Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Walt Disney and Me
(Editor’s note: Sorry it has taken so long to post a new blog. It seems that either lack of web connection availability or days of pure puckered-out vacation exhaustion led to this great vast of time between postings. Forgiveness requested. This blog is currently being written during a brief 7 hour downtime at LAX while awaiting a connecting flight to Seattle so we can take the redeye to Dulles. The great race now is between my ability to put together jet-lagged thoughts vs. the juice of my laptop battery. I have a feeling the battery will run out before I can run together sentences.)
ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, (SING WITH ME) IT’S A SMALL, SMALL, WORLD.
The first time I remember hearing “It’s a Small World” was in 2nd grade when visiting Disneyworld. The ride which played the aforementioned song was immensely enjoyable, annoying, and exciting! Enjoyable because it was a boat ride – different from your normal height-limiting rides. Annoying because the song played over and over and over and over. Exciting because there were dozens of “true stories” about children having their hands removed because they failed to listen to warnings about keeping their phalanges inside the boat and subsequently received life-threatening bites from the infamous “Killer Snakes of Anaheim.” I digress…the gist of the ride is this: that in all of the vastness of time and space one can travel on this terrestrial sphere, when you get down to it, and really examine it through the macro, Earth is not as big as we make it out to be. Walt Disney had it right: it is a small world.
The thought of a small world can be comforting and greatly humbling at the same time. The comfort comes from knowing that people and places are basically the same. The people have different physical features and dialects, but in the end they are all people with sin natures and human needs. The cities may have different landmarks or various God-sculpted sceneries, but they pretty much look the same from an airplane window the few thousand feet before touching down. To me there is comfort in knowing that the world, no matter how far you go and from my limited experience, is basically the same.
The humbling comes from the reality of my impact in this “Small World.” Albeit, I traveled great distances during these past three weeks, boarded numerous planes, and met hundreds of people representing as many nationalities, but my overall impact? I guess it depends on perspective. I think deep down many of us would love to have the opportunity to impact the WORLD. Maybe have the ability to impact society in such a way that your name is known. You know, like Paul, Billy Graham, or shutter to think, Oprah. Few in this life are awarded this privilege. However, reality is, and this is a big humbling however, it should not be my life’s destiny to make my name known to the WORLD, but make HIS name known to my small world. My world is wherever God sends me. Whether it is in Northern Virginia, USA or Southern Victoria, Australia. Christy and I have been immensely blessed to have had the opportunity to expand our small world these past couple of weeks.
Some ministry highlights from our ending week in Portland include:
I had the chance to speak at the men’s ecumenical breakfast on Saturday morning. I spoke on the challenges facing our church and others in Northern Virginia – with a focus on the ministry to men.
Men's Breakfast
Afterward, Christy and I met with the small group leaders of Portland Baptist to go over the Banquet Table material. (Earlier in the week we had the opportunity to attend small group meetings in their homes.) I believe this will be a great blessing to Portland Baptist. We had a lot of great discussion with their leaders and they were encouraged by this study and appeared ready to start it.
On Sunday morning Christy and I were privileged to be actively involved in their Sunday Celebration worship service at the local cinema. Christy brought the children’s message and I delivered the main message. Upon service completion we had an “Aussie” lunch in the church fellowship hall. What is an Aussie lunch? Meat pies (better not to ask what is in them), chips (what we call fries) and pavlovas (a meringue dessert made one hundred different ways).
Getting Ready for Service
Pretty Pavlovas
Dinner with the Manson Family and Judith Simpson
(Christy is taking the photo)
PRAISE! God answered every one of the prayer points we had for the trip. Christy did get a couple of minor headaches but she was quickly able to manage them. Thank you for praying for us.
Our week of vacation was wonderful. Not just because of the sights, but because we were able so spend time together. We did the normal “touristy” things like visit the Great Barrier Reef and the Sydney Opera House. We will write more about the vacation later – my mental and battery juice are about gone. (Editor's Note Continued: It is now 10pm in Seattle...and our flight has been delayed until 12:10am. Look below to see some vacation photos.)
Blessings…
Goodbye Portland....for now
Last Post In Series: Return to Main Page ¶ 8/10/2005 12:00:00 PM
ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, (SING WITH ME) IT’S A SMALL, SMALL, WORLD.
The first time I remember hearing “It’s a Small World” was in 2nd grade when visiting Disneyworld. The ride which played the aforementioned song was immensely enjoyable, annoying, and exciting! Enjoyable because it was a boat ride – different from your normal height-limiting rides. Annoying because the song played over and over and over and over. Exciting because there were dozens of “true stories” about children having their hands removed because they failed to listen to warnings about keeping their phalanges inside the boat and subsequently received life-threatening bites from the infamous “Killer Snakes of Anaheim.” I digress…the gist of the ride is this: that in all of the vastness of time and space one can travel on this terrestrial sphere, when you get down to it, and really examine it through the macro, Earth is not as big as we make it out to be. Walt Disney had it right: it is a small world.
The thought of a small world can be comforting and greatly humbling at the same time. The comfort comes from knowing that people and places are basically the same. The people have different physical features and dialects, but in the end they are all people with sin natures and human needs. The cities may have different landmarks or various God-sculpted sceneries, but they pretty much look the same from an airplane window the few thousand feet before touching down. To me there is comfort in knowing that the world, no matter how far you go and from my limited experience, is basically the same.
The humbling comes from the reality of my impact in this “Small World.” Albeit, I traveled great distances during these past three weeks, boarded numerous planes, and met hundreds of people representing as many nationalities, but my overall impact? I guess it depends on perspective. I think deep down many of us would love to have the opportunity to impact the WORLD. Maybe have the ability to impact society in such a way that your name is known. You know, like Paul, Billy Graham, or shutter to think, Oprah. Few in this life are awarded this privilege. However, reality is, and this is a big humbling however, it should not be my life’s destiny to make my name known to the WORLD, but make HIS name known to my small world. My world is wherever God sends me. Whether it is in Northern Virginia, USA or Southern Victoria, Australia. Christy and I have been immensely blessed to have had the opportunity to expand our small world these past couple of weeks.
Some ministry highlights from our ending week in Portland include:
I had the chance to speak at the men’s ecumenical breakfast on Saturday morning. I spoke on the challenges facing our church and others in Northern Virginia – with a focus on the ministry to men.
Men's Breakfast
Afterward, Christy and I met with the small group leaders of Portland Baptist to go over the Banquet Table material. (Earlier in the week we had the opportunity to attend small group meetings in their homes.) I believe this will be a great blessing to Portland Baptist. We had a lot of great discussion with their leaders and they were encouraged by this study and appeared ready to start it.
On Sunday morning Christy and I were privileged to be actively involved in their Sunday Celebration worship service at the local cinema. Christy brought the children’s message and I delivered the main message. Upon service completion we had an “Aussie” lunch in the church fellowship hall. What is an Aussie lunch? Meat pies (better not to ask what is in them), chips (what we call fries) and pavlovas (a meringue dessert made one hundred different ways).
Getting Ready for Service
Pretty Pavlovas
Dinner with the Manson Family and Judith Simpson
(Christy is taking the photo)
PRAISE! God answered every one of the prayer points we had for the trip. Christy did get a couple of minor headaches but she was quickly able to manage them. Thank you for praying for us.
Our week of vacation was wonderful. Not just because of the sights, but because we were able so spend time together. We did the normal “touristy” things like visit the Great Barrier Reef and the Sydney Opera House. We will write more about the vacation later – my mental and battery juice are about gone. (Editor's Note Continued: It is now 10pm in Seattle...and our flight has been delayed until 12:10am. Look below to see some vacation photos.)
Blessings…
Goodbye Portland....for now
Last Post In Series: Return to Main Page ¶ 8/10/2005 12:00:00 PM
