This blog represents the culmination of several desires. For a long time, I have wanted to keep some sort of ongoing written record of my life, but I haven’t found a good way to do it. I have tried journaling in the past (and am convinced that for some it is a great spiritual discipline), but it has never really worked for me. Somehow my deepest thoughts, struggles, joys, and prayers never seemed to flow out of my pen very well.
Recently, I have had a renewed desire to journal, though with a little different focus. As of September, I have begun overseeing our church planting team here at GFM in Oaxaca. Since this is such a new experience for all of us on the team (none of us has ever planted a church before), I wanted to have some kind of a record of the journey. I know that we will learn much along the way, often through trial and error. I thought it would be valuable for me to keep track of these lessons in order to be able to look back and reflect on them later. If making this journal available on the internet allows it to be something another person could someday find interesting or valuable, then all the better.
I have also, for some time, wanted to find a way to better keep in touch and share our lives with our friends and family. I think our typical missionary letters and updates leave something to be desired when it comes to giving people a “behind the scenes” look at life and ministry. My hope is that this blog will give those who read it greater access to our thoughts, decisions, and lessons learned, as well as providing photos and other interesting and fun tidbits.
Finally, over the past several years, I have developed a growing interest in the internet and website development. I don’t know a lot, and I am not yet very good at it, but I do have an interest. So I see this blog as something of a hobby, too.