another birthday come and gone

Thanks to all of you who sent birthday wishes in one form or another. I am a man truly blessed to have good friends.

and in the last days there shall be...

Well, it's getting close to midnight, which means that I am in the final hours of my third decade of life on this terrestrial ball. I turn 40 years old somewhere in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow. The middle school students made me skip around the room tonight, and my son yelled out, "You're old!"

To which I responded, "You're grounded!"

It's been a great life so far. I can only imagine what the next 40 years will hold in store.

In the "weird/funny" category, TVLand ran a promo for a new show that airs in April called The Big 4-0 tonight. Kim and I were watching the promo together (with Delm), and Kim kept bursting into laughter.

40 isn't a big deal to me. I don't feel much different than I have for the past 10 or so years...It seems kind of weird announcing my own birthday.

Kim asked me what I wanted to happen tomorrow, what would make the day great. I have no idea. I think that most every day is pretty great. I love our life. God has blessed us in huge ways. I am going to spend a good chunk of tomorrow with people, but I hope to get some time to spend in silence, thinking and thanking. I want to come up with a list of dreams and goals for the next few years.

So whatever 40 means, bring it on! Happy birthday to me!

Oh yes, this is the life

talk about living the high life...

Me and the chillins caught most of American Idol tonight. I'm not so much a fan, but Kim loves it, and the kids are following her lead. Incidentally, Josh posted a few pics of Jason Castro at his church Easter Sunday. Castro's not my favorite singer, but it's interesting that he was in church Sunday.

After we put the little ones to bed, the love o my life snuggled up to me on the couch and whispered those 3 magic words: you wanna farkle? I won the first 2 games, but she came storming back to take the last 2.

The woman knows the way to my heart...

who wants a quiet time, anyway?

I'm not sure where it started, this calling time spent with God "quiet time." Living in a house with 3 kids, 3 cats, and 1 dog, I can appreciate the need for a little quiet every once in a while. But I don't think I want my time with God to be quiet. "Quiet time" smacks of idyllic, pastoral scenes, butterflies and meadows...not a bad mental image, but that's not where I get my mail, if you follow me.

I want God to speak. Audibly. Plainly. Loudly. Jesus promises that his followers will hear his voice--read John 10 for his promise. For me, louder is better. I know that God revealed himself in the still small voice to Elijah. But that same God is the one who appeared to Israel as the cloud/pillar of fire, the rolling thunderous voice, leading them through the desert into the land of promise.

My ears need to be tuned to the voice of Jesus, to be able to hear that still small voice. But I absolutely want God to roar, to speak plainly, to cut through the clutter of daily life. I spend time with God each day, listening for his voice.

He tells me to be still, and know that he is God. I want my time with the God to be many things, but quiet is not on the list. So maybe quiet time is more about me being quieted, the buzz and roar of the day tuned out. Cell phones and email and ipods and tv shut down. If God wants to speak to me, he ought to get top priority. God certainly doesn't want to be quiet or silent.

Here's to a loud, explosive, challenging, authoritative, compelling time with the Most High God.

a good Good Friday

We hit the road today to celebrate Good Friday with family in Bedford. It was a splendid day of playing with babies, laughing at all the cousins singing and playing together, and enjoying the company of family. We had good food, and spent a good amount of time talking about life, faith, church, and the future.

I am so appreciative of the faith of our parents and grandparents. My life is definitely shaped by those who have gone before me. It's been said that each new generation stands on the shoulders of the its predecessors. My prayer is that my children will look back with gratitude, remembering the faith of their parents, and live lives full of faith in Jesus Christ.

a drawbridge and Calvary's Maunday Thursday

I love this week. We celebrated Maundy Thursday tonight. Instead of a sermon, Dan intro'd a short film entitled Most. It's a re-telling of the story of a single father who takes his eight year-old son to work with him at the railroad drawbridge where he is the bridge tender. Just as an oncoming train approaches, his son falls into the drawbridge gear works, leaving the father with a horrific choice.

A couple of interesting trivialities:
The film was written by the bully from Karate Kid, Billy Zabka. Karate Kid was actually on tv today when I left the house.
It was in Czech, with subtitles in English. My six year old daughter told my wife, "I liked the movie, but it would have made more sense if I could have read all the words." Priceless.

MOST is a beautiful and haunting picture of the transformation that is possible in all of us because of the work of Jesus Christ. I have been asking God to continue this work of transformation in me.

Here's God's response, from a letter written to a church thousands of years ago:

I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Oh yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to...

hearing the voice

Tonight we started a new series for our middle school students. For the next several weeks we'll be talking about spiritual disciplines. We'll work through prayer (tonight), accountability, Bible memorization, service, generosity/tithing, and how to study the Bible. It's good, solid teaching, aimed at helping students develop and practice spiritual life.

The thing is, I'm thinking that the best method of helping students walk in spiritual life is not the transmission of information via lecture.

I am praying that these next few weeks give our leaders the opportunity to engage students in great, deep conversations about developing a relationship with God. I am convinced that when students have the chance to learn from someone they trust, someone who is following Jesus, someone who is full of the life of Christ--that's when it will begin to sink in. That's when it takes root. That's when the transformation that Jesus wants for all of us begins to happen.

What an opportunity our leaders have! They get to rub shoulders with some of the greatest students alive, to speak into the lives of eager young minds, to impart life and spirit and truth--they get to be influential.

It's not an easy path. It's not a quick fix. It's a long process. But I believe that it's the way that God works--through men and women who are fully alive to God, filled with the Spirit of God, simply following Jesus. Just as it was when Jesus started it all with his original band of followers.

I am so thankful for the men and women who have chosen to walk with us, with students. I know that they make sacrifices in terms of family, convenience, social lives, money...but every once in a while I get a vision of the men and women who have influenced my life, and it all seems to gel.

still trying to get acclimatized

When climbers make a run at a summit they have to spend time getting used to the difference in altitude. They call that process acclimatization, and it can take quite some time to get their bodies ready to operate in the new surroundings.

That's how I'm feeling now that I'm back in the good ol' USofA. It's quite a shock to the system to jump from the DR and the culture of a beautiful but vastly different world back into the affluence of the United States. There are feelings of guilt over all the things that I have, the waste that I see every day, the things that I take for granted...

I have to get my head on straight and get back into the swing of things, but I don't want to lose the conviction that I am feeling to change. I don't want to lose that...

my one year anniversary

in the Fellowship of the Nine Fingers. There are actually quite a few people throughout history who have been missing at least a part of a finger. I found this list today. Phil Keaggy is also missing the middle finger on his right hand, which he lost in an accident with a water pump on the family farm when he was a young boy.

I lost the tip of my left middle finger last year when I stupidly tried to unclog a snowblower while it was still running. In my defense, I had already cleared the snowblower of two previous clogs, with the thing shut down. I wasn't able to get through the clog with my hand on those attempts, and thought that I would only scoop out the snow in the "safe area" of the chute. I was wrong, and my hand slipped through the snow, into the moving parts of the snowblower.

I've been able to play guitar, coach high school baseball, go rock climbing, kayaking...alll the things that I did before the accident.

Kids, don't stick your fingers in the snowblower, especially when it's running.

home again, home again, jiggity jog

Levi and I are back in State College, safe and sound. We had a great week of hard work, hot sun, and hugs/holding hands with the boys at the orphanage. Our team was healthy all week, gelled quickly, and got most of the intended work projects done. There was time for lots of hanging out with the boys--and 4 girls at the recently completed girls' house across the street.

We got to attend the wedding of Oscar, the principal of the school the boys attend. Like most things in the DR, the 5:00 wedding started 2.5 hours late! But we had a great 3 hour bus ride up into the mountains...and back to the hotel. While we were waiting for the wedding to start I got into a conversation with one of the Dominicans who rode with us. He was a sharp young man who teaches English and French at a private school in San Juan de la Maguana. Here's a snippet from our conversation:
him: Where are you from in the United States?
me: Pennsylvania.
him: Are you from the same church as the other people here?
me: Yes I am.
him: Do you know Stacy Sublett?
me: I am Stacy Sublett!

Is that too weird? He was the teenager that I met 9 years ago--Juan Carlos Tejeda. Neither one of us recognized the other, but we remembered each other well. He has a picture of me on his cell phone from my visit to his house in 1999, and my name and address in his wallet. He asked about my young son and wife, remembered their names...amazing. He works with the youth in his church and leads a worship team. Pretty cool.

You can see our pictures here. There are lots of pictures to be posted on facebook. Stephanie Ohlson has a page of pics and videos here, including a goofy video of Levi wearing a mop on his head and dancing around like a chica...

Levi did really well on the trip. I am glad that we got to experience the DR together. I am asking God to continue to re-shape our hearts, to transform us. The re-immersion into USAmerican culture, values, and priorities is shocking and disturbing. I am struggling with how much stuff I have...

Thanks for praying and supporting us in this adventure. We're looking into the possibility of taking high school seniors on a trip to the DR in June, as an alternative to the typical Senior Week Beach Trip. We'll see...there are a couple of projects left on the table that we could wrap up before the rainy season hits the DR.

a blog silence will follow

Levi and I head out for the DR tomorrow. We're almost all packed up and ready for a week of hard work, 80 degrees, hanging out with some cool boys at the orphanage, and seeing a beautiful part of God's creation.

I've been working on some worship songs in Spanish. Not too good so far...

OK, see you in about a week...

another decision dilemma

One of my Christmas presents was a 30 dollar iTunes gift card. The decision looms--what should I spend my Apple bucks on?

Classic rock? Worship? New country? Bluegrass?

My musical tastes run far and wide. I listen to music all the time.

Levi had me add a few songs to his ipod:
The Devil Went Down To Georgia (not the Charlie Daniels Band)
Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns & Roses)
Welcome to the Jungle (Guns & Roses)
Paint it Black (Rolling Stones)
Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
What I've Done (Linkin Park, from the Transformers movie)

I have no idea what to buy. Man, I have issues...

baby it's cold inside, or time for a cold shower

Our furnace decided to bite the dust today. Our heat and hot water all run on the same system, so that means to we have had no hot water today--stinging cold showers for everyone, and no heat. It's supposed to drop to about 28 degrees tonight, so we're all bundled up with extra blankets on the beds. We'll be fine, and the repair guys are coming in the morning. But my nose is cold!

I was amazed at how quickly I showered today. Cold water has a decided effect on the length of time spent under the water. Yikes.

gearing up for the DR trip

I came home tonight from XStream to find a little surprise on the counter. Now, normally, a surprise on my return to the house could range anywhere from something the dog did, to something the cats did, to something the kids did. Some surprises are better than others...

Tonight, the surprise was a counter full of snacks from Delma, including a card (stuffed with Delm's traditional teddy bear confetti--why do people do that?) and 1300 Dominican pesos. For those of you who don't do exchange rates in your head, that's like 40 bucks US. Not too shabby!

Levi and I will pack our bags tomorrow in preparation for our trip to the Rose of Sharon orphanage in San Juan de la Maguna. Here are some pics and a story from last year's trip. We're going to work at the orphanage for a week, painting, fixing things, moving rocks (and tarantulas) and playing with the boys at the orphanage. I'm taking my guitar--I don't do much Spanish worship, but we'll be making some joyful noise!

It's Levi's first trip out of the country, and I am asking God to make this a memorable week, a heart-shaper. Will you pray for us, too?

a little hope for your journey

I don't know about you, but I needed this today.

But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. —the Apostle Paul to the Church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 3)

I only wish that I had started my day with this! Transformation is a promise from the Lord, and something that I am desperately longing for...

do UFOs exist?

I'm watching UFO Hunters on the History channel, and I have to admit, the stories they present are pretty believable. Eyewitness testimony from seemingly reliable people, radar trackings, sightings by pilots trained to identify and challenge enemy aircraft...they even had a former UK Ministry of Defense officer whose job entailed investigating UFO sightings. You can check out the UFO Hunters' magazine here.

I've never seen anything resembling a UFO, although there were lots of nights spent searching the skies with hopes high when I was a young teen.

I asked my brother-in-law, the USAF pilot if he's ever seen anything. Nada.

How about you? Ever seen a UFO?

stuff I don't get

How come cowboys shoot their guns into the air to celebrate stuff? I haven't witnessed this firsthand, but I've seen it on tv. Those bullets have to come down to the earth, right? Don't they wonder who's going to be on the receiving end of that stray shot?

I don't get it...

a couple of Bible surprises

I've been reading this book for most of my life. I guess I always knew that it was an important book. Around age 15 I started reading the Bible almost every day. It shouldn't surprise me, but it seems like every day there's something new to discover, something that was there all along, waiting to be unearthed, like a treasure hidden in a field (I didn't make that up...)

Sometimes it's a pleasant surprise about who God is, or who I am, or who we are. Sometimes it's Jesus dropping wisdom on the masses, mercy on the undeserving, or slamming the Pharisees for not getting the really important things.

Today it was two-fold.

First, from the book of the Exodus, God tells Moses to do the unexpected, leading Israel into a dead end, with Pharaoh's army hot on their heels. As Pharaoh approaches, the Israelites start to whine. Moses (with a little smile on his face, I imagine) tells them: "Stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today."

God them speaks to Moses: Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!

Stand still, and get moving. Watch the Lord rescue, and start moving out through the unexpected path the Lord chooses.

Second, and a little harder for me to get my head around, Jesus is talking to his disciples in Luke 17:

When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, ‘Come in and eat with me’? No, he says, ‘Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.’ And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.'

Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? That doesn't sound like "You are my friends" and other warm fuzzy stuff. I'm sure that it's true, but I don't know what to make of it. Was there something going on between Jesus and his buds? It seems like Jesus is laying down the smack, telling them that they ought to be obedient without expecting a fanfare or big celebration for their obedience.

I wonder what was going on...