Archive for January, 2009
Matt • 19th Jan 2009 • Recommendations
I feel like I owe it to all of you to tell you to check out mint.com. It’s a free and safe way to track your spending habits and manage your finances. What you do is allow the site to connect up with your online banking and your credit cards and it will automatically recognize the ways you spend your money and it was help you analyze where/how you spend money so that you can make decisions about how to change these spending habits.
The site also has a great budgeting tool that allows you to make your own budget and it will help you stick to it by sending you email or text message alerts when you’re nearing the end of a certain category (say, you eat at In-n-Out and you spend the 90th dollar out of your allotted $100 for fast food for the month).
It’s truly an amazing website and might be the future of financial management on the web. Try it!
Matt • 18th Jan 2009 • Uncategorized
I like being sick because it legitimizes my day to day lifestyle.
Matt • 18th Jan 2009 • Africa
…till I’m on a plane to Zambia. Almost exactly.
I’m more excited than nervous at this point in time and realizing that I need to make every moment count. I understood that when I was hugging Heather yesterday… that as cheesy as it is, I didn’t want to let go. Sorry. I had to say it.
Gotta go to church, but I just wanted to betray my sensitivity on the internet before I left.
Matt • 15th Jan 2009 • Africa, Decisions
Game on.
I’m going. At least… it really really really seems like I’m going. I’m in contact with a travel agent to book the 22+ hours of travel needed to reach Lusaka, Zambia. Where is Zambia? …..
Right under my finger. It’s in what’s called Africa’s copper belt, and I will be there for seven months, roughly mid-February through mid-September. I will be there working with my friends Vaughn and Dustin and their US non-profit, Acirfa which has partnered with their Zambian bicycle company, Zambikes. I will have a few different jobs, mostly operational and organizational stuff, and I will be mostly concerned with how their company is being run and how it can be done more efficiently.
This is truly the direction I want my life to be headed and I can’t tell you how good it feels to be walking (if not running… I leave in about a month!) in the direction that God has for me. I don’t think I’ll move to Zambia forever, but this social business thing is, I believe, where I want to spend my efforts.
What’s next after September? Please don’t ask me that question. I hardly know what I’m going to have for lunch today let alone thinking that far ahead.
Matt • 12th Jan 2009 • Africa, Life Lessons
I never thought that the Broadway production “Monty Python’s SPAMalot” would teach me a poignant lesson about life. King Arthur, at one point, sang a song which said “I’m all alone, all alone, there’s no one here beside me”… This goes on for a couple of minutes all the while his coconut-clapping servant is following him around singing, “he’s all alone… but I’m right here…”
In my upcoming transition to life lived in Zambia… I’m sure there will be times when I will feel alone. The truth will be, though that I will be there with three American Christian men who will be supporting me. Also… I will be being supported constantly by prayer back at home, and the Lord will guide me and take care of me.
Here’s to hoping that when I am feeling sad and alone that I will remember the truth of SPAMalot and remember that I am truly loved and not alone.
Matt • 4th Jan 2009 • Africa
I leave tomorrow morning for New York to have a meeting with Cause Investments and Acirfa.
We’ll be discussing a lot of plans for Acirfa including my possible role with them, living and working somewhere in Africa.
With the possibility of my move ever-nearing, I am beginning to feel the doubt that is sure to grow as I pursue what God has for me. I’m also feeling overwhelmed by nothing in particular… something that I don’t experience very often.
The love and support that I have here at home is unbelievably real and meaningful to me right now and I believe that God is preparing me for something worthy of that love and support. It’s hard to say what will or will not happen at our meetings on Monday and Tuesday in New York, but I know that God will be in all of it. I don’t think that God is going to control everything that happens, including whether or not I spend a year or two of my life in Africa… but I do believe that God is in control and that there is nothing I can do to escape God’s reach.
It’s just scary to know that life continues on at home. It won’t be easy for Heather, and I would be lying if I said that this isn’t one of the worst things about potentially going. I’m so thankful, though, that I’m finally going to find out what’s what this week and if I’m going or not.
This just might be your last chance, Joe.
