My Journey, Part 2: Cracks Appear

This is part 2 of my rebooted series on my journey from Evangelicalism to Eastern Orthodoxy. The full series can be found here:

1	Back to the beginning
2	Cracks appear
3	Questions multiply
4	Questioning the "gospel"
5	The big question
6	A better hermeneutic
7	Explorations in epistemology
7.5	Excursus on oversystematization
8	Back to the gospel
9	The new direction
10	Ecclesiological foundations
11.1	Sola scriptura
11.2	The insufficiency of Scripture
11.25	Addenda on sola scriptura
11.3	Holy Tradition
12	Bridging the cracks
13.1	Orthodoxy and Genesis 1–3
13.2	A Better Atonement (Against Penal Substitution)
13.3	Faith Alone?
13.4	The Colour and the Shape of the Gospel
14	Worshipping with the Church
15	Mary, Saints, Baptism, and Other Odds/Ends
16	Looking Back, Coming Home

Between my perceived dualism of my agency and God's, my laserlike focus on "relationship with God" or a "decision for Christ" as the be-all and end-all of Christian spirituality, and my rationalistic distortion of the faith, it was only a matter of time before something went wrong. You can't run the "Christian life" on such misconceptions any more than you can run a car on water. 2010 and 2011, for me, were marked by my first two major "crises" of doubt, which served to shatter these illusions, or at least begin their end.

Summer Project

The first signs of the aforementioned trouble started to appear when I was on Summer Project in Milwaukee, helpfully documented here about a month after it happened. Specifically, my conversionist take on my relationship with God and my dualistic view of how my agency and God's agency interact turned out not to work in actual ministry. I expected that if I believed the right things and took part in inner-city ministry, God would do amazing things through me, like I thought I'd been promised. But one evening, during the mens' Bible study as we were sharing ways we had seen God at work, I couldn't think of anything. The problem, I thought, lay with my faith—but how could that be? What was I doing or believing wrong? Wasn't it all about what God had done, not me? I journaled my confusion:

I want faith and I'm praying for faith but I'm not finding it and it can't be God's fault so it's my fault and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Why am I the only one not seeing God at work? Why am I stagnating? Except I can't live for God inwardly or outwardly on my own. ... If I don't see Him at work in my life, am I being lazy or impatient? (2010-7-5)

I seemed to be interpreting John 15:5 to mean that I couldn't do anything of spiritual value on my own, which (in my flawed dualistic thinking) meant that I could expect it to happen completely apart from my own efforts. If things weren't working the way I'd hoped, there was nothing I could do (for "apart from me you can do nothing"); was my faith somehow wrong? Did I really have faith? Was Jesus really still the Lord of my life? Were His promises trustworthy?

Unfortunately, I didn't end up actually resolving that issue; I had to get back to my ministry, after all. I resolved to set aside my expectations of God and keep following Him even if He didn't seem to be doing anything through me, even if He seemed to make my life worse. I misinterpreted Job 13:15 ("Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him", actually part of Job's attempt to justify his case to God) and considered it my "life verse". At the time I considered this the big important faith decision I needed to set everything right (from my blog post: "I made an intentional decision to put my faith in Him"), the highlight of the whole project, but looking back I realize that I was simply denying my doubts, sweeping them under the rug and moving on. They wouldn't remain there forever. Nothing made any more sense to me then before; I just decided to keep going anyway, without really knowing why, thinking that this bold decision was an act of "faith".

2011 small group

But, of course, more episodes of doubt followed. The next came one night in 2011 during a meeting of my church small group. I have no idea what we were talking about; as was so often the case, my thoughts and questions led me on a trajectory that was far removed from the rest of the group. This doubt was overwhelming and confusing, as doubt so often is. As it began, I journaled (emphasis mine/original):

If we grow in relationship with Christ just to help other people know Him, that's circular and pointless. I want it to be more authentic, more real than that. What is the life of Christ? What is the death of Christ in us? ... So much of the time this seems like just idea manipulation, pointless exercises. How do I 'plug into' God and make sense of it? Works aren't the point. Emotions aren't the point. Knowing isn't the point. What is the point? Nothing matters. Except God. 

I'm struggling not to see [Christianity] as a different version of normal life with no substantive difference. ... I've suddenly realized how empty, meaningless most of my actions are day-to-day. I see it in others too. I'm just a shell of a life. Is anyone not a shell? People with Christ in their hearts. But what does that mean? I do have Christ, and I'm a shell. (2011-11-30)

The day after, I posted some brief thoughts on seeds and shells. The divide between my internal faith (the seed) and external faith (the shell) had become undeniable. Externally I did all these "Christian" things that didn't really make sense to me (like "know Christ" and evangelize people so they could "know Christ" and evangelize others), and then off in another part of myself I thought about my actual questions of faith and belief. But my belief and practice rarely conversed with each other; my thinking was disconnected from reality and my praxis was disconnected from any theoretical grounding. I had begun to feel this gap acutely.

In retrospect, this was inevitable and unsurprising. While I myself largely focused on thinking (and blogging) on matters of belief, in practice I largely just conformed to the expectations of what was "normal" for my Christian circles. As I realized this disconnect and tried to close it by connecting my thinking with my practice, I began to realize that many elements of how I lived as a "Christian" didn't make sense (like the seeming circular emphasis, especially of Cru, on the "point" of knowing Christ being to share Him with others, until I wasn't sure what else it actually meant). As I began to question more and more elements of my external faith by trying to connect them with my internal faith and being unable, I became less fervent and more ambivalent about living my faith out. I still inwardly believed "the gospel" as I'd been taught it, but I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with how I saw it lived out in American Christianity and how little this seemed to correlate with my own understanding. I wrote:

I want to get a good look at Christianity without the 'bandwagon-y” religion getting in the way. So often it's just about knowing the right answers and having the emotional experience—the head and the heart only. (2011-12-21) 

Christian theology is a beautiful study of the divine, but Christian praxis is riddled with contradictions. I desperately want to connect my everyday life to the eternal, to meaning outside of myself. I don't see how to do that in Christianity. (2011-12-22)

These critiques are not entirely fair; to an extent, I was projecting my own two-level conception of Christianity onto the church. I was simply unable to see things in a more integrated way, and I never got substantial help in doing this. It was also around this time that I dropped out of my personal involvement with Cru:

I dislike how normative Christian culture is. ...Is there pressure to 'add to' God's work? …You can't put Christianity into someone from outside. They can only accept Jesus into their heart—the center of their being. … I want to go deeper than [just acting like Cru people to fit in]—I really identified with and supported Cru's mission, but I think I did it all to please Cru, not God. I was a Christian as a lifestyle, as logic and a desire to be part of something, experience something [meaningful], but I only fleetingly connected my faith to my real needs that were instead met by shallow religious facsimiles. Is it wise to incentivize Christian events by what you will get out of them? There is such great pressure to accept the gospel now, I can see why it might not have time to 'drop down'. (2011-12-29)

There is a lot going on in this entry. My sense of Cru's ethos was something externally imposed stemmed, again, from the disconnect between how I internally processed and understood my faith and the ways that faith was 'supposed' to manifest, which I saw as normative. So I followed this ethos, but because of this disconnect it was "all to please Cru, not God". I also saw a conflict between perceived pressure to "accept the gospel" and allowing it to actually permeate you. I saw Cru as focusing much more on the former, for as many people as possible. All of these things were echoes of my desire to close the gaping chasm between my 'authentic' internal faith and 'inauthentic' external faith that had become evident in me.

As these doubts filled the gap between my internal and external faith, I increasingly withdrew from the manifestations of faith that I had previously participated in due to external pressure, but which no longer made sense to me. I expected to find a better way to live out my faith, a way which would be totally consistent with the glorious gospel I knew and "make sense" as I expected, and even to lead others to it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, looking where it has taken me), the doubt would go much deeper...

Hello from Milwaukee! (2011 edition)

This weekend has been amazing. I'm back in Milwaukee visiting the Summer in the City project and my second family there! I don't know how to describe how joyful it's been to be back in this city with old and new friends. Last summer I got to have deeper fellowship than I ever have before and after being reunited we picked up again like we'd never left. I took Friday off from work, so instead of driving out to Seagate I got dropped off at the Amtrak station and boarded a train for Milwaukee. Let me tell you, I am never flying again because the train is a hundred times better. The train station was tiny, with no long waits or security checkpoints. I just showed up, got my ticket, and boarded. The car had tons of legroom and outlets so I got a lot of programming on the game done.

Once I got to Milwaukee, Bryan and Meg (a St. Thomas student I've seen at a lot of conferences) and and picked me up. I've been really reliant on the people on the project for transportation and a place to stay, and I wanted to emphasize that for any of them you are reading this. Thank you so much, all of you; God has given me a blessed weekend through you. Anyway, soon we arrived back at City on a Hill. It was pretty unreal being back there; we'd stopped outside on the way to drop my sister off at college, but I hadn't been inside it since our tearful farewell last August. I was ecstatic to finally be back! Bryan's ministry team had gotten done at Liberty and Truth fairly early, which was how they'd been able to come pick me up so promptly. They were crazy organized and were planning their VBS for the next few weeks, and I got to sit in on their meeting. I love vocational ministry and it was so great to see them getting really into it.

Pretty soon other people were coming back, and soon I saw Erin and Dave! We had dinner at Taco Bell, where I got to see Ariel, Anna Z (a fellow junior at the U of M in Campus Crusade with me), and most of the rest of the students on summer project this year. There are 17 this year; six men (the same as last summer) and eleven women. It turned out they were switching up the schedule this weekend, so a park outreach was happening that night. I went along and helped make gospel bracelets with kids in Tiefenthaler Park. I was expecting to have to round kids up and ask if they wanted bracelets and be kind of creepy, but that only happened the first time. After that we pretty much got mobbed by kids; some wanted bracelets (or five of them), others wanted necklaces. Even after a year I remembered what all the beads meant and got pretty good at explaining it to them; the girls I was working with seemed to know when to throw in some helpful questions or slow me down if I was going through the message too fast. It reminded me of the sermons I'd heard on the different parts of the body of Christ working together. The fact that I was able to jump right back into outreach after so long just went to show that I did it not on my own ability, but by God's enabling.

After we got back to COAH, Kiera, Kriesten, and Emily Sear showed up and we had a big reunion in the student lounge! We were all deliriously happy to see each other again. While many of the current SP students went to hang out at another park, we went to good old Leon's for some custard. We stopped at COAH briefly before I went to Tim and Andrea Urban's house, where I would be staying the next three nights. I was exhausted from all the excitement (especially my face, from smiling so much) and pretty much went straight to bed.

Saturday was epic. Everyone from the 2010 project went to a great place called Ruby G's for breakfast. Heidi drove to Milwaukee to meet us for the day! We had a good long time of catching up on each other's lives. It sounds really repetitive, but I was so happy to see them all again. My Milwaukee friends really are my second family and having their picture next to my work computer only made me miss them more. Saturday was the day of the weekly social event. The men were apparently shooting guns, but it was mostly for people on the project so I just ung out with the returners all day. I'd never really had a day in high school when we all just drove around and adventured, but I was missing out. We went to the Reservoir (the hill where we prayed over the city during our last week), a park near Bradford Beach, and the pier, just talking about all that had happened since last summer. We stopped at Open Pantry for snacks, where we ran into Sherman, one of the men the other ministry team worked with at Liberty and Truth last summer! I'm probably forgetting at least one place we went to; it was just a blur of excitement.

For dinner Kiera, Heidi and I went to good old Buffalo Wild Wings; I felt kind of bad as I knew there was probably a better place, but no one could think of anything so we just went there. I ordered a cider there and didn't get carded, which was pretty shocking as I'm still only 21. We waited for the men's and women's groups to finish up at COAH and went back to the Riverwalk, where the men had done our impromptu women's appreciation event last year. The whole day was just a tour of all our favorite places from Milwaukee and it was probably the high point of summer so far.

Back at the Urbans' house it hit me that I only had one full day left with everyone. I thought about the promise of the Resurrection and the eternal life we'll have in God, when there will be no more farewells or pain or loneliness. Every single day we'll experience more fellowship and love than I did that day or anytime on summer project. This really helped for reasons I understood better this morning. I got up early and had more time to read my Bible and think before church. I realized how much of the things I struggled with and mistakes I made were a result of my God-given need for love and community that will never be satisfied in this lifetime. On summer project last year I had better and closer relationships than I had before or since and I was afraid of leaving all that behind. But if it really is a need, I have to trust that God will provide for me. Part of how He wants to do this is through each other; I realized how many times I'd prayed for God to love on people through me and forgotten that it could work the other way, too.

Church this morning was at Liberty and Truth, where we'd been a few times last year. I forgot how differet (and yet amazing) African-American churches were. A few women came up to give the call to worship, and I felt like they could have just kept proclaiming God's greatness and love all day. Heaven will probably be a perfect fit for them. The sermon was on overcoming unforgiveness, and after it was over pastor Darryl Seay called people up to let go of anyone they hadn't forgiven. About 20 people came up and he made sure they all had time and support to work through what was eating at them. God often seems to work on me in church in a completely different way than He seems to be working in general, and today was like that. Besides praying for the people standing up front working through old hurts and grudges, I prayed to entrust my needs to God's care and proclaiming that He had all the love I'll ever need.

The service lasted until 12:45 or so and it was lunchtime. After that came the usual Sunday afternoon lull I'm still in, so I've had time to write this. I never imagined I'd be writing another Summer Project post, but here it is! Once again, pray for the students here, the ministry God has put them in, and the city He loves so much.

On Faith (again)

Time for some reflection on summer project already. As I think I mentioned in my narrative of it, on the morning of the second-to-last day we had a time for reflecting on key points for us leading up to or during project. Some people picked turning points when obstacles to coming to Milwaukee were removed; others picked moments of inspiration and joy; still others picked times of difficulty that helped them grow as believers. I picked the point on project when my faith was brought up to a new level--Wednesday, July 7th. Since I think it was the key point on project where everything changed, let's reflect on it!

It was almost at the halfway point of project; our third of six weeks of full-time ministry. The staff were on their last few days; they were going to leave Thursday night and leave us to run the project ourselves. My crisis started on the evening of Monday the 5th, when we had our usual action group. We were going around saying cool stuff we'd seen God do in our lives the past week, as usual, and for some reason I couldn't think of anything; I couldn't see what He'd been doing. This was distressing to me. Even worse was that looking back on my life thus far, I couldn't seem to find anything that was unequivocally God's doing; other explanations seemed to get in the way to the point where I couldn't really say what He'd done for me. My being distracted during action groups was sadly a running theme this summer, and I was especially so this time. While my brothers in Christ were discussing Colossians, I was watching as the foundation of my faith seemed to crumble away.

I would say I wrestled with God that night and for the next few days. I overflowed with questions. Why does God not seem to be working in my life? Is it my fault? Are God's promises true? What is going on? After more thought, I realized the issue was that God wasn't giving me the kind of life I expected at all. I was expecting to see Him doing amazing things through me this summer (and He was!), but I couldn't see any of it. I wasn't looking at my life with faith, but with skepticism and doubt. Faced with the prospect of following a God who seemed to not make sense, promise nothing, and not do anything in my life, I think I briefly lost my faith.

The result was some of the worst depression I've had in a few years. I think it's an indication of how central faith is to my life that once it was removed, I pretty much had no hope or life in me. I managed to somehow set it aside for VBS at New Beginnings, but I may as well have not been at the teaching that night; I was off in my own little world of despair. Okay, I'll stop sounding emo now. What I'm trying to get across is that I had no hope without faith in God. This is where it gets awesome!

Of course, God wasn't just letting me sit there and doubt Him. Thankfully, Dave my discipler noticed something was wrong at action group and talked to me afterward. I was still pretty confused, but tried to explain what was going on to him. I remember he told me Hebrews 11:8: "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." His point was that by faith we follow God even if we don't see what He's doing or know the way He wants us to go; He leads us, not the other way around. Having the faith that would follow God into the unknown seemed like an insurmountable challenge to be at that point.

The truth, I've later realized, is that I was still seeing God as my helper as I had been doing for years, not as my Lord. The difference was that instead of wanting help with living a comfortable life or being a better person, I wanted help with doing good works and advancing God's kingdom. It's an incredibly subtle distinction from trusting God and letting Him lead you in kingdom work, and all the harder to distinguish from the truth. I was putting God in a box, unconsciously expecting Him to help me do the good things I wanted to do because I love Him. When He didn't help me in the ways I expected, I thought He wasn't with me at all.

The next night Aaron Miatke, another of the staff, talked to me about being certain that I was saved. He gave me a Cru resource on it and a book on Spiritual discipline (or something), which I wish I'd had time to read through. I was still seeing faith as this painful thing, following God blindly and never seeing any reward for it this side of heaven. With this view, no wonder I was struggling to recommit my life to Him.

The next morning I took off from ministry, being in no condition to do draining work with kids when I felt so empty. It was a good thing I did, because that Wednesday morning was when it all got better. In the midst of all the darkness in my life, of everything seeming not to make sense and God seeming to hide His face from me, I made an intentional decision to put my faith in Him. The whole thing reminded me of Job, who similarly struggled with his faith when God seemed to turn on him and forsake him. Ultimately Job realized that God was too big, too awesome, too far above him to question and argue with. "You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know." (42:3) Part of one of Job's speeches became my statement of faith: "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him."

Looking back, that morning was the turning point in my summer, my faith, my entire life. No longer did I need to understand God to believe in Him; I was willing to simply go ahead where He sent me and left God be God. If I believed in God when His face was hidden and He seemed far from my life, how much more would I believe when I saw Him reveal Himself to me through prayer and worship, keep me joyfully sustained through three more weeks of service, lead a man to Christ through me, and bring me all kinds of amazing stories of His work in Milwaukee through my job writing the newsletter! Since then and even after project I've been able to trust God to be Himself and take care of me in absolutely any situation, and this new, powerful faith has given me unspeakable peace and joy in knowing Him. Trusting Him to work through me instead of trying to do things myself with God as a fall-back plan has helped me to abandon my preconceptions of what God wants to do in me. Quite simply, knowing God and having faith in Him is the best thing ever, hands-down.

A clarification: when I say I didn't need to understand God to believe in Him, don't think that Wednesday morning was when I traded reason for blind faith and turned into an airheaded "Jesus freak". I have always been, and will likely always be, a curious and intellectual person who loves studying and understanding things. God is no exception, hence my interest in theology and apologetics. What I mean is that my need to understand things is now secondary to my faith in God; if He gives me no answer to my questions, I trust Him to know what He's doing, where He's guiding me, and simply go along with Him. Maybe He'll make sense of things, maybe not. An example of this is in my previous note on prayer. I was directed to a sermon today on prayer and community in which Matthew 18:20 came up repeatedly: "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." So Jesus is present when people gather together for Him (i.e. praying together) in a way that He is not when we pray alone. Do I have any idea what this means or how it works? No! Will it stop me from faithfully praying with others? Of course not!!

Wow. I think I just wrote an alternate version of my testimony, all in one go. Having time to reflect is helpful for that. I hope you made it through all that, faithful reader, and I hope it has helped you understand what faith in God looks like and how life-changing it can be.

Days 55-58: The End...or the Beginning?

Well, here I am back at home. Project is over...and yet, in so many ways, it isn't. We may be gone, but we can still participate in what God continues to do in Milwaukee by prayer, and the kingdom work He has prepared for us is just beginning! I'll continue posting reflections on project in the weeks I have before going back to school.

It's already hard to remember what happened Tuesday. I mostly sat around until people got back from touring the city; we soon had dinner. I was in finish-the-newsletter-at-all-costs mode, and I mostly needed pictures from people. I announced that they should meet me in the office before training to do this. Things quickly went wrong, however, as many didn't have any pictures I could use in the newsletter. Also, I managed to get Heidi's memory card stuck in my computer's card reader slot, and temporarily entered get-Heidi's-memory-card-out-of-my-computer-at-all-costs mode. I quickly decided to take my laptop apart (almost as much out of curiosity as hope of getting the card out), and had people who happened to be at Wal-mart pick up some precision screwdrivers for this.

So I spent training night disassembling my computer. This was extremely cool, but not very helpful as the memory card reader was underneath the motherboard as I got at it, and therefore unaccessible without destroying my computer. I eventually managed to get it out by bending a paper clip into a little hook and getting it behind the card, then pulling it out. Back to the newsletter! I quickly got pictures together and had Sarah Hoffman, my mom, and Cheryl all proofreading it. I stayed up until 12:45 on that thing, but the next morning it was DONE! After a trip to Kinko's (now Fedex Office), my work on that was pretty much done; the staff would pick the newsletters up and pay for them. Hallelujah!

The rest of the morning and much of Wednesday afternoon was occupied by cleaning up and finishing various tasks. It was good to make a huge dent in my to-do list, but kind of depressing as it was a reminder that we would soon be leaving. At 3 we went to the Sprecher brewery for a tour; Sprecher is a local company that produces European-style beer as well as various delicious sodas. The tour was pretty short, but afterwards, we got to drink as much soda as we wanted and bought some bottles on our way out. Consequently, we were pretty much stuffed for dinner on our floor that night.

The final weekly meeting was more of a time for reflection and free-form worship. Along with the usual songs, we had some guided prayer time, "station time" where people went around the church and worshipped in various ways (I didn't fully understand that part), and even communion. My ability to participate was limited by my being glued to my computer keeping things running as the meeting slowly derailed from the schedule we'd set up. It was stressful, but I did get to journal a bit during prayer time before the preselected music ran out, and for some reason I just felt a sense of satisfaction, like God really had shown up and I'd been a part of it. After the meeting I packed a bit, and picked up the printed newsletters! Glorious!

Thursday the women had something planned for us, which they claimed had been in the making since before our surprises for them. I don't know about that. A few of them led us on an adventure around the parking lot to stall for time, then led us on a circuitous route around COAH ending in the social lounge. Bah! They underestimate the male sense of direction! The event itself was a nice breakfast where the men, for once, got to eat first! Unfortunately, Anna had jokingly told us earlier that we should eat before their surprise for us, and we all believed her; Bryan stuffed himself in case he couldn't accord lunch. Nonetheless, we all tried to eat as much as we could (which, for me, was one sausage) and it was really nice of them. After breakfast they appreciated each of us individually as we'd done on our cards for them and gave gifts. I got a tie with chili peppers on it to celebrate my love for spicy foods (my dad will be proud and jealous). Even though things didn't go very smoothly, I really appreciated their heart behind it. Thanks, project ladies!

I can't really remember the next two hours or so. I think we were packing and hanging out on the 4th floor. But just before noon, we headed out to a retreat at the Wisconsin Dells! Everyone else was pretty much pumped; due to my aversion to swimming I didn't really care too much, but I figured I'd find stuff to do. It was a two-hour drive ending in lunch at Culver's. So filling... We met up again and headed to where we would be staying: a luxury condo at the Kalahari resort, basically a whole house to ourselves! It was probably the fanciest place I've ever stayed. it had two floors, a deck, five bedrooms, an elevator, and a whole home theater with a universal remote that I claimed as my baby and used to blast peoples' iPods through the surround sound speakers. Even better, many of the staff were back, including Dave and the Ryghs!

Pretty soon everyone else went to the waterparks; I got caught up on life back home using the wireless internet and then read some C.S. Lewis while listening to Christian music on the speakers. It was just the thing I enjoy on retreats: protracted time to spend alone with God, and it really got me back on track and ready for the last few days of project.

Soon everyone got back and changed, then we had a huge dinner out on the deck. Everyone then went to the Tommy Bartlett waterski show, which was great fun. A ridiculous plot involving rivalry between an evil fraternity and a summer camp as used as an excuse for increasingly crazy waterski stunts, up to the classic pyramid. The second half was more of a variety show, with juggler-comedians, acrobats, and two guys who did stunts on top of 50-foot poles with no safety lines (not everyone could watch that part, but I thought it was amazing).

After we got back we spent the night just enjoying each other's company and playing various games downstairs. We also gave out presents: the long-awaited project T-shirts, a CD of songs chosen by everyone that Erica made, picture frames, and my newsletters! We all signed each others' frames; my signature consisted of my first name written twice at the same time. Everyone eventually started watching The Princess Bride, which I respect as a classic movie but am personally sick of, so I went to bed.

Friday morning we made a timeline of project and the time leading up to it and asked everyone to share favorite memories. It was really cool to see how God had been at work removing obstacles for people to come to project, and then radically changing them and teaching them when we were there. After this we scrambled to get out of the condo by 11 for an afternoon of more water fun! Which for me meant sitting in the car with all the food, keeping it ventilated so the pop didn't explode (which it will do under extreme heat; I know this from experience). I finished The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis; remind me to write another few blog posts on it later. It was an amazing description of God's purpose for suffering and the fallen condition of man.

Before dinner some of us went on a tour of downtown Wisconsin Dells, which was pretty much the quintessential tourist trap. I've concluded that the tourist trappiness of a place can be measured by the proportion of its buildings that sell souvenirs and memorabilia, and here it was at least half. (Many more were old-timey portraits...seriously.) I didn't get anything, but it was interesting and I was treasuring every chance to be with people this close to the end of project.

For dinner we went to a pizza place, where we all got antlers to wear. (I wore mine backwards and upside down like a gangsta moose; they looked like pigtails) I also distributed final evaluations, which thankfully got turned back much more quickly than mid-project evaluations. After dinner we all headed back to COAH for one last night there; my car went on a bonus drive around to see the city one last time. At COAH everyone gathered in the lounge (which was being converted back into an office) to sing worship songs and say goodbye to the people who were leaving early the next morning. It was a tearful, yet joyful time of celebrating God's goodness and all that he'd done this summer. Knowing I would soon have to say goodbye to my project friends--who are really as close as family--was worse than actually doing so.

This morning was the beginning of moveout day. I was woken up by Aaron leaving for the airport around 6:30, and got to say one last goodbye to him and Tim before my room became a single. I quickly packed and took care of the last remnants of my job (bringing final evaluations to the office), then basically wandered around waiting for people to leave so I could say goodbye to them. It was as depressing as it sounds. Eventually we all hung out on the womens' floor (the very first time I'd set foot on it the whole project; crazy!) so we could say goodbye to people as they left. Our numbers dwindled down as noon approached, when I would leave. There were six of us left when I did so, packing into Ariel's car as I had done coming to Milwaukee.

On the way back, we listened to the CD Erica had put together, which contained songs that everyone chose to represent project. I met up with my parents at the McDonald's where we'd gotten lunch the first day; I was so glad to see them! We talked about project and just enjoyed being together again on the way back. Right around the Minnesota border, we randomly passed the Ryghs' van on the interstate, which was bizarrely awesome. Soon after I was home! I got to see my sister again for the first time since her graduation.

So, that was my summer project. If this post seems a bit cursory, know that though I don't really show it like the others on my project, saying goodbye was really painful. I've found fellowship in my project friends like I've never had before, and by serving together I've come to appreciate their faith and gifts. Having this second family torn from you in a day hurts, a lot. At this point it's tough to go over the past few days in too much detail; it just reminds me how much I miss everyone. Hopefully it will be better after a night's sleep and my return to Hope Community Church tomorrow!

Finally, a word of knowledge for my brothers and sisters on project, who I know miss each other at least as much as I do: this summer we served, and will continue to serve, a God who is unchanging and eternal. His power, wisdom, and love were the same at the beginning of time as they were when He died for our sins as they were this summer as they will be forever! So even as we miss each other, a lot, know that He is the same God the rest of summer and beyond as He has been the past eight weeks, and He will never leave us!

Finally finally, I managed to host the newsletter online for all to see if you don't manage to get a copy: find it here.

Composed ~10:20 PM, Saturday, August 7th

Days 48-54: The End Is Near

Well, there are only four more days of project. Wow. It's still hard to believe that the end of project is so close, but I'm feeling ready to go home. This last week has been pretty hard, but also had some of the best moments of project.

The rest of the week at Tabernacle was pretty fun. We kept playing and reading with the kids, and also did gospel bracelets with them. It was very chill compared to running 7 hours of VBS at New Beginnings, for sure. I know that God used me there and hope that the kids really felt His love for them by our being there and providing attention.

But the past four days have been crazy busy, and I don't even remember much of Tabernacle after all that happened. I've been working on the project newsletter during most of my free time, which has been tons of fun. It's really hard to distill everything that happened, all the people we connected with and ways we saw God at work, into four pages, but it's going pretty well and I'm excited to be done and send them to everyones' family and supporters. It has summeries of our ministry and other weekly events, as well as stories of people that really made an impression on us. After it's finished, I'll see if there is some way to post it here. (But in my mind this blog is really the complete story, anyway)

So that was what I worked on Friday after our last day of ministry at Tabernacle. It was pretty strange to be done with ministry, and in a way I feel like the project ended with our ministry on Friday. I've had to trust God to still work in and through me, and to have a purpose for keeping me here. The last social on Friday evening was a "Christmas in July" party at Jack's house. There were extensive Christmas decorations, a holiday ham for dinner, and a white elephant gift exchange. Unfortunately, keeping up their usual secrecy the social team only told us to bring something we didn't want to keep to the event with nothing on what we would do with them, so I picked the kite that everyone had been given at the beginning of the project, which probably wouldn't have been in very high demand.

During all the community building and time spent with my friends on project, God has been teaching me more about myself. More specifically, I've realized that I have a real need for times of solitude and reflection. Not that I don't need fellowship or don't enjoy being with friends, but I need occasional time alone with God to recharge and just be with Him. I was feeling this need acutely the whole evening and was unable to do anything about it, to the point where it was really hard to have fun when all I wanted to do was have some quiet time. I don't know if this need for solitude is something I share with the others on my project, but it kind of ruined the party for me.

Saturday was even busier. I managed to get to the bank to cash a check that would get me through the rest of project financially. That day, we were having an outreach with City on the Hill Chapel, a largely Nigerian church planted by Eastbrook that Tim randomly ran into during our park outreach. They were having a barbecue, kind of like what COAH did, and we were helping out. We arrive and met with Pastor Taiyo, a fascinating man with a real heart for God and a good deal of wisdom. He led us in some prayer and shared his heart for what his church was doing. After that we got to work helping set up and pass out flyers in the neighborhood to invite people.

Soon enough, people started coming in and eating. I'm not sure how many were with the church, but I don't think the turnout was that good. I hadn't had much to eat for breakfast as our floor is trying to run out of food before we leave, so I ate a huge lunch and became pretty lethargic for the rest of the afternoon. Due to that and the loud-ish music and blinding sunlight, I kind of wandered around the barbecue in a daze, unsure what to do or how to serve. I really like having a definite task to pursue, so this wasn't too fun. I did get to pass out the meat to people, which was good, but that went pretty quickly. At least everyone else seemed to be having more fun, talking with the people or playing with the kids. (One kid kept biking around trying to bring people in by shouting "FREE FOOD!", even when no one was nearby)

So that was kind of discouraging. I was ashamed to feel kind of glad to go. Luckily, we had a definite mission to pursue after that. I think it was Tim who had the idea of honoring the women on project by giving them picture frames with Ezekiel 16:14b painted on them and cards telling them how much we appreciated them. We therefore stopped at Walmart under the pretense of 'bro time' on the way home to buy the materials. things were kind of dicey due to Katelin and Kiera showing up at Walmart at roughly the same time as we did to buy food or something; I did recon to ensure they didn't stumble across the men looking for picture frames and painting supplies. While there, Pastor Taiyo called Tim to let him know that they had apparently made some rice for us, so after getting supplies we went back to City on the Hill to pick up the rice--over 20 pounds of it! The completely full pan took two people to carefully carry to the trunk and we still have lots of it to eat. It's delicious. We only managed to find nine picture frames at Walmart, so we went to another one, which happened to have the remaining four! That taken care of, we had just enough time to get home and get dressed up to go to Applebee's to celebrate Kristen's 21st birthday.

Applebee's was a pretty good time. We were going to Eastbrook Church the next day, which was much less formal than the churches we'd been visiting (for that matter, so was the Lao church), so Saturday night was our last chance to get dressed up. We randomly saw Gloria's brother while eating outside, which was funny. After getting back we had a 'mocktail' party with margarita and pina colada mix (minus the alcohol) and the Christmas in July decorations. That stuff was DELICIOUS. (Mom, if you're reading this, please get us some) Unfortunately I was really full from Applebee's, but we kept some of it in the freezer and have been enjoying it since. We played a few rounds of Never Have I Ever, which I am apparently really good at due to all the things I have never done or tried, particularly foods and drinks. (i.e. cheeseburgers, mashed potatoes, and coffee)

The next day was Eastbrook. I'd already spent two weeks of ministry there plus the prayer night, so I was really glad to return. It was by far the most familiar church we'd been to, with projected lyrics, a praise band, and printed programs! It was really diverse, which was cool to see; they really seem to care about promoting diversity as the talk on the prayer night was about. Pastor Marc Erickson did a great sermon on Acts 8; it was a really multifaceted lesson and it was clear that he has a real gift for delving into scripture and pulling out insight. I hadn't been feeling God's presence as much since finishing ministry, and He definitely answered my prayers for restoration and healing at that service.

After church we got lunch at Bayshore before going to a park to pray over the city. It was on a big hill that literally looked out of the whole city; amazing view. The group picture of us with the Milwaukee skyline in the background is going front and center on the newsletter. I prayed with Tim, Arron, and Jacob; they spent the first while just talking while I prayed silently before we each prayed something for the city and our project. It was a really reflective time and it hit me how all our ministry was in God's hands now; we've done all we can and have to trust Him to use our efforts as part of His plan.

After we got back, it was time for more 'bro time'. In reality, this meant painting the picture frames. Luckily we had Aaron, Tim, and Bryan the painters to instruct and lead us in this effort. We laid out paper towels on the kitchen table and got to work with Man vs. Wild (a new favorite of the project men) playing in the background. We put on two coats of white paint as Jack the calligrapher put each lady's name on the frames, then penciled in the verse. We got roughly halfway through psinting the verses on before we had to eat and get to our last set of ministry and committee meetings.

Apparently all our 'bro time' had made the women pretty suspicious. At the vocational meeting, Anna (who, as associate project director, has keys to our floor) was interested in seeing what was going on on our floor and almost used fetching Jack and Jacob as an excuse to do so. It was pretty funny, as we'd already hidden all the painting stuff in a vacant room and she wouldn't have found anything, but I still pretended to be slightly suspect. Apparently they were even more suspicious at the marketplace meeting, believing we were planning to take them somewhere Sunday night. During committee meetings, some of the men formed a plan to satisfy their suspicions. We would take the women on the Riverwalk path downtown, give them a fun time, let them know how much we appreciated them, and most importantly, make them think we'd spent our 'bro time' planning it. In the 15 minutes before leaving, we managed to get a basic plan down and rewrite the lyrics to one of our worship songs to sing to them.

So that night was basically awesome. Riverwalk was really scenic; we didn't tell them where we were going and just drove there slowly packed into Jacob's car, letting them follow. We went a little ways on it before stopping at some steps. We each managed to say something about how much we'd been blessed by them on project; even though we'd thrown together the whole event at the last second, we really meant what we said and I'm glad we got the opportunity to express it. After this we sang our song with Jack playing guitar, which they really loved, and then just did some worship songs for a while. We had some people on the other side of the river and on passing boats get excited and clap with us, which was awesome. I'm really glad the women gave us the idea of doing that, as it was really nice to do something nice for them. And, of course, they absolutely did not expect that we had something else planned for them. After getting back we finished the painting of the frames before going to bed.

The next day we sort of had a mini-outreach in the form of packing "Powerpacks" for needy students in the fall. We went to the vacant room behind the chapel and carted in dozens of boxes filled with school supplies. After much opening of boxes and packaging, we got an assembly line going and turned the backpacks out pretty quickly. I was opening notebooks as fast as I could; they were unfortunately plastic-wrapped in packs of four and each backpack got five, so they went through them pretty fast. The room was a total mess afterward, and we underestimated how many notebooks we had, but we put together several hundred backpacks. This was more the kind of service I'd been hoping to do when I signed up for the project, and though I'm glad to have been stretched in loving on people so much for our ministry, it was nice to just do some basic service.

That afternoon, Aaron took our action group out to Beaver Lake, where a house he and Tim had painted was situated. They had really been building it up as "the clearest lake you'll ever see" and beyond gorgeous. When we finally managed to find the public access to the lake, it was a little dock for hand-launching boats with private property on each side. Milwaukee may have some beautiful lakes, but those lucky enough to have lakefront homes didn't seem too willing to share. Unfortunately things didn't get much better from there as we wandered around looking for a park for several hours, the six of us crammed into Jacob's two-door car. We finally found a park and struggled to grill dinner with a wood fire Bryan made with his mad survival skills while fighting off bugs. (Luckily I don't seem to attract mosquitoes for some reason) Personally I would have liked to just stay at COAH and have an ordinary evening rather than try one crazy scheme for having a lakefront barbecue after another, but I seemed to be the only one who didn't think it was the best action group ever, so oh well. (I stand by the one where we went to BWW)

We luckily returned to COAH away from the bugs for the actual Bible study, which was great after we got out of the room with mold I was allergic to. (I was puzzled as to how my allergies only started acting up after we got back inside) After going over applications of the key passages in Philippians we studied, we wrote the cards for the ladies to accompany their picture frames. The plan was to have Tim and a few other guys stay up late and leave the gifts in front of their doors so they would discover them the next morning.

Today I finally got some free time. We got a text at 6:47 AM expressing thanks for the gifts (no idea what they were doing up so early); it was really great to see our crazy awesome plan to surprise the women finally happen. After getting up and having quiet time and breakfast, I buckled down to get the newsletter as close to done as I could. I have the fourth draft printed, and except for some help with the pictures it's looking pretty close to done indeed. Lots of people are out seeing more of the city and getting Tim a fade (really short haircut), but I'm enjoying the chance to have some time to reflax and reflect. I hope to finish the newsletter tonight or early tomorrow. With only four more days on project left, pray that God would help us make the most of our time here and bring the lessons and joy He gave us on project back home!

Composed ~1:00 PM, Tuesday, August 3rd

Days 46-47: Tabernacle Covenant Church

Well, we're at our last ministry site of project (not at the moment). After a wild, five-week ride, we're doing ministry at Tabernacle Covenant Baptist Church, Hopewell's sister church (you can see Hopewell from in front of it; it's easy to see why they're sister churches). It's not exactly a VBS, which is a reliefafter all that we've done in the way of VBSes; we're basically just singing some songs with the kids and hanging out with them. The woman running the program, Marcelene, had been attempting to run things herself, and our goal is largely just to give the kids one-on-one attention.

The church is pretty cool; it's in a cool semi-old building, with a big open sanctuary and library above and a fellowship hall connected with a gym in the basement where we spend our time. Mostly we read with them, play basketball, or play various board/card games, along with some songs and getting to know each other, which is as close to a VBS as it gets (they are running an evening VBS later this summer, so I don't feel too bad about leaving it out).

There are fewer kids this week than at New Beginnings or Hopewell; apparently some of the kids went to Hopewell's program, but I don't remember any names or faces. There is a 7-year-old named Ronald, which is really weird for me after New Beginnings. For reading time today, a boy named Dallas took a KJV Bible and began reading Isaiah, which I thought was awesome. (Apparently he didn't get too far after it talked about donkeys in verse 1:3) I've been playing Mancala, Connect 4, card games, and Monopoly with the kids, which is tons of fun as well. I'm certainly enjoying my time at Tabernacle, but be praying that I wouldn't get too comfortable and would really be driven to engage with the kids and have quality time with them as a light for Christ.

Besides Tabernacle, which is just in the mornings, today I went to the condo of some of our staff, which they are hoping to sell. We're helping out by giving it a new paint job and flooring. I applied two coats of eggshell paint to the bedroom by roller, which was tons of fun and very relaxing (especially with music blasting from the kitchen). Luckily I wore a white shirt today, so it's pretty much fine. Afterward, we just hung out a bit and played card games before returning. I prayed that God would restore my joy in obeying Him and fill me back up after feeling somewhat dry the past few weeks, and this week is definitely turning out to be an answer to prayer. Tomorrow we get going on the floor!

We went deeper on Philippians last night in action group, focusing on 2:1-11 and 3:12-4:1. I love Bible discussions! We also did some serious debating on the key verse of the book, which I maintain is 3:8; the "surpassing greatness" of knowing Christ makes sense of (and possible) everything else in the book! After action group some kind of grandfatherly teaching by Tim led to us constructing a family tree for project, as my floor did last year. Tim is two generations over everyone else (except me and his 'daughter', Amberham, the female version of Abraham), Bryan and Cheryl had staffer Mark Rygh as a kid like in the poverty simulation, and I adopted/begat myself. We then unveiled it to the ladies, which was...entertaining.

Somewhat spontaneously, we then got into a conversation on Spiritual gifts and our experience with them. We started on speaking on tongues, kind of the big one due to the charismatic movements of last century, but also got into other ones. I love deep theological conversations like that, and I wish we had more nights like last night. Hope Community Church, my college church, did a sermon on Spiritual gifts last year, which helped me participate. I think I have the Spiritual gift of knowledge, and I tried to put it to use by compiling a list of the gifts mentioned in scripture from Hope CC's sermon, which I then printed and gave to everyone. Note: I would love to have conversations with you, my faithful readers on this subject as well. E-mail me or comment on this post on your thoughts on or experiences with Spiritual gifts!

Tonight we had a teaching session on Spiritual multiplication and discipleship. I've been discipled the past two years of Cru and this summer, but I'm not sure how they'll handle it next year now that my old Bible study is no more and my friends are small group leaders. I think I feel called to disciple someone myself; be praying that if it's God's will, that He would send someone my way!

Now I'm sitting on the floor of the chapel making slides for the worship team. Project has never been better, but it's starting to hit me that I'm going home in less than two weeks. I'm starting to think about ways I can apply everything God is teaching me to continue His kingdom work back at home and on campus this fall.

Composed ~8:30 PM, Tuesday, July 27th

Days 42-45: Fury of the Storm

Time for another update before I start forgetting things. These last few days have been pretty challenging, in terms of keeping going strong as the end of project is starting to become tangible. We're running another VBS for the last week of ministry, and I'll definitely need God to keep the focus.

Thursday at Eastbrook was very laid-back; not many students came again. In the morning I worked with a bright young man named Brandon on grasping math word problems. In the afternoon there were no students, but we instead worked on compiling a database of clinics, adult education centers, shelters, etc. that a woman was putting together. So I got to use my Excel skills for the kingdom! Hallelujah! It was pretty much pouring when we left, and though it cleared up for a bit, that night we had a HUGE thunderstorm. There was a tornado somewhere or other and plenty of lightning, but the main thing was the rain. So much rain. The city got 5 to 8 inches of rain that night, causing severe flash flooding and soaked basements. Apparently subterranean erosion opened up a huge sinkhole that swallowed an SUV, and one of our project members was stuck at Bayshore Mall for a while because the streets were flooded. My friend from the U who lives in Milwaukee has been following news of the flooding of his high school. City on a Hill wasn't really affected, but definitely be praying for the people of Milwaukee in the aftermath of this crazy storm.

Friday we didn't go to Eastbrook since it closes at noon; instead we walked over to the Hoffmans' house to help them clean up in preparation for a trip to Madison and the Twin Cities(!) It was nice to serve them, as we were all thankful for their leadership of the project. It was also great to see their kids; Seth is a little genius who I'm sure would remind my parents of me at age 8, Thad is tons of fun and loves to play with the neighborhood kids, and 2-year-old Hannah is just adorable. In the afternoon we hung out with the neighborhood kids, singing them some songs and reading Bible stories. I really enjoyed the chance to read to the kids, especially from the Jesus Storybook Bible, which one of Hope CC's pastors read from in a recent sermon and is awesome for all ages. Still, the lack of structure was difficult for me; it was hard to know what I should be doing and I have to trust that I was part of God's plan for the day.

That evening was an awesome social, the No-Talent Talent Show! We all dressed in extremely tacky clothing (the women much more than the men) and had dinner in a meeting room, then exhibited various random talents and zaniness. We had skits, song-and-dances, jokes, cruel pranks, and one of those routines where someone stands behind someone else and pretends to be their arms. My act consisted of reciting pi to 50 places, making a deck of cards magically disappear (ask me to show you later), and writing John 3:16 with both hands, at the same time (I may not have mentioned it, but I've been practicing writing with my left hand for almost a year and am trying to become ambidextrous). After this was a dance party and movie, neither of which I felt inclined to; instead I spent some time with God and watched the two-part finale of Star Trek: TNG from the DVDs my dad gave me.

Saturday we got to sleep in before an outreach at Liberty and Truth, last Sunday's church and the other team's ministry site this week and next. Apparently this consisted of sitting in on a seminar on proper nutrition where the volunteers vastly outnumbered the kids. Apparently it was quite informative, as everyone is now insufferably obsessed with vitamins and calories (I hope it wears off). I, along with a few others, was down in the basement, which was still damp from the Thursday storm, sorting out L&T's clothes closet. I know very little about clothes, so after a while of asking one of the women whether something was for men or women I decided to sort the enormous, overflowing bin of coat hangers instead, which took up most of the rest of the time. I think we did a pretty good job, and the other ministry team can continue next week.

This morning we went to a Lao church on the south side. It was in a small building not much bigger than a house; we initially drove right past it and had to turn around. The English service was at 11:30; apparently there was a Lao service before that. We approximately doubled the size of their congregation, which delighted them. Everyone was super friendly; we even met a few young people visiting from Minneapolis! Worship was really nice; it was great to sing songs I knew, which was a first for the churches we'd visited (Eastbrook should be like that next Sunday). The sermon, on King Jehoshaphat of all people, was a great reminder on giving our problems to God and trusting in Him.

This afternoon, I watched the last 2/3 or so of X-Men 3 upstairs and got to put my computer skills to use at last. Will, one of the COAH staffers living with us, had contracted some number of computer viruses/malware; it was not pretty. I'm still working on diagnosing it with the limited materials at COAH, but it will turn out alright. This week we're running a VBS at Hopewell's sister church, which I'm not as excited for as I should be. Honestly I'm getting kind of tired of VBSes, so I'm praying that God would remove this attitude and get me excited to serve one more week! Also be praying that we would get some one-on-one time with the kids, a new goal of ours, and really model God's personal love to them.

Composed ~10:10 PM, Sunday, July 25th

Days 38-41: Happy Birthday?

What a crazy, crazy four days it's been. Between a last-minute ministry site change, my 21st birthday, and losing everything in my checking account...I should elaborate.

On Sunday we went to Liberty and Truth, a small church where the other vocational team is spending the last two weeks of ministry. It was clearly converted from a small office building, with chairs ringed around the slightly raised stage in a small sanctuary. I was strongly reminded of Broken Chain; the pastor was again on fire for God and interested in seeing the Spirit move to bring healing and reconciliation. It was awesome to see how he subordinated his own preaching to the work of the Spirit throughout the service.

That night we learned a bit of a shocker: Debi Godsey, the woman who runs God's Kidz in the Hood, had apparently been in and out of the hospital and was suspending her ministry for health reasons. Please pray for her. Anyway, we had to change ministry sites at the last second. Half of us would be going to the Hoffmans' house to minister to neighborhood kids again (like the Jesus club), and the half that had been at Eastbrook would be going back! My wish came true!

Monday was my birthday. It was pretty awesome from beginning to end, starting when I got a birthday call from the women at 12:03. We we're going to Eastbrook until Tuesday; today we were all going to the Hoffmans' house to pick up trash in their neighborhood. Not what I had in mind for my birthday, but again it was nice to serve God in such a tangible way and show His love to the community. We did this for three hours and filled four garbage bags with trash from the streets between me and Anna. My back is still pretty sore. We had a few nice conversations with neighbors, including some kids who had been to the Jesus Club! Two people on the team that ran JC actually returned in the afternoon to play in a nearby park, so they had a nice reunion.

That evening, as planned, we all went to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate. It was a delicious time; I ordered my usual honey BBQ and medium wings, along with six blazin' wings for the brave to sample. (Which became eight after the server dropped two on me and brought four more) I had one right off the bat and one at the end; I think I'm building up a tolerance to them. The reactions of the ladies who tried parts of them (only Tim and I at entire ones) were humorous, to say the least. We brought some back and tricked Jacob, who was not there, into eating one. I wasn't there, but Bryan says it was pretty funny.

They also made a chocotastic cake featuring the tricycle I was hoping to get for my birthday (to ride around campus and befuddle people!), which was nice. I finally got a package from my parents just in time with a bell for said tricycle (or maybe my bike) and a huge collection of TV shows my dad has recorded to DVD. (Note to people at the U: I now have the majority of Star Trek TOS, TNG, The Office, and quite a few Simpsons and Numb3rs episodes to watch. We can talk.) It was a great birthday of loving on others and feeling loved myself. And no, I did not consume any alcohol; apparently I signed some agreement not to drink on project so I couldn't even if I wanted to.

The next day we returned to Eastbrook! Alice, the woman I had worked with much of the time, was no longer there due to getting a job, so I get to work with Mary Ann on math, which has been wonderful. Attendance is down a bit since last time; we might go flyering tomorrow to hopefully bring more people, and in the meantime we're working on other jobs for the learning center like making a poster for it and compiling a database of other places for people to get help.

The afternoon was kind of ruined when I checked my E-mail and discovered a bunch of receipts in iTunes for roughly $1700 worth of prestige points for some games I had never heard of. Apparently someone had gained access to my iTunes account and used it to completely drain my bank account twice over. I'm still working on remedying that and yesterday was pretty stressful; luckily my mom, who is a co-signer with my bank account, has been working tirelessly to get this resolved, for which I am very thankful. I've spoken with fraud prevention and she went to the bank today; I tried to see if Apple could reverse the transactions, but they had the worst customer service I have heard of (a robot you have to talk to that tells you to go to their unhelpful support site). We're hopeful I can get my money back, but it could take a while and until I can resolve this and get a new debit card, I'll have to ration the money in my wallet.

That evening we went back to Eastbrook, into the church building proper for a prayer service. We all went over prayer requests praises, praying for them immediately. (Kind of a relief for me--my mind can wander pretty far during extended prayer sessions, so I'm glad it was broken up) I'm glad I went in the midst of dealing with this fraud; I think God was challenging me to put others above my own needs even in the middle of such a crisis. After the prayer session the pastor gave us a fascinating talk on racial reconciliation, packed with stories about interesting connections he's made by reaching out to people of diverse backgrounds. One time a Chinese man apparently met him in an airport asking to be discipled, which led to them later sharing the gospel and praying for one of the most powerful men in China.

Today has been relatively uneventful. I worked with Mary Ann again today, and in the afternoon typed up a spreadsheet of neighborhood resources for people in need, like adult education centers and clinics. I've always wanted to use my computer skills for the Kingdom! Tonight is another weekly meeting, which should be pretty sweet now that I've worked out a way to comfortably use the technology at Genesis. Friday is the No-Talent Talent show, which should be tons of fun. (I'm going to recite the first 50 digits of pi as well as an act I won't post here in the interest of keeping it secret from my project friends) Be praying that God would keep us on fire for and obeying Him these last two weeks of ministry; also for Debi Godsey's health and my fraud situation.

Composed ~3:30 PM, Wednesday, July 21st

Day 37--BBQ Time!

Today we had another excellent outreach, as usual on Saturdays. City on a Hill hosted a huge barbecue fair in the parking lot, featuring live music, tons of food, and activities for all ages. Being conveniently around, we had been roped into helping. Before actually getting ready for the outreach, we had breakfast together on a patio behind the part of the building where we live. It was a great and relaxing way to start the epic day; great fellowship and impromptu worship music as Jack brought his guitar.

After breakfast we went down to the ground floor where the preparations for the event were well underway. Everyone was signing up for various volunteer positions; this was made more complicated by the fact that the Summer in the City students were manning a prayer booth in shifts, trading off jobs with the people we replaced at the booth. I signed up for groundskeeping--keeping the tanks of cold water full and the garbage cans empty. I didn't expect that this project would involve working with people, particularly kids, so much; though I welcome how it's been stretching me, it was nice to do something less personal for once.

So, most of the four-hour carnival consisted of me walking around, checking garbage cans and water coolers. It was a hot day, so the job was pretty draining, especially with carrying heavy garbage bags and five-gallon tanks. I did get to see the whole fair quite a few times, which was pretty cool. During my 45-minute prayer booth shift not too much happened, except a woman named Tasha stayed for a while and we just talked. She was pretty nice and shared some prayer requests with us. Apparently a later shift talked to a guy about life for over an hour, which I hope to hear more about for my record-keeping duties. I also got to rest while filling in on security duty for a while. This involved sitting at the entrance and greeting/directing people as they came in--not keeping out the riff-raff, as I joked. Only project friends signed up for security, so I got to hang out with them for 15 or so minutes.

It was a very busy carnival, with face painting, gospel bracelets, kids' games, board games, ball games, ridiculous amounts of food, and a fire truck. But the focus of the whole thing was the big tent in the middle, where a group called the Captive Project was doing live music, a mixture of rap, gospel, and contemporary worship music. It was all about God; they did powerful, original Christian music interspersed with a presentation of the gospel and talks about what it means to be a Christian. It was glad that they were turned up loud enough to be heard from pretty much anywhere in the fair; they were really gifted at proclaiming the gospel and I'll be praying that people come to know Christ because of it.

The fair ended at 5:00, after which we spent a while cleaning everything up. I was out picking up trash until 6, one of the last to return. I was exhausted, barely able to walk, and covered in salt from all the heat. One shower later, it was time for a chill evening of hanging out that hopefully has yet to happen. (I fear everyone is too tired) Praise God for His working today!

Composed ~8:45 PM, Saturday, July 17th

Days 32-36

Well, I've just finished our last day of ministry at New Beginnings Are Possible. I'm sad to be leaving all my friends there behind, but excited for what the rest of project holds!

I started the week off by staying home with a cold for two days. This was better than it sounds, as the long weekend gave me time to recharge and prepare for the other three days. I felt bad about leaving my team, especially as we would be working with the kids all day today. But the service at Broken Chain actually addressed this, talking about how God has a purpose for us wherever He's put us in life. It was humbling to see that I wasn't needed for our ministry, but that God has been using me anyway. In the meantime, I found other ways to contribute. Most of Monday was spent getting to a clinic to verify that I didn't have strep throat; on Tuesday I spent a lot of time in prayer for everyone on project and cleaned our floor and the social lounge. By Tuesday night, I felt like the last two days had been well-spent and eager to return to ministry, whereas on Sunday night I had been apprehensive about the week at New Beginnings.

We'd prepared a new schedule for the week; most of the mornings were taken up by group time, where we split the kids up by age and gender and had them spend half an hour at stations: music, reading (the Chronicles of Narnia), board games, and math. I, of course, got to do the math station. (It somehow got done the days I was at home) This mostly consisted of either having them perform math using the numbers on cards I dealt them to make certain numbers, or playing "Around the World"--kids would answer basic math questions to make their way around a circle of chairs. This one was pretty intense and it was nice to see them get into it--especially when staffers decided to compete against the kids, and often lost. (Even I lost once to a kid who knew 7 x 5 before I could even start processing it)

The rest of the day was taken up by the Bible lesson, Jeopardy, and just playing with the kids. I led the older boys' Bible lesson like at Hopewell in much the same discussion-based format. Once again, some of them were more into the gospel than others, but I think I delivered it pretty well (the last three days are the most important) and I'll be praying that God would grow the seeds I planted. Due to my cold combined with allergies I mostly stayed inside, playing lots of cards and air hockey during free time.

The ending of today was a bit different. After lunch an impromptu talent show happened--and "happened" is the best description of how spontaneously it seemed to come together. The younger girls had apparently been practicing a sond and dance routine, after which they started chanted staff and volunteers' names to make them get up on the stage and do something. (Luckily they never chanted for me) It was entertaining, and all their excitement was contagious. At the end of the day it was really hard to say goodbye; we all got mobbed and hugged repeatedly. We hope to see the kids again sometime before heaven!

Besides New Beginnings, things have been pretty good this week. After a power outage kept us from having our weekly meeting at Genesis Church last week, we returned there this week. Technically, things went much better; my computer can't connect to their projectors, but I used it along with the media computer to keep track of slides so I knew what I was doing. I also finally gave my testimony at the meeting, which I'm told went quite well! (I didn't trust my judgment on that)

Last night we finally played Telephone Pictionary again, for the first time in weeks. It was tons of fun as usual and it was great to just hang out with everyone, which our ministry schedule made it hard to do. I'm feeling pretty much recovered from the cold today, in time for either roller skating or laser tag tonight (our overly secretive social team hasn't revealed it yet). Tomorrow we're helping with a barbecue outreach COAH is doing, and next week we're finally going to God's Kidz in the Hood to help with a Bible study and mentoring! Be praying that this weekend would be restful for our team, and that God would give us strength and courage for our last two weeks of ministry.

Composed ~4:45 PM, Friday, July 16th

Days 30-31: Praise God!

It's been a pretty sweet weekend so far. The park outreach yesterday went amazingly well and was a real faith booster for me. We split into five cars and went to various parks to share the gospel and invite people to nearby churches (all the churches we'd visited plus the one we went to today). The park we visited was in a somewhat nicer old suburb that reminded me of south Minneapolis and Richfield; it was huge, but mostly taken up by a deserted disc golf course and finding people was slightly difficult. Fellow project-goer Anna and I paired up based on everyone picking a number from 1 to 10 (my idea for eliminating indecision) and walked around for a while looking for people to talk to.

Our first attempt at talking to a couple was unsuccessful; after that we met two older guys and went through the Soularium survey with them like last weekend. We had a decent conversation and Anna quickly ran through the Knowing God Personally booklet (which is a guide to going through the basic gospel) with them before giving them each one; they were both from church backgrounds and hopefully it was helpful to them.

But the best was yet to come. We saw a group of older guys fishing in a rather scummy pond. Thinking they were too busy we were about to walk away, when one of them, Dante, stopped us asking what was in our binder (Soularium). We happily showed him and went through the survey; after this I somehow managed to transition to going through the KGP with him, after which he prayed to accept (or possibly re-devote his life to) Christ!! No sooner had we finished with this and were preparing to walk away when another fisherman (Willie) asked to see the books, so we redid Soularium with him after which Anna went through the KGP with him and he also prayed to accept Christ! Meanwhile everyone else was catching fish and pond scum (and a snapping turtle at one point) and hopefully listening.

Until two or so weeks ago it had been one of my life goals to lead someone to Christ. I'm glad God taught me that trusting and obeying Him is more important than what I accomplish, because I would definitely give the credit for what happened at the pond to God. I was basically just along for the ride trying to listen to his questions and explain things clearly. I'm amazed how calm I somehow was considering how exciting it was! I also thought it was kind of cool how it was fishermen we talked to, considering Jesus' first disciples.

After this we returned to the car and decided to call it a day well spent. The plan for after the outreach was to get takeout lunch and bring it to Lincoln Park to eat. Luckily we decided to eat at McDonald's; right as we were reaching the park it started pouring in all of 30 seconds in true Milwaukee fashion, so we headed back to COAH to debrief.

We had great fellowship and basically just chilled until all the groups were back. As we debriefed, I was astounded to hear that nearly every group had a story as amazing as ours! One pair talked to a 75-year-old man for an hour and a half; others heard inspirational stories or saw people (even kids) accept Christ. I'm proud to be the one to gather all these stories and let others know! After that I played Plants vs. Zombies for a while to relax (great game; check it out on Steam) before watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? (I received a shiny office key so I always have access to our media equipment)

This morning we met up to walk to Broken Chain worship center (it's pretty close). It's situated in a small building across the street from a huge Catholic church, which makes it seem even smaller, but the surprisingly roomy first floor is almost entirely occupied by an impromptu sanctuary. The service was full of surprises; great gospel music set to recorded accompaniment (I think the live musicians were on vacation or something), prayer time for peoples' struggles in the middle of the sermon, even interpretive dances about God's power to set us free. The sermon, on God guiding the Israelites out of Egypt, had a lot of stuff God has been teaching me about trusting His path and plan for us; it was great to hear it from someone else. It was a powerful, Spirit-filled service and possibly my favorite one yet.

Today we don't have much else planned, mostly just a meeting to plan our ministry at New Beginnings this week. We have six and a half hours(!) to spend with the kids each day, and we're not entirely sure what to do yet. Pray that God would show us the way, soothe nerves, and reach the kids at NBAP this week through us; also for Willie, Dante, and everyone else we talked to yesterday. And praise the Lord, for He is good!

Composed ~12:45 PM, Sunday July 11th

Days 26-30: New Beginnings Are Possible

This week has been pretty crazy and scary, but also pretty awesome. We did a week of golf camp and VBS at new Beginnings Are Possible, a Christian youth center, went to a Brewers game, and said goodbye to our staff on Thursday night! I definitely feel like I've had to trust God and been stretched every day.

New Beginnings is a similar deal to Hopewell, but with a bunch of staff and interns who help us maintain order (sometimes). The mornings are occupied by golf camp, where we get into some huge vans and drive way out to a suburban golf center to teach the kids how to golf. Activities included mini golf, the driving range, and chipping and putting. They would split the kids up into groups of 3-5 and put a staff/intern/Here's Life volunteer in charge of each one. I didn't get to play too much as I was pretty occupied with keeping the kids ruly, but that's okay as I seem to be pretty terrible at golf anyway. (I also realized that I golf left-handed, which made getting set up for the driving range tricky) The sight of a bunch of African-American inner city kids learning to golf was bizarrely awesome; our group drew quite a few stares from the golf center's regulars. Additionally, the two Christian staff members at the center running the golf camp were great; they taught the kids not only the particulars of the game, but also some important lessons about following Jesus. Yesterday we had a mini golf tournament followed by a pizza party and rubber duck race down the artificial river; it was tons of fun for the kids and for us.

In the afternoons we've been doing a VBS similar to Hopewell. We're trying to be more organized in how we go about it, delegating responsibility; I was put in charge of the Bible lessons, which have been surprisingly fruitful despite my difficulties; it's really encouraging to see how much some of the kids love Jesus. One kid in particular, Ronald, has been a huge joy to me. He is without doubt the smartest nine-year-old I have ever met; my parents tell me I was pretty bright at that age, but Ronald is just something else. He was reading a book on dinosaurs when I first met him, and since then we've had quite a few conversations on awesome stuff. He's really into astronomy stuff, constantly reading a book on space that New Beginnings owns, and thanks to the astrophysics course I took last semester I was able to bring up all kinds of stuff to interest him. He also knows a ton about God and after some spiritual conversations with him I can tell he has a genuine, if somewhat immature, faith.

The other kids have also been delightful, of course. One girl, Lai Janique (or Lala for short), is intensely interested in spiritual stuff; we sometimes have to keep her from answering all of my questions in Bible lesson and upon hearing about the fruits of the Spirit she made me promise to teach everyone the fruits of the Spirit song from my church. On the way to golf camp yesterday, a little boy named Jay Sean (I'm guessing on the spelling) went on a hilarious ramble about color-coded families of trees and their drag races, among other things. In retrospect I think he was describing a dream he'd had, as it was too crazy to come from anywhere else. For all their craziness and occasional aggression, these kids can be a genuine joy to work with.

As mentioned earlier, the staff are gone. The second half of this project is all up to us, to see how well we work as a team without relying on them. Everyone was given responsibilities for various areas of the project. Some took over the four committees, others are running actions groups or overseeing the vocational and marketplace ministries. My job title (besides my unofficial job of technical director) is "project archivist"; basically I'm in charge of records and keeping track of what God is doing on the project. My co-archivist Erica has taken charge of pictures, gathering them from our photographers and putting together an awesome slide show of the project so far. Not to be outdone, I'll be gathering interviews, stories, and statistics to see how the Kingdom is being advanced this summer. At first I was skeptical about being given this job, but I'm increasingly appreciating it as a chance to answer questions I already had and struggled with. I can't wait to hear from my fellow project-goers!

The official turning over of the project from staff to students took place at a banquet at Buca di Beppo Thursday night. After eating, they brought us up to announce our new jobs and commission us. The most memorable part of the evening was when they laid hands on and prayed for us, followed by the three new directors of the project. When we finished praying and opened our eyes, the staff were all gone! It was a pretty powerful and symbolic moment; from then on it was our project. (We still got to say goodbye to the staff they were all still around COAH packing up when we got back) I miss them, but I'm excited to see how we handle this project ourselves. Plus two of the staff were Twin Cities metro staff who I'll certainly see next fall; additionally my discipler Dave works for Here's Life in Minneapolis so I'll get to hang out with him when I'm back at the U.

Last night was also pretty exciting. Since I first saw it coming in to Milwaukee, I was pretty much blown away by Miller Park. When I heard that the latest social event would have us going there, I was more excited to see it than the Brewers and hoped it would rain so I could see them retract the roof. (Sadly it didn't) We had a tailgating party before the game, which was tasty and fun (and hot). Approaching the stadium was pretty awesome; it had a capacity of over 50,000 and everything about it was enormous. We originally got cheap seats high about left field, but later moved down to much closer above right field as the stadium was only about half full. The game itself was pretty exciting, I suppose; the Brewers got a double run in the first inning, only to be led by the Pirates 4-2 by the eigth. They then proceeded to get a home run in the eigth and another run in the ninth, then managed to score the win in the extra inning. Except I apparently missed the winning play because I didn't notice the runner reaching home, which was pretty disappointing. I'll stick with watching baseball on TV.

We helped train some summer missions students on evangelism again on Thursday; this time I took some coolers to help pass out free vitamin water and information on COAH. The briefing took a while and we didn't have as much time for the actual outreach, but we still had plenty of positive responses and I hope we brought people to COAH. I felt kind of bad when I realized that not only was the vitamin water we were giving out expired by several months, but it also tasted terrible. (I'm not sure if this is because it's expired or because of the tamarind pineapple flavor) Today is another outreach; we're splitting up to go to several parks around the city and share with Soularium similarly to last Saturday. I'm nervous as usual and don't really feel like confrontational evangelism is my calling, but since God brought me to it I have faith that He'll bring me though it. God has a plan for today that is going to happen no matter what; He's been graceful enough to let us participate in it. Be praying that our team would be the body of Christ to Milwaukee, united in obedience and trusting in Him absolutely! Also for health; several of our team members have been sick and I woke up this morning with a sore throat...

Composed ~9:40 AM, Saturday, July 10th

Days 23-25: Amazing Weekend

After the great week at Eastbrook, I've had a wild but fulfilling weekend. (Which continues into today!) Saturday was a big outreach at the lakefront as around 100,000 people turned out for a July 3rd fireworks show. It was pretty crazy; people would arrive early in the morning and claim a plot of land for the day with stakes and ropes. Veterans' Park was pretty much completely full. We sent some guys at 6 AM just to get a not-too-good spot; it's quite a hectic land grab.

Today we were mostly using Soularium, an open-ended picture survey that is supposed to start spiritual conversations. People are given 50 pictures and asked to choose ones that represent their life, God, and their spiritual experience. I partnered up with Tim this time, figuring that I needed to go with someone a good deal more talkative tham I am.

We walked around through the mass of tents and folding chairs for a while, looking for people to talk to. Finally we found Mike and Dan, two twenty-somethings who seemed pretty interesting, though not really spiritual. Sadly, they had to go get some more supplies and our conversation was cut short. After a lot more walking (and gaping at the sailboat-like art museum), we met Roger, a deep-thinking 13-year-old who was pretty keen to take the survey and reflect on it. We were cut slightly short again as his family came to get him, but we made it through Soularium and gave him a booklet on the basic themes and story of the gospel; Tim figured that he would definitely read it and take it in.

We then talked to Phil, who it turned out had been a born-again Christian for 30 years; we had a very interesting, meandering conversation with him on the Christian life that was pretty encouraging. There were a few other conversations, but we never really got past the survey again. Soularium is pretty extensive, as is the booklet that was to come after it; it really seemed like a lot for a random person to take in all at once, even someone as pensieve as Roger. Once again I didn't see any dramatic on-the-spot conversions, driving home the point that we need to trust God completely to bring people back to Him.

After this we basically got to eat dinner and hang out in the park for several hours until the fireworks. Great food and fellowship were had, along with games. (I played a ridiculous game of Hearts in which Tim 'shot the moon' twice, in a row. Unbelievable.) The fireworks were pretty cool, being launched from two barges out in the lake, but sadly both sets of fireworks were obscured by trees. It was pretty cool, but I wish we'd had a better few. (And that they'd shot off the top of the U.S. Bank building as they apparently have in previous years) After the show ended, we had to be shuttled back due to the parking mess, which for us meant walking literally halfway back to City on a Hill before being picked up. We were pretty exhausted.

On Sunday the 4th we went to Jeremiah Missionary Baptist Church. It reminded me of Berean, in its layout, style, and welcoming atmosphere. One of my main problems with African American churches, though, is the lack of hymnals or projected lyrics! The worship was bursting with energy and praise for God, and it was frustrating not being able to participate beyond clapping along. (Especially since they had reserved seats and I was literally front and center, three or so meters from the pulpit) The sermon, on 2 Kings 6, was on seeing things as God sees them and was quite Biblical and good. The only problem was that during the course of the service we learned (for the first time) that their VBS, which our other ministry team was supposed to help run the next day, had been canceled. Plenty of time to find another ministry partner!

After church I eventually managed to get lunch, after which we headed to the house of one of the staff's parents for more fireworks! (I cannot overstate the generosity of all the families who have opened up their homes to us on this project) Upon getting there we had several hours to kill; luckily the fact that the house had ROCK BAND 2 made this pretty easy. I'd been dying to break out my drumming skillz since soon after leaving home; much fun was had. They also had a competitive cup stacking set, foosball, and darts; it was a fun, fellowship-filled evening.

We walked a mile or so to a nearby park to watch the fireworks. There were a few hundred people there; much less crowded and busy than yesterday, and our view of the fireworks was unobstructed by trees. It was a good 4th of July.

Today we get the day off as our next ministry site, a Christian youth center called New Beginnings Are Possible, is closed. We're meeting at 12:30 to plan the VBS. (luckily we don't have to worry about mornings, as we'll be doing a golf camp!)

One other big thing this week is that on Friday morning, the staff are leaving and turning the rest of the project over to us. They're meeting with us this week to pass on various responsibilities to people. I'm not supposed to discuss my job yet, but suffice it to say that I think it will be an eye-opening experience for me and a lesson in humility. Pray that God would prepare us to take over the project, and that He would work through us to build up the kids at New Beginnings and build relationships in the two weeks we'll have with them. Also that He would bring another opportunity for the other team, soon!

Composed ~10 AM, Monday, July 5th

Days 20-22

The rest of the week at Eastbrook has been pretty sweet. We just had our last day today and I was genuinely sad to leave; I wish I could stay longer and develop more relationships with the students. Today the center was only open in the morning, and only two students came: two of my favorites, Mary Ann and Alice. Mary Ann is an older woman and one of the sweetest and most sociable people I've ever met. She's a delight to talk to, bursting with stories and good wishes; Gloria has been working with her on fractions. Alice has been the most regular attender, coming in every day to work mostly on math with me. We had other students on previous days like Natalie, who works more on her own in the saide room, James, who is studying math to get into MATC, and Melodie, who brings her 8-month-old son Cameron in with her. (We call him the learning center's baby)

It's been a joy to work with these people and more this week, helping them develop their math and reading skills. It's hard leaving after only a week since I didn't get to see anyone make huge amounts of progress, but I know they show promise. Even if I didn't really get to initiate spiritual conversations, as Dave put it I'm working as the hands of Christ for people who came to a church for help getting on their feet. Bob Brock makes sure we pray several times a day over the center's work as well as problems students are having in their lives; Mary Ann's attempts to get a job, Alice's granddaughter changing custody in a bit of a difficult situation, and others. Their daughter Cara turned out not to have serious complications with her back, which is a big praise.

With Eastbrook done, we go to New Beginnings Are Possible--a Christian community center for inner city kids--for the next two weeks. By random luck, one of our workplace ministry teammates (Heidi) got a job there, so it will be cool to work with her. We'll be doing another VBS there, but it should hopefully be less crazy than Hopewell.

Things back at COAH are pretty good. Their staff are on vacation this week; yesterday, on our staff's day off, the girls all went to celebrate Jessi's birthday by watching the new Twilight movie and the men joked that since we literally had the whole building to ourselves we should prank the girls' floor somehow. (I don't think we ever got access to a key; I would have felt bad anyway) After getting back from Eastbrook early today (they close at noon on Fridays) I had mac and cheese for lunch (making enough to share with the Miatke family's kids, who live on our floor) and watched Robots with them while doing dishes. It's a very chill afternoon.

Tomorrow is a big outreach; there will apparently be tens of thousands of people on and around the beach to watch fireworks, and before a barbecue there we're going sharing again with a fancy new ministry tool booklet. I'm still kind of nervous, not really being the type who enjoys walking up to strangers and getting into deep conversations with them. Pray that God would manifest 2 Corinthians 12:9 in me tomorrow and open peoples' hearts to His good news! (Also that I'll obtain a copy of O Brother, Where Art Thou? for movie night tonight)

In other news, has anyone else noticed the rising popularity of those funny-shaped bracelets? They're shaped like things (mostly animals) and hold their shape even if you stretch them and wear them. I thought I was the coolest kid on the block after finding 16 of them on the table, until I saw Isaac Rygh wearing enough of them to literally cover his entire forearm!

Composed ~2:00 PM, Friday, July 2