missions conference

This week is missions conference at Grace Bible Church in Arroyo Grande, CA. This is where I grew up and it's a little strange to be back here as a "visiting missionary." I remember meeting Dale & Arvalee Palmer, Joanne Shetler and other heros during missions conferences when I was younger. Spending time with them, looking at their maps and pictures and hearing their stories had a significant impact on my interest in bringing the gospel to the whole world.

It's been a busy, encouraging, fun and tiring week. One of the highlights was getting to share at the Coffee Break Women's Brunch with Natalie. :) She's another of my other missionary heros--as well as my very dear friend and sister--and we got to speak together!

So, Natalie, tell us about Bano Boy...

Ha! It was wonderful!

america, here i come!

I'll be in California:
February 11 -- March 31
And I'll be in Portland and Seattle:
March 31 -- April 10

Now, if we're friends and if you live in America, can we hang out? Will you tell me when? Drop me an email and we'll put it on the calendar. Don't be shy!*

*Alison Gentry

a cow head, a horse head, a bull head

What am I doing? If only I knew....

skied

We had a GREAT time. I have stories I'd love to tell. Just ask :)

the bad guy, the good guy.

I just saw a movie and now I can't go to bed. I'm scared. When I got home I checked all the hiding places in our house for bad guys. There aren't any here...but I'm still scared. It shook me up. It shook me up because it was about a good kid. His family thought he was good. His friends thought he was good: "They shouldn't send heros to places like Iraq." He probably thought he was good, too. Then, there was the crisis--stop and put all his buddies in danger or run over a small child. He was good and then he killed a child, on purpose.

He cried about it. And after that it wasn't the same. He couldn't be normal. All his buddies faced similar situations. They "dealt with it." Because "it's normal."

But it wasn't normal at all. All these people ended up dying, killing themselves and each other, sorta on accident. Is that normal? Maybe, I guess so. Survival of the fittest, huh? Life is like that. It's not as blatant usually. But it's like that--at school, in line at the post office, with my family, wherever. Maybe you started off heroic. But we're in places like Iraq--all of us. All the time.

"Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you." That's danger. And you get caught in some situation. You didn't know sin was crouching next to you. And you do something bad, almost on accident. Kinda. And then you get stuck, you've got to deal with it. And then it's not someone else that's the enemy, it's you. Like your body turns against you or something. Suddenly you've turned on yourself. That's why I'm scared coming home. That's why I got shook up, because I wondered if I was looking for myself. Talk about the creeps.


----------
Ahhh. But that's not the end
. Because, finally, Jesus died. And I know that. Good thing. Now, my competing can end. The cycle can stop. And then Jesus came back to life. Death, sin, stuckness has been conquered. There is hope.
Sin can be mastered.
(I wish I knew this all the time.)

And now, I can go to bed.