This world is not my home

Every day I think of something that I would love to tell people. Some thoughts that I consider profound and worth sharing. God's spirit inspired lots of words but the greatest message God has is conveyed through a man's body whom we call Jesus. Having written hundreds of thousands of words journaling my own thoughts and observations, I pray that God hones the art my primary form of communication to be Jesus style of living-- communicating God's will through the obedience and faith in the body, thereby conveying God's love. Jesus didn't write, but was written about. If I can live a life where others want to write about Jesus, talk about him, paint pictures of him, sing songs about him, my life will be wthat which we hope for the most... imitation of Christ.

All that to say that more things are happening over here than I can write. I solicit prayers for anyone reading this that God continue to do his work through each of us. That's you, me, Alicia, everybody, everybody.

Because we all are missionaries. Every follower of Christ is a missionary. Some of us have traveled further. Some of us are still where we have been all along. But woe to any of us who call the place we're living right now "home" because it's not. Our moms are probably real glad that we don't consider Ukraine "home" but neither should we consider "back home" to be HOME either. "This world is not my home..." has passed over all our lips collectively 100's of times. If we really mean it, we know that we are all pilgrims. And I must say that being an actual foreigner makes it seem easier to stay on task of bringing mission into our prayers and into our tasks, into our intereraction with that dude across the street or that lady from the store.

I'm dividied over what content to write into the blog today. I could list and give recipes for the foods we are enjoying... tell how not every meal has cabbage and the sausage is not made of paper products like I was told before I got here. Or I could give a mechanical report and tell about how different the cars are here and how even the American car makers have different models here and that my favorite Russian make is the Volga. I could give a contractor's perspective about how the real estate market seems ripe for renovations, that their crown moulding is made out of styrofoam, and that the architecture of the dachas could really turn into art real fast. I would like to get into the details that should go into long term planning for missionary work and give my opionion on what implementations could probably help "the work" here. But instead, I will hold in my heart the prayers my wife and I are lifting up to the Lord. The petitions that ask that we be fully used here, to celebrate that we appreciate being people who are actually here in body expected to do something in the name of Jesus. So today I wlll blog words of faith and encouragement, of mission and purpose. I will not write very long because there is too much of the Jesus life out there to be lived.

That goes for all of us.