If I never part the sea... - God do what you want with me.

Connection Precedes Community

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

"What we do online is connection, not community."

I read that quotation in a magazine next to an article debating the validity of online churches. Apparently people are gathering to worship, pray, hear the Word, and mingle online. Not my cup of tea...though it would make it easier to drink one during church.

So the quotation was from a reportedly popular Christian blogger. She was saying that while communicating -- blogging, twittering, emailing -- online is good for keeping people connected, it does not constitute the type of authentic community to which we are called.

As I've explored the world post-Race, I have become increasingly aware that the World Race is not real life. The World Race throws you into the deep end of community and says, "Hope you learn to swim!" Now we're back in the States where individuality is king. It doesn't take long to feel like you're sitting all alone in a dark corner ready to weep yourself dry. And we wonder where all that community went so fast.

I shared my initial shock from the loss of community, talking about how I had to take my luggage into the restroom with me at the Boston airport. After a year experiencing community whether we want it or not, it can be hard to remember that community is pursued and created. It doesn't just happen.

So I heartily agree with our "popular Christian blogger" friend. Blogging, twittering, emailing, and texting are great ways to stay connected. Rarely, however, do they provide us solid opportunities to challenge and encourage one another the way we are called to do in the Body of Christ. But here's the thing: we cannot foster community unless we stay connected. I cannot speak into the life of my brother unless I know what's going on with him.

A lot of my work lately has involved staying connected. I also have time and opportunity to stay connected with people from my World Race squad. And I'm really happy about that.

I think all of us coming off the Race have shared a common struggle. How do we seek the blessing that comes from community when the people we know so well and love so much are so far away? Will we find another community that works that well? The danger is to sit in those questions and the insecurity that comes with them and never to pick up the phone. Never to pen the email.

So last night before I went to bed I sent a text to my buddy from the G-Squad telling him he should check out a funny video online. What did that do for his walk with the Lord? Probably nada. But it maintained a Holy connection. We are walking in proximity. When it is necessary the lines of communication, fostered by texts about funny videos, will be open for challenge and encouragement.

Barrenness --> Garden of Eden

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

When you are sending hundreds of young people to eleven different countries every year, you tend to reuse some contacts.

Over the last couple years, the World Race has developed some ongoing relationships with a few different ministry sites. One of them is Kids International Ministries in the Philippines. On my Race, the October 2008 Race, KIM was our first stop. The January 2010 squads are just making their way to the Philippines and some have stopped to debrief and minister at KIM.

Tyler Woodham writes of his impressions on his blog.

Jeff Long and his family planted the KIM ministry in one of Manila's poorest areas several years ago. And Oh how it's grown! They have a large children's home, a community center that houses visiting doctors and dentists, and a ministry center for long-term missionaries and visiting teams. When I was in the Philippines, my team worked at a new children's home the ministry had planted on Mindinao -- a whole nother island!

As I read the blog, linked above from Tyler Woodham, I remembered rolling into the Cuatro community where KIM's main base is housed. Tyler talked about the children flooding around their bus and I remembered when they did that to us almost a year and a half ago. I remembered walking around the community seeing the countless community improvement projects that had been carried about by KIM and their visiting teams.

I remembered one of the key teachings we received while we were there. Gary Black talked about how the Lord has called us to enter the Barrenness and turn it into the Garden of Eden. Through the power of Christ we walk up to things once dead and call them back to life. We bring hope and love to those cast asunder.

And this is what KIM has done in their Cuatro community. Families once forgotten live in the midst of a community where love reigns. All because some disciples of Christ were obedient to the call and set up shop in the Barrenness. They made their home in the Barrenness and brought the life of Christ with them.

All through my year on the Race I would walk into a place that needed new life. I would remember KIM. Often we think of Biblical principles and the Lord's call on our life and we have to conjure some image of what it would mean to walk it out. When I think of turning the Barrenness into the Garden of Eden, I only need to remember Kids International Ministries.

Find the Barrenness in your area. Commit yourself to change. Watch the power of the Blood bring it back to life. Watch the rivers flow and the flowers bloom. Watch the Barrenness transform into the Garden of Eden.

How Fast Our World is Changing

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The world is changing really fast. Faster than ever before.

We recently have seen the end of a wave of thinking that said evangelism was the number priority of the Church and of Christians. It's still important, but more and more people are focusing on discipleship. For a while people were saying, if only we can the the story of Jesus all around the world, we might get to see revival. Now the story of Jesus has reached most of the world and we're seeing that while people may say they like the guy, and they may even believe He is their Savior, that doesn't make them faithful followers.

So now the prevailing notion is that fully transformed followers of Jesus are what we need to change the world.

I am one of the people that adheres to this line of thinking.

But the danger is for our response to be an all-out effort to create amazing systems and programs that disciple people only to find that the world has already changed away from the circumstances we started with. It's possible we could spend a lot of time and energy building stuff only to be left with a system that is already broken before it ever starts working.

We can operate with norms and general practices, but we must always focus on the person in front of us and their unique needs. We must always be willing to change. Always be ready to deviate from the plan.

Because the world is changing faster than you or I can imagine:

Patience for the Call. Joy for the Heart.

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

During one of our last team meetings on the Race, my FUSE! teammates and I spoke things over each other. Things we thought the Lord wanted our teammates to hear. My team told me a few different things, but they all agreed on one of their major points: "You are very capable, but you will need to be patient when you get home. Don't jump at the first opportunity to minister."

I wasn't exactly sure what to do with us, except to make sure I sought the Lord on the opportunities of which I availed myself at home. So a few months ago, a couple months off the Race, I decided to join World Race staff as an 'apprentice' -- a six-month staff commitment. Because of various confounding circumstances, my start date on staff got pushed back a couple times. I thought, "Great I'm learning patience just like my team said."

Danny discovered the value in simply resting in God's beautiful creation

So now I've been in Michigan for a few weeks. I'm doing a lot of emailing and talking with guy team leaders on the field. I'm reading all the blogs then men on the field write and commenting and emailing them when I see something more they could be thinking about or some way they could be encouraged in their journey.

All that's great, but since I've been home I've been increasing anxious to get to work on a long-term calling to which I can commit. I'm ready to have a home and relationships I can cultivate over time. I started to get a little edgy.

Over the past few months I've been telling people that one of the coolest things I learned last year was that we get life from ministry. I tell people then when we are activated and operating in the gifts with which the Lord has blessed us, we find life, we find joy, peace, and energy. I'm finding that might not be completely accurate.

Matt saw the beauty of the Lord while standing at the feet of Buddha

I've been reading this book lately that talks about orphan hearts, and finding adoption from the Father of all Creation. I started to search my heart to figure out how I could get my heart right to find joy in the present moment, rather than continuing to look to some future call as a promise of peace. And here's the thing:

WE DON'T GET LIFE FROM MINISTRY.

LIFE COMES FROM THE FATHER. MINISTRY IS A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF

A LIFE LIVED IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CREATOR.

And so I reevaluated what's going on in my life. I have an hour a day to sit in the Lord's presence. I get to pour into other young people who are on a journey to and with the greatest god there is. I get to witness His work in their lives all the while pursuing his embrace for myself.

I woke up this morning and read a bunch of blogs from Racers on the field. The Lord is doing amazing things in their lives. I get to be a part of it. The Lord has made me a part of it. And my relationship with Him grows.

Weston has his own qualms about seeking the Call Here I am.

Pursuing Him, ready to be used when He calls me.
Rejoicing in His peace and love in the meantime.

Video from Our Trip to Haiti

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Living in Community at World Race Manor

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I've been living in Port Huron, MI for about two weeks now. Port Huron is in the "thumb" of Michigan. Across the street from our house is the St. Clair river. Across that river is CANADA. Our house has three floors (one of which is the basement). Each floor has its own kitchen and bathroom. Within the next month or so there will be 13 of us living and working here (the basement houses office space -- as do the living room and kitchen sometimes).

We all live together in pursuit of community. To learn to live in community is one of the key objectives of the World Race. The Triune God models community for us as he lives three in one, and we pursue community after his example knowing that in service to one another we find purpose, fulfillment and joy. This past Saturday I saw the pursuit of community bear fruit in our little family.

I woke up at about 10 and brewed coffee for the housemates on my floor. Then I went to the living room to watch Survivor on the internet. Maybe twenty minutes into my show, one of the other men of the house came in and started to Google intently. After a while I asked him what he was looking for.

My friend had been talking to a girl he met a few weeks back. He had just received an email reply form her friend telling that yes it would be a good idea to send this girl flowers for Valentine's Day. We discussed whether it would be coming on too strong to send roses this early in the game. He lamented that the arrangements he wanted to order wouldn't arrive until the 16th.

When Survivor was over I went to the kitchen to see what Erin was making for lunch. My friend was now in the kitchen, still trying to decide on a floral arrangement. He asked Erin for her opinion. She said, as he suspected, that gerber daisies would be a great idea. Then she convinced him to order the "Better" arrangement rather than the "Good" arrangement (the website offered "Good", Better", and "Best" arrays from which to choose).

After I went grocery shopping and returned to the house to eat lunch, I called one of the other guys from my WR squad to see how he was doing. He's been living in Southern California since the Race. He said he's been struggling. He wants to be moving in ministry and seeking more of God's heart, but he feels a little trapped. He said he has lots of college debt and his rent is pretty high. He works on Sundays and doesn't feel like there are many people around who know him well enough to speak into his situation and challenge him well. We talked for a little while, then we decided to talk weekly. Saturdays will be our day.

By mid-afternoon some World Race alumni had arrived from out of town to visit for the weekend. Their arrival was bittersweet because, while we were excited to have them, the housemate they had come to see had driven 4 hours away the day before because his dad was having health problems. By early evening on Saturday, though, our housemate had returned to see his friends. After eating dinner at the house we went out to sample some of the local brew.

While we were out, the housemate who had just returned received a call from home -- his parents' health had taken a turn for the worse. In tears, he said he was going to drive the 4 hours back home to be with his family. Immediately, one of the women from our house went outside to pray with him. Then a couple that works with the Race up here went outside to check on them. In a few minutes they returned and said that the four of them (the couple, our female housemate, and our brother whose parents were in poor health) would drive in two cars so that our buddy wouldn't have to drive in such an emotional state and the rest of them could come back the same night.

The rest of us returned to the house and the first thing we did was pray. We prayed for our brother. We prayed for his family and for his parents. We asked God to have his way in their lives. We asked him to bring calm and joy to a difficult situation. We thanked him for friends in community who would drive 8 hours round trip to see a friend through a tough night. After interceding on our friends' behalf we sat and talked in the living room and enjoyed each other's company.

This photo is down the street from our house

After most everyone had gone to bed three of us were still up. We had all traveled together on the October '08 World Race. I talked about the conversation I had earlier with my friend who lives in California and has been struggling to see God's hand in his life since he's been home. We stayed up until 1 AM playing Super Mario World on Super Nintendo and talked about how we can best serve our WR squad. We talked about how we can pursue them in love to support and encourage them as we all continue to walk through reentry together.

Community can be hard. You live in close quarters. Some people smell and others use too much toilet paper. The kitchen gets dirty real fast and somebody has to clean the bathroom (and nobody wants to). People want to watch different things on TV, and everyone wants to shower at the same time.

But then you can't decide what to get a girl on Valentine's Day and someone is in the next room with advice. Or you're having a hard time coping with a family crisis and there are people there to hold you up and pray on your behalf.

"How good and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters] live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life evermore." -- Psalm 133

Video - A Little Girl Hears from the Lord

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This video came to me from a powerful woman of God in my community. It's pretty ridiculous.

The Church Moves East

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The fruit of the Spirit is a transformed society. Love, peace, patience, and all those things are evident when the Holy Spirit has his way in you. When the Holy Spirit brings those fruits to bear across humanity, we will see a society that is wholly different.

I've begun to take a keen interest in a Pastor/author named Bob Roberts, Jr. I quoted him a couple posts back. He's been talking and writing a lot about the term "glocal" and what it means for the church. In a 21st century, interconnected world, what was once global, becomes local. Hence, "glocal".

I recently listened to an address Roberts gave at a conference for church professionals. At the beginning of his speech he shared some interesting facts (I never checked the facts, I took him at his word). He named America as the third largest unreached nation in the world. Apparently, though the last twelve years have seen the number of Megachurches (2000 members or more) in America climb from 350 to over 2,000, total church attendance in America has gone down in the last ten years. The Church is faring similarly in Europe and Australia as well.

At the same time that Christianity is on the decline in the West, however, there is a global revival around the world. Roberts tells us that Iran is being forced to create new legislation as they see an unprecedented number of Christian converts in their young adult population. China's underground church is thriving under an Atheist Communist government. What is true for the American Church is not true for the Global Church.

Roberts claims that the American Church has been focused on the preacher and the church, but we need now to be focused on the disciple and the society. We have been thinking that we can build a building, put a smart guy up front and watch people come to be converted. Instead we need to take the people we have, disciple them to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, and send them to penetrate all spheres of society. If we can make Disciples in all segments of society -- arts, education, business, etc. -- then we can begin to see transformation.

Roberts made the interesting point that while a Glocal society is marked by interconnectedness through the internet and air travel, it is not this technology that will deliver the Gospel. The Gospel will still be delivered most effectively through the Disciple.

My work in missions over the past couple of years helps to make some of this glocal philosophy make so much more sense. If we are waiting for our pastors to build the Global Church, it will never get done. It is the job of the entire Church to make disciples and bring transformation. That's you and me. Our passion for the Lord must be contagious. We must learn how to live the Kingdom of God day by day. We must learn how to manifest His covenant in our work and in our play so that His Truth will penetrate all of society. Then we will see Transformation. Then we will see the Kingdom come.

Settling in to Michigan

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I arrived in Port Huron, MI on January 31 and moved into a house with 12 other World Race Staff. I have joined WR Staff beginning with a six-month commitment as a part of their Apprenticeship Program. I'll be working in Field Support, helping to disciple Racers on the field. I may also be helping to develop some college-age stuff, and helping out wherever else is needed.

For the last week and a half or so I've been settling in and getting to know my housemates better. The Lord is beginning to lead me to evaluate where I want to be going in this season. I think I'll be challenged to grow in areas I never anticipated.

I look forward to helping to empower a generation through the World Race. Your continued support is welcome and highly valued. I'll keep you posted as the Lord leads me into new things here and reveals new depths of His heart to me.

Here is a picture of our house in all its Winter glory

Knock on the Front Door - A Story from Haiti

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

"When the world transforms, it won't be because we snuck around and were not honest about who we were and why we were there. It will be because we knocked on the front door and came as partner-servants, not as colonialist-messiahs." Bob Roberts, Jr in Glocalization

On one occasion during the World Race I had to pause to think about whether we were honoring the people we had traveled so far to serve. When we entered China we did so knowing it was possible we could have been sent out of the country if the government learned that we were missionaries. My team and I joined the efforts of another organization in a visit to a University in central China. We spent two weeks in a "cultural exchange" program. If asked, I volunteered that I was a Christian. My officially stated purpose in my visit to China was to learn about the culture. Both facts, my Christianity and my desire to learn about Chinese culture, were true. After reading a good book about global missions recently, the book quoted above, I may pursue future trips to China differently. Still, I ultimately decided that while my missionary status may have been slightly diminished that month I was not being dishonest.

It seems ten Christians from the United States, who traveled to Haiti as missionaries, have found themselves in a sticky situation over the last week or so.

A group of ten folks, mainly from Idaho, went to Haiti with the stated intention of pulling orphans from Port au Prince and taking them to the Dominican Republic where they would find them a new home in an orphanage. NPR did a good job of reporting the original story on their news blog. Apparently the group attempted to cross the Haitian/Dominican border with 33 children and no paperwork. They were arrested on charges of child kidnapping. In the wake of the January 12 earthquake, the Haitian government has boosted security against possible child trafficking. In case you think this is overblown, know that human trafficking is a real issue. This from Matthew Snyder's blog, Kingdom Issue: Human Trafficking:

Human trafficking is, in fact, modern day slavery and it happens all over the world. At any given moment the International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that 12.3 million people are in slavery worldwide, the majority of them being for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked every year internationally (that doesn't include domestic trafficking) for sexual exploitation.

I'm not saying that this is what our American friends were into, but I am saying that the reality and gravity of what it means to move people across borders should have caused these ten missionaries to be a little more conscientious.

When we fail to respect the laws of the lands we travel to serve we discredit ourselves. Our motive comes into question and we come off as though we are demeaning the governments we should be trying to engage as partners. We need to empower local authority to serve their own people, not undermine them by shortcutting their rules to make ourselves the heroes.

Recent news reports are that there is now infighting among the missionaries. Most of the group is saying their team leader lied to them about whether they have proper documentation. Their Haitian lawyer (hired by a Dominican lawyer retained by the missionaries' families) was recently fired after reportedly trying to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail. The NPR article linked at the beginning of this paragraph also states that, although the group was trying to help orphans, it appears 20 of the 33 children they took still have living parents.

I am glad to be a part of a community that respects authority. The entire year I spent abroad with the World Race I felt as though our authorities had thought of the concerns and informed us well on how to stay safe and respect our hosting culture. In the staff house I now live in we have an emergency phone line to receive calls from World Race teams. A team even called last night at 3 AM regarding a money issue and the phone was answered. I am proud to be a part of an organization with a strong, stable 20-year history.

I grieve for the missionaries who are being held and their families who are surely worried about them. Let us pray for their safety. Let us pray that out of this hardship they receive a tough lesson. Let us pray that moving forward in their missions career they will, as Bob Roberts, Jr. says "knock on the front door".

A Word for my Holy Cross Community

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Helping Haiti - A Sense of Urgency

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The first night that my team and I stayed in Jimani, Miguel Shauls, AIM base director in the Dominican Republic, shared his heart for the relief effort that was already in action for those who were devastated by the earthquake in Haiti. He talked about seeing people come together to serve. He talked about the hearts of the Dominican people being broken for their Haitian neighbors after years of prejudice and bigotry. In the end he said, "It's a very exciting time to be here!"

I was a little confused. I can understand the excitement in seeing people want to serve. I even wrote a blog before the trip about my excitement to visit Hispaniola and help the people there. But it is hard to reconcile how the aftermath of a tragedy can be an exciting time for anyone.

From the time we arrived in our hotel in Santo Domingo it was apparent that people were coming from all over to write about the earthquake, to serve victims of the earthquake, even to profit from the industry resulting in the aftermath of a disaster. As we waited at the front desk to check in a young couple started talking to us about the helicopter company they represented and how great their rates were into Haiti.

As we rode in the back of our red Daihatsu truck to the border town of Jimani we got a flat tire and stopped to change it. While we were there a small SUV stopped beside us and the driver asked if we needed help. Then he said, "Hey are you guys going to Haiti?" His eyes were wide and his voice was peaked anticipating the comeradery he was sure we would feel. We told him we were indeed going to Haiti and he quickly responded "Yeah, so are we!" I half expected him to shotgun a beer and scream "Wooo! Spring Break 2010!"

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm excited people are answering the call to serve in Haiti. I'm glad people are excited to be there. But I traveled all over the world from Oct. '08 through Aug. '09 to see communities in dire need of help. Not once did I see so many random people falling all over themselves to get a part of the service action. I didn't see the worst of the disaster, but as I walked the streets and spoke to some of the victims in the communities we visited, I felt like there were as many opportunities to serve in Haiti as, say, Lodwar, Kenya -- a region I visited in December '08 that has been ravaged by a drought for almost four years now.

It is true that the need is great in Haiti. It is also true that the need is great throughout our world. A January 27th article in the Philanthropy Chronicle reported $528 million donated to Haiti relief efforts. What if you were giving just ten percent of what you've given to Haiti on a regular basis to long-term work overseas? We would be seeing sustained efforts in needy areas on a much larger scale. Maybe when disaster struck we would have better developed infrastructure than we have in Haiti to respond quickly to natural disaster.

I am excited that there is a sense of urgency to help people in Haiti. I just wish that praying for people to be moved to help the needy around the world didn't mean praying for a natural disaster to destroy their homes.

What I Did in Haiti

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Last Wednesday I returned home from a six-day trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Many of you were a part of the prayer and financial support that helped to send me there and enable my team and I to minister to people who are in the midst of a tragic situation.

Ten of us met in the airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. While still in the DR's capitol city we met with a friend of AIM. Jack Larson started and heads up Mission Emanuel, an organization that encompasses a school, community center, and water treatment plant in Santo Domingo. He took care of us our first night away from home, helped us get set up with phones, and sent us on our way in the morning with 5,000 bottles of clean drinking water to take to refugees a the border.

By the time we arrived to begin work, a team of some friends of ours had been in the Dominican making contacts for a few days. They introduced us to a church in a Dominican border town called Jimani. The church was a temporary home to several other missionaries passing through. It was also a permanent home to about 30 orphans. The people running the orphanage and church had been cooking 20 gallons of chicken soup every day since the earthquake in their neighboring Haiti. They were tired and their home was in direpair.

When we arrived our new friends offered us a place to sleep in their church. We helped them cook soup and serve people around the town -- the infirm and their families at the hospital, families who were living on sidewalks after fleeing destroyed homes. We helped them clean up their home and find some rest.

After we had been at the church/orphanage for a day and a half we found a ministry contact fifteen miles across the border into Haiti. The next day we climbed into the back of the truck that was our transportation for the week and we made our way to Bon Parisian, Haiti. There we worked with a large church and ministry center. The first day we were there we split our team into two groups. One group worked in a storage room, organizing food and supplies into piles to be distributed to pastors around Port au Prince who would then distribute it to victims of the earthquake. My group met people in who were staying in the ministry center to talk and pray with them.

The second day we were at the ministry center we worked for the first part of the day organizing much of their own food into single-family bags to be distributed to the people who were coming there for help. The second half of the day I spent with a couple of our Dominican friends organizing a tractor-trailer full of medical supplies. The ministry center also housed a hospital and clinic and saw about 200 people that second day. I was happy to be able to organize the medical supplies for the medical staff that was giving their time to help people in need.

We spent almost the entirety of the next day riding back to Santo Domingo, where we stayed one more night before flying back to the states the next morning. We had a great team of World Race alumni. We had fun together and were able to encourage each other greatly in the time we spent together. Stephanie introduced the team on her blog here.

Over the next few days I'm going to try to share with you more of the thoughts and feelings I've been processing through since visiting and returning from Haiti. Your prayers and support are invaluable as I continue to follow the Lord to bring hope to a dying world.

Remember, you can receive an email each time I write a new blog by clicking the "Subscribe" link on the upper-left part of this page and entering your email address.

On the Eve of Despair -- Going to Help Haitian Refugees

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In case you missed it I leave tomorrow for Santo Domingo, Domincan Republic. There I will meet several other folks and our team of six will travel to the Haiti/DR border where we will help at a church/hospital that is overrun with refugees.

I found out I would be making the trip on Sunday. I am proud to be part of a community (with Adventures in Missions - AIM) that responds to a rising need with such quickness and urgency.

All day I've been getting emails about preparations for tomorrow. Some were for me and the team in particular. Many were for the AIM community at large. For the week that we are gone our friends and fellow Disciples here at home have organized a 24/7 prayer watch. Every minute we are on foreign soil, we will be covered in prayer. Our brothers and sisters will be interceding on our behalf, imploring the Holy Spirit to work with us and through us.

I would love if you would join my community in prayer. While we are away we will be serving the refugees we meet and striving to establish contacts and opportunities for future short-term teams to be sent by AIM to meet the needs of the people whose lives have been ravaged by the earthquake in Haiti.

Once again, if you would like to give to this special project you can do so by following the directions below:

Go to this direct link to give: https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=worldrace&desc= (this is also accessible by going to www.theworldrace.org and clicking on the "Donate" tab on the homepage. Hit the button that says, "click here to give!")
Once you're on this page, change the program on the drop-down menu to a "World Race Project." A new box will appear, for a description of the project. Please have supporters put WR HAITI as the name of the Project.

Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated. As we go, we go to bring life to the dying and hope to the hopeless. We go to be broken and changed for the betterment of the Kingdom. With the Lord's help we will be changed as we change a nation.

I'm Going to Haiti on Thursday

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Family and friends,

It is with joy and trepidation that I tell you I'll be traveling to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on Thursday morning to meet a team of other World Race alumni. From there we will travel to the Haiti/DR border to serve and establish contacts for future short-term mission trips to be sent by AIM.

I am excited to be making the journey to help people in need. At first I would tell people I was going to Haiti with a smile and I felt bad. It felt a little too morbid to be excited about visiting a land where the death toll is countless. But really I'm excited to serve. I'm excited that when people are confused and hopeless I have an opportunity to bring hope and life. So I am not ashamed or embarrassed that I am excited to go to Haiti. I hope I get to carry the love and prayers of all of you when I go.

When we go we will serve in some border towns. We will be working in a hospital. We will be gathering information and contacts so AIM can continue to send short-term teams on a long-term basis.

I bought a round-trip plane ticket with the help of a great supporter who happens to be my Father. You can still give to help pay for some of our ground transportation and any ministry costs we have while we are there.

To Give:

Go to this direct link to give: https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=worldrace&desc= (this is also accessible by going to www.theworldrace.org and clicking on the "Donate" tab on the homepage. Hit the button that says, "click here to give!")
Once you're on this page, change the program on the drop-down menu to a "World Race Project." A new box will appear, for a description of the project. Please have supporters put WR HAITI as the name of the Project.

You can read more about this special ministry team and what we will be doing on Ashley Musick's blog. Ashley will be the leader for our 6-person team.

Why I'll Ultimately Work in the Church, but Need to be a Missionary First

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My first month on the Race I got to share my testimony at a large church in the Philippines. I opened my story by talking about the fact that my brother just became a fifth-generation pastor in my family. When the Pastor of the church rose to speak he said to me, "The Lord may have done a good thing when he made your father a pastor, but he did one better with you. He made you a missionary."

At that point I hadn't thought much of the distinction. Now that I am home, and have decided to continue to work with the World Race, I have been thinking more about the distinction. To work in the local church and to be a missionary are two different callings. They require unique, though not mutually exclusive, gifts and mindsets.

I'm currently reading a book called Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World. The beginning premise of the book is that, at this point in history, we have unprecedented access to peoples and cultures around the world. The far regions of the world are becoming more and more intertwined. It's not so hard anymore to be making a difference across the ocean. At the beginning of Part II of the book the author, Pastor Bob Roberts Jr., begins to talk about his conviction that we need to "send the whole church".

This falls in line with some of the things I've been thinking and feeling lately. I believe a bulk of the ministry giftings with which the Church has been blessed lies dormant in the pew on Sunday morning. My passion is to see the Sunday morning pew-sitter mobilized. I wrote about this in a recent blog.

So Roberts establishes his idea that we need to "Send the Whole Church", as he says. Then, talking about the two tensions of the church when it comes to missions -- a zealous passion to see the nations reached and a drive to tend to the flock at home -- Roberts has this to say of the relationship between churches and missions organizations:

I used to believe if the Great Commission were just local church driven, that would be enough. It would force parachurch and denominational institutions to reengage with local churches in a different way as opposed to just being the supporters and funders of religious professionals to impact the world. However, if the local church pastor doesn't pass it on to the person in the pew, that pastor could actually make things worse.

This passage hit my heart. The fact is that even if a local pastor is excited about missions, he's not a missionary. If he was, given the climate of the church that has been around for years, he would be in another country. Most pastors chose their vocation because they felt led to pastor a church, not lead a missionary charge. Many pastors may love to see the impact their people can have overseas, and they may love to see the way their people come alive overseas, but to establish a long-term solution in a foreign country is still outside-of-the-box thinking.

In Glocalization, Roberts trumpets the end of short-term missions as we know it (In fact, the World Race essentially does the same). But as he points out in the passage above, we may need a new kind of pastor to make that happen. We need a local pastor with the heart of a missionary. We need pastors who can see a need in another country and ask themselves, "If I were to set up a ministry there how would I do it? And how can I mobilize my people to help make that solution possible?" And we need pastors who are not daunted by the task because it lies outside of their gifting and experience.

I have believed for a long time that my long-term calling lies in the local church. Now I believe that a big part of that calling is working to help mobilize the local church. To do that responsibly I'm going to need more of the missionary's DNA inside of me.

How long will that take? I don't know. I'm starting with a fresh six-month commitment to the World Race, because that is where my missionary's heart came alive. Pursuing this passion may lead me to Guatemala to start an orphanage. It could lead me right back here to Lake Mary, FL. It could even lead me to continue to work with the World Race.

Somehow, though, we need to reach a dying world. And we have to do it as the community that God has ordained us to be. It won't work any other way. To see that happen, I may need to be a local pastor, but first I have to be a missionary.

The New Evangelical

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I've been home now for a little while. My parents still live in the house that, for the most part, I grew up in. However, I do not have too many friends who still live in the area. When I got home I wasn't quite sure what my social life was going to look like.

Then I reconnected with an old friend from high school and got to play softball several times. I just went to the local sports bar with a guy from church and ate wings and drank beer. I invited a kid I met working at Target to go out for drinks some time after we talked in the break room and found neither of us had too many friends around to hang out with. He has recently moved from Indiana, and I just returned from the World Race.

For years we have been told that to be an evangelical is to view every environment we find ourselves in as a mission field. We have been told that we should tell everyone we meet that, regardless of their circumstance, they need Jesus in their life. I think we all need Jesus. I also happen to believe that we can't begin a relationship waiting for the moment to share the Gospel with our new friend.

I am more confident than ever that because I have Jesus in my heart, because Jesus dominates my life, I take his saving grace and his redeeming love with me wherever I go. I believe the Holy Spirit can work through me in relationship regardless of whether or not I am talking specifically about the Gospel.

So here is how I try to live my life to be what I am calling "The New Evangelical": I seek relationship wherever it is to be found. I seek to live with and among other people. As I do, I strive to be the type of person God has called me to be. I try to comfort and encourage. I try not to offer people easy answers, but to challenge them to live in a more healthy way.

The Old Evangelical believed he could tell other people how to live their lives. The New Evangelical believes he carries the strength to help people by living their lives with them.

The Old Evangelical wanted to be your friend so he could add another salvation notch on his evangelical belt. The New Evangelical wants to be your friend because he believes God created you to be an interesting person.

The Old Evangelical wanted to save you. The New Evangelical believes the Lord can use both of you to work his salvation in each of you.

It is true that your mission field is everywhere. But missions is changing. We need to seek people out to love them, not to shove Jesus in their face. Christ needs to be at the center of our relationships. Not on the front end.

Living the Farmville Life

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have a friend who's in medical school. He sits in a classroom eight hours a day, five days a week. I noticed one day that he had a Farmville farm on Facebook. I hadn't ever experimented with Farmville and asked him what it was all about. He showed me how it worked. I said, "So it's pointless?" To which he responded, "Well, it's a good way for me to kill time while I'm sitting in lecture all day."

Farmville is a game on the popular social networking site, Facebook. You "own" a plot of land on which you plant crops and raise ivestock. Eventually you can even buy tractors and build houses. My friend now has millions of coins, several houses on his virtual farm, and has even constructed an image of a Florida Gator logo out of different colored hay bales next to his virtual mansion.

After that ringing endorsement, I decided to try Farmville myself (I'm careful never to say I "play" Farmville, I just don't think that's the appropriate verb). After several weeks of virtual toil, I am now actually a fairly successful virtual farmer. In fact the Farmville coins are rolling in with such frequency now, that for the first time last night I noticed a lack of urgency in myself to plow and plant open plots.

A lot of people are trying their hand at Farmville these days. According to one Time article, Farmville harvests 65 million "players" per month. How can a game so simple, and so lacking in difficulty or a need for strategy, be so popular? This has got to be the simplest, most mindless game I've ever come across, and still I found a strategy guide, when searching for images for this blog.

Apparently Farmville mastermind, and parent-company Zynga founder, Mark Pincus saw the promise in a mindless game formed around a social network. He learned valuable lessons in two failed startups before Zynga and now has a behavioral psychologist on staff. And here lies much of the secret to his success. Farmville, and Zynga's countless other games like it, rely on the way humans behave to draw them in. They rely on the way humans like to be rewarded. That's what's scary about how popular, and how pointless, this game is.

People apparently love, or at least are intrigued by, a life of minimal challenge and maximum trivial reward. It doesn't even matter how worthless the reward is in real terms, Farmville users will spend hours cultivating their computer screen to eventually bring them more homes and decorations that they can't even view from more than one angle. And now the scariest part of all: this things makes money, lots of money. Based on projections in that same Time article, Zynga could be worth 1 billion dollars. Mark Pincus is a rich man. People spend money on this stuff.

Users get sucked in and decide they have to have the latest addition to the game. They need the newest farm decoration. The item is "priced" in such a way that you have to trade in real cash for virtual "Farmville bucks". And they do it.

This is what a life without excitement leads to. Somehow we decide we can't really do anything that special and we lower our expectations of what we can find here on earth. Before you know it we're pouring our time and money into something of manufactured value, or even no value at all. What's worse is when it happens outside of Farmville. It's not only our virtual lives that are plotted around chasing the stuff of trivial value.

We spend our lives chasing the American Dream of a big house and a new Buick. We sock money away and ask the Lord to bless us through the stock market. Then we're incredulous when he asks us to give Him ten percent because that really cuts into the capital for our virtual livestock.

It's scary how popular Farmville has become. It's even scarier how similar to real life it actually is. It's scary how far we will go to chase things with no transcendent value.

Sometimes I look at the Farmville market and notice how many items require real cash. I get sad that people are spending real money on a game I use to kill time on commercial breaks. I think, "I'll never end up doing that." Of course I can't be completely sure that will always be true until I stop checking my farm every day. And it just feels so darn rewarding.

Tiger Woods and Authentic Community

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As the fascination with the illicit love life of Tiger Woods winds down, I thought I would weigh in with a few brief thoughts on how these sorts of things happen.

For those of you who do not know, apparently Tiger Woods barreled out of his driveway early one morning, chased by his wife, and plowed into a fire hydrant before he crashed into a tree. In the following days a handful of women came forward with admissions and evidence to show that they had been extra-marital lovers of Tiger Woods.

Tiger later dropped out of a golf tournament he sponsors. At that tournament most of the golfers were asked by the media for their opinions on the breaking news about Tiger's personal life. Most of them gave the diplomatic answer -- "That's none of our business".

I think they're right. I think there are certain matters that need to be kept within the family. Still, keeping things in the family does not mean keeping them in the dark.

It is certainly true that the personal life of Tiger Woods is not my business or yours. However, Tiger's personal life needs to be someone's business besides his own. Surely Tiger's choices to find intimacy outside the home affected his life and his demeanor in ways that someone close to him could have or should have noticed. I would even be willing to wager that Tiger's unhealthy behavior started before he strayed.

We all need someone, or some people, close enough to notice the unhealthy behavior when it begins. Someone close enough to challenge us to deal with the issues in our life that drive us to unhealthy behavior.

Authentic community means living in the light. We are called to live in such a way that we would never be embarrassed to have a stranger parse through our text messages and internet history. But we are not meant to live that life alone. Integrity is not easy. It requires help.

Sometimes we need the whole world to see our mistakes before we can allow our closest friends to know who we are enough to hold us accountable to being the person we are meant to be. Tiger's personal life may not be my business, but it needs to be someone's business besides Tiger's.

The Next Step

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Something happens when you start ministering to the people around you. When you turn yourself over to the Father's purpose, His Spirit flows through you. You see His love and affirmation light up the eyes of the person in front of you. You feel the fulfillment that comes when you are living out the gifts and talents with which the Lord has blessed you to be a servant in His Kingdom. Your God leans over the railing of heaven and proclaims to those around "This is my son, this is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased." He turns to you and says, "Well done good and faithful servant."

You find life. You find purpose. You find adoption into the things of God. You breathe deep His breath and it animates your soul.

When you start ministering to the people around you, you have been mobilized. You have been mobilized up off the couch of your own existence and into the fast-flowing river of God's plan. You have been mobilized into God's plan for your life and the lives of the people around you. You have been mobilized into God's plan for the redemption of a world that has been crying out for His salvation and His return since Adam's first day outside paradise.

Mobilization is My Bigger Dream. I believe that if we can get people set up to be ministering to the people around them they will see more clearly God's plan for the world, God's plan for their lives, and they will see more clearly how the two fit together. And when that happens, those people will find life. They will find peace and fulfillment they had no idea existed. Much of this clicked for me on the World Race.

Now on this point I must be very clear: The World Race is a ministry to people in other countries. For eleven months, the young people who call themselves World Racers are connecting with, and loving on, local ministries and local people all around the world. The World Race is missions. World Racers are a part of seeing people come to know Jesus and seeing people discipled in eleven different cultures and environments in as many months.

I also believe this point is just as important: The dream of the World Race was birthed out of a vision to see a generation of Kingdom Leaders rise up and take their place in a global revival. The World Race is a dream to see a generation mobilized.

The first squad of World Racers launched in January 2006 in a program that was, speaking generously, a precursor to what we see today. In January 2007 the World Race took on an organizational structure that would more resemble what I experienced, launching in October 2008. In just a couple months the January 2010 squad will launch. Just four years after the birth of a dream, over 110 World Racers will visit eleven countries in eleven months and see God's people all over the world. They will bring light to the darkness and sight to the blind. They will bring life to the dying, a word of hope to those in despair. And those World Racers will taste a life fuller than they knew possible. Those World Racers will be mobilized.

The fact that the World Race has grown from squads of 25 and 50 to a squad of over 110 is a testament to the life Racers are finding around the world and in the heart of God. The fact that we have contacts ready and willing to receive 110 Racers is a testament to the ministry Racers have done and are doing in every corner of the globe. Few contacts receive a World Race team and do not ask to receive another. Few Racers come home and do not tell their friends to go on the Race themselves.

I don't think the World Race is God's final answer for the mobilization, the rescue, of his Church. But I do believe the World Race is a great piece in the puzzle. I think it's a good start. I know this because the World Race is producing fruit.

These are all reasons why I am going to continue to work with the World Race for the next season of my life. I have been asked to join World Race staff for a six-month commitment. At the end of those six months I will sit down with World Race leadership and we will discern together whether the Lord is leading me to continue to work with the program or to move on to a new season in my walk with Him. I believe the World Race is a fire burning out of the heart of God to see His people mobilized for His purpose. I hope that by sitting under the program for another season I can dip my torch into that fire and be prepared to share it with people wherever the Lord calls me.

This next season of life will be different than the one that is now being completed. As a World Racer myself my primary ministries were to the people we met in other countries and to my teammates. Now my primary ministry will be to World Racers themselves. I will helping to disciple people who are walking through their own life-changing experience. At times I may be helping to set up their ministry experience before they arrive in a country. Other times I will be helping them discern what the Lord is doing in and through them as they are awoken to their own purpose and calling. I may even help to recruit new radical missionaries to join the movement called the World Race.

In all of this I will need your continued support. I would love for you to join me in prayer for the hundreds of young people who are seeking the Lord through the World Race. I would also greatly appreciate your prayers as I continue to follow the Lord where He calls me and where He opens doors for me to seek His Kingdom.

Like everyone who works for Adventurs In Missions, including all World Race support staff, I will be raising my own support for as long as I am working with AIM. For the first six months I need to raise $9,000 which will come back to me in bi-weekly paychecks, less taxes, to cover all living expenses. If you know already that you would like to support me financially you can do so by clicking the "Support Me" link in the upper-left of this page. If you supported me previously on the World Race, you should already have an account with AIM that you can update and extend for this new project.

Over the next several weeks I will be in constant contact with all of you, my support system, to keep you posted on how this process continues to evolve. Many of you will be receiving letters in the mail, to help wrap up my World Race experience thus far and to share a little more about what I will be doing as part of the World Race staff. I also hope to be able to share pictures, video, and stories in relaxed forum at my home church, Holy Cross, in the very near future. If you want to be sure you are kept in the loop feel free to subscribe to this blog by typing your email address into the "Subscribe for Blog Updates" section on the left side of this page. You can also send me an email by clicking the "Send Me a Message" link in the upper-left section of this page.

I feel as though the Lord as blown open the scope of possibility for ministry in my life. I would love to talk more with any of you about what the unfolding story looks and feels like. In my next few blogs I will be sharing more about how the World Race is touching the nations abroad as well as the new generation of leaders that discovers a calling as they follow their God all around the world. I will be sharing more of my heart for this ministry and for where I am finding life and excitment within the ministry.

You all have been such a huge encouragement to me over the last two years and that is a piece of this puzzle that cannot be undervalued. I look forward to continuing to partner with you in God's Kingdom wherever and however leads all of us to do His work in the future.

My Bigger Dream

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I interviewed for a job at my local Target store recently. As part of the interview I spoke with one of the "Executive Team Leaders" at Target. This woman has an office complete with a desk, a computer, and lots of file drawers. She said she has been working with Target for just over two years. She could not be much older than me. She is well on her way to a future with a company that offers a stable career path.

I sat in her office and recounted stories from walking through a desert in Africa. I thought about how much safer her life is compared to mine. I thought about how if I worked hard I could have an office just like that in about two years. I thought about how my life is turning out to be very different from most people I know, different from most other people my age.

I heard Donald Miller, a popular Christian author, speak recently. At one point he spoke about how he lived his life shortly after the success of his book Blue Like Jazz. He said he bought a comfortable chair and watched an entire season of Oprah. The rest of his talk, and the topic of his new book, is the story of the resulting malaise from that stage of life. It led him to examine his perspective on life. He started thinking about his goals and why he does what he does.

Miller had said for a long time he wanted to be a successful author, and once he achieved that goal he wasn't quite sure what to do or how to act. Before I started the Race, and for a good portion of the Race itself, I thought maybe I wanted to write a book. I thought about the idea fairly often. I even tried to think about how I would structure such an opus. Gradually my interest waned. I still like to write, and I wouldn't turn down a publisher if he turned up on my doorstep, but my dreams are changing.

Don Miller's new book is about how we need to live more interesting lives. Most people are afraid of conflict and trial and shrink away from doing things that really matter. They settle for, say, writing a book over, maybe, starting a foundation that provides quality mentors for fatherless boys in America. That's what Miller did. He achieved his lifelong goal of being a successful author. He thought he would feel great about himself, but he didn't. Then he reevaluated. He thought about his passions. He remembered that he doesn't think any boy should end up without a father. He grew up in a fatherless home and knows the toll is takes on a person. Now his foundation, The Mentoring Project, is about to go national and there are over 300 churches nationwide waiting to be involved. Chasing a bigger dream wasn't easy, but it got him out of his living room. His bigger dream is changing more lives and affecting lives more dramatically than his smaller dream ever did.

So I've thought about how I could do a lot of things. I could even work at Target for a few years and work my way up to a real nice office. But I think I'd rather spend more time chasing a bigger dream.

In the past year I've been awoken to a big vision. I've seen God work in big ways. I'm alive and ready to minister to the hurting and broken all over. I think all the people who call themselves Christians should taste the kind of life I've found. The Church needs to be mobilized. That's the dream I'm chasing.

I believe the hundreds of churches around the country, around the world, truly can be the Church. I believe for them to be the Church they were meant to be, their people need to wake up to the full potential that God has given them. The people need to chase their bigger dreams.

I want to see the Church mobilized. I want to see people activated. I'm not sure where God is taking me on the way to that goal. For now I have plans to continue working with AIM and the World Race (more on that in the next couple blogs), because I believe they are mobilizing Christians better than most organizations I've seen. Part of me feels a long-term calling to my home community. Most of me is terrified. But I can't risk it. I can't risk living a smaller dream only to wake up one day after napping through a commercial break while watching Oprah in my comfy chair.

Making Life's Decisions

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My brother recently told me about the way that he has made major decisions in his life. You know, stuff like choosing not to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Florida before going on to Seminary. Or deciding when he was ready to get married. He said that he simply asks himself one question. He asks himself, "Is this what I want to base my life around?"

A little more than two months ago my squad and I finished the World Race. As I talked to different groups of people I commented that I had come back to many of the same questions about life that I thought I had left behind. The difference is that since the Race I feel much better equipped to be answering those big life questions.

I now believe even more firmly that that it's possible to "base your life around" serving the Lord. I believe we can make those big life decisions around what gives us the greatest opportunity to enhance and advance the Kingdom.

The life decisions don't look any easier to make. Life's goals don't look any easier to obtain. But there's hope. There's hope that this life can be about more. There's hope for fulfillment. There's hope that I can be choosing into God's Kingdom.

And that's what I want to base my life around.

The National Race (1of2)

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is part one. It's more about my biological family. Part two is more about my World Race family.

On the 18^th of September I started a roadtrip and I'm still not finished. I went first to Atlanta, then to Charlotte, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City (KS), back to St. Louis, and now I'm in Dallas.

I was home in Lake Mary (outside of Orlando) for about two weeks before I started my own National Race (like the World Race, but in America). I've been visiting friends and family and praying that God's change in me would shine through as we, mainly, talk and eat.

One of my first nights home my dad and I were watching a rerun of Criminal Minds, my parents' favorite crime drama, when my mom walked into the room and started up some conversation about her evening so far and how the rest of our evening together might go. I turned to listen to her and before I knew it I was completely unaware of the TV show.

I'm not sure that what she was saying was all that important, but I remember thinking "that show will be on again, and even if it isn't I'm more concerned about what she's saying to me right now, because she's a real person and that is just a collection of fictitious characters." Just after I thought that thought it struck me as a new perspective. I realized I didn't used to think that way. I used to think she could wait until the commercial break to tell me whatever she had to say, because I was watching TV before she came in.

These are the ways I've noticed the change God worked in me through my World Race experience. Something will happen, and I'll react. A second later I realize that reaction isn't what it used to be and I thank God that His Spirit lives in me to form me continually into a new creation.

So I took my ever-changing self and started driving around the country to see some people that mean a lot to me.

I stopped in Atlanta, where I went to college, to see my friends and realized God has changed me to where that season of my life is officially over. It didn't feel bad.

I stopped in Charlotte to see a close friend from the Race and saw how God is continuing to change that relationship to fit the lives to which He is calling us post-Race. He's calling us to a lot of things together and apart and He is allowing us to speak into many of those places for each other.

I stopped in Chicago to see my sister, brother-in-law, and their beautiful one year-old son. I heard how they are working hard to live the life they believe God has called them to.

I stopped in St. Louis and in Kansas City. I talked to my aunts, my uncles, and my cousins. I heard how God is faithful in their lives. I heard how he is walking them through seasons my family and I have weathered before, but how he is doing it in completely unique ways. The Lord always moves, but he never moves the same way twice. He's creating beautiful things for my extended family.

The Lord Speaks in the Lone Star (2of2)

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is part two. It sort of starts in the middle. Read part one for a little more context.

Then some time in there I got an email from a World Race teammate of mine. She lives in Dallas and she was having a hard time finding peace about the next season of her life. She wanted me to speak into her situation. My first thought - "I've got to get to Dallas." First she said she wouldn't be around at the right time to fit my schedule. At first I was discouraged, then I decided to change the schedule. Another of our World Race squadmates also lives in Dallas so I decided I would drive to the lone star state and wait for my teammate, Abby, to arrive.

As the Race wound down we talked a lot about how we would drive across the country for one another. We said that if there was ever any reason we needed one another we would stop at nothing to be there. It feels good to have put my gas money where my mouth had been.

The last couple of days I've been waiting for Abby to arrive and I've been blessed to spend some time with Alex, the squadmate who lives in Dallas. We've been able to eat good food, drink good beer, see some good movies and the Lord has even allowed me to be a reminder to Alex that the World Race was real. That she really is powerful. To remind her that he really does have a plan for her and that she's right where she needs to be. She simply needs to take a leap in the direction she feels led.

As we finished talking over Monday Night Football, Alex told me she felt like she was permitted to dream again (sometimes it's tough to dream big when you've finished the Race and you don't think you can go any bigger). I felt so blessed to have been allowed to be there in that moment and I was reminded why I've said before that I wouldn't mind if the Lord called me simply to have lunch (or beer and wings) with people for the rest of my life, encouraging and empowering them.

It's been nice to have the opportunity to speak into the lives of my World Race brothers and sisters. It's also a nice reminder that the Lord has called me to speak into the lives of people I may not know quite as well. I want to see the Church empowered and I would be thankful if some of that happened as the Spirit speaks through me.

In the meantime I'm going to listen real hard and try to speak from the heart. I'm going to build trust with the people around me and try to live up to it once it's there. I'm going to drive to Dallas when he calls me and continue to listen to Him at home. I'm going to love people more than I do crime drama and pray that the Lord keeps this life interesting.

I love you all for reading my heart. I thank you for your encouragement. Please stick around to hear more of the ways the Lord is challenging me and making His light shine in my life.

When You Glorify God, God is Glorified

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I was driving Erin to the airport in Chicago before I spent the majority of the day driving myself to St. Louis. As we got on and off major roads and highways we saw plenty of poor and homeless folks holding signs looking for all kinds of help. I thought it would be great if I could help them somehow.

After I dropped off Erin I stopped at McDonald's for some hot American breakfast. I ordered one sausage biscuit and two hash browns (the hash browns were two for a dollar). On my tray the lovely McDonald's employee placed two hash browns and TWO sausage biscuits. I told her I paid for one. She started to reach for the extra and then said, "Ahh whatever, just keep it."

I was a little bit surprised. Then I thought that if they only charge me a dollar the sausage biscuit must only cost them about 15 cents...or even less. First I thought about how full I would be if I ate two sausage biscuits and two hash browns. Then I thought about how I could save the second sandwich for some time in my ride. Then I thought, "Ah ha! I can help one of those poor or homeless folks I saw on the way over here."

I started driving to the interstate. For a long time I didn't see any poor or homeless folks. I was a little discouraged and wondered if God would still be glorified if I gave the sandwich to someone who looked as though they had ample resources to buy one for themselves.

Then I was sitting at a red light on the other side of which was the on-ramp for the interstate I needed. I spotted a guy holding a cardboard sign asking for help. I think the sign said he was homeless. He looked like the dude on the cover of Jason Upton's "Beautiful People" album.

Just then my sister called me on the phone. I answered and started talking to her. As I did I rolled down my window and waved the sausage biscuit at the guy as if I were baiting him towards me. He saw it and came right over.

I didn't even get off the phone. I handed him the sandwich and rolled the window back up. The man thanked me and said something like "It's even warm!" I started to feel bad that I hardly even made eye contact. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I was just so excited to give the gift that I forgot to wait until I was off the phone.

The Jason Upton album cover guy didn't seem to care. As I got off the phone he was backing away from my car with his hands shaking, wrapped around the sausage biscuit. He lifted it up in the air like Rafiki does with Simba in the opening scene of the Lion King. He thanked God for the gift. He opened the paper around the sandwich and frantically prayed some more before he bit into it.

A lot of times people standing near the interstate write things about God on their cardboard signs. A lot of times I question their faith.

I wanted to give away my extra sausage biscuit in the hopes that my action would glorify God. Maybe someone would feel a little more loved. I wanted to be the vehicle of that love. When the Jason Upton album cover guy took that sandwich he knew who the love was coming from. As I drove away I saw that he indeed had written something about God's blessings on his cardboard sign. I didn't question his faith.

I wanted to glorify God. God was glorified. As I merged onto the interstate I realized I had nothing to do with the way God provided for his son with the cardboard sign that day. I thanked Him that I got to be there to see it.

I Can't Even Pee Without Taking My Pack with Me

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Well folks, it was a great bittersweet final week. Sweeter than it was bitter. We had a great time sitting by the pool enjoying the local brews and the company of all the people it seems so normal to love.

Through some crazy discombobulated events my final journey home is taking me through Ft. Lauderdale to Boston, before I return to the Sunshine State (flight coming in a few hours). About two hours ago many of us (though maybe not even half of the Squad) got off a flight in the Boston airport. Angi's parents surprised us with a picture cake (a photo of the Squad in Kiev in sugar) and some sparkling grape juice. A few of us took the liberty of manning the ceremonial final clearing of the baggage carousel.

Once I had my things I was reminded that "goodbyes" aren't really my thing. I said the minimal, read absolutely necessary, goodbyes and slipped out the door to find the Delta terminal. I walked away thinking maybe it would've been nice to say goodbye to more people, but rationalized the fear with plenty of my usual excuses. I told myself I felt a little more comfortable by myself in the moment.

Then I found my terminal and realized how much of a lie that was. There were only about three people in the long corridor, the airport was asleep and I could hear my Chaco's squeaking on the linoleum floor. The squeak echoed to mock my fear of intimacy.

I realized I needed to use the restroom. Then I remembered I had about 70 pounds of luggage on my back and front and no group of 48 (or even just seven) to dump it with. I walked into the bathroom and let out a little chuckle as I read the sign that told me to keep all my bags in sight and redefined "multi-tasking" in my head.

I discovered not long ago the tension between a fear of intimacy and the dread of loneliness. No doubt this will be a developing understanding. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Maybe not when it's 3:30AM in the airport and I'm only not sleeping because I'm entering perhaps the scariest phase of life to date.

Blessings to all.

Update -- two weeks till homecoming

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sorry I havent been able to share a lot of what Ive been doing this month. Internet has been scarce.

We are in the poorest community of Costa Ricas captial city, living in a community center. Boys and girls from the community come through every day playing soccer and attending the "refuge", a center for underprivelaged girls (many are underage mothers) to catch up on education and have a safe place. I have been working a lot with a man named Enoch who is working to clear a lot of the overgrown grass and plan trees to improve the property.

The ministry we are working with is called Christ for the City International and San Jose is their biggest of several bases across Central America. Weve been having a great time serving them. The ministry here is growing quickly and showing a lot of fruit.

The end of this week Team FUSE is going to do a canopy tour (ziplining through the rainforest) before we start our final debrief with the whole squad early next week. We welcome your prayers as we continue working to finish well in our last weeks.

Blessings to you all!

Faith for the Journey Part 2 OR Faith Horizons

Wed, 5 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is Part 2. You should really read Part 1 if you've got a minute. And it may not seem like it at first, but I promise they connect.

Slovakia was the first time I said to myself, "Yeah, I could go home now." Ian and I were walking from the bus stop to where we would meet our team for our first day of ministry. That was June. It was our final month before our final continent and we were getting a fresh taste of western culture.

Last month I painted a picture for my team and my squad leaders of how I was feeling. I said "You know when you take swimming lessons and you're sitting on the ledge of the pool when the instructor tells you to swim out to them..." You launch off and start paddling away. Just to test you the instructor starts backing up. Eventually you say to yourself, "OK, we're going a lot farther than I thought." You get a little tired and you can't wait for the comfort of the finish line.

I've been charging into lots of things for ten months now. The Lord has done amazing big things in me and I'm grateful for the change. I'm also tired. For a long time I've been looking at who I am and who I was and who I am called to be; and introspection is hard. Love is hard. Team is hard.

Home sounds great for a lot of reasons: air-conditioning, familiar food, English-speakers everywhere, couches. And then there's this: the World Race is just as much about what comes after it as what happens during it. Yeah the eleven countries in eleven months was always exciting. I expected God to do amazing things on the field and he has. But from the moment I applied for this thing I knew it would be part of my ongoing preparation for the life to which God has called me.

So I sit at the border of American reentry and I am pretty darn anxious to see what will happen in the weeks, months and years following the Race. In fact, sometimes I feel so anxious that I'm ready to walk up to the border, stare the guard in the face, tell him to put down his huge gun and open that silly gate right now.

A few months ago I was saying this about going home: "I just believe that God will give me the answers when I need them, and probably not before." As we have gotten closer to the end of the Race, however, possibilities have grown and with them my anxiety.

A couple weeks ago I sent an email to my parents, basically to get my thoughts into words and to give them a brief snippet of how I was feeling. I started making some bolds statements. We had been told by some of our leaders that we needed a plan for going home, maintaining full knowledge that God could very well wreck that plan as soon as we get there. So I started sorting out the possibilities. I started talking about what my long-term calling is and how that will shape my first several months at home.

And then my dad got back to me. He said, "Well that all sounds great, son. We're happy that you're thinking about the future, but we were kind of expecting that you would need some time to rest when you get home." He said they figured it would be hard for me to readjust to life back at home and I would need to focus on that for a while. They were pretty calm that all the other stuff would work itself out.

That was just the response I needed.

I've heard before that stress and anxiety about the future comes when we just don't think God will take care of it all. When we lose faith that he is in control and his plan will prevail. I was able to sit at the Honduran/Nicaraguan border calmly for six hours, because we had been in those sorts of situations before and I had seen God come true. I have not many times stared into the expanse of my future with no idea where I was going or how to get there. And was beginning to be unsure that God would take care of it.

My parents have been walking with the Lord much longer than I have. They have seen him come through again and again. And their counsel was just what I needed. They said, "God has directed our lives for his good before and he will do the same for you. There is no need to worry about what you will do next, because the Lord has a plan and it will prevail." So they reminded me of what I already knew. The conviction of their experience reignited the assurance I still know best intellectually.

And I feel much better equipped in faith for the joy of God's latest waiting game. I wait to cross into a whole new land. A land of unbelievable possibility and the miracles of the Lord, and my God looks down at me and says, "You think you know what's coming? Watch this..."

Faith for the Journey Part 1 OR Traveling Mercies

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So we're in Costa Rica. This after a very long Travel Day(s). Team FUSE! left Puerto Barrios, Guatemala at 2 AM on Friday. At 8:45 we arrived in Antigua to meet the rest of our squad for an estimated 9 AM departure that would take us all together through to Nicaragua. The bus showed up at about 9:20.

Late Friday night in El Salvador we change our plans and decide to find a place to sleep and cross through Honduras (currently in a state of political unrest) the next day. After a tasty Burger King dinner we drive around some random town in El Salvador (which turns out to be where Alex's dad grew up) and by the grace of God find a hotel that can take fifty weary travelers with no reservation.

Saturday morning we enter Honduras with no problem. Getting out would be another story. By the time we were prepared to exit Honduras and enter Nicaragua for the last leg of our journey, all the borders in Honduras were closing (presumably to keep the President out). After some persuasion, and six hours of waiting, we were able to cross the border into Nicaragua. Erin Winget has a great detailed account of the entirety of this journey on her blog.

FUSE! stayed in Managua (the capital) for two nights and then took a twelve-hour bus ride into Costa Rica where we will be ministering this month. The rest of the squad is working in Nicaragua. Our eventful journey finally ended last night when we took two taxis to our contact's house from the airport where our bus dropped us off. The first taxi, with the address, took off and left four of us in the second taxi not knowing where to go (we have no phones, remember, just one for the team, also in the other taxi). Our driver called around the city on her radio to find out who had a bunch of Americans in Roble (the community where we stayed last night). We stopped at an internet caf and Marisa hacked into Janina's email account which held an email from our contact with the address. With this information and a reply on the taxi's radio when we returned, we were able to get to our destination, where our contact Kellie and her husband Orlando graciously fed us delicious Costa Rican dinner and lined their house with mattresses for our first night in our final country.

Some people said these few days were the most trying travel experience yet. I tend to zone out at travel time. I put my iPod headphones in, or I stick a book in my face and I wait. Ultimately I know we're going to get where we're going. It will only be a matter of time. Someone had to tell me later how long we were at the Honduran/Nicaraguan border. Sure it was hot. There was a recent military coup. But in the end, God wanted us in Nicaragua and he got us there.

This kind of faith, and resulting patience, hasn't always been something I could walk in. I remember in December, our first month in Africa, it took me quite a while to get used to "Africa time" and the patience needed to work within it.

Before I left on the Race my brother told me that he thought the experience would make me "more chill in the headspace". He said seeing God come through again and again would make me more calm as I waited to see God's plans play out. I think I'm beginning to see the fruit of that prophecy. God just brought fifty of us into our eleventh set of respective ministry locations. He is faithful and his plan will prevail.

Now that we're at the end of the Race, believing God's plan will prevail while sitting on a hot bus at the edge of a politically hostile country seems like small potatoes. We're all looking at the prospect of going home in about four weeks and we're going to have to trust God to give us the strength and faith to walk out a totally new reality in environments that are just old enough to be terrifying to our new selves.

So the reminder of lessons learned that came in this latest travel experience was just in time for month eleven and an anticipation of reentry (which is really where I wanted to go with this blog). And there's more on that in Part Two.

Meet Paul

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The other night we invited Paul, our ministry contact this month, over to our house for dinner. He's been in missions work for over ten years and we were excited to hear more about his life and experience.

Paul grew up in Pensacola, FL. For ten years he worked for Mercy Ships. Mercy Ships is a ministry organization that transports medical staff and medical equipment to the mission field. They carry hundreds of missionaries on board their large ships and all the supplies to support them. They port in Africa and East Asia and bring medical care to the people there in need. Paul told us that three quarters of the world's population is reachable from water where a ship can port.

Paul did three different jobs for Mercy Ships over the ten years he was working with them. We got to hear his heart for the ministry and it was apparent that Paul is the type of team player that any leader would want on his team. He is willing to do whatever job necessary to help get the job done. Paul has a servant's heart.

While with Mercy Ships, Paul had once ported in Guatemala and fell in love with the area. A little more than two years ago he decided to move here.

He first tried to buy a Christian camp. He worked with someone who was helping him to navigate the Guatemalan banks and politics while he was still in the States. By the time Paul reached Guatemala however, he was out $300,000, the bank had never given him a deed or any purchase records, and his "friend" who had helped him was $30,000 richer. He was a bit discouraged and, understandably, is still a little hurt.

When Paul had worked in Guatemala before he had become good friends with a Pastor who was running a radio station. Since Paul had been gone the Pastor had been called to another city and had turned the management of the radio station over to his son. The Pastor's son was ill-equipped for the task and was taken advantage of by some friends. Consequently, the radio station was in shambles and in need of a new manager and some direction.

Paul took on the task. With much hard work and the Lord's provision, Paul and a group of friends that he cultivated here in Puerto Barrios brought the radio back to an operating standard. They have since committed to be more than simply a radio station. Paul challenged his group of young men to be a ministry to the area here. They receive multiple short-term missions teams each year and truly have a heart for the community.

Paul talked with us for a few hours, but he was the most excited when he was able to talk about the men with whom he works. He is supporting several of them as they finish high school and talks about wanting to get a few of them started in Discipleship Training School (with Youth With a Mission - a worldwide missions organization). He talks about how he wishes his Spanish was better so he could teach them about spiritual warfare, because so much of the setbacks they face with the radio are blatant spiritual attack.

As passionate as Paul is about his ministry work in Puerto Barrios, it was still painfully apparent that we were able to be a huge blessing to him simply by listening to his stories and conversing with him in Spanish. We are realizing more and more how hard it is to be a long-term missionary in a culture that is not your own. None of Paul's close friends in Guatemala speak English. He lives where he works and he often feels like he is fighting an uphill battle.

As Paul left I told him that he had been a huge blessing to us. I'm learning that's one of the best ways to encourage a missionary. Paul lives to bless the nations and he wants nothing more than to serve others. Our fellowship was a mutual blessing and a great window into the work God has been planning and executing in Puerto Barrios years.