Blogust & Everything After

Sorry about the absence. I was away this weekend. Our church had a retreat. It was pretty good and I'll tell you why. Top 5 reasons I had a good weekend:

1) The food- "Oasis" (the retreat center) is run by two wonderful american ex-pats named Tim and Mary and they cook some mean eats. Saturday night we had some sloppy joes that were extra SSHHLoppy. Just the way I like em. Then Sunday night supper, which is usually lasagna, was changed to Enchiladas and Nachos. That was fantastic. Mexican is probably my fav food no matter where I am in the world.

2) Getting to know our pastor Charles Bivens- For those of you that don't know, our english church here in Kaohsiung began as sort of a small group two and a half year ago. It has steadily grown to the point where this summer we needed to hire a Pastor. We have a leadership team and a missionary advisor that did the inteviewing and decision making process. They found this guy Charles who was teaching in Taipei. They hired him and that was that. I was away for a bit in the summer and missed the real get to know Charles time. Anyways we stayed in the same room this weekend and shared a little about ourselves. I like him a lot. We both love to laugh, we share our love for the moments that Starbucks provides and we both dig a good movie. I think he's doing a great job in our church and I look forward to working alongside him and learning from him.

3)The Beach- On both Sat and Sun afternoons we have an oppotunity to go to the beach. I didn't go on Sat but did go on Sunday. It was fantastic. Plm Trees, Sun, Ocean, Waves, Boogie Boarding and Friends. Great day. I don't go to the beach in Taiwan enough but it's beautiful and I will definitely try to make more of an effort in the future.

4) Baptism- Not only was the Beach good on a simply social level but we did it up on a spiritual level as well. This guy Mike Bell, from California and from my small group decided that he wanted to be Baptised in the ocean here in Taiwan. So on Sunday we heade down to the beach for a good ol spiritual dunkin. Charles said a few words and asked Mike the pertinant questions about his faith and then Mike spoke (even though you couldn't hear him over the crashing waves), the they walked out and he was Baptised. We all clapped and cheered. This was a big moment not only for Mike but for our congregation. We made a huge stand for Christianity by holding a baptism right in the middle of a crowded Chinese mainly buddhist beach. There were about 40 foreigners which is a big enough deal for the locals to take in and the we did the Christian thing. What a way to show God to the world. Then we broke out in song and it was a happy time for us and in the kingdom.

5) My Guitar playing- This was possibly the biggest highlight for me. I've been hacking away at the guitar for a few years now and this weekend was probably my proudest moment. I haven't put a lot of work into my playing so my progress has been rather pitiful ove the years but here Ive been putting in a bit more time and it's starting to pay off. I always shyed away from bar chords which (for those of you that don't know guitar) are a more difficult set of chords to play. Lately however they have been starting to finally come to me. I just needed to stop being afriad to do them and just do it. This weekend I let loose and played some good stuff. I was also able to play some new rhythms which just speaks to my skill imroving. It's also an honour to play for God and maybe that's why I'm investing a little more into it. I want to thank Eric and Mari for their help this weekend. I love playing with Eric, for some reason our guitars sort of mesh. And Mari is a great person to hack around with, she like to sing and mess around. The next guitar project is buying a guitar with EQ (which means I can plug it into a sound system like at a church). I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe I can learn to sing as well.

That's it....thanks for reading...talk to you soon.....