Well, that's interesting.

For the last few years, we have done a fair amount of travel and met some amazing peeps. Add to that fact that the International House of Prayer has revolving doors at all exits, and one's address book gets full rather quickly. I was just thinking today about some of the interesting people we've enjoyed meeting - and in some cases, grown quite close to (and in others, remained a safe distance from in morbid curiosity....but that's a whole 'nother post.)

With that in mind, I give you a brief selection of peeps that I find interesting...

Kristi Walsh

Kristi is a Connecticut* Yankee in King Frodo's Court. Her Kiwi husband, Aaron, has carted this New England girl from their Kansas City home to New Zealand to launch a house of prayer. They are both cracker-jack smart, fun, and about as dear friends as we have on the planet. It is largely their fault that we're here. Some days I bless their names because of this. Most days, really.

Kristi started blogging when they moved to NZ and hit her writing stride almost immediately. It's a great mix of family life, deep thoughts, and lamentations about what she can't buy down under. :) And then there's this Mount thing. I don't understand it, but she compulsively climbs what appears to be a very large hill.

Gary Lamb

He is the pastor of a fast-growing church in Georgia and while accused of many things, he's rarely accused of mincing words. Read him a while and I will guarantee this: You will have a reaction, positive, negative, or allergic. His posts are refreshingly candid (sometimes embarrassingly candid - you find yourself praying for his wife a lot) and full of enthusiasm. I describe reading his blog like watching a train wreck. Instinctively you know you should look away, but you....just...can't. My favorite recent post - firing his Children's Pastor.

It should be noted that I actually had breakfast with Gary in November and found him to be a Chicken Fried Steak kind of guy. Southern fried, likely to cause a heart attack, but impossible to resist.

Joey Sanchez

OK, he doesn't blog (to my knowledge), but he is burning up the bandwidth by running more internet media than one guy should be able to. Last week, Joey interviewed me from his nicely equipped studio tucked away in a suburban Las Vegas house. Joey is entirely convinced that he can redeem online broadcasting, and I'm not so sure he's wrong. I also loved his mid-interview tangents ("You know, I'm 37 years old and I listen to hip-hop...").

I vote him "Guy I'd most like to have a burrito with tomorrow."


*In writing that, I realized I had no idea how to spell Connecticut.