I was a youth pastor before I went to northern Iraq. As you can imagine, most of the people in Iraq are Muslims. Most of the people there have never met a Christian. I remember one interaction in particular when a Kurdish friend saw a Kurdish Bible on my desk, picked it up like it was something between a present and a relic, then asked if he could have it.

“I’ve always heard of this book, but I’ve never actually seen one.”

He was the first person I’d ever met who had never seen a Bible. Of course, we all KNOW that there are entire people groups who don’t have the Bible, but it takes you back a bit when you meet someone who has only “heard of it.” I used to order boxes of Bibles to give away to my students – it was one of my favorite things to do. Anything else I had to offer them was pretty worthless compared to that one thing. And believe it or not, I used to catch flack from my pastor about the money I spent on Bibles.

When we first got to Iraq, we didn’t tell our Kurdish friends that I was a pastor or advertise that we were believers. They probably assumed we were Christians since to them, all Americans are Christians. One of our Kurdish friends who is a follower of Jesus told us how the small but growing fellowship of believers in our city thought they needed to build a church. They had grown from just 6 people two years earlier to well over 60, and were cramming 30 or 40 people a meeting into a small house. And, the larger fellowship of believers in the nearby capital city had an actual church building, complete with pews and a cross at the front of the sanctuary and everything. If they had a building, they could do baptisms inside it without having to sneak off to the lake. He was sure it was what they needed in order to continue to grow. Missionaries from a Baptist church in the US were even going to give them the money they needed to build the church, steeple and all.

I finally confessed that I was a pastor, and had experience with this church building thing. I told him that what they had was beautiful and perfect, and to simply focus on sharing the gospel, serving others, and raising up leaders who could do the same. If you’ve ever worked or served in a church, you know that a building brings with it all sort of challenges, and even hindrances. Opportunities, yes of course… but not the same kind you get when you HAVE TO rely on the simple community of a small, organic group of believers.

I think that conversation started the changing of my affection for the American church.

If you’re a Christian, you know that Jesus is the Lamb of God. Our High Priest. Our Sacrifice. It is my experience that MOST Christians can’t thoroughly explain WHY Jesus is all of those things, or the significance of those things to the cultures of the middle east and therefore to the Bible, but they’ve been around long enough to at least know the terms. I was a pastor; I’d studied and taught those concepts for years. I THOUGHT I knew, but I didn’t.

We were lucky enough while we were in Iraq to be there during Jesni Corban, a feast of sacrifice. This is a Muslim holiday in which families slaughter a lamb and offer it as a sacrifice for their sins. The streets do not run with the blood of the lambs, but every family does this; every Muslim participates in this sacrificing of the lambs. You can see the actual lambs.

It wasn’t until I personally experienced an entire people sacrificing a lamb in hopes that the act of the sacrifice, the tradition, the command, with all of its rules and regulations, would MAYBE, somehow gain them favor in Allah’s eyes… that all of these most amazing names for Jesus and God meant what they should mean. Not until I explained to a Muslim friend that Jesus is all things to us: our lamb, our Priest who says the lamb is acceptable, and our assurance of life forever with God that the holiness of it all came to life.

How do you go back to the American church after that? To MOPS groups and parking teams, to worship that rival concerts and sings of what WE have to give to God, to “mission trips” that include surfing at the beach or sightseeing, to monologues that border on self-help and make us believe that we have anything to do with Jesus did for us? What IS that? It’s certainly not the church of the Bible.

 ¹ And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

I can’t do the American church again; I can’t BE that again. I don’t know if I’m a broken Christian, a bad one, or finally AM one. I do not feel far from God; I hope you don’t hear that in what I’m saying. I do desperately want to be near other believers again, to enjoy the fellowship of the saints and to work together to both love God and love others. Nor does what I’m experiencing now invalidate my previous connectedness with other believers when I was a part of a church. But I need to be a part of an environment where I can determine to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified and know that is okay.

Today, I don’t have anything else to say about this. I don’t even know where the conversation goes next. As always, if you comment with Christian platitudes, I’ll ban you, so think hard before you comment. Even more so now. Love you all!

Lyrics to the song in the video above, “What Do I Know Of Holy?” by Addison Road.

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

(CHORUS 2)
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life “its” name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

Tonight after dinner, Nila and I sat down to make a list of things she wants to do with Bob tomorrow since I’ll be working most of the day. Here’s the list – you can click to enlarge it.

In case you can’t read it (and you can’t), here’s what it says.
1. Play cards. Play checkers.
2. Play dress up.
3. Play something in the basement with Twana and Daddy.
4. Make a smoothie.
5. Play hopscotch.
6. Go to the mall.
7. Go play in his room with him!

In the upper left corner, she wanted me to make sure to tell Bob that “crying makes me hungry.” Last night she cried before bed and didn’t get to wear a dress today because of it… So I think she was thinking about that when she said she wanted to play dress up tomorrow. And, she cried today before dinner when she told Twana to “go back to the basement” when she had to share with him. She ate ALL of her dinner right before we made this list, so I guess she finally realized that crying does, in fact, make one hungry. Anyway, back to the list…

After we got done making this list, she said, “Mommy, can I draw daddy a picture?” So we flipped over the paper and she drew a picture on the back of a face. I asked her if the face was happy or sad. She said, “Sad,” and I asked why, since the face looked happy. She put her head down and said, “Because I miss him. I miss daddy. The face is sad because I miss daddy.”

(insert dramatic pause here)

So then, she perked up and said, “WAIT! There is OOOONNNNEEE more thing!” She flipped the paper over quickly, grabbed my marker and wrote the last three lines of her to do list with daddy herself. You might be able to see the lines if at the bottom (actual lines) that she “wrote.” As she wrote, she spoke slowly as if she was writing and reading and thinking all at the same time.

She said…
I miss him.
Pray for him.
Plenty of exercise.

Nila has watched an episode of Sesame Street recently where Murray and his little Spanish lamb visit a Karate studio. Nila then, has been walking around the house saying, “Karate Girl! Huh! Huh!” and throwing karate punches and kicks. I had told Bob several times that we should take her to this karate studio on Fifth Avenue so she could watch the kids practice. Tonight we were driving home (way past Nila’s bedtime, mind you), and I said, “Let’s stop by the studio and let Nila watch.” So we did – we stopped and peered through the all-glass front of the building as five or six adults inside practiced.

Then they motioned for us to come in! So we did! And Nila loved it! I asked her, “Where are you Nila?” and she said, “Karate studio!” She ran alongside the mat, showing off her numbchucking skills, and picked up a few new ones, too. Then the instructor came over and gave Nila her own karate headband (think Karate Kid). She didn’t seem excited about a headband, but when we tied it around her waist like a little white belt, she did. She continued on watching and practicing with the grown ups, until the instructor came back… and gave her a frisbee with their logo on it. She liked that, too.

Good times at the karate studio with the karate girl. We stayed for about 10 minutes – which was just enough time for some guy who was there videotaping the class to also video Nila’s bad-ass moves. Realizing it was now WAY past her bedtime (seriously – it was 8:30 – she goes to bed at 7), we bowed and said our thanks and good byes, and headed home.

I don’t feel much like going into detail, and I probably shouldn’t anyway, but for sometime now I’ve been giving hints all over that Bob and I were on the brink of a large website deal. We still are. They are at the point now of talking about test markets in x number of cities. If those work out well (and they will, it’s a no-brainer), Bob and I could easily be the wealthiest people we know in a short matter of time after that.

Even as I say that, and even as Bob and I talked about it this evening, a part of me doesn’t think it will happen. Bob even said that he couldn’t talk about it anymore, because he can’t hope for it anymore.To be truthful, it has been a hard two years, and the idea that we could catch a break soon IS almost too much to hope for.

The small details: I have to make this deal happen. I mean, I have to present what we’re doing well enough to make it make sense to this organization. It’s so NOT going to just come to us. Number two, I really believe at this point that we have to BELIEVE and in some ways, speak it to happening. We have to be patient without giving up hope – and a lot of that simply involves speaking of those things which are not as though they were. If we let ourselves get into a place where “this deal is never going to happen,” or “we just can’t do this,” I know that it, in fact, won’t happen.

I guess I’m writing today to encourage to hope with us, and to hope for your own things, too. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. But if you’re not with yourself, you’re against yourself, too. Good things are coming.

So what do you think? Which day should we go?

Beginning in March, I started feeling as though I was having auras again. They got worse and worse, until I finally told Bob. We talked about it and decided that it would be best if I didn’t keep working full time at the office. So, I handed in my resignation, and we set about finding my replacement. I told my boss, as I usually do, that I would stay on until he 1) found my replacement and 2) I’d had a chance to train her.

That didn’t happen. I went from having small auras to small seizures, and then morning, I woke up late for work feeling as though I’d been run over by a truck. I came downstairs, and the first thing I asked Bob was, “Did I have a big seizure last night?” He said, “Two. You don’t remember?” I didn’t. Apparently, I’d even fallen out of bed. I was fine – just bit my tongue and was sore. Since then, I’ve realized that I hurt my shoulder somehow, because I can’t lift Nila above my head anymore at all. I had another big one a few days later, and continued to have the smaller ones.

So, I made an appointment with my GP, and he referred me to a new neuro, and ordered an EEG. I haven’t seen the results of the EEG, but I assume they were normal because it usually is. I saw the neuro last week, and at the end of our meeting he said, “Well, from what you’ve told me, you definitely have seizures, real true seizures. So what do you want to do about it?” I said, “What are my choices?” “Well, you really only have one. Medicine. There is brain surgery, but you’re nowhere NEAR bad enough for that! So, since it’s is safe to assume you’re going to continue to have seizures, and I assume that you would rather that didn’t happen, medicine is really your only choice.”

So today I took a pill. I have to start this medicine very slowly – I will not be a full dosage for at least a month. This med also is not the weight loss wonder drug that the other med I took was. It’s weight-neutral, meaning I won’t gain or lose. Too bad about the weight loss, that would be helpful. This neuro actually explained to me what happened with the other med as it relates to weight loss. He said that it blocks the part of the brain that tells you you’re hungry – and instead creates a pre-satiety response (feeling full before you’ve even eaten). Add to that that it blocks the taste recieving part of the brain, and you can see why there was some weight loss! No worries, I will lose the weight on my own this time and be better for it.

So anyway. Just thought I’d share. Those of you who have been around awhile sometimes like to follow this storyline, I guess. Please don’t comment with pity, you know I don’t like that. Feel free to send helmets and wall padding jokes!

I was planning on wearing one of my three jili kurdi we got while we were there, but let’s just say I’m a little fat for jili kurdi these days. BUT, that didn’t stop us from putting Nila in hers! She loved it. She also has three, but I think this is the only one that fits. The others would fit, but she can’t get her head through the top. Isn’t she cute!

I had a MOMENT (literally, a moment), where I felt as though strengthening the website design business that  had sustained us over the past year was simply what I was supposed to do. I’m by no means a design or coding genius. But, if you follow Not In Kansas, you know that I don’t have to be because I use WordPress. When we first got back from Iraq, we 1) had a terrible time making ends meet and finding real jobs and then 2) once we did find them, we didn’t like them. As you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to compete with Iraq. So, I worked at an insurance office and Bob is still working a contract position helping to flip the computer systems of the Chase/WAMU merge. It wasn’t long after my defining moment though, that Bob and I talked (a lot) and decided that I could quit my day job in order to focus on the company.

Since then, we have had confirmation after confirmation that this was the right decision. The business is not yet sustaining us, but if all goes well, after the national Crime Stoppers conference/cruise in August, it will be. And well. Through a previously unknown-to-me LinkedIn connection, we have the opportunity to partner with a national Crime Stoppers board member, and his partner (one of the six presenters at the conference,) and present our websites to the entire organization at the conference. We went from thinking we might be able to offer a WordPress site to Ohio affiliates to now having the opportunity to reach ALL of the Crime Stoppers. It is an amazing opportunity.

And, it’s not just an amazing opportunity for US. In regards to Crime Stoppers in particular, I really feel as though we have the BEST site to offer the organization. Initially, we were going to offer individual affiliates their own sites using separate WordPress installations. WordPress is the best option for theses affiliates because it is so easy to manage, and the sites are so easy to update or expand. NOW, we are going to offer the national organization a WPMU site, and allow each of their affiliate to gain a micro-site from that installation. This is THE way to implement organization wide sponsors, advertisers and revenue bases, in my opinion. Also, since a site created with WordPress is designed out of the box to have a good standing with the search engines, the BENEFIT to the visibility of the Crime Stoppers program could be IMMEDIATELY and EXPONENTIALLY increased.

Robert and I are literally building our lives for the next few years around WordPress. I am hoping to build my buisiness by focusing on non-profit associations.

If you’d like to read all of the details of the contest, you can here. Here is what I’m hoping to win:

1st Prize Winner: $300 Cash (via PayPal) + WP Review Site Developer License from wpreviewsite.com worth $299 + Advanced WordPress Membership Plugin Site License from wp-member.com worth $32.99 + 6 Months Plus Membership from tutsplus.com worth $54 +  1 Year Themes Membership from elegantthemes.com worth $19.95 + WP Buddy Plan 1 Year Hosting Sponsorship worth $160/year.

These aren’t just petty little prizes. These are THE plugins and packages I NEED in order to truly establish the technical side of our business. Robert and I sit around talking about we need to earn the money to purchase these things still, so winning them would mean so much.

Once the contest reaches a certain point, they’ll (hopefully) post this entry, and you’ll be encourage to go vote for my story! I’ll let you know when! Thanks for reading!