I am back in Orange County for Catalyst West. It is hard to believe that just 3 years ago this trip started my love affair with this oh so beautiful place. It is hard to believe that 2 years ago this trip solidified that change was afoot and Southern California was calling. It is hard to believe that last year this time California was home and I was welcoming friends into my new playground. It is hard believe I left there 9 and a half months ago. It is hard to believe I ever lived there at all.

I wrote about it some, not as much as I would have liked. I just never was clear about what that time was about…exactly.

Looking back I can only seem to recall the contrasts.

The bright days and the dark days. The group friends who became like family and the solitude. The adventure and the rest. Feeling lost and being known.

This is all I am sure of: my time in California was good for me. 

It gave me a chance to hit ‘restart.’ It gave me space to rest. It allowed me to step out of a comfortable and familiar Christian-centered context and see the world through a wider lens. And it made me stronger, more determined, and more passionate about the things I believe in and the pursuit of Truth.

Yes, there is an obvious wistfulness about time in Orange County. And specifically at Catalyst West. 

So today I am going to go put my feet in the ocean, I am going to have coffee with a dear friend, I am going to learn from the incredible group of leaders that Catalyst has assembled, I am going to eat sausages {when they are this good you don’t call them hot dogs} and cheer on the LA Dodgers, but mostly importantly I am going to soak up the sun.

You know when you stumble onto one of those books that you can’t put down, one of those books you read in one sitting, one of those books that before you finish you have already crafted a list, either mental or physical, of people you are going to share them with, one of those books that leaves you thinking for weeks, one of those books that you quote so much that you start to get on your own nerves.

I’ve read two of those books lately.

The first is Resurrection Year by Sheridan Voysey. {But it’s not out yet, so go pre-order it and I’ll tell you more about it closer to it’s release.}

The second is Freefall to Fly by Rebekah Lyons. {Y’all it is so good. }

Freefall to Fly for every woman who has felt alone, afraid, and unworthy.

It’s for every woman who has struggled to get out of bed in the morning.

And it’s for every woman who has ever asked….

Is there something more?

Why am I here?

Or…

Does my life matter?

With candor, depth, strength and stunning beauty, Rebekah shares her “dark night of the soul in the city that never sleeps” and all who read her words will be better for it.

I know, I am. Her words helped me understand surrender, her words gave me permission, and her words affirmed my search.

And I have some good news…

Thanks to Rebekah’s team, I get to give away a copy of Freefall to Fly {Y’all it’s so good.}! Simply leave a comment below on why you want to read this book and I will select a winner on Friday. 

If you don’t want to wait, you should check this amazing promotions Rebekah’s team has set up. EVERYONE who purchases Freefall to Fly will receive three awesome gifts:  An original chalk art print by chalk artist, Dana Tanamachi, a $5 TOMS gift card, and a Freefall to Fly digital soundtrack. ANYONE who subscribes to Rebekah’s blog will have: a prelude and 1st chapter of Freefall to Fly delivered to their inbox.

Hey guys, I am posting over on Deeper Church today.

A few weeks ago, I attended the last ever church service in Cross Point’s Charlotte Avenue campus. I got teary-eyed as I sat sandwiched between two of my best friends’ families and belted out the words to “One Thing Remains.” I was heartbroken to leave the worn in pews and the memories behind. Click here to continue reading…

I am in an especially crazy season of life.

We are just six weeks into 2013 and I have already traveled to Raleigh, Dhaka, and Bend {with two more trips on the horizon next week}. I have attended two conferences and sat in countless coffees, meetings and conference calls.  My sweet 90 year old grandmother unexpectedly had a massive stroke on Tuesday and is literally in the process of walking to Heaven. And my parents who live, yes live, to travel are across the world on a boat, when we all would love nothing more to have them close enough for a hug, or at least an unhurried phone call.

All this to say, I am feeling a little ‘worn thin from all of this.’

That is one reason why I love this video, and this song.

The second is obvious. Max Dubinsky captured Bangladesh with the beauty and skill of a true videographer.

Please watch and let the words and the images soak in.

Dhaka, Bangladesh from Max Andrew Dubinsky on Vimeo.

“Oh Great God, Give Us Rest” by David Crowder Band 

It’s 5:10 AM on Friday (Istanbul Standard Time) and the FH Bloggers are all cozied up in the Istanbul airport, enjoying our 9 hour layover in this place that is a bridge between where we have been and where we are going. Surfing the internet, sipping on lattes, indulging in crossaints and hazelnut spread. {Did you know that Turkey is the world’s biggest exporters of hazelnuts? Well, now you do.}

We had a great trip. Maybe one of the best trips of this kind I have experienced? This team was committed to not just observing Bangladesh but leaving an impact on it. I hope you can decipher from their posts how well they loved the people in Bangladesh. Our hosts.  The FH staff. The kids they sponsor. The women on the street, in savings groups, at the market, and in the beauty parlor.

I think my two favorite moments of the trip were:

1. Watching Joy play with Fulmoti and her friends. It was hilarious. They played so hard. There was jumping, pushing, cheating, and sweating. A lot of sweating.

And there is something so incredible about watching Bangladeshi kids play Duck, Duck, Goose.

2. Hearing Eti’s story and having her thread our eyebrows. If you aren’t familiar with threading, it’s an ancient method of hair removal originating in the Eastern world.

If you aren’t familiar with Eti, she’s a woman who learned vocational training from Food for the Hungry and was able to use money from her savings group to open up a salon.

Our time with her was priceless.

Girls being girls. Laughing, celebrating beauty, and swapping stories.

I really hope you have taken the time to read some of the posts, but I know I can it be hard to jump around the internet so I’m going to make it easy on you. Start with these, my favorite posts from each blogger.

Logan Wolfram’s “A Mother’s Heart”

Joy Eggerich’s “This is Dignity”

Lauren Dubinsky’s “What It Was Like To Meet My Sponsored Child” 

Max Dubinsky’s “Sanjay”

What was your favorite post from the FH Bloggers trip to Bangladesh?

Please consider sponsoring a child in Bangladesh. Your $32/month changes lives, families, and communities. Go here for more information! 

{Photos by Esther Havens}

We had a great day today in Bangladesh. A long, great day.

We drove out to a rural Hindu community that Food for the Hungry has worked in since 2011. 

Photo by Esther Havens

Today the bloggers all had the opportunity to meet their sponsor kids. It was such a joy to see them connect with these girls that live half a world away, to have them see firsthand the power of their sponsorship. Since we split into groups, I spent most of my day with my sweet {and kind of crazy} friend Joy. It was so fun to watch her play with Fulmoti.

Joy learned Bengali games.

And Fulmoti learned Red Light, Green Light.

And Duck, Duck, Goose.

Any observer would see that these two had a lot in common, they were both so vibrant, so full of life. And they both had quite the little competitive streak. {Pretty sure I saw some false starts and pushing.}

Can’t wait to hear about how their relationship flourishes.

Here are my favorite pictures from each of the blogger’s visits:

Joy teaching Fulmoti the double-high-five

Photo by Esther Havens

Max and Lauren with Kajol

Photo by Esther Havens

Logan with Ritu

Don’t forget to join us at 7 PM CST TONIGHT for the live #FHBloggers Twitter Chat. You can win awesome Bangladeshi prizes {seriously, some of the prettiest blankets I have ever seen} and ask any questions you have about our trip, Bangladeshi culture, Food for the Hungry, Child Sponsorship, or whatever else you’ve been pondering. More details here.

We started our morning tucked in the back office of a school in a community in Dhaka to spend some time together in devotions. We read 1 Corinthians 13, the ”love chapter.” A passage that is read so often it is tempting to tune it out.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, then I am nothing. If I give away all that I have, and deliver my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy or boast. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up the childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall now fully, even as I have been fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

But reading it here, in Bangladesh, the words I know so well sounded different. Different because the scriptures were read in Bangla. And different because those words are what this trip is about. This trip is an expedition in 1 Corinthians 13. This trip is an expedition in faith, in hope, and in love.

Faith. FH has been in Bangladesh since 1972.  What started as a relief effort to get rice to starving Bangladeshis amid a revolution, has evolved over the last 40 years. A vision of FH’s faithful founder Larry Ward who wouldn’t let the overwhelming need deter him, “they die one at a time, so we help them one at a time,” has grown. Mountains have been moved. Lifes have been changed. In Bangladesh alone, the organization provides agricultural training; health, hygiene, and clean water programs; pastoral training; income generating groups; and education initiatives. All funded through child sponsorship. 

Photo by Esther Havens.

Hope. FH has been in the community we visited today since 1981. What was once a slum perched on a garbage dump has evolved into a beacon of hope. Its cornerstone, a self-sufficient school operated by former-FH-sponsor-kids like Sirajul, Menohad, Josef, and Esa. Their former teacher, Rony, now works on the FH Bangladesh executive team. And he beams as he shares how the young men he taught inspire him. They inspire me too. They glisten with hope.

Photo by Esther Havens.

The kids they instruct shimmer with it too. {I suspect if I found my way back here in 10 years I would meet a new generation of former-FH-sponsor-kids continuing the tradition of teaching the kids in their community.}

Photo by Esther Havens.

Love. As Logan pointed so eloquently shared this morning during our dive into 1 Corinthians 13, “while faith and hope are something that we have, love is something we can give.”

And gave it we did.

Today love broke down common barriers…citizenship, religion, language.

Today love was dolled out in heaps.

And today love left us all full. 

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

Photo by Esther Havens.

If you want to love on these kids, these communities, you can. It only costs $32 a month to sponsor a child. Through your sponsorship, you will help Food for the Hungry assist your child’s entire community to provide food, a better education, clean water and medical treatment to its children. Go here to sponsor a child in Bangladesh.

Go here to read the posts from the bloggers on this trip with me.

Thursday morning we {my buddy Daniel C White and I} got on my first plane in Nashville.

After not so quick stops in Los Angeles and Istanbul, and not so short flights over North America {twice}, the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and the Middle East, on Saturday morning the FH Bloggers got off our last plane in Dhaka.

Whew! {That’s a lot of travel.}

We picked up some friends {Logan Wolfram, Max and Lauren Dubinsky, Joy Eggerichs} along the way, ate some In-N-Out {thank you Jacky and Clay}, tried Turkish coffee {bleh}, shared stories, laughs and of course a ridiculous amount of personal space.

Alas…We made it!

We dashed through customs in what might have been a national record, found the rest of our group {Esther Havens and Heidi Hatch}, checked into our hotel, washed off our travel funk, got outfitted in traditional Bangladeshi apparel, ate some food that wasn’t wrapped in tin foil, learned some Bangla, ventured around Dhaka, and did our best to embrace Bangladesh Standard Time.

But now it’s time to sleep.

In a bed. {Yay! Oh how I love beds! And not economy airline seats.}

<< That’s “Good Night” folks! Til tomorrow…

I just got back from Passion 2013. It was my first time. {I know. I know. I was way too self-consumed in college to ever commit to a trip like this.} And although I was a guest and have outgrown their target audience, I had a blast! It was an incredible way to kick off the year.

If you aren’t familiar with Passion, from January 1 – 4, 60,000+ college kids gathered in The Georgia Dome to worship, to connect, to hear from some the leading voices in Christianity today, and to stand for the oppressed. Over 3 million dollars was raised to combat modern forms of human slavery. Pretty cool, huh?

And what do you know? God taught me. 36 year old me, some stuff. Here are 5 things I learned from my time at Passion.

1. God isn’t subtle about delivering messages He wants us to hear. Nope. You NEVER KNOW who God is going to use to speak to you. Open your heart and your ears.

2. There is NOTHING BETTER than gathering around a table with a few like-minded women and swapping stories. Forget the small talk, let’s talk about our fears, our hopes, and how we have seen God at work.

3. David Crowder’s new stuff is brilliant. BRILLIANT. Bluegrass done beautifully. I can’t wait to hit up another one of his “Hoedowns” soon.

4. Judah Smith can PREACH. He might be my new favorite teacher {except Pete Wilson, of course, he’s always tops} but Judah, well, he is funny, relevant, passionate, and drives a message home like few others.

5. We are nipping at the heels of a REVIVAL. Click here to read my Deeper Church post on the subject.

What has God been teaching you? 

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with two of my favorite people, Trisha and Justin Davis, to talk about their new book, Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Isn’t Good Enough. The Davises have taught me so much through their friendship, their ministry and their book about living a life that is beyond ordinary. A life full of forgiveness, grace, truth, and healthy boundaries. I am so excited that their book will magnify their message, their influence. We all have a lot to learn from them!

In the video below, I ask them to give a brief synopsis of the beginning of their ministry, to tell us how their book actually applies to a broader audience than one might think, and to share how those in a ‘happy’ marriage might take some proactive steps to strengthen their relationship. Please watch and share.

Oh, and don’t forget to…

Buy their book.

Read their blog.

Join their community on Facebook.

Follow Justin and Trish on Twitter.

In the spirit of improving your marriage, what is your favorite piece of marriage advice?