Lots of changes

The last post was over two months ago. I'm sorry for not keeping up but has it been a crazy two months. As soon as I got home my leader asked if I would be willing to take the leadership of our recovery ministries. I prayed and knew that it was a definite leading of God. I have been in recovery for many years and love recovery and the people of recovery.
Over the past two months God has continued to teach me some amazing things about myself and I'd like to share one of them with you.
Several weeks ago a man in the counseling training that I co-lead came up to me and asked if he could share something that God had given him for me. Usually I'm kind of skeptical about that stuff yet I felt that God really was going to speak to me through him. So for the next 20 minutes he shared with me a picture of my heart. He described that my heart had a wound hole in it. The wound had healed as much as it could but couldn't heal anymore because there was a knife where the wound was. The knife blade was dull because of the healing God had done up to this point but for the healing to be completed the knife had to come out. He didn't know what the knife was, but I immediately knew - it was trust. Many years ago I experienced something that taught me to never trust anyone or anything. Including myself.
The big problem is, the knife has no handle so there is no way for me to pull it out. I try and all I do is cut my hands. So I need help.
Two weeks ago I asked God to take the blade out of my heart so the healing could be complete. Over the past two weeks there have been some good times of peace and experiencing the wholeness that comes from God, and times of doubt and fear. Yet I've stuck to my guns and God has been easing it out inch by inch.
Pray for me that I will stay the course - I love the moments when I know that my heart is being healed by God and that he is finishing the work he started many years ago in this area of my life.

Saying goodbye

I'm sitting at the Vienna airport waiting for the plane to show up. Yesterday I said goodbye to Urs and his family. They spent 10 days showing me the very best of Switzerland. It was intriguing to go from the big cities then to the Alps and the villages in the valleys and then back to the cities. My heart craves the simplicity and the quietness of the villages.
I really don't like to say goodbye. Goodbyes are very hard for me. I remember at Christmas holding my mom in my arms while we stood in the parking lot of the Cancer Center. It was then I knew I would never see her again. My life has been full of those moments. Then when you least expect it God takes one of those goodbyes and shows you that it was simply a "see you later." That's the way it has been with Urs.
Last year I watched the movie "The Bucket List" and immediately did my bucket list. On it I put several things, like skydiving, traveling Europe, doing a ballpark road trip around the USA with Ryan, finding God's right woman to spend my life with, going and ministering in the old Soviet Union and then one thing that surprised even me, I wanted to see Urs in Switzerland.
So not only do I get to check that one off, but I added three more to my list while I was with him. Like sledding from Praeda down to Bergun. I watched a video of it and I just have to do it. Spending more time in Bergun. A wonderful little village tucked away in the Alps. And deepening my friendship with Urs, his wife Silke, and their two daughters.
Which is what made saying goodbye so hard. Never have I felt so immediately a part of a family. From the moment I saw Urs and Elizabeth at the airport in Zurich I felt like I belonged. Throughout my time I mentioned this to Urs and he always responded that he felt the same when he lived with us 36 years ago.
So thanks Urs, Silke, Elizabeth, Eva and Mama for welcoming me and turning my goodbyes to you into see you laters. I know too, that as Max Lucado has said for believers every goodbye is really a see you later.
Check out the photo above. Urs and I standing next to a beautiful lake up in the Alps.

It´s been awhile

Sorry for not getting on and blogging for the past several days. I´ve been spending every moment hiking, visiting church buildings over 1,000 years old and catching up with my friend Urs and his wife Silke.
The beauty here in Switzerland at times has been overwhelming. I spent my obligatory time going to the tourist spots, but most of my time has been spent going to the little hideaways that only a local would know about. Like the hike on the first day in Davos, that took me up to 8,000 feet and overlooked the entire valley. Hundreds of miles layed out in front of us and I (believe it or not) was silent for much of the time. Hearing the bells of the swiss cows, watching the marmots play, and being amazed at how good God is to give us such beauty and the ability to enjoy it.
My life will be forever changed by this experience. Especially in a couple of ways.
First, is the love that has been expressed by Urs and Silke. Urs lived with my family for a year back in 1972-3. He was an exchange student from Germany my senior year of high school. It was a year of turmoil in my life and yet Urs has given me a new perspective while we have been together. The turmoil I felt, he never felt. For many years I have felt bad for Urs during that year because of my craziness. But he has many good memories, memories that were good for me to remember.
Second, is God´s desire for me to continue to learn to trust Him. I don´t do well traveling by myself. I like someone else around. So this has been a good education for me. Because part of trusting God is also learning to trust myself. Which I have had to do, as I´ve made decisions as to where to go, and which road to take. For many years I have thought that trusting God and trusting myself were two different issues. But now I have realized they are one. Not the same, but tied together.
Over the past two years I have learned to trust God in new and exciting ways. Yet in the past two years I found also that I´m now trusting myself as never before.
Thanks for all of your prayers. As this journey comes to an end, it has also been a launching pad for several new adventures in the future. Adventures I never would have considered if I hadn´t learned to trust.

The difference

Berlin is a beautiful city. Yesterday I walked the streets, met some people, and then had dinner downtown and in the cool of the evening walked through the Brandenburg Gate. The entire time something was nagging inside me. It was that feeling you get when you think you've left something on at home and you won't be back for a couple of days. The feeling you get when somethings lurking in the back of your mind and it's like a ghost - here and then not here.
Then it hit me, not last night, this morning. I was going through my pictures from Belarus - over 700 of them - when I noticed the difference. It was a profound moment for me and I'm sure it will take some time to sort through.
The difference - the faces of the people, just the regular people - in Belarus and then the people of Berlin.
In Belarus the people were talking about opportunities, the future, how much better things were, they had some hope, even their faces told the story.
Last night after I left Katie at the train station I stopped at a little cafe and struck up a conversation with a local. In my short conversation there was little talk about the future, except it's bleakness. No talk about hope, just praying for survival. The difference was profound.
Now I'm no sociologist - I'm not even much of a deep thinker - but I'm wondering about this one thing. Does having more - more stuff, more personal freedom, more of everything - lead us to less - less freedom, less peace, less joy, less life?
I don't have the answer - but I know if we can ask the right questions we can figure some of the stuff of life out.
I will forever be impacted by the vibrancy of the Belarussian people. Even though they had little, they have it all.

All or nothing

It seems that just yesterday I was getting ready to fly off to Belarus. So here I am in Berlin and Belarus is a folder full of memories.
I can say that I will forever be deeply affected by my time in Belarus and look forward to spending more time in Belarus. Too sum up the time there is difficult. Because that involves telling the stories of the people that I spent time with. Everything memory is jam packed with people and their stories. Even the stories of the team of people that I had the privilege of being with.
There are the kids from the 3 days of camp that I spent time with. All different ages, me not speaking their language, yet frisbee is played the same way in Belarus as it is in the USA. There was one young boy, probably 10 years old that I spent lots of time with. I'll call him J. The first day we threw the frisbee for hours. I showed him how to catch with one finger. He's a very good soccer player and plays for an elite team made up of kids from the villages around Pinsk. But for the three days I was with him we threw the frisbee and tried hard to communicate with each other. His dad is an alcoholic and his mom tries hard to raise the three kids, and work full time. J has never had a significant male in his life, so for three days I was an adult male for him to learn a little bit from, not just about Jesus, but also about being a man of God. I sang with him, learned with him, looked at his crafts with him, signed his Bible and shared a Bible story with him, just sat around with him, and of course played lots of frisbee with him. On the last day of camp as the kids were leaving we hugged and he didn't want to let go. I waved to him as he got in the bus to go home and with tears in his eyes he waved back.
Another young man, I'll call I is 15 and is an amazing young man. From a good family he's struggling to find his way. Why we hit it off I'll never know, but we did. He was the ring leader of four guys that sat in the back each day at camp. Separate the first day and involved all the way the last two. He tried to be cool, no different than the average US teenager, but gave up and just had fun. I saw him later on after the camp when I spoke at a youth club in Pinsk and he has committed to live his life for Jesus.
And the stories go on. The father of family I stayed with, the single guy that works at the heating plant, the pastor who plants village churches, the mom whose husband refuses to stop drinking, the church that meets in a flat illegally.
All stories about real people who are no different than me. Except they put their faith on the line everyday. They have chosen to go against the people around them and have to fight to be faithful everyday, especially with those closest to them.
I will never look at a frisbee the same way again. I will never talk about a Harley the same way again, I will never look around my condo the same way again, I will never talk to another man the same way again.
Everything I do is changed and why I do what I do has changed. No more pitiful attempts at living life. It's time for all or nothing. Because my friends in Belarus are all about all or nothing every day.
Jesus tells us throughout the Gospels and in Revelation that it's always about all or nothing. There's never a halfway in the Christian life. We either are or we aren't. We are either hot or cold. And the cold option isn't for me.
I thank God for my time in Belarus, yes it was beautiful and reminded me of the Pacific Northwest. I'm forever thankful for people and their willingness to share their lives with me. I've included some photos of people. My friends, old and young, who are now my family.

Pictures

Here is a picture of the camp in Kopron

I'm here!

Well here I am in Belarus. What a great country. We arrived Thursday afternoon and several people from the church in Pinsk and Sedovia were there to greet us. All of our luggage made it!
We went to the camp in Kopron. It is a camp for the children of the survivors of Chernobyl. There they have fun, get medical attention, and learn. One of our goals here was to see what ways we are able to partner with the camp. And we have found many ways and some very exciting ones. At the present time two of our team members are there and looking at all the potential ways we can be involved.
While I was at the camp I met the General secretary for the Belarus Baptist Union. He oversees the 300 churches in Belarus and many in Russia. They are a church planting group made up of many different evangelical church traditions. I'm meeting with him next Monday in Minsk to see how we can work with them to plant churches in Belarus and Russia.
I have preached several times and will preach several more times before I come home. Now that I've found this internet cafe in Pinsk I will be able to update you more often.
Keep praying for me. I'm deeply convicted of my attitudes of discontentment. These people live on little but have a lot.
God bless you all!