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Let´s Fly

08/03/2006 / Blake

So here I am. I´ve been to the internet cafe here a few times but have not been able to find the time to post what´s really going on. It seems most of my time has been on the email circuit or answering PM´s from MST. I´ve not even looked at those tonight and probably will run out of time. Life is so full. But here´s an ultra quick recap of the last few days

Went to the airport with no sleep at all. Slept probably about 15 minutes on the plane once. The Wife beside me slept a lot. I was pinned in and couldn’t try to get comfortable for my own rest. But I sacrifice my rest for her any day.
We arrive and quickly load up on a bus. Everyone has their stuff except Bob, the pastor. Turns out his luggage went to Utah. He had a firefighter´s luggage. How funny.
It´s hot and there´s no AC. I kinda like it, but don´t want it always.
We are going to put the trusses up on the top of the church. But we gotta paint a whole lot of metal. And then flip it and paint some more.
I hate to paint.
So we paint more and more and more.
We sleep a little, then paint more, and then sweat.
No, that´s wrong. We sweat no matter what we do unless we´re in the internet cafe.

That´s the life here so far. Eat, sleep, paint, play w/ Costa Rican kids, go to extra long church services in HOT rooms w/ lots of people and no AC.

I´ll try to give a more precise update tomorrow. Bomitada Fest should happen in the next couple of days. Here are a few pics to tide you over.

T-Minus 90 Minutes

07/31/2006 / Blake

I’m supposed to be at teh church in 90 minutes. We meet at 3:30am. Load up in the bus. I’ll drive everyone to the airport and we’ll get situated there. We’ll wait for a while. The Wife will ask why we had to get there so early when we’re just standing in a line that isn’t even open.

But then we’ll go to ATL, wait there for a while, eat a brunch of sorts and see people flying to all parts of the country/world. Then the last flight of the day takes us straight into Liberia!

I’m looking forward to many things.

I’m looking forward to seeing old friends that I made last year on the same trip.
I’m looking forward to eating some of the fantastic food the senoritas make there at the church.
I’m looking forward to brushing up on my spanish on the plane to make me bi-lingual.
I’m looking forward to going on the trip with my wife and sharing the experience with her. Should be quite awesome.
But I’m looking forward to seeing God move through our team and through me.

So as sit at the computer with no sleep and none in sight, I ask for your prayers as we embark on the journey!

T Minus 12 Days

07/19/2006 / Blake

Twelve days til we make the trek to Costa Rica. We’re going back to the little Methodist church, Fountain of Grace in Liberia. If you look at the link, you’ll see an older picture. Here are some newer pictures of the church and our trip last summer. We’ll be doing more construction on the new sanctuary and putting on a Bible School as well. (For some interesting thoughts on VBS, check out Tally Wiligis’ post)
Exciting thing is that The Wife is coming this year! How cool is that? But we’ll be leaving the kiddies behind, so that might be a slight stress point for The Wife. But she’s never been out of the country before, and she’s an incredible worker. I am afraid she might work everyone else into the ground.

My back has been troubling me just a bit. I’ve realized my “core” or trunk of my body is lacking in strength and flexibility, so I took Pilates for the first time today. Wasn’t too bad. But I will be a bit sore tomorrow. But I need to do something now or be in a bad way years from now.

So pray for our trip to Costa Rica, pray for my core, and pray for my wife as we leave the girls in the States while we travel to Costa Rica.

Sleep Depravation :: Destination X

07/17/2006 / Blake

Well, it seems youth trips are sometimes Sleep Depravation experiments. But especially our Destination Unknown Trips.

Friday morning we all gathered in the parking lot to head out to Birmingham. They kids didn’t know where we were going, and I was missing our road atlas, but it was all good. I knew the first stop. So we stopped in Bessemer, AL to hit Alabama Adventure. It was a nice, small little water park SLASH amusement park on the outskirts of Birmingham. A great place to get a sunburn and get dizzy and throw up.

We missed lunch so made it through thick traffic for a 4pm lunch. What better to do after a late lunch than go to a mall and have an early supper. So we hang out in the air conditioner and then people find their own supper. Then it’s to the big show!� Game Zone and their awesome laser tag.� It might not have been the best I’ve ever played out, but far from the worst. I was even Top Gunner our 2nd game. But we had to punt on the last game because we had to get to the church where we were sleeping. So we rescheduled the last game for the next morning.
So we get to the church, get our bearings, then go get some cokes so we can go to sleep early. This is about midnight by now. So we all break out in a game of Mafia (site, site). If you’ve never played Mafia, I must say it is awesome. But only as awesome as the honesty level of your players. I was quite impressed.

So we go to bed around 4. Probably don’t get any sleep because everyone has Mountain Dew in their veins. Get up at 6:45 and get out of Dodge because there is a wedding happening at the church that day we had to get out of the way of. So with time to kill, we go to McDonalds for breakfast and then to Barnes and Noble to either look at books or sleep in their big comfy chairs.

We squeeze in the last game of Laser Tag. The Red Team comes in victorious again (of course). And then we head home. The drive home was tough, but caffeinated beverages helped me make it.

Today's a day off

07/12/2006 / Blake

The past few weeks have been really busy for me. Not crazy busy, but just really steady. This is including weekend stuff and overnight trips and crazy lunch schedules and evening schedules. So today is a day to be at home and get stuff done. I have a few “projects” I have to attend to, but I plan to get a little lazy time in too. Well, maybe this morning has been my lazy time.

But I do need to go and move and finish the fort/swing set that we’re building for my daughters. My dad came down last weekend and we knocked out the hard part. I say hard part, but I meant the stuff that seems to take 2 people to get done. Now most of it seems to be just attatching boards and planks in the right places. I do need to relocate it a bit, so that could take extra people.

This weekend is our Destination Unknown trip. I hope it turns out as well as we’re hoping. But still working on that place to stay.

Sheesh….

07/05/2006 / Blake

Well, I look back and see that I’ve been quite a while w/o a post. It’s not for lack of trying. There have been times I’ve opened up the “Write Post” page and stared at the screen. But nothing would come out of my fingers. So here I am after the calm. Not that there is a storm coming or anything. But life has been moving.

I know I keep saying different things, but I do think that there is a new business opportunity for me about to happen. I’ve even been looking at a contract. But I’m at a crossroads of decision making. Stay independent or join a network. Both might have some positives. Both might have a few places that will stretch me or the possible future. But MissSportsTalk.com has been getting some attention lately. And I have to make the choice. A major network is asking me to join their fold. And I could do and and run w/ it and maybe make some money after a little time spent working at it. Or I could remain a freelance guy and try to go it alone.

Either way I’d be tracking down people, doing stories, making interviews, and producing content. Could be quite exciting. Could give me lots of joy. Or a headache. I think it’s the former.

Starving Jesus?

06/22/2006 / Blake

Just saw this advertised in the new Relevant Magazine. It’s called 40 Days of Nothing, and it is put on by the guys behind XXXChurch.com. Some think these guys are great, some think they are not a real ministry because of where they go w/ their message. I’ve listened to their podcasts a few times and think that God really is using them. But it looks like this is something worth checking out as well. Here’s an excerpt:

Craig Gross and JR Mahon are on a mission to inspire the people to get out of the pews. Too often Christians spend their time praying, talking, and being “spiritual” but not getting their hands dirty. The book of James says, “Faith without works is dead.” There are too many meetings, too much political posturing, too much condemnation, and too much inaction. Starving Jesus will challenge you to less talking and more doing. Craig Gross and JR Mahon run the day-to-day operations of XXXchurch.com and both live in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And it even gets better (maybe). They are having a tour, and they’ll actually be coming to Clinton. Right here in my neck of the woods. Now I’m going to have to think about getting the book.

Training Wheels & Peer Pressure

06/20/2006 / Blake

A couple of months ago I was reading Dennis Bullock‘s blog and saw where he was so happy that all of his children had mastered the bicycle and no longer needed training wheels. While happy for him I was wondering when any of mine would get the hang of it. My four year old was out in force w/ her training wheels all the time. But didn’t seem to really want to take them off.

Then towards the beginning of May she started telling me she was ready to take them off. I really didn’t think she was, but I humored her. But I could tell she was really trying to ride w/o the training wheels touching. So I took them off and she couldn’t go anywhere on her own. So I’d have to lean WAY over and hold her handlebars while I hobbled down the street with her to the stop sign and then back to the house. About two laps of this was all I could make. My back was killing me. ?

And then I figured out what the catalyst was to all this. Some of the girls in her school were asking everyone if they still used training wheels or not to ride their bike. So Addie felt the peer pressure to be able to ride without them.

So we made the trek to the stop sign and back a few times a day. And then one day she coasted down the sloped driveway w/o any help. So I told her to go to the street and pedal. And she did. And the rest is history! She was so proud that she was ONLY four and the girls who were bragging were already five. Funny little minds, these kids have. ?

She’s five now and I think we’re ready to step up to a bigger bike.

Today is a new week

06/19/2006 / Blake

I started typing all this last night, but then Firefox disappeared, so I lost it and went to bed.

But last night, for some reason, I was thinking that today was going to be the start of a new week. A new era. Here were a few reason I thought it might happen.

Because I was going to start eating better today. Yesterday was Father’s Day and I got a log of cookie dough and a big bag of M&M’s. I finished off the cookie dough quickly and ate a lot of M&M’s during the NBA game last night. But today should mark a new day.
I will embark on a running plan of some sort. I’m not going to set any unreachable goals, but want a few challenging but realistic goals to chase.
I will work out more (as in lifting weights). See above.
Today marked the first day of Vacation Bible School. Last year my daughter busted her head open on the last day and had to get stitches for the first time in her life. It was one of those “life moments”. Hopefully no more stitches this year.
Or maybe I was just thinking that because I was tired but didn’t want to go to sleep.

I’ve not eaten anything too bad, except for the chocolate sunday w/ my lunch. Yet to run or lift anything. And no stitches at VBS today. So I’ve still got some work to do.

Is it really good to be back?

06/14/2006 / Blake

Yes, it really is. After a five night stretch of sleeping on wood chips out in the Georgia wilderness and taking cold showers with a waterhose looped over a 2×4, it is. But it really wasn’t that bad. Working with the AIM training camp was truly a blessing. And a humbling thing about it was that the people that we were serving, who were going out to Kenya or Peru or Russian in a matter of days, they kept thanking us over and over and over.

One even went so far as to say that any success they had during their mission trip would be partly because of our service to them. Wow. How amazing was that? And the last morning, when we were leaving, the Kenya team actual asked us to sit in a circle while they washed our feet as an act of service to us. Very humbling.

I think a lot of the Clinton students were semi envious. Not jealous, but when they’re seeing these guys and girls, young men and women not any different from them getting the opportunity to travel abroad to serve God’s people in a special way…there is a “Man, I wish I was going” feeling that wells up. But the truth is that there is just as much need and hurt and emptiness in our own neighborhoods and communities. And that fact hit hard today.

After being gone to BigStuf for 5 days and then being home for about 3 before heading to the Training Camp for 6, I was ready to kick back and not worry about too much today. So I cleaned the UHaul trailer out, sprayed it off and returned it. But I also found out that a 15 year old girl took her own life last night here in town. That makes the 2nd student from that grade to take their own life in the last 6 or 7 months. It’s obvious that there are hurts and pain and confusion even in our own little suburbia.

So although it wasn’t a plane ride to the other side of the world. It was a drive back to Mississippi w/ a stop off at Six Flags. But there is much, much ministry to be done right here in our own back yard.

So if you think of it, please pray for the Mosley family. And also pray for Clinton, MS as a whole. It, and we, need lots and lots of prayer.