Skydiving

“The life of faith has to do with extraordinary experience; the life of faith has to do with ordinary experience. Neither cancels out the other; neither takes precedence over the other…The life of faith has to do with the glories of discovering far more in life than we ever dreamed of; the life of faith has to do with doggedly putting one flat foot in front of the other, wondering what the point of it all is. Neither cancels out the other; neither takes precedence over the other.” –Eugene Peterson, The Message Remix, Wisdom intro

Faith is often likened to taking a flying leap—something like jumping out of an airplane and hoping your parachute inflates. I like this quote by Eugene Peterson because it illustrates that faith also happens in the three hours you’re waiting to get in the airplane, and it happens after you come down from the thrill of the ride.

I went skydiving for the first time Sunday, June 10, to celebrate my best friend Nadia’s graduation. Words do little for me to describe the AMAZING experience, so here are some photos.

Nadia and I get excited to jump.

Still excited as I load the plane with my instructor, Adi.Nadia heads out with her photographer.

Ready or not, here I go!Grabbing my photographer's hand so she could spin us around.

There goes the parachute.

Watching Nadia land.
Do I look happy and windblown?

It's official: I'm running for one!

I just did one of the more scary things in my life: I asked people for money.

After prayerful consideration, I've decided to participate in Children's HopeChest's Run for One program. (For more background info. I blogged about it here.)

I sent out an e-mail to the staff at my workplace asking them to consider donating. I'll be asking many more people in the future and praying hard for God to provide.

I’ve committed to personally raise $4,000 for Children’s HopeChest, in order to run the September 2, 2007 half-marathon in Virginia Beach and more importantly, raise funds for an orphan.

I’ve run a marathon and several half-marathons before, but I’ve never raised any significant amount of support. So, this is several thousand steps of faith for me. I pray God will show up in big and unexpected ways!