Life Together

Well what can I say? NY is a big change from California and life here has been a big change as well. I am so thankful that we did not get just sent out in 2's but in a family of 7 this time what a blessing. God is teaching us all so many new things about things like "love, sacrafice, humility, joy in all situations, compassion and mercy on a truly broken world." Those are just a few great things that God is teaching all of us about.

Ponder thoughts...

Love is not an emotion but a choice of action..
I am realizing more and more what love really is and what it isn't, this is the conclusion that I have came to lately about love. It is not a warm feeling that you have for someone, but rather it is when you orientate your decisions around what will benefit and bless this other person. Love may not be love until it is tested. I am learning to love and I am so thankful for this because I desire to understand better the love that is extended to us by God and I may only come to understand it by first learning how to really love, by choosing to.

I have had opportunites to really think through the nature of sacrifice, and what really constitutes sacrifice?
I have been able to determine in myself that there are things that I will gladly sacrifice for and others that I have to struggle through, this has been humbling..

I have seen so much beauty in my fellow servants in Christ that live with me, we all are growing and changing and embracing a life that is unlike anything else we have yet expereinced. There are so many things that come from community and living and loving each other that you really can't ever know without it. Living in community is incredibly hard, painful, beautiful, fulfilling, humbling, sacrificial. I think that what I am trying to say is that in community you experience both ends of the spectrum, both great pain and hardship, and great joy and blessing. Those people that rub you the wrong way and force you to deal with all the ugliness inside your own heart are the same one's that offer up prayers for you while you walk it out. They are the same people that love you inspite of the ugliness and offer grace to you. They are the one's you celebrate with and laugh with. I have lived with people and without and even though I have seen more sin in myself being forced to the surface, I thank God that he has blessed me with people to really share life with. Humility is a much more joyful walk than loneliness. May our love for each other show others Christ love for the world...

DID YOU KNOW..?

The world's 225 richest people now have a combined wealth of $1 trillion. That's equal to the combined annual income of the world's 2.5 billion poorest people.


(Check the title link)

For Grandma!

Welcome to Buffalo!

We were greeted, by all who knew we were new to the city, with loud and gleeful choruses of, "Welcome to Buffalo!"
Yet in the midst of the devastation, and the loss of power (this is being touted as the worst power loss in the history of Western New York) God was able to bless us, and to use us to bless others.

We were able to dig several cars out of the snow, shovel half the sidewalks on our block, and share meals with many of our neighbors, all because of the snow.

I have posted pictures of the downed trees, power poles, blocked roads, destroyed houses, and also some pictures of some of our new friends. The one in the black sweat shirt is Tommy, he has 'joined' our church. He is drawing characatures of the residents at the home we visit; he was a smash hit!

We ain't in Kansas

Well, it's official...

...we no longer live in California.

First snow of the year, October 12. We got a good four inches and it is still coming down.

The picture in my car is from my work truck. Notice the lack of windshield wiper action, yeah that's right I drive through blizzards in a work truck that has a tempermental electrical personality.


Also, praise God, our church just increased by fifty percent! We had two new people at our small group last night!

He Brews!

Hey long time no post! All I really have to say is if you want to read the history of Jesus and you want to better understand his sacrifice and what it meant, or you just want to be spiritually spanked then you need to read Hebrews. It was such an amazing quiet time to read that book this morning. It was like good Jesus context and I think good Theology. I don't know if that is the right word for it but it was good. So there you have it! Read Hebrews!

The Opposite Spirit

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace,

that where there is hatred, I may bring love;

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;

that where there is error, I may bring truth;

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;

that where there is despair, I may bring hope;

that where there are shadows, I may bring light;

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;

to understand, than to be understood;

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

Saint Francis of Assisi