Dead Cat Part Two

As you will all remember, a couple of months ago I had a memorable moment one night on my front porch when my neighbor and I thought we had discovered a dead cat in the ceiling of our front porch. It of course turned out to be merely the fur hood of a winter coat stuffed in the crawl space above, but nontheless it has had me on guard unknowingly ever since. (See Another Unexpected Experience)

We have a crazy number of alley cats living in the alley next to our home. They grow exponentially and seem to survive thanks to a little old lady who drives down the alley a few mornings every week and dumps cat food to feed them. The whole in the side of our home (where I found the tray of baked beans last month) has become the welcome door for these cats to live under our home apparently. For the last few weeks, we have been suffering through nights of cats fighting beneath us and making all kinds of other unappreciated noises. They particularly liked to congregate underneath the floor of my bedroom and "yowl" all through the night. In an attempt to reestablish peaceful slumber my dad and I bought a board to cover the whole. Our friends Eddie and Vinnie came over to partake in the scaring of the cats out of our basement only to discover what appeared to be a suspicious orange furry thing draped over an air duct in our basement. Many of the air ducts had been pulled out and ripped up from the cats living under there and so I just assumed it was insulation from within the duct, but the more closely we looked the more we were unsure. Before my family left town, I finally caved and had my dad look in the basement to make sure once again that there were no dead cats anywhere in our home.

You may have guessed it already, but this time it was indeed a dead cat! Not only was the cat dead, but it was mummified, which means it has probably been dead under our house for at least the duration of our stay. I couldn't believe it! By the end of it all though we successfully removed the dead cat (okay so that was my dad), sealed up all entrances to the basement, and by last night enjoyed our first night of peaceful slumber in quite some time.

Change the world

I have been doing a lot of reading recently. One of the reasons is because Katie has been able to purchase a bunch of books on poverty and social justice.
My most recent book read from cover to cover is the book "everybody wants to change the world. practical ideas for social justice" by Tony Campolo and Gordon Aeschliman.
The books format is one that i love. very much linear and organized. Each chapter is a different area of life in which they explain the need for social justice, and then offer tangible ideas for individuals and groups to try and do.
The chapter that most got my attention was section 3. it talks about the environment. The reason i this chapter got my attention is because of the way they explain WHY! we need to care for our environment.
I will try and keep it short on my quoting from books.

" All of Creation is the personal handiwork of the same God who was viciously strung up on a piece of wood.
Yet it is curious how many Christians do not seem to care about being good stewards of God's creation... People who love Jesus should no more destroy the environment that rip to shreds the carefully painted canvas of a best friend. it is nothing but pure blasphemy to disrespect the creative work of God.
When we care for the environment, we show our deep respect for the Creator in much the same way we would admire the work of a great artist in a museum.... When we care about God's handiwork, we demonstrate our love for God. and that speaks volumes to the world.
There is nothing suspicious about loving the environment, but there is something awfully suspicious and wrong about trampling it. Doesn't it make sense that those who personally love the Creator would be the ones to take a personal interest in His handiwork?"

in the book they go on to give some ideas of how to live greener and how to create more beauty from God's creation. Environmental issues are always issues that are talked about. But for some reason it hit home with me when love for creation was equaled with love for God. Maybe because i am realizing that my love for God needs to be expressed in more ways than just singing in church on Sunday morning. Because my love for God is so overwhelming in me at this time, that my mediocre acts of worship that i have done in the past are no longer enough to satisfy this feeling inside me.
In the old testament, King David got so "into" worship that he danced in his skinnies in front of the people of Israel. This is how i feel, and while i am not brave enough to dance in my undies in front of others, i want more of my life to reflect the love that i have for my God and my Saviour.
So me taking an active interest in the environment can be considered my dance and worship to the Lord.

Being Aware

This conflict in the Congo has been going on since 1998, but only recently has really started to get media attention. Instead of tiny blurbs on pg. 11 it finally is making front page news. It scares me though to think that all of the rallying around an issue can attract such attention like say Sudan two years ago and yet you hear little mention of Sudan today and not because it is at peace. I am so tired of world issues becoming the latest hot topic for discussion and then dying out after six months with no actual fruit. I mean I can't tell you the last time I actually really did something tangibly helpful for Sudan or the Congo, but why not start now? Is raising awareness really enough? Is that really causing any kind of change in our government's policies with the nation or the way that their government is approaching the conflict? I want change and they desperately need it. Here is a video website for an introduction to the history of the Congo conflict. Take a look, react, see what difference could be made.

You say you want a revolution?

Everyone who reads the Irresistible Revolution tells me it changed their life. After a while I got tired of hearing that response. I mean I'm glad it apparently changed their life, but it's kind of like when people come back from a trip out of the country or a missions trip and you as them how it was and all you get back is "it was amazing" or "it was life-changing". I have no doubt that they fully believe that this book has changed their life, but why this book and why not the many chapters of the Bible that I know they also are reading simultaneously. So I just started asking the dreaded question no one wants to answer. "Why?" Why has this seemingly simple book about some guy in Philadelphia changed so many people's lives and the next question is always "How?". About half the time the people stare blankly back at me, not having expected to have to explain why this book had such an impact on them. It gets them thinking though, almost all of them have come back later and said, "so when you asked me "Why and how?" the other day I was shocked, but now that I have thought about it here is how." I have loved the responses I have gotten back. They range anywhere from a simple change of financial responsibility to people like Eddie and Emilie deciding to up and move down here to God's Resort with us. I have decided that the reason this book has had such an impact on our group is found in 2 reasons:

1. It is the life story of one Christian guy selling out to Jesus instead of the world and actually living radically in our world. There are not a lot of wholesome people out there who when being radical are safe to follow, but this guy is one example of how you really can living radically different from the world in a way that shuns everything that Jesus would hate, but embraces all of his teachings as well.

2. It gives us the excuse to do it. Most of us are at a point in life where the world is calling and we have the choice to start down an upward mobility path or a downward mobility path and this guy gives us the excuse to go a way radically different from the world that most of us were just waiting to find an excuse for. It's hard to be just starting out with little financial stability or clout in the world and say "I am going to reject the norm and go for something that may leave me with no money and no worldly success because it really is where I want to be more than anywhere else.”

I am so excited to keep talking to people about this book, merely because it has caused so many people to think about what it means to follow Jesus in a world so drastically different then that of the disciples in Acts.

On a different note, I just finished reading the book Kingdom Works by Bart Campolo. It is basically a collection of thirty stories from Mission Year, the program I am applying to for next year. I had a lot of fun reading it because honestly a lot of the stories about teams in the field sound like the stories Megan and I tell in this blog. It is always comforting for us to read similar accounts and know we at least are experiencing the same setbacks and challenges, and every once in a while successes, as other inner city neighbors. I love Bart Campolo’s outlook on Christianity and his passion for telling it like it is. It sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but hey so did Jesus.

A few photos from the weekend.

This Christmas i received a very generous gift from my parents: a digital camera. in the past i always borrowed theirs. ever since then i have been taking pictures every chance i get. So have Brenda and Eternity, both of whom can never seem to take enough pictures of the ceiling, and also of people when when they are not looking.

This weekend was a pretty typical weekend for Katie and myself. Cleaning on Saturday, hanging out with friends and the community from God's resort and Church.

Saturday
Cleaning in the morning.

A pile of extra "stuff" that we dont need or use. We are hoping to have a fun-raiser garage sale to denefit God's Resort. There are many of us out there with too much "stuff" that fills corners of our homes, and some times entire rooms. Im exited because other college students are thinking of donating their "stuff" as well. It amazes me how fast i have acumulated junk. Katie and i just moved to God's Resort in August, and since then we have managed to fill up our extra little room (the office) with extra stuff that we dont use or dont have anyother place to put it.

So we managed to empty the office, in preparation for our new roommate (Abby Lang). She will be joining us sometime in February. With the office empty, Katie helped me move my bed (it only took two tries to get it in the room) and dresser into the office, and Abby will be taking my room. I have slept in my new room two nights and i really like it, its quiet and cozy. I will post pictures of the room with my bed in it some time, i need to clean and make it presentable first.

Katie's big project for the weekend was some much needed maintance. First she put a lock on the basement door. Because there is a whole in the foundation under Abby's rooms (which alley cats like to get into the basement thru) we sometimes get nervouse that a person would manage to get in some day. So now the door is locked.
She also managed to get this fire extinguesher up. A much needed commodity in our home, as both of us tend to do some crazy cooking. I have set of the fire alarm once, because i was frying some ham and my sister Erica called, i lost track of time, and the ham started to burn and smoked up a lot. The great thing is that the whole time Katie had been standing right next to the pan, and i dont know what she was thinking about, but she didnt notice. After that happened, we decided to go to Wendy's for lunch. When we got back home i noticed a smell, i first assumed that it was still the burnt ham, but the stove top felt warm. I opened the over door. And there it was, a very tosted piece of bread that Katie had been warming before we left for Wendy's, and with all the commontion, she forgot about it. opps.

Just as we finished cleaning. Karen, Brenda, Sergio, Ashley and Chase came over for a little bit. Katie pulled out a safari game that Anna gave to us a while back. The kids love it. especially Chase and Brenda.

Sunday

Sunday morning Katie took Karen and Brenda to church. Here they are mooching food from the college age ministry fair. as an added note, they are sitting in front of the new sactuary at College Heights.

At church we ran into Sergio and Antonio. I dont know how they got to church, but they did. They were also mooching food from the college age. Sergio helped me hand out some of the college age updates.

On my way out of the church parking lot i found out how the boys got to church. This family came by God's Resort to pick them up. Brenda and I managed to catch of picture of them as they prepared to go home. I love it when people get involved, when they get to know the people from God's Resort, especially these boys, any investment into their lives is especially vital at this time.

After church katie and i went to lunch. fun times with friends. Jeanine and Katie sometimes get a little silly during dessert

At the home group at God's Resort we celebrated Savannah's birthday. Savannah and her family are some of the newest additions to the God's Resort Community. She turned 5.

She got a crown and staff for her birthday. She really is a little princess

The orange thing she is holding is a crayon holder i made for her. I have tried to "hand make" something for each kid for their birthdays and for Christmas. I think its more special.

Ashley and Dominique eating dinner at the home group. Each week a group of people cook delicious food for everyone that come to the home group.

Even little picky Brenda likes the homemade food the is shared during dinner.

Josh eating at the kids table.

Also Timmy came by and visited for a while. Since monday the guys didnt have school they were allowed to go to Kate and Timmy's to play a game of Settlers of Catan. We played six people: Josh, Timmy, Sergio, Antonio, Jeanine and myself. To our amazement young Sergio won. I must also say that i think hes addicted, but then, we are all kind of addicted to Settlers.

Irresistible Revolution

Yes! I admit it. I, like everyone else have been reading the book "irrresistible revolution". It has been going around a lot recently. This book is a mix between the author sharing stories of his life, that make living as a crazy Christian seem a lot more radical but also do-able. So here goes a quote from Chapter five "Another way of doing life"

"if you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you, 'Chrsitians believe that Jesus is God's son and that Jesus rose from the dead.' But if you ask the average person how CHristians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody elsel; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. And doctrine is not very attractive, even if its true. Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death.

As my teacher Tony Campolo used to ask 'Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now' I am more and more convicned each day that i would. dont get me wrong. im exited about the afterlife. we are going to party like there's no tomorrow (umm, and there won't be). and yet i am convinced that Jesus came not just to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live. Otherwise, much of Jesus' wisdom would prove quiete unnecessary for the afterlife. After all, how hard could it be to love our enemies in heaven? and the kingdom that Jesus speaks so much about is not just something we hope for after we die but is something we are in incarnate now. Jesus says the kingdom is 'within us' 'among us' 'at hand' and we are to pray that it comes 'on earth as it is in heaven'. no wonder the early Christian church was know as the way. it was a way of life that stood in glaring contrast to the world. what gave the early Christians integrity was the fact that they could denounce the empire and in the same breath say 'and we have another way of living. if you are tired of what the empire has to offer, we invite you into the way' even the pagan emperor Julian confessed 'the godless Galileans feed our poor in addition to their own'. the way has little cells multiplying all over that ole empire. of course, everyone was forewarned that in this kingdom everthing is backward and upside-down - the last are first and the first are last. the poor are blessed and the mighty are cast from their thrones. and yet people were attracted to it. they were ready for something different from what the empire had to offer.

coming out of college, my friends and i were pretty unwilling to 'conform to the pattern of this world' as the Scriptures say (rom 12:2) we knew all to well that there is a broad way that leads to death and that most peopple would take it, but we also knew that there is a narrow way that leads to life, and we wanted to find it (mayy 7: 13-14)....

... an expreriment in truth

my friends and i had a hunch that there ismore to life than what we had been told to pursue. we knew that the world cannot affor the American dream and that the good news is that there is another dream. we looked to the early church and to the Scriptured and to the poor to find it.

When Dorothy Day recalls the beginning of the Catholic Worker movement, she says very unassumingly 'we were just there talking and it happened....'





My most favorite part of this chapter is on page 120.

"one, there was a small group of kids who decided to go to a park in the middle of the city, and dance and play, laugh and twirl. as they played in the park, they thought that maybe another child would pass by and see them. maybe that child woudl think it looked fun and even decide to join them. then maybe another one would. then maybe a businessman would hear them from his skyscraper. maybe he would look out the window. maybe he would see them playing and lay down his papers and come down. then maybe another businessman woud walk by, a nistalgic man, and he would take off his tie and toss aside his briefcase and dance and play. maybe the while city would join the dance. maybe even the world. maybe...regardless, they decided to enjoy the dance.

We went to the ghetto. We narowed our vision to this: Love God, Love people and follow Jesus (which is similar to Mission Years vision: Love God, Love People, nothing else matters)
We had no idea what we were getting into. We had no big vision for programs or community development. We wanted only to be passionate lovers of God and people and to take the gospel way of life seriously. Some of us dropped out of school; some finished. Some of us were pursuing careers; others left them.
Since those early days we've made plenty of mistakes and have never learned the secret to not hurting each other. we have begun asking new questions and have challenged each other to risk more. Some of the faces have changed, some of us are still here. Now some of us are married and some have chosen singleness, and some have kids. We recognize each of these choices as a gift. we have created some healthy structures and rhythms of our communal life...

The next sections is entitled "Shouting the Gospel with our lives" I encourage all of you to read this book and get an image of what the Christian life could be like. Get encouraged by hearing about someone who has been able to do amazing things for Christ and hes just a normal guy.

Im still not done with the book. By no means is this book perfect. There are certain things I dont like. I was talking to Katie and i told her that i felt like it was a mix between an autobiography, and an evangelism/christian living book. and thats ok. And now as i look on the back, it actually is categorized as Christian Living/ Spiritual Growth/ General by Zondervan the publisher.

My next books on my list to read are
Everybody wants to Change the world (practical ideas for Social Justice by Tony Campolo and Gordon Aeschliman. Ive already read some parts of it, and he got me real exited about the environment.
and The treasure principle by Randy Alcorn. I got it at Roy Weece's funeral. I never got the privaledge to meet him. But i went to his funeral with the college age staff. This testimony makes me think a lot about my finances and the amazing things God can do when we let go of the purse strings.

Perseverance

Some weeks are easier than others, but this one particularly hit hard. Starting last wednesday it has just felt like the bottom dropped out of life and I am falling out of control. I feel like I am desperately clinging to Christ to hold me up, but there is just an overwhelming oppression right now. At the same time though there are amazing moments of pure joy that I know can only come from Christ. My friends John and Becca were married this past Saturday in a beautiful wedding. I spent all of Sunday with the kids at home and that was joyous even in the middle of chaos. I have been around community more than usual soaking in the love of friends.

Our neighborhood needs your prayer, anyone out there reading this. There is actually nightly prayer going on all of January at 7 pm. People are moving, others are coming back, one family is in the middle of a terrible crisis, and others are just trying to make it one day after another. We need the prayer. I see Christ in my neighbors though. Staring back at me out of the tired and weeping eyes, is a Savior who dwells in the inhabitants of our neighborhood and He will make His presence known. Is it possible to feel joyous sorrow? It seems like such a contradiction but we as Christians are called to rejoice in our persecution and I think this may be the first time I truly have felt that. Even though my heart hurts so badly for what is going on right now, I have confidence in my Redeemer and know His love.

Learning to be adults

"Katie and I aren't exactly the oldest of people. We are both 22, Katie just graduated from college this last May. I am still attending Missouri Southern. There are certain "grown up" things that we have had to learn these last few months. Things like renters insurance (or the lack off), and trying to get accepted for some.
We don't always know what to do, and in those times that we get advice we are really very grateful. Sometimes other peoples advice doesn't really work, or even sound like its going to work. Living there, in the middle of the mess, makes you look at the circumstance completely differently. If we got to go home, across town, at the end of the day, we wouldn't always do things the way we do now."

I started this post on Wednesday night after i got off of work. I never got to finish the post. Katie called me, and i ended up at the ER with a kid from God's Resort till almost 5am. Lack of sleep made me completely forget what i was writing about. But i didn't feel like i could just erase it all.

I had a wake up call this morning as I drove to work this morning. I am confident today is the coldest day yet in what is shaping up to be a very cold winter in Joplin. It is currently 11 degrees outside with a windchill of zero. Our heat went out I am guessing New Year's eve because that was when we noticed it wasn't quite as warm as we were accustomed to in our house. We weren't home much yesterday until late evening when we realized it was really getting quite cold in our home. We checked the thermostat and it was falling below 65. We went to bed with it nearing 60 and when I woke up this morning it was below that mark. When I think of 57 degree weather I really dont think of it as being that cold but when you put that in a very drafty old house with 11 degree weather outside it is suddenly very very cold. I got ready and as I was heading to work I remembered a couple I met at the emergency shelter last January during last year's snow storm. They had come in to stay the night after sleeping in a field the night before. Temperatures had to have been in the teens that night and they were freezing and wet. Suddenly having a home, no matter, how cold it was became a lot rosier picture. I know that God is with those who are stuck out in this cold, but I pray that the area shelters have abundance to take these people in as the weather continues to stay so cold. I pray that these people would be on the minds of everyone in Joplin, Christian or not, and that the homeless would be clothed, fed, and sheltered.
This has been a particularly hard week for me and humanity. Maybe it was because over the break I had more access to CNN and the local news than usual, but continually report after report jsut cried out how mcuh the world needs our love. Not a distant love, but a love that penetrates homes. A love that pulls us into people's lives because we have no other desire but to be there with the weeping, with the hungry, with the joyful. I think sometimes it is hard to just be there for people in need, whatever that need may be. Often I don't feel like I know how to fix (because I don't) and therefore if I have nothing to offer them to ease their burden I should just pray someone who can ease it will come along. How foolish my heart can be! In the greatest empathy for someone's pain and in fear of not fixing it, I turn away? I don't think it is hard to imagine that even had Jesus not had the power to heal, He would have been there. It is precisely in those moments when we give up and just resolve to be with that person that we allow Christ to move in the situation and His glory really be known.
As the New Year starts, I wanted to make a resolution. I have never been one for resolutions, but as Megan also described in her post earlier, I have reached one of those breaking points where I either choose to follow the cross or I depart down a road that only leads me further from Him. I went through highschool and half of college very disenchanted with the church and have since been very cautious of becoming that way again, but sometimes there is a very real and godly reason. When you get so enchanted by the church that you forget to be enchanted by the Church and its Father, there is a very real reason to become disenchanted. The standard set by Christ far supercedes any standard held by a church and I have set my standards to the church's standards rather than Christ. Therefore my resolve is to spend this year consciously racing towards His standards. Learning as best I can to live of this world but not in it. I want to be radically different and not in a cheap, commercially radical sense, but in a way that shows a genuine concern for Christ's concerns above the worlds. I know this is not a one year process but if I could have even on foot out of the world by the end of the year it would be one foot closer to Christ than where I am now and that is entirely worth the struggle. Please pray for me that I will find accountability and discipleship in this, but more importantly that I would dive into the word to discover what this means for myself from His words and His life. Happy New Year!