Praying for Kenya

-
I am 15 days away from hopping on a plane to serve in Kenya.  I am both excited, nervous, and expectant all at the same time.

Excited:  I have never been to Africa before.  It's an entirely new culture, an entirely new environment, and as my shot record will show an entirely new set of germs.  I love newness.

Nervous:  One of my biggest prayer requests I shared during my support/dinner party a few weeks ago was that God would "prepare me to be unprepared" for what I would experience.  It's been a long time since I will have "tasted" poverty like I'm expecting to see in Ngaamba.  And honestly, I don't even think the trips I've had to Piedras Negras with the Aggie BSM in college (Piedras is on the Texas border) will even prepare me emotionally for the conditions I'll see there.  I pray that God will break my heart, that He will stir me, and that I'll never be the same after this trip.

Expectant:  Maybe this has something to do with "excited."  But I do have the sense that God is going to do something huge through our group.  We have experienced too much spiritual warfare as a team to believe anything less (I don't think the devil is out to distract and blow up marginal trips).  In that light, I would like to be there, be available, and to let God do his thing.

I am blessed to have so many great peeps supporting me and praying for me.  I can't wait to tell them what they are a part of.  Only 15 more days ;-)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The B(C)S Strikes Again

-
I'm laughing, again.  Somehow, some big conference elites somewhere are trying to sell college football fans that the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is a flawless way to determine who should play for a national college football championship.  Every year, the "system" flirts with controversy, and manages to bring up some really good points over the years.   One of the classic arguments that they like to bring up is... "Every game counts" Hmmmmm .... what about Texas 45, Oklahoma 35?   In the BCS standings now, guess who's #2?   OU ... who's #3?  t.u.  ....Every game counts, eh?   Apparently , "what have you done for me lately" and a bunch of computers spitting stats count a lot more now than the results on the field.... too funny.   In a twist of fate, the Big XII South, arguably the best division in college football, has a three way tie for first place with three teams at 7-1 (11-1 overall) and all ranked in the top 7 in the BCS standings.  ...
Read more

A twist on a familiar parable.

-
Back from Labor Day Retreat, managing to keep from being sunburned and bowled over by Hurricane Gustav, I am enjoying a quiet evening relaxing and mulling over some of the happenings and ways that God had been speaking to me over the weekend.  This weekend has been great in that regard... God has used Brennan Manning (our speaker, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel) to really speak into my life and has obviously left me with a lot to noodle over.   I'll share with you one of those things... something that I thought was really interesting. In one of his talks, Brennan turned around and talked about Jesus's famous parable of the prodigal son as if when He was talking about the character of the prodigal, think about it as if Jesus was characterizing himself as the "prodigal."  This is, in my mind, very scandalous... considering that Jesus IS the perfect Son of God and I'm not really thinking at all that the parable's character was necessarily intended to be Jesus.....
Read more

Top Ten Signs You've been going to NorthPoint too long

-
Image
I've had this on the brain for a while... I need a mental candy break though. For myself, or for any of my friends who are members of one of the NorthPoint Ministries campuses (that means Buckhead, Browns Bridge... you know who you are), there are (admit it) signs that you've been going to this church for way too long.  And now, like any person that needs to get out of their denial, I'm going to point out a few :-) Top Ten Signs You've Been at NorthPoint for Quite Some Time 1.) You commonly use any of the following words in your daily conversation: Margin Life-giving Give, Save, Spend Environment CG Big Idea Virtue Bottom Line Safe 2.) Something that Andy Stanley said in a sermon inevitably makes it into your Bible study discussion. 3.) You don't see anything wrong with wearing the same T-shirt every Sunday for 30 Sundays in a row (a shout out to all of us UpStreeters!), and in case you haven't washed "this year's" shirt, you have...
Read more