Well, I made it back to the sunny south. Man do I love it down here! It was a great time. I don’t think that I have caught up on my sleep yet, but that’s life – I guess. The wedding went well. I got to see a bunch of extended family again (which is always a super fun thing). My cousin should be enjoying a wonderful Alaskan cruise right now. (That has got to be sweet!) I’ll give you a couple highlights of the weekend. Many pictures were taken, so hopefully I will get those up soon. It was pretty cramped on the way up there. There were seven of us in our little Chrysler minivan for 14 hours…yeah, not a whole lot of room to stretch.

When we got there, we went to my aunt’s house where the girls and my parents stayed. I got to see a good friend from Northland there. That was pretty sweet! Then my brothers and I went back to my grandparent’s
house where we slept in the hay mow of their barn. It wasn’t so bad if you had enough blankets to keep you warm and you weren’t allergic to hay. Saturday morning, we got up and went to the church early to take pictures and video tape some candid footage. It was fun. We got some cool shots. We went to the wedding. They got wedded
and then we had catered food from Applebee’s. That rocked! After that, we just farted around for a while and took some goofy pics. My aunt works at a camp called Camp Beechpoint. It is a camp that reaches mostly inner city kids. It’s pretty sweet! Well, they have a goat there that they keep milked. They also have a calf and birds and such. So, just for the record, I got a picture of me milking the goat in a suit. (Note: I have not worn a suit in over a year.
I strongly dislike suits. I could hurt the Japanese guy that came up with ties and the French that came up with the suit combo. LOL So, I wore the suit as a surprise for my mom since she likes seeing me in a suit. – I therefore, had to get as many pics as I could in it while it lasted.) Sunday, I went to one of my relative’s church. It was pretty sweet. There was a girl that was leaving for a month long mission trip to Costa Rica. The guy that spoke had actually heard John Stott speak before, so that was a thriller too. We spent the after noon at my grandparent’s house.
That night we went to church and saw a harmonica group playing old gospel songs. (I think it cracked me up more than anything…seeing a bunch of elderly people playing old old old gospel songs. lol) We went to my uncle’s house after that and played a traditional game of pelt. It got kinda brutal.
My uncle ended up leaving the game early. I got a arm to the face. (It still hurts a bit.) The next morning we got up and came home. I got to work thinking that I was supposed to work that night, but I wasn’t supposed to. I got a couple unexpected hours in at least. Well, that’s all for now. Just wanted to let ya’ll know I’m still alive. Ha ha

Josh

PS – Click here for the full album

OK, so last weekend I hiked almost to the top of Pinnacle Peak and helped 2 families pack up to move and played a game of volleyball and went out for ice cream with a friend of mine all in one day. Yeah I ended up falling asleep in my truck before I could even get inside the house. Once I made it inside the house, I fell asleep in my chair before I could make it to my bed. I finally got there. It was a busy day. I’m on my way to Michigan or there or back by the time you read this, but I wanted to let y’all know (how few y’all may be) that I am planning on posting again very soon and I have put another album up to enjoy. Check it out. It is some pics I took while hiking. Well, better go pack…Keep God the praise of your worship.

Josh Blaha

Sometimes God uses experiences to show you that you are not all you crack yourself up to be. Well, He just used one on me.

I am manager of third shift where I work. I have bought myself a couple snacks that I keep frozen in the freezer. They aren’t too big. They only cost about $4 a box for one of them and about $9 for the other. These are some of my favorites as far as snacks go, and I was looking forward to feasting on them this last night. When I showed up to the freezer, I realized that someone had done a frequent cleaning of the refrigerator and freezer and threw my snacks away. In my humanity, as depraved as it is, I got very frustrated. For the next several hours I was struggling. I was wondering how food cannot look like food to someone else where it is still in the packaging and there’s still plenty left. Knowing that I should not have this kind of attitude over something so rediculous, I tried to focus on something else and not my stolen/missing/thrown away food. I finally got it mostly out of my mind, but the frustration was still lingering.

Well, I got home and all is going well. On Wednesday mornings I deliver weekly newsletters to a nearby apartment complex. So, I’m here bagging my papers to deliver. I decided to play a message from John Piper called Doing Missions When Dying is Gain. I thought it was a good selection since I have had it for a while and hadn’t listened to it yet; I also believe the Lord is calling me to the mission field. It was an excellent message. However, God sovereignly worked again to show me my place. When John Piper was concluding, He was speaking of how we, as Americans, tend to think that we deserve everything and we are so concerned about safety and such. This point in his message was that we, as comfortable Americans, tend to make sure that we govern our safety and such because we don’t want to get hurt, but yet we seem to think that we can soon go serve on the mission field in countries that hate believers more than Americans hate believers. He proceeded to give illustrations of minor inconveniences that we might face if we were to proclaim the gospel. I started telling myself, “yeah, I suppose God would give me grace through that.”

Then it hit me. Here, I believe the Lord is calling me to a foreign country to serve Him and proclaim His message and I am bickering over a potential $13. Yeah…humiliation hurts. I am finding more and more how incredible God is and His call to us and how insufficient I am and my need for Him.

As my brother says, “This is grace at work.”

Still growing in His all-sufficient grace,

Josh Blaha