"If you see someone crying, ask if it's because of their haircut."

Brett asked if I could preach for him Sunday. He's feeling the fatigue of creating and delivering sermons for a long stretch of time and asked me if I'd give him a break.
Yep.
So I'm going to preach James 1:2-4 'cause it's been in my head for awhile. I didn't get the nod until late this morning so I'm working something very just this side of frantically to be prepared. I think Brett prepares sermons differently than I do, which is fine. He is a very good preacher! My prep includes lots of time spent thinking through not just what I want to say, but exactly how I want to say it. I generally preach extemporaneously (without notes) but that doesn't mean "off the cuff." So the next three days will be very focused!

I went to the gym on my way home from work today and the 2.5 weeks off made a big, bad difference. Ouch.
But I'll get it all back with consistency and extra effort.

After the gym I got things cleaned up after putting the new roof on the chicken run. When I took the old stuff off I just threw it aside so it had to be picked up. The tarp, hardware cloth, and wood are now either in the trash or put aside for use in some undetermined future project. (Hardware cloth ain't cheap.)

I'M GOING BACK TO BRAZIL!!
I'll spend two weeks there this August teaching again at another gathering of the same group of (I think it's) five churches in Recife. This time I'll teach OT and NT survey, something very similar to what I'm doing at UFC in my Bible Project class. And what I did for 10 years at GBC. and for 32 years to the youth in my churches.
I fell in love with the people I met down there, great folks who are warm, gracious, and very eager learners.
In preparation for my trip I'm going to find a good online site for learning Portuguese. I will ge a LONG way from any degree of fluency but if I can exchange some basic phrases with them we'll both be thrilled.
I thought I'd found one (with Sue's help) but it turns out Duolingo doesn't have Portuguese on their list of courses. I could do one that costs real money but I'm too cheap for that. Somewhere is a good free course.
Memrise gets good reviews so I'm going to poke around their Portuguese course.

And the trip is another reason to get back into optimal physical condition. The food in Brazil is amazing and I want to eat with room to expand. I'll come back a porker even if I leave at below my ideal weight but it will be SO worth it.