none of the cream and all of the blueberries

many times in my fathering life i encounter the uninhibited 3 year old's true feelings. at least it is only for one year ; ). it reminds me of the word of god.

this school year dutch, titus, and myself usually trek out of the house about 10 minutes til 8am. the season is now upon us where the days are short and the weather is colder (however, i am not about to start making weather complaints seeing as my main audience resides in the volcanic belly that is dallas texas). if there is one thing dutch does not care about when he is faced with a "must do" from his mother or me it is the amount of sugar coating we put on to play it up as "not that bad." it is getting much harder to get dutch out of the house to go to school. we have nearly a 1.75 mile walk each way to his school. in the mornings when the temperature is in the low 50's and the wind is blowing one of the worst things you could do is convince dutch that he should go outside. he will not shy away from telling you that it is too cold and that this was a bad idea. his celerity is not brimming with a confident swagger that my blood runs thick with upon a walk. this, in turn, transforms what should be a meager 20 minute walk (one-way) into a 30 minute campaign. my wife is a pro at cheering him on and convincing him of getting things done despite his desire to do otherwise. my attempt however, could be compared to an average 5 year olds attempt at beating bowser on level 8 of super mario bros. it just won't happen. so like dutch, i give up as well. so what do ya do?

so the revelation hit me at how i have been accustomed to making god's word into something that it is not intended to be. like my wife with dutch i can excel at putting lipstick on a pig and thinking, "mmmm, thats not so bad." the moment i try and make something say what i want it to say is the moment reality (the holy spirit) back hands me into coherency and i praise god for that. to be like my son?!?!? not being side tracked with the whistles and bells of not only a pure and righteous pursuit of god but to represent him in the same mode. to see through the "feel good" persuasion of a prosperity driven money getting gospel. don't sugar coat it for me, give it to me straight, this is going to be hard, this is going to cost me, this is going to take my whole life but, BUT, this will all be worth it! that is how i like to hear the word. i need to teach it that way.

dutch will not back down if he does not want to do it. he will let you know too. i cannot play it up and trick him into belief that this will be enjoyable and all his wildest dreams will come true (which for him would be to get hiro from the thomas the tank engine movies). dutch's 1st birthday cake was blueberries piled high covered in a home made whipped cream and he wore his disdain for that topping on his face loud and clear...he was having none of the cream and all of the blueberries.

god save the queen

i have this thing in which i want to be mr documentary. so before trips i tell myself that i am going to document and film and be descriptive so that people will know what it was like through my amazing footage. well...sadly i take to it about so long into the trip and usually forget that i had such a passion before hand. i only regret it later when i want to tell my audience of 20+ that we really did do more than this, i just, was a little forgetful.

we went to a leadership summit in chertsey england which is nearly in london. if london was a clock and the m25 (the motorway that goes all the way around) is the clockbase, then chertsey will fall on 8. we drove from little 'ole waterloo. you will see in the video that we boarded a train in the car and went under the channel. i have never done this before so it felt really really cool, er, wicked as they would say in england. "thas wicked mate!" and yes it would sound like they are saying "thas" not "thats."

among many things that go on in england driving on the wrong side of the road is not the worst thing. the first night due to our urgency of time to make the first session we scarfed down our fish n chips. the sea was rough that night my friends but fortunately jon vandeput was the only one who did not make it out of the loo alive (which oddly enough is a slang derivative of the town waterloo in the london area). the portions were hefty and the price was steep. it was great to be in a place where i did not need a translator...well, except for when those aussie's started their jive ; )

it was good to hear the key speakers bruce monk and glyn barrett. you should find them in their respected area via the internet and see all that they do. i know glyn has a major ministry in manchester and has many youtube videos for his church.

here are some videos i took of my excitement on the way across...