The Adventure

As many great men have said before me, the adventure is not in the destination, but the journey. How true a statement in our faith! Even in the most practical ways. I spent all day yesterday traveling to the mission field in Tokyo, Japan. But it was not without its bumps and glitches.

First, my plane from Minneapolis to Tokyo, which was a 12 hour flight, was delayed 4 hours on the ground. Why you might ask? Because of "a strip of aerodynamic rubber" had come loose. But this too was a blessing. The Chinese girl next to me was a believer, and she needed truth spoken into her life concerning how Jesus spoke and lived out forgiveness. Even one of the airplane stewardess was a believer who had lived in Japan for a time. I met a group of 7 Americans who were on their way to China to watch children as their parents learned more about the gospel. Would I ever see them again? Most likely not. All I could do was assure them I would see them on the other side. What an awesome day it will be.

After getting through customs (and the 4 hour delay), there were no more buses going to Shibuya, but there was a train leaving in less than 10 minutes. I had to run to a phone, let my supervisor know I landed and I was taking the last train to the station. Run down a couple flights of stairs, have a wonderful Japanese woman at the ticket machine to quickly get my ticket to the destination, run to my cart, and step inside with 15 seconds to spare before we took off. And I had no idea where or when we were going to get to Shibuya!

But our God provides. There was a young Japanese woman who came on the train right after I got on, and was sitting in the row directly across to me. She was kind enough to talk to me, and after telling me she was getting off at Shibuya too, would help me out. Then we had a purposeful conversation. She was kind enough to help me, so I wanted to know more about her. We ended up talking for around an hour, and I was able to infuse Christ into the conversation at certain points. She knew why I was here and my purpose for doing so. She is a newly graduated nurse who works no more than 10 minutes away form where we are stationed, and used the train station every day. I do not have my field phone yet, but she took down my information, and I cannot wait to bring one of the girls I'm working with to meet her again! She knows a little of the faith, but I cannot wait to see what God has in store! She was the man of peace (more so the woman of peace) for me in the time I needed it most. I praise God for what He is already doing! Even before I am moved in, God has placed opportunities and people before me. O how the journey is the adventure.

Heartbeat

Well. What a heck of a summer. I just got back from the Canaries, Portugal, and Spain with One Voice, and tomorrow I am leaving for Japan. It is still not real to me yet.

While in Europe, God did several small things to remind me of his sovereignty. To remind me of how great He is and how small I am. Every concert we sang at was amazing. It just clicked. I have never been so humbled or blessed through singing in my entire life. The people poured their hearts out to us as they told us how beautiful we sang...in a language I could barley understand. All I could do as to reflect all glory and praise to the maker of my song.

We did one concert for a gathering of all english speaking churches in the area (somewhere in Portugal). Crosby, our director, asked during the semester if anyone would like to give their testimony during the concert - he needed two people. We had one girl commit to giving hers, but I did not think about this again until one day before the concert. On a whim I remembered about it, and ask Crosby if he still needed someone to speak. So here we are at the concert. Do I really know what I'm going to say? Are you kidding me? Of course I don't!

As it is time for my testimony, they put up a slide with my name and all my information. It was so fancy I was surprised and got to joke about it with the people. But then I began to speak about what God had been showing me this entire trip - His glory. From the creation of the mountains and the beaches, to the sunrises and the sunsets, it was evident how God was reveling Himself through that which He created. And it was not only in the mountains we see God, but also through the little children at the orphanages. Even in them we see part of our God. No matter where we go on this earth, God is truly all around us. Especially in the form of the church body. Throughout history, no matter what time or place, there has always been a remnant left. God has continually up kept the church. He has kept His church. And the beauty of this is how we are not expected to carry the survival of the church on our backs. We are not called to save people. We are called to tell.

We are sowers of the seed. Paul writes I planted, Apollos watered, but God causes the growth. So what then is Paul? What then is Apollos? It is God who saves, not us. We are called to sow the seeds. We are called to be faithful. In Colossians, when Paul is finishing up the letter, he leaves certain instructions behind. He asks the church to pray for them there, so even while they are in prison, the Word would go forth. He then instructs the people in Colossae to be full of grace in their speech, and for their words to be seasoned with salt, so they would know how they should respond to each person. What an idea - to have our words seasoned with salt, so much to the point that they would yearn for living water. We dare not trust in ourselves for the advancement of the church - We trust in God.

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

These were the words God spoke through me. This is what God infused in my heart with passion. After this, we sang the rest of our songs, and sat down to hear the reading of scripture. Tears silently rolled down my face - It was 1 Corinthians 3. The very same verses I spoke of above.

How appropriate for God to infuse the same passage and message for the speaker whom I never met nor spoken to. Out of 66 books in the Bible, our library, out of 1,230 pages, out of us coming form different backgrounds and different denominations, we had the same message. We had the same heartbeat. It knows no bounds of ethnicity, of age, of location, of language, or of denomination. Its center is the same - the heartbeat of Jesus.

out loud

Talk about staying busy. I never would of thought the spring semester would of been this hard. But its all good - pressing toward what is ahead. Finals, Spain, and then finally, Japan. Lord give me strength. I really can't believe all that I will be experiencing and doing this summer. For Japan - its going to be awesome. We will be doing real mission work the entire time we are there. Our life in Japan will be the mission. As it should be in our everyday lives.

Today I had my application/interview for MLC (Ministry Leadership Council, or Major League Christian as one of my BSM guys said) and it went great! I knew all of them except for one, and it was great. Just to hear myself think out loud is a good thing.

What if we were to think out loud more often? You see, when we think to ourselves internally, we are still inside our own little world. Im still in the world of dan when I speak into the expanse of my consciousness. But what if I was to think out loud more often. What if I was to take my ideas, and instead of keeping them inside the world I create, to let them out into the real physical world.

Some ideas would be freaking amazing. Some ideas would seem plausible. And some ideas, well, lets say we would see them in a new light. Aka some ideas would be stupid. But how much better to say the idea and find it to be stupid than to live it out in the quiet of the mind. Speaking it out makes the idea more real to us.

What if this is a side benefit to sharing our faith? Now I know the main fact of why we share our faith is so that God can be glorified, so He might bring more into his fold. Salvation is for the glory of the Lord. But what if it by sharing our faith, by speaking what we believe on the inside, our faith becomes more real to us? The more we speak of what has happened inside of us, the more real it becomes. And the more real it becomes, the more we continually life it. For James 1:22 says "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. "

We are called to live out what has happened on the inside of us. And as for me, the more I speak about that which Christ did in me, the more it becomes real to me.

the irony

I just finished watching a House episode where the patient obsessively blogged about every aspect of her life. And now here I am, about to blog about personal things I experienced over this spring break through the love and grace of God. Go figure. This patient said she had no secrets in her life, that she blogged about anything and everything, even her personal problems with her boyfriend. But there was one thing she did not blog about - her crap. Literally, she did not blog about her fecal material. It is through this that House figures out her colon is not absorbing all the necessary nutrients her body needs, thus causing her appendix to explode with lymphoma like cells, which had led the doctors to the wrong diagnosis, and would of eventually killed her. She was open about every part of her life, except for her crap. The junk in her life. How often the case with us.

We go through life being "open" and "transparent," but in essence, at one time or another, there is something we hide and never let see the light of day, for we are scared of what people might think. We follow the lie that other people don't talk about it, so we cover up and hide in a corner, living our truthful lives behind a mask of insecurity. And eventually, it will kill us. The dam will break, and the cancer cells of life that we so well hid will plunder and ravage in every part and relationship of our life.

Over my spring break, I went with a group called Beachreach to South Padre in order to share the love of Christ with the drunk people. Straight up. And while there, our group of 39 was split into 4 different teams. God had his way in doing so, for as I have seen and what I have heard from other people, each team was beautifully and wonderfully put together by the hand of God. And on my team was a girl who, well, like the rest of us, was special. As I quickly learned, she had (and I quote) "irritable bowel syndrome." And basically, she had no problem at all talking about her condition and how she had to poop. No lie. So on our van, (as you know, we had basically no sleep the entire week,) when we needed a laugh or something to keep us up, we would talk about poop. And I never thought I would be able to say that talking about poop brought us together. Our team opened up to eachother on so many levels, that we could even talk about the poop in our life. Not only physically, but spiritually. We could come to eachother with our spiritual crap, with no masks, and ask for prayer. And because of this openness we shared with one another, God was able to use us for great and mighty things. He sent hard circumstances into our van. He send van loads of springbreakers from UMHB whom i knew by name. And we gave them rides to the clubs and bars they were heading to. Our hearts were broken. We saw past their laughs and shallow smiles, but in their eyes, if you truly looked with all the love in your heart, you could see hurt. You could see a longing to be filled and accepted. A longing to be loved. To see them try to fill that hole with things of the earth......It shattered us. After the springbreakers left our van, we pulled over. And we cried. We cried.

We poured out our hearts to them, we told them how we do not judge them, and how much God loves them. We prayed over them, and we tried to be every bit of Jesus we could be to them. And off into the world they went, trying to fulfill that which only Jesus can cover. As my team, the part of us present on the van, came and met eachother in the middle of the van, we cried and held eachother. For we each knew the hurt pounding in our hearts. We each knew how broken we were.

But yet, in our brokenness, God still works and moves. For you see, there was still an island full of people who needed rides to somewhere, and we could take them there, while pouring over them the love of Christ. So as we all held eachother and prayed, I felt as if God had me in this team for a specific plan and purpose. He was using me as His strength. Yes, we were heartbroken. Yes, our spirits had been moved. Yet through this, we still had a job to do. You see, when Jesus was walking the earth living his ministry, there are several places where Scripture says Jesus was moved by the crowds. I do strongly believe I saw the heart of Jesus which was moved by the crowds who did not know him. But when Jesus was moved, he took action. He would talk to them, he would take care of the crowd. Yes, the van load full of UMHB students hurt and broke us, but God still had a plan. There was an entire island of people here who had similar stories, who all needed Christ. There is a time for everything, but right now God, give us the strength to continue to love. You have set before us a plan and purpose - so may the love and joy of Christ be on our faces, for there is still a world who needs to know you.

That was the heart of my prayer. I could never re-write what God moved in me during that moment, but through prayer, He used me to bring strength to the team. He used me to be an encouragement, a reminder of how much there was to be done. And I give all praise and glory to God for that moment, because I am nothing but a jar of clay, so that the all-surpasing power is from God and nothing of me.

This was just one of the many ways God moved during the trip. There are so many stories and so many people who we came into contact with while on the island. If you want to know more, I would be more than happy to talk to you about it. I like to write, but there is something about the face to face that the internet cannot replace. One thing to take away from everything you read? Be real with your christian friends about the crap in your life. We can't carry it forever.

Support Letters!

The support letters are finally done! Well, most of them I do believe. And if you are one of the 2 people who did not get a return envelope, I really am sorry! It was not intentional! Just a little too much paperwork for the guy with ADD. I am so excited now! I am praying for God to provide for my every need, and all I can do is wait and trust in Him. I have also been talking to the two churches I have been involved with about supporting me.

I can't believe I am not freaking out right now. Maybe reality has not quite set in. Or on the other hand, maybe it has.

You see, I fully believe God has called me to His plan and His purpose this summer in Japan. I do not know how I will get there, all I know is that I will. I am still looking for different opportunities to gain money for both Japan and for Beach Reach this summer. I know He will provide - so praise God for helping me not be anxious.

Was I Faithful?

Today was a Monday - and it started early. Even though I was in bed before 1, the alarm clock sounded way too early. I really should buy some of the coffee I'v been thinking about. My workouts for the Human Performance Lab are going ok, but not as well as I would like them to. I guess I'v always tried to push my body further than it wants to go. But its only when we go beyond the normal that we truly accomplish something of value.

Think about it. What gives an accomplishment prestige? What makes an act of compassion special? The fact of going beyond and over what is normal. To reach the same goal over and over again in life is nothing special. It means we have figured out a way to rival the system. It is when you go over the goals of your past, the true challenge has been won. To go and overcome what you once did before.

So we can say that surviving and getting through another day is no accomplishment at all. It is just another repeat. Its living your life on a repeat. It is being lazy. But to go into each day and conqueror, now that, is noteworthy.

Maybe I should reevaluate my thoughts on a bad day. What if bad days are so much more.

What if the bad day is a challenge.

A challenge. A challenge to rise above the average and normal, a challenge to see what your true colors are. A challenge of character, of drive, of decision, of purpose. A challenge to see who you really are behind the christian t-shirt and the grey toms.

The bad days let us know who is in control - or who we have or haven't put in control. They let us know how much we really love people. It is one thing to say "I love you," and a complete difference to actually do it.

These are the days I take my remote and rewind through my entire day. These are the days I need to study and think about, not try to forget and yearn for tomorrow. Did they see Jesus in me? Did I love those whom society has labeled and casted out? Did my attitude to others portray a false image of the Kingdom? Was I His hands and feet today? Did I live the purpose and will of God set before me?

In this day, was I faithful?

To Japan We Go!

I got my GoNowMissions email...and they have appointed me to go to Japan!! So happy!!

It is one thing to sign up for a mission trip, but having to go through interviewing processes at the local and state level, and then have a group of people who see the whole picture, through prayer and guidance of the Holy Spirit, appoint you where they believe God will be most glorified - thats awesome.

Now I get to start the support letters! Goodness. Maybe sleeping in till 12:01 today was not the best of ideas...but o well. I'm in college. I have to let my body rest atleast once a week, right? I can't wait to see where God will lead through this whole process of fundraising! Its really exciting, and I know I will have to trust Him more than I ever have before. And thats a really good thing. =]