My week so far...

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Let me just start this little story by saying, I’m fine. Or at least I’m sure I will be. =) I had a bit of an interesting week, and it’s not over just yet I guess…but for sure things look better today than they did yesterday.

How’s that for a cryptic little start to this epistle? So okay, here’s the story…

About a month ago, I started noticing that there was some blood in my urine when I went to the bathroom. Yes, I know…that’s kind of personal information, but the rest of this doesn’t make much sense unless you know that part. It was just before my trip to Turkey, so I obviously I had other things on my mind and didn’t think much about it. While I was gone though, I noticed it was getting to be more and more. Not all the time, mind you…but often enough.

When I got home, I still kind of put off doing anything about it. My main excuse will be that I was busy getting back into the swing of things here. My secondary backup excuse (when people get grumpy with me for the first excuse) will be that I have this thing with hospitals and doctors. When I was in my 20’s I spent three months in the hospital and had numerous surgeries and whatnot. It’s caused a psychological aversion to all things medical that, you know, really isn’t my fault. My final (so stop giving me a hard time!) excuse is that I always feel like whatever is happening is just in my head, and when I go to a doctor he’s not going to find anything and he’s going to look at me like I’m a faker and just looking for attention. I inherited this from my mother, so it’s genetic and not even my fault. Nothing I can do about it. I know there was blood in the bowl…doesn’t make any difference. Still felt like I was faking…

So with that out of the way, there’s no need to write and tell me that I’m an idiot for not going to the doctor sooner. We’re all aware of that fact, so let’s just let it go. The important thing is that I did eventually decide to go see someone about this last Tuesday. The doctor in Emergency ran the usual blood/urine tests. He was pretty sure it was either a stone or an infection. The weird thing was that, other than the blood, I wasn’t feeling any pain. Anyone who’s experienced kidney stones will tell you I’m sure…that that’s not normal. =)

A couple of hours later we had the results and there were no stones and no infection. So he made a call and a nurse walked me over to the hospital’s urology specialist.

Let me just take a moment here…I’m a big believer in universal healthcare, especially after living in a country where people die every year from preventable causes. So I’ll defend our healthcare system to the day I die. Even if sometimes we have to wait for treatment, it’s better that everyone has access to the same care.

Having said that, I now get why people with money want to be able to buy faster service. I went straight from Emergency to see a specialist. They did an x-ray and ultrasound of my abdomen that same evening. Nothing showed up, so the specialist ordered a CAT scan for the next morning. Bang, bang, bang….it was fast. I dropped nearly a $1000 in two days, but still…things were happening.

Wednesday I sat with the doctor as he looked at the results of the CAT scan. The first thing he told me?

“So it seems you don’t have a right kidney.”

Uh…what?

"In the x-ray, the ultrasound and now the CAT scan, there’s no sign of your right kidney. Did you have it removed?”

Um…pretty sure no. I think I would have remembered that. He said he figured I was probably born without that kidney then. So as my head is wrapping itself around that little tidbit of information, he goes on to tell me that he thinks there might be a growth on my other kidney (you know, my one remaining kidney). Something showed up on the scan. He showed it to me, and it definitely looked like there’s something there. So he says the first thing we need to find out is whether or not it’s cancer.

He went on to explain what tests he was going to do the next day, and honestly, as I sat there listening, my brain wasn’t freaking out or anything…I was quite calm. But then slowly I started to feel a heat slide down over my head and my body just got hotter and hotter. I guess that’s what happens when the “C” word gets dropped into the conversation. I knew in my head that it probably wasn’t cancer, but that didn’t make a stitch of difference to the rest of me. I felt myself start to get emotional, and if you know me at all, you know I’m not exactly an emotional person. As I sat there I just told myself, “You are so not going to get all weepy in front of a doctor you barely know!” So I jammed all that silly emotion stuff back down, deep inside where it belongs. =) After I finished up with the doctor, I did call my mom from my truck though. There are just moments when you need to talk to mom. She was as surprised about my lack of a kidney as I was. Especially after all the medical stuff I’ve been through. I felt better after talking to the family (funny how that works) and then I went and hung out at my friend, Jorge’s house. We prayed together and I felt pretty calm again.

Thursday morning I was back for another CAT scan, but this time they dumped some kind of radioactive liquid into me so they could take a better picture of my insides. I knew it was a long shot, but I was still kind of hoping the radioactive stuff would give me superpowers. Nothing so far, but I’ll keep you posted.

I thought I’d get to see the doctor again right away (it really doesn’t take long to get accustomed to this pay-as-you-go/get-service-right-now system they have here), but it was stupid Mother’s Day (no offence moms) and the doctor’s office was closed. Mother’s Day is bigger than Christmas here, so of course the doctor and his staff went home for the day.

So I had to wait until Friday evening. That was a really long thirty-some hours. The other grumpy thing is that I think I had some kind of reaction to the radioactive stuff and suffered through a night of high fevers and the shakes. Seriously…just like Peter Parker except no Spiderman.

When I did eventually see the doctor last night, there was good news. Definitely no cancer! What looked like a tumor was just a strange lumpy part of my kidney…lumpy but normal. The image, by the way, was very cool. It looked like somebody took a colour picture of my kidneys. Or kidney I guess. There was definitely only one there. Not even a little stumpy where my right kidney should be. Just a big hole.

So what’s next? Well, as glad as I am that the whole cancer thing is a no go, we’re still back at square one as to what is going on. So Tuesday they’re going to knock me out, cut me a little and stick a camera inside of me to try and see what’s up. Of course I’m not thrilled by the idea, but whatever…I guess if that’s what needs to happen.

So if you could pray about all of this with me, that’d be great. For the most part I feel fine. Like I said, there isn’t any pain or anything. I do think though, that some discomfort I was feeling in my lower back (that I thought was from the accident last year) might actually be related to this instead. I started paying more attention, and I realized that most of the pain is only on my left side where my kidney is.

I’ll let you know when I learn anything. One funny moment in all of this…my mom was talking to my brother on the phone and was explaining everything to him (this was when we thought there might be cancer involved). She jokingly asked him if he was ready to donate a kidney to me. There was dead silence on the phone and so she asked him again. His reply?

“Just a minute, I’m thinking about all the things he did to me when we were kids.”

Ah, my family…so supportive.

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Ephesus...

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So...if you're easily bored by other people's home movies...you'd best just leave now.  No hard feelings...I won't even know. 

I figured I'd post a few pictures of my trip to Turkey for those who've been asking about them.  I managed to whittle down the hundreds of pictures into something a little more manageable.  This is the first batch from my trip to Ephesus....

The Amphitheatre...

This theatre is the first thing you see when you arrive.  This was my first ever opportunity to explore and touch something that has existed for over two thousand years.  It was a cool moment.  Because the theatre floor has no drainage, archeologists have been able to determine that at one time it was roofed in. 

Just behind the theatre was one of the main roads through Ephesus.

Pillars along the road...

This stretch of road was lined with pillars and again, archeologists think it was covered by a roof.  There are places along the road where they think there were street lamps, making Ephesus one of the few cities in the ancient world to have street lighting.

The ancient sympol for Christ...

This was really interesting.  Early Christians had a secret sympol to identify each other.  The "fish" sympol...which we've all heard of and have on the trunk of our car.  Except it wasn't actually a fish.  It was the symbol above.  The Greek word for fish was an acronym that stood for "Jesus Christ God's Son Savior".  Each letter of the word could be found in the sympol above.  This sympol was carved into different walls and floors throughout Ephesus.

The Greek word for "fish"...

The Palace of the Council...

The Palace of the Council was where the governing council of the city met.  The city of Ephesus had a population of over 300,000 people, so the ruins go on forever.  You have to think it must have been crazy for the first archeologists when they began discovering what was burried there. 

More ruins...

And if you haven't already noticed, they really liked their pillars...

Nike, goddess of victory...

This is a relief of Nike, the goddess of victory.  So she wasn't just a pair of shoes.  If you notice, part of her robes makes a swoosh. 

Curetes Street....

After walking over a slight hill, the city spreads out before you, all the way down to what was once the harbour.  If you notice the area beyond the ruins, it's now farmland.  At one time the Mediterranean Sea came right up to the city.  Eventually the bay filled with silt, and that began the decay of Ephesus as a major city.

The obligatory tourist picture....

This was a temple built to honour somebody or other...after awhile it tends to

get blurry in your head...

Terracota water pipes...

Ephesus was one of the few ancient cities that had underground water and sewage pipes.  These clay pipes were revolutionary in their time.

Public toilets...

Speaking of innovations and running water...there were public toilets available to the population.  Fresh water ran through a channel at your feet for washing yourself when you were finished.

One of the young pastors in our group got his picture taken sitting here with his Bible open on his lap.  He said it was just like being at home.  I kind of think he was impressed with the thought that maybe he was sitting where Paul may have sat.  All I can say is that there wasn't much privacy...

Tile mosaics in the street in front of what was once a wealthy residential area...

The Library of Celsus...

Eventually you arrive at what is easily the most spectacular sight in the city, the Library of Celsus.  It's hard to describe the beauty of this building.

The library is covered with carvings and statues, and housed tens of thousands of books and scrolls, making it one of the most extensive libraries in the ancient world.

More cool looking ruins...

I'm sure this was part of an ancient temple or palace or public bathroom...  Like I said, it kind of gets mixed up in your head after awhile.  But it's still pretty...

My friend Liz did darn good having patience with me for taking so long with the picture taking.  I think she did wonder sometimes, though, where I'd wandered off to....

The Marble Street...

This was the main street of Ephesus, four kilometres of street paved in white marble, lined with statues and columns.

The Great Theatre...

The Marble Street leads you eventually to the Great Theatre, a amphitheatre that could seat 25,000 people.  It was here in Acts 19 that the conflicts between the followers of Artimis and Christ took place.

The Harbour Street...

This street led to the harbour from the Great Theatre.  It was lined on both sides of its 530 m length with columns and candle street lamps, and was again paved with marble.  There are four large pillars near the end of the street which are thought to have had statues on them of the four authors of the New Testament.  In the time of Paul, this street would have had shops and homes on both sides of the street and would have been a busy commercial area.

The city of Ephesus...

This is Ephesus seen from the main road.  As I mentioned earlier, the city was once a harbour, and all the land you see in the front of the picture was once the Mediterranean.  As well, the city was surrounded on its other three sides by a huge forty foot, fortified wall.  The wall ran on the peaks of the three mountains you see in the picture, and protected the city. 

Ephesus was one of the wealthiest and most revered cities in the ancient world.  The first historical mention of it was in 2000 BC.  It was a city filled with temples and shrines to different gods, and yet it was also one of the first homes of the Christian Church.  Our guide made the statement that, "Christianity was born in Jerusalem, but grew up in Turkey."  It was amazing to walk around and imagine that Paul and John and others had walked on the same streets we were walking on. 

This is just a small taste of what it was like.  Pictures don't really do justice to the experience.  Walking around the streets of Ephesus was definitely one of the coolest moments of my life, and not something I'll soon forget.

And of course, what journey through an ancient biblical site would be complete without someone selling "Genuine Fake Watches" at the gate to the city...

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We were almost on the news...

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I just arrived home tonight to find a news truck parked in front of the house three doors down from us, with a big crowd of people gathered around it.  My first thought was, "Well, the inevitable has happened.  Somebody's finally shot somebody else on our street."  I found the guys gathered around the TV watching the news report (rather than actually walking 30 ft down the street to see what was going on).  I wanted to go try and get on TV, but no one was interested. 

They explained to me that the owner of the property was fighting with the current tenants.  She loaned them the house fifteen years ago, and now she wants it back.  Strangely enough, because the family has lived there for more than four years, they have rights.  By law the owner is expected to pay them to more or less buy her property back.  She's offereing them less than what they want and they're upset and somehow this is newsworthy in a city of more than a million people. 

Really, all I know is that I wouldn't be devestated to see that family leave.  They have a truckload of kids (I'm not sure how many families live in the house, but it's more than a few), and the youngest keeps using my truck as his personal playground.  He climbs up on the roof and then slides down the windshield and off the hood.  It makes me...tense... everytime I see his little footprints on my windshield. 

The funniest part of this whole little neighbourhood drama is that the father of of the family in the house came knocking on my door a month or so ago, and wanted to know if I was interested in buying "his" property because they had decided they wanted move.  I guess he saw this coming.

Ah life in my barrio...

PS  And in soccer news, Canada lost today to Argentina 5 - 0.  How many of you even knew we were playing Argentina?  Here at the house we had to watch the sports report on every channel we get so the guys could mock me as much as possible.  It probably would have bothered me more if it was a real sport, but come on...it was soccer...

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Life back in Bolivia...

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This isn't going to be a long, well thought-out post I'm afraid.  No funny stories either (although I do have a couple that I'll share with you next time).  I just wanted to ask you to take a moment and pray for us.  We're doing fine, in that everything that's happening is something God can use.  I've always said that when sin and strongholds are brought into the light, it's a good thing.  Many of us spend too much time living with one foot in the darkness.  That's certainly true here.

Just after I got back from travelling, I think my Facebook status was something about how it's crazy how much stuff can happen in two weeks.  Those were some true words let me tell you.  Some situations have come to light here that caught me off guard I'm afraid.  Like I said, it's a good thing that we know what's going on, and that the people involved stepped up and were honest.  But, wow...it still feels a bit overwhelming at times. 

God is, as always, faithful, and I can see His hand in everything that's happening.  He's bringing freedom and has already granted forgiveness.  I just need wisdom on how to be a positive part of the work He's doing.  There are moments when searching for the Spanish word to best express my feelings in some sort of coherent way just goes right out the window, and I'm pretty sure I'm just mumbling randomly in Spanish.  At least that's how it feels.  =)

So if you could pray for wisdom and peace for myself and those who are working here with me, as well as strength and wisdom for the guys who are dealing with different issues in their lives right now...that'd be great.  We also need spiritual protection I think.  There've been a lot of spiritual attacks lately with the guys.  We took some time today to pray about everything and to make use of our spiritual authority, but some added prayer would be a good thing.

Thanks everyone!  For those of you who are interested, I'll try to get around to posting some pictures of my trip.  It was an amazing time.  I came home feeling...well, maybe not rested exactly, but at least prepared and in a happy place.  That was good...

To think that exactly a week ago I was crawling around, exploring a 12th century castle on the Mediterranean Sea.  Ah life...

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What I did on my summer holidays...

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In general, they say one should never write about one’s mistakes where the whole world can read about it. However, if I ever actually held to this unspoken rule, I would lose 90% of what makes up my blog. And that’d be kind of boring.

So in the interest of serving my friends and family and keeping us all entertained…I offer the following…

Every year my mission holds a conference in a different country for the team leaders of our various fields. Even though I technically lead no one (thanks Marcee) I still fall into the category of “Team Leader” and therefore as the leader of myself, I’m able to attend. I just never do, since I usually don’t have the funds. This year through the generosity of family and an anonymous donor, I was given the opportunity. It didn’t take too much to convince me since this year’s conference is in Turkey. Seriously…Turkey! Since Turkey is on my list of places to go before I die (I do actually have such a list), and since I’m not getting any younger (so they tell me) I figured this might be my only chance.

At this point I could write a number of other things to try and justify the trip, but I’ll just skip all that for the sake of brevity. If you want the list I’ve come up with, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll make sure you get a copy. It’s extensive.

I booked my flights (which was complicated since I was trying to travel from South America to Turkey and, it seems, not very many people want to do that), and last Sunday headed for the airport with my bags packed and the guys in tow to say goodbye. I was more excited than I’ve been in quite some time. As you probably gathered in the last post, it’s been a rough few weeks here, and I was ready for a bit of adventure that didn’t involve me being dad to a dozen ex-street kids.

My excitement diminished significantly when the nice lady behind the counter informed me that I’d messed up and missed my flight. It’d been booked for the day before. All I can say at this point is that I have no idea what happened. When I book flights (which I’ve done a lot) I generally check the dates a hundred times before I make the final decision. As I said, this was a complicated flight to book and I’d looked at a lot of different flights. As well, South America uses a different set up for the calendar, and it may be that I got mixed up and thought I was clicking on Sunday, when in fact it was Saturday. In the end it doesn’t really matter what happened…what mattered was that I was without a ticket.

They also informed me that it would be in the range of $4000 to rebook my flights since I needed to travel the next day and that’s what the tickets were currently worth. That didn’t go over well in my head either.

So back home I went, and spent the next four hours on my computer trying to talk to talk to people to rebook my flights and hotels, etc. It didn’t help that the internet was ridiculously slow and I was only hearing every fourth word the other person was saying…which is why I ended up booking myself into a smoking room at the hotel in Miami, but that’s another story…

I finally decided to just figure it out myself. I ended up finding decent flights to Istanbul (not great, but not bad) and I was told that I could apply my lost ticket to future travel (the ticket agent was surprised by that since normally that’s not possible. For some reason I had a ticket that allowed me to use the credit in the future. So yea…thanks God…). In the end I felt like I wasn’t losing too much. Not $4000 anyhow…

Monday morning I was back at the airport ready to try again. I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous to travel! I just kept feeling like I was sure I’d missed something and would be told…again…that I wouldn’t be able to travel. But low and behold, the next thing I knew, I was on the plane and headed for Miami.

Miami night? Mostly uneventful. I ate at Subway and that made me very happy. I also got lost trying to find the hotel pool...it was very complicated.  As I said, I had a smoking room but the smell wasn’t too bad and it was $10 cheaper than my original room…so bonus. My flight was at 11:00 AM so I set the hotel’s alarm clock, and to be doubly careful, I also asked for a 7:30 AM wake up call. No problem they assured me…

Imagine my surprise when I woke up, looked at the clock to see it read two minutes to nine! I had less than two hours until my flight LEFT. I went screaming out of the hotel (I threw my passkey at the front desk as I ran past) and hopped into the shuttle. He knew I was late and drove like a wild man to the airport. I ran inside…to see a huge lineup at the American check-in counter. I asked an American rep if there was anything I could do, and she said that since I was traveling internationally, I could do the self check-in thing. Self check-in? Nobody there! I was through in less than five minutes. Off to security…

…where there were at least 300 people in line. Now I knew I was in trouble. I asked another American rep if this was for sure the concourse I wanted (I didn’t have time to mess that up) and she told me that I could go through here, but if I went out the front doors of the airport, cut across the parking lot and went back in farther down the airport, I would end up closer to the concourse I wanted.

Great…off I went, running and dragging my luggage across the parking lot. I kind of crashed through the doors right in front of the security check point I needed. And guess what? There was ONE person in line. I was through security in less than three minutes and running for my gate. Although at this point I didn’t really need to run since I was now over an hour early. =)

From my bed to the gate? Less than 45 minutes…in the Miami airport no less. Of course it took me awhile to catch my breath and I was sweating like a pig, but still…less than 45 minutes!

Now that would be impressive enough, if the story ended there. But of course it doesn’t. My next destination was New York…

It was really fun flying into New York. We came in more or less over downtown, so I could see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, among other famous sights. I had an aisle seat, so I had to look past the make-out couple beside me (I didn’t mention them, but suffice to say that before the flight even took off she had her legs overtop of his legs and they were…affectionate…the entire trip. Oh…and they were kind of old so it was sort of gross. No offense to older people…more power to you really…but not in the plane seat beside me for three hours).

Anyhow, we arrived eventually and I settled into my eight hour layover at the airport by looking for a McDonald’s. As I wandered away from the arrivals area, I suddenly had a thought…I wondered if my luggage was checked all the way through to London or if I had to pick it up. I asked one official looking guy and he assured me that it was, in fact, checked through to London. Then he hesitated and suggested that we talk to another lady with American. She looked at my ticket and said,

“Honey, (yea she called me Honey) you definitely need to pick up your luggage since you’re not leaving from this airport! You’re leaving from JFK!”

Of course I am.

So I hustled back to baggage claim…found my bag that was still happily going around in circles on the conveyor belt, and went looking for a bus to the John F. Kennedy airport.

Now that ride was kind of fun too. I didn’t see anything famous or anything, but there were lots of traffic signs to famous places…Brooklyn…Queens…Long Island. Places I’ve only read about or seen in movies. It’d be nice to go back some day and actually visit those places, of course, but I was still rather entertained by seeing the names. As was the lady in front of me it seemed. She took pictures of everything. That’s fine I guess, but I’d hate to be her family and have to look at the vacation slides. The bumper of the big truck in front of us looked like…well, the bumper of a big truck. And I’m not sure where she was from, but it seems they don’t have a Staples Office Supply store there and she needed a picture to remind herself of the amazing things she’d seen in New York.

Since I had eight hours in New York, I decided to use the time and call the American Airlines office to double check that I could wait until I got home in two weeks, to use the credit from my missed flight.  The nice lady (American Airline people are always nice...even when they're telling you bad news...) said that it would be no problem for me to wait until I got back, and credit for the full price of my ticket would be waiting for me.  Full price?  I explained that I was only rebooking the first part of my trip, and that I still planned to use the return portion of my ticket for the way home.  Oh no, she told me...the entire ticket has been cancelled.

Of course it has.

So now I'm already in New York, on my way to Istanbul, and I have no return ticket.  I spent the next three hours (on a very slow internet connection) trying to figure out how I was going to get home. 

My eight hours in New York eventually turned into eleven and a half when our plane broke down and they had to find us a new one. Funniest moment of the evening? When the person at the desk said, “Hang with us folks. We’re just making sure that the new plane is flight worthy enough to get y’all across the ocean.” That just instills all kinds of confidence.

Oh yea, and after coming through security, as I was putting myself back together, the security person, who was a rather large, black lady, picked up my belt and asked me in a very serious voice,

“This your belt?”

“Yes ma’am!” (I actually did say ma’am…she was kind of scary).

“You sure?”

“Well my pants are falling down, so I’m pretty sure.”

Don’t ask me where that came from. I have no idea.

She looks at me and says, “That’s never good.” Then she hesitates for a moment and says, “Well, I suppose it depends on the situation.”

And then she handed me my belt.

With that folks…after an extra three and a half hour wait…I am about to get on a plane that they hope is flight worthy enough to get us to London.

And I haven’t even left the North American continent yet. Only thirty nine hours more to go…

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Storms...

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It’s funny…I never have any problem writing about the funny stuff that happens here. It just kind of pours out of me. I sit at the computer and snicker away to myself as I type. Whether anyone else is entertained or not, I certainly manage to entertain myself.

Then there are the days…sometimes weeks…when life isn’t that funny or entertaining. It’s a lot tougher to write about those moments. I don’t want to look like I’m feeling sorry for myself or fishing for a few “Oh, poor Ken” comments.

So I tend to avoid the blog. I don’t check to see if there’re new comments (which I do like by the way). I don’t write things in my head throughout the day and think about how to put them down on paper (or pretend paper as the case may be). I don’t really want to officially acknowledge that life is kind of lame some days. Or weeks…

I was talking a little bit with one of the guys about what’s been going on in my life recently, and he kind of smiled and said I was experiencing a “perfect storm”, a reference to the movie of the same name.

The imagery of a storm is used a lot here to talk about difficult or painful times. The idea of “passing through the storm...” There’s even a song we sing at church that talks about “peace in the middle of the storm”. It’s a pretty common metaphor. Which is maybe one of the reasons that movie was popular with the guys…the idea of a number of storms all coming together at the same time to create the perfect storm. People here certainly understand that imagery.

When Andres said that, it kind of tweaked my brain and started me thinking about storms and from there what the Bible had to say about them. I ended up in Mark 4 where Jesus and the disciples got caught in a storm as they were sailing across the Sea of Galilee. The Bible describes it as a “furious squall”. The boat was getting all tossed around and the disciples were freaking out and trying to bail. And what was Jesus doing? Sleeping. Which kind of made the disciples freak out even more.

Their big question to Jesus?

“Don’t you care that we’re going to die?!”

If they’d put their heads together and really worked at it, they probably couldn’t have come up with a dumber question. Seriously. After everything they’d seen and experienced with Jesus, that was their response when things got rough. “Don’t you care?”

In the midst of my self-righteous “dumb disciples” thinking, I suddenly realized (and I know everyone else got there way before I did), I was doing exactly the same thing. I was looking at everything that was happening and all the garbage going down, and maybe I wasn’t voicing it out loud, but I was definitely thinking it.

“Don’t you care at all about what’s going on?”

After everything I’ve seen and experienced here, the moment the waves start crashing over the edge of the boat and my feet start getting a bit wet…that’s how I responded.

When Jesus woke up, He turned to the storm, spoke three words and the storm was instantly calm. No waves…no wind…no lightening or thunder…nothing. Imagine how the disciples felt then. I’m sure there’s a list of good descriptive words one could use, but stupid comes to mind pretty quick. Then Jesus turns to them and says, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

That had to be a painful moment for the disciples. Think about it…five seconds earlier you were whining and complaining and thinking you were going to die, and then, in a moment, all the problems you thought were so huge just went away. And then God, who was in the boat with you all the time, asks, “Why were you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Storm or no storm, the disciples weren’t going to die. And guess what? The truth is, neither am I. The storm is still raging here as I write this, and yea, my feet are getting a bit wet. But for the life of me I don’t want Jesus to turn to me in the midst of my whining and complaining and ask, “Do you still have no faith?”

I don’t want to be that guy.

I could give you the list of things to pray for, but in the end, right now? It’s fine if you just pray. The details aren’t that important. God is faithful and the storm will end. That’s the point of the story.

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