Different

There is a young guy in our church named Dani. He's a great guy - even recently he began teaching every now and then for our Wednesday night Bible study, and he's begun leading worship as well.
Dani repented on New Year's Eve, 2006, and started coming to our church in January 2007. When he first started coming to the church, he had short hair and I couldn't help but notice his army boots and bomber jacket - as these are the typical outfit of skinheads in Hungary, of which there are more than a few. But we were just happy to have him in the church.

In the beginning, Dani didn't talk very much; he just showed up for church and left afterwards. But one day before church, I had been talking with some of the church members about the Hungarian rock band Kárpátia - a group that plays "Nemzeti Rock" or Nationalistic Rock music - and Dani came in, and we started talking about it, and I found out that before giving his life to the Lord, he had in fact been a skinhead.

This picture on the right is a picture of Dani in 2006, in full-on skinhead style.

Anyways, after committing himself to the Lord, I guess he reacted a bit against the whole skinhead thing, by growing his hair out. So for almost 2 yrs, Dani didn't cut his hair - and it got long - and sometimes he couldn't hang out, because he had to stay home to wash his hair, or brush it, or whatever you do to long hair.
Well, in the last week of August, the time came when Dani decided that enough was enough, so another guy and I took him to the hairdresser in the mall here, and they cut it off.

Now Dani looks fairly "normal," although I think he really enjoyed not looking "normal" for a time, which I can totally respect, since part of being a Christian is being willing to not be "normal" in the eyes of some people. A willingness to be "different" is a major asset in the life of a person who wants to follow Jesus, and take the road less traveled - the straight and narrow path of walking in the Lord's ways rather than simply conforming to whatever the culture around us deems "normal." Often times what the world calls "normal" isn't what God has deemed normal and healthy.

God has done a good work in Dani's life. He has a great family, most of whom are also believers. He will also be among those who get baptized next weekend.

Here's a slideshow of the pictures of the haircut: