Big day......little ring

How do you get engaged in a city where you have no control, no familiarity, and generally no clue of where to go and what to do? I would have much rather been able to plan everything and cover all the angles to ensure a perfect moment, but c'mon! There has got to be some credit due for flying to Bogota, Colombia! So, you want all the mushy details right? Sorry folks, there are some things that are said under the breath of this world, and will remain hidden until the unfolding of all things.......whenever that is.

Well, I'm not a diamond guy. I'm not a one-knee guy, and I'm also not a restaurant guy! So, I held true to 2 of the 3. No diamond! No knee! But the restaurant was A+. It was a French place with a menu translated in Spanish! That's great! What the heck are champiñones anyway? Despite the unpredictable setting, on October 29th at 7:30 PM, Bogota Time, somewhere between tilapia and cinnamon laced fruit dessert.......... between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer.......and between love and insanity. I became engaged to a wonderful young woman from Clinton, NC.


Now that a few days have passed since the blessed event; I can't imagine this happening anywhere else. The last two days as we've walked into the cafeteria at lunchtime, we've been greeted with a raging and rowdy applause. This is seamlessly followed by the traditional "duhn duhn duh duh" wedding tune by the entire Elementary School at El Camino here in Bogota! I doubt there is another crowd in the world that would have given us such a warm ovation.

So, we're happy, the families seem ecstatic, and we hope that you too are in high spirits and look forward to the many babies, surfing lessons, and soccer games that are sure to ensue. Lots of love to everyone who has been there along the way!

Alan and Casey

Columbus to the North; Pilgrims to the South

I was recently having conversation with an American friend who was here in Nicaragua about anything from Seinfeld being the funniest man alive to hydrogen fuel economy and a shocking statement came out of this man’s mouth. I’ve never heard anyone say this before in my life. Let me preface by saying that I respect this gentleman immensely and He is has taught me a great deal. In a lot of ways I could model myself after Him. He is intelligent, caring, wise, a family man, entrepreneurial, sensitive, and yet as brash as any man should be. I’m not saying that I disagree with what He said; it’s only that it seemed far too blanket to hold water. I needed more than just that. I’ve got to know if there is validity to this. I should have forced him to walk me through all of the Theology that has led him to this place because if it’s true; my current thoughts of how God dishes out his blessing are surely flawed and I need to change. Actually, I’m quite sure that if this is true; the domino effect of what all else must be true is too much for me to fathom right now.

So……….if Columbus had landed at Plymouth Rock bringing Catholicism in full force to North America and the Pilgrims had landed somewhere in Central/South America bringing a liberated Lutheran based group of Puritans along with a better understanding of God’s grace and such. The nations would be completely flip flopped in terms of economic prosperity, militaristic strength, and religious make-up.

Now, the religious make-up I can understand; but does that necessarily mean that there couldn’t have been certain sparks that would have flown in the brains of smart Spaniards that would have led to an industrial revolution of sorts and sent economic prosperity sky-rocketing in a Spanish dominated North America. Could there have been different circumstances in the South that would have propelled Spanish prosperity in spite of their Catholic religion which is not wholly based in the grace of Jesus Christ. I’ve lately believed that God ultimately allows the world to move and change in it’s own way without bestowing blessings based on merit. I rather believe that God changes people from within allowing them to become liberated spiritually from the bondage of their own sin which creates a sort of peace and beauty that cannot necessarily be seen in the context of an entire nation or people group. I have believed that God’s desire to know and transform people from within changes the way that they interact with their surrounding culture and economy within their specific locale. We all know that on a personal level; our relationship with Jesus Christ doesn’t necessarily translate into wealth. In fact; Jesus himself claimed that he had no place to lay his head. His disciples didn’t seem to become healthy, wealthy, and wise but rather dead, poor, and wise! They say that two out of three ain’t bad and but I’m going to say that 1 out of 3 in this field is probably quite bad. Ok, so I’m comparing the success of God’s people as a whole to the individual which perhaps is unfair and not a given. I’m willing to entertain that they should be looked at differently. Open my eyes! Anybody?

The problem is; I’m finding it hard to believe that God blessed the United States as a whole b/c it was based in the truth of the word of God. Let’s look at the countries of the world that are the most economically healthy and also blessing the world through their giving per capita. (I say that b/c I think that if you can identify that the majority of a nation boasts Christianity then you also need to look at their giving as a group to determine some sort of validity) Are these nations also “Christian” in that they are nations who are predominately claiming the truth of God in that the rescue of the world is only found in Jesus Christ? That would be a good start I think. If I can see that God is blessing “as a whole” all of the people groups that are collectively “following Him”. I’ll buy it. Otherwise; I think that this outlook is false. As it stands; I don’t think that God’s FINANCIAL or ECONOMIC blessing on people or (people groups / Nations) rests in their ability to “Follow Him”.

Now watch me change my mind here……

BUT, BUT, BUT if God wants to bring His Kingdom of Heaven here to earth and if God originally built this place perfect and Rob Bell’s ideas regarding the New Heaven and the New Earth working in perfect harmony because everyone is pulling their own weight and doing the things that God has designed them to do. THEN, THEN, THEN, perhaps it is true. Perhaps following the ways of Jesus which INCLUDES prevailing Justice in the world “all of the time”. The blessing would be in and of itself; the result of perfect harmony in the world. Perhaps our shot at life here the NEW WORLD being rooted in Jesus was one of the best attempts lately (in the past 2000 years) at the Kingdom of Heaven coming here on the earth. Now that other ideologies or Faith Systems (mostly a Darwinesque, Relativist, Atheism or Agnosticism) are seemingly taking over in the US; are we maybe losing some ground and ultimately following the path of destruction that has prevailed since Adam bit the apple. OR, OR, OR perhaps there is a new framework for what we used to call “REVIVAL” being laid down that could potentially bring the US and/or the world again closer to the Kingdom of God. I’m not exactly sure what the Bible claims about my next statement, but it seems to me that if this world doesn’t become the Kingdom that God intends it to be; then it will have to be destroyed. Sidenote: I’m pulling for it not to be destroyed!

Perhaps there is validity to his statement then. I’ve actually had to write myself through this to get to where I’m at. If you’re reading; you’re actually seeing my thought process an it may have confused the crap out of you. I could keep this to myself and a few close friends, or I could send it into the blogosphere for comment. I suppose holding it to myself and allowing more time to fine tune my thoughts would be sort of selfish and self serving. I could put a lot more into this and make myself look pretty smart. But this is a journey that the world must all take together and so I think I’m going to go ahead and release this out there………even if it does portray my own personal ignorance.

Comments please? I’m sure many of you have already thought much of this through are much further along than I.

Pedro goes to camp!

I am at this moment a part of the most dysfunctional youth retreat in the history of my life. Between busted lips and broken jawbones; we’ve had some good times. The kids in my cabin woke up at 4:00 am yesterday morning for no other reason than to start talking to each other. WHAT! Are you kids serious? Shut up and go back to sleep. Us gringos still cannot fathom the purpose of this odd phenomenon.

Honestly though, I think it’s going wonderfully despite being completely unprepared for our group. Everything was a little off from the moment that our group of 85 adults with about 15 or so teenagers magically transformed into 100 teenagers and about 20 adults. Our guest speaker who had prepared for an older crowd had to shift his content and delivery style in an all too impromptu instant of about 45 minutes between their arrival and his first talk. His series is broken up into about 6 different 80-90 minute talks and even through the gaps in my Spanish; it is obvious that he’s doing a masterful job. The crowd is his and their respect he has won. The real battle I think is in the hearts and minds of the pastors who have been here as chaperones. They asked to speak to Dave the other night and told him that all this grace business sounds like the liberalism of which they’ve been warned all of their lives. His responses to them are introspective, clever, and poignant but caring. These pastors have pretty much received one main line of teaching their whole lives. They’ve never been confronted with different ways of thinking within their “Christian World”. Catholicism is the closest thing but they keep a stark distance from that and the only other camp is the drunks, and/or sexually immoral smokers who talk dirty! That’s it! There’s not a lot of in between. It’s hard for many of us to understand their position as we’ve been exposed to so many different factions within our own faith. So many different lines of thinking that we’ve gotten to a point where we have in many cases efficiently defined what we call closed hand and open hand issues. All this talk of women wearing pants not being a sin is throwing everyone for a loop. The big issue of course is not who can wear pants so much as what it means to be “saved”. I almost hate the word b/c I feel like every time I use it I need to explain myself. Then I get worried b/c I’m not so sure that I can properly define what it means to be saved. I suppose by saved I just mean the moment in time when a person comes into a trusting relationship with God. By “trusting relationship” I mean that there must be some sort of understanding that God has it all together and we don’t. Jesus was somehow God in the flesh and by any attempt to follow him I am trusting in him to take care of all of my evil and allow me to live with him in his kingdom forever and ever…….something like that. There is so many different pieces to the story like “substitutional atonement” and such but I’m still not quite sure how to define the bare minimum of what goes on in a persons heart and mind before it’s all good. In fact; I don’t really even want to use the term bare minimum b/c I so value the knowledge of God and His world because I believe that good orthodoxy helps move us toward good orthopraxy, which is sort of a made-up word and I’m just going to shut up now. ANYWAY, the point of saying all this is that most of the church in Nicaragua believes that you lose your “saving relationship” with God every time you screw up to a certain degree. The problem with that is that there is no real basis for how much “messing up” or how large of a sin one must commit before they are ousted out of the kingdom. The church leadership at large has a pretty easy time of defining it in the moment, but “Where’s the list?” Seriously, where is God’s master list of offenses accompanied with their appropriate punishment. Seriously, this is a problem in itself but it is probably more evident of a deeper problem.

I won’t even start into this “deeper problem” but the beautiful thing is that all of their one-line ideologies are being attacked head on with “I don’t dare say truth” but at least what I would say is far closer to the truth than what they presently consider. Many of these pastors are shaken to the core I believe,and they are experiencing an inner conflict that I would hope will open up a continuing dialogue and a quest for knowledge. The biggest point that our speaker Dave Waters is driving home revolves around two questions.

1. Is there anything I can do to make God love me more?
2. Is there anything I can do to make God love me less?

Great questions for this group. I hope and pray that they will continue to seek and I hope they’ll be willing to challenge everything they’ve ever learned. If a people is not willing to do that; there can be no growth. They are not progressing but rather dying….....a sinking ship. My prayer is that they would not be. I’m excited today b/c I can see these people’s hearts being stirred and I see the goodness of what may come of these words being adopted. I know that the freedom and beauty of God’s grace has changed my life. May it be the same in your church here in Nicaragua Lord. Do what only You can do. Amen.

no more wetness!!!!

It hasn’t rained this much since Forrest Gump! I’m not kidding when I say it’s rained from Tuesday Night at 7:00pm until today. (Sunday morning). I’m not sure but I’d say we’ve taken close to 20” this week. I’m not really sure how my village isn’t under water. My sincere apologies to The Aggies of North Carolina. I wonder how much money 20” of rain is worth to you guys. I’d send it your way if I could….just be glad that you can actually dry your clothes. Now that the rain is gone; I’m off to help run a retreat for Bethel’s local church somewhere outside Managua. I hope our crew can get some work done this week without Mario’s truck and my gringo purse. Uggghhh!

Slow days

I must be getting used to the slow unproductive life here in Central America because it took a visitor to prompt me to even think of writing this blog. I’ve said before that we in the United States are very much into productivity. Now, productivity is not a bad thing I’d say. I love being productive, getting things done is what drives me to some degree. But when I came to Nicaragua as former Project Engineer, I had certain expectations that were completely blown out the water. I really had to learn to be content with less forward motion.

For example.....

Allow me to walk you through a somewhat typical day that occurred this past week. My friend and pastor Jeff was in town and we had just dropped off a repaired radiator to be reinstalled in Vision Nicaragua’s little Toyota Tacoma truck and we were heading out of Chichigalpa to run another errand. We were stopped by the local Police at one of their many random checkpoints. The police notice that Mario’s safety inspection is out of date and decide that the truck should be locked up in the local baseball stadium until we get our inspection taken care of. A friendly neighborhood Policias escorts us to the stadium and Mario jumps on a bus to Chinandega to begin sorting things out while Jeff and I walk back to the village (this takes a good 45 minutes). Later that day; I ride my bike back into town where we pick up the little truck and then go run the rest of Mario’s errands and call it a day.

Wednesday morning comes and we’re off early to the Police Station to get some papers and then on to pay for the inspection at the bank (b/c why would you actually pay for an inspection at the inspection station?). Upon arriving at the Inspection Station, they inform us that they can’t do anything until 2:30 in the afternoon when the power comes back on. This is starting to cause problems now because we have 8 of the “sick men” to take to the doctor at 2:30 in the afternoon.

2:00 PM: We load 11 of the sick men into our little truck and take them to their appointment. Once again we go to the Inspection Station where we sit around waiting for an hour and then back to the Police Station where we’re sent out to get something else. We continue to come and go from the Police Station three more times in pursuit of the new piece of the puzzle. Each time we come to the station; they send us out for one more thing. Why couldn’t they just give us the comprehensive list the first time? Uggggh! It’s like they enjoy watching you crumble in frustration. We finally get everything we need and just barely make it to the stadium by 5:00 pm when the guards leave their post. Whew! What a day and a half! And do you want to know the worst part of all of this running around for an inspection? NOTHING WAS EVER INSPECTED!