HIGH ADVENTURE

The last time I worked on this column, I was sitting at home where I always write. Tonight I am pounding with my incredibly agile two fingered writing style from literally the other side of the world. I am currently in Vizak India on my third mission’s trip to this amazing country; this time accompanied by my daughter Meagan.

Good googly moogly! What an amazing difference 12 times zones, 2 continents and a couple of oceans can make. Yesterday Meagan and I hired a guide to drive us out to see the world wonder known as the Taj Mahal. It was a four hour drive from Delhi to Agaba, crammed full of near head on collisions and near misses with everything from ox carts, rickshaws and pedestrians to crotch-rocket motorcycles and dump trucks.

We saw camels going down the highway and even an elephant. Not your typical Sunday drive through Johnson County. We stopped at one point to pay a toll and these guys with monkeys came running over to our car. Within a matter of seconds, there were five baboons in my window. I don’t much like monkeys and had a bad experience with a baboon in Uganda several years back so I was not happy when one of the guys opened my door. After an exchange of heated words and my needing an exchange of drawers, I got the door closed and off we went.

A few minutes later the 109 degree heat had me pull over again to get a new bottle of water. We had to walk past a guy playing with a cobra with his left hand and holding some kind of a giant boa with his right. There were all kinds of orange-clad Hindu priests inspecting worshippers at a giant cement statue of a blue sword-wielding monkey god. I just stopped and looked around for a minute trying to take it all in. With all of this said, I have not even began to describe how extremely different the sites and sounds of India are.

This week’s confessions of a highly-caffeinated Christian come perking with a little Indiana Jones music in the background.

I think God loves for us to live a life of high adventure. The road to making a difference is sometimes lined with the unusual and can sometimes be a little overwhelming. God is not always found in the familiar, safe and comfortable. I think it’s better to be familiar with Him and His presence when we are a little overwhelmed with our environment and circumstances. Instead of inviting us into safe and comfortable places He offers to be our safety and our comfort while pointing to a barbaric way and saying, “every place the soles of your feet touch, belong to you, you own it so go get it”.

So get up and get out there and live your life while you still can. To live a life that is boring and insignificant is just as silly as living a life without God altogether. God set you free for freedoms sake the Good Book says, not to spend life on a couch.

I speak blessings on you and next week I’ll write you from some place that is a little everything except boring. I pray for you and appreciate you doing the same for me.

Contact the Brewer at www.OpenDoorMinistries.org