interesting morning

today i woke up unplugged my cell phone and walked out of the bedroom like i do almost everyday. it was 7:30 and almost imediately as i walked out of the room the phone rang in my hand. it was the church number so i answered to a frantic voice. it was wanda asking if i had been to the church that morning. i said "no, i just rolled out of bed." she said "the door is wide open with desk drawers open as well as the church safe." she asked me to come over and wait with her while the cops were on their way. so i brushed my teeth and walked over.

after further inspection we notice that a few doors had been jimmied open and the safe was cracked by someone who had found 3 numbers written on a piece of paper deeply buried in the back of wanda's desk.

this isnt the first time i have heard of a church burglarized and everytime i hear of one happening there are always a few more in town that have been hit. we later find out that the calvary baptist church in town was hit.

i am not sure how desperate you need to be to break into a church. they stole about $120, 3.5 sheets of 20 stamps, and a cordless phone. i feel saddened, not at all mad, by what happened. i feel for the soal that did this. was his family needing food or did he just need some drug money. either way it is sad. please pray for the individual(s) involved. have a nice day. i am off to rehearse for our comedy show on saturday.

what is ahead?

i have been bombarded by questions the last few weeks on what is ahead for jenny and i and truthfully i do not know. am i worried? i probably should be but i am relying on God in the fact that he doesnt take away without giving you something to replace it. my whole life i have had a schedule whether it has been school, work or life in general. i need to be this place by a certain time so i am not late. or i have to graduate college in 8 semesters because that is the norm. even vacations have somewhat been planned. i need to check in to the hotel by this time or make a certain flight.

starting june 11th i have no plans. jenny and i are talking about visiting our friend in south carolina, probably going up to maine over the 4th of july. maybe after that we will drive out west and visit friends and family in montana, colorado, go see the grand canyon. i only have one resume floating around out there that has some potential but if that falls through i am okay. in God's timing a position of some sort will come up. then i will go back to a schedule. right now i am looking forward to not having plans.

some of the things that people have talked to me about doing:
church planting in greensboro, nc (sounds like fun, esp. with a good friend)
rd at college- this sounds good, mentoring, discipleship in a college atmosphere (this would be a good place to start so i can go toward my goal of being a college chaplain.)
assistant pastor somewhere: sounds nice, but havent seen or heard of to many opportunities to do this.
go back to school: this would be a great option. i need to learn more. is it too late to apply for fall?

this is a great situation to be in. i think i am going to enjoy the journey wherever God takes me to get to where he wants me to be.

no easy way

i have now been at pulaski wesleyan 2 years. as you have read in my blogs the past two years i have loved every minute of it. i love the church, the pastoral staff, the youth. we made a home here. this has been an amazing experience that i will always look back on and say i saw so many amazing things happen there. in the two years we have gone from 270 and grown alot the last month we have average 400. people are coming to know Jesus every week. in the last 10 weeks we have seen 12 come to follow him and last week we baptized 6 of them. but as you have probably already realized i am speaking in the past tense. last night after church conference i made my resignation official to the newly elected church board.

it is hard to leave something you love. the last couple months i have been agonizing on what my life might look like. if i was really cut out for youth ministry. was it a calling or just something that i enjoyed. last wednesday i met with the staff and it really confirmed what i already knew. youth ministry is just not for me. my personality, gifts and strengths or i guess you could say SHAPE is not really suited for youth ministry.

i am starting to look ahead now. what is in my future? i have no clue. it is kind of interesting and i am not sure how often this happens but over a long distance cell phone conversation with my friend dave, i realized that a few of our friends from college including myself have less of a clue on what they want to do know then 4 years ago when we graduated from college. or maybe i am narrowing my vision by knowing now that youth will not be a part of the equation. i guess it is all about perception.

while this is one of the toughest decisions i have ever made. (i have cried more in the last week then i have in the last 10 years combined.) i am at complete peace. i will miss this place called pulaski. i will miss the church we called home for 2 years. but i am looking forward to the adventurous journey ahead.

when did religion become bad?

it seems like every where you turn in the church. people are saying i am not very religious, or it is not about religion but it is about a relationship with Jesus. i do not want to be overcome by semantics. i understand that i need to have a relationship with Christ. i understand that he can be our best friend. someone we can rely on when things are rough or someone we can celebrate with when things are great. part of our relationship is spending time with him on a regular basis through bible reading and prayer and any other way that you can connect with him.

but there is something more that Christ wants from us then a relationship. he wants our commitment. he wants us to love him and our neighbors. he wants us to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the imprisoned.
in james 1:26-27 if someone doessnt keep a tight rein on his tongue then his religion is worthless. and religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows.

i think we need some more religious people in the church. it cant be just about relationship but our religion needs to stem from our relationship with Christ. it would be hard for me to follow someone i do not love and believe in there message. so instead of saying i am not religious or religion is for me. i am glad i have found religion. i say thank God for religion.

suffering3--displace me

this year pulaski high school started a global awareness club. they picked a subject that they wanted to raise money for. they chose to raise money for a high school in northern uganda among the refugee camps. they picked a goal to raise 10,000 dollars. at one of their fundraisers (dinner, movie, auction) they showed the movie "invisible children." a funny and entertaining 45 minute documentary on the displacement camps in uganda. it was at this dinner they also gave information on a trip they would be taking to washington dc a week later for displace me. displace me was a peaceful rally to grow awareness on what is going on in uganda and try to see results from it.

i took a long shot and asked the lady in charge (jill) if it might be possible that i could go. she knew i was a youth pastor and jumped at the chance. so this past saturday i woke up at 5am to meet at the school to be a part of a group of 60 give or take for displace me. i was somewhat excited about the rally but the opportunity for me to meet more teens was a great chance for outreach. (please pray for the seeds i planted, that i will be able to water and see God grow the seeds)

the trip lasted approximately 42 hrs. when we arrived in dc at 4pm we set up our home for the night. we made a village out of cardboard amongst more home of card board. overall there were about 6,000 in attendance who also slept in their makeshift home. during the evening they showed new videos of what was happening in uganda. they had us write letters to senators, call 5 friends to tell them about what was going on. the most interesting thing for me was how one would eat in a refugee camp. the women would get the water and the men would be the hunters. so they gave us this task. for food the whole time we were there was water and saltine crackers. it was the womens job to bring water. they would have to wait in a line for water but could only grab one water at a time and bring it back to the men until everyone had water. the same thing happened for the guys with saltines. it made it a chore, it was part of their custom.

that night we went to bed in our cardboard cabin as the temperature declined and the humidity increased. i didnt sleep to well and ended up awake more time in the night then i was asleep. my body ached because of the cold and i am not sure if i was drifting in and out of sleep or a coma. i ended up walking around for a while til i warmed up and then would go back to bed. it made it for a long night. i was especially estatic to see the sun rise. i am not saying this to complain but to say i was displaced. i was uncomfortable with my surrounding for those 5-6 hours during the night. that little time of suffering made me really reflect on the refugee camps in uganda realizing that something like this wa happening for the last 21 years. some of these kids that this affected most had never known life without war and without a home.

we followed the night up with a tour of the holocaust museum. obviously another tragedy where countless people suffered. this weekend i was displaced. i was taken for a ride through some horrible images and emotions but lucky for me it was only a weekend. i was able to come home to my nice bed and be grateful for what i had. through suffering we can find a hope and a joy. unfortunately for those in uganda there is not much joy.