Letters from Lilongwe

This song is so overpowering!  If we listen to the music and disregard the lyrics than we miss the ENTIRE message.  This song is a praise to the Lord of Lord for allowing his son to die on the cross for my sins.  When we sing this song at Grace Midtown I come to tears every time, because I have the opportunity to sing with all my lungs to my Father for his Grace.  He washed us white as snow - that makes me just want to dance right now!!!!! Oh praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead!  I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all.” Refrain Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I Whereby Thy grace to claim, I’ll wash my garments white In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb. Refrain And now complete in Him My robe His righteousness, Close sheltered ’neath His s

It is well with my soul that is so true but if I was in the situation of Horatio Spafford I could not say the same. Upon investigating myself if I had lost my family I would be devastated.  Spafford was an affluent lawyer in Chicago and sent his family ahead on the trip to Europe during the trans-Atlantic journey they ship sank taking with it his four daughters and nearly taking his wife.  Soon after he wrote this amazing hymn that I cling to in my times of trial and of feasting.  Oh lord you are so great there is no way that my soul could not be well.  You have given me life and that is all that I need, I could live a life of disgrace, poverty, and rejection but the Lord still has done the most amazing thing every.  He has saved me from eternal separation from him!! It Is Well With My Soul When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul. Refr

On Monday morning I have packed up all of my stuff in NC and it only filled half of our van.  Mom and I rolled for the close to seven hour drive stopping for a short gas fill before we got to a friends house near Buford to pick up some stuff I stored for summer.  Now the van in about two thirds full and I unloaded most of it at the  House basically throwing it all in one massive pile.  The house is in work week mode so there are peoples stuff everywhere as we proceed to repaint, refinish, and basically redo the entire house.  This is a fun process because we are getting to hang out with brothers that I have not seen in 3+ months.  The work is for the betterment of our brotherhood and the relational time is great. In the last few days I have been transporting basketball goals, laying railroad ties, and moving scrap wood.  Tomorrow I will be doing work with Greek Move-In, we are going to assist the freshman moving in all of their stuff.  See I didn't need this last year because whe

I would love to highlight a great song that I seem to always have stuck in my head.  The first time I heard of it was when a friend asked me to find it soon after Passion 2011.  The Passion album was not out yet so I was able to find it under its original name, A Beautiful Exchange.  I am drawn into the lryics and the musicality blows me away.  Sometimes I am afraid that my worship is of the music and not the subject matter of the lyrics so in the next few months I must be intentional to praise the Father and not the music.   You are good, You are good When there's nothing good in me You are love, You are love On display for all to see You are light, You are light When the darkness closes in You are hope, You are hope You have covered all my sin You are peace, You are peace When my fear is crippling You are true, You are true Even in my wandering You are joy, You are joy You're the reason that I sing You are life, You are life, In

We arrived home on August 3rd and went to unpacking out house which had been rented while my family was in Oxford for the Spring.  My room had been the dumping ground for all of our personal stuff because my father used it for sleeping while on business back in the States.  So I started to unearth loads of cloths, luggage, papers, and lots of other stuff.  I was looking for one article that had some important devices of mine.  It was a black laptop bag that held my iPhone, Dell m1530 and some small writing items.  As usual for something you are looking for the bag was missing even after basically turning my room upside down and shaking it.  We then turned to searching our neighbors house which was another landing zone of my father and I but with no results.   So I started to get plan B ready, I need a new phone and a new computer.  Then I looked around my room and there was an old flip phone and an old Desktop.  When I mean old I mean really old, the Nokia was five years worn, and t

I have been with Google+ from the start not because of the Circles, Hangouts, or a sexy interface.  Why I support Google+ is because of the unification of the Google world.  They are consolidating their web claims and slowly bringing them under the same branding .  In the past few weeks they have been updating the interfaces of all of their app products to reflect a new Google wide interface.  This change was made to reflect the new interface produced for Google+.  But Google+ is not a Facebook or twitter killer, it is a new beast.  In my opinion it will take lots of time before Google+ catches on for the 200 Million users on Facebook.  The only other way that Google to get a real knock at Facebook is if Facebook has another fiasco over Privacy or some other hot topic internet subject.  It is kinda sad that the competition has to wait until someone messes up to come in a sweep away the users.  But I do think that this may be the only way for Google to slice into the heart of Faceboo

Watch the video because its amazing to see the purpose of the CR-48s at their full potential.  Chrome OS is build for situations where users have easy access to the web, and that is definently the case for school technology programs.  I was very lucky to be in a poor enough county that we got immense technology grants, therefore my senior year each student got a Apple G4.  The computers were very outdated, had massive battery and wireless issues but our district was still way ahead of the curve.  Once I left they got upgraded to the white macbooks and this year I think that upper classmen are getting macbook pros. Looking back on that time the Chromebooks would be a better computing experience for the basic user.  The systems have low maintenance, easy central management, limited user control, and they are cheap.  If you compare comercial prices of the cheapest apple computers its $999 compared to the chromebooks being only $350-500.  That is a compelling option for school sys

I was first introduced to this song while listening to the 30 Seconds to Mars cover.  I did not know that it was a cover until much later when I was being forced to listen to Bjork music in one of my classes.  This song is really cool, I do not really know the technical music terms but its a great song, kinda off the wall but cool.  For those of you like I was, people who do not know Bjork or her music.   She is an Icelandic musician born in 65 and basically pioneered the stage the Lady Gaga holds in our modern day.  Read more about her on her website:  http://bjork.com/ Check out this song in both the original Bjork version and the 30 Seconds to Mars versions If travel is searching And home has been found I'm not stopping I'm going hunting I'm the hunter I'll bring back the goods But I don't know when I thought I could organize freedom How Scandinavian/American of me ~en-cha-le-li~ ~en-cha-le~ You sussed it out, didn't you ? yeah! Y

"Welcome home", were the words of greeting from all of the staff in the Customs Security Check area.  It may have taken me over an hour to get through the long lines but that seems to be the story of this day of travels.   But now I am chilling in the Charlotte waiting for my flight to get me back to RDU and eventually home to by bed for some much awaited sleep. So my day started at 3:30 in Oxford taking a bus to Heathrow Airport and it was good that I got there early because they were having massive issues.  The baggage conveyor belts were messing up so the Lufthansa area was really backed up.  I had a dilemma because I had already checked-in online but wasn't able to print my boarding passes because we didn't have a printer but even if we did it would have already been packed.  Eventually after jumping from line to line because the attendants could not help me I found a woman who found this obscure code to retrieve my tickets. Then I proceeded on the flight to

I downloaded a few albums off Noise Trade while in Croatia and as usual I wasn't looking for a particular artist just trying to find great music.  I stumbled upon an artist named Josh Garrels and have been listening to his album 'Love & War & and Sea Between'.  All of the songs are great and the style is not my normal flavor but its growing on me daily.  The song that jumped out at me was Farther Along, I remember making a note of this song and as I listen to it basically on repeat I still cannot get enough.  Take a listen and see what you think. Listen to the song on Myspace;  www.myspace.com/joshgarrels/music/songs/farther-along-82458043 This songs lyrics are based off of an old hymn and thats another reason I love this song Garrels simply added another verse and his own musical style to make it amazing. Farther along we'll know all about it Farther along we'll understand why So, cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We'll underst

I have been awaiting this functionality for a long time and it should be coming in the next few weeks.  There already have been some reports of people seeing the framework for offline support in  docs.  I personally really need this because of this CR-48, which is not that useful when you leave the wifi zone.  This computer is suppose to have 3G but since I got the first batch it doesn't work, and while out of the states, for the entire summer, then 3G wouldn't have worked anyway. What I need to make this computer truly effective is offline gmail, docs, calender, reader, and news.  The rumor mill is flying that we should be getting this functionality soon and that is gonna be a great day. At times I feel that I get overly involved in technology and I can  "waste" time with my ramblings, readings, ect, but its a hobbie that I enjoy. All is Great in the Lord

I first heard this song at the end of summer Svaki Student Talent show performed by Josh and Taylor Irby.  Ever since they played this song I have not been able to stop listening to it.  I really love just the musical aspects of this song mainly the simplicity of the driving guitar and piano.  One major aspect of their music that I love is the use of minor chords to draw the tension through the song.  The build has so much energy and anticipation only to be finished by two voices in harmony which is a great touch in this crafted song .  Both of these musicians are extremely talented and it shows when their live album is in some regards better than their studio recorded tracks.  By the way, you can get this track off their live album from Noise Trade for free. You only know what I want you to I know everything you don't want me to Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine Oh I don't love you but I always will Oh

If you are not familiar with Kiva it is a non-profit that enables people to get mico-loans financed by donations.  These loans are then repayed over time at a zero percent interest rate.   Therefore I can choose to reloan the money and keep investing in poverty stricken people who need financing.  I am not an expert in the NGO so I would direct you to their about page; http://www.kiva.org/about The reason I am writing this post is because they are running a promotion where they are giving away $25 for your first loan.  This is an attempt to bring notice to the need for micro-loans and also allow people a free passage into the world of Kiva and you will be able to reloan the money when it is repayed. I am currently on my fourth loan because I got my first $25 from Christmas and have reloaned it once since, and I loaned another $25 sometime in the spring and its now on its second tour. If you would like more information about Kiva head over to their webpage and if you would like

So while working through some news articles I ran across an extension I had installed a long time ago called Read Later Fast.  It enables users to save web pages for offline reading.  This is a big thing for both Chromebooks and regular computers because at times you are away from internet and would like to check out webpages you previously visited.  For a long time I have been searching for a program, extension, app or something that can download every single webpage I visit and save them to my computer.  This would allow me to find that random page I visited two weeks ago that I cannot remember the address.  I tried and failed to find a suitable program but Read Later Fast gets me closer by allowing the download of webpages that I select, then I can read them while offline on my CR-48, iPhone, Dell, and via Diigo.  I am excited about this but the problem is that I must select each page one by one and it takes some time for me to click through all of the articles that I want to rea