• Archive of "travles" Category

    5 Days, 4 States, and All Kinds of Goodness

    February 18, 2009 // 3 Comments »

    Time to come clean. I can hide no longer. The Amy G. I have mentioned and interviewed, well… we’re actually a couple. I know, never saw it coming did ya?! That being said…

    This was a whirlwind of a Valentine’s Day weekend for us. Though Amy has traveled all over the world & lived in both Los Angeles and Chicago, she had never been to NYC. My brother and his girlfriend live there, so for Christmas, I got Amy 2 tickets to the city. But, as has been the case with all our other times being together, we sought to pack as much in as we possible could.

    Our journey began in Indianapolis where I got to meet some of her close college friends as well as a bunch of people she used to work with at Global Partners. Then, we traveled to NYC where we were able to spend time not only with my brother and his girlfriend, but 2 of my good friends who were in from OH and DC.

    We took the Staten Island Ferry to view the Statue of Liberty.

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    Saw ground zero.

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    The flat iron building.

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    And went to the top of the Empire State building – an unforgettable experience!

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    We also got to see Grand Central Station and Time Square.

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    For Valentines Day dinner, my brother managed to get reservations at a swanky Tapas bar that (though sadly small in size) offered some amazing tasting cuisine.

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    Quite serendipitously, we got to spend time with a good friend of mine and a good friend of Amy’s, both of whom happen to be part of the same church community that we were visiting on Sunday morning – and got to have lunch at the Seinfeld restaurant!

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    On Sunday, we traveled down to Princeton together. We got to see and stay with 2 of Amy’s good college friends, Dave and Holly and their 2 little girls. Dave is working on a PhD at Princeton and they were good enough to take us by “Schuller Field,” recently named for a good friend of mine who passed away a few years ago after finishing the first year of his MDiv there. Here’s a few pictures of small plaques fixed to two benches at the field.

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    The next day we got to take a nice stroll through Central Park, followed by visits to the coolest looking Mac store around and FAO Schwarz (remember the piano scene from Big?) where Amy got to choose any stuffed animal she wanted for her Valentine’s Day present.

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    Monday afternoon we traveled back to Chicago where we got to spend the evening with our friends Noel and Ashley in Lawndale.  Tuesday morning it was back to Memphis for me.  Told you we packed alot in!  Some more pictures here if you’re interested.

    Posted in Amy, family, friends, travles

    A Kenyan New Year

    January 7, 2009 // 2 Comments »

    I am recently back from a 10 day trip to Kenya in Africa.  Though the entire trip was incredible from beginning to end, the highlight just might have been ringing in the New Year by participating in African tribal dances around a huge bonfire (which featured the stylings of Ben K. who introduced our Kenya friends to the timeless art of “the robot”).

    I am really at a loss for how to summarize the trip.  It featured stops in Lagos, Nigeria, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dakar, Senegal.  We got to go on safari and see all sorts of beautiful African wildlife.  We attended a crusade, visited slums, drove through a market (which, by the way, was meant to be walked through), visited with local pastors, enjoyed local cuisine, helped to run a summer camp, and entered into relationship with an incredible bunch of orphans.

    I had been dreaming about visiting Africa for a number of years and I’m already anxious to return.  The landscape, both cultural and spiritual, is something I long to further understand.  The marks of Western colonialism are painfully obvious and though I was overjoyed to hear one pastor speak openly against it (he preached a message about faithfulness being the mark of true success – a message I implored him to share with his bothers and sisters in the US), the prosperity gospel is sadly entrenched amongst African Christians.

    I loved getting to travel and serve alongside the other guys on the team.  I could go on for a long time about the great stuff I saw out of them, not to mention stories of all the various Africans I got to know while we were there.  But I think I will leave anything further to these pictures (which I have tried my best to add helpful descriptions to) and any specific questions you might have.  I hope to share more pictures and links as others on the team post them.

    Here’s some more from John.

    Posted in africa, kids, living hope, travles

    Hello Africa

    December 17, 2008 // 3 Comments »

    Remember the scene in Ace Ventura 2 where Jim Carey says, “Three darts is too much!”? That’s about how I feel today.

    Aside from my shoulders feeling like Mike Tyson punched them for about an hour, I woke up this morning stiff as a board and with a fever. All thanks to the 5 vaccinations I got yesterday – Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, Yellow Fever, and Flu.

    No, I am not a hypochondriac, I am heading to Kenya in a little bit more than a week with a small team of others to help put on a camp for an orphanage that a couple from Living Hope helped to start. I have been looking forward to getting to Africa for years and I’m about get to live that dream. We’ll be gone Dec. 25 – Jan5, so be looking for pictures and stories shortly thereafter.

    Posted in africa, travles

    Jet Settin

    December 2, 2008 // 2 Comments »

    So, I did some math yesterday.  In the last three months (between August 24 and November 25) I have been to Afghanistan, taken two trips back to Ohio, two to chicago, two to Florida, and one to Dallas.  All told, right after moving into a new house, I have been gone 34 days, attended two conferences, performed my cousins wedding, and finished instructing my first course at Fuller.  Yeah, I am glad to be home for a while.

    Posted in random, travles

    OBX & Chicago

    October 19, 2008 // 3 Comments »

    I was able to get away this past week to connect with some friends and family, first in the Outer banks of NC and then in Chicago.

    Babs (Adam) and Carrie were celebrating their 4 year anniversary and invited some friends along.  So, I joined them and my friends Sean and Julie – and their 6-month old little girl Lucy, for a few days.  One night we went out to the beach at night and chased down crabs with buckets, plastic shovels, and a swimming pool net.  We tried to boil one of the little guys, but it turns out that there’s a reason that people don’t spend their time eating these particular crabs.

    Then, it was off to Chicago where I got to spend some time with my cousin and her fiance whose wedding I am honored to be performing next month.  Also got to see my friend Josh and his baby girl Norah.  Rachel, Josh’s wife, was working so I missed out on seeing her, but man Norah was a trip.

    Check out the video!

    Thursday night I got to hang out briefly with my buddy Branden who, after living in So Cal while I was also there, has been living the high life in Chicago for just over a year now.  Branden is always good for a story.

    To top it all off, I got to hang out with a friend from Fuller, Amy, who just moved to Chicago.  We toured Millennium Park and took an architectural boat tour of downtown on the Chicago river which was awesome.

    Not a bad way to spend a week.

    Posted in community, friends, travles

    An Afghan Experience

    September 2, 2008 // 4 Comments »

    I could never do justice in a blog post to all that I have seen, felt, and been a part of for the last 10 days or so as I traveled with a small team of others to Kabul, Afghanistan. So, rather than giving you my journal of the trip, let me try to catch the highlights.

    Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

    Aside from being a 3rd world country with no money, few resources, and a corrupt government, Afghanistan suffers from 30 years of armed conflict. Beginning with the Russian invasion of 1979, peace is not something the current generation of Afghans knows much of. Everywhere you go you see bullet holes, bombed out buildings, and people devastated by war. Kabul is home to about 4 million people, 3 million more than the city is built for. Everything is covered in dust, much of which is feces due to a lack of sanitation. The streets are lined with shops – metal shops, wood shops, meat shops, fruit shops, and every other sort of shop you can imagine. Driving is utterly maddening. Imagine driving in NYC with no lanes and no stop lights or stop signs and you will start to get a picture of what maneuvering the streets of Kabul is like.

    Armed police and military patrol the streets. While we were there a suicide bomber struck within the city limits and someone fired a rocket on the airport. Security is tight everywhere. We could would never stay on the street very long as the phenomenon of kidnapping is on the rise.

    There are redeeming glimmers of hope and light however. I met a man who, against great opposition has started a provate hospital, offering quality care (often for free) to many Afghans, most of whom would otherwise have to go without it. Another group we are acquainted with has adopted a village of refugees who were tossed away like garbage by the government in the middle of the desert. A healthy number of Afgans responded positively to a presentation on the practice of hospice care, a brand new concept in Afghanistan. Finally, what I was most directly involved with was teaching servant leadership material. Those in the class represented various businesses and sections of the government. The average Afghan has absolutely no confidence in their government or hope for their future – whether personal or corporate. Bribery and extortion are such regular occurrences within the government that people can scarcely imagine a future without them. So, teaching servant leadership principles, especially to younger leaders is perhaps one of the most meaningful contributions to the future of the country that I can imagine.

    There is so much more I could say about the trip – the great value of my teammates, the wonderful hospitality of the folks who housed and served us, the delicious food we enjoyed. But mostly I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the suffering and despair of the Afghan people. Overwhelmed by just how inconsequential and perverted the life and faith of the church in the West has become given the gravity of global affairs and the persecution of the global church. Overwhelmed, ultimately, by desire for God to act quickly and decisively in the world for sake of God’s name and God’s Kingdom.

    I was more than happy to travel to Afghanistan and serve alongside others who similarly desired to use their skills and gifts to make a difference in the lives of others and the fallen systems of a country, but mainly I am excited that God has furthered my passion for the continued conversion of the church in Western culture – a church who, like Israel of the First Testament, has mistaken its responsibility for privilege, only to be scandalized by God’s great work amongst the very people we have abandoned and neglected. How terribly frightening, how magnificently wonderful, it is to realize that the very nature and essence of our salvation is bound up with the salvation of those on the margins of society!

    Posted in salvation, travles

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