2.
Great God, with wonder and with praise
On all thy works I look!
But still thy wisdom, pow’r, and grace,
Shine brightest in thy Book. read more…
First off, it has been awhile since I have posted something pondered, and for that I am sorry. Not apologizing so much to you the reader, but to the concept and thought that I have let the my emotions dictate my attitude. If you only read these four lines of what I have written today, this would be my profound thought: Do not let your emotions dictate the joy, peace, and hope that live within…instead let the joy, peace, and hope dictate your emotions and attitude towards others.
But what I really need to write about is far different than what I am going to write about so here goes my attempt to cover my bases before I go off on something that I’ve been thinking about for the past couple weeks…
Since the last time I wrote Steph and I have been through a lot of crazy things and we have truly been blessed. Blessed to spend so much time with our families. Blessed to be loved by people we barely know. Blessed to have things we don’t need, and blessed to be taken care of. It is humbling to have to approach people and ask them for their hard earned dollar and while we have had to do that on occasion, people have often just given without even having us mention anything. It’s like they just know it’s really amazing. We now have a kitchen table that was given to us and we were given some money to invite our friends over, so that’s what we did. It was like a mini-celebration for us as we were quite excited that we could host a dinner at our house, and it was all because people have loved us. Combine that with some food that we given to us by a very local friend and well, we haven’t had to go actual grocery shopping since we have been back. It’s amazing the way in which God takes care of us, and in a time of stress, it’s a rather forward confirmation that this is where God wants us to be right now. read more…
It has been quite awhile since I have written and much has changed over the past month, but I just wanted to write this out tonight before I head off to bed….
This is taken from the Sunday School Union “Hymn-book: Consisting of Devotional Hymns, for the use of Sunday Schools.” It was given to me by my Grandpa and it’s dated 1827 and filled with amazing wisdom.
Devotional Hymns, for Sunday Schools.
The Scriptures.
Hymn 1
Father of mercies, in thy word
What endless glory shines?
For ever be thy name ador’d,
For these celestial lines. read more…
Written by Stephanie
When I got my first job I saved 50% of each paycheck, simply because I didn’t need that much money. When I decided to work with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), I was glad I had saved and had nearly enough to pay for the whole trip. These days life is a little different. I am a full time student with no time for a job. My husband is a full time missionary who has no income. Yet we still have the same bills as an average couple in addition to school expenses and loans to pay off. We are in this position because we believe that we are walking in God’s will and that He will provide for us. Well, He is providing, but it is certainly not the most comfortable ride.
Have you ever received a letter printed on “red” (though it’s really more of a pink) paper from a company to whom you owe money? Up until quite recently I thought that I would never be in that position, but when I got the mail the other day, I suddenly found myself reading our “FINAL NOTICE” from our utilities provider. read more…
It was a typical Sunday, a typical service, and I expected to hear a good but not so exciting sermon. We sat there, then we sang for a little, nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact that we were handed a blue 3×5 notecard before we walked in and were told that it was going to be used during the sermon “so don’t loose it.” We rolled our eyes and cracked a few remarks about how excited we were to participate in the service, and then we began what looked like a rather ordinary service. I was excited to be there, excited to see people I hadn’t seen, memories of being loved in a place like that, excited to sing with a group of people that I connected with, and glad to hear music that I have missed. The pastor got up and started to share a brief story, a little different than usual and I enjoyed listening as he talked about thanking a member of the community for taking notice of him on his bicycle as he road one day this fall. I could see where this way going, it was going to be a pre-Thanksgiving day Thanksgiving sermon. And then, suddenly the tone of what he was saying changed. He had made the connection from him thanking a community member, to how people of the bible would potentially give thanks in one or two words, to how would I write it out as a simple message on my notecard that I received when I walked in. Ok, it became personal and I totally got what he was going for, the idea of it, and I was thinking “cool, now we can get along with the service and finally end with the boring sermon.” What I wasn’t expecting is what transformed this Sunday into something powerful and very real. read more…
So my last post was a little confusing for some, and I had hoped to update people on what I’m working towards and my plan to change the world but that will have to wait. These past couple weeks have been crazy and I would like to let people know what has happened in our lives. So…over the past week we’ve:
-Received so much food from our church that we don’t know where to put it all
-Printed out over 50 newsletters and got them in the mail
-Booked 2 churches
-Had leftovers from our church’s Thanksgiving lunch on Sunday and have been invited to two houses for dinner this week, leaving us to not have to cook at all for the week
Maybe to a regular couple or individual this doesn’t seem that crazy but to us, this has been an absolute miracle. We had just found out last week that our monthly support wasn’t as high as we had thought and well…we were scratching our heads saying “we know we are going to be taken care of, so how is it going to happen this month?” Well…this is the confirmation that it is happening. We know that it isn’t going to be easy, and there still are challenges to the next couple months, but we know we are taken care of and we know that in the end, we are loved and cared for.
With God working around us, with us being able and open to see, we are quite excited about what is to come. We don’t know what is coming but we arnow dreaming and seeing how these dreams are in the process of being reality. That’s exciting. More to come on that later…. read more…
…knowing it will change the world.
You know it’s a crazy big dream when your wife doesn’t give you a straight answer and has the look like “I’m in because I’m married to you.” I understand it’s big, I understand that it is pretty crazy, but I know that it will change the world. Not because of me or anyone else doing anything special, but I a world view could be shaped forever changing the way advertising is shaped, created, and focused. So while it’s a dream (and a personal project) I know that it keeps coming to the front of my mind not because it’s my dream but because it’s a God sized dream and I’m being asked to participate with it.
What is exciting is that I am in a position on this adventure where I can dream, where I’m able to think, to listen, and to really learn from all the people I come in contact with. I have the opportunity right now to meet people who are in a variety of situations whether it’s pastors or business men, photographers, or community members, and to learn from them. I get to listen to what is going on in their lives and then I get to digest it and learn. It’s a bi-product of the job I have and I never would have thought that I would be able to dream like this right now. I find that when I’m able to think on a big scale, and really let all the information and knowledge that I pick up soak in, I’m more productive and able to live thinking more about the needs of others.
So thank you for letting me dream. Thank you for the taking the time to read about a guy living in the central part of Washington who is starting the process of living out a pretty big dream. Maybe you’ll want to find out more, maybe not…but I guarantee this:
“While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia.” Reepicheep-Voyage of the Dawn Treader
ps. Pray with me as I devote some time, energy, and thought to what the next steps are and as I seek to create a good enough story to win Nikon’s new contest which would provide $100,000 of funding and quickly turn this dream into a project and reality. Advertising changing the world is coming…
From Steph:
Striving to live NOT for myself, but for others and their needs. That proves a difficult task when the numbers I see do not match the numbers needed to pay the bills, let alone buy food, school supplies, hygiene products, gas, etc. I am on this crazy journey. Looking into this “magnificent abyss” and if I’m to be completely honest with you, sometimes it doesn’t look so magnificent. Sometimes it just looks dark… cold… endless. I have this habit of appreciating my adventures long after they’ve occurred, when I can look back and see the beginning, middle, and end. They make sense in retrospect, but often the meaning is lost in the moment.
Part of living for others, I believe, is learning to focus in the moment… learning to focus on purpose when numbers don’t add up and what I can see doesn’t make sense. When my focus shifts to myself I sink. I sink in muck… and when I’m stuck in the muck I panic, which makes it difficult to remember my purpose. My purpose is not to take care of myself. God has clearly promised to take care of me. My purpose, if I remember correctly, is to love God and love my neighbor. What does that look like? It is not silence. It is not bitterness. It is not fear. It is not self-centeredness. It is not all about me. It IS praying to and being honest with God. It is praying for others to be blessed. It is doing what I can to be a blessing. It is joy. It is trust. It is all about Him and His purpose.
More after the jump…
read more…
We knew this coming into it. We knew that the journey would be tough and it would be a challenge. However, there are times during the adventure that I find myself lost and not focused on what has happened, but rather focused on what has not happened. Those can be the downer days and so I find myself at a point, knowing that I need to write, but not really writing. It’s like being suspended from the ceiling in a giant warehouse with no one around not knowing if the rope is going to snap and you are going to fall to your death, or maybe someone is going to walk in and see you and it will all be over. Until that moment comes, good or bad, you just hang in the tension. It’s been a while since I last updated this, so please forgive me as we have a little catch up to do before I can really get to the real core of why I’m writing. Since my last post (and I still have a couple posts from the road left to upload) we’ve:
-Been totally blessed to have a someone offer to pay for our gas as long as they can when we drive down to Selah. What a blessing that has been and really we feel quite fortunate to have people who love us and yet live so far away.
-Seen a couple of checks come into our hands that we would have never expected and yet they came in at the perfect time when we needed them. Today I was able to deposit a couple of those and today I found out it was a good thing those came in. God works in mysterious ways.
-Each had a birthday and while the partying hadn’t stopped, we both don’t feel any older or wiser but we know that we are loved by the people who surround us.
-Had the opportunity to both go to Nampa and while we were there we were reminded that our family is bigger than the blood lines we come from.
-Friends have stopped by randomly, and people have been kind to us randomly. It’s amazing when you can see God at work when you are looking for him.
-Steph stopped coughing during a specific night after I just simply made it known that I was scared and didn’t know what to do (take her to the hospital..etc) because we don’t have health insurance and then realized that God is the best health care we could ever ask for. Yes it was small, but it has been in my mind ever since.
-Our dreams have become bigger and I’ve begun to place some steps to make a few of them happen. What’s crazy is that I can’t make them happen and yet I really feel like they have been confirmed and they are where I’m supposed to go…so we’ll see.
-24/7 prayer has constantly been on my mind.
-Steph is potentially going to have the opportunity to shadow someone who is in a line of work that she would really like to pursue. Totally unexpected and if it all works out it will be really exciting.
MORE AFTER THE JUMP… read more…
Report #4 from the road. Nothing like holding the camera, pointed back at me, while driving through Oregon. Sure makes the time fly. Let me know if anything I say hits home with you too, I’d love to share more about our adventure, so don’t be afraid to ask.
