t + 12 days

Its been twelve days since my epidural steroid injection and the burning question on everybody's minds:  Is the pain gone?

Sadly, no, not completely.  It is greatly reduced, though, and this is great news!  Case in point, I am able to sit here and type without any significant pain. In fact, sitting down tends to be more comfortable than standing.   I've been off pain-killers of any sort for ten days now and am hoping I can keep it that way.   Things are usually still a bit uncomfortable at the end of the day and I try to spend that time laying down and reading if I can. I would guess this is the most pain free I have been since the injury; praise God!

That said, I'm still not able to bike or really have much of an active life. I can now walk at a normal pace and get up and down stairs easily enough but that's it right now.  I'm still looking into getting another shot or two to see if that plus physical therpay can get us all the way there. IDD therapy is also a possibility but I'll only do that after the shot don't work AND I can figure out this insurance stuff.  The other good news is that lately the pain has been more in my lower back rather than in my leg.  This movement of the pain is a result the physical therapists have been hoping to see for a while.  Apparently, when the pain moves to the point of injury, it is a very good sign that things are healing up.  I'm continuing to do physical therapy regularly and am hoping and praying that this will heal on its own without much more hassle.  

Beyond 35mm

To most people, film photography and 35mm are virtually synonymous, and for good reason. As many a photography historian has noted, "35mm won the format war". 35mm was and is the culmination of a long history of progressively smaller and smaller pieces of film used by photographers. And with digital, it could be argued that the trend continues as the cameras and their "film" (digital sensors) continue to shrink in size. It may surprise you to know that even though the mainstream has moved to 35mm and beyond (below?), there are still a significant number of photographers working in those historic larger pieces of film; this is the realm of medium- and large-format photography.

Now, you might have actually seen medium-format photography before and just not realized it. Many wedding and event photographers continue to use medium-format for prints that will need to be enlarged to 11" x 17" and larger. The larger pieces of film allow more information to be stored and for enlargements to be made with out graininess (resolution) bringing significant distortion to the image. Medium-format film comes in a variety of shapes and sizes with the two most popular being 6cm x 6cm and 6cm x 4.5cm (35mm film is around 36mm x 24mm). The film comes in spools similar to that of conventional 35mm film and is readily available in most photography shops. Medium format cameras come in many shapes and sizes the most common being the familiar SLR, yesteryear's TLR and not-so-compact rangefinders.

Large-format, though, is a different beast all together. The film comes in sheets that are individually loaded into the camera. Common film sizes are 4" x 5" and 8" x 10". Setting up a shot can easily take 30 minutes. The cameras themselves are monsters and look like some relic from the 19th century, and to some extent, they are. Take a look look. Hoods, bellows, wooden frames, the cameras in and of themselves tend to be works of art. Believe it or not, these cameras are still actively used by number of professionals that usually have unique requirements that can only be satisfied by this format.

One, if you need resolution, these are the cameras to use. Nothing, digital or analog, comes close. Imagine taking a picture where the negative is roughly the size of a sheet of notebook paper. There is a lot of information stored on that film and the enlargement potentials are incredible. Landscape photographers love these cameras for this reason.

Two, because the film comes in sheets, each individual image can be developed and processed uniquely. This is where the art of traditional chemical photography can shine, an art of which I have virtually no knowledge (more on that later). These first two reasons are what allowed many well known photographers (the most famous being Ansel Adams) to achieve absolutely incredible prints. That and they are all extremely talented artists.

Three, due to the ability to move the film with respect to the lens, to is possible to do some unique things with the perspective and focus of the image. Common applications are making skyscrapers stand up tall instead of bending to the center of the frame and allow long table to food to be entirely in focus. If this doesn't make sense to you or seem that impressive then don't worry about it. Suffice it to say, some photography niches have need of such things.

What does this have to do with me? Well, the other night I had a dream that I was using a large-format camera while in the mountains taking some pretty darn cool pictures. When I woke up and realized I had taken no such pictures now had I ever even used one of these cameras I got to thinking. Wouldn't that be cool to learn all this neat stuff about traditional black-and-white photography? You know, get a darkroom set-up, develop my own negatives, make my own prints. I could get one of these larger-format cameras and even if I didn't do any enlargements still have some great pictures. This would be a great way for me to learn a lot of the basic techniques that my modern digital SLR has allowed me to gloss over. At this point, the do-it-yourself in me was jumping up and down and was encouraging my artistic nature to get in on the fun.

Will this happen? Probably not. A new large-format camera costs $700 minimum. I don't have any place for a dark-room. Medium format, though, holds some potential, as older used TLRs can be had for $100. Not cheap, cheap, but not expensive, either. Seeing as how I'm in the midst of planning a wedding and all right now, I don't think it will happen anytime soon. I would relish the opportunity to live out some of the dream I had and maybe it will happen someday. For now, I read books about the old arts and pretend that someday I too will have images as striking and beautiful as the masters of yesteryear.

Epidural

Well, this morning I had an epidural injection of steroids in attempt to reduce swelling of my herniated disc. I can't tell you much about the procedure since I was laying on my belly for all of it but here's what I do know. I was first injected with a local anesthetic that numbed my whole lower back. A fluorescing dye was then injected to aid the doctor in finding the effected vertebrae. The doctor then worked a needle into the epidural space in the herniated disc and one in position, gave it a direct shot of steroids. The only parts that hurt at all were the first and the last. I give blood regularly and manage to do OK with needles; the anesthesia injection was fairly painless. When the steroids were actually administered, that was something else. It wasn't too painful, just very different. For about thirty seconds it felt as if my leg was being slowly inflated. And then it was done. The entire procedure took about ten minutes.

The coolest part: they used one of these. You can learn more about it here but let's just call it real-time X-ray amchine to keep things simple. Like I said, I didn't get a chance to see much of it in use but the one quick glance I saw really impressed me. It was this tool that allowed my vertebrae to make sure he got the drugs in the right disc.

As far as results from this treatment go, well, I'll have to wait a few days to see. I'll keep you posted, for sure.

Oh, and I didn't need a sedative of any kind; all the nurses were VERY impressed by this.

No seriously, they were. I could tell.

Sunday Night

This past Sunday night was an incredibly wonderful time for me. After helping out with youth group (not necessarily fantastic but it has been a lot worse) I headed over to a prayer meeting for our church's members who were overseas. The meeting started at 7pm and I didn't make it until 7:45 or so.

I don't know why, but I think showing up late put me in a frame of mind where I felt I was coming in after-the-fact, trying to catch-up and seeking to integrate with others. They had started down the path of worship and were well on the way towards getting their hearts in the right spot; I was going to have to be intentional and focussed if I was going to get in-step with them.

Maybe it was the setting of a simple, small gathering. Perhaps it was our unified and clearly defined purpose of praying for the parts of our body that were overseas. I honestly don't know but in only a few minutes I felt that this was going to be a encouraging evening for me, one that I had not experienced in such a way: I was feeling a growing sense of connection with the body of Christ here in the living room.

My time here in Wichita has been like my move to Boise in some ways (and very different in others). One of the most difficult struggles for me in any move is making new friends and it always takes a long time for me to feel like I am connected and a part of the lives of others. Well, not always. Both in college and eventually in Boise God has provided a significant friend who, after interacting for just a few minutes I knew would be somebody with whom I was going to have a significant bond. It is much more usual, though, for me to struggle forming new friendships and this lack of close relationships to be a discouraging and difficult long-term part of my transition.

Within a few minutes of showing up and joining in the singing, though, I knew this evening would be different. In a sense, it felt like finding that significant friend, but having that person be a people. This was the body of Christ, gathered here in praise and united with a common desire to support our friends throughout the world as best we could . Maybe it was realizing my concern and personal responsibility I felt for a specific couple that had recently left River to go overseas was being actively affirmed and echoed by this group. Maybe seeing and hearing the prayers of our people for these two people I dearly love and who need our support demonstrated in a tangible way that I was not alone and had a team in this. This group cared too, and in that we had a true heart-bond. I knew most of those who had gathered decently enough and some I knew fairly well. It didn't take long to realize these were my brothers and sisters.

I was so encouraged and energized. I wanted to go around the room and meet those I didn't know at all. I wanted to express thanks to the young lady who set this up and provided this opportunity. I felt empowered and living by the Spirit; for a brief period of time I was a part of the Body of Christ in a tangibly-realized way.

How I long to make such a connection a regular part of my life. May God do His will with me and make this a reality.

2:88?

Very much by accident, tonight I discovered my microwave considers a 2:88 a valid cook time. I meant to punch in 2:00 but managed to miss the zero and hit eight twice instead. Without even thinking I hit the "Start" button and watched in amazement as a totally nonsensical time counted down. The oven behaved just as you might expect: it counted down eighty-eight seconds before decrementing the minutes from two to one; 2:88 lead to 2:00 lead to 1:59. Growing up, we would routinely heated water for ninety seconds (instead of 1:30) but I honestly never though of trying something like this.

How about you? What does your microwave do if you try 2:88?

Moving

Sorry for being, uhmmm, well I was going to say "abnormally absent" but I fear my posting-absence is a bit more normal than I would care for it to be. The cause for this latest outage......moving.

All of my Wichita possessions are now at our new address 1028 W Murdock. Most of it is still in boxes and I am slowly working on finding things permanent homes. Well, maybe not permanent; more like temporary homes until Katie moves in and we re-arrange everything again. Oh, here's the obligatory Google maps satellite photo: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Wichita,+KS&ll=37.697294,-97.350942&spn=0.002712,0.006856&t=k We're in the brown house on the corner in the dead center of the map. As if that will help. Just smile and nod.

This new duplex in which Katie and I are going to be starting our married life out, well, it has some character. It's definitely an older house, probably built in the 40s or so definitely during a time when houses were built a bit less cookie-cutter style: no hallways, really, non-standard door sizes, things like that. One of the coolest things, though, is the stairwell:



The landing splits both directions! You can hang a left into the living room or go right into the laundry/pantry area. I don't think I have ever seen a stairwell like this but I've actually had a dream about something like this before. Actually, the images I remember from my dream (it was a number of years ago) are eerily similar to what we have here.

The only downside to the stairwell is that it is a tunnel; the ceiling is a fixed height from the stairs the whole way down. In general, I consider this another fun bit of character. The one downside we've discovered so far, though, is that it makes for a tight fit when it comes to furniture. We found out that we couldn't fit the box-springs for our new queen-size bed up the stairwell AT ALL. (Fortunately, they actually make a split box-spring for queen-size mattresses, just like the do for king-size. Thank God.)

Other cool things: old school heater vents, stacked washer and dryer, basement (usable as a tornado shelter and not much else), large living room, dining room, and master bedroom, and an extra guest room/office. The rent is right at the upper-limit of our budget but for one year, we can swing it. We are quite thankful to have this place; its very close to where we live now (second obligatory Google maps satellite photo: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Wichita,+KS&t=k&ll=37.694089,-97.344586&spn=0.002712,0.006856&t=k Large brown apartment buildings in the center of the maps.)

Sometimes you see the darndest things

Last night I was headed home from helping out with the youth group and I pulled up to a red light next to a pickup truck that had a sizable array of speakers mounted in the bed. These weren't the normal kind of home or car speakers but more like the ones you see at football stadiums and other outdoor arenas, the kind that are horn-shaped. The truck also had a decent-sized spotlight that the driver was operating from the cab. We were in the downtown area and he kept pointing it at the sky-scrapers and waving it around. This had the earmarks of adolescent entertainment on a Sunday night, trying to squeeze some fun out of the last few hours of the weekend before returning to school the next day.

Except there was that sign on the back window of the cab that said something about bird control.

Oh, and the crow-sounding bird calls that were LOUDLY emmanating from the speakers in the cab of the truck; that was a bit unusual too. It sounded like one very large crow whose size in no way had changed the pitch of its voice. Over and over and over again it screached from the bed of this truck while the driver waved a light around the buildings seeming to be in some kind of seizure.

Our light turned green; the truck headed into the heart of downtown and I continued home.

Most. Surreal. Experience. Ever.

Back Trouble

This is actually old news but since I don't have time to be super creative (wedding planning) and I claim this blog is to keep you updated on my life, I think its about time to pull this guy out.

About three months ago, I developed a pain in my right leg that felt like a pulled muscle and after two or three weeks, didn't really get any better. I decided to go in and see a doctor (first time in Wichita!) and, much to my surprise, he diagnosed this problem as a bulge in disc in my back.

Huh?

As I found out through some research, bulged discs can sometimes rub against the nerve traveling down the spinal column and cause pain to appear in the lower extremities. In my case, there was no injury in my right leg, that's just where the pain from the disc rubbing the nerve materialized. One easy way the doctor verified this was by checking my muscles in the area the pain was appearing for sensitivity (ie he poked and prodded them). Directly acting on the muscles that appeared to be the source of all the trouble didn't hurt but doing silly things like lifting my leg up and bending over did.

At first I was skeptical of his diagnosis (part of the reason I didn't go in as quickly) but he seemed to know what he was talking about so I played along. I started on some exercises, did a round of oral steroids, and the pain reduced noticeably. It didn't disappear, though, and that's when we decided to do an MRI to confirm the diagnosis.

MRIs are GREAT! I promise you, if you ever have a chance to get one done for free, take it. The process itself is painless (unless you're claustrophobic) and you get these amazingly cool pictures of the inside of your body. Well, at least I think they're cool. The MRI takes cross-section pictures of your body in a progressive fashion, slowly working its way through the area in question. The images themselves are 2-D but it doesn't take much of an imagination to see the changes in the body by looking at the pictures flip-book fashion. In fact, I did just that and made a little Quicktime movie.

(I can see why radiologists need special training. Even knowing which disc was bulged, it took me some time to identify it by looking at the pictures. I had to dig around on the internet and look at other sample pictures before I was able to ID it. Why don't you give it a crack with the picture below? I'll give you a hint: the bulge is between my L5 (lowest lumbar) and S1 (first "tailbone") vertebrae.)



As it turns out, my doctor was 100% correct: bulged disc/pinched nerve. Since the oral steroids didn't clear it up we next tried a month of physical therapy. Though I enjoyed the electrical massages and felt better for a while after each session, the overall progress was not that great. My last session was Dec. 23rd and my visit yesterday with my doctor confirmed that we would have to take the next step: epidural steroid injections. I'll be seeing a specialist in a few days and more than likely, I'll be getting a needle stuck in my back to manually inject a dose of steroids at the effected location to see if that will reduce the inflammation and reduce the bulge in the disc.

So that brings you up to speed on me. If you're the praying type, pray that this gets cleared up soon. The pain is starting to get very annoying (I'm actually starting to take ibuprofen on a daily basis) and it would be great if this didn't slow down the wedding/honeymoon. I'm hopeful and know that God's got it under control no matter what happens.

Date and Location

This past Thursday Katie was able to officially book the church for our wedding. April 1st, 2006 in a church outside Chester OK (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Chester,+OK&ll=36.238657,-98.973405&spn=0.005187,0.013026&t=h&hl=en). ( Yes, it will be that same one out in the middle of nowhere. Yes, it is super-cool; you would not believe a church like this would reside on very rural Oklahoma. Waterfall and fountain in the lobby, stained glass windows, seating for ~350, multiple LCD projectors; I'm guessing that the denomination kicked in with a lot of the funds for the building because a congregation of 100 normally just doesn't have the cash for something like this. The church has been very generous thus far in the terms of our use of their facility and that has truly been a blessing. One big advantage over using this facility versus our own church here in Wichita: the reception and ceremony can be held at the same location.

Here are a few pictures to show you what I'm talking about. Don't mind the "broken pews" in the picture of the auditorium; that picture is a composite where I didn't get things lined up very well.

Gift Registry

OK, due to time constraints I'm going to keep this short.

A little over a week ago, Katie and I started that mostly fun task of registering at stores for wedding gifts. Making a wish-list as a couple can be very enjoyable; it can also be quite a hassle. I think Katie summarized what made this mostly fun for us: "we have kind of similar tastes." I think I can sign on-board with this. Granted, there are always going to be gender-based differences in tastes (she like floral prints, I'm not such a big fan) but most of the time we were able to find good compromises. We had also talked about our "registration strategy" before-hand as well as making pre-registration trips just to see what kind of things we needed to be thinking about. The little bit of extra effort made the day quite enjoyable.

Well, almost.

Our last stop for the day was Dillard's. Katie wanted to get silverware from there and, more importantly, this was the only major store within a 100 mile radius of her hometown. If we didn't register here, there wasn't going to be an easy way for family and friends from that section of her life to figure out what to get us. We needed to put a Dillard's list together and that was the way it was.

We would have done better to go home and skip that last stop for the evening.

After a brief stroll around to get an idea of what the store had available we approached the very elegant registry desk and announced our intentions. After a very hurried introduction and having a small booklet passed to us to fill out, the clerk was off helping some other customer. We filled out all the appropriate information on the front page as requested and waited for her to return.

And waited, and waited. It was probably close to ten minutes before she got back to us. This did not bode well.

During that time I started leafing though the booklet. Why did there need to be so many pages? We gave all the essential information on the front; what were the rest of the pages for? A quick glance and my heart sank. Page after page of blanks fields with headings like "Kitchen Utensils", "Flatware", "Dinnerware" greeted my eyes; we were going to WRITE DOWN all the items we wanted to register for? Was this some kind of joke? After two experiences at stores where we merrily hopped, skipped, and scanned our way through the registry this seemed a sick twisted version of reality. She wasn't serious was she?

Yes, yes she was. She eventually came back and had just enough time to start us on picking our first item before she was yanked away by another "emergency." Katie and I debated the merits of the various silverware choices and eventually decided on a pattern we both liked. It took about fifteen more minutes before our registry clerk was able to get back with us. She carefully WROTE DOWN our choice in silverware, smiled, and asked what else we had in mind. In a five minute burst of registry-definition we added another fifteen items. To be honest I don't know if she was able to even fully write down each item before we were on to the next. We just needed to keep her fully occupied so that our blitz could not be so easily halted. As we finished our pass through the smaller kitchen items and turned to move on to the larger items we paused just long enough that she was able to be once again pulled into another crisis.

And that pretty much sealed the deal. As Katie and I were discussing which items we wanted to add when she came back again we both, nearly tacitly, decided that this was enough. Our next round would be the last and we would finish up the registry online. By the end of the trip, we had managed to get about 25 items on our list in the span of one hour.

Maybe one of these days Dillard's will make its way into the 21st century. We are hoping that day happens soon. Like maybe sometime before our wedding.

Dawali

This past Friday night Katie and I went to a Diwali festival put on by the Indian Student Association here at Wichita State.  The evening started with some food which I thought was just fine but more than one Indian student said he could make better stuff at home.  That's right, he; apparently these guys can cook.  In my experiences with Indian cooking getting the right spice mixture can be very tricky.  Most of the time, I do the best I can and end up "patching-up" with improvisation to get the food to a point where I like how it tastes.  Now that I think about it, that almost ensures that the food will be in-authentic (not that I have a super good idea what authentic tastes like.)  Suffice it to say that I have a long way to go before I can even catch up with the cooking skill of many of these Indian guys.  Maybe I can con one of them to show me how to make the culinary magic work.

The second "half" of the evening was a talent-show-ish mostly-dancing series of performances.  (It got started about an hour later than "scheduled"; Katie's Indian co-worker with whom we spent the evening was highly apologetic that things were running so far behind schedule.  He seemed honestly irritated that the show started that late.  I, on the other hand, expected nothing less.  The irony of this is highly amusing to me.)  

The first act of the show was an hour-long performance by a professional traditional Indian dancer.  She was not at all impressed by the rowdy, party-loving nature of the crowd and spared no verbal expense in letting us know this. In between nearly every dance she took a few minutes to tell us we needed to respect her performance more and that any kind of inappropriate vocalizations from the crowd (that is to say, more than politely clapping at the end of the dance) would result in early termination of her performance.  In short, she was the equivalent of an opera prima donna being asked to sing at "American Idol."  It was not a good match and I think both the she and the audience were happy when she (finally) finished her part of the evening.  For me, I enjoyed the first half-hour but by 45 min. was ready to move on.  Yup, I'm a cultural bigot.

Though we didn't stay for the entire rest of the show, the rest of the acts were very entertaining.  The performers showed no fear and seemed to either have a lot of natural talent or had practiced quite a while.  Most of the acts were group pop dance-ish and the rows and rows of guys behind us loudly showed their appreciation.  I learned that long, loud, high whistling seemed to be the Indian equivalent of clapping; I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to hear again after dozens of those guys really laid into it.  Next time, I'm bringing earplugs.

I think I was most amazed at how many of the students seemed to lack any sense of embarrassment or stage-fright. There seemed to be no end of singing and dancing acts and members of the audience worked their way onto stage on several occasions or used the aisles of the auditorium as little dance halls to join in with on-stage performance.   The group as a whole seemed to corporately feel much more at ease with themselves. Maybe its a function of forming an Indian bubble here in Wichita for the evening or maybe this was a reflection of a part of Indian culture I haven't seen before; probably its some of both.

Overall, great evening.  Next time, I'm taking a nap before-hand so I can stay up later and probably can just plan on showing up a half-hour after the published time.  

The Proposal

For those of you who haven't heard yet, I am now an engaged man! As of October 17th, 2005 one Katie McLarty has agreed to pursue a life-long commitment with me. As you might guess, we are both pretty excited about this and anxious about getting all the wedding details in place. For those of you who haven't really been involved in the whole wedding culture/industry I will simply say this: you would never think planning a ceremony like this would take so many months but it does. I promise you, it really does. Case in point, Katie and I are still working on the list of things that we need to be thinking about and planning; I guess you could say we're in the meta-planning stage.

As far as ceremony specifics go, we're aiming for April 1st (to hit spring break to accommodate my family's educationally-restricted time-off) in Mutual, OK. Nothing is set in stone and probably won't be until sometime towards the end of November. Keep your browsers pointed here for the latest details on this front.

The proposal itself was somewhat of an ordeal. The ring, after five or six weeks of effort, was finally ready on Oct. 14th. I was quite excited to be able to see the completed work and was thrilled with the results; Burnell's is the place to go if you ask my opinion. Phil, the craftsman who constructed the ring, did a fantastic job and the service there was excellent. Compared to the other places I visited, my experience at Burnell's was far and away the best. I can't recommend them enough.

Some good friends of mine were actually in town that weekend I picked it up and one of them, Lisa, went out with Katie for coffee that next morning (Saturday). Now, I made no specific requests to Lisa for information but Sunday afternoon while Katie was out with her protege from Youth Horizons I was eager to pump her for any information she might have. Specifically, I had a bit of a dilemma and I was hoping that she could provide some insight. I wanted to propose at the beginning of a free weekend so as to give Katie plenty of time to simply enjoy the event and do that girl-emotion thing. The problem: we didn't have a free weekend for three more weeks. Do I wait those weeks (which I maintain to this day that I could have) or do I try to bump it up earlier to end her anticipation/agony? Lisa said she could see the advantages of both but was convinced that any day now would also be just fine. I figured if it really didn't matter, it would probably be better to get on this sooner than later so, yeah, let's do it soon.

Like tomorrow night.

After taking a good hour or so to mentally adjust, throw out all my wonderful elaborate proposal schemes, and think through what I needed to do, I realized that I, uhmmm, still needed to talk with her parents. I grabbed my phone and called, figuring that the Sunday afternoon football would ensure that her dad was home. Twenty, thirty, forty rings later I remembered that her parents had caller ID and that they probably didn't recognize my number. Which meant that I needed to steal Katie's phone to make this call. Tricky.

It actually ended up being pretty simple. Katie came home from roller-skating with her protege just a wee bit worn out. Being the sensitive, caring, and manipulative person that I am, I encouraged this feeling of exhaustion in her and suggested she take a short nap. No, we'll take care of dinner. Here let me come tuck you into bed. NO!, leave your purse there on the table, we can clean up later. After a few minutes of getting her settled in I ran back into the living room, swiped her phone from her purse, and was making the call.

THE Call. Man, this was probably the most nerve-racking ten minutes of my life. I didn't know what to expect and rather than exchanging pleasantries I jumped right in with my question. "HithisisTrevorandIwaswonderingifIcouldmarryyourdaughter?"

Silence.

Bad silence? Good silence? Couldn't tell.

"Wow."

"You do realize that this is for life, right?"

After that things were much better. The conversation wrapped up shortly and I was over at her place carefully and exactly re-depositing the phone in her purse.

So now all I had to do was actually get her on a date. We had been planning for some time to visit a nearby observatory (Lake Afton) and the weather was wonderful that weekend (~80 'F, clear skies) so I called her the next day and suggested we head out that evening. The one catch, Katie already had plans to spend the evening hanging out with her roommate, Jen. She was trying to cancel but wasn't sure it was going to work out. I checked in after work and still no word from Jen. I suggested we give her another half-hour and if she didn't show we just head on out.

The. Longest. Half. Hour. Of. My. Life.

The moment of truth came and went and still no sign of Jen. Feeling we had made due diligence we headed for the door when in walks Jen. I could have cried. We were THIS close and had we moved 30 seconds earlier we would have been free and clear. Now all was ruined, ruined!

Katie was able to explain the situation to Jen and she kindly agreed to let us go. As quickly as possible, I shoved us out the door. We grabbed some dinner on the way out and made it to the observatory just in time for the sunset. Unfortunately, Kansas is flat and there were a few tree a long-ways off that blocked the view. Sigh. Regardless, I pulled out the blankets and we laid down to enjoy the dimming of the sky and the slow arrival of the stars.

We had a great time talking about, well, just about everything. What she thought of my friends who had been in town. How work had been going lately. How things had been going with us lately. Remembering how our romance got started. Remembering good and bad times in the past. I was intentionally steering the conversation to the point of making my intentions known when I realized that I would feel VERY awkward if I proposed to her while laying down. So, moments before asking I got UP (not the traditional down) on two knees and was able to deliver the question.

Without hardly any pause and the tears bursting through the last remnants of months of carefully constructed emotional barriers she answered "Yes". And then she cried. A very long time (by guy's standards). I was able to continue a proud family tradition of proposing while star-gazing in the dark (set by my dear brother Trent) but between the full moon and a flashlight I brought, she was able to actually see the ring. We got around to that after she was done crying. It took a little while.

That was two weeks ago and I'm sure you'll be happy to know we're still engaged. (Thank you, thank you. I knew I could hold it together for at least two weeks.) Still working on the planning stuff, still stressing a bit about all that we have to do over the coming months, still enjoying the simple joys of being in love. Its times like these where I begin to understand the appeal of elopement. Regardless, as things develop we'll keep you posted.

The Yard

Many, many LeTourneau engineering students have learned to despise Lowe's. We were often in need of parts for projects and one of the few places to get hardware was Lowe's. The problem we often experienced was something a fellow student of mine coined as "pop hardware". At Lowes', you can't buy pieces very easily, you can really only buy kits (which is what I'm assuming most people in home improvement love about it, thus "pop hardware.") More often than not, though, we just needed the pieces. Actually, it was usually just a piece, just one little knob, gear, rod or tube. Usually economic restraints prohibited us from purchasing the kit so a less than ideal replacement was found or the part was ordered out of a specialty catalog. This last solution was far from ideal: $0.25 for the part, $3.00 for shipping, five days down the toilet. It was just so....frustrating. We just need this little thing, this little nothing. Why is it so hard to get a hold of such a simple object?

As I have continued my tinkering hobby projects post-college I have continued to run into the same problem. No luck at Lowe's or Home Depot, Joann's Craft and Fabric could sometimes help out, and every once in a while I'd get lucky at the R/C or model rocketry store.

Today, this all ends; I have found The Yard.

The Yard is everything Lowe's is not. Its a surplus, used, new, scrap everything store that would make a killing from LeTourneau students if it were located in Longview. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person then this is THE place you need to be going for your next project. A few of my personal favorites I found today during my first peruse through the establishment:

-Insulated jump-suits
-Ammunition cases (not just those old metal tins, either)
-Socket sets sold by the pound!
-LARGE DC motors
-Everything you could possibly use on a lathe (I'm not joking even a little bit).
-Plexiglass
-Dental picks

It's Wichita's version of American Science and Surplus (without the science). Its a craft store for guys. Its four acres of potential.

Its a dream come true for me.

I Love Documentaries

You know, I think I like movies in general but I've found a real sweet spot in my heart for documentaries. I haven't seen a lot of them but nearly every one I have I've thoroughly enjoyed. I think the appeal for me is the simplicity and factual-basis of the material. There is nothing contrived, nothing scripted, per se, just reality and one author's take on it. I think of them as visual essays with interesting ideas to ponder. (If you know me, you know I like to think and understand how other people see things. It should come as no surprise that I like documentaries.) Since they are essays, this also means that though they use reality or facts to make a case or an example, they are not necessarily "true". That said, here are some of my favorites because, though I may not agree with the author's conclusion, the ideas are presented well and the films provide great food or thought and discussion.

Supersize Me You'll never look at fast-food (or eating in general) the same way. The simple premise of the author: if I were to become McDonald's favorite customer and eat their food for every meal, every day for one month, how would it effect my health? Without really giving anything away I'll tell you: not positively. Even the three or four doctors this author hires to check up on him periodically were surprised at just how bad things got. Along the way the author also looks at the food industry in the US in general and makes a good case for taking diet more seriously.

The Lost Boys of Sudan A simply remarkable film. The story of a handful of orphans from the massacre in Sudan as they make the transition to life in the US. The author's choose to tell their story by being as uninvolved in the their subject's lives as possible. They just show up with a camera and follow the guys around. The end result is quite remarkable as they are able to get footage and "inside views" that would be hard to do any other way. It takes a little getting used to (no narrator, no guide through the story) but the power of simplicity is evident when all is said and done.

For me, what was most impacting was realizing just how easy it can be to be a helpful to those who come from other cultures. The film is so well done; it is easy to empathize with these young men, fresh from the African bush, as they try to make sense of things like electric appliances and street basketball. The film makes a clear case for ministries that focus on making foreigners feel welcome here in the US. In fact, as the author's point out in their commentary, the churches in these boy's lives were the most active in helping them with getting settled in the US. Too bad more of us in the Christian faith are not involved in this way. I know there are plenty of opportunities here in Wichita that I just haven't made a priority in my life. Yet.

Touching the Void More a docu-drama than a true documentary. A true story told by the men involved in a very serious and absolutely incredible mountain climbing accident. As one of my friends put it, "I get cold just thinking about what they went through." Probably more appealing to the adventure-some male audience but pretty accessible to all.

Voices of Iraq I just saw this the other day and I can't recommend it enough. Unfortunately, distribution is pretty limited right now so, outside of Netflix, I don't know how to get a hold of it. All the footage of the film was provided through the use of ~150 digital video cameras that were distributed around the country of Iraq. Whoever ended up with the camera was encouraged to tell their story, tell people about their lives. The range of opinions and views expressed is incredible and, best of all, the story is told by Iraqis themselves. This is the story of Iraq told by Iraq.

Born Into Brothels Another great, great film. A documentary still-photographer working in the red-light district of Calcutta gets attached to some of the kids of the prostitutes and decides to teach them photography.

If you have a heart for social action and social justice, this is a good film to see. Not only is the need for involvement made clear but the difficulties presented by culture and the people in need themselves becomes evident. What happens when you try to enroll the child of a prostitute in school? What can be done for a child who's family does not recognize the value of education? The problems of "circumstance" and poor decisions cannot be more clearly demonstrated. And through it all, these unwanted children are still kids just like any others. Seeing the world through their photographs is simple wonderful.

Not Special Here

This past weekend on a trip back from seeing a good friend of mine get married and seeing my sister begin her college career at Trinity Western University (both conveniently located near Vancouver BC) I ended up with some time to kill in the Denver airport. I had about forty-five minutes so after walking up and down the concourse a few times in an attempt to do more than sit all day I stopped by one of the bookstores that litter nearly every airport in the US. As I was perusing the latest pop fiction that seem to be the staple of these type of establishments I heard two rather loud people walk into the store. Their voices gave them away very quickly: younger, black, female. What ensued was probably one of the most interesting comments on race relations I have experienced first-hand.

After not being able to find the book they were looking for they approached the clerk for help.

"Where are your books by black people?"

The (white) clerks, both of them, didn't catch the question and one of them asked her to repeat it.

"Where are the books by black authors?"

With a sweeping gesture that encompassed the whole store one of them answered, "Mixed in with everything else."

The gal who had been silent up to this point turned to her friend and responded, "We're not special here."

Now, before I go on, you've got to understand something about me. My cross-cultural relations have been fairly extensive. Unfortunately for me, hardly any of my friends are black and seeing as how this seems to be the most pertinent ethnicity in the current cultural climate I feel somewhat confused and perplexed by black culture at times. My four years of attending a university situated squarely in what can only be described as a black ghetto helped some but not as much as you might hope.

From my white, suburban perspective the fact that this bookstore didn't organize it's wares with regard to ethnicity seemed to be a statement (if that can be even ascribed to the management of an airport bookstore's wares) or racial equality. Level playing field all the way around. It was clear, though, by the look on both of these young ladies' faces, that this answer was not satisfactory. I would even say that, based on the way they walked out and continued to turn back to give the store clerk dirty looks, that they were offended that no such section existed and felt that they weren't being treated fairly.

If this little slice of life is an accurate reflection of the state of racial relations between the white and black communities then I think we have, despite all our efforts, somehow missed the boat and have a lot of work left to do. Any suggestions?

Education Debates

Dan and I have decided to take our debate to the blog-o-sphere! Check out http://debatingeducation.blogspot.com/ to see Dan and I match wits in an attempt to grind out a workable philosophy of education. Dan and I plan on taking turns posting and responding to the what the other has to say. Feel free participate by commenting on our posts. There is a good chance that much of my writing will be showing up on that blog for the next little while so things may get even more sparse around here. Who knows, though, I may be able to continue my sporadic and infrequent postings as if nothing had changed. Anyway, hope you enjoy our discussion; I'm sure there will be plenty of food for thought.

(Oh, and in case you are ever wondering, Dan and I are VERY good friends. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things but I have a deep respect for the faith of this man. Don't ever confuse our aggressive debate for personal attacks. Truth be told, we both enjoy a good argument for the challenge of expanding our understanding and skills.)

Reponse to Dan Hillman

The following is part of a response that I've worked up to Dan's recent postings on his dealing with Dr. Newsome. His full postings can be found here. Reader's Digest version: Dan wants to reclaim education for the glory of God and he feels that drastic steps need to be taken so that the wholesale preaching of the Gospel of Christ can occur in a public education environment. If this sounds radical to you, well, it is. I encourage you to hear him out, though, because he speaks with a sincere heart and has some good things. At this point in my thinking I can't endorse all his conclusions but, well, I'm still in process on all of this myself. When all is said and done, he may just be right. So, with no further ado, here is my open response to Dan. I encourage you to post comments in either my blog or his. The both of us would love to hear from you.

Dan,

Thanks for posting at least a taste of what your meeting with Dr. Newsome looked like. I've got a lot to say in response but in the interest of keeping the size of my posts mangable, I'm going to try to break my thoughts down into (hopefully) single-issue responses. I'm also going to start with a thought you expressed part-way through your post because it is one that I have already collected my thoughts on due to our previous phone conversation. In fact, with your permission, I'm going to paraphrase part of what you said during that conversation and include it in the content I'm going to respond to in this post.

(Paraphrase) "Christians, teachers and students alike, need to either preach the Gospel boldly and openly in the public education classroom or they need to get out of the system entirely." Phone conversation

"We must obey God, not men"

You've really challenged me with your example of Peter and John from the Bible. You make a great point in that we need to be placing the commands of God above the laws of the land and speak boldly into the culture in which we live. Preach the Gospel, brother. Knowing you (and it is implicit in what you write) I think you would also say that we compromise our faith when we allow the laws of the land to keep us silent from proclaiming the truth. This is a challenging statement to me personally and something in which I need to spend some severe amount of prayer. How should this look in my workplace? How should this be played out in my daily life?

There is an aspect of this, though, that I don't think that you have considered and it comes from a desire to find a practical application to this idea. If we don't let any laws of any land prevent us from preaching the truth boldly, then I would say that a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the world's population will not ever even hear the name of Christ (This is assuming that it is entirely up to us to spread his name which, thankfully, is not the case). I'm referring to those who live in lands that are openly hostile to evangelism, China being a prime example but far from the only offender; there are many such nations throughout Asia. Preaching the Gospel openly and boldly in these places has severe consequences: deporation for non-citizens and worse for those who call that nation home. These nations hold a significant percentage of the world's population, somewhere between one-third and one-half is my guess. If we want to bring the Gospel to the people of these nations we must construct other tools besides direct, open evangelism and find other ways to bring truth to these people. A change of tactics is needed to still effectively bring salvation to people who are lost and who's governments would rather that this not change. This is, in my mind, a very plain truth that would be very hard to dispute. Street-preaching in China is not a viable method of saving very many Chinese. To evangelize you've got be there with the non-Christians.

Consider this: due to the increasing hostility towards the message of the Gospel in our own modern, Western culture I suggest that we start viewing our nation in a similar fashion. We still have a great deal more freedom than those in China when it comes to preaching the word and I think we need to use this freedom. Not to become beligerent and annoying street-preachers but to become consistent, truth-revealing lights in the world around us, using our tongues to re-affirm the Christ-formed character our lives demonstrate. Though you may disagree, Dan, I think we have a responsibility to continue to engage our culture in every way possible even if that means having to play by rules with which we don't agree. I think Christians need to be in environments that are openly hostile to their beliefs trying to find ways to subvert those environments for the cause of Christ. For the purposes of this discussion, I think Christians need to be in public education, reaching out to students and faculty to find ways to bring the love of Christ into their lives. (We'll call this the Trojan horse model.) Again, to evangelize you've got to be there with the non-Christian students and teachers.

Dan, I say this because I believe Christianity does not leave withdrawl as a viable method for maintaining purity and holiness in a culture that is corrupt and continuing to be corrupted. Israel has utterly failed to be the light and salt it was called to be in the OT because they mis-applied their understanding of the law. Christ removed confusion by making it clear that salvation is available to all, regardless of their ethnicity. As followers of Christ today that mandate still holds: we hold no prejudice and seek to evangelize all regardless of ethnicity, hair-color, nationality, sexual-orientation, occupation, criminal record, food preference, or educational environment. All are within the scope of salvation and we need to be actively engaged in bringing truth to the world. This means, implicitly, that we have to be there, in their lives, engaged in everyday living with them. We cannot share the truth if we're not around to share it.

When we spoke on the phone recently and you mentioned that you are convinced that Christians in public education need to be preaching the Bible in the classroom(regardless of the consequences) or need to get out of public education entirely, students and teachers alike. Let me make it very clear that I disagree with this for the simple reason that I will not abandon this segment of the population to their own desires and not continue to try to be an influence in their lives. Christians should not be withdrawing from these tough fights where are hands are tied but continuing to engage them despite our hands being tied. We want the lost people in these environments to have to deal with us, hampered and all, if they want to continue harming themselves. I don't think that a necessary condition of evangelism is having a clear and level playing field; this is a sinful world and the cards are stacked against us in so many ways. Though this field is not fair I don't think we have the option of taking our ball and going home; we can't evangelize if we're not there. Similarly, if we choose not play by their rules they are going to ask us to leave and we're in the same position. No, the way to continue to influence them is to stay in the game and work from there. It isn't easy or fun but the alternative of leaving the environment and letting sin run it's course just doesn't seem to have the best intersts of those we would abandon at heart. To bring salvation to the lost we have to be a part of their lives and able to influence them for Christ; we can't save them if we're not there.

One more quick point and then I'll wrap it up for now. As I mentioned above, (if I understood you correctly), you believe that if we cannot preach openly in the public education system then we need to withdraw and wait until the world degrades to such an extent that they come back to us, begging to know the truth. I don't think it will actually work out that way, that our presence will be missed, and I say this because it hasn't worked in the past. Look at the Amish, for example. Through their desire to be holy they have taken the OT Jewish route and effectively removed themselves from society. They seek to evangelize through example and hope to spread the truth when the world comes around and realizes it is screwed up and that they, the Amish, might be able to help. If the Amish have an evangelism strategy, this is it and you know what, it hasn't worked yet, not for several hundred years. Though society has, by their standards, continued to degrade for decade after decade, it is no closer to realizing it's decadence and mending it's ways by coming to the Amish point of view. Though there are several other factors that are causing this method of evangelism to fail, the one that is most pertinent to this discussion is the nature of sin. Sin not only screws us up it also prevents us from seeing how screwed up we are. Look at the book of Revelation. Is the world not engaged in actively resisting Christ at the cost of their lives even up to the bitter end? Sin binds and sin blinds and if we want to be that freeing light we are called to be, we need to not leave the sinful world to it's desires but continue to confront it while staying culturally relevent.

When the rubber meets the road staying culturally relevant while continuing to follow Christ is a very hard thing to do. I think the book of Revelation also makes it very clear that there will come a time when cultural relevancy will be next to impossible without compromising our faith and when that time comes we need to pick a side. You might say, Dan, that at the core of this discussion if the question of whether this time has come or not: I say it hasn't and you (I'm guessing) say it has. You could be right, you really could be. Things might be so bad already that we just need to let sin run it's course and hope things get bad enough that some of world realizes the dead end it is on and turn to us, the isolated followers of Christ, to find truth. Me, I'm not convinced it's gone that far and I'm going to continue fighting in the trenches engaging those around me, confronting them with truth, and challenging their beliefs in hopes that my influence will be positive in their lives. At least, that's what I'm going to try to do. Keep challenging me, Dan, to not compromise.

Hiatus Thoughts

OK, I have a confession to make. In my post that ended my month-long hiatus I said

"I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts."

Well, this is only partially true. Thought I didn't have time to post the thoughts I have had several topics of interest that have eaten up a good chunk of my time and in the interest of full disclosure and keeping the lines of communication open with all of you, here they are:

Sleep
Sleeping and dreaming are simply and utterly fascinating to me. I've had a long-time interest in doing some research into these and have finally decided to jump in and just see what kind of credible information is out there. I've had a few very fun and interesting lucid dreams (dreams where you know you are dreaming and subsequently take control of the dream) and have a keen cat-napping ability that may not actually be doing me much good sleep-wise. We'll see what my investigation turns up.

LDS Church (Mormonism)
For me, this a a topic of perennial interest. I've already done quite a bit of research during my high school year and time in Boise and, despite the fact that the Mormon presence in Wichita is relatively small, it is still something I enjoy trying to understand. There are mountains and mountains of papers, articles, journals, and transcripts to read through here; I don't know if I'll ever be done exploring this field.

Wireless Networks
With Katie living just thirty feet away from me now, we've decided to save some money by shipping my higher-speed connection over to her unit via a wireless connection. I've done some reading on wireless network architecture and security but now having a working understanding of these is more than an academic endeavor. To be honest, dipping my feet into the hacker community has been quite an eye-opener and more than a little enticing. No, I don't plan on joining the "Matrix"-like underworld (Seriously, me in goth? I don't think so.) but moving to a wireless network definitely increase the possibility of trouble and I want to be aware, informed, and prepared. As long as the the guy upstairs continues to leave his connection wide-open, though, I don't think I have very much to worry about.

In another month or so I bet I'll be on to other topics but for now, that's what's rattling around in my brain.

Warming Up to Wichita

Maybe this place isn't so bad after all. I've been here about seven months and I'm starting to get the hang of Wichita, learn some of it's traits and characteristics. Sure, it may not have the mountains, forests, beaches, rivers, desert, or hills that I'm used to but once i got past that, it might not be as bad as I originally thought. The cost of living is low, the people are nice, and the town has some of its own unique traits that add a touch of flavor to life.

One of these little treats I've found is a store called "The Spice Merchant" which is a bit of a mis-nomer because they actually specialize in coffees. They buy the beans, roast, and grind the coffee right there in-house (heck, the roaster is in the middle of the store). In addition to the coffee they do also sell a lot of tea, spices (whole and ground), and cooking accouterment. I got off of work early a few months ago and decided to stop on in and just see what they had. What a treat! It was close to closing time so the place was mostly empty and ended up talking to the shop owner. When he found out I was from the Pacific Northwest (arguably the cultural center for coffee in the US), that I was new to town and was looking for specialty stores for ingredient shopping, he gladly volunteered the names of a few stores in the area. Truth be told, the discussion was well over and hour and it was time I was happy to spend with him, learning more about my new home and to hear how his business was doing.

Another example: I just learned about this little nut and candy store called "Nifty Nut House" The store is family-owned and has been for around eighty years. They do their own roasting and have all kinds of nuts and candy for sale. Dry-roasted, unsalted, salted, honey-roasted, caramelized, chocolate-covered (milk and dark) peanuts, cashews, macadamias, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, coffee beans; they've got it all. (The nerd in me was also impressed at their point-of-sale system. Bluetooth (wireless) carcode readers, custom labelling for each sale like many supremarket meat counters, and MANY LCD panels hanging above the counter to display the transaction. Not something the traditional mom-and-pop store seems be willing to do. Bonus points for running a store in both the 19th and 21st century while retaining the advantage of both. Many other small chops could learn a lot from these guys.) After just one visit, I think I'm going to be stopping in their quite a bit more now. Katie's a nut girl so this has a lot of date potential for us.

These two shops are just wonderful; I love little expressions of local culture that provide a unique expression of what this town has to offer. Said differently, its good to know that Wichita has more to offer than Walmart, Best Buy, and Target. (Though I will say that not having Fred Meyer's around has been the hardest thing to deal with. I miss my clearance racks!) Are these kinds of stores in Boise and Portland? I'm sure there are. The bonus for me though, is that both of these places are a ten-minute bike ride away and that is truly wonderful.

River Community Church

Many of you have commented in personal emails to me (keep 'em coming!) that I haven't done a very good of updating my blog as of late. I just checked it now and sure enough, I haven't posted in over a month; shame on me! The cause for this silence is relatively simple, though: moving. The past few weeks have been highly consumed with moving Katie two times, moving myself once, dealing with waste water from upstairs flooding out my new unit, and getting all this chaos squared away with the management. Saying this, I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts. Had I realized how long the delay had been, I might have been more on top of things. So, while I work on a few of the ideas I've had in queue, here's a bit out of an email that I sent out a week or so ago that should serve quite well as a full-fledged posting:



Probably the most significant thing that has happened to me lately is my completion of the membership process at church here in Wichita. This is super-important because prior to membership, there really aren't any ways that I can be involved in any kind of ministry. The whole thing is kind of funny in a way. Let me explain.

River Community Church is organized as a cell church, almost. There is a very large emphasis on small-groups with most of what we consider the fundamental functions of a body taking place in the small-group context. They still have services on Sunday morning but there is no Sunday school for anybody older than 10 or so (the youth do meet on Sunday evening for youth group, more on that later). First problem in trying to be involved in ministry at River: there aren't a lot of ministries in which you can participate outside of leading a small group. To my knowledge, the complete list of ministry potentials is as follows: worship band, sound/lights, nursery, small children's Sunday school, youth group, small-group leadership. Outside of these, there is no formal church ministry.

My first inclination was to explore potentials in running the sound system on Sunday morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the church gets even weirder: they have more than enough sound people already. My help, at that time, was totally not needed. The final blow came when I learned that, actually, I wasn't able to be involved in any of these official ministries at all until I became a member of the church. Joining the church is a 4-8 month process (minimum) involving taking new-member classes, consistently attending a small group, and going through a mini-confirmation interview (mostly just paperwork). My church life was, for some time, going to be pretty minimal.

This policy makes a lot of sense but it was pretty discouraging for me to realize that the MOST I could do to be a part of the body was show up on Sunday morning for a service and a small group sometime during the week. I wanted to be involved, to jump in and just get to work, be a part of the body. Just the way this church does things, though, my level of involvement was pretty low and VERY passive in nature. Contrast this with what Bill, the youth pastor at "Number One Baptist" (as my brother and I call it) told me after I was only showing up for a month or so: "We've been praying for God to provide somebody like you and we have great hopes for your involvement."

Truth be told, I can see why River does things the way they do; if I was in charge I would probably do it the same way. These past six months have been a good time of simple learning and understanding as I get used to a new family and they get to know me better. On the other hand, what a blessing it was for Bill, with spiritual discernment, to identify me as somebody ready, willing, and able to be highly involved and give me that opportunity. High-five to Bill for taking that chance with me and allowing me to get plugged right in.

I should also mention another point of ironic frustration: the pastors of this church are VERY relationship-oriented. I mean, imagine that. A pastor who doesn't treat leading the Body of Christ as an institution or organization to be managed but rather as a collection of people and relationships all with individual abilities and needs. In the words of Terry, the lead pastor, River is an "organic body."

(Along with "small groups", "organic" was the answer to almost any question about the structure of River Community Church. I don't think I can tell you how many times the summary answer to my questions was one or both of those words. For example:

Me: "So where does (function of the church) take place?"

Them: "Small groups."

Me: "Ahhhh. Ok. So how exactly does that work? What does that look like?"

Them: "Well, its kind of organic."

No joke, I got to the point where I stopped asking.)

Don't get me wrong, I think its great that Terry, Jim, and Dave, the pastors of River, are so relationally skilled and focused. I, on the other hand, find understanding and meaning through structure; this choice of organization-style was very difficult for me personally to get my head around. This is just the way I am, I've realized. Org-charts, the bane of so many in the business world, are very helpful and meaningful to me. I think in terms of systems, structure, and the big-picture. This church, though not lacking structure, goes to some effort to not make it obvious.

These two factors combined to make a VERY frustrating first few months for me here in Wichita. Now, though, I am past that: I have a good idea how the church is structured and I'm a member. Just one week after officially becoming a member of the body I approached the youth leader, Sherry, and was simply able to volunteer to help out with the youth group. She was very excited to have me on board and we'll be working on how I'll be involved over the next few weeks. In short, I think the hard times in getting used to a new body are past me.