To the question, "Is America Islamaphobic?”

That question would really depend on your definition of the term, for until you can really identify the definition you cannot say if America is or is not. Until that is brought forth, no real answer can be given, but we can look at the facts of the matter.

What are the facts? I think first you need to look at why the American people would be called Islamaphobic. It goes back to the attacks of 9/11 when America was attacked by a group of people claiming to be doing it in the name of Islam. These attacks hurt the American people in many ways, but one of those is most likely the strongest reason for the question at hand. This attack took away the feeling of safety and security from Americans. When this happened, it brought people to start looking at how they can stop another attack of this from happening. But what could they do? The first thing they could do, whether instinct or reasonable reaction, was to look out for people of the Islamic faith. Why? Simple. Because it was people claiming to be Islamic were the ones who planned and carried out the attack. Does that mean that all Islamic people were responsible? No, but that doesn't change the feeling that came naturally. Just like a person who is bitten by a dog is fearful of all dogs for a time. It is not because they hate dogs, but they are scared of being bitten again. That one dog who bit the person has taken all the trust that the person had in the K9 community and destroyed it with that one bite. That doesn't mean that all dogs bite, but that doesn't change the mind of that person, for all that person knows right now is that a dog bit them. It then takes time to rebuild that trust again. But then again, this is not the first time that we have been attacked. It was December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the country had the same reaction as the person who was bitten by the dog. Their trust in the Japanese was lost because of that attack and we took action against them.
The country made many Japanese live in internment camps because they didn't know who they could trust. This didn’t mean that all Japanese people were in on the attack, but the country needed something to regain their safety that they felt they had lost. Time has healed us from that attack, which was over 60 years ago, but the fact still remains that we, as humans, remain the same, untrusting of the people that have hurt them.
This problem is not limited to the people of America for the same fear lives within us all! The same goes in North and South Korea, Israel and most of the Islamic Middle East. We are a people who when hurt, lose trust in the other. So to be honest about the question whether or not America is Islamaphobic, it is probably a yes. But that doesn't make it a fair question to ask. Just like that reporter who was fired for saying that a Muslim in full garb scared him is nothing more than the natural reaction to being bitten by a dog. If we are honest with ourselves, we are all scared of a group of people when one of them hurts us, right or wrong. Our basic instinct gives us that fear so that we are careful to not let that happen again. So if you want to ask that question, then I think that it is only fair that you ask a woman who was raped by a man why she hates or is scared of all men.

So the conclusion that anyone can make is that the people of this country is hurting of an attack on their safety and so they are wanting anything to be done that would stop the attacks from happening again. So to ask the people not to be afraid is ridiculous, their needs to be healing done before it is even fair to ask anything of the people.

Life is a Tree

Christ was the Seed
Holy Spirit the Water
God making it Grow

The roots of our fore-fathers
hold us firm to the ground of the life giving the love

The trunk the doctrine of our foundation:
That is the base that our faith that from all things come

The branches of the Tree have gone off in all directions.

Some branches continue to grow up,
as if reaching for the life giving Son.

But the worst is the dead branches that grow strait back
towards the ground,
sucking life from the tree but yer still thinking
that it is still apart of it.

The Great Metaphor of the Old Testament

I was sitting having lunch with my brother on the couch in the other room showing his wife this video on youtube. The video was a man talking about how the stories of the Old Testament are great stories in and of themselves, but to take them only at face value leaves them empty. He went on to say that every story in the Old Testament is really a metaphor of Jesus conquering sin for us. This completely changed my view of those stories that I grew up hearing about in the Sunday School as a child. I am always amazed at my God who shows me so much more to the things that I already thought I knew all about. The story of David and Goliath is the one that stands out the strongest to me. What better metaphor of Jesus conquering sin then this? The people of God standing on the battle field of sin and death against a foe that seems to be unstoppable, unbeatable. They stand in fear looking on the giant that they believe can not be taken down, who stands their taunting them and taunting our God. Goliath did this for days and not one of the people believed they could stand up to him or defeat him, but then God sent us his champion. The prophets tell of Jesus, a man who, “…had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men… he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:2b-3) David was that representation for he was a boy, a shepherd with no experience in battle. His brother’s laughed at him and rejected him when he stood up and even his own Father didn’t believe in him and kept him home from the battle. But on the field of battle David stood up before the giant Goliath and took him down. After David cut the head of Goliath off, the people rallied behind him and chased the enemy without fear! In the same way Jesus hung on the cross and killed sin and death for us, giving hope to his people. Another story that shows the promise of Jesus was the exodus of God’s people from Egypt. They were under the bonds of slavery and Moses came and freed them from it and lead them into the riches of God’s promise. Jesus broke the bonds of sin and lead us into the kingdom of God and all of its riches. The stories go on and on; the serpent lifted up in the desert, the rock that was struck, and so on. The Old Testament is a giant metaphor for God’s love and deliverance from sin through his Son Jesus. It is stories of real people that show the future promise of our Savior.

Jesus Saved Us From the God of the Old Testament

When I hear that statement, I scream in reply, “Heresy!” To say that Jesus saved us from the God of the Old Testament is complete heresy, for Jesus said “A house divided against itself can not stand.” Saying that Jesus saved us is correct, but to save us from what is the question that needs to be asked of this statement. Jesus is apart of the Holy Trinity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus can not save us from the God of the Old Testament because he is as much the God of the Old Testament as God the Father. Besides the fact that it divides the House of God, it says that God can change and to say that God changes really says that God can make mistakes. Now to argue about other parts of the Bible that look like God changes His mind is for another time and many people have already made the arguments to prove that God does. So for now I am going to leave that out of this, but I may revisit this another time to show in my own words the unchanging nature of God. But to answer the question simply, through out the whole Bible, Jesus and God the Father both are referred to numerous times as “The Rock” which tells of his unchanging nature. The statement doesn’t understand the God of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a God of justice and mercy. It is easily seen in the first story written down, the story of creation. God created the perfect world in the Garden of Eden and in the center of that Garden he put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From the beginning you can clearly see that God didn’t want perfect zombies to follow Him, he wanted real people who chose Him. So he gave them the choice from the beginning to follow Him or follow evil desires. That is not a god of wrath, but a loving God of mercy. But the story does not stop there, after the fall of man God called out to them in the garden, not that He didn’t know but He again wanted them to choose Him. Mercy. After they talked he placed a curse on man on the earth. Now the people who would say the statement above would stand up and say, “see!” but the story does not stop at the curse, God goes on to give them a promise. “So the Lord said to the serpent… I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your hear, and you will strike at his heal.” (Genesis 3:14a, 15) God didn’t want the sin, that now entered into the world through the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to put a wall between Himself and His creation that He loved so much so he gave them the promise of Jesus. The God of the Old Testament is not a God of wrath and hatred, but of mercy and justice. He was just because he put the curse on them, for a God of justice can not let evil go unpunished. All sin has consequences and to deny that would be ignorance. Even science knows that with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this is not only for the physical motion but also for all aspects of life and social interactions. Thus as a just God, he placed the punishment, in this case the curse, upon the people that committed the wrong. But He is a God of Mercy and provided a second chance to his creation. In the passage quoted above we have the promise of a Savior who would save them from their sin. The serpent is the devil and his seed is the evil that now entered into the world, but God promised that the seed of Eve would crush the head of the serpent. From the woman’s seed came Jesus, which the Bible makes clear through the genealogies, and when Jesus came he took the punishment of all sin. He crushed the head of sin with his death on the cross by being the perfect sacrifice to cover all sin. And even though the devil struck the heel of Jesus, Jesus crushed the devil and all his power. Justice and Mercy are the characteristics of the God of the Old Testament as shown in the first story of our human history. Jesus did not save us from the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Old Testament sent his only Son to save his people from their own choices and sin. I will only leave the argument with this one example, for it is enough to prove the point I am making but it is only the first example and the best example of God’s justice and mercy. Easily I can go on and tell you about Abraham, Moses, and countless others told about in the Bible and how God shows his characteristics of love, mercy, and justice to his fallen and rather unloving children, but for now this is enough.

A week at camp and the Revelations that followed

I recently went to a camp in northern Minnesota called Big Sandy Camp because a friend asked if I would help out cause they were short councilors. Of course I agreed because there was no reason for me not to go, because I had no job and no other commitments that needed to be filled. Most of the time I am not sure why God has me do some of the things that I do because I never really am given a clear answer, but here is a some from my journal as I pondered that question:

“Lord, I can’t sleep and I feel that these is something bothering me that I won’t sleep… So I call out to you my God and just ask… What? What is it that you want me to know? What do you want me to hear? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to see? Why God am I here?
There is always a reason for what you have going on in my life so here I am God asking that you would help me see what it is that you have me here for, because God I know that even if you didn’t want me to come you have a plan in that. God you showed me that today while I listened to the story of Jonah. That is so crazy to me! You knew Jonah would run away and yet you used him anyways to bring those sailors to you! So I know that even if you didn’t want me to come here these is a reason for that.
I know and always want to trust in you but at times as a weak human doubts start to come into my head and it is at those moments when I need you most! To work in me, giving me tastes to remind me that you got my back and that I am honoring you!
So please Lord, help me to lead those kids with love! Help me to give those kids an image of your love and life so that they know the Father cause I know you!
So I sit back and wait for you! Come meet me here and talk to me!
June 16, 2010
So to put in the answer to the question that was asked the other night would be hard because God didn’t give me any one answer. These are the toughts that came to my mind…. I am here to be broken, to seve those around me, to be a gift of service to the camp as they need, or even to just to have a fun week. . . Or maybe even to get ideas for Kamp Kace.
So one thing about this trip to camp here.
1. I need to love people better.
a. there are people that have personalities of selfishness, egotistic or what-not
b. I get so angry and want to tell them off and rub their nose in their own poop* (not the word I used) and tell them… see it does stink!
The problem is that I am this person but to be honest I don’t want to break myself!
2. God, I believe, is that I need to be broken
a. Troy barrowed me a book that is about being broken…
b. The book is very compelling… and though there is pain in the offering I know that the out come is what I need!
Take my heart, and form it!
Take my mind, and transform it!
Take my will, and conform it!
To yours, to yours O’ Lord!
That is such a beautiful song and the words really have the feeling of the book that I have been reading. ‘Brokenness is what I need’ This song or at least this verse never made sense to me! So the point as I understand it now is that in order for me to really be formed, transformed, and conformed to God’s, mine has to be broken to really be able to be molded to God. To look like god, I have to take the clay mold of my heart to look like God’s heart. To be broken it then gives God the chance to remake. It will hurt, but in the end my heart, my mind, and my will, will be like God’s and to that is the glory of God!”

So much in that week… I still am trying to unpack it all and still trying to read the book! Why do I never take the time that I am given freely and use it for something that makes my Savior proud of his son?

Where do I go from here?

As of late I have been really thinking about where to go from here… both in aspects of what I want to do with my life and my relationships with people and my relationship with God.
I know a lot of these will run together, but I will try and keep them separated so that I can really explore each and then maybe bring them together at the end…
What I want to do with my life: So what is my calling in life? What do I want to do with my life and what kind of vocation will best fit that? I have been told many times over that I will not find what I want to do right out of college, but that doesn’t help me right now. I want to seriously look into what I want with my life and where I want to go. Life is short and my calling is out there, so I want to take this into consideration as I walk through these first few years of looking so that I don’t waste my time as I try to find the right place for me. I know that I really can’t waste my time if I am trying to find my calling, because I believe with my whole heart that God has a plan for my life and each step is a learning experience for my life. But at the same time right now I am staying up late and sleeping in late and have not done much of anything with my life besides watching “two and a half men” and “family guy” as I lay awake at night. I have not been spending time in the Word or in prayer to see where God is directing me, so I might just have to say that I have been wasting my life. That is the sad part, right now I am feeling so worthless in what I am doing and I am not ok with that, yet I am not doing anything with that to make my time worth while. So what am I doing? Wasting my life?

My relationships with other people: What does that look like? What am I suppose to do with my relationships with people? I have failed relationships and I wonder if I am suppose to do more with them and try and work those out or if I am suppose to just let them die? One has been going over the last year, a new Christian trying to set his life right and I wonder what my role in that is suppose to be? We spent the last year talking and hanging out getting to know each other, I supported him as much as I could. I never made any comments about his nights going out getting drunk and going to the clubs, sometimes fights and always dirty dancing, the other things that he would do that I know that a Christian should not be engaged in but I kept my mouth shut and just listened cause I knew that the guy was trying to come closer to God and I knew that he was taking steps and I believed that this was good for him and he didn’t need more rules and things that he had to refrain from. I know that I was there to help him and guide him in the ways that God would want him to go, but I left things because I knew that he needed to learn a lot of these things for himself so that he would take them to heart and believe them for himself so that he would take them seriously and not push them away as worthless advice of someone trying to change his life. Then when there was something questionable that happened in our friendship where he thought I was the one who kept him from hanging out with a girl, which was true in a sense, but yet instead of talking to me about it, he told me to “go fuck myself” which hurt that he wouldn’t take 5 seconds to talk to me about it or even trust me that I wouldn’t do something to intentionally hurt him. He later apologized and so we went on with our friendship, then after school ended we had another fight where he said that I narked on him for a lot of things and that is why he got kicked out of college. So again instead of trusting me in our year (school year) of friendship he blames me for a lot of things and turns our friendship off completely. So what am I suppose to do with something like that? Am I suppose to go and try to figure out what happened and fix this? Am I suppose to just let it blow over? Am I suppose to forget the friendship and count it for loss? Do I go and investigate the whole thing and try and figure out his side of the story?

Relationship with God: What does a real relationship with God Look like? What is the Christian life suppose to look like, feel like? The more that I look at Christianity and what it is, at least here in America, the more that I don’t want to be one. It seems to me that it is so trivial, like a bunch of people who hid behind the greatest gift in the world and almost use it as an excuse for their sin and shortcomings instead of trying to honor Christ in their walk with him or come close to Him. The thought in my head is “who is the Jesus that American Christians worship?” I mean seriously, the other day I went to church and as always I look around at the people who walk in during worship. There were two kinds of people at this service, the ones who came in and as bowed their head and prayed as soon as they reached their seat and the other were the people coming into the service like it was a concert. They were giggling and talking to each other. Now don’t get me wrong, which I know some will when they read this getting angry and saying “why can’t we come to church in a good and happy mood?” But that is not the point of what I am trying to say. I just want to know where the reverence for God, the Almighty Creator of the universe and the one who cares enough for me to save me from my wretched life? When you go back in The Old Testament and you look at what the High Priests had to go through in order to come before God and that was only the high priest and only once a year! Then you look at Moses who took off his sandals and ever time you seem someone who meets an Angel of the Lord they lay prostrate on the ground before them. What I see now a days when I go to church is a bunch of people who treat Jesus as their homeboy and not their God. Where is the reverence that the Catholics hold to or the saints of old? When I see things like this I want to stop being a Christian, because if this is what Christianity is: then the Bible is fake. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” I don’t see that in so many Christians. I see people making their own religion on of “sunday jesus” (I leave them uncapitalised because my God is not in that). I want to see real Christianity and know what it is like! I want to know what a personal relationship is with Jesus that the saints of old talk about. I want to know the heart of the Father and not like I know anyone’s heart, cause I don’t even get my own heart. I want to know what God is and I want to know what the Bible talks about on such an intimate level that I am a new creation. On a level that I have the words of God written on my heart on a deeper level then the desires of my sinful nature control me. I want to be a slave to Christ in that I will give up all my rights and desires and they will become His. I want nothing more then to become like the one that I want to worship and read about in the Bible. So this question is not for someone to comment cause the only answer is going to come from God and no one else. What am I looking for an not finding?

So what is the conclusion to all of this? Nothing… people may read this and be fired up about what I wrote, but the truth is simply that there won’t be change in their lives because they don’t want it. They want the comfort or they are just too lazy to really become a follower of Christ.

My Father in Heaven, I can not deny you, never will I but please save me from the idolism in our world!

Tradition or Bibical Ideals...

I have been thinking a lot on my world views and how I am suppose to develop them in accordance with Scripture. I have been looking at the things that I have been taught first by my parents and then what I have learned in Christian school and then what I have read in the Bible for myself. It makes me wonder how I am suppose to bring the Old Testament Laws and New Testament teaching into my daily life. For example, I was on facebook and I saw a picture of people sitting around and during what I believe was a Bible study/prayer meeting in someone’s house, the older man was sitting on the floor where all the young adults were sitting on the couches and chairs. It made me think of how that would work in my own house and how personally I would never willingly let an elder to me sit on the floor. Now is that something that is just a personal preference or just something that is founded in scripture? Is it a old ideal of my parent’s generation or something that should last through generations? The first scripture that comes to my mind is, “ Honor your father and mother, “"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12) But then, “3Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3) So I wonder then also if I am going with a tradition or am I trying to honor God’s Word? If anyone had any opinions I would love to hear them!

Telling the Joke, again...

Telling The Joke, again…

Rich Mullins wrote a series columns in Release and it was in one article call “Telling the Joke” also called “Joking Matters” he wrote this about a conversation with a friend:
Then I remembered two things. The first thing I recall is an argument I once had with a friend. After I had whacked away his last scrap of defense, after I had successfully cut off every possible escape route that he could use, after I had backed him into an inescapable corner and hit him with a great inarguable truth, he blew me away by simply saying, "I do not want to be a Christian. I don't want your Jesus Christ." There was no argument left to be had or won. Faith is a matter of the will as much as it is of the intellect. I wanted to believe in Jesus. My friend wanted to believe in himself. In spite of how convincing my reason was, my reason was not compelling.
He went on to talk about how it was not someone who, “explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to me, but because there were people who were willing to be nuts and bolts.” This really hit me the first time that I wrote this and I didn’t really see how true that this was until just today I was reading in 1 Corinthians (suggested to me by a friend that I reread it when I was feeling dry about my faith, thanks Tiff!) that I really see what Rich was writing about and how it was not just something that man came up with, but rather something that the Holy Spirit spoke through him to say to me, and hopefully others as well. In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 and even through the rest of the chapter Paul says this:
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
The matter is not about me being some awesome preacher by worldly standards, nor is it about me being someone that has all the answers for Christianity, but rather it is knowing Jesus and letting the Holy Spirit be the one that speaks. The world is not going to be won or one by the eloquent words of Jerome Peterson, but rather by a weak man, saved by grace, that lets the Holy Spirit work through him that is going to save the lost of this generation and maybe the next. We are not here to be “All that we can be” like the US Army, but rather we are to be nothing so that there is nothing that draws men to us, besides the power of Christ within us. Like quoted above Paul said, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.”

Before I got into chapter two I was reading chapter one and it confused me and brought so many questions to mind.
Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe… For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

So when I read this the first time, I was confused. The chapter brought so many questions to my mind and it seemed as though I would have no answers when I was done. Does this mean that God doesn’t want us to preach to the wise, the rich, or the powerful? Does this mean that God can not be understood in science or in logic? Then does that mean that we are to preach only to the people that are dumb enough to accept this, not that the Cross is dumb but that the people that don’t have their world view on the worldly things, the people who want to escape this world’s pain and sorrow? Does that mean that the world leaders or the celebrities are not wanted in the kingdom? These questions racked my mind and I couldn’t believe that the Word of God would be so narrow in His desire for people. At first the whole thing sounded like Paul was saying get the people who are dumb enough to accept it because the smart people of the world will never believe it.

This scared me and really made me question Paul, but just like taking a quote out of context I needed to read on and that is when chapter two brought chapter one into the light of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. My questions were so far off based that when I read the second chapter I felt like an idiot for even considering those questions and doubting our perfect God! Paul was saying that our faith is not just another fad brought about by the rulers or celebrities of this age like; Pogs, Rubik's cube, disco, horoscopes and slap bracelets. It is something that is real and he has chosen to show the weak, the poor, and the foolish to reveal his power. The power of God is revealed in the little people of our world that we would know that it is nothing of man, but only the power of God through man.

Thus we know that people are not going to be one over by the powers of speech that we possess, but rather the power of God that is displayed through us. The world is not going to be changed by our vast knowledge in apologetics or in our B and T degrees, but it is going to be changed when people humbly come to their knees and give their hearts to God and let the Holy Spirit work through them freely. The study of the Word of God, ancient texts, and devotionals are there to help us grow closer to God, but we can not believe for a second that our vast knowledge of spiritual things will be the thing that wins souls for Christ. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Phil. 4:13)

I leave you with this, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God…Such alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven on Earth.” (John Wesley).

My Thank You for your Support

Thank you!
I cannot begin to tell you about the impact that you have made for the kingdom of God with your support of my team going to Mexico this year. I wish I could spend hours just telling you about all the things that went on down there, but I can’t. So for now I am going to tell you about some of the biggest highlights of the trip so that you can get a feel of what went on and then maybe we can some day sit down and I can tell you more!
Let me start with alittle over view of what we did while we were there:
The first and most important part of what we were doing while we were there was to love on the kids. When talking with the Antonio and Alejandra Lara about the kids there, we learned that the majority of the kids there are not what you would think as of orphans, for they still have parents, but they are there because their parents are no longer able to take care of them, won’t take care of them, or have left them. Thus our first and most important priority is to show the kids real love and what it means to follow Christ. One of the kids that captured all of our hearts, his name is Jonathan, was described to us as “a wild animal” when he came to the orphanage. Through the love of the workers and care from Antonio and Alejandra he is becoming more and more manageable. I myself could see this just in the time that we were there, with the love and disciple that we were able to give him in the week we were there. I could see that by the end of the week he would respect me and listen when I told him to do things.
The second reason was to teach the kids useful skills that they can use in life. So while we were there, we were able to put on three different classes. There was computer, sewing, and cooking classes. We feel that the classes went really well and the kids were able to learn a lot. At times I think that we learned as much as they did!
Third was VBS with activities every morning. Before breakfast we would do a skit and sing songs with the kids. This year we decided that we wanted to teach them about what it means to follow Jesus and used the stories like Jesus calling the disciples, when he allowed the little children to come to him, and when Jesus asked Peter to take care of his sheep. Then on the last day we shared a couple of our testimonies of when we came to Christ and what it means to us to follow Christ.
One last thing that we were able to do with the kids, was taking them to the movies! This is something special for the kids, to go out to a movie with their friends! There is so much joy in seeing their happy faces and the excitement that they have as we walked up to our seats and then the how they became fixed on the movie as it starts.
So now that you know what we all did while we down there, let me share some of the greatest highlights of the trip! The greatest of these is the many prayers that was answered, and some right in the middle of the prayer. Being that I can only share so much here in a letter, let me give you some of the best ones. So as we crossed the boarder in two cars, it got very crazy and we got separated even before we crossed into Mexico. Being that I have been to Tijuana twice before, I pulled over and tried to find where they were and called the other car, so when I called them they said that they were going to find a place and stop. I hung up and had the girls in my car pray and later was told that as the other car was praying, I called them back and knew exactly where they were, which was only a block away!
The other and probably most awesome answer to pray was our prayer for a translator. Let me go back alittle so that you understand the beauty of this answered prayer. I had tried many different options before we left to find a translator, and all my options came up fruitless. So as we went down without any translator we were just planning to just use what skills we had and make best of the situation. The first two days went well, as we only played with the kids and Antonio, who runs the orphanage speaks a little English, was able to communicate what we needed to do. Then on Sunday at church we had a guy sit behind us and translated the service, which is not unusual, and then after the service we were talking with him and ended up exchanging numbers. Then on Monday night after a day of doing our best with our own skills and the help of a Spanish Bible, Abe texted me and after a short conversation told us that he would be with us in the morning! Not expecting much out of him for the week, thinking that he would only chill with us during the day, he ended up staying with the whole week and exceeding all expectations that we had! Looking back at the time leading up to the trip and also the people that we had looked into having being our translator, I can see that God had his hand on us. Abe was an amazing translator, had a very good knowledge of Tijuana, and children’s ministry. He ended up being a great guide as we went into the city to do shopping for our ministry and our own personal souvenirs
So as I end this letter, I just wish I could tell you more. But for now I will leave you with this much. I pray that I will be able to share more with you in person. I pray that God will bless you as you have blessed me with your prayers and support!


The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus
Jerome Peterson

The selfish wall

I came to this curious field which had this wall running through the middle of it. The wall was ten feet high and from what I could tell three feet thick. It was solid and smooth, painted with the most beautiful colors that I could ever have imagined, which called to me in soft warm words, “come and sit, you are welcome, I will listen” I look to the left and to the right and see nothing but the wall running as far as my eye can see. What can I do, but look at this wall that stands in front of me? Why should I do anything but what it says? The colors are inviting, the motion they give are as a blanket to wrap around me with the warmth of summer. Sitting down, I faced the wall and started talking. What compelled me to? I am not sure, but I just know that there was this, draw there, pulling me to do what I was doing. The morning turned to noon and the noon past along too, but as the sun gets lower in the sky I start to notice something. . . My words are starting to pile up on the ground in front of the wall, not all of them mind you, but only some. I keep talked as I lean forward to my knees and then inch forward to see as a couple more of my words hit the wall and fall to the ground before it. Confused I rose to my feet and asked the wall, “Why do my words fall before you?” But yet even those words hit the wall, bounced off and floated to the ground in front of the wall. Struck silent in my confusion, I bend down and scooped up the words to see which ones fell. It wasn’t those that talked about the beauty of the field that the wall was blessed to be in, or the glory of the sun as it shone down on us through the day. So what were they? I looked closer and it was the ones that meant the most to me?! On the ground were the little pieces of my broken heart… the things that I told the wall that hurt me . . . it dropped them?
I won’t open my mouth again the words will only hit a thick wall of self-righteousness! Unwilling, unwanting, uncaring hard wall of indifference. The paint on the outside says “come”, it says “welcome”, it says “I will listen.” I would tell you how much I hate you, but why waste my breath, you would drop them too. “I will listen”? Fuck you wall! You think you can just ignore my feelings? You think you can just take what you want out of the relationship and not think about how that makes me feel!? Well fuck you!

The anger burns within me as even the “fuck you”s hit the wall and float to the ground… I pick up the broken pieces of my heart and walk away. The sun sets.

I left the “fuck you”s praying and hoping that they will grow and the roots would break down the wall and the welcomes will actually mean something.

The Complexities of This Thing We Call Life

The storm of oppression hit like waves crashing against the beach…. Slowly it erodes away the strength and beauty of the beach until it looks and feels like a mess. The storm causing massive flooding that takes so long to clean up and fix, after the damage has been done, you are left trying to pick up the pieces that have left you alone and in anguish. . .

It started with a “relaxing” weekend with new friends at a birthday weekend at a camp that her dad is the director at. We went Friday and came back on a Sunday, it would have been fun but oppression hit like the waves on the shore. I felt alone and unable to relate with the people there, it seemed like my ideals and thoughts where foreign to them, the way that I think incongruent with theirs. People’s personalities and actions would annoy me and so by the end of the weekend, I was more tired then I was before…. Completely emotionally drained and weak… this flowed through the week like a flood, that you have to pick up the damaged pieces and you try to start over. So I did, unsuccessfully, I walked through the tatters of my less then blissful week. It came to Friday, I was done. . . wanting a restful weekend alone to regroup and refresh for another week. But I had a retreat that I was suppose to go to, so I went to see Juan. She encouraged me, but I was still down. So I went to the retreat and had an amazing weekend with the group of girls that I am leading to Mexico. God really brought us together as a group and I could not have asked for a better weekend. Then as soon as I got back to Crown, the devil attack me hard core with feelings of worthlessness, whispers of how unattractive I am, and how no one cares about you! Lies, lie, lies, lies!!!

Thank you God for the encouragement, if the devil has to attack me for a week strait with lies and depression, plus these lies and untrue feelings after great weekend, I know that I am doing good if he feels that threatened by me! God you are good to me even when I am not the greatest to you!

For after a depressing time watching the superbowl… and not cause I liked a team (cause I could careless about all that) I got back to my room and was feeling very down and out, but through the encouragement of angels in the form of friends encouraged me to the believe in the truth and reject the lies, but the best part was that this song that I downloaded from family guy came on and it goes, “shut da F**k up! *bang bang bang bang*” ha ha Oh God you have a sense of humor! I love it… then as I started to write this blog, my roommate walked in (the one that I have not had the strongest relationship with this year) and started talking to me. I was not looking to this as it would be a great chat, but it turned into a great conversation/discussion about life, the LORD, and our faith. Then about an hour into the conversation my other roommate came in and continued the conversation till 1:30 in the morning to which we stopped and I finished writing the blog. So I just had a 4 hour conversation/good time talk with my roommates who raised my spirits and my sole.

God be praised for all that you do in my life. Help me to always trust you first, then question what is going on!

Nothing new. . .

There seems to be a shift, that which used to make sense is not confused? I no longer understand people and they no longer understand me. It as if the whole world has changed around me and I have been left alone in a world not of my own. I am in a land of confusion, the land down under, where up is down and down is up. The shallow is their deep and my deep is not understood or even cared about. How did I get here? Is this where I should be? Am I alone? I guess the real question that I need to answer is simply, will I follow Christ and seek my Father’s face if I have to do it alone? Alone… I think that is what scares me more then any other word… to be alone in a crowd of people…. to live in a sea of faces…

Will I follow you God, when all other friends leave me behind for another path… will I hold to you when “new teachings” try to lead me down another path? Will I hold to you when people leave me? Will I hold to you if I end up alone? Can I be alone and still love you for it?

I want You alone.

The more that I head through life the more questions that face me, the more I am unsure about life… Maybe that is the way it is meant to be, wither I like it or not. It seems that when I try and figure something out… the more questions arise. The more I try to find true, the more I am answered with gray. The world of black and white seems to be left behind with my childhood, as long as my God is not left behind as well.

So what do I do now God? I will not falter in my search for you and your true, bless me as I try to honor you in my walk on this narrow path of righteousness to the narrow gate of your perfect love and salvation. Forgive me for the times that I step off your path and try to blaze my own, let me not walk that road alone regardless. Walk besides me as I try to find your, illuminate my path with your light. Do not let me try and light my way with any other light that gives false hope and assurance, but help me keep my mind on you always.

In my search never let me believe anything but your truth and who you are. I do not want a god that I can lead around, I want to be lead by you God. Bless me in that search.

Standing on the edge of a Knife. . . Will this be the right cut?

I stand on the edge of a knife, moving in any fashion will cut me in more ways then I think I am willing to deal with right now. So I stand here… on a fence longing to move, but unwilling to move in fear that I choose the wrong turn and leave a piece of me behind as I do. Fearing that I would be painfully cut deeper then I could ever know or understand…. On the one side is my family’s ideas and thoughts on who God is and what that means, on yet another is friends and their thoughts on who God is, and then yet another is my schooling and all the new thoughts of who God is. . . There is the God of personal relationships, this Father who love and cares for his children, holding them in his arms, the one that people can spend time with, love on…. There is the God of systematic theology, which is defined by creeds and theology, where men sit in conferences and debate who God is. There is the God of social justice, the one who cares for the poor, the one who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, heals the sick, and comforts the people, this incarnate Jesus.

There are all these visions of who God is… is he one? Is he all of them? Who is he? Where do I stand in all of this, should I stand with any of this? Is God one of these, is God any of these? Why does one camp say mocking comments about another, why does one look down on another? Is that real or is that my perspective?

God, I do not doubt for a second that you are out there; above me, beside me, within me and around me, but I don’t know you. Why? You are the one person that I long to know and grow deeper with, but there is this block between me and you… this wall that I do not understand how to tear down or get around. I want to know who you are God! I want to know what it means to be your son, what it means to have a personal relationship with you, what it means to be a Christian. . .

What does it mean to be a Christian? The word is defined as a follower of Christ, but what does it mean to follow Christ? Does it mean walking as he walked? Does it mean knowing the right things to do, and staying away from sin? Does it mean spending hours in prayer? Does it mean reading the Bible start to finish and then starting again? What do you want from me God?

There is one camp that says that rules kill us! The law is the way that sin takes us down… for the pure of heart all things are pure, but now that I know the rules, does that mean when I break them I am sinning where before I was not because I was purely ignorant? This camp says that when we follow the rules we are like the pharissees and we are not really getting into the truth of the word of God…. So they have this free living thing… where they ignore the rule and follow the spirit of the law and not the letter….There are the other camps, the one that says that we need to know the word and then put that word into action or non-action. There are rules and we need to follow them or we are sinning. . . There are the other people who would say things are morally wrong though they have not been defined in the Bible, like smoking, like sex is icky and what not… are they right?

How do we judge and understand what is for us!? What is the foundation? I mean I want to say the Bible, but there is a million different interpretations of the Bible and what passages are saying… Is this cultural, is this relevant, this means that or that means this…. What am I suppose to do!? I read the Bible and think that I know what it is saying to me… I talk with someone and they say, “well actually, if you look at the cultural context of the passage….”

AHhhhhhhhhh!!! God in Heaven, the writer of the Book of Life, the Book of Freedom, the Book of your own Son in the Flesh! HELP!! Please help me…. I am lost and know not what I should do or what I should think…. Where do I stand, where do I walk…. I am on the edge of this knife and am afraid for my spirit…. Is this cut going to be the cut I need to remove the lizard on my shoulder or will this be the one that cuts my life in two…to my ruin?

Life, my biggest fear.

There is little to nothing in this life that scares me, that instills
fear in my heart. I faced cancer and came out the other side with only
a strong discomfort thinking about bone marrows and spinal taps. I
faced death and was carefree. You see, death gives me no fear, "oh
death where is your sting, where is your victory," for I know that my
savior has conquered the grave for me. But what scares me, what
instills fear inside of me? Life!

Life is the thing that scares me the most, I am so afraid of the
unknown path that sits a head of me. It is new and unknown, open,
fresh, unexplored. Normally adventure is what thrills me and drives me
to do things, but my life now hangs in the balance, not that I could
lose it, but rather that I have to become something. I have to do
something with my life or u will be a "failure." if I do not become
something, I will have in some way failed my parents?

Everyone asks me what I am doing. "what do you have planned" "what do
you want to do?" I always tell them I am praying about it, which I do,
but I would rather tell them the truth!!! I am going out of my mind
trying to figure out what I am going to do with "my life." I have no
plans, no prospects, no dreams, no plans, no ideas. I am at the
crossroads of my life, but there is no signs to give me ideas on what
I can do. There is nothing but a field of unknown opportunities and
paths unknown. But I have no idea of what I am suppose to do with that?!

Some tell me that I am suppose to come here and do this, but that
chocks me. It leaves me dry. What future does that give me? How do I
pay the bills that way?! Cause they are not my bills, they are my
dad's bills and problem if I can't take care of them, but he can't
handle my problems!!!

I don't know what I want to do. Yet I am drowning in advice from
family and friends. I am drowning in their questions. I get so tired
saying the same thing over and over to everyone! Which basically is "I
have no idea what I am going to do with my life!!" but why do I want
to tell the whole my problems?

I am not asking for answers or for you to illuminate my path so I can
give the world my next ten years with day to day plans, for I know you
will reveal what I need at the time that I need to know it. What I am
askin though, is for your peace so that I can rest in your arms calmly
and carelessly trusting in my Father. I know that knowing my path is
not always the best for me, cause I trust you and seek you more when I
am looking to you for guidance. But please Father give me the peace to
calm my soul from the fear that is slowly killing me! I need your
peace! That is all I ask of you, for I know that beyond that, you got
it all ready. Let me sleep in your peace tonight.

Though I walk through the shadow of my life, I will not fear for my
Good Shepherd is with me.