Busy Month

Starting from the middle of December and ending at the end of this month I will have gone from Jacksonville to Orlando to Jacksonville to New Orleans to Jacksonville to Miami to Jacksonville to Charlotte to Greenville to Atanta to Jacksonville to Tampa and finally back to Jacksonville.

In the midst of it all I have dealt with 3 break-ins, several family crisis situations, moving an office, end of the year business details, homework, trying to facilitate the beginning of a website, discipling girls, @ the beginning planning of our distict conference which is a little over a month away among a few other things... Oh yeah and in there somewhere was Christmas and New Years! :)

Hopefully this isn't indicative of the year ahead! :)

Learning From My Mistakes

I have learned that it is very important to have serial numbers for items which you may want to recover if they are ever stolen. Well God has blessed me incredibly with a new laptop and an external hardrive (this is the provision that helps with the backing data up lesson that I learned) and I will absolutely be keeping and filing my serial numbers!! :) I may be a slow learner but I do eventually learn! :)

Holding Loosely

Our ministry house has been broken into three times in the last two weeks. This makes a cumulative of eight break-ins total between that house and my own over the last two years. It also means tens of thousands of dollars worth of "things" that the Lord has chosen to take away just as He was the one who gave them. It makes me very aware of how much I come to depend on things...like laptops :) in my life. It helps me to appreciate the gifts when I receive them from the Lord. It teaches me that I need to back up my information. :) I have been praying that my heart would continue to be gentle and loving toward whoever it is that is in such a situation that they feel desperate enough to repeatedly break-in to our house.

BIG NEWS!!!

God had provided our team with an Executive Director! We have been praying for this moment for over 4 years now!! Andrae Robinson will start as of January 1st. However, he and his wife Lone (pronounced Luna) will not move out to J'ville until near the end of January. They are joining us from California! Andrae grew up in California while his wife grew up in Denmark. They met in an orphanage in Honduras. We are excited about the huge ways they will contribute to our team. Their giftings and personalities will mesh well with ours while filling much needed gaps!

Tacoma/Seattle

I just spent 3 1/2 glorious days in Washington State. I spent time with incredible friends, hiked in crisp, chilly weather, took in the brilliant fall colors, went to one of the largest REI's in the nation and toured two beautiful cities! What a wonderfully refreshing little retreat!!

What was that rainbow thing again?

I think God said that He set the rainbow in the sky as a covenant that He would never flood the earth again like He did in the days of Noah. By the end of 2 weeks of straight rain, I was starting to wonder if He had changed His mind. No, I wasn't in an ark floating, but the carpet in my sisters room was floating on top of the ankle deep water that filled her room.

300 gallons of water later...her floor is finally starting to dry. I would have taken pictures but I don't think she was in the mood. :)

Unfortunately, Sophia's flooded room was not the only thing ailing us at our house the last couple weeks. The roof was also leaking, our thermostat stopped working (not a good situation in an already hot and very wet environment) and we have an animal decomposing in the wall next to my room...yummy!!

The adventure continues....

One Tired Girl

So this year I took the plunge and decided to bring a student to school. Thomas is so gifted and talented - with the ability to do anything but he is not always very motivated...so I decided I would encourage him to be motivated by picking him up. This meant waking up at 6:45 a.m. and generally getting back to sleep by a little after 7a.m.

Well then Veronica -(I don't have any pictures of her) asked if I could pick her up as well. She lives near Thomas and is going to the same school. That seemed like a good idea because I really want to make in-roads into her family. This meant waking up at 6:40 a.m. and still getting back to sleep a little after 7 a.m.



Then I was talking to Amp (Thomas' brother) and found out that his bus stop is on the way to Thomas' school but it would be a 2-mile walk for Amp every morning to get there. The bus picks him up just a little earlier than the other two need to get to school so that means getting up at 6:30 a.m and getting back to sleep a little after 7:00 a.m.

Are you noticing the trend? The time is getting earlier and earlier...

Then...AJ has been having trouble at home and has been staying at Thomas' house. His school is 3 miles away. A bit of a walk to say the least. This didn't change my getting up time, however, it is 3 miles in the opposite direction...so now I'm getting home at 7:30.

Well then...AJ has been having trouble at home and has been staying at Thomas' house. His school is 3 miles away. A bit of a walk to say the least. This didn't change my getting up time, however, it is 3 miles in the opposite direction...so now I'm getting home at 7:30.

I think the word must have been spreading that Miss Ruth is a taxi driver because I got to Thomas' house one morning and 6 boys came piling out of the house...all going to different schools. Now not only does that mean I am up longer and longer...but 6 boys and one girl (Veronica) don't all fit very well in my little Corolla...so you guessed it...I had to make two trips. Not arriving home until almost 8 a.m.

This definitely does not happen every morning...but occasionally I am greeted with some kind of surprise like this when I get to Thomas' house at 6:40 in the morning. And let me tell you this tired girl often turns into one yucky, grouchy girl when I am met with all these unexpected surprises that are cutting into my sleep.

I could say that I am just tired and excuse my grouchi-ness away as a result of that...or the fact that I am caught unexpectedly off-guard or the fact that these kids are only thinking of themselves and will most likely not even be grateful (like most teenagers)...I'm sure I could explain it away on a lot of levels if I tried hard enough but really it just reveals my selfish, impatient, sinful nature which resides at the core of who I am. Under the right conditions I am an evil beast in my responses. This has not been pretty.

Anyway, I would love your prayers that God would deal with my sinful, impatient self in such a way that allows me to deal with grace, gentleness and perseverance with my kiddos.

On a side note...I know most people in the human world are up at 6:30 or earlier on a regular basis but unfortunately, I work late often not getting to sleep until at least midnight and if you know me well you know that I need a whopping 9 hours of sleep. I know that is sickening but I think God made me that way on purpose.

Face Book

I just recently joined the millions who are addicted (I mean connected) to facebook. If you have an account...find me! :)

What Will We Do Without Him?

Cecil Smart (one of our team members who has a bit farther of a commute) was able to spend five weeks with us in J'ville this summer. He recently headed back up to Sterling University in Kansas where he is pursuing a youth ministry and exercise science degree.

What does one have to do with the other you may ask? Coaching is a fabulous way to connect with kids....an excercise science degree is an excellent way to connect with coaching!

While here, he fit right into the team as though he has been here all along. He helped lead a mission trip to New Orleans, led our weekly youth nights, hung out with kids - including often letting them spend the night, got students immunized, physicals, registered for school, onto football teams...the list goes on.




But more than the things he does...who he is was a huge asset to us and our neighborhood. He has an uncanny ability to relate to students and speak truth into their lives. He is a great leader who takes initiative as he lives out the gospel while living among the students all day, every day.
We are so excited about the partnership we are developing with him and can't wait to see how God will continue to lead all of us in the next couple of years.

Involved in the mess

In his book, God in the Alley, Greg Paul describes the journey he has been on as he learns what it means to be and see Jesus in a broken world. Over and over again, he is challenged - and challenging us as Christians to get outside the safe confines of our own comfortability, our own walls that we've erected and to truly engage in the messiness of others lives.

He says, "This kind of active, fully engaged presence requires tremendous discipline....How do I practice this presence among people who are, much of the time, engaged in activites in which I can't - don't want to - participate? When I think of trying to be the presence o fo Christ in this fashion, it no longer seems benign and faintly condescending. Instead, it seems risky, uncomfortable, humbling. Giving money to some panhandler is something I know I can manage; it can even make me feel good about myself. But embracing him as a brother, literally putting my arms around his smelly, drunken, psychotic, and possibly bug-ridden person, grappling with the concept that he, too, is beloved of God, precious, and made in his image - well, this provides an unnerving peek into my own soul."

I read this book with great resonation. This is what Christ really calls me to. Not some glossed over, show me what I want to see kind of engagement but getting involved with peoples lives on a gut wrenching soul level. All these concepts look good on the pages of a book...but how do they look in the midst of real life? My real life...

This is what I have been faced with over and over again this summer. As I am involved with students lives whose anger and hurt goes so deep that they are just as likely to curse me out as they are to hug me. As I am faced with brokeness and tragedy in students lives that ranges from physical, sexual and emotional abuse. As I see the way that has shaped a mindset that causes those very same kids to not value their own bodies and lives.

There are a hundred pat answers I grew up learning in Sunday school and yet those answers seem to fall short when faced with the multi-layered web of pain, anger, demoralization and sin.

The questions have rung over and over in my head..."did I really mean it when I said that I really wanted to know you?" "did I really mean it when I said that I wanted the real you?" "did I really mean it when I said I wanted to be involved in your life - even with all of its disappointments and disgustingness?"

The answer - yes, I think I do, but Lord, I feel helpless and am desperate for you to walk with me each step of the way as I venture in - past the pretty stuff into the reality of peoples lives.