Love Is In The Blair

Ever been to the top of a mountain? It's a pretty sweet experience. In China, I plateau-ed.  My 3rd week found me and my "mini-team" (half of "mega-team") in a tiny town along the yellow river.  The valley that holds this town is home to about 7 people groups of which were unreached.  Now there's not much language cross over as I alluded to in a previous blog, so that left us doing a lot of prayer walking. I'll keep this one short... On the first day of our prayer walks, I found myself walking off alone and toward mountains in the distance.  I was already on top of a plateau, pretty significantly elevated above most of the areas below.  I had a great view all around me.  But I wasn't completely satisfied with that.  I wanted to move on to the top of the highest mountain I could get to, but I just felt like I should stop. So I did, and I had a little time with God, then I turned around to come back, but I was led a different w...

My month in China won’t quite ring in your ears (or eyes) the way it possibly could have, would I have written it while I was there or in the immediate aftermath. Orrrrr maybe you’ve just been spared a slew of metaphors about crowded streets, honking horns, and smog that would do nothing to move the story along… Take it how you will, what’s done is done. My team underwent a new dynamic shift.  We had a member added, bringing the total to 8, then we were chopped in half and sent into separate ministries for the whole month.  My half team was told to walk around, prayer walk, meet people, make friends, do what we can to build relationships and share Christ. Well doing that is so vague at times that you easily lose vision and drive, and that’s if you’re doing it in a place where people understand your language, or vice versa.  Now take that task and put it in a place where there are hundreds of thousands of people around you, of which maybe 1% would underst...

Recently a great man in my life passed on. Dr. Donald Wagner served so many over the years, and my family was very much included in those masses.  He consistently carried our banner in scholarship committee meetings, which allowed our family the opportunity to not be burdened by the finances of school.  You see… I say “family,” because I mean it.  My dad, mom, and myself were all at UWG at the same time, graduating with undergraduate degrees in 2006, 2007, and 2008 respectively.  Paying tuition for 3 and the other financial demands of life would have been pretty difficult to say the least, especially with the main “bread winners” having to spend time in class and studying.                                                    “D-Wags” didn’t stop there.  He was influential in giving my mother the honor of speakin...

There are times to blog on the race, occasions, events, harrowing tales that just must be told.  Then there are those times when it feels obligatory.  For example, to wrap up a month, or to move into a new one, like right now. It wasn’t like Nepal wasn’t wonderful.  To say anything negative about my experience with the Nepalee people would take some deliberation and ignoring all the abundance of good we were showered with.  It’s just that day after day we lived our life.  I can’t put my finger on one particular big thing to write about… it was just… good…every day. When that grows to be the standard, you know you can’t ignore and not write about it, but things that might have seemed great other places and in other situations begin to be what you are accustomed too.  I think that happens in the States a lot.  We have so much.  We are blessed with so much, that to complain would be shortsighted and kinda silly to say the least....

Month 8 debrief found us wrapping up India, a tough month, as I’ve previously alluded to in my last 2 blogs.  It also found us in a small town, without many luxuries, trapped, for the most part, by incessant rain.  But I think that’s what we needed. Many of us had a tough month spiritually and/or  otherwise, the threat at a luxurious debrief would have been to, as my new squad leader Rebekah Clark aptly pointed out in her blog, run to worldly things for comfort and peace. But those amenities weren’t available to us.  In fact, nowhere we looked to have debrief was going to be filled with convenience or lots of “pleasure” as we typically might seek it out after a tough time.  Instead, the only place of real comfort and solace we had to turn to was God and each other.  For the most part I think our squad took advantage of that. It wasn’t the debrief many wanted or envisioned.  Even I, though I knew “Fancy Land” wasn’t the best for us, ...

So whenever I get home from this whole World Race thing people will undoubtedly ask, “How was your trip?” or ”How was your year?”  For the most part, those people probably won’t want more, or get more than “good.”  Some will go a little deeper and ask something like “What was your favorite country?”  That, too has a lot of possible answers, depending on if you are speaking of contacts, ministry, the beauty of the country, etc.  Even within those breakdowns it will still be somewhat difficult to say, and that’s with about 3 full months left. What I can say, however, is that I will likely not be answering “India” to the latter question. It wasn’t that I hated India, I don’t. It wasn’t that I’ll never go back.  In fact, India was home to some of the people that sought to honor me, my team, and squad the most.  I now have, what I feel can be, lifelong friends in India. It wasn’t just because I struggled to find my place in the ministry we were ...

Sometimes in life… we lack what we feel we should have.  Sometimes what we feel we should have is feeling and that’s that loudest “feeling” we do have. In a world that focuses so much on emotions, it’s certainly easy to become numb and desensitized because we over hype so many useless things.  So the feeling of “not feeling” isn’t a new one, but when it comes in the midst of things that “should” illicit some major response of the soul it has the potential to be discouraging, at the very least confusing. It’s in these times we find our true motivation. As you may or may not know, depending on the frequency with which you read my blog, Facebook status, or tweets, I’m in India.  My team and squad leader Ben are working with something called Burn 24/7.  We travel around the country and do worship and praise.  The thought being that where God’s name is lifted up and praised even in the darkest places there His spirit dwells. Now obviously, I feel...

So, as I sit here, I realize that this is 3 blogs posted in 1 day, and 4 in a week, but it might be a while before we post more.  I’m leaving for the Cape Town airport in an hour or less and our race is moving on to India after that. I’m writing this as an advance blog, because I don’t know when, or how often I’ll have internet next month.  My team and squad always need prayer, but our team will certainly be thankful to receive some extra prayer support this month. We will be working with a ministry, “Burn” traveling all over India.  We’ll land in Mumbai on Monday and be moving from there.  We’ll head to some very dark areas, places that have yet to hear the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.  These will likely include some regions where idol worship and human sacrifice still take place today. There will be a lot of spiritual warfare.  Pray that our team doesn’t give the enemy any foothold within us as individuals or as a team.  Pr...

A lot of times it’s tough to sum up a month, especially a month like this one with 3 different types of ministry and all sorts of peripheral things.  But that’s the task I’m “charged” with.  So brace yourselves. Our team had a couple of additions this month, Wesley Presley Snipes, or, as his birth certificate might more accurately say, Wesley Parker Reed joined us from the great state of Georgia, ever heard of it?  And Kyle Winston Tubb of Amory, Mississippi fame also took his talents to a South (African) Beach.  Now, I know what you’re thinking… He’s not Kyle Winston Tubb V.  As you much as you might expect a name like that to be locked onto for hundreds of years, such is not yet the case. These gents were kiff (it means “cool” here in South Africa) and were keen(willing) to join us as part of a World Race Exposure trip that brings people in for a month of our journey, and without them and their manly muscles we would have been in for some extra ...

In my last blog ( Faith is Useless ) I made the point that many of us don’t really obey.  (Read it if you wanna know what I’m talking about).  We don’t really exercise faith at times, and maybe, just maybe, you identified with that.  It’s possible that now or some point in the future you will find yourself with the realization that you should be exercising your faith in Christ, but you’re falling short of that. If so, as I questioned at the end of the last blog, “Ok, so I don’t have the faith to obey like I know I’m supposed to.  How can I fix that?”  ( Well there are a myriad of individual reasons, but I think for the most part they boil down to a small root cause. Fear. “Um, excuse me Matt, but I’m not afraid.”  Well you’re either really in a good place or a lying to yourself.  Bear with me and openly consider if this applies to you, and if it doesn’t let it roll on off… but if it does…you can begin to face and conquer it. What w...

(So, quite recently, I posted a blog called “Pretend Angela.”   If you haven’t read that one, you should know it’s the precursor to this one.  So it might be a good idea to read it, because that’s where this one picks up) … How does someone get to this place?  How do we find ourselves in situations where, without intervention, we fly down a path of not trusting God?  How often do we justify our lack of faith more and more until, if we are fortunate enough to wake up, we eventually find ourselves way down a road we never thought we’d go? Faith in Christ is a tough thing.  It’s often something we cling to more theoretically than literally, but by default that’s not faith.  Like a guy or a girl we want to like, we’re more into “the idea” of faith in Christ, than an actual reality of it.  But the reality of it, we think, involves a bit of risk. I say “Faith in Christ” and not simply “faith,” because faith is easy and ulitmately useless...

Last month we had Manistry (all the dudes together) month in Swaziland, except the women… they did no “manistry” to speak of, but were still in Swaziland.  I know you’re glad you had that explained to you. Our ministry mainly involved helping out with the children of an orphanage and school, working in the fields, and helping around our contact Charmain's home.  Between all that, our random guy things, and, of course, tea time... I managed to meet a lady name Angela... "allegedly."  … Cows often found their way onto the property at El Shaddai, and one of our daily tasks quickly became herding them from the corn fields.  On one such occasion, "Angela" was walking down the road and her phone messed up, which led her to call for the assistance of Ben Mullett and Johnfrank.  (They can give more of the story, but if you don’t know them this will have to suffice). She asked for help fixing the music on her phone and moved on, offering t...

As most of my blogs, this one is late, but don’t worry… neither I nor my world race blog are pregnant.  (I imagine that Reagan has just struck her knee).  If you aren’t on the race, you probably won’t get that, don’t hurt yourself. (Digression) Precursor:  I’m a logistics dude for my squad.  That’s not vital to any of this, but it explains the next sentence for those of you who didn’t know. Part of this whole logistics gig means I get to be a part of the lovely process known as visa applications and, for this race in particular, India has been a hefty sized garbage bag of issues.  First, we tried to apply in Romania, but it was too soon, “allegedly.”  So we regrouped and planned to apply in South Africa.  Well, at the beginning-ish of June, roundabout the 7 th , BenW, the squad leaders, and myself rolled on down to Durban after Mozambique ended. To our slight surprise, we were told we needed to have everyone fill out new forms becaus...

Here I sit, done with Mozambique, or “Mozie” if your ke­­­­­­­­­­en for shortening wor.  So I should reflect right?  (The previous inquiry was redundant).  I also like using words most people, myself included, typically wouldn’t, anyway… I’ll matriculate onward with this blog. Unveiled Pursuit (that’s my team, for those of­­­­­­ you who don’t follow with regularity) and Team Genuine bunked down with Angie Wheeler last month in Machava, in the Maputo district of Mozie, at her ministry, “Beacon of Hope” (BOH).  Angie has been in Mozambique nearly 11 years and has a God-given vision that’s awfully encouraging. Originally, as a part of Iris ministries, Angie developed a deeper heart for the young people, and today it shows more than ever.  Aside from the children she’s adopted, every year she starts with 10 young men, enrolling them in the 3 year program.  Not everyone stays.  But that’s their choice.  You can’t “make” people succeed....

About a month ago, I wrote a Mother’s Day Blog, at the time I didn’t plan on writing this one, but I think the occasion deserves it.  Yeah… it’s after Father’s Day, but the internet went out and I wasn’t able to talk to pops.  But here it is… a blog for dad, written from a mountain top, by a fire, under an open sky, on the other side of the world. Yeah…  I travel a bit, it’s something he instilled in me. He’s done a lot that goes unmentioned and unnoticed.  Most people don’t know the hard work he’s put into our family.  Many people remember him more for the man he USED to be, not the man he’s become and becoming. He doesn’t seek the praise, but a little appreciation and thanks go a long way. He’s had a rough go of it the last year or so, caught some tough breaks, and I know he’s wondering what’s next, but he’s holding strong. I’m writing this blog to let you all know, because I know he does, that I’m proud that he’s my dad.   And I...

So… blog world… the long awaited closure to the Tra nsnis tria and Moldova chapters of this race has finally come.  I know you were feverishly checking your emails and my blog page, just in case you missed it.  Well, fret not, it has arrived. There came a time in my life when I found myself in the magical, yet not-so-official, land of Tr ansnistr ia, what some people know as Moldova.  As you may recall, if you frequent this blog and have a good memory, I was handed a piece of paper and instructed not to lose it.  Seeing as how losing it could potentially lead to a fine or imprisonment, I planned to keep a tight grip on it.  However, my pocket had a different plan, and it may well be in one of Tira spol’s finest abandoned buildings or dumpsters by now. So what ever became of me?  Whatever happened with the cliffhanger I dropped two blogs ago, only to not address last blog?  What is this? “Bones?” Nope.  This is my blog, and if you d...

...(ANNOUNCER VOICE) "Previously on this blog... you read things (allegedly)... here are more things... I promise." This, once again is a little late, but it’s a part of the journey that “needs” to be shared.  I spent a second week in “Daughter Russia.”  This time I moved a little to the south and a little less to the east to a little place I can’t spell in any language, but if I had to give it a shot I’d say Slovodzeah,  but again… I’m pretty sure I just butchered that like a madman. In terms of “ministry,” this wasn’t some extreme mission.  We spent time with some teenagers from the church and painted in an orphanage, unless you are talking to the Narnian government, in that case the orphanage is closed, because they don’t like Christians taking care of children.  But the things we were doing weren’t “extreme” by any means, not “life-changing” things in and of themselves, but then again it’s learning to serve God and others in the simple things ...

So I know, this is like a month late, and I’m in Mozambique now, and we always wanna read about the new stuff, but you’re gonna have to wait on that, at least from me.  Because meaningful things have happened, so I thought I’d give you a recap of Moldova… in three parts.  Why?  Well, because we lived it in 3 parts.  Don’t ask such pushy questions!  Geez!  Here’s part one, more is pending posting. This is more of a recounting of events than an exploration of deeper concepts.  Unveiled Pursuit(UP) had a little secret unveiled to us.  There’s a place called Tr ansni stria, or as I like to call it “Daughter Russia.”  It’s a pretend country, a political Narnia, if you will in that “monstrously” dominates the eastern landscape, of what most of those who know of Moldova, think is Moldova.  People think it’s Moldova, partly because it is, but this Soviet nook is it’s own deal, complete with Russian military, and their own currency...