Unstuck???

Podcasting is the coolest! I have been following Westgates new series UNSTUCK. This morning I had the chance to attend the service and hear the last teaching by Joel. Really good!

Very challenging and it makes you think. How are you getting unstuck? What is getting you stuck? What is that thing in your life you need to get rid of? We all have something:)

In this time of life it spoke straight to me. God is good and just hearing from Him these last couple months have been awesome. He has spoken to me clearly.

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is crazy! My parents are divorced and I am married. SO yeah we have to try and please everyone. No one really wants to see us, they really want to see Dylan and Jakey! Yeah they come over cause they know that we are going to have great food but it's really for the kids.

So I will be eating at least 3 different turkeys in the next 3 days. YEAH...don't blame me cause I'm big, but you can thank my parents and my wife:) But yeah I love to eat and Thanksgiving is my favorite food. STOVE TOP STUFFING is my favorite...my mother-in-law makes it especially for me. But all the food of Thanksgiving is great. I also have to have Cool-Whip with my Pumpkin Pie...not whipping cream!

Anyways, I love seeing all my favorite family members and the crazy ones! I am very thankful for my family and friends. God is good and has totally blessed me with a great people around me. I hope that you all have a great Thanksgiving and you don't only spend this day thanking people around you for being themselves...thank them everyday!

Jetlag SUCKS!

SO this was 80% of my plane trip home from the Motherland of India! I popped a couple pills to help me out but I had some good ol sleep. I thought it would help me out when I got home to get adjusted to CA but my body had other plans.

This morning I woke up at 3:25am, totally wide awake! I have been home for almost a week now and I was ASSuming that I would be all better...but that's not the case. Then I got on FB and David and Elton were up at weird times:)

So I have been watching Sports Center, Hunting, The Most Extreme Water Parks, MTV and the news. I started doing laundry and cleaning! Crazy stupid! But I guess it's a good thing.

Now it's 7:19am and Jake is up and now I have to watch Mickey Mouse Club House...BOOOOO! I have been watching that non-stop for years! Anyways...JETLAG sucks! India is making me mad right now. But I think my wife will be happy for jetlag:)

Top 10 Movies

I copied the text below from Elton and changed a few things...

This was during our India trip as we ministered to many people! God did amazing things through our team and had a great trip.

But for more important matters... we spent a lot of time on planes and in airports. And there are only so many moments of heartfelt emotional connection that guys can make in a given period of time. There's also a limit to how much we can talk about the project at hand - the plight of Dalit Christians and the grassroots civil rights movement that is taking place at this moment.

In between all of that, we talked... movies. We debated the best movies of all time. Granted each one maintains a bias based on when we were born, the family we grew up in, movie disposition based on personalities, the accessibility of movie rental establishments and even the interest to spend this amount of time talking this kind of nonsense over the course of the last two weeks.

As we compiled a larger list, obscure movies came to the surface. Could we leave Memento off the list? Could we ignore the intestinally gratifying nature of Dumb and Dumber? Was there ever anyone more scary than Kathy Bates in Misery? Great questions with deep philosophical roots were discussed.

So Tom, Elton, Dave and I came up with our list [Kalam was supposed to come up with the 10 hottest male actors]. A list of our top 10 movies and 5 honorable mentions. Here's mine to be debated at length...

1. Braveheart
2. Three Amigos
3. Dumb & Dumber
4. Forrest Gump
5. Tombstone
6. Gladiator
7. Shawshank Redemption
8. Top Gun
9. Jaws
10. Dark Knight

5 Honorable Mentions
1. Nacho Libre
2. Breakfast Club
3. Fight Club
4. Beverly Hills Cop
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

May hours were spent on these lists...what are your Top 10 Movies?

The Nap

While in India, we had a lot of work to do. We were on a pretty good routine of getting up, breakfast, work, tea, lunch, work, tea, NAP, dinner and then bed. Yes the introduction of the nap everyday was amazing. I know how good a nap is on Sunday's after church and a big lunch but everyday is just brilliant! Indians do a lot of things right that we...Americans...should really look at. Some ideas should stay in India:) Like not using toilet paper:o

Today I had the boys while Betsey went to work. Jakey ate, changed his nasty diaper and then put him down. Dylan went to the bathroom and then said he was ready for a nap(that's my boy)...so I asked him if I could take a nap with him and he said...YEAH! So we got all comfortable and warmie in my bed.

I just woke up and feel so refreshed! I remembered everyday in India resting and how good I felt. Thanks Inida! Oh...go take a nap!

ps...I love kids cause they will nap anywhere:)

The Perfect Church

The Grand Enterence from Mike Morales on Vimeo.

So, our team split up both Sundays for church. Crossroads taught the 1st Sunday and Haven taught the 2nd Sunday. I had the GRAND privilage to be with David and Kalam. (Great people by the way...CK!) Anyways, we road in the Bishops hoopty. As we drove up this dirt road, honking at everything, we pulled up to a crowd. The only thing that I could think of at that moment was...I'M GONNA DIE! Life was racing through my mind and I was scared.

As we pulled up to the crowd, men started to gather around the car but no one in the car moved. My window was down a little and a man started speaking into it at the Bishop and the driver. (Side note...all the drivers we had were employed by the Mission and they didn't go by their names but went by Driver??? Weird!) Still no one moved and Bishop didn't say a word. SO I didn't move. Suddenly Davids door flung open and he got out. Kalam followed him. Still the Bishop didn't move. Then the drive got out. The Bishop DIDN'T move. Then they pulled my door open and I got out...very slowly! Still not knowing what was going on...finally the Bishop and his wife got out.

These people were here to greet us. They had a parade that closed the whole street. They greeted us with and friendly handshake and a plastic Indian pooka shell necklace. As we walked down the street there were drums, trumpets, symbols and other instruments. It was awesome to see people excited for our arrival:) I got a little mad, cause this girl came running up through the crowd with a red umbrella with tassels and covered the Bishops head. I wanted one really bad:( It was pretty cool.

So we walked throught the crowd of Indians. We got to the church and Bishop dedicated the new church building. We walked in and sat in front. Sitting in front means on the stage, looking at everyone and having everyone watching our everymove. They gave us all a beautiful flower arrangement.

This church was over 200 people. They had a choir and mic'ed drums...it's pretty big in India. The pastor lead us in prayer. Then is happened...we all got BISHOPED! (Getting Bishoped is good and bad. More good than bad:)) David spoke the WORD! Kalam wanted to do a solo...but no go.

I was just thinking that this church was perfect! A warm greating. Loving people. And the Word was spoken. Great day!!! The perfect church only exits at Haven...I mean Heaven!