They say, “Home is where the heart is!” Well, since I left Prague, Czech Republic it has felt like I have been walking around detached from something. I felt like I left my heart in Prague as I boarded that plane bound for Chicago. Well, that is about to change! Yesterday, I received my acceptance from Campus Crusade’s International Department after about 9 weeks of waiting! Thanks for all the prayers. God has surely used this time to refine me and my call! I’M GOING HOME!

I was about to go to bed and then I realized that I haven’t posted about an event we are having at Central State tomorrow night (7 pm Eastern). Sorry… Anyway, we have former Ohio State Buckeye and current Tampa Buccaneer, Will Allen, coming to share about playing for Ohio State, playing in the NFL and what it means to be a Christian athlete and man. I would love for you to pray for Will and the event, but moreover pray that God would use the whole of this to bring Himself more fame at Central State! I’m praying and dreaming that God would bring Himself much glory from this and that many of the guys I’ve been working with that are so close would respond to God! Thanks for the prayers… (see I’m not a complete “homer” I have Will destroying one of my Bears!)

This has been a crazy past few weeks. It has often felt like I’m a man trying to juggle and someone that I cannot see keeps throwing more balls into the mix. One of those balls I’ve been juggling, with my staff team, is trying, with God’s help of course, to recruit our students to AIA’s Summer Opportunities and then with that trying to find a large chunk of money to scholarship these student-athletes because the majority of them really don’t have any place to raise the needed support for their summer opps. Well, I’m in the process of, Lord-willing, removing a couple balls from the mix in relationship to this. One of them is the info packet, click here to download it, and the other is the video you can view below. Please be praying for us as a staff team as we press on with this endeavor and please pray for our students at CSU.

How will you be a REVOLUTION today?

Last night before I went to bed I stumbled across a New York Times story about travel to Prague, “36 Hours in Prague.” I thought it would be fun to post, there is also a Travel Guide to Prague on the Times website, czech it out here. My heart continues to grow and ache to return to Prague as soon as God wills, and I pray that is closer today than it was yesterday! It looks like it might be! Friday I spoke with the final evaluator with Campus Crusades International Department about my application and psych eval. It went great! We talked for nearly 2 hours about a variety of things and I hung up the phone feeling very good about this process. Please pray first and foremost for God’s will and that I would be okay with what ever He desires, but also pray that I may get a YES soon! Each day I wake up a have a growing anticipation to get back there!

Well, I have a huge “office” work day ahead of me consisting of writing a 3-part Bible study series on the Kingdom of God, working on a support plan for April/May, doing some leg work for the Lions coming in August (it looks like we need to come up with $15,000 for this trip of 55 guys, so please pray!), writing this months prayer letter and I think that is it. Please pray for some of these things as they are way bigger than me! Thank you for your prayers, your readership and etc. As always I pray that in the midst of the mundane you are a revolution today!

Some of you are aware of what my training down here at Athletes in Action’s World Training & Resource Center looks like but I realize that most of you probably don’t. Let me sum it up quickly for you: Monday – Bible Interaction (we wrestle through the background of a book of the Bible and then wrestle with a section of the text) & Curriculum (we bring people in from inside and outside AIA to share on a wide variety of topics with us new staff peeps); Tuesday through Thursday – We work on campus with student-athletes and also receive one-on-one training from our directors; Friday – Prayer, discussion, and staff meetings. There you go a quick run down. It has been a blessed 14 months since I have moved down here! I wouldn’t trade it in for anything!

But yesterday was a unique day! We had the privilege of having Dr. Erik Thoennes, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at Biola University, (for some bios on Erik click here, here and here) come and teach us about Loving people for the long haul: The Image of God and Perseverance in Ministry. I would love to give you a run down of my notes right now but I have to get going, but I wanted to give you some links to read and listen to some of Erik’s stuff. Other staff people said that it would be the best curriculum of the year for me and it didn’t disappoint! So here are some links for you:

Thoennes on the Top Books
Laughing Through Tears
Good Question: You Are or You Aren’t
Interview with Dr. Erik Thoennes on his book “Godly Jealousy: A Theology of Intolerant Love.
Godly Jealousy: A Theology of Intolerant Love

I hope that you are blessed by Erik like all of us were yesterday! Another interesting note about Erik is that he played American Football in Europe too! I man after my own heart! Have a revolutionary day!

Many of you czeched out Beyond the Ultimate a few weeks back as the Super Bowl was among us, but all of you basketball fans need to go back! My good friend, Andy Garrett, down here at Athletes in Action has spent countless hours working on Beyond the Ultimate and it looks great! Great job Andy!