6 days to go

6 days is the countdown. I'm not really feeling anxious. I've been thinking about and planning for this trip for so long...it doesn't even seem like that big of a deal anymore. I received a lot of "good lucks" at Jodi's 20th reunion last night...and I could tell that they were thinking "don't get yourself killed".

So to recap, how did we get here? Jodi and I have been church shopping since we arrived in the valley. We tried the Catholic route first, since I grew up Catholic and wanted to "Come Home" as the Catholic church was suggesting after another round of ugly scandals. So we landed at St. Timothy's, which had a young, vibrant community led by Dale Fushek. We started to buy in until Fushek was indicted on a multitude of sexual misconduct charges. Strike three, you are out Catholicism. (Strikes one and two are a story for another day)

We then attended a small Lutheran church in Chandler, which I dubbed "Catholic Lite" due to the lesser amount of pomp and circumstance. Though we were happy with the church, we must not have been happy enough to fully commit.

We had heard that some of our neighbors were attending a church called "The Grove", which I would drive by every day on my way to work. Now I was skeptical as it seems that churches pop up faster than convenience marts in the east valley. And growing up in the "one holy, catholic and apostolic church" mindset, it did not feel right going to one of the "other" churches. "The Grove" was everything that I had feared. People wore sandals, shorts, and brought coffee into the service (the horror!). Half of the service was contemporary, entertaining, and lively music. The Grove even had the gall to bring in a punk band into the house of worship...blasphemy!!! The pastor was dressed fashionably straight out of the Banana Republic catalog...he didn't even have the common decency to dress in robes...and he is under 70...what could he possibly know at such a young age?

I was dismayed to find that I actually enjoyed the service and would look forward to attending church on Sundays. I felt that I couldn't possibly be getting closer to God if I was actually enjoying myself! Ok, sarcasm aside, back to the point of this post. How did I end up signing up for Africa? Though I've always struggled to embrace religion, the part that I've enjoyed most is the coming together to perform public service. The pastor of The Grove, Palmer Chinchen, has a passion for serving the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Palmer's father picked up and moved his family to Liberia, Africa when Palmer was young, in order to serve the people. The Chinchen family has created two bible colleges in Africa (in Malawi and Liberia), and Palmer and his siblings have carried the torch to devote their lives to God and to service of the forgotten. This story was so amazing and foreign to me, but it inspired me and sold me on The Grove. When Palmer asked for volunteers to go to Africa, it called to me. My wife and I discussed the trip, and we decided that I should go first (I think Jodi wants to see if I make it back in one piece before she signs up).

That's pretty much how I got here. Now it doesn't hurt that I'll be riding a dirt bike through the jungles of Africa. But as they say, God works in mysterious ways! ;)

To learn more about The Grove, click here.

To view the blog of Palmer Chinchen, click here.

To view a trailer detailing Palmers new book True Religion, which is a book about trips such as this Africa mission, click here.