I've been spending a great deal of energy on planning an event for the Center for Justice & Sustainability at Jewell with Anthony & Andy. It finally went down Saturday night, and I could not be more pleased with it!

Rock Out Reach Out was a huge success! Many thanks to everyone who helped out and came out to support our hard work, and more importantly, the hard work of the justice & sustainability community of Kansas City.

Here are the results:

Five bands & artists performed to benefit the organizations present.
Seventeen bands donated songs for the album (which is still available for a limited time).
Fourteen organizations shared their messages of justice & sustainability.

Over 300 people came out to the event.
Over 100 people signed up with the organizations present.
Over $2000 was raised for these organizations.

We shared the vision of the Center for Justice & Sustainability with Kansas City.
Learn. Practice. Partner.

We have taken another step in our urban gardening project. Say hello to the new members of our family!

Check out this free Marvel digital comic for an entertaining look at Obama's inauguration.

For the last 6 months or so, Trinity and I have been working really hard at saving money (sadly, in order to pay off credit cards...), so I have been coming up with all kinds of ways to get my new music kicks without spending lots of money on iTunes. Here are some of the things I have discovered:

Pandora Radio - on this site you choose a band or a song that you like, and then the website creates a radio station with similar music. As each song plays you can check whether you like it or not to make the station more in tune to your tastes. You can skip songs if you dislike them, and there are no commercials! This has been getting a lot of play in my office lately.

Kansas City Public Library - of course, the library doesn't have the instant results of anything on the internet, but there are so many albums there to browse and check out. I have also found myself checking out a lot of music that I would not have been sure enough about to buy, so I can expand my interests and try some different bands and styles. The down side: due dates...

All Songs Considered - this NPR show features great music and with the wonders of podcasts you can download the shows and listen to them anytime. I particularly like their Live Concerts podcast.

Finally, a new source of good music that I am going to start checking out is KC Cafe Radio. We learned about this internet radio station last night when we reconnected with our old friends Mick & Debbie Byrd. You might remember Mick from our wedding - he played the music during the wedding, and was the headliner at our reception/concert afterwords. Mick was in KC playing at the Westport Flea Market Bar & Grill last night so we went and had a great time hearing some classic Mick and some new songs. He even pulled out "Greater than Pearls" in honor of Trinity and me. It was a fun night and I look forward to seeing Mick & Debbie again soon.

The official website for the Center is now up and running. If you're ever wanting to check it out and missing a link for it, you can find it at www.jewell.edu in the "Distinctives" drop down menu.

I am pleased to announce the beginning of a web presence for the Center for Justice and Sustainability at William Jewell College. We'll be adding to the presence soon, but this is a start.

Wow, this has been a busy week. In the last 7 days I spent a day wandering around Tela, Honduras, returned home, sorted through over 450 pictures, washed bed bugs out of my dirty laundry, celebrated MLK day at Jewell, rejoiced at the historic inauguration of our inspiring new President, prepared 2 syllabi for the semester that began yesterday, and relished 2 new episodes of Lost!

For our last visit to Embarcadero this trip we had an afternoon fiesta (party). We had gotten a lot of rain the night before, so the road to Embarcadero was definitely impassible this time. We hiked the mile in this time with our arms loaded with fiesta supplies: gallons and gallons of soda, a cooler full of ice, 3 cakes, and a whole lot of candy.

Lula and Christina made pinatas and little did we know they take pinatas mucho seriously here in Latin America. The men of the village spent more time setting it up just right than I have ever seen and here they turn it into a big game. All I ever remember doing is hanging it up, putting on a blindfold and going after it with a stick, but here one of the adults moves it up and down so it lasts a long time. After the pinata we had cake and soda and then began saying our goodbyes. Maximo, the father in one of the families we built the latrine for/with brought out his new Spanish study Bible that Cat gave to him and gave us a Pentecostal blessing. Then we made the long walk back through the mud to the van.

Today is a final day off, which we all really needed. We are in the small coastal town of Tela. We got breakfast at a hotel/reseraunt, and they said we could use the internet here as long as we want. So I am sitting at the beach right now blogging while in Honduras for the last time. I'll probably say more about the trip when we get home, and I may add some more pictures this afternoon, but other than that, I'll see you in the States. Adios!