So, Today marks the countdown: 2 Weeks until my mission
adventures begins! . . . How exciting! I'd like to thank my supporters, your
encouragement means so much to me! Without you, this trip and the work that God
will be doing through me, through our team and through those we will be in
contact with would be impossible. Praise God for such generous and thoughtful
people =]

Yesterday, at Calvary
church, George presented an amazing sermon, as usual. But what was different
was that instead of a small passage in which he highlights portions of the text
that most ordinary human beings would miss, or which have profound meaning that
is only revealed through the most intricate translations, George went with a
very popular and rather lengthy passage from Psalms. A favorite to many, Psalms
139 was the topic of George's sermon. 

What is interesting is that the passage's message is very
simple: God loves us, and knows our innermost being even better than we know it
ourselves. He created us, and is therefore behind and before us, and knows our
every movement. He knows what happens in our lives minutes, hours, years, and
even decades before it happens. He is omniscient in every one of our lives,
even when we think that he is absent. After saying all of this, I guess this
isn't the "simplest" subject to grasp, because many of us would like
to believe that we are the only ones who truly know ourselves. However, it is
so comforting knowing that no matter how out of hand we get, no matter which
mistakes we make, there are no surprises for our maker. He loved us before we
lived, and continues to love us along the way, and even into death... and for
the rest of eternity!!

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me and
you know me

You know when I sit and when I rise

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down

you are familiar with all my ways

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD

You hem me in-behind and before

you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn

if I settle on the far side of the sea

even there your hand will guide me

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to you

the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth

your eyes saw my unformed body

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake

I am still with you.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent

your adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,

and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them

I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me

and lead me in the way everlasting.