I could feel my body floating in the whitness.  Somehow I could see the earth below me and faintly here the voice of my sweet wife -- answering the flight attendant. "Does he want a wet towel?  Is there anything we can do?"

I honestly cannot remember much of my flight home on this last trip.  The morning we were to leave food poisening kicked me down.  It ha actually started making me feel weak, dizzy and cramped a couple of days before but the morning we left...wow!  We had to drive across Kiev to the airport in a hot van.  I was sure I was going to throw up anytime.  A few times everything started going white like I was about to pass out.

Luckily I was able to walk through ticketing and all that in a daze.  I remember looking at the screen once and thinking, "Wow, we are over Greenland already?" and again, "Wow, we are over Newfoundland already?"   Once I got home I was sick for two days, weak and woozy for several more. 

Yikes..   Overall, yes the trip was very good.  Lots of good moments.  It feels good to be in my own bed again.  Thank God I have one.

Growing fast is our benchmark of success. Slow growth is attributed to quality or just an excuse.  For instance in churches we tend to seek that fast growth of mega church mindset.  Slow growth is graciously accepted as somewhat of an excuse for poor ambition or dying congregations.  This obviously is not a hard and fast rule but just a general observation. 

However, when I am talking about "slow" growth here I am referring to something different.  Most of my life has been spent in growing into a fast paced mentality.  Over the last number of years, some say it is just old age creeping around, I have been realizing the loss of slowing down.  Every summer my wife and I try to visit Mackinac Island for several days.  I find myself grabbing coffee, some fudge, a book and my journal as I head to the wicker furniture on our rented front porch.  The funny thing is that once I settle in, smell the Island sea air and hear the horses clopping by (no cars, just walking, bicycles and horses), I find myself slipping into a drugged state of quieting and thinking.  Instead of writing or reading, I just seem to sit for several hours and stare and think.  I begin to slow to absolute quiet.

This is growth for me, to learn slowness.  To slow enough to hear my own heart and the heart of the Father is priority growth in my spirit.  And now, here it is two days before our team flies to Kiev.  I have been successfully and frantically grading student portfolios, reading hundreds of essays, taking care of last minute trip arrangements and just skittering around with my heart trying to keep up. 

Now it is finished. All is ready. It is time for me to slow down and and see past the fundraising, past the planning and to open up to reality.  Taking a team is a lot of work.  A lot of planning.  Yet, it is now that our hearts need to open and see clearly.  In a matter of hours we will be landing on the other side of the earth.  We will walk across the concrete and onto the grassy field of the Ark.  And finally, we will be greeted by twenty sweet spirits rescued from the streets of Kiev.  It is then that life will  and must slow to see into their eyes, the eyes of Jesus and to slow down enough that we live the "God moments".

Yesterday my friends, Joe Millazzo (a minister from Killbuck, OH) and Roc Baker (an elder there and pilot), flew up to Lansing and dropped off lots of bags of supplies.  Joe's church and some others had collected new gloves/hats/scarves, candy and toys.  Thanks everyone!