Hello friends and family...
this is my first attempt at doing a blog... I told people i would do it and so I am goin to use this tool to keep people who want to know about whats goin on with me and what I am doing to check here... i hope to update this once or twice a week... plan on sharing things about bball and things i have been learning and experiencing while in Austrailia...

I have been in Perth, Aus for just over 3 week, left Iowa with a few inches of snow on the ground and nearly at 0F to temp around 100F... really quite a swong but knew it was coming... dont know if it was the weather change or travel, but was sick for the first couple days here... made it kinda hard for practice, but slept a lot and got adjusted to the time change pretty quickly... which is 14 hrs ahead here...

This past weekend the 26-28 of Feb we played in a preseason tournament vs some of the teams we will play this season... In our first game on friday night we laid an egg and ended up getting beat by around 15 or so... it was a tough start for the weekend and season, bc i have been through enough of this loosing by a lot crap... the rest of the weekend we played pretty well and won all three of the rest of our games...

our first game is march 12 at home vs the Senators...

I do have quite a bit of free time down here, bc we only practice around 3 times a week... usually tuesday, thursday and sunday... everyday during i spend time working on my game, shooting and other stuff with the other import Luke Payne from South Caolina Upstate... also lift during the time at the gym...

i fill my freetime with some seminary classes from the American Institute for Holy Land studies... right now I am taking a class on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith... it has been really helpful to tie the modern church and its beginnings with how the Jewish synagoue was ran in the days of Jesus... also put together a few things to how Jesus grew up and the environment in which he was raised.. also knowing He was a Jew, came as the Jewish messiah first, then the rest of the world and what that means for us and how we should view the Bible...
really have enjoyed studying about that, bc it really has helped open up the Bible to me bc it's a real story with real people and a real God who came to earth to be with His people and save them from their sins and giving them a new life and restore the lost relationship with God which was shattered in the beginning...

the team I am playing for is Lakeside Lightning, we have a couple websites the best one is probably the SBL league website- www.sbl.asn.au the other is the church website is- http://lakeside.asn.au

for those who dont know, my team is owned by Lakeside Baptist Church, its one of the only church organizations in the world that own a professional team... its a very unique and special opportunity to play ball and use the sport of basketball as a platform for sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ...

if you have anyquestions feel free to ask...
Love you all more than you know...

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience is this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another World" ~C.S. Lewis
End of the book of Eccelsiates ends this way, Ecc 12:13-"Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all" true living and true satisfaction comes from Jesus not this world