That time I got Salmonella

The wife and I have had the distinct blessing of being able to go overseas on short term mission trips on multiple occasions across the last 8 years or so. I have seen God do a great deal of amazing things related to these trips. Each trip could easily make multiple blog posts and perhaps they shall in the future. 

On every trip I’ve eaten a lot of odds things.  The most popular food related question I get is “Did you eat dog? What did it taste like?” Yes, I did. It tastes like dry hamburger. Dog liver tastes like a mouth full of pasty pennies. Other odd foods I have eaten include goose, duck, fish head stew, and shredded pig face. After the first trip I quit asking what I was eating. I either ate it or didn’t eat it. It’s best not to know. I took the Apostle Paul’s advice on this. 

1 Cor 10:25 “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience' sake;”

I have also spent a lot of time in foreign bathrooms thanks to the new temporary diet and on average I would lose about 10lbs while on a mission trip. Between the walking and the bathroom you can really lose some weight fast. This is why I pitch the mission trip diet for when you need to lose 10 lbs in 2 weeks or less! Last summer I went to the Philippines and they fed us extremely well and they fed us western food. Spaghetti, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, pizza, bacon, etc. I ate better there then I have at a lot of restaurants I have been to. I managed to gain 2 lbs while over there which is no small accomplishment for those that know my struggles to gain and maintain weight.  I also went the whole 2 weeks without anything wrecking my stomach which was exciting and new concept for being overseas. At least until our layover in Seoul on the way back home. 

We had a good 2-3 hour layover and it was roughly 3 in the morning for us after having been up for almost 24 hours at this point and the rest of my team took this opportunity to nap in the terminal. I took it to eat the KFC in the airport. This would prove to be a terrible terrible mistake. My half of a chicken sandwich and some fries gave me both Salmonella and Campylobacter. Gracefully I did not start feeling the effects of this until the ride home from RDU. I missed an additional week of work (after being gone for 2  weeks on the trip) and lost around 15 lbs of which I have gained about 10 back. The trip was totally worth it.  

With each trip I take I have run across people that object to the expense and effort to go overseas and help other people when there are so many needs to be met here. Now my response to those that ask me this question is usually something along these lines of “You’ll still be here.”  As typically the people that ask me these questions don’t do any kind of mission work here or there. 

Articles like this:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/rethinking-3000-missions-trip.html

Actually make some good points about the importance of the not neglecting the mission field in our own backyard. When we lived in Greensboro we went to a church that had a neat sign you saw as you exited the parking lot that read “You are now entering the mission field.”

The real question the article asks is how do we make the most out of our limited resources? 

Matthew 9:37 “Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly [is] plentiful, but the laborers [are] few”

That beloved is the true problem and to get caught up in an argument over whether local or foreign missions best serve God is to miss the point. The point is to have a mission/gospel oriented focus wherever God may send us. Whether that’s at work, school, church or a foreign country. 

Matthew 28: 18-20 "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen."

In the very unpopular great commission we are told in verse 19 to Go and make disciples of all the nations. Do you know what all the nations includes? All the nations! So guess what? Wherever you are at while physically reading this you are in part of all the nations. If you are interested in helping with some outreach in your area and aren’t sure where to start I suggest Radical Life Outreach Ministries.

http://radicallifeoutreach.blogspot.com/

This is run by my friends Dean and Melissa and they are all about the Great Commission in your backyard. Also, they will be extremely grateful for you help and you’ll get a taste of ministry outside of your comfort zone which is an important part of every believer’s walk with the Lord. The assumption is that we are going wherever we are going for the people we will help, for the benefit of man. Beloved that is a faulty assumption and a potentially dangerous one. It turns our focus from the Glory of God to the happiness of man. Happiness as we all know is a very fleeting thing.  God uses missions to make disciples of those that are sent just as much as He does those to whom He sends.

Paris Reidhead talked about his disillusionment with foreign missions while he was in Africa and how God used that time to disciple Him.

“They had no interest in the Bible and no interest in Christ, and they loved their sin and wanted to continue in it. And I was to that place at that time where I felt the whole thing was a sham and a mockery, and I had been sold a bill of goods! And I wanted to come home. I heard God say to my heart that day something like this, "I didn't send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen, I sent you to Africa for My sake. They deserved Hell! But I LOVE THEM!!! AND I ENDURED THE AGONIES OF HELL FOR THEM!!! I DIDN'T SEND YOU OUT THERE FOR THEM!!! I SENT YOU OUT THERE FOR ME! DO I NOT DESERVE THE REWARD OF MY SUFFERING? DON'T I DESERVE THOSE FOR WHOM I DIED?" I was there not for the sake of the heathen. I was there for the Savior who endured the agonies of Hell for me. But He deserved the heathen. Because He died for them. My eyes were opened” - Paris Reidhead.

Everyone is called to missions because God uses them to make us more like Him. To take the focus off of ourselves, and others and place the focus where it rightfully belongs, on Him. 

Glen

The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota

So, I want to write a post, because a post hasn’t been written in a week, but I’m not really feeling. Everything I’ve attempted has come across horrible and I have deleted it, or just saved it in the maybe sections, where half baked ideas go to die.

I thought about writing a post about writing a post, which ironically is what I’m doing presently. I tend to write these in MS Word first and at least try to edit them before I post them and Lindsey goes through and edits them again for grammar, spelling, fact and tact.

So, I thought I would ramble a bit and try to get some of the things bouncing around in my head out for a bit and not terrify you into never reading this again. This will be no small chore!

Back a few months ago the wife and I took the Myers-Briggs personality test. It turns out that I am an INTJ. I found out that INTJ’s comprise only about 2% of the U.S population and are one of the most difficult personality types to get along with. Ironically, the personality type we are most likely to get along with, especially romantically, is INFJ and guess who happens to have that type? If you guessed Lindsey you win a cookie, which you aren’t here to claim, so now I am eating it. So really you won me a cookie and I thank you, because I love cookies.

Frequently, you might meet someone who is an INTJ who really just comes across kinda weird, with random things exuding from their mouths, on the rare occasion you can pull them out of their minds to talk. This is best explained like so.....

We live inside our heads.
"We frequently zone out. We get lost in thought and spend much of our time inside our heads. If our immediate reality becomes boring, we will retreat into our minds, and you might have to shout our names repeatedly to get our attention so we will come out again. And no, sorry, but you can’t come into our heads with us. You wouldn’t last five minutes there. You’d be driven insane by the nonstop cacophony of overlapping voices madly free-associating from one idea to the next.” –  The Compleat Idiot’s Guide to the INTJ (Please note that compleat is spelled that way intentionally as joke by the INTJ who wrote it).

http://personalitycafe.com/intj-articles/24261-compleat-idiots-guide-intj.html

I’ve mentioned before social situations are a source of struggle for me, as is public speaking. Yes, I know I’m a pastor. No, it’s not a career I chose. God chose me, further displaying His sense of humor. Social situations drain me like a battery on a smart phone. So how do I recharge? Well for Father’s Day this year Lindsey got me the perfect two gifts specifically for this.

1)    Mistobox
http://www.mistobox.com/  It is glorious! It is assorted fancy coffees as I have recently discovered (in the last year) a love for coffee. The degree to which I am people friendly is directly related to the amount of Caffeine in my system. Coffee & Dr. Pepper = People Skills.

2)    A day off
The Saturday of Father’s day weekend Lindsey took the kids over to her momma’s and gave me a day to do whatever I wanted guilt free! I played video games, took a nap, and went to see Superman with my buddy Jacob. It really helped me recharge from a lot of extensive socialness over the past couple of months.

During the course of writing this, I’ve written and erased tangents about Star Trek, Pacific Rim, whose going to be the next Doctor in Doctor Who, Video Games, and Yasiel Puig getting snubbed by the all star team. I mean how are you not going to let your most popular player (at the moment) into a game that’s meant to showcase your stars? He’s batting .407 people! C’mon!

 This is all part of why I love the Bible so much. It gives me so much to focus on, so much to consider, so many answers. It calms the cacophony of sound that times can be overwhelming.

Psalm 55:18 "He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle [that was] against me, For there were many against me."

That's more then enough for now. Enjoy your weekend beloved!

Glen

How I Met Your Mother

Greetings Everyone,

"She's clothed in strength and dignity
She laughs at days to come
Her love for Jesus is why she's beautiful to me" - GS Megaphone, Proverb Doll

I write this in hopes that one day my kids will read it. They will hear this story over and over again while they are growing up. However, dear reader, rest assured it will not take me 9 years to tell it. Even though I love context I vote Ted Mosby as the master of it.

So, those that know me have heard my joke something to the extent of "When I finally found a girl that would go out with me I married her." True story! I thought about making a list of all my girlfriends prior to Lindsey and figured that would be awkward for that one girl I briefly dated at the beginning of 10th grade.

So, I first met Lindsey at a church Superbowl party in early 1998. I don't recall much about that particular evening other then learning her name so I won't speculate any further. Shortly after that, I came to know the Lord in mid Feb of 98. My life changed drastically as it does for everyone who meets the Lord. At that particular time there were several girls I was interested in that I knew at the time via work, school, friends etc. but my luck with them went as it always had with girls. They only seemed interested when I wasn't.

""To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before." -- Rollo May


I remember sometime later in the spring I was standing watching a volleyball game at church and my future brother in law remarked to me how some of the girls were going to grow up to be beautiful women. I pointed out Lindsey and said to him "especially her." He looked at me incredulously and said "Hey man that's my sister!" My response "What are you? adopted?" He proceeded to punch me in the arm. 

In the summer of 1998 I went on a church rafting trip. There were older better looking guys than me on that trip so the teenage girls that attended were busy with them. Somehow, Me, my friend Shea, Lindsey and a friend of hers ended up playing pool together. It was the highlight of my trip. 

Things like that would continue. We would flirt off and on a little here and there at church functions. I started visiting her cousins more frequently (who lived next door) mainly to see her whenever I could. Thanks Jared and Jordan. We spent a lot of nights talking online via ICQ. 

In the fall of 1999 things start getting more serious. Which was a bit of an issue. She was 14 (to turn 15 in Dec) and I had just turned 20 in Sept. Serious age difference there. Now that I have two daughters, the fact that Tim & Ellen allowed me to live displays their true graciousness and benevolence. I'll keep that in mind when Madison turns 25 and is allowed to date. :-)

However, Lindsey wasn't allowed to date until she was 16 which was a rule long before I came around with my skinny, geeky, awkward self. 

Yes, that is what I looked like in the 90's. The whole no luck with girls thing really makes sense when I see photos like this. :-) However, what Lindsey saw me continues to elude me to this day. Grace. Merciful Grace.

So, what proceeded was me coming over to visit Lindsey at her house and the occasional double date or youth event.  I would get to visit for a little bit then I was informed it was time to leave unless I wanted to help with fill in the blank chore (mopping, sausage balls, wood stove duty, gardening, etc.) I wanted to be around her so I did the work. I was so frustrated about all that at the time, but I did it. It forced us to get to know one another in less then ideal circumstances and see how we would relate in normal day to day circumstances. It also saved me a lot of money, which I was horrible with at the time and showed her parents I was willing to work.

Finally after she turned 16 and we were allowed to go out, but I couldn't pick her up until 6 and had to have her back by 8.

I won't detail further specifics of our courtship in this particular post since it's long enough as it is for right now. I may add in more details later. However, in May of 2004 at Duke Gardens, on bended knee, with permission from her father, I proposed and she said yes. We got married July 9th 2005. Next Tuesday marks 8 wonderfully blessed years of marriage and 14 years (or so) of us being together. 

Proverbs 31:10-12 
"Who can find a virtuous wife?
For her worth is far above rubies.
¹¹ The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
So he will have no lack of gain.
¹² She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life."

Happy Anniversary Wife! I love you more then I will ever be able to say!

Glen