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ehmadjen
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Country: United States
State: Virginia
Metro: Lynchburg
Birthday: 2/10/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: Lori, music, singing, snow/wake/INDO/wave-boarding, ping pong, Bulgarian Ling-Long, basketball, trampoline, volleyball, Dr. Dodgeball, golf, skate parks, reading, the outdoors, Nooma, wisdom, sunsets, clouds. Jesus' life.
Expertise: ruining surprises
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/13/2005
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| F L U .
I'm having my share of sickness this season. I had Strepp throat just a few weeks ago (if that), now, it's the ever-elusive FLU bug. These bugs are not to be trifled with. They are down there, and they are deadly. The FLU bug does some top shelf sick-work. I mean, it can get into places...the smallest thing that I can fit into is probably a Plen-T-Pak of gum. The FLU bug can fit into the five stick pack. They're like urinal cakes: little, and very powerful. Never pick up the FLU bug.
Under 3 months til the BIG DAY! Glad I'm getting the FLU out of the way now.
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| At least I read your posts.
A lot has transpired in the last two months, but I'll just focus on the biggie.
In mid-January I was on tour with my ministry team (Light Ministries from Liberty). We did a youth concert at Big Bone Baptist Church in Union, KY, which is a church that I knew from my Life Action ministry days (we were there in 2003). Sparing all the details, the youth pastor asked me to prayerfully consider coming on staff at Big Bone as their youth pastor. Lori and I and my family and my mentors and Big Bone's staff prayed, and God gave direction.
Today, March 25th, Big Bone Baptist Church voted "YES!" to call me (and my soon-to-be wife) as their youth pastor!!!
After Lori and I get married this summer (7/7/07!), we will move into our new home in Union, Kentucky, where we will begin our marriage and ministry together! Yep, this Northern suburbanite will be calling the hill country of the South his home. I am so excited to work/live/grow with the amazing people at Big Bone!
It has been such a blessing to have Lori's full support and excitement in and through all of this as well. I am truly blessed and grateful for her.
Another great benefit of this situation is that I will be able to continue my education toward my Bachelor's (and possibly further from there) while in ministry, so I don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
There it is.
Life is exciting. | | |
| So for a while now I've had this strange feeling like I am not fully connected to my world. You ever felt this way? Like things are happening: people are talking to you and situations come and go, but you don't feel fully there. Prob'ly makes no sense at all, but that's how I've been feeling for a couple weeks now. It's not something that I could fully understand at first, but it became more and more frustrating and concerning as time wore on. My little brother would tell me that I think things that aren't really true (and he would laugh at me the whole time), but I'm very sure of the disconnectedness of life lately.
Tonight, however, God reconnected my heart to my world. There is something powerful in being fully engaged in life; heart, soul, mind and strength. I am grateful for His steadfast love tonight, it's real.
Deuteronomy 7:6-9 | | |
| I'll waste no time on apologies. Here's my first post in about two months. Currently, I'm in New Hampshire visiting my fiancee and her family. I enjoy very much the thought, and soon reality, of life with her. My life is moving at an interesting pace. Actually, it's only interesting because I am noticing the "pace". Life is moving faster. You notice that? I know that age has much to do with it; as we grow older, life seems to pass by faster. But I see more than that. Life is moving "faster" because of something in me. I am living in reaction to life. As things happen, as people move in and out of my life, as I go from appointment to class to eat to vacations, in all these things I find that I am reacting. Things happen, and I respond. I am not approaching life, life is passing by. Approach life. That is my determined response to this realization. If I continue, if we continue at this pace of life and never stop or slow down, if we never determine a course or follow a long-dreamt dream, then we are only reacting to situations. But I believe (I know, I'm an idealist) that my Creator gave me eyes to see farther than that. He gave me dreams and ideas and passions to experience a life that is more than the comings and goings of this present world. But this moves in the practical as well. Case and point: procrastination. Procrastination is living in reaction to life's demands. And this is where I have noticed life's speed increase. As deadlines come due and stress increases, life is hectic. I am determined to become one who does not wait to respond to the pressures of this world (although I know there are many that cannot be avoided). I am tired of scrambling to get my king out of "check". Don't wait for life to move you. Move life. (Nate, don't that sound like a sweet line for a commercial we would write?) | | |
| Much has been happening this last month.
I'm just tryin to keep up with school and traveling on weekends and my relationship with my ever-gracious fiancee and friends here and out there. Much respect for those who try all this and have a job.
Less than one month til our team leaves for India. It blows my mind and we haven't even started packing yet. I am expecting God to open my eyes to see the world from His perspective in and through it all. I just wrote a paper on the growing evil of human trafficking all across the world; India is in the mix of it all. Young women and children are being conned or sold into prostitution and the sex trade that is tearing countries apart from the inside out. In the middle 1800s, the going price for a strong, healthy slave in America was about $1,000. That is equivalent to nearly $40,000 today. In Mali, the second largest country in West Africa, slaves go for as little as 40 American dollars. You can buy a man for the price of a pair of Chuck Taylor's. There are approximately 200 million children between the ages of 5 and 12 that are part of the world labor force (that labor force, by the way, means the sex trade for many of them). That is not beautiful. It is not creative. Not awe-inspiring. Its evil. Broken. Hurting. Oppressive. Filled with fear.
I will not perpetuate that world for my kids.
Whether it's in Revelation or not, I believe the Church can change the world. | | |
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