Time is flying by. I can't believe I've only got 18 days left here. It's bittersweet for sure. I'm ready to get back to North Carolina, but I'm going to miss everyone and the bonds that we've made from living together and sharing life together over ten weeks. But there's still much work to do. This Sunday will be our last Sunday at church here in California. The church I've served (Twin Lakes Church...TLC haha) is a really really really really good church, and I'm going to miss it. It's also our last week of MNL (Monday Night Live) where we have a weekly speaker come and tell us the Word. Some things that I will definitely bring back to campus with me are the reflection times, journaling, and reading I've picked up since I've been here. I've really been encouraged by just spending time with the Lord (in more than just quiet time). Also, we've done outreach regularly at least once a week, and I really want to continue doing outreach at school too. This summer has changed my life, and I want to take all these new habits back to NC State with me (along with my new addictions to daily coffee, the Avett Brothers, and Boyce Avenue) to impact the campus for Christ. And I'm not just saying that I want to occasionally bring up a spiritual conversation with a student here or there. I want to regularly get into spiritual conversations with the students of NC State and share the Gospel with those who don't know, and encourage Christians who aren't living the Spirit filled life to get going. I've really seen how much the Lord has done for us all this summer, and there's nothing that I'd rather do then further His kingdom.

Update!

I haven't blogged in a while so I'll try to catch y'all up over these past two weeks. The staff left us on our own last Tuesday. The night before we did skits to show how much they meant to us. My group sang "I'm not crying" by Flight of The Conchords. It's a really funny song, and we changed some of the words up for our situation. We sang it to our action group leader Steven because he was leaving to go back to Oklahoma by the end of the week. I sure will miss him. After we all did our skits, the staff left for the night. There are four students in charge now (Nick Baughman, Zach Williams, Laura Beth Price, and Brittany Sizemore). They each brought in a bowl of water and a rag to wash our feet with as Jesus did in John 13. It was so awesome to have our feet washed. As they washed our feet, they prayed for us and the work we had left to do here in Santa Cruz. It was really cool. The staff left the next day, and now we are running the project ourselves. Last Thursday I got to go to a San Francisco Giant's baseball game. It was really fun, but it was a really short game too (2 hours 14 minutes). We were there and back here in no time. Last Sunday we had a Tug of War outreach on the beach. We dug a pit, laid a tarp in it, and then filled it with water as the center of the tug of war area. We had a good time, and lots of people came to play. Many of us had the opportunity to share the KGP with people as well. It was a very successful outreach. Me and Hunter Young usually go to Santa Cruz Roasting Company once or twice a week to get into the word and hangout. Yesterday we were reading and this man from Venezuela came up and was asking lots of questions about what we believed. I was pretty confused at his questions because I didn't understand what he was saying at first so Hunter did most of the talking. I think the man was probably a Christian but his theology seemed somewhat skewed as he talked about grey interpretation/purgatory, but we all agreed that we needed Jesus Christ for eternal life. He was a very interesting man to listen to and very kind. We enjoyed our conversations with him for sure. Santa Cruz is such an open place to talk with people that literally people will come up to you and talk about God. This week we've been focusing on our upcoming outreach party which is tonight. We're having a Christmas in July party. We've invited our coworkers and friends we've made to come tonight so we will get a chance to share the Gospel with them. Please pray that it will be a successful outreach, as we've been praying and getting prepared all week. I'm really looking forward to these last few weeks here too (3 weeks from today). We've got 2 more weeks of work, and then our last week we will be going to Yosemite! I'm really excited to take everything back that I've learned to school as well. I've studied through Matthew, Mark, and I'm working on Luke right now. I've also read More Than A Carpenter, and I'm reading 2 or 3 other books right now too. God's taught me so much here, and I can't wait to outreach to others and share what I've learned with people back at school.

Creation Screams His Existence

We’re four weeks into Summer Project, and that means we’ve only got one more week until staff leaves. The staff leaves next Tuesday (July 5) for the summer to return home and continue raising support for the upcoming year. They’ve appointed us to have positions here among the students. I will be my Action Group (Bible Study) leader in place of Steven Mandeville who will be returning back to Oklahoma to finish up support. I’m really excited to lead Action Group, and I know God will lead me every step of the way. This past Saturday was an interesting day. Students from the Silicon Valley Summer Project came to Santa Cruz for the day to help us with outreach. One guy named Hussein from Saudi Arabia (I think that was his name/where he was originally from) gave his testimony. He was from Eastern Kentucky University originally but now is at UNC Charlotte I think. He became a Christian after going to Crusade one night and it wasn’t the message that struck him, but rather the worship songs. He called home (Saudi Arabia) to tell his family that he had converted from Islam to Christianity, and he said his mom and sisters didn’t talk to him for the next 2 weeks. He said it was a very rough time and I could only imagine. God really worked through him, and he truly has a heart for the Lord.

That night, we turned the Peter Pan into an outdoor coffee shop and invited our coworkers and friends here from Santa Cruz to get to sit down with them and have spiritual conversations. Some of us also went downtown to do solarium cards or perspective cards for outreach. One of my friends from NC State Hunter Young and I paired up and went downtown to share with people. We ran into one couple and did the perspective cards with them. We got into a spiritual conversation with them, and found out they were actually believers. It was awesome to find other believers in a dark city like Santa Cruz. They actually asked if they could pray for us, and that was really cool. Meanwhile back at the Coffee House Outreach, one girl accepted Christ and asked if she could have a KGP (Knowing God Personally) booklet and took off to go share with her friend! It was amazing to see God working throughout the night.

Yesterday, we went to the redwoods! I couldn’t believe how big the redwoods were. We were literally looking straight up the whole time. They were way bigger than I expected them to be. There was one tree we went inside and took pictures in it. The record for the most people inside this tree was 74 eleven year olds and one adult, if that gives you an idea of how big the inside of it was. I was literally in a tree. Every time I tried to take a picture on my phone it didn’t do it justice. I actually forgot my camera that day (whoops!) but luckily there were plenty of people with cameras so I’m sure I’ll be tagged in some on Facebook. It was amazing to see how God’s creation shouts his existence. The trees twisted as they went up, looking like licorice or candy canes. Just describing them here doesn’t explain hardly anything. You’d have to see them for yourself. There was also a section of a redwood that fell in 1934 hanging up at the beginning of the trail. It was about 2000 years old! It had major events with arrows on it pointing to how big the tree was when the event happened. It had the birth of Jesus on it! It also had empires, declaration of independence, civil war, and other events labeled on it. It was awesome to see and I took a picture of it from a distance on my phone so I will upload it to Facebook.

Unleash His Glory!

This past week was awesome! (The week of June 13-19. This is late because I couldn’t get internet to post.) One morning we went and did a Hispanic outreach. In the mornings, some Hispanics stand outside construction businesses in hope of getting picked up for work. We went to McDonald’s and bought sausage biscuits to give to them in hopes of sharing the Gospel with them through a Spanish KGP booklet. We gave them biscuits, and some of us (mostly the ones who could speak Spanish) had really good conversations with them. Today some people went back and one man accepted Christ! They said he helped lead a youth group at his church, but after talking with some people from Crusade, He realized he didn’t know Jesus personally. Please pray for his new faith in knowing Jesus!

Last Thursday I went to San Francisco. The people who were off work Thursday all got together and pitched in some money to rent a few cars to drive an hour and a half north to San Francisco. We got there around lunch time and went straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was amazing to see. We could see Alcatraz (the famous prison) in the bay and the city as well from the bridge. We got to see tons of stuff! The city is literally built on a hill. It had the steepest paved roads I’d ever seen. We went to Chinatown too, which was probably my favorite spot of the day. We went to a bunch of the shops, but we only had 32 minutes worth of coins for the parking meter so we basically ran the whole time screaming “Come on y’all!”. We definitely looked like tourists. We also went to the Fisherman’s Wharf and shopped around. At the end of the day we went to In n’ Out Burger. Everyone talks about it like Cookout back home, but it’s nothing compared to Cookout.

On Saturday we had a Barn Party outreach where we invited our coworkers and anyone who wanted to come. Emily Noah and I shared our testimonies in front of everyone. We were a little nervous because we had to share in front of lots of people who may have not been believers. We didn’t want to mess up, so every word counted. We did a good job sharing, and one thing I’m beginning to notice is that everyone can relate to each other’s testimony in some way (we all share our testimony in front of everyone once during the summer- usually at a mealtime). It’s reassuring to us that we’re not alone in our struggles and the way we feel as Christians. Barn party was a success, and we learned how to line dance and two step! It’s pretty fun.

God’s been revealing some awesome things to me lately. I’ve really been analyzing the word in depth, thinking about how it applies to my life. In my journal I’ve been writing about things that I read and what I feel about them. Things I’ve read a million times it seems like are amazing. Lots of us know the story about how Jesus calmed the storm when at sea. But think about what He did then. He calmed a storm with the words from His mouth! Even the waves and the wind are under His command! We can’t just speak words and something like that obey us, but He can! It just makes me think about how great He truly is and how there’s nothing else worth living for. It’s all for His glory! I’ve also been reading More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell. It’s a great book about apologetics. Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that the New Testament has more manuscripts (about 20,000) than any other text? The second most reliable text is the Iliad with just over 600. Now who say’s the Bible isn’t reliable? It’s a great book, so I recommend you check it out.

Outreach!

Last night we did outreach downtown. Each guy room was paired up with a girl room because we were doing outreach from 8pm-10pm at night. Downtown gets super sketchy at night, way worse than anyplace I’ve ever been. After the groups were assigned, we split up into guy and girl pairs so we could talk to individuals or groups of people without intimidating them (and also so the girls would have a guy with them at all times). I paired up with a girl named Brooke from UNC-W. We had a stack of cards called perspective (we were the only ones who didn’t have solarium in our group!), so we went over it with one another to make sure we knew what we were going to be doing. We would ask a question and give them a stack of cards. They would pick the card that had their answer on it. For example, one question was “Who is Jesus?”. The card choices were: A great spiritual leader, A revolutionary, A Liar Lunatic or Legend, or Savior and Creator. We prayed that God would use us and give us words to speak in our conversations to come. We set out looking for people to talk to on the street, and we weren’t so successful at first. The first few people were too busy or not interested. Finally we found a man named Indiana. He was an atheist, but he was willing to talk. We didn’t get to talk very long (maybe 5 minutes) because his girlfriend came and wanted to leave. Next we talked to a mother in a Hispanic family. She believed that the purpose of life was to live for God and that he was our savior and creator. However, she believed that people were more good than bad and not broken or separated from God. We asked her that if she was to die now, how certain would she be that she’d go to Heaven. She told us she was 60% sure. We asked her about the other 40% and she said that she just didn’t know. We gave her a KGP (Knowing God Personally) pamphlet, but she said  she didn’t want to go over it there because she was going somewhere.

Next we talked to a man named Richard and his girlfriend. He was agnostic, and she didn’t talk very much. He was very open to talking to us (an hour and a half!), as we literally sat in the road in a parking spot in downtown. He was very willing to hear what we had to ask. He believed God was a good spiritual teacher, but not savior and creator. So we asked him, “How could Jesus be a good spiritual leader if He claimed to be God? Wouldn’t that make Him a liar if He wasn’t really God?”. Richard said he didn’t know how to answer that, but that he felt like the Bible was misinterpreted over the years (oh how I wish I would’ve had my research on manuscripts ready!). We also asked him, “Do you believe there is a truth?”, and he couldn’t see past the fact that other people in different religions can’t follow what they believe and have salvation. We asked him about what he thought about Jesus and the cross too. He didn’t feel like we were able to understand God because God is so beyond our knowledge. So we shared the KGP with him and his girlfriend. He really like Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.” He said that was his problem. He said that he didn’t have faith. He said he’s trying to figure things out because he needs actual physical evidence. He used to be an altar boy in the Catholic Church and even went to seminary! He fell away from religion because he said he was swinging on a pendulum between hardcore Christianity and believing religion was for weak people. After going through the KGP, I asked them if they wanted to accept Christ, and he asked me to read the prayer. After, he told me that he didn’t believe it, but that he appreciated the fact that we said it was about a relationship with Jesus Christ, not a religion. I asked him if he had ever read More than a Carpenter, and he said he hadn’t. I think it would be a great book for him to read, so Brooke and I are going to try and mail him a copy or meet up with him again. God really moved downtown last night, and even though he didn’t come to accept Christ, I feel like a seed was definitely planted for God to work through his life. 

June 9, 2011

I haven’t had internet in a while because it goes in and out here. This week I’ve learned so much. I feel like I’ve grown in my relationship with the Lord (in the time I’ve been here) more than I have in a long time. I’ve always thought about what it would be like to desire God’s word more than daily food. It says in Job 23:12, “I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.” I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like to desire God’s word more than the food I eat. I feel like I’ve always read my Bible because if I want to grow as a Christian that’s what I’m supposed to do. I was treating it more like a “duty”. But since I’ve been here, I’ve been so excited to read my Bible. I feel so excited to go to sleep because I know in the morning I will have my quiet time when I wake up. I’ve also been journaling my thoughts about what I read. I’m going through Matthew now, and I write down whatever thoughts I have when I read God’s word. It’s been so refreshing to be excited to read, even though I’ve read lots of it many times before. God’s teaching me how important it is to cherish His word and to desire it- more than food.

On Tuesday (June 7, 2011), we had an international dinner. We were all divided into countries/regions. There was the U.S., Europe, Africa, The Middle East, Russia, China, and Indigenous People Groups. We thought that we were going to be eating oriental food and celebrating nationality, but that wasn’t the case. I was in the China group. We came out of the room we met in (14 people in a group I believe), and walked by the “Americans”. They were all singing Party in the USA and other American songs. We all walked by the grill and noticed they were having these juicy steaks with asparagus and baked potatoes. I was personally kind of sad I got China because I thought we were going to have to eat chicken and rice instead. We sit down on our mat to the side of the motel. They gave us chopsticks and a pot of white rice. They told us the food we were to eat represented our countries spirituality. We weren’t allowed to leave our mat until we ate solid food they told us. So we started to dig into the rice with our chopsticks, thinking it was solid food. We dumped the rice on the mat and started eating it. It felt like we were on survivor. (The whole time we could hear the Americans singing and laughing from the other side of the motel). After we realized they wouldn’t let us leave after eating the rice we talked about what was going on with one another. Some of the other students approached us holding passports trying to talk to us. We were only allowed to speak five words or less to a foreigner and we couldn’t speak unless they addressed us. They kept coming, and we kept saying we needed solid food. Finally after we had eaten rice for a good half hour or so, it was over.

The staff explained what the point of the international dinner really was. The solid food we were supposed to have represented the Gospel and the access we have to it. Here’s what all the groups initially started off having to eat: 

U.S.: Steaks, Baked Potatoes, and Asparagus

Europe: Ham and Baked Potatoes

Africa and China: Rice

Russia: Bread and Potatoes

The Middle East: Humus and Pita Chips

The Indigenous People: Nothing

The Americans were having fun and singing when they realized that not everyone had the same food and that people were missing (hence being on the other side of the motel). When they had eaten a piece of meat, they were given a passport. But when they tried to see what everyone else was eating/where everyone else was, they were tempted to play games like Catch Phrase by the staff. They eventually ventured out and found us, asking us questions about what we needed. The goal was to see if the Americans or Europe would share the meat (solid food) they had on their plates to the other people groups so they could be set freed by it (the Gospel). The only group that was given meat was the Africa group. China, Russia, and the Middle East never received meat (the Gospel). No one even noticed the Indigenous People Group (or the 10-40 Window) was missing.

After the international dinner we had a discussion about it. It really bothered me that in reality we as Americans have so much access to the Gospel and caught up in our own lives that we don’t think about the others in the world who are spiritually starving because they don’t have access to the Gospel or have never even heard of it. It really opened all of our eyes to see how blessed we are to have it, but how critical it is we share it. 

June 5, 2011

Today was a day I’ll never forget. I went to Twin Lakes for church this morning. It’s a church with a congregation of about 1,000 if not more. It was refreshing to see other believers who actually lived in the community because all we had heard about was how spiritually dark it was here in Santa Cruz. We were in worship singing songs, and I see this little old lady. She was probably between 65-70 years old.  The whole time during each song on the front row to my left she danced. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a little old lady dance before, but I hadn’t. She danced her heart out praising and worshiping Jesus. When we sang “Rescue” she got down on her knees and bowed. It was all I could do not to cry watching this little old lady worship. I’ve never seen someone so in love and so lost in worship to where all they could do was dance, except where I had read in 2 Samuel 6:14 which says, “David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might,”. I felt like everyone in the service should be dancing and praising God because He is so worthy that He deserves all our praise. This lady had so much joy in her heart that she couldn’t contain it anymore, so she let it out. It touched my heart that this woman could be so in love with Jesus that it could change my walk with God. Today, I physically saw what it felt like “to have this joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart”. The funny thing is she was wearing these big black glasses. She had either just had eye surgery, or she was blind.