There’s a place of peace found in the presence of the Almighty God.

The entry into this place in found in praise. In worship. In surrender. With humbleness and the awareness that we, ourselves, will never be able to summon peace into our chaos. We will never be able to bring hope into troubled times. We will never bring life into death.

But God will. He does. That’s His plan. That’s His business.

The problem comes when our busyness clashes with His business.

It’s so easy for me to start spinning in my world of work, family, responsibilities, wants, needs… God is not in it. I know He isn’t. So I try to get God into my world through my effort. I make my mindset to please Him. I try to make my opinion of my work that it WILL make a difference. It WILL be a blessing to people. It WILL do SOMETHING to HELP.

Nope. Wrong. Apart from God, there will be no difference, no change, no help.

If my life gets in the way of my spending time in the presence and peace of the Almighty God, then there’s something that needs to change, not with God, but with my life.

I got up at 3:30 am today. Well, to be honest, I got up, hit my snooze button, and then got up again at 3:39 am when it went off again. I hate that infernal beeping.

I had all my stuff packed and ready to go in my small camera backpack and in my carry-on bag. It was beautiful. Thanks, onebag.com for helping me to be rational.

One of my co-workers picked me up and we headed to the airport. Josh was already in El Salvador, along with several other team members. On Friday and Saturday we will be holding a giant Richard Roberts Healing Rally in the National Convention Center in San Salvador. Prior to that, there are going to be several medical and humanitarian aid work days, working among the poor in El Salvador. This is my first mission trip in which I am a staff member, so it’s going to be slightly different than anything I’ve done before. I’ve also never been to any of the Healing Rallies before, so another new experience.

We flew on Continental to Houston, and then on to San Salvador, El Salvador. Both flights were fine, no problems.

We headed to our hotel, the Radisson in San Salvador. It’s a very nice looking hotel, and I bet the rooms in the main area are very comfy and nice. Most of us are in the second building, which houses the suites. This is so we have lots of room to meet, store equipment, etc. It’s also nice, but the beds are very hard. I hear that the other beds in the main section are much softer.

We ate at a few places that were close by, both were very good. I especially loved the plantains. Mmm.

Now, I’m off to get some sleep. We’ll see what kind of adventure tomorrow holds.

Pitcher Oklahoma has been through a lot this year. The latest disaster to strike was the F4 tornado on May 10, 2008. It killed six people immediately, and many were injured. The tornado took out the house of good friends of my family, then moved on the destroy a number of other houses. My family thinks that the closest it came to them was about 1.5 miles away. Thank God that they were safe and spared.

A couple of weeks ago I went up to visit them and took some pictures of the damage. I’ve never seen the devastation of a tornado before. It was incredible. I’m amazed that people can survive tornadoes at all, if they are nearby as it happens.

Here are some photos. They aren’t the best, they were taken with my phone camera. Take a moment to offer a prayer for these people who lost so much while you look through the photos.