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...