Month: April 2004

My heart and mind are chuck full of ideas right now, mostly ideas for the future, Alexis is thinking about them too. I don’t want to say much because I just don’t want to right now. The great thing is that I know so many awesome things are happening. I am incredibly humbled to be working for God. Why does God choose us? Why does am does God use us? Since truly putting faith in God my life has been nothing but an incredible adventure, why is that?

All of these questions are rhetorical I “know” the answers, but I have a hard time accepting the ansewrs because it is just all too good. I am who I am only because of God, the old person I was before would have never wanted to give up the American dream. I once was blind, but now I see.

One direction – The desire to reach the lost
Another direction – In deep-networked fellowship

One direction – On the frontier
Another direction – Seeing old friends changed

One direction – Living in a different culture
Another direction – Knowing the safe places

One direction – The endless possibilities
Another direction – Supporting ourselves

One direction – Leaning on God for everything
Another direction – Having old friends around

One direction – Seeing God work through us
Another direction – ***

One direction – Being apart of something new
Another direction – ***

One direction – Many challenges
Another direction – ***

One direction – Being God’s hands and feet in an untouched place
Another direction – ***

One direction wins, another loses.

May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done here on earth,
just as it is in heaven.
[Matthew 6:10]

God has lit my path, and these are the steps of my path. Each has great significance in my life, even if it seems small, each one has changed my life and made me the person I am today.

1st Step – Crow Indian Reservation mission trip summer of ’99

2nd Step – Accepting Christ to the song “Oh God you are my God” soon after mission trip summer of ’99

3rd Step – Co-leading youth group summer ’00 – summer of ’02

4th Step – Becoming an active part of CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) at Cascadia Community College spring of ’00

5th Step – Volunteering to be co CRU leader spring of ’02

6th Step – Becoming active in young-adult group at my new church while attending both churches, spring of ’02

6th Step – Telling my friend and youth pastor I was sexually abused through middle school spring of ’02

7th Step – Lead CRU at CCC for ’02/’03 school year

8th Step – Leaving the church I came to know Christ in and making the new church my home church, to be with people my age, fall of ’02

9th Step – On the last Sunday at my OLD church I listened to God tell me “go to Poland”, fall of ’02

10th Step – Becoming very open and close friends with guys for the first time in my life, fall of ’02

11th Step – Slowly becoming friends with a girl in a healthy way, spring of ’03

12th Step – Taking the huge step, even though I was leaving for Poland to court Alexis, summer of ’03

13th Step – Leaving for Poland into the completely unknown to depend on God, September ’03

14th Step – Taking the last stand and making a covenant with God to live an honoring and sexually pure life the way God created, it has been very rewarding April ’04

15th Step – In process – all will know in time

Oh God, You are my God
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You

Oh God, You are my God
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You

I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And Step by step You’ll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days

This song has played a significant role in my life, and it has once again.

Hover your mouse pointer over images for more details.

Carol, Me, Piotrek, Denise

Martijn and Ellen – The dutch of Poland

On the ship

Piotrek and Carol

I can’t say a whole lot at the moment, but the European Foursquare conference was a life changing event. I enjoyed Andrew’s Forward Slash presentation and thoughts on the emerging church. I think many people at the conference were challenged and blessed by his ideas. Over the course of the conference I got to know a couple of guys from Norway and we all agreed – the idea of “church” needs to change and what Andrew said certainly gave us some ideas.

And in other news – I cannot wait until this evening because I get to talk to Alexis. I’m very excited to talk, just for the sake of talking… I believe God is doing something in our lives and I am very anxious to hear what God has spoken to her. I am still on a high from the conference and I know I won’t always feel this way, however I have a new energy that I think will be more enduring than before. God is good.

Bad news though… The electricity bill for the winter came while I was away it is $750! This is not a good thing. It isn’t due until June, but from now until then we will be restricting our electrical use so that it is not any higher! A few months ago I posted it would be about $150/month for electrical needs, well I was wrong, it turned out to be more like $190/month. Thank God, I’ve been blessed with some amazing supporters, however I still don’t have this kind of money, I have enough to pay about a third of it and still live.

Basically I’m begging, I’m on my knees humbling myself because this weekend I talked with people about how money really hasn’t been an issue, well now it is! It is really a great thing how God does this for us, I see this as a great experience. I will learn, grow, and depend on God more, which is just fine by me, because I know I need it.

I’m back. I’m tired. I’m feeling awesome. I’m excited. I’m going to bed.

So, here I am in Switzerland for the European Foursquare confrence. It is beautiful. However it is very difficult to use this kezboard (it’s a german keyboard). I have a lot of pictures to upload and you will see them on Tuesday. I hope I will get some class work done for my online class.

An amazing speaker is here, and I heard him speak this morning. Many people in the “emerging” church circles know him. His name is Andrew Jones also known as TallSkinnyKiwi! I’ll try to talk about him more later.

Be blessed.

I have had some very positive responses and follow-up to my sermon on Sunday. People have been requesting CDs and copies of the notes. Quite a few have let me know they really appreciated it because it brought up the ideas that people need to be honest with themselves and others. Almost everyone had some kind of observation or example to share, it was a great expierence.

I talked about “building a safe fellowship” that includes, honesty, humility, respect, not gossiping, and commitment. People need to be honest with themselves and with others and be open to learning from one another’s actions. A fellowship is no place for pride; pride builds walls while humility will build trust and connection. Respect is important because it helps people trust as well and allows new ideas to be heard. Keeping fellowship business inside the fellowship is very important to make the group safe for others. No one wants others passing along a “prayer request” or praying about his/her problems to others. Commitment is important because all relationships take time, it takes time to realize the needs of people, it takes time to get past the “issues” you may have with others, and it takes time to see how to love someone. When it comes to any kind of relationship time is love, and love is time.

When you look at these characteristics, it is obvious why real fellowship is so rare. It means giving up our selfishness and independence in order to become interdependent. But the benefits of sharing life together far outweight the costs, and it prepares us for heaven. – Day 19 Purpose driven life by Rick Warren

PS. I would like to give a huge thanks to the big guy up stairs. Only with you could I ever be where I am today!

Tonight was Sabina’s birthday (the young Polish woman who lives with Carol and Denise), she turned 24, and she is a great person to hang out with. For her birthday, the four of us went to see “Touching the Void” – a very powerful and thought provoking movie. There were two points of discussion.

The first point in the movie (this may be a spoiler) is where Simon cuts his friend Joe loose because he does not see anyway out. At first, my reaction would have been to do the same thing, but then I really thought about it, and I decided no way could I cut my friend loose where he would most likely die. I would have chosen to go with him, or use all my might to bring him up and out (as seemingly impossible as it appeared), if we both fell then so be it.

The second point is where Joe has already fallen into a deep crevasse, his leg is broken and it appears he will die. I thought I would rather die than go through all of that, since I have no fear of dieing. However, after the discussions with Sabina, Carol and Denise, I changed my mind. Simply dieing is more hopeless than just thinking your going to die but doing all you can to survive. Simply waiting to die would be the easy way out, even if you know heaven is waiting. Essentially, it is suicide. I do not think this is how God would want me to honor what he has given me. It would be much better to die trying my best and leaning on God to get me out, then it would be for me to give up because I wanted to be in heaven instead, which is selfish. The two men in the story did not have any faith, Joe said, “I do not believe in God, and at that moment, I did not even throw out any “Hail Maries.” Yet he pulled through because he made the conscience decisions to keep on going, even when it appeared life was going to end. Human will can be very strong, and with God, I believe it can be stronger and is much less agonizing.

PS. Last night two of my very best friends became engaged! Josh and Erin congradulations! I love you guys, be blessed in your relationship. They’ll be married next May! Life at this age is very exciting and I am sure it only can get better in God’s amazing hands!

Tomorrow I will be “delivering” “giving” “preaching” (however you wish to say it) my second sermon at about 11am my time (2am Seattle time). I am relaxed about it. The topic is “building community”, and more specifically building a safe fellowship. I have brought together five focus areas, all of which I got from “The Purpose Driven Life” day nineteen. The focus areas are:

1. Honesty
2. Humility
3. Respect
4. Confidentiality (privacy/not gossiping)
5. and frequency (commitment)

I’m just asking for a bit of prayer, that I can speak slowly enough and clearly enough that it is translated nicely, and that God’s wisdom is heard. I have included a lot of scripture reference, but the base scripture is:

“We have come to understand and experience love because Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.” – 1 John 3:16