Imagine working for 8 hours in a day... and coming home with three dollars to show for your labor. Would you be able to buy anything other than food? Could you pay your electric bill on top of that? What if you had to pay most your salary for water that wasn't already sewage so that you could drink and bathe? Could you ever get out of a place where you are barely able to survive let alone make ends meet? Would you go to work everyday?It's depressing. A wage like that start to make sense of why so many men in the Philippines seem to be doing absolutely nothing all day. It begins to make a little more sense why daughters choose to go into a life of prostitution to support their family. It begins to make sense why in every open space in Manila there seems to be thousands of illegal squatter homes made of what I would toss away as trash. It begins to makes sense why there is so much crime here, so much pollution here, so much disease, and so much corruption.
Though I am not saying that better wages is the cure to all these problem, I can't imagine how anyone could say it is not a major contributor. I have come from a totally different place in life and I can honestly say I have no idea what it is like to not know if I am going to be able to make it to the next week. My wage has never been a matter of life or death and I will bet that almost all the people I am closest to are in the same situation. God knows what I would do if I didn't have enough to provide for a family. If I didn't have anyone I could go to. If I couldn't find anyone that cared. I know I would like to think that I would rise above and come out a better man on the other side... but can you imagine? Can you imagine how you would feel if everyday was simply a struggle and the only job you could get by the grace of God paid you three dollars a day?
I have been able to spend some time with some of the squatters in their houses and get a glimpse, and it really is only a glimpse, into their world. Between taking them bowling, being invited into their houses, and doing Bible studies with some of them I have had these questions constantly running through my mind. There are some things that I will never be able to understand that are simply everyday life for 40% of the people here who live below the poverty line. I have had different responses at different stages of life to the overwhelming injustices of this world. At times I simply didn't care to know and never bothered to find out. This is what you would expect from someone who grew up in the states where my home... was the states. 99.9% of anything that happened was of little concern for me. Occasionally catastrophic events such as Columbine or 9/11 would come to my attention, but that was the extent of it. Then, I went to college, traveled around a bit, experienced and saw more. My position moved from unintentionally not caring due to unawareness, to one of intentionally not caring due to denial. This stage could largely be described as one of helplessness. I became more aware, but to help seemed overwhelming... and not my problem. It is easy to detach from something when it doesn't involve you. For the most part I am still in this stage. There is something different however. Especially after the last two years of seeing more, experiencing more, and being closer to more injustice and oppression... I realize that I really do care in some instances, and that I want to care about more. I am at a point in my life where I actually want to spend the rest of my life caring.
As Colleen and I spend our honeymoon together here I can't help but realize how much I look up to the people that surround us. They are people that really care and are doing things to alleviate the heart aches of poverty here. They don't look at the task and say it is too big and they can't change the world... they just change the world for one person, one person at a time. Here are some examples of what I am talking about.
The Jeepney Magazine has one main goal: to provide jobs to the homeless. The concept is that homeless vendors can sell the magazine and keep half of the profits for everyone they sell. Most of the vendors earn two to three times the minimum wage in manila which is roughly $7 per day. The content of the magazine is geared towards giving the homeless a respectable wage as opposed to a handout, but it is also giving the homeless around the city a voice by telling their stories. So, not only does the purchase of a magazine give the homeless a respectable job, the stories raise awareness of the trials and tribulations of the poor. Though the magazine is still in its formulative stages the concept has unlimited potential in helping alleviate poverty for some individuals.
In many cases, somewhere between 30% of a squatters' income goes to buying drinkable water. By simply putting in several wells in surrounding squatter communities, fresh drinking water is given freely and that 30% percent can go to buying enough food for a family or towards giving a child and education. Something so simple has tremendous impact in a community and little by little, a community transforms. Kids International Ministries exists for this purpose among many. Jobs are also provided to men and women in the community through building the wells, repaving the streets, building more housing... each and every project gives a few dozen squatters a consistent job with a good wage.
There is so much going on here that simply seeks to help. Jobs are given, Jesus is shared and seen in His believers. Children are schooled, Jesus is shared to a generation that actually is given opportunity to rise out of the slums. Orphans and widows are taken care of by being fed, housed, employed, and cared for, the life of Jesus is evident in the actual actions of his believers. What is happening here seems is so unusual, yet it is the very things that should characterize the Christian life. Coming here challenges me. It makes me want to help, to contribute in intentional ways that have the ability to transform. It causes my wife and I to rethink what is valuable to us, and what our priorities are. It makes us define what we want in our daily lives. It makes us want to actually do something, rather than stopping at realizing there is a need. It only takes something better than a $3 wage a day to make a families life significantly better... and if you ask me, three dollars a day is practically nothing.
Ever since I was a young lad (meaning
since high school five years ago) I have dreamed of running a coffee
shop. Throughout college, I made a local coffee shop in Salt Lake
called Salt
Lake Roasting Company my second home. Countless
hours of studying, amazing conversation, and drinking delicious
goodness were had there. I especially loved knowing that the owner of
the shop was a committed Christian, who loved God and the people from
all around the world where he bought his coffee. When you go to the
coffee shop, you will find pictures of all the travels to all the
coffee farms where the owner has developed personal relationships and
made trip to provided much needed help in the form of physical and
spiritual aid to the communities that work the lands where he buys
his coffee. I always thought it was a beautiful thing.
As I continued through college I
decided to take classes which would help give me a working knowledge
of business, particularly as it applied to being a small business
entrepreneur. Most of my major projects in my business classes
involved scheming business plans to start coffee shops in Hong Kong
or Kona Hawaii. Though the locations and some of the ideas of the
shop have changed, if you were to ask the people who have known me
most in the past five years, or even some people who have only known
me for a short time, they would probably tell you that I have always
dreamed of opening my own coffee business one day.
I love a lot about life. I love
experiencing, I love learning, I love good food. I love my wife and
marriage, I love being stretched and challenged. Three things that I
probably love most in life however, are:
God
Community (I want to make clear
that I include my wife in this category as well)
Culture
In that order. When I look at this list
I find that at least in my life, all these categories have been
mutually dependent. To experience community has been to experience
something that is a part of God. To learn about culture has come from
being in community (hopefully) and learning about people who are made
in the image of God. In many ways, I have always seen a coffee shop
as a business that can be heavily involved in all these areas.
I dream of a business that makes a
difference in the life of others just as much or more than it makes a
difference in my own life. One that involves not only creating
community, but rallying a community to live outside itself and serve
a greater cause. I want to connect people to other cultures,
especially those cultures which simply need help, in any form, as
they are impoverished, suffering, and dieing of preventable ailments.
I want to create a place whose heartbeat reflects the heartbeat of
God. Where overcoming injustice, illness, poverty, and suffering take
precedent over the income of the owners. I have noticed that many
businesses treat the priority of profits and charity as mutually
exclusive; it is either profits or charity. Thus if a business
chooses profits they become only aware of their own needs, and
neglect the greater need of others. On the other hand, if a business
chooses charity, they must either receive outside funding or
government assistance, and they can often be poorly run or treat
their own workers unfairly because they have the excuse of being in
existence only for the cause of others. I wish to see a company that
is both/ and, not either/or. A company whose seeks profits for the
benefit of its employees, its customers, its local community, and the
impoverished global community that makes up most the world.
What is interesting is that I don't
think I am unique in this dream. I truly believe there is a part of
everyone that simply wants to help other people, that wants to know
other people and be known by other people, and that wants to
experience other cultures that are completely different than their
own. Purpose, intimacy, and knowledge are universal things that
people not only want, but that they need.
So all this is to say that my wife and
I have decided to take steps into realizing this dream. As with
anything, there is a chance of failure. But to me, the risk of
failing is far outweighed by the potential of living out my dreams
and passions, serving those in need, and connecting intimately with a
community. For the last few weeks I have been learning how to roast
coffee and run a coffee shop. Eventually, my friend Brian Babb and I
will buy the coffee shop where I am learning, and create the
community and business we have dreamed of. We will create a space
where people are known and loved, where serving others is placed
before serving ourselves, where the orphan and the widow are grieved
for and taken care of. A business that operates to motivate action
all over the world, simply by buying a cup of coffee. In the end, I
want to live my life in a way that demands an explanation. I want to
live the dreams that I believe God has given me.
For more information specifically about
the coffee shop please go to (www.coffeeinvestment.com).
I can't even count the conversations I have had with people who have
sharpened the picture of what would make a successful,
transformational, coffee community. I would love to hear your
thoughts, critiques, advice, or dreams. Please do not hesitate to
give feedback or comments to all this whether it be through my blog,
facebook, or via email. Most of all, please keep this venture in your
prayers.
Colleen and I have been hiking a lot lately. After a week of work and studies there is nothing like going out on a nice hike on the weekend. Two weeks ago we decided to take off and go on a hike in the San Monica Forest around Malibu. After checking the trail online we were told that there would be water and plenty of shade. It was supposed to be one of the better hikes in Southern Cali, eventually leading up to the highest point the in San Monica Mountains. Colleen asked me if she should bring her camelback and I told her no, because I had my water filter and we were going to "rough it." She decided to bring it anyways... she really does have an amazing gift of discernment which is really helpful as I have a gift for sometimes doing senseless things.
As we got to the trail the sun was bearing down. It was 10AM and about 95 degrees already. The plan was to do an 8 mile loop, stopping frequently to get water. The only problem was... there was no water. For the first four miles of the hike things were great. We had water, food, beef jerky. There was enough shade and plenty of people. As we were making our way around the back side of the loop Colleen took a sip of her camelback... nothing. It was the middle of the day, now reaching over 100 degrees and we had nothing. we pressed on for about two miles. We were ok, water would have been nice but we were fine for the most part. Soon the effects of dehydration began to be felt. A dizzy, somewhat disorienting, nausious feeling. The trail was completely exposed so if we were to get in the shade, it would have had to be behind a cactus. We pressed on. We began praying that God would make it rain or something, or like Moses I could hit a rock and water might come out. At one point there was a set of water towers teasing us as there was no way to get into them. Needless to say for the rest of the hike we were miserable. But I noticed something. Whenever things would get to the point that we wanted to just curl in a ball and quit there would be something to help motivate us. Sometimes around a corner we would find a breeze in the stagnant air... just enough to cool us down. At what seemed like the roughest places of incline, trees would randomly appear to provided a little bit of shade for us. At one point we even saw another hiker and I asked him if Colleen could take a sip of his water. There was no deluge, or magic river that we stumbled on, rather it was just enough provision to get by.
As we were stumbling through the desert I couldn't help but find myself drawing all kinds of parallels to my life right now as a newly married man. First let me say, I love married life... but in many ways it is very unfamiliar to me. I came out here to work with a church and join a community. But what I came here for turned out to be much different than I thought coming in. This venture of life was something I thought I was much more prepared for, I thought it was set for two years. But sometimes the path God leads us in life is much different than we envision going into it. The thing that struck me most about the hike was we really were surrounded by sheer beauty. The desert colors on top of the high hills were incredible to me. Yet at the same time, I had never experienced so much thirst in my life. I had never wanted water so badly.
So here we are in a place we know God has brought us both to. We are surrounded by beauty. Become so entangled in someones life after living so individualistically for so long is such a beautiful but tough thing. In many places of our life we are in something of a desert. We are so thirsty for certain things that have always been there, yet here we haven't found it yet. We have an idea of what it looks like, we have things we will not compromise on... but we are thirsty. Community is one of those things that has been hard to come by for us. We long for a kingdom community where loving each other is on the forefront of peoples minds and God is moving and breathing life into every part of it. We felt like we tasted some of this on the World Race. Since moving to LA, we haven't gelled with a community that we can both empower and feel empowered by the spirit in. It has been killer for us, as we have both been intimately connected to people and relationships throughout our lives. Another thing we have been thirsting for here is purpose. Without community, it has been hard to find a place or a ministry to be truly passionate about. Our passions haven't died, they are as strong as ever, but we haven't found places to really give our lives away. We are busy... we are working, in school full time, traveling often, adjusting to marriage... the passion thing just hasn't come. This is due partly because we are adjusting... we are learning oneness in our marriage now and building foundations that will last for the rest of lives.
Through all this... God is so good. At just the right times just like the cool breeze, the perfectly timed shade, or the dude who gave Colleen some of his water... God shows up at just the right times, not to save us from thirsting and struggling, but to let us know He is with us. So while I certainly wouldn't want to compare our time here near the beach in sunny LA with that of the wandering tribe of Israel in the desert for 40 years... I do love the image.
One of those tastes of God is that we found a church called Cornerstone that we love here. It is farther than we would like, but they have some things going on here in Pasadena. Please keep us in your prayers as we truly would love to dive into a community if we felt confirmed by the Lord that he had us there. The first week we went the Pastor spoke about justice, particularly about maintaining your passion for God's justice to be felt on earth, and the role that community has in giving courage, or encouraging, reckless faith, mercy, and abandonment in our lives. You can check out that sermon by Pastor Francis Chan on 5/17/09, as well as others on their website.
Another thing we are seeking the Lord on is the possibility of running a coffee shop, here in Pasadena. Not only is this a dream of mine, but I have had dreams of planting missional coffee shops all around the world. It may be a place that God has us build kingdom community or at least support kingdom causes while we are here. For the past several weeks I have been learning the art of roasting, and we are praying as to whether God would have us become more involved. Please lift this up in your prayers as well. I will be writing more about it later.
God never promises that He will relieve us from our pain, that we won't suffer or struggle, or that we won't feel distance... like we are in a desert. He does promise that he will be with us and that he will never leave us. He promises that He will be enough, no matter where we find ourselves in the journey.
I can remember a conversation a year
ago with my World Race Dude mate about our "in like" feelings
towards two girls who were on the Race with us. Kyle was "in like"
with a girl from another team, and I fell "in like" with a girl
who I saw every day in my own team. "So when do you think it will
happen?" I remember him asking. Not wanting to fully expose the
fact that it was a topic constantly on my mind I replied "I'm not
sure, we will see where God has us... it's crazy to think though that
at this time next year we might both be married."
"I'm thinkin September" he said,
"no point in messing around."
Though I felt I identified with him
about not messing around I was thinking I'd wait at least until
Spring at the earliest to tie the knot.
I want to clarify, this was not a
conversation Kyle and I had all that often, but we were certainly
both sure of the things that God has laid on our hearts. I can't
help but smile when I think of that conversation... because it
happened... just like we said it would. Just like we prayed everyday
for God to give us courage and strength to make it happen. It has now
been a year and I just finished up my first month of marriage, Kyle
is working on his sixth.
So here I am in an apartment in
Pasadena getting ready for my last day of intensives at my school,
while my wife just left to drive to Watts to teach a kindergarten
class (not an easy day for her). I prayed with her and ate breakfast
with her before she left. I feel like I am living a dream right now.
I'm married to a girl who I feel I can't be more in love with though
I know our relationship will only become stronger and deeper from
here. I came out here to be involved with a Church while going to
seminary, but before we got married we both realized that there was
to much going on in our lives and that we wanted to simply focus on
our life together, laying foundations that stand firm in the storms
of life. Life has sped up and slowed down both at the same time, but
at the end of the day I can't get over the feeling of coming home to
my wife. It is incredible. I can't believe that God brought us here,
and I still can't wait to see more of the things he has in store.
I'm pretty sure we had an awesome wedding... the reason I express some doubt is because the whole day seemed to go so fast. If you are interested you can look at our photos ( http://picasaweb.google.com/danieljgutman)
We are back in the States. It has been an emotional last few days. Goodbyes are tough stuff, especially when it's with people you have been with everyday for the last year. I will miss my team like crazy. They have made this year absolutely incredible and have stretched and challenged me beyond belief. Here is our final video. It's hard to capture a years worth of experiences in a short video... but we do our best. It's a little long, but hopefully enjoyable. Thank you to all who made our year possible.
I have moved from an amazing few weeks in Honduras to our last stop, Granada Nicaragua. It's our last week together on the World Race and there is a lot going through my head. Hopefully I will be able to put some of it down on the ol blog. Anywho... here is an exerpt of the book "Through Painted Deserts" by Don Miller. Some friends shared it with me today and it seemed to encompass lots of my thoughts right now. If you have a minute you might really enjoy it.
IT IS FALL HERE NOW, MY FAVORITE OF THE FOUR seasons. We get all four here, and they come at us under the doors, in through the windows. One morning you wake and need blankets; you take the fan out of the window to see clouds that mist out by midmorning, only to reveal a naked blue coolness like God yawning.
September is perfect Oregon. The blocks line up like postcards and the rosebuds bloom into themselves like children at bedtime. And in Portland we are proud of our roses; year after year, we are proud of them. When they are done, we sit in the parks and read stories into the air, whispering the gardens to sleep.
I come here, to Palio Coffee, for the big windows. If I sit outside, the sun gets on my computer screen, so I come inside, to this same table, and sit alongside the giant panes of glass. And it is like a movie out there, like a big screen of green, and today there is a man in shepherd's clothes, a hippie, all dirty, with a downed bike in the circle lawn across the street. He is eating bread from the bakery and drinking from a metal camp cup. He is tapping the cup against his leg, sitting like a monk, all striped in fabric. I wonder if he is happy, his blanket strapped to the rack on his bike, his no home, his no job. I wonder if he has left it all because he hated it or because it hated him. It is true some do not do well with conventional life. They think outside things and can't make sense of following a line. They see no walls, only doors from open space to open space, and from open space, supposedly, to the mind of God, or at least this is what we hope for them, and what they hope for themselves.
I remember the sweet sensation of leaving, years ago, some ten now, leaving Texas for who knows where. I could not have known about this beautiful place, the Oregon I have come to love, this city of great people, this smell of coffee and these evergreens reaching up into a mist of sky, these sunsets spilling over the west hills to slide a red glow down the streets of my town.
And I could not have known then that if I had been born here, I would have left here, gone someplace south to deal with horses, to get on some open land where you can see tomorrow's storm brewing over a high desert. I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.
Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning. And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page, as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn't all happening at once.
Time has pressed you and me into a book, too, this tiny chapter we share together, this vapor of a scene, pulling our seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. Everything we were is no more, and what we will become, will become what was. This is from where story stems, the stuff of its construction lying at our feet like cut strips of philosophy. I sometimes look into the endless heavens, the cosmos of which we can't find the edge, and ask God what it means. Did You really do all of this to dazzle us? Do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory would be our distraction. And God forbid we would ignore Your glory.
HERE IS SOMETHING I FOUND TO BE TRUE: YOU DON'T start processing death until you turn thirty. I live in visions, for instance, and they are cast out some fifty years, and just now, just last year I realized my visions were cast too far, they were out beyond my life span. It frightened me to think of it, that I passed up an early marriage or children to write these silly books, that I bought the lie that the academic life had to be separate from relational experience, as though God only wanted us to learn cognitive ideas, as if the heart of a man were only created to resonate with movies. No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath:
I'll tell you how the sun rose
A ribbon at a time...
It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.
So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.
And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.
Just a quick update on what's been happenin in here. As you may or may not know, we left Panama on June 10 and took four and a half days on the bus to get up to Guatemala. For the first time all year our team split up as the girls lived in a hostel for ten days while Kyle and I along with three other dudes spent a week of manistry living in the mountains. It was some good times with the guys. Aaron Bruner put out a video of our hike up an active volcano where we cooked steak on burning molten magma. We also did other manly things such as riding husky steeds through forests, constructing houses with our huge chiseled muscles, and roamed the streets of Antigua ready to uppercut anybody who would dare stand in our way. We stayed with an amazing family who welcomed us into their home with open arms.
Now that we are all back together with the woman, things have more or less returned to normal. I have been reading Redeeming Love, an enchanting tale of love and romance based off of the book of Hosea. Kyle has been poking around in his Osh Kosh Big Gosh blanket. We life in a comfortable little bungalow
About a week ago we met up with my friend Tony Deine. Tony moved here a little more than a year ago and has been working with a Church called Iglesia Tranformacion. This place has been especially exciting for me because my church back home (K2) has been doing mission trips down here for the last several years. It has been awesome going to some of the houses in Los Pinos, which is a squatter community across the street from the church, and listening to them talk about how people from K2 came and painted their house, or built water systems, or just had meals with them. Many of the families even know the exact date that they met people from K2.
We are spending our time here getting to know the kids who come every morning for breakfast, organizing the massive amount of donations that have been accumulated here at the church, and eating meals with families in Los Pinos. Life is good, and God is better. Though many of us are exhausted on so many levels, the community here has been very understanding and supportive. Pray for us to finish strong, with the amount of love and grace that we have had for most the year. Also, for all the K2 peeps that read this, let me know if I could do something special for some in Los Pinos. I would love to deliver any amount of flowers, candy, or singing telegrams that I can.
All my life I have yearned for divine guidance. I have often been one to worry about the future. I worry about money, I worry about loving my job, I worry about not having a community that believes in me, I worry about everyone else being better than me at what I am best at. If it's not one thing, it's usually another. I have spent a lot of my life worrying. Luckily I have also learned to carry on pretty normally when I am worrying about whatever I can find to worry about.
For most my life I have loved security nets... those things in life that you aren't positive about so you try as diversify yourself as much as possible. I didn't really stick out in any one sport... so I did them all and learned them all. I wasn't really sure if I would get accepted to the colleges that I wanted... so I applied to many so as not to disappoint myself. I've never really known what career I want to pursue... so I switched my major several times and had a lot of different jobs. I never had a lot of clarity as to what God calling in my life is... so I have made sure I have places to fall back into that aren't necessarily involving full time ministry. This has been a pattern of my life. I will choose one path, but at the same time place other paths around me that I can fall back into. Thus, when life gets tough or I get tired of one thing, I can easily transition to the next. While I might be making myself out to be a bit flaky (which I am), I don't think this pattern in my life has been an all bad thing. I've experience a lot of different things... I've been able to see a lot of different places... I've gotten to meet all kinds of different people. I've learned to learn rapidly and to adapt quickly. I would consider myself in many ways a Jack of many trades but a master at none. Normally I feel like I can do pretty much anything and do a decent job, whether or not I am the best for it, whether or not I love it, whether or not I feel God is calling me into it.
This pattern of life... this characteristic is changing though. Over the year I have come to realize that the nets I've set up, and the constant mind change has often robbed me of living by faith. My life should not be about trying to decipher whether or not I heard God on something, and then making all sorts of back up plans just in case God's plan doesn't pan out for me. I want my life to be characterized by hearing God's voice, and following it with confidence. Through struggle, through blessing, through burnout, through apathy, through everything... when I hear from the Lord, I go, certain of what is unseen that lies ahead.
For the last several years it has been on my mind to apply to seminary after I finishing my undergrad. While on the World Race I have felt this draw intensify. The process has gone rather differently than normal though. I didn't apply to a lot of different seminaries... I only applied to one. I prayed that if God would have me there he would open the doors. And he did. I was accepted despite my current circumstances, and a lot of dropped calls on Skype while trying to do a video interview in Costa Rica. Throughout the whole process I have been quite at peace with all that is going on. I've had God open doors before, but usually I am always indecisive and uncomfortable about taking a door even though it is open. Even when I found out I would only get to be home for three days in Salt Lake until I pack up and move to California... I felt much less worry than I am accustomed to. And that's the thing... I LOVE Salt Lake. I cannot wait to get back to my community there. But God has something for me in California right now. I truly believe that all of this is God tilling soil from which I will be reaping substance for the rest of my life. Though it takes sacrifice, though I would much rather have a few months to catch my breath in Salt Lake, I know God want me to keep pressing into this faith thing. I have always prayed for guidance... and looking back I think God has always offered it. Yet now I think I'm confident in him enough to actually let go and dive in head first. Below is an excerpt from my application when asked “why do you feel a call into vocational ministry?”
Since a missions trip to Thailand in 2003 I have felt a tug to full time ministry. It seems like everything I am passionate about points me to vocational ministry whether it be playing and writing music, being poor and living simply, teaching, spending hours at a coffee shop, or studying and reading books about God. The last five years can be summarized by saying God has been helping me figure out the when, how, and if questions about that call I felt into vocational ministry. Everything came to an apex in the spring of 2007 when I had to decide on taking a more secular route of Political Science, which was something I truly loved in college, or holding unswervingly to a path of pursuing vocational ministry. I wish I could say it was an easy decision, but at the time it really wasn't. It was really the input of the people I look up to most, who most of which happen to be in vocational ministry, that I decided to ditch the internship I had aligned in Washington D.C., and pursue vocational ministry with all my heart. To live is truly Christ and to die is gain. I want to give God everything. I want to lay my life down for the mystery of something far greater than I could ever become. If I were to summarize my life's ambition in two words it would be to heal people. I believe this mission includes healing people from wounds they have received in the Church, as well as healing people whose perception of the Body of Christ is tainted. I want to heal people who are hurting inside, and help people who are suffering outside. I want to show people a better way, a way that breathes life, and transforms in radical ways. My life is about being a servant, and I want to serve as many people as possible. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
As of August 5th I will be doing an internship at Mosaic Church in California while working on a Masters Degree as well. I don't really even recognize my life anymore. It has changed and continues to change so fast. I can't wait though. There are things on the horizon that I have prayed to God all my life for... and now I get to see it unfold. It's incredible to me when I think about it. Please keep me in your prayers. Pray that I don't let up upon returning to the States. Pray that I continue to hear and follow. Thank you all for your continued support. I will be back around Salt Lake mid September to unload on all you guys and be with you. I can't wait...
wasn't already sewage so that you could drink and bathe? Could you ever get out of a place where you are barely able to survive let alone make ends meet? Would you go to work everyday?It's depressing. A wage like that start to make sense of why so many men in the Philippines seem to be doing absolutely nothing all day. It begins to make a little more sense why daughters choose to go into a life of prostitution to support their family. It begins to make sense why in every open space in Manila there seems to be thousands of illegal squatter homes made of what I would toss away as trash. It begins to makes sense why there is so much crime here, so much pollution here, so much disease, and so much corruption. 
99.9% of anything that happened was of little concern for me. Occasionally catastrophic events such as Columbine or 9/11 would come to my attention, but that was the extent of it. Then, I went to college, traveled around a bit, experienced and saw more. My position moved from unintentionally not caring due to unawareness, to one of intentionally not caring due to denial. This stage could largely be described as one of helplessness. I became more aware, but to help seemed overwhelming... and not my problem. It is easy to detach from something when it doesn't involve you. For the most part I am still in this stage. There is something different however. Especially after the last two years of seeing more, experiencing more, and being closer to more injustice and oppression... I realize that I really do care in some instances, and that I want to care about more. I am at a point in my life where I actually want to spend the rest of my life caring.
A return honeymoon to the Philippines
that many
businesses treat the priority of profits and charity as mutually
exclusive; it is either profits or charity. Thus if a business
chooses profits they become only aware of their own needs, and
neglect the greater need of others. On the other hand, if a business
chooses charity, they must either receive outside funding or
government assistance, and they can often be poorly run or treat
their own workers unfairly because they have the excuse of being in
existence only for the cause of others. I wish to see a company that
is both/ and, not either/or. A company whose seeks profits for the
benefit of its employees, its customers, its local community, and the
impoverished global community that makes up most the world.
equently to get water. The only problem was... there was no water. For the first four miles of the hike things were great. We had water, food, beef jerky. There was enough shade and plenty of people. As we were making our way around the back side of the loop Colleen took a sip of her camelback... nothing. It was the middle of the day, now reaching over 100 degrees and we had nothing. we pressed on for about two miles. We were ok, water would have been nice but we were fine for the most part. Soon the effects of dehydration began to be felt. A dizzy, somewhat disorienting, nausious feeling. The trail was completely exposed so if we were to get in the shade, it would have had to be behind a cactus. We pressed on. We began praying that God would make it rain or something, or like Moses I could hit a rock and water might come out. At one point there was a set of water towers teasing us as there was no way to get into them. Needless to say for the rest of the hike we were miserable. But I noticed something. Whenever things would get to the point that we wanted to just curl in a ball and quit there would be something to help motivate us. Sometimes around a corner we would find a breeze in the stagnant air... just enough to cool us down. At what seemed like the roughest places of incline, trees would randomly appear to provided a little bit of shade for us. At one point we even saw another hiker and I asked him if Colleen could take a sip of his water. There was no deluge, or magic river that we stumbled on, rather it was just enough provision to get by. 
sting... we are learning oneness in our marriage now and building foundations that will last for the rest of lives.
days while Kyle and I along with three other dudes spent a week of manistry living in the mountains. It was some good times with the guys. 
painted their house, or built water systems, or just had meals with them. Many of the families even know the exact date that they met people from K2. 
