Anyone know the way to Albania?

Hmm...Where's my ancient Illysian translation books?

I got a heck of a call a few days ago. Seems the church wants me for some mission work in Albania. It would be short term missionary work, helping with a summer daycamp. I can't believe it, but I think GOd just might let me do this. I;ve prayed on it and I really feel like I can help the faith over there. It would be a three-week enterprise, mainly assisting the established missionaries and getting some on site and presite training.

For those unfamiliar with Albania, it's is an eastern European country that has had a very hard history. Once a independent nation, it was first overrun by the Greeks, who complained about un-Greek they were. They eventually regained their independence as a sovigen nation and enjoyed prosperity as a Christian nation right up until the Ottoman Empire showed up. Overrun first by the Turks and than the Ottoman, the nation was made a slave state to a much larger Christian Empire. A rather impressive Albanian general overthrew the ottoman for a time, declaring "I have not brought you freedom, but found it amongst you". He held the ground for many years, fiercely defending his homeland with little support from the far western Christian empires. It was 12 years after his death that the Ottoman Empire was able to reclaim the nation. It was not until the end of WWII that the nation was able to reclaim it's sovereignty. It then became part of the Iron curtain, becoming overrun with communism, which abolished all religious institutions. Albania declared independence in 1964 and became a democratic nation, but a nation with very little religious basis. Declared to be the most a-religious nation in Europe, Albanians have been left without much in the way of a moral compass in which to steer their lives. Our church has been helping missionaries in the area for years and occasionally send helpers to the area. I'm to be one of those helpers.

I'm very excited by this prospect and eagerly look forward to it. The only issues remaining are fincial (I have to raise the cash to fly over and eat while I'm there) and holy. (a little more prayer)

Feel free to pray for me:) I appreciate all the help I can get.

Da Vinci Code

Alright, everyone keeps talking about it, so I'm going to say my peice about it.

Those higher ups in the consertive christian movement need to calm down, while there is some gross misinformation in the book Da Vinci code, it's not going to lead to the downfall or society. It's the same agnostic belifs we've been hearing for decades form the New Age Agnoistcs and the same stuff from the true Agnostics since 400AD. That is not to say we should'nt be prepared of course, but we most defintly should not be afraid.

To those on the "Dan Brown in obviously a history expert" Bandwagon:

"Google" does not make you a history expert. Dan Brown writes roughly 1 book a year and has a habit of picking a conspircay and a setting and writing a really good fiction book about it. Let me say that again: A really good fiction book

THe Roman Emporer Constantine did not attend the nincine council. Likewise he did'nt have a say about which books did or did not go into the bible.

The Nincine council's purpose was not to decide what books would go into the bible. THere was no 'bible' as we know it yet and instead priests would still rely on books on canon for a while yet. The purpose of the council was primarily to decide wether or not Jesus wasa seperate entity from god or if he a was an aspect of the same being. The 'Nincine Creed' that formed out of this is the oath that most churches use to decpiher between a christian and non-christian groups. The Close vote on this aspect? 298 to 2.

The Nincine council did debate a few of the known books and gospels. Dan Brown points to a letter written between on the bishops and his freinds back home as proof of this. He neglects to mention that most the Apochichyl books were on the list he said 'would never be considered' on the grounds they were not true or had been written as an eye-witness aocunt without the testemony of an eye-witness. The gospels were not under debate (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) as they had been written in less than 70 AD, had conssted of either direct Eyewitness writing or of a person writing the testemony of an eye-witness(s), and were constant with secular writings that the jewish and roman records had shown.

The idea of christ having a 'secret marriage' is just odd. There was nothing in Jewish belifs about the savior that said he would'nt marry - and the disciples certainly would'nt have minded if thier leader decided to show the virtues of a bibical marriage by example rather than spoken word. There are Theological reasons why he could'nt marry: Namely, that it would put Mary, a mortal, in a postion above other mortal women. (I just get this image of Mary Magdalane talking to Mother Thersa: "Oh Yeah? Well I slept with him! Beat that, Orphan-Lover!")

Most of the 'Forbidden' books are forbidden becuase that do not belong the the christian faith, but to another faith called "Agnosticism". Agnotsticism were a relgion that came into being roughly 50-100AD and was, for the most part a pagan mystery religion that wrote thier own gospels. These gospels do not collabrate with each other and often make little to no sense historiclly. Agnosticism was popular becuase service to the priests meant getting intiated into higher and higher levels of learning after which you would be given a 'better' version of the truth that you had reiceved before. In this way Pagan Mystery relgions were almost several relgions all belving that the lower castes were being lied to for thier own benifit.

In short(well, not that short) most people just need to study the history for themselves. Buy an apochrafa and a bible, read them and look at some of the history surronding them beofre you go beliving in it.

Men's Conferance

Despite a few dozen whoops and obstacles, I was able to manage to bring my brothers up to the conferance this year. Men's confereance consists of a few dozen guys from First Presbytarian Church/Fresno and another few dozen guys from First Presbytarian Church/Viselia. This year also brought some men from Bethel Inner City church, which is a small but quickly growing church who borrows use of the church grounds to hold sermons and community events. All together, we had gathered up in the seirras to talk, hang out, worship..and of course debate which activity was better: shooting people with paintballs or trees with real ammunition.

Today was a good day for Worship and study. The topic had to do with some intresting questions regarding what the bible says in regards to fatherhood andmanhood in general. It also had us debating, in usual presbytarian fashion, wether Jesus made a good role models for dads if he did'nt have kids, or good role model for young men when he did'nt date or marry. It was good to be able to dig around in a little in the scriptures a little. It was also a good chance to see many of the church laity discussing thier personal walks with christ and struggles they were having.

We also, of course, got a chance to answer another question: real guns or paint? Free time was spent in a variety of ways, from men hiking, golfing, shooting and paintballing. I took my brother down to the paint ball field, which is just a section of national forest that the squirrels have learned to avoid this time of year. FOr good reason too. We dived down gullys, delivered uphill assaults around fallen sequioas and even crawled trough the bark to get that one clean shot. We had a slight problem in firnedly fire in that we did'nt wear the provided markers (Pat Alexander showed up with redlace and pink polka dots for us. Ha, Ha pat :p ) but instead had used a nice to cut towels into strips for idefication. My brothers certainly enjoyed themselves, altough Patrick (my brother) needs to learn the old phrase: "Cover or God, everyone finds something in a firefight"

All in all we had a great time. My brothers are;nt to keen on the large amount of bible study or worship time involved, but did get a chance to connect with some of the people at church. I also got a chance to pick up a few new stories to tell around the fires ;)