An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. - Prov 31:10

Today Amy and I celebrate 10 years of marriage. Looking back on pictures of our honeymoon, I am overcome with that dual sense of the past--it seems like yesterday and like worlds ago at the same time. I am reminded of how our friendship first grew over months and even years, how we led music together before we were even dating, and how many times I played (and replayed) one particular answering machine message from her.

These 10 years have been a great adventure of life together and life as a family. Although it is not always easy, Amy is committed to honoring God and being the kind of wife and mother that He desires. God has used her in my life so many times--both in the joy of ministry together, and also to point out my weaknesses and sin to help me grow. Any experience that I have is made better when I can share it with her. Neither of us is perfect, but I pray we can keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and that he will continue to draw us closer to him and closer to each other as we move toward the years ahead.

Amy, I'm so blessed to have you as my companion on this journey. I love you.

Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den.

-John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad

So Mark and I had just over a week of brother time. I got to see first-hand what life is like with 8 hours of electricity a day. What 120 degrees feels like, and what an amazing refreshing treat a glass of cool water can be. Men and women who live today almost exactly as they have for hundreds of years, and for whom the concept of the future has no meaning, only survival for another day. Children that will instantly melt your heart, and whose smiles almost make you forget the harsh realities of disease and need that they face daily, with over half the population age 15 or younger.

And in the midst of it all, God doing amazing things. Answered prayers. Meeting Isa, the first ever adult Songhai believer in the village of Ayorou. Seeing Mark communicate in French and Zarma/Songhai and share the love and truth of Christ with so many people, and how they respect him. And, as Parker put it, feeling like I left a piece of myself in Africa.

  

I rode on the donkey cart with these boys to get water from the river. I had no ability to speak to them, and no idea at that point where we were going. Quite an experience!

      
I got to baptize Yacouba in the Niger river, an amazing blessing!

  
Chillin' with camels & giraffes!

     
Hanging out with my brother: a restaurant in Niamey, at the top of Mt. Kandadji, and... sewing?

A shack, literally on the side of the road, where we had breakfast one morning. Mark brought this man some eggs from the city, and worked it out that we got a breakfast of omelettes and a yummy hot chocolatey drink as payment.

Sitting in the shade during the hot part of the day. Everything basically shuts down between 1-4pm. The white girl in this picture is a volunteer with another mission team who is also in Ayorou.

  
We gave out dresses that were made by some of the women from First Baptist Church in Franklin, KY, my parents' church.

    
Three kids who stole my heart: Sakina, Bushira, and "Z".

    
Hanging out at Mark's compound with the kids.

I could go on forever (and probably already have for too long). As you can probably tell, I'm very glad I made this trip. Mark and I had a great time together, my eyes were opened, and I fell in love with Ayorou and the people there.

For more: here's my complete photo set and also a blog post that Parker wrote about my visit.

“You should love God. You will need to know how to take out the trash. If you ever have a baby, you will need to know how to shop for baby stuff, and for regular stuff. You will have to know how to take care of your wife when she gets sick. If you ever have children, you will need to know how to tell them about Jesus."

Unfortunately, good trail runs are a little hard to find in Evansville. Add to that the fact that we had an unusually wet winter, and I was stuck doing most of my training on flat roads. By the time of the race, the longest trail run I had done was just short of 5 miles, and my longest road training run was 12 miles. But I felt like I was better prepared for this run than the Evansville Half Marathon, and about a week before the LBL run, the weather forecast was looking good--dry with temps in the upper 40s, nearly perfect for running.

That all changed about 2-3 days before the race. Suddenly, there was a weather advisory that mentioned a possibility of accumulating snow on Thursday or Friday, then there was a winter storm watch, then a winter storm warning that covered Evansville and all of Western KY. There would definitely be significant snow--the question was just how much would fall and what areas would be the heaviest. On Thursday and Friday leading up to the race, I was checking multiple forecasts hourly, trying to gauge if I would even be able to get to the starting line safely. I knew there was the possibility of having to turn around, or getting snowed in down there, but it seemed like the NWS forecasters were backing off on the snowfall amounts, and also pushing the heavier accumulation forecast more Southeast of where I was headed, so I thought it was worth a try. In the end, we decided that only I would go down (Amy and the kids had planned to go), and simply take it slow and cautious.

Some of those CDs are ripped to a digital archive, some are not. Of the ones that are ripped, I have used different encoding bitrates over the years, anywhere from 128 (yikes) to 256kbps. Most of the ripped music exists on a network share drive, but there are a few CDs that might be only on one particular computer where I ripped it for convenience. Also, among my digital music are a few albums for which I no longer have a physical copy (the CD was lost or damaged, etc). Also, I have a moderate collection of DRM music that I've purchased from the iTunes store (sorry Jamie).

Every time I look at this mess, I realize that I should do something to clean it up. Also, I find CDs that I'd like to be listening to but get forgotten in the pile and haven't yet been ripped. The state of my current digital archive is so bad I probably need to just start over.

This seems like a common problem, so I'm going to blog about the task. I want to be able to play the audio on iTunes and un-hacked iPods, but I don't want Apple lock-in (yes, I know I bought Apple DRM locked-in music, but please allow me to be inconsistent here). I also want to be able to access the music from multiple computers, and not only while connected to my home network. This presents a bit of a challenge as the music collection will only grow over time and my laptop hard drive space is always a premium.

Right now, I'm thinking about ripping the CDs to FLAC format for my "archive" copy, and then converting to a medium-bitrate mp3 for day-to-day playback (160kbps stereo?). That way, I can have a pristine digital copy, but still fit large amounts of music on portable devices and laptops. The only problem is that this becomes a multi-step process for adding new music to the system.

I would also love to hear advice from you guys out there. How have you done it? What do you like or dislike about your system? Please share any thoughts in the comments!

1. The Gospel is a plan
2. The Gospel involves historical events
3. The Gospel involves the accomplishment of something objectively
4. The Gospel involves an offer to all, to faith alone
5. The Gospel is an application to YOU of what was accomplished objectively
6. The Gospel is an eternal, infinitely happy future destiny for those who believe

With each point, he argued it from scripture, and then described some common distortions or denials of that point. I love listening to Piper, but it takes about 110% of my brain to fully absorb the richness of what he's saying. The other thing I like about his ministry is that they strive to put as many resources online as possible--and all of their online materials are FREE. His complete sermon notes are here, including material he wasn't able to cover in the time allowed at the conference. You can also watch or listen to the message.

The other cool feature about the event was that during his talk you could text message your questions. Anyone listening live or on the Internet could do it. Then, about 5 minutes after his talk, they had a panel Q&A session to answer them. That panel was a lot of fun--it was Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Matt Chandler. But I had to bail before it was over because it was getting late (the conference was on the West Coast).

The complete audio and video of the conference will be available on the Resurgence website soon--check it out for some great teaching!

p.s. Anyone notice that it looks like one photo of a bunch of bananas was photoshopped to make it look green?

• Run 800 miles
• Run the Evansville Half Marathon at an 8-minute pace (1:44:48)
• Maintain weight below 180lbs (currently around 182)

You can read his trip report here.

Friday night was pretty chilly--the official low was 33F. Definitely the coldest weather I've ever experienced in a tent. But we were prepared and bundled up against the cold, and everyone stayed comfortable. Saturday morning we took our time eating breakfast and warming up around the campfire before setting out.

Andy, Andrew, Mike & JVP at the start of the hike.

We ended up hiking about 6 miles on various trails. The creeks were much lower than last year, so we could get to more areas. This also meant we were able to see two of the landmarks that this area is known for: "Devil's Backbone" and the Natural Bridge.

Devil's Backbone

Natural Bridge

After our hike, we went back to the campsite for food and conversation. Eventually, our fire burned low (this took a while, mostly because someone threw extra logs on the fire when Andrew's back was turned) and we started home.

The best thing about these trips isn't the scenery, the s'mores, or even the mentos+diet coke rockets. It's all about the fellowship. We always have great conversation, and challenge each other to grow in our spiritual walks. In short, it fosters the kind of deep, not-afraid-to-step-on-toes relationships that are desperately needed in the local church.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

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