Friday, April 11, 2008

A story and a song before I go

My team went to Tropea last weekend, a beautiful seaside town in the south and had some great adventures. Check out the pictures below to get some idea. Hopefully soon I will have a post I am working on about redemption, something that has been on my mind a lot lately, but in the meantime, here are two encouraging stories (at least they were for me).

Me and Steve got to hang out with our buddy Big P, a Italian guy who speaks brilliant English over a beer Tuesday night. We ended up hanging out for 3 hours, laughing and telling stories and comparing observations about life and God. One of the things that stuck out to me is that P is, well, intrigued by us. He asked (for the second time) "I am not just part of your job, right? You guys just don't want me to join your club?" It was good to be able to tell him honestly that 1) I wouldnt be hanging out at 1 AM with him if I didn't want to be, so I think he is a cool guy 2) I could care less if he becomes a member of Agape and 3) I would love to see him become a Christian because I think it is the best thing in the world I can share with people. He accepted the answer and we had a great night together. It was just so cool to hang out and be able to talk about the Gospel, God's love, our Fall and the Redemption offered.

Second encouraging story is from Bible Study on Wednesday. We had two girls come (one a believer, one not) and we looked over some passages in Luke and talked about them. One of the girls, Rosa, shared her testimony about how she came to know Jesus. Her story literally caused my jaw to drop. It began with seeing Jesus in a cartoon on TV and wanting to have a relationship with this "cartoon hero" because the other little girls on the TV show said that Jesus loved them. The story is too long to tell here, right now, but needless to say it followed a journey through the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Evangelical church into a relationship with Christ. It included being disowned and kicked out by her Muslim family, going back to them to serve them, and having one of them eventually tell her, "This God you serve must be the real God." It was an encouragement for me to hear her story but also for the other girl there to hear how Jesus Christ changes lives. Yes, Amen, Christ is alive and in the business of changing lives!

This Free Music Friday is courtesy of Ben and David. Thanks to all who have been sending me links to people they enjoy, because it makes it a little easier for me to post music for y’all…

So House of Heroes is courtesy of Ben. House of Heroes is a band hailing from Columbus and is a little different than my typical choice of music but I dig it. So check out the link HERE to listen on myspace or HERE to download 3 free songs (if you don’t want to give them anyone elses email, you can skip Step 2 and still download).

Josh Woodward is courtesy of David. Not entirely brilliant, but I liked the song I'll Be Right Behind You and I Want to Destroy Something. If you like it, go to his website and download a boatload of stuff.

My favorite team picture ever... we are laughing because I tried to sit down on my chair and fell off backwards.
God is the best artist I know.
The water was incredibly blue and cold.
Matt Reis standing on the rock we jumped off.
The view from our porch; cost? 10 Euro a night!

1 comment:

Judy Hardman said...

Chris, I love the picture of you all laughing. So fun. It really made me smile.