jandudy

[jandudy]

And it was so.

If you were like me, many of us started a new Bible reading plan with the New Year. My guess is that you also read some of Genesis chapter one. Today something stood out to me that years before I simply skimmed over. “And it was so.” God said or God blessed on every day of creation. After God spoke, Moses writes, “And it was so”. Now, whenever something is repeated that many times we need to…

[jandudy]

The Church - Cambodia

The Church – Cambodia

🙏🏻🙏🏻 One of my favorite things when traveling is experiencing church in another country. In another language. It’s truly a glimpse of heaven! Every tribe, every nation. Hate to break it to you, Western Church, I’m almost 100% positive worship in heaven won’t be in English. And visiting churches outside our norm opens your eyes to this. It’s refreshing to the soul to experience. It’s one of…

[jandudy]

People of Cambodia

#1 takeaway from my trip to Cambodia… the people. I had the privilege of meeting some of the kindest, most humble and beautiful people in the world. It even starts before they speak, with their traditional greeting/gesture called the sompeah (🙏🏻). This greeting goes a long way and it’s humbling to be greeted in this way. If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s about 10,000 words that I…

[jandudy]

Welcome back - Cambodia

Welcome back – Cambodia

“Welcome back, how was your trip?” Honestly, this is where I freeze. My immediate thoughts are always “how much time do you have?”, but in reality I have about 30 seconds to fill you in on a life changing experience. I normally settle with “it was good”, “life changing”, or ���different”. But I normally grossly under share or grossly over share. I’ve yet to perfect my elevator pitch’s on how my…

[jandudy]

Pivot. Pivot. Cambodia.

   It’s safe to say that this past year has been nothing but a time of transition and pivoting for my family and me. So, why would my plans for a mission trip be any different? I was supposed to be going to Albania this week, but plans change, and Pivot! We had to postpone the trip to Albania. Honestly, this crushed me a little bit. But I have now been given an opportunity to join the Crossroads…

[jandudy]

Adversity

Do you remember those motivational pictures that everyone used to have in their office? An epic picture. One word with it’s definition. This weekend I saw the perfect picture of this. And a picture is worth a thousand words.

Adversity adverse or unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress

If this isn’t the picture of adversity, then I don’t know what…

[jandudy]

Sunrise

The past few mornings I’ve been making a point to get up before the sun to have a few quiet moments. One thing has really stood out to me. The song birds.

We all know that the rooster is supposed to crow at dawn, but around here I just have song birds. And I’ve been paying attention to when they start singing. And it’s not at dawn. The birds start singing while it’s still dark. And the…

[jandudy]

Rest

It’s crazy how sometimes you can’t seem to shake something God’s trying to teach you. Over the past week or two it seems like every scripture I read, every podcast I listen to, and even the radio shows are talking about our culture being too busy. How many times do we respond to the question “hey, how are you?” with “good, just busy”.

Is busy good? Is it wrong? Can you be too busy doing good…

[jandudy]

Waters

The other day I was reading through Psalm 93 on my lunch break.

3-The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. 4-Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!

I actually said to myself, “thats not that loud”, and brushed it off. It even made me chuckle. I should know by now…

[jandudy]

Screen Time

I find it funny that every Sunday my phone sends out a screen time report. Every week I say “I ran out of time” or “I wish I had more time” but the report shows that you did have time, you just squandered it away.

What if our lives sent out a report every Sunday? How much time did you waste on Netflix? How many minutes were you exercising? How many encouraging conversations did you have? How much…

[jandudy]

Messy

One thing I’ve realized over the years is that life is messy. Tonight we had our first fire hose experience with changing our two week old son’s diaper. To say it went several feet and all over everything would be an understatement. But in moments like this you just can’t help but laugh.

It’s not a matter of if life will get messy, but when. So, how will you respond? Laugh? Cry? Breakdown?…

[jandudy]

Radio Silence

It’s funny how God works. I said this year that I wanted/needed to pray more. I used to be really good at praying in my truck. But I’ve found that I don’t like the silence and my mind tends to go 100 mph.

Well … my radio in my truck goes in and out. And it’s completely random, or so I think. I’ve found that the days I need prayer the most, my radio doesn’t work. And the days I need uplifting…

[jandudy]

WD-40

We’ve all heard of it, we all have it, it’s an American staple. WD-40. The formula was never patented to keep the formula a secret, and even the question of who the original inventor was is murky at best.

But I love the name. WD-40. Water Displacement formula 40 is what it means. Insinuating that they failed 39 times before they got it right. They could have renamed it to something catchy or…

[jandudy]

Stop

I’d argue that our lives are busier than they ever have been. We’re a world on the go. But when is the last time you’ve just stopped?

We much like our technology need time to stop doing and recharge. We always make sure our phones fully charged but when’s the last time you’ve been fully charged?

So maybe the next time you’re charging your phone. Fill up your battery too. Read a book. Take a nap.…

[jandudy]

2018 - 2019

2018 – 2019

We’ve all heard it. You have to make the most of your dash on your tombstone. The victory is in the journey. If you fail to plan, plan to fail. Cliche? Maybe? True? Absolutely.

2018 was a great year. I had a lot of new beginnings and a lot of great memories. I am still trying to unpack everything from 2018. But I failed in this arena, blogging. I failed to plan, and fail I did. Here’s the proof.

[jandudy]

Albania 2018

We are less than two weeks out and my team and I could use your prayers.  We’re taking a mission team from Crossroads Church that will be going to Albania to help teach English classes to college students in the capital city of Tirana. This will be my first year going to Albania, but I have fallen in love with the people from the Balkan Region after going to Montenegro the past few years. We will…

[jandudy]

Jones’s

Our whole life we compare ourselves to others. And our whole life we’re told not to compare ourselves to others. So how do we do this? It’s time for the rubber to meet the road.

Last night we set out on our trip to the beach. I’ve been told that it’s not called a vacation with two little ones, but a trip. And it was as I was driving down the road that I had an epiphany.

We left later in the…