We are currently in transition....

If you asked me a month ago where my heart would be at, I wouldn't have been able to tell you at all that I would be where I am today.

Consumed with God.

I always find it fascinating that I am willing to place my relationship with God into a box with a glass ceiling. I thought the "Moses" relationship with God was something for the very elect.

The ones who had burning bushes.

The ones who had the mountain.

Not the anybodies of our world.

Yet, it seems as though God is calling all those who want Him to draw nearer. He is willing to speak to those who want to listen. He wants to use those who are willing to be used.

Not just the elect.

The anybodies.

This began to rock my world from last Saturday, finding that God is more personable than I have ever allowed myself to think. Suddenly the thought that God knows every hair on my head became reality. It isn't metaphorical , it is fact.

God does care.

A lot.

He wants each of us to seek him in ways that you have always thought of, but never believed.

He wants to use our belief to make an impact for His kingdom. Make a jab at the enemy and allow God to triumph over all.

This means sacrifice.

Real sacrifice.

No holding back from God, not pretending that we can hide anything, because we can't. God is God and he knows our heart, so instead of fleeing from Him and all He has to offer, we get to run.

Sprint.

God wants everything.

Yes, that does mean relationships.

Yes, that does me pride.

Yes, it means your heart, your thoughts, your work, your thoughts, your time, your love, your praise, your sin, your mistakes, he wants us to trust Him in everything.

Every moment there is a situation which is out of our control is a chance to grow. It is a not an opportunity to worry but instead say, "God, you got this"

If you want to find times where God doesn't come through, try not trusting Him. If you don't allow God to work through you, he won't. But trusting that God is, and will take care of you, whether the outcome is "bad" or "good", is beginning to have a real relationship with God and not some distant looking-upon of some god.

He wants us.

All of us.

That has been a challenge, giving my heart up daily. Trying not to hide from God. Willing to say, "Your will be done-even to death itself"

So growth, is healthy. Change can be good. God is Good, and He is helping me to grow. My hope is that God is becoming more real,

more apparent,

more active in your walk.

And that sacrifice would come in order for His will to be done-

even to death itself.

New To Crown

Talk about crazy. I am currently sitting in my dorm room for the year chillin on my mac after a great day of registering. I think the weirdest piece of this whole thing is that it feels so natural. I can't imagine myself being anywhere else. At any rate, moving in was great, I am really near Drew which is tight. At any rate, i think i am going to hit the hay, but I wanted you to know if you live in Oregon, i miss you guys. oh, and here is a picture of my dorm room!

Love you guys

The Ted DekKer Cirlce and Combining

While combining, one can get pretty bored just sitting, doing nothing. At least this is how i felt when going 1.5 miles per hour in circles. However, i have found a new joy that i would have never expected to come across: reading. I know, i know, i am a graduate from high school, i should love reading and all that comes with it. Yet, there has always been a gloom over reading for me. This changed as soon as i picked up the Ted DekKer Circle Series. The titles are Black, Red, and White, and the stories have honestly changed my perspective on God. The whole idea of a New Jerusalem was fogged and blurred and somewhat twisted in my mind, that is, until you read of Thomas Hunter's expedition of finding God and saving the world (of course). At any rate, i believed that combining was simply going to be a growth in my wallet size (everyone needs money for college), God has taken me on a much bigger journey of discovering more of who he is, and how much he loves us. This excites me tremendously. I would suggest that anyone that wants to get sucked into a great adventure and possible learn more about their creator should pick these three up from the store, library, or from my house.

With each day, God is showing me something new and exciting, i hope today is going to be another one of those days!

A month left...

It is almost too hard to believe that I have only one month left of living in Salem, Oregon, at least for a while. Even more surprising to me is that I really have less time because I will be working outrageous hours the next three weeks before I leave. Like many changes, this one is bitter sweet. I am excited to meet new people, to be in a new place, to not be “here” anymore. But at the same time, I finally feel really connected here in Salem and there are friendships I am not ready to give up, or at least slow them down. It will also be hard to leave Salem Alliance. I will miss being connected into Crash, The Link, drama, small groups, all those different activities and the great people of that church.

Yet, time does not end and I know that God wants me over in Minnesota. I feel like God will use me even more over there. I hope there will be great opportunity over there and that I will be able to use all the skills God has given me.

Pride-Something you can't hide

A condition of the human heart that feeds off of the demolishment and degrading of others. This blob, this monster that lives in each and everyone of us only grows when it can place itself higher than the next person. It feeds on the failures of it's closest friends and as it grows, its strength grows along with it. I have noticed that pride is a constant battle. I am a solider in out of the field of love and hate fighting for the right--love. Yet, as hard as i fight, the war rages on and it seems as though it will be a lifelong battle.

I don't think it is only us as individuals. We are currently based in a society that is capitalistic. That is, we constantly rank ourselves in order to push others to improve. Though this helps our products and keeps cost down, it comes at the price of stress and greed. Even built into us from an early age we find that grades matter, class rank is essential to look upon, and SAT scores define your intelligence. Though many of us can mentally recognize these as farce statements, it is much easier to know, than to believe. And so we fall into this trap of who's better than who and supposedly rank ourselves in our own worth. Then as soon as we know how is above us in ranking, we work to move past them while we feast upon those who fall into a lower ranking than ours.

The only issue with this is that if you place us on a true scale of self worth; 1. You compare apples to oranges because people come in varieties; 2. At the end of the day, we are all the same. We all have the same option of loving and causing peace and helping the world. And at the end, we all die. yes, everyone is worm food. Therefor, if i can accumulate all the money of the world and be considered the most powerful man-- then die in a car accident. What good was my money. Nothing. Therefor, a pride of wealth, power, is only as good as what the individual uses it for. Pride takes a backseat as we are supposed to take that power and use it to serve others, placing yourself at a lower ranking than those you are serving. This will store up treasures in Heaven, which do matter after you are dead. So pride, just like any other sin, can be defined as "promising what it can not deliver".

Though this is a battle, which seems to have no end, it is clearly worth fighting the good fight to never feed the monster. I would consider this not a mindset, like many things are, but rather the fight is very physical. By literally placing others before you in line, investing your money into other's futures, and by living as though everyone is more important than yourself, this monster will have no power. This is ultimately where i want to be. People have so much worth and value, it only makes sense to try to show the same love to them as God has to me.

So i will continue to fight the blob that is starving inside me, and by the power of God i believe that i can keep it starving.

I Give Ye...Pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39746508@N06/sets/72157620254040707/

Here is a link to a good chunk of my Africa pictures. Feel free to look through a couple, feel free to look through all. Hopefully this gives you a good glimpse into my trip.

Cleansing Showers and Empty Buckets

It had been a long day of working in the 100°+ temperature. People were tired, people were sweaty, people were painted,

people needed a shower.

Though deodorant had done a great job in clothing each of our stenches that we carried around with us, the deodorant, no matter how strong, was not strong enough to satisfy how we felt individually. When you have sweat and dirt covering just about every inch of skin, all you can think about before bed is getting clean.

I needed a shower.

We went down two by two to take showers, letting the girls go first of course. They wanted the showers more than us, and the guys were fine to wait a bit longer if the girls were going to be happy.

Because there is nothing like dirty, frustrated girls,

especially in Africa.

After waiting some time, it came to Cameron and my turn to take showers. Now, in America there is really nothing complex about taking a shower. Maybe you have a bit of trouble finding the proper hot-to-cold ratio for taking the perfect shower. In the Bush, you end up facing different issues.

Everything is a bit different in the Bush.

So here we are, in the middle of West Africa, still hot—even though the sun had been down for over an hour—walking to the two stone stalls set apart from the rest of the buildings, down by the storage room.

We were a bit nervous and confused.

Nervous because we had just been told by Kevin, the missionary, that we had to be watchful for pencil vipers. Snakes that can kill you in five minutes.

death

in

five

minutes.

So along with being scared for our lives, pointing our flashlight on any little movement we saw on the ground, we were also trying to figure out how to go about showering, since it was nothing like home.

On the way down to the showers we had stopped two of the girls coming back from their shower and asked how we were supposed to use each bucket. Though it had been explained to us earlier that day, we needed a little reminder since we had so much other information being shoved into our heads. With all those other facts and stories, the shower directions must have been pushed out. There is a lot to take in from Africa.

a whole lot.

Luckily, the two girls were in a good mood (they had just taken a shower, duh) and they were willing to explain how to go about this journey of showering. They began by explaining that there should be two buckets and a basin. One bucket should be full of soapy water, one full of clean water, and the basin is the left over dirty water because that is what you stand in to pour the clean water on you after you soap up.

This made sense to us,

no problem.

Yet, when we actually arrived at the stalls, there were two empty buckets and a dirty basin.

This was a problem.

To add to our confusion, as we stood there staring down these buckets, one of the African maids came down, picked up the dirty basin, poured it into one of the empty buckets and then left with the basin.

As she was leaving we tried to ask why she was doing this, but she didn’t speak enough English, and we didn’t speak enough Jula to get a clear answer. So we waited,

the two of us,

watching for snakes,

alone.

confused.

Then out of the shadows came the same maid with the basin balanced on her head, this time, full of clean water.

We were more confused.

After she left, Cameron and I stood there discussing the proper course of action for taking the shower. We talked through possible situations, with hypothetical outcomes, yet none of them sounded very intelligent. Either way, someone was going to take a dirty shower. So finally, after too much discussion, I stepped up.

I showered.

It was awkward. I contaminated the clean water in the basin with the dirt and the paint I had collected throughout that whole day. Plus, I had soaped up in the dirty water bucket which contained, who knows how many of my fellow member's, dirt and grime.

But I felt better.

I felt a moment of coolness, and though the process of getting clean wasn’t my number one choice, I was cleaner than when I walked into that stone stall. For that, I was extremely grateful because I knew I could get good nights sleep.

There is something refreshing about getting off all the dirt that you carry and

just

be

clean.