Chaplain Update--Sept 4

Good Thursday all,

The endorsement interview went great, and it was a wonderful experience. This part of the process is now complete and I am waiting to hear from the chaplain office in order to schedule the interview with a senior chaplain of the Army. This will probably be at Ft. Lewis, WA.

One bit of new information though is that these Sept boards are, for the most part, my last shot to be able to make it to the January school.

So the prayer now is for God's continued guidance, and leading. That He would bring everything together for the senior chaplain interview to come together quickly, and go very well, with a high recommendation. And then that I would be presented to the September boards, be accepted, and be able to go to school in January.

June is of course doable, but it puts our family on hold, as far as moving into this new ministry, for almost a year.

Thank you again for your support. I will try to keep this blog posted.

Thanks

Rich Mullins and Difficult Times

The title of this blog is a modification of two albums by Rich Mullins, "The World as Best as I Can Remember it. Vol 1 & 2." Rich Mullins has been one of my favorite musicians from when I first became a Christian.

Over the years there have been times where it has been difficult to trust God.

The death of Rich Mullins was one of those times for me.

I really enjoyed Rich Mullins' music. He just seemed to have a great deal of joy in praising and worshiping God. So, needless to say, as a still young Christian, I was really surprised when he was killed in a car accident. I had some long talks with God about that one.

I think that has to be one of the greatest challenges in growing as a Christian. There are times in our lives when we struggle with trusting God. However, moving through those times makes our faith stronger and causes us to trust in God more and more, even in the smaller issues of life.

Macs and Olympic Soccer

I'm noticing two similarities in Mac computers and Olympic soccer.

In my opinion, they are both cool, but they both are not playing out as expected.

Allow me to expand. There is a Mac Mini that I have access to, and use from time to time. In fact, I am typing on it right this moment as I wait for some PCs to do some Microsoft updates (but that is another blog post). Although the Mac is cool, and people come in and ask, "where is your computer?" and we point to a brick on the corner of the desk, the computer has some limitations.

For us to be able to do what we would very easily do on a PC, we have had to get volumes of additional software to make it work. Even then, the compatibility issue is still very prevalent. In other words, the coolness factor just doesn't cover enough of the limitations.

In Olympic soccer, the US mens team had an impressive victory all ready to go. The coolness factor was flying high! Then, in literally the final minutes of the match, the Netherlands (all credit going to them for their work ethic) put in a late goal to tie the match.

Although a tie is very useable for the Americans, the coolness factor just doesn't cover the limitation of how well they may now have to play in order to continue.

It might be a little bit of a stretch, but with Macs and Olympic soccer, looking good and being cool will only get you so far. You have got to produce the results.