We got into Portland early Wednesday morning…1:30am to be precise. As Jen made mention on her blog, we are staying in a great apartment in some friends’ basement. This place is almost twice as big as our apartment was in Paris! It’s so great to have a place that we can call our own for a bit. It’s not that we weren’t enjoying where we were, it’s just that we had forgotten how nice it is to have a place where it’s just us.

The thing about this place that’s taking some getting used to is the fact that it’s out in the country. It’s a welcomed change from suburbia and city life. We like variety. But the thing that’s hard for me is that we are a ways away from where we want to be…the city. Tonight we met up with our long-time friend Jamie for dinner and it was the first time that we’ve actually been into the city. I really love Portland so it’s hard to be here, yet not be here. I’m looking forward to figuring out what our next season of life and ministry will be like…and I’m hoping that being close to the city will be a part of it. But for now, I am enjoying drinking my morning coffee looking over the fields and farms.

This is all I have energy for after 13 hours of traveling with a one year old:

no snow on the road…amazing

no 20 mph wind gusts…phew

no car problems at all…hondas rock

no close encounters with other drivers…well there was one, but no biggie.

thanks for your prayers…good night

Jen and I are having a dilema. We’ve planned on driving up to Portland for the last few days now, but our plans always seem to get pushed back for some reason or another. We’re packed (almost) and ready to go for tomorrow morning, but there is a pretty good sized snow storm in the pass that we’d have to go through. I don’t mind driving in bad conditions, but we’re a bit concerned about the other drivers on the road, because it’s always somebody else who is the dangerous driver, right?

In some way this feels like a metaphor for life. We have a journey to make, and we know the conditions will be rough. We think we can we can handle it, but we are afraid that some of our fellow sojourners are more detrimental to our journey than we are. (I am sitting here wondering which direction to go with this)…

Taking away the driving idea…which is why I started this post…I think I struggle with trusting people. To be honest, I have been hurt, confused, and betrayed (all unintentionally) by others on my journey and sometimes it just makes me want to quit. I know that I: a) am self-deceived; b) am limited in my perception, and c) have high expectations of others…(which may be linked to being self-deceived)…So this whole relationship with others on the journey thing is hard, and messy. Because at the same time that I think that anonymity and autonomy are the safest way for me to go, I know that full-spectrum of Jesus’ love is perfected in communion with others…who are also messy, self-deceived, and have high expectations of me.

So do we get in the car and try to make it through the potential dangers ahead…or try to wait out the storm and hope for clearer skies tomorrow?

I downloaded a program called Statcounter the other day. It keeps count of how many people visit my site and whatnot…

So tonight, I proudly told Jen that I’ve been having nearly 60 visits a day. She looks at me with a smile and says,

“And that’s a lot for you?”

I laughed, knowing that she has quite a few more visits a day than me…and, thanks to Statcounter, I also know that most of my visits are links from her page to mine. I was hanging out with some friends the other night and I asked one of our friends to go look at something on my page. Guess what she did…she went to http://allmyish.typepad.com and then scrolled down to the link to my blog to even find my page…no more needs to be said. Jen rules the blogwaves in the Powell house.