This old house

Well, as of Thursday last week, Jenna and I are home owners! It’s exciting, and overwhelming at the same time. It is an old 1900’s house that is right by the St. Croix river. It has a ton of character, but also need a LOT of work. So i am in the process of tearing a bunch of stuff apart and hoping to start putting it back together in the next few days/weeks/months. I feel very overwhelmed with the magnitude of the project, but someday….it will be sweet! So, if you aren’t doing anything and want to come over and help me remodel my house, you are more than welcome. The biggest project right now is the kitchen. It pretty much doesn’t exist right now and there is a wall that we are trying to take down, but i am unsure if that is possible. So, i have my old boss and friend Tom Velner coming out today to take a look at the whole situation and lend me some expert advice. This alone eases my discomfort a little bit. I guess I wouldn’t feel so stressed if we didn’t have to move in and live in this constructions zone withing 10 days. There is no way that it will be even close to done in 10 days. But I am am reminded of the way the people in Africa live and how they literally have “house’s” (more like small rooms) made out of dirt and they are perfectly happy that way. So, I just need to be patient and put it all into perspective at this point. It’s also one of those things where we pretty much have next to no money to work with, so it’s going to take a lot of creativity to get things in livable order. All in all it is an exciting time despite the mess that we are dealing with. We are joyful that we have a house we can all our own and are excited to be able to use it in any way possible to be a part of this community. I am sure I will be posting updates from time to time, so keep checking back. And by the way….I was serious when i said that if anyone wants to come and help, even if just for a few hours, i would be ecstatic.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog. I decided to switch to wordpress because I like the functions and flexibility it offers. I will no longer be posting on my blogspot any more, so please update your links and bookmarks to markson.wordpress.com because after a little i will be deleting the other blog altogether. Please stop by often to see what is going on in my life and to converse about various things. Thanks and stay classy!

BRRRRRR

Wow, It is really cold! I cut all (well, most..) of my hair off. Actually, to be accurate, Jenna cut it. It is nice to not have hair all over the place and getting in my face, but wow, it feels even colder than it already is. For those of you in a different part of the country/world, it is -6 degrees outside. And that is the actual temp. Not including the wind factor. I honestly don’t want to know how cold it is with that. Keep in mind I am coming from Mali, Africa where it got up to 112 one day! That is a 118 degree difference!!!! Well, I just thought I would show off the new look. It is good to be back, but I don’t miss the nice weather (it was usually in the upper 80’s and 90’s).

Mali – Africa

Well, I am back from my trip to Africa where I spent some time in Mali observing the culture as well as seeing what God is doing in that area through the Missionaries that are serving so faithfully. I am still trying to process it all, and as a result will not be writing much about it now. There are so many stories and pictures to share, that it would take days to share them all. I will spare you the time involved in that and write a little bit here and there about my experiences in Mali and what it may mean for myself and the church at large. To put it simply, I was both heartbroken and inspired by the things I witnessed and was a part of. There is so much work to be done and yet God is doing miracles there all the time. The culture is very different than I am used to. In many ways, I would like to adopt some of the culture, and yet there are so many ways that the culture leads them down a path of destruction both physically and spiritually. One thing I really appreciated was the emphasis on relationships. In America, time is money. In Mali, and all of west Africa for that matter; time is time, and people are people. If push comes to shove, people win every time. They value one another so much. I never felt so welcomed by complete strangers before. I have many stories that go along with this, but that will have to come at a later time. For now, i am just going to continue to process it all and share stories as I see fit.