Just Read: I Saw the Church

Written during this week's overseas family vacation in Ghent, Belgium, this book review will also be featured on my Goodreads page soon.

Disclosure:  This book is on my required reading list for the ordination process in the Church of God.  I submitted a more in depth book report to my Credentials Advisory Committee.

Several books have been written about the history of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) reformation movement.  “I Saw the Church,” however, is the first book to organize our church’s history with an emphasis on development of theology and practice, rather than merely document a timeline of events and church leaders.  In other words, it’s not a chronological history.  The non-chronological layout was disorienting at times (flashing back and forward to various decades/centuries, church leaders dying or bowing out of the scene and then reappearing in the narrative later, etc.), but upon my second reading it made sense why author Merle Strege made this stylistic choice.

Regarding the content itself, I was impressed at how candid and thorough Strege was with researching this book.  Church history is placed within the context of then-current developments of the universal Christian church and society as a whole.  Before reaching the more love-oriented modern era depicted at the end of the book, I learned much about the earlier eras of my own church movement.

Many parts were inspiring, though I occasionally found myself scribbling exclamation points in the margins at some of the primitive ideas that somehow went unchallenged for so long.  I would’ve counted myself among the dissenters who revolted against the original tendencies towards legalism, exclusivism, and anti-intellectualism.  Strege offers an unflinching look at how the Church of God has wrestled through issues of doctrine (though we don’t officially have a creed other than the Bible), theology, practice, organization, and social issues.

Throughout my life, I’ve found myself taking pride in our church movement’s relatively liberal stance towards women in ministry, racial equality, government, and other issues.  This book helped me to understand that our movement’s earlier leaders had some rather eccentric views,  mistakes were made along the way, major disagreements occurred (as well as silly minor disputes), and that it’s unrealistic to expect a completely smooth evolution of thought and practice from a church that is comprised of imperfect people.  Regardless of the peripheral troubling spots in our church’s earlier history, it was inspiring to read an account of the men and women who have followed the call to pursue the vision of holiness and Christian unity.

“I Saw the Church” is written for anyone interested in a balanced, thoughtfully laid out examination of how the Church of God’s grass roots beginnings evolved into to our present era.  The non-chronological structure takes some getting used to, but in retrospect, it was well worth the effort.  This book is a wealth of information and insight into the heritage of our holiness movement.

From Rome: Traveling to Africa, Nicaragua, South Korea, or ANYWHERE?

Flying standby overseas in early December is usually pretty easy for us.  Flights loads are lighter.  But our recent winning streak of hassle-free international trips came to a screeching halt this week.

Update 12/8/14:  Originally uploaded from Italy on Saturday morning, I reposted this story today with some bonus photos from Rome.  Plenty of more Italy photos are coming!

Kathy's and my South African safari should have wrapped up on Friday, freeing up this weekend to swing by Italy to see some friends.  Even if I ran out of time to make it to their villa, we could still meet in Central Italy for a Saturday night out in Rome.  It all seemed like a sure thing.

But then this week happened.

Nervous, Kathy?  Not to worry, Kathy totally gave me permission to share this pic, en route to Seattle.

Attempt #1:  PDX to Atlanta to South Africa

Kathy was fearful of traveling back to South Africa on Monday, even more so than our recent overseas trips. The anxiety was too much for poor Kathy, and for days there was nothing I could do or say to console her. To make matters worse, last October our South African outlet adapter had literally caught on fire in our dorm in Spain. We knocked out the power to the entire wing of our Madrid hostel!

The night before we were scheduled to fly down to South Africa for our safari, I mercifully suggested an alternate destination. South Africa would be our first of many attempts this week.

Attempt #2:  PDX to Atlanta to Nicaragua

I stayed up all night on Monday reworking our plans: where to surf in Nicaragua, which active volcanoes to climb, and which hiking trails would be enjoyable for Kathy. But Tuesday morning, we were unable to get on our Atlanta flight to connect to Managua. We flew Business Class to Seattle instead, attempting to catch a red eye flight to Atlanta. Shortly after we landed in Seattle, the red eye became completely oversold.

Central America was out, and we were stuck overnight in Seattle until Wednesday.

Attempt #3:  Seattle to South Korea

Wednesday's Seattle flight to Seoul looked open. We overnighted in Burien with our good Warner Pacific friends Michael and Melanie. Readers may remember Michael from little Lena's first Daddy-daughter trip to Seattle this fall. Here's the link to that story.

Camera one, camera two.  And camera three?

But on Wednesday morning, we were unable to get on our flight from Seattle to Seoul. And all flights to Atlanta (or to any of Delta's international hubs) were oversold for days.

Making progress:  Seattle to Los Angeles

Finally!  We got unstuck from Seattle and flew to L.A on Wednesday afternoon.  This was our last chance this week to transfer to Atlanta and fly overseas, though the LAX-ATL red eye flight was slightly oversold.  Regardless of which country we visited first, the clock was ticking until I had to be in Italy on Saturday night.

More progress: Los Angeles to Atlanta

Against all odds, we didn't get stuck in LAX overnight. The oversold red eye flight to Atlanta gradually opened up enough for Kathy and I to grab the last two seats. Together!

Upon landing in Atlanta before dawn on Thursday morning, we discovered that our doable international connections from ATL now looked horrible until the NEXT day. We had run out of time to visit any counties prior to our arrival in Rome, which wasn't even our main destination.  Italy was merely intended to be a fun way to cap off a week of continent hopping.

The white flag:  Atlanta it is.

We made the most of our extra day in Atlanta. We hiked to the top of Stone Mountain, negotiated an outrageously low rate for a premium hotel suite, and kicked off our tour of the Atlanta nightlife with the Cowboys vs. Bears game at J. R. Cricket's.  Dallas steamrollered Chicago, of course.

A quick afternoon hike to the top of Stone Mountain, Georgia

Our flight to Rome was less than a day away. But Kathy decided that she was content with our unplanned domestic vacation as is. The night before our flight left for Italy, she eagerly removed her name from our listing and booked a flight home to Portland instead. The tail end of our vacation week would be solo.

Back on schedule: Atlanta to Rome

This is where our vacation went back to normal (for us): A Business Elite cabin seat over the ocean, an early arrival in Rome with plenty of time for sightseeing with my friends, and an opportunity for the craziest Saturday night out that Rome has ever seen!  Let's hope!

But that will be a story for another travel post.

12/8/14:  Here are a couple pics from my upcoming Rome post:

The Roman coliseum: Who knew that the Eternal City would take an eternity to get to?

A quick trip to the Hong Kong protests

The flights to both Italy and Switzerland are too full this weekend to visit friends in that region.  Yet our most recent European get-togethers have gone so smoothly... and photos are still too come from those trips!  Another weekend, guys.  That was Plan B.

Photo by Pasu Au Yeung on Flickr

Plan C is now to drop in on the political unrest in Hong Kong for the day.  It will be exciting to check out what remains of the protests for democracy in that country.  A buddy will either join me en route or meet me in Hong Kong, depending on the flight options.

For anyone curious, Plan A was to crash Kathy's wonderful family's 1/2 week in Central Oregon.  That didn't work out this time, either.  The usual culprits: Short staffing at Delta on Thursday (Kathy and the kids left on Wednesday night), a friend in Bend who was unavailable, and the insane ease and simplicity of flying overseas for trips like this.  I get a ton of work done on these long international flights.

Photo by Pasu Au Yeung on Flickr

Our flight for Tokyo leaves this afternoon, with a short connection later on to Hong Kong.  If the flights don’t work out, I can always fly to Bend and fall back on a drastically modified version of Plan A.

Whatever happens, I'll upload photos from wherever I end up in a later post.  This weekend is gonna be interesting!

Touching down in Amsterdam

Our plane just landed in Amsterdam. The 30 minutes of Schiphol Airport's free WiFi should be roughly 27 minutes longer than necessary to upload this and my previous "...Snow in the yard" blog post, after we clear Customs.

On a side note... Now that we have kids, Kathy and I obviously don't travel overseas as often as before.  So it was a little unnerving when one our Business Elite cabin flight attendants recognized me as "that Delta guy who flies overseas every few weeks to meet up with friends."  I'm not that guy anymore.

Either that flight attendant has an extraordinary memory... or my travel addiction of days past was a little worse than I figured.

Last week's daytrip to the Netherlands was cancelled so I could give Kathy an extended Mother's Day gift. She deserves it!

But Kathy is taking Lena and Levi to Bend, Oregon this weekend, and my flight home from Bend would've been oversold enough that I would risk missing my return to work.  So naturally, I rescheduled with my friends in Amsterdam for today.   This is only a daytrip, but I'm also working on gathering up a few more nearby buddies of mine while I'm in town.

Too bad the PDX friends who flew over to Amsterdam with me today already have plans elsewhere in Europe.  This will be quite the reunion!

The Netherlands- Spring Break in the Low Countries, Days 3-5

IMG_4088_edited-1.JPG, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Amsterdam’s nightlife is crazy, for lack of a stronger word. Hitting the town with such fun people as Claude, Garritt, Thomas, Juliette, Iris, Rosalie, and Helena (and everyone else whose names I forgot!) made the friendly streets of Amsterdam even friendlier.


 Even on a late weeknight, Amsterdam handily defeats Portland for the most crowds, music, bicyclists (even in the poorly lit neighborhoods), drunkenness, prostitution, and of course pot smoking. Hey, at least that list started out with legit bragging rights, eh?

The least desirable of these Amsterdam “records” were evident from the obnoxiously loud vomiting that we occasionally heard from outside our hotel window. And from the hotel hallways. And the shower. Come to think of it, speaking of puking…

****Sorry, Mom. I’m really not trying to gross you out. A few weeks ago I posted a pic (link) of Brussels’ tacky Manneken Pis statue on my blog, and now this. I know that you would categorize this as “not dinner table discussion,” so hopefully you’re not munching as you read this. I’ll stop now.****


After Bo and I returned from Luxembourg City and Brussels (links), our stay in Amsterdam marked the end of our brief jaunt through the Benelux countries. 


On our first night in Amsterdam, we hastily picked the Hotel Jimmy as a convenient place to throw down our bags.      The steep, winding staircase at the Hotel Jimmy lead to the reception desk on the "first" floor. Pro tip: Anyone who carries an innocent looking girl’s two small bags up stairs like these is just asking for trouble…especially when those bags weigh at least 70 lbs each! Oh, and never ask questions about said bags.


Although the night scene in Amsterdam (or at least some elements of it- see above) was the big draw for me, I’m glad that my dad wanted to use our daylight hours to see places that I had passed up during my previous visits to the city.


 Using the canal boats as our main mode of transportation, we essentially made it a Dutch art museum day. On most overseas trips, I wouldn’t be caught dead in an art gallery for fear of being bored to tears. This day proved me wrong.


Bo was impressed with this replica of a Dutch ship in the Rijkmuseum


In my dad’s words:

“The Rijksmuseum is essentially the 'national art gallery' of Holland, and is currently under a major restoration inside and outside.   Much of the museum is closed, yet it contained hundreds of works of art, with a focus on the golden age of Dutch art. A centerpiece was Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, his most famous and greatest painting.

The Van Gogh Museum, only a few blocks from Rijksmuseum, was our next stop. It’s an amazing display of art and a life story of the gifted and tortured genius who shaped modern impressionistic art - sadly, only after he died. The Van Gogh Museum has four levels, and you start at the bottom level, with Van Gogh’s earlier influences and works. As you move up the levels, you can trace his progression as an artist, his growing influence with his contemporaries, and finally his dawning awareness that his artistic vision was fading along with his skills. In poverty, he died of a self-inflected gunshot wound, ending a career that spanned only 10 years, but which left an enduring impression (pun not intentional) on the art world.” --From Doug Hamilton's travel notes.



  In addition to the collection of paintings, the Van Gogh museum also had iPads set up to virtually deconstruct various works of art.


 Day 4: Life imitates art in Amsterdam, with my delicious Belgian waffle standing in for Vincent van Gogh's pipe



On a final note, I wasn’t expecting everyone’s questions about Amsterdam's world-famous tulip festival.  For those of you who inquired, I thought I’d toss in this blurry tulip pic that Bo snapped from our train to the AMS airport on Day 6. Talk about ending this story with an anticlimactic money shot!

The dozens of previously open seats on our flight home to Portland practically filled up overnight. After a significant delay at the Amsterdam ticket counter (it was training day, no joke) we glided through the security checkpoint and snagged the last seats as they were shutting the boarding doors.

As Bo and I flew home to Portland, I thanked God that our risky attempts to fly standby during spring break were spared the disastrous results predicted by our naysayers. After all, with all of the Portland flights overbooked to the East Coast and beyond, the choice was essentially made for me to make yet another trip to the oft visited Benelux region. No regrets, though. Who could tire of seeing the Low Countries?

Our original choice between skiing the Swiss Alps or cave-diving in Belize will have to wait until next time!