Weekly update
The last month or so, with the combination of missions preparation, work, and regular day-to-day busyness, I haven't had much time or energy to process the events and thoughts of my life and record them here. Seems like new posts to this page are coming every week rather than on a more regular basis. Not sure I like that all that much, seeing as how the struggle of working things out has always been a regular priority for me since college. My recent lack of processing in my life was vividly illustrated in this past Sunday's sermon by Pastor Tim. I finally noticed that one reason why I tend to relate to his sermons so well is that for almost every Biblical truth that he explores, he has an example from his own life to show the application of that truth. As someone who tends to learn best when I put myself in someone else's shoes, this helps me enormously when something seems to be a high-handed concept. The thing is, I know that he's done the groundwork of reflecting and praying through the events and feelings of his life to see where God is applying truth, which enables him to testify to these things when preaching. I think my general spiritual malaise that I've been wallowing in and out of the past few months could be tied to this lack of building in time in my schedule to process and learn from these teachable moments. Hopefully I'll be able to set aside some time after coming back from Mexico... perhaps during retreat.
Speaking of Mexico, we'll be heading out this Saturday. This week, I've had to outline two sermons that our organization provided our team, and I may get the opportunity to preach to our Mexican church next Monday and Wednesday (in English, with a translator). I'm rather nervous. Other than that, we're putting together all our supplies and getting geared up. Any prayer would be appreciated!
Quick hits on other topics...
- Congratulations to Jonathan and Kathy on their beautiful wedding this past Sunday. Hopefully the bachelor party festivities of Friday night didn't... um... "scar" him up too much for her. In comparison to button-down congregations from Chinese churches, folks from "Real World" are quite the lively bunch. Amusing moments - the slideshow turned into a cheering contest between Berkeley and Stanford alums, and the "answers must match" game where the bride and groom sat back to back and had to answer questions with either the bride's name or the groom's name, and match up their answers to win. They actually asked the question, "Who is more nervous about tonight?"
- Had the opportunity to catch up with Jason and Iris at the wedding... haven't seen those folks in like two years. Cryptic comment: Iris said, "Someone - I won't say who - says that you've grown up some, Bob." Really? And here I was thinking that I was the same juvenile dad-like spirit I've been since Berkeley.
- You might have heard the news about Grand Theft Auto being pulled from store shelves and getting rebranded as an "adult" game due to hidden unlockable code depicting explicit sex scenes. What kind of commentary is it on America when we pull a game due to sex, but didn't have a problem with kids playing it and slitting throats, beating women, and shooting people?
- Late last year, I played through the 4-player PS2 game "X-Men Legends" with Andy, Mike L, and Byron. After Mike's wedding, we shelved gaming for quite a while, but sometime this fall we might revive some semi-regular gaming sessions. To that end, I did some research online on the sequel game to "X-Men" and subsequently got onto something of an X-Men kick for a few days. Did anyone else watch the cartoon religiously in the early '90s? I know that the purists probably thought it was pop culture crap, but I loved that show - the storylines, mostly culled from the comics, were top-notch. My favorite character in both the game and the comic is Gambit - probably because 1) he's not a major character like Wolverine or Professor X, and I tend to gravitate towards background guys, and 2) he's pretty much the diametric opposite of me in terms of personality - he's a suave, wisecracking thief, while I think most people (at least the youth) view me as an uptight, lame-commenting do-gooder... haha. Anyway, check out UncannyXmen.net for all the info you could ever want on the superpowered mutant team.
No post would be complete without a quiz (this is my second favorite X-man!):
The last month or so, with the combination of missions preparation, work, and regular day-to-day busyness, I haven't had much time or energy to process the events and thoughts of my life and record them here. Seems like new posts to this page are coming every week rather than on a more regular basis. Not sure I like that all that much, seeing as how the struggle of working things out has always been a regular priority for me since college. My recent lack of processing in my life was vividly illustrated in this past Sunday's sermon by Pastor Tim. I finally noticed that one reason why I tend to relate to his sermons so well is that for almost every Biblical truth that he explores, he has an example from his own life to show the application of that truth. As someone who tends to learn best when I put myself in someone else's shoes, this helps me enormously when something seems to be a high-handed concept. The thing is, I know that he's done the groundwork of reflecting and praying through the events and feelings of his life to see where God is applying truth, which enables him to testify to these things when preaching. I think my general spiritual malaise that I've been wallowing in and out of the past few months could be tied to this lack of building in time in my schedule to process and learn from these teachable moments. Hopefully I'll be able to set aside some time after coming back from Mexico... perhaps during retreat.
Speaking of Mexico, we'll be heading out this Saturday. This week, I've had to outline two sermons that our organization provided our team, and I may get the opportunity to preach to our Mexican church next Monday and Wednesday (in English, with a translator). I'm rather nervous. Other than that, we're putting together all our supplies and getting geared up. Any prayer would be appreciated!
Quick hits on other topics...
- Congratulations to Jonathan and Kathy on their beautiful wedding this past Sunday. Hopefully the bachelor party festivities of Friday night didn't... um... "scar" him up too much for her. In comparison to button-down congregations from Chinese churches, folks from "Real World" are quite the lively bunch. Amusing moments - the slideshow turned into a cheering contest between Berkeley and Stanford alums, and the "answers must match" game where the bride and groom sat back to back and had to answer questions with either the bride's name or the groom's name, and match up their answers to win. They actually asked the question, "Who is more nervous about tonight?"
- Had the opportunity to catch up with Jason and Iris at the wedding... haven't seen those folks in like two years. Cryptic comment: Iris said, "Someone - I won't say who - says that you've grown up some, Bob." Really? And here I was thinking that I was the same juvenile dad-like spirit I've been since Berkeley.
- You might have heard the news about Grand Theft Auto being pulled from store shelves and getting rebranded as an "adult" game due to hidden unlockable code depicting explicit sex scenes. What kind of commentary is it on America when we pull a game due to sex, but didn't have a problem with kids playing it and slitting throats, beating women, and shooting people?
- Late last year, I played through the 4-player PS2 game "X-Men Legends" with Andy, Mike L, and Byron. After Mike's wedding, we shelved gaming for quite a while, but sometime this fall we might revive some semi-regular gaming sessions. To that end, I did some research online on the sequel game to "X-Men" and subsequently got onto something of an X-Men kick for a few days. Did anyone else watch the cartoon religiously in the early '90s? I know that the purists probably thought it was pop culture crap, but I loved that show - the storylines, mostly culled from the comics, were top-notch. My favorite character in both the game and the comic is Gambit - probably because 1) he's not a major character like Wolverine or Professor X, and I tend to gravitate towards background guys, and 2) he's pretty much the diametric opposite of me in terms of personality - he's a suave, wisecracking thief, while I think most people (at least the youth) view me as an uptight, lame-commenting do-gooder... haha. Anyway, check out UncannyXmen.net for all the info you could ever want on the superpowered mutant team.
No post would be complete without a quiz (this is my second favorite X-man!):
 | You scored as Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is a very sympolic X-Man. He is persecuted by society because of his devilish looks, but it is his faith in God that gives him strength. He is a very gentle x-man but he does know how to fight and he enjoys fencing. Powers: Teleportation
Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz created with QuizFarm.com |
posted by Bob at
11:51 PM
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