On being a roadie, art competition, and working on the railroad

Interesting title? Well, it has been an interesting couple of days... pictures to come - I am at an internet cafe and cannot upload pictures yet.

Yesterday's railroad races were really fun... two teams of us Americans competed in the "Bugs bunny" rail car race and we fared pretty good, not good enough to make the playoff but we held our own. My team of boys beat our team of girls (which to their credit posed for pictures a good deal if that tells you how seriously they were taking the competition :) )... the team of Daryl Griswold, C Willis, B Waites, and Jaime Gibson finished fourth... and let me tell you it was much harder than I thought... we were close to having a casualty but no injuries. It also did not help that it started pouring when it was our turn to race.

The pub concerts went well as well... Ivan showed up and we hung out. I really want to connect him to folks at Risttee and have made some introductions. I plan to spend some time with him on Friday and talk about God... and plan to give him a copy of Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller (which I brought for me to read and did on the flight up... and I feel that I can sacrifice a little to help someone in their spiritual journey, you know)... which I think he will like and will provide opportunities for more conversation via e mail, myspace, or facebook when I get back to life in the States. Speaking of facebook... many of my new Risttee friends are on facebook which I find really cool. I have already put out a shout out to Tarmo and Timo - they are studs.

Today we handed out coffee and spent most of the afternoon setting up the stage for this evening's outdoor concert... we're bringing the full-on Buckhead Church lights and smoke machine show... it is going to freakin rock. I can't wait!!! What I got an appreciation for was how much work goes into setting up for a concert... and I am really glad that I am not a professional roadie. Interesting work... I lifted a lot of stage equipment, lights, and boxes. Fun. I also watched the art competition that we hosted in the town square... that was really cool. Li, who I talked about in a previous blog, competed and man is she a good artist! Courtney from our team also competed and I thought her mermaid drawing was good (Not sure what the theme was). I will post pictures when I get the chance.

I cannot wait till tonight's show. Pray that God uses it to move peoples' hearts more towards Him. He is the hope that they (and we) all need.

chris <><