Unbelievable.  So those of you who don’t know, me and some buddies from High School and college have been playing golf together in an invitation only tournament for 10 YEARS now!  We leave Thursday morning to head down to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama for what is shaping up to be a great year.  I will play a practice round Thursday on the way down, we do a two man scramble for fun and then the tourney starts on Sat.  We will play 2 rounds Sat (in the 90+ degree heat) and 1 Sunday.  We have 12 of us playing every year and only if you quit or we kick you out can a new member be included.  It’s probably more exclusive than Augusta National.  After your first year you get your handicap and then it changes according to your scores every year.  I won in 2006 by shooting a great 76 in the final round.  It usually goes to a high handicap player because they don’t have to shoot great rounds to be under par.  Right now I am low man on the handicap totem poll which means…darn near impossible to win.  But low gross is going to be mine!!!

All that to say…no more blogging until Sunday night when I reveal the outcome of the 10th annual OSO.

Here is Lili Moon.

And of course Nate’s first wagon ride!

I still can’t believe that I could sit in my hotel room in Moldova and talk to Carrie and Nate like this…with no delay.  Thank you skype and technology for that matter!

I plan to begin unloading about my trip to Moldova and the incredible friends that Ryan and I made, but for now, I’m home after a 26 hour day of traveling (of which I slept 2 hours) and then an all day leadership training that I had scheduled and couldn’t miss.  So now I am truly home and got to hug on my family for my a while.  I will update tomorrow on lots’ of fun things.  Thanks for your prayers…they were truly noticed.

I’ve been amazed and blown away by the church here and what God is doing through this ministry.  Ryan and I keep talking about the excellence in which they create this environment in a culture that looks nothing like that.  Here are some pics to give you some understanding.

Before-

The school that they meet in.

Foyer

Auditorium

AFTER-Look at this place!!!

MetroZone is their pre-service games and hang out time for everyone.

Baby land was so incredible and the kids loved it.

Ummmm…no words can describe how excited I am to be apart of this ministry.

Please con’t to pray for the contract with the school.  It is constantly changing and unstable.

Pray for the finances of the church.  It cannot operate on the giving of the members alone.  It is not a culture that giving is normal and it is going to take a long time.

Pray the Andre and the staff here.  That God would give them leadership.

Ryan and I leave early Tuesday morning so pray that our last day will be productive!

So Ryan and I left Vienna yesterday morning and arrived with Ryan having full intention of scamming us into 1st class.  He did it.  We got our tickets back and we were in row 2!!!

Oh.

Really.  Thanks Ryan.

It didn’t seem to be too loud for him though.

Today is the Family foyer event that they do once a month and have to turn people away from.  We are blown away with how relevant and creative their services are here in such a post communist country.  It is amazing.  i should get some good pics today to post for you to all see.  Thanks for praying.  Keep praying for Andre and the church to find a permanent meeting facility and for financial stability.  It is very expensive to create these environments and the giving of the church isn’t super close to covering it.  They are simply amazing at it. I think Ryan and I are here to learn from them!

Quick update of some funny stories so far. Plenty more where that came from.

Shove and I waiting on our flight here in Vienna Airport.  Please give a caption.

We made it to Vienna this morning, took a quick shower and off to see this cool city.  Here are some quick pics.  (Ryan and I had a killer Austrian dinner tonight.  Wiener Schneitzel!  (Okay fried porkchop basically).

That last one is from our room.  Good times.  We have been keeping a log of all the funny things that happen over this trip.  The list is already awesome.  Be looking for that.  We roll out early in the morning to fly on over to Moldova.  Thanks for all your prayers and support.

1st Update.  Ryan used his foot to push the scale up on his bag to make it under the 50 lb. mark.   He was as 52, then magically 46.  I can’t believe she bought it…I can’t believe shove was that quick/packed that much crap.  My bag—30.  He is so metro.  It could’ve been the flat-iron.

Here we are just killing time.