Its the Little Things that Count

Right now I'm sitting in the San Diego Airport about an hour from boarding to head back to New Jersey. It was a good week. Yesterday we finished the house and gave the keys over to an obviously grateful husband and wife. I think what made it so special was the fact that we were doing this for people who weren't even a part of the local church. They were simply a family in need in the community that needed to be cared for. There was no agenda of doing anything more than providing them with an earthly need that we definitely were able to supply. I like something one person said during our final debrief last night. We so often look at the very big picture and see the issues that are affecting the whole community, nation, or globe and often forget that it is all about reaching with real relationships one person at a time and being intentional about the little things that actually count. For the family that we helped we did so much, we built a house and through that house Jesus Christ reached to the depths of their hearts and, I believe, planted seeds in their lives.

With this trip out of the way, now what? How will this change my life? It really is true that short term missions trips can be of benefit to those helped but really it is those that go that benefit the most. So what was it that God truly laid on my life this week? To be honest, I don't know yet. I think he will unravel some of that in the days and weeks to come, but for now, I think I am still just chewing on what has actually happened and how God spoke as a result. Perhaps I will think and write on these things during the flight and hopefully start to have an answer to that. Famous last words I know, I'm still not sure I have totally done that from my trip to Israel. I will see what I can do though.

In His Perfect Peace,

-AM

God just does incredible stuff...wow!

Its 10:26 PM and after stuffing down tons of Tacos for dinner, finding a random Dairy Queen (and drinking a milkshake) and finally getting back to take a shower, play some guitar and check a few emails...I'm quite pooped.

Having made that clear, I did just want to share an amazing story of the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ. Stephen, our Morristown Satellite Campus Pastor, who is on the trip with us as well had a filling done before we came down to Ensenada. While we were down here he began to have problems with it Tuesday and they worsened into Wednesday. His cheek literally swelled to make him look like a chipmunk. As funny as it was however, he was in a lot of pain and wasn't able to even work on the job site yesterday. He made it a point to go to a Mexican dentist today but after breakfast we all gathered around to pray for him and for his healing. The theme of prayer was truly something brought forth by the Holy Spirit. It was Jesus' Blood that was pleaded for. I was just totally pumped as we all called for the healing blood of Jesus to work in Stephen's mouth and shrink back the swelling. We all clearly felt like God was working.

We all left for the job site and re-gathered at lunch to learn that Stephen had gone to the dentist and was going to have the swelling drained. But when the dentist went in to take a look at it he said there was nothing he could do because the swelling had already started to go down and he could just deaden some of the pain that was left but that Stephen would be more than fine very soon. When we saw Stephen at lunch his swelling even looked to be far less. It was an incredible testimony to the power of God that truly is alive and working in our lives.

It is something that is changing my mindset more and more in life. As Christians we are not called to live these normal lives at home and special "super charged spiritual ones" when we are away on missions trips. Quite the contrary, this seemingly overly spiritual life is what we are called to live like all of the time. To pray for our brothers and sisters in need, to heal the sick, to feed the poor and reach out to those in need. It's part of a missional lifestyle. Again to be "missional" is to be living with the mindset of a missionary in a local context. To be reaching out to your own neighborhood. It doesn't matter whether that neighborhood is in the slums of Ensenada, Mexico or the suburbs of New Jersey. Christians aren't called to anything less than radical living and missionary work in every place they ever go.

Granted it's hard and I'm not anywhere near being good at doing this. But I think this is the direction that we are called to be striving towards. After we've experienced the deep deep love of our Father in Heaven, how can we do anything less than love how we have first been loved?

Go for it,

-AM

milkshake memoirs

So I'm just going to ramble for a bit...

I never thought I would enjoy a trip to Wal-Mart as much as I did last night. We got Oreo Frappes at a coffee stand in the store and did some observing of the people we saw at this rather American looking shopping center. I honestly was a little confused by the whole scene. Earlier that day we had been working on a small three room house for a family that will probably never have anything nicer than what they were going to be moving into. It was in an incredibly poor community with dusty roads and maybe one street light every mile or so. It probably was a kind of culture shock to go to the well kept shopping center a few miles away that featured a cinema, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and an Applebee's. I was really disturbed by the whole thing to be honest.

I had to ask myself while watching the kinds of people that were going into the stores, "where do these people live?" We have been around the lowest class of Mexican people and then soon after in what would be upper-middle class Mexican society. I think something odd even more about the whole thing is looking at Wal-Marts in the states, they are frequented by the lower classes of American culture. But looking at the well dressed people of Ensenada going into Wal-Mart, they look like the upper middle class here. This is what they can afford I suppose. This is what is riches for them...seriously? My heart was lost, confused and burdened by the fact that this level of poverty existed very close to these people who do nothing for their own neighbors. Maybe I'm judging the situation too quickly, it's possible for sure, but I'm still "wowed" by everything here I guess.

Well those are thoughts for the day, hopefully it is somewhat understandable.

-AM

Where is the mission field...I mean really?

So it was an interesting morning here in Ensenada. I felt a little disoriented in the morning really not sure what to expect as far as how things would go during the day which is unlike me to be worried about how things are going to go. I think it was great to start the day with time before God. I needed it badly. To quiet my life and let my Father bring peace and assurance into my life.

I started writing the above but since then I stopped to go into our evening de-briefing session. Rick, the short term missions director here in Ensenada told us that the house our team is building is of a family in the community that a local pastor is trying to reach out to. They aren't members of the local church which I found wild. This is totally an effort to reach out to a local families needs and hopefully evangelize to them. I'm totally excited to see how this week progresses with them and us as a team hopefully being Jesus to them and giving to them what we can.

It really comes back to something I've been talking about in the past few blogs. It's about having a missional mindset, it doesn't matter whether its here in Ensenada or in Morristown, NJ. Being Jesus to the local community is what it is all about. I think it's something that becomes over looked all too often. To be a missionary, to serve in a "Mission Field" doesn't mean you pack up and leave your surroundings and move to a foreign land. Quiet the contrary. The more I've been living in Morristown the more I'm seeing it as just another place that needs missionaries to go out into and bring the light of Jesus into the darkness. Just as we are doing it for a short time here, I'm doing it every day in different ways in New Jersey.

It requires a paradigm shift. Its a new way of thinking. We don't just live wherever we live, we are place there strategically by our Father to spread the light!

-AM

Blogging, Packing, Traveling to Mexico...not necessarily in that order

So here we go again! Off to Ensenada, Baja, Mexico for a week building houses for local church families! It's been a few months since I've posted and it has been a busy time, but I'm really looking forward to traveling again and getting my hands dirty! However, it's 9:10 am as I write this, I need to pack because we leave at 11:15 for the airport! (I don't procrastinate at all!) We are flying out of Newark Int'l to San Diego and will be picked up from the airport to drive down to Ensenada. Most of the team left early yesterday morning but because of our Saturday church service my pastor, his wife and I will be headed out to meet them shortly.

Be looking for daily updates here and on Facebook to include photos (hopefully) of what we are doing and the progress we are making on the houses and in building relationships with the people. Be praying for the Holy Spirit to bring us to where He is already working in the hearts of the people of Ensenada and that we will be protected during the week.

See you in Mexico!

-AM

The end and the beginning

My apologies for not blogging in a while, (for anyone who actually reads this) I have been busy with some wild stuff this semester and have finally had some time after the lunacy to sit down and get some thoughts down as the year has come to a close. Yes you heard right, my Junior year of college ended Thursday night as I took my last final. It's incredible to think, really, how fast the time has gone. Think about this for a second...I graduate from college in 1 year?! It has been incredible.

So what's been happening....

First, I have completed my move down to New Jersey for the summer where I will be living, leading worship at my church, and hopefully working. But it's more than that really. I've been praying about finding a job that connects me with the people here in Morristown. I've written a little before about being "missional" in how ministry is done. And I know it's a buzz word in the emerging church movement but I want to dwell on it and maybe define how I see it a little more and what that means for me this summer.

I think this blog has become about being missional. About living the life God has given to us to the fullest no matter what context one might find themselves in. By that I mean, living the life of freedom and truth that we have received through Jesus Christ and by living that life others around us want to know what makes us "tick" so-to-speak. So with that definition of being missional, I'm looking forward to that being the epitome of my summer. As I have asked God to put me in situations where I can be a light He has very seriously answered me and provided a means of working in some ways this summer. My most immediate opportunity is playing for a coffeehouse on a secular campus next week where I can sing some of my own songs that have been birthed out of this journey with Jesus. I'm praying for God's anointing on the music so that people would hear it and want to know what exactly it is they see coming from me and as a result I'm hoping people will begin to ask questions, and perhaps begin to feel their hearts being stirred by there Father and Lover who is calling them back to Himself.

I suppose this is the tune of my summer, and something that this year at school has prepared me for. While it is the end of an incredibly life changing year, it is the birth and beginning of something fresh, exciting and full of God's faithfulness and love.

The Next Step in a Journey...

I started realizing the inconstancies sometimes of blogging about my travels when, for right now, they aren't happening all of the time. However, here are some things that have been rolling over in my head and are looking to possibly happen for the future...

Ensenada, Mexico 2009! I'm headed down to Ensenada with my church for a week long missions trip to build houses and help be Jesus to the people of that city. It will be really exciting to see my friend Greg who has been following God's call down in Louisiana, but will be joining us in Mexico for the week trip. I've been to Mexico one other time in the past but I feel this is a time when I have started to understand my calling better. To a point where I know a little better about what it means to be missional with people and be Jesus to them.

Missional may sound kind of complex, but it's really just a buzz word that a lot of emerging churches are using to describe how we do ministry and church in the world. It is an approach the means more than just going up to someone and telling them they need Jesus. It's about showing a genuine interest in a persons well being. It's about building relationships with people and helping them with not just spiritual needs, but emotional and physical ones as well. It's about loving people period no matter where they are.

So when I say I'm going to be missional with the people of Ensenada, Mexico that's basically what I mean. It's a new place for me personally to be at. I'm not just going on a missions trip for the sake of going on a missions trip. I'm going because as Jesus said: "Since the days of John the Baptist, the Kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing." I have been called by God to go and preach the Kingdom of God to the world. To bring hope to all people that Jesus saves. So I'm excited to go!

I'm in Ohio right now on spring break visiting friends. I will definitely have some time this week to write some more about being missional and all that jazz. Looking forward to it.

-AM