If you aren’t using a feedreader to read my blog, you’ll hopefully notice that I’ve given the site quite a face lift. I basically started from scratch and redeveloped it from the ground up. I was the kid who always changed his room around every month just for something new so this should come as no surprise to those who know me. But, I don’t think this was just an arbitrary redesign. I had some purpose and some goals in mind: Create a site that took on more of my “interesting” personality. I tried to show some of my personality in the way i wrote the headings and displayed the content. Part of this is the random quote that comes across the top. Mostly, they...Read More →
Archive for July, 2007
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July 31, 2007
This Blog is Wearing New Clothes
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July 31, 2007
The Well Website
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July 31, 2007
Mission Leaders Network
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July 31, 2007
One Village Coffee Portfolio Pic
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July 31, 2007
Language of Belonging
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July 31, 2007
Hostages in Afghanistan: Did You Even Know?!
There was a group of 23 Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban last week. 23. Kidnapped. They are a christian group and the pastor of the group was the first killed and “Police in southeastern Ghazni province found Bae’s bullet-riddled body in the Qara Bagh district, where the Koreans were kidnapped.” Yesterday, they found the body of the second victim who has been killed. Apparently the Taliban are demanding the release of some prisoners and the Korean Government is refusing to comply. You know where I read about this first? CNN? TV News? Ny Times? Nope. (In the NY Times, the story is buried halfway down the page behind an article about the possibility of Chealea Clinton being the second daughter for the second time. Seriously?)...Read More →
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July 27, 2007
Book Recommendations?
I have a gift certificate to amazon.com that I am itching to spend. Anyone have any book recommendations that they want to share? What books have had big impact on you? What books did you find enjoyable. Either fiction or non. Can be Church related or not. Ok. let me know in the comments.
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July 26, 2007
Guatemala, Here We Come!
So, I’ve pretty much gotten no work done today what-so-ever. That’s because I’ve been fighting the annoying service known as Feedblitz which we USED to use for our weekly updates at The Well. But, since their service stinks, we’re now trying out listbox.com for sending out updates. We’ll see how that goes… Oh, the other reason that I have gotten nothing done today is because I’ve been trying to find tickets to Guatemala for next week. That’s right, we got the call and we’re headed down there next Thursday and will get back the following Wednesday. So, lots to do in the next week… Its weird that this is becoming reality…
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July 24, 2007
I’m a Proud Member of The Junky Car Club
Most of the people who know me know that I have a sweet ride. It’s pictured to the left here. Its a 1995 Plymouth Acclaim: Power windows, power locks, power steering. Giant Rust spot on the roof. Mass amounts of paint chipping off the roof and hood and trunk. Its runs. 110k miles. Carpet stained from years of Starbucks coffee spills because of a half-broken cup holder. (Stains are from me and the previous owner!) The car was free. A few years back we blew the engine on our Grand Am. At that time I was working at Starbucks and the very next day, a regular customer of mine came in and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while… but, do...Read More →
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July 22, 2007
MereMission.org
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July 22, 2007
All You Can Be Coaching
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July 18, 2007
Thanks…
Melanie and I would just like to share our appreciation of all who have shown us such love and compassion over the last few days. I have a lot of thoughts in my head that I hope to get out onto “paper” (i.e. this blog) soon. But, we have been overwhelmed with an outpouring of love from those we know and even those we don’t know. So…thank you. Each phone call and e-mail has been very, very meaningful to us… more later…
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July 16, 2007
Processing Loss…and blessing…
It is painful to share, but my wife Melanie had a miscarriage early Monday morning. She is physically doing alright and will have some minor surgery on Tuesday morning. I was just observing yesterday with a friend how our family has gone through a roller coaster of emotions with the news that our son Mason is almost ready to come home from Guatemala in addition to recently finding out we’re pregnant. Little did I know that this roller coaster was far from over as we processed this today… I had just recently began to comprehend a little better that idea that we’d have three kids by February. As crazy as that sounded, I was so excited about it. Two kids in six months. That’s exciting....Read More →
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July 7, 2007
Our Adoption is D-O-N-E!
Yep, that’s right. Its been a crazy two weeks around the Hiestand house. First comes news of another new baby and Friday night we heard from our adoption agency that we are officially done with the final part of the adoption process. (Actually, the papers were signed off on May 11 and they sat on a desk till yesterday to officially signed off on – sigh). Anyways…since we are out of PGN (that’s what they call the last process) we are waiting for our embassy appointment down in Guatemala. We’re hoping to head down there the first week or so of August, we’ll get informed of the date in about 1-2 weeks and then we’ll have week or so to scramble for tickets and get...Read More →
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July 6, 2007
Mission Team Available to Lowest Bidder
So, The Well has about 12 people who are available from August 5-12 for some kind of mission trip. We had plans to head to New Orleans and work with a local church down there but the plans have unfortunately fallen through due to some strange circumstances and we are now looking for another place to serve. We a few options but its always hard to go semi-blindly into a missions trip with an organization that have no connections with. I am sitting here thinking, “We have 12 youngish (25-30 year olds) who are looking for a place to do some work for the kingdom. It can’t be that hard to find something can it?” We are currently looking locally and nationally. If you know...Read More →
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July 6, 2007
Missional in Suburbia at Allelon.org
Allelon.org, a fantastic missional resource, has generously published my paper called, “The Gospel and the God Forsaken: the challenge of the missional church in suburbia” which I put up on my blog a few months back here. They also put it up along with a post by Alan Roxburgh on their new blog called “Moving into the Neighborhood” which I think is a blog all about the suburban missional church. I’ll follow that blog closely for sure… I also noticed that, Ryan Bell, a good friend of mine has a paper posted this month as well called “Leadership Begins with Listening.” Looking forward to reading that one too…
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July 6, 2007
Headed to Blacksburg (Virginia Tech University)
Melanie and Cole and I are heading down to Virginia Tech University tomorrow – Monday. I’ll be preaching at the two services at NLCF. NLCF is a church that was started by my friend JR Woodward and is now pastored by Jim Pace and Chris Backert. Our church has had a great friendship with NLCF through the friendship of the pastors. Jim, Chris and Dave from came up two years ago and did some encouraging work with our church and we gather together once a year for a retreat along with some others. We’re excited to go down and get to know their ministry a bit and spend some time with their families. Of course, with the tragedy at Tech this spring, it will be...Read More →
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July 5, 2007
Don’t Look at Porn.
Or, perhaps I should say, “Stop looking at porn.” J.R. Briggs’ faith community is hosting Craig Gross of XXXChurch fame. I really appreciate what Gross and his cronies are doing with their ministry and I even have their accountability software x3 watch installed on this computer. We have a group heading up there so if you are interested in joining us let me know. Details: resonate at Calvary Church (Souderton, PA) Sunday night July 8th at 6 pm Since this is a church service, its obviously free More information at: resonate’s Website J.R.’s Blog
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July 2, 2007
My Wife is Pregnant…
Yeah, that’s right. We’re hopefully about 5-7 weeks away from finalizing our adoption and it turns out my lovely wife is definitely prego. She’s about 2.5 months along and after a week of walking around like deer in headlights, we’re starting to try and figure this whole “2 kids in 6 months” thing out. It should be a good time! So, considering this means we live in a two bedroom apartment and my car (which is a hunk of junk by the way) is the only one that will (barely) fit three car seats, we’re looking at some major changes in the next 6-8 months. So yeah. Whoops. :)
