Get Engaged

And speaking of disconnects and connects, my sister is engaged. Woo Hoo!

That's something it is kinda hard to miss out on. I secretly hoped they would wait 3 years to get engaged and married, so we could be there for all of it. Of course, I remember how hard it was to be engaged for 6 months, wishing we had set one of only 3 months, so to ask them to wait that long was completely ridiculous. And I didn't really do that, except in my mind.

We love you Heather and Kenny. Congratulations!

Later guys,

M and H

disconnect

I have been thinking sometimes sad thoughts about our place on the Internet.

Unfortunately, the government in M has blocked Blogger.

Unfortunately, I have little time to blog.

Unfortunately, I have little desire to blog.

These excuses are the reason the blog has been dormant, with no changes, no updates, and no responses from our side of the world in almost 3 months. We're in Thailand now, and I've been quickly realizing how removed we are from the world of the newest social networking trends; Twitter, Digg, Facebook. To be honest, I don't even know what Twitter is. What will the world be like in 2 and a half years when we get back to the US? 

Podcasting, of course, is difficult to do. It takes time, and then you need a fast Internet connection to post it to the Web. I still love doing it, but it can literally take hours to post a show.

So how do we stay in touch with you all on the other side?

I'm realizing social networking today is an up-to-the-minute update on what friends are doing, made simple by the influx of Internet connections every place we go.

So what happens when a guy who loves that interconnectivity goes to a place that hasn't moved past dial-up, and rarely finds time to do the simple things of social networking, like blogging and e-mailing. Even e-mailing takes it out of me now!

Thankfully, there is much to be gained from being cut off from those things. Our language study is the first thing. The more we are separated from the Internet, the less I read English news, type English e-mails, listen to English podcasts and watch things from back home that keep me from being completely here. And being completely here is the goal if we're to actually learn this incredibly difficult, but fun if we work hard, language. I'm thankful for that in disconnectedness.

The second thing that benefits is my daily quiet times. I can tell even from our last 4 days in Thailand, how much a distraction the Internet is to me. If I have wireless in my room, the first thing I do when I get up is check my e-mail. Then read the news. Then check all of the other things I can think about. And by then, it's time to go out for the day, and I haven't even thought about my quiet time. In M, I get up early before there is anywhere to be. I don't have the distractions that I have had everywhere else in my life. And my quiet time has flourished for it. I'm thankful for that disconnectedness.

So, when it comes to a disconnect, there are positives and negatives, as with everything else. I'm finding the negatives are affecting me more than I expected they would. This whole culture shock thing has brought those out sometimes - missing family, missing friends, missing college, missing baseball, missing news. But I'm also finding the positives are helping me grow, in ways I never could have imagined (and honestly didn't desire).

Thanks for the bitter with the sweet.

Later guys,

M

Ten weeks gone.

So, we're in Thailand. Our visa for M is only a 10 week visa, so every 2 and a half months, we fly to Thailand, go to the M Embassy and ask them if we can go back. It's actually a really nice little break from the pressure and what we feel like is a very real spiritual oppression in M.

So, we're getting a little break. All foreigners in M have to do this. We flew to Thailand on Wednesday morning. Went to our guest house, dropped off our bags, and went straight to the Embassy where we put in our new application for our new visa. 24 hours later (Thursday afternoon) we had our new visa! It was exciting, and amazing how easy it was. So, at least we know we're going back!

Our first ten weeks was intense. I wish I knew if it was intense just because we were living in a new culture for the first time, or because of all of the weight of Cyclone Nargis slamming us. When I was living in Florida, I always wanted to experience a small hurricane, just so I would know what one was like. I'm talking small, like a Category 1 or 2 hurricane, just heavy winds, and very little damage. Cyclone Nargis was a Category 4 hurricane. And it was huge.

I'm used to having a warning for a storm like that. When a hurricane is coming, we have 3 or 4 days warning. In M, we had 3 hours warning. Someone said in passing, "There's a cyclone coming, you should go home and close your windows." Of course, we know the rest of the story. There were winds from 135-150 mph, it lasted for about 15 hours throughout the night, and our windows somehow lasted through the night, though they rattled as loudly as anything I've ever heard before. It was a long, scary, loud night. At the time, we had no idea how big the thing were experiencing really was. Even for the week following, we didn't realize the extent of the damage. Our communication with the outside world was pretty well completely shut off for about a week, and we didn't realize the whole world knew what had happened.

I have plenty of thoughts about the aftermath, and how it has been handled. Most of them are angry thoughts. For the first few days, there was no authority present. Regular citizens we literally directing traffic, and doing all of the clean-up. I've struggled a lot with being angry. Psalm 10 has been kind of the theme for our thoughts for over a month now, take a look, and see how well it describes the aftermath.

And of course, you have probably heard how the relief aid project is going. Not well.

So, our first ten weeks was dominated by a massive storm, and the terrible response to it. We've seen sights we couldn't have imagined seeing. Learned things we will never forget.

Thanks so much for your prayers. We'll be in Thailand until Sunday morning, will eat McDonalds a couple more times, watch another movie or two, and enjoy the free air, before heading back. We'll do this every ten weeks or so, so if you want to talk to us, we'd love to on Skype. We come on and off every now and then.

We miss you and think of you often. It's been a hard 10 weeks, and we appreciate so much your prayers.

Later guys,

Matt

Hey everybody! Hope things are going great on your side of the world.

Things today have cooled off a little bit. We have started getting a
little rain every now and then (the summer is bone dry but
super-humid, how's that for a riddle?) so we can tell the summer is
starting to wind down. Of course, the winding down process with go
until the end of June, when rainy season will start - and then we'll
have all rain all the time, and not just a drizzle. I can't wait to
see what it's really like!

We've settled in and are now working as English language consultants.
We have 2 classes a day on Monday Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and
Thursday, we have language lessons with our tutor. It's quickly
becoming clear that learning this language may be one of the hardest
things we've ever done. I'm a bit worried that we don't spend as much
time on it as we would like, but we make due with what we can. We have
a really great tutor, and she's already helped us learn so much!

We miss you all, and think of you often. Plus, we love reading your comments!

Later guys,
M & H

Earthquake!

Seriously? An earthquake in IL? I've always heard that we could have
one, but never really believed it would happen. And I missed it, by
only 3 weeks. What was it like? Was it obvious? Did you even wake up
from sleep?

That's wild!

Later guys,
M

From the other side of the world!

Hey everybody. Hope things are going well in the West. Spring should
have sprung by now, though we've heard a few nasty rumors about snow
in IL in April. Brrr. It's summer here. Full blown summer. There can
be no question about it. We fried an egg on our living room floor this
morning it's so hot! OK, maybe it's not that hot.

So, we're here! Today was the 2 week mark. We have moved into our
apartment, and we have begun our jobs, and we're learning the language
(trying to anyway). Our trip here was quite good, despite cancelled
flights and delayed flights and lost luggage. All of our things
arrived just in time for us to need some of them, and we did get here
after all, so the cancelled flights didn't hold us back too much. Just
long enough to have a free night stay in a hotel in Chicago - in what
other industry can you pull that off?! It was definitely a blessing,
as we were able to get some rest right before taking off. Our luggage
getting lost also meant we didn't have to pay the $150 fee for them
being overweight. They were shipped to us at no cost! Another
blessing. They've been falling left and right!

Anyway, we're here and settled. We're adjusted to the new time zone.
We're adjusted to heat. Something we're not adjusted to just yet is
Water Festival. Yes, we've arrived just in time for the MM New Year!
It's quite a celebration. The whole country has shut down to
celebrate. And the way they celebrate is to throw water everywhere!
We've seen so many trucks full of people that drive down the road by
these huge grandstands full of people with water hoses and buckets.
It's pretty cool. We've even been hit with buckets full of water a
couple of times. It takes some getting used to, but it's a nice relief
from the heat.

OK, gotta get going. It's nearly bed time for us. We love you all and
thank you for talking to Dad about us! He is with us here!

Later guys,
M and H

Here we go!

So we're off today. In 20 hours we board a plane to leave the US. We don't plan to be back for a while. We don't really know what is about to hit us, but we're trusting that we're in the right place. It certainly has been clear to us to this point, and we look forward to how things will look on the other side.

Thanks so much for being a part of this journey up to here. We have no idea when we'll be able to blog again. Maybe not for ten weeks, when we'll be back to high-speed Internet (early June or so). We hope sooner though.

We love you all, and thank you so much for your support and prayers.

Here we go!

Later guys,

Matt

Visa, Mastercard, or American Express?

Yep, it's true. We're officially VISA'D!!!

We received our visa in the mail today. We now have an official leave date of March 30. I've booked almost our whole flight to this point, with only the last leg to finalize. How exciting!

So, thanks for your prayers. It looks like it's official, we're moving!

Later guys,

Matt

Fourth Circle

For those of you who are fans of the Enter the Worship Circle series...

Heather and I bought the recently released Enter the Worship Circle: Fourth Circle album. We've been listening to it for 3 days now, and I must say, I love it. For some songs, I loved them immediately, for others, they've grown on me. I don't think it's anything like that past albums, though. Sometimes more rock, sometimes more bluegrass. They used a drum set for the first time, there's some harmonica, great material. Definitely worth the $8.40 I spent on the digital album.

But wait, I just learned today that they have a half-off coupon code for anyone buying the digital album from their website in the next 48 hours. So, until midnight (MST) on the evening of March 21st, you can purchase the album for only $4.20. That's 18 songs, for an incredible price - the price of 4 songs on iTunes.

So, I've done the research for you all, now go buy the album. Click here and enter the code "justice" in the coupon code box in your cart.

And then let me know how you like the album.

Later guys,

Matt

Memories Escape

Deuteronomy 4:9 (NLT) - "But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren."

My wife reminded me last night about how we've been really led through the journey we've been on for the last 2 and a half years. Sometimes it's been difficult to remember things that have happened, but I want to write a few of them down as clear reminders. Sometimes things appear to be really little, and sometimes they're huge. All of them will help remind us down the road when things are tough about how we've been led.

We sent our applications to the Embassy in Washington D.C. last week. I recognize we waited until really late to send them, but at the same time there were some major decisions that needed to be made before we could get them in the mail. So, we finally did send them last Thursday. On Tuesday, we got a call from the Embassy about our applications, saying they needed a few more documents from the business in SE Asia that is inviting us to work with them. I was excited that they were getting to our apps quickly, since we want to leave by March 26th. They called just in time for me to shoot an e-mail to our contact in Singapore. He was heading into our target country the next day, and wouldn't have been able to get our e-mail for over a week. He was able to take my request for the new documents into the country with him, where they could fax them directly to the Embassy in D.C. We got confirmation today that the documents were faxed. We could have our visas soon!

It was good timing, and I have seen it happen time and time again over the last 2 years.

Just a simple short story I needed to get into print. It's easier to blog it than journal it. So you get to catch on too!

Later guys,

Matt

March on!

Is it really March 1, 2008? What in the world? Where has time gone? I didn't even get to post for Leap Day 2008! And so much has changed since Leap Day 2004! (Did we even have a leap day 2004? Or was that one of those weird years where we have to skip a Leap Day for some super precise reason? I think that was only 2000.) Anyway, March. The month when baseball gets into full swing (or at least half swing), the weather is even more unpredictable, and we hopefully head to Asia. This could be a great month!

Anyway, we traveled today. Dallas, TX to Trilla, IL. And tomorrow, to Indianapolis for a sweet college basketball game at Butler, then on to Evansville tomorrow evening. Traveling. It's what we do.

Hope your Leap Day was great. Happy March!

Later guys,

Matt

Optimistic Packers

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since we updated this, and even longer since we put out a new episode of the podcast (hold tight, a new one is coming soon!).

We're now in Dallas, TX. We've been here for about 10 days. My wife, if you didn't know, has some really bad allergies. She's been seeing a doctor about them everyday, and hopefully this will be a huge help as we head on out of the US of A. We think it could work out great! We're now only a month from leaving. We've gotten some great news in the last two days about support, and we're nearly at the point we need to be to think about buying plane tickets (95% and we're at 92.5%, picking up about 6% in the last couple of days alone!). Of course, we still need our visa, and we're trying our hardest working on that too. We'll have to wait and see how things pan out.

If you could, be in prayer for us and our families. Our lives are pretty well planned out with non-stop things to do all the way up till about 2 weeks before we leave. If possible in those two weeks, we want to hang out with our families and with our friends as much as possible. Of course, we'll have to pack in that time too, and my wife thinks that will take us a whole week. (I think it will only take 2 days, but I'm forever optimistic on these things, and she's forever pessimistic on these things. Of course, it pays off to be a pessimist on packing in particular, because when it takes longer than the two days I expected, I'll get frustrated, and she'll be able to say, "I told you to be more realistic." Of course, she won't say that, she'll just look at me and wait for me to calm down. Amazing.)

Anyway, we miss you all and hope we get the chance to run into you soon. We wish we had more time, but at the same time, I think we're just about ready to get going. We love you all.

Later guys,

Matt

Grief and Joy

Hey everybody. Sorry it's been so long. We've now returned to Illinois after our time in the SPLICE program. This was a program focused on helping us to survive the stresses of working in a culture different from our home. I would tell you all about it, but to be honest a lot of it was overshadowed by the beginning of our last week there.

The beginning of our last week was supposed to be our time to look at grief and loss, two common things we will experience as we leave our families and friends for an extended amount of time. We had no idea how real our time focused on these things would be. On Sunday, about a week and a half ago, some of our friends in the SPLICE program were traveling to hear a speaker in Denver. Heather and I were to go with them but I got sick that Saturday night and couldn't go. On the drive up, the van was involved in a terrible accident. Two of our adult friends were killed instantly, Jessica (21 years old) and Karin (42 from South Africa). The other 4 in the van were taken to area hospitals. 1 of the 4 was a 17-month boy, one of the cutest little boys we have ever seen. We'd gotten to know him and his parents (also in the van) very well over the previous month. By 12:30 AM Monday, he had also died. His name was Isaac.

This really was my first time losing anyone close, not from old age. I struggled with guilt from feeling like it should have been us in the van, not Jessica and Karin, and anger about how Scott and Andrea have to deal with the loss of their beautiful boy, and joy about Jessica and Karin and Isaac being taken from the pain and sin of this world. What a paradox.

In the end, SPLICE was a time for us to learn how to grieve well in community. It was incredible how this group of people came together in sadness and joy, honored our friends who were killed, and prayed for our friends who have a very hard road ahead. We still lift them up to God in prayer.

Scott has now been discharged from the hospital. He stays in Denver to care for his wife, Andrea. She is still in critical condition but is showing improvement everyday. Em, the 6th person in the van, is doing incredible. She has moved out of ICU, and is now able to walk around some, talk, and even type with one hand. It really is a miracle how they have come through this.

We praise God for the hearts He has given His people - hearts that experience joy and grief and sadness and anger and hope all at the same time. We thank Gd for our new friends who we are closer than ever to because of our shared experience. We praise God for the lives of the 2 women who are now with Him. And we praise God for Isaac who brought so much joy to everyone around him during his 17 months here on earth.

We're back in IL now, trying to finish things up, including visas and budgets and goodbyes. Crazy to think we're only about a month out. We love you all!

Later guys,
Matt

Add a new Mac to your Mac!

Well, it's now been a week, and I think we like it, so now we'll tell you about it (Not that you really do or should care...)

We've upgraded to Mac OS 10.5, more commonly known as Leopard!

We love it. We love Mail, Front Row, Spaces, Cover Flow and definitely Time Machine - the easiest way to back-up our entire computer.

This operating system is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I know we're way behind the trend, but if there still happen to be any of you still running Tiger on your Mac, consider the upgrade (we were running Panther (Mac OS 10.3) on Heather's Powerbook still!) It's just fun to use!

Hope your January has been great!

Later guys,

Matt

PILAT

No doubt you've probably heard by now that we've completed the PILAT program. We're now prepared to make all sorts of funny sounds withour mouths!

The program was led by a very wise and talented couple. We were so grateful to study under them.

What did we learn you might ask?
So much, but one thing's for sure...

I own my language-learning.

It was a fantastic two weeks of ear-opening fun, spent with our teammates: Derek, Stacey and Hannah.

Oh the fun we have when they're around!

Sadly, we had to say our goodbyes yesterday. They're headed to Canada for the CELTA course, the same course Matt and I took in Germany last November.

It's weird to think that the next time we will see them may be in SE Asia in just a couple of months.

So here we are. It's Saturday evening in snowy Colorado and we've rented an 80's movie from itunes to watch.

Next up this week is SPLICE.

We'll keep you posted.
Peace out.
• Heather •

New and Notable!

Hey guys, I wanted to share a couple screen shots with you that I took today in iTunes. 

Notice, this is the Society and Culture page, specifically the section for Personal Journals.

Now, look a little closer at this focused screen shot I've taken for ya.

That's right! That's us! We're on the New and Notables page on iTunes in the Personal Journals section!

If you want to take a look, go to the Podcast page and into Personal Journals. There's the link.

Evidently it doesn't take much to get on the New and Notable page. We've done only a few shows, and we have just a few listeners. All we do is talk anyway! What amateurs...

So, I was just a little excited about that. Check us out!

Later guys,

Matt

Heading to Colorado

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been a month since our last post. Of course, we're no longer in Germany. We've been home from Germany for over 3 weeks, we survived the busiest Christmas in our memories (indeed, we enjoyed it with our families!), and we welcomed in the New Year with our cousins. Our good friends the Lasleys are now married (woo hoo!), and tomorrow we leave home for another month of training.

On Monday morning, we fly from Indianapolis to Colorado Springs to begin a month at MTI. This is our last major step in training before we head to Southeast Asia in early March. We've heard so many encouraging things about the programs we'll go through in CO from our friends who have already been through the programs and are now on the field.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. We'll talk to you soon!

Later guys,
Matt