Mexico Experience 2008

Pictures and stories to come, but this year's experience again was unlike any other. God truly is good in the way that year after year, he can continue to challenge us and open our eyes and our hearts up to Him in new and exciting ways!

In many ways, the actual task of building our home dealt with the very themes we talked about as we prepared for the experience. One of the primary questions we asked from the beginning was: how do we faithfully walk with Jesus every day of our lives? Most of us are pretty good at crying out to him when life sucks. Less of us are good at remembering to praise him when life is great. But, how many of us truly walk intimately with him when things are just so-so? How many of us choose to spend time with him when we don't need something, but just because we want to be close to him? The reality is that this kind of intimacy takes discipline and intentionality.

Our houses reflected the so-so kind of spirituality we all feel most of the time. We didn't have impossible situations that required us to get down on our knees daily and cry out to the Lord for strength and wisdom. In fact, had we not prayed once, we likely could have finished the houses by our own physical strength and human wisdom. But we also didn't have the intense joy that has come in the past due as a result of the relationships developed with local children. We didn't even see children for the first 2 days. And so we were in a situation where we were building two homes for families we had hardly met and had zero relationship with, the work wasn't overly demanding, the weather was fine, stressful situations were limited, and yet God was calling us to lean on Him, depend on Him, and truly seek Him.

For those who did seek him during the week, the reward will be an increased awareness of God's presence in the ordinary, everydayness of their lives back at home. For those who didn't, they will likely find their faith to be the same ol' immature - pray when in need, thank him if something cool happens, but forget about Him during the rest of the time. We are all there at some point in our faith, but the goal is that we'd move past it and into a daily, intimate, faithful walk with Jesus.

Two thoughts I posed during the week that kept coming up and should continue to churn in our hearts and minds:
1. We always make time for the things that are important to us.
2. "Holiness is not doing all the right things, it is doing everything with God."

As I said in the opening, pictures and stories will follow. I just wanted to offer an initial observation from our trip. Continue to pray for our team as the Experience is not over yet. Groups will continue to debrief tonight, and this Saturday we will be trying to offer a summation of our trip to our family and friends.



Grace and peace,
Curtis

A Week to Go

I hope you all have been able to catch up and keep up the daily Proverbs readings. I will admit that while I was in Israel it got very tough some days to do my readings. There were one or two days that I had to double up, but it was amazing how powerful it was to read the Scriptures in the very place they were written.

Today, you all should have read Proverbs 25. What an awesome chapter!

Verse 2 says, "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search them out."

This has actually been one of my life verses, as I have come to discover time and time again how much God has hidden within his Word, so that we might have the opportunity to discover new and fresh things about Him every time we read. As I was in Israel I realized how much is "hidden" from us as American readers because we have never seen the terrain or don't understand the Jewish culture. My prayer is constantly that I would fall more and more in love with God's Word, and I find the more I pray that the more discoveries I make and the more the Scriptures become alive to me.

My other thought for the day: what if we took the God's Word seriously? What if we believed God when he said obeying his Word will bring us life? When I read verse 21 and 22 I thought, what a powerful command to live counter-culture. Our culture tells us we should get people back when they wrong us or turn our backs on those who hurt us. God tells us that if we love and serve our enemies we participate in building a Kingdom of love and peace. What if we actually tried to do this?

Grace and peace...

Time To Catch Up

Just from my small group today, I have a strong inclination that about half of our team is behind of the Proverbs reading right now.

My suggestion right now would be to get caught up, and not get behind again. Figure out what time each day you will do your reading and let your parents know so that they can help hold you accountable. If you are looking for a "pump me up - make me feel good" Mexico trip this year, then go ahead and do all your readings the last day, but your Mexico feelings are going to disappear just like every other year leaving you to question whether what you experienced even happened at all.

But, if you want the type of faith Jesus had...the type that he taught the disciples to have...the kind that doesn't disappear after a spiritual high...then learning to hear from God daily is so important. And the Numero Uno (check out my Spanish!) way that we hear from God is through his Word.

Maybe in the comment section those of you who are making the time to read every day can offer suggestions as to what is helping you. Others may post why it has been tough so that teammates may offer helpful advice.

I continue to pray for you...may God open your eyes, direct your heart, and order your steps so that you may follow him every day of your life.

Journey Through Proverbs Hits on the No-Nos!

When I was first wrestling with God over the spiritual content of this year's Mexico Experience, I didn't jump all over the idea of going through Proverbs the way I might jump all over a 3rd season of Jericho or the return of firecracker crunch ice cream to Baskin Robbins. One aspect of Proverbs that I wasn't really excited about addressing was all the sexual stuff. I didn't really want to argue with students about what it means to obey your parents and why it is so important. And finally, I didn't really want to say point blank to students, "Hey, you're a fool! It's time to wise up."

It's not that sexual stuff isn't important or that our relationship with our parents is somehow insignificant. But, I was just struggling to understand how and why those would be important subjects to address when we are "supposed" to be talking about serving people who don't have what we have, loving people like Christ loves us, and bringing justice to the social injustices of our world. Then my eyes began to be opened, and I began to see that there are just as many verses throughout Proverbs that talk about how we treat the poor, living justly, and serving others as there are about sexual immorality and listening to our parents. But then, the giant lightbulb that I have reserved for the most special of occasions (aka. bright ideas) went on and I realized that our sexuality has everything to do with the way we treat other people. The way we treat and respect our parents is going to determine how effective we are at loving people that are different than us. My relationship with my parents influences the way that I live out my sexuality. And ultimately, every single day I will make choices...healthy or unhealthy that will determine the course of my life. If I stopped and analyzed the majority of my decisions, I would get a clear picture of the health of my heart and the direction of my life.

That's when I realized Proverbs is about direction. Whereas I could read through Acts or the Gospels in an hour and be able to restate a general story line and some high points, I can't do that with Proverbs. There are no "high points." The book of Proverbs is one step after another, verse by verse, slow, but directional. There is not always rhyme or reason to the subject matter, because our lives are the same. Today I find myself strugging with laziness, while yesterday it was pride. If I deal with the pride and confess it, and offer it up to the Lord, then I can grow and be whole and live in reality. But if I don't, then I find myself the same person as I was yesterday, just as likely to deal with my laziness as I was yesterday to deal with my pride.

I hope as you continue to journey through Proverbs you realize that everything that comes up you are going to deal with in your life...In the Christian life all are fair game to talk about...we all struggle, let us be genuine brothers and sisters in Christ and confess with one another so that we might be healed as James tells us in the 2nd Testament...Today I find myself being challenged by yesterday's call to "wake up!" and to learn from the ants who are actually wise in the way they work. I leave on Wednesday for Israel, and there is a lot to do, and so rather than methodically (wisely) working through everything I need to, I have been avoiding details. "Working," but not working wisely. Pray for me...and I am praying for you that you will find your small group a safe place to confess to one another, pray for healing, and see God work miracles in your life.