For those of you who are actually reading both blogs, sorry for not updating this in a long time! Things have been crazy. Living in a community and actually being intentional is WAY harder than it sounds. Now I thought, I've lived with roomates, I did the whole college thing, totally easy....I was wrong. I'm learning how to truly love my house mates and how I can best serve them, even when I REALLY don't want to. When really what I want to do is shut myself in my room and know that I'm right, God calls me to be different. To be open, to share my struggles, my fears, my joys. This has not come without a lot of pouting and crying and wanting to be by myself, live on my own, live where all that matters is me. But God calls us to a different life. Bonhoffer(sorry I don't know how to spell his name) in his book, Life Together, has been challenging me. God called us to live in community. Our western world has gotten so far away from the word community, we don't really know what it means anymore. I still don't get it and want to run away from it, but I know there is a reason God created Eve so Adam would not be alone. Prayer, praise, psaltery, breaking bread....TOGETHER....if we really actually learned to live this way, don't you think some of the injustices that I see in this community would be gone? We would not complain that our food isn't cooked to our liking, or didn't come fast enough, because we would see that our brother has none on his plate at all. We would read the Psalms and realize that although we do not feel the deep despair and hurt of war and loss, that our brother is still today in another country. We would want to come home at the end of the day and praise God together and hear what he has been doing in each others lives. I know I wish that I could truly understand this...I still fail. But I'm trying, I'm trying to be intentional. Even the days when I am defiantly NOT trying, I am still trying and learning that God calls us to live a life in communion with one another!

I am starting to think about the upcoming year(I have a Job interview lined up which I am SUPER excited about). I am tempted to be excited about getting back to ME. Live in an apartment by myself, cook food my way, pray the way I want to pray, tell jokes that make me laugh...well yes, none of these things are bad that I desire them, I should want to do all of these things, but it's only half of my whole. I am made to live in community. I hope that I will get to live with my best friends and that we can learn to praise God together, read his word together, eat bread together, and through that we will want to take that out into the world. Where it starts at home, then it will continue to flow through us. This is my hope....

Sorry if these thoughts are jumbled, I just needed to write them down and share with you since I haven't done a very good job! Though, if you do read this you should check out www.greaterworks.us because I do a better job of writing weekly reflections there!

photo update continued

My last one didn't want to take all the pictures, even though it's only 2 more!!

Nate, Rachel and I on Beale St. in Memphis, TN

Our team all dressed up for Bruce and Debbie Haye's Wedding.
L to R: Jody, Rachel, Tiffany, Myself and Nate

So although this isn't everything it's a good look into some of the things that I have been experiencing here. If you would like to financially support me, I am in the process of creating my support team to help me raise $3,500 for the year. Feel free to go to greaterworks.us and click on my name where you can read other reflections and then click on the link to financially support me! I would love to hear what is new with those who actually read this!!

Pictre Update

So hopefully some of you are reading my blogs at the greaterworks.us website. There I keep weekly reflections of things that I am learning and things that God is showing me. Because of it though I haven't actually spent some time updating this one! So I'm going to kind of do a picture update....

This is our beautiful home that the 5 of us live in. It is the parsonage
to the United Methodist Church.

This is the damage that I did to the car port at the church with the
Lexa God's Kids bus. I also broke off the emergency hatch on the bus!
It's all fixed up now!!

This is a beautiful flower. I was told the name, but I already forgot!
But it grows wild in a lot of places!

This is my team in a cotton field. I now know a lot about the cotton process.
If you want to know, I would love to share!
L to R: Nate, Tiffany, Jody, Myself and Rachel

This is at the Blues Festival in Helena! Pretty exciting! Lots of GREAT music!

Mr. Heal: H-I-L-L

Welcome home to Marvell, AR. As we drove across the border the five of us all screamed in excitement about our new home for the year. Not knowing yet what I was getting into I was excited and nervous all at once. Southern living is a new experience for me. Some things I have learned:
1) You need to add a few more syllables to your words
example: "Mr. H___ was going...." "Mr. HEAL?" "Yes, Mr. HEAL: H-I-L-L"
2) What you don't get done today you can get done tomorrow
3) Ms. Bekki and yes ma'am are especially adorable when the kids say it...
4) We are fixin' to get started....
5) Racial tension is still a very prevalent issue....

I can handle the first four, they are just silly cultural differences, but the 5th I'm having a difficult time trying to wrap my brain around. I definitely was still aware of issues that we as a human race are no where near dealing with, but segregation on a broader level like who can go to what church and where people live is just something that makes no sense to me. I don't know if I'll get a chance to even make a difference, but I hope that I can! I believe we as the church have a responsibility in trying to attain a reconciliation between people. I hope that just because I am loved by God, and his love is overflowing from me, that's all that people will see in me! Maybe a very young, naive idea, but something I still wish upon.

One way that I hope to start this dialogue is with my after school kids' program that I will be helping out with. The program is called God's kids and right now I'm planning on meeting Tue-Thurs and Sunday AM. I am really excited about all of the possibilities!

Also want to hear how God has a sense of humor? I am directing the church choir at the Marvell Methodist church!!!

I feel like my brain is a little scatter-brained. I feel like I am experiencing so much that I don't know how to put it into words!! So this post will have to do for now! Just wanted to give a small glimpse into my new life!

Roots

I took this photo while on a recent camping trip with Molly up to the North Shore area. This picture began me thinking, I admit probably too much. It's amazing how these roots can be exposed, stepped on or whatever abuse they encounter and yet still continue to reach out for the water and live. The tree can even lean and look like it's going to fall over, yet it still remains standing. This time at home has been good but a challenge. I met a guy, actually on this camping trip, who seemed like a cool guy yet I never got a chance to get to know him. Somehow I got my hopes up and felt a bit like an exposed root. I began reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and have been looking a lot into myself about what I should be doing as a Christian. Sometimes I feel like there are so many fights that I should be fighting that I don't know where to start so I quickly give up the cause. Again, started to feel like more and more of the ground which I had grown so into was washing away before me. I'm soon leaving everything: my family and friends, which were so nice to be around for the short time at home, possibilities, a life where things were moving in a direction...I feel like I could go on. But despite all of that I know that God is there to keep me from falling over, and will give me new directions for my roots to grow and new soil to start growing in. And he's the water that I keep searching out for when my plans or my ideas for how life should go aren't where he has planned for me. I hope that he guides me and fills me up from the roots. Ok, so maybe it was a bit of a cheesy metaphor, but hey, sometimes it's what I need to help me process!

Welcome Home Minnesota!

It is so good being back "home" in Minnesota! It is weird not looking out and seeing the mountains, and the humidity...man I didn't miss that! It sure is good to see family though and look forward to catching up with some old friends! God really showed me a lot this summer about who he wants me to serve and love. I hope that I don't go back to my conveniences only to soon forget about others! I look forward to finding out where I'll be placed for GreaterWorks and what God is going to continue to show me over the next year! Well after driving almost 10 hours with Chad and then 5 with my parents I am off to a REAL bed for the first time in 3 months!!