Both a general and a personal request here.

Last spring, after a winter of incredible snowpack, I said to a few friends: “Given this much snow, it’ll be pretty annoying if we have a big fire season this summer.”

Well, guess what.

It hasn’t reached the levels of our 2007 season yet, when you couldn’t see traffic lights three blocks away and ash was drifting out of the sky, but we’re headed that way. One town about an hour southeast of me is being evacuated because of air quality concerns. Every thunderstorm that rolls through is producing lightning fires. It’s that dry. And just last night, the most picturesque parts of Glacier National Park got hit.

Please take a moment today (no, really take a moment, don’t just say you will and then forget) to pray for the fire situation in Montana, as well as the Cascades and all through the Rockies. Please pray for the courage, alertness, and strength of the brave men and women fighting these fires from the ground, from the air, and from the offices supporting them.

Also, a personal request – far less urgent, but if I may…

These fires come just a week before my tight friend and I are preparing for a 50-mile backpacking trip. It’s not just any trip; it’s the first step in a story we’re hoping will culminate in hiking the Continental Divide Trail – a 3,100 stretch of trail spanning the Rockies from Mexico to Canada. We’re building up to that goal, gathering experience, over the course of several years and we hope not to be barred or choked out of next week’s trip by the looming fire problem.

So if you don’t mind, please pray for our trip. Although, by all means, spend far more energy on praying for our firemen.

It was surreal to stand outside my own front door again last night. After the innumerable miles, an ocean crossed twice, gallivanting through the countryside of the Czech Republic by foot and bus and train, pounding the streets of Prague beneath soaring cathedrals, an entire world laid bare from 35,000 feet in the air, one door remained at the end of the trip to remind me of God’s faithfulness.

It was a great trip. I want to thank all of you who prayed for our effectiveness, finances, and safety over the two long weeks. I’ll share some experiences on the blog shortly.

I also want to thank you for continuing to read and comment on my blog while I was gone. I’ll soon be replying to the comments.

If you’d like to pray for us, please pray about the decompression phase – the come-down from the trip and its adrenaline and highs, the mediocrity of our regular lives and our old battles reasserting themselves, the hardness of saying goodbye. Pray that it goes well and that our hearts are caught by Christ. If you’ve been on mission yourself, you know these times can be tough – like the reentry from vacation, but multiplied by ten. Also pray that God will make grow the seeds that we have been privileged to plant and water in the hearts of the Czechs.

In the meantime, here are links to the Pizza Lessons series I auto-posted while I was gone. I hope you enjoy them while I get back into the regular swing of things, which might delay a Thursday blog post.

Part 1: The God Who Keeps No Score

Part 2: You Never Know

Part 3: Not Crediting God is a Sin?

Part 4: Done With Judging

Part 5: Down the Barrel of the Gun

…here’s a poem I had to write for English class once.

What? It doesn’t always have to be all serious up in here.

I refuse to write this poem
You can’t make me, I won’t show ’em
No doubt my thoughts would be below ’em
They’ll just laugh (too well I know ’em)
At how clumsily I grow ’em
I’m skilled not, will not write this poem.

I refuse to churn out lines
Or wrack my head to spit out rhymes
To foot and verse I’m not inclined
Regardless of how loud you whine
At every turn, I shall decline
I’d rather plot a nice cosine.

I refuse to ponder men
Passed on fivescore years and ten
Who spent their lives in soggy glens
Staring at some silly flower
For a fortnight and an hour
Or locked away in dusty dens
Pale hands stuck to their pens
Pulling out their hair again
By some tricky verse devoured
Rhyming dictionary scoured
Do not such great poets end
In asylums, looking sour?

I refuse to write these verses
My mind is full of rage and curses
Ugly thoughts of zombie hearses
Not the rhymes that come to nurses
Trust me, you don’t want to know ’em
I just can’t, just shan’t write this poem.

I refuse to wrap my brain
Around these concepts I disdain
Similes blow right past me
Like the wind I cannot see
Lost I am with metaphors
Drifting off that distant shore
Alliteration is insane
Syllables that start the same?
Such a silly subject serves
Only to get on my nerves.

I refuse to waste my time
Grappling with foot and rhyme
To your pleadings I’m immune
Surely you will yield soon
I’ll resist all afternoon!
All assignments, I’ll forgo ’em
I care not, dare not write this poem.

I refuse, with my two hands
To crank out poems on command
Great musings you may demand
But I just do not understand
Iamb, trochee, anapest?
Surely you must be in jest!
Who among the devil’s pests
Sent to earth to cause unrest
Coined THOSE words? But I digress
I simply won’t put on this yoke
Pentameter makes me choke
I’d rather go and take a soak
In massive vats of rancid coke.

I refuse to write this poem
I just will not undergo ’em
My defiance is infinite!
This argument is stubborn, i’n’t it?
I really put my vocab in it
Persist you may, but I will win it
You can’t prevail...wait a minute.

(my teacher gave me on A on this poem and used it as the first entry in my class’s collection book)

Praise God. He has raised all the money I needed for my upcoming mission to the Czech Republic.

(This actually happened a few weeks ago. I would have posted about it sooner, but a medical issue arose that briefly called my participation on the trip into question. I’ll write more about that soon – suffice it to say that everything’s now fine.)

I want to thank you, dear reader, for any prayers you sent up for my fundraising efforts since I first posted about my trip. I really believe that prayer makes a difference, that God allows prayer to make a difference in order to get us involved in his work and draw us closer to him. Today is a great example.

When God provides financially for someone, he gets creative. It’s fun to watch. My barber called my haircut free the other day as a donation. Someone I barely knew offered me a donation in exchange for an old, non-working guitar of mine (her class used it for a project or something). My mission team did a dessert auction. GoFundMe is creativity. A lot of people enjoy GoFundMe because it’s simpler and easier to use – point and click – than a cornucopia of checks and support forms and where do I mail this and what do I write on the check and so forth.

Even if your only contribution to my trip was prayer, that is no small contribution. I now consider my prayer supporters part of the team. Those folks will receive updates and appreciation out of my desire for you to see your investment.

It’s not too late to join that team, by the way. Please pray for the hearts of the Czech citizens I’m visiting. Pray hard.

Anyway, just a little note on my progress. Thanks so much for your support.