Fort Snelling State Park

We hiked for over five miles yesterday in Fort Snelling State Park, across the road from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport. This park is really cool for two reasons; it's really close by, and the confluence of the Minnesota and Missippi rivers is in the park. Here are some of the sights we beheld while walking. We sat down to a picnic dinner overlooking the Mississippi after hiking for about three hours.

Check out the pictures here.

By the way, feel free to download any of the pictures you find here for desktops etc.

Are we all leaders?

Yesterday I spent the day with my work colleagues at a retreat. We'd all taken the Strengthsfinder strengths inventory before hand. So we spent the day getting to know our own strengths and those of the rest of the group. Good stuff.

Having done the Strengthsfinder before, I think it's the best inventory out there by a longshot. But I couldn't help thinking as I sat there listening to myself and others talk; are we all leaders. I mean should we all we all be striving to be leaders. Better put, I mean it this way; should we be idealizing leadership as the optimum level performance in one's life.

I don't think performing at my full potential, necessarily involves me leading. I think God's purpose for my life is for me to do what He has purposed for me to do and do it well. I wonder then, where we get this idea that leading is ideal? Why do many people (myself included) get all quizzy once the idea of leadership is mentioned yet we conteptously loath following? Why so many leadership development programs and hardly ditty said about following?

Think about it, leaders don't lead leaders: they've got to have followers. In fact there's more followers in the world today than there are leaders. And, as a matter of fact, we are called to be followers of Christs (that's what He said he'd make us).

So, why so much about leadership and not so much for following in our world today? And the question in the title again: Are we all leaders?

What do you think?

Camping

Our friends Liz and Eric together with Bren and I went camping over the weekend. We went way up north, just fifty miles south of the Canadian border in Cascade River State Park. It's beautiful up there.

There's nothing quite like dipping ourselves into the frigid Lake Superior. It was chilly, but it felt great.

We all had a good time.

Check out the other pictures from the trip here!

She's back!

My beautiful sister, Lani is back from Zimbabwe. She arrived yesterday late in the afternoon in one piece and high spirits. I'll be posting some of the pictures she brought on here once I'm done going through them.

Thank you to all of you who prayed and gave towards her trip. She had a real good time out there. She even got to get a sneak preview of what being a real nurse is going to be like when she worked at the hospital she and I grew up at for a week.

Pregnant

God is real good y'all.

RELAX! It's not us that are pregnant. Gosh!

Actually it's my very good friend Lindsey from Springfield, Ill. She is an awesome woman of God. A real trooper and fighter if there ever was one.

Anywho, why do I mention her bizness over here you ask. Quite frankly, because indirectly, I/we played a part in this. This from the latest post on her blog;

"I found out last week that I am pregnant. Quite pregnant, actually. Since the weekend of, or thereabouts, a certain wedding in Minnesota in May. We are expecting at the end of Jan/beg of Feb of '06. This news was quite unexpected but we are starting to get excited. I am on information overload with reading all the books, articles, etc. that I can get my hands on.

So, two dogs and a baby, all in a month. It's been a busy couple of weeks. :) The Lord is good and he will provide for all this growth and expansion and change. What is he doing in your life?"

Head over to her blog and read about how busy she's been over the past few weeks!

Oh, and one more thing; CONGRATS Linds & Logan!!!!!

TPW: Tyler Perry Weekend

This weekend was a Tyler Perry weekend at our house. "Tyler Perry" you ask, "who is he?" Tyler Perry is the playwrite, producer, director, songwriter and actor behind some the funniest christian on stage productions out there.

He has written, produced and acted in six blockbuster plays that have toured across the country in the past seven years. Fortunately for us, five of the six plays are now on DVD (and available at Blockbuster). All his shows carry an obtusely christian message and push the messages of forgiveness, perseverance, and hope. I know you're wondering how I could handle sitting through on-stage bible-banging in the name of theatre. My answer; check this man out. His work real and it's about real life struggles. That's the reason why I enjoy his stuff.

You might have heard of the movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman. That was done by Tyler Perry. The movie is a cinematric rendition of the theatrical production, and it's excellent. It's much deeper than you expect going into it. I know I went in expecting the classic rumbunctous-over-the-top-cliche black comedy. I was surprised, nay refreshed to find the message of forgiveness and love so well interwoven into real life. Again, check it out.

After meeting Madea (the funniest, craziest grandma you'll ever meet played by Tyler), we just couldn't get enough. We also saw I can do bad by myself, Madea's class reunion-the class with no class, Madea's family reunion. We're going to watch Meet the Browns tonight.

What is it I like so much about Mr. Perry's work? There are several reasons why I enjoy his work but I'm just going to give you the top two. First, as I've already said, it's the message that he's presenting. This message comes through clearly through a crisply woven presentation that draws on by both music and acting but it is not overboard. I was tempted to think that the message was a message intended and targeted at an African American audience only because that's where Tyler draws his largest fan base (and he's African American himself). It's not. The message he speaks is a universal message that every single one of us needs to hear and be reminded of.

Second (this is something I haven't talked about yet), is the talent he uses. All of the shows we've seen have featured some of the biggest names in music including members of grammy award winning groups like Sounds of Blackness, Silk and Kirk Franklin. So the music has been powerful.

If you held on through that sales pitch. That was our weekend;)

On Freedom

Bren and are back our first vacation with her family since we got married. It went well.

We left Friday afternoon for Kansas and spent the long weekend there with her parents and older sister. We ate a lot and did a whole lot of nothing. We're back now, just thought you might want to know;)

Oh, by the way, since last weekend was about celebrating this country's freedom, it might be worthwhile for me to mention I got my freedom from the inability to water ski on the 4th! Pretty cool huh?