February 2nd, 2011
Slept like a rock! Jetlag is officially over. Good, I can stop bloggong about it now.
This morning we woke up and the first thing we did was have a devotion at 7:30am, IN THE MORNING. Pastor Al lead the devotion, and for worship we followed some karaoke songs on the tv! That brings me to a fun point I’ve reached in life: I just can hardly take worship seriously anymore. I mean I take it seriously but I can’t make myself try to “feel” it, put on the worship face, do the worship sway… pretending to get all serious about it. It’s hard to explain, but like today: I could have taken the mindset of “ok worship time gotta try to reeeaallly feel God at 7:30am as I watch this cheesey karaoke worship video.” But I’ve done that a lot this race and I just end up getting pissed off cause I’m faking it just so I don’t offend the natives. Instead I’m taking the mindset of, “Wow this is actually hilarious so I’m going to have fun with it.” And I start singing off key near the top of my voice. People laugh. It’s whatever, there’s freedom where the spirit of the Lord is. Or like in Africa where a worship song lasts 10 minutes.. you just reach a point where it’s fun or die.
Anyways, after lunch we went on a tour of the town. I got a new pair of board shorts, then Jake Van Norman and I went hiking up the local creek for 3 hours. Heck of a workout, and we saw some beautiful rapids and small water falls. I wish I had bought another water-resistant camera in Manila.
We made it back at 6pm for dinner, and then went to the wednesday night service at the church, where we also played and sang two songs. we had feedback in a side room where there was a spider the size of my hand and later a bat flew in.
Tomorrow we’ll start some work clearing out brush on the land in the morning before lunch. After lunch we’ll do whatever ministry we want. We’ve already made contact with quite a few people on the beach and other locals, so we have ample opportunity to minister with them. There’s so much freedom in that regard this month. We’re very thankful to be empowered to do ministry that we “own” in some sense.
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
