Your weekend was boring. I don’t care what you did, compared to mine, your weekend wasn’t interesting at all. Not even a little bit.

I went to Laurel, Maryland. Wait for it, there’s more.

I went to Laurel, Maryland to speak about poverty in three church services (one through a Spanish translator), play a concert and mobilize folks to sponsor kids and…

I met a real live rocket scientist/mom named Melissa who has applied to be an astronaut and is currently on the team designing the spacecraft(s) that will replace NASA’s shuttle and, aside from my wife and Boo Mama, she’s the most authentically perpetually contagiously joyful person I’ve known. Oh, and she spent two years as a missionary/relief worker in Iraq after 9/11…like ya do and…

I met Clement, an endocrinologist from Nigeria who quit medicine to research prayer’s effects on health and healing and educate doctors and the rest of us about God’s now-proven power. He’s returning to medicine soon, much humbler, he says, than before his break from it and…

I met Johnny, an immigrant from Haiti who’s building a website to evangelize, disciple and encourage Haitians (and lots of other people) in the U.S. He’s uploading music, sermons, videos and articles now and…

I met an entire family from the Dominican Republic – doctors, lawyers, housewives, teenagers – all working together to meet the physical and spiritual needs of folks back in their native country. They’re just getting started, but their ideas are inspiring: medical care, legal help, job training and child care for working single parents and…

I met a twenty-two year-old (working on his second masters degree) who “accidentally” wrote an encryption or code language in college while playing Dungeons & Dragons. He sold the language to the NSA and now interns for nothin’ at his church, where he took great care of us. His dream is to be a minister to ministers and…

I met a pastor who fled Cuba with his family when his son faced imprisonment for opposing the communist government. Now the pastor pastors the Spanish service at FBC Laurel and his son is his music guy. His son had great stories about how he and his father managed to avoid arrest while taking more worshipers into their church services than the 150 allowed by Cuban law…and he sounded like Antonio Banderas and…

46 kids were sponsored!

All that in one weekend. The Church is packed with fascinating, generous, fully-alive, highly motivated and skilled people bringing enough life, hope, love and inspiration (aka Jesus) to their corner of the world to silence the fiercest most cynical critics. You just have to shake hands, introduce yourself and listen. They’re everywhere.

I love my “job.”

Told you your weekend was boring.