The good kind of lonely

I didn’t get to sleep til about 5a last night. I guess I didn’t want to face the fact of waking up alone again, but its inevitable for the time being. Jennifer woke me up about seven hours later in London. We spoke for a few minutes then she had to board her connection for another seven hour flight. Fifty years ago, this relationship simply would not have been possible. Now, half world away, by images and voice, we were able to find each other. Of course since it was God’s ultimate will for Jennifer and I to be together, Im sure we would have happened upon each other some other way. I mentioned this before and it bears repeating, because its kind of funny. If its God’s will for Jennifer and I to be together now, then why didn’t we just get married the first time around and to have each of us avoid our respective divorces? Well I don’t have the definitive answer for that. Maybe its as simple as God wanting to create three beautiful kids. The complicated answer is when I got married the first time I was 22, and Jennifer would have been 10. That would have posed a significant problem since I wasn’t living in Saudi Arabia at the time. (that’s kind of a joke). I think that it was also God’s plan for neither of us to be divorced the first time around. But again divorce is a negative by product of free will. I am firm believer in “All things work together for good.” Romans 8:28. John Osteen used to say “You can’t unscramble scrambled eggs, but God can create a beautiful omelet out of them.” So I think Jennifer and my relationship is vivid example of that. God restored in both of us what was broken. That doesn’t mean to imply that Jennifer and I were both innocent in our respective break-ups. In any conflict I believe that there is culpability on both sides. Instead his grace has allowed us both to find each other.

I believe that I started an important project in the Middle East in Saudi Arabia in 2005. I was not able to complete it as I left abruptly trying to save my family. We know that plan went awry so God wanted me to complete the work he started. Now I believe Jennifer is here to help me complete the quest. If God wants something done, He’ll get it done. If you bail off of God’s plan, he’ll just use someone else instead. Im just happy he stuck with me.

Today I wanted to forget that I was alone. I went to see two movies today to escape and take my mind off of things. The first was Up in the Air with George Clooney. I have flown so much in the past five years, I could totally relate to his airport routine. When I got my “Gold” status with Emirates Airlines, I had the same type of reaction as he did. I could really relate to his character. But I am searching for intimacy where he was instead running from it. After the movie I walked around the mall before movie #2. I had been with Jennifer non-stop for 2.5 weeks. We were affixed at the hip. Now suddenly Im on my own. I was lonely…but it was a good lonely, if there is such a thing. It was a hopeful loneliness knowing it was only going to last for a short period of time. For the year and half I have been out here, I was alone a great majority of the time but very rarely lonely. That is because God has been with me and my loneliness was aptly replaced with intimacy with Him. I felt like I really was never alone. But now that I have experienced emotional intimacy with Jennifer it just left me wanting more. I think that God placed a natural desire for her in my heart. I am content in life, but now I feel like a part of me is missing. I know we’ll be back together soon. Its probably going to be a lot sooner than I expect. From my divorce I have abandonment issues. I am petrified of having someone I love walk out on me again. Its really an issue with me. Im fortunate enough that Jennifer understands this about me. She assures me again and again and again that even though we are half a world apart she is as committed to me as I am to her. There is comfort and reassurance in that. Love is risky. I feel 100% at ease with Jennifer.

Full Circle

It’s 2:20 am and I just got home after dropping Jennifer off at the airport. The past day was a fitting conclusion to what is arguably the best two weeks of my life. Jennifer is everything I hoped she would be and a little bit more. I know that I know that I know that she is the one that God has made for me in this time in my life. We finished off the trip in grand fashion. My mother graciously offered to put us up in the Ritz Carlton hotel for our last night (now Im sure my sisters are jealous, especially Shari thinking…Where’s mine?) But before you go thinking anything, Jennifer and I have spent a lot of time together and we both agreed to wait for appropriate actions until we are married. Ohterwise I’d just be a big hypocrite (as others have accused me of being.) So far so good.

It hit me yesterday around 3:00 PM, my life has come full circle…finally. It was September 2005 and I was at the San Francisco Airport about to board a flight for Saudi Arabia. It was clear that God called me to Saudi, but I didn’t want to go. In fact, I felt a little like Jonah, trying whatever I could to get out of it. Even until the moment I left for the airport. It was pretty clear that God called me to Saudi, and He spoke also to my former wife at the time. I think I mentioned this before in a previous blog but I believe it bears repeating. A few months prior to me leaving, it was clear that God was calling me to Saudi, but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t think it was safe and I certainly didn’t want to leave my family. But my former wife kept encouraging me to go (something she disputes now as her version of revisionist history). So we prayed fervently and we prayed often for guidance. One particular Saturday night we both kneeled by the bed clasping each other’s hands and we prayed “God I don’t want to go but if its your will, we will obey, but we need a billboard, a giant sign from you conveying that it is Your will that we go. I need it to be clearer than when you called us to go Taiwan.” The very next day at Cornerstone Church in Livermore pastor Steve Madsen spoke an entire sermon on Matthew 19:29 for the entire sermon. “If any man leaves his father and his mother, his wife and his brother, his children and his land and travels into a foreign land for my name sake he will receive a hundredfold blessing and the gift of eternal life. Just the fact that we heard that verse a mere 10 hours after we prayed gave us both a resounding peace that his was absolutely God’s will for me to go to Saudi Arabia. The plan was for me to go alone, to scout it out, and then if it were safe perhaps bring the family over.

So there I was at SFO in Sept. 2005, crying my eyes out, no I was sobbing. I didn’t want to leave my family, my wife, my children whom I held so close to my heart. But God was calling me and I had to be obedient. I passed by security walking down the long hall towards my plane, my family became smaller with the distance. My parents, Lindsey and Spencer had already gone to the car. Standing and waving with big smiles was my former wife (whom I loved dearly at the time) holding my middle Son Max. They were vigorously waving and smiling so big. It just broke my heart each step that I was moving further away from them. I could barely see because the tears were streaming so fast down my face. I don’t cry often in life, but this was one of those watershed moments. I had one final look at them, then I rounded the corner. Once they were out of sight the tears stopped and such an amazing and immediate peace fell over me. The Lord clearly spoke to me how blessed I was to have a wife and family that loves and cares for me so much. I can look forward to returning to them and that love and adoration. With so many lonely people in the world, I had all this love and hope surrounding me to which I could return. That gave me the comfort that I needed. I got on the plane and God used me in some amazing ways in Saudi Arabia in 2005. Now here’s the part that gets a little tricky. Exactly what God told me to give me comfort, how blessed I was to have a family that loved me was quickly taken away when my former wife decided that she no longer wanted to be married to me. So that in turn started the four years of really really tough stuff. I like to call it Hell, but God sustained me through it. But it just seemed cruelly ironic that what comforted me earlier (a wife and family that loved and missed me) was now taken away. What was even more troubling is the verse he used to call me out there, Matthew 19:29 It seemed like I was living the opposite. I left my wife and children to follow God’s calling, but instead of receiving a hundred fold blessing, it seems like I received a curse and had a hundred fold taken from me. This was something that would haunt me over the next few years, but I trusted God enough to know that he had a plan.

As I stood at the gate sending Jennifer away, I realized that life had come full circle. I thought to myself how lucky/blessed I am to love and care for a person so much that I can look forward to seeing her again in a month or so and then spending the rest of my life with that person. Maybe this was God’s plan all along. Now we know that God hates divorce, Malachi 2:16. So its obvious that he would have never orchestrated a divorce in my life. However, he is omniscient. I believe that he could see into the heart of my former wife and realized that she was choosing to go the divorce route if not then, soon. That’s the sucky part of a free-will, He lets people make their own choices even if those choices are terribly destructive. So God knew what was coming, and he prepared me and comforted me during the storm. While I was not perfect the past four years and I had a few slip ups, I believe that I emerged stronger and more resolute with my intimacy with Christ. I think I weathered the storm almost exactly how God would have wanted me to do so. I think Jennifer is the end result of the “perfect” plan that God has for my life. Im so blessed. Not only do I have a great career, a great and adventurous life, friends from all over the world, but soon I get to add a hot 29 year old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, genius, hard-body, funny girl as my wife. I think just having her on my arm (we got so many looks from everyone in Bahrain and Dubai) proves there is a God. Im sure many of the people that passed us and jerked their heads around to see this beautiful blonde must have thought “Now I know there is a God, how else would a guy like that get a girl like her.”

a bittersweet moment

The reality hit us both earlier today. We only have four days left together this time around. It was a strange feeling that swept over both of us. We were sitting a five star Indian restaurant and we started crying. It was bizarre, we are so in love with each other yet the reality of our lives were hitting home. We’re not sure when we’re going to see each other again. We are totally committed to each other and long to be with each other again, we just don’t know when it will be. Jenni has to finish her dissertation, get a new roof on her house, take care of her dogs, figure out a job situation and I need a bit more resolution on my career. So there is so much to figure out over the next couple of months. I think I heard God tell me the other day that everything would be resolved in two months. Im not sure if I heard him correctly but it gives me something to shoot for. So that would be around April 23. I can manage until April 23. Even though Jennifer and I will be separated for a short period it still will be nice to have some that cares for me so much to be out there waiting for me. That will be my emotional fuel that will keep me going.

Im really quite blown away by all the love and support I’ve gotten from my facebook friends. Not only did the news articles generate so many positive comments of goodwill, the engagement video I made of Jennifer and myself is having even more of an effect. Im quite proud of all the nice comments so many people are bestowing upon me. Tonight Jennifer and I walked down the souq. The souq is the Middle Eastern market in downtown. It has literally been around for thousands of years. As we were walking we happened by the tailor that made my tux for the Palm ball. Out walked Shabar the tailor. He congratulated us on our engagement. He told us he read about us in the Gulf Weekly. That was really cool to hear. It was nice walking down the souq. You really feel like you are in a foreign country that way.
Well…I’ll try to be better about writing in this blog come Sunday after Jennifer leaves ;o( I’ll have a whole lot more time on my hands unfortunately. But we both know that this distance is only a temporary thing. We both feel very blessed to have found each other in this unlikely manner. We are both convinced that God had a plan for us all along.

It's all in the details

It was December 2008 I believe or somewhere around that date. I blogged about it. I had a few people even comment (AJB among others) to ask me what it was. I had just met Reji and we hit it off immediately. Which is rather strange since English is not his strong suit. Im constantly having to ask him to repeat himself. He doesn’t really open his lips when he talks. That said…His English is much better than my Hindi. So Reji had a connection because he used to read John Osteen’s books (Joel’s father) in fact he like John much better than Joel. When we found out that we were both believers with a connection with Osteen, we both became very excited. How does this happen half-way across the world? Well it happens with God and divine connections. So Reji felt like he had a word from God. He told it to me and I got really angry. He told me that I’d be reconciled with my family. I was finally over my emotional pain and now he told me that I’d be reconciled? I didn’t want to shoot the messenger, but I did take him with a grain of salt. I just didn’t see how it would be possible. But as time passed and I kept that date of December 2009 in my head, I started greatly anticipating it. I knew that something big was going to happen in December 2009, maybe not the reconciliation that I had prayed fervently for, but something big. That six weeks of Hell that God forewarned me about in September precluded that December month. Maybe the enemy knew what was up and tried to derail me, but that hope that it would pass really helped to keep me motivated to persevere through the crap. So December happened and I realized there was no way that I’d be reconciled with my family. In fact the division was/is bigger than its ever been. Instead, my life did change in December 2009 as that is when I started corresponding with Jenni. So Reji was right in hearing from God and sharing it with me. He just might not have gotten some of the precise details right. Instead of being reconciled with my family, I was introduced to a new family with Jennifer. That is what God meant when he told Reji. I needed this hope to keep me going through the hard times. It was like looking at the finish line or seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I kept trudging on knowing that God would take care of me. He did once again. It was just not the way that I had expected. That has happened to me before as well. When God would speak into my life about specific things the general thing would usually happen with some of the details being a little different. I think that is what happened with Reji and probably happens with a lot of us that hear God’s voice. I think as we grow in our faith and reliance upon hearing God’s voice we become more discerning. This is not to say anything bad about Reji. But maybe the details needed to be obscured. If I knew that I’d meet the girl I was going to marry in December I would have lived my life a bit differently. God still wanted me to seek him. The Big Picture is that God always takes care of the details whether or not we realize it at the time. I so often speak into other people’s lives (word of knowledge) as to what God would want them to hear. Its nice for a change to have someone speak into my life to give me hope. Even if some of the details turned out to be different.

I posted a video that my videographer Nishad had edited together about my engagement and first time meeting with Jennifer. I thought you might like to see it. You can view it either here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsGigrwnXAM or on my facebook (which has more pictures) http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=357278992138&ref=mf

If you are not my friend on facebook, please feel free to add me.

It's Been a couple of days (500th Post)

I want to apologize for not posting the blog lately, but my priorities were in a different order. I wound up going to Dubai with Jennifer. What a great experience that was. Jennifer Im finding is a truly different and wonderful girl. She has a genius level intellect, almost beyond genius. She is like rocket scientist type of smart. When you compare that to her quirky sense of humor, love for God, athletic body, and breathtaking smile you don’t have to look far to why I fell hard for her. But with like most super-geniuses they have their set of quirks. Jennifer is no different. We all have our little quirks. I think its God plan to match us with mates that help us deal with our own quirks. I know I have mine and Jennifer is helping me with them. The more time I spend with Jennifer the more I realize that she is the perfect one for me. She will be a little higher maintenance than most, but the performance will be that much better. I liken her to a Ferrari. I’ve told her this and I’ve told her father as well. You can get a cheap and dependable Hyundai and that works quite well, low maintenance, low hassles. Or you can get a Ferrari, that is high maintenance but it is high performance and handles incredibly well. I always opt for the Ferrari. The main thing I don’t get about Jennifer is how a girl as fabulous as her would fall for a regular guy like me. Im honored, but God in turn honored me by bringing her into my life. I am quite a traditional guy so I had a talk with her father. He’s a really nice guy, but its weird (Im sure for him too) because he is only 18 years older than me. So it was the first time that I had ever spoken to him. I introduced myself and told him how wonderful I thought his daughter was. I asked him for her hand in marriage. I guess I should have done that before I asked Jennifer at the airport but it wouldn’t have been quite the storybook romance. So he asked me to spend a little more time with Jennifer and ask him again in 8 days. So I did just that. Each day I spend with her confirms in my mind even more. This is not to say that this will be a perfect conflict-free relationship. We are both stubborn-strong willed people who are advanced in our professions and more or less set in our ways. But we both realize that God has to be the focal point of any relationship in order for it to work. We are both committed to “For Better or Worse” and “Til Death do us part.” Neither one of us will ever go through a divorce again. We are that determined. So I called Jennifer’s father back and we talked a lot. It was my job to convince him that I would be a good caretaker for his daughter (sheesh, that makes her sound like a horse). He did give me his permission and blessing. Now how and when this marriage takes place is yet to be seen. I wanted to do it around the Spring Break time in Mid-march, but my boys told me that they didn’t want to see me then. (Its more parental alienation from my former spouse. Now that I’ve found love she’s pouring it on even thicker. Please pray.) Even when we get married we’re not sure when she’ll be able to move out here because of her Job and her PhD dissertation. So a lot is still in the air. But Im not worried about any of the details. God has directed every one of my steps so far and there is no reason why He is not going to finish the job. I still have so much more to write about it. We stayed in a couple of fabulous hotels/resorts in Dubai. The highlight had to be the Atlantic Palm, which is on the tip of the manmade palm islands which Dubai is famous for. This place was the best resort I’ve ever stayed at. But since Jennifer is so good at her descriptive writing I’ll have her share her point of view on this in the next day or so. My job will be to add pictures. If you are on facebook, Jennifer already posted the online ones. Please continue to pray for me. There is a lot going on and the Devil is certainly in attack mode. This encourages me as it means that I must be doing something right.

The elevator doors were closing (through jennifers eyes)

We arrive in Dubai and quickly immigrate into the UAE. Flying Business class with the Emirates is quite nice. But sadly, the quick entry into the country was the last thing that was expedited on our trip. I stood and watched the bags go round and round the turnstyle. Eventually new bags were no longer being spurned out from the hole, and still, no sight of the bag. I start to panic a bit. Rick and I packed our things into one bag so we had nothing but the laptops on our back. So we talk to customer service. All we get is told there is a 90% chance our bags are somewhere in Dubai and a 10% chance it never made the flight. Being the skeptical statistician that I am, I doubt these numbers are anything more than grabbed out of thin air to satisfy a worried passenger. I was not convinced. Where was her data to back this up? She had none. Clearly she didn't realize who she was dealing with, but i was so happy. Am so happy. I don't care. I didn't fight or fuss. I just accepted it and hoped the bag would show up that night.

We finally arrive at the hotel once we realized our bag was not going to show up on the turnstyle, but our room is not ready, like five hours of not being ready. so we are seated and left to wait for a while. They then profusely apologize and usher us up to Sloanes Restaurant (how apt) for 220 AED a person nice super buffet. We are staying at Grosvenor House. The food -- it is over 55$ a person. It was free for us. We have been so blessed. Finally after much waiting and a slow meal of eating what you can and waiting a bit longer, FINALLY we are led to the room, we are tired and we are full, but we have nothing to wear and nothing to do, so we decide to go for a walk.... WE went for a long walk on the beach, and had a wonderful time being alone without distraction. Just the two of us. By the time we walked on the beach, one of us got really hungry and one of us was still totally stuffed from FOOD FEST 2010 as I like to call it. Because we really did eat sooo much. I don't think we ever ate again that night, so the hungry party got over it. Our lost bag finally arrived at the hotel, and I cant remember much of it though because I was wiped out and the lack of sleep from the past... well all of this year really, and I was done. Vacation at last.

Today was nice. I finally slept past 8am which was amazing in itself. I had a nice breakfast on the hotel patio. That was amazing too. It really has been quite nice staying here. We went to the beach and for a swim. We had a wonderful afternoon. Went to "a" mall (there are tons here), and then here and there. We had dinner with an old college friend of Rick's father, who is now the provost at Zayed University. He and his wife had us over for dinner. We went for a walk first, took a small taxi boat to the SOUQ, shopped a bit and drank in the culture. I have been in enough markets to learn how to avoid eye contact as the sales people try to lure you in with their products. It was funny to watch how they gravitated to me, but not uncommon. I am a young blonde female in a country where dark hair and dark eyes are the norm. Had I been in a scandanavian country, they would have let me be. But, as it turns out, I am in the Middle East. Its just like being in mexico. The first time, I was 12 and lori was 14. We walked through the shops and people just stare. Secretly i like the attention. Maybe its not a secret. Dinner and conversation with Dan and Elaine was excellent and I really enjoyed it. Dubai is amazing. The beach is great. The water is awesome and you can open your eyes in it and it is so clear. No salt water does not burn. We have been busy. The next few days are going to be down time for us.

Here is a funny story I will leave you with: Getting into an elevator is quite exciting when Rick is there and nobody else. Since the Middle East is quite conservative, he uses the time to kiss me. Yeah yeah, i'm sure you've all found time and places to sneak kisses, but since we are hardly able to express our ever growing excitement for one another, we have found the confines of elevators to be the place. In our flat in Bahrain, after the first few days, I realised there was a camera in the elevator. Rick laughed and said, "Well, I'm sure that's why the door man is so nice to us when we come in from work." Maybe they do enjoy it?

So here in Dubai, we are leaving the beach to come back in for a few minutes and as soon as the doors close he kisses me. Quite passionately I might add. We are on G... the next floor up is L. We did not hear the elevator stop at the next floor. We did not hear the doors open. But what we did hear, were the doors closing. I stopped him because I was quite stunned by the noise, and I looked at the doors, expecting them to be on their way to open... But no. This was not the case. The doors were closing...

I couldn't see anyone there, but i can imagine that someone caught an eyeful of my fiancé giving me quite the kiss and quietly stepped out of the way, to let us revel in our passion for one another.... The doors closed, and after a bout of hysterical and tearful laughter, and despite my red-faced embarassment Rick didn't think twice before coming in for another kiss. Round 2. We are like high school lovers. I have never found so much joy and satisfaction in kissing. And that is fine for me. After all. Rick plans to wait until we are married before we take our love any further. And i am totally ok with that.

Jennifer's Blog

Its getting harder and harder to write in this blog. Yet I feel like I still need to write in it as there are amazing things happening to me. Historic and poetic things. Im so grateful for the life that I’m living right now. God is truly faithful. I am having so much fun with Jennifer right now. We truly are living a fairytale. The article in the paper came out today. I have so many friends and associates commenting on it. They all have so many wonderful things to say. Its not front page…but its page 3 at the top, that is the best part of the paper so its featured. You have to know something about Bahrain. No one watched TV here so all the information is done through the newspaper. So this type of coverage is fantastic. There is even a little mention in the paper about “God directing my steps.” Which is a cool way to witness. I hope this doesn’t come across as egotistical, because I really am humbled by all the attention. But I have gained a lot of notoriety and press since I’ve been here. I attribute all of that to God’s extreme favor shining over me. I think the favor is important because the more people I can reach, the bigger the platform I have for God and my faith. I have a feeling that this will only grow with time. Im so thankful to God for all of this. Especially Jennifer. When I was going through the lonely times, God assured me that His “perfect” plan in my life included taking care of me emotionally. He sure has with the lovely Jennifer. Wow…I feel like I hit the lottery on this one. Not just because she is beautiful, but because she is so crazy about me. I still think that is an act of God. But I’ll take it. I have to prepare for our last comedy show tonight, so I don’t have a ton of time. Instead, Im going to post a link to Jennifer’s blog. Jennifer is a much better writer than myself, which is frustrating. She gets to use both sides of her brain at the same time, where I have to do mine one at a time. So if you are interested here’s Jenni’s perspective on all of this plus there are lots of pictures.
http://jenni-sloan.blogspot.com/

Sit down with the reporter

The day started off really well. We had the interview scheduled with the newspaper at 9:00 am. The reporter was late so the photographer wound up taking a bunch of pictures. He was trying to pick my brain about being a director, and I tried my best to help him with a few tricks of the trade. Mainly its confidence that you need. We have had so many pictures taken of us over the last three days. I would say, between the airport proposal, the Palm Ball, The Arabites video shoot, and the interview today we’ve probably had over 500 pictures taken of us since Jennifer got here. Im not sure why, but I think we’ve captured the imagination of a lot of people. Ours is truly an amazing fairy tale. Im touched because I’ve had dozens of friends wish me congratulations and other wonderful tales of encouragement. This blog has had its normal hits tripled over the course of the past week. If I can have a bigger forum to talk about God…all the better. Its like so many people are living vicariously through us, and Im thrilled and honored about that. I love to shout the story from the mountaintops because I believe my life with its ups and downs is a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Im thrilled that He found me worthy enough to recount my tale. As we sat with the reporter a bit later for the 45 min. interview, I think we gave her enough material for a book. She leaned forward and smiled almost the entire time as she scribbled furiously in her notepad getting all the details. It was a trip down memory lane for us…granted it was a short trip. I think I need to preface all the interviews and questions with self-awareness. I know this whole romance thing seems really radical and impulsive because it absolutely is. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that its also God. When God delays he does so purposefully in order to affect a change within us, but after that change is realized when He moves it can be lightning fast. As Jennifer and I were recounting the details of our brief and torrid romance its as if there was a video camera on us. We really kind of lost ourselves in each other’s gaze and forgot that the reporter was even there. I think the reporter really appreciated that. This was also an incredible opportunity to share my faith. Im not sure how much of the interview they will keep in a paper in a Muslim country, but my premise was quite clear. God told me three months ago that I would be married within a year. Everything else he told me specifically came to pass so there was not reason why this shouldn’t either. So I told her, the moment I saw her, I knew that God told me “She’s the One.” There is so much Hollywood drama involved with the story. Perhaps that is why it captures everyone’s imagination. I love that, because it just provides me with a bigger forum to which I can share my faith. Life right now is truly a fairy tale. But that doesn’t mean everything is rosy all over. My children are quite upset with me. There is still a lot of parental alienation, more-so now than ever. In spite of the success I feel emotionally with Jennifer, the chasm is equally as large with the estrangement of my children. Please, pray for them. I love my kids dearly, but the relationship with them is really bad. Kids of divorce are in a tough situation. One parent pulls on the left wrist while the other parent pulls on the right wrist both equally determined to win the tug of war. No one really wins, but the kids lose in being torn apart. So one of the reason I came to Bahrain is to let go of the wrist. I don’t want to fight for the kids to have them become even more damaged in the process. One of my children wanted me to fly home for their spring break in march. After announcing the news of my engagement (to the kids before the blog mind you) I received a voice mail today telling me they didn’t want me to come home to see them at all. Part of Parental Alienation is for the children to defend the manipulator and to insist that their thoughts are their own and not influenced whatsoever. Its really sad to see so much hatred and bitterness channeled through the kids. But you know what, I won’t let it affect me. Jennifer is being amazingly strong standing by my side and offering her love and support. I know the children will eventually see how much I do love and care about them. But it will take time.

We had a great time at my positive living group tonight. Jennifer made everyone homemade lasagna. We had about 8 people there. It was an unofficial engagement dinner. I share my story in great detail with the members of the Monday group. They saw the bad in my life and now that Im experiencing the Good they see the fruits of God’s faithfulness up close. I am a living testimony as I think all Christians are called to be a living testimony. I’ll post the article that Gulf Weekly prints this Wednesday. Thank you for your prayers and support. My life is witness to the fact that your prayers are working.

Link to pictures

By the way. If you would like to see some of the photos at the airport they can be seen on my facebook page. If we aren't friends, send me a friend request. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=196053&id=751722138&l=bb33975053

A most unexpected call

What a great couple of days it has been. I haven’t been writing as much because I haven’t had the free time. Right now Jennifer is making Lasagna for tomorrow’s night Small group. So I decided to get away for a bit. But the funny thing about Jennifer is she just can’t get away from me. As Im walking around the flat she just tends to follow wherever I go. I think its really cute. Its just indicative to how we can’t get enough of each other. Im really crazy about this girl. She’s perfect for me.

On Friday we went to church so she met all of my church friends. I have a lot of different grouping of friends here. As we were leaving I introduced her to Pastor Graeme. Once I told him that she was a statistician he got very excited. He had been looking for a statistician to study the church’s giving history to see if there are any trends so he can make the budget for the church for future years. It was a total divine connection. He needed someone and its like Jenni dropped out of the sky and went right to him. It was pretty neat. He also hooked us up with a pre-marital counseling program we can take online. So it was a win win. We then took Darren out to brunch at the Ritz Carlton. It was nice introducing Jenni to really my closest friend out here. Jennifer was really doing great with the whole jetlag thing being here less than 24 hours at the time. We were running on adrenalin. So we can back took a nap then we got dressed to go to the Palm Ball. Its really cool that our first official date was to a ball. Its so fairy tale like. In fact our whole relationship is fairy tale like. That is why I wanted the first words out of my mouth when I met her face to face was “Jenni will you marry me?” I know that hasn’t happened too many time in this world. I was nervous when I asked, but emboldened because God clearly directed me that she was the one for me. But I digress as always. I had a custom fitted cashmere Tuxedo and shirt made for the ball. I spent $300 on the tux. Im not sure if that was a good deal, but those in the know tell me that for a custom fitted cashmere tux it was a good deal. Jenni had a beautiful red dress. She just looked stunning. With apologies to the other ladies, she was the prettiest girl in the ball. This was the who’s who of Bahrain at this function. If you were an successful westerner or an ex-pat, most likely you were at this ball. It was really nice showcasing my new fiancé off. Its weird to refer to her as my fiancé especially since she was my girlfriend for so short of time. But as you know, God speaks to me and I’ve annotated it in this blog. I’ve learned that when God speaks, I listen most of the time now and do very little arguing. If God told me that Jennifer is the one that He wants me to marry, who am I to argue. He has been right 100% of the time so far. The only mis-steps I’ve taken is when I haven’t heard His voice correctly. So how do you discern if you are hearing God’s voice correctly? Discernment, practice, patience and failure are the keys. Whenever I’ve thought I’ve heard God’s voice in the past, and actually haven’t its usually because there is some sort of sin in my life. Sin creates interference with any frequency with God. God cannot exist with sin, so you are never going to hear God properly if there is sin in your life. So I have learned that that wrong voice sounds like, it could be the enemy’s voice and it could be my own. But suffice to say I’ve learned what the “wrong” voice sounds like and I’ve learned what the “right” voice sounds like. The “right” voice certainly told me that Jennifer is the one Im supposed to marry. I even told several of my closest friends the first weekend after I spoke with Jennifer that “I met the girl Im going to marry.” Most of them didn’t believe me especially after only knowing Jennifer for just a few days. Now those same people are starting to believe me. Yes, its impulsive, irrational, illogical, but its also of God which makes is rational and sensible in God’s eyes. Those eyes are the most important. Jennifer, I think is going to blog about the Ball, so I won’t go into details about that. But I was very proud to have her by me, especially when they showcased the video I created for them. I was very proud for Jennifer to see it the very first time the night of the ball. Its one of the better ones that I’ve made. If you would like to watch it, please feel free to go to my website: http://www.rickbeeman.com/Site/Movie.html

So I took Jennifer into work with me today to KSDi. She was able to bring her laptop, so she can work remotely while she is out here so she only has to take a few vacation days. I bought the staff lunch from their favorite Pizza Hut and KFC both for Valentine’s day and for Jenni’s arrival. While at work, I got a most unexpected call. It really made my day. It was from a reporter from the newspaper. I was speaking to the editor, Stan a friend of mine, at the ball and explaining how I asked Jennifer to marry me. He was so taken in by the tale, he wants to write a feature story about it. So the reporter and the photographer are coming by KSDi tomorrow to interview Jennifer and I. Im really touched by this, and darn excited that Jennifer can share it with me. Im a lucky guy.

What an amazing weekend it has been. I appreciate all the congratulatory emails that I have received over the past weekend. It really is nice that all of you are on this amazing ride with me. As Jenni and I have decided to continue our lives together, we have decided that ultimately we'll merge the blogs too. Jenni is probably a better writer than me, which kind of sucks since I bill myself as a professional writer, plus Im not an expert on statistics either. In fact there is a lot of things that Jennifer does better than me, perhaps that is one of the reasons why i chose her as she will help me improve myself. One thing that Jennifer is attracted to me is the size of my heart. I have a lot of love to give. So here is the blog where she posted today.

12 FEBRUARY 2010
I said yes....


Arriving in Bahrain was quite a blur. I arrived to Heathrow at about 8AM London time and found my gate. After finding my gate, I went to the bathroom and took my time changing my clothes and trying to make myself feel as pretty as I could. I had a feeling that once i arrived in Bahrain there would be little time or inferior facilities. (i was right).

So I changed my clothes, put on a little makeup, and went to my gate and boarded the plane. Its all quite a blur really.... I think i got on the plane, was fed yet another meal, and managed to organize some thoughts for my dissertation but mostly spent my time counting down the hours.I think the total amount of time that had lapsed from takeoff in RDU to landing in BAH was about 25 hours, but it sure felt like 100. I kept pausing my movie on the plane and checking the time left until arrival. I was quite anxious.

I arrive. I get off the plane. I go through Immigrations/Customs and get my visa. I go through some sort of security and then onto baggage claim. Its really all a blur. So i get my bags, I swear my bags are literally among the first 10 off the plane. I'm so fortunate that way. So I grab a man to cart my bags out of the airport and i begin to exit looking for rick. I go out the gates and I start to round the corner. I start looking around for him and then I spot him. There he is. Oh my goodness... the handsomest man I have ever seen, holding gorgeous flowers is waiting for me, BEAMING from ear to ear. I am so not disappointed... I slow down and the rest of this is quite a dream. I approach him. Time really has stood still. There are noises around me, and i notice two of his coworkers, holding a video camera and a still camera, and I think about what is going on and I sort of catch on, but its all happening so fast and so slowly which i know makes no sense, but this is the honest truth. Its sort of like that movie Big Fish, where the guy sees the girl and has to walk through the popcorn. This is exactly how i envisioned the way the time would behave once I caught sight of him. MY perception was right and once I see him. I cannot take my eyes off of his. I feel like the entire world is watching me, us. But I do not notice them. Not really. Our eyes lock and I don't think our gaze ever unlocked.... I am melting and my knees are growing quite weak.

He hands me the flowers and before we can even say a word, he DROPS TO HIS KNEE. and this crowd of people all watching, they all gasp. Its like someone was holding a cue card to evoke this sort of unanimous reaction, but for these next few seconds, I am the center of the entire Universe. I suppose this is how it is supposed to feel, and I was not afraid about what was coming next. Jenni. will you marry me?? I'm literally speechless, which is quite a sight to see. I must be smiling so big because i am so happy, and I know that I know that I know, he is the one. The moment I saw him, any doubt that I had was removed. Our eyes are locked and I say yes. I said yes! Applause and cheers abound, and he stands up and did something he said he wouldn't do. He broke the law and kissed me. Now I can honestly say I never kissed my fiance until we got engaged. How romantic. And our eyes, our gaze. It was still locked. We really were not going to look away from each other. I couldn't look away. I was in amazement and awe of what I was seeing, him. For the very first time. Was I crazy? Am i? Probably. But one thing that is for sure... He is the one. I am so surprised and a little embarrassed because I really am not the one for being caught offguard, but the embarrassment is a good kind that I know I will remember forever.

So I really have no memory of this other than that because I was so jetlagged and in such a daze, but here I am 36 hours later, and I'm still sure that I have made the right decision. And the beauty of it all. It was caught on tape. His camera crew video taped it, and he was wearing a microphone so whatever words I managed to utter out of my mouth were captured. I sure can't wait to see it.

50 kisses and fancy ball later - where I meet so many people that absolutely adore him - I am still trying to gain my bearings, and I love this man. Everyone else seems to love him too which only further confirms what I already knew to be true and it is quite obvious to me by watching the way they all interact with him. I really enjoy watching him interact with his peers and friends. They are quite some people, and many of them took the time to speak to me, tell me how amazing he is, and give us well wishes. The rest of my life is up in the air, but one thing is certain. I will be loved. I will be cherished. And I will be taken care of. My life is going to be one adventure. That is for sure.

The Applause was unexpected

My life has been pretty dramatic as most of you faithful readers know. But I believe I am a living, breathing testimony to God’s faithfulness. So since Im a writer, and since my life has been so full of drama (some of it self-inflicted) I wanted to do something bold, fairytale-like as I am in the process of going after the happily ever after part. It really didn’t hit me that Jennifer was arriving later in the day until I told the girls in my office. They got so excited for me. They really like me, and they so want for me to be happy. I didn’t get hardly anything done of note today (don’t tell Nader). I planned on getting everything done the day before so there wouldn’t be any pressure on this very special, momentous and life changing day. I left the office early and got the key to the executive apartment building we’re staying at. This is owned by the same company that I used to rent from for the past year. So for a daily rate at about half the cost of a hotel, I get a ultra-luxury furnished two bedroom suite. This place rocks. I could easily live here. But I digress. Jenni called me from London before she was about to leave. I was so excited. My heart was bursting, but I was scared. Scared because this is the type of love I’ve been longing for, for years and years, yet here it was right in front of me for the taking. I just didn’t know how to react. Im used to being rejected, that part I’m familiar with. But to be loved…that would take some getting used to. OK. Back to the fairy tale part. I went and bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a pearl ring, I wasn’t sure if the ring was ugly or not, so I was a little insecure about it. There are perks to being a general manager of a production company. I had Jeddah (Filipino photographer) and Nishad (Indian Videographer) there to capture the moment. I am bold, Im a risk taker, but its important to realize that I always seek God. I’ve been seeking God fervently for the past three weeks seeking to know if Jennifer was the one for me and if I should marry her. Even this morning I prayed that prayer. Each and everytime the answer has come back as a resounding yes. As you know, God and I have these amazing conversations, so Im 100% confident that I can absolutely hear His voice on this one. So I was going to ask Jennifer to marry me on this trip. But again, I have a flair for the dramatic. I wanted to do something that we would remember the rest of our lives and come up with a story we could tell our grandchildren. Keep in mind, I have never even met Jennifer in the flesh. But with the web-camera, I had a pretty good idea to what she looked like.

So there I was at the Bahrain Airport. Something you should know about the Bahrain airport, there are multitudes of nationalities all crowded together at the tiny exit gate. It looks like it could be the United Nations with a prevalence of Indians and Arabs. So there I was with my flowers anxiously awaiting Jennifer to round the corner. My photographers were poised and ready to go. I waited for about 45 minutes for Jennifer to clear customs. In that time three separate friends all approached me to say hi. Even Josh, from church who just had a baby. He said, I’ve been reading your blog the past couple of weeks…are you hear to pick up Jennifer? Why yes I am. So then another friend approached, Kristof, from Poland. They were all excited when I told them what I had planned. Then I saw her and dropped the conversation with Kristof. “Nishad, Jeddah…She’s here.” Time didn’t stop…but it slowed down. Everything started moving at around 50% speed. Jennifer had been up for approximately 36 hours, and she looked incredible. As our eyes met each other’s gaze for the first time its as if we had always known each other. There were about 250 people in the exit area, but they didn’t matter to me. I marched up to the center of the exit with flowers in tow. Jennifer saw the photographers and didn’t know how to react. So before either of us said anything to each other, I dropped to a knee. “Jennifer will you marry me?” She was a little bit stunned with all the attention being on a new continent. She smiled and shook her head yes. Then a very unexpected thing happened. Spontaneously, all 250 people surrounding us, started applauding and cheering. It was a movie moment, one that I had Nishad capture. It was magic. I stood up and broke the law. I gave my new fiancé a kiss (public displays of affection are illegal) but I couldn’t let the crowd down. It was a very special, and dramatic moment. Today marks the first official day of the rest of my life with Jennifer. We got off to a great start. God believes in the Happily Ever After Ending. Im living proof.

Bahrain: Im Home

(From Jennifer's Blog)

Bahrain! Im home...
I am here in Bahrain. What I will call home for the next few weeks... for now.

There are great things happening and while I will blog about it these things later. I just wanted to say that I am here, safely, and totally protected. I have NEVER felt so emotionally and physically safe in my life. I was greeted at the airport with the most handsome man i have EVER SEEN and handed the most beautiful bouquet of all of my favorite flowers. There are pictures to post as well, and an amazing story to follow, but I have the rest of my life to write it, so we will just have to wait.

The real deal is wayyy better than the skype deal. I can't begin to express my visual pleasure. Rick is so much the man I thought he was going to be and then so much more. He is much better looking in person, and I think he is just as thrilled as I am that I am here. Maybe even more so. He has probably thanked me about 10 times for coming out here, but for love, i'd go anywhere. That is anywhere he goes.
He doesn't stink at all, in fact he smells wonderful and I absolutely love him and while there are more things to report. I am being quite vague for now because it is Friday morning in Bahrain... Thursday was one big blur of a day of travel, as was wednesday. I'm tired from the travel and a little sore, so I plan to take it easy and see where the weekend takes me.

I am so very happy... But for now, I must get ready for church since Friday is like Sunday in that aspect. Then to brunch, then some stuff... then the ball.

pics to follow soon. Perhaps tonight. By sunday for sure.

My weekend itinerary has become quite busy with so many people looking to meet yours truely. Say hi to my girls for me. I sure do miss them

T-minus 16 hours

So much has happened today…its all good. But Im so tired. Its 1:00 and Im just about to head to bed. Im talking with Jenni, who is getting her nails done at DFW. She’s just about to board a plane to London, then a three hour layover then as six hour flight to Bahrain. All told she’ll be here in about, well, 16 hours. She is very excited to get here. Im excited to have her here. I’m going through a rush of emotions including fear and excitement. We have talked about spending the rest of our lives together a lot, and now the moment seems to be at hand. It’s a pretty stupendous occasion. This is a “rest of my life” decision. I think the romance is giving way to reality, which is fun too. I think so much will be conveyed the first few moments that we meet. Then we will know that we know that we know.

I think this weekend is gearing up to be one of the biggest weekends of my life. With Jenni, meeting my friends, and the Palm ball. I’ll be sure to share the details tomorrow…for now Im going to focus on Jenni as she boards the British Airways flight and heads to London. Wow...this is pretty cool.

JFK closed, Jenni's flight in jeopardy

What a frustrating up and down day. I got real excited to go into work today. I really like having a project to work on. I should say I like it when the project works and this one is working. It makes the whole process a lot of fun. We had a very important meeting today. I think it went very well. Its hard to sell these personal video biographies here. But I think we sold one, when I mean we, I mean Tanya. This could be a very big one too. Once we get one like this in the can, then others will see it and then hopefully the projects will sell themselves.

I got back to the office and edited the rest of the day that was kind of fun, then it was off to play the Finn, Annti, in squash. While Darren and I are evenly matched, Annti kicks my butt every single time we play. I do make it competitive every once in awhile, but this guy is really good. Squash is great exercise. If I can win every once in awhile, that is a bonus.

I was heading back to the apartment when things went a little haywire. All the flights out of JFK were cancelled because of the snowstorm. So Jenni was a little concerned. I told her not to worry and I would take care of everything. Well…I wasn’t able to take care of everything, but I tried. First of all I tried to change it online, but that didn’t work. Then I called British Airways and was on hold for 30 minutes, but I thought if I’d call the UK # it might be faster. I used skype so a call to the UK and the US is about the same. So I put the US call on hold and dialed the UK #, the UK # said it wasn’t taking calls because their lines were busy and to try back later. I tried to go back to the US # that was on hold and it cut me off. So then I called the US # again and was on hold for 90 minutes. Jennifer kept IM’ing me wanting the updates. Finally they get on the phone and we were trying to figure out alternate ways for Jennifer to get here. BA’s solution was to come later. But that didn’t sit well…with either of us. We’d really like her to be here for the Palm association ball. So they tried to move her to fly out of Chicago but she didn’t want to fly anywhere north because of the weather. So we had to rebook. So we rebooked through Boston. Then Jenni, said not Boston. So I had the operator, then try Atlanta, Miami, no and no. Then I said try Dallas. Keep in mind each time we tried a new city it took about five minutes to check availability. So she found a flight to Dallas, then Jennifer said Not Dallas, Boston is ok. So I booked it through Boston. She was reading me back the confirmation when Jenni, said, no not Boston do Dallas. I told the operator, you’re not going to believe this, but I need to go through Dallas. She answered incredulously. Are you serious? Are you pulling my leg? I said no. Then about 5 minutes later she said Dallas was not available for the type of fare that we were on. Well..can I pay the additional money? No, Boston is your only option. I said…OK…I’ll have to call you back. So after 75 minutes on the phone in addition to 45 minutes on hold. We are back at square one. So now…Jenni is on hold with British Airways as I type. Im not sure if she’ll be able to resolve anything. OK…she did a song and dance act with the BA agent, talked to a supervisor and got approval to fly through Dallas. I tried the same thing, but I guess she’s a better sweet talker than I am. So after five hours of us both doing the tag team re-route checking weather maps and flight schedules we got her on a plane. She’ll keep the same flight from London to Bahrain.

The lightbulb goes off

After the Superbowl I was able to come home for a bit. I should have went straight to sleep but I wound up talking to Jenni. We were both having a rough time trying to get everything done before her trip. So I took about an hour nap before work. Im not sure if I actually fell asleep or just laid there. I did wake up and I had a great talk with God. I’ve been talking with Jenni so much, and working I have been neglecting my listening time with God. That doesn’t mean my devotional life has been off. Rather I haven’t been taking the time to stop, and listen. I really should have been listening as God is my strength. This is the primary mode how he encourages me. You’d think I would have learned by now.

I was so frustrated at work. Im supposed to be editing the Palm Association fundraising music video for this Friday’s ball. It’s a pretty exclusive ball. The Who’s who of Bahrain are all gathered in one place. There are a lot of important people there so it’s a pretty important video. The organizers told me my video for the last year was very influential for tripling the giving from the year before. So the pressure was on, and I only have four days to do it. I need to get it done by Wed. So my plans on working on it yesterday and today went by the wayside because of technical difficulties on another project. I had to finish the paying job before I could do the volunteer job. So it was really frustrating. Plus I haven’t been able to envision the project in my head. That’s really difficult. I usually need to see it before I can create it. So my brilliant editor Saji was able to finally figure out the technical difficulty we were having. Then I was able to start working on the Palm Video, I only got about 15 seconds in when the lightbulb went off. I was able to see the whole thing in my head. It was quite a breakthrough. My whole attitude about everything really changed. Keep in mind I didn’t complete the project, rather I just envisioned it. For me that was enough. I told Jenni it was like I was emotionally constipated…then whoosh…everything made sense again. What a sense of relief swept over me in every facet. I’m fairly certain it was God who allowed the breakthrough and helped me view all my struggles from a different perspective. This was right around quitting time. I hated to leave but I had my small group tonight that I had to get to. Im actually looking forward to going into work tomorrow to work on this project. That hasn’t happened to me for a little while. I love creating and inspiring, and this project is my vehicle to do just that. There is a tight deadline on me, but Im fairly certain I can get it done in two days.

God is really working in my home church/small group. Im getting the same regulars coming now. Its really a nice dynamic. Luvlin brought a chicken curry for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Its really cool how God is working. Again Im just an instrument, a willing instrument, and God is using me and the group. Its neat, Luvlin mentioned a few times that God had told her some specific things. Those same things were mentioned by Joel and then some others mentioned by me. Anytime that God wants to get through to you, he’ll tell you in 2-3 ways. So because God is using the group to communicate to some of the members means we’re/I’m on the right track. That was very encouraging to me. Everything seems to be coming up roses again. I like that feeling. Only two more days til I get to meet the love of my life.

Superbowl Sunday at 3 AM

I am blogging live at the halftime show from my friend Darren’s house. We are watching the Super Bowl and its 4:15 am. There is a house full of about 15 people. Its primarily a bunch of Americans including Lamond and Pat. I have to watch when I go the the bathroom or get food. I don’t want to miss any commercials so I’m going during the game. The commercials are really the best part for me even though I love the game. I was really planning ahead for this. After I got home tonight, I talked to Jennifer then took a couple of Tylenol PM’s and was out by 9:00 PM. So I got in a five hour sleep. So tomorrow I shouldn’t be too wiped out. I was hoping for a blow out so I could leave a little early and get another hour or so nap. But if I don’t get it, I’ll still be able to function. I have a lot of work I need to do before Jennifer gets here at the end of the week. I was supposed to be editing the Palm Association video all week, but Im having technical difficulties on one project. So that is really frustrating me. This is the History of Seaports project which I thought was completed months ago. They had the grand opening of the port which King attended. So the project was over, signed off, paid for absolutely complete. So I deleted the project files. Yet as soon as I did, they called back and wanted an English version of the project. So I had to completely rebuild it. Everything was supposed to work perfectly, but there is unknown glitch that I can’t seem to figure out how to fix. I don’t have a lot time this week to get everything done. Jennifer is having a rough week too. It seems like everything bad it happening all at once. There is a lot of pressure on both of us right now. I think this is the darkest before the dawn part. We are so excited about seeing each other in five days, but to get there, it just seems like a giant chasm that is separating us, and its not just the Atlantic ocean. We both have so much to do. We will get everything done (by faith) that way when she gets here, we’ll both just be able to collapse, but we’ll be together when that happens…so the adrenalin will most likely kick in. What an incredibly momentous occasion that will be for both us. Yes that first meeting will be amazing. But we both agree that seeing each other won’t change how se feel each other. It will just confirm everything that we both feel.

I am big “The Who” fan. Is that correct grammar? But they have no business performing at the half-time show. How old are those guys anyways? There just comes a time when you have to hang it up.

You know what, its hard to concentrate on the blog tonight. I thought it would be cool, like I’m reporting live, on location type. For a party of 15 people there isn’t a lot of interaction going on. The game is pretty close, so maybe that’s why its not conducive to a lot of conversation. So I’ll sign off early. I think Im pulling for the Saints to win, since I saw a video of Drew Brees professing his Christianity. I always pull for people that take a stand for their faith. You see people standing up for the faith all the time in sports because people are judged perception wise how they perform on the field/court/arena. That goes both good and bad. Yet in Hollywood, seldom do you see Christians stand up to profess their faith. That always really disturbed me. Perhaps if they do “come out” because of their faith, they are afraid that the perception of them in the public will change. When you are a Hollywood star, perception is everything. But I wonder where faith factors into that? OK…the Saints just kicked a field goal to cut the deficit to one.

They just showed a great Google commercial about a guy in an internet relationship that meets a girl over the net. It was quite effective and sentimental. After the commercial everything was quiet and I piped in…”Oh those internet relationships never work.” Everyone turned to look at me incredulously until they saw the smile on my face. They knew I was kidding, so it was good for a laugh.

OK…it’s the fourth quarter of a one point game…Im out.

The Missing Puzzle Piece

Marriage the second time around is a lot different from the first go around. God only intended us to get married once, but **it happens (or Satan Happens take your pick) and 53% of us are divorced. Im approaching marriage #2 a lot differently than marriage #1. This is a bit unromantic, in fact its incredibly unromantic. But its my reality. Now, I love Jennifer, very very much. My friends are having a hard time believing it. They are all taking a “wait and see” approach to all of this. I completely understand this. But Im approaching it differently than most. You see God and I have these conversations. God has clearly told me, that Jennifer is the one for me. In fact, for the last three weeks, I’ve prayed about 10 times, God if she’s not the one, please send me a sign/roadblock to stop this train from moving forward. Yet each time I pray that, the opposite happens, something occurs that confirms to me that Jennifer is indeed the one. So this is a total God thing. Even my parents who have been skeptical of every single internet and non-internet relationship I’ve had post-divorce are incredibly supportive. They love Jennifer already and haven’t even seen her.

OK…back to the unromantic stuff. I touched on this in an earlier blog but it bears repeating. The first time I was married, Love was the overriding factor. Love conquers all, all you need is love, nothing else really mattered. I was young and incredibly and passionately in love. I couldn’t wait to be married. I did love former spouse and it was absolutely the right move to marry her. I have three wonderful kids to showcase because of that union. But we all know that only one of us believed in the ‘til death do us part’ part. So I had to make the best of a truly sucky situation. Perhaps love wasn’t just enough. Former spouse and I used to brag about how much unlike we were from each other. I thought love and faith were enough to overcome those many differences but apparently it was not.

Now as I embark on marriage #2, my last marriage by the way, I look at things a lot differently. Im not sure if its because Im wiser or not. I am picking out a spouse far differently than I picked out spouse #1. Love is a factor yes, but its not the “end all.” Its more like the second marriage is an arranged marriage. Jennifer and I both feel like it has been arranged and ordained by God. So there is extreme confidence in that. But part of the arranged marriage features is compatibility matching. Love doesn’t factor into most arranged marriages. Is this wrong? Well a 1% divorce rate will argue the compatibility validity. But people say a 1% divorce rate is because divorce is culturally unacceptable in India. Well…that’s great. It should be culturally unacceptable in the U.S. too, especially in the church. How can two people that profess to be Christian condone divorce…oh wait…I’ve already blogged about that. So back to compatibility. Love is a big big factor for me of course. But there is also demographics, psychology, history, emotions, and sociology to consider. Does my partner have kids? What is her spiritual walk like? How pretty is she? Is she stunning? Does she have a nice body? Is she funny? Are her parents still married? Does she hate divorce as much as I hate divorce? Is she passionate? Is she very sexual (within the confines of marriage?) What are her dreams, desires etc… That’s a lot of factors plus many more that combine with love. It was early on, probably the first two times I was talking with Jenni, that I realized that not only were we amazingly compatible, but we were simply a perfect fit for each other. Its almost as if God designed me precisely for her, and she for me. Its like we have a 5000 piece puzzle that she and I have both been working on. We have 4,999 pieces already in place, and just one puzzle piece missing. Jennifer and my relationship is like that missing puzzle piece. It’s a perfect fit in the only one place that it could possibly go. With that lone puzzle piece it is complete. Jennifer does have an amazing heart for God. I think she is gorgeous, has an incredible soccer playing body. She is amazingly passionate (I can tell) she has a great job, is an absolute braniac, has a good family (her parents have been married for 38 years), loves kids, loves my kids already (even though she has only talked to one) she doesn’t believe in divorce, She’s crazy about me. I could go on and on, but I don’t think you want to spend the the two hours of your life reading 50 single-spaced typed pages as to why Jenni is the perfect girl for me. Because of all the aforementioned factors, its very easy for me to declare that she’s “the one”. I don’t think…no…I know there is no one in the entire world that would be a better fit for me than the lovely Jennifer. Im very blessed and lucky to have her in my heart. We’re compatible…made all the more nice because we are in love. We also have better than a 99% chance (unlike the Indians) at making this marriage last like God had intended. We are both committed to the business side of the emotional partnership. We’re both willing to do whatever it takes to make this marriage last no matter what. This time there are two people that believe, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, til death do us part. Jenni and I know that if we keep God the focus, that 99% turns into 100% and that is what each of us has been looking for our entire lives.

"You'll be married within a year"

It’s the weekend for me. This usually means very long talks with Jennifer. We are now less than a week away from her being here. Im pretty excited about it. The only visitors I’ve had have been my parents. While they were nice to have…something tells me I’m going to have a lot more fun with Jenni. I stayed up til 4 am talking with her. Then again at 9 am (my time) and we spoke for another two hours. I just can’t get enough of her. That is such a good feeling to have.

I went to lunch with Pat. He really is a good guy to talk to. I told you he is the coach out here for the Professional basketball league of Bahrain. He’s been coaching internationally his entire career. It’s a pretty good gig. He gets to see the world and meet all sorts of people. Throughout his career he told me that in all the leagues he has coached, his teams have won 20 championships. By any measure that is impressive. Especially because each stop he has he has to learn a whole new team, immediately.

My friend Isa invited me out to a birthday party. I always like the opportunity to meet new friends. Isa is a young guy, around 23, so all of his friends are on the youngish side too. I got along well with all of them. I really didn’t feel like the old man of the group. I don’t think like I feel my age at all. That is one advantage of being the middle child. I can relate to people older than me as well as people younger than me. Its quite a blessing. This was a group of Pakistani’s, Persians, and Bahraini’s all nice guys. The conversation always turns to, what are you doing here? Americans/white guys are quite revered here despite the pleading of a few radical extremists Muslims. So I tell them Im a filmmaker. They always respond there is a film industry here in Bahrain? Well…I believe I’m called to start one, if not here certainly Dubai. I haven’t lost the quest that God has originally sent me here for. (more on that in a bit) I think this is a time of preparation for me. The past year+ has been an incredible ride. All the foundation has been set. As Im about to embark on the next level, I think that God knew that I’d need a helper/partner to support me and help me get there. Isa said something to me that I had forgotten I told him. Isa is turning out to be a very good friend. He’s a passionate and very dedicated Muslim but we both respect each other’s beliefs. Isa somehow stumbled across my blog about six months ago. He started disputing my views on God. So I said lets go talk about it. He was expecting a theological smashdown. So instead of telling him what was wrong about his religion, I told him what was right about mine. This had completely disarmed him. He’s been a friend ever since. So anytime you get into a theological discussion, never attack, that will just put them on the defensive and they’ll stop listening. Instead humbly tell them what you believe and why. I told him all about my struggles, my sin, my loneliness and that led to even more credibility when things started turning my way. He recalled that day I met him, I told him “I think Im going to be married within the year. I don’t know to whom yet, but its just a feeling that God put on my heart.” I told my friend Darren this as well just to have a couple of witnesses. I thought about blogging about it like I’ve done so many other times with words that God has spoken to me but then I thought better of it. God spoke to Joseph about his brothers bowing down to him, prudence dictated that he should have kept some of that to himself. So I tried to learn and not repeat the mistake. Please keep in mind when I said that I’d be married within a year, that was a full three months before I would be introduced to Jenni. So God had already prepared my heart. So when I saw her the first time, not only was it love at first sight, It was crystal clear that God showed me “This is the one that I have for you.” So with confidence in God I move forward.

Anyways I digress, like always. As I spoke with the guys about my quest, to change the world. I always say I want to change the way that America perceives the Arabs. Their eyes always widen in excitement. Most American view Arabs as radical terrorists and that Im living in a war zone. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve blogged about this before and its worth repeating. The Middle East is much safer statistically than the U.S. There is very little crime here. Arabs are gracious and giving people…as long as you don’t cross them. Do an Arab bad, and all bets are off. They are passionately kind and passionately vengeful. It is extreme in both ways. That is part of the prophetic word in Genesis. So, Im trying to stay on the good side. These guys support my mission statement. They want me to succeed. The correct perception of Arabs to the world is very important to them. They always wish me well and root for me to succeed. I will succeed. It’s a part of my calling. Simple logic dictates, If God told me I’d be married within a year, and that is coming to pass, then everything else he told me will come to pass. The exact words from God to me on Sept. 15, 2008, “Now that you are the man that I always designed you to be, now everything I’ve purposed in your heart will come to pass. You are going to change the world.” Everything…and I mean everything is going according to plan. Im just here along for the ride.

Different Vibes

What a very cool day it was for me. There is so much uncertainty professionally for me right now. But Im not worried one bit. There is so much confidence inside of me, not because of my own ability. Its not because who I am, but rather its because of Who’s I am as Lakewood church puts it. It is such an incredible advantage to have God in your corner. I have such an extreme confidence, almost a sense of invincibility in knowing that whatever path that God leads me down, will be the absolute right one. Now that doesn’t mean Im going to step in front of a bus professionally or emotionally speaking to tempt him. Rather it’s a testimony to my faith being sky high right now. God has seen me through so many tight spots before. In the bigger picture this is nothing. In times past, I might have been worried, but now I feel like Im walking in big giant “no-lose” situation. Im so excited about the future. I really feel like the windows of heaven are about to burst open with blessings. Im a very fortunate guy.

I got a lot done at work today. I really am so much more fulfilled when I have a lot to do. One thing Im not good at, and never have been is looking busy. So if there isn’t a lot to do, I don’t hide it very well. One of the problems/blessings that I have is that I’m very fast. So I get projects done quickly then I have more time on my hands. So the day wound up good at work and the night has been fantastic. First off I played Darren at Squash. Darren was off in the UK so I hadn’t played him for a couple of weeks. He’s really becoming one of my best friends here. I have a lot of really great great friends. Im absolutely blessed. Darren took the first three games and I was really frustrated. I had so much energy, but he just kept beating me. Then we took a break and I won the next three matches. I think he ran out of gas. But that works for me. Before he would “out-fitness” me. Now I’ve been really exercising a lot. I am trying to look my best for Jenni when she comes out. I guess its all about the first physical impression. At this time next week we’ll get together. It really was love at first sight for both us. I think we’ll know the moment we look into each other’s eyes whether or not we’ll spend the rest of our lives together. It will be instantaneous. That is pretty exciting for a first meeting. I have it all played out in my head. This blog should be pretty interesting for the next couple of months.

After squash I went out with Lamond to a club. I like inviting him out to parties and introducing him to my friends. He knew quite a few people there already. The place was packed. It was a cool realization that I had many many many friends there. Probably a group of five different bunches of friends. It dawned on me. Im quite popular. How did this happen. I never set out to be popular nor is it that important to me. Being in the “In” crowd never really appealed. Back in college when I was the “big man” on campus my Junior year (I was student government president) I always eschewed the cliques instead I tried to use my popularity to befriend the people that were sitting alone in the cafeteria. The caf was always the place for social activity at Evangel. So I made a lot of friends with the unpopular folks. It was a good feeling. Tonight was a costume party, though I didn’t wear a costume. It was a school theme, which was kind of funny to see all my friends dressed up. I spoke with Jenni about this, but this was weird for me. Now that Im taken…it seems like all the girls are more interested in me. I guess the desperation vibe is gone now. There were so many pretty girls there tonight too, but I wasn’t interested in any of them. I already found what Im looking for so why tempt myself. I don’t want to screw this up. So I politely left the party early. I came back to talk to Jenni and get to bed earlier. Im going to try to make it into church tomorrow. So it was a really good day. Please continue to pray for the reconciliation of my relationship with my kids.

A message to my former spouse

A special message to my former wife:

My former spouse left a comment on the Twas the Night before the funny people” blog below. She is pretty aggressive in her wording in trying to discredit me. Yes comedy is sometimes risqué, and I often put myself in situations where I go where other Christians don’t ordinarily go. Who do I use as a model for this? Jesus. Who did Jesus hang with? The Prostitutes, Cheats, and all the other unsavory characters. He stayed away from the religious community for the most part. So Im not going to apologize for who I hang with and where I go. Because these people are seeing Christ through me in a way that they might never see him. My lifestyle, while Godly and Biblically sound puts me in situations where I can connect with a lot of people. I don’t hide my faith at all…and people think Im real and that has an impact. Yes, some of the sketches that the artists came up with are risqué. We even had a joke about that because Tariq, always gravitates to the “Porn” aspect of humor. Nevertheless, its my show, and ultimately my responsibility to censor the content. Am I going to do censor, probably not. I do encourage the comics to try to keep their material clean and for the most part they do. (As a side note: Tonight’s show was totally PG and several of the performers commented how non-sexual the show was. They also read the discourse in the comments of the blog and they thought it was a joke, part of the gag until I told them it was my ex-wife that wrote it, then they were dumbstruck).

So lets get back to the motive of this comment from my former spouse. Do you notice how much hatred and bitterness is laced in the subtext? It’s a shame really, she has a new baby, you would think she would have better things to do with her time. How do I know that Anonymous=former wife? The genius that is future wife, Jenni, installed a tracking program that can track who, when, where, how long, each person views the blog, leaves a comment, downloads a picture. So former wife and new hubby both from their homes and their places of employment views my blog approximately 5-10 times a day, and views Jenni’s blog 5-10 times a day. (If you want the cyber-stats we can email them to you). I think that is borderline obsessive. Plust the only negative comments I ever get are all from either her or new hubby. I know that my children read this blog, but the times that the blog is accessed is when the children are at school. So scientifically its easy to determine that it is them accessing it. They even access the blog from their new places of employment. This is even more surprising because of the bold statement that New Hubby wrote in my blog in March that they were blocking my blog. Makes you wonder about their credibility now, doesn’t it?

We can also see that they downloaded several of Jenni’s pictures. Why would my former spouse be so interested in my future spouse…especially if she has a new baby to be concerned with? I have my suspicions. Hopefully if you’ve been reading this blog long enough you’ll see that I have gotten over my bitterness and Im continually forgiving my former spouse. Because forgiveness is a process that will take the rest of my life to achieve. I hope for the sake of my children that she can get over her bitterness of me. That is and has been my prayer.

I think, as Im on the cusp of marriage…she just doesn’t know how to handle herself, thus the obsession with tracking our blogs. She also can’t control me anymore and I think that is really getting her goat. She doesn’t want me…she just doesn’t want anyone else to have me either. Good thing I have God on my side. He is always faithful. I know that divorce is the result of two people and their conflicts. But I have an extreme peace about the entire way I handled the divorce, post-divorce, and my transition into the middle east and subsequent future marriage. Has the same peace been demonstrated on the other side? “You shall know them by their fruits.” I have a lot of people over here and throughout the world that will testify that I am producing fruit. God is using me despite my former spouse’s concern that I need people to convert me and my troupe. The desperation in trying to assassinate my character is really quite pitiful. Im sorry my children have to endure all the mud-slinging and parental alienation that is occurring in that house.

I might have been a little catty in the blog post…but I got riled up. Im human too, and I make mistakes. If I’ve offended you readers…I apologize.

Twas the night before the funny people

I don’t have much to say tonight, so I’ll probably keep it short. There are so many things going on in my life. Where I’ll be in three months will be pretty darn interesting. Wait…I know what I’ll talk about or write about. Our Funniest Person in Bahrain contest is pretty important. We are getting a lot of really good press out of it. Here are a couple of quotes I gave Gulf Weekly which is one of the most respected papers in Bahrain. "Working with the cast of the Funniest Person in Bahrain has been an incredible experience for me. We have cast members from over 10 different countries/nationalities all coming together with the common universal bond of laughter. What we are doing simply has not been done in anywhere in the world before."
"Our cast includes people from Bahrain, Finland, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Holland, England, Seychelles, India, Pakistan, Ecuador, and some guy from the United States directing all this lunacy. Its truly been one of the most rewarding experiences in my entire career. I love these guys. Except Tariq...I still kind of like him though."

Not only is the content really funny, but what we are doing culturally is important too. Humor is different in every region. Just look at those crazy Japanese game shows if you need an example. There are many Europeans and Arabs that don’t understand American humor. Comedy is very difficult to do cross-culturally. But here we are, from 10 very diverse countries all coming together and making people laugh. Laughter is the universal language. If there were more laughter in the world, don’t you think it would be a better place. Well that is just one of the things we’re trying to do. I think we will try to expand it to a larger scale. But it will have to be in the right time. It has been an incredible experience for me to be a part of this. I thought it might be of interest for you to see the script which we’ll use for tomorrow night. This is just an outline that I use. I gauge the audiences reaction and see what sketches are working and what are not. In the actual dividing up of the scenes, that’s improvised as well. I have a quick hook if the actor’s are bombing. That gives them confidence that I will put them in eery situation to succeed.

Funniest Person in Bahrain Week 9, 2-3-2010

9:00-9:15 Short monologues…How you can tell you are living in an Arabic Country

Bargaining of Doweries (India)
Husband-Wife, Favorite thing to watch tv and read paper, Her task is to get his attention, his task is to remain undistracted
Two women meet for coffee…problem with son and school…listen and give advice, one of the women have tourette’s sounds, grunting

Human props
2 actors + 2 person acting as props
Audience gives the scene, where ”At church”, ”Bus stop”, ”Hospital”
And if they are good, also what is happening. ->
-> Story goes from there, two actors uses two others as props (trees,
Motorcycles etc.)

Proverb/Saying or a Poem
Audience gives the first word-> actor makes a saying or poem, which includes this word.
-> Actor makes a saying or poem, which includes this word.
-> Rick picks one word from the previous saying/poem.
-> Next actor makes a saying or poem, which includes this word.
-> Carries on couple of rounds, and the last poem needs to include the word picked by Rick plus the first word given by audience.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Different scenes, change of the style/genre
STARTS NEUTRAL, after one minute RICK changes the genre / style to something else.

Useable scenes:

1) Suspicious security and alarm systems sales man trying to sell the solution to a libidinous customer

2) Goodhearted robber and Bad robber and the down-on-luck victim at street (or bedroom in the middle of the night)

3) Sadist Dentist & Masochist Patient

4) Morgue, 3 actors, two workers and one corpse, who after a little while wakes up from death

5) Hospital. 3-4 actors. Doctor who don’t believe that the patients are actually sick, two to three patients, in really bad shape

7) Restaurant: 2 actors, something wrong with the food. Waiter is a racist--Yousif

8) Bus stop, 3 actors. One has a bad rash/ chronic eczema, other one have just given up smoking and one sees UFOs everywhere, suspects every body around him are from outer space

9) Band, 3 actors. Two stupid Heavy Rock artists and a greedy manager.

10) Children’s party with really Bad Magician, 3-4 actors.

11) Making alcohol (distilling) in Saudi, community access show, mutawa enters

13) Car shop, salesman has a diarrhea and the customer is a serial killer who wants to buy a car to transport the bodies.

- Monologue Speeches
- · Funeral – the death of barney the dinosaur
- · Aircraft- Pilot kinda wants to break the ice about the plane crashing
- · Financial advisory- explaining in plain English how the credit crash happened
- · Press Conference- Tiger woods wants to explain
- · Press Conference- Paris Hilton opens new university
14) Principal giving a speech at the party in the end of the school year
First the neutral version, this carries on for one minute
CEO’s corporate review to investors
Best Man Speech
Sermon
Sports Coach, half-time speech
Tiger Woods Press Conference--ali
Eulogy


Dialogues
Boss explains why they are firing someone
Break-up
Pregnant daughter explaining to parents
Coming out of the closet to parents
Dad giving advice to son before marriage
Mom giving advice to daughter before marriage

⇒ Rick changes the style to something else.
⇒ Different styles
⇒ Unsecure
⇒ Frustrated
⇒ Sadomasochist
⇒ Megalomaniac

16) Two disobedient/wild children and a strange babysitter (sailor, Vietnam-veteran, Hell Angel etc.)


Different versions like

Racist version
Gulf Daily news version
Mark Twain
Stephen King
Raymond Chandler
Shakespeare
Roman Antic Theatre play
Crazy Kevin
James Bond
Alfred Hitchcock
Elton John
George W. Bush
Whitney Houston
Indiana Jones
Donald Duck
Charlie Chaplin
Communist propaganda
Romantic Novel
Documentary / Tuition spot
Latino version
Rock video
Western
French art movie
Film Noir
Sci-Fi
Pantomime
Children’s Theatre
Italian comedy
Gypsy
Street Artist
Circus

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Simultaneous Interpreter/Dubbing
2 silent actors "bodies" + 2 voices (with mike)
Audience gives the scene, what is happening, where, who they are -> voices takes the story from there, the bodies tries to keep up the action with the story


3 actors
Most…
- Ugliest
- Handsome
- Richest
…Man in the world
together in different situations
Audience can give a scene, where, what happening...

Yousif, as a french guy teaching skiing first to an Arab…then an India.

Yousif
- Any transformer scenes (I can mimic their voices really well, and have done that from before in my stand up comedy act, as part of a joke)
- Terminator (don't mind if some else takes this, just wanted to mention it).
- Scottish guy
- Redneck (giving a speech about anti-racism)--Yousif

- Elmo (speech promoting crime or something else dont know)
-
- Scenes – one liners
- · Really hard test questions
- · What you would do first if you were leader of the country
- AWKWARD SILENCES
-
- · Weird things to say to break an awkward silence
-
- 2 lines – Muneer – Tariq - Sam
- In the Jungle- need to set up camp because its getting dark – Lines – Im not falling for that
- - What was that
- - Trust me! Im a Doctor
- - That hurt
-
- Plane is about to crash … Pilot Tariq – Co Pilot Muneer - Sam Hostess – I lost my drink
- - That’s what she said
- - Yeah I know
- - Have you seen my rash
- Other ideas
- -Eating/Diets 
-School/Work
-Odd pets
-Vehicle problems
-
-
- Missing movie moments Two Characters
- 
Two contestants act out a given scene as two characters (e.g. Capt. Kirk and Mr Spock have an argument about where the new porn holodeck should be)
- - Terminator going in for a service has an argument with service guy (Tariq and Sam)
- - Couch Carter arguing with fat kid about play time (Muneer-Sam)
- - 2 Japanese tourist arguing about how big GODZILLA REALLY IS (Ali and Tariq)
- - Twilight- Wolf Guy and Vamp guy argue about how NEEDY that girl really is. ( Tariq-Imran)
- - Optimus and Megatron are argueing about who should have the last bit of energon and they are being polite. ( Yousif and Muneer)
- - Matrix Neo and Agent Smith talk about all the porn on the net and who gets what ( Tariq and Muneer).
- - Tom and Jerry talk things thru ( Essa – Ali )
-
- Random sence
- like arabs going scuba diving
- when u have to learn all the hand signals for underwater
-

Insecure
Egomaniac
Retarded
Shakespeare
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Hitchcock
Indiana Jones
Pirates of Caribian
Lord of The Rings
James Bond
C.S.I.
24
W,
terminator,
Rambo,
Hitler
Elvis
W
Amy Winehouse
Snoop Dog/Kanye West
Hating
Tourettes
Idiot/airhead

Different styles:
Bollywood
Western
Opera
Horror
Barney
Infomercial
Ballet
Pantomime
Porno
Farce
Scifi
Kung-Fu
Rambo
Terminator

Jerry Springer—Noah
Spit or Swallow
Helping Hands

Routine

What a great day it was. I sure do like starting my day off with wonderful emails from Jennifer. Actually that is not how we usually start our day. I get up about 45 min. early and while I put on my robe to dry off from the shower that is when we have our morning webcam chat. Its 7:00 am my time, and 11:00 PM her time. Its our routine. It’s a really good way to start off the day…D’oh..i keep messing up, my actual routine is the start the day off on my knees..as I roll out of bed. That is my way of denying myself and asking God to bless me and keep me from evil, then I start the day.

Tanya had some good news which kind of made my day. She sold a Legacy biography. That is our first one here in Bahrain. These are turning out to be very difficult to sell. Arabs need to see it to be convinced. So once we get a couple made and they see what they look like, they’ll want one for themselves/their family. So that was good, and we recorded some vo with a new voice talent. I really like being busy at work. I don’t like it when we don’t have a lot to do. Im not that efficient when we don’t have a lot to do. Its an amazing think about Tanya. She’s one of my best friends here. I told her this today. We disagree fundamentally about most things. In fact we really don’t agree on a lot. I told her we have no business being friends with the way we so vehemently disagree with each other. But God must have a higher calling for that friendship.

It was the Positive Living group tonight. We have made a good transition from my old place in Juffair to Pat’s place. We’ve had a few drop-offs but that is to be expected. We had about 8 show up tonight which is nearly the perfect size. Luvlin, my Australian friend, didn’t want me providing the food each week by myself so she decided to pitch in. She made this wonderful sauce for spaghetti. She also brought this Indian potato dish that was delicious. Normally its spicy, but she knows I don’t’ like spicy so she toned it down for me. My job was to provide salad and garlic bread. So I went next door to the bakery. This is the same bakery I get my breakfast sandwich with Pork bacon every morning. Im not sure why but they always treat me like a celebrity when I go in there. They are always so excited to see me.

So it was a great meal. The message from Joel was essentially what my life has been for the last four years. The refiners fire is hot so God can mold and shape us into works of art. Its uncomfortable but in the end it is all worth it. After Joel’s message. I am starting to share more and more. At first we just started a group discussion and it went back and forth as people shared their ideologies. But lately, I’ve been sharing more and more. Its almost as if Im turning into a minister/pastor, at least a lay version. This isn’t because I have a captive audience, quite the contrary actually. When I share I absolutely feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit. So the words just seem to flow. Is that the next stage for this group. Am I supposed to stop the Osteen DVD and instead just share with my heart? If it is, Im ready for it. I have a very unique style when I share. I am real and don’t put on any pretenses. I think my particular group likes that.

I am just a vessel and God is using. Speaking of being used. I want to use all of you. Please lift up my relationship with my children. Its seemingly worse than ever. But God is good and he promised that I would be reconciled with my children someday.