Dog Fight

When we were living in Dallas we would go to the dog park with our Jack Russell quite a bit. It was a nice way to meet people and let the dog play. The dog park is simply a open area with a fence. As you might guess, dog fights were somewhat common. One day there was a man there with a little lap dog of sorts and some bigger dogs came up to all aggressive like and he stepped in the middle and grabbed his dog out of the escalating tension. As he was doing this, all the other dogs were taking notice of the action and were rushing over. So as he is picking up his dog he is knocked down or he falls. It looks like something from the Discovery Channel when a big animal is taken down by a bunch of small animals. He stepped in the middle of this and in the end it came back to hurt him. Its just like the Proverb that warns us of the danger of stepping into the middle of conflict. Proverbs 26:17 Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own.

Faith Sharing

I remember leading a mission trip a few years ago to Mexico. One of the days we were trying to connect a neighborhood to a local church where we were having a VBS. To connect the neighborhood to the church, we would go out with translators and basically just try to talk to whoever we saw. In that neighborhood, there were lots of people without jobs just kind of hanging out in front of their little houses, or shacks. We would try to ask questions about them. I remember one high school student who was really trying to be intentional about sharing his faith, yet he was always awkward. He would ask questions that just made him look like a creep. “How are you today? Do you have children? Are they home? Is your husband home? By this time I was trying to back away because he was embarrassing himself.

From Sex God by Rob Bell, pg 18

In 1945, a group of British soldiers liberated a German concentration camp called Bergen-Belsen. One of them, Lieutenant Colonerl Mercin Willet Gonin DSO, wrote in his diary about what they encountered:

"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as barren as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men, women, and children collapse as you walked by them...One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not east to watch a child chocking to death from diphtheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it. One saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman to weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves....a dysentery tank in which the remains of a child floated.


It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the postmortem table and clutched in her hands was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last the could take an interest in their appearance that lipstick started to give them back their humanity."

Prostitute not going to church

From The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy

A friend of mine works with the down and out in Chicago. A prostitute came to him in wretched straits, homeless, her health failing, unable to buy food for her two year old daughter. Her eyes awash with tears, she confessed that she had been renting out her daughter- two years old!- to men interested in kinky sex, in order to support her own drug habit. My friend could hardly bear hearing the sordid details of her story. He sat in silence not knowing what to say. At last he asked if she had ever thoughts of going to a church for help. "I will never forget the look of pure astonishment that crossed her face," he later told me. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? They'd just make me feel even worse that I already do!"

Big Nasty

Went hunting in Texas this last weekend. I have grown up hunting among the scarce deer population of southern Missouri my entire life. Deer hunting in Missouri included a few things: cold temperatures, camping (in the cold), beer, sitting in a racketing tree stand for a few hours without seeing a thing before finally getting down to go look for the deer, and then finally heading back to camp cold, tired, and depressed because you hadn't seen anything.

However, hunting in Texas is a very different experience. First, I climbed in my stand and sat in my warm deer blind, which is very different than a tree stand. A tree stand is made of random pieces of lumber nailed to a tree that will somehow support human weight. These stands are very cold and very scary. A deer blind on the other hand is positioned in the open next to a deer feeder, which almost guarantees at least seeing a deer. The deer blind has four walls that stop the wind and windows that can open and close to get a shot. You can balance your gun and just wait for the deer to come. If you get down to walk around it is because you missed and scared all the deer away thus nullifying the guarantee of the deer blind. In addition, you sit on an office chair and not cold hard lumber.

This morning the feeder did not go off, but the deer still came. I had to wait about an hour or so before I spotted two does. I watched them about a hundred yards off to the east grazing by a big cedar tree. They would move in and out of the cedars but stayed pretty far off. I looked at them for about twenty minutes through my scope thinking about whether or not I actually wanted to take the shot. I didn't want to settle for a doe, but I was not seeing anything else. I waited too long and the two does finally disappeared for good into the cedars.

I waited another long 20 minutes before a small buck appeared by the feeder looking for food. He walked into the pin surrounding the feeder and grazed in the grass and the corn. I watched him for a while as well. I could see that he wasn't legal because there was not a 12 inch span between his antlers, but I did want a buck and here was a little four or six pointer. I had my safety off, but I still didn't take the shot. He walked off to the west, and as soon as he was out of view behind a cedar, the big nasty showed up.

I had seen this deer before. I had even taken a shot at him, but missed because I was too excited about getting a big deer. He had at least ten points, and walked very slowly across the field. I could feel my pulse quicken and my breath get much shallower. He suddenly stopped and I said to myself that I was not going to let this one pass. I slowly pulled the trigger, learning from my last shot that if I was excited I could yank it too hard and pull the gun off target. The rifle sounded the shot and the deer dropped without a fight. It was the best shot I have ever taken. It only left a small hole in the shoulder, but did not ruin any meat. It was the biggest deer of my life, and the best shot. I have it all to owe to patience in not taking the two little does.

Athletic,? well kind of

I don't much to write about today, it was just another Wednesday. It was Wednesday, except that I got to play over two hours of basketball for work. Sometimes, ministry is a great profession because I get to do stuff like this.

The college students are still home, and so Todd and I put off work for a few hours to play some ball. It had been a long, long time since I played basketball. I remember one time running to the Dedman Center at SMU and then shooting baskets for a little while before running home. But it has been a long time since I actually played a game.

I learned that which I had forgotten, but had learned many, many times. I am not a good basketball player. I still hold myself to be somewhat athletic, after all I did compete on scholarship for a Division I cross country and track team. But when it comes to basketball I am all limbs. I can't seem to run fast in short spurts. I have no lateral quickness. I can't jump. I can hardly shoot. My hand-eye coordination is lacking. In the end, I only play on the one thing I have more than most people- grit.

That one crucial element has been my friend through much of my athletic endeavorer's. In track, I ran the 800m. Some people describe this event as mid-distance. What they are really meaning to say is it is not a distance run (so 800m runners don't have excessive endurance); nor is it a sprint (so 800m runners don't have excessive speed). What are they left with then? Strength? Hardly. 800m runners depend almost exclusively on heart. The race is short and intense. It is really a series of tough decisions. When I was racing, I was always a little afraid of the 800 because of the fact that I would have to make some really hard decision. But the 800 strategy was simply that at 300m I would have to decide where I would settle in the pack. At 400m I would have to decide to not fall back for the next 200m, which really means maintain a pace that seems impossible for anther lap. At 600m I would have to decide to get up on my toes and go! At 750m, I would have to decide to push past the numbness all over my body and the lactic acid that had by this time crept into my mouth. Even my gums hurt at the end of my race!

But the good thing coming out of this that has helped me most of the times is learning that I can make that tough decision when it comes to it. Whether that is going into a hospital room, standing up to preach a sermon, or even playing basketball with college guys.

Kenyans burned to death in church

From BBC on Jan 1, 2008:

Thirty Kenyans including many children have been burned to death in a church, after seeking refuge from the mounting violence over last week's elections.

A mob attacked and set fire to the church in the western town of Eldoret where hundreds of people were hiding, say police and eyewitness reports.

Dozens more are reported to have been taken to hospital with severe burns.

It comes as EU election monitors said the presidential poll "fell short of international standards".

In an interim report, chief EU monitor Alexander Graf Lambsdorff said the tallying process "lacked credibility".

Mr Lambsdorff said an independent inquiry was needed to resolve the dispute over the election and called on the Electoral Commission of Kenya to co-operate fully.

The observers say an audit of all the voting returns is vital, and called for results from every polling station to be published in newspapers and on the internet.

Four Kenyan election commissioners have also expressed unease at the result, but the government denied any irregularities.

Fresh killings

About 400 people were said to be taking refuge in the Kenya Assemblies of God church when the attack took place at about 1000 (0700 GMT).

A pastor from the church, Jackson Nyanga told the BBC that many of the people were beaten before the building was set on fire.

"After torching the church, children died - around 25 in number - four elderly people. And our men and our people who tried to confront them were injured," he said.

Most of the victims were members of the same Kikuyu ethnic group as the newly re-elected President Mwai Kibaki.

Eldoret, in the Rift Valley, has witnessed some of the worst violence since Sunday's controversial poll and has a history of inter-ethnic tension.

Correspondents say that over the past few days hundreds of Kikuyus in the Eldoret area have been taking shelter in churches and around the town's police station.

Eldoret resident Bernard Magamu told the BBC News website that many houses and businesses have been torched, and that roads in and around the town have been closed.

"People are still fearful. It's hard. People are really scared," said Mr Magamu, adding that local hospitals were struggling to cope with the high number of casualties.

The Kenyan Red Cross said that at least 70,000 people have been displaced in the Rift Valley area as a result of the unrest, describing it as "a national disaster".

At least 160 people were killed across Kenya after the election result was announced on Sunday, according to the Red Cross, though the numbers are expected to rise after continued violence on Monday.

Mr Kibaki's challenger, Raila Odinga, backed by the Luo community, said that if fresh killings were taken into account, the total would likely be about 250 or "slightly more".

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has again urged Kenya's political leaders to talk, and said: "The violence must be brought to an end."

Doubts expressed

EU observers said the country's election was flawed.

"They were marred by a lack of transparency in the processing and tallying of presidential results, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the final results," the EU team said in a statement.

According to the EU, in at least two constituencies - Molo and Kieni - the results that were announced did not reflect the number of votes cast.

EU observers say they heard the voting figures being announced in Molo itself, but when the same results were announced again in Nairobi, the number of votes for Mr Kibaki was significantly higher - by 25,000.

Four of the 22 Kenyan election commissioners have also expressed doubts about the veracity of the figures giving President Kibaki victory by 200,000 votes.

But Finance Minister Amos Kimunya denied his party, the ruling PNU, or the government had been involved in rigging the poll.

He told the BBC: "I have no evidence that they were rigged. Anyone who has any information that they were rigged in one constituency or the other, or overall, let them subject it through the legal process."

Mr Kibaki was declared the winner on Sunday after a controversial three-day counting process.

His challenger, Mr Odinga, said he was robbed of victory by alleged fraud.