quick…look up and to the left. see the daily scripture entry? in my efforts to stay immersed in the scriptures i’ve decided to enact a rather ambitious plan. i’m going to try to write some personal commentary on the daily scripture entry every day. luckily i have no control over which scriptures are chosen each day as the feed is provided by the international bible society. i have no idea if they work their way all the way through a particular book of the Bible in succession or if it’s done more randomly. we’ll see what happens, but regardless, i’m going to try and make this a daily affair. in all candor, this exercise is more for me than you, but i do want to ask for your help. if you see that i’m slacking off and not writing every day, get on my case.
well, it’s time that i introduce everyone to my girlfriend, desirea. we’ve been going out for about three months now and it’s been a total blessing. this picture was taken at the surprise birthday party she threw for me at my favorite restaurant, maudies. desi’s a great girl and we’re really enjoying spending time together getting to know each other. hopefully you’ll all get to know her soon as well.
had a great day on saturday. a group of gatewayers met at juan in a million for breakfast tacos and then we hit the streets on the east side. we just walked around praying for the neighborhood and got to meet some of the folks there and actually prayed with and for quite a few people who really wanted us to. after that, a smaller group went around and met some of the homeless people in the area. we gave them clean socks and some food and just talked to them for about an hour or so. we found out a lot about what it means to be homeless in austin and what it’s like for these men and women out on the streets. the one thing we keep coming back to is that there are a lot of really great services in place in austin for homeless people. frank, one of the guys we met, said that if you’re homeless in austin and you’re hungry, something is wrong. he’s been out there for a while and he says that if you want to eat, it’s pretty easy to get a good meal at a number of different places around town. they can even get clothes fairly easily.
in talking with these folks, it looks like the number one thing we can do is just to go hang out with them and try to get to know them. frank told me that it was extremely encouraging for us just to come around and see how they’re doing. as we try to plan mission austin and work with these guys, i think that’s going to be the focus. we’ll find ways to get them clothes and food and connect with other folks here in town who can help, but i think our number one goal is going to be to show these guys the love of Christ by spending time with them. just like any other relationship TIME=LOVE.
Hey…a lot of people have been asking me what type of church i want to plant. if you want to know more about it, check out this book: In Search of Authentic Faith: How Emerging Generations Are Transforming the Church. It’s the best book on reaching postmoderns that i’ve seen yet. let me know what you think.
i was driving through my old hometown, brownwood, and had to stop when i saw that the carnival was in town. it was in the exact same parking lot it was always in when i was a kid. brought back a few memories. good stuff
i just changed my site completely. in the past, i used blogger to bring you the road les travels, but i think i’m going to get better results using movable type. it’s kind of hard to set up but should give me a lot more flexibility once i learn to use it. we’ll see. leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
I just added comments to my site. It’s not all that fancy, but it works. Hopefully people will make use of this new feature. We shall see.
Les
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check out a new page on my site dedicated to a new mission adventure here in austin, mission austin (working title). the page itself is an interactive mind map on which you can click around to see the plans/direction as they exist at this point. i hope to update the map at least weekly as we meet and plan the future of this mission. if you have questions and/or suggestions about mission austin, please let me know.
if you’re having trouble seeing the map, you probably need to download and install the free java runtime environment from sun. to do so, click here.
36 years is a long time. it doesn’t seem like i could possibly be that old, but my birth certificate doesn’t lie. it’s not that i feel that 36 is incredibly old or anything like that, it just doesn’t seem that i could have that many years under my belt. for some reason i still feel like i’m in my late 20’s or something. this is a good thing in most respects, but i wonder if i’m cheating somehow. but then what does 36 really feel like anyway. i can only work from an expectation of what i thought 36 would feel like and i find that that expectation just isn’t bearing true in my own life. so maybe it’s my expectations that are wrong. regardless, i feel good and 36 is not bad at all.
my dad is doing much better now. he’s back home and still has some angina (chest pains), but his medication (nitro glycerine tablets) seems to take care of it. it was kind of a crazy week last week, but things are getting back to normal. i’m back home in austin now and dad is back at home in amarillo. i can’t imagine what it’s like to lie in that hospital bed all day every day. it’s got to be really boring at best. dad was lucky in that the nurses, techs, etc. at baptist saint anthony’s hospital in amarillo are all really great, friendly folks, but it still has to stink to be there all that time. it’s good just to get home from the hospital.
this whole thing has made me consider a lot of things in my own life. my dad, his dad, and his dad before him all had heart attacks and my dad’s the only one to survive it. so, i need to start taking care of myself better. the great thing is that there’s all this good info out there on diet, exercise, etc. the big thing now is just to have the discipline to get on a program and stick with it. so, if you see me eating a chicken fried steak, slap me around a little bit. no more cheeseburgers or fries either. it stinks, but i don’t want to be the next one in my family lying in that hospital bed hooked up to all those machines. with a little discipline, i think i can beat the odds. we’ll see.
