I decided to put up a different picture because my daughter laughs every time she sees my other photo. She's only two, and she is right I do do look goofy in the picture - I really don't have much to work with. So this is an attempt to look more pensive and brooding. I also know that if I don't shave tonight my wife will do it while I sleep and so I thought I would immortalize my shaggy attempt at a beard through blogging.

I haven't done much blogging lately, most of the posts are from a journal I kept during my time in SW China. I think I have avoided it because I prefer to be seen as a 'roll-with-the-punches, happy-go-lucky' guy and I haven't been able to pull that of over the last year. On Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings the public/ministry persona can pull it off, but when I pause to journal/reflect I can be a bit of a sad sack - so I stopped writing.

Over the last month I have been amazed with how a friend has blogged his way through a difficult time and so I thought I would blow the dust off the keyboard and try to get back in the game.

This means there will be a gap between my last posts that really happened in the summer of 2005 and all of a sudden it is now November of 2006. That gap represents a 'long dark tea time of the soul' as Douglas Adams might label it; but it also represents some of my happiest times as well. I am the fully delighted father to three children (Mason 7, Micah 5 and Maggie 2) and husband to Juli. I am leading a community of people -most of whom have been called out of the margins- that are struggling to find God in new ways. It has been an incredible. As I look back on it I have enjoyed a 58 week long roller coaster ride and now it is time to step into the line up for the next ride.