Today was a good day, but a very long one. I just got home from my second trip of the day to downtown Mexico City. I’ll write a full update later about all the great things I got to do today, but for now, I’m going to bed. I’m really tired. Good night.
It always seems like ministry comes in spurts. I mean, some weeks I have very little work to do, and other weeks I am so busy I cannot stop. That’s what the next few weeks are going to be like.
I have a lot of work to do because it’s a new quarter at the seminary. That means I have to grade all the final projects from this quarter and prepare for a class I have never taught that needs to be adapted to Mexican culture. It’s about campus ministry, which is going to take a whole new form in this culture based on the laws of the land and high school culture here.
I’m also preparing two courses for Cuba in January, which it’s looking like I’ll be teaching myself. I have not taught these other classes, either, so we’ll see how they go. Needless to say, it’s a good thing we had a little rest this past weekend.
Here are five blogs I read regularly. These happen to relate to ministry. I guarantee there will be another post about five more blogs.
Life in Student Ministry: Tim Schmoyer has great talent for writing and developing ideas for youth ministry. He posts regularly about issues in youth ministry, and it has been fun to read his blog for a while now.
Finding Direction: Jim and his family are missionaries in Mexico, too. We’ve had lots of great interaction over the internet, and one of these days, we’ll get our families together to go to the zoo. He also runs missionary-blogs.com.
Evotional: Mark Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. and is the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. He always has great thoughts and insights about ministry and life.
Blue Passport: Dr. Lewis was a professor of ours who taught us how to study a culture in preparation for living in a foreign culture as a missionary. His insights into culture and missions help me all the time as I try to understand both missions and the context in which I live.
Tony Sheng: Tony has a real passion to see students involved in missions. He is always blogging about great things that include culture, missions, and student ministry. One of these days, we’ll meet Tony in person, too.
BONUS: Nailscars is another blog I read all the time. It’s a great site run by Shane with a bunch of really good insights about life and ministry as well. Shane is very honest about what is happening in his own life and ministry, which helps his readers understand more about their own situation as well.
We had a great time today eating with some friends we met at our home church in Florida. They live in Mexico now, actually about 5 minutes from where we live. Here’s the story on how we met them.
Anyway, Janell cooked up her awesome chicken parm, and we had a good conversation with them. It was good to get together with them for a few hours. We look forward to seeing them again.
Can you believe that we are still unpacking and trying to get everything the way we’d like it in our house? Our kitchen looks great, and we’re happy to have it, but it sure caused a lot of mess in our house. It’s as if we were moving in all over again. We’ve been back for a week, and we feel like we haven’t stopped cleaning. It’s crazy! I sure hope we get it done soon.
