A couple weeks ago I posted a contest photo of Titus Kinimaka, a professional surfer from Anahola, HI.  Well, within a tw0 to three week window I had three different brushes with fame.

The first was when I was launching the Gulf Coast mission teams from Dallas.  I was at the airport waiting for my flight home when I ran into Jon Kitna and his family who were also taking the Alaska Air flight back to Seattle.  Jon was two weeks away from his first training camp with the Cowboys and was coming home for a couple weeks to see family (who all live in the NW).

I talked to them for a couple minutes, it was fun to see how “normal” he and his family are. For those who don’t know of Jon Kitna, he has an amazing story.  He grew up in Tacoma, played football for Central Washington University and then went undrafted in the NFL draft.  However, he signed with the Seahawks as a free agent and has since had a very good NFL career with a few teams.  But, what defines him more than anything is his faith in Jesus.

I found an article from the USA Today which did a fairly good job of describing Jon and his faith.  Click here if you’d like to read the short article.  Note: this is from 2007 when he was still with the Lions.

It was very fun to see his kids running around the chairs and other airport obstacles just as I have seen my kids horse around while waiting for a flight.  It was neat to see he and his wife say no a few times to his kids’ request for a couple quarters so they could buy a vending machine snack… in other words, it was just good to see a guy who has a lot of the worldly possessions at his disposal, not flaunt it (not that giving his kid a couple quarters is flaunting your wealth).  And yes, when we got on the flight and they all sat in coach.

Brush with fame #3 coming soon, probably in the form of another Who Am I contest.

Grace,
Brian