overwhelmed

So, the past few weeks I have been seriously overwhelmed. I started working and homework and projects so I'm kinda loosing it. Sometimes recently I have been very worried about my progress in class and with everything and its definitely getting to me. Ask some of my friends, and even though i feel like I'm failing i know that its going to be ok and life will go on. I keep thinking of a lyric to one of my favorite worship songs by Jesus Culture. "You make all things work together for my good." It sounds very selfish, but its not supposed to be. To us christians, we know that god does eerything for our best intrest, but we dont always think that way. I have had to step back and let that lyric soak in and understand its truth these past few weeks to stay collected. http://youtu.be/IoezWBPGRAc

2 week report.

 So my bad, the past two weeks have been a little busy so im way late. The blur through these two weeks has been crazy. All i really remember was working my butt off on my paper. Im really proud of the paper i wrote and i put alot of time into it. And it was great to get some feed back from Chris about it and that really boosted my self esteem and i feel confident in the classes. We have started a new Monday tradition also, Taco Truck Monday. Its gotta be one of our best ideas yet. after working for CQ Missional during the morning we go find a taco stand and devour some tasty tacos and drinking Mexican pop, its good stuff. And its also fun seeing who will go with us. Now the past week was pretty nuts. I have gotten little sleep and im kinda grumpy. And going to Norman for the weekend after having a lock in at believers with the intermediate high kids. The lock-in was awesome. I got to build some great relationships with the students and kick butt Sumo Wrestling. We had an awesome time and i got to know a handful of kids. I also survived the earthquakes of 2011. Be honest with you, i didn't feel the first one. the second one was pretty great though. I also got to spend the day with my awesome girlfriend Ashlee. It was her birthday so i took her on a date and met some of her friends. i have really had a great weekend. This is really all i have right now. perhaps more tomorrow in my free time between class. catch you tomorrow.

on time!

Hi guys, lets bring you up to speed a bit. This week was pretty good, the goodness really started Wednesday at church. We had some awesome worship and mixing the sound was fantastic! Its really fun having freedom in the sound booth to make it great. Thursday was really good also meeting with Dan and we have started going through revelation. Its very interesting stuff talking about the seven churches in Asia. chapter 1 is John sending letters to these churches from a small island off present day Turkey. He says that these seven churches are like lampstands, and these lampstands should spread their light into the darkness. Its some great stuff and I'm very excited to continue.

Friday was a trip to Muskogee to hang out with some friends i have not seen in awhile. We had a great time and im bummed that they all went back to school. Saturday was good until OU choked at home and lost by a Field goal. 

Today was pretty good, church was great. We talked about 1 Timothy 2:1-15. Some great stuff to talk about with 7th graders! Ha sometimes i wonder if Josh is crazy. but there was some good discussionand everyone participated.

looking forward to this week. see you next time

frontier city

so the past week has been busy, i have been training at a new job, working on paper and helping at church. one guy i met at believers has an awesome story. Bryt is a 20ish year old volunteer at believers in their youth ministry and to be honest he is kinda scary. he is covered in tattoos and piercings. and he is the kinda guy that alot of conservative Christians would avoid. Bryt has told me about his bad experience with church in the past and it amazes me that he is so active still. the guy has been seriously burned by the church. but he still loves god and all the students he works with.
 another big part of the week was yesterday. the junior high group went to frontier city. it went better than expected, we had a few kids that need leashes because they were so excited they wanted to run off! i was a leader and it was alot of fun, i had a great group to hang out with and we all very easily agreed about most everything. so frontier city was great. looking forward to another great week!

Oops

so i missed last week so here is the update. the week was pretty normal, class internship and what not. the best part has been the weekends. 2 weekends ago i went with believers to their fall retreat for highschool. it was pretty great, that group is awesome! we did some great stuff and im excited to get to know them better. we went to newlife ranch for the night. it was a great way to get to know the highschool group better.
so last weekend i went camping with scouts. it was great. we did some wok cooking and just all hung out for a few days.  i know this was brief but chris i gotta focus on the quiz. more on this later i promis. talk again soon

The richest people on earth

  This blog is written in response to some discussion we had in class last Monday with Chris. He asked me to write on the topic of poverty after some great discussion. The topic comes from the question "How do we best serve the poor?" Before we go there i want us to think about another question, What is poverty? Make a mental note or write a few things down.

  Poverty is often defined by money. I would safely bet that money is the first thing on every ones list. And when we think poverty we see a slum in South America, or a village in Africa. we see the poster child who is suffering from malnutrition. these all are the faces of poverty. but is the lack of food and water the definition? maybe, its possible. Authors Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert  believe the root problem of poverty is lack of relationships and self worth.

  In a three volume set called "the voices of the poor" a man said, "No one needs us, we are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of." so now back to my first question, How do we best serve the poor? We can and we have given money, food, water, clothes and other items to the poor, and when this is done responsibly its a good thing. But i don't believe its enough to get them out of poverty. another man says "If you are poor, you will always be poor." this is probably coming from a guy who is getting help. His problem is, he does not feel any value.

  Value. these people feel like they have none. these people(keep in mind that these people are made in gods image) feel no joy love or hope. They feel like "the garbage everyone wants to get rid of." so my answer (and you can take this or leave it) is that we can best serve the poor by loving and having a relationship with them.

  To help my point come across clearly i want to tell a brief story of a man in Guatemala. He is a missionary who has lived there his entire life. and his ministry is centered around a group of young boys who live in the physical definition of poverty. they have little food, water, clothing and even parents. most live with grandparents. and the life expectancy is 24 years old. but amazingly, these young boys don't know they live in poverty. sure they see all the brokenness around them, but they feel rich because of the red haired white dude that gives them love, attention, and the occasional handful of candy. and eventually he hopes to move these boys out of the city to his boys home located several miles away from the city.

  After following him around for a week i saw him giving love, attention, and the most important thing he can give, the good news of Jesus. Now i know you are thinking cliche`. but its true. these families that are in over their heads in poverty are happy and full of joy. In fact, we could all learn a lesson from them. because they are some of the richest people on earth.

 So thats what i think on the subject, and its all opinion. hope you all enjoyed
 

the past few days

hey everybody. its Monday morning just want to give you a quick summery of the past few days. starting with Thursday, i went with Dan from believers to Metro Christian academy. we had lunch with the high school students and went to their chapel service. looking back at my high school experience i wish i could have been in that kind of environment, i was a student at the Union Alternative High school where about 80 percent 123 students are previous drop-outs, in or out of Rehab, AA, or just out of jail. some are headed to jail. i was apart of the other 20 percent, students with learning disabilities any where from dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, or just struggles in the classroom. i had struggles with the classroom so Alt-Ed was a great fit for me. but seeing the atmosphere at Metro made me wish for something that i didn't have. after that me and Dan went to starbucks and talked for awhile, i learned a few things about him that was cool.

So on friday we (me and Andrea) had some devotional time with our new small group leader Joanie. she is great, very animated. what was only supposed to be an hour turned into two and a half. we all shared our story and listened to each other about struggles and hurts, then talked about joys and blessings in our lives. it was very refreshing and i walked out feeling some weight lifted off of me. im very excited about the next time we all meet to do it again.

saturday was a day trip to the beautiful Norman Oklahoma to watch OU take on Mizzou while tailgating with my girlfriend Ashlee. seeing her and some other friends was great and just a great vacation day.

sunday im going to divide into two parts, first, sunday school sucked. i met with the college students and my relationship with Ashlee came up. a couple people really gave me a hard time about some stuff that happened between me and her a few months ago. and after beating that dead horse for awhile they started saying i was not putting any effort into Link Year because im having struggles with my internship. so sunday school was very frustrating.

so part 2 of sunday was pretty good. i went up to Believers to hang out with some seventh and eighth graders. i got to lead them in worship for three great songs with my 2 new friends Alissa ande Ethan. both are very talanted and playing with them was a joy! seeing abut twenty mid-high students worship was awesome and encouraging. after worship we split them up and went and read some scripture, we read 1 timothy 1:1-11. a great passage of Paul writing to timothy to maintain the truth of the lord jesus in the church of Ephesus. it was very difficult for even the adults to understand but these seventh and eighth grade guys nailed it after awhile of decoding the message.

so there you have my past few days. im now sitting in our fearless leaders office listening to some classic rock and roll. after this its lunch time and class time. until next time everybody

My "I wills"

So one assignment we had was to write a list of "I wills". they are rules we will be held accountable to over the next year. lets get started shall we.

1. I will put my internship/class before any of my other commitments to get everything i possibly can get out of this experience.

2. I will allow myself to be challenged beyond what i think i am capable of.

3. I will not let my current relationship jeopardize my experience this year.

4. I will be open and completely honest in discussion and meetings with my mentors. And allow them into my space to learn my joys and pain.

Well there you have it, my 4 i wills. these actually took me awhile to come up with and be truthful about. so until next time.

Driving

So today was our first day of the program and guess what we did? We drove or I drove me and Andrea all over Tulsa looking for volunteer opportunities. And we drove everywhere. It took us a couple hours to get started but when we finally got going it was not so bad. The bad part was taking pictures with all of our "new friends" that we had made. We went to organizations such as, Little light house, Meals on wheels, several elementary schools in the Union and Tulsa public school districts, and global gardens. The elementary schools received us the best. But after 6 hours of driving I was ready to be done. It was fun getting to know Andrea better, we argued about music and other dumb things. So I guess I see why Chris had us do this. We both got to know our city better and see it's needs while getting to know each other. So it was a good day, tomorrow is Saturday so it's my day off! so you won't hear from me until Sunday night. Till then god bless and enjoy the cool weather all ye tulsa and surrounding area residents!