An Emotional Wreck

Despite what most people think, guys are very emotional. Tonight, for instance, I was hungry, thirsty, hot, and had to pee all at the same time! You want to talk about instability! What do you do? Do you eat, then drink, then pee? Or do you pee, then drink, then eat? Guys, I tell you, are capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, all at once.

And so it is with me here in late August. I am torn. On the one hand, I am excited about being here and all that it entails, as I said last night. But on the other, I am trying to figure out how I can amplify my computer speakers so that I can hear every note of Tiger Rag once it starts blaring on Saturday. The college football season will start in just a few hours in America, and I will miss most, if not all of it. I don't think sad is the right word to describe how I feel, just frustrated. I remember vividly sitting in a cold, damp, rain one November day in the mid nineties, way up in the upper deck, watching Clemson lose to Maryland, and wishing for better days. I was painted orange the day our undefeated season came to a devastating halt my freshman year as that Watkins guy caught that pass in the back of the endzone with seven seconds left that allowed Georgia Tech to squeak out a win against us. And now, with ACC championship hopes floating around Tiger Town, I am here, hoping my internet connection will hold up long enough for me to listen via internet radio. I've looked at all the pictures, watched all the highlights from last year, read all the predictions for this year. I'm ready. I'm so ready I can barely think of anything else. The one thing I have kept from myself has been hearing the Orange Bowl Death March followed by Tiger Rag. It is too much for me now. If I heard it, I might shout, I might dance, I will probably cry. I don't know. But I know that when I do hear it for the first time this football season, I will officially be an emotional wreck.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

This little phrase becomes more true to me everyday I live. I think everything in our kitchen was taken from somebody else who wanted to throw it away. I got home tonight and my roommate had helped a friend of his pack to move and we picked up a few more plates and glasses and even a few casseroule dishes. Next thing we need is to luck up and see somebody throwing away an oven! All we have now is a glorified camp stove, but it works. It seems I am always the one finding the treasure in somebody else's trash.

Which brings me to the serious part of the post, where most people will stop reading I'm sure. But tonight my roommate was lamenting to me about how sad this upcoming year is to him. How it will be the same as the last and it will come and go and nothing will be different except he will be older and he still won't be satisfied with life. How sad. Now before you judge him, he has more joy than most people I know, he was just having a down night. Maybe because his attempt at making pancakes didn't turn out so well (it looked more like a plate of mashed potatoes) or maybe it's because I was walking around without a shirt on again, I don't know, but normally he's cheerful and he wasn't tonight. But anyways, he was just generally depressed at the thought of this upcoming year. HA! How funny is that? I've been waiting on this upcoming year for a long time! Funny how what looks to be trash to my friend is one of the greatest treasures I have found. Being able to spend a year in a foreign country, learning a new language and culture, meeting new people, eating new foods, and talking to people about things they have never heard of before! Who knows what God will do over the next year? Maybe it will be the worst year in the history of the world, but maybe it will be the greatest. We are not promised either. All we have to hold onto is God, but if you what, if that's not enough, I don't know what else would be. We have two pictures to look at, Paul, shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, and loads of other maladies on top of that, who found a way to be content in all situations (Phil. 4, read it). And who could forget the ultimate example, Jesus "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross" (Heb. 12, read it). I don't care how bad this upcoming year is, something tells me it won't be as bad as these two guys had it, and they found ways to be content with what they had, namely, the hope that comes from knowing God. That's what we need to be, not married or rich or in the middle of some great adventure, we just need to be content. So with that, I look forward to this upcoming year. I have no idea what it will be like. Maybe my stomach problems will never cease, maybe it will always be this hot, maybe my fan will break, maybe I will be beaten and killed. All of those things are possible, but the only thing I know for sure, is that God will be with me through it all, and that is quite a treasure.

Mystery Meat on Toast Please, with a Side of Passionate Preaching

My new favorite way of ordering food at a restaurant is to just pick the one that I think I can actually pronounce, and just order it, whether I actually know what it is or not. Today I went to lunch with the Varner's at a little cafe down the street and there were two sandwiches that I could pronounce on the menu. So I talked little Tom Tom into getting one while I got the other and we would cut the sandwiches in half and trade. I got an order of fries too, just in case it ended up being another sheep intestine sandwich or something crazy like that. Luckily, one happened to be a delicious grilled cheese and the other was some sort of mystery meat, but it tasted great. Tom Tom even ate all of it, which made me proud.

But on a more serious note, last night was a great time of fellowship here at the apartment. It was K's cell group meeting, with "the White Guy," "the Shark," and "the Mexican." They let me sit in, even though everything was in Turkish. There were a couple times when things got pretty heated as the guys were discussing the passage. It made me realize how badly I need to know this stinking language. Twice I was used as a prop for the discussion, neither time I was told what the discussion was about. Thanks guys. But after the Mexican left, I got to talking with the White Guy, who knows a good bit of English, about America. He told me that he really wanted to go to America because of how faithful of a country we are to God. Ha! Whatever man. That set me off. I went off about how at one time America was founded on Christian principles, but that we are moving away from them at an alarming rate. The parts of the country where there seems to be a continuation of those traditions are sadly, just that, continuing traditions in large part. There is no depth to a lot of peoples faith, it is just a cultural label they put on themselves because they sure as heck aren't Muslims. So why go to a place like that? So it'll be easy? The ease brings complacency. It's too easy. A little persecution would be good for the church in America. It would seperate the wheat from the chaff maybe. Show us who is really on our side and who is just jumping on the bandwagon. No, you shouldn't dream of going to America, you should be thankful you were born in a place where it is hard. The persecution these people feel here refines their faith in a way that we can't experience in America. And because of that, they reach a maturity and a depth that I can only dream of having some day. You should not dream of going to America, you should dream of changing your own country into a nation that will worship the one, true God. As long as I am here preaching, as long as us white people are the ones sharing the Gospel with people, it will always be a foreign Gospel. Only when national believers, who have been raised in the culture, who have experienced life in the country, who speak the same mother tongue, only when those people start preaching to their countrymen will the Gospel truly become their Gospel. I begged the guy to stay here. Take up the work here. Do the things that I desire so much to do, namely to present the truth of Jesus Christ in a culturally appropriate way, in their heart language.

So I was winding down my little sermon when I noticed my roommate, Special K, was translating everything for the Shark. When he got done everybody just looked at me for a few minutes until finally Special K told me that I had to learn Turkish quickly, so that I can preach to them myself, without him translating. We'll see buddy, we'll see.

What did nerds do before computers?

I mean really. I've been a nerd my whole life, I know this, and most of you do too. But since I've had my beautiful, litte Mac, who I love very much, it's gotten out of control. This blog is just another sign of that. But what did nerds do before the days of computers? I know there were nerds around, there always have been and there always will be. So what avenue did they have to unleash their nerdness? I'm sure they found some way. Thankfully, I have this one.

So that's all that I could come up with today. A prayer letter should be coming soon, so that'll give you insight into the last week or so of my life. I need to see if I can get a few things done today. It's such a change of pace when you judge how good your day is by how many times the power goes out and whether or not you told the salesman, "I bought it Friday" or "I bought a second wife." Details.