Checking in with the real world...

Beautiful sunset at Panama City Beach last Sunday night. I don't care what other people say...I could live at the beach. If it weren't for those pesky hurricanes...

Whereas my last couple of blog posts have been attempts at farting insight, the real world beckons from time to time. Overall, it's been a great week...except I pulled a muscle in my lower back at some point...so sitting here typing at the computer is a task filled with lots of grunting (in pain) as every small movement reminds me how fragile my back muscles are at the moment. I've pulled it much worse than this before, but still...OW!

The Panama City trip went great. Except for some traffic snarls on the way home and the lack of sleep that often accompanies youth group trips to the beach, it was a lot of fun. Good weather (hot at the beach is okay)...got to spend some time with Chad and his group...Stacey got to go...a few of the kids got baptized in the ocean with the sunset in the west and a rainbow in the east...very cool stuff...

I had driven the kids to Atlanta so they could stay with my parents for a few days (thus, facilitating Stacey's going to the beach). They had a great time there, though they may have worn my parents out pretty good ;-).

Funniest dialogue moment of the trip to the beach upon passing a truck hauling a boat on U.S. 331 South towards the beach:

"That boat is called the 'Butt Cheeks 2'."
"I only want to know what happened to the 'Butt Cheeks 1'."
"It sunk. It had a crack in it."

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On a more serious note...(sorry, I apparently can't not be serious)...

A friend of mine is leaving for Africa to be a missionary this evening. Two years. Wow. Not yet a career missionary, but it's still an amazing commitment. On another note, I've learned another friend of mine from the Mountaintop days is in prison in China for sharing the gospel there. This guy is late 20s/early 30s...ultra-friendly demeanor. Yet his 'meekness,' if you will, apparently hides a fierce determination to make a difference in his world. Not a blah-blah "maybe my ramblings will make a difference," but a real one. I'm thinking, here we are on our lofty, quasi-intellectual blog-perches debating the status quo of the church facing postmodernity and what's convenient for our belief systems, and here's a guy who's out in the world taking a very real risk to get the message of God's love to people and it has landed him in prison in a place where you really don't want to be in prison. This is a wake-up call for me. We are pansies. We casually debate and reject so much...like spoiled children. This guy is a frontline, nails-dirty, warrior for God (I like that image)... Makes me feel like so many of us are spectators who'd rather gripe from time to time than get our own hands truly dirty in the work of being a missionary in my own backyard. There's an all-too-real world out there lurking just underneath the facade of our own securities and status quos... Pray for these guys and their families...

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