Parrrrrtaaaaaaay!

Well, not really.

Everybody asks what I did for my birthday, so I decided to tell you. I got up and went to church as usual. Struggled to understand what was being said (still don't know what passage he was preaching from, but it's somewhere in 1 Peter). Argued for Christ over Muhammed with my friend afterwards. Played pool for 2 hours with another friend. Had to play one game by cell phone light thanks to a thunderstorm that knocked the power out and the fact that the pool hall is underground. Went to the bakery to buy myself a pastery to serve as a cake. Got it for half price, with a complimentary pink candle, because it was my birthday and the register dude wants to go to Miami someday. Came home and got hammered on a one litre Coke with the roommate. That was pretty much it. No great fanfare, just another day in Central Asia.

The day after my birthday is always sobering too. First of all, you just got done with a day where everybody was giving you happy birthday wishes and pats on the back and what not. Then you just go back to being same old Joe, or in this case Chris, and nobody really pays much attention. And then you have to go through and make a list of all the people who didn't wish you a happy birthday for one reason or another, *cough* Gouge, and figure out if they're still your friend or not. But when all that is over, I look at my life, and say to myself, "Man, I am 24 years old." No, it's not old, I'm not trying to imply that, but man, life just keeps on going. It doesn't slow down. I don't get time to warm up, to practice a little, to get my act together. I keep living and everyday I am confronted with my sin and the fact that even now, almost seven years after meeting Christ, I have such a rough time staying on the path. I look at the world around me and I know that this is a hard place where the Gospel is struggling. But then I remind myself, you've been here two months, and you've only shared with one Muslim, and then it was in a very broken and hard to understand way. Two months in and I can barely get around town trouble free. I can't tell people where my apartment is, and yet I desire to tell people where my heavenly home is. Man it's frustrating. Though I'm 24 years old, my language skills here are on the level of a 6 year old. I still wallow around in my sin like it's my first week with the Lord. And I think to myself, man when will this all change. Maybe this is the year.

Here I am at 24, in case you thought something might've changed. It hasn't. And to my joy, the beard is back baby.








In other news, when I am done typing this, I will make a trip to the Foreign Affairs Ministry or whatever they call it, to start the process of getting a visa. I am going to try and get one that will last for the next two years, so that I can stay with no problems. There are two things I want to happen today. I want to start this process, which includes gathering some information and filling out some paperwork. I know I can't do it all today, because I have to have some pictures made and I need to do some money transfers, but to get things started would be great. Secondly, and it's more of something that I don't want to happen, is I don't want to get interrogated. On the one hand, it makes me excited to think about being interrogated and mentally slapping these guys around. They'd never get anything out of me, that's not what I'm worried about. It would just be really nice to walk in, smile at the lady behind the counter, get my paperwork, get out, and get on with life here. We'll see in about an hour if that's God's plan or not.