Blog Archive
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Team Member |
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3/2/2006 |
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Each month a different family of our mission team will maintain our team blog. |
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Settling In |
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By Team Member on
8/3/2007
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It has been a while since we've posted anything on this blog, but just in case anyone is still checking I wanted to assure you that we are all still here. Here, of course, being Vienna.
Most of the families have started individual blogs and probably will not be posting on this blog anymore. For various reasons, we have decided not to link our personal blogs to this website. If you are interested in following along with our adventure, I encourage you to contact the families and request the address for their personal blog. You can send one message to the entire team by using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of any page or you can send a message to a specific family by using the contact form on the family page under the "Team" menu item. (On a side note, when you fill in the contact form, please provide your email address in the "Email" line. If this address is incorrect, we will not be able to respond to your message.)
We hope that you will join us on our individual blogs.
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Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/30/2007
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If I fall asleep at this very moment, I'd have only an hour before my alarm goes off. We need to be at the airport at 4:30a.m. I'm going to get some sleep. I have promised myself some sleep.
I'm listening to U2's song "Sometimes you can't make it on your own." If you want to listen along as you read this, you can pull up the video on YouTube. The song is five minutes long; you should be done reading this blog before the song is over.
I like U2. They're one of my favorites. I think the band understands alot about cultivating community. If you're on YouTube, some time check out the footage from their Vertigo Tour and you'll understand what I mean.
Right now, I know that if I wasn't on a team, I'd quit. I couldn't go alone. I'd back out. The burden I feel right now is too much.
The responsibility is heavy. I'm scared I'll fail. I wish God would send someone else, someone better than me. I'm not nervous. I'm not even all that sad about leaving behind friends and family in America (I know that we'll be in good contact; I know we won't loose contact). I'm scared. I'm scared to death because the responsibility is heavy and I wish it hadn't fallen on me.
It would've been easier if I'd say "No." I had plenty of oppurtunities to do so. I could be a homeowner. Maybe even have kids by now. My life would have been typical. Maybe even predictable. Life would be easier if I'd just back out.
Don't worry (if you are). I'm not going to quit. I'm not alone. I'm not doing this alone. The brothers and sisters involved in this ministry are incredible in number and in faith. I don't have to go it alone. I'm going with friends. Good friends. I imagine we'll be scared together. That's alright.
The consequences are too great for failure to be optional in this endeavor. Not even trying is cowardice. Faithless. I'm surrounded by too many faithful people to be faithless. Today I will be faithful. Today I will be faithful.
The Cardinals are now 9.5 games back. It could be a discouraging season.
NFL Europe just shut down. I really did want to try and catch a game. How many people can say they actually attended an NFL Europe game? Two?
I have decided that I will buy a Nintendo Wii the first oppurtunity I have. I played a one for the first time tonight. I beat my new brother-in-law, Bryan (yes, folks, it's with a "y" and I'm just as disappointed as you, but other than the fact that he can't spell, I'd say Alisha's sister did pretty well in her choice of husband), at baseball. But I lost to the computer in Tennis.
OK, I'm going to sleep. Sleep. sleep. Is sleep even a real word? It's just leep with an 's' in front of it. This is the last blog for the Rushers. We're retiring. Going to focus on other things for a while. Maybe by the end of the year we'll have a personal blog on blogger (so we can easily post pictures). I think I'd like that.
See you in Vienna.
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Curmudgeon #3: The Last Curmudgeon or I'm Nothing but Sunshine from Here on Out |
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By Team Member on
6/29/2007
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I pray for the American troops. I pray for their safety. I pray for their return home. I pray for their families. I just can't bring myself to pray for the destruction of "our enemies". I can't bring myself to pray for what the world has described as "victory" over "our enemies." If Satan is our enemy, if we're to hate the sin but love the sinner, if Messiah shed his bled for the salavation for all, then what is victory?
I pray for justice. I pray for God's justice in this world. I am not a complete and total pacifist (though mostly, i'm a pacifist). I believe that God can use powerful nations and powerful armies to bring about his justice. I also believe he can use the tiniest of nations to bring about his justice.
I attended school with a minister, ten or so years older than me, who was reflecting back to the months leading up to the First Gulf War. He said that his perspective then, as it still is today, "We can send missionaries now or bombs later." I believe that we are to stand against evil. I don't know when military force is a necessary thing, but I know that the love of God is always a necessary thing. And I know that once God brought up out of tiny Israel the Messiah who overcame evil not by the sword but by the exact opposite.
Less than two days before we fly to Vienna. Less than two days.
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From the Mind of a Twisted Madman, or the Affectionate Musings a Future Post-human--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/18/2007
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With less than two week to our departure there are a lot of things running through my mind. Like:
- Why are the Cardinals STILL 6.5 games behind the Brewers? THE BREWERS! Are
we the world champs because right now the Redbirds aren't even playing
as well as the state champs of Missiouri. June, overall, has been
better than April and May, so maybe they're warming up to the idea of
playing baseball like it oughta be up there in the 'Lou. I do think
we'll actually be at .500 by the All-star Break. It's not all
hopelessly bleak. Some of it is hopefully bleak.
- Why aren't more people listening to Gov't Mule? This is a great,
great band. Sometimes, like today, I just get in a mood where I gotta
listen to some Mule. Warren Haynes was 21st (or 22nd, I can't remember) on Rolling Stone
Magazine's most recent list of the greatest guitarists of all time (he
was one of four former Allman Brothers Band guitarists on the list). On
Gov't Mule's MySpace page you can listen to a live acoustic version of
"Soulshine" (it's my favorite by the band). On YouTube you can find a
really cool rendition of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" as well a medley of
the 90s anthem "Hungerstrike" and Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy." Why are
you not checking this guys out? Stop reading this and go listen!!!
- The Panters were stupid to release Keyshawn Johnson. I know a lot
of people don't like Keyshawn, but he's been a very good receiver for a
very long time. I know Steve Smith is Mr. Unstoppable, so it doesn't
really matter who runs the Y and Z route, but Keyshawn still had two or
three years of 800+ receiving in him (and it'd probably been more than
1,000). I kind of ascribe to the Bill Parcels' school of NFL receiving:
if you have a big, strong receiver with good hands it doesn't matter if
he's not as fast or shifty as a cornerback, he's going to come down
with the ball.
- Why has the Church of Christ become so infatuated with "seeker"
churches? Sometimes, I'm even a little bit scared that we've really
bought into the Willowcreek model of doing things. They are, afterall,
HUGE!!! I understand their influence, and I think they're are plenty of honest intentions about "getting
the people in the pews," but I believe that seeker churches rewrite the
"theology of the church" (if I can use that phrase--i don't think I
can, but I'm going to so as to prevent carrying this paranthetical
thought to four times its current length). I wish English translations
of the Bible would stop translating ekklasia as "church" and start translating it as "assembly." Then, perhaps, we might once again place emphasis on assembly,
on building up the body. That's why the first Christian's
assembled--"to build up the body, which praises the head" (John
Harrison's phrase, not mine). Evangelism wasn't the point of the
assembly!!! We're not supposed to establish flashy programs so that
those seeking spiritual things will be attracted to our worship
service--we're not supposed to attract these so called "seekers," we're supposed to be the seekers. We're supposed to go out and seek and save the lost.
The Great Commission was "GO!" It wasn't "If you build it they will
come." (Frost and Hirsch address this in their marvelous book The Shaping of Things to Come).
- I think I'm going to challenge Curt Niccum to a fight. I think I
could take him. I feel like "beat up language nerd" would look get on
my resume. I also think "Local Langauge Nerd Gets Smacked Down by Former Student" would
make a catchy newspaper headline.
- I'm tired and weary from the last six months (it has been craaazy)!
I just spent two minutes trying to decide if "catchy" was spelled
c-a-t-c-h-y or c-a-c-h-t-y. I used to be decent at spelling and grammar
before I took Linguistics in college. Deep structures and
deconstruction ruined my ability to spell or write by conventional
standards. I like my writing better now, it just seems to make people
upset whenever they ask me to read over something and I respond "I don't
see any reason why not." every. single. time. I now ascribe to the
thesis of Heidegger in his essay "Langauge"(Die Sprache) that we don't speak language but language speaks us.
- Do you really think I've read Heidegger? Because I have. I didn't
understand it, but I've read some of his stuff. I don't know what the
thesis of "Language" is, I read that "languge speaks us" stuff in the
introduction to the essay in the Norton Anthology.
- Speaking of which, I really miss my Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. I shipped it in the container with the rest of the stuff
we're taking to Vienna.
- Ferdinand de Saussure is consider the Father of Structuralism.
Saussure never wrote a book. After he passed away his students
collected together their notes from class and A Course in General Linguistics was
published. Unfortunately for those compilers, Saussure himself never
used the same lecture notes twice, if he used them at all. Of course,
from Structuralism evolved Post-structuralism (Dut-dut-DUMMMMM).
- Despite all of the great 20th century advancements in industry, technology, art, philoshopy, I maintain that these
great thinkers, innovators and artists were terribly uncreative when it
came to naming new cultural movements and/or advancements (no, this
isn't the longest sentence I've ever written; for that you'd need to
see my eighth grade science paper on plate tectonics--one sentence
lasting five handwritten pages, front and back thank you very much). (I
was influenced by Samuel Beckett's works at an early age.) Every time
something new was identified, those guys just put "post" in front of
it. This bled into the mainstream media and was thrust down the
collective throat of the American television viewing audience at an
audacious rate (e.g., post-Columbine, post-9/11, post-WWII, post-Nixon,
post office...no wait, that one's been around a while).
- I like parantheses. (For Josh).
- I love the word "audacious." I also like the word "noodle." Another favorite of mine is "willy-nilly."
- Once I told Curt Niccum that I was going to compile all of
the student notes from Greek class and publish a book in his name
introducting the philosophical practice of Non-structuralism. Maybe I
should remind him of that. See if I can provoke him into a fight.
- Tomorrow Alisha and I are going to Portland. I don't know what my
favorite American city is, but Portland and St. Louis (Go Cards!) are
definitely near the top. If we ever come back from Europe, I want to
live in the Northwest. I'm also intrigued with the Great Lake region.
In Oregon they have espresso shops like Oklahoma has bait shops.
- I am annoyed by people who mispronounce "espresso" as "expresso."
- The truth is I could live my whole life in Vienna (I think). It's really a great city. No baseball. No football. No real
football (real football requires helmets, in case you're not sure which football is the real football). But I could live there.
- OK. That's enough from me. Until we meet again.
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Marriage Ceremony is Overrated--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/16/2007
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Girls dream their whole lives about their weddings. At least, that's what I'm told, and it's what our culture perpetuates. Maybe that's why my sister-in-law's thirty minute ceremony required months of preparation highlighted by the week prior to the wedding in which my mother-in-law pulled fourteen hour days to make sure everything was completed.
The pomp and circumstance of the American wedding is one of the most overwhelming things of our culture. I wasn't even that involved in this wedding (I helped put away some folding chairs after it was over), and it still nearly drove me to the brink of sanity. What is it that makes us do this to ourselves/families when we're just as happy sitting with one another in the living room of someone's house. What's better, the formal wedding or the family barbecue? I really enjoyed my wedding despite all the effort and patience it required, but I'd rather have the American marriage ceremony evolve so that it has more in common with Thanksgiving day. Thanksgiving, in my opinion, is the best family occasion: you get to be with your loved ones, there is good food, it's a comparably lowkey affair that even the host and hostess can enjoy, and there's always a football game after lunch. Now that sounds like a good wedding.
So, I say why not do something less overwhelming, but just as much fun and just as special? On a side note, I would always be interested in a wedding ceremony modeled upon Christ's return for his "bride". That'd be pretty interesting.
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Curmudgeon, Part 2: Mayberry was a Place Where Values Thrived...for White People--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/15/2007
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Last weekend Alisha and I were in Longview, TX visiting Alisha’s grandparents. David, Alisha’s step-grandfather (her biological grandfather passed away several years ago and her grandmother has since remarried), said something that really struck me as interesting. David served in the US army in the mid-1950s; he was stationed in Germany. David told Alisha and me quite a few stories from his time in the service, and all of it was interesting, but there was one simple statement, said almost in passing, about which I’ve reflected upon more than once in the last week. “I was in Germany 17 months to the day,” David said. “And in that time, I bet I didn’t go fifteen minutes without someone saying something about how the Soviets could attack at any moment.”
In the book Erring: A Postmodern A/theology Mark C. Taylor states, “The Western theological tradition, in all its diversity, rests upon a polar or, more precisely, a dyadic foundation. Though consistently monotheistic, Christian theology is repeatedly inscribed in binary terms. The history of religious thought in the West can be read as a pendular movement between seemingly exclusive and evident opposites” (8). Taylor then provides a diagram, complete with represented pendular movement, of some of the more notable dyads: Good/Bad, God/World, Eternity/Time, Permanence/Change, Transcendent/Imminent, Height/Depth, Speech/Writing.
If, as Taylor states, the Western theological tradition rests upon such dichotomies, certainly no less is true of the whole of Western metaphysics. One dyad not listed in Taylor’s diagram, but nonetheless most certainly foundational to Western thought, is the Self/Other dichotomy. The Other is always marginalized in the worldview of the Self. Chinua Achebe’s treatment of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness in the essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/achcon.htm) is one of the most famous critique’s highlighting this act. Racism, stereotypes, jingoism and xenophobia are the propagandistic tools of ethnocentrism.
By the time I was born in 1978, the Self/Other had already been firmly established and these propaganistic tools(“I bet I didn’t go fifteen minutes without someone saying something about how the Soviets could attack at any moment.”) were so ingrained that I was born into a worldview that was USA against USSR, Capitalism versus Communism. And there was no doubt about who was the enemy.
I can remember being terrified of the Soviets as a child. When I think back on those years I can’t remember one single face other than Gorbachev’s. His pale complexion, bald head and the patent birthmark stood in stark contrast to the warm, jovial smile of Ronald Reagen. I remember evening news reports about the Soviet Union showing soldiers mechanically marching in that straight-legged fashion in front of the Kremlin. They weren’t people to me; they were enemies. As a child, though, “enemies” doesn’t quite define what I felt. To me, they were monsters. They were the opposite of us. They were against the freedoms upon which our country existed. They were against our way of life and they were waiting for the most opportune time to try and take away our way of life. They hated freedom.
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A New Breed of Game Show--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/14/2007
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I'm sitting at my in-laws' house; my sister-in-law is getting married on Saturday so the house if filled with in-laws. Right now everyone is crammed in to the living room watching the TV game show Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader? I don't like these new game shows--they're like a cross between reality TV and a classic game show.
The first of these new breed game shows I can remember is Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I watched this Regis Philbin show on a couple of occasions, but I couldn't stomach a steadfast following. I just didn't have the patience for it. This wasn't the steady moving environment of Jeopardy! where Alex Trebek asked a question and then it was answered. Millionaire allowed the contestant to dictate the pace of the game rather than the game host or the game rules. The contestant can take as long as they want to answer the question, and the contestant and game show host interact with each other more than on a traditional game show. Here's an example:
Regis: What was the world's first billion-dollar corporation? (A) Microsoft (B) Union Pacific (C) Standard Oil (D) US Steel
Contestant: Let's see...My grandfather's second cousin on his mother's side worked at Union Pacific his whole life and all he got for it was a bad back, so I know they didn't make much money. And...Well, I know Microsoft makes a lot of money, but Oil has always made a lot of money. Hmm...I just don't know.
Regis: Well, you have two of your lifelines left. You already used "phone a friend" but you still have "poll the audience" and "Fifty-fifty" where we'll remove two of the incorrect answers. So, you can use two of your remaining lifelines and that could help narrow down the field.
Contestant: Oh, I just don't know. I mean, I don't want to use all of my lifelines so early in the game because I know I'll need them later, but if I don't make it passed this question then the lifelines won't matter. Could I talk to my mom in the audience?
Regis: I don't know. Judges? [looks off camara] It doesn't look like we can let you talk to your mom in the audience. But, why don't we take a break here and introduce your family in the audience.
Contestant: Sure. I have with my today my mom who is just the most wonderful, sweet person in all the world. And my younger brother, Al Pacino, no relation to the actor, who is a student at the University of Southern California Technical Institute where he is training to be a priest.
Regis: Great! What a wonderful, wonderful family. It just brings happiness to my inner being to see a strong, supportive family. So, let's get back to our game. What are you going to do, answer the question or use a lifeline?
Contestant: Well, My grandfather's second cousin on his mother's side worked at Union Pacific his whole life and all he got for it was a bad back, so I know they didn't make much money. I don't think it was US Steel because Microsoft makes so much money. I mean, you always hear about Microsoft and oil, so I think it's either Microsoft or Standard Oil. I...I think I'm going to go with Microsoft.
Regis: Microsoft?
Contestant: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Microsoft.
Regis: Final answer?
Contestant: [Pause followed by an emphatic stated] Final answer.
Regis. Oh, I'm so sorry! The correct answer is US Steel.
Here's a similar scenerio, only on Jeopardy!
Alex: What corporation formed by Andrew Carnegie, Elbert H. Gary and J.P. Morgan became the world's first billion-dollar corporation in 1901?
Contestant: [after ringing in and being acknowledged by the host] US Steel
Alex: Correct. You now have control of the board.
In the second scenerio, I was in no way involved in the contestant's thought process. I didn't have to hear why they knew the answer or how they reached the answer. I wasn't introduced to family members, nor did I have to endure pointless banter between contestant and host.
But, thank goodness that in the time it's taken me to write this post, Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader? has ended.
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The Best of Both Worlds--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/12/2007
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Last week the St. Louis Cardinals drafted Owasso, Oklahoma standout Pete Kozma as their first round selection (18th overall). The following is from the press release from the Cardinals' PR department:
"Kozma, 18, was an All-American at Owasso High School in Owasso,
Oklahoma. He finished his senior season with team-bests in batting
average (.522), runs (56), RBI (55) and home runs (11). He struck out
five times in 113 at-bats and had 23 walks. Kozma had a three-homer
game in the Oklahoma state 6-A playoffs and helped lead the school to a
state title as his solo HR was the only run in the 1-0 championship win."
I always think it's cool when a kid is drafted out of high school into the major leagues. However, I find it repulsive when it happened in basketball and impossible for it to ever happen in football (no way a kid could move from prep foot ball to the NFL--too much speed and weight added in college). Maybe thats hypocritical, or maybe that's just baseball.
For Ira and I, it's the best of both worlds. Oklahoma boys playing for the St. Louis Cardinals (Jake, the other diehard Cardinal fan on our team, is from Colorado and therefore much less likely to be impressed with Oklahomans in the big leagues; Also, his wife is a Cubs fan which makes him a little suspect in my book). Let's hope Pete can help the Redbirds to another win in the October classic.
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Curmudgeon, Part 1: Mayberry, My Dear, I Left Thee in Jerusalem, Forgotten and Brokenhearted--Brian |
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By Team Member on
6/8/2007
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Alisha and I are spending most of the month of June traveling around to visit our friends and family before we leave for Vienna on June 30. It's been fun for me. I think for Alisha, too. We spen most of this week at my grandparents. Tomorrow we're driving to east Texas to see Alisha's grandparents. We're excited.
June is a month of changes for a lot of people in our families. Alisha's sister is getting married on June 16. My Grandma and Grandpa are moving from the house they've lived in (out in the country) for 30 years to a house in town. I know they're ready to move to a place that requires less upkeep, but I've never known them to live in any other house. My grandma's sister, Sharon, passed away last Monday. It hit our family hard, but it hit the whole town of Holdenville, OK pretty hard. Sharon was a very sweet woman, and just about everyone in Holdenville knew her as such.
I think ours is a culture that strives for a normalcy that doesn't include change. We want to think that change is abnormal, and we're afraid of it. We tend to be intimated by anyone who'd embrace change or deviate from what is considered an acceptible path in life. I guess, in some ways, that is why it's such a big deal when people leave families, homes, and jobs to serve the Lord. You don't have to leave these things to serve the Lord, so why initiate that change? For some people, even though they're in favor of missions and service, this is outlandish.
A lot of times I'll see politicians talk about how "everything" changed after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This change is what allows our country/government to act in ways that were unacceptable during the previous period of "normalcy." Mayberry is gone; now there is only Mount Pilot. Of course, we tend to forget that Mayberry was always fictional.
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Just a lot going on! - Jake |
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By Team Member on
5/23/2007
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This past Sunday night our bible class at Memorial Road
honored the Vienna Team at our monthly fellowship night. It was a great time of
food, fellowship, and fun. Our class presented the team with a Bible that
families had signed next to highlighted scriptures that were considered
favorites or ones that will help encourage us while we are in Vienna! Each
family also received a webcam to help us keep in touch with friends/family or
other guys in the US. It was truly a blessing that only our family in Christ
could give us. Praise the Lord and thank you to the North’s, Lashley’s, and all
that helped make that possible. See pics at http://tryggblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/sending-them-off-with-bible-webcam-and.html
Sorry our blogging has not been updated more on a regular
basis but we have had a lot going on, that is, I would say we have been doing a
plethora of items that have prevented us from contributing to the blogger
world.
A couple of weeks ago we held the first of two major garage
sales that the team will put on before we leave. Our hope was that by combining
junk….er… I mean household items from four families we would draw a larger
crowd. It is hard to measure the success of the garage sale as we still had
items left over one of which is a very nice dresser and hutch that is still
currently for SALE!! Please contact us using the “contact us” link at the
bottom of our webpage if you are interested.
Anyway, there will be another garage sale this weekend at
the Hensal’s house that will hopefully rid us of the rest of the earthly
possessions that will not be moved to Vienna but can now infest someone else’s
poor closet space!
I feel like I am rambling on at this point not sure if I
should list all the things we’re working on, people we are meeting with, or
papers we are shredding. Just please be patient and understanding with us if
you say “hi” and we just stare with our bloodshot eyes into space muttering
something about converting 110V to 220V. Also if we don’t immediately return
any e-mails within the next five years, just send us a reminder in year six.
All seriousness aside, the Lord is the sustainer and
giver of life and we are learning to rely upon his strength more each day! How
great is our God!
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