I was checking the news on kgw.com, the website for Portland, Oregon-based Northwest NewsChannel 8, and I read that Al Kenning, one of my fellow youth group members during my time at New Horizons Church in Washougal, WA, has died this morning after being hit by a drunk driver. According to the report I read, he ran out of gas on State Route 500 and was struck by a drunk driver while putting gas into his pickup. He landed in the road and was run over by an oncoming vehicle.

More from the KGW report:

A Vancouver man died after getting struck by a drunk driver and then run over by another vehicle Monday night, police said.

Alfred E. Kenning, 20, ran out of gas SR-500, just west of Falk Road around 9 p.m. Monday. He was putting gas into the pickup truck, along with the help of an unidentified 17-year-old, when an SUV traveling westbound struck them both, police said.

Michael T. Traylor, 33, of Vancouver was identified as the driver who struck the pair.

?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe juvenile ended up in the bed of the Chevrolet pickup. Kenning landed on the ground in the right lane where he was ran over by a 1991 Chevrolet S-10 pickup driven by Sandra L. Jaillet, a 53-year-old resident of La Center who was following the Jeep,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù said trooper Mike Kesler with Washington State Police.

Both drivers stayed at the scene and investigators said Traylor had been drinking; they found several open containers of beer cans in his Jeep, Kesler said.

?¢‚Ǩ?ìTraylor submitted to standard field sobriety tests and was determined to be under the influence of intoxicants. Traylor was placed under arrest for Vehicular Assault and transported to SWWMC where a sample of his blood was obtained to be analyzed by the Washington State Toxicology Lab for blood alcohol content,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Kesler added.

Kenning was transported to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center with internal injuries where he later died, authorities said.

The male juvenile was taken by his parents to SW Washington Medical Center with minor injuries.

Brandy L. Achey, 18, of Vancouver, was sitting inside Kenning?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pickup truck when the accident happened and witnessed everything, but was not injured, Kesler said. Traylor and Jaillet were not injured, either.

Traylor was booked in the Clark County Jail for Vehicular Assault.

It took nearly five hours for police to re-open the roadway. Traffic was detoured onto Falk Road during the investigation.

My brother and I knew Al for a few years during the time we attended the COGOP in Vancouver, WA, and hung out with him there and at Camps and Retreats. We weren’t great friends, more like mutual friends through church, but still it touches a bit too close to home. I don’t know if Jason knows about it yet, but Mom if you read this could you please pass along the news to him.

I’m sure the Kenning family is shocked and grieving right now. The Kennings are wonderful people who love the Lord, and they were gracious to everyone at New Horizons. They need every ounce of prayer support they can get, so let’s hold them up in prayer over the next few days.

Personally I’m shocked to hear that Al had died, and it makes it even harder to hear it because I am going back to New Horizons soon. I’m also angry, because someone that I knew has had their life snuffed out by a someone under the influence of alcohol. The man who hit Al and his friend needs to go to prison for vehicular homicide. I hate alcohol even more so because it now adds someone I knew to the long list of people who have been killed by its effects.

Please pray for the Kenning family, the New Horizons Church, and everyone affected by this tragedy. And pray that justice is served to the idiot who murdered — yes, murdered — Al Kenning.

I’m going to keep this post fairly simple.

Today is the five-year anniversary of the darkest day in modern American history. On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked civil aircraft and flew them into what were not just crowded buildings, but symbols of America’s might and power. We all stood silent as we watched replay after replay of the World Trade Center towers crumbling to the ground, people in the streets of Manhattan running, foreign leaders standing with America during our darkest hour.

Five years later, I think that many of us have forgotten the sheer terror that day brought each one of us. I’m not going to share any elaborate stories of where I was on 9/11/01, but instead I am going to ask that you please observe a moment of silence, prayer and reflection after you read this post and remember the people whose lives were ended in a horrific act of senseless violence that has since changed our world.

God bless America, and may He also bless the families of the victims and those still suffering to this day from the 9/11 attacks.

CNN has made the first few hours of their coverage of the events of 9/11 available online. The video amazingly goes from anchors speculating on the cause of the planes crashing into the WTC, to them going speechless as they recount the events of the day. It’s worth the watch, simply because it reminds us of what we saw and felt during one of the worst days in American history.

Download the CNN coverage of 9/11/01 (1 hour, 44 min)

Update On Brian “Head” Welch. You all may remember a post on my old website regarding Brian “Head” Welch, the former guitarist for the metal band Korn. I spoke of how he had abandoned his old lifestyle, quit Korn and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. He’s involved with ministries now and has had a website up for awhile at headtochrist.com. The Lord is using Head in a mighty way to minister to people the rest of us might not have an opportunity to reach.

Tonight I looked in my e-mail inbox and saw that Head himself had written a comment on my old blog, much to my surprise and delight. It’s good to hear from Head and see how he’s doing. Here’s what he wrote:

Thank you all sooooooo much. It is such a blessing to come on a website and hear of you all praying for me. The benefit God has given me, is the respect and dignity to be bold about my faith and God is not finished using me yet. Thanks again and take care Chris. Stay in touch, ill try to get back to you. God Bless, HEAD

How awesome it is to hear the testimony directly from a public figure who had used fame for all the wrong reasons, and has now turned and used his status to give glory to God. This is great and we all need to still keep him in prayer. Head, we’re with you man and standing behind you 100%. You’re in each of our prayers!!!

Amazing Times On The Disc Golf Course. The disc golf course at Newport News Park is slowly becoming a favorite of some of us at Lakeside Church (namely Kevin Twitchell, Adam Gillette and myself). It’s a fun course to play with four holes in a fully wooded area (I’m a lefty so #4, #6 and #7 are kinda tough for me). Yesterday and today, Kevin, Adam and I played the course twice. I won the last two matches with scores of 4-under and 3-under par, respectively. Not bad at all. Most impressive was the first match of Saturday night — Adam’s second time playing disc golf and besting Kevin and I with a score of -2. I think he lost his mojo after that though. Today he didn’t do so hot, poor guy. Kevin broke even and I finished with -3.

Good Times At Church, Too. Saturday morning I made my way to the monthly men’s breakfast at Lakeside, one of my favorite events. It started at 8:30 and that was about the same time I woke up, so I hustled on over with my hair messed up and all. It was good to see the folks there — Phil Barker, Rocky Hobbs, Tom Brock, Eldon Burnette, Aaron Thornton and his son Caleb — and enjoy a good breakfast and fellowship with the saints. It’s really neat to talk with the elders of the church, get their perspective on life and church events. Tom did a quick devotion on Psalms 150 and Eldon sang a song, and we all sang “God Is So Good” acapella. If you weren’t at the men’s breakfast, you missed out.

Tom spoke again at church this morning in place of Pastor Rick, who was on vacation. Good sermon on how we need to humble ourselves and make ourselves ready for the Lord to do His work in us. After that we played more disc golf.

That’s about it for now, hope you all have a great night. Sorry for the lack of updates, I’m not really motivated on weekends but I’ll try to do better. God bless.

UPDATE on Kerney Thomas!!! This from his website:

Evangelist Kerney Thomas, Jr. born January 19, 1956 of Kerney and Ella Mae Thomas, second born of four children while they were using birth control determined not to have any more children at that time, but God had a greater purpose.

WOWOW!!!!!!! God’s got a greater purpose for a ton of people. It’s called antibiotics…

Kerney Thomas needs to be locked in a room with Robert Tilton and Benny Hinn, and fed bread and water for the rest of their lives. Oh, and be forced to pay back all the money they swindled in the name of Jesus.

The 2006 NFL Season Starts Tonight. This is good not only for Dolphin and Steeler fans, but for all fans of the NFL and fantasy team owners. Tonight I have both Ronnie Brown and Willie Parker starting in a league that I paid $45 to join. Ronnie Brown is gonna rock the house for the Dolphins, and I think Willie is gonna do the same thing because Roethlisberger is out and Pittsburgh will be forced to go to the run. Tonight at 8 PM EST on NBC, it all goes down.

I Updated The Link To My News Stories. All of my Iraq news stories, Langley news stories, and my photo archive can be reached at the link up top. When you get to the Multimedia page, scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll find the News Stories section.

There’s not much else going on, which is good news. Peace!!!

By no means am I an expert on relationships. I’ve only been Aftan’s faithful boyfriend for nine months now, and if there’s one thing that has held us together over such a great distance for this long, it’s the fact that our relationship is centered on God.

When I say that, I mean that God indeed brought us together, and we acknowledge that by dedicating our relationship to Him by keeping Jesus as the main focus and not one another. Kinda tough to believe if you’re not a Christian, but if you are a believer you know exactly what I mean.

Only thing is, lately Aftan and I hadn’t done such a great job of keeping Jesus as the center of it all. We had become worried about conflicting schedules over the next few weeks with Aftan having her RA training from 8 AM - 9 PM, among other things. We started to let the small stuff bug us. Our relationship didn’t start to go sour at all, but there was a bit of an unnecessary tension between us for a bit.

Which really didn’t need to happen at all. We had lost sight of what brought us together in the first place and because of that, there was somewhat of a strain on our relationship.

I guess the old saying is true: if you neglect God for long enough, He’s going to find a way to get your attention, and He’s going to do it through what you hold most dear. In Aftan and my case, it was our relationship. He’s been testing us and we readily admitted to each other last night that we failed the test, apologized, prayed and committed to doing what it takes to ensure we never place God on the back burner.

Good thing the Lord gives everyone a second chance, third chance, fourth chance, etc. Like I said, we hadn’t committed any sort of cardinal sin, but we did neglect the Lord in our relationship for about a good month or so and it started to show. But trust me when I say we won’t go down that road again.

It sounds somewhat crazy, but we’re even going to start doing Bible studies over the phone with each other. God placed Aftan in my life to be a spiritual help to me (and vice versa), and we need to continue cultivating not only a strong emotional and physical relationship, but an even stronger spiritual relationship. If we don’t have the Lord, we have nothing.

So why do I post this publicly? Two reasons. One, as sort of a piece of advice to other young Christian couples, that they not go down the same path. Two, we all need to be publicly accountable to our brothers and sisters in Christ and this is the perfect way to do that.

If anyone has any thoughts or Scripture references they would like to add, please feel free to do so. Input is very welcomed, especially from people who have been in the same situation before. God bless.

On Sunday, my massive disdain for televangelists reached a boiling point after Adam Gillette shared stories with me about a TV preacher he once saw named Kerney Thomas. Adam proceeded to tell me that Kerney advertises an olive oil soap that will not only cleanse your skin, but will provide blessings of all sorts — financial gain, healing to whatever part of the body you apply it to (I leave this up to the imagination), you name it. You will be blessed with this soap, says the Kerney. Apparently Adam has seen this “great prophet of God” on TV before and laughed himself silly as he saw Kerney pray for someone who called into his show, then go right on to prescribe the soap for “a nominal fee” to “continue his healing.” I laughed in disbelief as I heard tales of Kerney Thomas holding crusades where he promoted prayer cloths, soap, and trinkets containing “God’s anointing” to no end. I thought it was unreal and vowed to prove Adam Gillette wrong. Of course, Adam didn’t know his name at the time, so searching for him on the Internet was going to prove a bit tough.

But I couldn’t. It sounded absurd enough, but after I performed some extensive research on the Internet, I have found everything Adam said about Kerney Thomas to be true. After searching for “black televangelist soap” in Wikipedia, it came up with a result entitled “Thomas Kerney.” I clicked on it, and read up about him and it described exactly what Adam had described. Read it for yourself, it’s great and horrifying at the same time:

Kerney Thomas is most famous for his early morning appearances on Black Entertainment Television (BET). He makes regular appearances on the Word Network with other televangelists such as Peter Popoff and Robert Tilton. Thomas also hosts a radio show that airs weekdays on Houston’s KWWJ 1630AM. He leads a very controversial broadcast in Christian circles, as most of his teachings are considered false. For example, Thomas advocates the use of a “prayer handkerchief” and “olive oil soap” as a guaranteed way to make a miracle manifest in someone’s life. In fact, he claims that bathing in the “olive oil soap” can cure people of AIDS, cancer, and common aches and pains.

This is hilarious, but sad at the same time. Since when do we have to trust in man-made items to have the power of the Lord in them, when the Bible tells us to trust God alone for our healing??? Read on:

He also causes controversy by proclaiming himself to be a prophet of God and encouraging viewers of his broadcasts to send him money in exchange for miracles from God. He claims that the more money is sent to his ministry, the greater than person will be blessed. In fact, he encourages viewers to come to him first before their church pastor because “In the Old Testament they (Israelites) didn’t go to the pastor; they came to the prophet.”

This makes me want to sucker punch Kerney Thomas in the face. Not only is it the “give to get” “word-of-faith” doctrine rearing its ugly head again, but it’s some wacko requesting money for personal gain. But that’s not all.

A clip on Youtube shows him taking a call from someone, speaking in tongues when praying for him, and telling the caller he prayed for him but never names his specific problem or never says his name. Funny thing about this is that he has a treasure chest that holds pieces of paper he claims are the prayer requests he prays over every day. It doesn’t show it, but normally what would happen after the post-prayer dialogue is Kerney convincing the caller to either “sow a seed” and donate to his “ministry,” or buy an “anointed prayer cloth” or “anointed olive oil soap.” He’ll go on, like the Wikipedia article states, to tell them that the more they donate, the more they will be blessed. If that doesn’t make me mad I don’t know what does.

Apparently there are many people who believe they have been healed by Kerney Thomas and his shenanigans. Take a look at some of their testimonials on his website (it even has a video at the home page in which people read off a card or prompter). Outlandish testimonies of healings, financial prosperity, etc. all because of the anointed olive oil soap. Horrible.

To wrap this up, yes, Kerney Thomas is only hilarious just because of his outlandish methods, but in the grand scheme of things he does what about 99.999999999999% of televangelists exist to do. Provide false teaching, swindle you out of your money, and make a laughingstock out of Christianity. It’s terribly sad.

This just in from Drudge Report and various news sources. Steve Irwin, the world-famous “Crocodile Hunter,” has died at age 44 from a stingray attack while filming an underwater documentary off the coast of Austraila.

From Guardian Unlimited:

Steve Irwin, the Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the crocodile hunter, was killed today by a stingray barb during a diving expedition on the Great Barrier Reef, police said.

Irwin, 44, collapsed after being stung through the heart at Batt Reef, near the resort town of Port Douglas, about 1,260 miles north of Brisbane, police said. He was filming an underwater documentary when the accident occurred.

More from the situation at the following links:
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Killed [Washington Post]
“Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin Killed By A Stingray [Guardian Unlimited]
Steve Irwin Killed In Freak Accident At Sea [News.com.au]

Good Lord, you just never know when it’s your time to go. Prayers go out to the Croc Hunter’s family and friends during this time. What a tragic loss…I loved Steve Irwin and his shows on Discovery and Animal Planet. I hope he is with the Lord today. What a shock and horrid tragedy.

Yesterday morning we faced Tropical Storm Ernesto’s wrath. I thought it was kinda crazy how everyone was freaking out about it, because it seemed nothing more than a typical Oregon rainstorm, dumping a few inches of rain throughout the morning and the night before. But since this area is a low-lying coastal plain, it got walloped. Minor flooding happened throughout the entire Hampton Roads area. On base, the parking lot to the track, about a block away from my dorm, was flooded, as was the parking lot my car sat in. I drove around Newport News and shot some photos, and when the power went out for about eight hours I hung out with Wes Ashworth at his house since he had closed his store. We went to Fuddruckers and then played Midnight Club Dub Edition at his place for awhile.

Thank God for His protection upon our church. There’s a small lake (more like a pond) that swelled up pretty bad and came a few feet from touching an electrical complex next to the Family Life Center and causing all sorts of carnage, but just when it looked like massive trouble was about to start, the rain stopped and the waters slowly receded. There’s some leaking inside the church, but all in all it came out okay. Thank God for that.

Other than a few friends losing some earthly possessions due to water damage, everyone made it out relatively safe. God’s hand was upon us all.

Onto other things.

It’s the middle of Labor Day Weekend, which means that we get four days off. That also means the start of COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Oregon played their first game today and absolutely destroyed Stanford 48-10. They also showed off their massively ugly uniform scheme, which I’m sure had something to do with Stanford wilting during the game. I wouldn’t want to look at those things either. The best thing about this game is that we have a de facto #1 QB in Dennis Dixon, who was solid today. Threw for over 200 yards. Next best thing is Jonathan Stewart, racking up about 160 yards and a couple TDs on the ground. Solid showing by the offense. Bad points today were penalties. We had too many. Gotta stop the mistakes, especially on critical 3rd and 4th down situations. But overall I am pleased with the result of today’s game, and more important than it being a win on the overall win column, it is a conference victory. Oregon might still be the 2nd best team in the Pac-10 after Cal came out and laid an egg in a huge loss to Tennessee in Knoxville.

Also for those of you who watched the Oregon-Stanford game, the broadcasting combo of Tim Brant and Dan Fouts is awful. Brant would sometimes say something halfway intelligent, like “Oregon’s up by a touchdown Dan, what does Stanford have to do to get back in the game?” (which probably isn’t intelligent because he’s asking Fouts to say something) and Dan would counter with “Well Stanford has to score a touchdown Tim. If they don’t score they’ll still be losing this ballgame.” Okay Dan. Next best Dan Fouts quote of the day: “If he holds on to that ball in the endzone, they score an easy six.” Thanks for the update Dan. Too bad we don’t have Ron Fairly as a sideline reporter.

Tonight at church we hosted another COGOPian — Ntambwe Beya, the National Overseer for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who shared a powerful message entitled “Stay Connected To God.” Through a translator, Bro. Beya used powerful examples of how many Christians endured seemingly hopeless situations by holding firm to God’s Word and trusting Him to deliver the victory. You can download the podcast here (also for future podcasts, I will have a link at the top of this page). You’ll need iTunes to hear it.

More Beya-ness tomorrow, and I have to wake up early. Today has been good. Jagshemash.

Download the Bro. Beya podcast episode.