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Not sure who I got this from but it was an article on Nelson Mandela and his leadership principles.

1. COURAGE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF FEAR - IT’S INSPIRING OTHERS TO MOVE BEYOND IT.
2. LEAD FROM THE FRONT - BUT DON’T LEAVE YOUR BASE BEHIND.
3. LEAD FROM THE BACK - AND LET OTHERS BELIEVE THEY ARE IN FRONT.
4. KNOW YOUR ENEMY - AND LEARN ABOUT HIS FAVORITE SPORT.
5. KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE - AND YOUR RIVALS EVEN CLOSER.
6. APPEARANCES MATTER - AND REMEMBER TO SMILE.
7. NOTHING IS BLACK AND WHITE.
8. QUITTING IS LEADING TOO.

Yesterday Jess and I celebrated 8 years together.  We have known each other for 10 years and it has been amazing.  I still to this day cannot figure out why she married me.  Either way I am blessed to have her as my wife.  She is an amazing wife to me and mother to our two boys.

When we first met as she pulled up, I played rock, scissors, paper with my roommate to ask her out for a date.  I won and the rest is history.  Now that I write this, maybe she played with her roommate and lost?  We dated and were engaged for 2 years.  During those 2 years I was a horrible boyfriend/fiance.  I am still a work in progress but I am thankful that as I am working on all the junk in my life she stays beside me.

I look forward to the next 8 years and beyond with Jess and can’t wait to see how far God will bring us.

On Sunday I got spontaneous which means I didn’t plan out for a week or get maps, charts or graphs.  Yes I have that type of personality.  I took Jess and the boys to Wildwood, NJ to stay overnight.  Never had we done this before so it was fun for all of us.  The boys were going crazy in the room with excitment.  They did actually try to convince Jess and I that it would be safer for them to sleep in the king bed in the back rather than on the pull out sofa in the front room.  It was a great idea that almost worked.  I took Matthew to the back and gave Tyler Jess in the front room.

It was fun taking the boys to the boardwalk and watching them on the games.  Matthew wants everything that goes in circles and ups and downs.  Tyler liked the boat that barely moved and stayed flat.  They are so alike and yet they are so different.

The beach was great although Tyler doesn’t like water only sand…and we can’t get Matthew out of the water.  I used to love all that but now I’m not a huge fan of the beach.  I like it with big groups but I get bored easily when I am sitting around.

What are you doing to live spontaneously?

There is actually a term that ties in with using less fuel it is called i.e Hypermiling.  Did you know there is a ton of information online about this idea?  Remember when brown was the new black?  Well now, less is the new more! These are some strategies that I found for visiting the pumps less often.

1. Mellow Music. You’ll notice that you’ll drive faster to Rock music and that listening to something mellower (or even a story CD) means you’ll travel at a more civilised pace.  Although you may find yourself wanting to crash the car out of boredom.
2. Regular oil and air filter change. More efficient burn and less friction.
3. Move less weight. Losing random junk from the car means less work for the engine to do.  I know people who live in their car.
4. Use the FIRST available car parking space. Arriving in a car park or town, ditch the car at the first opportunity as low speed manouvering and waiting wastes fuel.
5. Where possible, drive at the optimum time. I’m fortunate with my job as i live on the campus.  But you still need to take opportunities to miss rush hour or miss getting stuck behind a bus where not only are you wasting gas, kids are pointing at you and laughing making you feel even more insecure than you already do.
6. 55mph is GREAT, above 3000 rpm is BAD. Nuff said, watch the dials
7. Leave space. The more space between you and the car ahead the less you have to do sudden braking and hence costly re-acceleration. Or the more space between you and the car ahead allows for more opportunities for others to cut in and more expletives to pop into your mind.
8. Think way ahead. More chance to keep the car moving.
9. Dodge the wind. If it’s a windy day or if there are lots of trucks coming the other way (they move A LOT of air towards you), hug the inside lane.
10. Tyres. Keep them well inflated.
11. Avoid Stopping if possible. It really sucks gas to move over a ton of metal from a stand still.
12. Accelarate evenly and find 5th fast.
13. Switch off. If you’re not moving then the engine doesn’t need to be turning.
14. See the journey in a different light. If you see the journey as something that must be endured before you can get on with X then you’ll speed. See the journey as part of the activity of the day and you can be more chilled.

These are just some ideas and it doesn’t mean that I do them or will try to do them but they may help us out when we are getting 6 miles to the gallon.

Isn’t the idea of a missions trip so we can go and make a difference and change people’s lives?  So why is it that I feel that I was the one changed more than them?  When you go on a trip like this and build playgrounds for orphans it sounds so prideful to say,  What did you do this week?  I built playgrounds for orphans.  Maybe that is some people’s attitude to trips like these.  It may have been my attitude last year.  Not this year.  This year it was the idea, the hope of bringing a smile to kids face.  To create a place of safety.  To create a place where they could simply go to be a kid.

We are so spoiled here in America and most of the time either don’t realize it or don’t care.  After all we deserve what we have right?  As I watched the kids in the Smolensk work project jump in and help without us asking.  As I watched them SERVE without expecting anything in return, I was humbled.  How is it that it is so easy to serve in another country but so difficult to serve the ones I love?  To serve those who are around us on a regular basis.  To serve our communities we live in, work in and play in.  The theme of this year at our church is to Live Different.  That was also the theme of our missions trip.  As I try to download this past 10 days I realize that we did not only go to help provide opportunities for them to live different, but we went to challenge each other to live different?

How are you living different where you are today?

There is a new show on ABC FAMILY called, The Secret Life Of The American Teenager.  Interesting show that depicts students in various “teenage” situations including the plot of the show a pregnancy.  Strong religious undertone throughout the show as some students wanting to wait mess up and others who have no desire to wait make their move.  Last night was the first episode of the show.  What I found interesting is I think this goes on in more homes than people would like to admit.  The battle between knowing what to do and doing what you really want to do.  Then after making the choice, having to deal with the consequences.  Sadly I feel the show depicts all to well the issue of once a poor choice is made how and who can we talk about it with.  The built in defense mechanism of hiding it and trying to deal with it on our own kicks in.  The show is from the creators of 7th heaven and seems to have a decent cast.

I was reading in Colossians this morning and one verse stuck out to me about what could possibly happen after a high of a mission trip.  Obvously we feel as if this was the best week of our lives.  So many opportunities opened themselves up and so many relationships were solidified or began.

However,  in Colossians 1:22-23 it says, “Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body.  As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.” Sounds good so far right?  That is how we feel after being seperated from all the junk that usually keeps us from really walking with Christ.  Then, verse 23, “But you must CONTINUE to beleive this truth and stand firmly in it.  Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.  The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.”

The key in that verse is to CONTINUE. We can’t forget what happened in Russia but we also can’t stay their.  We need to push on and continue to through and remember what we did in Russia with language barriers can be done here in America without the language barriers.  That spiritual high we felt in Russia can still be accomplished here in America if we choose to Live Different.  Just as Paul was saying, “I have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.”  All of us have been appointed to as God’s servant as well.

Ypulse had a great summary the other day of some new research about teen preferences in a bunch of areas. It will be broken into 5 posts. Fourth up: Entertainment & Pop Culture