Go here to view them.

I’m not very happy with most of the pictures I took. I need to learn thats for sure. All of these pics are raw.
Enjoy.

After Jeff gave them the food we drove-by the kids. In less then a minute they had the food out and were eating, more and more gathered to partake in this free meal. The smiles on their face was priceless. The words  “thank-you” will not be forgotten anytime soon. To thank that there are at least one million kids  (maybe two-million) that live like this.  That is just not right.  For one meal, Jeff was able to make a handful of kids smile and maybe for one day they will go to bed without hunger pains and with a glimmer of hope.

Jeff passing out lunch…

Kid talking to Jeff after Jeff passed out the food…

The Nile River from my hotel room…

Trash City-Christians live here amongst the trash…

Egyptian boy playing with a tire in the streets of Cairo…

I learned so much. Cairo is crazy. 20 million people in one ancient city equals pure chaos. Traffic is outlandish and scary. But the people of Egypt are beautiful. They face many struggles that are hard to understand or comprehend. For instance:

• there may be over two million street kids,
• the economy is in complete shambles with inflation increasing by 30% every year.
• there is a current bread shortage in government subsidize programs. (think no food stamps for the poor)
• pollution is off-the-charts.

The local church faces many challenges, yet they also have some amazing opportunities in front of them. Pray for Egypt and the local church. I will be posting more on this at a later time.

Now it’s time to hang with my girls.

Also, if you care about the future of Christianity, you will deeply care about our brothers and sisters who live and ministers in dominant Muslim cultures. I don’t want to sound “anti-Muslim” because I’m not.  I want to serve along-the-side with my Muslim friends to make our world a better place. But for many of these folks they do not have the freedom to follow Jesus like I do. Therefore they take huge risks to serve Jesus and the church and share the gospel with Muslims who respect Jesus as a prophet but deny His deity.

So please pray for us. Pray that God will create some great conversations and friendship, pray that we can encourage our brothers and sisters who follow Jesus as they are the few. Pray that somehow we can serve the people of Egypt and that by living and serving they will see the light of Jesus.

And Jeff is doing PM service. HA!

Can’t wait.

Oh Crap, another “to-do” now-plan sermon. What can an American say to those who live in the freaking Middle-East?

Also, we are hanging out with very important type of people. They have cool sounding titles like “Noble Prize Laureate,” “Ministers of….” and “Presidents of….” etc. I can already see how these conversations are going to take place.

Important Egyptian: “So Chris tell me about yourself.” ”

Me: “Um, I like to play xbox live, drink beer and read books…”

Me: “And tell me about you…” Ah…I have a triple Doctorate in Business and International Relations and I’m the “Minister of something important” that deals with “something important.”

Me: “Is that it. Dude…I bet I can beat you in Xbox, what’s your gamer tag bro.”

Important Egyptian: “So why did you come to Egypt?”

Me: “Not sure really…But I’m here, when do we eat?”

God what I’m I doing…?

All kidding aside. We will be spending time at “trash-city,” a boys orphanage and a ladies home. We may also get to preach at some local churches. We hope to connect with local pastors that will spark some long-term partnerships.

This is going to be a blast, but it’s also going to be hard. I feel like I’m going to have a huge learning experience. Egypt is one of least churched countries in the world. I can’t wait to connect with these local pastors and encourage them and learn from them. Hopefully somehow we can help each other long term.

This post is a follow-up to my 1st post on why I’m going to Egypt.

Part two is a bit more practical.

5. Adventure: This can be scary. I feel like God has called me to go. At the same time Necole and I are committed to living life to the full. We want to experience many places, people and cultures. Sometimes it’s hard to find God in the mundane rhythm of the daily grind. So we need to break-away and get a fresh perspective.

6. Stories: Again I don’t want folks to get the wrong idea, but when you lead and communicate on a weekly basis it’s vital to live a life worth telling about. We deeply think Vista and Austin can be shaped by stories of God using us. I can’t wait to hear about the Cofield’s East Asia trip, or Liz, who is currently serving in the Middle East right now. These stories shape us as a faith community.

7. America/Austin: I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had about Africa with those who don’t follow Jesus. They always ask me why I went and I always respond with, “because that’s what I think Jesus would do.” I love it. We are a church that deeply cares about social issues and we believe the only hope is Jesus. Yet we also understand that we have be the “hands and feet” of Jesus and serve on practical levels of life. Food, clean water, education and war, these are spiritual issues that must be engaged by the church.

8. Egypt: Can you say BIBLE. As one who teaches the Bible I can not tell you how amazing it’s going to be to actually be in a country like Egypt. Jesus was taken to Egypt as a baby so he would not be slaughtered. This will be my first time being in the middle of a Middle Eastern culture. The Bible is a story that was penned in the Middle East.

This March, Jeff and I will taking a trip to Egypt with David Putman and some other pastors and businesses leaders. We are very excited about this opportunity.

David Putman is the co-author of Breaking the Missional Code and he is the author of the forthcoming book Breaking The Discipleship Code, he is also a pastor at Mountain Lake Church near Atlanta. I wonder if David is busy?

Anyhow, I wanted to share with everyone why we choose to go on this trip. Truthfully we can’t afford it and I was not quite ready to travel knowing I will be back in Africa this summer. But it’s so worth the sacrifice and the pros outweigh the con’s.

1. Jeff and I decided that we need to be around other leaders who will help us grow as pastors, leaders, husbands and fathers. It’s very easy to get caught in a bubble and we would be harming our community by not being mentored by those who are simply better and more experienced. So this is a great opportunity to be around other pastors who can stretch and challenge us. In Feb we will be hanging out with Bob Roberts Jr and other pastors at turbo training church planting conference in Dallas.

2. Values: At Vista we truly desire to be a glocal church. We want to be around other churches and pastors who value the same thing, so we can learn how to be effective and reach the city and the globe.

3. We value partnership with our brothers and sisters across the world. I think the church leaders in the Global South/East have so much to teach us in the West. We have to spend time with them. We also want to help them in anyway possible. Not from a dictatorship perspective, but we recognize that we (the West) have resources that many in the Global South and East do no have. It’s our responsibility to help because we are apart of the same church.

4. The majority of those who have never heard the gospel live in the 10/40 Window. It’s vital for the church to respond to this issue. So the question is this. How do we partner with indigenous Christian leaders and support what God has called them to do? I hope to work long-term in Sudan with Servlife. Egypt and Sudan border each other, so I know I will be going back to Egypt long-term. This was vital for me and helped make this decision easier.

Part 2 coming tomorrow.

Last night we rocked out at Stubbs w/ Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys & CoLOR & LiGHT . Great show and it was fun to hang with a bunch of friends. Homer won the big ACL contest this past year and Color and Light rocked out big time.

This morning was awesome at the Vista. Tyler Dodds was our guest worship leader, Tyler and the band rocked. Travis from Color & Light was brave enough to gig last night, get two hours of sleep and still be at church this morning. Amazing.

I now Twitter. You can go here if you want to follow me.

Necole is in Houston at a hair show. So I’m playing daddy-day-care today and tomorrow morning. For dinner tonight we had frozen waffles and the girls loved it.

Jeff and I will going to Egypt in March. I will share about this in more details in the next couple of days. I hope to take a trip to Sudan but I’m not sure if that is going to happen.

Now it’s time to relax and enjoy a quiet night.