Good Green God

When I was in Orlando at the Blossom Conference, one of the speakers went on a little bunny trail about God being Green. I was taken with the description. And coming from Seattle I found it quite transferable to the culture here. God is Green…He takes trashed, polluted lives, cleans them up, and uses them again for His good and glorious purposes. A prime example of our Good Green God is Teddy…

Teddy was born in the Philippenes (though he is American). His parents divorced when he was young and his mom moved back to New York. Teddy lived with his dad, a wealthy and distant business man, and found family in the gang culture of Manila. By the age of 15, his dad was fed up and Teddy was shipped off to his mother.

Living with his mom in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, Teddy quickly found “friends” and advanced in the world of Crack Lords. By age 17 he was running twenty crack houses in the area. By 18 he found himself homeless, living in a dumpster, with (literally) a hole burned through his frontal lobe because of the Crystal Meth he’d smoked

That’s when life changed. No longer able to think properly and highly medicated, Teddy had to slow down. He started going to a church out of curiosity. Through the friendship of that Pastor, time in the Word, and the work of the Holy Spirit, Teddy decided to follow Christ…Then he decided to go to Bible School.

Due to the fact that his brain was literally fried and his thinking skills non-existant, his friends and family tried to discourage him. But Teddy is a determined guy. When his family couldn’t dissuade him them decided to pray for him. And so Teddy and his brain damage headed off to Bible School.

At Bible College, Teddy stopped taking his meds. During a follow up brain-scan in the middle of Bible College, the results came back normal: No hole in the frontal lobe! The Doctors had no explanation. Christ had healed him. From trash to treasure, God recycled his life.

In school, Teddy met his lovely wife Mary, an Azerbaijani woman who came to Christ in spite of the Iron Curtain. After Bible School, Teddy and Mary spend time working throughout Africa, and then settled back in the States to start a young adult crisis hotline where young people in trouble can call in and receive help.

Teddy and Mary were at the Blossom Conference in Orlando this September to meet with Church Planters. They are feeling called to plant a church in Florida. And I for one am excited to see what God brings about through the lives of these two amazing Christians!

To hear Teddy share his own story and talk about the crisis hotline he runs, go to his website.

Lone Star State!

Arjuna and I arrived in Dallas, Texas on Monday night. And (no offense Dallas) I’m not too impressed with this city. It is massively large, with Ft. Worth and Dallas sprawling together, and flat flat flat. Not a bump in the topography at all. *sigh*

However, yesterday we met with the missions pastors at The Village Church and had a great time sharing about the ministry with them. I’m excited to see what God brings about in the months and years to come through these connections!

Also, my friend from Wheaton, Kate Pierce-now-Davis, is living in Dallas and I get to stay with her and her new husband. They are part of The Village Church at the Denton campus! Life is such a strange web of connections. Fun fun!

Blossom like a Man

This morning took us from Orlando to Jacksonville, Florida which is essentially southern Georgia as far as sweet as tea accents are concerned. Yes’um, that’s the truth.

The past two days we spent at Blossom – a church planters conference in Orlando – where Arjuna spoke on Apostolic Leadership and I got to talk to lots of wonderful people and expand my brain with ideas from Neil Cole (Organic Church) and Alex McManus (Making the World Human Again) and a host of other much-smarter-than-me people.

The best part, however, in all my travels are the stories. Like the beautiful Azerbaijani woman I met who was 20 years old when the Soviet Union fell and she learned the word “God”. She married a man who was running twenty crack houses at the age of 17, burned a hole through his frontal lobe by smoking too much meth, and was healed miraculously after becoming a Christian. Now they are church planters!

Now that’s what I love to hear!

P-Daddy Pipe-Dog

Arjuna and his daughter Archana arrived in town last Saturday which increases my pace of life dramatically. We have spend the past few days juggling Arjuna’s meetings and setting Archana up for her new life in the States. (She starts work as a computer engineer on Monday!). Bank account, driver’s licence, work clothes, winter clothes, shampoo. It’s amazing all the details that go into moving to a new country.

However, it has been amazing to see God’s hand in all the details! From the great company Archana got a job with…to the video interview Arjuna had with Mark Driscoll yesterday…to being invited to the Desiring God conference (John Piper’s deal in Minneapolis) during the days in our schedule where everything we were trying to set up was falling through! God is good! And yes…I did say Desiring God conference! Arjuna has been wanting to meet with John Piper for some time now, and since Mark will be speaking at the conference…he invited Arjuna and I to come along and be introduced to Dr. Piper and his crew.

P-Daddy Pipe-Dog here we come!

Twenty-Twenty Vision

I was offered Valium just before going in for surgery. I was tempted to take it just for the experience, but a strange masochism came out of no where and I opted to go in without the relaxant. I can’t explain it. Comfort is an idol in my life and I usually shrink from pain, but they say Lasik is painless and I wanted to see if it really was. I wanted to experience, clearly and fully, the healing that was about to take place.

From the time I walked into the “laser suite” – blind, with a wacky blue shower-cap like germicidal hat on – to the time I walked out was about fifteen minutes. And truly, it was completely painless…due to the numbing drops. They even place a contraption directly on your eye to keep you from blinking, but you can’t feel a thing. When they take the blood pressure in your eye it was not exactly comfortable (not to mention my vision completely blacked out) but it was not painful.

The doctor removes your cornea, forty seconds of staring at a blinking red light per eye while the room fills with the smell of branded cattle (they say it’s the “laser” that produces the smell of burnt flesh…right…), and your vision is restored!

Granted my vision was pretty horrible, so right after the surgery I could see only half as much better. It also looked like I was looking at the world through skim milk. Kinda cloudy. But by the next morning I was seeing 20/20! There is still healing to go and my eyes will flex in and out of perfect until my brain gets used to the new shape of my cornea.

If you’re thinking of getting Lasik…I highly recommend TLC Laser Clinics! Tell them I sent you. And if you’re wondering where I got the crazy idea to let some computer cut open my eyes by laser, you can read my earlier post here.

I still get giggly right before bed when I see the designs on my sheets as I crawl under my covers. Praise Jesus for perfect vision!