« humblethorn

the personal blog of paul vernon

Thank you for taking the time to view humblethorn. The purpose of this blog is to have an outlet to share my thoughts, quotes, ramblings and the occasional item of interest as I serve as a missionary to the Akha in Northern Thailand. Mostly, this is an outlet (in English!) for me to feel like someone out there is listening. So, to whoever you are, thank you for being my listening someone.

Many people have asked about the name "humblethorn". I would love to explain it, but I honestly don't fully understand it myself. In very simple terms, it is an identity that I have come to realize in Christ. I do not claim to be humble, rather that I am often humbled by my own weakness.

Feel free to navigate through the links on the top of this site to read more about me or just to view the photo galleries, videos, podcasts and journals about our lives with the Akha. Now... on to the posts!

Currently Reading...

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Most of my recent reading attention has been focused on the dissertation: Leadership Development Within the Akha Cultural Context with Application to Akha Bible Institute as I have been helping our director finalize the editing for his doctorate program. At six hours a day for the past (and next) month, there has been little room or interest to add more reading into my daily schedule. However, when I get the chance there are dozens of missionary, news and special interest blogs and podcasts that I enjoy following. Some of these missionaries are listed in the links columns at the bottom left of this page and I want to encourage you to browse through those links when you have the opportunity. But, I have added a new way for Lori and I to share articles that we feel might be of interest to our readers.
Take a look at the Shared Articles Widget on the Left

Rather than introduce you to every blog we read at once, overwhelming all of you with the amount of information we are overwhelmed with, we are now able to share specific articles that interest, entertain or inspire us. You can find a new box (or widget) on the left column of this page, just below the Archived Notes box, entitled Shared Articles.

Currently, this Shared Articles widget is only on my blog (humblethorn), but it will soon be on Lori's blog as well. As of today, I am sharing two sports articles (of course) which discuss the firing of Marty Schottenheimer from the San Diego Chargers and the contract talks between Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees. I am also sharing a link from the Daveys in France, a blog we read often, which discusses countries where Christianity is most persecuted, as well as two articles from bloggers who are new to us with great cross-cultural confessions and insights from America and Japan.

We hope you enjoy this new feature to the Vernon Journal. Please let me know (with a comment or by contacting me) if you have any suggestions on how this system might be improved.

No more time for blogs today... I'm off to read a dissertation.

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