Am I just going crazy?

So tonight, after a long day of work and play, Amy and I once again headed home to giver Jack Bauer and 24 another go. This time we got the right season, but the wrong disc. Man, the video store is sure making money off of my mistakes. This is not like me, I promise. Maybe it is like me and I am just being myself. Anyway, I guess I will just have to give it one more try another day. If we finish season 5 before season 6 comes out on video it will be a miracle. For those of you who don't care about 24 and just think I am an idiot, you need to start at season one and you will understand.

Good night.

Sad but true.

So tonight I went to the store on my way to dodgeball and picked up the next thrilling disc in the 24 series. After the game I headed home to cuddle in bed with Amy and watch a little Jack Bauer. When I got home I hung with Emma a little and talked as she fell asleep, cleaned up a little bit around the kitchen, put clean sheets on the bed and crawled in for a few hours of intensity. Well wouldn't ya know, I picked the wrong season. Yep, I grabbed season 4 disc 4 instead of season 5 disc 4. There are words for this kind of mistake, but I love Jesus so I will not use them.

So for the rest of the night, until now, I played mini golf on line. It wasn't as good and not as many people died, but it did pass some time and help me to forget. Tomorrow is another day, but it sucks that I have to wait another 24 hours ironically till I can watch. It is going to be one of those day's.

Good night.

Abby Jayne Cunningham

This morning Abby, my 6 month old and I had breakfast together. She is so cute and getting so big. I, being the proud daddy that I am decided to share it with you.

P. Wade (DIY Gourmet) Pallister

My good friend P. Wade Pallister has been posting steadily on his Food Blog. It is amazing what that man can come up with as far as recipes. He really does create with excellence. I wish we all lived this way. Just in the way where we find out what we do well, or what we are most interested in and do it to the fullest. In my life I just get to lazy or apathetic to do anything 100%. I look at one of Wades posts on Ramen. Now Ramen is normally seen as a poor college persons meal, but Wade turns it into a feast that would be enjoyed by a king. I would say the King of Kings, but that would just be cheesy. I want to encourage all of us to read Wades blog and cook some sweet meals for yourselves and those you love and I want to encourage us to live our lives with excellence. Put the things that you are good at out there so as to bless others through it, as we are blessed through Wades cooking. I love when people take the time to share with us (for free) cool things that they have created, just to be a blessing, or show off, but who am I to judge.

Eat well and good night.

Phil

Umm WOW!

Diego and Boots

Yesterday Alvaro and I drove 3 hours north to the province of Guanacaste to visit our friends Diego and Salla. It was a great time visiting them. This morning Deigo and I went for a quad ride into the wetlands and I saw boots. Not the monkey, but actual boots. I have been laughing in my head all day as I have been thinking of posting that. Maybe it is funnier to me. Anyway, we drove through the bush and saw monkeys, cool birds, ate fruit and just talked about their vision for their small village of no more than 200 people.

Diego and Salla moved to Guanacaste last year to start a new rural YWAM work. They are working a lot with community developement and trying to bring the truth of Jesus to this community that is very religeous, but does not love Jesus. This week they have been running a kids camp out of their house and so this morning after our talk we went back to his house where about 15 kids were waiting. We talked about Jesus and I got to share about Jesus and what He thinks about family. Most of these kids are raised by their moms as their dads have left so I got to talk about how Jesus had a mom and how He was adopted by Joseph. It was fun to be involved in ministy like that again.

It is so exciting what Diego and Salla want to do in their community. They want to get the road paved. They want to buy some land and make a lake filled with fish so that they can teach the women to fish and teach them a trade. They want to rebuild the community center and fix up the church and the school They also want to put a swimming pool on their land so that teams can have a place to refresh after long days of ministry. It is very hot there. Their vision stretches far beyond them, that is where I see God in it. They are beautiful people and I am priviledged to be a part of their lives.

Today I saw a rainbow and it wasn't on a flag.

I am in Costa Rica for the next 6 days and today I saw something very unusual and strangely familiar. I saw a rainbow in the sky. Now I see rainbows all the time living in Seattle, but they are not in the sky, but on flagpoles. It was very beautiful.

So today was very interesting. I spent my morning drinking good coffee and talking with old friends. Alvaro and I talked about Mission Adventures and how it is going to look running it here next summer. It is very exciting what God is doing and is going to do. After that we had lunch and then Alvaro and I headed into Heredia to get a tire fixed. This is where things went different than it would have if I were back home in the UsofA.

We got the tire fixed and then on the way home the car overheated. We waited for a bit till it cooled down then we drove to a mechanic shop. Alvaro knew the guy who owned it and so he checked out the car and recommended another guy up the hill who was better with foreign cars. Before we left Terry, the base director drove up and we spent some time talking to him and he recommended the same place for the car.

So we drove up the hill to the foreign repair shop and it turned out the Alvaro knew him as well. The guy checked out the car and told us that he would take care of it, we would have to leave it over night. We ended up having to walk home and on the way we ran into a girl that Alvaro knows. We walked to her house, as it was on the way and her mom offered to give us a ride home. As we were driving we just hung out, talked and looked at a beautiful rainbow that spanned the whole horizon.

Life is so different here. It is relaxed. Things are slow. There was no stress today, just going to places and talking with people and helping them and them helping us. The life of a missionary I saw today is one of relationship. One of taking things as they come and not letting it ruin your day. I am glad to be here. I can't wait for what tomorrow holds.

Up up and away

Tomorrow I am heading to Costa Rica for a week to meet with the YWAMers there and talk about future outreach plans. It will be very exciting to see where God takes us. I will also be meeting with a couple of youth pastors who are doing a trip with us this summer and are heading down to Costa Rica next week on a pre trip. Please remember us in your prayers that we would accomplish all that needs to get done. Hense, I will not be blogging as internet access will be minimal.

Please also remember my family as we will be apart for the next week.

Thanks

i-phone

Finally, my own domain name.

So yesterday I went and got myself my own domain name. I feel like I am a part of the world wide web now. So, for those of you who are reading this blog you can now just type in philnamy.com to get to it. I have been thinking about doing this for a while and yesterday was my day. I heard about this site that you can buy domain names off of called go daddy from my good friend Lars Rood. So there you go. Thanks for reading my little rant and have a great Friday.

Phil

Communicating Through a Noose

My good friend Stephen Crawford forwarded me this article written by Shane Claiborne. It is a good read and very thought provocing as it talkes about taking matters into our own hands and out of Gods, specifically the execution of Saddam Hussein. I have read Shanes book Irresistable Revolution and totally enjoyed it. To read the article click here.

YWAM and the Church

Lately I have been thinking a lot about YWAM and it's call in relation to the local church and her call. Specifically my call within YWAM and YWAM Seattle. For a while now my focus has been on helping people live better lives here at home, or wherever they are going back to after their DTS. I have been trying to build community and wanting people to get involved in community groups. I have also been wanting people to get involved in some sort of church, however that looks.

Just recently it has hit me that I think that I am either in the wrong place, or focusing on the wrong thing. I was called by Jesus a long time ago to be a missionary, and 7 years ago to be a missionary with YWAM Seattle. So based on that, and the fact that Jesus has not called me, to my knowledge, to do anything else, I am not in the wrong place.

What this leaves me to believe is that I have been focusing on the wrong thing. I believe that people learning how to live better lives at home and also the job of building community is the job of the local church. Unfortunately, for most of my friends the local Church is not doing her job well. Some of my friends feel burned and let down by the local Church, and if you have done any reading on Emerging Church lately you will see that a lot of people out there feel the same way.

The job of the local Church is described well in Acts 2:42-47

"They spent their time learning from the apostles, and they were like family to each other. They also broke bread and prayed together. Everyone was amazed by the many miracles and wonders that the apostles worked. All the Lord's followers often met together, and they shared everything they had. They would sell their property and possessions and give the money to whoever needed it. Day after day they met together in the temple. They broke bread together in different homes and shared their food happily and freely, while praising God. Everyone liked them, and each day the Lord added to their group others who were being saved."

Now I am not saying that this is the only job of the local church, but I believe that she is there to teach God's people and bring community.

So what is the job of me, the missionary? I believe, in my position it is to bring awareness of what is going on in the world internationally with areas of injustice and in areas where there is a high percentage of un-reached people and encourage individuals to go. I am specifically speaking of my roll in YWAM. I am a missionary working in a missions organization, I am not a pastor working at a local church. I want people to go. The anointing on this mission is one of sending people cross culturally to bring the good news of Jesus to the un-reached and the not yet believers.

How do we work together with the local church? Well, if we are both doing our jobs and following our calls then the local church will be able to train, equip and disciple people in their relationships with Christ and each other and then we can help these people who understand Christ and community go overseas and bring this to others. If the local church does not do her job then we get a bunch of messed up people who are in no position to tell anyone about Jesus. Similarly if we don't do our job then there will be a bunch of great people who are just staying home and making America a better place and not reaching the world. How sad.

I am sure I will get some comments on this. I invite them as it will help me process more and help me see where others are at with this.

Thanks.

Star Wars Lines That Are Improved by substituting the word pants

Oh man, this is great. My friend Wade showed me a site that has Star Wars lines where one word is substituted by the word pants. Here is a sample, and for more i will put the full list link below. Enjoy laughing your pants off.

“A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.”

“You are unwise to lower your pants.”

“We’ve got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.”

“She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally, Commander.”

“These pants may not look like much, kid, but they’ve got it where it counts.”

“I find your lack of pants disturbing.”

"These aren't the pants you are looking for."

“These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.”

“Hans will have those pants down. We’ve got to give him more time!.”

“General Veers, prepare your pants for a surface assault.”

“I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.”

“TK-421... Why aren’t you in your pants?”

“Lock the door. And hope they don’t have pants.”

“Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.”

“You look strong enough to pull the pants off of a Gundark.”

“Luke... Help me take... these pants off.”

“Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.”

“That blast came from those pants. That thing’s operational!”

“Don’t worry. Chewie and I have gotten into pants a lot more heavily guarded than this.”

“Maybe you’d like it back in your pants, your highness.”

“Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for your sister!”

“Jabba doesn’t have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.”

“Yeah, well, short pants is better than no pants at all, Chewie.”

“Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my pants, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.”

“I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.”

“You came in those pants? You’re braver than I thought.”

For a full list of 236 lines click here