Hip Hip Hooray!!!

Praise the Lord....I called a church today and found out that they will be sponsoring me. Thank you County Line Church of God (Auburn, IN) for allowing God to use you to bless me!

Thanksgiving

This being the first Thanksgiving I've been in the states in 3 years, I'm pretty pumped. Here's what I've done so far...

I flew up to Detroit, Michigan last Friday to be in attendance, along with all my other extended family members, at my Aunt Patty's college graduation! (Congrats Aunt Patty....we're all proud of you!) Since I was up here for that, I decided that I would take advantage of the time I had to visit some churches in the area. My Uncle John pastors Pennway Church of God in Lansing so I enjoyed hearing him speak this past Sunday.

Today I visited Pastor Greg Capsel at Millington Church of God in Millington, MI (about 1.45 hours away from Lansing). I'm telling you, if I wasn't on staff at a church and didn't live so far away, I would be attending his church. The building itself is beautiful and is used for all kinds of ministry...including housing the local high school's basketball practice 4 days a week. No better way to serve the community than to allow your resources to be used. Then spending time with this intellegent man of God was such an honor. I left after about 35 minutes wishing I would have had a tape recorder in order to replay all that he said. Thanks for your time Pastor Greg.

I'm hoping to visit more churches tomorrow and then this coming Sunday, but I'm really looking forward to just taking some time to relax this weekend with my cousin Christy. Christy and I are like peas in a pod. Whenever our families are together, we are inseperable. Obviously since I've been out of country the past couple of years, we haven't had much time to hang out, so I'm really looking forward to her coming back up to Michigan tomorrow night!

Obviously I'm a bit behind

I just haven’t gotten the hang of this blogging thing just yet. I feel like if I write about everything I’m doing, you readers will get bored. So then what I do is write about nothing. But today I have a couple of updates....(work, Global Missions fundraising, and personal).

Work (South Lake Wales Church of God)...I can honestly say I don’t know that I could enjoy work more. I LOVE IT! I love my boss, my co-workers, church people. My big projects right now are to work with our new LifeGroups starting up. We have some GREAT leaders of LifeGroups and to be honest, if I wasn’t leading a group, I would have a hard time picking out a group to go to.

Last weekend, Nov 9, I had to preach at South. I’ve preached before, but it’s a bit different here. First of all, it’s different b/c there are two services. So just at the point you think you’re done, here comes a whole nother service that you have to be ampped up for. The second thing is that I was preaching in front of people that I’ve known for about 16 years now. That can be intimidating b/c they know me so well, but then at other times it was encouraging b/c I could think that no matter what I did, they would still love me. Long story short, I spoke on ‘calling’ and told them about my calling. The scripture was from Judges 6 and 7 with the story of Gideon and it followed my train of thought of going in to war with a trumpet and jar. Overall I felt like things went well and I’m glad that I don’t have to do that again anytime soon!

Global Missions....God’s doing some good things. I just spoke with a church a church last Saturday that I think is going to help with my start-up funds. Also, I turned in an application to a church in Olathe, Kansas last week. My brochures from the Global Missions office went out last weekend too. That’s gonna help get the ball rolling I hope. Now I just have to do a lot of follow-ups. If you haven’t received a brochure and you would like to receive one, just let me know.

Personal....Things have been a bit crazy on that front. I find that I get so wrapped up in work and GM stuff that I don’t concentrate tons on my personal life. Then, I realize that some of my relationships with friends have been effected by that. Some of the work and GM stuff I can change and then regret later on the ways that I have hurt some friends in the process of not making time for them. Other things I can’t change and that means that my friends need to be understanding. Hasn’t always been the case, but that’s okay. I still value those friends’ relationships.

In other news, I go to the doctor AGAIN today. I’m still waiting to hear back the results to my x-rays on my wrist. Last Tuesday night I was playing Church Softball when I slid into second base. I guess I must have put my left hand down incorrectly, b/c now it is soooo painful to even try to move it. I’ve gone to the doctor and radiologists and now I’m just waiting to hear back from my my doc. I don’t really care what they tell me...I just want to know what’s going on and what I can do to make it better. I guess that’s the problem with not having health insurance....you have to go to cheaper doctors and radiologists who take longer to get results to you.

Last bit...this week I’m going up to Michigan to see my aunt and uncle and to do some fundraising for GM. Not really excited about the fundraising part, but the rest of it I’m PUMPED about.

Blessed

Ever get the feeling that you are blessed beyond reason? I feel that way quite frequently. I have a great family, great friends, God has provided for me every day....I’m blessed! I was reading today in Psalm and got to this verse that challenged me:

The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. - Psalm 126:3

What challenged me in that verse is the thought that I am so blessed with all the great things that the Lord has done for me, but I had to question myself of how joyful am I when it comes down to it? Recently I feel as if I haven’t been joyful. Or if I have been, I know that I haven’t been ‘filled’ with joy and I regret that. It’s easy in this time for me to be negative, pessimistic, discouraged, etc, but I need to remind myself daily that the Lord has done GREAT things for me....and that thought alone should fill me with joy. God is good!
On a COMPLETELY other topic....the Rays won last night!!! WOOOHOOO!! I know many of you might be thinking I’m joining the bandwagon....say what you will, but let me explain. I hate regular season baseball. I hate the fact that there are 162 games and to lose one doesn’t make that big of a deal. Yeah, when you add up the loses it gets to be a big deal, but I like to watch football where each loss could be devastating. Although I hate regular season baseball I LOVE playoff baseball. Each loss matters....each strike is crucial. I don’t care who’s in the playoffs....I’ll watch. But, now that the Rays are in the playoffs, I actually get to cheer for a team I care about. Yeah, I’m not die-hard in the regular season but I will ‘root’ for the Rays to make it to the playoffs...they’ve just never made it before. But, now that they are in the playoffs, I can root with all my might. Call me bandwagon if you want, I don’t care....I’m still rooting for the Rays! Now that they’re in the playoffs I have a reason to root! Playoff Baseball....there’s nothing like it (well, besides NFL playoffs...oh yeah...and bowl season and March Madness)! Go Rays!

Getting killed in Jeopardy!

My big bro Jason and his girlfriend, Lauren, flew in last night to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday next week. Yep, he's getting old. I don't know what the big plans are for the weekend, but I'm just excited to have them in town.

In one of my favorite past-times mom, dad, Jason, Lauren and I gathered around our tv to play Jeopardy! last night. Let it be known that Jason and Lauren KICKED OUR BUTTS! Seriously, it wasn't even close. We played three games because, yes I do record them on the DVR so I can watch later on, and they won all of them....by not close margains mind you! Anyway, Lauren and Jason are/were history majors so they knew ALL the questions dealing with history. Plus Lauren was answering questions (or do you say questioning answers when talking about the format of Jeopardy!?) for the $2000 question in the category of Archeology. It was amazing. They were dominating! And I thought I was decent at Jeopardy. I've come to a conclusion after watching last night....I need to start reading more AND I need those books to be classics, historical, Shakespearean, or political. I was dominated in those categories! We have more episodes to watch today so let's hope it gets better.

Not too good at this just yet

I've decided that I'm not too good at this blogging thing just yet. I guess that's pretty obvious seeing that it's been 1/2 a year since my last (and only) post.

My goal is to blog every once in awhile just to keep everyone updated on how things are going. This one's going to be short b/c I know no one even knows this blog exists. However, I do need to share 1 thing....it's official that I'm now going to be a missionary to Berlin, Germany. Global Missions has approved me so now it's just up to the fundraising process and getting there to Germany. I'm not really looking forward to that process, but it's something that every missionary has to do, so I'm gonna pull up my big-boy britches and get to work.

Check back for updates!
bound for berlin

VACATION!

I feel as if everyone has to start their blogging career with the same blog. In fact, I even thought about copying someone else's first blog. You know, the one that says, 'hey everybody. I am terrible at keeping everyone up to date about what's going on with me so I'm going to try this blogging thing so that everyone could be kept up to date'. So, since I'm sparing you that boring blog, what I will tell you about is that I am on vacation...

This past Wednesday I was supposed to go to Berlin to hang out with the family I lived with last year. It's the first officall day off I've taken since I started work. And it's the first time I've been outside of the city of Budapest since I got here so I was ready to leave (minus the day I went with my pastor's family to Vienna to go Christmas shopping....NOT FUN b/c I got sick!). Well, I was housesitting for a family in our church on Tuesday night and came back to my apartment to get my bags to go to the airport. When I got to my flat on Wednesday morning, I found it broken into. Mind you, I live in an apartment building with a courtyard in the middle and all doors leading into the courtyard area, so I figured someone would have to see, or hear, the people break in as they had to ram my door to get in. No one knew anything. I searched my place up and down to see what they had taken, and most everything was there still....my Nintendo Wii, my projector, guitar, external hard drive, digital camera, etc. But, they had taken some money from me and most importantly, my passport. Yes, the idiots stole my passport. They rummage through my whole place and only took my passport and about 45€.

So, instead of going to the airport, I spent all day waiting for the Hungarian police, then the Crime Scene Investigators, then had to go to the police station and get my final written report. It all started at about 10am and I finished my last process with them at 9pm. What a long first day of vacation.....

Here's what happened yesterday (Thurs) then: The door was broken as the people barged into my house, so yesterday the carpenter came to put a deadbolt that locks completely across both doors. Then, while I am gone they are going to put up a gate infront of my door for extra protection (I already have all the windows gated).

Once the carpenter came and my landlord came to be with him while he was there, I was able to go get pictures for my passport and then go to the embassy. My embassy connections from the church came up HUGE yesterday. I gave them a couple calls to see what I should do and then they 'hooked' me up. When I arrived at the security area, I gave my name to the Hungarian security guards and they said, "Hi Mr. Varner, I'm sorry to hear that you were broken into. Please do not wait in any lines and go to the metal detectors." The next person did the same thing and the next the same thing as well. It was like I was a rockstar or something b/c they ALL knew who I was and I skipped EVERYBODY (in a very crowded waiting room...people actually were waiting outside too). Anyway, after about 1.5 hours of filling out apps, going to different windows, paying 100€, I walked out with my temporary passport.

I made it home to pick up my bags and called a taxi to get to the airport. The airline said that they could not reimburse me for my ticket the previous day so I was going to have to buy a whole new ticket. I called their main offices in London and there's a slight chance that they will reimburse me, but I'm not holding my breath. It cost about 200€ for the new 1-way plane ticket (on top of the 120€ I've already paid to get to/from Berlin) so this trip is not as cheap as I had originally planned. But it's okay....

To be honest with you, I didn't care how much it cost. I wanted to get out of Budapest more than anything. I wanted to escape it all....to run away! It wasn't a great way to start vacation, but now I"m on vacation, I'll have a new passport when I get back, and I'll have a more secure house.

Sorry for the long first post....not all will be like this I promise