Bosnia needs...

Of the many individual stories i could tell, i will try to limit myself.

Yesterday i went and saw a family. Marko is the father, Ana is the mother, and Vedran is the seventeen year old son. We sit down in front of a small house made of cement blocks, at a card table with mismaching chairs and stools at varrying hights.Ana (who has been a believer for some time) served us juice and we dicusse how her house being renevated. My own mothers home is being rinevated as well. Both weman, thousands of miles apart, are stressed. I live in a three stry house with a yard and an oak, Ana lives in a cement slab of block. Both weman are happy and love thier family. It is so intersting to me how similar we all are, even though we are in completly different worlds.

Marko her husband (who is not a christian) came home and he sat down with us. Ana then served some coffee (bonisn coffe is made different and taste more like exspresso). When you visit a Bosnian home you are constantly forced to eat and drink all thier food even if they are dirt poor and cannot aford dinner. So marko offers us smokes, then chuckles, and comences to smoke one himself. For the next hour or so we talk (mostly in Bosnian) about life durring the war. Bihac is surrounded by mountians. In the war, the Croatians surrounded Bihac, and because it was too much of a hassle and money to actually take over the city, the croatians simply droped grenaides and sniped every day for three years. This also cut all suplies into the city, so everyone also was starving. No particular reason, just because it was war. So the Bosnians had nothing else to do but live. They would get up and go to work, they didnt get paid of course, but they still went to work. The streets were dangeous. You could be killed by a snipre or a grenade at any time. Ana explained to us that when you hear the boom, if you could here the grenade in the air, you were ok, but if you could not here it wizzing through the air you ran for shelter. Ana told a story of taking Vedran her 2 year old son to the soup kitchen, she was walking towards another woman and they were about 20 feet apart. BOOM, they both froze and heard nothing. A grenade flies 6 feet over the other womans head (there is about a 50 foot kill radius). The grenade lands ten feet away, right between them. Still frozen, they wait. The grenaide never exploded. They told us many stories like this many ending very sad. The amazing thing is these people have sence of humor about thier lives. They said after a while, you were sick of being scared so you just accepted that you would die, and then you were not afraid anymore.

Today i went to the park in the center of town. It is the first day of summer holiday for the children. Kids were everywhere and the echo of laughter spakled off every tree. Many were swimming in the Una river. Everone seemed happy. Insanity... these people are happy. I sat there in the park reading the Last Battle, God broke my heart for these people. The are all muslim and do not know Jesus. It does not matter how happy they look, they are lost. I thought about the freedom i had in Christ and the fellowship i have with all other belivers, and all the illumination God has brought to my life and i started to cry. I dont know why I was boorn into a family that shared Christ with me. What if i was born in Bosnia, what of those who died in the war without knowing God. I could not stop cryng today. It was not so much a sadness, as it was a realization of how inconcievably madning it is that I and these peopel beilong to two different kingdoms. More frustrating still is that thier only insight into Christ, is that religion of the people who raped and killed our children.

This is not Africa. Evangelism is not as easy as a crusade. Bosnia needs time. It needs our time. Our whole lives if we are willing to give it. It needs people who represent Christ to bring light into this place of spiritual death. It mean thousand and thousand acts of love, millions of conversations that piont to Christ, Prayer.

I hope this doesnt depress you, but i kind of hope it does a little, You most likly re not called to Bosnia. Too Bad, you would love it. But you are called to give whatever you have to a sister who is in need. I need your prayer. Tomorrow, i am going with some Bosnian teenagers to hang out and talk about Jesus. Please pray God will move. Please Pray that there very few teenage believers will be bold. Within the next 3 weeks we will be getting ready for some youth camp held in Sarjevo. Thus Far, this is the most efective tool in evangelism and discipleship since the war. Be praying for the campers, and leaders in these camps. We still need scalarship money for the people who cannot aford it. We need your prayers.

If you want more details, just write me. We are acctually praying 24-7 style, so if you would like to sign up for an hour, Please contact me!

I love you

Dre

Bosnia 1

Bosnia

I cannot express to you how ravishing it is here. I have fallen in love with. I know culture shock comes later but still..it is gorgious. My roommate and fellow intern is wonderful and sweet and I love being around her.

Things i have learned in the past 2 days.

< Although people look gernerally well off, over 80% of the population is unemploey because the factories were destroyed durring the war 13 years ago. So everything remains beautiful, but people are very much in need.

< Bosnians are Ents. Thats right they are little tree creatures created by Tolkien. No not really, Bosnians take about 3 hours longer to do anything than we do in America. You can easily sit on the couch and visit someone for 5 hours and be exspected to come back in 2 days. I have litterally only knowen what time it is 3 times in 4 days. It just doesn.t matter. I thought it would be a huge adjustment, but it isn,t.

< the house i live in is pink. The inside reminds me of pride and prejudice, old and magnificent, when i am inside i feel like i am in an old french movie. The floors are wooden and gloriously creaky.

< I drink mint tea in the morning...delectable (ma ma that was for you)

< they will spend thier lask 5 mark (4 dollars) bying you a drink when you come over. And it is offensive to refuse.

< The Language is beautiful

< Being Muslim is being Bosnian, it is who they are, not nessisarily what the believe. Most think they are good people and do not need or want the Chriatian savior. (Christians are serbs and Croats who killed and raped them 13 years ago.)

My team is wonderful, no one is so mousy you dont knoe what the think, or to dominant where you feel bossed around. I respent the leaders, they are wise Godly people. We got to sit in on the meeting and Caroline was wonderful, open to discussion and even asked for correction. Such wise Godly people, i will learn so much!

Pray that i personally would make myself sentitive to Holy Spirit promps.

I love this land of new color. God convict the Bosnians hearts, help us reflect your love.

New heavens and earths, a fairy tale realized.

“Multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever and you may have a glimpse of what I’m talking about” –Meet Joe Black

So I am realizing that  another one of my America-judeo-christian-middle class perceptions of  Spiritual reality was again, way off the mark. Surprise.

1) My first misconception is based on a popular view of heaven which is incorrect. This idea that we will endlessly be worshiping God in a endless gospel chorus singing sense. It is to corny, and god is not corny. When I was little I had a dream, nay a nightmare, that I  died and went to this place where their was all these kids playing really boring biblical board games. Then a man said, “congratulations, your in heaven, God will come by shortly so you can worship him”. I was devastated. But this is not how it is…

Wetmore was saying that scripture says that we will be seated with Christ,  also it used the words “reign with him”. This idea was completes in Ephesians when Paul says that we are ‘into the praise of his glory”. What a weird way to say something. It holds a very profound idea. Not that we will worship, but that we will into worship as a thing and not just an activity. Heaven is worshiping god in a ubiquitous sense. All things will be into the worship of his glory. We will have relationships. We will see Gods world for what it was meant to be. We will be lord over animals. We will have community and perfect fellowship with each other. And we will  most importantly be perfectly in  the will of God. No desire out of his will. Not in a boring sense, but like in Perelandra, will desire what God wants for us. He want us to reign. He wants us t pain, he wants us to sing and dance, and make things, and enjoy food, and laugh.

            I cannot believe that we hide this truth from little kids, the fairly tales they think of are closer to heaven than what they teach in Sunday school class. To motivate myself to study, I think of ridiculous scenarios to make studying more interesting. For instance: the other day I pretended that I was a roman princess that was adopted and living in the land of the Haladrim (LotR). I was studying Greek and anthropology so that eventually I could with my knowledge bring the Haladrim to a right relationship to those in Middle earth. Now, that is probably the dumbest thing you have ever heard. But I life is o beautiful sometimes, and my imagination brings out it beauty by converting it into myth. But as Christianity is a true myth, so is heaven. It will be real. I will be a princess, I will have knowledge, I will see beauty, I will see everything as Christ sees it with his perfect love: wow.

2) Second is our relationship now to heaven. It was inspired by something Wetore said in class this week. He was discussing heaven. He said that we should think about heaven all the time because scripture tells us to.

But people who talk about heaven annoy the crap out of me.

The groan about earthly troubles and say they cant wait to be taken away, how absolutely annoying. These people have ruined my idea of heaven. They annoy me so much that talk of heaven makes me want to leave the room. So I was a little surprised by what Wetmore said. And al little disheartened that he had scripture to back it up (a lot o’ scripture). He went on to say that when we dazzle ourselves with how glorious heave is to be and that “we shall know as we are fully known” and we will see one another with absolutely no hidden ness, no miscommunication. We will see people as they are in Christ: Absolutely beautiful. Wetmore says that when he thinks of how we will be in this state forever, that earth doesn’t seem that bad at all. Even if you were dying slowly in agony for 80 years, so what man, heaven is going to rock. Alas if we think about heaven the way we were meant to, I think we would go the extra mile, love on those we hate, center our life on the good new of Christ.

I sometimes in my ignorance get frustrated will life, that we must die to live. That I cannot be an artist or a dancer, that I cannot be a star-gazing philosopher…because I was called to missions. Could I be more of an idiot? All those things are representations of God’s beauty. All of those things which we see in form, will one day bear their full meaning in heaven. All things here that I thought beautiful will forever come to their full image in the light of Christ.  I must seek first the kingdom, there in nothing for those that seek life. only death.  The world is a caravel of counterfeits, and he is not  a fool to lose what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

“we know not what we shall be”

I grateful to be in this life with all of you and to be into the worship of his glory, right here on earth. I am excited what God will do with all of us, and the people we will invite into this living kingdom to partake in the light of God which he shines to make us glorious

.  It is an honor to be fighting along side you all…see you in paradise.

Currently Listening City Of Angels: Music From The Motion Picture By Gabriel Yared see related

I’ve been thinking.

You know how God cannot add or remove from himself. Well he doesn’t I think he can emit some kind of anthropomorphic emotion, but he is not actually changing.

When I really sat down and chewed on this for a while, I tried to think of all the ways I am different from God, and as such, what Attributes of God have I no partaken in because I have not understood it.

So God sorrows over his people in the Old Testament right, but is he loosing joy? Is he loosing contentment? I would think yes but when it think on the character of God I realize: no. So how does God not lose anything by lamenting over the sin of his people?

I believe it is because God is perfectly fulfilled in his love for us. Christ is perfectly fulfilled in his love for us. He gains or looses nothing by our salvation or our rebellion. Because even the lament over a lost child is not evil, but a fulfillment of love and thus is complete and perfect in itself.

So if we are to be conformed in the likeness of Christ does that mean too that we can be perfect complete “not lacking anything” just in our love for other people. I believe so.

It is our human nature that tells us that loving hurts and to get away from it, but really what if hurting was fulfillment, and fulfillment was hurting in a since that we could be perfectly content in our sorrow. If when Christ was dieing, he was indeed not lacking anything, than that means that death, sorrow, pain, is not the absence of perfection.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS??? It means that we can die, hurt, starve, while pursuing love of others and be content, be perfect in Christ. That is like the coolest x-man power ever. Why did God even give this ability to us?

Jesse is teaching me so many things, having another person to love on all the time is sooo challenging. But God help me see this truth through our relationship. That even though I can be hurt and disappointed, I am not sad. I can be perfectly fulfilled in my love for another. This IS revolutionary for me, not only love conquers all, but we conquer all in love (of Christ). Meaning if my future husband is a crack head, and cheats on me, and all these terrible things, in Christ I can be perfectly fulfilled in my love for him NOT his for me, as Christ is fulfilled in his love for me, not my response to it. This applies to all love…spouse, friend, mentor, brother, enemy, and child.

Seriously, coolest X-men power ever.

Currently Listening Meet Joe Black: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack By Original Soundtrack see related

What is this revival business?

It is weird to me that people express their faith in different ways.

The ‘need for revival’ was brought up a few times today. Each time I just felt a little disheartened. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe I am so optimistic I need buffers to talk about sad things. Three things I would like to discuss…1) what the word itself means to me 2) what the word means to others. 3) what does It mean for our school?

1) When people speak of revival, I immediately think ‘tent revival’ well as a learned my conception of the word effects everything else that was said about it, but also language can accentually skew our perceptions on things. So I think that the word revival is out dated and thus we should have a new word for it.

2) What is revival anyways? The spirit coming alive in us? I would say that there is an act of repentance involved. But I feel revival on a Christian campus would look different then one in a lost community. So lets say it is a Holy Spirit overload. It seems the empowering of the Holy Spirit looks different to everyone. At Pentecost all these crazy things were happening. But that was the first time the HOLY spirit had come in such a way. My dad says we should not base our theology on acts because it is a transitional period for the church from the old to new covenant. So basically it means different things to different people. Here in lies the problem…

 3) So does Toccoa need to speak in tongues and prophecy? if you ask me …no. People that expect this make me sad. Because they desire a happening, a thing that can be seen. Its not that i am afraid of prophecy, tounges, and dance ( i quite enjoy dancing), its just not how a personal revival would look to me. And can a Revival be corporate, without first being personal. And if this revival is essentially personally, then is not all we can do but know and follow hard after God in our own lives and in accountability with other friends. But does not seem like the heart of this talk. it seems those who stress this are not nessisarily discontent with themeselve, but everyone eles around them. They focus their energy and prayers on what is wrong with the school instead of praising God for the school, the faculty and staff. Also, even when people pray about revival in a ‘non-Pentecost’ sense, It still makes me uneasy. Like oh, I hope this school has a heart realized thier sin, oh I hope the school repents of this and that. Honestly, I don’t know about you but I am so busy working on worshiping God in Spirit an in  truth and truly obeying him in my own life, how do I even have the right to point out others not living up to thier spirit potential.

Paul is discontent with his own life, and he speaks against certian sins in others, but it doesn't seem like he is ever discouraging, or condesending. "I give thanks for you", "encourage one another daily" "rejoice in the Lord always".

Yes I want the Holy Spirit to move, of course. But he is, in my life. I am loving God and he is loving me. Its crazy I learn something new everyday. I personally experience and see God working in Kate, Rodalia, Jesse, Maria, Ali, Devon, Mark, Jamie, Dustin, Ventia, Mckenzi, Matt, Beth, Nicole, Matthew, Meagan, Jen, My mom, My sisters, My brothers, My dad.(off the top of my head),  And this new group of freshman, wow, they are going to do some amazing things for the Lord. God is working, I don’t fully understand this conception of a corporate jumper cable of the Holy Spirit called ‘revival’. We need to Love God and serve others; We already know this. Yes I need to repent, I should not quench the Holy Spirit, but I can spend all my time praying about everyone else lack of “spirituality”. I’m sorry I cant come to the prayer meeting today, that doctor had to remove a log from my eye.

Like I said maybe it is just a DIFFERENT way of expressing one’s needs to God you need revival in your own life, your pray for it in general. Honestly, I just don’t know. Maybe I just not mature enough to see it yet.