Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for March, 2007

This past Sunday at Elevation Church, we had a guest speaker – Pastor Terrell Murphy of New Birth Charlotte. Wow, it has been a long time a-comin’ for me to hear a black preacher. I’m not going to waiver to the political correctness of ‘African-American’ because in the black neighborhood I grew up in, black folk called themselves black folk. If you have never heard a black preacher, you are missing out on a unique style of preachin’. Pastor Murphy preached a Bible message that definitely challenged me.

About midway through the first service sermon, I found myself wanting to meet some of my brothers and sisters in the New Birth congregation. Why? Listen to the sermon and you’ll see. The message boils down to partnership and unity within the body of Christ. Before Sunday, my mind picture of one of ‘my’ churches and one of ‘their’ churches coming together would bring about a lot of head-butting, disagreement, and self-defeat. I have to admit that I have been one of the ones to believe that white churches and black churches go in different directions and therefore could not form an effort alliance. Not because I had ill intent and feelings about a race different than my own, but that ‘it just doesn’t work that way.’ What a pack a lies that is.

Pastor Murphy’s sermon jogged my memory of what Jesus’ desire is for His body; to be different but all together accomplishing things for the glory of our Savior. Thanks, Pastor Murphy. You have brought me close to the hearts of your congregation though I have met not a single one of them. May HIS kingdom come!

I have been

when it comes to my McBlog. Dana’s a planner; she typed out a week’s worth of posts before we started packing up the RV. Me? I watched 24.

RoadRunner internet was finally installed in our new home yesterday (aahhhhhhhh….) but low and behold I forgot my laptop charger at church on Sunday. Ryan Hollingsworth is a hero for his reconnaissance work. He carried my charger to safety and I was able to get it from him this morning.

… but, I’m still working hard at making sure my computer doesn’t become an idol. Honestly, it is very challenging.

We’re sitting in the parking lot of the IT building at JAARS so we can get a wireless signal.

The RV is safe and secure at the missions house and we just returned the truck a STRANGER loaned to us!  Bout to head out of the lot… just wanted you hear that things are going absolutely splendidly in our move!  Thank you for your encouragement and prayers!

Today was the day! Our Mama Blue (female Eastern Bluebird) finally laid an egg after a hard week of nest-building. We also saw Papa feed her in the box for the first time as well. Here’s the footage:

Papa feeding Mama in the box – 38 seconds long

Mama lays her egg – 7 minutes 42 seconds long

Mama lays her egg – Long Version – 27 minutes 50 seconds

This is one of my favorite words I learned growing up in the mountains. The above definition is from urbandictionary.com but I’m sorry to say Dan that, well… to use it to describe running from the police is off. Though your definition is accurate, the application is anything but. The origin of the word is from cuntry folk just like the phrase wee doggy. Don’t look to hear that on Ludicris’ next album. Then again, the hiphop culture did adopt NASCAR racing jackets a few years ago. Hhmmm, I could be wrong on that one. But I believe a better example in proper context would be:

I gotta skeedadle! One-uh muh cows jus got out.

I asked Dana to iterate the two pronunciations of skeedadle.

Primary Southern Pronunciation

Local Variation

The word round town is that my 6th grade picture is showing up all over blogger.com…. just kidding. There’d be a witch hunt if that was true. We did get word today that we’re the current feature for Pastor Steven Furtick’s Heroes of the Day. Once per week he chooses a hero or heroes out of his life to talk about and commend on his blog. I’ve enjoyed reading about his heroes but didn’t think we’d end up being a couple of them. Honestly, I hoped we may have someday gotten on there because it means a lot to us to be encouraged in such a way. To know Steven personally, it really carries insurmountable significance to get this pat-on-the-back from him.

Now, here’s the funny part. About two weeks ago, Pastor Steven’s blog went down because of a domain issue. It was back online shortly and he was blogging away again a few days later. That is a great recovery story but we are in a unique position on our end in terms of our internet access in the good ‘ol box (RV). DSL internet service is provided in our RV site rental fee which means we are behind the JAARS firewall. There must be some kind of crazy cache (web page storage) that the firewall and/or JAARS server has because I can update our webpage and not see the update in a browser for a day, or two, or three… So, ever since we lost the feed off of Pastor Steven’s website last week, the JAARS cache hasn’t updated.

Bottom line = we can’t even read the blog on which we’re deemed HEROES! That’s right. Pastor Steven, sorry man. It’s killin’ me not to be able to read your blog. I hope to some way be able to see the post before we see you again but considering tomorrow is Sunday, that may be a stretch.

Actually, just remembered a coffee shop between us and church that has free wireless access I can get on from their parking lot. Ever surfed from your driver’s seat? See why I’m addicted to technology???!!!!!!

We have a stats page where we can monitor our website activity (don’t worry, it doesn’t give me driving directions to your house). It tells us things like the number of hits each day and for the month; the bandwidth we’ve used each day and month; the most popular pages (Dana’s Avenue BY FAR!); and a fun one that I’m going to share some of the results out of.

When you Google a topic, it lists tons of possible websites that contain information about your inquiry. Well, our stats page records what search phrase included us in the results and eventually led the internet surfer to our website. Here are some great ones from the month of February:

how do you say no worries in swahili
outdated milk
www.oprah.com
look out my window and see the bluebird song
funny american idol quotes one-legged man
16 year old adopted american idol contestant
dana fine
fishery products found in chunya district
hakuna matata myspace code
ficm rv
swahili phrases have fun
mayo clinic neurosurgeon
stupid express lane
intj feel lost
bayou le batre
jonathan winter evangelist malaysia
bluebird rv
how to flush legalism out of my mind
moravian sweatshirts
cousin carl edwards
the guy with the adopted parents on american idol 2007
mcguirt rob
scarlett o hara i ll worry about that tomorrow
pray to be punctual
rv life
sundance and simon exchange on american idol

You may react in one of two ways to this blog post.

1. “Jonathan, you’re a missionary, someone who is supposed to be super spiritual. Is this what you’re spending your time pondering on?”
2. “God stories are cool. I love His level of care and involvement.”

My take is the latter as we indeed are loved by Almighty God. I don’t want to only look to Him during the spiritual highs or lows. I want to see the fine detail of His interaction with our lives, day in and day out. The following is a normal day, fine detail, God story.

Dana and I are avid birdwatchers. We love to discover all the different species and how they look, act, fly, nest… on and on. The American Kestrel (above) is one bird I noticed in our very first bird guide book that became one of my favorites and most desired to see in person. They are common across the entire country mostly in open areas. I have traced with my eyes umpteen miles of power lines as I have driven around hoping to see one perched so I could gawk at it. Seeing one in the wild is different than seeing one in captivity. The above picture is obviously one in an aviary. It was nice to see him at the Carolina Raptor Center but my quest for one in the wild continued.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are when we drive from Waxhaw to Indian Trail to volunteer at the Elevation Church offices. The drive is about 30 minutes through the countryside and one section of our route is in purple below.

Yesterday, we left a lot later than usual to go to the offices. We passed a crow shortly after we left and to state the obvious to Dana I said, “I wish I’d see a kestrel.” That must be the 100th time she’s heard that out of me.

As we came (travelling up on the map) to the light at Goldmine Rd and N Rocky River Rd, we noticed a Road Closed/Detour sign for construction that was taking place where the red dot is on the map. The below map is one of the detour route that essentially led us around the Monroe Airport.

As we turned right off of Goldmine Rd onto Airport Rd, my eyes continued to routinely scan the power lines. I noticed something sitting on a line about 100 yards ahead of us. As we approached it in the bright midday light, I could only make out a silhouette. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was but I could tell it wasn’t a dove or bluebird, the most common line perchers in our area. I could only look so long, as I was the one driving, then as we passed it, Dana yelled, “It’s a kestrel!”

I whipped around the car like they do in movie high-speed chases. Well, almost. We drive a Honda Civic. Then, I drew my camera quicker than a gunslinger in the wild wild west. I ended up snapping almost 100 pictures of a bird we still weren’t 100% was actually an American Kestrel. We must have spooked it as it flew off toward the runway of the airport. About that time, Dana reached the kestrel page in the bird guide book I gave her the night before. I turned to listen to her read what it said, “… known to commonly hover…”. We turned to look back in the direction of the runway and what-do-you-know… the bird was hovering! It’s not a normal behavior for a bird to hover for 15 seconds at a time. At least not normal for birds other than kestrels.

We’ve driven that route for months now with no need whatsoever to detour or go a different path.  We haven’t seen a single kestrel in any of the literally dozens of fields we pass.  We don’t carry a bird guide with us.

I don’t believe in coincidences. I enjoy God.

Occasionally Teddy (our bigger(?) dog) plays with his food. I have tried and tried to catch him doing it on camera but he either gets distracted by what I’m grabbing or the camera is MIA at the time. Those days are in the past now that I caught this on Sunday. Please disregard the loud NASCAR RaceDay on the TV in the background. (great show by-the-way).

Watch the Ted Meister

I have filled out two brackets for the RV Hoops ESPN Tournament Challenge group. Got one? Two? Twenty? Bring ‘em on! Join the group. I created it. Who else would take the route of a title referencing an RV?!

I love this time of year. The birth of Jesus is the only factor to vault Christmas over March Madness! Otherwise… no comparison. The Tournament Challenge is a safe, easy, fun way to enjoy the best sporting event in the world. (After only one World Cup experience for me, it is a close second place.) So, come on! Show me the grade you got in BRACKETOLOGY!!!!!

(Password is Tanzania)