I just got back from flying. Right now, I'm sitting outside, next to the grill as a few brats roast to perfection. The crickets are chirping as the light fades slowly with the falling sun. It is a beautiful evening!

Not a lot new has happened lately. At work, I finished putting trim and baseboard in one house and now I am moving to another one where the baseboard and trim will take much longer and probably be more frustrating, but it will look really nice when it's done. Hopefully.

Flying is going well. The end is near as I am within 5 hours and 3 tests from having my license. Stay tuned!

Here's a brief synopsis of what's going on...
Another church also approached me about doing a presentation on my trip last summer. It sounds like they would base their evening service around my talk, so we shall see what happens. Prison ministry continues to go well and one of the guys that I know is getting out next week. My church asked me to be a youth leader and I'm pretty sure I'll do that. Another church asked me to lead a young people's lesson. All in all, there are a lot of ways to serve and a lot of activities going on. Please pray for all those things.

That's about it. :)

Vacation

On Wednesday, I returned from a vacation with some friends. We left last week Saturday and went up to Lake Reno, near Alexandria. It was an amazing vacation and one that I needed greatly. Our time was spent by eating (way too much), sleeping, fishing, swimming, playing football, sitting around campfires under the stars and playing cards. It was perfect.

Computer

So, I decided to build a computer. It wasn't a spur of the moment type of thing because I was looking at buying something different, but after doing some reading about people saying how easy it was, I decided to give it a try. This is a picture of most of the parts pre-assembly and it was taken about a month ago probably.

Right now, the computer is complete and it is up and running marvelously.

Just a little project... fyi.

P.S. If you are impressed, don't be. It was incredibly easy and any one of you... I mean, any one of you, could do it. Seriously.

Flight, Military

F-22 Raptor

P-51 Mustang

F-15 and F-18

P-38 Lightening and F-22

The Blue Angels

This past weekend, my parents and I went to an Air Show which contained various stunt planes, a sailplane, an F-22 Raptor and the Navy Blue Angels. Being a lover of aviation, I was enthralled! It was an awesome show that made me want to fly even more.

Much of the show was very pro-America, which there is nothing wrong with because I believe every country should have national pride. National pride is a great thing and can bring about some awesome people and great events. Look at what the Olympics does.

On the flip side, the national pride being pushed that day was all military might, which I have a huge problem with. The F-22 and the Blue Angels were awesome to see and I would absolutely love to fly them, but they are machines built for a single purpose: to win wars by killing people, or in other terms, “destroy a target.” That is the single reason I am not at the Navy now, trying to be a Naval Aviator, because no matter what the purpose, to win World War II or to defend ones country, killing is killing and as a Christ-follower, I can’t and won’t do it.

Throughout the afternoon, the announcer kept making the comment, “These machines are what keep our freedom alive and what makes peace around the world.”

Gag me.

When did a machine built for destruction ever make true peace? Not just a “you are stronger than we are so we surrender” type of peace, which really isn’t peace at all if you really think about it. Having a total and complete military advantage over someone doesn’t bring peace. It may stop the bullets from flying for a short while but that’s about it. What it does bring is a cease-fire because they know they can’t compete and that breads hate and resentment.

The Jesus I know didn’t come into the world, strong and powerful as the world sees power. He did not amass the largest army in the world so that he could overthrow Caesar and then the entire globe. He didn’t ride around on his horse and chariot yelling war cries of peace and prosperity through military might. Jesus knew exactly what true peace is. True peace is a place where bombs aren’t stockpiled everywhere. True peace is a place where people are filled up and not cut to the heart by words of others. It is a place where we build each other up and carry each other’s burdens. It is a place where guns aren’t needed. It is a place where kings kneel and wash the toilets of their subjects and where CEO’s work longer hours to give their secretaries an extra day off and where senators paint the fences of those they represent and where... we are all servants of each other and submissive to each other, even to death.

“If we want to be great in God’s kingdom, let us be the servants of all! If we want to be great in God’s kingdom, let us be the servants of all!”

That is why I love Christianity and why it is the only way: it is a way of life that goes against almost everything inside me, but in living that life, the more fulfilled and more edified I am. By denying myself, I meet Christ and in so doing, I live a happier, more fulfilling life.

To come full circle, I still love flying and would absolutely love to fly the F-22 Raptor or the F-18 Hornet or the F-14 Tomcat, but I think I will wait until the New Creation when Jesus is offering rides and where fireworks are shot from under the wings and where bombs are filled with flower petals. Oh, what a glorious day that will be! True peace, not a lie of what peace is.

Baptism

Here are a few pictures from flying.I am getting dangerously close to being able to take my test (and hopefully pass), which means, I need to hit the books hard because I have been neglecting that more than I should. We will see how long it takes, but hopefully in the next month or so, I'll have my private pilot's license.

On a different note, in the past month, our church has baptized several little children. I kind of like it when the baby cries. :) I don't say that to be mean or anything of that sort, but isn't that what been washed by the blood of Christ is? Pain. In the Heidelberg Catechism, which is a great tool, it says that, "as surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly his blood and his Spirit wash away my soul's impurity," and then goes on to describe the washing of Christ's blood as atonement and to be washed by Christ's Spirit means that "the Holy Spirit has renewed me and set me apart to be a member of Christ so that more and more I become dead to sin and increasingly live a holy and blameless life." (Heidelberg Catechism, Q.A. 69-70).

Both of those describe pain. Christ suffered and died to give us atonement and send his Spirit. Now, we are dying to the sins in our lives, which is much more than scrubbing ourselves in the shower. It is a daily act of asking God to cut a piece of flesh from my sinful heart.

I love the description C.S. Lewis gives in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." In the story, Eustace finds a treasure and his heart desires to hoard it all for himself. Well, he falls asleep and when he wakes up, he has become a dragon. "Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself." To keep the long story short, Aslan comes to him and takes him to this pool to ease his pain but Aslan points out that he must undress Eustace before he could enter the pool. So, Eustace started scratching at his flesh and scales would come off until he could crawl out of his dragon skin, only to find, he was still covered by scales. He did this three times, but still was a dragon. Aslan said, "You will have to let me undress you."

Here, C.S. Lewis describes baptism of the Spirit, or sanctification, marvelously...

"I (Eustace) was afraid of his claws, but I was pretty hearly desperate now. So, I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure ofeeling the stuff peeel off...Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off and there is was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch...Then he caught hold of me...and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment...I turned into a boy again."

This short passage is chucked full of great stuff to bring out, but I wanted to emphasize the pain Eustace felt when Aslan was cleansing him. He clawed and tore at his very flesh until there wasn't a scale left on him and this is what we all need to allow Christ to do to us every day until we are clean. This is living a sanctified life. Sure, the baptism of Christ's blood instantly removes sin, but the baptism of the Christ's Spirit is a battle cry coming from the lungs of a crying child.

Story

Here is a little story in one of our church newsletters a while back... I liked it.

This is a little story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

a whirlwind journey: in more ways than one!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I just had about a page written out and decided against it. So, you are getting the condensed version of a good weekend. A friend and I traveled to Chicago to visit some great friends. We spent the weekend talking, watching movies, going to garage sales and Bass Pro Shop, playing guitar hero, dominating in bags, playing volleyball, eating and through the baseball around. It was a great weekend of fellowship and I thank you for it and can’t wait until we do it again!

Also, on Friday, I traveled to Michigan to visit a mission aviation school and also Calvin Seminary. If you want to know more, ask or email me. I ask for your prayers in my decisions about the future and where God’s kingdom needs me more. Actually, I would very much like to hear your thoughts as well, so feel free to email me.

On the way home Sunday, we enjoyed great times of conversation and listening to sermons by John Piper, but when we got west of Albert Lea, we came across something. We could see ahead that some very heavy rain was falling and sure enough, in a matter of minutes, rain pummeled the Blazer. With the windshield wipers on high, water flew everywhere as we exited the interstate and found a place to park. The monsoon continued. In 2 or 3 minutes, an all to familiar sound was heard: the high pitch wine of tornado sirens and also with that, the rain stopped.

I decided not to sit and wait for the storm and we left and only a few miles down the road, we saw the culprit. There, on the left side of the interstate, a funnel cloud slowly descended towards the earth, rotating as it went. Pulling over, we watched it come all the way to the ground and rotate in a leaning spiral out into the fields and within a few minutes, the tornado dissipated as quickly as it had come down. All in all, a sweet sight.

Here are a few pictures!