TheVicarageQuest

I have been absent from this world for a while. I am preparing to leave Missouri and head to Illinois for a year on a vicarage assignment. I am hoping through the nest year I will be more faithful in corresponding what is transpiring in Staunton through this medium.

Monday, April 24, 2006

let me tell you how much I love Badminton

I am going to have to get a few more pictures of action, or groups playing this game sport. I wish I could stream some sort of live video of a competition through this blog site, but I do not have the savy to do such a thing.
Badminton has become a great hobby to take up during my time here. I have dropped weight due to the cardio work a more competitive game employs, and my new diet. The movement level is perfect for someone with thrice reconstructed knees. It is also a sprot that I think I can play for the remainder of my physically sporting life at least if I can find a person to play with. If you check out some of the links on this site you will be able to read up about the basic construst of the game, and any places you could find to take in some competitions.
I hope that when I am back in the states I can find a palce to get a game two or three times a week.

Peace,

almost done.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Just a little something to pass the time.



What do you do with those few mintues that are sandwiched between one thing and another? But the time is so shart that you cannot do anythign significant like, run an errand or go to the store. There are a few minutes on the heels of one project and prior to another and there is really not enought time to relax, but there is just enought time to sit and think about what you have to do in the next few minutes. Man what a circle, there are millions of things that we could do in this time, surf the latest headlines on the web, chat with someone close, pray, write an uninteresting blog entry...
Time here is almost done, the last class will soon be over and I will be in a one on one session in preperation for a test coming this Saturday. Tomorrow will be the beginning of another slower day, one stinking class all day, which some people woul dbe jealous about but I would much rather be in a classroom that not. I think it is a great waste of time not to be in a place like a classroom.

The weeks coming up are going to be nuts, and the ripples are already starting to aggitate the coastline. Business and weariness are going to start to set in and the attention spans of my students are going to start to shorten to nothing at all. It is for the same reason as any students lack of attention, they see the end in sight. What end, it cannot be said for every one at this time, but for this place it is not the end of the year, not yet. But perhaps the end of the week, and another Saturday with no school, perhaps the beginning and then the end of another testing session, whatever it is, it is all near.
Peace to yall in whom His favor rests, assuredly.
These are some pictures from last weekend, which was Easter. There were three Baptisms this last weekend at Slavation Church. Praise God for three more being baptized into the family of God. That is always a highlight, to see the fruits of the work of the Holy Spirit and devoted missionaries and sisters and brothers. As you can see from all of the photographers that are in the shots here, Baptisms are a big deal, the house was packed out with people that were friends, family, and some of them were not believers yet. I hope that God gives me the chances to talk more with the two teachers that were there that are not yet believers in the God that will, if they turn to Him, give them the awesome Love he has.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Happy Easter to all of You

Sweet Illumination is what we have today. My friends, in the darkness that comes over our emotions in Lent we remember what is the darkness in life. The darkness is an absense of Light, we all know the darkness, but now most certainly we know the Light. The Light has been revealed to us.
Stand in this light, be illuminated. Stand in the presence of Our Lord this morning, evening, and Glory in the presence of the King. Behold the sweet essence that comes from blood, clothe, and an empty tomb. An essence so beautiful and REAL that I may gaze upon His face in the morning and evening. Can it be made known all over the Earth the spring that He brings with Him into the lives of those that are His. A Spring so right to taste.

Jesus you were, you are, you always will be a perfect servant, give us a picture of your face and show us the magic, wonder, and spleandor of your Grace that you have poured out on us, and through all of these things you reveal who you are and who yor father in heaven truly are. Again I will say you are a perfect servant, so perfect a servant that you were perfect unto death. Reveal to us tenderness, and remove from us all sorts of selfishness that taint what you want us to be; perfect servants. Jesus you were, are, and always will be a perfect servant to us. Daily it is our task to do this, because of your Grace, to all of those that are yours on this Earth. Who truly is out of your reach and cannot be called your creation? If it is no one, then it is our charge knowing all that was, is, and will be revealed to us this day, the Day of Life, to take the message of all of these things into our lives and present them to the lives of all of those people that we are near.
Fulfill this Lord in the hands of those people that through your death you have called us to be servants of you, just like you are a servant to us. You call us to be your servants on this day ( should I say more greatly on this day than any other day?) in the perfection that you showered on us from that beautifuly hideous Cross. Jesus give us hearts to be servants. We are yours God, Lord, Savior.
It is by The Blood, the Blood of the Lamb. This Blood washes me and all of us. Listen to me as I talk of this Blood friends. It is only by this blood that Christ made the attonment for my soul and for yours and this is the way that it shall always be. How great is this Blood and that God simply did not leave our baptism of water. Shall I remind you about the perfect Servant that gave us this Blood? A perfect Servant to death on a cross so that he may face Death, and anounce to the world that there is no longer a need for Death. This thing that once had power in the life of all men was, is, and always will be beaten, and how? It is only by Blood, The Blood, that we are washed clean, and this is how it will always be. Again I remind you on this day to remember the pools that drip-dropped into existance under the hands of our Savior on the ground. The Skull quenched by the Blood of one man, a hill on which so many we taken to be slain in the same way, but not the same.
But no more talk of death here, for how can I continue to talk of death when there is life. What rules our life now, it is no death, but Life. Life Illuminated, Light given through death which all men fear when they have not stepped into Light and Life. For men death is darkness, for Christ death is the beginning of Life. We have been shown the measure of the Grace from this God that we worhip and glorify. What is the measurment? It is being revealed to us now and always, from the beginning of when time was counted to this very day, and verily I tell you the day that we are all standing before Him.

I shall speak again of this Perfect Servant. He is Risen, Indeed it is True. He has fulfilled all prophecy.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

It has been a few days




and there has been no real update from me to you guys about anything. I want to share one place with you that I have found, a literal biological oasis. A park, Chia Yi park to say it best, and in this park is what Taiwanese nature used to look like before it was used to the point of it now being Rice patties and Betle Nute Trees (betle nut is a slightly narcotic chewable nut that many working class men take up, like snuff or chewing tobacco in America only it stains your teeth and mouth a deep color red, and makes your teeth rot faster than any amount of sugar can).
There is not a great expance of these trees and woods because everything is enclosed within one city block, but the depth feels infinite and the compression the woods place on your voice as it leaves your throat knocks any sounds down within a few inches and leaves the tones laying on the ground at your feet.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

When I said...

When I said that the LC-MS was (Quote/Unquote) pulling out of Taiwan. I meant that the Volunteer Youth Ministry (VYM) program had its plug pulled, and it was not because a lack of workers. For anyone that is concerned with what I meant.