. . . transliterated "Previet!", or "Hello!" as we say in the United States.

I'm writing to you from Simferopol, Ukraine, where we are visiting Jill's parents, Loys and Virgil, who are missionaries here reaching out to the Crimean Tatar people.

I must say, Ukraine is amazing. We left home on Christmas afternoon and arrived here on December 26th, with only a few mishaps (for instance, a lost bag - perhaps I'll write of that adventure later). When traveling to the former Soviet Union, one of the first things you realize is how blessed we are in the United States. There are many people here who are living in poverty, day to day. The Ukrainians we have met have all been great people, and I could listen to them speak their beautiful language all day long. The kids and I have been having fun trying to learn the Cyrillic alphabet and some basic Russian words.

There are two main groups of Ukrainians here in Simferopol. The first group is native Russians. They are generally fair-skinned with brown or blond hair. The other group is the Crimean Tatars, who generally have darker hair, dark eyes, and more of a Mediterranean tint to their skin. The Russians tend to be Eastern Orthodox, and the Crimean Tatars are almost all Muslims, although both groups seem to be relatively nominal in their faiths. To the Tatars, being Muslim is part of what makes them Tatars, so it is rare to find a Christian Tatar. They are a beautiful people - Ukrainian women are renowned for their beauty.

Yesterday, our first full day here, we went to the University to sit in on the English book club that Jill's parents run. We spent our time in three different sessions answering questions about the United States and asking questions of our own. The students involved in the book club are all learning English, so we got to converse in our own language. They were wonderful to us, and were especially interested in our Christmas traditions, how weddings happen, what music we like, US politics and what we think of Ukrainian politics and, in a somewhat random moment of the question-and-answer, vegetarians!


Some of the book club students. Our translator, Nata, can be seen sitting between my girls on the front row.

The University itself was once a military school, and still is adjacent to a Ukrainian military installation complete with lines of tanks. The school is in a condition that would generally not be tolerated in the US, but on the first floor there is a fantastic marble (or marble-appearing) floor with flowing Cyrillic script etched in it, and sculptures of famous people inset in the columns. I'm told the students designed it. One hall was also festooned with artwork from the students. I am no artist, but I will say that this artwork depicted realistic subjects (people, primarily) drawn with great skill, and I've decided already that if this is Russian art I like it a lot better than most of the art in the US, which seems to all be of the abstract variety.

Outside of the University is a monument which commemorates May 18, 1944, which is, as the students solemnly told us, a "very black day" in Crimean Tatar history. I will write more about what happened on that day in a later post.


The girls and Nata

Last night we went to a "youth group" meeting at Nata's church. Nata is Loys and Virgil's translator and is absolutely precious. She is an amazing servant and has been with us much of the time here. Here, "youth" encompasses college students as well, and most of the dozen or so students attending were from the University. We had a wonderful time. They taught us a Russian praise song, and we in turn showed them a song from our children's services - Molly and Bethany led them in the singing and Andrew played guitar for them. They loved it! After that, we talked about "presents", and the leader, Roma, talked about the presents we can give Jesus. As Nata directed us by translating, each of us wrote down a present we can give Jesus, and also a prayer request, and placed it in a gift box. Roma ended by praying a very earnest prayer in Russian. While we didn't understand a word of it, it was beautiful to hear.

After this, we played a couple of games. The first saw us divided into limons, Banans, and Yablockas, or Lemons, Bananas, and Apples. It wasn't long before I recognized the game; it was Fruit Basket Turnover from my way-back youth group days in San Antonio. We then played another game that I won't describe, but it was also something I recognized.


Singing with the students

A thought popped into my head at this point. This entire youth activity, from the songs we opened with to the short message to the games we ended with, would be dismissed these days as hopelessly cheesy by most student ministries in the United States.

We're a bit too cool for those things, you see . . .

But these beautiful young Ukrainian Christians were joyfully playing, talking, and participating. During fruit basket turnover they were laughing their heads off!

I'll take last night over most of the student services I've been in - and I've been in a lot, having done student ministry as a volunteer for years and years, up until 2005. And this is not an indictment of what we do in the US. I understand the reasons why student ministry is done the way it is done here. But to see these beautiful friends, with not one thought to how relevant or cool they were, just having a joyful time in the Lord . . . well, it was refreshing.

I went to bed happy last night.

Today we met with Sergey, a friend of Nata's who had also been at the service last night, and played some Futbol! Sergey is a professional soccer player for a team in Kiev and he and his thirteen year old brother-in-law joined with Andrew, Jill, Bethany, Blake and me for a great game of field soccer - in the snow! I haven't had that much fun in ages. Sergey, who is in his twenties, and Blake, who is ten, really went after each other - in fun, of course - and it was a great game. After the game, Sergey told Blake that he has great technique and complimented him on his left foot, and encouraged him that if he wanted to persue a professional career, he should do so. What an encouragement! Blake really did play well, and I think made himself a little sick in the process - he now has a cough.



Sergey, Vlodie and Blake


Blake and Sergey going at it


Andrew, goalkeeping


Sergey with his lovely wife and Vlodie. The apartments they live in are in the background.

After this we went ice-skating at an outdoor rink, again with Nata joining us. Only Molly, Bethany and I skated, while the others sat inside and watched. It was awesome. I haven't skated in awhile and I'm not very good at it, but we had fun, and enjoyed the New Year's decorations. They really celebrate New Years big here, and they even have New Year's trees, decorated just like our Christmas trees. They have Father Frost and the Snow Maiden too; Father Frost is basically Santa Claus. For those who celebrate Christmas, it is celebrated on January 7th.



Iceskating! Notice the New Year's tree in the background.

After skating, Andrew, Molly, Bethany and I rode the Marshutcka bus with Nata back to Loys and Virgil's apartment. On the way, Nata told me her testimony. It was a beautiful thing to hear. She was raised Orthodox but didn't know Christ. She was invited three years ago to a camp by Americans who had come here and she saw the Russian language version of the Jesus movie. It was because of that that she accepted Christ, though it cost her much to do so; her parents are not supportive and her father nearly disowned her. But she has the joy of Jesus in her heart and serves with such humility and grace.


Marshutka bus!

We went to eat dinner tonight with Jason, Anya and their baby daughter Lilly. Jason and Anya are friends of Loys and Virgil's. They are believers - Jason is American while Anya is from Ukraine. After dinner, Anya told the story of her conversion and it also involved having seen the Jesus film. I'm beginning to realize what a great impact that film has had on people around the world.

We're now settling down for another night. It's about 11pm here, and we're looking forward to a quick trip to Yalta tomorrow. I hope to write more as our time here continues.

I love being in Ukraine.

This is GREAT news!

A great day . . .

A movie with Jill, Bethany, Blake and his friends on his tenth birthday. At Studio Movie Grill, so we got to eat pizza while we watched.

Seeing Bethany both sing and act at her voice recital today. She did a song from Mulan. Truth be told, she wasn't really up for doing the recital today. But she's devoted to her craft, and professional about it, so you would have never known. She did great.

Going with Blake to pick out a flower for Bethany to give her after the recital. He helped me choose, and we gave it a decent amount of thought. I bought him a 20oz Sprite at the check out because, hey, it's his birthday.

Driving to drop off Molly at an ABS party. Well, actually, she drove. And, yes, that's a good thing, even for this nervous dad. She's near getting her license and she's a good driver. We listened to High School Musical 2 on the way. And I listened to it on the way home too. So there.

Watching two shows tonight with Andrew. One was that Tom Brokaw special on 1968. The other was Minority Report on DVD. Andrew and I think a lot alike and have a lot of the same interests, and he's going to college next fall so every moment together is important to me. Please pray for him.

Reading an email that blessed Molly. She wanted me to read it because it was such an encouragement to her - it came out of the blue and wasn't expected.

It encouraged me too.

Seeing Blake sleeping in his mother's arms tonight. He's ten now, and so this doesn't happen very often and won't happen much longer, but Jill insisted tonight. She's that way, and that's just one more thing I love about her.

Minority Report reminded me of how thankful I am to God for my kids. If you have seen it you know why I say that.

All our kids are in double digits now.

I just looked at the clock. It's after midnight. It's December 16th.

So I'm forty four now.

These are the days!

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. - James 1:17

This morning I organized a long-overdue garage sale. I got everything setup, priced, and signage out at around 7:30 am.

It is now almost 9:00 am, and I'm getting lonely. So far the only customer I've had has been my dog, Cooper, who is sniffing at some of my (excellent, if I may say so) merchandise.

Man, I hope someone shows up. I'm selling some good stuff! A fully working Windows XP computer (1.1Ghz, 256MB), with wireless, at original factory load configuration. Who wouldn't want that!

I'm selling a large wooden table, that's been in our family for over thirty years, with the six chairs that go with it.

A ping pong table too! Yes, yes, with paddles.

Two bikes!

Our dork-box!

A lawn mower and two weed-whackers!

Plus lots of other cool stuff. Heck, while I'm at it, I might sell Cooper too (just kidding, poochy).

What's not to like?

At around noon I think I'm just going to put up a sign that says "everything's free". Because the thought of stuffing all this stuff back in my garage is really depressing.

I've been breathing the blog-free air for about a week and a half now. It's not a complete blog-abstinence - I've continued monitoring spying on interrogating reading my kids' blogs, blogs of other family members, and two other blogs that edify me. But I'm no longer drinking from the daily firehose of the blogosphere.

All it took was me reading one last snarky, straw-mannish, ungracious comment on another blog to get me asking the question I should have asked a long time ago: "Why do I do this? What earthly good is the blogosphere, anyway?"

I realized there was no good reason for me to immerse myself in the blogosphere. I've been heavily into blogs for over four years now, and I'm not sure that the net effect has been good. That doesn't mean that there aren't some tremendous blogs out there - there are. I will continue reading a very few of them, but I'm hoping I'll be a lot more choosy. And hopefully I'll stick with this.

You might think about taking a break from the blogosphere too. Try it, you might like it!

You don't need to read blogs.

(Um, except for this one. Of course :-)

My son Andrew scored a 2030 on his SATs. That's a 1390 in the old days.

Well done!

But my view is often incorrect.

And I remember . . .

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.

- Psalm 39:7

Scot McKnight, in his excellent blog Jesus Creed, is currently working on a series that will review Brian McLaren’s new book, Everything Must Change. As always, I am sure Scot will be fair, thoughtful, and thorough in this series, and I must say that his comments threads are some of the most civil in the blogosphere.

I haven't read the book, and don't know much about it beyond Dr. McKnight's introductory remarks and this review by Tim Challies. But I did enjoy this comment, left by Robin Rhea in the thread on Dr. McKnight's post. It's a refreshing answer (albeit anecdotal) to some false dichotomies floating around out there.

I grew up Catholic, came to love Christ when I was 20, and have been in evangelical circles for the past 8 years, completely “conservative” and almost entirely Southern Baptist and Calvinist. The churches that I have been a part of have been heavily involved in medical, educational, and gospel outreaches to Uganda, Columbia, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, and Sudan, have operated numerous ministries to the homeless, medically needy, hungry, have cried with women considering abortion and offered them services regardless of the outcome of their choice, ministered to the hispanic community in a part of the country where they are not very popular, have numerous outreaches alternative lifestyle groups, I think so far I have covered about half of it. I submit that by far the most “popular” speaker in evangelical circles is probably John Piper who has made social justice a continued theme of his ministry for the past 20 years, especially racial justice and racial reconciliation. Others, who are theologically ultra-conservative include Tim Keller in Ney York, Mark Driscoll in Seattle, and Scotty Smith in Nashville, all of whom have tremendous “social justice” concerns …with all of that said, I get the feeling that MacLaren’s accusations that those of us that care deeply about theology and doctrine somehow have a flat theology that does not lead to social justice issues is false. Maybe it is true in the circles he encounters, but even a cursory look at church histroy would show that those that care about theology and doctrine the most tend to do a great deal to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow human beings. You could check out Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Adoniram Judson, William Carey, Jim Elliot, etc. for confirmation. It could be that the “progressive” wing of Christianity is much more compassionate, but I have a hard time believing it.

Tonight I hung out with Robert, one of my buddies from the GAP (Graduates and Professionals) class from church. We met at Java House (which, in my opinion, blows Starbuck$$ away). It was good. Paul normally joins us as well, but he had a conflict tonight.

Robert is an interesting guy, and a computer guy too, so - naturally - there's a certain Computer Geek jen ne sais quoi that we share. I recognized it from the first few minutes I knew him; we were in the GAP class and I asked (heh heh) for someone to explain the Trinity to me. The explanation that he offered was that Jesus is an "instantiation" of God. Not a bad metaphor, though imperfect as are all pictures of the Trinity. But my ears perked up. Now, "instantiation" may not mean much to you. But if you began snorting in recognition at that term, and if you are currently staring into space as you ponder the UML diagram for the design of the GodHead base class, then you too are a computer guy. You are part of my tribe, my brothah.

I made the mistake of suggesting a chess game (did I mention I'm kind of a geek?). Robert pretty much kicked my tail. That being said, although on the rare occasions that I play chess I usually get clobbered, I do generally take my opponent to "game seven" and make them earn it. Such was the case tonight.

We had a good talk too. I'm glad I have friends I can hang out with - not all men have that. I'm extremely blessed.

Michelle Malkin has posted some heart-shattering minute-by-minute recaps of the events of five years ago:

Never forget: American Airlines Flight 11

Never forget: United Airlines Flight 175

"It's getting bad, Dad-A stewardess was stabbed-They seem to have knives and Mace-They said they have a bomb-It's getting very bad on the plane-Passengers are throwing up and getting sick-The plane is making jerky movements-I don't think the pilot is flying the plane-I think we are going down-I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building-Don't worry, Dad- If it happens, it'll be very fast-My God, my God."

Never forget: American Airlines Flight 77

Never forget: South Tower collapse

Never forget: United Airlines Flight 93

Never forget: North Tower collapse

This is a different kind of post for me. But Syd Barrett was a different kind of person.

Born Roger Keith Barrett in 1946, "Syd" was one of the founding members of the rock band Pink Floyd, and at the beginning he was the creative force driving their early, psychedelic sound. But it wasn't long until the massive amounts of hallucinogenic drugs he was ingesting daily wreaked havoc on his sanity. Syd Barrett was removed from Pink Floyd in the late sixties and was rarely heard from again.

From the Times Online Obituary:

He was a wonderfully instinctive guitarist, and his highly original use of slide and echo was able to translate the hypnotic atmosphere that Pink Floyd generated on stage to the albums they created in the studio. These are memorable as few others of their era are.

But Barrett then fell victim to the darker side of those heady times, as his copious indulgence in hallucinogenic drugs pushed an already fragile psyche over the edge.

After dominating Pink Floyd’s early material and writing their first two hit singles, by 1968 he found himself forced out of the group on account of his erratic behaviour. Without him, they went on to become one of the biggest-selling acts of the 1970s and 1980s, while his output was restricted to two strange but compelling solo albums, which reflected his precarious mental state and are today regarded as cult classics.

After that, the rest was silence, as he became a recluse and abandoned all involvement in music. Yet although he did not release another record after 1970, he continued to exert an eerie fascination for generations of future musicians — perhaps because his fate reminded them of the slender thread by which creative talent can hang.

It is said that during the recording of Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here a pudgy, balding man showed up at Abbey Road studios. The man was Syd Barrett, but no one recognized him.

And now he is gone. It's a sad story of insanity and wasted talent, but I pray that Syd found his peace with God through Christ before the end.

Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond

I don't know why I'm so blessed . . .

There's nothing like being around young people who love Jesus and glorify him. I got an email today that blew me away.

Medium-Moot last night was great. Rod was there, and Thor. And Thundergeek, and Stroke. Blo was "there", although his ethereal image has faded from all the pictures I took. Very strange. Andrew showed up for awhile too and he and Thor and I had a rousing conversation. It was good.

No man is a failure who has friends.
- Clarence Oddbody, Angel 2nd Class

Jill and I are so blessed to have the kids we have. And they're growing up quick!

My friend, I enjoyed our talk in the car. I look up to you, and believe in you, and always have.

Things have been busy. Lots of website work at night these days, if you're wondering where I've been. Some planned, some not [Bill shakes his fist at blogosphere comment spammers].

Jill and I are possibly taking a trip to bustling Clebern tomorrow to pick up her birthday present! I love hanging out with my wife!

I told Thor I might teach on Psalm 119 this Sunday and he handed me four books containing about 2000 pages of commentary, just on that one Psalm. That's amazing. He's awesome.

I am going to continue my series (um, can you call one introductory post a "series"? Oh well, I will) on James 5:16. The question bouncing around in my mind is "when". The answer is "soon" but I might just be lying to myself.

I haven't worked on Bloo all week. It was probably a good time to take a short break. But I've been thinking about it a lot - I'm almost past the "get the basics working" stage and ready to embark on the cool stuff. I love that.

Gotta go! Life beckons.

I was listening to my shuffle mix on the bus today when The Hand Song by Nickel Creek came on. Out of the blue I found myself getting all misty-eyed. Sheesh.

Then walking to the office it came on again. Hmm. *ahem*. Whew. Boy, the dust sure is bad today. Got *ahem* something in my *sniff* eye.

*sigh* - I'm such a sap . . .

He still remembers that night as child
On his mother's knee
She held him close and she opened her bible
And quietly started to read
And seeing a picture of Jesus he cried out
"Momma, he's got some scars just like me."

And he knew it was love
It was one he could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

And it seems to get much colder
When you cry on your own shoulder
And we know the show must go on
Guess I know I guess I'll throw on

Some Jefferson airplane I'm trapped and I am enclosed
But I won't complain I'll open all the windows

Jefferson airplane I'm trapped and I am enclosed
But I won't complain I'll open all the windows

Cause when it's colder I feel much better
When I cry on my own shoulder
Just throw on a sweater and go

And I'll go to undergo a change of heart,
A change of clothes
And when I'm home I think I'll go eat cereal
And stare out the window

- Relient K, Jefferson Aero Plane

I'm on lunchbreak at work.

I just discovered Web Sudoku, inspired by the obsession of my sudoku-addicted wife.

I'm just going to do one . . . I promise.

Just one . . .

[I have a bad feeling about this . . .]

At our Good Friday services this week I was blessed to meet up with some awesome students that I haven't seen much this year, since they have been away at college. Adam has been away at Baylor and Kelsey has been at A&M.

Both of these precious people are thriving in the Lord. They were nearly beside themselves with praise and joy for what he has done this year! The reason is simple: they have avoided the trap that many college freshman fall into of isolating themselves from strong Christian community. Instead, these two have thrown themselves into community through their local churches and have been growing and ministering all year. In talking about this with these two humble students they made the observation that getting connected with a local body is really what's made the difference.

It's not complicated

It was awesome talking to them. Sometimes working with students can get discouraging, but times like this blow all that discouragement away.

If any student (or anyone, really) reading this feels like God is far away; if you find yourself asking "Where is God?", I encourage you to look to the Bible. It tells us where he is.

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.�? - Matthew 18:20 (ESV)

Find a community of believers and get connected. It won't be perfect, and it might not meet all your expectations. But if the Lord Jesus is honored there, and if his truth is proclaimed, that's where you need to be.

He is risen!

I may as well make public what's obvious. I am officially on hiatus from blogging in this space - probably for the next two weeks.

Basically, all my spare cycles have been going toward the development of Bloo. And even that's a lower priority than many other things I've got going on.

One cool side note to that - the alpha testers I've gathered on this project have really been giving me great ideas!

I hope to get back to writing my thoughts in this space, but it will probably do me good to make official the fact that I'm just not writing much right now. So, I'll be checking out of here for the next 2 weeks (although I may upgrade this blog to Bloo alpha build 5 - it's still on version 0.18 - ironic, no?)

I love you all

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men . . . "

- Colossians 3:23

If any of my three readers still motor over here now and then, I wanted to apologize (again) for the dearth of posts. I will hopefully be remedying that soon. It's been a busy week.

On the plus side, a couple of Bloo Alpha Test sites are now up and running. So I hope to start getting some decent feedback soon to move this thing to beta.

God loves you, blogosphere, and so do I.

It's been a busy but good weekend.

On the Bloo front, I still need to upgrade this blog to the latest version :-) - which is weird, since that should have been one of the first things I did. But so many changes went into Bloo version 1 alpha that certain things (like the themes I have here) have to be rewritten.

I have gotten several kind offers for alpha testing, and I am excited about that - hopefully I'll have several people setup for that in the next few days. And I continue to see people downloading the software.