Thanks Sandy

Ah, a lazy weekend with siblings all around. It's been nice to just kind of lay around drink bunches of coffee and eat a lot of good food. Thank you Hurricane Sandy for making it gross outside so we would all stay in together, glad you worked out instead of being terrible now be nice to our friends in the north but don't think that it doesn't suck that you ripped the Outer Banks up a little. 

Anywho, it's been quite fun and even a little adventurous. We got slightly creative and built a little fort where we played a little Mad Gab and laughed at each other when one of us were saying the words correct but still didn't understand.

Katie (my sister) was excited so was I :)
We even had a fake campfire for a moment thanks to a good ole crank lantern:

It's been a good time here, although at times we've felt a little cabin fever, we have found ways to combat it. So thank God for good family who we can also call friends, good conversation, lots of laughing, and no loss of power because we are spoiled ;)

All to God

Impossible Love

I just want to love. Is that to much to ask? I want to love all of you, I want to love you all with every ounce of my heart. I want to take you by the hand and lead you just as someone else has my hand and is leading me, and Jesus is at the head of this convoy. I want to love you so impossibly.

I want to love you so impossibly.

I have every confidence that you would hear the eagerness in my voice if only I could tell you that I am convinced and convicted that I want to love you. Every one of you. All of you individually. I could spend the rest of my life praying for the world; every individual by name, wishing them well and happiness, joy that only comes from the Father. 

Oh, He perfected love, he perfected it so that when I let you down with how little my love is compared to His you won't see me, you will only see Him. And that's the way I want it to be, as long as you know that my love is chasing you after His. If you are reading this, I may not know who you are, stumbling on this by chance, I want you to know that irreversibly I love you because I choose too and because I'm called too.

I want to hold your story dear to my heart, I want the words to resonate but that would take a lifetime or a thousand. I could hold your life in my mind and heart having your own little chamber in both, eternally known in the life of the flesh and in the life of the Father; known because he has known you. I want to look on every one of you with open eyes, veil swept away with a dying world; I want you to walk on the waves with me in the light of the love that could only bring us all together, promises fulfilled.

I want to love you so impossibly. But I can only love you in the most possible way, it is there that I falter; where I have always been imperfect. My inability to love in the most impossible way is a testament to the only one who could love you and me impossibly. He did for you what I could maybe do for only one other, and he did that for the generations. In my impossibility to love as he loved I am humbled and in awe; proving who the King is, proving who the mastered love. It always moves me to Christ. Always.

All to God

Home Office

Since I have relocated home I have either been on the road or at the house mailing stuff out, cutting stuff out, talking to people, and other things that come in between. It's one of the greatest full-time jobs I have ever held and there is job security! Although monetary gain is not that great...or very existent I love it just the same.

Want to look at my office? Yeah.....ok fine, it's really just my parent's living room with my stuff spread out all over the place.

BUT much work has been done here and I have organized my thoughts and what I need to accomplish here while also accomplishing them! Throughout my life there has only been a small amount of method to my madness, normally it's just madness. I've felt more methodical than mad here and that's a really good thing. Yes?

Expanding thought on the "my job doesn't bring me income" thing; I don't say that to get pity, it's not a tactic for fund-raising (because that would be an AWFUL tactic). It is something I say because of the enormous gift it brings in my life: faith.

This is a huge challenge in my life; to rely on God for not only financial support for the upcoming year in Europe, but also general finances in my day to day life. Knowing that the providence of God is real and alive and  ABLE. It is so very able and putting faith in the ability of God to watch over and provide for his children is something I am learning all the time.

I am confident in God's providence even though there are times when it seems there is not that much to spare, where there's faith there's a way (maybe I just changed up the old adage a little bit) even if it's not the way we planned in our heads.

I'm glad my faith is getting a work out!

All to God.

The Wanderer

I am a wanderer, even from where I sit many times I am not where I am. My mind races with places so far from my home I could stare for hours at the pictures in my mind's eye. That's the only place I can wander the Earth free of charge without counting the cost, without hurting anything or anyone. 

But there are days where my body does wander, physically over the face of the Earth encountering, interacting. This is where it becomes real, the contrast of life, how love is translated through culture, how "American" really means uncultured and desensitized. Those are the days it's real.

From happiness of seeing the sun in a different part of the world, to the sadness in realizing how many we have lost everyday by being uninterested and unobservant. Because it becomes so real. When it's a reality that "Western Christian" really means loving only the church building and not the Church, when we find the Bible becoming redundant, and when we view sin as a laughing matter. This is when it is real.

Oh but the day dawns in a foreign land and a woman smiles at the words she received; the first translation of the entire Bible in her own heart language. There it is real. The moment that a boy in a village far away finds Jesus and plants Him in his heart to sit and grow like a wildly planted flower. A father's pride when he can say of his entire house "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord."

Oh it is real, across the world where food is different, people are unique, and the coffee is abundant. It is real, when the orphan finds rest in a place where Christ is central, when a widow is shown Christ-like love such as never been shown to her, when a common whore is shown the scars of Christ realizing that unlike her scars, these can heal her. Oh my friends, it's real. 

I am a wanderer, my mind wanders, my body wanders and where they both go they know the possibility of showing Christ within. Seeing a spark light up where there was once darkness, feeling a heart leap as it has found it's first lover, eyes widening in reverence to the Everlasting, Almighty, Sovereign God who saved them all.

It's real, and it's here, and it's poetic. It fills every human sense and it sends me to wander, in it's light I'll wander. 

All to God

Bank Account Whereabouts: Jobless

How the paychecks have stopped and the punch in punch out has become a temporary thing of the past. Transitioning back to the home place is always different and this time school is not part of the agenda. I won't lie and say that I am super excited to get a job somewhere near home because there are not a lot of job opportunities here. Hopefully though I will find something that will relieve a little financial strain...yeah that'd be good.

It's been nice to be jobless for a short time, just to hang out and relax with people I care about. From the mountains to the beach to MACU it's been pretty nice. Shortly, though this little missionary has got to play tent-maker for a while, and I'm ok with having a little money come my way........I mean, who doesn't?

So along with support-raising I will, hopefully, at some point, become employed part-time. So if you could possibly pray for that to become a possibility? That would be of the utmost help to me. Luckily though, the wonderful thing about wonderful parents who would (if they could convince us all) love to have us all move into the same place and live together that way forever, is that they let me live here for no rent. That means spending the least amount of money possible so that the money I do have does not dwindle quickly.

Well, well, that's about it. There is my jobless life, but hanging out has been a blast; blessed to have great friends and family. Forever.

All to God.

It Goes On.

This past week was pretty good. Lots of mountains and sun and friends and missionary goals and lots and LOTS of coffee. And I didn't fight all that coffee. Spoke at a church who graciously allowed me to take up a little time at their prayer meeting to tell them my plans. It is another relationship made for the expansion of the Kingdom.

I have been blessed by a financial gift that came in surprisingly so I'm praising God for that. Since I've been back from the good ol' mountains back to the coast of NC where life must resume to go forward. Job hunting, support-raising, loan figuring, and all that must go on..sometimes encouragingly, other times, grudgingly. But it will go and I have given my anxieties to the Lord.

Also the frenzy of the second presidential debate made it's way into my house. Last time this all happened was when I was 18. I could vote for the first time ever the very year I turned 18 and needless to say I voted the way my parents voted. I mean let's get real, when you are 18 (unless you are focused on politics being a goal in your life) all you are concerned about is going to college, graduating high school, making memories with friends and so on.

This time..I'm still voting the same way my parents are, but on different terms. I have done the research this time, not just blindly voting a candidate.

There is a lot that goes into solidly putting the country in the hands of a mere man. That's why my vote doesn't just go into a man's policies or promises, it goes hoping that this man will do his very best and with a prayer that the King of all things will guide his hand.

I wonder what would happen if Christians would write the president of this next term and un-condescendingly tell him that we are praying for him and his office as well as administration. That would be an interesting experiment.

All to God

Moving Mountains

Well here goes nothing, in about an hour and a half from this posting I will be speaking at another church for support-raising purposes. I always get excited because I get to talk about missions and Jesus and Bosnia and friends...stuff I could go on for hours about (which makes it all just a little easier).

Because there ain't nothin' more humblin' than askin' the good folks to help you out financially.

There is so much good out there, the Jesus kind of good that lets people understand that something is real and they can trust and should invest in it. Lots of people only understand that there is a lot of good out there on a short-term basis, but there are those who know a good thing when they see it and are in it for the long-haul.

A lot could happen in this 20-25 minutes I have to stand up in front of people and proclaim my obedience to God and my love for the people I will minister too. I know that I have a lot of love in my heart for this and it will come through in my speech. I just pray for open hearts throughout this entire journey whether it be here or somewhere else, and also peace....I pray for peace. 

I have been on top of a few mountains this week and every time I get to the top and see all the other mountains I am reminded that we were told that we can move those things. I hope to move one for the glory of God.

All to God

Bank Account Whereabouts: Peace and Money

Sometimes money becomes a major player in the game of my thoughts. There are many reasons for this; exhibit A: Support raising is a huge part of my career, exhibit B: I'm soon to be out of a job, exhibit C: I have a massive amount of debt due to student loans.

If you want to support a missionary try asking them what their student loan situation is and ask if you can help in that arena, I'll take any donations in that regard...no really :)

I have always had a peace about money. If I do my part then God will faithfully care for me in my needs. So far he has made good on that sort of formula whether if what I think I need is not what he thinks I need. But he does understand our needs and if we remain faithful he will provide for our needs. I have many financial needs, and at times it seems overwhelming as I have expressed before, though it concerns me it does not steal my joy.

I have labored within myself to reverse the ominous existence of monetary dictatorship. Money is but a thing that will waste away with this world and I have no use to worry with it except for what will help in extending the Kingdom into the lives of others. This is the only value of money, that it is used towards the good of humanity for the glory of God. 

I will give what is Caesar's to Caesar, but more than anything I will give to God what is God's. I will trust God, I will trust him with all of my might. I believe him when he says that he is faithful in these matters, it's the leaps of faith where God receives much glory....and I leap a lot. Hoping that every leap brings me closer to him whether I am hurdling down in the canyon and he swoops in to catch me or he gives me the strength to clear the jump hitting the ground running on the other side.

Here's to joy.

Here's to the good of humanity.

Here's to the glory of God. 

Here's to peace in His providence.

All to God

Snipit

Exciting stuff on the horizon! Exciting stuff I tell you! Soon I will be venturing to Roanoke VA to speak at a church there, hopefully making some new friends and allowing people to choose to join in on another ministry! I am very excited about this opportunity. Anytime a church decides to let you have the stage for something you believe in, and then decides to fund and pray for that mission is humbling and wonderful.

I have been humbled a lot this summer especially in this transition time of moving back home to focus more on support raising. I have been encouraged by many people and for that, I know that God put me on the Outer Banks for a reason this summer. Now there is some intensive work that needs to be done as far as support raising goes.

Because the days are growing shorter, not just for my time of departure but the moment that a certain King comes to make all things new. Because that time is growing shorter I am feeling urgent to go and share this gift that I don't deserve with others who also don't deserve it but are able to receive it due to the sacrifice of Christ.

Everyday I become more and more excited that I chose the life of full time ministry.

All to God.