August 11, 2007

It has been 8 months since my last entry to this journal and I am sitting in seat G27, aboard an Airbus A300.  I am on my way back to Peru for the second installation of this adventure.  Over the past eight months I have been tormented by my experience in January and have developed a bit of a plan to build an adventure lodge in Peru in an effort to raise money that would ultimately help fund some form of community development programming and eventually some form of ministry if that is where God takes this.

There have been almost no road blocks in developing these plans which has been somewhat alarming to me.  Once again there are far too many details to chronicle in this journal but suffice it to say that this trip is being made to determine the feasibility of the eco-lodge plan.  For eight months I have not been able to get Peru, the people and their needs out of my head.  I have thought and pondered on it every single day.  For eight months I have thought positively and planned big, and, as I mentioned before, had no closing doors.  Needless to say I had expected there to be a few and there still may be some to come. 

Tonight as I sat waiting for my plane in the Miami airport I started to have fear and doubt about everything for the first time.  It was intense and was somewhat upsetting.  After all the talk, the planning and the positivity, I was experiencing an emotion I am not used to.  I pulled out Laura’s iPod and looked at the options.  There were three podcasts from Forest Hill church and I played the first one.  The message was delivered by John Kasey and it was about the fear of failure.  The message was uplifting and I was reminded that even if I fail in this endeavor that God will teach me something great through it.  The second sermon was a David Chadwick message about hope and how positive thinking comes from God.  Negative thoughts and a negative mentality is not from God and when we see beyond them that we are better able to hear God speaking to us.  The message was also about hopes and dreams and how we have the obligation to pursue them relentlessly even and perhaps more so when the obstacles are greater and the outcome is unknown.  I am relieved and reinvigorated as we prepare to take off from Miami.  In spite of some personal spiritual adversity this year, I have seen God’s infinite power to make things happen and have heard Him speak to me more directly than in any other point in my life.  Today was one of those moments and I am excited to see where this is all going.