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09 10 .09 12.09 01.10 02.10 03.10 04.10 05.10 08.10 09.10 10.10 12.10 02.11 03.11 06.1 1 09.11 World Relief University Monday, September 26, 2011 Today I met wisdom incarnate. He's the former Bishop of Rwanda, having recently retired. He spoke for an hour or so at the beginning of a day dedicated to expla ining the vision and execution of World Relief Rwanda. This is a man who represe nts and leads the entire country through the Anglican church, a man who speaks t o hundreds if not thousands at a time, a man who speaks to and councils presiden ts and ambassadors, here to talk to the twelve of us. He didn't speak on behalf of World Relief, but he definitely agreed with their w ork and methodology. The Rwandan government relies heavily on the Church to care for the most vulnera ble. That is Jesus' mandate for the Church, and the Church therefore, presumably , is the body most fit for the task. Is it the government's duty as well? Yes, I think it is, but in the US, the Church often shrugs off its responsibility, its core purpose, because we can rationalize that our government has already taken care of it. It's entirely foreign to me that government should rely on the church to do anyt hing. It seems to me our government tries to do what would make our lives better , avoiding at all costs any relationship to the church; the church is a hinderan ce, not an asset. Recently I was considering whether it might not be a good idea to completely remove marriage, a religious notion, from our laws. Let the churc h handle religion. Hearing Bishop John's telling of how the Rwandan government a nd church work together, complement each other, may have turned me around on tha t. Of course, it's easier when 90% of the population claims to be Christian. The Bishop talked a bit about the US, where he has lived in the past, and some o f the Church's failures there. One of those failures, he said, is not being able to talk about Christianity in the schools. I assume he means students not being able to, but he didn't specify. I asked him how the church could not fail in th at regard and he said it needs to change its attitude; it needs to be more humbl e. He said the Anglican church has figured out everything, and it leaves no room for the Spirit. He then asked if he had answered my question, which I felt he h ad not, so I asked how that would change the government's position on religion i n the schools. Essentially he said the government doesn't value the church becau se we no longer have anything of value to offer. "The church doesn't do magic. I f you put salt in a pan and heat the pan with the food and serve it immediately, the salt won't have added any flavor." He suggested that if we humble ourselves and serve rather than rant, in a generation or two, we may see change in how pe ople view Christianity. It's certainly food for thought. Another culture shock that I mentioned previously is Rwanda's view of Sex. "Prof essor" Maurice, my translator on Thursday for the pastoral retreat, talked a bit about the Mobilizing for Life program they have which teaches faithfulness and abstinence to combat AIDS. I asked a devil's advocate question, as I do so often , "When the US, historically, has taught abstinence only, it's failed miserably. It doesn't reduce the amount of sex, it reduces the amount of safe sex. (Thank you CJ Craig.) What do we expect to happen here?" In the last three or four year s, the number of sexually active youth in areas where the benefits of abstinence has been taught has dropped from 33% to 12%. Maurice talked about a lot of test imonies. Pastor Phil said there are statistics to support this as well. He went on to talk about the many supporters of Rwanda, whether they be governments or o rganizations, that all have agendas for Rwanda and Africa. They all have their o wn ideals. Much of what comes in is helpful, from financial aid to education to

entrepreneurial spirit. But with the good also comes the bad and the ugly, and j ust because the US can't keep its dick in its pants, doesn't mean the rest of th e world can't. Since then (two hours ago) I've been thinking about what could ca use this separation in values (and abstinence is a value in Rwanda). I know it's not belief in the Bible, as this education is still being taught to the country and roughly one in three pastors aren't even "born again." It's not ancestral r oots (they're not being taught it by their parents) as polygamy is an issue here . I'm left thinking it's our media, our advertising, our obsession with sex in t he first place. They have no sex appeal ads because they have no ads at all. I'm not blaming the media outright as the media wouldn't present what we don't want to see. There's a Jack Johnson song about this called "Cookie Jar". These two pointed questions earned me the prestigious Hardest Questions award du ring graduation from World Relief University. I overheard at the end of Bishop John's talk, on the way to tea that Rwanda is, too, materialistic. Americans put their faith and trust in the objects they own. Rwandans put their hope in the objects they think would make their lives comple te. I guess Americans do that as well. It's an interesting thought, to be sure. What I've learned today is that life as it's meant to be is hard. In fact, it's impossible. The amount of forgiveness, the metaphorical seventy times seven, for every possible way someone can sin against us, whether that be accidental, misu nderstanding, cruelty, thievery, rape, or murder of loved ones... how can you? W ith the 1994 genocide raw in everyone's minds here, it makes all of this that mu ch more real. The amount of healing through forgiveness that's happened in the l ast 17 years is phenomenal. Selling your stuff to support those in need? I can e asily give, and in fact enjoy giving, out of my abundance, but ask me to sell my tv, or laptop, or car to help someone? Not happening. LIfe, Liberty, and the Pu rsuit of Happiness? God gives us life and the liberty to do with it and fail as we please in our own pursuit of happiness. LIfe is the one thing we, as American s, feel we have as our own. How can we give that up completely? It's impossible. "With Christ all things are possible." It's hard to comprehend, much less belie ve, much less act on. On lighter topics (and it is now this entry's tomorrow, about 18 hours since sta rting it), we left our hotel in Musanze yesterday morning. Before leaving, we wa lked up to the Catholic church about five minutes away and prayed for the region . Dyanah didn't walk with us. I thought she was being lazy since she got in a ca r that was to pick us up at the church. It turns out she was leaving, so I misse d my chance to hug her goodbye. Nothing grieves me more than missed opportunitie s for relationship, romantic or not. To my future girlfriends, never tease me by offering a kiss and then denying it because of something, legitimate or not, I did. It tears me apart. The ride to our new home, where the day-university class was held, was about 40 minutes long, bumpy and upward. (We're just about to leave this place, and I jus t carried my bags up the stairs to where the SUVs are. To give you an idea of th e elevation, not only am I winded, which would be normal, but everyone else has mentioned being winded too.) We got some beautiful shots of waterfalls and peopl e working their fields. The retreat center we went to has the most glorious view I've ever seen, tenfold and then some. It overlooks a large lake with several i slands in the middle. There's no electricity to the islands, so there are no pow er lines crossing the water or anything else to mar the scene. Not that I've eve r been a poetic writer, but I doubt anyone but a poet laureate could capture the view. Or a photo. With the world's best camera. Yeah, you really should just vi sit. Glory be to God, we had a bathroom door in our room.

It has rained fairly frequently, so we haven't had much opportunity to see the w hole thing unclouded, nor have I had any time to journal outside. Because I don't believe I've yet stated it, and it really is one of the main poi nts of this trip, I'm going to attempt to explain World Relief's purpose here in Rwanda. "To empower the local church to serve the most vulnerable." We've (the world) found that dumping money in Africa hasn't worked. In fact, it has worsene d the situation by creating a dependency on those who've tried to help. The old give a man a fish, teach a man to fish. The only way Africa will ever succeed in betterment is if it does it itself, if it owns it itself. World Relief believes the best organization to serve the "most vulnerable," the poor, the widows and orphans, the down-and-out, is the Church, as it has been called by Jesus to do s o. Further, with 90% claiming faith, it's the largest social network in Rwanda, already in place. Jesus calls himself the groom and the Church his bride. World Relief sees itself as the maid of honor, the woman whose job it is to help the bride to have every thing she needs, and then to step out of the way. World Relief doesn't supply any financial incentives for pastors to join in thei r programs, except in the beginning for a free lunch and transportation. The pas tors or other Rwandans own everything they do. World Relief just supplies traini ng (trainers of trainers) and curriculum. If people think of a program as World Relief's, they'll become dependent on the organization. This kind of thinking is difficult for task/results-oriented people and organiza tions. "89 a day will let this child go to school." That organization will, unfor tunately, never go out of business, never succeed in its goal of saving Africa. Even organizations that agree with World Relief's way of doing things are often pressed by boards for results and will pay for food and transport for every meet ing. Now pastors aren't going to the meeting for the benefits of the meeting, bu t for free food and the extra money left over after expensing transportation. On ce again, they're taught that white people will give them money. It calls into question, a bit, our (Bethany's) partnership with Living Water Int ernational. Wells are great, but it'd be better if the Africans paid for them. T hey also break fairly frequently, so that's another opportunity for African busi ness. Elizabeth has mentioned this to LIving Water (whom primarily in the past h as been sponsored by organizations and companies that want to boast they've put x wells in Uganda), and said Bethany is more interested in a relationship and pa rtnership with the people our wells have gone to, and that we also want a mainte nance plan in place for those wells. It sounded like, from talking to her, they were noncommittal. She said she'd call again when we get back. Last night at our team time, Richard tried to make joke to tease me about Dyanah , but accidentally said [Caleb] instead of Jordan. After a team-wide fit of laug hter directed at Richard instead of me, Elizabeth asked if there was romance the re and I shrugged indicating a little. I guess she had no idea. She had even poi nted out at breakfast one day that the only two other single people on the trip were women too old for me, and "I guess you'll just have to find an African." This morning before our mostly-daily devotion, we did a quick highs-and-lows. At the end, I appended a sappy, half-joking low that I didn't get to hug Di goodby e. This unfortunately coincided with a side-effect of my Vyvanse, watery eyes. I don't know if anyone noticed or thought I was tearing up over it. Amongst the l aughter at my bringing this up, I heard someone say I was doing it wrong, that I was supposed to be embarrassed so they could tease me. Ha. We spent some time debriefing. I've said it before: I don't really come with exp ectations because I don't know wheat to expect, and I don't want to be disappoin

ted. The disappointments I've had were meant to on a souvenir chess set, not pastors on Saturday. I spent the last iting this, which is really debriefing

minor, a missed hug, paying more than I'd having as much a-few-on-one time with the twenty minutes of that debriefing time wr in itself.

This whole trip we've been examining poverty. This trip is based on a book calle d When Helping Hurts. At the beginning, it does a deep dive on the various forms of poverty. It's essentially when our relationships to God, self, community or environment are out of whack. This is to say that we ourselves are quite poor as well. We don't lack materials, but our relationships to ourselves and to our co mmunities are really screwed up. To God, I'll leave on a per-person basis, and i n Washington, we're at least trying to be environmental. Anyway, financial pover ty affects all four relationships, at least in the theory presented by the book. I asked the group whether it was fair to say that Jesus experienced no poverty. The consensus was that he did not. Then I asked if he was materially poor, whic h he was. I'm still thinking that out. When we came back from personal reflection, Richard said something profound (or maybe this was sometime else). He said, "it's much easier to sympathize with peo ple when they act against us when we recognize their actions as their own povert y." Last night, the Nertz crew played a couple games. Lindsay crushed us in the firs t 100-point series. She wanted to go to bed but we prevented it and I actually d ealt her cards for her so she had no choice It was only a 75-point round and it looked like Richard was going to finally win, but I passed him up in the last ha nd. Tonight, however, our dear Richard finally won, and won big, two 100-pointer s in a row. After the first, he took off his shirt and ran and danced around. I' m surprised he didn't give a speech. I'm glad he finally won. I was starting to feel bad for him, but I never let anyone win. My mom never let me win growing up , and I really appreciate that. During last night's games, some wild African dogs tried to get into the room we were playing in. We shut the door just in time, but until after the games ended, they puppy-guarded us. We waited and watched for a few minutes as they ran arou nd the yard playing with each other. It felt like they were waiting for us, and then, miraculously, they just left. We hightailed it out of there as quietly as we could, back to our rooms. About 80% there, when Richard knew we were home fre e, he stopped suddenly to freak out Lindsay, who had been significantly the most nervous about the run. Good times. I'm running out of pages in this 100-page notebook. Most of the left hand pages are empty, so don't you worry about losing a second of Rwandan play-by-play. Exc ept about Saturday. I just really don't have anything to say about that day. top 0 Comments Legend Sunday, September 25, 2011 Yesterday we met with a few pastors from various churches in the area to make re minder-to-pray bookmarks to disperse to Bethany. That's all I have to say about that. The rain just stopped. People are again walking the streets. That's the first th ing you notice in daytime Rwanda. There are people everywhere. They don't have c ars and so they walk. Bicycles are fairly common. They all have flat beds behind the seats for carrying people, bags of potatoes, or bundles of bamboo-looking b ranches. You could close line six people at once. Buses and vans are there too. The most common mode of quick transportation is paying a motorcyclist to taxi yo u. People carry everything on their heads. They necks must be made of cement (st eel bends when compressed). When it starts to rain, everyone just takes shelter, squished together under the nearest eve until it stops.

The roads aren't near as crazy as in Jamaica. While pedestrians don't have right -of-way, at least drivers will slow down and try to avoid them. They honk if a p edestrian or bicyclist is ten seconds away. Cars slow down around curves or when they're about to hit pot holes. Not so in Jamaica. Drivers aren't afraid that c utting someone off will cause an accident. Perhaps the speed limit naturally enf orced by the pedestrians and road quality allow for quick braking. Though people crowd the city streets of Seattle, this is somehow different. Peop le look more comfortable around other people. They look used to walking and taki ng whatever time it takes. Seattlites are determined unless they're playing the tourist for the day. My pen just dried up. Nearly the entire thing was spent in this journal. I hadn' t planned on that possibility happening. I don't think I've ever written a pen, start to finish. On Friday night, a new translator arrived for the weekend named Dyanah, or Di. S he and I have been a little bit of an item, an innocent, two-day African fling. She's stick thin--compared to her, I look average--about 5'9", with a face softe r than most African women have. I was surprised that her accent nearly matches m ine. She's going into international business, in the hopes of traveling the worl d a bit. The last two nights' events conspired against our Nertz tradition. No riveting w riting to add there. As it is Sunday, we all went to church, or rather three churches. The church we went to was Baptist, I believe. It's a church Elizabeth visited when she was her e in January. Since then, it has gained windows, doors, a roof, and a floor, hal f of which was still drying today. When we got there, a choir was already singing and dancing. As the rear half of the floor was dying, the front doors were locked and everyone entered by a side door near the front. We were seated in chairs immediately to our right, clearly reserved by for esteemed visitors. The choir sang a couple songs, each five to eight minutes long. We clapped. Di c omplained to me yesterday that all the music here is now synthesized rather than made with real drums or instruments. Such was the case here. When the music die d down, the pastor welcomed each group: men, women, children, pastors from the C ongo, visiting pastors from nearby, people who have been gone a while but have r eturned, new people, and us. He gave a short sermon Daniel 1. More singing happe ned by a second choir, lots of clapping, lots of dancing. The pastor had us go t o the front and introduce ourselves. More singing happened and this time the pas tor invited us to join in the dancing. I wish I had, just because it's a bit of a fear of mine. Ballroom dancing and swing I love; when I don't know what I'm do ing, I can't make myself move. The running-in-place the dancing men were doing w as pretty simple, but I still wimped out. Next was time for testifying. Someone had gotten married this week and an aunt was proud and praising Jesus for it. So mething happened for a guy that I don't remember, and to thank God, he was putti ng 50,000 franks in the offering this week. That's about $83--very generous here , about two weeks' wages. Each time someone went up or sat down, including when we introduced ourselves, the keyboardist played the same short tune giving it a talk show flavor. A second pastor came forth to give a half hour sermon on a few different verses scattered throughout the Bible. The long and short of it was t hat people need to return to God, and until that happens, don't expect any mirac les Next was tithes and offerings. We each put in our 83 we'd been told was an ap propriate amount. More singing and dancing. The three hour service ended around noon.

I was in my Sunday best, slacks, black dress shirt, shoes, and tie. Di said I lo oked "stunning." This morning I had a debilitating headache. Marie gave me some Advil and I skipp ed breakfast in lieu of lying down til it took effect. Thus, I missed the announ cement that we ought to bring a change of casual clothes. It turned out not to m atter as stopping back at the hotel before lunch was both on the way and the mor e logical choice. We had lunch at Lava Cafe, which I think the other members of my team nicknamed Lava Java. They serve white people friendly food. I got what the menu made sound like a try-tip dip. They forgot my au jus, but all-in-all it was decent. Di ate my fries complaining for the umpteenth time that I don't eat. After lunch, we went to a national rainforest as tourists. What appeared to be a park ranger gave us a tour of the forest, complete with history and legend. We took a ton of pictures. Di stole my camera saying I don't take enough shots. I'l l be the first to admit that. Africans take pictures slightly diagonally. We got a good shot or two of the two of us with arms draped over shoulders. Right at t he end of the tour path, it began to rain. Heavily. It was a mad dash across vol canic stones and under vines, Indiana Jones style, to the SUVs. The rain stopped thirty feet from the start of the trail. One of the legends or historic stories had to do with a pool or spring that dried up when someone tried to tamper with it. Four snakes appeared and the tamperer disappeared, never seen again to this day. Seven days later, the pool returned to normal. We saw that pool then left for home. I'm all stuffed up with a sore throat. I think Marie gave me her cold. I don't m uch feel like eating dinner, which is in fifteen minutes, but I want to say good bye to Dyanah. It's been fun. top 0 Comments This is Africa Friday, September 23, 2011 I'm wearing one of my favorite shirts. I believe I only have two button-down whi te shirts, and while one looks nicer, especially untucked since it stops at wais t height, this one has memories. I wore it on one of my last days in Costa Rica when I couldn't take feeling dirty anymore. The women in the kitchens at the cam p thought it was a shirt worthy of weddings, which I found mildy depressing as i t's a fairly average, low thread count dress shirt. Anyway, that was the day of the obstacle course with the mud pit, and despite taking the shirt off well befo re the event, there's still a mud stain at the bottom, just right of center. Mud is the reason I'm wearing it now. Today we "shadowed" four pastors to get a sense of their daily lives. To get to our pastor's house, (and while I'm thinkin g about it, the "mini-barn" that our group's Savings Group met at was actually a house) we drove down the main road ten minutes, at which point the pastor, who had been waiting for us, got in the SUV, then fifteen minutes up a rough dirt mu d road, across a few log bridges, one of which looked to be pieced together with wooden fence slats that made cracking sounds when we drove over it and definite ly had a few missing pieces, that is, had holes, up to a point where we had to w alk up slick red dirt. His house was at the end of a ten-minute climb. The pastor we were visiting was one of the ones in my small group from yesterday . His name is John Peter, a good ol' two-parter first name. His neighbor, wife, son (about four years old) and infant daughter were there with us. Shorty after arriving, his dad joined us. We sat in their front room around a couple small ta bles of mismatched height. The room was smaller than my tiny apartment kitchen. Mothers here are not at all shy about breast feeding.

We talked for a while about his church. His congregation is fourteen people. The Anglican Church, at least in Rwanda, feels instability reduces complacency, so he moves churches about once a year. The one he currently leads is a two hour wa lk from his home. He has to be at his church three days a week, and on off days, he walks down the hill to find pick-up jobs and/or do blacksmithing. Our transl ator, Ngoga, is some sort of liaison at the national level for World Relief Rwan da, and did some filling in to give our questions context. He also did his fair share of asking both parties his own, very helpful questions and then translated the responses. As the pastor's wife, his wife is the president of his church's mothering group and helps with encouraging women in their marriages and resolvin g disputes. After about an hour, we went outside to look at his land. My apartment is pretty close to half the size of his entire property. In his garden, he has a couple b anana trees, probably there naturally, and has planted beans. He'll harvest abou t 30 kilos (do your own damn math), while he cooks about a kilo a day. Since he can't grow beans consistently, given the seasons, he can't come near to living o ff them. Our translator, whom at the time I only knew as our translator, gave hi m several different ideas on how he could more efficiently use his land. All he really said was, "That's possible," nothing committal or excited. Lindsay, Chris tine, and I talked amongst ourselves as the pastor and Ngoga talked, about takin g a soil sample, figuring out what would grow best there, and buying seeds of so mething not native, and therefore in low supply, to Rwanda. He could sell that c rop for a high price in the market due to being rare or exclusive. There's a hot sauce on our dinner tables that is super spicy with no added flavor that I coul d discern. The factory that makes it is only a short distance from his house, an d is in constant need of peppers. Ngoga suggested he grow these instead of beans , then use the profits to buy beans or whatever else. Like I said, he didn't sou nd enthused. I have to admit, as frustrating as I find his attitude, I take the same one at m y job. I'd rather deal with working around the bugs than fix them. We went back inside and minutes later it began to pour. The rain lasted a few mi nutes, then began again, coming in waves. We ate lunch, it now being too rainy t o safely get down the hill, and there being no point in skipping lunch in order to beat the rain for the sake of the drive. Our meal was surprisingly American w ith ham sandwiches. There was also passion fruit, which Lindsay bit right into, when it's more of a pomegranate experience, pine apple, and some sort of meat pi e. We'd come with several aluminum sack lunches, but not quite enough for everyo ne in the room, as several neighbors had joined us. We made sure they all got on e before we did. The four of us visitors shared the remaining two. They asked us a few questions. One was whether we have poor people in America. T hey're always shocked that we do. We got to share about Bethany's Tabitha Minist ry, a homeless women's shelter, and other programs that serve the homeless. When we'd finished our lunch, and it stopped raining, I prayed and then the pastor p rayed, both translated. The pastor, his wife, Anna the infant strapped to her ba ck, and his brother, walked us down the now slick and muddy hill to our SUV. It took quite a while, and at the end, our shows were coated with the red, sticky m ud. The journey down, even with four-wheel drive, was still a bit terrifying. I don't usually get scared by things like this, and I didn't this time either, but it was definitely a dangerous trek, especially with the rain that started back up a couple minutes before we made it to the car. I'm surprised we didn't get st uck in the mud. When we got mud as they the effect ith my room back, we tried to figure out what to do with our shoes, clung to by were. We tried to clean them off in puddles or wiping them in grass, of which seemed to only be to color the ground. When John got back w key, I washed them off, then showered, and changed into this white s

hirt. When I exited the room, to head to our team time, a guy was collecting sho es to wash for us, mine now more wet than dirty. Maybe he has a hair dryer. On t he bright side, we discovered we have a balcony, when looking for a place to put my wet shoes. We debriefed a bit as a team and with our translators who were all more than tra nslators, hearing each other's experiences, and asking questions about World Rel ief and the culture of Rwanda. All the information was interesting and I'm sure important to someone, but I've always had a broken filter when it comes to judgi ng importance, and can't recall much of it now. I remember that Ngoga said he li ved 100 KM from here. I remember Richard saying the foreign aid fund the US put toward stopping/helping the AIDS epidemic in Africa is almost gone. I remember J osh Lyman repeating a statistic that 81% of Americans think the foreign aid budg et was too high and 72% think it should be cut, meaning that 9% of people are so bat shit out of their minds that they think the foreign aid budget is too high and shouldn't be cut. The majority of our team went out for coffee at Lava Java. I sacrificed the expe rience to journal (now) for the sake of you fine folks, and not because my only available shoes are dressy ones. I doubt they'd have hot chocolate anyway. If I moved to London, I'd have to spell color with a u. Eww. Accents, right. Last night after our team time, a bunch of us went to play Nertz. When more peop le than decks arrived, we transitioned to Uno. Around 10:30 (totally just made t hat time up), Richard headed for bed, saying if three people were left, he'd pla y Nertz, obviously indicating himself, Lindsay, and me. We played one more round of Uno, then dispersed. I went up to find him playing on his laptop hoping "tho se Uno playing clowns" would leave, allowing for his "game of destiny" or GOD, t o commence. Well, at least he didn't come in last? I was slow at first but quickly gained mo mentum, slightly buffeted in the second to last round, making it a seven-point g ame between the two of us, Lindsay 10 points behind him. I got my remaining thre e points and twenty-one more. He suggested we play another 100 point series. Bad move, man. In seven games, I won with more than their scores combined. We'll se e what happens tonight. I'm not convinced it was more than just luck as I don't think I was playing any differently, nor much faster, if not slower. Bring it. top 0 Comments Accordion Thursday, September 22, 2011 Today was fantastic. We had our Pastoral Spiritual Retreat, which World Relief u sed as a preamble for their Church Empowerment Zone (CEZ) kick-off ceremony. It was a mix of improv and planning, all overseen by, suffused with, saturated i n the Holy Spirit. The three of us had prepared three passages of Scripture abou t the Kingdom of God on Earth and Bible study-esque questions to go along with e ach. The first, Matthew 6:25-34, talks about not worrying. God will provide. Susanna presented this first passage and then we split into men and women, three groups of each. We figured women would be more likely to talk if their husbands weren't nearby. Caleb and I got Pastor Maurice as our translator. He was invaluable as an interpreter as well as a facilitator. I don't know Caleb's ability at crowd c ontrol and keeping people interested and talking, but mine is wanting. What I'm good at is asking good, usually hard, questions. The question that got the most memorable responses for the first set of verses w as: How has God shown/demonstrated his provision in your times of need? One man said he felt bringing us, our team from Bethany, to him was God's provisioning.

The second set was the Beattitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). Besides the Lord's Prayer a nd the 23rd Psalm, it's probably the most well-known Scripture. The pastors were all well versed in it. "In what ways has God comforted you in your times of mou rning?" Evidently "mourning" is translated as "times of trouble or need." They h ad some seriously miraculous stories. One man was in a sinking boat and couldn't swim. He sank but the water pushed him back up without explanation and people r escued him. Another, during the genocide, was wounded by knives and about to be executed, when a soldier appeared out of no where and commanded that he be spare d. Yet another's wife was seriously ill and so he sent her to the States to be t reated. The doctors gave her a very short time to live. They said she wouldn't s urvive the plane trip home and that it would be better if she were to be buried there. The pastor prayed that she would survive the trip home so she could say g oodbye to her family. A doctor traveled back with her and couldn't explain her s uccessful journey. She lived another three weeks and made peace with everyone be fore she passed away. He is now at peace about it and happily remarried. A different translator switched out with Maurice because John had had a terrible time with him, and we wanted at least one session to go well for his group. He says it was a night and day difference, and that he couldn't get them to shut up . Our group was marginally worse, but they had already opened up a bit so it was fine. This was the same translator that was with the group with the bad experie nce at the Savings Group, as well as the one that didn't translate the beauty co mment at the church yesterday. This passage was Luke 13:18-19, Jesus comparing the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, among the smallest, which grows into one of the largest trees. We asked: w hat would Musanze be like if everyone lived with "kingdom values?" That question refined to "How could Musanze improve or grow?" followed by "What would this ch ange?" They answered that if people gave more time to serving, more people would become Christians. On the flip side, we asked, "How is God's Kingdom visible he re in Rwanda and Musanze?" which boiled into "What could the people of Bethany l earn from the churches here?" One pastor pointed out that they'd never been to B ethany, but that the people here are very hospitable and welcoming, and are open to hearing the word, even nonbelievers. Both are very true. Seattle is neither. Caleb improved a question asking what gets in the way of seeking first the Kingd om of God. One of the pastors revealed they, or at least he, really got it. He s aid that even if someone had material wealth, and everything needed or wanted, i t wouldn't be any easier to follow God. At the end of each batch of questions, we returned as a large group to share wit h everyone the key points each group had discussed. Brevity is not a concept kno wn to African pastors. At lunch, Lindsay, John, and I talked to the interdenominational committee head. He had tons to say. Good stuff. He asked if Lindsay and I had fianc(e)s yet. Nei ther of us do, but Lindsay has a boyfriend, which is not really a concept here. Children are assets here and in many other places in Africa and Latin America. Y ou get married to have lots of children who can work the land. Romance takes a b ack eat, at least in rural areas. We've visited a couple rural areas, like where the Savings Groups were yesterday. Where we're sleeping is semi-rural. The resu lt of that part of the conversation is that he's going to pray that I find a fin ance. I'd said "In London" before I realized no one at the table would get it. Two days after conception, moving to London seems significantly more farfetched. Still... the accents. After the retreat ended, World Relief held the CEZ ceremony. The phrase "new his tory" was used a lot. A good concept, especially considering Rwanda's history. T

his is the first time I've felt like I was witnessing history, or rather, a part of it. We just got back from a walk. Elizabeth, Amelia, and I went through the market w hile the rest of our posse went around, having seen it yesterday. They compared it to Pike Place; it reminded me more of the food court at the Kitsap Fair, thou gh I couldn't tell you why. It was a little discouraging to see that every table held the same foods. Specializing and offering unique items just isn't built in to them yet. Sometimes I hate competition, but it's the only way that their econ omy will improve. On the walk, Elizabeth convinced Christine that some black goats on a distant hi ll were gorillas. When the ruse was over, she convinced Christine to pull the sa me stunt on us. I'm glad I never found where the goats were or my gullibility wo uld probably have kicked in. Like Princess Leia, I'm far too trusting. Poor Alde ran. Today was... I can't even put it to words. I don't get excited. I never see what other people see in order to describe a day or event as amazing. But I'm surpri sed at how well, how important, the retreat went and was. I just have this sense of... off comfort. A sense that something has changed or unlocked. That things are starting to move. I'm glad God used me to make it happen. top 0 Comments Been There, Done That Wednesday, September 21, 2011 So far today we've visited a few different places. First was a program for teach ing the benefits of abstinence. In Africa, with AIDS, and I suppose a lack of co ndoms, abstinance is of dire importance. I guess it didn't occur to people befor e? I suppose, without the Bible, if we didn't have rampant STDs, maybe we wouldn 't consider abstinence either, at least not by choice. Damned non-nerds. After a number the church did on Africa in the past 50 years, a lot of Africa doesn't l ink sex to AIDS in the first place. Let's fix that. The program appears to be ef fective. My one qualm is that all their answers for the why of abstience seem to be based in fear. At the end, they gave us a chance to ask the girls questions. I asked what methods they'd been taught to avoid having sex. They've clearly go t the why down; I asked the how. I got the feeling they didn't understand the qu estion. Maybe it was lost in translation. Maybe sex is different here. We next visited a barber who was a success story of a micro-loan. I guess Dietri ch was particularly fond of him. He's taking care of his 11-year-old (half?-)bro ther whose parents had died. We almost left without praying for him, which I fou nd sillly, so I stuck my neck out and was volunteered. Totally fine, but... why was it nearly overlooked? One of the women in my group thanked me for praying af terward and said she'd felt the same way. Bob is an amazing translator. The amount of words he can remember before needing to flush the buffer is remarkable. He seems like a generally great guy too. The third place we visited was a church doing an adult education class on marita l fidelity, or faithfulness as they put it. A few different couples stood up and expressed why they thought fidelity was important. The first couple said becaus e not being faithful could lead to AIDS, and accidental babies. Fear based, agai n. They did give a couple abstract benefits, but nothing concrete. The pastor th en said, as we were under a time crunch, that any new answers should be new, not repeats. The next two couples gave repeats. One couple out of the five(?) that spoke shared that there had been infidelity, and, in fact, that it had brought A IDS into their marraige. That took guts.

The church buliding was shoddily built. A cement floor, brick walls that left du st if you leaned against them, a tin roof with holes. Something in me, though, t hought it was beautiful. I could also feel God's love for it. Strongly. As we we re getting up to leave, I asked the translator to tell the pastor and the people there that, but he must have misunderstood, or perhaps thought I was mocking hi m/them with the beauty remark. I did what I could. The first and a half place we went was to visit some pigs that World Relief had microfinanced to the program that trained the girls in the ways of abstinence. T he girls take care of the pigs and then sell them and keep the profit. What I th ink is important to remember is that they were cute (the pigs, not that the girl s weren't) and that Elizabeth tried to touch a pig's head. It freaked out in fea r, invoking in Elizabeth the same reaction. After these trips, Bob sat next to me at lunch. That's significant, maybe? Not s ure. Check back later. After lunch we split into four groups and visited these community savings groups . Basically each village creates their own mini-bank. Each week they have a meet ing, pay dues into the pot, then buy between one and five shares. If more than o ne share is purchased, the whole group claps for them. We left before the next p art, but after purchasing shares, people of that group, only, are allowed to tak e out loans. The person must say what the loan is being used for--it must be use d in a way that generates more money--and present a plan for repaying the loan w ith interest. At the end of nine months, all the loans must be repaid and the vi llagers receive their share of the increased pot. Everything is very private out side the group, even giving people numbers instead of using names in case people overhear from outside the building, but within, it's completely open to avoid c orruption. The only involvment World Relief has is to buy the pots (metal boxes with lockable latches) and supply the curriculum books. The walk to and from the miniture barn where our group's meeting was held took a bout 15 minutes. The surrounding country side was among the most beautiful, I'll venture to say, there is. Washington, the Weyerhauser State, has mountains of u ntouched evergreens. Here, every square foot of hill is cultivated with rings of road and cut-backs. The varying colors are outstanding. Set in Washingotn mists , Weyerehauser might still take my vote, but putting our evergreens in Rwandan s unlight wouldn't touch this. The story of the Savings Group the three of us visited has many tellings. One wo uld include me nearly falling on my butt, catching myself on my hands just befor e contact on the way down. This preceded our interpreter coming back to hold my hand while he walked in front of me. This is not the right telling, which has mo re to do with a rooster somehow making it to the top of the wall in the building , and pushing off some metal instrument, nearly hitting Lindsay on the head. Tha t one, I think all can see, is the better one. It's about dinner time. Last night I played Nertz with Richard and Lindsay. It was back and forth betwee n her and me, with Richard trailing. The second to last game, Richard beasted pu shing both of us negative, making it a four-point spread between the three of us . I made my first big speed-through the pile and triumphed with 101 points. The whole time we were trash talking each other. It got brutal. The game ended. The scars remain. The game will return. At dinner last night, Richard had had a three hour nap and was giving Kathy, who had stayed up taking care of their baby Sahara, a hard time saying he was pumpe d and ready to be active. Kathy said she needed sleep and a few seconds later, R ichard said, "Been there, done that." What Richard hadn't heard in those few sec

onds was Kathy say, "You can go sleep with Caleb." Since then, "Been there, done that" has become a bit of a team motto. Reminds me of Jerkfest '08. Tomorrow is the "Pastoral Retreat" that Richard, Susanna and I were tasked with preparing. They're confident we've got it all planned out. I'm confident we can wing it if they're wrong. Three of our four Savings Group groups had good experiences. Our group was very deliberate about the order of things, about keeping order. There are rules about talking that induce small fines to the pot. Every week, the whole group remembe rs the total in the pot, both, I think so they know no one is stealing, and so t hey can feel a sense of pride in what they have accomplished. Not remembering th e correct total at the beginning of each meeting induces a small fine to the pot . Being late to the meeting induces a small fine to the pot. They asked us what we thought of their process. I was seriously impressed. I doubt many people in t he US have that kind of will power to save even when it's hard. I wanted to matc h today's funds ($26) as an encouragement. I asked the translator if he thought it would be insulting, but it didn't get that far, because the two girls stopped me. We had been given strict instruction not to give money to someone in need. This was not just giving money to someone for doing nothing, though. This was me offering to help people who worked hard for it, to encourage them to keep at it . A guy named Phil, one of the two white people who work at World Relief (and un til the day we get back, the head of World Relief Rwanda), told us about how giv ing money encourages the attitude of "if we ask a white person for money, he mig ht give us some." They didn't ask. He also told us about kids who would come up when he parked and say they'd guard his car for him. He gave them money for doin g so, even though they obviously couldn't beat off people who would steal his ti res, because it encourages an attitude of working for money. All that aside, and I do think I was right, only because they clearly believed in this system and t heir own ability, and because they didn't ask for it, I think they would have de clined anyway out of a sense of pride. I go back and forth on whether I can faul t them for that. In January, Dietrich tried to give a different Savings Group mo ney, and they refused. The fourth group visited a Savings Group that did not go as well. Theirs had bee n running since March, whereas ours started this past August, and they clearly d idn't believe in its effectiveness. Kathy was out taking care of Sahara, leaving Richard and Christine in the room. The question was asked, "Are you going to fi nancially support this group?" At that point, the translator was supposed to say that that was not the point of the visit, that we were here to pray for them an d see how this curriculum was working. He did not. Richard, experienced in Afric a, danced around the question. Another question, similar in nature if more indir ect, was posed, complaining that too many loans had been taken out and now no on e could afford the dues, and also the only person who had taken out a loan was t he president of the group (sketchy and inconsistent). This time the translator i nterceded with a twelve-minute-long story of how he'd carried beans an extra fiv e miles to make 50 more, and then traded the beans for potatoes and walked anothe r three miles for a little more. Up hills both ways. Pastors here are extremely long winded. Anyway, I would not have even considered giving money to that group . It's unfortunate. Nertz was just played again. In a heroic, last stitch effort, I pulled into seco nd place after trailing the whole game, significantly, as Lindsay crossed 100. R ichard is frustrated. top 0 Comments Small Print Tuesday, September 20, 2011 I'm in Rwanda. I still haven't figured out why. So far it's been good: beautiful , easy, no problems during travel. Everyone's getting along.

One of our tanslators is a 22-year-old named Bob. He's studying computer science , so I sat by him on the bus ride to Musanze. It's more of a software engineerin g major than computer science, so that was deflating. His first language is Engl ish since that's what they teach in schools now. I always assumed the accent cam e from English being the second language, rather than it being taught by other p eople with the accent. Kinyarwanda has 17 tenses/conjugations. I think it was meant to be my native ton gue but something got gunked up in the works. With the youth learning English in school, it wouldn't surprise me if the native tongue disappears in the next cou ple decades or perhaps generations. As convenient as that would be, it's still s ad. We were told to bring nice clothing and not wear jeans. I haven't seen much evid ence that that was a necessary rule. Still, I do like my new kahkis. Built in bu g repellent and SPF 35. Only $88. It's a steal at half the price! With narcolepsy and the associated meds, breaking jet lag has been a breeze, tho ugh I had hoped to get further through The Sparrow, the book Porter recommended to me, on the plane rather than sleep the whole time. It's a decent enough story with a barely-too-slow pace, but I'm not a fan of third person omnicient, espec ially when each small section seems to be nearly third person limited... so clos e. The countryside is gorgeous. Land of a thousand hills, indeed. On the way from K agali to Musanze, I saw two or three soccer fields, but those were seriously the only flat patches of land. Whenever I think of hills, I think of Mullenix road. The hills are similar, but several dozen times more numerous. Before boarding the plane from Nairobi (which is the trashiest, despite being cl ean, airport I've seen in my scattered travels) to Kagali, a couple English girl s came over to our group to coo over our trip leaders' baby girl. Since then I'v e been entertraining the idea of moving to London for a year or two because "I l ike the accents." Obviously it would take more than that (though precious little ), but it might be a valuable experience. I keep thinking "It's been too long si nce I've had an adventure," a completely ironic thought in Rwanda. Something about mission trips makes them not an adventure to me. Maybe it's that they're thoroughly planned. Maybe it's that I feel there's no risk, a valid tho ught or not. I think it has something to do with the fact that God told me to co me here. I always hear the stories of the people in the Bible that God called to action. It's hard to argue they weren't living adventures. I wonder how they fe lt about it at the time. Maybe adventures are on the greener grass and in-hindsi ght-only. Anyway, we'll see if this idea persists past October the first. I wond er if Denna would move with me. And I'm back! It may have not looked like much to you, but between this paragrap h and the former, our group met with members from the inter-denominational commi ttee. Such a thing would be fantastic in the states. ?That was a joke. Ha ha. Fa t chance.? Sad times. A bunch of other stuff has happened since June. Go figure, right? I had my third (of three) poor annual reviews. I still have my job, at least until January, mu ch like last year. Having my new boss, I think, will increase my odds of improve ment. Also, we've all moved into a team room, rather than individual offices. Be sides making me less likely to visit facebook, it's significantly decreased my b locked time. On the other hand, I get a little more distracted by conversations on the other side of the room. Enter headphones. Overall, it's an improvement. All my life I've procrastinated until a few nights before something was due and

then did it in a fraction of the given time. In sports, soccer and racquetball c ome to mind, I've always been terrible, and then once in a somewhat-rare while, I'll do something perfectly that looks almost expert. I only blog when I sense I 'm in the creative writing mood, and my writing will be good. I've thrown out do zens of stupid blog posts. I wonder if I'm actually just an average guy with spa rks of brilliance that have kept me near the top. A few weeks ago, I got really bored on Tuesday night and retook the eHarmony tes t of humanity. This time I passed and so am now quantifiable. Either they've rel axed their partitioning algorithm, or I've changed enough in the last year as to be considered datable material. I was curious to see my answers from last time (on a different email address) and emailed customer support. They said I could l ook at/change my answers by clicking a link that the old account couldn't see, a nd then scolded me for making a new account to alter my first answers, saying I needed to be true to myself or the system would fail. ... I didn't reply to that email. Within moments of starting my profile, a girl sent me an icebreaker. I thought m aybe it was the same scheme I suspect Match used in order to get me to buy a sub scription. I bit. Turns out she had actually sent it. We went on what I felt was a very successful, fun first date. She went to church with me the following eve ning. Everything seemed great, and then she just sort of stopped talking to me. Still haven't figured out why. Kinda bites. It doesn't matter though; I'm moving to London because I like their accents. The moon here splits horizontally. While we waited for our bus to pick us up fro m the Kagali airport, I drew diagrams until I figured out why. Looking at them, though, I think the moon must wax upward, like filling a tub, and then wane down ward like draining it. Unless I've seriously never paid attention, the moon in W ashington waxes right to left, and then wanes right to left. I've yet to reconci le these. In the last week, I keep thinking I'm starting to understand why God wants me he re and what he wants to teach me, but then when I try, I still can't put it to w ords, and it slips away. I have noticed that I'm at the 3pi/2 of the sin curve o f the closeness I have with God. I don't much pray, or rely on him, not that I'v e ever really understood how or what that means. But I'm almost blatantly denyin g him access to my life. I pick and choose what use he is to me, a utility rathe r than a king. Today I tried a new food I knew I wouldn't like. I thought, "What 's the worst that could happen? I don't eat the rest, and I get rid of the taste with Fanta." How much more should I give God my life and decisions with that at titude when I know he is for me? I guess he did get me here. So that's something . With my means, it's really not much. My mom would freak if I moved in with Denna, much more in London. Three days before I left, well, first at one of our meetings it was suggested th at we bring day packs that wouldn't draw attention, so we could carry money with out a high threat of mugging. We all brought $100 cash, which is a month's wages here. Those Nike drawstring backpacks you see everwhere were suggested, rather than full blown backpacks, but we should aim to not all have the same Nike one. I was almost certain I'd seen a microsoft one, but the company store didn't have them. They must have been swag at some conference. So, I looked online at a few designs. I didn't really like any of them, but there were ads everywhere for de signing and printing your own. Obviously shipping would take too long, so I look ed up a couple stores in the Redmond area. The two I visited three days before t he trip didn't have the bags in stock, so rush delivery was like $15. The bag it self was about $2.50. Printing was about $15. $32.50 bought me a Protoss Akilae Tribe cinchbag. No regrets. I was hoping I'd get stopped by a knowing stranger i n Sea-Tac. There's still time.

Being in a new, beautiful country makes me want to be alone and observe the coun tryside, or to play my violin (which I contemplated bringing, but ultimately did not). Or blogging in my notebook (now transposed to the blogosphere). But being alone in some capacity. Not much of a mission trip attitude to take. I'm so bad at talking to new people unless they share the exact same awesomeness I have. Dark clouds are rolling in (not a metaphor). My favorite color is the blue-graypurple of the eastern sky at sunset. People always look the wrong way at sunset, even if there is more activity in the west. The east is more serene. Done for today. Subject to change without notice. top 0 Comments Handholding Sunday, June 19, 2011 I should be spending this time addressing support letters, but I just care about you all so much. "Support letters?" you ask. Yes, after quite a lot of nagging, and someone dropp ing off the Africa trip, I am on the mission trip team to Rwanda this September. It appears I've not even mentioned this in my blog before, so I suppose this be gs some explanation. Sometime last September, Dietrich briefly mentioned Uganda in his sermon and that the church was planning to head there soon. As with my tr ip to Detroit, I inexplicably had the thought, "I want to go to Uganda." I have to admit, I couldn't have even pointed to Uganda on a map. I spoke to him after the sermon about the trip. He said that there was a small trip, two or three peo ple, going in January, sort of a reconnaissance trip, and there'd be a bigger on e in June. I talked to Elizabeth, our pastor of missions, telling her that I hav e no real idea why I want to go other than I felt like God was calling me to. Come January, the small trip happened without me on it (no surprise). A communit y group began that would plan the trip. I'd just finished leading a study group, so this trimester I wanted to do something else, either activity or service. I did notice the trip's entry in the catalog, but it did not say anything about jo ining the trip, only planning it and learning more about Africa. I suppose I pro bably should have joined it anyway, but I didn't. I instead joined an Eastside C ommunity Service group, which was also focused on starting an eastside Bethany c ampus, which really has nothing to do with this paragraph. As it turns out, in o rder to go on the trip you were supposed to join the group. Shocker, right? My f oreshadowing skills are unparalleled. Two weeks into the community group season, I happened to talk to Elizabeth and found out that I was not on the shortlist, but if someone dropped out, perhaps I could join the trip. Maybe this is bad to admit, but at the time, I didn't want to be part of the gro up. I hate planning things, and I get stressed if things I've planned don't happ en. Mission trips are notorious for going differently than planned, and I'm not sure having me during the planning phase would have been beneficial. Anyway, I a m glad I was part of the Eastside Community Service group, and I'm not sure I ha d time to do two groups. Ok, that's bunk. I'm not sure I wanted to use more of m y free time to do a second group. So, to cut the remaining story short (read 'ou t'), someone dropped out of the trip, and I took their spot among the twelve. We've met three times as a group now, since I've joined. The people are splendid , seriously some of the nicest people I've ever met. One of them is Mark's siste r. She's so proud of her brother; it's really sweet. The eldest guy has been on the Bethany missions board since before I was born. He's friends with my counsel or, so small world I guess. The woman who's done most of the planning is amazing . I've not been on a more organized trip, and the first two I went on were plann ed by people who do this every year. Anyhow, I'm actually fairly excited to go, and I don't get excited about things. I think it may have to do with the people

on the trip rather than the going itself. I'm also interested and slightly anxio us about why God wanted me to go; and I do trust that he wants me to go, even if the trip is to Rwanda rather than Uganda. If you're interested, the support let ter I should be sending out, rather than writing this post, is here. Work is going. We've more finely tuned my narcolepsy meds, so I've been getting more done at work, especially since the meds are more often used for ADHD. I've been slightly more focused. At the moment, I'm working for a partner team that's a man down. I hope to finish that work by Wednesday, realistically, but it's ta ken a lot longer than I'd hoped. On the other hand, I've been told by other peop le on that team that of the three portions of this feature, I'm the furthest ahe ad. I just hope that message is relayed to my boss. A few months back, Microsoft did a massive overhaul of how it will measure perfo rmance. Previously we were measured on a two-axis scale, and now it's been conde nsed to one. They've replaced stock rewards with greater cash rewards, and the t op 93% of employees will receive at least a 5% raise, as well as a larger annual bonus. The tech market as a whole is growing its salaries, and Microsoft wants to keep its employees. My boss, while delivering this news, said that everyone i n the room (my team) was going to get at least some raise, and these raises begi n in September. Annual reviews happen in August, so it would follow that, at lea st at that point, my dismissal was not in the works, and that means promotion. I am enjoying work a bit more lately. There are a few reasons for that. One, I'm no longer the owner of the project I'd been working on for two years. I still h elp out a little bit, but all the bugs are being assigned to Chell. Two, my team just came out of a transitory phase, where we were trying to figure out what wa s next. We've always had a pretty clear goal in mind, but now we have good ideas on how to achieve it. Third, we have a new PM intern that I'll be working with as soon as I finish with the other team. Dory's pretty awesome. And though that previous sentence makes this sentiment self-serving, it seems like she's nearly a female version of me. She calls me her dev. Evidently it's been way too long since I've posted. I haven't yet mentioned Port al 2 and that was like eight years ago. I loved it. I beat it in about 8 hours, went back and beat Portal 1 in one hour, then beat Portal 2 again. It's that goo d. Porter and I have had lunch a few times, per usual, and one time we ended up talking about Portal, which he has never played. He thinks it's a dumb game beca use he's walked through doors before. Swood made the point on facebook that that 's like saying he doesn't need to play Tetris because he's moved boxes before, a statement Porter later agreed with, saying that's about how he feels about Tetr is. I could go on, but I'll just say, with regards to the game, that Cave Johnso n is my hero. Things are being patched up with my dad a bit. A few Saturdays ago I went surfin g with him. Dietrich had given an object lesson where he contrasted surfing with rock climbing. When climbing, you can stop at any point along the way and figur e out where to go next, call someone on the cell phone, have coffee. When surfin g, when it's time to go, you have to go or you miss the wave. He then compared t his to when God calls you to do something. When he says go, it's time to go. Any way, before conveying this image, he asked for a show of hands of people who sur fed, and though it'd been at least seven years, I found my hand raised. I think I was the only one that service, so he called me out by name, and sounded surpri sed even. It brought back a nostalgic feeling, so I facebooked my dad, and set u p a surf date. The trip there was mostly good conversation. I noticed a side of him I hadn't before, a function of an influential moment he had as a kid. At ano ther moment, I'd been telling him about my StarCraft and Prayer community group coming up (I'm leading it). I asked him if he had any idea what StarCraft was an d he thought he'd seen a commercial for it and asked worriedly, "Doesn't it have something to do with warlocks?" I realized quickly he was thinking of World of

Warcraft, a distinction that set his mind at ease, so I didn't mention that I al so have played that game. I still find it funny that StarCraft doesn't bother hi m and WarCraft does, simply because StarCraft uses "energy" and WarCraft uses "m agic." Anyway, today was Fathers Day, this Wednesday is his birthday, and this c oming weekend will be the first of either of those I'll have celebrated with him in four or five years. I was sore after surfing for a few days, especially my left arm. The Wednesday a fter surfing I had my Rwanda trip shots in the same arm, so I'm sure that didn't help. I still have to find out whether I had Hep A or B shots when I was a kid. I think I at least had Hep A. But for the next 10 years I'm immune to Yellow Fe ver, Typhoid, Tetanus, and Polio. So in your face, bio-terrorists who happen to try to get me sick with any of those four! Luke just got married yesterday. I don't think I've ever been so excited for som eone. However, when he gets back from his honeymoon, I fear I must inform him th at I checked facebook right after I got back from the reception, and at that poi nt, his wife hadn't changed her last name. I'm worrying that something fishy's g oing on, since it's not official yet. Swood just bought a house. I'll only be able to complain about his slow elevator one more week. I'm looking forward to seeing his new place. Alexander also boug ht a new place. All my friends are either getting married or buying houses. And for the first time, a couple weeks ago I met a Microsoft employee (albeit an int ern) who was younger than me! I might as well start making arrangements for my c offin to be sized, or maybe I should be cremated. I haven't decided. My battery's dangerously low at 33% and it's five til midnight. That's my cue to end this post (aka, I don't have a lot of material left until I figure a couple things out; I might have a follow-up post in a week or two). top 1 Comments Yanjaa! said... At July 2, 2011 4:12 AM Oh my lord that is a lot of text. A LOT! I think it could feed a whole hungarian family. Sucker Punch, Knights of the Old Republic, and Dragon Age Saturday, March 26, 2011 If you've not seen Sucker Punch, stop reading this right now. Watch the movie, a nd then come back. I watched Sucker Punch with Swood last night. The movie itself was very good. It was shot well, very imaginative, interesting, and hard. There weren't a lot of lines in it. The main character talked only a couple times. The same could be sa id of Wall-E, and I only know one person who didn't like that movie. I've heard that they had to cut a bunch of the movie in order to keep it PG-13. It looks like they'll release a director's cut but according to this article, it won't quite have the scenes I'm hoping they'll have. It didn't need more action ; it needed more gut wrenching or perhaps more explanation. I should clarify; Su cker Punch was plenty gut wrenching, but if there are 18 minutes more, I expect that some of that should also be gut wrenching. I know the point was to let your imagination do the work to convert the actions in the brothel to actions in the asylum, so maybe more explanation would ruin it . But maybe it wouldn't. I want to know how the other two girls (Amber and Blond ie) died. I can't imagine the orderly would shoot them. Also, how did Blue "own" Dr. Gorski (the dance instructor) in the asylum? The opposite was true when Swe at Pea escaped. In the asylum, Baby Doll had to distract the guards. In the brot hel, she was distracting patrons. Why would they keep her from escaping? I would expect in order to live with themselves, they would have to convince themselves

that these women chose this lifestyle and were free to leave. Why would they st op her? I'll definitely see the movie again, but probably not until it comes out on BluRay. I want to figure out who told the story, who the narrator was. At the begin ning, I assumed it was either a grown up Baby Doll, or just an arbitrary narrato r. At the end, I started to think it was Sweat Pea, since she's the only one who saw the Wise Man/bus driver or the soldier boy who ended up in the bus line in front of her. It wouldn't explain how she knew anything about Blue being arreste d, but the narrator in 300 didn't know anything about the story after he was sen t back either. Sometimes you can't over think things, and this is one of those. On a last note, I'm surprised that they showed Baby Doll's face at the end. Swoo d said she gave a meaningful blink, perhaps implying that she was more herself t han she should have been, but I didn't notice that somehow. Also, that implicati on would take away from the movie being a tragedy a little, like the opposite of Magneto still having a little of his powers left at the end of X3. Only three times in my life have I felt the urge to kill someone. In none of the se cases did I know the person, nor was I near them. The first time was watching Call+Response with a couple women from the church I was attending. The second w as hearing stories before my trip to Costa Rica last year, about children who ha d been sexually abused by their fathers or foster fathers or uncles or anyone, r eally. The third was last night. The first scene brought forth such a visceral reaction in me, I needed to see th e stepfather dead. I began to hope this movie would go V for Vendetta style and somehow, she would kill everyone who deserved it. I began to add people to the l ist, though in the end, it turned out to only be three: the stepfather, Blue, an d the cook. Dr. Gorski was added and then removed. Of course, that's not what ha ppened. In Knights of the Old Republic you have a good/evil, light side/dark side (being a Star Wars game) meter. Various actions throughout the game make you a better or more evil character, and your decisions somewhat affect the rest of the story line. This implicitly gives you a goal of doing the right thing every time or th e wrong thing to push your character in one direction or another, and based on t hat meter, the storyline changes and you either take over the galaxy or save it. Taking a middle of the road approach has no benefits. This goal to be fully lig ht side or fully dark side made decisions easy. If someone deserves death but th ere's an option to let them live and be arrested, you've got your light side cho ice. If someone stands in your way, but you are strong enough in the force to Je di mind trick them into jumping off a cliff, you've got your dark side choice. ( Admittedly, I choose that one every time, even though I go light side. It's way too hilarious, and they had just beaten up a homeless person.) Mass Effect is similar, except in both cases you're trying to save the galaxy. T hings just change based on your approach. Either you're a peacemaker, a Paragon and only kill when necessary and after every peaceful solution has been exhauste d, or you're a Renegade who threatens and sometimes tortures people to get resul ts. Some actions require a certain amount of Paragon points or a certain amount of Renegade points. What's interesting in Mass Effect is that they're not mutual ly exclusive. If the game were long enough, and therefore you had enough opportu nities to gain enough morality points, you could be full Paragon and full Renega de, giving you the power to do anything to achieve your goals. In Knights of the Old Republic, dark side points are negative light side points. In Dragon Age, there is no meter. You have literally hundreds of decisions to ma ke, you make them, and they affect the storyline, not your character. You can sp are someone's life, and they might go kill someone important. You might spare so

meone's life, and they might turn their life around and help you later on. Your character is no more evil or good than the person behind the keyboard. Your comp anions care about your decisions and will either become your friends or your riv als, but those characters are also neither completely good nor completely evil, and so are also bad indications of whether you made good choices. What is a good choice in that game? You can make choices based on your own sense of justice, or if you've played through already (or have a walkthrough), you ca n make choices based on what you know will happen. You can make choices on what you know will make your party members like or dislike you. Your choices are just your choices. I know that I immerse myself in games like this a whole lot more than other peop le. I cannot make myself play Knights of the old Republic as a dark side charact er. I actually feel guilty any time I see that red icon indicating a gain of dar k side points, even when I try to do what is right. In Dragon Age, you have to l ive with the ambiguity of not knowing whether you made the "right" choice, and t hen with the consequences of your actions. Life has no meter. You can choose to make the best actions in your eyes, actions that preserve, or you can make destructive, and often fun, choices. You can mak e choices to expand your horizons, choices that don't preserve the status quo, a nd also don't break your moral code, or you can choose to sit back and do what y ou've always done for fear of looking the fool. Denna and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon last December. The website said that we had to have a wide-rimmed hat for the mule rides to keep the sun out of our eyes. It snowed, however, and there was no sun. Our snow jackets were sufficient , but Denna and I donned our cowboy hats nonetheless. We looked like total fools , dorky tourist parents, but I smile every time I look at that hat in my rear vi ew mirror. I don't dance. Sometimes I wish I danced, because people always try to get me to , but I have such a fear of looking like a complete idiot that I don't. I know t hat if I did, and I likely would, I would develop a terrible tic. I often lean toward not dancing than toward wearing ridiculous cowboy hats. Pres ervation isn't always good. Life has no meter. Sometimes you know you've made an evil decision, and you feel guilty. Often your decisions are just ambiguous. More often than I'd care to ad mit, I make a decision that should be ambiguous, and feel righteous about it. Last night I prayed on the way back from Swood's. God, how can you abide the ste pfather? He does not deserve the air he breathes. I wanted him to die. At first I was upset with myself for wanting revenge, but then I realized he hadn't actua lly done anything yet. He obviously had the intent, but vengeance would be getti ng back at him. So what is that feeling? Righteous fury? Were I in that scene, a nd had I pulled the trigger, would I have gained light side points or dark side points? She did have a third option. She could have fired a warning shot at the ground, then told him at gun point to walk with her to the phone, then dialed 91 1. He would have been arrested, her sister would have lived. He probably would h ave gotten off, as intent is not enough to convict someone, and restraining orde rs are only paper walls. Would I have pulled the trigger? If my sister were in d anger.... I'm sure I could easily plea self defense, but what about the meter? There's a freedom in having no meter. You don't have instant feedback about guil t. Life is certainly harder without one, but also a lot better. "Perfect victory ."

God, how can you abide the stepfather? He does not deserve the air he breathes. Let's be clear. God hates death. He hates rape. He hates evil. But did I not kil l Jesus? For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Did I not do to him what slavers do? A man does not simply become a slaver. He's twisted by n eed into a monster. In the end, he might not even see himself as a monster. And yet God loves me. Justice begs mercy. At the INN several years ago, they were doing a sermon serie s that tackled seemingly contradictory virtues. At the end of each sermon, they nailed a piece of paper to the door, Martin Luther style. (wikipedia says that n ailing probably never actually happened.) "Justice begs mercy" is the only thing I remember from that series, but it has stuck with me. Castrating a rapist, whi le poetically just, isn't actual justice. An eye for an eye doesn't help the per son who went blind first. We long to make things right, but a loss of purity can not be regained without God. God makes things new. We attempt to balance the los s by inflicting the same loss on the perpetrator. The only way to have justice i s to admit that we can't achieve it, and what's left is resentment or mercy. Tho se are our options. Resentment only hurts the resenter. Mercy is not the same as pretending it never happened. It's not the same as reconciliation. If someone r aped my sister, or killed my mom, or crippled my friend, or me for that matter, perhaps he belongs behind bars to prevent him from further damage, but when he g ot out of prison, has he really "paid his debt to society"? Will I feel like thi ngs are ok between us now? Of course not. I might have mercy on him in order to move on in my life, but without a miracle, I would never be reconciled to him. I would not become friends with him. God does not always call us to reconciliatio n. He does call us to mercy and forgiveness. Life without the meter is better than life with it. We would be slaves to the me ter. It would be easier, perhaps, to do what is right, but far harder to do what is Right. In Knights of the Old Republic, you are pulled along by your decision s. In Dragon Age, you are forced into the freedom to make your own decisions, yo ur own path. In life, we have a God that knows that's how it is. That's how he d esigned it. Best of all he loves you and wants you to make the decisions that ar e best for you and best for everyone else. Those decisions are his path for you, crafted not for mass distribution via Steam, but for you individually. He wants to help you make those decisions, and knows full well we probably won't. But there is perfect victory. In the end, the earth will be perfected, made new. In the end, we will be perfected, made new. As in Sucker Punch, perfect victory requires deep sacrifice. That sacrifice is God's own son. Baby Doll made that s acrifice and Sweat Pea survived and lived on her behalf. It was a good ending, d ebatably, but it was not perfect. In life, Jesus made that sacrifice and we surv ived. Jesus rose again. He defeated death. He gave a meaningful blink. This was no tragedy. top 0 Comments Celebration Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Much good has happened since that last whiny post. God stepped up, not that I be lieve he hadn't been stepping up the whole time, but something happened this tim e. It's probably a combination of my own faith and/or mood, God's timing, and th e faith of several others. I feel much better about life and my relationship wit h God. That was about two or three weeks ago. Now it is now, and now is Fat Tuesday. I' d not heard of Fat Tuesday until a couple years ago, possibly right after I date d Denna. I also hadn't been aware of Lent or Ash Wednesday until my first year o f college. For some reason the churches I grew up in didn't observe it. And not until today did I put it together that Fat Tuesday was a pre-Lent celebration. I'm sure a lot of Christians now see the celebration as a "gotta get all my sinn

ing out today before we go a'fasting tomorrow." Maybe that's how it is, especial ly down in Louisiana. I wouldn't know. I wonder how it started. Sure, there's wikipedia, but I'm at Arby's right now wi thout internet connection. Sure, there's my cell phone, but my battery is almost dead. Any other bright ideas? Punks, ugh. My point is, what if it really was a pre-Lent celebration? What if that's all it was? What if it wasn't meant to be lewd? Drinking's no sin in moderation. If I' ve gathered correctly, the original Lenters fasted from food for the 40 days lea ding to Easter, like Jesus did in the desert. Before such an undertaking, you'd want to eat up, and honestly, you'd probably want to beer up, to take some of th e sting of fear of the ordeal out of you, if only for a day. I lied, that's not really my point. My point is, the church doesn't celebrate an ymore. In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, God set up like seven celebrations througho ut the year. They were in observance of him and his provision (God has a bit of an ego), but they were celebrations nonetheless. The church, as I see it now, ha s three celebrations: Christmas, Easter, and the Super Bowl. Christmas and Easte r have a ton of tradition and pomp and circumstance. If you don't do them right, you're in sin. There's no freedom, which is especially ironic for Easter. Chris tmas has traditions that are frowned upon by the church. They "distract from the true meaning" of Christmas. Church will be there for you in many ways. To mourn with you in sad times. To su pport you in lean times. To pray for you in hard times. When do they party with you? I just feel like celebration is a very important part of life, especially the Ch ristian life, and I don't know how to do it. top 3 Comments Anonymous said... At August 12, 2011 12:32 PM Why on earth do you people do this stuff? Is this just a place to dump outthe wo rds you did not get to say today? Do you not have any one that ever talks to you ? What the hell is a wall of text? Is like a wall you wail at like the they have in Jlem? I see people post their whole days events in here mabey their whole li fe if you read them. Ha Jordan said... At August 12, 2011 1:06 PM I'm not really sure who you mean by "you people". I like to write, and I tend to not be able to write briefly. A wall of text is t ypically a webpage or post that has nothing but a ton of words on it. Most of th e time, it has little punctuation and is difficult to follow from one phrase to the next, but I hope that's not the case with mine. Some people, mostly my friends, enjoy reading my posts. Really, I write for myse lf, however. It relaxes me, and months later, I enjoy reading what I was going t hrough "back then." Often, it gives me a sense of growth. Anonymous said... At August 13, 2011 7:16 PM Hey Jordon, I think I hear you loud and clear no stop or start to sentance struc ture, oh I do see what you mean looks like my hebrew class...lol but im sure you have some fun with it. I found it doing some surfing and I did want to take a l ook. For the most part it looks a little like facebook with all the so called "c ould be" personal data about ones travel through their day or through their life . I thought about the fact that this is a wall and thought of leaving a prayer n ote here in the wall, but my dang interface program will not print in hebrew her e. So my visit here has been unique and I am sure the posters are also unique in their own sorta way. ;- ? Dead Wednesday, February 9, 2011

This morning, at 8:20, I woke up with a migraine. Marvel had a 9:00 meeting, and we would have been fine, but it was past the point where he could take the bus, and I wasn't about to drive him to work when opening my eyes caused pain. I'm n ot sure if he made it there (ie, drove himself -- he doesn't have a parking pass yet, since I always drive). I sent an email to my team saying I was out sick wi th the migraine, but suspected it would die down if I slept some more. It didn't until 4:45, and even now (9:40), it's not all the way gone. I ate "breakfast" a t 5:30, and drove into work to see if I couldn't at least get a little done. Ver y little has. Yesterday, after my weekly counseling appointment, I had a bit of a panic episod e. I don't know if I've had a panic attack before, but if I have, this was one o f them. Rather than going to my community group and my weekly meeting with Luke, I left work a little early and went home to sleep. I have no idea how well I ac tually slept, because I had a dream within a dream. The outer dream was about ha ving fitful sleep. There was also some reality TV recording going on at a family friend's house. And some sort of hover board/possibly being accused of murder. Goose broke up with me a couple weeks ago. In fact, it's been about the same num ber of days since she broke up with me, as our relationship lasted. (I didn't ac tually do the math.) I think (I would hope) that I'm over the worst of it. The w orst part is that I lost a girl who would have been an awesome friend. She and I both agree we would make great friends, so when she was performing the break up , it was sad that things weren't working out, but at least we could hang out som etimes, and the loss wasn't as great. I pretty much fall for that every time. So me of my exes and I are on great terms now, but I don't see them regularly, and in all but one case, that was after a lot of time apart. Denna's the exception b ecause we broke up on good terms, and because she lives in Texas, so it's not li ke I was losing any time that we'd normally spend in close proximity. But, even had Goose and I been emotionally able to spend time together as friends, she sta rted dating a guy within a few days. That added a whole new layer of awkward, an d was also a fist to the stomach of my pride and esteem. Even with all of those things against us, she's in college and I'm out in the real world. She hangs out with people who are around her in classes, in dining halls, in clubs. I have to schedule meeting times with people, because that's what you have to do in the a dult world if you want to see someone. Scheduling time to see someone a 30 minut e drive away feels awfully similar to a date, when you don't have friends in com mon. Anyway, it's been hard. A few times I thought I was done, and then it got w orse than it had been up to then. I took a sleep test back in early December. I got the results the day I was supp osed to leave to Arizona. I have symptoms consistent with mild to moderate narco lepsy. The pills they put me on seem to have very little effect. Maybe I've been more awake, but I don't feel like I've slept any better, any deeper, and it's s till as hard as ever to drag myself out of bed. What I have noticed, is panic at tacks or whatever it was I had yesterday. I've had three (two while still dating Goose). I've also been more consistently depressed. Since I've been on my mood stabilizers, I've very rarely been depressed, and never woken up depressed, much less three days in a row. I should probably switch meds. I'm not sure which meds, nor how to coordinate my doctors, but this is clearly wrong. I'd rather be as tired as before (which, as I said, seems to be as tired as I am now) and not wish I weren't living, than a wake and terrified of nothing in particular and hating every aspect of life and the fact that I'm stuck living. Work's been interesting, ish. I got put on a bug in our actual service, rather t han on the web side of things. One night in particular on this bug was really fu n, the most fun I've had in like 6 months working here. That bug, which I though t I'd finish in a couple days, took a couple weeks. It took so long that finally

checking it in felt good and not good at the same time. We had some really dirt y soccer games, and even if we won, I still felt like we lost. I've told my dev manager and my new dev lead-to-be that I don't want to keep working on the proje ct I've had for the last two years. Hopefully I'll get moved soon. Mid-year revi ews are soon, probably next week. I'm a little anxious about those. My sister wanted a new phone for Christmas, and I got her one. We went to the AT &T store a couple weeks ago, and she got an iPhone4, but they were out of stock, so they shipped her one. Apparently, the delivery guy didn't get a signature, a nd the phone was stolen, so we had to go back to the AT&T store and wait a while until they got their information in order. Ashley even called ahead of time and the person she talked to said everything was in order; all she had to do was sh ow up with me (since it was on my account). It still took them the better part o f an hour to figure everything out. Afterward, since I was there anyway, I asked if they could take a look at my phone and why it wasn't charging properly. They said I had to go to the service shop a few blocks away. I talked to the guy the re for about 20 minutes, and in the end, he said that he'd have them ship me a n ew phone, battery, and charger, since they couldn't diagnose which was at fault. I'd get those in the mail, and then I'd ship back my current phone, battery, an d charger at no cost. Sweet deal. Only, I got the package yesterday, and all tha t was in it was a phone. I hate customer service. On the other hand, in order to pay for my trip to Arizona, I sold a bunch of sto ck. I actually sold it twice, once before the trip, and then, having forgotten a bout it, again after the trip. I had the money deposited into my bank, but somet hing went wrong, and they sent me a check. I never saw the check, but then, I do n't keep a close eye on my mail. I called Fidelity up, explained the situation, and within minutes, everything was right. It was the best costumer service I've experienced. Church is going. Luke feels about the same as I do about our bible study now. It needs a reorg of sorts. Instead of having 20-40 guys in a room and splitting in to randomly selected groups, we should have a bunch of small groups of people yo u actually get along with and really get to know them. Since that's on the radar , I think I'll keep going with it as-is, at least until I feel beat up enough to leave, as I've been feeling in the past. I have a lot of complaints, but not a lot of constructive feedback or ideas on how to make things better. I'd like to change that. I can't believe it's already the end of Wednesday. Monday I checked in my two-we ek bug fix. Yesterday I tried to get my coworker's project up and running and fa iled. Today I was in bed fighting a migraine. When I came in, I successfully fig ured out what was wrong with getting the project up and running (stupid hosts fi le), so at least there's that, but now I've got to make a bunch of changes the g uy didn't have time for before he left on vacation. Who knows how long that will take. It's basically running down every possible code path and looking for plac es things could fail in order to make good error messages. I don't think the cod e paths are all that deep or broad, but I'm also not sure. Things apparently tak e me seven times as long as I originally think, and I don't have that much time this time. Tomorrow, I'm having my weekly Friday time with Swood (on Thursday), and on Friday evening, I'm leaving for the PCEC annual retreat. I'm not really sure what I'm hoping for out of it. Last year I met Porter, so th at was a huge blessing. There's a large chunk of time on Saturday for doing what ever you want, and it's a 45 minute drive to Crystal Mountain. I don't know if I 'll bring my snowboard. I probably should. I hate "should." I hate feeling guilt y about doing whatever in my free time. I haven't been up to the mountain this y ear, and it would be fun. I'm not sure if I can fit my board in my car since I'm driving people with me. I could probably go with a coworker some weekend, if I pass this opportunity up. Ugh. Why is everything so complicated and guilt-ridden

in ost ing him

my mind? The speaker this year is a pastor more "spiritually attuned" than m people at our church. People at Bethany aren't usually very comfortable talk about spiritual gifts or demons or spiritual oppression. This guy is. I met once, but it was kind of awkward between us.

I feel so dead right now. Life is monotonous and sickening. My main purpose in l ife seems to be not dying, because it would hurt people. And not trying to think about it. To some degree, wanting to die is a way of cursing God. At what point does being honest with God become blasphemy? A few weeks back, the sermon was on intimacy with God and being honest in prayer. As a gesture of honesty, I purposely left m y bible under the pew. It wouldn't really affect my ability to read, since I nor mally just read online, but it was a gesture, a symbol. I have two souls, it seems. One that wants Good. One that can recognize love, at least to some degree. One that can feel affection from the simple act of playin g cards with my mom, or a hug, or a kind tone. And one that is dead. One that ca n see acts of kindness and feel nothing. One that is scared of love. One that ha tes life, and having to live it. Trying to reconcile the twos' thoughts in order to speak them hurts and leaves me confused. It's pushing together two contradic tory feelings and thoughts. The first knows that my mom loves me and can feel th at as it happens. The second knows that my mom loves me but only because it's th e truth. Where they agree is the matter of God's love. Both know that he loves m e because it's the truth, but neither can recognize it. An acquaintance of mine FB posted the two words "Psalm 77" the other day. The so ng talks about parting the Red Sea, and how that comforted him, but what I find interesting is that he never saw that. This song was written generations after t hat event. I also liked verse 19. "Your path led through the sea, your way throu gh the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen." By "liked" I mean " found frustrating." I don't know; I'm such a mess right now. I just want to feel life. Actual life. The life I'm living. Is that really too much to ask? I know that I am loved. Can 't I know that I am loved? Can't I see it? Feel it? Taste it? I'm blessed with a great job, my dream job. I have plenty of friends. There are so many interestin g things out there. Why am I bored? Why do I hate life? Why am I sick? Why do I always lack energy? Why am I always hungry, even when I can't eat anymore? Why c an't I make myself move? Why am I discontent? Why am I not fulfilled? Why don't I see what people who want to live see? Why is everything empty? top 3 Comments Hannah said... At I stumbled on this it was a long time om them asking for February 14, 2011 9:17 PM blog while researching the ISCFP Program at Boeing... I know ago, but do you remember when you received a response back fr an in-person interview? If not, that's okay.

And, as for feeling dead, there was a great sermon that I heard at a church retr eat dealing with feeling empty. Read Ecclesiastes - maybe you'll find your answe r there. :) PS: I would like to get in contact with you (other than blogspot). What's the ea siest way? Jordan said... At February 14, 2011 9:45 PM Hey, I do remember getting the response, vaguely. I know it was over phone, and that the person talking wasn't very charismatic. I have a friend that was looking for information on the ISCFP a few months ago. I'll ask if it's ok to give you her

contact information. I actually had started reading Ecclesiastes the night I wrote that post I think. It's interesting that that writing is of the wisest man who ever lived (or so I 've been told). Most of it sounds like my depressed mumblings, with a little hed onism. But, your comment affirms that I should be reading that book. Send your email to my junk mail account (wacompkid@hotmail.com), then comment he re again and I'll send you an email from my real account. Hannah said... At February 15, 2011 7:12 AM Hi Jordan, I sent you an email. Thanks :)