okay, so that title doesn't apply AT ALL here, in fact it the opposite of applies, but it was likely to draw a lot more readers than 'i like my friends' and look, there you are so hi! arrived back home after a good 32 hours or so of travelling [if you exclude the New Jersey/New York trip we took with airforce Jon to get to the airport] from JFK to Dubai for eight hour [...]
Wow! 19 months flew by, just like... well 570 days, really. June last year, after about four months of weekly Skype calls with our present and to be future bossman Darin Petersen, the beautiful Val [tbV] and i arrived in Kensington, Philadelphia, Americaland to live and work at the Simple Way non-profit as part of the first batch of an internship program [which was later upgraded to a residency program when they saw our skills, [...]
so for friends back home there have been hints and allegations [a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby] and subtle innuendos as to what might be pertaining to the future for the andersons after this year... for those of you who have been following semi-closely, the beautiful Valerie [tbV] and i have been living, working and ministering with the Simple Way Christian non-profit organisation in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Americaland since about June of [...]
at the simple way tonite we had Chris Haw come and share on the question of whether or not to vote... it was a really interesting discussion and sharing time and i imagine there was enough sensible reason given to vote [and this seriously piss off the 'thou shalt not vote' people] as well as enough sensible reason given not to vote [ditto with the 'tis within your moral obligation to the world to vote' [...]
my wife and i love children! other peoples! we love the bit where we get to give them back afterwards. and then return to our childrenless lair. [okay, it's not quite a lair, more an intentional community house in the inner city area of kensington, philadelphia... but still, no children living with us in the house at this particular point in time] so kind of like a choose-your-own-[children]-adventure of sorts - we get to decide [...]
so yesterday afternoon, after a week of staff strategic planning as the Simple Way, everyone left except for the four of us from the Village House [yes, the Village People!] which is myself, the beautiful Val [tbV], Sueihn and our newest band member, Dan from the UK [formerly dread-wearing Dan] so that we could have an extra day at the venue to bond and get to know each other a little better... as we finished [...]
i would love to hear some thorts on this topic because i think it is a highly complicated, tricky one and imagine different people will have different responses and i would love to hear a bunch of them in a friendly it's-okay-that-it-think-differently-than-you-i'll-try-not-verbally-punch-you-in-the-face kind of way... so please read, consider, discuss and share... or maybe it is a number of topics but it all was birthed out of a blog post i read today relating to [...]
Martin Luther King Jr. penned the following words from the Birmingham jail, “I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’ I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.” I recently turned 42 and have been following my savior and mentor, Jesus, for more than half of my life. This relationship started out with things pretty black and white. However, [...]
we [myself, my beautiful wife Val, our housemate Sueihn and my gym and office buddy Coe aka 'Bubbly'] just got back from a very long trip which involved two twenty-five-plus hour two day road trips on either side of a one day Nurturing Communities conference which lead directly into the Christian Community Development Association [CCDA] annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota... what a complete blast. we had a great time road-tripping up, but it was our [...]
on the way to the CCDA conference in Minneapolis that a bunch of us from the Simple Way are currently attending, three of us stopped over at a Nurturing Communities event hosted by David Janzen who has just released a book on community and met up with a bunch of people from different intentional communities all over the country and spent a really great day connecting and dialoging and having an opportunity to connect with [...]