Tae-Kwon-Do

These past two days have been great! Much learning, good time of rest and reading, and a bit of martial arts!

SMAC Monday was good... we listened to "Hear Is Our King" and though I didn't go into too much detail about how great our God is (it didn't become a whole witnessing deal), it's still good just getting them thinking about the words, etc. The second hour was helping them with conversation, asking them about their favorite athlete, actor, etc. The funny thing is a common answer, and possibly the most famous athlete in Ecuador right now, is Jefferson Perez, an Olympic athlete! What's his sport, you ask? Speed walking... oh dear. When your country's most famous athlete is a speed walker, that's not the best sign (from a sports perspective)... but whatever works, I guess!

After SMAC, I went to pick up some groceries at "Iberica", which has a lot of American items (like Peanut Butter, Pringles, and even Welch's grape juice, although all of them are pretty expensive). I then headed over to KFC to meet with Won, a Korean Tae-Kwon-Do instructor. He is here volunteering as a TKD Instructor and at present learning three different languages: Chinese, Spanish, and English. He wants me to help him with his English, although he's doing quite well... we talked for a while and I learned that his father, also a TKD instructor, told him at a young age that he would need to learn many different languages in order to be successful. It's really sweet, too, because I learned my first Chinese phrase! "I love you" is the phrase he picked to emphasize a point, so now I'm able to say that and "Thank you" and "Hello" in Chinese. I'm well on my way... haha...

I also learned that Korea should be spelled "Corea", but when the Japanese occupied the country from 1910-1945ish, they wanted their country to be first alphabetically, so they started spelling it with a K and internationalizing that spelling. Won did not express very much love for the "Japs" as he called them...

Please pray for him, as I asked him about his relationship with Jesus and he said "so-so". I'm looking forward to the next month of meeting with him! He also offered to teach me TKD in exchange for my teaching him English... more on that later.

The afternoon was spent checking e-mail a bit and then hanging out with the Coupes. We ended up going and shooting some hoops together, and that was fun! After a short work out alone and then a quick shower, I headed over to their place for a great grilled chicken dinner. They have been SUCH a blessing to me, so please continue to pray for them (as they're heading back to the States for a 10 month furlough in three weeks) that God would bless them ten-fold for the blessing they are to me. I had some fun listening to my iPod (the Luke-Abby Mix) and dancing with the baby, JoAnna, and in the middle of our break-down, she spit up on me. Oh yes... that was a lot of fun. Haha... it was actually quite funny. I am not offended that you are laughing right now.

Skype occupied my evening, having a blast talking with Hunter and Dad and then enjoying a very encouraging talk with Cat from Australia. Please do continue to keep her in prayer as she serves the Lord in every area of life and seeks to grow closer and closer to Him...

This morning SMAC was good as we went over phrasal verbs and then generated conversation with them once more. I asked them questions like "if you were on a desert island for a few years and could take three things, what would they be?" (to which one person replied, 'people, beer, and food' so he could party all the time) and "if you could meet any living person, who would you meet?" (to which one young lady replied, 'Osama Bin Laden'. Mmhmm... 'twas interesting). They seemed to enjoy the questions and really thought about their answers, which was cool.

Afterwards, I headed to KFC to meet with Won, but when I called him back (I'd missed a call from him during class), I found that he would be unable to make it. He also reminded me about his TKD class (I decided not to go last night) and seemed to really want me to come. I told him "It is possible" and left it at that. Although I was sad we couldn't meet, I was thankful for the opportunity to spend some time in the Word. So in KFC, after downing a four dollar "Super Combo 2" meal which was made up of two nice sized wings, a huge plate of rice and lentils, a pathetic salad, and a cookie. It was really good! The time in the Word and the meal (more of the former).

I took a bus back to my apartment and took a nice, long, much-needed nap. When I awoke, I put down some snacks and read some more of Mere Christianity. I'll share something that's really blessing me from that book:

"...wickedness... turns out to be the pursuit of some good in the wrong way... badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled... evil is a parasite, not an original thing."

This is such a cool idea to me. Just the idea that evil in the world is merely good things pursued in the wrong manner. Take coveting, for example. The desire to have something for yourself is not in itself bad but could actually be quite good (to have something in order to further glorify God). But when the thing you want is owned by someone else and you start to desire it in an evil way, that's when it becomes bad.

Also, more recently I have been reading about what Lewis has to say about morality. He says there are "three parts of morality". First, it's the interaction between individuals (I'm paraphrasing), second, what's inside of individuals, and third, "with the general purpose of human life as a whole: what man was made for." He gives great examples and likens the first two parts as ships setting sail together in an ordered fashion. On the outside, they need to sail in harmony, and in order to do that, they need to be ship-shape on the inside. If one of the two factors is not up to par, the other cannot function. If the ships are constantly crashing into each other, the inside will obviously not stay ship-shape, and if the insides of the ship are breaking down, they will go out of order and crash into each other. So it is with humans... we can't be nice and kind to each other and live in harmony on the outside forever if we're harboring bitter, envious, and jealous thoughts on the inside. We need to be clean and glorifying to God "From the Inside Out" (Hillsong).

After Mere Christianity I headed over to TKD. I decided that it would really bless him if I went, and I was interested in it anyway. When I arrived I found that he was not going to be there that day, so I called him and talked with him for a bit and he told me he thought that I said I wouldn't be going. I waited for him to arrive and then we went in together. I did a bit of running and then started to stretch with him... he gave me the funniest faces and made hilarious sounds as he gawked at how inflexible I am. I am REALLY inflexible. The hour consisted of learning different striking motions, all while standing in a terribly painful stance. My legs will feel it tomorrow... no doubt.

On the flip side, I already feel more dangerous.

TKD finished, I met two of the other students (Henry and Santiago- keep them in prayer) and then two of us (Won and I) walked through downtown to the train station where I was whisked away by the Coupes on the way to dinner. They blessed me tonight by taking me out to a steak dinner at "Tablitas" (I believe that's the name). The restaurant gave out their menu and when we ordered "steak", we discovered that they only had four left. And no pizza. They basically didn't have the most important items on the menu... oh well. We all got our share of steak (I had a HUGE one) and drove back to the house to make brownies for dessert. I skyped with Mom, Dad, Hunter, and Jake Wagner (the MAN- really one of the coolest guys I know), and then with KJ for a bit. And now this blog.

1 Peter thoughts...

Verse 15 of chapter three (which I addressed a bit last blog) begins with "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord..." I find this so inspiring and encouraging because it is plain and simple that Jesus doesn't just want to be in your life amongst everything else. He wants to be the ruler of your life, head and shoulders above everything else. "In your hearts", the key part of you, "set apart Christ as Lord". Don't set Him with the worries of life, failing to find time because of school, other 'priorities', etc, but set APART Christ as Lord.

Also, in the last few verses of the chapter, it talks about the people destroyed by the flood, and how the eight that were saved were saved by water, which is symbolic of baptism. But here Peter is clear that the "baptism that now saves you also" does not work because dirt is removed from the body (ie sins are washed away) "but the pledge of a good conscience towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand- with angels, powers and authorities in submission to Him."

What I gather from this is that we shouldn't focus so much on the sin we need to not be doing but on the glory that is before us. My Dad speaks on this, saying there are people that get to heaven by walking away from hell ("I don't want to go to hell") and people that get to heaven walking towards Jesus. Here Peter emphasizes that, saying that it's not the dirt-removal that saves us but the "good conscience towards God." We're called to seek Jesus and seek to be like Him in every way... as we get better and better at this in the Lord's strength, the sin in our life becomes easier to overcome for we are not focusing on it, but on the One who has forgiven us.

Also, I find it quite common to hear "Thank You for saving us from our sins by Your death on the cross, Jesus..." and while the sin of the world WAS placed on Jesus when He died and He did save us, if He hadn't resurrected and thereby conquered death, we wouldn't be here today as believers. We were not saved until Jesus was resurrected- Peter says it right there. "It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ"... so just food for your thought... the next time you are praying that prayer, tack on "by Your death on the cross AND resurrection"...

I'm out like my legs not being sore tomorrow.

Go walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6). And pray that the Lord would strengthen me to do the same...
In His strength alone...

Luke