My extended fast is almost over. Nine more days until I can gorge myself on salad and fresh fruit. Great. I would start with hamburgers and pizza but I don't want to die.

Throughout this fast I've been hungry constantly. I've been thinking about food almost every day and it never really helped that I watched the first two seasons of Man v. Food intermittently throughout. If you have never seen the show, the premise is simple. One man visits diners and restaurants throughout the nation that specialize in foods ranging from the indulgent to strange to the delicious to the humongous. At the end of each half hour the host attempts a food challenge, such as eating a 72oz. steak or 10 of the hottest wings on earth. The most recent episode I watched involved the host and 40 others in Detroit tackling a 190 lb. cheeseburger. I've got five more episodes and nine days left of the fast.

The point of the fast wasn't just to deny myself food. Neither was it to seem pious or to lose excessive amounts of weight in a short period of time. The purpose for this fast was to love Jesus more, and the amazing thing is is that God responded.

I've had so many things that stood in the way of my relationship with God. Many things that weren't important in the least, but were easy, engaging, and comfortable. The top three were internet, t.v., and the biggest of all, food. All three of those were the primary time and relationship killers in my life and those were the three I was directly attacking with this fast by cutting down on.

The first half of the fast was horrible. I hated everything about it and struggled constantly with not being able to eat and not being able to check Facebook. There was a constant struggle between desiring to pray and read the Bible and my desires for food and entertainment. At one point during the first half of the fast I was tired all the time and wanted to do nothing but read news or sit on the couch and stare at the wall. Looking back on it, I'm guessing I was detoxing not just food, but also my limited internet and t.v. consumption as well.

Yet God is good and his grace was sufficient. The day after the halfway point something changed. God answered my weak prayers and our relationship became real and active again. The desires for food and entertainment were still there fighting for my attention, but I didn't care anymore. What I did care about was spending time with God through prayer and reading scripture.

In times past, I would start praying or reading and within minutes become bored with it. Then ideas of better things, or random questions would pop into my mind that I knew I needed to Google right away so that I'd stop thinking about them and as Google would answer my question I'd be checking Facebook or Politico and again be sucked into a lifeless existence. But since the halfway mark, those desires are near meaningless for me. I'll still check Facebook in the future and read Politico but those things aren't going to drag me away from what I was created for.

In our lives there is so much overconsumption of everything except God. We have it backwards. This is a return to a life of worship.

Thank God he's an interactive God who hears our prayers and desires us.

Our first update of the year.  We created a totally new website, still not great in Internet Explorer, and are hoping to regularly update it throughout the year.  This is the first entry at www.steveandmegan.org

The end of the year is here and I guess it’s time to start with the New Years Resolutions.  Along with tightening my glutes and cussing less, consistent upkeep of the website has made my list of things to do this new year.  So welcome to our first blog post...of this year.

Honestly we have no great expectations for this year.  We know that God will continue being a loving and perfect God and we’re going to do our best to work with Him to establish His kingdom on earth.  Outside of that Megan and I have no clue as to what we’re going to experience this year.  There are things we want to do, and things we know we’re going to do in the unforeseeable future, but we don’t quite know what changes this year will bring.

Maybe there won’t be any changes this year.  Maybe this year will be the exact same as last year.  If so, that’s no problem.  We work with great people who love Jesus and desire to help others love Jesus.  Megan’s still teaching the Reading class (Read Kindergarten class) and I’m teaching in both School of the Bible and in the third grade.  We know this is where we’re going to be until the end of summer 2011.  After that we’ll hear from God where we’re to go.

Actually, there is onething I’m excited about this year.  The merging of the prayer movements with the missions movements.  What does that look like practically?  I don’t know, but it’s happening.  The International House of Prayer and Youth With A Mission are increasingly coming together as are other ministries.  There’s so much talk about it, especially from the International House of Prayer that we’re bound to see something tangible this year.  That’s also what God is calling Megan and I to in the future.  To have a ministry that disciples and outreaches to the Indigenous of the Americas that is bathed in 24/7 prayer.  Read more about that on our Vision page that isn’t posted yet :)

Continue to keep us in prayer as we teach and continue to ask God for our next step in the next new year.  Also we’re still trying to find a cheap used car to get us around Tyler while we’re here.  And we could use prayer to find monthly supporters who want to partner with us.  If anyone has a prayer request as well, email us and let us know.  We’d love to join with you in seeking the heart of God. 

American Indian PGA golfer will ‘talk to the land’

Notah Begay III, the only American Indian golfer on the PGA tour, is tapping his roots as he builds an $8.5 million course on a reservation in Kansas: He said the tribal land must be asked “what it wants you to do.”

The 18-hole Firekeeper Golf Course – Begay’s first signature course – will cover 240 acres near the Prairie Band Potawatomi Casino and Resort on a reservation near Mayetta. Named for the Prairie Band, known as the “keepers of the sacred fire,” Begay said the course should be ready to open next summer.

Begay, a member of the Navajo Nation, said the needs of the land come first.

“You say a prayer, talk to the land and ask it what it wants you to do,” he said Monday in announcing the project. “We incorporate into it the natural design of the land. We didn’t want to add things that weren’t naturally there or needed.”