Well, Laney has gone to camp this week without family or parents! That is right our girl turned 11 this month and now she is at youth camp for a whole week. What a wonderful time for her to really connect with the Lord in a different way. I remember when I went to youth camp. It was great fun, new friends, and yet awkward. Our prayer is that Laney will feel secure with her cabin mates and counselor, that the Lord would speak to her heart, that she would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He leads her and comforts her. We also pray that she plays hard and sleeps well. If you have students going to camp or friends that will be at camp this summer, don’t forget to pray for them!

“Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder.Surpise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share in the wonder of it all.” -Joshua Abraham Heschel

This past weekend was awesome. We had our annual outreach to the community on Florence. Hamburgers, Hotdogs, BBQ sandwiches and pork chops wereon the menu and for entertainment we had the Jeremiah Stunt and Race Team doing tricks with their bikes. The real reason behind all of this is to share the Love of Jesus with our communtity. Sasquatch shared his story with the crowd and reminded everyone that no matter what their circumsatnces in life, God can meet you there and love you through it. Only God can fill the void in us.  Thanks for being real! By the way, that is me in the background.

Our Tuesday night group did a little experiment.  I ask everyone to bring something that represented their life right now.  WOW, what a great night of sharing life and getting to know a little bit more about the stuff that is going on that we do not share all the time.  NEXT WEEK>>>we are bringing a picture and sharing why we think it is important, valuable, or meaningful to us.  Try some of this stuff with you friends, you might learn something you never knew before.  Thank you guys for being transparent and sharing your hearts.

We were able to spend Memorial Weekend with family and friends. I was able to see some cousins that I have not seen in over 8 years!  What a joy! Memaw an Papaw loved the attention, but they were wore out by the end of the evening. It is really fantastic to have family connect together and meet new cousins. Thanks for loving my girls and being cool cousins.

 

Seeing Bernard and the Snyder, Siaki, TooToo family is always a joy for me. It is like coming home. All the brothers, sisters, cousins are all grown up and having kids of their own. It was great seeing my daughter play, swim and laugh with a family that demontrated the love of Christ to me at such a critical time in my life. Thank you Lord for providing this family for me….now my family gets to experience that love!

As you all know, Mother’s Day was Sunday and our girls wanted to do something as a family. They wanted to go on a bike ride as a family. Margaret does not like to ride that much, but what could she do when the girls were wanting to spend some time together? Well, I told Margaret that it would not be long because the girls wanted to ride on the rail trail (local walking, bike path). So, I proceeded to put the bike rack on the car and tie the bikes on. We had to stop by Pops’ house to get the pump because some of the tires needed air. Mission accomplished! Off to the trail we go. Upon arrival we all get out and get on our repective bikes and off we go…oh by the way, I put the car keys on Laneys pouch on her bike. We ride about 1.5 miles and run into a friend of ours. We stop for a moment to say hello, and off we go to finish the ride. When we reach the 2 mile mark, we rest and see our friend coming back. He asks if Laney can ride with him the rest of the way to his house (another 3 miles). We say sure and they go one way and we go another. After convincing Sophia that Laney is not catching up because she went with our friend, she begins to quicken her pace. We are about 1/4 of the way to the van when I remember…YES…Laney has our keys. I ride back the other direction, plus the additional 3 miles to our friends house where he and Laney are in the car on their way to bring me my keys. So, I rode roughly 8 miles when it was only supposed to be a nice, easy Sunday afternoon ride. We laughed and chalked it up as another great Sinsel adventure. You never know what will happen when we do something as a family, but it is worth it!

I will be in Atlanta this upcoming week for the Outbound conference at OM USA. This is a time for people who are interested in missions and want tolearn more about OM come for 1 week to see if they can partner together.  Margaret and I had to do this before we joined.  It was great fun being able to learn the heart of the larger ministry of OM.  The ministry serves on over 110 countries with about 5,600 full-time missionaries.  My time this week will be quite different.  I get to go as part of the support team and represent OM Ships. If there are people who still do not know what to do or where to go, then I will have a chance to share with them and pray with them about the ministry we are serving in.  I am so looking forward to meeting with these folk who are taking steps of faith to be a part of what God is doing around the world.  Maybe God is stirring your heart about serving in missions.  Check out OM and see what we have to offer.  If there isn’t anything that fits you, then share that with the team there.  They are always willing to try pioneering ministry.  Nothing is impossible with God. Be praying for me as I share on Thursday morning about the one who is calling us to follow Him…Jesus!

I was recently in Oldenburg Germany for a missions conference called Misson Net. There were 3,000 people in attendance with some awesome speakers, including the founder of OM, George Verwer. I was there as a rep for OM Ships, but worked with about 50 other OMers from around the world. It was great to see some old friends and meet many new ones. I would encourage you to see more of what God is doing by logging onto www.om.org and reading some of the stories.
I also spent some time with two ne friends, Helge and Frode. We laughed a lot and saw a really bizzare band. Hope one day to reconnect with them. Anyway, the Mission Net was very different than anything I have ever xperienced in the US. I love being able to experience different cultres and meeting people from all over the world.

I like my friends blogs…they all seem way more interesting than mine. Some are filled with philisophical debates, while others lend to more of a “in touch with culture” feel. SOme have political satire while yet others have these cool videos attached for your viewing pleasure. Sometimes I feel like that twittersphere video, where I am just bloggong for m own therapy.
I am extremely pleased when people actually respond to what I write (that is not a ploy to get 100 comments by the way). I guess we all like to feel that we matter and the things that we are doing are important enough for everyone to read about.

Anyway, there you have my random thought for the day….enjoy and be blessed!

You should try to pronounce the city! Well, I just came back from a week in Holland! The King’s Academy have missions week every year and the students can choose a ministry or location that they believe would be a great opportunity for them. This year OM Ships was one of the options for the students. Ros Van Baaren and myself (along with Zak James) took 13 students to the Logos Hope. It was an incredible experience for all of us.
The Logos Hope is our newest ship and has just been launched into ministry just last month. I was on board in 2007 while it was in Croatia. WHAT A TRANSFORMATION!!! It was great to see what God has done and the work that has taken place on board. The students were ble to engage in community life and also work and serve alongside the crew in the different departments on board. Another great opportunity was serving on the ministry deck and sharing life stories with locals from that area.
Being on board for a week I was able to see the great need for more people to join our ministry on the ships. Logos Hope is lacking about 65 people to run the ministry and the ship efficiently. We need about 150 people a year to come and serve because we rotate people off after 1 or 2 years. Another critical need is leadership. It takes people with a heart to serve and cast vision to speak into the community. The crew is young and most have never done anything like this before. Ship life is not for the faint at heart, but is a wonderful place to grow and live for Christ and serve others. It also is a place where you can use the gifts, talents and abilities that God has given you to reach out to people from al over the world.
Please pray and ask the Lord about what type of role you can play in OM Ships. It might be prayer, It might be financially or even coming on board and serving on the Logos Hope or the Doulos! check us out at www.omships.org