Been a long time
Thursday, April 27, 2006 by Christopher Wu
I know...it's been a while...life just got up and running in a hurry and I haven't had a chance to get caught up yet.
Ever since coming back from Israel, I haven't had nearly any moments to just stop and sit still and catch my breath. I've just been going non-stop ever since and it's been exhausting to say the least.
Top that off with all the personal issues and struggles I've been dealing with, mix it up with some other conflicts with folks and you've got a whole big exploding mess of things happening right now. If you looked at my life from a distance, it might look something like a slow-moving tornado or torrential downpour, varying in speed and intensity-that might be the entire picture, but it's darn close.
Right now I'm in the land of cheese again! We're towards the end of our tour and wow...I can't believe tonight is our last show! We'll be playing at 9p.m. tonight at this place called The Access, a young singles' adult ministry out here in Wisconsin Rapids. REALLY cool place.
I'll be playing a paired-down, Starbucks type of drum setup so I won't have my full kit :( Booo...'La-fawn-duh,' my bass drum is quite sad she won't be played to round out the end of our season, but I am sure she will be used quite a bit this summer out on the road with Young Isaac, the summer project band I'll be playing withn from the end of June 'till the beginning of August.
I can't wait to get home...there are a lot of frustrating things I am dealing with being out on the road and being around people 24 hours a day. If they were my favorite people in the world, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but...alas, it gets difficult at times, to say the least.
Please pray for me in this season of life. As I look back on this past touring season there is A LOT I need to think about and ponder. Pray the Lord would help me be Christ-centered in thought and focus. I need to adjust some expectations and just change the way I think about a lot of things. That's a very difficult thing to do given I have many strong convictions about many things.
Some of those things are good to feel strongly about, some of those things are not.
In the wise words of Pastor John Hawco, my college pastor at Union Center Christian Church, "Major on majors and minor on minors." It's such a simple concept to understand, yet so hard to actually live out. I know I should be doing that all the time but I just don't! Be it pride or confusion, I just don't get it right a lot of the time and I still need to grow.
Anyways, I can babble on for hours and hours.
I realized I never posted up pictures from my time in Israel. Check 'em out!
Here I am with Dan (in the middle), whom we met at the youth hostel Kevin (far right) and I were staying at in Tiberias. It ends up that he's from Long Island too! Sweet!
He's Jewish and was over in Israel studying Hebrew and learning about his heritage with a student program.
We had a lot of fun hanging out with him and visiting some of the holy sites together, like Tel Megiddo and Nazareth.
After Tiberias we parted ways, but it was fun while it lasted! We hope we cross paths again and also hope God may have planted seeds in his heart to think about Jesus Christ's messiahship.
YES! Here I am at the gates of Solomon's palace!!! Talk about INCREDIBLE! Man...it was such a trip being at what once was probably one of the greatest palaces built in all of history. Tel Megiddo was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. I was literally standing on thousands of history where countless numbers of empires were built and destroyed on, and where major wars were fought for this piece of land.
For those of you who know about bible history, this is where it is all going to go down in the end times as spoken of in Revelation. 'Megiddo' is where the word 'Armageddon' is derived from.
Here I am sitting atop the hillside of Tel Megiddo, overlooking the Jezreel Valley. Isn't it so beautiful?! Gosh...what a lush, beautiful land.
As Kevin and I were there, we couldn't help commenting, "no wonder why God calls this place 'the land flowing with milk and honey!'" It is SO lush and rich. The soil is rich, fertile, and there are so many beautiful natural resources. Now we see why this is the Promised Land! Good certainly had a good land for the Israelites.
CHEK THIS OUT! This is a picture of an underground water tunnel system that was built during King Josiah's reign. It was built to ensure that the city would have a water source in times of war, in case the enemy they were fighting cut off their outside water supply.
The entire tunnel is cut out of SOLID rock under the temple and connects with a well spring on the other side of the tunnel. INCREDIBLE to think of how they actually built this thing a few thousand years ago without the advanced technology that we have these days?! Absolutely incredible and an architectural marvel from antiquity and even in this day!
Here is Kevin and I in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth! Man it was so beautiful! Amazing to think we walked the streets and climbed the mountain tops where Jesus once was. Here in the background is modern day Nazareth-so much bigger than what it once was!
Here I am sitting on top of the Mt. precipice in Nazareth overlooking the Jezreel Valley, where the crowds supposedly tried to push Jesus off the edg of, as written in Luke 4:28-30.
What was really interesting was the inscription written on this rock at the Mt. Precipice, that said according to tradition, it was called "The Leaping Mountain," because it was believed that Jesus jumped off the mountain to escape the crowds. That was totally not biblical, but it was still accepted as tradition. Very interesting...
Here is the church at Nazareth, supposedly where Jesus and his family once lived! We made it there in the middle of a worship service-what a treat that was!
The group was singing "Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate" in their native tongue, which I have no idea what it was but every word was beautiful, and I could feel God's presence there which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful...simply beautiful.
Ever since coming back from Israel, I haven't had nearly any moments to just stop and sit still and catch my breath. I've just been going non-stop ever since and it's been exhausting to say the least.
Top that off with all the personal issues and struggles I've been dealing with, mix it up with some other conflicts with folks and you've got a whole big exploding mess of things happening right now. If you looked at my life from a distance, it might look something like a slow-moving tornado or torrential downpour, varying in speed and intensity-that might be the entire picture, but it's darn close.
Right now I'm in the land of cheese again! We're towards the end of our tour and wow...I can't believe tonight is our last show! We'll be playing at 9p.m. tonight at this place called The Access, a young singles' adult ministry out here in Wisconsin Rapids. REALLY cool place.
I'll be playing a paired-down, Starbucks type of drum setup so I won't have my full kit :( Booo...'La-fawn-duh,' my bass drum is quite sad she won't be played to round out the end of our season, but I am sure she will be used quite a bit this summer out on the road with Young Isaac, the summer project band I'll be playing withn from the end of June 'till the beginning of August.
I can't wait to get home...there are a lot of frustrating things I am dealing with being out on the road and being around people 24 hours a day. If they were my favorite people in the world, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but...alas, it gets difficult at times, to say the least.
Please pray for me in this season of life. As I look back on this past touring season there is A LOT I need to think about and ponder. Pray the Lord would help me be Christ-centered in thought and focus. I need to adjust some expectations and just change the way I think about a lot of things. That's a very difficult thing to do given I have many strong convictions about many things.
Some of those things are good to feel strongly about, some of those things are not.
In the wise words of Pastor John Hawco, my college pastor at Union Center Christian Church, "Major on majors and minor on minors." It's such a simple concept to understand, yet so hard to actually live out. I know I should be doing that all the time but I just don't! Be it pride or confusion, I just don't get it right a lot of the time and I still need to grow.
Anyways, I can babble on for hours and hours.
I realized I never posted up pictures from my time in Israel. Check 'em out!
Here I am with Dan (in the middle), whom we met at the youth hostel Kevin (far right) and I were staying at in Tiberias. It ends up that he's from Long Island too! Sweet!He's Jewish and was over in Israel studying Hebrew and learning about his heritage with a student program.
We had a lot of fun hanging out with him and visiting some of the holy sites together, like Tel Megiddo and Nazareth.
After Tiberias we parted ways, but it was fun while it lasted! We hope we cross paths again and also hope God may have planted seeds in his heart to think about Jesus Christ's messiahship.
YES! Here I am at the gates of Solomon's palace!!! Talk about INCREDIBLE! Man...it was such a trip being at what once was probably one of the greatest palaces built in all of history. Tel Megiddo was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. I was literally standing on thousands of history where countless numbers of empires were built and destroyed on, and where major wars were fought for this piece of land.
For those of you who know about bible history, this is where it is all going to go down in the end times as spoken of in Revelation. 'Megiddo' is where the word 'Armageddon' is derived from.
Here I am sitting atop the hillside of Tel Megiddo, overlooking the Jezreel Valley. Isn't it so beautiful?! Gosh...what a lush, beautiful land.As Kevin and I were there, we couldn't help commenting, "no wonder why God calls this place 'the land flowing with milk and honey!'" It is SO lush and rich. The soil is rich, fertile, and there are so many beautiful natural resources. Now we see why this is the Promised Land! Good certainly had a good land for the Israelites.
CHEK THIS OUT! This is a picture of an underground water tunnel system that was built during King Josiah's reign. It was built to ensure that the city would have a water source in times of war, in case the enemy they were fighting cut off their outside water supply.The entire tunnel is cut out of SOLID rock under the temple and connects with a well spring on the other side of the tunnel. INCREDIBLE to think of how they actually built this thing a few thousand years ago without the advanced technology that we have these days?! Absolutely incredible and an architectural marvel from antiquity and even in this day!
Here is Kevin and I in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth! Man it was so beautiful! Amazing to think we walked the streets and climbed the mountain tops where Jesus once was. Here in the background is modern day Nazareth-so much bigger than what it once was!
Here I am sitting on top of the Mt. precipice in Nazareth overlooking the Jezreel Valley, where the crowds supposedly tried to push Jesus off the edg of, as written in Luke 4:28-30.
What was really interesting was the inscription written on this rock at the Mt. Precipice, that said according to tradition, it was called "The Leaping Mountain," because it was believed that Jesus jumped off the mountain to escape the crowds. That was totally not biblical, but it was still accepted as tradition. Very interesting...
Here is the church at Nazareth, supposedly where Jesus and his family once lived! We made it there in the middle of a worship service-what a treat that was!The group was singing "Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate" in their native tongue, which I have no idea what it was but every word was beautiful, and I could feel God's presence there which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful...simply beautiful.
I have tons more pictures, about 680 more to be exact. If I tried posting each one of them, I think I would need a whole other blog and you would probably get sick of scrolling through each one and reading all the descriptions. So if you'd like anymore, feel free to e-mail me or let me know! I'd be happy to send some your way.
I also go to visit the Dead Sea; Qumran, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls; Jerusalem; Masada; the Mt. of Olives; Garden of Gethsemane; and a bunch more holy sites. All were so beautiful and I wish we had another week to really soak it all in and not be so pressed for time at ecah place. More to come! Thanks for reading friends :)
I also go to visit the Dead Sea; Qumran, where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls; Jerusalem; Masada; the Mt. of Olives; Garden of Gethsemane; and a bunch more holy sites. All were so beautiful and I wish we had another week to really soak it all in and not be so pressed for time at ecah place. More to come! Thanks for reading friends :)
| »
