My good friends Nicole and Doug Scott recently left their jobs in Chicago, joined the staff of Nuru International and moved to Africa! Whoa.

Nuru International’s mission is to eliminate extreme poverty by creating sustainable, measurable solutions that result in significant, lasting change.

Nicole is a water resources engineer and is now in charge of Nuru’s water/sanitation program. She’s helping extremely poor communities get access to clean drinking water.

Don’t miss Nicole’s blog — she’s blogging about her work with Nuru and her new life in rural Kenya. She’s a great writer, and her blog posts are funny, raw, touching, fascinating and inspiring.

For even more info about Nuru International (by the way, “Nuru” means “light”), check out Nuru’s Facebook page, Nuru’s photos, and watch a video of Jake Harriman talking about why he founded Nuru and what Nuru is all about.

After a nine-year hiatus, ed fargle is back … well, almost back.

About 11 years ago, when I was working at Crosswalk.com, my buddy Jeff Winkle and I decided to create a fictional character named ed fargle, who was an eccentric guru and advice columnist.

ed’s advice column ran on Crosswalk.com for almost 3 years, until I left Crosswalk to move to NC. Then Tribune Media Services (the syndication arm of Tribune Media Company) became interested in ed and decided to shop it around, to see if any websites (especially online newspapers) wanted to pick it up. It didn’t go anywhere.

But … Wink and I recently decided to bring ed back to life, just for fun.

Wink, who’s a Classics professor at Calvin College, is ed fargle. He writes the columns and draws the cartoons. Brilliant, nutty stuff!

I recently built a temporary site at edfargle.com, where you can get a little taste of ed. ed won’t officially launch until later this fall.

You may want to start with ed’s bio — it’ll give you some context for ed’s columns.

I hope you get a kick out of ed … I know I do!!!

Yep, that was a first — being outdoors for Thanksgiving.  I hung out with Jon and Carolyn Freeman and about 20 of their relatives.  (Jon and I were interns together at Willow Creek Community Church; he and Carolyn now live in the apartment above mine.)  I had a blast!

We hung out on Fiesta Island, in the middle of Mission Bay, eating turkey, Pauline’s lemon-glazed persimmon bars and playing beach soccer.  When the sun went down, we built a bonfire, ate pumpkin pie and had some laughs.  It was really great.

Check out my photos of the day.

I’ve been having a wonderful time here in Denver connecting with friends (I’m tempted to stay!). It’s been especially great connecting with Megz, Sara and Dave, whom went through the internship program at Willow Creek with me. Because of these guys, Denver feels a little bit like home.

Megz, Sara and Dave recently started a “house church” with a few of their friends, and I was able to join their little gathering this past Sunday morning. I loved it. They asked me to lead them through a couple of spiritual exercises (which was a treat for me); using the spiritual exercises as a basis, we spent time sharing with each other; then we discussed a couple chapters from the book they’re reading, Paul’s Idea of Community by Robert Banks. It was a precious time together and certainly reminded me of the Arlington Heights house church gatherings.

After lunch, Dave, Sara, little Hayden and I went for a long walk around a huge park near their house — and we talked theology the whole time! I loved it! It was so life giving. Dave is earning his PhD in theology at the Iliff School of Theology — and he’s so passionate about the integration of theology and spirituality. I am, too. So I peppered Dave with questions, and he really helped me think through many issues. I’m becoming more and more convinced that theology plays a big role in the psychospiritual transformational journey. Here’s a simple example: If I view God as distant and cruel, I’m probably not going to move toward God, trust God or experience much intimacy with God — thus my relationship with God probably won’t grow and mature much and I probably won’t experience much internal transformation.

Anyway, I’m having a ball here. And it doesn’t hurt that Denver kicks ass! It’s definitely one of my top 3 favorite cities. To meet some of the Denver crew, check out my photos of them.

This past Sunday morning, as I was preparing a couple spiritual exercises to bring to my friends’ house church gathering here in Denver, I felt so tender toward the small group of friends (in photo at left) I used to gather with on Sunday mornings in Arlington Heights (A.H.). So I called Randy (my former roommate in A.H. and one of the house church crew), and it was great to connect for a few moments before he had to walk into the living room for the start of house church there.

Our Sunday morning gatherings (in A.H.) were deeply intimate and deeply transformational for me. The group loved me so well in the parts of me that need it most (my wounded and immature parts) — and as a result, those parts definitely healed more and matured more. My capacity to give and receive love increased. What a huge, huge gift! So, A.H. house church group (Amy, Curtis, Layne, Joleen, Randy), I just want to give you a smooch and say I love you tons and miss you tons already.

To meet this lovely (and totally sexy) group, check out my photos of them.

For the first time in my life, I saw a bald eagle!  Actually I saw several soaring above the Mississippi River.  As I got closer, I could hear them talking politics (of course).  It turns out that most of them think we should pull our troops out of Iraq.  Referring to the war in Iraq, one eagle quoted Gandhi, who once said, “Just stop it, just stop it.”

Anyhow, earlier this week, I had a wonderful time reconnecting with Roy and Brenda Coffman at their bed-and-breakfast, Green Tree Inn.  (Check out my photos.)  We spent several hours sharing about our lives and our journies with God.  Among other things, they told me about their powerful experience with the Taize Community in France and introduced me to the way the Taize Community meditates and prays using music.  The folks at Taize (and the Coffmans) are passionate about helping people “experience” God.  That’s a beautiful thing!

Tonight I’m staying again with my good friend Toby in St. Louis; tomorrow I’m off to Denver to stay with Megz and hang with the gang out there.

Last week I had such a good time in Raleigh visiting Scott, Allison and Anna Ryan Brown; Eric (”The Beef”), Elesha and Lilly Coffman; Jerry Dancy and Mandy Kelly.  And I had an absolute blast snowboarding for three days at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia with Jerry and four of his good friends:  Kelly (who’s Jerry’s girlfriend) and their friends Kristy, Sara and Bobby.   Kelly and Kristy wrote a poem about the weekend, and I hope to share it with you soon.

To see some “W.S.B.” snowboarders and a beautiful, blue-eyed baby in a duck towel, check out my photos from the trip.

On Monday, Feb. 12, I’m driving my road-tough Pontiac Grand Prix out West … all the way out to San Diego … to live, to do life, ya know, to surf.  I don’t have a job, nope, and I may live in a shack in the Fitzgerald’s backyard (seriously!).  But it’s gonna be great, really, I think, um, I hope.

The main reason I’m moving to S.D. is the handful of close friends I have there.  To meet some of them, check out my photos of my “S.D. Posse.” 

About two years ago, my buddy Doug Scott quit his job at Willow Creek Community Church to travel around the world for a whole year.  God used his trip to transform him in deep ways.  And now, I’m excited to report, Doug is writing a book about his trip and transformation.

To find out more about Doug’s trip and the book, and to view his photos, head to Eyeshift, his website.  On the site, you’ll have the opportunity to buy some of Doug’s photos.  Selling photos is one way Doug is trying to finance the book-writing process and support some causes he believes in.  Way to go, Dougie, I’m behind you all the way!