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Deadlines at work and school have rendered the last several weeks rather hectic -- but that's not what this is about.  The brain-dead stupor that my crazy schedule led to, however, is.

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I needed to be at work by eight this morning (I've been working late), so I had to get up when my alarm went off -- and I did.  Rolling out of bed, I noticed that I was getting a bit of a sore throat, and figured I needed some mouthwash -- kill all those nasty organisms.  Sadly, I remembered that I had used the rest of my mouthwash and had not purchased any more.

Walking into the bathroom I was delighted to see a fairly full bottle of mouthwash sitting in the corner.  And, after the normal bumping around one does upon a groggy rousing, I picked it up, noting the main selling point in beg white letters set against rather mouthwash-looking orange background -- ANTIBACTERIAL.  "Yes," I thought, "this is what I need." 

As promised, here is the next issue of MIS. These last few weeks have been really hectic. Finishing up the quarter and all. I had three finals just today. Fortunately they were all easy. I´m not realy sure what I am going to do for break. I am going to start by going back up to Barcelona, and then from there I´m thinking like Finland or England and Scotland. I couldn´t find anyone to do anything with, so I´m kind of in a rut there. The thirteenth or fourteenth though I will be flying to the Philippines. I´m really looking forward to that.

We had a big party the other night for Christmas and the like. We did something called Secret Santa. About a week ago we drew names from a hat. And then the person that we got on the paper we had to by a gift fo them that couldn´t cost more than five euros. Some people got confused and thought they said no less than five euros, but anyway. My teacher José Aniorte got me apparently, because he gave me a box of these fancy chocolates. They are so good. There are only three left. They are called Lindo Lindt. Sixty percent cocao! Amazing. I got someone named Angela who is also from Southern. I bought her four bars of these chocolate bars of different variety, and these peanut thingies. We had to kiss everyone that we got something from or gave something to, but fortunately for me, Aniorte wasn´t there. Actually, now that I mention it. In case you guys didn´t know. They kiss people here for greeting. Anyway.

Are faith and logic compatible?
I think they are not incompatible. Jesus used signs to logically convince people to believe in him. To have "faith" in him.

John 2:11 This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

John 2:23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.

John 14:11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves."

So it seems that logic can play a part in faith. Even a foundational part. Logic may be the first step of faith, but faith must go beyond logic. Jesus seemed to get frustrated with people who would not allow their faith to move beyond this first step.

Joh 4:48 So Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe."

Mat 16:4 "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah." And He left them and went away.

Once again, logic itself is not bad, but if we build our logic on a false idea or misconception, our "truth" will be false. God is far beyond our understanding. The reality of life and our world is beyond our understanding. When we take a simple (or even complex) observation and use that to make an argument about truth, we may end up with some absolutely wrong ideas.
Let me give you an example. I have a friend who, when he was younger, asked his dad how the car knew where he wanted to go and and how to get there. He had noticed that before his dad would make a turn, a little green flashing arrow would light up on the dash telling him which way to turn. That was a valid observation, and a logical conclusion. Because of the boy's lack of understanding, he arrived at a absolutely wrong conclusion: The car knew where to go.
So, can I logically say that the earth evolved over billions of years? Yes, many people do. This logical conclusion is based on human observation. Is it truth? Logic, by itself, cannot reveal truth. Truth must be divinely revealed. That is why Paul prayed "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. . ." Eph. 1:17-18

If God does not reveal truth to us, we have no hope of discovering it for ourselves.

Well, I´m back. I noticed that there weren´t very many reads on my last one. Actually only two. So I just wanted to alert you that the first page you come to only showsa preview of the blog, not the whole thing. In order to read the whole thing you have to click on the title. That said, I can now proceed to the issue at hand.

Well, school is starting to get pretty hectic as it is closing down to the final daze. Grupo E had its oral exam in Conversación today. It weren´t hard at all. We were supposed to just pick a topic, go in his office for five minutes and tell him about it. Well, I was going to tell Dr. Amoros about my vacation, but he just asked me questions as soon as I went in, so we just talked about extraneous things the whole time. It was pretty easy, so I´m glad that I didn´t worry about it.

Rick and Shannon recently recorded a couple of hymns together at Paulington Studio. Be sure and check them out here . We are looking forward to hearing more from them in the future.

    Should a christian rely on logic to make decisions? I am a very logical person. I love to build arguments using clear logic, and it drives me nuts to hear someone arguing a point with lousy logic. This is a question that I have been pondering lately. What place should logic have in my decision making and in determining my understanding of truth?
Of course, I will attempt to answer this question logically.
    Actually I am not really attempting to answer the question, but to ask it.
As a Christian I believe that we are to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. He is to be our guide in everything. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. . ." (John 16:13). So our guide should be the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't the Holy Spirit guide us to make logical decisions? Well, I guess that is the problem. Logic is only as good as it's understanding of reality. An argument may be impeccable logically, but if it is built on a faulty premise, then the conclusion may be dead wrong. Our human logic is bound to be deficient because now we only "see in a mirror dimly." "Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have also been fully known."(1Cor. 13:12)
    So when it comes down to it, how does this affect me. Let me give a real example. Crissy and I are trying to decide where God is leading in our lives. We would like to start a "branch Sabbath school" and we want to know if and how God would have us do this. I can make a "good" decision based on logic using what I know about the people that would be involved and what the Bible says about fellowship and worship etc. But for some reason I feel that this is insufficient. God doesn't think like us. He asks people to do things that seem illogical.

Hello and welcome to another fun episode of MIS. In this issue we will explore the profound depths of human intellect in all its glory. To begin with, lets talk about my experiences this last week or so. Well, I went on the tour to Andorra and Barcelona (BCN). It was pretty awesome. I absolutely loved Andorra. We stayed in the Hotel d´Urgell in the capital city, Andorra la Vella. Its a large town amidst these rugged mountain. Barely squeezed in there like I don´t know how. There are houses perched up on cliffs, like you wouldn´t want to be a sleep walker and live up there. There is something that looks a lot like the Trans American Pyramid, but it is smaller. Turns ou that it is part of a gigantic spa called Caldea. Yes we went to it. It was pretty expensive, but the school paid for it, so its all good. We went to the spa the first evening for three hours. Next day we left and went back down south to the illustrious city of Barcelona, capital of the controversial region of Cataluña. BCN is a cool city, but it is still a really big city. What I liked more was what we stopped at on the way there. The Monasteri de Montserrat (Cátalan). I have really started to like monasteries. In order to be secluded and to reduce the chance that things will grow up around them they were usually put in remote, rugged places, such as the top of a near vertical granite mountain range. At least that is where Montserrat is. There was fog blowing by, rather cold. I have pictures at www.myspace.com/palawan I think that there is also a picture of the little pyramid at Caldea.

It is really weird to think that the first tremestre is almost over. It seems like I just got here. Well, I did just get here. I´m trying to finish the book that I´m supposed to read for my class. It´s called El Bosque de los Pigmeos by Isabel Allende. Its actually kind of an interesting book. I´m hoping to get a lot more read on the tour we are going on this monday. First we are going to be going to Andorra. We are going to stay at this really really nice spa with a hotel. I´m not really sure what a spa is, but I know it has something to do with water. Then we will be going down to Barcelona for the remainder of the time. It already snowed in Andorra, so I hoping to get in on a little snow then.

I am really looking forward to going on this tour because both of these places are really cool. Andorra is its own country, and Barcelona is the capital of Cataluña that wants to be its own country anyway, so it´s going to be cool. Cold in in Andorra. I am really hungry right now and I couldn´t figure out why; I just realized that i didn´t eat supper because I was rehearsing with the orchestra. I guess that there´s always breakfast tomorrow.

This Sabbath my roommate Hernan and I went up on the mountain in front of the school to look for caves. I though I had seen a cave when i was up there before, so we were going to try to go to that. It took a lot longer to get there than I though it would. Especially since all the little bushes up there remind me a lot of Kebatangan. They are not as thick, butt still very wiry. There is also a lot of prickly ones up there too. Of course neither of us had the sense to wear long pants. Our legs got scratched up preetty bad, but it would have been a lot worse if it hadn´t been for the hair on our legs. It really does protect your legs. Some. Well, we found a lot of holes in the rocks that didn´t go back very far. One interesting thing that we did find though was an old hideout for soldiers during the Spanish civil war back in 1936 to 1939. It was a litlle cave that didn´t go back very far at all, but it could hold quite a few people. The entrance was partially covered up by a rock wall that had been put there by the soldiers. It used to cover more, because you could tell that part of it was broken down. Anyway, after about 3 hours Hernan had had enough and wanted to go back. There was one more little valley that I wanted to check for caves, so we made an agreement that if I found a cave that we would go back and take a look at it, but if I didn´t find anything, we would go back. Unfortunately, I didn´t find anymore caves, so I had to submit and go back. We went back through some orange groves. The oranges tasted so good. Anywho.