Many of you know my good friend Tim Soerens. Many of you also know that him and I have been working together toward a joint mission. Now, many of you know that as of Saturday Tim was diagnosed with the ugly virus Mono.

So I use this post on my blog to send out the prayer troops. If you are the praying type, and even if you are not, please petition God for a quick healing of Tim so that he can get back to life as normal.

If you have a prayer for Tim that you want to type please leave it as a comment here so that it becomes a communal prayer and by visitors reading it is is prayer over and over again.

Thank you all

peace
joel

in lieu of not wanting to be intelligent, or should i say, i’m too tired to think a lot. I have been finding that whenever the urge comes to post something a list is quickly developing. does this mean that lists don’t require intelligence? or, does it just say something about my mood lately? either way, here is yet another list. (thanks to josue for adding to my last one)

Things I learned this week
1. Only 17 percent of americans view the local church as necessary to develop their faith (article here)
2. Never attempt to work 50 hours in 4 days
3. I may go to the only seminary that has the word “masturbation” in a cartoon on the wall of the main classroom
4. Dogs can’t climb ladders
5. Shell gas runs better in my motorcylce then Amoco gas does
6. Many Christians still hold to Retribution Theology (if you sin you will suffer)
7. Tim and I have a working title for our future life’s work — Kai (more to come)
8. Paul Allen is really, really rich, and I drank free beers from him tonight — thank you Discover South Lake Union Center
9. Less than 1/3 of American’s think “W” is doing a good job — the lowest job approval rating in almost 50 years
10. People like lists

peace
joel

ok, so every now and then i begin to feel smart. i begin to feel like i know what is going on in the world, and so on and so forth. But most of the time, there are too many factors for anybody to really claim — “yup, i got this one figured out.”

But recently i have been fascinated with the job title “futurist.” A couple of my friends call themselves this — Tom Sine is a futurist as well as Leonard Sweet. I like the thought of being a futurist because the main task of a futurist is to read alot of stuff and make predictions about the future based upon these readings. So, in my ill-informed crass way I will make some Joel VandenBrink Futurist Predictions — Round 1.

1. The world will not end today (6.6.06)
2. Artificial Intelligence will have their own country by 2025
3. In 30 years United States of America will not be a superpower (ever heard of the Roman empire? we are following the same trajectory)
4. The human being has already been born that will break the 150 year old barrier
5. My grand children will live to be 1000 years old
6. We will have our first woman president in 2016 (we aren’t ready yet — as the failing of the show Commander in Chief demonstrated)
7. Our failure to see the value of Stem-cell research will be our country’s demise, and we will fall further behind economically because of this
8. In the year 2032 Tom Ryan from Minnesota will be president
9. Through their justified anger the AIDS orphans of Africa will teach us about our need for economic justice
10. In the year 2006 a small number of people will read this posting and laugh. Others will get angry. Others will dismiss it, and still others will question how many of these will come true.

peace
joel

Brooke and I are looking at getting a line of credit on our condo so that we can invest in out future house (long story, that is too long to type right now). But, in order to get a line of credit we need to pay for an appraisal — something that we would rather not have to do. So I send out a request to my internet friends — do any of you know an appraiser that would be willing to do a pro-bono appraisal for a young couple that is trying to follow waht feels like a call to live in South Lake Union? Any connection would be helpful. Either leave a comment or call me.

thank you so much
joel