That’s all I can say about the trip so far. Here are a few of the things that I want to remember and wrestle to the ground about this trip.

• My faith has grown more in the last week then all of my life.
• Adversity grows you and your team quicker and stronger than anything else.
• Spiritual warfare is real and satan is active.
• Your faith is your faith (your faith has to be worked out between you and God, not you and anyone else).
• Fear is not from God.
• I have some great friends.
• I love Brasilians.
• I am blessed.
• I miss my family.
• God has impacted every member of this Gospel For Brasil team individually, forever.
• Ubauna is a dark city that God is taking back.
• The kids of Ubauna will rock this planet for Jesus.
• God is POWERFULL and PRESENT.
• I need to up my game.
• I need to up my game.
• I need to up my game.
• Big things are coming!

I plan on posting about each day of the trip. Thanks for praying for us, we were in a battle.

We are heading out in minutes and we are pumped. (I am a little nervous about being in a bus for 6 hours on bumpy curvy roads and no where to go number 2. I get car sick).

We had a great send off at refuge of grace chruch last night and 6 of their members are going with us.

Can´t wait to see God move in Ubauna.

We are here! After an mere 26 hours of travel we are in Fortaleza, Brazil. I am exhausted and excited.

From what I saw of Brazil from the plane it is a beautiful country. This city is huge and has both beauty and nasty going on. The setting on the shoreline is awesome! The culture here is so different, there is obviously no zoning because you have high end buildings right beside ones that look like a bomb hit them. Graffiti is everywhere. We were walking on the street about an hour ago and I saw a man try to steal a guys drink from him, the guy resisted and the fellow just kicked him in the butt and sent him down the road.

I ate breakfast as soon as we got here this morning and then proceeded crash and burn like the Hindenburg. I woke up in a puddle of drool two hours later. Man that felt good!

Don’t know what my internet access will be like this week but if I can I will blog. Keep praying for us daily. My prayer this morning was that I would be in tune to how and where God wants to use me this week (and everyweek for that matter). 

Pray for the team to regain their strength today before we head to Ubauna.

I find myself at an awesome place today.

Refreshed from vacation, scrambling to tie up loose ends, and humbly offering myself to God to be used however he would like.

This afternoon 14 people from two states  and 4 churches will set out for Brazil. More specifically a little village named Ubauna. Our mission… Whatever God desires. We are carrying, clothes, food, vbs material and the hope of Jesus.

I expect this to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. I know we will encounter the enemy and I am confident that we God will prevail. I know that we will see miracles. I know God is sending us to expand His kingdom. I know we will grow in our faith. I know this trip is not about me but about Him.

I can’t wait to see God do his thing and my prayer is: God, Here I am, Send Me. Use me to bring You Glory.

Pray for us daily and pray for all those we will be ministering to. Here is a quick list of our team: Joe, Arimar, Tiffany, Daryl, JP, Loretta, Erin, John, Travis, Jessica, Gary, Patrick, Christy,  and Amber.

Can’t wait to share what we experience and what God does.

In the mean time you can get updates from Joe Carr’s blog (maybe he will let me guest blog while we are on the trip).

ps. that dotted line is the equator, pray for my bald head.

Thanks to the generosity of a couple in our church and their company, me and Kelli were able to get away this week for a little R&R. It was a blast and extremely relaxing. I have found out that to really rest it doesn’t matter as much where your body is but where your mind is and I was definitely able to shut the noodle down this week.

Here is a short list of the weeks activities:

• Hung out in downtown Miami.
• Ate at Bubba Gumps.
• Had my first Cuban food.
• Saw two Comedy Central comedians on the boat.
• Freshly made sushi every night.
• Great 80’s show on Tuesday night.
• Saw an insane balancing act (dude balanced two swords tip to tip on his head, he also balanced a bike on his head from the back wheel).
• Rode a catamaran for the first time in my life on Tuesday in Key West.
• Snorkeled over the 3rd largest coral reef in the world.
• Hung out on the beach in Cozumel Mexico on Wednesday.
• Met some really cool pastors and there wives (over 1000 on the boat with us). Really enjoyed hanging with Mark and Jennifer Church from St. Louis. Also met Daniel Floyd from Lifepoint Church in VA.
• Gained 453 pounds
• Took an air boat ride in the Everglades on Friday.
• Dated my lovely bride all week!

I am uploading some pics to flickr so look to the right in a day or so. Until then here are a few.

Here are some notes that Perry Noble took this weekend while listening to Ron Carpenter in Greenville, SC. There are a couple of these that made me think hard so I thought I would share them with you. I have bolded the ones that slammed me.

• The definition of diligence is doing a little thing a long time until something big happens.
• You will never win if you keep quitting!
• When you are preparing you are out of step with today but in step with what is happening tomorrow.
• The church waits on the world to create a problem & then responds to it–we need to do church in a way that puts the world on its heels!
• Having to be inspired to do what is right is the lowest form of maturity!  (DANG!!!)
• There are people who don’t mind if you fail…but it really bothers them if you succeed.
• Gossip is a symptom of an unfulfilled, boring life.  The only way you can focus on my life is because there is nothing happening in yours!  (DANG!)
• I want you to be so focused on your future that you don’t have time to talk about other people’s past!

Is there a fire in your gut? Are you passionate about something? Anything? That is my burden right now. I want to see people that are fanatical about what they do and who they are. When I see people go through the motions of life it makes me feel nauseous and angry.

Having said that, here are a few things that are burning in my gut right now:

• Helping Lifepoint prepare for what God has in store. I believe with all my heart that the only thing that will keep us from growing and pointing more people to life is us! I feel like we need to sure up our net in a few places and continue to strengthen the line in all areas and God will meet us there. However, if we bring a mediocre effort to the table, that’s all we give Him to work with. That’s BURNING IN ME.
• Helping others catch on fire. As I stated above, it upsets my stomach to see people with potential that are fine with mediocrity. I not only want to see them meet their potential and be on fire at what they do, I want to help them. This is BURNING IN ME and I have to be honest, sometimes I just want to throw up my hands on this one. I want so bad to encourage and inspire and sometimes I just want to lay into people (which is not a bad thing). I am seeking God in this area of leadership.
• Here is another thing that is burning in me. Since coming into ministry full time, I have done a poor job of protecting my family time. As TD Jakes says “I have loved His bride and fed mine” and God calls us to do the opposite. It is BURNING IN ME to be a better husband and father, to do a better job at leaving it at the office. I have told myself for years that it is just different in ministry and in certain areas it is but I am my wife’s only husband, my kids only dad and that’s got to come before ministry.
• Face time with God. Jeff inspires me with this one but it is BURNING IN ME to spend more and more time with God. I don’t ever want to lean on my abilities and strength. I have been there, done that and I ain’t that good. I need God more than ever in my life and daily routine. My goal is to spend and hour in the morning and an hour at night alone with God.

That’s what is BURNING IN ME right now.

I heard Rick Warren say one time that “People are down on what they are not up on” and I have experienced this first hand.

If you lead anyone at all whether its an athletic team, a business, your home, a small group, etc., then you should read this post from John BIshop. - Enjoy!

“The longest distance between two points is a shortcut” - John Maxwell

Make sure you do things right and with integrity.

What you feed grows! (I know, thank you captain obvious) This is has been so true in my life. Let me give you some practical examples:

• When I start digging into my Bible, I become so alive and I want more. I feel so dumb for slacking off.
• When I go to the gym, I have more energy and I am inspired to get fit. Again I feel dumb for slacking off.
• When I spend time on organization I get more done. Again, I feel ignorant for neglecting this aspect of my daily routine.

Can you see a pattern? The things in life that are good for me, actually invigorate me when I do them. So why in the world would I not do them more often? The simple answer is self discipline but there is more to it.

I have two appetites that I have to manage in my life and how I manage these make all the difference in the world.

One appetite is for those things that are healthy for me. My family, my faith, my productivity, my health. The other appetite is those things that pull me away from the first set. I will call this an appetite for destruction. Let me get real vulnerable on this one, this is stuff like lust, over eating, laziness. These things work just like the good list, if you feed them, they grow and not only do they grow but they cause the good list to suffer. If I look at the opposite sex in the wrong manner those desires will grow. If my mind is racing to the next meal my waste line grows. If I fuel laziness it affects my whole schedule.

So here is the game plan:

• Identify the positive appetites in your life (God, Spouse, Kids, Work)
• Feed the positive appetites (time, energy, resources)
• Identify the negative appetites in your life (sin, time wasters, health busters)
• Starve the negative appetites (cut them off cold, no time, not thoughts, no resources)