A few weeks ago in the evening we took a boys trip deep into the bush to visit a village called Agor. We drove for 2½ hours to the most remote place I’ve ever been to in all my time in Africa. It was late dusk by the time we arrived and we were greeted by the traditional drumming and singing of the villagers in the dark.

Our intention was to show The Jesus Film to the people there in their native language, but when we got there our generator wouldn’t start. So instead we got up in front of our new friends and tag-teamed sharing spirit led devotions. Two of the pastors from In Deed And Truth’s discipleship training center live in the village and they were very excited to have us teach the Word of God to their people. Sebit concluded our time with an opportunity for people to respond to the Gospel.

Strong biblical teaching is desperately needed in Sudan. Years of religiosity and the churches being seen simply as a gateway to Western handouts have distorted the message of Christ. The idea of Christ being the all powerful transforming Savior whose Spirit lives inside our hearts is often lost here; so it was a blessing to have the opportunity to share with the people of this remote village and I hope that some lives were touched during our time there.

Being so far out in the jungle left us with an experience that was so authentic. Daniel and I joined in the local stomping dance before we left, but instead we both ended up doing the running man to the great entertainment of all who watched.

Two Sundays ago I was given an opportunity to teach at the church that meets here inside of the compound.

I gave a message about the presence of God. I began with Ezekiel 1 and shared about the out of this world encounter with God’s presence that Ezekiel had at the beginning of his ministry. I then moved to the New Testament and shared that the same presence of God Ezekiel experienced dwelled even more fully in Christ when he came to earth and now lives in us through His spirit.

This is an especially relevant topic to the people of Sudan. The connection between knowing about Christ and inviting His Spirit to live inside of you is often lost here. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to share the Word of God here.

I’ll conclude this blog post with a beautiful Old Testament prophecy from Ezekiel concerning the new covenant which was to come:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” - Ezekiel 36:26-27

The ice age has come to Sudan. We woke up Monday morning to the chilling temperature of 70° Fahrenheit. The locals brought out their beanies and ski clothes (I wish I was exaggerating) to take on the coldest weather of the year. Roles were reversed and suddenly it was my thick North American blood that was helping me to adjust to the local weather.

Monday brought us a full load of patients to the clinic here in Tonj as well. We saw a total of 130 patients. We’re all settling into our roles in the clinic much more comfortably this week. I’ve been manning the registration table with my Sudanese partner Marco. I’ve become the lord of the thermometer and have about five different strategies for determining the weight of a screaming baby. I’m even learning some basic triage.

Outside of the clinic, we had our first weekend in Tonj. Sunday was a great day of attending church here on the compound with the entire staff and many of the other NGO workers here in Tonj. Sunday afternoon we had a picnic out on the river valley. I snapped the shot below of my roommate Daniel having some fun with Dut, our resident security guard. Lots of football to be watched too – we’ve got six different nationalities represented here and national pride was high during the Germany vs. England and USA vs. Ghana matches.

Last Friday, Africa got the best of me for a day. I woke up at 5 am and unfortunately proceeded to vomit the entire contents of my stomach back into the world. But a day full of sleeping and a little bit of the wonderful antibiotic known as Cipro and I was back on my feet the next day.

Saturday I had a lot of fun filming some commercials featuring the Sudanese guys to show during halftime at our upcoming World Cup public viewing outreaches this week. We did two skits and Sebit interviewed Donato, a boy here who has an amazing testimony.

Some prayer requests for this week:

1. For the health of my teammates Missy and Daniel – they’re both recovering from bugs they picked up earlier this week.

2. For our World Cup and Malony village mobile clinic outreaches this week – that we would use these as an opportunity to bless the communities and reach out to them tangibly with the love of Christ.

3. That I would believe not just in my mind, but in my heart in the power of God and his desire to work in fresh and new ways in and through my life during my time here and that any barriers I put up to Him working in and through me would be torn down.

Here’s my first (of hopefully at least a few) blog posts updating you all about my time in Africa this summer…

I left on June 10th and headed to Germany to spend a long weekend with two good friends of mine. I spent Friday, Saturday and the first half of Sunday with Christian in the city of Nuremberg. Christian and I met at Flood Church in San Diego last fall while he was studying abroad at SDSU. Nuremberg is an amazing city, over twice as old as the whole United States, and is built around an old castle. The whole downtown is car free and you almost feel like you’re walking around 15th century Europe, minus the modern shops and restaurants. I got to attend Christian’s church and young adults group, I really enjoyed the fellowship with believers in another western culture.

On Sunday I took a train over to Munich to hang out with Florian, one of my roommates from Uganda. We watched the Germany vs. Australia World Cup match on a projector in the backyard with a bunch of his friends. It was a total blast and Germany won 4-0 so we got to see lots of goals and enjoy some excellent Germany BBQ. I love Germany, it’s a country built around people. I loved everyone I met there and I hope to be able to go back one day.

On Tuesday I flew to Uganda. I was so excited to be returning to the country that I love so much! God totally hooked me up and I randomly booked a ticket on the same flight as all the Uganda interns from Flood Church and was assigned a seat right between two of my friends.

It was an amazing week of gigantic bear hugs with my Ugandan friends, meeting new people, and seeing how much Empower-A-Child has grown since I left there two years ago. Being around all the amazing people in that house was such a blessing and encouragement as I embarked on my journey to Sudan.

Saturday night I flew from Uganda to Kenya to spend a few days there meeting up with my team to fly in Sudan. On Sunday, I was blessed with the opportunity to speak at a friend’s church in the morning and his young adults group in the afternoon. I was completely blessed by the great amount of passion in the hearts and worship of this small, but growing congregation. I absolutely loved sharing the Word of God with them. I talked about the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel and how God can truly work in us when we let go of our desire to try to earn our acceptance – like Leah did when she simply praised the Lord for the birth of Judah, whose descendants the Messiah would come from generations later. The message that there is nothing you can do or obtain to make God love you more really sank home with them.

Sunday night, my buddies from San Diego, Daniel Crawford and Missy Nickerson, arrived in Nairobi. It was so great to see them in Africa! Monday we spent the day hanging out, running all over Nairobi on errands, and stripping down the weight of our luggage for the flight to Sudan.

Yesterday, I flew out to Sudan with Missy, Daniel, one Kenyan, two Germans, and four other Americans to work with In Deed And Truth Ministries. It was an easy day of flying and we arrived early in the afternoon. It was so great to see Suzy and Sabet again! Sabet and I had not seen each other since he left for Africa 1½ years ago. We took a tour of the compound, met all of the staff and had a meeting which was followed by our first African rain downpour. At night we had a wonderful dinner and celebrated the birthday of one of the staff members.

Today, we all got our feet wet in the medical clinic. I got trained in registering patients, working in the pharmacy, and the art of reading a doctor’s prescription. I had a great time helping out and getting to know the Kenyan and Sudanese workers in the clinic.

Thank you so much for your prayers. Tomorrow we’ll be heading out for our first village outreach which we’re all looking forward to. Hopefully I’ll be able to write soon.

It seems lately I’m seeing more and more posts on design blogs along the lines of “HTML 5 brings on Flash’s imminent death” and so forth. There seems to be a deep seeded disdain among many in the web development community for the Flash platform.

And understandably so, Flash is a closed platform, processor intensive, and isn’t renderable by most mobile devices.

What I think is often missing in this discussion is the fact that Flash and open web standards (HTML5, JavaScript, etc.) have usually had the following relationship – innovations in user interface design are released on the Flash platform, and then in time the web standards community comes up with lighter, simpler and more modular ways of using the principles of interaction using open web standards.

This is how interaction design on the web has worked for a long time and it has always been a good thing for everyone involved. With advancements like jQuery and HTML 5, we’re seeing things like media players, menu navigation, sliding content, slide loops, etc. moving away from Flash and into open web standards. This is a very good thing and it’s creating a better browsing experience for all. I’m just as sick as the next guy of web sites encoded primarily in Flash that just simply don’t need to be.

But still, the majority of awe inspiring, award winning, experimental web interfaces are being developed using Flash. Some of my favorite examples include Digg Labs, Marcos Weskamp’s Newsmap, the JFK Presidential Library’s We Choose The Moon and Invisible Children’s The Rescue.

I’m no expert, but it seems to me that there’s a reason sites like these are being done in Flash by companies with vast resources – it’s either not practical or not possible yet to create user interfaces like these outside of Flash.

And for this reason I don’t think Flash is dying anytime soon, and I think rooting for its death is really just rooting for the internet to become a place of cookie cutter websites all using the same principles of user interaction. This whole HTML5 vs Flash boxing match should stop and be changed to this – how can we create better browsing experiences using open web standards and how can we use Flash to further push the limits of interaction design?

Well, 2009 is over, and some great music found its way to my ears this year. Here’s a list and a quick review of my favorite albums of the year (some of them are from late 2008).

Muse – The Resistance

When the music history books are written, this is one of the albums that this decade will be remembered by. The range Muse covers in 11 cuts here is unbelievable, with many of the best progressions in music from the last 10 years weaved into one album. The album opens with the alternative rock anthems “Uprising” and “Resistance”, goes to strings and electronic drums beats in “Undisclosed Desires”, to punk in “Unnatural Selection,” and closes with a three part symphony. Bellamy departs from his usual ambiguous lyrics writing. Many songs have an obvious node to themes from Orwell’s 1984 mixed with songs written intimately about love and relationships.

UnderOATH – Lost In The Sound Of Separation

In Genesis 32, Jacob spends a night wrestling with God; and he emerges with an entirely new perspective of Him. This album is that story told through the words, hearts and experiences of Chamberlain and Gillespie. Beautiful raw honesty abounds and the band brings a sound that is powerful, more raw than 2006’s Define The Great Line. It draws you in from the first note and keeps you to the final scream and ring of the guitar. The album is arranged perfectly; mellow interludes with Gillespie’s singing contrast Chamberlain screams and heavy instrumentation at all the right moments.

MuteMath – Armistice

MuteMath wrote a follow up to their 2006 self-titled album, recorded it, and then threw it away. Then they wrote Armistice. Meany said their goal was to “embarrass” their last album (which was pretty good in its own right), and well, they did a pretty good job. Every member of MuteMath is ridiculously talented on their own, and they come together to make an album that is eclectic, yet cohesive. Meany’s lyrics are as always intelligent, raw, inspiring, and introspective. If you buy one album from this list, get this one.

As Cities Burn – Hell or High Water

As Cities Burn’s final release comes out as strong as their previous two. A studio version of “Gates,” a song usually reserved for the encore of their live performances, ends the record. Gates weaves together an instrumental version of a hymn, Bonette’s thoughts on grace and worship, and a modified version of the chorus of “Love Jealous One, Love.” The previous nine tracks are just as strong, bringing the widest range of sounds of any ACB record. Former lead vocalist T.J. starts off the album screaming, and Bonnette delivers a fresh dose of his spiritually challenging lyrics, words that make me continue to listen to all of ACB’s records over and over again.

Derek Webb – Stockholm Syndrome

Webb departs from his folksy past and delivers an album defined by its progressive use of traditional and electronic instrumentation. It doesn’t quite sound like anything I’ve heard before. Lyrically, Webb brings his usual, often controversial self; sharing with listeners spiritual insights and refusing to fit into the CCM box, calling things as he sees them. I’ll refrain from discussing the “What Matters More” controversy in this short summary, though make sure you hear the album with that song included.

Jars of Clay – The Long Fall Back To Earth

On this record, Jars Of Clay makes a much needed departs from the comfortable sound that they have established over the years; mixing a warm range of layered guitars, electronic beats, and synths, all rooted by many of the tried and true Jars of Clay elements. Haseltine’s lyrics are personal, straying away from big ideas, but instead sharing individual experiences from his relationships.

Hillsong United – Across The Earth: Tear Down The Walls

Hillsong United is far from your typical worship band. Their newest album has no obvious hits, and I love that, just 70 minutes of the anthems of God’s people, written by a group who understands and is leading a new generation of worshippers. The freedom Christ brings our life is a theme threaded through the entire album, recorded live all over the world. Hillsong United isn’t okay with their shows only impacting the people in the arena; this year they started a new project called I-Heart; inspiring, making aware, and connecting a new generation of Christians to fight injustice.

Honorable Mentions

And albums I haven’t listened to enough yet to review.

Thrice – Beggars
Switchfoot – Hello Hurricane
The Almost – Monster Monster
Danyew – Danyew EP & Wake Up EP
Seabird – ‘Til We See The Shore
Owl City – Ocean Eyes
Phil Wickham – Heaven And Earth