McDonald’s. Text messages. Amazon Prime. ATMs. Google. The retired Concorde. What do all these things have in common? They are all spelled the same way: F-A-S-T In the United States of America, we put a special emphasis on receiving things and accomplishing things as quickly as possible. On the one hand, that’s okay, since our more »

I love little kids. They love life. They love to explore what life has to offer. They also know that there are many things they cannot do or experience on their own, and they are often humble enough and carefree enough to ask for help. I love it when kids come to me and ask more »

Has there ever been a time in your life when you just didn’t know what to do next? I’m not talking about last week when you woke up with a cough and didn’t know whether you should go to work or school. Nor am I talking about the other day when you ate a huge more »

In the past, I wasn’t the biggest fan of weddings. As a child I went to weddings with my family and a couple times in my “later years” I had the privilege of playing music for the weddings of close family members or friends. But I never was too enthralled with them. I enjoyed the more »

One of my weaknesses is my tendency to do things slowly. I like slow. I like deliberate. I like to think about what I’m doing and enjoy the moment. When I worked at IRBC, I loved my job as the photographer because I was never in a rush to be anywhere after meals. I could more »

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the church lately… You might say, “Well, of course. You’re doing a church planting internship!” Yes, that’s true, but that’s only part of it. Another part of it is simply the fact that I see local churches everywhere I go, whether in Omaha or in the Des Moines area. more »

I love how Hebrews 12 begins: “Seeing then that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” In the context the author is urging his readers to live in faith, following the example of the many men and women of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11. As I begin my church planting internship and more »

No, pastors and church planters don’t have one-day work weeks, preaching on Sunday and then taking rest of the week off. Sunday is only the end of one week of hard work and the beginning of another. Yesterday was my first full day in Bennington for my internship. In fact, in all my trips out more »

Today we left Exu for another city in another state- Petrolina, Pernambuco. It is home to the Reiner’s, but it is my first time outside of Ceara since coming to Brazil. We woke up around 7:00, packed our stuff, and ate a breakfast of French rolls and butter, cheese, goiaba juice, hot milk, and cake. We more »

Today was such a great day of ministry. It started when we woke up, ate a quick snack of bananas, and left the house shortly after 7am. We drove about an hour away to the small town of Ouricouri, the location of our morning ministry. On the way there we practiced our music for the more »