Week 2

Sorry for the delay, Ace.

As you can imagine I've been pretty busy for the last week and a half. There was a college age ministry team from different areas of Mississippi helping here from Tuesday (my first day) until this past Saturday, and I did virtually everything with them while they were here.

We did everything from handing out granola bars (a lot of them) to doing contract labor on a house. While doing the contract work I got to see my old friend the Sawzall and meet some new friends like the table saw, nail gun, and others. It was a lot of fun and I wish I would have posted an entry for that day to tell you more but I just couldn't.

We all became fast friends over the 2 week span because we were doing almost everything together all the time. They were a cool group to work with. One Saturday we took a free day and went and saw Bunker Hill and the monument there. It's 294 steps to the top and we climbed every one of them. It provided a great view of downtown Boston and the harbor. Pretty cool Revolutionary war stuff.

We also went and saw a Red Sox game this past Friday. The Sox killed Philadelphia 12-2. It was an amazing game to choose to go to (Sorry Jon!). I like high scoring sports and that's a pretty high score for baseball. I've always wanted to see the Red Sox play at Fenway Park (or, The Green Monstah, as they call it up here). So that was a great time for a sports buff like me.

Now that they are gone the other intern arrived from Oklahoma.

I just got a copy of the schedule for the rest of June and July. July is gonna be pretty packed. More on that later.

I miss my best friends Jillie and Spencer and I wish they were here.

I've been able to get to know and work with Acts29 pastors Jan (yahn) Vezikov and Bland Mason of Grace Church Boston and City on A Hill, respectively.

Pastor Jan and I hit it off right away and he's a great guy who is pastoring 3 different congregations at the same time. He's the pastor and planter of Grace Church Boston and Russian Church Boston. He speaks Russian fluently and is able to reach a HUGE demographic of Russians in his area that no other church is able to do. He sees a person walking down the street, profiles them as being of Russian decent, and strikes up a conversation in complete Russian and invites them to his church and tells them about Jesus. Not one conversation is without the mention of Jesus and grace. That's why he says his church is called Grace church. Because as he says, "It's all about grace." For instance, he and I and the ministry team were grilling hot dogs out front of his church the other day and giving them away to passersby. When people would ask why he would reply, "Because grace is free and so are hot dogs!" I really love this guy. He's like 27 or something. He's only been here about a year and has about 50 members which, in Boston terms, is like Matt Chandler numbers in Dallas. He's also the pastor for Mosaic Church in Boston. Briefly, it was a fairly new church plant a couple years ago and their lead planter gave up and left the congregation without a pastor and Jan took over as their interim pastor. Great man of God.

Bland Mason, the pastor of City on A Hill also happens to be the chaplain for this baseball team you may have heard of called the Boston Red Sox. Wow is right. A couple of them attend his new church plant which is about a year old as well. He told me the story of how it happened and basically he got a call within the first week of moving to Boston while boxes were still sitting in his living room. Pretty cool how God does that stuff. Needless to say, a bunch of the pastors/planters are jealous of him, including Jan. But they're all good friends, which is so cool too.

Bland and I had some good dialogue as well and I hope to be able to hang with each of those guys more. They have each talked about getting lunch with me sometime soon so I consider myself very undeserving and blessed and I'm going to pick their brains about everything.

The spiritual state in Boston is almost non-existent. But as Jared C. Wilson (pastor in Vermont) says, "The spiritual state in New England is dark. But there are spies in the land, and their report is good."

It's a blessing to be one of those spies. Jared wrote this blog not long ago and it describes how I feel. The area is so very dark. So why wouldn't I want to be here? Robert Louis Stevenson paints a great picture for this when, "As a boy, his family lived on a hillside overlooking a small town. Robert was intrigued by the work of the old lamplighters who went about with a ladder and a torch, lighting the street lights for the night. One evening, as Robert stood watching with fascination, his parents asked him 'Robert, what in the world are you looking at out there?' With great excitement he exclaimed: 'Look at that man! He's punching holes in the darkness!'"

I love that imagery, and that's what each new gospel-centered church plant does in Boston. We need more lamps to punch holes in this darkness. We need a lamp on each corner, because one street lamp isn't enough for a whole neighborhood in this area of the country.

Anyways, enough for tonight.

I love you all. Please continue to pray for me that Satan would not prevail against me and that my speech and conduct among the people of Boston would be seasoned with the love of the gospel. And also that God's grace would keep me dependent on Jesus and in the Word.

Also, mom. Check out this website and the book advertised there. I think it might be of some use/comfort to ya! Love you!


God's mission continues tomorrow. Grace and peace.

Zach