Friday, July 29, 2005
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Evening all!! Been a somewhat uneventful couple of days since my last update which seems kind of strange given that I have spent two of the previous three weeks to this one on the road for mission trips. I have either been at the office catching up on stuff and getting ready for youth sessions or I have been at home with Eva and Margaret. I have also stayed home alone with Eva for a couple of afternoons in a row to let Margaret out and about and to get messages that need done, done.
I already said in the last post that I don't know how Margaret does it - and after a couple of afternoons with the wee one, I am still of that opinion. Me being the smart alec I am had it all worked out. I would feed Eva, burp her and then let her fall asleep. Once she had fallen asleep I would sneak her into her bed and lay her in the cot (crib for American readers!!) and I would escape for some snooze time or some gaming time on the computer or even a phone call to home. Well, my Granny Charles used to say that as soon as you made plans there would be someone to come and walk through them for you. Eva had plans of her own. The nice way of putting it is that she missed me while I was away and wanted to be awake and spend as much time as she could with her Dad. The not nice way to put it that she knew my plans and then stayed awake on purpose to thwart them!!!! Whatever it was, it did not go according to my well laid out plans. I am sure all the parents that are reading this are laughing at my apparent stupidity. Regardless of her thwarting of my plans, she is still beautiful and still perfect. Have I mentioned that Eva has gone from her birth weight of 9lbs 11ozs to 14lbs 6ozs in just seven weeks??? She certainly is loving her milk juice and is growing very fast - we had her out with us yesterday for lunch and the waitress came over and looked at her and said, 'Let me guess, I don't think I have lost it yet...she is four months old!'. You should have seen her face when we told her that Eva is still less than two months olds, it was a real picture.
Other than that there is nothing major happening.
Oh yes - for those of you who have been grumbling about how much I was writing about rugby you will be glad to know that the Lions Tour of New Zealand is now over. They lost the series 3-0 and really were out played. So there will be no more words about the beautiful game for a while. For anyone that is interested more in the lions you can check out their official website - www.lionsrugby.com
So I will call it quits there - people have also been complaining about the length of my ramblings. We aim to please!!!!!
Blessings.
I already said in the last post that I don't know how Margaret does it - and after a couple of afternoons with the wee one, I am still of that opinion. Me being the smart alec I am had it all worked out. I would feed Eva, burp her and then let her fall asleep. Once she had fallen asleep I would sneak her into her bed and lay her in the cot (crib for American readers!!) and I would escape for some snooze time or some gaming time on the computer or even a phone call to home. Well, my Granny Charles used to say that as soon as you made plans there would be someone to come and walk through them for you. Eva had plans of her own. The nice way of putting it is that she missed me while I was away and wanted to be awake and spend as much time as she could with her Dad. The not nice way to put it that she knew my plans and then stayed awake on purpose to thwart them!!!! Whatever it was, it did not go according to my well laid out plans. I am sure all the parents that are reading this are laughing at my apparent stupidity. Regardless of her thwarting of my plans, she is still beautiful and still perfect. Have I mentioned that Eva has gone from her birth weight of 9lbs 11ozs to 14lbs 6ozs in just seven weeks??? She certainly is loving her milk juice and is growing very fast - we had her out with us yesterday for lunch and the waitress came over and looked at her and said, 'Let me guess, I don't think I have lost it yet...she is four months old!'. You should have seen her face when we told her that Eva is still less than two months olds, it was a real picture.
Other than that there is nothing major happening.
Oh yes - for those of you who have been grumbling about how much I was writing about rugby you will be glad to know that the Lions Tour of New Zealand is now over. They lost the series 3-0 and really were out played. So there will be no more words about the beautiful game for a while. For anyone that is interested more in the lions you can check out their official website - www.lionsrugby.com
So I will call it quits there - people have also been complaining about the length of my ramblings. We aim to please!!!!!
Blessings.
Monday, July 25, 2005
It's a couple of weeks since the last post and it has not been for laziness or lack of desire to. I spent last week in Northern Mississippi on our senior high mission trip. We had a fantastic group of youth and adults and the week was a complete success. The organisation that we were on the trip with are called Adventures In Mission (www.adventures.org) and they were a good group to be on mission with.
I really don't know where to start in terms of describing the experience. The primary focus of Adventures In Mission is a concept known as 'listening prayer'. What they mean by this is that they believe that God is not silent saviour and that he is active in speaking to his children. In our team meetings before the trip I was challenging our youth to expect God to speak to them in one way or another, their response to this idea was to tell me that God has not spoken to them and that he probably would not speak to them on the trip. You can imagine then how cool it was to watch as one by one, throughout the week, they all heard something(s) from God.
We experienced so many good things during the trip. Jen went over on her ankle and was in some serious pain on Tuesday night so we laid hands on her and prayed for her asking God to heal her and restore the ankle to full strength and mobility. The next day she had no complaints at all about the state of her ankle and she was able to walk freely on it. She was so surprised at what had happened, I think we all were. Isn't that strange how we sometimes pray and don't expect God to answer. It's almost as if the prayers we speak are more like a good team talk rather than a conversation with the Most High God. On Tuesday night we had that conversation with Him and He was happy to speak back through healing. Have I become Benny Hinn, telling people that they can all be healed? No, but I have become someone who is unafraid to genuinely pray for healing and to humbly accept God's answer whether it is a healing or not.
We were also involved in a Prison Ministry while in Mississippi. This is a weekly outreach to the men that are being held in the county jail. It was a very moving experience for all our boys (only the boys from our team were allowed to go for obvious reasons), they were able to come to the front of the room and all give testimony about how God has been at work in their lives. I want to make special mention of one of the testimonies that came from one of my youth during and after the service. During the service, Ryan read from Romans 3 v 23 where we are told by Paul that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. After reading this Ryan then looked up at the group of men gathered before him and proceeded to tell them that this verse meant that there was no difference between him and the men before him, it meant that we are all the same whether we are in jail or whether we are free. After the prison ministry, Ryan told me that any stereotype of what prison is like has now been broken down. After last Wednesday night Ryan himself was changed. There were also four men that gave their lives to Christ that night and had their lives changed as well.
We also had opportunities to minister to people in nursing homes, in a thrift store that provided cash for a local orphanage, on the streets of Tunica as well as in a trailer park at Mhoone landing just outside of the town. This trailer park was the site for our daily sports ministry/VBS with the local kids. Throughout the week our team got the chance to do what they do best - hang out with kids and get to know them and love them. By the end of the week several of the kids we were working with had recommitted their lives to Christ or hadmad that commitment for the first time. It was a beautiful thing as a Youth Pastor to watch our kids leading other kids to Christ. I am convinced that the quality of our kids work was blessed by God with quality and true commitments from the kids we were working with and if you are reading this I ask you to pray for the new Christian's of Mhoone Landing in Tunica, Mississippi.
There is so much more I could write about and maybe it will come out of me at another time but for now I feel that is enough. I want to write about my wife and daughter.
Margaret has been amazing this summer. Not only has she given birth to 9lbs 11ozs of perfection in Eva, but she has also been strong enough to be on her own for a couple of weeks as I had to go off on the mission trips with our youth. She is a fantastic mother and and incredible wife and very much the biggest blessing of my life.
Eva is now over 14lbs in weight and continues to guzzle lots of milk every day. She has developed a very cool little grin in the week I have been away and is able to focus in on things and follow them with her eyes now. On top of these cool things, she continues to sleep through the night and Margaret is able to rest at that time also. Everything is going well with Eva and she is growing and developing at the correct rates. What a beautiful gift from God! I will let the pictures do the talking.
Thanks for reading and looking and don't be afraid to leave a wee comment!!
Blessings
I really don't know where to start in terms of describing the experience. The primary focus of Adventures In Mission is a concept known as 'listening prayer'. What they mean by this is that they believe that God is not silent saviour and that he is active in speaking to his children. In our team meetings before the trip I was challenging our youth to expect God to speak to them in one way or another, their response to this idea was to tell me that God has not spoken to them and that he probably would not speak to them on the trip. You can imagine then how cool it was to watch as one by one, throughout the week, they all heard something(s) from God.
We experienced so many good things during the trip. Jen went over on her ankle and was in some serious pain on Tuesday night so we laid hands on her and prayed for her asking God to heal her and restore the ankle to full strength and mobility. The next day she had no complaints at all about the state of her ankle and she was able to walk freely on it. She was so surprised at what had happened, I think we all were. Isn't that strange how we sometimes pray and don't expect God to answer. It's almost as if the prayers we speak are more like a good team talk rather than a conversation with the Most High God. On Tuesday night we had that conversation with Him and He was happy to speak back through healing. Have I become Benny Hinn, telling people that they can all be healed? No, but I have become someone who is unafraid to genuinely pray for healing and to humbly accept God's answer whether it is a healing or not.
We were also involved in a Prison Ministry while in Mississippi. This is a weekly outreach to the men that are being held in the county jail. It was a very moving experience for all our boys (only the boys from our team were allowed to go for obvious reasons), they were able to come to the front of the room and all give testimony about how God has been at work in their lives. I want to make special mention of one of the testimonies that came from one of my youth during and after the service. During the service, Ryan read from Romans 3 v 23 where we are told by Paul that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. After reading this Ryan then looked up at the group of men gathered before him and proceeded to tell them that this verse meant that there was no difference between him and the men before him, it meant that we are all the same whether we are in jail or whether we are free. After the prison ministry, Ryan told me that any stereotype of what prison is like has now been broken down. After last Wednesday night Ryan himself was changed. There were also four men that gave their lives to Christ that night and had their lives changed as well.
We also had opportunities to minister to people in nursing homes, in a thrift store that provided cash for a local orphanage, on the streets of Tunica as well as in a trailer park at Mhoone landing just outside of the town. This trailer park was the site for our daily sports ministry/VBS with the local kids. Throughout the week our team got the chance to do what they do best - hang out with kids and get to know them and love them. By the end of the week several of the kids we were working with had recommitted their lives to Christ or hadmad that commitment for the first time. It was a beautiful thing as a Youth Pastor to watch our kids leading other kids to Christ. I am convinced that the quality of our kids work was blessed by God with quality and true commitments from the kids we were working with and if you are reading this I ask you to pray for the new Christian's of Mhoone Landing in Tunica, Mississippi.
There is so much more I could write about and maybe it will come out of me at another time but for now I feel that is enough. I want to write about my wife and daughter.
Margaret has been amazing this summer. Not only has she given birth to 9lbs 11ozs of perfection in Eva, but she has also been strong enough to be on her own for a couple of weeks as I had to go off on the mission trips with our youth. She is a fantastic mother and and incredible wife and very much the biggest blessing of my life.
Eva is now over 14lbs in weight and continues to guzzle lots of milk every day. She has developed a very cool little grin in the week I have been away and is able to focus in on things and follow them with her eyes now. On top of these cool things, she continues to sleep through the night and Margaret is able to rest at that time also. Everything is going well with Eva and she is growing and developing at the correct rates. What a beautiful gift from God! I will let the pictures do the talking.
Thanks for reading and looking and don't be afraid to leave a wee comment!!
Blessings
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Evening all. Not much to report tonight for you. I suppose I will just ramble on a bit and see what comes out.
First thing coming to mind is that as I have scrolled through the blog from time to time I have read some of your comments and I wanted to give a big shout out to Fin the Skin all the way over there in Sydney. Good to know you are reading the blog Sir and be it known that I am also missing your friendship myself. The other comment from a long lost friend is that of Miss Pam Algie, children's ministry extrordinaire from Knock in east Belfast. Pam, I hope you are following you calling and your dreams and its good to know you are reading about and admiring my daughter. She is cool!!
This week has been one of those weird weeks. I just got back from Tennessee on Friday night after completing the first of two summer mission trips with the youth. The second trip leaves this Friday night for Mississippi. After returning from TN, my mind was buzzing with things that had to be done this week in preparation for the second trip and here I am now in the middle of that week and for some reason I feel like it is all done and I am ready. It is a weird feeling and I am actually sure that on Friday I shall remember a number of things that need done and will find myself running around like a headless chicken getting things in order.
One of the things I have had to do this week is our midweek youth sessions for groups meeting tonight and tomorrow night. Tonights group went pretty well. They are the ones that have just returned from mission trip and so we started out with me strapping on my guitar and all of us singing some of our favourite songs from last week. It was a lot of fun and it seemed to get them going. The title of the teaching for the evening was "The Battle". I said in a recent post that my heart for these kids is that they will hear from God - I believe with all my heart and experience that God is not a silent saviour and that in fact he is speaking to us all the time. He is speaking all the time, but we have gotten so good at pretending to listen that we actually believe we are listening when we are not and then we wonder why we cannot hear him. There is so much shit in this world that is vying for our attention and it is so loud that we cannot hear the whisper of God. Tonight this is what I called "the Battle", it is the scrap going on over the attention of our hearts.
I don't know why I told you all that, maybe one of you needs to read something like that at the minute. Basically I was calling our kids to something bigger than a faith of just better behaviour.
We sang a song called Breathe tonight. Most readers of this will know the song but for those of you that don't I will type the lyrics for you...
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me
And I I'm desperate for you
And I I'm lost without you
You see singing this song tonight spoke so much to me about what my desire is for myself and for every person I know - including the youth. To sing these words tonight was to sing to God and say that we need him like we need oxygen and food; it was to sing to him and say that we are lost and directionless without him, but as I sang tonight I wondered if this is the case with me. My best mate in the world told me once that Christians don't tell lies they sing them and tonight I was burdened with the fact that I was lying to God. My desire is to be in relationship with God and to depend on him like I depend on oxygen and food for my body everyday. As I look at my life and the lives of many Christians around me, I see us all using God a bit, only calling on him when we really, really need him but other than that, just coasting along. Tonight it pissed me off that we sing these words so much and yet they mean nothing. My feeling is that it is time to stop playing games with God. The reason we are not hearing from him is that we are letting the noise of other stuff distract us - image, possessions, finances, relationships, addiction, computer games, music, movies, travel, sheer selfishness, me, me, me and so much more - we are letting stuff like this become our oxygen and our sustinence, it is no wonder we are such a depressed and hungry generation. The only answer here (did I ask a question??? I think I might have but it is just really well hidden!!!) is to realise that stuff will never give us what we need (identity, security, unconditional love) and thus it will never really serve us as oxygen and bread. Only God can do that and we can only really experience him like that when we lay all the other stuff down. I know tonight that I was forced into thinking about how much stuff I have put before God, for me it is time to lay it down and to let him be the air I breathe and the bread I munch on.
Wow, another rant from nowhere.
Eva is huge. Did I mention that she grew from 9lbs 11ozs to 12lbs 2ozs in four weeks? It is amazing to have a healthy growing baby - we could not ask for more. She is also sleeping through the night recently. Since I got home from mission trip she has been sleeping from 11/11.30pm through to 7.30am. She just seems perfect in every way and she seems happy and content also. All I long for her to know is that she is loved and because she is loved she can do anything in this world and can take on anything this world throws her way.
I have a couple of pictures to post for your viewing pleasure. I will call it quits before I get going again.
Blessings
First thing coming to mind is that as I have scrolled through the blog from time to time I have read some of your comments and I wanted to give a big shout out to Fin the Skin all the way over there in Sydney. Good to know you are reading the blog Sir and be it known that I am also missing your friendship myself. The other comment from a long lost friend is that of Miss Pam Algie, children's ministry extrordinaire from Knock in east Belfast. Pam, I hope you are following you calling and your dreams and its good to know you are reading about and admiring my daughter. She is cool!!
This week has been one of those weird weeks. I just got back from Tennessee on Friday night after completing the first of two summer mission trips with the youth. The second trip leaves this Friday night for Mississippi. After returning from TN, my mind was buzzing with things that had to be done this week in preparation for the second trip and here I am now in the middle of that week and for some reason I feel like it is all done and I am ready. It is a weird feeling and I am actually sure that on Friday I shall remember a number of things that need done and will find myself running around like a headless chicken getting things in order.
One of the things I have had to do this week is our midweek youth sessions for groups meeting tonight and tomorrow night. Tonights group went pretty well. They are the ones that have just returned from mission trip and so we started out with me strapping on my guitar and all of us singing some of our favourite songs from last week. It was a lot of fun and it seemed to get them going. The title of the teaching for the evening was "The Battle". I said in a recent post that my heart for these kids is that they will hear from God - I believe with all my heart and experience that God is not a silent saviour and that in fact he is speaking to us all the time. He is speaking all the time, but we have gotten so good at pretending to listen that we actually believe we are listening when we are not and then we wonder why we cannot hear him. There is so much shit in this world that is vying for our attention and it is so loud that we cannot hear the whisper of God. Tonight this is what I called "the Battle", it is the scrap going on over the attention of our hearts.
I don't know why I told you all that, maybe one of you needs to read something like that at the minute. Basically I was calling our kids to something bigger than a faith of just better behaviour.
We sang a song called Breathe tonight. Most readers of this will know the song but for those of you that don't I will type the lyrics for you...
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me
And I I'm desperate for you
And I I'm lost without you
You see singing this song tonight spoke so much to me about what my desire is for myself and for every person I know - including the youth. To sing these words tonight was to sing to God and say that we need him like we need oxygen and food; it was to sing to him and say that we are lost and directionless without him, but as I sang tonight I wondered if this is the case with me. My best mate in the world told me once that Christians don't tell lies they sing them and tonight I was burdened with the fact that I was lying to God. My desire is to be in relationship with God and to depend on him like I depend on oxygen and food for my body everyday. As I look at my life and the lives of many Christians around me, I see us all using God a bit, only calling on him when we really, really need him but other than that, just coasting along. Tonight it pissed me off that we sing these words so much and yet they mean nothing. My feeling is that it is time to stop playing games with God. The reason we are not hearing from him is that we are letting the noise of other stuff distract us - image, possessions, finances, relationships, addiction, computer games, music, movies, travel, sheer selfishness, me, me, me and so much more - we are letting stuff like this become our oxygen and our sustinence, it is no wonder we are such a depressed and hungry generation. The only answer here (did I ask a question??? I think I might have but it is just really well hidden!!!) is to realise that stuff will never give us what we need (identity, security, unconditional love) and thus it will never really serve us as oxygen and bread. Only God can do that and we can only really experience him like that when we lay all the other stuff down. I know tonight that I was forced into thinking about how much stuff I have put before God, for me it is time to lay it down and to let him be the air I breathe and the bread I munch on.
Wow, another rant from nowhere.
Eva is huge. Did I mention that she grew from 9lbs 11ozs to 12lbs 2ozs in four weeks? It is amazing to have a healthy growing baby - we could not ask for more. She is also sleeping through the night recently. Since I got home from mission trip she has been sleeping from 11/11.30pm through to 7.30am. She just seems perfect in every way and she seems happy and content also. All I long for her to know is that she is loved and because she is loved she can do anything in this world and can take on anything this world throws her way.
I have a couple of pictures to post for your viewing pleasure. I will call it quits before I get going again.
Blessings
Monday, July 11, 2005
Yo brethren, what up with thee?
So it has been an absolute age since I updated this and there is mucho good reasoning for the delay. I have spent the last week with a party of four other adutls and 21 teenagers on our MIddle High Mission Trip - what a week!!!! Between teenage flatulence, high emotion and the movement of God in all our lives it really was quite a trip. Our destination was Chattanooga in Tennessee, USA where we were to spend the week in all sorts of ministry sites. We did a lot of work with children randing in ages from 6 months through to 15/16 yr olds. We also did some work with the homeless of Chattanooga as well as some home repair, yardwork and ramp building at the homes of those who are wheel chair bound. Each minstry site was special for some reason and every teenager that went on our trip professed to having met with God in some way through the work they were involved in. We went on the trip with an organisation called Youthworks (www.youthworks.org) who turned out to be extremely good. They had our days thoroughly planned and kept us on the go for 14hrs a day between ministry, activity and group devotion time. As the week progressed all of our kids got more and more into what they were doing and more and more into the group devotion time. On Thursday night, the Youthworks crew put together a very special evening for us which involved some very cool worship some awesome times of encouragement. The final act in this program was a footwashing ceremony. That may sound really weird to some of you but this is quite a common ceremony in christian circles as we try to model what Jesus did in John 13 when we read of how he washed the feet of his disciples. I have been invleved in many footwashing ceremonies throughout my ministry but I must confess that this was simply one of the most moving times I have ever experienced. As we moved from the explanation into the actual time of washing each others feet, I was approached by my new friend Derk who asked if he could wash my feet. I said yes and then put my feet in his basin. What followed was a very moving time for me because I literally had my feet washed. You see Christians are not good at modelling our Lord normally in the whoel foot washing thing. I guess it is because feet gross us all out a bit but normally the habit is to quickly dip your feet in the water and have the 'washer' cup some water in their hand and pour it over your feet before quickly moving your foot out of the basin and having it dried and putting your sock back on and moving on. It is all normally very swift and extremely painless. What struck me about Thursday night was how Derk took my foot in his hands and very carefully and intentionally washed my feet. This may sound strange to some of your reading this right now, but by his touch, I knew that this was not just another ceremonial act of duty from one youth worker to another. No, this was an act of love from one christian brother to another. This was all good but after Derk had done with my feet I was then to move on with the basin and wash the feet of the guys in my small group. Eli, Billy, Dustin and Chris all allowed me to wash their feet and pray with them personally and after the experience I had had with Derk washing my feet, there was no greater honour or privilege at that moment than to get on my knees and humbly wash the feet of these wonderful kids. I really don't know how I can put words to my experience that night except to say that I knew the presence of Christ and the greatness of his love for a few moments that night. I knew it as I had my own feet washed and I knew it as I washed the feet of my small group thereafter. This was a great end to a great week. All along, I had been challenging our teens to listen for the voice of God in everything they did. You see my big thing at the minute is to communicate to youth that God is not just some lifeless being that we have created a religion out of, rather, He is alive and constantly communicating with us. My challenge was that His voice is to be heard in our lives and I really think that on Thursday night as we washed each others feet we all heard the whisper of God.
Though the week was very cool in terms of ministry, it was also extremely difficult personally. As you know from my previous ramblings and all the pictures I have been sharing, I recently became a Dad and so leaving for a week was not as easy a task as it might have been before June 6th. The birth of Eva has really changed me. I have a completely new idea of what it means to be Margaret's husband and of course, each day I am learning more of what it means to be Dad. Both of these new definitions in my life made it an immensely difficult week to be away. normally Margaret has been able to come along on mission trips and has been an integral part of our team but this year she was not able to. You see the birth of this wee one has made my love for Margaret grow more and more than it ever did before, and last week I simply missed my wife. I could not wait to get home to see her. Becoming Dad since June 6th also made this trip hard. I have wrote often on this blog about how amazing it has been to watch my wee girl grow and how every new movement or expression is just so exciting. To take myself out of that for a week was heartbreaking. Perhaps the hardest thing though is this - I leave again on friday night with our High School Mission Trip to Tunica, MS. It has been on my mind since the middle of last week that this one will be even harder than the week just gone. I think the hardest thing was that we got through last week and have been reunited again and to be honest it sucks that I am only home for a week before jaunting off again. I love ministry and I love mission and I even love going away to get the chance to do both of these - but, this week it is just hard.
Tomorrow I turn 27. Wow! It seems like no time since I left school and now I am beginning the three your slide down to 30. I am officially in my late 20's now. It's not depressing - I really don't care what age I am to be honest - but it is weird. Do you remember when you were young you never thought you would be older? I think that is what I am feeling now. Don't get me wrong, 27 is not old at all - it is just one of those ages you never think of when you are younger.
Ah well!!
Anywho, it is late and I still have a couple of pics to add to this so I shall sign off for now.
Blessings
So it has been an absolute age since I updated this and there is mucho good reasoning for the delay. I have spent the last week with a party of four other adutls and 21 teenagers on our MIddle High Mission Trip - what a week!!!! Between teenage flatulence, high emotion and the movement of God in all our lives it really was quite a trip. Our destination was Chattanooga in Tennessee, USA where we were to spend the week in all sorts of ministry sites. We did a lot of work with children randing in ages from 6 months through to 15/16 yr olds. We also did some work with the homeless of Chattanooga as well as some home repair, yardwork and ramp building at the homes of those who are wheel chair bound. Each minstry site was special for some reason and every teenager that went on our trip professed to having met with God in some way through the work they were involved in. We went on the trip with an organisation called Youthworks (www.youthworks.org) who turned out to be extremely good. They had our days thoroughly planned and kept us on the go for 14hrs a day between ministry, activity and group devotion time. As the week progressed all of our kids got more and more into what they were doing and more and more into the group devotion time. On Thursday night, the Youthworks crew put together a very special evening for us which involved some very cool worship some awesome times of encouragement. The final act in this program was a footwashing ceremony. That may sound really weird to some of you but this is quite a common ceremony in christian circles as we try to model what Jesus did in John 13 when we read of how he washed the feet of his disciples. I have been invleved in many footwashing ceremonies throughout my ministry but I must confess that this was simply one of the most moving times I have ever experienced. As we moved from the explanation into the actual time of washing each others feet, I was approached by my new friend Derk who asked if he could wash my feet. I said yes and then put my feet in his basin. What followed was a very moving time for me because I literally had my feet washed. You see Christians are not good at modelling our Lord normally in the whoel foot washing thing. I guess it is because feet gross us all out a bit but normally the habit is to quickly dip your feet in the water and have the 'washer' cup some water in their hand and pour it over your feet before quickly moving your foot out of the basin and having it dried and putting your sock back on and moving on. It is all normally very swift and extremely painless. What struck me about Thursday night was how Derk took my foot in his hands and very carefully and intentionally washed my feet. This may sound strange to some of your reading this right now, but by his touch, I knew that this was not just another ceremonial act of duty from one youth worker to another. No, this was an act of love from one christian brother to another. This was all good but after Derk had done with my feet I was then to move on with the basin and wash the feet of the guys in my small group. Eli, Billy, Dustin and Chris all allowed me to wash their feet and pray with them personally and after the experience I had had with Derk washing my feet, there was no greater honour or privilege at that moment than to get on my knees and humbly wash the feet of these wonderful kids. I really don't know how I can put words to my experience that night except to say that I knew the presence of Christ and the greatness of his love for a few moments that night. I knew it as I had my own feet washed and I knew it as I washed the feet of my small group thereafter. This was a great end to a great week. All along, I had been challenging our teens to listen for the voice of God in everything they did. You see my big thing at the minute is to communicate to youth that God is not just some lifeless being that we have created a religion out of, rather, He is alive and constantly communicating with us. My challenge was that His voice is to be heard in our lives and I really think that on Thursday night as we washed each others feet we all heard the whisper of God.
Though the week was very cool in terms of ministry, it was also extremely difficult personally. As you know from my previous ramblings and all the pictures I have been sharing, I recently became a Dad and so leaving for a week was not as easy a task as it might have been before June 6th. The birth of Eva has really changed me. I have a completely new idea of what it means to be Margaret's husband and of course, each day I am learning more of what it means to be Dad. Both of these new definitions in my life made it an immensely difficult week to be away. normally Margaret has been able to come along on mission trips and has been an integral part of our team but this year she was not able to. You see the birth of this wee one has made my love for Margaret grow more and more than it ever did before, and last week I simply missed my wife. I could not wait to get home to see her. Becoming Dad since June 6th also made this trip hard. I have wrote often on this blog about how amazing it has been to watch my wee girl grow and how every new movement or expression is just so exciting. To take myself out of that for a week was heartbreaking. Perhaps the hardest thing though is this - I leave again on friday night with our High School Mission Trip to Tunica, MS. It has been on my mind since the middle of last week that this one will be even harder than the week just gone. I think the hardest thing was that we got through last week and have been reunited again and to be honest it sucks that I am only home for a week before jaunting off again. I love ministry and I love mission and I even love going away to get the chance to do both of these - but, this week it is just hard.
Tomorrow I turn 27. Wow! It seems like no time since I left school and now I am beginning the three your slide down to 30. I am officially in my late 20's now. It's not depressing - I really don't care what age I am to be honest - but it is weird. Do you remember when you were young you never thought you would be older? I think that is what I am feeling now. Don't get me wrong, 27 is not old at all - it is just one of those ages you never think of when you are younger.
Ah well!!
Anywho, it is late and I still have a couple of pics to add to this so I shall sign off for now.
Blessings
Sunday, July 03, 2005
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