especially for me, the buddha-uninitiated . . . you can see the photo here . . .



I had barely been in-country for 24 hours and this was my first buddha, and what a buddha it was! Now that I have been here for a week, I have seen 1000's of buddha's but still, this one was unique. It was "sitting" in a ginormous boat with elephants and the whole nine yards!



Now I am no Buddha expert, but the whole experience left me more than a bit dazed. There were these bronze gongs at each entrance, and the person was to rub it in such away that it started to hum . . . and several of the 100's trying were successful. These are the people who walk away with good luck from the Buddha himself.

All I know is this, don't be startled if you come around a corner and see a 50 foot Buddha all decked out in gold, glinting in the sunlight, in this part of the world . . . hold on to your motorcycle handlebars!

Riding with Eddie

There are lots of new things that I am doing currently in Asia. As you can see in this photo, I am riding a motorcycle as my main ride . . . and obviously it is very warm here . . . you could not be riding a motorcycle in the Hairy Armpit without loads of clothes right now since it is 25 degrees in Skopje, versus the 77 degrees it is here in Asia.


So not only am I riding a motorcycle everyday, I am also riding with a motorcycle gang! And this past weekend we took a long long trip together and it was a very interesting experience. The road rules here in Asia are ginormously different than the road rules I am accustomed to elsewhere. This is where Eddie comes in. You can see Eddie, my brother, Natty and I at a eating joint somewhere near the Golden Triangle.



Eddie and I are roughly the same age and that helped us get along, but his English helped even more, since I am struggling with "hello" in the local languages. But back to road rules . . . the hardest thing here is that people drive on the left side of the road, rather than on the right side of the road. 30 years of driving experience on the other side, makes me constantly think that I am sure to die at any moment! It is freaky!!

Moreover the "passing" rules are even stranger . . . traffic is much more fluid here than I am used to and it is difficult for me to master as a foreigner. So Eddie helped me for two days, as he initiated my intro into driving in Asia on a motorcycle. Add mountains and curves and Eddie probably saved my live a half dozen times at least on that long road trip with new road rules. I got my motorcycle legs back (for Asia at least) riding with Eddie.

Sandwiched at 31000

It has to be some curse on my family. Some long forgotten relative or kin has seriously damaged my ability to catch a break while traveling. I always get in the slowest toll line, I always choose the slowest immigration line, the slowest passport stamping line, the meanest traffic lane, the hottest seat on the bus, the coldest bathroom, the hardest bed, and worst pillow, the dirtiest hotel, the most expensive meal (if there is no menu), the sickest train compartment . . . and on and on I could go for at least another hour. But I won't bore you anymore with these extremes of my traveling experiences in general, but rather tell you of the one last night.

I was sandwiched at 31000 feet . . . sandwiched between two people possessed to make my 10 hour flight a living hell. The one in front of me was just constant motion, and it seemed that each time I laid my head up against his seat, he was jerking and moving like he had turbo-folk music (a particularly vicious form of Eastern European music) pounding through his veins and he just could not be still for a single moment. No possible rest by leaning forward.

But the selfish cow behind me took all honors for the curse thus far in my life. She was totally commited to driving her knees into my back for the duration of the 10 hour flight. In fact she refused to sit up at all during the trip, keeping her knees sharply pinned against the back of my seat. So tightly in fact that the seat simply refused to recline at all. Since she weighed more than I did, I could not move her. But I sure as heck decided to irritate her! Since she was not going to let me recline nor sleep, I became highly motivated to interrupt her sleep as much as possible. I was so successful in fact, that she turned into a screaming wench, waking up everyone else around me. You gotta laugh. It was one of the longest-least-pleasant flights I have taken . . . and I have taken quite a few in my travels.

I know it does not sound like I worked very hard at making the best of the situation, but that is not true . . . I tried for hours, but in the end decided that some things you simply cannot change in life and you have to either accept it or join in the rumble . . . and this time I joined in the rumble. Now if I could only figure out how to get rid of this family curse . . ..

2 minutes and 41 seconds to spare

Trains in Western Europe are marvelous. They are truly amazing, because they are always on time . . . you can actually set your watch by the train arrival and departure! It’s nothing like where I live in the Hairy Armpit . . . after living most of the last 13 plus years in Russia and the Balkans . . . where anything closely resembling on time is acceptable and expected. If it is a half hour late . . . well, that is really on time here. Western Europe is just the opposite; 10:04 departure means 10:04 depart 999 times out of 1000.

So if you are running late getting to the airport or train station here in the Hairy Armpit, no one panics or has their blood pressure shooting higher . . . the chances are better than even that whatever mode of transportation you are going to get on, will depart late by Western standards.

On the other hand, if you are running late in Germany or Switzerland . . . oops . . . guess what? You are going to miss your train. And this is where I found myself on Saturday . . . after a blessed week in the West, where everything functions in a predictable rational manner . . . running late because the regional highway into Basel, Switzerland from Germany was closed for repairs . . . so we had to take the scenic route . . . along with thousands of other motorists . . . and we are seriously late.

I really hate that O.J. Simpson style of of running through the airport or whatever transportation hub you find yourself, racing to catch your train plane or automobile. But once again, here I am doing just that. I am too old for this crap!

I decided to take my chances with the train steward and race directly to the train without a ticket . . . who knows if they will throw me off the train, charge me some ginormous penalty, or what . . . I just figured that getting on the train took precedence over a ticket to ride said train. Remember that I have a plane waiting for me at the end of this train ride, and if I was to make the worship service next day and lead worship . . . well you get the picture; get on the train!

I got to the train with exactly 2 minutes and 41 seconds to spare! Before I got my bags into the racks above, and sank wearily into one of the seats, the train began to pull out the station. Whew! That was really close.

Oh, the ticket? Well the smiling and ever so polite Swiss ticket agent came through my car about 30 minutes into the trip and listened to my whole spiel with a smile on her face and then sold me a train ticket at normal fare. That was a pretty good deal with 2 minutes and 41 seconds to spare.

Locked in the parking garage!

It was the first time that we had seen each other in several years, and so Tim and I had spent several hours getting caught up on all that we had been going through recently. We were sitting in a dive off the walking square in Lorrach, Germany.

Since we both had had a long long day, we called it quits about 9:00 pm and headed back to the parking garage off the side street. We paid for our parking in the automated machine and then got into the car and headed toward the exit. Imagine our surprise as we turned the corner and discovered a heavy duty fence covering the exit!

“What are we going to do?“ Tim asked me. ”I have to catch the train at 5:50 am!“ he said. And I responded, ”Yes and they lock the doors to the dorm I am staying in at midnight.“ Tim asked me again, ”What ever are we going to do?“ It was the question of the moment.

I wasn’t overly worried . . . since Tim is one of the best troubleshooters I have ever met in my whole life, I was sure that we would resolve this eventually . . . and . . . I have been known to solve a few problems myself. Still, being locked inside a parking garage far from where you need to be, is no small challenge. I decided to walk around and see if the entrance was also fenced shut and it was. Then I told Tim that I was going to see if I could raise the fence in some way, and he said that he would try to find someone who might be able to help us.

I had no luck at all raising the fence . . . although I could lift it, I certainly could not get it high enough for the car to pass underneath. While I was practicing being Mr. Hercules, Tim had found another person who needed to escape the confines of the parking garage as urgently as we did, with the added bonus that she also spoke English (which is rather rare in this part of Germany). She approach the fence just as incredulously as we had, but then she burst out laughing.

The sign on the fence, which neither Tim nor I could read although we speak and read several languages between the two of us, read ”drive your car to the edge of the fence and it will automatically rise.“ We did and it did.

What a real picture of the spiritually lost. They are locked into a place they cannot escape from on their own, without outside help from people who understand what is really going on and who can read all the signs. We need to be the ones showing the captives the way out.

Food Miles

Yesterday while traveling from Berlin, Germany to Basel, Switzerland, I was reading the Euro-perspective of Green Skiing. Western Europeans are far more eco-focused than I find most Americans to be. I don’t particularly have an opinion about that fact, but for my purposes here, am just stating the data. And so the big deal of the moment is skiing and snowboarding (Europeans as a group do far more of that than do North Americans) and which resorts are eco-friendly, burning bio-fuels, saving the environment (although snowmaking machines are notorious energy hogs and water abusive), and all that jazz.

So now that I have told you far more than you wanted to know about what I read on airplanes, and have since put you completely to sleep I fear, there was one line that jumped off the page that I was reading as we jetted into the sky spewing ginormous quantities of pollution into the dark early morning air of Berlin. Food miles. There was this concept of food miles . . .. It is the idea that transporting food costs the environment and world, resources that it can ill afford to expend. Thus the article suggested eating local, in-season fruits and vegetables to reduce the food miles spent getting said food to your table. This one actually makes sense to me, and we do this as a rule. But what if you live in a part of the world where there is little locally grown food, or what if it is stuff you can’t stomach? (pun intended)

Then the article took off on carbon footprints. No, this is not a new discovery of dinosaurs locked into some type of carbon dating fiasco. This is the carbon emissions that come from you living, eating, breathing, and traveling in the real world. So if I eat local produce that has not had to travel a billion kilometers to reach me and fuel my body, the logic is that I have reduced the carbon footprint that my life is costing the world’s resources. The irony was not lost on me that I, at that very moment of carbon footprint awareness, was leaving an astronomical amount of carbon emissions in my wake as we flew far above the sleeping German countryside.

I wondered how many locally grown peppers and tomatoes should I eat to offset one flight to Western Europe? What about a transatlantic flight!?

All of this eco-conversation reminds me that it is far easier to see a problem, than find a real solution. Some real problems that have plagued me lately, and to which I have no solutions are 1) why do organizations almost always control people rather than enable them? 2) why does God not give people more opportunity to see, hear and experience the Gospel of Christ before they die? Six people connected to our church in some manner have died recently. Most without Christ. Perhaps this is more of a question of me/the church failing them, rather than God not giving opportunity? On the other hand, why am I trying to exonerate God? 3) Why do I think I have to find some spiritual significance in every bad thing that happens? 4) When am I going to make these changes in my life rather than just think about them? Why am I so paralyzed about taking the risks to switch careers or something? 5) When will Jesus be King and satan completely vanquished? 6) Why do I say I believe in a loving caring God that is reaching out to the world and wishes to save it, when most of my actions show and tell that I am focused on me. The incongruency of that makes me itch and twist! 7) How do I set people free to reach their potential? 8) why do I continue to do live in the place and job that I do, yet pee and moan about it all the time? Why not do something about it? 9) Where is the good in pain and heartbreak? 10) Why do I spend so much mental effort asking questions that have no answers?

I think I will go eat some locally grown German corn while I ponder my carbon footprints.

I don't understand God and neither do you-

It has been more than a month since I have posted a blog on this site. Tragedy struck in September and I haven’t had the heart to write since. For those who may not know, we are building a significant building which will house both a local church and National Seminary. In September we had two workers who were buried when we had a deep trench collapse on top of them. These two friend’s deaths were powerfully troubling for me. Then it got worse; the police arrested two of my friends and placed them in prison as the responsible persons for the death of the other two friends. So two friends dead, two friends in prison (although one is currently out). This tragedy has forced me to review a number of assumptions that I have about God.

I have always assumed that God was there to protect me from harm. Now I am afraid to drive my car some days.
I have assumed that God was there to prevent tragedy from happening to believers. Now I am wondering when the next tragedy will occur.
I have assumed that God wanted His plans to go smoothly. Now I wonder why a project so important, can be in such a precarious situation.
I have assumed that God wished for love and mercy to rule the earth. Now I worry about the two small boys without a father.
I have assumed that God’s highest goal was me and my concerns. Now I understand that I don’t really understand God at all.

What happens when your child is raped, or a young father is killed, or when a project that could change a whole country is endangered? What happens when tragedy strikes, death comes early, evil occurs? Does anyone know where the love of God goes . . .? Like I said, I don’t really understand God at all, and this has made me question many of my previously rock-solid convictions about God. On the other hand, where else do we turn? Who can rescue us us? And isn’t that what all this is about . . . that we all need to be rescued, yet sometimes He doesn’t? And that damned “why” question keeps popping up.

So I don’t have any answers for you, and I almost never can answer the why question, but through these events in life, one will either stop believing entirely, or have a permanently damaged faith, or grow stronger faith. I have no idea which one of the three I will end up with, but this one thing I know for sure, I don’t understand God, but hopefully, He understands me.

Life with a pickaxe

No I am not talking about my wife. She is a sweetie. But my other girl these days is a pickaxe. She and I have been spending lots of time together. There is nothing like swinging a pickaxe all day, to put most other things in perspective. Pickaxe perspective is a reduction of life to the basics, the simpliest point of view.

When you never have the chance of working extra hard physically, you never get a chance to get to this point, when pain and hurt and sore muscles reduce everything to several key points in life.

Sometimes in life, I simply spend too much time thinking. You can't think much while swinging a pickaxe into semi-concrete earth. The soil is so hard here, that honestly, it seems that the cement slab is softer. It rattles your bones and vibrates your insides in a very painful way. But nothing compares to the next morning. You need a crane to help you get out of bed. Every breath hurts. Who would have thought that each joint in your hand could possible cause so much pain so constantly? And then the blisters! And then an actual blister where you had yesterday's blister! A blister on the blister!

Now wearing two gloves, you return to the work site, hoping that your body does not shatter into a 1000 pieces the first time that you swing the axe again. But you don't break, and then 10 hours later, you have finished another day of swinging a pickaxe. Now you can return home to email, church meetings, music practice, and normal church work. But you fall asleep soon, and the computer runs all night. And you dream of more pickaxes chasing you all night long. This is my life with a pickaxe right now.

Temporary Staying

That is what the sign in the police station read, where I was waiting in line for hours. OF course my business there would take all of 3 minutes, if I could ever get into the office. Temporary staying, is what they call it, even though I have been here for eight years!

That phrase got me to thinking . . . that temporary staying is how I should view life in this world, but in fact, just the opposite usually happens. I live each day as if I will be here forever and always. In fact if I look deep enough, I am pretty sure that I would like to stay here forever on planet earth. Let's face it, it is the only life I have ever known.

But if I am to be or becoming or stay a Kingdom person, then I need a new perspective. I need a temporary staying perspective. True life . . . my eternal life . . . is somewhere other. This stop on earth is just a temporary staying.

The bloody razor edge

The rip went all the way from my shoulder fading away into my back as you can see in the photos. This is how we ended a great afternoon of playing in the lake. It was an accident. No one intended any wrong or hurt. No one had malice on their mind. But it still really hurt. The kind of hurt that leaves scars. Scars are great conversation points after the pain fades, but they sure hurt like the blazes at the moment of injury.



We are still hurting from the death of our Muslim friend who died two weeks ago. On Saturday I will be speaking at his memorial service. It cuts like the razor’s edge too . . . it leaves scars on my soul. As I have sat here this day and thought carefully about the theological quagmire that I find myself in, it just hurts like the ripping fingernails that made the cuts in the photo above on my shoulders.

I have decided that death should hurt. The hurt increases my sensitivity to how Christ must have felt on the Cross with the potential deaths of all of humanity upon His shoulders, and His own imminent physical death. Too, I wonder if death makes God as angry as it does me? The end of all that potential, all that fathering, all that son-ing, all that husband-ing, all that creativity, all that loving, all that giving, all that laughing, all that potential . . . ending. Robbed by death’s unexpected arrival.

I too am going to die. It may be today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, after retirement, whenever, but it will happen. I wonder now, if I am squandering all my potential in LIFE, in worrying about the razor edge that is coming? It is inevitable . . . death is coming and that right soon, but is it not today that matters? This moment? I think I will go hug my daughter right now.

You can not smell the roses

We discovered a wild phenomena on Sunday as one of the families were departing our house after our big Sunday BBQ bash. One of their kid’s had his nose stuck in one of my red roses, and I told him, “don’t waste your time with the reds, they don’t have any smell at all to them, try the yellows.” The boy then looks at me strangely and said, “but these reds smell wonderful!” I responded, “you are kidding?” and I was thinking “dude, what have you been smoking?” I continued, “The reds have no smell at all unless you crush the leaves, only the yellow roses have a sweet fragrance throughout the blooming cycle.”

Then the boy’s father came over and smelled the yellows, and then the reds, and he informed me that the reds had a much stronger and sweeter fragrance, than did the yellows! Now I am starting to think that they are jerking my chain and loading my wagon, because I have been growing (and sniffing) these flowers for longer than three years. So we started asking people which smell was better, and which rose was stronger. About 65% of the people asked, thought the red rose had a stronger and sweeter fragrance, and about 35% swore that the reds had no odor at all (as in zero!) and that the yellows smelled like . . . well, roses.



Hhhhmmmmm. Just to make certain certain, I just had Wendy my assistant, go out and smell the roses . . . she came back and confirmed that only the yellows have fragrance.

The bottom line is that not all roses can be smelled by all people. That is what makes us all different at some fundamental level, i.e. individuals. Unique creations of God, that are special and one of a kind (OK at least yellow roses and red roses kinds), with no two of us exactly the same. What is there about this infinite variety that God loves so much, that He insists upon it within the creation? Am I (and even you) that special and one of a kind with Him? It is a breath-taking thought, even if I can’t smell red roses.

The stretching of time

Time must stretch, because we are constantly challenged to do more and accomplish more, and since no one gets more time, then I have decided that time must stretch. Today is a perfect example of what I mean. When I got up this morning at 6:30, there were only two items on my agenda for the day (and week actually). All I needed to get done this day/week (progress today, completion by week’s end) was preparing our worship set for Sunday and writing the sermon for Sunday. Normal, everyday work for the pastor types, right?

Remember my Muslim friend that was killed almost two weeks ago, well, now we are to have a memorial service for him, and the widow wants me involved. This is really tricky, although I have agreed to participate, because he was Muslim, she is rather agnostic, but I am the only vicar-dude she knows . . . but when am I supposed to prepare this? And of course every pastor can tell you that you need to prepare ahead, in case of emergencies just like this. Anyhoo, this negotiation took a fair amount of my morning mental energy.

Then a friend came over this afternoon to get some resources I had pledged toward an evangelism project he and his organization are doing this week. That hand-me-the-money-moment turned into a typical Balkan 2 hour brain blitzkrieg, that left me mentally brain-dead for the rest of the day. I hadn’t even got the music set done, much less looked at the sermon passage for the week. We talked about Board meetings, evangelism strategies, Home Assignment (he will be coming with me for a few weeks as a National Representative), and we discussed his personnel challenges, and then he wanted me to commit to a leadership conference for him this Fall, and then to do some monthly training of his staff on leadership principles (and all of this followed a discussion where I told him how busy was going to be for the next four months!) and then he was wondering when we could just go out and have a coffee! Yikes!

Now the day has filled up with so much more than I started it out with . . . proof that time stretches. But isn’t this typical for everyone? It sure is a typical time stretching day for Dave.

The deaths of a thousand goodbyes

The first time we did this, she was only 7 years old, a second grader at boarding school. We gathered as a family of five in a dark corner of a dirty airport in Rostov-na-danu Russia, and we put Heidi on an airplane and watched her leave us.

That was the flash-back in my mind as I drove home from the airport in Skopje this morning, having put the very same girl an another airplane in a different country and watched her leave us. Oh yes, she is a 19 year old college sophomore now, but it still makes me die a little inside every time we go through this. In 36 hours I will have to do the same with Jake as he heads out for his senior year at boarding school.

These little deaths have a cumulative affect. My soul shrinks each time. My care and concern for people here diminishes. My desire to stay here falls. My sense of powerlessness to protect my children grows. My feeling of isolation from them seems to overwhelm me. My weakness is evident for all to see. If not for the mercy of God, all would be lost.

Somebody out there must be praying for me today.

The world at my door

There were people from Tanzania, Mali, Ireland, Macedonia, England, Iran and Alabama here yesterday. A veritable smorgasbord of nations, all sitting down at our table and having lunch with us. You should have heard their stories. You should attend our church! There we have 11 nationalities represented . . . it is a little bit like I imagine heaven to be: multicolored and multi-ligual. Life together as a group of internationals just has so much more taste to, than the monochrome experiences I had in North America.

All Nations, represented around the throne is the way that heaven is described in the scriptures. But it is so rarely how our churches are here on earth. Especially here in the ethnic-hatred capital of the world, this is so true. In fact I have been party to keeping the ethnic churches/groups separate from one another. Why?

Because in this fallen world, you cannot grow churches up the social scale. You can only move down the social scale. In other words, we began a Gypsy church in Bitola, because Gypsy families started attending the Macedonia services. But when the Gypsy families started attending, the Macedonians stopped attending (I am generalizing here to make a point, not all families stopped coming because they had Christ in their hearts) and so in order to plant the Macedonian congregation, we had to get the Gypsy families out.

We are having a similar problem in Bosnia. The high class folks won’t come to church with the low class folks, and thus it seems to be everywhere in the world. I wonder what Jesus thinks about all of this silliness? I imagine that His heart breaks a bit every time this stuff happens within His family. I hope the joy He has in the multi-cultural International church offsets His sadness in the most segregated hour of the week.

how to tell a 5 year old that her father is dead

Her father was a Muslim (officially). He also was one of the kindest and most compassionate people I have ever met (in truth). Today I tried to explain to his five year old daughter why he is never coming home ever again. I guess I was also trying to explain to his wife the same concept at an adult level. He was tragically killed in an automobile pileup on Wednesday afternoon.

This muslim fellow was an amazing person. He lived in the moment, embracing everyone who came into his path, especially children. All the children loved him. Interestingly enough, he and his wife are well surrounded by folks from the International church, and we were loving back on him . . . and he was joyful, but not at peace . . . and he and I were starting to dialogue about truth, spiritual things, God, the differences between Islam and Christianity, and why there are so many arrogant people that call themselves christian.

All those conversations are now finished. He was killed almost instantly on Wednesday just as his wife and 5 year daughter were getting on an airplane in England to return here to the hairy armpit after a two week holiday. Folks from ICS had to meet them at the airport to give them the tragic news. And then she asked me to come and explain to the child why daddy was not coming home again.

I am way out of my comfort zone. Because I am little like the man we are discussing here. Kids don’t love me, nor am I compassionate and kind. I am much more the snarly kind of pastor (or vicar as they call me). I am the kind that thinks he has most of the right answers, but has little of the character that should come with it. I am the kind that teaches the bible and theology as pretty much black and white stuff, while life itself is only shades of grey. I am the kind that talks lots and lives little. The 29 year old father/husband we are discussing was a better man than me. And all his wife wants to know, is this, “is he OK?” “Is he alright?” “Will I see him again?”

These are not questions that I can answer since I am not God, but I suspect I have answers that she would rather not hear. The other questions I have are about us as a church, and should we have been more direct? More pushy? More shark-like in our evangelism? And I come up with the same answers every time, that you have to be relationally close enough to bear the weight of discussing eternity and God. It just can’t happen any other way. We were getting there, but in the end we were too late.

Life has been tremendously sad since we received the news of his death. There is little hope that he embraced our God in the manner that we believe God must be embraced. And we certainly bear some responsibility here. That salt, was burning in the wound today, as I tried to explain why daddy wasn’t coming home again ever.

my spiritual stomach

This great phrase was used by Dragan, a new believer in the International Church. During the month of August, we have cancelled all formal church services, and instead are having Sunday Dinners together. We are knitting together the body of Christ in fellowship. And it is working out great.

So this week Dragan and his girlfriend were on the schedule to be at our house for Sunday Dinner. I called him up and invited them over for Sunday, and unfortunately, he and his girl were leaving town for holidays, and that is when he told me how torn he was, about whether to come to our home or to go on vacation. He said, “David, my spiritual stomach is hungry!” What a great statement.

I find that my spiritual stomach is not always hungry for God and His children. I find that I can easily take for granted all the scriptures and fellowship that we have, and become spiritually obese.

Dragan encouraged me much with his heartfelt statement, and I suddenly found that I wanted to be with him more too! Please pray for your new brother in Christ, as his father died Sunday afternoon and was buried on Monday. This was completely unexpected, and Dragan’s heart is filled with pain. But may he never lose his spiritual hunger I pray.

they took my car 2 - Spider Sector

That is exactly how the sign read, where the city keeps your hijacked auto, until you pay all said fines and penalties. Spider Sector is a relatively friendly place, since they have all the power (they have your car under lock and key) and the only way that you can retrieve your car is by paying the bill. Jake and I asked around and while there was some disagreement about where this place was actually located, the majority of taxi drivers, believed it to be at the train station.

So we hopped in one of the taxis and headed the train station. Jake spotted the car before I did and sure enough, we were directly under the train tracks. And the spider trucks were busily going in and out, all loaded with cars as they were going in, and empty coming out. They were doing some hot business there.

So we get in line with other unhappy people, paid our fine of $45, and the man gave us our receipt which allowed us entry into the compound so that we could drive our car away.

All cities formerly under socialism have huge parking problems, and they are being compounded daily by more apartment buildings - more cars - no new parking places, but I am not sure that grabbing people’s auto’s off the street is a way to resolve this problem.

But my lesson is learned, I am going back to taxis and walking.

they took my car!

When I parked the car, it was in a fairly normal parking place, and we were only planning to be 5 minutes at the most, as we were searching for a new meeting place for the International Church. Well 5 minutes turned into 20 as it typically does here, and when we returned I say to Mark, “the car is gone!”

And it was. As in no where to be found at all. At first I thought that it had been stolen as was our co-workers car last year in Bosnia, but then I quickly discarded that idea, as our car is not worth being stolen. It is old, with tons of miles on it, and frankly it is pretty beat up and not sexy in any fashion . . . i.e. not stolen car material. Plus the final proof that it had not been stolen, was the fact that I had the key in my pocket (but I checked to just be certain).

No, what happened to my car was that the spider got it. The spider is how we refer to the machine that comes and lifts your car off the street up onto the back of the truck and then it is carted away and placed under lock and key. So now we have to go search out where they keep the spidered autos here in the city. Tomorrow I will let you know how this goes.

six coins, three earrings, one key

In the 13 years since we went to Russia with our parent organization, I have learned that certain things are more difficult to live without than certain other things. For instance, electricity is far easier to live without than is running water. In fact, in my humble opinion, nothing is more difficult to live without for any period of time, than water. The same formula applies to appliances.

The last couple of months have seen us without air conditioning and that is hot sometimes, but not critical. Then the fridge/freezer went out again and they came and got it and kept it for a couple of weeks, but again, not a big hairy deal really. But when the washing machine stopped working 10 days ago, and I called and called and called, trying to get a meister here to repair it, and the clothes piled higher and deeper, (six people generate a lot of dirty clothes in 10 days!) I have come to appreciate a washing machine that works, right up there with running water!

When meister Pero arrived, he greeted the other two meisters who were here working on the fridge/freezer, and they talked shop for a while, (we were having sort of a mini meister convention yesterday), I finally got Pero upstairs to look at the washing machine.

“When is the last time you cleaned the filter?” he asked. “You mean I am supposed to clean the filter?” I responded. “Every month” meister Pero said. “Well meister, this filter has never been cleaned” I boldly informed him. He played with the settings and bit, and then showed me that the pump was not working. Little surprise seeing that the filter had not been cleaned in 6 years.

Long story short, he had to take the entire pump apart because our missing house key was wedged inside the pump along with 24 denars in coins and three earrings and a ton of completely unidentifiable other stuff. We had looked everywhere for that key . . . well except inside the pump in the washing machine that is . . . .

The last 24 hours has seen load after load after load of wash go through the newly cleaned pump. I told each member of the family, that if they planned to see their next birthday, that coins, keys and earrings and other stuff better not show up in the wash any long . . . an essential death threat . . . that is how important a washing machine is to a family like ours.

Today was very calm meister-wise, except the fridge/freezer compressor will not cut off and everything inside is all frosted up, so I turned that off and just called the meister again. I wonder how long it will be before they actually show up and we have a refrigerator again? But who cares as long as we have clean clothes.

The sad affair of the professional christian

Professional Christians are those who put bread on the table and a roof over the heads of their families via the church. They may be the senior pastor of a large multi-staff church or a worship pastor or the solo pastor of a small fellowship, but if you receive your wages from these churches or any type of ministry/mission/NGO or such things, where you are expected to be on all the time, regardless of the actual condition of your soul, then you are by my definition, a professional christian.

No congregation in the world is going to be very understanding if you as the worship pastor, or as any other kind of missionary/pastor, stand up on Sunday morning and announce that, “you know what, its been a really tough week, and I am struggling in my walk with God” or “this week I am having real and genuine doubts about my faith in God” or “I have sinned so badly this week, and instead of preaching today, I think I will just confess my sins instead” . . . or a hundred other such potential statements . . . you will simply lose your job, and find it extremely extremely difficult to find another one in a church.

No. As a professional christian you must appear to enthusiastically and genuinely worship (if you are a worship pastor/leader) or you must as a professional christian get up and preach a theologically correct and emotionally powerful and memorable (at least until the end of Sunday lunch) sermon . . . and this must happen week after week after month after month after year after year. Regardless.

Regardless to the actual condition of your soul. Regardless of the struggles you may have (they may not be allowed to interfere with Sunday services). Regardless to how true and genuine any of your actions actually may be on any given Sunday, the expectations are clear. Regardless of practically all circumstances, temptations, wrongs, passions, hurts, struggles and sins . . . the show must go on. This is the life of a professional christian.

The end result for any professional christian is that sometimes (oftentimes?) we are performing instead of praying, acting instead of worshiping, talking instead of preaching. Sometimes these fake actions force us to turn to God week after week, and that is a good thing. Sometimes though, a habitual process of faking it can take a calling and turn it into a job. Then you may well find yourself faking it all the time.

Of course the solution to this is a vital ongoing daily living relationship with God Himself who can and does renew us and our weary souls. He wants us far more than we want Him and it shows . . . He has made all the arrangements for us to enjoy and benefit from Him, while He takes all of the abuse and difficulties on Himself. A professional christian is pretty useless to the King and Kingdom, unless he/she realizes the act of faking it, repents, and rejoins their soul to the Spring of Refreshment, Jesus Himself and do it for Him, and not a paycheck.

The sweet sweet rain

Our street is flooding, my car is leaking and I have a big ole’ puddle in the passenger side floor, and the bang of the steady dripping of water in the drainage pipes throughout the night kept my niece awake and sleepless for much of the night, we get soaked everytime we have to go to the market for food, the rain has caused the internet to stop working, and the washing machine is still not working though that has little to do with the rain. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it?

It is. After two solid months of no rain, raging wildfires, unbearable heat, scorching winds, and brown everything, the rain is wonderful. Nothing sweeter, no air can be cleaner, no smell is better than dry parched ground soaking up the richest nectar on earth - rain. It is supposed to rain all day, and may it be so!

We need the same in our spiritual lives. Rain from God, it most satisfies our parched souls. I think rain from God is found in relationships. Instead of church services yesterday, we cancelled formal church services, and got together in four large groups across the city and just had fun being together and eating and talking and laughing and experiencing God’s rain. It was sweet sweet.

Jellyfish goo

While swimming innocently in the pristine waters off the Greek coast recently, I was suddenly shocked, literally. Followed immediately by burning on my leg, ankle, and all of my back. Burning which would not go away . . . apparently I swam into a school of jellyfish, and they left their mark on me. It is not uncommon for jellyfish to swarm in the late afternoon, early evening - exactly when I was swimming. These Mediterranean jellyfish are often known as mauve stingers.

It is amazingly easy in life to run into painful, stinging problems that bring much discomfort into our lives. Even in the most ideal settings like a holiday on a Greek beach, can bear difficult situations and hurtful experiences. In fact, the very last time we were at this exact beach, some 7 years ago, Helen stepped on a spiny sea urchin, and you do not want to even imagine how painful it was digging those spines out of her foot!

Sometimes life/work/spiritual life seem to be like the jellyfish experience. I can be mindlessly swimming along, enjoying the atmosphere, the ambience, or the view, the sparkles on the water, when all of the sudden there is a painful burning feeling at work in my life. I have swam into a school of jellyfish. And let’s face it, the jellyfish was not out to get me, it was just being a jellyfish . . . so the why question is mute here, there is no why, stuff just happens.

I only wish that I could respond in life, the same way that I can respond to the burns from a jellyfish. With the jellyfish, I was able to discern what had happened, realize that it was an incident that tomorrow would not be so painful and would fade away in significance, and to go out with my family and have a nice meal, even though I was in some pain physically . . . I knew it would soon pass.

When I run into schools of jellyfish in life though, I often feel overwhelmed and overrun and in too much pain to function! Even though there is often no blame to be laid (remember stuff happens), and even though in the great scheme of things it probably does not mean all that much (especially tomorrow it will be better, less intense, etc) I can still react far too much in relation to what the situation calls for. I need to develop a life perspective that matches my medical perspective, then I will handle the stings of life in a more mature, and Godly way.

Some people may react to this post with a “just stay out of the water man!” kind of attitude, but where is the adventure in that? You could choose to take no risks and have a life of no potential pain, but then again, that’s not living, that’s existing. You have only one life, live it!

Fuzzy Water

“Can I have some more of that fuzzy water?“ my niece asked. That would be ”bitter water“ in the local vernacular. Gassed water, bubbly water, mineral water and a half a dozen other names, but never ”fuzzy water“. But Rachel calls it just that. Of course, we all are calling it that now.

But the not only is the water fuzzy, but so is life sometimes. I have been trying to work though to some mega-thoughts and challenges recently, and they are all still fuzzy. But here is how far I have gotten so far . . .

. . . lots of people are living outside apparent reality, or under the radar of observable behavior, or stealthily having a double life is what more and more people seem to be doing. Or they do what I do sometimes, think entirely opposite of all said and stated beliefs . . . thinking that is completely and totally in contrast to all that I have worked for, with, and toward for the last 27 years.

How can this be? Well perhaps it is simply an anomaly with me, but I think not because it seems that I am running into more and more people my age that are living two lives, or at the very least thinking two lives. The why of this has puzzled me greatly . . . especially about myself and my thinking. These two worlds are fighting against one another and they ultimately lead to completely opposite directions in life.

The fact that I can even be having these conversations with myself points to a great dilemma; is anything I have believed for the last 27 years even valid?

You can chalk this conversation up to six or seven possible apparent reasons, but they all fall short in the end . . . I know, I have been thinking about this stuff lots for the last 4-6 years. One side of me, the pastoral side, wishes to help people resolve the two-thinking dilemma. Another side of me, the self-righteous arrogant person, wants to shout at all such people you are double-minded and an enemy to the Kingdom! There is another part of me, the opposite-side-of-all-stated-beliefs side, that wishes to just walk away from it all . . . the conflict, the controversy, the conversation, period.

It at the very least shows me how fuzzy life can be, and how deceitful my heart can be. In the end though, I have complete confidence that Jesus can see to the heart, and the heart of the matter . . . His discernment has no fuzziness at all.

how the church pimped my ride today

After church this morning, as I finished pronouncing the benediction, Ray stood up in the back and asked everyone to be seated. He then proceeded to come to the front and treat Brenda and I to some great meal tickets for some super eating spots in town. But then the kicker was what they gave me to drive for the day! Look at this photo and drool! I drove this thing at obscene speeds, and I gotta tell you, from zero to 60, it’s faster than the angels of God! This qualifies as the nicest gift a church has every given me as their pastor, period.

In the Greek Kitchen

When the Greek waiter asked Jake and I to follow him into the kitchen, I thought he was joking. But he was more than serious . . . he took us back to the fresh catch cooler and let us pick out our own sea-bass for dinner. But the ruckus and looks our walk through the kitchen caused, deserves to be blogged about.

We were in the employee only sections of the fish house. And all these Greek gals were slaving away in the kitchen and you could feel their animosity that Jake and I were invading their domain! But the fish were what Jake and I were focused on, nothing more, nothing less. But it was interesting to see the inside the kitchen area.

Anyhoo, Jake and I selected the fish that we wanted grilled for dinner that night and made our way back to our table. There we enjoyed our family, a spectacular sunset, and eventually, Mr Sea-bass himself. I think I will tell the rest of the story in pictures.

Racing the butterflies

The smoke from the wildfires outside the city is choking the air with smoke and ash. It is like a terminal haze laying over the air, gray, polluted, even direct sharp sunlight is having trouble getting through it, and we haven’t had a cloud in the sky in weeks.

So this morning as I was riding my bike up the mountain to the South of the city, and finally getting above the worst of the bad air, I found myself racing the butterflies. There were all kinds . . . Purple Shot Copper’s, Small Coppers, Large Whites, Bath Whites, Wall butterflies, and Small Tortoiseshells.

Butterflies can only fly if their body temperature is above 86 degrees, and consequently the butterflies are usually sitting on branches and such, sunning themselves, but today all were in flight. And an amazing number of them seem to be racing along with me as I poured sweat while pedaling uphill. It was a magical moment in the good air.

When I sit and think of all the elements that had to come together to have this five minute moment this morning, it is more than a little mind-boggling. Life is complicated! And it is too often just a series of nows, the this moment’s of life that can not be duplicated nor repeated. I wonder if that is a gift or a curse for the Western Mind which is centered around planning and individualism?

Stuck in the ruts

When I was a kid, there were loads of dirt-roads around . . . no asphalt or cement to be found at all. And these roads often had huge ruts! When I was a little whiper-snapper I thought they might swallow my dad’s truck whole and that we would never get out. Some of them seemed to have teeth and lips, just waiting to suck us in.

I am discovering that those ruts of my childhood were the easiest ones in life. The pot-holes and ruts of adult life are feelings of being trapped, or stagnant in the sense of not moving nor making any progress, and feeling irrelevant and life having no meaning . . . this is what I mean by being stuck in a rut. Bob Walker asks the question, “If you could do anything you wanted, if God told you that you were free to choose, if you had all the time, energy, money, staff and education you needed, and you knew that you could not fail, what would you do?” (This question came to me via B. Biehl)

What a question huh? And as I understand it, most people love this question and find themselves set free as they try to answer it and then start baby steps toward reaching it. This is the question that often leads people toward their dreams. It helps them in many ways, but especially in discovering the next step. But what if your answer is “nothing”?

Either my rut is way deeper than Dr. Walker ever anticipated or ever seen, or I am a hopeless case because I have no answer to this question. Does that mean I don’t want to do something? No it means that I don’t know what that something is. This is more than a rut; it’s a crater.

Some folks tell me it’s mid-life whatever, and I tell them that I have already passed mid-life number one and two, I have never heard of mid-life crisis lasting for years on end. It’s a hole so deep that there is no light coming through either end. It smells of despair.

Pink and Jesus

I guess you could say its been a week of lessons, first the woodpile, now the rock concert. In one sense, as usual, I am actually doing research. I am researching people and what they value and trying to discern the whys. As rock concerts go, this one was actually pretty good, i.e. excellent musicians, minimal effects and the volume just right (would stop your pace-maker, but doesn’t really hurt your ears too bad).

Alecia Moore, better known by her stage name of Pink (or P!nk depending on your source) is a sassy, spoofy, goofy, snarling, hysterical artist that doesn’t take herself too seriously. She says of herself, “I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.” In that sense music is to Pink, as blogging is to David.

The amazing (and disconcerting) thing about going to a rock concert, is that you see the depth of influence that a pop star has on people and culture. You get to see first hand what people want in entertainment. You can see what really moves people in their hearts and souls.

Now I was arguably the oldest paying customer at the concert last night . . . several people thought I was with the band . . . and I only know one song that Pink sings (which I think we should start singing in church!), so I am in no way a typical fan of Pink, nor was I even a typical rock concert attender last night, and several young folks from our church just about swallowed their tongues when they saw me there. But while surrounded by several thousand teenie-boppers, I realized quickly that they knew every single song by heart and they were singing along with her . . . on every single song. The crowd loved her energy and her wild sense of style . . . in a word Pink is authentic and real (or at the very least gives a super strong impression of being that) by the culture’s definition of authentic.

And here is the rub for the church and those of us who are members of the Kingdom . . . that authenticity which was apparent in droves at a rock concert, is sorely lacking in the church. We don’t inspire trust, followership, commitment, nor deep emotion because at some level we appear to, or actually do, lack authenticity.

I see this sharply both in me and in the people in the church I pastor. I have one group (my group) who view and live faith as an intellectual exercise -- it’s about what you know (thus the person who knows the most or best “wins”) and I have a second group who view and live faith as name and claim whatevers - it’s about what you decide God wants to bless you with (thus the most positive pollyanna on spiritual steroids wins) and these two groups dominate the church.

All the real people are in the middle and they can’t compete with the seemingly intimidating knowledge of intellectual group, nor can they identify with NIACI (name it and claim it) group in their everyday lives. To these people caught in the middle, neither expression of the Kingdom seems authentic or real. No one seems to be just comfortable in their own skin within a Christian context. We are essentially asking God to undo what we have made ourselves to be . . . and where is the authenticity in that? Perhaps I will get fired, but I think Pink was having a flash of real Jesus in her life, when she said that “I am going to be me to the fullest extent.” Jesus wants us to be us . . . that unique expression of His creative genius is lost every time we force someone into our particular mold (pun intended) of Christianity.

“I coming up, you better get this party started!“

Lessons from the woodpile

One of my most recent activities is chopping wood for the dirty old man next door. Let’s face it, I need to exercise and he is 86 years old . . . and completely utterly and totally lost. Did I mention he is 86? Not too much time left, but then again, who knows how much any of us have?

So for the past week or so, when I get back from my daily workout, I am already sweaty and stinky, so what better time to split some wood for Uncle Lybe? I have been learning some lessons in the woodpile.

1. He owns an axe that is older than me! And he is darn proud of it. I have listened to lots and lots of “when I was your age” stories these past 10 days. It has given me some perspective and understanding to what makes this guy tick. And he is having a ball telling all his old cronies that he has an American splitting wood for him (for free of course).
2. Lybe is afraid of dying and he doesn’t know what to do about it, yet he refuses to talk about it. I continue to gain credibility as I chop wood, but I also am spending more of that credibility as I am starting to push because I am not remotely certain that this man will live long enough to burn the wood I am chopping for him. Eternity is urgently calling him.
3. I have also learned that I would rather do something for him, than be with him. Shows you how American I still am even after all these years in the Hairy Armpits. Mind you that Lybe only wants to drink beer or moonshine and talk about young women and their many virtues . . . and while I can do that appropriately and chastely, I can’t at 8:00 in the morning. My weak American frame cannot handle dirty jokes nor alcohol at such an early hour. Am I making excuses?
4. I am learning too, that a world view without God can only chase after the most insignificant things in life . . . and that even armed with that certainty and knowledge that I still can be tempted to do the same. Crap.
5. Today as I sat with him an had a glass of water after our chop session, he wanted to know if there were other people in the world like me? I barked with laughter and told him “I sure hope not.” “I am serious!” he said. “And so am I” I told him. “Why do you cut wood for me?” he asked. “Because I can and you can’t, because I like you and think you have real potential for such old guy, because I need to learn from you and you need to be more like me (in the sense that he is placing his trust in the Savior), and simply because we are neighbors and I want to show you that not all Americans start wars and cause problems.” I said to him as I was leaving.
6. The final lesson that I learning so far is that I need far more wisdom than ever before to help a 86 year old blind guy with a really dirty mind, to place his simple trust in a Savior. Leading the young is simple in comparison, and I have this terrible feeling in my heart that Lybe is going to choose to not believe in the end . . . his whole life and his complete understanding of it is pulling him one direction, and on the other side is just one foreigner. Man, I am praying that Holy Spirit is cutting loose with this guy, and soon.

100 in the shade

There is hot, and then there is hot. Right now it is 100.2 in the shade! This is our 5th straight 100+ day, but it is the first day that our shady thermometer reads over 100 degrees. It is difficult to get anything accomplished. Heat inertia has taken over unfortunately and that is super bad, because as always there is tons to accomplish . . . always more work than time or energy allow. I wonder how hot it will eventually get today . . . they were only calling for 105 or so. Man!

An 8 hour drive north of us, it’s 20 degrees cooler! A 2.5 hour flight going north to Berlin Germany, the temp is 40 degrees cooler!!! Thus one can conclude that this is not a Europe-wide heat wave that we are experiencing, this is more of a local phenomena.

It’s usually quite hot here in the summer, but this is hot hot even for us. This morning I was chopping and splitting wood for my 86 year old neighbor, who kept trying to give me moonshine to drink “to combat the heat” he told me. On an empty stomach, I doubt that whisky would have cooled me off much and I begged off, spouting work reasons and the very early hour.

It is difficult to function and be effective in extreme temps like these . . . and it is difficult to function and be effective spiritually when we find ourselves in extreme situations and extreme challenges. But that is when the spiritual is supposed to kick in, right?

Well I am not so sure. It seems to me that spirituality needs to be something we exercise daily and expose daily to the stresses of our lives, rather than thinking of it as some kind of magic carpet or blanket designed to get us out of the toughest situations. But usually it seems, that the people I know and person that I am, perceives spirituality to be something I have rather than something I am. Thus when it is 100 degrees in the shade of life, way hotter and more difficult than I am comfortable with, I falter. It’s like I am looking for a way out, instead of steadfastly working through it. Clearly I need to remember that my connection to the Father is something I am, not something I have.

The boyfriend chronicles 2

The news gets even better. Jelena (read about her here) was not content to just rag Bilijana about her new boyfriend, but she too decided that she needed a Savior! There have been more people come to Christ in the last months, than we had in previous years. We heard about this one on Saturday while we were baking in 100+ degree heat, building a new church building in the city where Jelena, Bilijana and Vale live.

Saturday there 13 of us out there dying in the heat and merciless sun, building frames for concrete walls, and digging out a wall in the stone-like soil. Here are some photos of our guys working in the Sahara-known-as-Kymanovo.

These gentlemen all attend the International Church in the Hairy Armpit and volunteered their time and money and sweat and blood so that people like the three girls mentioned above can find a Savior. Why don’t you get involved too? Write me and I can list the ways that you can make a difference. Is it time for a revival in the Hairy Armpit?

"Do you have a new boyfriend?"

Jelena was teasing Bilijana. “You are just beaming” she said, “Have you found a new boyfriend?” Bilijana’s smile did not falter at all, but her answer was unexpected, “No boyfriend; I found a Savior!”

Bilijana is the result of two years of steady weekly investment and work by my wife Brenda. People inch toward Christ here and have huge social and cultural hurdles to cross in order to embrace the Savior. Thus Bilijana’s statement is all the more powerful. And frankly we don’t hear these things very often here in the Hairy Armpit. Bilijana came to Christ twice as fast as the average believer here!

Then I was talking to a powerful businessman today who attends the International church where I pastor and he was telling me about some folks that he has been cultivating for two solid years! They inch forward and then take two inches back, three forward, two back. It is difficult to have the patience for these kinds of investments in people, and even more difficult to see God’s big picture in the whole process. But in the end, as Bilijana discovered last week, a Savior is far superior to a new boyfriend.

The ruined harvest

There is little good to say about the Hairy Armpit in general. We are far from those we are closest to, live in homes that do not belong to us, work with people who do not look, smell, think or speak like we do. But the food is usually the best in the world, so there are some good things. The number one export for the country of the HA is wine. That also means that we have some of the best grapes in the whole world. Except this year.

Last summer was too cool, the winter too warm (no snow) and now the Spring too wet! So as you can see from this photo this is what the grape harvest is looking like this year. 70% of the grapes are ruined on every bunch (this one is actually better than most of ours.


The spiritual harvest can easily be ruined as well. If we and the churches we lead don’t have the right climate and balance required to produce a healthy harvest, it is way too easy to ruin all the potential. It can be done by focusing too many resources on ourselves, or by having an inward focus, or by overcrowding the new believers (then they fall away because they can’t develop their own roots) or by not nurturing them carefully and faithfully as they are finding Christ . . . and probably a million other ways. But most of all we lose the harvest, simply because we are not farming most of the time.

This year, millions of dollars will be lost in the Hairy Armpit because of the imbalances in the weather. Many will be hungrier than usual. Many will not have work at process time. Barrel makers are going to lose most of their contracts, seasonal workers who live off the money they make from picking and processing grapes, better start looking for new jobs. And the church, and especially us as leaders, need to be completely and totally intentional about the climate in our fellowships.