Sorry our blogging has not been updated more on a regular basis but we have had a lot going on, that is, I would say we have been doing a plethora of items that have prevented us from contributing to the blogger world.

A couple of weeks ago we held the first of two major garage sales that the team will put on before we leave. Our hope was that by combining junk….er… I mean household items from four families we would draw a larger crowd. It is hard to measure the success of the garage sale as we still had items left over one of which is a very nice dresser and hutch that is still currently for SALE!! Please contact us using the “contact us” link at the bottom of our webpage if you are interested.

Anyway, there will be another garage sale this weekend at the Hensal’s house that will hopefully rid us of the rest of the earthly possessions that will not be moved to Vienna but can now infest someone else’s poor closet space!

I feel like I am rambling on at this point not sure if I should list all the things we’re working on, people we are meeting with, or papers we are shredding. Just please be patient and understanding with us if you say “hi” and we just stare with our bloodshot eyes into space muttering something about converting 110V to 220V. Also if we don’t immediately return any e-mails within the next five years, just send us a reminder in year six.

Here is something new for fun, here are some quips I found humorous:

Ira commented today….“You know, doing your own taxes is like ‘choosing your own adventure’. If line b is more than $400, go to page 428b if not go to line 50 complete those exercises and return to line c.”

Upon my completion of getting instruction on the church sound board “You are now board certified.”

“Chaos is the catalyst for creativity” – Jason Dobbins

Almost every rejection letter we get…“I’m sorry but we are unable to support you at this time, but you have a very impressive presentation.”

As I was checking out at Wal-Mart the first question on the module where you swipe your payment method “Did you find the store clean today?”

I hope you enjoyed those!

Well here it is, almost half way through the month and I have yet to post a blog entry. Of course I don’t worry about it too much since we have our newsletter coming out on a regular basis I don’t need to put news up there and most of the blogs I read don’t update on a regular basis either (except for maybe www.grahamkervin.net and http://seekthefather.blogspot.com

sorry Erik T, I still have you droning on and on in my head). So imagine my surprise when Curt Niccum had a blog entry.

So as not to be outdone by this Ethiopic Ancient Text Expert (EATE) I decided to pound out a blog entry. Sorry I got interrupted to make a phone call I hope you didn’t notice the pause in typing. Anyway where was I….oh yea, trying not to be outdone by someone who has more language skill and experience in ancient texts in one synaptic connection than I have in my whole hemisphere…I mean to me an ancient text is my thermodynamics book collecting dust on the top of my bookshelf. Who needs the book anyway when I drive the process everyday.

To Niccum’s credit I do count one of the downsides of my years of toil on this earth is not having the opportunity of experiencing the pain…er joy of taking one of his classes. I have heard many a tale of gnashing, grinding, biting, and wailing, of NIV text that occur in each session. These are not rumors, but horrific actual accounts from those that have escaped the piercing Greek eyes of the EATE. The survivors come marked with a label, TNIV, I believe is the inscription, but I drone on and on and on…

All seriousness aside, I always try to catch as many speaking engagements as I can to hear the EATE expound his wisdom. And I wish that I could have had the opportunity to be counted as one of his young Padawans, but alas I can not. I will, though, be forever grateful to him for tapping me on the shoulder one Sunday and asking if I might be interested in a church plant in Vienna, Austria. Thanks Curt!

I was a white, eighteen-year-old kid from the suburbs when I participated in my first missions experience during the summer of 1997. The North City Church of Christ was an urban city church plant, and I suppose there are still workers there, though I don’t know any of them. Even though a lot of time has passed, and a lot of things have happened in the last ten years, I doubt there has been a day since that summer that I’ve not thought about my experience in St. Louis.

I never got into trouble as a kid (except for a slew of speeding tickets), so it was a shock to see (yes, I saw it with my own eyes) 12 year old selling drugs. The first night I went out in St. Louis I saw a 12 year old kid arrested for selling drugs. I can still remember the clicking and clacking of the handcuffs as they were fastened around his wrists. It was like two tiny hammers tapping—I don’t know what on, but that tapping sound, that clicking and clacking has never left my mind. It doesn't seem like much when you see it on television but, man, is it different in real life! Drugs are different in the inner city than they are in the suburbs. I mean, I knew a lot of kids in high school who used drugs. Drugs were actually pretty common in Mustang, OK (where I went to high school), but I didn't see a lot of people who'd wasted their lives because of drugs. I know that it happened. I'm sure that they were plenty who didn't do much after high school because of drugs, but it's different in the city. In the city, drugs imprison people. In the suburbs, drugs are recreational, and while there are dangers and consequences, very few white suburbanites become imprisoned by the behavior. (I know there are some. I know that it happens. I'm just telling you the facts as I see them. Drugs might imprison a person here and there in the suburbs, but in the city they imprison entire cultures.) In north St. Louis, there was no escape from it. I didn't know any kid, and I'm talking 11 and 12 year olds, who hadn't used drugs.

That summer was also the first time I encountered poverty. I knew there were poor people in the world. I knew there were starving people in the world. I just never knew what it meant to be poor…I never knew what it meant to starve. Once I found out…I don’t know that I was emotionally equipped to handle it. I don’t think you ever become emotionally equipped to handle it. Poverty is 18 people living in a two bedroom home. There was a basement in that home; nine people stayed in the basement, but there was two inches of standing sewer water that couldn’t be drained (believe me, we tried to get rid of that problem but it just wouldn’t go away, I’ve never understood how we couldn’t fix that). Knowing poverty is different from know that poverty exists (I shudder to think what it’s like to experience it).

I’m sure I’ve forgotten about a lot of things. There good things happening in St. Louis. I remember that there were quite a few baptisms. In fact, the first person I ever baptized was a boy named Kevin. It was his 13th birthday. July 4th. How’s that for an Independence Day.

I went to college the following fall and majored in Bible because I wanted to bring the Gospel to the urban centers of America. I only lasted a year as a Bible major (I ended up with a degree in English), and by the time I graduated, I'd lost my fervor for urban ministry. I regret that. I wish I could have spent more time with the impoverished of this country. I wish I could have returned to St. Louis for at least a little while longer. I never forgot, though. Not entirely. That was a life-changing experience.

This summer, ten years after my first missions experience, I’ll be departing for Vienna, Austria to initiate a new work there. Maybe I enjoy irony more than I should (and you don’t what to know how much more than irony I enjoy sarcasm), but I find that fittingly appropriate (sermon-fittingly appropriate). At eighteen, I knew my time in St. Louis was just a summer. I knew I was going to spend the summer in St. Louis and then go to college. At 28, I stand on the brink of this new journey and I can’t see the end. Sometimes it feels like I’m floating down a river that ends with a waterfall. Sometimes it feels like I’m floating down a river that doesn’t end. Sometimes it feels both ways at once. It’s a strange sensation…and as I try to think of a good way to end this post, I can only repeat myself. It’s strange sensation.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of Malcom Hinckley, a man who served as an elder at Memorial Road for more than 30 years. There was a lot about Malcom I did not know (like how he and his wife spent seven weeks in the Middle East to see and study the places of the Bible), but there was a lot I did know. I knew Malcom's kindness and his love for God. I knew this, but I only had (maybe) three conversations with him in the almost 10 years I've been attending Memorial Road.

The Sunday before I started OC as a freshman, I attended Memorial Road's Sunday night service. That was the first time I spoke with Malcom. He told me his name and he asked for my name. When I told him, he seemed to daze off in thought for a moment and then he asked me, "Are you related to Tim Rusher?" That was my grandfather. To this day I don't know how he could have crossed paths with my grandfather, who does not remember meeting Malcom, but it was neat at the time. It's still neat now. Malcom was the first person I met at Memorial Road almost ten years ago. I'm not sure how or why I remember that, but I do...and I'm glad I do.