Bad News – I received an email from my coach over in Prague with some bad news at the start of the week. I can’t believe after all the work and many ways many of you came through for this trip that I am saying this, but the Lions have canceled the trip. The email I received from my coach was simple and said they had canceled because of a lack of interest. I’m not sure what’s going on over there. I have yet to have any more contact with anyone. Needless to say I am a bit bummed and frustrated with this. Thank you for wanting to help out in anyway you could. It means a ton to me.

In hindsight I can see that tracks have been laid for the future. I will try to pitch this to the team in the near future as I move back to Prague to work with AIA long-term late this summer. So please keep this on your plate for the future and we will see what happens.

I do want to invite each of you to ask more questions about how you can still help me reach, arguably, the most atheistic country in the world through our work with AIA in Czech. One of the reasons, I was so excited about this trip was the opportunity to give people like you a scope of what God is doing in Czech and share our vision with you.

So once again, Thank You for all your help. If you could please pass this information on to anyone else that may have been involved in the process that would be greatly appreciated. Blessings to you… -zach

So I’m in Fort Collins for Crusade’s International Training, called XTRACK. We had a “social” of sorts tonight and I was reminded that I’m not a big schmoozer or a huge fan of mingling! Not at all! Oh well. Anyway, it was my intent to post a longer entry about my support/vacation trip to San Jose tonight but once I got the internet working I got distracted. So I promise to post an entry soon, hold me to this because some fun things went down out there! Here is one of my favorite pics of the time out there! Blessings!

And surprisingly this wave didn’t get me wet!

To keep things running with the travel theme I thought I would blog some of my people watching as I sit at the airport in Denver right now. Airports intrigue me. I love the culture, the variety, and the oddity of the airport. For instance, right now I’m sitting at a lounge with a bar nearby and there is a young woman at the bar that has been there long enough to talk two different guys’ ears off. Am I eavesdropping? Yes. I am. It’s in my nature I guess – I’m curious!

Anyway, this young woman has said exactly the same thing to each of these two guys and they are just smiling and nodding as she jibs (as in jib-jab) these guys to death. It reminds me of one of the things I heard listening to the Roxburgh Journal Podcast on the way out to Denver. Alan Roxburgh interviews a missional church-planter named Pernell Goodyear about one of the chief aspects of the Gospel that we need to preach and live is community. People are craving community. They want someone to listen to them, anyone to listen to them! Even if they aren’t really listening, this young woman is case in point. What does it look like to live missionally in such way where the community that our hurt and dieing world is longing for being lived out in a real and vibrant way? The Church needs to respond to this. As I listened to the interview with Pernell Goodyear I realized that programs and events won’t address it, but getting out there and getting our hands “dirty” where the people are, like this lounge at the airport.
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So I am in the midst of packing and throwing away stuff! Sounds fun, huh? I’m trying to get as much of my stuff as I can out of my parent’s house and at the same time figure out what I will need to ship to Prague come the end of the summer. Yes, I’m packing for the “big move” 3 months in advance! But anyway, as I was going through some books and I found this week’s quote of the week written on scrap piece of paper!

God is preparing His heroes and when opportunity comes, He can fit them into their place in a moment and the world will wonder where they came from. – A.B. Simpson

I’m not sure where I found this quote some years ago, but it’s good! So here is the question that will accompany this week’s quote, “What do you feel God is preparing you for? Where might he insert you in a moment?” Respond away. For other quotes of the week, click here and here.

So I’m drinking a campfire mocha at Caribou Coffee in Lake Geneva, WI before heading over to Covenant Harbor to speak at Young Life and I stumbled across a video about Hulk Hogan’s faith! Pastor Ed Young interviews the Hulk for a new series he’s doing at his church. Growing up and being a child of the 80s I am somewhat of a Hulk fan. So it was fun to hear about his faith! I hope you enjoy the video!

I’ve really enjoyed Mark Batterson’s Blog – Evotional.com – over the past couple of weeks since a friend brought him up. Recently, Mark traveled to Rome with his wife (not a bad gig!) and he has blogged on it a bit, but what I enjoyed most of Mark’s post-trip blog posts was his thoughts/insights on A Theology of Travel. Being an individual who travels a fair amount (and loves it!) I really enjoyed this post, here is a portion:

Long before Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, God told them to fill the earth. It was an invitation to explore His creation! Think about it. Everything outside Eden was terra incognita–unknown territory. Planet Earth was untamed, uninhabited, undiscovered. They could travel 24,859 miles in any direction and discover mountains and deserts and jungles and oceans. There was 196,949,970 square miles to explore. God’s creation. Humankind’s playground.

I can’t agree more with Mark’s insights. As I’ve had the opportunity to travel I found that I have a deeper appreciation and a larger picture of who God is! There is something about playing in creation and interacting with people who are very different from you and I, but still created in the image of God, that blows my view of a little God up! Czech out the rest of the blog post, click here.