being around and in ministry for quite a while now, i have heard the phrase, "ministry happens in the interruptions", quite a few times. and it is a phrase and a concept that i believe very strongly in...
however...it is most definitely something that is much easier said than done. i feel like i am just overwhelmed with busyness right now to the point where i feel almost an animosity towards the interruptions...and i hate it.
i pray that God would give me an ability to simply put aside the stuff that just simply doesn't matter and to be able to allow for the interruptions to truly be ministry.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
What an Experience...
i am sitting again in the airport...this time in kansas city...
i just spent the last 6 days building a house in juarez, mx with 23 other people for a family who desperately needed it....and it was amazing!
we saw God in so many different ways....i saw students moved to tears and processing through so many things...God messed us up in a lot of ways...i was reminded of how incredibly selfish and entitled i can often be...and there was so so so much more. i hope to write more about it in the coming days, but i want to share two things that made me so sad and so frustrated...
as i mentioned a few days ago...there is much negative media coming out of juarez right now concerning violence in drug trafficking...and as a result there are many people and many teams that are backing out of working with casas por cristo and building houses for families that really need them...
and this makes me so sad and so upset with and for two groups of people...
first, it makes me sad and upset with the american media...because the picture that the media paints about juarez mexico was NOTHING at all like what i actually saw and experienced. as a matter of fact, if i hadn't heard stuff through the media, i never would have guessed any of it was going on at all. it really makes me feel like the media simply cannot be trusted....it makes me feel like they are just like so many other businesses...just interested in numbers and not in truth...
is that to say that bad things aren't happening there...no, of course not...but it is so sad that there representation of what is going on in juarez is keeping incredibly needy people from receiving a house in the name and Christ...
and secondly, it makes me so sad and upset with american christians who allow themselves to be scared by the threat of a lack of safety when it comes to following the call of the Lord. it makes me realize just how domesticated and civilized we are becoming as american christians. it is as if we have taken God's call to "go and make disciples of all nations" and turned it into "go and make disciples of all nations as long as it is safe". and that is simply not the case. it wasn't safe for so many people in scripture...it certainly wasn't safe for someone like John the Baptist...so why do we seem to think that we deserve a guarantee for safety?
these are a few of my frustrations right now...hopefully in the coming days i will find some time to elaborate on some of the amazing ways that we saw God show up and some of the amazing ways that students were being changed and processing through different things...
i just spent the last 6 days building a house in juarez, mx with 23 other people for a family who desperately needed it....and it was amazing!
we saw God in so many different ways....i saw students moved to tears and processing through so many things...God messed us up in a lot of ways...i was reminded of how incredibly selfish and entitled i can often be...and there was so so so much more. i hope to write more about it in the coming days, but i want to share two things that made me so sad and so frustrated...
as i mentioned a few days ago...there is much negative media coming out of juarez right now concerning violence in drug trafficking...and as a result there are many people and many teams that are backing out of working with casas por cristo and building houses for families that really need them...
and this makes me so sad and so upset with and for two groups of people...
first, it makes me sad and upset with the american media...because the picture that the media paints about juarez mexico was NOTHING at all like what i actually saw and experienced. as a matter of fact, if i hadn't heard stuff through the media, i never would have guessed any of it was going on at all. it really makes me feel like the media simply cannot be trusted....it makes me feel like they are just like so many other businesses...just interested in numbers and not in truth...
is that to say that bad things aren't happening there...no, of course not...but it is so sad that there representation of what is going on in juarez is keeping incredibly needy people from receiving a house in the name and Christ...
and secondly, it makes me so sad and upset with american christians who allow themselves to be scared by the threat of a lack of safety when it comes to following the call of the Lord. it makes me realize just how domesticated and civilized we are becoming as american christians. it is as if we have taken God's call to "go and make disciples of all nations" and turned it into "go and make disciples of all nations as long as it is safe". and that is simply not the case. it wasn't safe for so many people in scripture...it certainly wasn't safe for someone like John the Baptist...so why do we seem to think that we deserve a guarantee for safety?
these are a few of my frustrations right now...hopefully in the coming days i will find some time to elaborate on some of the amazing ways that we saw God show up and some of the amazing ways that students were being changed and processing through different things...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Headed to Mexico...
i am currently sitting in the airport in dallas headed for el paso, texas with a group of students to build a house for a family in juarez mexico. it has been a long process of planning and preparing and praying to get to this point, and it is so good to just be going.
i don't know if you have been following the news or not, but there has been much violence in Juarez in the past year...and it has put a stress on our team and on many of the parents of these students. but i am so proud of the group that is actually going. i feel like they are trusting God in some really awesome and really healthy ways. it is refreshing to me to see young people who are not caught up in the pressures of the world, but instead are willing to follow the call that they believe God has put on their lives.
does that mean that we are ignorant to the dangers or that we believe that we are invincible. no...of course not. but we do believe that we are following the call of an insanely huge God, and that is awesome!!
it is good to be ready to go....now i just hope that we all end up safely in el paso...(we are flying on 5 different flights.)
i don't know if you have been following the news or not, but there has been much violence in Juarez in the past year...and it has put a stress on our team and on many of the parents of these students. but i am so proud of the group that is actually going. i feel like they are trusting God in some really awesome and really healthy ways. it is refreshing to me to see young people who are not caught up in the pressures of the world, but instead are willing to follow the call that they believe God has put on their lives.
does that mean that we are ignorant to the dangers or that we believe that we are invincible. no...of course not. but we do believe that we are following the call of an insanely huge God, and that is awesome!!
it is good to be ready to go....now i just hope that we all end up safely in el paso...(we are flying on 5 different flights.)
Friday, March 6, 2009
Did You Know...
...did you know that if you are not buying fairly traded chocolate, or some sort of chocolate where you know it's origin, then it is likely that the cocoa in your chocolate has been harvested by children of have been humanly trafficked onto cocoa farms in the ivory coast of africa...
let me explain a little bit more...
about 43% of the world's cocoa for producing chocolate is grown in the ivory coast of africa, and there have been some 12,000 or more children trafficked into that region to work on these farms. and unless your chocolate is fairly traded (which guarantees that trafficking is not involved) then it is likely that you are contributing...
there is an organization (you can get more info about all of this on their website - www.stopthetraffik.org) called stop the traffik, that believes that God has a huge heart for injustice and believes that we as followers of Christ have a role to stand up and to say, "stop, in the name of Jesus, stop"...
so how do we do that...well, they bet method that they have found in this case is to try to enducate people about what is going on and then to ask people to only buy fairly traded chocolate (or chocolate where you know it's exact origin)...so that the producers of the chocolate feel the pinch, and in turn they will need to turn to the growers in the ivory coast and ask for fairly traded cocoa, which would bring nothing short of total revolution to what is going on in the ivory coast...
and i know, it seems like an issue that is way too big for one person to make a difference in, but seriously, with that attitude, how are we ever going to change the world for Christ. true change in the name of Christ is only going to happen with one individual at a time...it is only going to happen from the bottom up...and it is time that we as Christ followers stop sitting around and just expecting everyone else to do something...
let me explain a little bit more...
about 43% of the world's cocoa for producing chocolate is grown in the ivory coast of africa, and there have been some 12,000 or more children trafficked into that region to work on these farms. and unless your chocolate is fairly traded (which guarantees that trafficking is not involved) then it is likely that you are contributing...
there is an organization (you can get more info about all of this on their website - www.stopthetraffik.org) called stop the traffik, that believes that God has a huge heart for injustice and believes that we as followers of Christ have a role to stand up and to say, "stop, in the name of Jesus, stop"...
so how do we do that...well, they bet method that they have found in this case is to try to enducate people about what is going on and then to ask people to only buy fairly traded chocolate (or chocolate where you know it's exact origin)...so that the producers of the chocolate feel the pinch, and in turn they will need to turn to the growers in the ivory coast and ask for fairly traded cocoa, which would bring nothing short of total revolution to what is going on in the ivory coast...
and i know, it seems like an issue that is way too big for one person to make a difference in, but seriously, with that attitude, how are we ever going to change the world for Christ. true change in the name of Christ is only going to happen with one individual at a time...it is only going to happen from the bottom up...and it is time that we as Christ followers stop sitting around and just expecting everyone else to do something...
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