Travelling.

Its crazy to think over the past 4 months of my life and think about all the things I've done. How can I EVER complain?? I've lived among the storied history of Europe, visited some of the most famous cities on earth, experienced the poverty of Africa, lived in the Middle East for a month, and will in a few weeks experience yet another culture in Central Asia. Today it only continued. Just a normal day....got to DRIVE A CAR a few hundred miles in the Middle East among the craziest drivers on earth, got to see the DEAD SEA, swim in it, and see the lowest point on earth (the Dead Sea), and got to go up Mount Nebo to the site where God supposedly showed Moses the promised land right before he died. The scenery was spectacular, and the history only made it better. It makes the Old Testament, the "fairy tales" of the Bible become so real. Once seeing this land, this culture, it makes the Bible so tangible, so full of life. These weren't some stories dreamed up by good storytellers, these are stories that happened to REAL people over thousands of years of history. Right here in this very land, this very same kind of culture Moses, Adam, Joseph, Joshua, Isaac, Abraham LIVED. This is the part of the world they called HOME. Its been so cool learning to understand the Bible simply by learning this culture and realizing why some things in the Bible are like they are. Just the experience of a lifetime. I really don't think I will ever be able to appreciate this as much as I should.

But anyways.....school is going really good. We now have 14 students, after starting with 7-8. The kids really seem to be having fun, and I KNOW I am. Its worth all the hard work and stress of planning the "perfect" lesson when you see the progress and the way they are beginning to form sentences. It makes it even better when you hear them repeating the things they have learned over and over outside of class, simply because they are so excited to be learning. Or when random kids from the neighborhood, who aren't even in the classes, come up to you and repeat phrases that you have been teaching the kids....meaning your students are so excited about what they are learning they are teaching other kids!! Its such an amazing opportunity. An opportunity to teach this kids, give them more chance of a future, but more importantly, a chance to show them the love of God. For the first few days of class all I did was freak out about making the "perfect" lesson, making sure the kids were excited and having fun, and all it did was stress me out. It was partway into this week that God just showed me something that has changed my entire perspective. It isn't about not making mistakes, because those will be made....it isn't about teaching the kids a ton of English, because that isn't realistic in 3 weeks....its about showing them the love of God....its about the kids I am doing this for, and the God I am serving. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing, when it was all meaningless. If it isn't for God, there simply isn't any enjoyment. So its just been really good to get myself out of focus and to focus on these kids, hang out with them, play games with them, laugh with them, and show them that I love them more than they know, and hopefully that God loves them more than they could ever imagine. Its made everything go much better. All in all, it has been very hard and stressful and uncomfortable and frustrating, but God is working and using us....and that makes it all worth it.

Outreach...

So here I am on outreach. Digging in to the calling of God. Digging in to where He is leading us. And not always in the most pleasant of ways. While I can't specifically say where I am, I can tell you I am in the Middle East. It is here we have felt God leading us. Leading us to stay in hotels in the middle of a city, with no working outlets, no heat, cold showers, a toilet that doesnt work or a squatty potty (a glorified hole in the ground), no way of doing laundry, and the loud city noises right outside our windows. But it gets the job done, and really is much better than many places we could stay. I can't complain, for we have running water, a roof over our heads, and plenty of food. Oh the food! Hummus and flat bread galore, amazing wraps filled with grilled chicken and fresh vegetables, falafel sandwiches....never eaten this good in my life!

But yeah, we got in on Monday and have spent the rest of the time contacting local ministries and learning how we can get involved. It ends up we are going to be spending most of our time at a community center about an hour out of the city, working at the hub of the surrounding Bedouin villages (former desert people or nomads who are just transitioning into a settled lifestyle). We will be teaching English, Aerobics, Art, and doing odd jobs aruond the center. Most of the teaching is to younger kids, so it is nothing too stressful. 4 days a week me and two of my teammates will be teaching a 45 min English class to 4th and 5th graders. Should be really challenging, but a lot of fun. Not something I ever have seen myself doing, but can't wait to get started! On the other days we will either have an off day or the team will do something on our own, such as street evangelism and building relationships. Our days will definitely be packed.

Anyways, I must say the culture is SO interesting. So completely different from anything Western culture is. In Muslim society, men are king. Women are meant to maybe be seen, but not heard. In public, head scarves are worn and eye contact is not an option. A man and woman making any kind of lasting eye contact are seen as either being man and wife or having sex regularly. Also, men and woman never walk along together unless they are man and wife. Even when walking as our team, women walk in one group and men in the other. Its hard to get adjusted to, thats for sure, but its really cool to be immersed in the culture. Another culture difference is communication. In Arab culture, everything is about politeness. If you stop someone and ask for directions, they will ALWAYS tell you how to get there, even if they have absolutely no clue what you are talking about or where it is. Often they will invite you into their homes with no real intention of wanting you to come, but simply being polite. Most times you must ask something at least 3 times to get the real answer. When eating at someone else's house, they will ALWAYS tell you to eat more when you are finished. If you say you are full and don't want anymore they will insist up to 7 or 8 times that you should eat more before they stop. It is called an "honor and shame" culture, where everything is about how much honor you can receive for you and your family name. Really, really interesting.

Well, I better go. I've been in this internet cafe for over 2 hours, lol. But I will try to make sure I post more often. Sorry it has been so long. God Bless....can always use prayer if you think about it!

PS:شضثبيغضؤر ؤىءايسش-that is just a sample of some of the characters in Arabic. And they also read right to left and make some noises I never knew humans could make. So my thoughts? #1 way to cause your head to spontaneously explode. Try learning Arabic.

The speed of life

Here I am.....speeding across central Germany, speeding away from the life I've known the past three months. Goodbyes were hard, and tears were many. Its hard to believe that this is it-the very thing we've been looking towards, been preparing for our entire time here in Germany. The excitement thats been building is a little tainted by the reality that the small town of herrnhut has become our home away from home. The things of our everyday routine have become a part of us. Sleeping in through part of lecture, getting woken up everyday by the same kid that jumps off the top bunk of his bed, making the horrible walk up Slow Death to town(the fitting name of a giant hill between the base and town), being around people 24/7(whether you wanted to be or not), making horrible instant coffee in our room, eating the same meat and cheese sandwiches every night, late night talks w/ best friends, horrid laundry duty, sitting on the student floor for hours on end with nothing to do, all-nighters for no reason, shopping in the boutique, the list goes on. But most of all, you begin to realize that each person that was with you has become a part of you. No matter how different from you they are, no matter how aggravating, people become a part of you, a part of life. Without each one of the 68 students in our school, it would never have been the same. And without these pieces of your life around, it just doesn't feel right sometimes. It can ALMOST be depressing sometimes to realize that that special time of lecture phase, that season of life is behind us, never to return.

But its with excitement and hope and trust in God that we look towards outreach, the blood and guts of this entire trip. When we finally get out of the bubble world of Herrnhut and the rubber hits the road. When feelings flare, faults are exposed, and God truly is the only thing we have. Can't wait!

As I watch our train eat up kilometer after kilometer(not miles, you stupid American), I can only think about my life. Just as the train picks up speed and pushes on to the destination, faster and faster, no stops in sight, so does my life. Life only continues to get faster and faster. Before I will know it I will be married (yes, I am engaged), then kids will come, then my career will pick up, and before I know I will look back and wonder how so much life has slipped unbeknowns through my grasping fingers. I only hope and pray that God helps me to make the most out of every moment, and do the most I can with every moment given to me. I am so thankful for this trip and the meaning it has already had on my life. God, help me not to take it for granted!

A speed bump...

Man....I would love to say I am having the time of my life 24/7 and everything is going perfect and I've never been closer to God than I am here and I am growing soooo much. But MAN, life just can't be that easy, can it? Once the newness wears off and things become routine here, it is so easy to fall back into old patterns and ruts, easy to just go through the motions. But I can't. I can't let myself go back to the same person I was. After the things I've learned and the things I've seen, in no way can I ever be the same person again. Not only is it impossible for me to be the same, I simply will not LET myself be the same. Not after all the things God has shown me, the things I have experienced, I just cannot LET myself do that. My life was so empty then, so relatively meaningless.

Never before have I been homesick. Usually, if anything, I am GLAD to get out of the bubble I have lived my entire life in known as Hartville (not a bad place, just a place I like getting away from now and then...as I would anywhere else I lived, lol). But wow, what I wouldn't do to swing by home for a day, even an hour or two. Just long enough to get in my car, drive to Missy's, play with Mia for a while, maybe go to Belden Village. Oh the things we take for granted, the relationships we realize we need.

Sometimes its easy to feel like my time here hasn't gotten me very far. Its hard to measure the growth amidst the roller coaster of everyday life. Amidst illness, broken laptop chargers, insecurities, lost possessions and all the stupid LITTLE things Satan has used to get me down the past few days. Its even easy to sometimes think it would be easier to just go home. But that is not where God has called me. That is not His plan for the rest of my time here. I certainly REFUSE to spend my time here in that state of mind, having a pity party for myself while I let my invaluable time here slip by. Before I know it this season of my life will be over, and I cannot think of looking back with regrets, wondering why I spent my time wallowing in self-pity. Stupid human-ness! I must press on, keep pressing in to God, no matter how often I feel nothing or how much I sometimes want to give up, give in to Satan's lies. Jesus didn't command us to live a life of comfort and convenience, but of COMMITMENT! He sure wasn't living a convenient life when He bore our sins on His back, when His body was nailed to that cross. That sure wasn't comfort! So I refuse to let a little venture out of my comfort zone faze (sp?) me. I cannot, I should not, and I WILL NOT. So please, if you think about it, just pray for me. For a renewed passion, more revelation of God, and just the perseverance and determination to dig in, no matter what the cost. Not because I will feel better, but because He is worthy. God is worthy of us seeking Him our entire lives, no matter what kind of feeling we get or how good it makes us feel!

Mombasa...

Its still hard to believe I was in Africa, but my journal keeps assuring me that I was. Its hard to believe the poverty I saw, but the photos break my heart anew every time I look at them. My journal entry on Wednesday shakes me back to the reality of what I saw: “How DARE I EVER think I am “poor” or don’t have as much as others? How DARE I think I have a hard life? Last time I checked I have never gone CLOSE to wondering where my next meal would come from or how I would make it that day without eating. I have never had to live, even sleep in the same room as my rabbits and other animals. My house isn’t a mere mud shack with stone floors, no electricity, and no ventilation. I have never had to walk around barefoot on scorching hot sand, simply because I don’t have shoes. Never have all my clothes been covered in stains or been full of holes. Never have I had to fight for a GLASS OF WATER. Never do I wonder where I will lay my head that night. Never do I live in filth and disease, but have no way to clean myself and no health care to get better. Never do I get beaten and burned by the only thing I thought I could put trust in, my family.” The striking reality is that most of these kids don’t even HAVE family to begin to put their trust in.

35 kids. 35 of the cutest kids you will ever see. 30% of them are HIV positive. About a quarter of them are orphans and stay with different people every night. If they are lucky enough to have a family, they never have both parents. None of them can afford to get anything of a normal education. The handful of crackers or little pieces of potatoes they get are school are usually the only food they get in a day. They live in hopelessness, with no purpose, nobody to show them a normal life. A generation of kids growing up without knowing anything other than poverty and despair. Begging on the streets, no education, no way of growing up to live a better life. Not because of anything they’ve done, not because they are not hard-working, but simply because of the place they were born and the circumstances they were placed in.

We only had 5 days. 5 days to tackle a mountain of problems. It felt hopeless. It felt like we would never make a dent. We prayed over and over that God would maximize our time. He answered our prayers. As we prayed for guidance and direction that first day, God simply said, “Go out in love and I will guide you. Live out the two greatest commandments--love God and love others --and I will use you.” So that is what we tried to do. Every morning we poured out whatever love we could on the kids, simply by showing them we cared about them and were there for them. We played with them, held them, hugged them, helped them learn, loved them. We TRIED to repay our hosts through offerings of finances, prayer, and support for the work they were doing with these kids--work in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of a large city, where they have no financial support system, and are barely staying afloat. Christine gave up her career as a school teacher of 35 years, her income, to start this school. She is putting so much into it she can’t even pay the rent on her own house. They have stopped using electricity and use as little water as possible simply to save money. We gave them enough money to pay the rent for the school and for the house, just to keep it open! She doesn’t have the money to make copies, so every page she makes for the kids she has to make 35-40 times. We made 2000 copies of pages for her at a print shop. She has back problems that leave her sleepless MOST nights, but yet everyday she wakes up and bears the pain to bring joy to these kids, to give them a CHANCE. Even the SLIGHTEST chance of living a normal life is maybe the greatest gift they will ever receive. And that is what Christine is giving them. That is what motivates her to keep going even when she doesn’t always feel much progress is there. We prayed for her and for healing.

We loved God. We tried to continually pour prayer into everyday, everything we did. We went on prayer walks around the surrounding area, meeting people, and praying over neighborhoods. We worshipped God and tried to focus on His goodness in the midst of the horrific things we saw. We asked God the hard questions and processed the things we were experiencing.

And God used it! He used it to change OUR lives. These kids with nothing, absolutely nothing showed more joy than WE did most of the time. They showed us the joy in the simple things of life. The joy in bouncy balls, balloons, and simply being with others. They showed us that possessions don’t equal happiness and that complete provision for our needs is not a RIGHT we can expect from God, just because we have a relationship with Him. They showed us that the love of God exceeds our circumstances and our suffering. They knew He was there, no matter what they were going through.
But oddly, my heart was not broken until the last day. That morning a boy came to school complaining of some pain in his legs. When we had him show us where it hurts, we found 6-7 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over his legs. He explained that his mother got angry for a reason we still don’t know, heated a spoon over the fire, and pressed it into his legs over and over, leaving 1-2 inch burns all over his legs. I broke down as we prayed over him. I couldn’t fathom what had happened. A boy with nothing, already no hope, got severely burned by his own mother! Possibly the only person he could have ANY trust in! I sat and cried for 5 minutes, broken by the complete injustice that we were witnessing.

It is hard to go back to Western life, with all the luxuries you can imagine and no concept of need and poverty. However, God showed me something. Instead of letting the things we saw get us down and make us not want to eat, we need to simply be SO MUCH MORE thankful for what we DO have. Instead of being depressed and angry at what is going on in the world, we should be more joyful than ever FOR those that can’t be. We should choose to wake up each day with a smile on our face in honor of those that are suffering and can’t always find joy. And it should only motivate us to spread Jesus more, the hope, the love, the comfort that is in a relationship with God. It might just be the only thing these people will ever be able to say is theirs.

On the edge..

For so many years I have prayed that God would make me a radical Christian. Someone that is sold-out completely for Christ and gives up his own life. Someone that turns to God and never looks back. As I came here I kept saying that I am done with myself. For so long I have depended on myself all for naught, for EMPTINESS. I am so overrated. And here God has brought me. Today, to this very place. As He broke me down into tears (the first time my hardened heart has been able to cry since I got here) today I knew the time had come. For so long I had prayed for these things. For so long my heart had longed to serve God with abandon. And here is my chance, God is answering all my prayers. There is a fork in the road.....go back to Hartville, start a career, live the normal everyday life...which God can definitely use. Or give it all up. Lay down ALL my rights..to family, to friends, to everything I know and say, "Not my will, Father, but yours." Both can be used by God, both are good, but which do I want more? Where is my heart?

I can only focus on God. But close your eyes for a second and imagine laying on your death bed, at the ripe old age of 80 years old. You know the end of life is fast approaching, only moments are left to reminisce and mull over your life. What will you think about? What will you remember? Will it be what car you drove, which brand of clothing you wore, how much money you made, what you did as a career? No! Everything we worry about is so meaningless, so stupid! Absolutely NOTHING will matter except for God and the relationships you made. There is no greater cause than to give up your life for Christ. Nothing could be more worthy! THERE IS NO GREATER THING!

So the choice is there. My stomach is in knots. The rest of my life seems to be in the balance. The two paths lay before me. Sure, as I look down the path I see God standing at the end of each of them, holding out his arms. But the question is, which do I want more?

There IS more to the world....

Wow. It’s really good to get a different perspective on the world we live in. There is so much more than the little bubble we happen to be placed in, or even the bubble I am living in here in Germany. Last weekend I had the cool experience of being in three different countries in one day (Germany, Czech Republic, Poland). It was so interesting to just experience the different feelings of various countries. The cold emptiness, boarded up buildings, and barren streets of the Czech Republic to the laid back feeling of Poland. It was a really cool time. It opens your eyes so much to how other people live, and makes you realize that their current lifestyles are, many times, all they know.

In the Czech Republic people live in the middle of deserted towns with barely any businesses or anything around. An entire town seems completely dead, with no life and barely any people….remnants of its communist past. While there are thriving cities and beautiful places in Eastern Europe, this is sadly the norm. The feeling of the small city we stopped at seemed so dull, with no purpose or passion for anything. I never believed that cities necessarily could have a “dark” feeling, but there was a tangible difference in the presence of this city, and only 10 minutes across the border. This feeling of depression and emptiness made us feel the urge to stop at a park in the middle of the city and simply pray over it. That God would somehow come there and show the people that He loves them. That there IS a reason for living. In fact, the Czech Republic actually has the highest rate of atheists in the world. Not only people that don’t believe in God, but as in people that have no religion….no reason for life…nothing to hold on to. It was so real!

As for everyday life….it’s so easy to get lost in the grind and the busy schedule here and go through the motions. Its also SO hard to take in everything we are learning and somehow be able to apply what I can to everyday life. I know I’ve said it before but it is like I am relearning my perspective on life and Christianity. Everything I knew is being changed and my eyes are being opened to so much. Sometimes it is really hard, but it is always good. No matter how hard it gets, it is much better than the empty nothingness of the past 2 years of my life, when I basically turned from God and everything I knew was right. Sure, I went to church and said the right things. But a relationship with God was a complete afterthought. I had given up on God and everything He meant to me. It is really scary to think of now, but I was very, very content with living the “Sunday Christian” life the rest of my life….I had no desire to change or get to know God better. I just didn’t care anymore. Here’s the unbelievable part. After all the stupid things I did and all the ways I hurt God….He offered me life, He wanted me. And I rejected it. I slapped Him in the face by turning from Him and for 2 years ran from Him. Then, instead of sitting there waiting for me to come back, wondering what I was doing, HE RAN AFTER ME! He chased me down until I had no choice but to turn back to Him. He desired a relationship with me more than my failures, my mistakes, and my bad choices. The love of God is so unfathomable! So much bigger than anything in our lives, than our lives themselves, than the entire human race!