Alright, I'm super sorry its been so long since I've done a real blog post. I feel obligated to do one, though I really dunno if anyone even really reads this. But here it goes, I'm gonna try and write one.
Here's the thing. I'm burnt out of being here. I have learned a lot here in Eleuthera, and have had a good experience, I am just tired of it here and miss home. This is strange for me. I don't feel like I really ever get homesick, but that's the best description of the way I have felt the past 2ish weeks. The other thing is that it is nothing that anyone has done, nobody is causing me to feel this way, I just do. And that bothers me, I mean the fact that I dunno what is causing this feeling is troublesome to me extremely logical mind. Oh well. What can you do. Anyways, I'll be home in 9 days, and I am super stoked for it. Then theres a short break and its back off to Clemson. Talk about looking forward to something.
But here's what I guess I am going to write about tonight:
What I've learned this summer:
How to: use a jackhammer, use a power drill, use a skill saw, frame a roof, sheet a roof, shingle a roof, grout tile, mix cement, spearfish, make slideshow videos (sigh...), interact with teams, not get oneself stung by jellyfish when snorkeling, not get sunburned, stay super hydrated, and go hard on little bug spray.
I have not learned how to catch mice/rats the buggers are always getting away.
God has taught me several things.
First, he reinforced the extent to which my happiness needs to be found completely in him. Then he reminded me that it's not easy. It's amazing how feeling homesick makes this evident. However, I've also been reminded that Christianity is a life filled with suffering.
Initially, I had typed about how my life had been easy up to this point, but then I remembered that, well, my life has had its fair shares of trials, from family deaths to church struggles to change. But for whatever reason, despite the fact that in the scheme of things, the Bahamas should be one of the easier things I have had to deal with, it has been the hardest thing I have ever done. But Jesus did it with me.
I have also been shown through the scriptures that even if I don't feel like God is working in and around me, he is. (See the post about The Sheep and the Goats, then read the book of Ester and count how many times God is mentioned.)
I have been convicted about how I struggle with creating, pushing for, and striving for community. I know that I want community, I want it so bad. So bad. But I tend to sit around and idealize it instead of throw out my pride and speak the name of Jesus. I am seriously looking forward to combatting this problem at Clemson in, oh, 3 weeks. I definitely saw some of this in 1 John 1: 3-4, 7.
Finally, and by finally I mean I am tired of thinking and typing but have lots of other things to say, the spirit really has stressed the extent to which we, and by we I mean I, need to remember the Gospel. All the time. If I don't wake up and remember the way that Jesus loved/loves me, If I don't wake up and remember who I used to be, If I don't wake up and desire to know God personally, then I will not worship, nor love the rest of the world. Without the Gospel nothing I do has any value. Without this foundation, none of my other knowledge can mean anything, let alone be applied.
Hopefully what I have learned here can teach someone else something.
Boyer.
Song of the week:
Holland by Sufjan Stevens
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
I have the best friends.
So basically, I have the best friends ever. When my home church arrived today, one of the best beached whales ever hands me a giant packet and says this is for you. And let me tell you, a giant packet of letters, pictures, tic tacs, and awesomeness is pretty awesome. I now have enough encouragement to last me the whole summer.
Basically, thank you everyone for overwhelming me with love, despite the fact that I can't even see you guys.
I really do long to see y'all soon, to talk about my trip, and to see how you guys have grown this summer.
How sweet is it that the body of Christ has no boundaries.
Basically, thank you everyone for overwhelming me with love, despite the fact that I can't even see you guys.
I really do long to see y'all soon, to talk about my trip, and to see how you guys have grown this summer.
How sweet is it that the body of Christ has no boundaries.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Yesterday I went spear fishing. I shot one too. Sweet action.
Today we swam to an island. It was a long swim.
Right now I am updating my blog because I felt like I needed to.
Tomorrow we are finishing installing a solar powered water heater.
In a few days Grace comes and I get to see a piece of home. Thank goodness.
The bahamas are good, though I have felt kinda depressed lately, missing home and family and friends and community. But I have also been reading Job which makes any disappointment or struggle I have look like sunshine. Its strange the way that suffering is a part of everyones life. Yet at the same time I almost see it as beautiful. Where else is my real character revealed? How else do I see my strengths and weaknesses? How else do I grow?
A new respect for Christ's sufferings develops through trials. Even if it is just homesickness. The love of God is shown more clearly.
Today we swam to an island. It was a long swim.
Right now I am updating my blog because I felt like I needed to.
Tomorrow we are finishing installing a solar powered water heater.
In a few days Grace comes and I get to see a piece of home. Thank goodness.
The bahamas are good, though I have felt kinda depressed lately, missing home and family and friends and community. But I have also been reading Job which makes any disappointment or struggle I have look like sunshine. Its strange the way that suffering is a part of everyones life. Yet at the same time I almost see it as beautiful. Where else is my real character revealed? How else do I see my strengths and weaknesses? How else do I grow?
A new respect for Christ's sufferings develops through trials. Even if it is just homesickness. The love of God is shown more clearly.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Statues
These days I'm reminded of a man who once upon a time grew up in a place far, far away but not so different in culture, religion, constitution, citizenship, or bone structure.
On his 21st birthday in this faraway land, he went, as was the tradition at this passage to adulthood, to register at the Coordinating Office, which required signing various papers and cards and smiling for several photos. They then pointed him down a long, smooth-tiled hallway. He walked and walked, paused several times to rest, sweating an thirsty. Every twenty paces a small, clean sign in twelve-point Times New Roman said Water Ahead. He would have turned around, but it was blurry back that way.
Finally he arrived at a door. hen entered a room and stood alone, though it felt crowded with a million pairs of eyes watching and directing and waiting for him. He'd never been in such blaring silence. Tow elongated basins sat in the middle of the room. They were painted cheery colors but looked like the top and bottom of a coffin. He walked to the middle. A small, cardboard sign with twelve point Times New Roman told him what to do. He was twenty-one. He refused. he cursed. He paced. He kicked the wall. Eventually he resigned himself, figuring everyone else's birthday passed through here, and they all seemed fine afterward. He laid down on his back in the basin full of gunky plaster, like what they use to make a cast of your teeth before getting braces or a crown. Two faceless assistants came in and deftly lifted him out, leaving his impression in place. They they helped him lay face down in the other half, which had a special breathing apparatus. when they lowered him in, he began to hyperventilate; if felt constricting, and the breathing tube was too small. but when he finally relaxed into the gunk, it actually became soothing after all the walking, after all the fluorescent lights. The faceless assistants pulled him out, and he sat in the corner as the plaster dried. He was covered in the gunk. He fell asleep in the corner.
When he awoke, he was washed and clean, sitting on a bus that was arriving at this home. There awaiting him in his own front yard was himself- cast in ceramic. He inspected it, amused, but it was also unsettling. Then in the middle of the night, he felt something was going horribly wrong. He found a two-by-four and ran out his front door and started smashing the ceramic statues with his face on it. the legs started cracking, and a mask fell off. He laughed because in the moonlight the face now looked like the face of the country's most famous sports star. A few neighbors watched with passive condescension. He stopped for a second, relieved, like he'd gotten to something. But no. He started smashing again, splinters driving into his hands. The statue's legs kept cracking, and then another mask fell off to reveal his nation's first president. exhausted, with hands bloodied, he kept smashing through the faces of a top business mogul, a top religious leader, a top chef, a top model, a top designer and architect ... and eventually the whole statues shattered into small pieces on the ground. He briefly felt free and had a sudden urge to listen for God's whisper, but he only had enough energy to carry himself to bed.
When he awoke at dawn, he quickly swung the front door open only to see that the Coordinating Office had delivered a replacement statue made from his mold. Night after night he smashed it, and the masks fell off, in different orders at different times. A few months after its first appearance, when he saw he couldn't permanently smash it, he arranged the burning down of the Coordinating Office. It was charred badly, but the didn't even bother rebuilding. The statue kept reappearing in his front lawn. Things were coordinated but not centralized. then one day he simply went to bed early; when he left the house in the morning , he accepted its presence and kept going. Other times he took to dressing it up on his birthday or religious or national holidays, putting a wreath on it or some blinking lights. Once someone else tried to smash it, but rather than welcome the help and join in, he chased the guy with his two-by-four, ready to beat him for attacking it.
As he became a successful, well-respectred leader in the community, the young men and women in their late teens would gather round to hear his stories and learn how he navigated into his respectful position. They'd sit under the statue, which he never mentioned, which he admired but also resented because he suspected he shared his success and power with the statue. As he got still older, he would finish his talk about doing things the right way to get where they want to go- and then wistfully, as though it were a throwaway suggestion, he would say there is this story you might find interesting in the ancient Scriptures, if you can find it, about three young men close to your age named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and a statue. And he would remember his two-by-four, wonder if he gave up too easily, hope that a few of the women and men would find the story and, quickly wiping a tear from his eye so it wouldn't be noticed, even wonder if it still might be destroyed.
-Kent Annan
From: Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle
On his 21st birthday in this faraway land, he went, as was the tradition at this passage to adulthood, to register at the Coordinating Office, which required signing various papers and cards and smiling for several photos. They then pointed him down a long, smooth-tiled hallway. He walked and walked, paused several times to rest, sweating an thirsty. Every twenty paces a small, clean sign in twelve-point Times New Roman said Water Ahead. He would have turned around, but it was blurry back that way.
Finally he arrived at a door. hen entered a room and stood alone, though it felt crowded with a million pairs of eyes watching and directing and waiting for him. He'd never been in such blaring silence. Tow elongated basins sat in the middle of the room. They were painted cheery colors but looked like the top and bottom of a coffin. He walked to the middle. A small, cardboard sign with twelve point Times New Roman told him what to do. He was twenty-one. He refused. he cursed. He paced. He kicked the wall. Eventually he resigned himself, figuring everyone else's birthday passed through here, and they all seemed fine afterward. He laid down on his back in the basin full of gunky plaster, like what they use to make a cast of your teeth before getting braces or a crown. Two faceless assistants came in and deftly lifted him out, leaving his impression in place. They they helped him lay face down in the other half, which had a special breathing apparatus. when they lowered him in, he began to hyperventilate; if felt constricting, and the breathing tube was too small. but when he finally relaxed into the gunk, it actually became soothing after all the walking, after all the fluorescent lights. The faceless assistants pulled him out, and he sat in the corner as the plaster dried. He was covered in the gunk. He fell asleep in the corner.
When he awoke, he was washed and clean, sitting on a bus that was arriving at this home. There awaiting him in his own front yard was himself- cast in ceramic. He inspected it, amused, but it was also unsettling. Then in the middle of the night, he felt something was going horribly wrong. He found a two-by-four and ran out his front door and started smashing the ceramic statues with his face on it. the legs started cracking, and a mask fell off. He laughed because in the moonlight the face now looked like the face of the country's most famous sports star. A few neighbors watched with passive condescension. He stopped for a second, relieved, like he'd gotten to something. But no. He started smashing again, splinters driving into his hands. The statue's legs kept cracking, and then another mask fell off to reveal his nation's first president. exhausted, with hands bloodied, he kept smashing through the faces of a top business mogul, a top religious leader, a top chef, a top model, a top designer and architect ... and eventually the whole statues shattered into small pieces on the ground. He briefly felt free and had a sudden urge to listen for God's whisper, but he only had enough energy to carry himself to bed.
When he awoke at dawn, he quickly swung the front door open only to see that the Coordinating Office had delivered a replacement statue made from his mold. Night after night he smashed it, and the masks fell off, in different orders at different times. A few months after its first appearance, when he saw he couldn't permanently smash it, he arranged the burning down of the Coordinating Office. It was charred badly, but the didn't even bother rebuilding. The statue kept reappearing in his front lawn. Things were coordinated but not centralized. then one day he simply went to bed early; when he left the house in the morning , he accepted its presence and kept going. Other times he took to dressing it up on his birthday or religious or national holidays, putting a wreath on it or some blinking lights. Once someone else tried to smash it, but rather than welcome the help and join in, he chased the guy with his two-by-four, ready to beat him for attacking it.
As he became a successful, well-respectred leader in the community, the young men and women in their late teens would gather round to hear his stories and learn how he navigated into his respectful position. They'd sit under the statue, which he never mentioned, which he admired but also resented because he suspected he shared his success and power with the statue. As he got still older, he would finish his talk about doing things the right way to get where they want to go- and then wistfully, as though it were a throwaway suggestion, he would say there is this story you might find interesting in the ancient Scriptures, if you can find it, about three young men close to your age named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and a statue. And he would remember his two-by-four, wonder if he gave up too easily, hope that a few of the women and men would find the story and, quickly wiping a tear from his eye so it wouldn't be noticed, even wonder if it still might be destroyed.
-Kent Annan
From: Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
News of the Day
News of the Day: Smashing your middle finger with a hammer is possible. And it hurts too.
Band of the Day: Sleeping at Last
Band of the Day: Sleeping at Last
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Glass Window (Smallest Landmass Between Two Oceans in the World)
Roof Framing
Bus at Sunset (Best Picture Ever)
Its strange to see what encourages me. A few moms from a team making eggs and bacon for breakfast. The sun dipping behind the clouds for a five minute rest. Or even a few minutes in the my room alone listening to music before I fall asleep.
The small things have been really helpful.
But that hasn't made it clear how Jesus is moving here. I definitely still feel like I haven't seen the spirit move in the clarity that I hoped for. And I'm definitely watching.
But of course its a little thing that encourages me.
The passage about The Sheep and The Goats has been running through my mind (Matt 25:31-46). I mean I probably could quote it word for word. But as I read it again a week or so ago, a different line stood out, not one of those proclaiming judgement or explaining the ways to treat the poor, the naked, the sick, the hungry, or the imprisoned, but this line:
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?''
The sheep didn't see Jesus clearly either. But they are rewarded and considered righteous. In this there is strength to go on and a reminder that though God may sometimes seem not present, he is in all things and through him all things hold together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
