Free Online Language Courses

I recently discovered free online language courses. Word on the street is that these courses were created by the U.S. Government to teach foreign diplomats different languages. These courses are free because they were written 50ish years ago. Thus, they are now in the public domain. While the examples used may be way out of date, the words themselves are still very accurate. Enjoy your free online language course! I'm about to dive into modern Hebrew! Yahoo!

Here are links to the courses:

Amharic
Arabic
Bulgarian
Cambodian
Cantonese
Chinese
Chinyanja
Czech
Finnish
French
Fula
German
Greek
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Igbo
Italian
Japanese
Kirundi
Kituba
Korean
Lao
Lingala
Luganda
Mor�
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbo-Croatian
Shona
Sinhala
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Thai
Turkish
Twi
Vietnamese
Yoruba

If you want the updated versions I'm told you can buy them at the Foreign Service Institute's website.

1 of the 5

Recently I've been reminded that I am not a self-made man. In fact, nobody is a self-made person. Women and men have come before us and made great sacrifices to help us have what we have. When I look at my life I can point to dozens of men and women who God has used to shape me. There is nothing I can do to adequately express how thankful I am for those who loved me, mentored me, sacrificed for me, listened to me, and took risks for me. The thing is, all of us are called to live this way towards others. This is particularly true for followers of Jesus. Every adult who has a church home is charged with the ministry of children and youth. Here is a video I recently made to help teach this principle. I got the concept from a book/movement called Sticky Faith.

Imagine what it would be like if every student who attends your church graduates high school knowing they have 5 adults from the church they can always rely on. How can you be 1 of the 5?

The Myth of the Terrible Twos

After 10 years of going full tilt in a career, my wife and I decided that I needed to step back and create space for her career to launch. This has been a difficult season for me on many levels, but it is also very rich. I'll blog more about this season later. For now I want to talk about the myth of the terrible twos.

Hang around parents of a toddler for five minutes and I guarantee that you will hear about the terrible twos. I'm not going to lie, sometime around the time my daughter turned 18 months it became much more difficult to parent her. The problem is, most parents want to blame it on "the terrible twos." I just came to a startling realization.

What I'd like to blame on the terrible twos is really my inability to be selfless.

I'm not trying to guilt anybody. Most parents I talk to already feel like they are under pressure. They already feel inadequate. The last thing I want to do is make an overworked people group feel more pressure.

Let's face it, parenting is tough. Even though I love my kids more than I thought I could ever love another human, sometimes I hate this season. What I am pushing against is this idea that pain is bad. Our culture is all about minimizing pain. However, most of life's lessons are learned during painful seasons.

Don't run from pain. Lean into pain. You will become a better father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, son, friend, and worker.

Even as I type this, I feel myself getting tired. On the flip side of learning to be selfless while parenting is the necessity of self-care. Even self-care requires selflessness. You may need to wake up earlier to have a little alone time. You may need to hire a baby sitter so you can spend quality time with your spouse. On occasion, you may need to have a night or two of solitude to heal, recover, and recharge.

But when you come back, dive in. This season won't last forever. Something beautiful is happening. Don't run. You can do this.

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More information on "The Terrible Twos":
 
I found a really good article that explains this season called The Terrible Twos: A Myth? Here is my favorite quote.

“It's an old-fashioned idea and not supported by research,” says Alan Kazdin, Ph.D., director of the Parenting Center at Yale University. The term was coined in the 1950s, perhaps because so much pressure was put on families to be detergent-commercial perfect that the moment a child grew out of compliant infancy, moms were freaked out.

A New Form of Spirituality

Before I had kids I used to spend at least an hour reading the Bible and praying a day. Once kids arrived my schedule became very unpredictable as sleeping schedules changed. A spiritual director told me, "Maybe it's time to find a new form of spirituality." Since then I have learned the beauty and joy of listening to God while doing things like running, washing dishes, and even playing with my kids. Yet, there is something uniquely powerful about studying the Bible. This podcast has helped me recently as we transition to a new season.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/1-year-daily-audio-bible/id111065122

Take Time to Be an Engaged Parent

Take time to be an engaged parent.
Take time to cultivate.
Take time to dance.
Take time to pray.
Take time to heal.
Take time to play.
Take time to cry.
Take time to listen.
Take time to laugh.
Take time to say I'm sorry.
Take time to say you're forgiven.
Take time to be fully present.
Take time to hug.
Take time to learn.
Take time to teach.
Take time to shape.
Take time to affirm.
Take time to discipline.
Take time to be transformed.
Take time to be an engaged parent.

Remember, hovering over your child is not the same thing as being engaged.
Remember, keeping your child busy is not the same thing as being engaged.
Remember, nobody is perfect. There is much power in learning how to forgive and be forgiven.

Typo King

For some reason, I've had a lot of silly typos lately. The other day I sent an email calling my church PFC instead of FPC. It just happens. No matter how deep my content might be, I always have a silly typo. When I was a kid mistakes like that made me feel dumb. Now I just shake my head and laugh at myself. I used to tell people I have the spiritual gift of stupidity. I'd say, "Somebody has to mess up enough to make other people feel better about themselves. Might as well be me." 

Here are some memorable typos:

1. I once started a cover letter with "Dr. Mr. Smith." Luckily I was applying for a job in Portland and the guy was super chill. He responded, "The more titles the better!"

2. Once in high school I was taking a Spanish test. I wrote "wantar" for "to want." Even people who didn't speak Spanish knew that the word "want" had something to do with "quiero" because of the Taco Bell commercials at the time.

3. When I got the job at FPC they asked me to submit a picture of myself for the newsletter. I accidentally sent one with me standing in front of a guy holding his crotch/doing the "pee pee dance." It was taken outside of a bathroom in Honduras. It was a funny picture, but not appropriate for a profile pic at a church!

I guess this is just part of my humanity. It will happen again. Probably todai. 

It's Safe Here

In the book Hurt 2.0 Chap Clark describes the state of today's adolescents. From the title, I'm sure you can tell it is a heavy book to read. In one of the appendices Clark identifies three groups of teens who are at the margins of adolescents. They are the most at risk kids.

The groups are as follows:

• Kids with special needs
• Kids who are raised in poverty
• Kids who are raised in extreme wealth

I work with the last group. Like all people, these students long to be loved and long to fit. However, in this particular group, they are only allowed to be perfect. In this group, an 85 on a test is not good enough. In this group, it is frowned upon to go to community college. The more I walk through life with these kids, the more I realize that these kids are not allowed to be human. To be human is to live in the tension of beautiful and ugly, full of life and full of pain, hopeful and hopeless, and good and evil. Simply put, we cannot escape our brokenness. However, we also cannot escape the fact that we were made in God's image.

One of the biggest problems that this world view creates is that these kids do not know how to mess up with grace. They feel every minor mistake deeply, as though it is a character flaw.  Kids all over the country are literally dieing because they cannot put up with the pressure. Kids all over the country are literally dieing because they can't be perfect enough.

The good news for these kids is that their worth is not determined by their gpa or by the prestige of the college they attend. The good news for these kids is that they don't even have to go to college to be considered persons of worth.

May we all have the courage to not project our insecurities on children and teens. May we all have the courage to create safe spaces where children and teens can thrive. May we have the courage to love.