Been awhile eh?

So it has been awhile since I last posted hu? 6 months or something like that. Crazy times since then.

The last 6 months have been characterized by the best times in my life. I spent 6 months with about 30 of the most amazing people in the entire world. And I mean that.  I always wondered what God intended a family to be like, and here is where He taught me that. I cannot begin to tell you about all of the things that God did, though I will try.

The major highlights are the loss of Kateen’s leg, God’s work in my heart and His mission for me for the next 2 years. Kateen was a staff member that contracted some sort of flesh-eating virus. Her leg was amputated to save her life, and even with that she was very close to death. God had different plans and now He is reuniting her family and encouraging people’s faith because of her faith. God’s work on my heart was beginning the process of solidifying my identity in Him. I was out there with none of my usual comfort relationships. I could not draw my identity by the people I hung out with, the ministry I did or my family. It was me and what God made me to me. Next is the mission placed before me. He has called me to full time missions work (didn’t see that one coming) in Brighton. I will be working with the club scene there, being a conduit for Christ to bring redemption to people’s lives. They so need it, so many are stuck.

I got back in the latter part of June and started the process of getting things lined up for my return to the UK. I was working for a friend of mine and have since then started working at my old job, warehousing at a Toyota dealer. I have been working with my church’s high school sunday school class, teaching and facilitating as well as staffing our yearly youth discipleship camp, Bridge Builders. God worked in really mighty ways this year, including the healing of a man who could not walk as well as bringing so many people together. Several people are now moving to Richmond from various places in the States to be a part of this ministry as well as bringing people from Nashville to plant a church.

So what are my 5 year goals? Well, I am committed to YWAM Brighton for the next 2 years, pioneering club ministries as well as discipling the DTS students. After that I am considering a School of Biblical Studies (most likely in the UK or at least in Europe, but possibly in the US). I also want to be teaching on DTSs on discipleship and the Father Heart of God. Intense.

As the song goes, “Oh God, I feel like I’m in for it now…”

Drug addictions and Weeping in Walmart

I was talking to a friend of mine online earlier this evening and right before I had to leave she tells me this story.
If your reading this, thank you for telling me this story. It has encouraged me incredibly.
Her relative has been on drugs for a good while, as I understand it. She told me that she felt it was almost impossible to get through to this person. She hadn’t had the greatest relationship with this person and because of that she felt it was not possible to talk with said person about Christ. So she is in Walmart doing some shopping and she gets a phone call. She pulls out her cell and notices that this person is calling. This person says that they had just heard God speak audibly to them and then shortly after someone began to speak prophetically over them. They had recieved Christ into their heart the night before.
Needless to say, she fell to the floor with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. God is SO good.

I am telling you this story because not 10 minutes before this, I had been reading a book by David Pierce called Into the Lion’s Den. Its sort of an autobiography about his life and the ways that God has used him. He tells about ministering in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, battling demons and seeing people instantanously transformed by God. As I read, I got that feeling that alot of people get when they read something like that. “That’s cool. But it will never happen to me. God will never use me like that.” I’m here to say that that is a lie from the pit of hell. This story is a PRIME example of God transforming His children into tools to heal the sick and save the lost.

This is why I do what I do. This is why I am doing this DTS. This is why I want to be involved in youth ministry for the rest of my life. I want to see youth radically transformed and healed. I want to see youth being the tool God uses to bring radical transformation and healing to other youth.

God, use me like You have used David Pierce. I know realize that all that takes is listening to You and then acting when You need me to, to do that thing I don’t want to.

Amen

3 weeks…

Well, I have less then 3 weeks to go before I leave everything familar, jump on a plane and fly to jolly ol’ England.

Kinda crazy eh? I’ve been preparing for 9 months for this and it just seems so unreal. I think back to a few weeks ago when I was pretty low on financial suppot for my DTS and it hit me. I may not have the money to go. I had a plane ticket, a deposit, a dream and God’s support, though I failed to see it at the time. As I laid there in my bed at 3 am on a Wendsday morning, a little lie came to me. “You’re not going to get the money. You won’t be able to pay for tuition. There is no way.”
In that instant, my trust in God was test. Would I trust in the dream God had placed in my life? Would I trust in the path God had prepared for me, showed me and arranged for me?
In that moment, I did not.
The Bible is chock full of accounts of God providing for His people. One of His names is Jehovah Jireh, The Lord our Provider. My dad was out of a job for 9 months and we were never in trouble.
After all of this, I stopped trusting in God.
But even with my lack of trust and faith, God never fails. In the last 2 weeks, God has brought in an amazing $2000. This combined with the donations from the passed 3 months brings the total to $3970, not including an additional $400 in pledges as well as an offer for monthly support from a friend. After my plane ticket, I am looking at about $500 more for tuition and about $1500 to complete my budget.

WHOA! It simply blows me away how, even in my unbelief and distrust, God still pulls through. It amazes me.

Who knew Christmas could actually suck?

When I was young, if someone would have asked me if Christmas sucked I would have told them no. I would have said something along the lines of, “You just don’t have any idea what Christmas is really about, do you?” As if anyone in the world could actually be serious if they said, “Humbug”. How could Christmas, a day of remembering Christ’s birth, suck?

Christmas’ like todays remind me that I no longer live in a bubble. I no longer live in a place where at least a few things could get screwed up, where somethings could just not be wrong. I wake up around 10:30 and head downstairs to hang out with the family. I sit down no the couch, take a deep breath, under that tree is a few gifts for me. We sit around for a while just waiting. I grab my stocking and start pulling a few things out. I pull out a rubber chicken, an atomic alarm clock, and a gift card to Starbuck’s. You may say, “Well, that isn’t too bad. At least the chicken is kinda funny.” When I was a kid (read that all years prior to this year) it was a tradition to get a flashlight in your stocking. When we were kids, my parents used to put it on the foot of our beds and we would wake up at like 4 am or so and and pull out the contents of the stocking. My parents used to put the flashlight at the top, complete with batteries, ready to roll, so you could see what you got. Last year there were no batteries and it was at the bottom. This year, no flashlight. And so begins the long list of things that just went wrong. A flashlight was always something you could count on getting. It may seem small, but it was, in retrospect, a sign that somethings always stayed the same.

We continue eating cinnamon rolls and drinking coffee (at least 1 thing was going right) and then start opening gifts. The problem with gifts is that my mom isn’t really thoughtful, she wants to preach at you with those gifts. She’ll get things that refer to things in your life she disagrees with. Last year all she would take about was how I didn’t spend enough time at home, that I wasn’t taking care of myself and how all my priorities were messed up. What do I get? A plaque talking about keeping my focus on family, my health and my priorities. The year before I got a book on teenage boy’s stuggles with sex. I was 19. What do you think she thought I needed? I needed a book about how teenage boys have trouble with sex…

So this year, what do I get? I get a 6×9 foot fleece blanket (which was pretty cool), a huge keychain watch (because I don’t wear a watch… any idea what that was for?), a pen/journal thing with a bunch of Christ’s names on it (cool, but I’m not the sure to carry around a pen with that on it let alone a journal), a cheesy Christian hoodie (one of those ones that when you see someone wearing, you seriously question if their witness is on their hoodie or in their life), and a black shirt about “meddling in the affairs of dragons” (I havn’t worn a black shirt in almost a year for a reason). So I move on to my dad’s presents and I get one of those notebooks with the rubber band holding it closed (like the one on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, very cool) and a map of the UK. The notebook is the coolest and the thing I will probably end up using the most and I got it from my dad who I see something like once every 5 months or so.

So we move on through the day and no matter what I do, no one in my family will give me ANY respect. It’s like I’m a freakin’ doormat or something. Dinner finishes and we sit down and pretty soon all my brothers start in on me about how when they were my age, they were out living on their own, that my trip to the UK was irresponsible and stupid. My oldest brother spent $9000 on a ring for a girl that left him less then a year later for another guy and kept coming back for almost 3 years asking him to bail her out of something or give her money. My second oldest brother was forced into learning to drive his car (which was a 5 speed) during Christmas break because my dad wouldn’t take him to college and asked not to return for his second semester as a freshman because his GPA was around .30. My next oldest brother is 23 living at home because he can’t get his boss to give him enough money, or pay him for what he actually does at his job.
And I’m irresponsible. I’m stupid for leaving everything for a 6 month missions trip. I have never once talked bad about any of them. I have not once said they screwed up, they did it wrong and all I get is crap.

Damn it, what the hell is wrong with this family?
I know, this is really emo and I am normally very anti-emo. But I don’t freaking care.
That return flight from the UK is looking less and less appealing.

Tore up…

I went down to the climbing gym this evening with my buddy. I havn’t had a whole lot of time to hang out with him lately and with whats going on in his family, I really want to be around more then I am.

So I go down, he’s running abit late. I say, “No problem. I’ll just mess around until he gets here.” So I go ove to the bouldering cave and mess around abit, just getting myself warmed up. Time passes and he’s still not there (no worries bro!) so I have the novel idea to actually do some problems. Start off with a nifty V0 (I’m a newb) with a funky undercling move. No worries. It took me a few tries; the opening move has a sketchy foothold. Still not around. I move on to a V0+ (oh snap) with a the 2 starting hand holds being 2 finger pockets. I have decent (read newbish) finger strength and after those 2 holds its clean sailing, or so I thought. I tweaked my right ring finger abit and now she’s definatly abit sore.

John gets there, we harness up and choose a route, a 5.10 face/crack route. Not bad, she seems doable. And normally would have been if I had more then 5 hours sleep and been up for 12 hours (not to mention having already been to the local granite boulder area). Neither one of us manage to ascend it and we’re pretty bummed. We go for a 5.9, just below my limit, again with no success and the summit unvisited. So, in order to boost me confidence and get me to summit something, I tackle me favorite climb in the gym, a 5.8 stemming route in the back corner. It is WELL within my limits and I usually climb it everytime i go to the gym.

I barely manage to ascend it, and I mean barely. So we’re messing around on a 5.9 slight overhanging route with good holds in bad positions. John doesn’t manage to ascend it and after 2 tries, I call it quits on that route. We continue to mess around, and a started a 5.10+ that has an easy start; just the first few feet I tell myself. I start it off with my right hand on a 2 finger pocket, further tweaking my finger, and then I bring my right off the chip near the deck to a higher hold, it pings off and POW! Mr. Knee meets Mr. Modular hand hold and they don’t like each other. Now I’m limping like a mad man with 1/2 a hip and I can’t move my finger very well either…

Fun day eh? Lord, save me before I kill myself doing something stupid.

Stressed

So my friend Scott and I have set up this website to help raise some money for my trip to the UK. We went live last night at about 1 am. I posted an annoucement at TF.com and have an ad running there and after 24 hours i have had 12 views of the annoucement, no replies. I have set up a MySpace account trying to get some networking going, again very little is coming out of it.

I have alittle under $5000 to raise and 7 weeks to do it in. I am so frustrated and sort of beat down right now. The work that Scott put into the site (www.vehiclesoundtracks.com) is huge and I am just sort of depressed that not only is it not getting much traffic, which it will hopefully begin to step up after a few favors I have called, but he deserves ALOT of credit for the work. He did all of the graphic design, site design, covers for each of the contributing artists, but also donated a full 8 track album or DnB worship.

I’m just not seeing the end of the tunnel right now. I just can’t see how God is going to do this. I sent out support letters almost 2 months ago, and I have gotten responses from about 4 people.

I am setting aside Wensday mornings from 9 to 10 AM EST as a prayer time for my financial support starting tommorow morning. I invite you to pray where you are for God’s provision. Please also keep me in your prayers. I havn’t been sleeping well lately because I just can’t get my mind off the huge need I have right now. I paid less for my car then the cost of my tuition, alot less.

Jesus, forgive me for my unbelief. I know You can provide, that You will provide. I know where you are taking me, but I just can’t see how it is going to happen. Lord give me a peace to know that You are for me and that You will provide.

amen

Rain

It rained today. There is something special in the rain. I have always thought so, even though it often gets in the way of my plans. But there is something special there. So many song writers, especially Christian or worship writers, have written about the rain. Michael W Smith wrote “Let it Rain”. A simple yet powerful song asking for God to rain down. I have heard countless songs that have samples of rainfall.
We live in a world built around rain. So many people complain when rain runs “a perfectly good day”. Yet, as I learned in Africa, rain is the thing that sustains for many people around the world. I remember a few weeks ago, I had planned to meet up with a buddy and rock climbing over at the Manchester Bridge wall. It had rained a few days before and I woke up to my cell phone ringing. My buddy was calling to tell me that the Wall and the area was way too wet. The rain that day had ruined a perfectly good day to climb. I also remember back in Africa working in 95F and 90% humidity. I learned to expect and pray for rain, especially right after the sun set. When it did, the temperature would drop to about 70F and most of the humidity would be gone for an hour or so. The wind would kick up and suddenly life was grand. Many people depend on that rain and if it doesn’t come, their crops don’t grow and they have no water to drink.

As I looked out of the garage at work this morning, God descended with the rain and came into the garage to meet me. I sat there, staring out just basking in the presence of the Father and in that moment God spoke words that are so profound; words that I knew in my mind in the smallest of ways.

Rain has the power to destroy.If you have ever since footage of a flood, you know what the destructive power rain can bring. It is indiscriminate, and it has powerful. But if you have ever seen the sun come from behind the clouds after a rain, you know how beautiful it is. It is like a new beginning after the rain has stopped.

This is so much like life. I grew up in a storm. My parent’s relationship was never Godly and that was incredibly hard for me. It was so hard to live as a kid for me, trying to guess when my parents would start yelling at each other. But now that I’m older, maybe a little wiser, and definitely not where I was at the time, I now realize what God’s plan was for me at that time. I weathered the storm and came out stronger, more dependant on God. I look back and know that while my parents never showed me how to handle a relationship, they did show me how not to handle a relationship. I know better then a lot of people what a single incident of disrespect can cause, Satan can use any misstep to drive a wedge between husband and wife, if it is not dealt with. My father never showed me what a Godly father looked like, but he did show me what a Godly father didn’t look like.

When I was in the middle of the storm, a storm that, at the time, had no end, I thought that God was too small to fix things. Now that the storm has cleared, I can see the reasons I was allowed to weather that storm. You can never truly appriciate a beautiful day until you have been caught in the middle of a mighty storm.

Everyone endures storms of some sort. I don’t care who you are. My encouragement to you is to search for God’s plan in that storm. Seek God in that storm. He doesn’t allow us to weather the storm without a reason. He wants to teach us something that cannot be taught any other way. Remember that your trials, your triumphs are your testimony, that God will use those times to bring you out stronger then you went in.

Post Operations…

So I am at home now, sitting here wondering when I will be able to eat real food.
I’m surviving off blendered chicken noodle soup, chocolate pudding (FYI, don’t that that get warm), and jello. Pretty tired since I havn’t had any real food in my since last night at about 11pm (should have finished that chicken sandwich as it was far better then the soup…) and I really want to just eat food.
Oh yeah, and I get to wake up at 5 to take more pain killers… fun.

This is the suck…

God, give me a speedy recovery, and when I say speedy, I mean like Speedy Gonzalaz speedy.

This may prove to be fun… (with rant)

Well, I’m having my wisdom teeth out tommorow morning, 10 am. Sounds incredibly fun hu? Makes you just want to go out and have yours out, doesn’t it?

I don’t know though. I have mixed feelings toward it. It’ll be the first time I’ve been put under that I can remember. I was less nervious about flying to Kenya then I am know. Maybe it is the fact that I will be pretty much useless for at least 2 days. But I think that it is more along the lines of everything else that is going down. I woke up this morning at 5 am with terrible heartburn, caused by stress again. Sometimes I think to myself, “If I can just make it until January, everything will be fine.” The problem is, stress doesn’t go away when you leave. It just follows you.
And so I ask myself the question, why is it that I stress over so much. If you know me, you know I’m easy going guy. I firmly believe in ’shooting off my hip’ in about 90% of all ministry, life, school, whatever. Yet, this one issue seems to evade my easy going attitude. God promised me over 5 years ago that He would take care of it, I look at life and know that only God can really work it out the way it needs to be, that only He can complete it the way both of us want. And yet I find myself still grasping for it, still ‘needing’ to control it. I know God can do it, I know God can bring it to perfection, yet with all the knowing I still can’t seem to fully give it and trust it to God.

Lord, be the Consuming Fire in my life. Lord, I give it to you. I lay it down at your feet and trust this with you.

(continueing with prerant idea)
I don’t think it will be too bad though. I expect to be out of it for Friday and Saturday at least, but I have a good amount of movies to watch (Lord of the Rings Special Edition, all 6 Star Wars, plus movies I am renting) so I should be good. I also hope to finish up my “sermon” on the Father Heart of God before the weekend ends, if I am able to. If I can get that in by Wen. it should be good timing to do that right after the series on Jesus’ teachings.

Peace in Christ

The Show!

So I’m sitting here listening to DJ 404 and The QDawG doing The Show! from November 3rd. One of my good buddies, Scott Zeilenga, is the guest for this session and let me tell you it is amazing. Scott has such a heart for God and he is going after the calling on his life. I am so encouraged by his music and his passion for Christ.

Check him out at http://www.szeilenga.com/, http://pneumaterials.net/, and http://www.non-fictionsound.com/. His blog is listed under the Links section here.

Father, I ask that You would bless Scott and his endeavors. Lord, I ask for supernatural support for his new label. 
In Your Son’s Holy Name,
Amen.