What are some things that you absolutely know about Jesus?
What are we doing now with what God has given us?
What is worthy enough to give my life to?
What are the things that cause us to discard a chance of a lifetime?
We are not called to comfort, but to obey.
In comparison with eternity most little things in life really don't matter. Seriously, who cares what color you paint the bathroom!
Storms have a way of teaching us what nothing else can.
Kingdom living is not normal.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Thoughts and Questions on Life After Jamaica and Haiti
It is so crazy how life outside of our country even for just a few weeks out of the last year can radically change my thoughts and feelings on lots of things. For instance here is just one of the many things I have been kicking around in my head. I’m telling you there are countless things that roll throughout my mind, but here is just one… My patience with the people in my life that know of God and His gift of life and choose not to accept it frustrates the crap outta me. It makes me question what picture of Jesus I’ve shown them and it also makes me wonder if they only think they know what the gift of grace really is. I would like to have the guts to get them all in a room and say look Jesus loves you all and so do I, but I’m not going to waste my time anymore doing good things when I can be doing God things. So here is the gift of God all you have to do is pick it up off the table and walk out of the room with it. No strings attached, no hoops to jump though, no getting your life together before you can take it, HERE IT IS! Oh yeah and take it you fools!
I just so desperately want to know how the craziness of life right now is shaping my future and the plans God has for me. I’ve been growing like crazy since college and I’m really hungry for more. I’m just trying to decipher the next step and what I need to do to prepare for it.
One of my favorite things about Jamaica was watching the youth kids grow and learn and thier picture of God get bigger.
I just so desperately want to know how the craziness of life right now is shaping my future and the plans God has for me. I’ve been growing like crazy since college and I’m really hungry for more. I’m just trying to decipher the next step and what I need to do to prepare for it.
One of my favorite things about Jamaica was watching the youth kids grow and learn and thier picture of God get bigger.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A Contrast of Children
Today was the end of the Jr. High ROPES program. The parent dinner was held tonight at the camp. I was sad to see the students go, but I’m hopeful that many of them will come to the ROPES camp the first week of June and I will see soon. I was hard for me to watch as some of them left to go home to a broken life and a broken home. They are going back to the daily routine of verbal abuse and stifling. We hope to have been a light in a dark and dreary world full of despair.
On a lighter note Takemore, Wilford, Lesbin, and Anyway are four of the seven students that arrived at the camp today from Eden Children’s Villiage. They are from Zimbabwe and are here in the states competing in a home school competition. They will be competing in running, photography, singing, and knitting. We got to have lunch with them today as a staff. Sandi and I sat with Wilford and we had lots of questions. Anyway and Wilford both said they liked eating American PIZZA! That just goes to show you can never go wrong with pizza. This afternoon they climbed outside on the tower. Takie and Chepo went on the cat walk and a few of the others did the zipline. There facial expressions were very funny. In addition to the ROPES dinner we also invited some of the Eden Children (Fry’s) sponsors to also have dinner with us at RCC. The students gave their testimony and sang a few songs for us. They shared with us their hopes and dreams of what they want to study and do when they are adults. Anyway wants to come to JBC next fall and study preaching. Not to stay here in the states where life is good, but to go back to Zim and change their country. He said tonight that he wanted ZIMBABWE to be represented in Heaven. There are many lost people in Zimbabwe, people who don’t know anything of the Bible or Jesus and His love.
I saw Christ tonight in the love those students have for their fellow people, and also in their genuine gratitude for their sponsors and for the Fry’s. I feel God tugging at my newly mission minded heart. Will a Zim trip be in my future? Only God knows, and I’m okay with that.
On a lighter note Takemore, Wilford, Lesbin, and Anyway are four of the seven students that arrived at the camp today from Eden Children’s Villiage. They are from Zimbabwe and are here in the states competing in a home school competition. They will be competing in running, photography, singing, and knitting. We got to have lunch with them today as a staff. Sandi and I sat with Wilford and we had lots of questions. Anyway and Wilford both said they liked eating American PIZZA! That just goes to show you can never go wrong with pizza. This afternoon they climbed outside on the tower. Takie and Chepo went on the cat walk and a few of the others did the zipline. There facial expressions were very funny. In addition to the ROPES dinner we also invited some of the Eden Children (Fry’s) sponsors to also have dinner with us at RCC. The students gave their testimony and sang a few songs for us. They shared with us their hopes and dreams of what they want to study and do when they are adults. Anyway wants to come to JBC next fall and study preaching. Not to stay here in the states where life is good, but to go back to Zim and change their country. He said tonight that he wanted ZIMBABWE to be represented in Heaven. There are many lost people in Zimbabwe, people who don’t know anything of the Bible or Jesus and His love.
I saw Christ tonight in the love those students have for their fellow people, and also in their genuine gratitude for their sponsors and for the Fry’s. I feel God tugging at my newly mission minded heart. Will a Zim trip be in my future? Only God knows, and I’m okay with that.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A Bike Ride to the Past!
So easily memories fade with time. Days go by and the simplest things go unnoticed through the busyness. Pushed aside, on the top shelf out of reach and hidden from thought. Today on a bike ride the warm spring air along with the smells that it brings, brought a flood of memories, thoughts, and feelings back to the forefront of my mind. I stepped up on a ladder and found a treasure that I been walking under for quite sometime.
My journey brought me to the park where a majority of my childhood memories start or end. My grandparents lived just up the rode from here and a midweek, summer trip with my brother and I was not at all abnormal for them. Grandma would lovingly pack a snack for the four of us and a roll of crackers for the petting zoo and off we’d go. I’ve spent hours at this park. This place is where I was encouraged to explore and wonder about life. Not that my thoughts as a seven-year-old were all that deep, however it was during those days that I was truly free. Free of cares and free of worry. Oh to be a child again where my deepest concern was how many deer would join us as the fence for a stale saltine cracker.
Where did that sense of freedom go? Was it lost with a broken self image in Middle School? Or maybe it was lost in the responsibility of a driver’s license? Was the urge to take each new day by the horns, to learn and ponder all that I could, run over by the desire to perform in Junior athletics, or the pressure of Senior term papers? Did I loose my carefree nature in attempting to find myself in the early semesters of college? Was it swept away by the World’s harsh idea that to be still is to be unproductive and lazy?
Where ever it went I’m happy to have found it again just for today. It was a gift, an unexpected treasure. I think God is silently pleading with us to be still and observe His Kingdome around us. The people we see are His children. The grass and trees are His garden. Each sunset is hand painted just for us to see and be captivated by. Spring time is full of renewing and the Earth’s desire to become fully alive again.
It is only when we are still enough to listen will God reveal and speak to us. No it might not be audible, but it could be. This is a reminder to myself more than anyone to STOP, LISTEN, and LOOK for God in my mist. We have to seek HIM! He will not shout over the TV or radio. You must meet Him in the core of who you are. Rest and relax in His presence. Be open, receptive, and available. Do that and you’ll find Him not far away.
:o)
My journey brought me to the park where a majority of my childhood memories start or end. My grandparents lived just up the rode from here and a midweek, summer trip with my brother and I was not at all abnormal for them. Grandma would lovingly pack a snack for the four of us and a roll of crackers for the petting zoo and off we’d go. I’ve spent hours at this park. This place is where I was encouraged to explore and wonder about life. Not that my thoughts as a seven-year-old were all that deep, however it was during those days that I was truly free. Free of cares and free of worry. Oh to be a child again where my deepest concern was how many deer would join us as the fence for a stale saltine cracker.
Where did that sense of freedom go? Was it lost with a broken self image in Middle School? Or maybe it was lost in the responsibility of a driver’s license? Was the urge to take each new day by the horns, to learn and ponder all that I could, run over by the desire to perform in Junior athletics, or the pressure of Senior term papers? Did I loose my carefree nature in attempting to find myself in the early semesters of college? Was it swept away by the World’s harsh idea that to be still is to be unproductive and lazy?
Where ever it went I’m happy to have found it again just for today. It was a gift, an unexpected treasure. I think God is silently pleading with us to be still and observe His Kingdome around us. The people we see are His children. The grass and trees are His garden. Each sunset is hand painted just for us to see and be captivated by. Spring time is full of renewing and the Earth’s desire to become fully alive again.
It is only when we are still enough to listen will God reveal and speak to us. No it might not be audible, but it could be. This is a reminder to myself more than anyone to STOP, LISTEN, and LOOK for God in my mist. We have to seek HIM! He will not shout over the TV or radio. You must meet Him in the core of who you are. Rest and relax in His presence. Be open, receptive, and available. Do that and you’ll find Him not far away.
:o)
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