I knew this already coming into it. And when they said it countless times, I didn't doubt it. But this Thanksgiving weekend, I'm realizing how true it is. I don't mean to sound like a giant cliche, it's just ridiculous how real this statement is.
I'm the type of person that needs breaks in between every activity that I do to rejuvenate myself, regardless of how inactive I was or am going to be and regardless of how much I go out of my way to have this time in between things. So living in a place like YWAM where everything is planned out to jam-pack your day can get really exhausting for me. Especially with insomnia and narcolepsy which makes me permanently tired. Basically what I'm getting at is I'm worn out on a very regular basis. I don't really mind, but I do wish I had more free time just every once in a while so I can catch up on de-stressing myself haha.
So I expected to love coming home with my one-on-one Megan to do a whole lot of nothing for five days. Ok I should probably rephrase. I LOVE this home. I've told them I'm moving in a million times. They feed me all the time and it's like I'm eating something mortally sinful it's so good. Something about their family makes me feel right at home, I'm totally comfortable here. Nothing's really expected of me so I'm free to do my own thing whenever I want. Me and Meg's mom are the same person, we're becoming great friends haha. I'm enjoying myself entirely. But... to be honest, there are way too many opportunities here to be bored. For me anyways, Megan's been pretty busy with visas and stuff -Russia pretty much wants nothing to do with American visitors just for the record-.
As much as I anticipated loving this feeling of no pressure to get things done for once since like March, I just feel like there's so much I COULD be doing.
To explain things a little, I'll just start out with the first real week of classes we had. Our speaker, Fred Markert, is pretty crazy. Everyone really loved his stories (I loved his stories but he himself actually pissed me off on a daily basis...but I will give him credit for being one of the most God-trusting, truth-motivated warriors I have met). He has done insane things to further the kingdom of God just one more step, and he really taught us how God promises victory and that means we need to seek it out where we're told it's impossible to find. One of the points he made repeatedly that I will never forget is that Christianity, at least the way the bible says to live it out, is NEVER boring. Let me tell you, the life of Fred Markert is anything but dull. Even through the eyes of an atheist, he's been through intense, terrifying, and awe inspiring things. Living the way the American Church does, you'd think that Christianity is a pretty easy way to stroll through life, but really if you actually read this thing called the bible, you'd see that we're called to live life to the full (John 10:10 for those of you that don't speak missionary). Sometimes that means you die standing up for someone. Sometimes that means you eat monkey brains. Sometimes that means you just have no clue what's coming next -usually the case when you're on missionary support....ha :)-. One of our more recent speakers, Troy Sherman (he's probably going to be the basis of a blog or twenty in the future...just to prepare you), said that being a Christian is pretty much the worst decision you could ever make. Let's be honest, if you're sincerely living the life that is described in the New Testament, there's nothing "fun" about it in American standards. But we're not called to be comfortable. We're not called to stuff our faces full of delicious food for days, sit around and watch TV, waste hours upon hours on facebook, and sleep on pillow top mattresses. Seriously, that just described my entire Thanksgiving break to you, and I know I'm not the only one of my YWAM friends that did the exact same thing.
All to say, being relatively bored, as great as it is, is not enough for me anymore. My body is physically aching to do something productive, and I'm realizing how much better I feel about myself when my day is planned minute by minute even though I hate getting out of bed every single morning because I know I won't stop until lights out. Another point Fred made is that the bible says "GO" more than 8,000 times. Sometimes it specifies what that means, and sometimes you decide how it best fits what you're called to do.
Habakkuk 1:5 says "For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." How am I going to see that if I'm ...bored? Sitting on facebook? Watching Madea? As much as it pains me to say that Madea needs to take up less of my time, I'm not supposed to be deteriorating my muscles because I haven't left the house all weekend, I'm supposed to GO!
So yes, i'm having a great time here at Megan's, consuming glorious things and being lazy. But really, I can't wait to be back at my new home preparing myself for outreach where I get to go! and actually bring hope to people. If you just happen to not believe in the 'hope' I'm talking about, maybe you can at least appreciate that we'll be digging wells in Peru providing clean drinking water so that some of the jungle villages will have access for the first time in their lives to something we take for granted every single day. I should probably use a separate blog for that soap box moment though :).
I ramble so much. If you got to the end of this, I should give you a high five or something. Since I don't really have any great closing statements, this is a video Fred showed us that really portrays how I feel about the American Church. You can feel free to disagree if you want, maybe you've never even been to a "contemporary" church, but I think it's a pretty great video and I'm gonna post it because I can.
Shalom again guys. I guess leave me a comment if you feel as restless as I do right now and we can holla at each other :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqaITA3IO0
Friday, November 26, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Gotta Love Missionary Wi-fi
Turns out this blogging website is blocked on the base's internet so I have no way of getting to it. Potentially I could type something up every once in a while and upload it on the weekends when I go back to the outside world, but I keep forgetting. So this one isn't really an in-depth update, it's just letting you know that that's the reason I haven't been blogging. Sowwy everyone.
We've been crazy busy. I mean... my free time comes in half hour spurts. We have weekends of course, but we usually have things planned at some point, plus laundry, wal-mart runs, church, and whatever else I need to get done... Not to mention book reports every other week, journals we turn in once a week, and lots and lots of reading. I spose I could tell you my daily schedule. Breakfast at 6:30 which means I wake up anywhere from 6:12-6:43 (if you don't already know that I work by odd times...well welcome to my life). We don't necessarily have to be at breakfast, but we do have to be there at 6:55 so they know we're alive to the world. Then they send us off to our Quiet Time with God from 7-8. 8-9 is different depending on the day, some days we have worship and some days we have prayer meetings. We are, after all YWAM -Youth With A Meeting. We're all about acronyms. So far I've learned that YWAM not only stands for Youth With A Mission, but also young women after men, young wolves after mates, youth without any money....they're all true. Anyways. 9:15-12:30 is class. Lunch. Afternoons depends on the day. Monday's and Friday's we have free time for a couple hours which I usually have to use every minute of doing something... But every day at 3 we have work duties, so some people are on maintenance crew, some are in the kitchen, and I am doing housekeeping. I clean the entire basement/game room, we're supposed to clean for 2 hours but mine takes me about an hour and a half. Then I shower and hang out till dinner at 6.
Monday nights are Outreach meetings -officially decided on the Amazon/Peru!-, Tuesday nights are Local Outreach -my group is a tutoring outreach in a nearby trailer park-, Wednesday nights are designated for reading so we can catch up on homework, Thursday nights are Community Night which is worship and usually someone comes to visit me :), Friday nights are basically weekends so we're free -depending on what's planned... some Sunday mornings, we speak at churches, sometimes we have fundraisers, we've had a couple events that took all day but were super fun, etc..- until Sunday night.
All to say.....every hour of my life is pretty much planned out for me while I'm here. It's kind of overwhelming a lot of times because I just want to add 6 more hours to every day. But I'm learning a ton- I can't even begin to tell you... If you haven't done a DTS there's no way you can even fathom what we go through. I can already tell I'm growing emotionally and spiritually so hopefully other people notice as well. There's also been some rough times, especially the past week. There's a ton of spiritual warfare going on, if you don't know what that is, you should send me a message and we can talk about it. So there's been a huge lack of sleep for everyone around the base the past few days and I don't know of anyone that hasn't wanted to go home at some point. We're all pushing through though for now.
Prayer requests for the moment:
-spiritual warfare is crazy, overwhelming, and sometimes scary. you can ask me for details if you want
-God's been growing me most so far through helping me let go of things. small things, big things, forgiving things, there's been some reconciliation with people and some letting go of relationships...even letting go of about 1,000 songs off my ipod the other day. so just that I would continue growing through it and not get defiant towards it
-a lot of personality clashes...if you know me, you know i'm blunt. and people that aren't used to that sometimes get really offended by me. ok I'm offensive either way. there have been many confrontations which is mostly a good thing, but yeah, sometimes dealing with people and making them deal with me is stressful.
I guess this is all I can think of off the top of my head. Facebook is probably more up to date on pictures and stuff. well definitely more up to date. I'll try to remember to update this more often when I get a chance
Shalom friends
We've been crazy busy. I mean... my free time comes in half hour spurts. We have weekends of course, but we usually have things planned at some point, plus laundry, wal-mart runs, church, and whatever else I need to get done... Not to mention book reports every other week, journals we turn in once a week, and lots and lots of reading. I spose I could tell you my daily schedule. Breakfast at 6:30 which means I wake up anywhere from 6:12-6:43 (if you don't already know that I work by odd times...well welcome to my life). We don't necessarily have to be at breakfast, but we do have to be there at 6:55 so they know we're alive to the world. Then they send us off to our Quiet Time with God from 7-8. 8-9 is different depending on the day, some days we have worship and some days we have prayer meetings. We are, after all YWAM -Youth With A Meeting. We're all about acronyms. So far I've learned that YWAM not only stands for Youth With A Mission, but also young women after men, young wolves after mates, youth without any money....they're all true. Anyways. 9:15-12:30 is class. Lunch. Afternoons depends on the day. Monday's and Friday's we have free time for a couple hours which I usually have to use every minute of doing something... But every day at 3 we have work duties, so some people are on maintenance crew, some are in the kitchen, and I am doing housekeeping. I clean the entire basement/game room, we're supposed to clean for 2 hours but mine takes me about an hour and a half. Then I shower and hang out till dinner at 6.
Monday nights are Outreach meetings -officially decided on the Amazon/Peru!-, Tuesday nights are Local Outreach -my group is a tutoring outreach in a nearby trailer park-, Wednesday nights are designated for reading so we can catch up on homework, Thursday nights are Community Night which is worship and usually someone comes to visit me :), Friday nights are basically weekends so we're free -depending on what's planned... some Sunday mornings, we speak at churches, sometimes we have fundraisers, we've had a couple events that took all day but were super fun, etc..- until Sunday night.
All to say.....every hour of my life is pretty much planned out for me while I'm here. It's kind of overwhelming a lot of times because I just want to add 6 more hours to every day. But I'm learning a ton- I can't even begin to tell you... If you haven't done a DTS there's no way you can even fathom what we go through. I can already tell I'm growing emotionally and spiritually so hopefully other people notice as well. There's also been some rough times, especially the past week. There's a ton of spiritual warfare going on, if you don't know what that is, you should send me a message and we can talk about it. So there's been a huge lack of sleep for everyone around the base the past few days and I don't know of anyone that hasn't wanted to go home at some point. We're all pushing through though for now.
Prayer requests for the moment:
-spiritual warfare is crazy, overwhelming, and sometimes scary. you can ask me for details if you want
-God's been growing me most so far through helping me let go of things. small things, big things, forgiving things, there's been some reconciliation with people and some letting go of relationships...even letting go of about 1,000 songs off my ipod the other day. so just that I would continue growing through it and not get defiant towards it
-a lot of personality clashes...if you know me, you know i'm blunt. and people that aren't used to that sometimes get really offended by me. ok I'm offensive either way. there have been many confrontations which is mostly a good thing, but yeah, sometimes dealing with people and making them deal with me is stressful.
I guess this is all I can think of off the top of my head. Facebook is probably more up to date on pictures and stuff. well definitely more up to date. I'll try to remember to update this more often when I get a chance
Shalom friends
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Determined To Be Used
At the Upper Room last night, this was part of the message, being determined. Persistently determined to be exact. This is something that I really want to be, just not very good at it. If you've spent any time with me, you've probably seen me opinionated about one thing or another...and if you haven't, we clearly aren't close. Determination? Easy. Persistent, consistent, commitment? Not so much.
The speaker asked us to think of something we feel passionate about that moves us to tears. Sex slavery was the first thing that came to mind. Human trafficking. Poverty. Homelessness. These are things that I personally strive to make a difference for when I'm feeling motivated. But the thing that devastated me probably more than any of these was about a year ago when I found out that two of my really close friends of the time had decided to "take a break" from Christ and their walk with Him. I literally cried about it for days.
In Romans 9: 1-3 (Message version), Paul says "At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It's an enormous pain deep within me, and I'm never free of it. I'm not exaggerating -Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It's the Israelites... If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I'd do it in a minute. They're my family. ..."
Other versions say that he felt 'unceasing anguish'. That's exactly how I felt. Then he goes on to say that if he could give up his own salvation, his own ticket into eternity with his greatest love, he would do it in a heartbeat just for the sake of someone he considered family. Also exactly how I felt. I was pretty much just torn up about the fact that two of my favorite people would not be in Heaven with me, and I was so anguished -there really isn't a better word for it- that they were not even interested in the best thing that anyone could possibly have. I guess that's my own opinion since I have some friends that won't agree with that statement at all, but whatever. Basically, I was devastated and that was one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with that I could really do nothing about.
Anyways. the speaker encouraged us to take what broke us the most and find a way to use that passion to bring goodness and hope to the world. Then of course God decides that I need to be challenged a little more than that, and tells me that I don't just get to feel this upset about people that are close to me when they choose to follow what they want instead of what He wants. I need to feel this way about every single person on earth. He reminded me that everyone is His child and that I'm pretty blind to that.
So. Apparently my next challenge to add to the list is to really tap into this while I'm at YWAM. Really it's the perfect opportunity because I'll be evangelizing in some way when I'm doing outreach, probably talking to people I've never met before about Christ on a daily basis. As much as this scares me to begin with, now I need to realize that I should feel that same connection with them as I do with someone I consider a brother or sister already. I should be willing to sacrifice myself in order to bring them closer to God. With most strangers I come across, especially people that drive stupidly on the highway, this seems like one of the biggest mental obstacles ever. Do I really feel like I would give up my eternal happiness and hope for the person that flicked me off when they came to a complete stop on 394 for no apparent reason and of course I almost hit them? Do we really need the answer to this question?
I'mma need prayer on this one. As always. But I think I'm ready to try it out....
The speaker asked us to think of something we feel passionate about that moves us to tears. Sex slavery was the first thing that came to mind. Human trafficking. Poverty. Homelessness. These are things that I personally strive to make a difference for when I'm feeling motivated. But the thing that devastated me probably more than any of these was about a year ago when I found out that two of my really close friends of the time had decided to "take a break" from Christ and their walk with Him. I literally cried about it for days.
In Romans 9: 1-3 (Message version), Paul says "At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It's an enormous pain deep within me, and I'm never free of it. I'm not exaggerating -Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It's the Israelites... If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I'd do it in a minute. They're my family. ..."
Other versions say that he felt 'unceasing anguish'. That's exactly how I felt. Then he goes on to say that if he could give up his own salvation, his own ticket into eternity with his greatest love, he would do it in a heartbeat just for the sake of someone he considered family. Also exactly how I felt. I was pretty much just torn up about the fact that two of my favorite people would not be in Heaven with me, and I was so anguished -there really isn't a better word for it- that they were not even interested in the best thing that anyone could possibly have. I guess that's my own opinion since I have some friends that won't agree with that statement at all, but whatever. Basically, I was devastated and that was one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with that I could really do nothing about.
Anyways. the speaker encouraged us to take what broke us the most and find a way to use that passion to bring goodness and hope to the world. Then of course God decides that I need to be challenged a little more than that, and tells me that I don't just get to feel this upset about people that are close to me when they choose to follow what they want instead of what He wants. I need to feel this way about every single person on earth. He reminded me that everyone is His child and that I'm pretty blind to that.
So. Apparently my next challenge to add to the list is to really tap into this while I'm at YWAM. Really it's the perfect opportunity because I'll be evangelizing in some way when I'm doing outreach, probably talking to people I've never met before about Christ on a daily basis. As much as this scares me to begin with, now I need to realize that I should feel that same connection with them as I do with someone I consider a brother or sister already. I should be willing to sacrifice myself in order to bring them closer to God. With most strangers I come across, especially people that drive stupidly on the highway, this seems like one of the biggest mental obstacles ever. Do I really feel like I would give up my eternal happiness and hope for the person that flicked me off when they came to a complete stop on 394 for no apparent reason and of course I almost hit them? Do we really need the answer to this question?
I'mma need prayer on this one. As always. But I think I'm ready to try it out....
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Luke 9
--One day Jesus called together his 12 apostles and gave them power and authority to cast out demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the coming of the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. "Don't even take along a walking stick," he instructed them, "nor a traveler's bag, nor food, nor money. Not even an extra coat.".......So they began their circuit of the villages, preaching the Good News and healing the sick.
Basically I made this blog because right now I can't find my journal. So I figure I need a place to process my thoughts, and maybe you can process with me. Or follow me on my adventures to YWAM. Or just creep for the sole purpose of creepin. Whatever. I have nothing profound to say but we all know I don't mind sharing my thoughts :)
Right now what I'm thinking is that I need a reality check. Jesus gave his apostles the power and authority to do what he was doing, and promises that if we choose to follow him, we will be able to do these things and more. He tells them to go out and DO these things, taking no luxuries with them. Not even an extra coat. Living in Minnesota, is that even sensible? Christ doesn't call us to be sensible though. He just says "go out and do". The crazy part is that they listened. It doesn't say they spent months freaking out, stressing out, and backing out like I want to do.
Not saying I won't be packing my car full of things I think I'll "need" in the next 6 months of my life. But hopefully I will spend more than just tonight pondering these verses and knowing that I don't need to be what I might consider 'prepared' because I really never will be fully ready for what's coming. I am definitely gonna be needing some serious prayer though because I know that alone I won't be able to become this kind of person that just picks up and goes to heal the sick. I'd rather sleep all day on my pillow top in my room in the city where I won't be stretched beyond what I think I can handle.
The good thing is, I've done that for a while now and I know that I'm not meant to be in a comfortable place. I don't even sincerely like it. I'm just terrified of new things. So again... As I'm freaking out and doing last minute things to get ready for this upcoming adventure of mine... pray for me? It would be much appreciated :)
Basically I made this blog because right now I can't find my journal. So I figure I need a place to process my thoughts, and maybe you can process with me. Or follow me on my adventures to YWAM. Or just creep for the sole purpose of creepin. Whatever. I have nothing profound to say but we all know I don't mind sharing my thoughts :)
Right now what I'm thinking is that I need a reality check. Jesus gave his apostles the power and authority to do what he was doing, and promises that if we choose to follow him, we will be able to do these things and more. He tells them to go out and DO these things, taking no luxuries with them. Not even an extra coat. Living in Minnesota, is that even sensible? Christ doesn't call us to be sensible though. He just says "go out and do". The crazy part is that they listened. It doesn't say they spent months freaking out, stressing out, and backing out like I want to do.
Not saying I won't be packing my car full of things I think I'll "need" in the next 6 months of my life. But hopefully I will spend more than just tonight pondering these verses and knowing that I don't need to be what I might consider 'prepared' because I really never will be fully ready for what's coming. I am definitely gonna be needing some serious prayer though because I know that alone I won't be able to become this kind of person that just picks up and goes to heal the sick. I'd rather sleep all day on my pillow top in my room in the city where I won't be stretched beyond what I think I can handle.
The good thing is, I've done that for a while now and I know that I'm not meant to be in a comfortable place. I don't even sincerely like it. I'm just terrified of new things. So again... As I'm freaking out and doing last minute things to get ready for this upcoming adventure of mine... pray for me? It would be much appreciated :)
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