My pal Shawn just got 2 compassion kids sponsored because he posted about them on his blog.  Nice work brotha!

What has your blog done lately?

To learn more about how to sponsor a child through Compassion International, click here.

Check out the Longyear’s Compassion daughter here.

Set list from Mike Jones, Creative Arts Director at The Orchard in Aurora, IL.

This last weekend (6.15), Mike used Craig Groeschel’s video, Make Us One.
Here’s Mike’s music set list from this last weekend:

Majestic - Lincoln Brewster
Kingdom Come - Hillsong United
You Are The One - Lincoln Brewster
One - U2 (prior to the video)
(followed the video with a creative piece to engage our church community with the Make Us One concept)
Make Us One - Jason Morant
Great weekend for us and good connection with the crowds.

As far as exchange, we used Wayne Cordeiro’s video, Make us Wise.  We also shot a video of me introducing Wayne (I’ll post that later).  I was just getting back from New Orleans, and Shawn was the worship leader for the gathering.

iPod pre-gathering
Countdown Video
Let God Arise
Welcome and Announcements - Jack
video introducing Pastor Wayne
Teaching - One Prayer 02 - Make us Wise - Cordeiro
Your Grace is Enough
Wonderful Maker
Came To My Rescue
Everlasting God
Awesome Is the Lord Most High
Baptisms??
All We Need
Your Grace is Enough
Dismissal - Shawn
Band instrumental
iPod post-gathering

Send me your One Prayer Worship set and I will post it here.

Hot today.  Half of my day was in an attic and the 2nd story of Wally’s house.  The other half was on his roof in 90 degree heat helping lay shingles.  Dang.  Roofing is hard.  You know it is hot when you can’t touch the shingles with your hands.  And don’t even think about sitting.  After 10 seconds your butt feels like you just sat in a campfire.

Above:  Mad roofing skills.  The competition sleeps.

Coming:  Video from the Upper 9th Ward

We were hammered this weekend with the worse flooding in decades, leaving several people with homes filled with water.  MCC is setting up a bit of a command post.  If you have a flood-related need, OR you can help meet a flood-related need, call the church office Monday, June 9 at 9AM.  We will try to match needs with hands.

812-234-7100

A team and I will be leaving at 11:30 PM Sunday night to head to New Orleans and helping with the rebuilding effort still going on there.  It feels a bit strange to be leaving one disaster area for another, but we know that there are several people who are working in the Terre Haute area.  We will join them when we return.  Please be praying for all flood victims. 

If you are a church leader, check out the whole one prayer scene.  If you are a participating church - get busy and download some quality content from communicators all over the globe.  At present there are over 1100 churches participating.  Almost 60 video teachings were submitted.  We are excited to be part of the 60.

Note to exchangers - don’t go digging around  these  videos until after the One Prayer series is over.  We will watch some of them as a community and in our context, and it will ROCK!

our luggage is not. It is somewhere in Atlanta. Thank you TSA. Jetlag. More later.

Before we left for Moscow I was obsessed about what I should wear while I was there. I asked questions of Patrick Black who we would be staying with. I also prodded Roxy Bertsch for information since she had spent a summer in Russia.

I was told that Russians tend to dress very nicely and in dark colors. Women often wear high heel shoes and skirts. I should avoid bright, flashy colors and tennis shoes. Oh, and I should wear comfortable shoes because we would be walking a lot. Dressing warmly is important as it is very cold in Moscow in March.

I assessed my wardrobe and noticed a lack of warm dressy clothes. This is when the obsession to find the proper attire for Moscow began.

Step 1: Buy clothes.

Step 2: Fret about clothes I have bought. Will this really meet my needs? Is this warm enough, comfortable enough, dark enough? Can I walk all over the city in these shoes? Will I be able to blend into a crowd? I really don’t want to draw attention to myself.

Step 3: Return clothes.

Step 4: Repeat

So the cycle continued until the day of departure. I left home with a suitcase full of warm, dark and comfortable clothing. So how did I do? Well, ok I think.

1. I have been plenty warm. In fact I have been hot at times.

2. I passed the comfort test. I found a great pair of comfortable black shoes for walking.

3. I may have over done it in my quest for dark clothes. If you look at all the pictures I am wearing the bleakest, darkest and most depressing clothes of anyone. Go ahead take a look back through the pictures. I’m hilariously depressing.

4. I think the greatest test is whether I was able to blend into a crowd or not. I think I passed. A number of people have stopped me out in public to ask me a question.  In Russian. I assume they are asking me because I look trustworthy and like I know the language, but who knows maybe they are insulting me or asking if I need psychiatric care for my depression. I’ll never know.

On Thursday, Stephanie went with Kathy to Hinckson Christian Academy (HCA) and helped with school work. From tutoring to grading papers, she supported the teachers well.

Patrick and I jumped on the metro at rush hour for the 90 minute ride to Russian American Christian University (RACU). (See Steph’s post for the rush hour metro culture.) The ride was crowded but I felt what it was like to be a Russian as I had to literally push people into a train so that the door wouldn’t shut on me. If I did that in the US, I would certainly be staring a fight. In Moscow pushing is just a way of life.

Once at RACU, I was in a 2-hour class with Patrick. His class was an advanced English class for Russian students who were learning the English language. Always eager to talk to an American for practice, I was their fresh meat for the day. I spent the first hour answering questions from them. “What was America like?” “What is the craziest thing I have ever done?” It was good conversational practice for them. It was also a reminder of the slang that we use everyday. The 2nd hour we looked at a couple of current worship songs, and explained word that they didn’t understand. We wrapped up the class singing some of the songs. I suggested that we take a picture and they all headed outside for a snapshot with the pale American.

An open tea was scheduled. They hung a poster saying that there was an open tea with the bald American at 2 PM. Pat doubted that anyone would come. He blamed his pessimism on the lack of promo. I blamed it on the lack of appeal of one albino Hoosier. At 2PM we went to an office and set up a few cups of tea, just in case. Eventually we had about 10 people crammed into a small space sharing tea and snacks and asking questions. I was fascinated as I asked questions about what it was like to live in Communist Russia. These students did not have strong personal memories of communist times. However, their parents and grandparents experienced Soviet Russia first hand. The conversation was amazing. I had to step back and take it all in. Here I am, sitting around a table with a group of Christian-Russian students, talking about their real experience with the USSR. It was thin.

I was impressed with these students. Many of them travel over 1 hour each way to school. Some of them are sacrificing all they can to be in school here. They find it tough to work, because of the class schedule, homework, and commuting hours. They find their living expenses are extremely high (a one bedroom apartment in Moscow can rent for as much as $1600-$2000 per month). As we ended the time, I asked if I could pray for them. It was an honor to talk and pray with such a high caliber of people.

Patrick and I jumped back on the metro and headed back to his place. We were met by Tim Patterson who invited Steph and I to dinner. We had a great evening with Tim, Dawn, and their daughter, Catherine. Tim is the brother of exchanger Betsy Brown. Betsy is the wife of exchanger Larry Brown. You may know Larry as part of the worship team (you know, the hip keyboard player with the white beard). After dinner, we caught an electric bus and headed back to the Black’s apartment. An exhausting but wonderful day.

Above: Last two words in the fist box. That’s my name. I’m really big in Eurasia.

Above: On the steps with some Russian students from Patrick’s Advanced English class. I was “Professor” for the day. Stop laughing.

Above: Steph and I with Tim and Dawn Patterson.

Above:  Steph and I.  That’s the Kremlin in the background.

Pat Black and I.  Pat is a professor with RACU.  He is also our Moscow connection, personal interpreter, and the answer man to all our dumb questions.

Steph and I at a National Cathedral (Christ the Savior Church I believe). 

We are at Hinkson Christian Academy today and I just finished speaking in the High School Chapel, followed by the Middle School Chapel.  This is a tremendous place filled with students of missionaries.  The kids are the real deal and passionate about Christ.

I am trying to post some pictures from the last few days but having some trouble.  Hopefully they will be up soon.

Thanks for the prayers!