T-minus thirty six hours and fifty minutes.

Flying out of Redmond Oregon on Saturday.

Pretty excited. Looks like in addition to the church project I'll have some opportunities with YWAM in the area... they've just leased a new space and will be doing DTS there soon. House of Prayer, Marine Reach, Island Breeze, and Impact World Tour are all based in Tauranga. I don't think I'll have a lack of things to do, that's for sure. The next couple of weeks will probably be loco... getting into the groove with the folks over there, figuring out how to do the job they seem to think I'm so qualified for... haha.

Confession time: I'm actually really excited to get my guitar back... I left it over there. Nerdy I know... I mean I have one here too, so it's not like I haven't been playing. Just... I have a connection with the one over there you know? You wouldn't understand...

Tomorrow is my last full day in the states for a while. Crazy.

The Journey crowd sent me off right last Sunday. Love you guys, you're the best friends/family a guy could have.

Been listening to Silversun Pickups. Again. They have a new album out. Seriously I don't think I've been this jacked about a band since I was eighteen. It's embarrassing.

I don't have much to say. Ready to get on that airplane. Or get off it, rather. Mom bought me a couple of books for planes/layovers... East of Eden by Steinbeck and Into The Wild by... that guy that wrote Into The Wild... anyways...

So....


My visa showed up. Just like that... no dramatic big green "approved" stamp or anything. I was all emotionally set up to get a big red "denied" stamp. Just my passport... in the mail, with a work visa until next February.

Here we go. I'm a little freaked out... to be honest with you, not getting the visa would have been an easy way out... not just of New Zealand but an easy way out of some other things too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a way out... I want to go back. But it's a push... a stretch... new territory... new ground. Definitely a new adventure. I don't think it will be easy. Everything worth doing takes some work though. Sometimes a lot of work. Staying here... with old friends who I love SO much, working construction, would be so comfortable, so easy. I'm done with easy though. Done with fear of failure. I want to be done second-guessing God. I want to stand on the edge of a cliff ready to jump if He asks.

I sat with an old friend the other night, we talked about how hard it is to communicate with words the things God does that go beyond words themselves. It's hard for me to sit here and type... every word seeming so trivial. I look back at things I've written... often to find that I would say things differently now, that they do not capture the truth, that sometimes the trivial words could easily send messages different than the intention. Like a picture can never capture the true splendor of so many things in this world.

I've seen a man's ankle, on which he couldn't walk, healed to completion in less than two hours after a small, weak prayer. I've seen money seem to come from nowhere. I've seen food... enough to feed ten... feed twenty-five. I've found myself on top of a cliff on a steep slope of gravel, slowly sliding towards the edge... prayed with everything in me and now have no memory of how I made it the next 8 feet to safety.

I believe He's the same God of the Bible. I believe the reason we don't see "miracles" in the western world is because we're so quick to write the supernatural off. This is the God I want to follow. This is the God I've told time and again that He may take me wherever He chooses, to do whatever He desires.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't hear the voice of God like I think I do. Maybe He's done with that stuff. Maybe I'm grasping at straws. But... if that's a lesson I have to learn then it will be learned the hard way, because there's too much at stake not to try.

Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm just being selfish. I don't think so, but only time will tell. One thing I know is that if I bail out of this opportunity.... I will always wonder. I will always wonder what could have happened in some kid's lives as a result of my decision to go. Always wonder if I would have had the chance to help them find the same fire to serve God as I have found a small spark of. Always wonder if somebody's life could have been different. Always wonder what could have happened in my heart, my mind, and my spirit.

I will probably look back at this post in a couple of weeks and just sigh again at how I can never seem to really communicate these deep thoughts. I can write funny stories all day long... but never really capture the things that really matter.

So with that... I should be leaving in less than two weeks. Come visit. New Zealand is one of those places that can't be really captured on film. Or mixed digital media.

K I'm done baring my soul. At least for all of cyberspace to see.

Easter.

Resurrection Sunday.

The day we celebrate the day our Lord conquered the powers of darkness and rose from the grave. I want to celebrate today. God blows my mind.

I'm still in Oregon. Still in the NW. Still working.

I've turned my visa application in, waiting on a response. Feel like I'm levitating, like I can't really go for it here, but I can't really go for getting out of here either. Honestly both options sadden and excite me... so I'll be relieved to find out about the visa either way.

Just a quick update.

Happy Easter. Celebrate it. I plan to.