often i find myself wondering about this whole part of life that revolves around finding someone. like is it something that just has to happen? what if it isnt supposed to? what if i already found the one that would somehow make me happy - and i just screwed it up? will i let this define me? will it define me? being single in a world full of movies about love and romance mixed with friends and family with perfect relationships does not make this whole thing any easier either. am i missing the point? because the thrill of the chase doesnt exactly thrill me. in fact, i abhor that whole part that one seemingly has to go through. i think the problem lies in the simple fact that i really want that best friend whom i can share everything with. thoughts, dreams, whispers, secrets and adventures. i am not exactly sure anymore if this is something that i can bear to try again. see - it is so hard when you pour out your heart to people and they just watch it run down the sidewalk. leaving you to run after it and try your best to soak up the small part that isnt evaporated. i keep telling myself that i learn from it all - and yes i honestly do believe that i have learned something from each relationship i have been in. but i am not sure i can stand to learn anymore. not sure i want to learn anymore. and by that statement i am in no ways claiming to know anything really. hell - i really am just not sure about it at all. i try to not be in a hurry and i tell myself that there is no sense in being in one. but - at the same time i just want to have someone to share with. paul talks about his being single and how his ministry would not be the same if he was not single. just makes me wonder if this is even something i should be thinking about. i am not so much worried about this - as i am just thinking about it. these thoughts swim around a lot. 28 today. i am just gonna stay the course and ride it out. i know god knows what he is doing - sometimes i just cant help but watch as my mind wanders....

here are a few more pics i just wanted to put on here. they mostly are from this past weekend when my brother, holly and erin came to visit one last time before i leave the country for a bit. oh yeah - benny hinn is on here too. i just wanted to get these on here before i leave in a few days.

wednesday july 27th. my last day at work. i have pretty much been working here exactly a year to date. mcc has been a good place to work and i got to know lots of good people. to all of you who read this - thanks for the good times. i will miss you all.

on a different note. i checked my email today and jenny - my best friend whom i met in STL - sent me some pictures from her vegas trip. so i had to put one up of her! we had some great times together in the lou and i miss her so much. sometime soon you better be coming to see me jenny marie. there arent many girls in the whole world whom i think of as highly as her. i couldnt have asked for a better friend and i cant wait to see her again. love ya babe!

As Christians, what do we teach our kids? What things do we teach our kids that we do not even know we are teaching them? And these things that we do teach our kids – do we tell them that what we teach them is biblical when in fact it isn’t? Is this healthy to lie to our children or teach them half-truths? Do we teach Christianity is a morality code or do we teach that Christianity is a relationship that is constantly evolving and growing between that person and christ? Do we add on things to our faith that get in the way of finding Christ? Things of denomination and things we see fit to keep our children safe from? Do we add things on that do not matter? I think for the most part – the answer to the latter question is yes. Over the years I have heard so many things taught that I know are not true. I have heard things preached from the pulpit and I have heard things taught indirectly and without words. Things that have not only affected the way I have perceived people – but the way I have treated people. Can we honestly afford to do these things and continue to have the trickle down effect continue to affect our future generations? If we truly want to follow Christ – we have to stop going to church. We have to start being the church. Christianity is not, and never will be about a morality code. Christianity is about a freedom that we are given through the amazing grace that Christ gave us all.

thanks to my boys - we were all able to get together last night. most all of my buddies in one place. good times as you can see. tibbs and troy had a big race track set up that we played with all night, ate some quality food prepared by chef tibletts and just had a good time. hope you enjoy the pics.





lane doing his best strongman pose



stretch armstrong, jon jon and kinley



stretch, jje, pickett and chuckles


blaine and thompson making out



blaine, thompson and the future mrs. thompson







eric, tibbs and the shadetree


sam and kinley

so i have decided that i want to do a better job of keeping this thing updated. i know i havent done a terrible job - but nowhere near what i would like for it to be. i think i am going to send out an email soon officially telling everyone where they can find my blog. i will be interested to see if i get any responses.

this is my last day of work this week - and the last thursday of working for mcc. should i really be smiling this big? well it is the weekend for me after i leave here. long weekends are always the best. my brother and holly are going to be here tonight. i miss hanging out with him - it will be good to have him home. also i am not going to be working next thursday and friday so i really only have 3 days of work after today. it is so nice finding out you have 3 vacation days that you have not used! maybe i will have some time to finish the new harry potter book (yes - i love these books. and i am still trying to figure out the fuss about christians letting their kids read these books. make it a big deal all you want - it is good harmless reading. on par with the chronicals of narnia and many other greats like this... can we please find better things to expend our energy on?)

more to come - i still have some new pictures i will be posting...

12 days. that is all that i have left in meridian, ms before i begin my journey. 12 days to soak up as much family and friends that i can. 12 days to get my stuff together and buy the other stuff that i am going to need. it is getting close. ..

i have been praying for mission opportunities to present themselves when i arrive in praha. also to meet some other fellow christians. can i just say that god works in some crazy ways? i have become friends with a girl named shannon who lives in the UK - who is getting me in touch with another girl who knows lots of people there. i could tell you the roundabout story how shannon and i got to talking - but that could be another whole entry. i have also (in another random way) met a guy in praha who is involved with starting a 24/7 prayer room there. i am so excited to maybe be a part of that.

if you think that god isnt cool - i encourage you to just find out for yourself. ask him to help you out. guarantee you will be suprised. he works in some wierd but cool ways. maybe it is just wierd because i cant fathom how he works...

ive often asked myself if things that i have learned over the years growing up were the real truth or not. have you ever done this? in my life growing up in a baptist church i was taught many things - most good. but there are so many things that over the past few years of my life i have come to see as total crap. things that i honestly thought were in the bible, and it was the truth. ways of thinking that are so far from the bible that it makes me cringe. well i guess i thought it was the truth because i learned it in church. i didnt even question it at all. so what does a person feel when they find out on their own that what they grew up knowing to be true - is nowhere near the truth? what action should one take? so you are asking yourself - what in the heck can he possibly be talking about? the message of grace is the first that comes to mind. (actually none of this is just coming to mind - it has been swimming round for a long while now...) how many times have i seen a man of god slip up and sin, only to see the church totally turn its back on this person. now since the church is made up of sinners and the bible clearly states that no sin is greater than another - how can this happen? i honestly do believe that pastors in a church should be held to a high standard. but the fact remains that they too are sinners and are going to mess up. it isnt a matter of if it will happen - it is a matter of when will it happen. so if no sin is greater than another - and pastors are sinners too - how in the world can we actually pass judgement on them and kick them when they are down - to the point of totally kicking them out of our churches? and yes - i have seen this happen on more than one occasion. when jesus was confronted with the situation with the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery - what did he say to her? go and sin no more. (john 8:1-11) did he say - i think you are a terrible person and my church wants nothing to do with you? if he did - i must have missed those verses. the message of jesus is love and in all we do we should try to be like jesus. growing up i saw too many examples of such ignorance that i honestly wanted nothing to do with a baptist church ever again. and this is just one of the things that i was being taught without me knowing it. i am a huge believer that whatever a preacher preaches in the church - the people believe it whether it is the truth or not. most of the time people dont look and see things for themselves. they dont think for themselves or even look it up in the bible for themselves. people even take things to the point of emulating a preacher. i see it all the time in the way people in the church try and pray like the preacher. to a point it is actually funny. my point is this: if the church is going to survive - it has to stop making people feel like they can not come to it with their problems. if a person can not come there - or is made to feel so badly about where they have been, what they have done, or what they are going through - where can they go? no christian is better than any non-christian (ephesians 3:6) and if we are to live as christ lived - we have to walk where he walked (1john 2:6).

so we got back from Centrifuge a few weeks back, and i was hopeing that i would get some good pictures of
some of the kids in my youth group. ashlyn had been telling me that she got a good one of us. finally she brought that to me last night! it is a great picture - as i am sure you can see for yourself. ashlyn is a sweetheart whom i can always count on to be at every youth function that there is and have a smile on her face. seeing her always makes me smile - and i really love her for that. if i am not mistaken (which i am usually not....) she was the first girl in the youth group that i met. as we were sitting for hours in the hospital waiting for Charissa to have aslan - i met her. she was a little shy then - but now she is one of my best friends. i will miss her a lot when i am gone - but i know i will be seeing her again soon.

1.5 million people signed petitions online and over 500,000 wrote letters to president bush. at the the G8 summit the leaders agreed to forgive all of Africa's debt and double the funding that we send these countries. to quote the ONE Campaign site..

"For African nations fighting poverty and corruption, this means a $25 billion increase in aid and wiping out 100% of their debts. With this funding, Africa can halve deaths from malaria, put millions of children into school, and 10 million people across the world will have access to lifesaving AIDS drugs. Behind each of these numbers is one person, life that will be changed forever."

This agreement is a real victory for Africa - but promises made of words will only become promises for a generation if we keep watching, asking and acting. Much more needs to be done in Washington DC to turn these commitments into lifesaving programs, and the world must take new steps to make trade fair. More meetings will take place this year in New York and Hong Kong where a comprehensive debt-aid-trade deal can be reached and end global AIDS and extreme poverty in our time.

Please visit the ONE Campaign site.

so i just thought that i would go through some old pictures and put some up on here of my boys that i will miss when i am gone. if i leave anyone out - it most likely is only because i dont have any pictures of you.


benny hill's mugshot...


bowlers gone wild. veech, pj, myself and kirb


sam and i at his wedding...


halloween waaaay back in the day...


my boy berd. notice the chest hairs and the sweet shirt...


sam, killer bill and jo beffares


the women in my life. my mom and my sister-in-law...


t-bone when he knew jenny craig...

so today i am selling my car. i wish i didnt have to - but i need the funding for the journey that i am about to embark on. things are starting to become very real for me. i am leaving this country - not just my hometown. dont get me wrong - i am very excited. but at the same time i am anxious, nervous and dont know what to think. so for the next few weeks i will be bumming rides and borrowing cars. something tells me that i am supposed to get used to this... it is amazing that i have friends who are so willing to help me out in any way possible. just goes to once again prove that god will provide for us as long as we trust in him. until recently i have always just read these verses in matthew 6:25-34. now i am really starting to believe it and see it work.

so as of today i only have 3 weeks and a day left at work. so much still to do. mail stuff to school, get some pictures made so the school can get my visa and a bunch of stuff like that. i have to get with the program i guess. we fly out on august 1st. we will be in london for 2 nights and then on to Praha (how the people in the Czech actually say the name on their city...) on thursday. Friday is orientation and a tour of the city and then on Monday class starts.

i awoke this morning to hear the news about the London bomings. i stood in the shower shocked at the news. in the midst of so much potential good going on with the G8 summit - something like this happens. my thoughts and prayers are with the British people.