Mmmm, Dublins...

As you all know, we are heading out to the promised land sometime next week. I will be going on Monday to scout the land of milk and honey, and Robin will follow with Jessica and Tanner helping, to complete the conquest. We are pretty excited. The title comes from the fact that my path will go through Dublin. I am going to wake up at 5 AM on Monday, stop in Dublin to pick up a 24 pack, and stop only for food and gas after that. Should be fun.

A few things I have been thinking through as all this is going on, and maybe it can help you all when you make your moves.

The first thing that is really hitting me is God's strange provision. God does not behave like a genie in a bottle or something and just show up and give us our wish. But, he also promises that in the same way the birds of the air and flowers of the field are taken care of, we will be too. And we have been. We don't know where it is going to come from, but we have had several random acts of kind generosity extended to us. We have had people pay more than we asked for furniture, we had some friends take us to ice cream and give us a check for 100 bucks the other night, and today after I played basketball with some old guys, a man grabbed me on the way out and handed me a hundred dollar bill. Its really strange. We didn't ask anyone of them, but each was the presence of God to us by giving us some money. For me, sometimes it is hard to let people do things like that for me, I want to be a "rugged individual" because I am a good American, but that is not the way of the kingdom. We have to let people give to us at times, because that is God's plan. We are so grateful to have such wonderful friends at a time like this. So for you guys that are moving too eventually, it may seem like the money won't be there, but I think you might be surprised what God can and will do.

The second thing is that getting a job is pretty overwhelming sometimes. We both go through fazes when we are upset and feel like we will end up destitute on the streets, and we both go through fazes when we are upbeat because we know that God holds the future. The good news is that we haven't both been really down at the same time yet. Keep your heads up people! It may seem like you aren't getting a job immediately, but just know that God's work is the right place to be. (Plus our whole economy is about to crash down anyway, so we will all just be poor together, find some abandoned farm and eek out an existence there, while we learn to knit our own cloths and generate power somehow to play video games, jk)

The last thing is that I know that as long as I have a few things in life I will be just fine. Robin and a few friends, and enough food to eat and water to drink. A place to sleep and a change of boxers. This has taken a really weird tangent, but I just want to try to reassure everyone, God has promised to look out for us. For Robin and I, help has come from the strangest places (I forgot to mention that a large payment was made to our credit card, and we have no idea how it was made, now that could just be an error which will eventually be fixed, or it could be God providing in yet another strange way). I get hope from strange things, like the fact that we have a good place to live and that they gave us our first month for free... Anyway, we are praying for all of you, as you are hopefully praying for us. I will keep you up to date about our lives on this blog and my personal blog, so please keep in touch. Plan trips to come see us, to come find places to live and places to work.

Last, I want to leave you with something that was prayed for me today. The guys I play basketball with prayed that God would change the city of Denver through us. That is my prayer too. I pray that we will be the light in the darkness and that we would be the ones that are the presence of Christ to a wounded world.