TV stars, kickboxing and revolutions

This is a short entry to let you all know what’s up with me these last few weeks or so.

I got to fly to Pittsburgh for a TV interview (view it on our website) about ChristianVolunteering.org.  The whole trip was a great story from beginning to end.  Ask me about it someday–especially the part where a cool new random stranger and i got dinner after we met on the bus.

I uh, went to a big conference called the “Christian Community Development Association Conference” 2009.  It was powerful and exhausting.  Lots of networking and partnership meetings.  On our way, we stopped in Rochester to get hugs and the van.  Got to see the fam, Papa, stef, bec 2 and jason barber. treat.
Did anyone else go see iheart?  Thoughts?

Other news: Wendy Eldridge and Bob Chandler have been two of the most influential people in terms of helping raise money for Family Focus.  I always felt like a bit of a failure when I would say “we are trying to care for the whole child, not just food or spirituality but EVERYTHING”, because i knew most of the kids slept on the floor or hay.

Today i woke up to videos and photos of 20 mattresses being delivered–every child now has a mattress!  I will upload photos soon to our website.

My daily routine always involves the gym, work and something else that spices it all up.  my new gym is remarkably affordable (yay for sliding scales) and has fun classes.  so far i like body pump the best.  cardiokickboxing had me wanting to kick the instructor in the face and should be called cardio-im-going-to-vomit-someone-help-im dying–boxing.  And Zumba dance..well, let’s just say i have a lot to learn about graceful moving about a studio.

unfortunately the days also involve me eating leftover halloween candy (we had a great day of raking leaves at a shelter then handing out candy at a church last weekend and i swiped a bunch of leftover candy and-you get the basic idea i would think).

i like my job still-which is nice–not everybody i know can say the same, but TechMission has been a great blessing and i adore my roommates.  I’ve been doing more praying/reading, and that is ALWAYS good–it’s amazing how similar reading the Word is to getting some exercise. You put it off and off and off then do it and are like “WHOAAA THIS FEELS AWESOME!  WHY DIDNT I DO IT BEFORE NOW”?  Then it is sore a bit two days after.  Just kidding.

 

wait, no i am NOT.  here’s an example of something that might hit me two days later while I am thinking of stuff:

Matthew 8:13* “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  14* But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Skip an Organic Taco, Feed a Child for a Week

Here’s an organic dilemma for you.

A recent turn of events thrust me into a new job in the beautiful city of Boston directly after a lengthy stay in the country of Kenya. 

On the one hand, I’m beginning to hang out in groups of educated Bostonians who understand the health benefits of “going organic”.  These new connections provide a great community in which to explore healthy options, many of which improve our environment and create jobs.  My favorite perk (besides knowing I can now avoid pesticides if I pay a bit extra) is the fact that much of the food is grown locally, cutting down on the high environmental cost of shipping).  On the other hand, I wrestle with the cost of these foods, as I’ve got some new ideas about using resources to help disadvantaged families in the developing world.

We buy organic food so that we do not face unnecessary health troubles or other issues in the future, maybe.. later on, someday, and because we can see a positive impact on our planet through the natural growth of resources.  Meanwhile, 16,000 children a day die of hunger-related causes.  According to this article on Change.org, malnutrition kills 5 million children each year.

What I am NOT saying:

This article is not addressing the question of whether or not organic food even makes a difference. It also is not suggesting that it is simple to provide food or sustainable programs (farming livestock for example) to people in developing countries.

What I AM saying:

While it’s not the answer to every area of suffering in the world, it’s getting easier and easier to purchase sustainable resources for people in poor environments.  Gift Catalogs like World Vision’s buy medicines, goats and other items  (and must add some administrative costs), while smaller, grassroots organizations provide similar, even cheaper options such as chickens. If you skip one meal, you can use those dollars to provide eggs to a family in Kenya for years.

I’m not a socialist and again express that it’s not always simple.  But the costs themselves give me a new kind of sticker shock.

Item (at NetGrocer.com)	Quantity	Price
Organic Refried Beans	16 oz.	3.29
Non-organic Refried Beans	16 oz.	1.95
Organic Taco Shells	12	3.95
Non-organic Taco Shells	12	2.55
Organic Salsa	16 oz.	6.59
Non-organic Salsa	16 oz.	1.61
Organic Cheddar Cheese (Shredded)	6 oz.	4.95
Non-organic Cheddar Cheese (Shredded)	8 oz.	2.54
Totals: Organic Tacos: 18.78 Non-Organic Tacos: 8.65
Serving of beans/corn for 1 student in Kijabe, Kenya*	1 lunch size serving	.16 cents
Chicken (can lay eggs for years)**	1	4.00
Goat (can give milk for years)**	1	30.00

Let’s get serious for a minute. I’ll take the (still unproven) chance of health issues later.  I choose it over the certainty that a child is dying of hunger now.  If we could see the kids affected by malnutrition, we’d be forced to do something.

The point is, I have more money than I thought I did to help, even in a small way.  From skipping an organic meal now and then, to buying a more environmentally friendly  (or more affordable!) vehicle, we can cut things out that might not be as important as  hungry people.

Personalizing this concept:

If the concept of going non-organic is naive (I am not a scientist or nutritionist) or far-fetched, choose a different item (lattes or new clothes) to purchase in a more affordable manner, and choose a cause you care about (like women’s education or stopping the sex trade).

A few more notes.

I support organic farming, just not organic food prices.  This little blog post suggests more than “skip organic food, buy a chicken”.  I think prices can be lowered.  Until they are, this is my plea to friends with resources: (1) find a way to petition these prices, and more importantly (to me), (2) start cutting out that stuff that can go, because your money goes farther than you might think and can help to change lives.

*based on CNN Hero Steve Peifer’s costs for his feeding program.

** based on the livestock I help to purchase in Kenya through a community-based organization.

Hakuna sauti

For the praying types: i’ve got stuff to thank God for tonight.

The weekend was filled with:
LOTS of funds for FFF

Apple picking

board games and family nights

anniversary unos dinner for parents.

two great church services.

a fun run.

long drive and catching up with people about things.

soo the main praises = a successful concert and presentation at Access Services!

Exciting.  We raised around 1300 dollars already.  Between that and birthday donations, we’re going to have enough for a school to be built on our newly purchased field.  I am now examining what it might cost to get a two story building up, so more on that another time.

! thanks again to all attendees!

coming home

i got to see isaac and hang out with rachael last weekend–i also got to (briefly) see justin, hang out with sarah and russ, tristin and mrs. tristin and jon and joan.

I do feel bad for forgetting mrs. tristins name and hope she can forgive me.

in other news, im comin home the 24th (thursday) for the big concert.  are you all planning on coming to it?  i hope i hope i hope!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134169533976&ref=ts

It’s going to be great.  But i have a lot to do before then and it’s a bit scary really.

brief

this weekend we:

went to willy wonka and the chocolate factory in smellovision in an outside, union square, parking lot with other bostonian people.

they threw candy at us and fanned us with chocolate scents and cabbage soup smell and we blew bubbles in the fizzy lifting drinks parts of it.

then we went to cape cod at 5aM to miss traffic and swam at old silver.  we hung at the delacours.  we swam at monks cove.  we sang a lot and played a lot of guitar.  I ate a hamburger for dinner! (WHATT–first in 15 years?) we went to sandwich boardwalk and then laid on the rocks.  we watched elvis “love me tender”.  we bonded and fell asleep.

we went to church.  we went back to the beach (paw-sitch-ette?) we swam and swam to the islandy bar thing and i swam across the channel.

we got ice cream from skippy the ice cream man at the lovely beach.

we went home and showered and ate grilled sea bass and delicious trifle (YUM.).  we hugged and were really sad to leave the delacours. my other parents. mwa.

we drove back, we went to stop and shop and it was closed.

today i woke up, made strawberry and banana pancakes with rachael and theresa, and did some work i needed to catch up on.  beautiful.  went skiing (water) and tubing (water) and had a bbq complete with fresh corn from the farm and turkey dogs in a beach house overlooking the sea.

great fellowship, discussing social justice and ministry.

waterskiing involved me trying 6 times to get up and succeeding 4.  swallowed 3 gallons of ocean water.

blew out my knee pretty good.

tubing involved me wiping out harder than i ever have in my entire life.  ive jumped off bridges, high ones, and these types of pain dont begin to compare with what today involved.  i thought i got knocked unconcious for a minute.  i hit my face so hard i thought my nose broke or thered be blood or id be one big purple bruise tomorrow.  it was like being thrown into a brick wall then a sumo wrestler punching me in the face with his stomach at 100 mph.  i think it messed me up REALLY good, honestly–and i am 90 percent sure i re-broke my sternum (bad).

.  but it was worth it and o h so fun, especially seeing herb out there on one ski with one hand flying through the air..!  ill never forget it as long as i live, quite honestly.

night!

oh wait!  its not finished!  i tried to make it to a bbq for church and had the wrong park (terrible) — quite literally the wrong park (street vs. drive) so we missed it completetly after paying parking (11 bucks).  then we went to whole foods and on to CHIC FILA and then ended up in the north shore at a beach in beverly.  :).  great roommmate bonding and the sixth beach of the weekend.  tomorrows work and im so ready.

thanks for the rest God–it was needed and lovely and i loved seeing my “other parents”. .

we

Update (finally).

the past two weeks have involved me getting my hands dirty at my new job…i reallly like it a lot because of the values of our office/ministry/goals as an organization.  Jesus/Justice/Technology.  If you know me at all, you know i’d fit right in.

 

The weekENDs have been totally insane.  I’ve done cape cod, mount washington, visiting arricka in glouster (miniweekend during the workweek), ipswich, complete with blueberry picking and a perfect beach and cookin lobsters in our kitchen that night (courtney looked like one), then to Winnepasauke for a retreat (square dance, swimming, leading worship, making friends, small group, etc..)…

I miss home, bad–and after listening to my church’s podcast today, i miss them a lot too.  But i love it here–a lot.  And as for coming home, i’ll be there September 24th for the BIG CONCERT.  Hakuna Njaa has been a lot of work but im excited to see how it will turn out in the end.  .  It’s at lovin cup, you’re going, right?

Courage: In our calling and in our pursuit

Update: this is exciting–i wrote it for Pierre Du Plessis, my pastor at http://www.tfhny.org , sorry it was protected initially–wanted to make sure he liked it before we went live on it .  He posted it again on his blog, which was awesome: http://02cbec7.netsolhost.com/blog/?p=864 . .

When was the last time you needed to use courage?  Maybe you addressed an audience, or you did something that was physically difficult.  Maybe you moved someplace new or shared a big secret..

Looking for examples in Scripture has seemed like a practical way to get courage in my life so far—at 23, I’ve lived in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East–and currently, in a low-income,  often violent, inner-city neighborhood (Dorchester, MA).

If you don’t have time to read the whole Old Testament, Hebrews sums up several courageous heroes’ lives in chapter 11 beautifully.  For this post, however, I want to focus on one Person.

Jesus: Our Perfect Example

People seem to think that Jesus had an easier time accomplishing his calling than the rest of us do on earth, because “He was GOD!”.  But here’s the thing: according to himself, Jesus was fully man and gave up all his God-power when he came to earth.

In John 5:19, Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Getting practical: What this means for us in our own calling

Jesus’ courage—to come to the earth, to live as a homeless man, to move around constantly to new places, to speak to the masses, and to eventually die willingly—all of this courage came from the Father, not from deep inside himself.  Understanding that he could do nothing by himself was the key to his courage.

When I lack courage in a calling or mission, I try to check my heart to make sure that I’m understanding this fact: I can do nothing on my own.  At first it sounds like it would add fear to the already bad situation—but really, it takes it all away.

Pursuing God requires courage too

Hebrews 4:14-16 says,

¹⁴Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,^[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

When God sees his small, weak, human child come in with confidence to enter his throneroom, he remembering Jesus’ love, obedience and unwavering courage. Because of what Christ did for us, we can enter into God’s presence.

It takes courage to pursue God even when we cannot see him and especially when others come against you.  It’s harder yet when a wall of silence awaits us or when demonic forces insert lies in our minds as we wait for Him.

But because of Jesus’ humility and courage, we can still access the Father, knowing that without Him we can do nothing and with him, “all things are possible”.  If you’re lacking courage, it might be time to check where you’re drawing it from—from deep inside you, or rather, from our Dad Himself.

It’s all about You–

On my way up Mount Washington, I had an epiphany.  I hopethink (i made that word up myself) that it was from God actually.

There are a lot of weird creatures at the bottom of the ocean that only God can see.  He made them to enjoy and watch and check out whenever he wants to.  Like the birds of the air, he can make sure they get enough food (or whatever it is those weirdo creatues eat).  I think he likes to watch the stuff he makes.

All this time i thought God made, for my enjoyment and pleasure, the mountains i enjoyed so much on my way up.  I was praising him for his love for us and falling into a moment of praise because (a) he is awesome and (b) he loves us enough to make these great mountians (for people like me to hurt our knees on)…

Then i realized that God made the earth for HIS glory.

He put us in the world to care for it, and he gave us what we needed to be quite happy here during our short lives  (all the ingredients for ice cream for example)–he wants us to love it as he loves it and stand in awe at waterfalls and sun and animals (including the moose i saw over the weekend while hiking)…but it’s not about us, it’s about HIM.

Psalm 65:

⁹ You care for the land and water it;
you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it. ^[c]

So my original thinking was “dude!  God made stuff for ONLY HIM TO SEE”.  those weird creatures and animals deep in the woods that no human will ever lay their eyes upon– i guess all of creation was about HIM!  not us!  HIM!

This was really a big thought: huge for me.  Then i wanted to back it up with scripture and I found the above verse in Psalms.

I think i had it 1/2 right.  He certainly put creation here to enjoy for Himself and to glorify His name, but now he does things to take care of us (like water the ground for us).  Cause he really loves and enjoys watching and caring for us.
.  it’s definitely all more about him than us though–wow–i wish i didn’t have to still be learning stuff so basic at age 23.

Mount Washington

This weekend my roommate Theresa and I joined 4 friends from Rochester to backpack in the white mountains of NH.

We couldnt have picked better weather if we’d tried–after a rocky start (trying to find a place to put a tent on the side of the road at midnight), we got up, ate the world’s greatest trail mix (including Swedish fish) and started up the supposedly more gorgeous than the others trail–boot strapp (on Mount Washington).

I guess we figured it was a “go big or go home” decision and forgot that our packs were ridiculously heavy.  We struggled, but made it up the mountain, down into a valley, up another mountain and into a valley to sleep in the hermit lake shelters.  To pay for 60 dollars of accommodation in a lean to (dont ask), we picked up trash for 30 minutes.  stefan and theresa made us chicken, rice and mashed potatoes, and it was beautiful fellowship.  Then there was weird snoring at 2AM, people hitting their heads, extreme dehydration, and coffee flavored oatmeal.

Today we climbed to the summit of washington, minus our packs.  It was amazing to see how obvious the trail looks from far away (like a huge rock river up the side of the mountain) but once on the trail, how confusing it is.

I hated coming down–so much–i can’t even describe it to you.  i really didnt expect to make it down ok (no lie) cause i tripped and rocks slid so many times. i’ve never hiked up anything like that in my life, and down was 100 times harder (all rocks for miles).  it was scary and i’ll never do it again, but i wouldnt trade this weekend for any other weekend.  strange, right?

a brief debrief on beaches and trampolines.

Oh guys.

For those of you praying for me to adjust well to my new “stay in one place for a year” job, coworkers, apartment, etc…it’s going great.

I miss some of you badly–most of you know who you are—and some of you i’m used to not seeing.  I wish i could get a micah hug, but can wait until he visits me.

In the meantime, ive had to hang out with cousins who remind me of micah.  This past weekend was a blast with relatives on cape cod–hadnt seen them in years but went for a visit with my new apartment-sharer rachel.

We caught up on the past few years, ate seafood, went swimming, gokarted, jumped on AMAZING trampolines (multiple) that are built INTO THE GROUND,  went swimming AGAIN, caught weird crabs, grilled a feast outside, went kayaking, went swimming again, and went to the beach at night.  we also watched the office (the kids were having a marathon) and hugged goodbye, then emily drove me home (rachel had already left) so she could watch the italian job for the first time–since she drives a new cooper mini with racing stripes on it.  .  we listened to Paul Simon’s new cd and caught up on life, love and environmental engineering.

RIGHT, SO.  this week is going to be another busy one (hence the posting monday morning).  sometimes i get home and just cant look at a screen anymore.  boot camp sorta got expoloded into nothing over the weekend but at least i got exericse in beach walking, swimming and kayaking (so its not a total loss).

i need to make more time for important things.  time management has been going well, but at the same time, things are getting crazier and i need to prioritize my mornings so i spend the time the right way and:

pray/read/exercise/pack for the day/shower and email the people i need to email in africa BEFORE getting to work–which i think means i need to get up earlier.  yoy.  shout out and thanks to aunt bern and the cousins for a weekend of memories!