It's Tuesday, it's late, but it's time to blog. I just got back from band rehearsal, and now more than ever, it's clear to me why we go so late some nights... It seems to me that we rehearse until the late night because God wants to send Jackie home early to rest up for work, and force me to find my own ride home... with Joel. Car rides with Joel remind me of when I was a kid and had just gotten home from school. Mom would ask, "how was school?", or more specifically, "what'd you learn today?", and of course, 9 million times out of 10 (?) I would respond with "fine" or "nothing". Riding with Joel is just like that, only the COMPLETE opposite. 20 minutes in the car with the man usually means 20 minutes of hard core, deep issue, Jesus talk. Unlike my attitude towards the curious mother of old, I gladly welcome these conversations. Joel points me to the Lord, speaks a ridiculously piercing truth, and reeks of the love and compassion of Christ. He encourages me in my walk with the Lord, corrects me when I'm in sin, and strengthens my relationship with my wife... in 20 minutes. Find someone like this. Someone who will be honest with you, someone who loves the Lord before anything else, and someone who will be a true brother... even for only 20 minutes. God is glorified because our rehearsals run into the late night and Jackie and I are too cheap (smart) to drive two cars. Praise the Lord. Thanks Joel.

Yesterday I was able to head over to the fieldhouse and "play" a little basketball with my good friend Andy Tao. I say "play" because, well, let's be honest... I'm a runner, not a baller. Anyway, back to the ridiculousness- Andy and I were basically the only two in the entire gym, minus these two other guys at the far end. It didn't take them but five minutes to approach us and ask if we could all play together. We welcomed the challenge, and played a little 2-on-2 for a while. The guys names were Raul and Goto... from Brazil and Japan. SO- we had Andy, from China, who has been here for 4 months, Raul, from Brazil, here for 1 year, and Goto (go-toe), from Japan, who arrived in the states 6 months ago. Oh, and me, the token tall white American. Talk about incredible! I love Iowa City, I love the "melting pot" that it is (thanks go to Mrs. Gomez for teaching me about the melting pot of America in 3rd grade), and I love how only the Lord could orchestrate something crazy like this on a Tuesday afternoon. To make a long story short, Tao hit a long range bomb to win the game for us (always nice to win), which was followed by a sit down pow wow with all the guys. We talked about life, why these guys are all here in Iowa, etc., and then exchanged emails (their idea!). Yep, going to the nations is as easy as going to play basketball when you know you're likely to get embarrassed. Excited for what's to come out of this one.