I've been back in Branson for a little over a week, recently returned from the second Mission Trip I took part in this summer, "Frontiers." It's great to be back, but I need to start making myself do stuff like this again. I'm really looking forward to spending more time building relationships with the guys on the AIM Team here locally. I guess I'll have to write more later, though, because it's time to hit the office.

Wow! I just got back from Alaska...it sure is beautiful up there! I got to direct the mission trip, and was superbly blessed to have a really easy team to work with, plus Jared handling a lot of the logistics for me. We ran three-day workshops in Kenai and Homer (both on the Kenai Peninsula), got to eat VERY fresh Kenai River King Salmon, prepared in an insanely wonderful way by Kenai Jim (http://www.fishalaskanow.com/), and saw and got to eat our first moose. We discovered the near futility of trying to keep time in Alaska, but still managed to keep the workshops on track; the groups we taught learned things very well, and did a great job. Sunday we drove from Homer to Anchorage to Chistochina (a small village about halfway between Glenn Allen and Tok). We stopped before reaching Anchorage, to hike up to see Byron Glacier. After buying supplies in Anchorage, we drove the rest of the way to Chisto, where we went straight to sleep.

For the next four days we worked with the kids from the village, doing a vbs-style program we planned out each morning. The kids had a rather large store of energy, but balanced it out with lots of love. They were a joy to work with, and we learned a lot as we taught them. The first evening after the program, we didn't have anything special to do, so we stayed and worked on some things for the end of the mission trip. Two out of three of the remaining days, however, we headed to the nearby village of Gulkana, to help play softball with kids there, and do a short presentation. The second-to-last night, we were invited by the members of the Chisto community to join them for a community barbecue. When I got into SD, I laughed, because I saw a sign for Copper River king salmon, and had just had some, freshly taken from the river and prepared by Alaska natives - Mmm, good!

Friday we drove back to Anchorage to catch our flights home...The team went through strange rituals to make sure I'd want to direct them again (giving me a t-shirt, keychain and song), and after a wait of several hours, we were off! I sat next to a member of the Baha'i World Faith, which was rather an interesting experience. She was very intelligent, although dead wrong in her beliefs. I talked to her for the whole five hours of the flight, and though I respect her very much for being able to disagree with me so thoroughly (she believed there are many "paths" to reach God, although there may be just one per person =p ) and yet still be able to stay civil in conversation, it made me sad that I was not able to sway her. God is sovereign. I was trying to think through why He may have placed me next to her. It may be because He will use what I said - if anything, I hope she remembers that I was SURE of the Truth. I also met a young mother afterwards whose faith was encouraged by overhearing our discussion, so that could also be God's reason for putting me there, or it may be something I won't know 'til that day. Whatever the case, I am convinced that I absolutely had to share with her. God is good. May He use my words to fulfill His purposes.

So, I'm sorta just writing to be writing...I'm trying to get into a discipline. Today was rather long, but that meant I got some things done. I'm working on setting up a shirt order form using php and mysql...I suppose there are a lot of pre-made ways to do that, and never have to touch it, but that's all so proprietary - gives me the creeps. Now if I can just find a good open source WYSIWYG...

Man...canoeing cancelled due to very cold morning...right as I was about to walk out the door. Oh, well, I have some stuff I want to get done anyhow...maybe I can even fit in some reading!

It feels great to be alive, awake, up, and so on and so forth this morning! I only got four hours (almost to the dot) of sleep, which was kinda not smart of me, but I don't know if I could've slept if I hadn't got done what I did. I am leaving in a couple of minutes to go canoeing with a father and son who live just down the road, and boy am I looking forward to it! I need a little bit of outdoors-type stuff right now. Goodbye, fair keyboard!

Goodness...there are some days when that bit about the Spirit interceding for us with groanings which cannot be uttered seems very pertinent. Enter today. God is good, though, and I know He knows what I need before even I do. I have a lot to pray about...

Blog or journal?...hmm...well, this is faster, although I'm not sure I feel like I can be as open. Oh, well. Yesterday was muy largo. I set my alarm for four, but because I was setting it at 11:30 PM, I forgot to change it from "alarm set" to "alarm on." I'm sure it was God being merciful that I woke up at 4:52 anyway. I had to rush, but I had been planning on getting up earlier than necessary, so I was able to make it in to Jory's (a 10-20 minute drive, but in torrential rain) at 5:40-something, just in time to carpool the rest of the way to Shepherd of the Hills Tower. A group of men from the community met there at 6:00 to pray for Stone and Taney Counties...About 6:30 we high-tailed it to the White House Theater, for a mayor's prayer breakfast, hosted by Branson's Christian BusinessMen's C-something. Once that was over, we headed back to Jory and Tess's house, where I built an organizer, then alternated between phone calls, e-mails and organizing the garage, into which we'll be moving everything from our storage units in a few days. Jorge helped after 2:00 PM. After finishing there, we went to the Salvation Army Church. I met with Cody for about twenty minutes before others from the Branson AIM Team arrived for our scheduled prayer meeting. After the meeting ended we practiced with the song-leading team for Sunday morning (our first real practice). After that, I fixed some things for the database in our office, showed Jenny how to make an automatic picture show with PowerPoint, checked on some other info I needed, then headed out, about 10:00. After I got back to the Gaar's house, I got some changes up to the website, took care of some more e-mail correspondence, tried (unsuccessfully) to call my parents, did a hit-and-run on the message board, and then crashed just before midnight. Boy did I sleep! Eight hours felt really good. Okay, now I'm ready for today!

Yikes...it's been a long day. I've discovered many, many things about PHP, and got the news section of the site I'm working on functionally finished. All that remains is to make it look nice - not my first love. Oh, well, "as to the Lord, and not to men."

Well, well, this is my first time blogging, period, and I'm interested to see how well it works for me...ho hum.

One thing that's been on my mind lately is how quickly people tend to turn around on things. People I once saw as wonderful examples, who I would hope to see continue growing into fine leaders can make decisions to rapidly change their course, heading for exactly the other direction. And what can I do about it? I'm praying that God will give me wisdom as I try to reach out to some of these people...I really care about them, and the more I pray about them and seek counsel, the more I realize that they are still the same people; they just need some help right now. Even when people start saying things and lashing out in a way that seems completely irrational, there's got to be a reason behind it, and that's where they need someone to show them Christ's love. Hmm...well, God help me!