73 days!!

We leave for Kenya in 73 days...I can't believe it. Everything is starting to fall into place. Shana taught us a few words last night "Bwana asifiwe! means Praise the Lord!" which is how almost everyone greets each other (awesome), "Asante means thank you" and "Choo means toliet." The trip is becoming more of a reality everyday.


3 days until the Trivia Night if you need a place to deposit lots of useless knowledge.

Kenya!!

Hey!

This summer Lindsey and I are going to be traveling with some college students to Kenya. Shana, who went last year to the orphanage we'll be visiting forwarded this link to some pictures that a volunteer took. It makes me even more excited to get to go! God has made Himself known so much through His work at Gathiga Children Hope Home and an organization called Jump For Joel that Shana started. The organization has raised thousands of dollars to improve the conditions at this orphanage and the Christians at UIS have been able to be a part of it! We've been able to pray, support, and watch God work from our UIS home. But now we're going to get to see it up close and help out by doing some building projects for a couple weeks.

I can't express how excited I am about this trip. Linds and I are so pumped. We started raising support for the trip which is going to cost us as a couple a little under 6,000 bucks. Our group is having a trivia night April 26th out at South Side Christian Church Southwest Campus. Come on out! If you have any questions let us know!!

-dave

The Office Photo Shoot

Monday, Todd, Gretchen and I had our friend Howard take a couple pictures of us in our new office. We tried to think of cool, catchy poses to make us look skinny, like superheros, and awesome. However, we already embody all of those elements so we went with the traditional, family style picture.


The office is so interesting because we utilize it a lot and it provides a great meeting place for us on campus but technically it is not ours. It belongs to our students and we are just blessed with the opportunity to use it. On Thursdays I spend all day in the office. I love it. Normally it involves me making a PB&J and eating while propping my feet up with a good book. For about 10 minutes. Then I get distracted and talk to Shana while she is in the other room working. Then I wait for Katie to come visit me. My day ends with Amelia coming in to talk about small group material. I love being around people and the office provides a great opportunity for me to see people. It is much better than camping out in the cafeteria or sitting at my desk at home. So if you are bored on Thursdays and want to come talk about life, the great book you are reading, or have a craving for PB&J stop by the CSF office. That's right the CSF Office!

a myriad of things

Hullo!

Wow I really haven't posted on here in a while. District 186 went on Spring Break from last Friday through the end of this week. I've thoroughly enjoyed the time to rest so far. We went to Meredosia yesterday to be with Linds' family for Easter. Ashwin and Armando came with us and we had a great time. We ate way too much food, but it was all so delicious, it was hard to stop. Favorite quote of the day came from Ashwin: "Man, why can't you get this food in restaurants?" Needless to say, the food from Nana and co. was amazing and the company was great.

All in all, yesterday was an amazing way to remember Jesus. The morning was filled with worship, music, prayer, and some well spoken truths about how Jesus hates funerals. The afternoon was filled with food and family, and the evening was a time where Linds and I could finally go through the 5,000 papers we had stacked in random places throughout our apartment and then spend some time resting.


I have been trying to get some stuff done around the apartment. I've been challenged recently in my life regarding this. I think it has mostly had to do with the degree to which I love (like, really, selflessly put another person before myself). I'm learning, quite frankly, that I'm not very good at it. Specifically, as a newly married man, I'm learning about what it means to love my wife and function within this wonderful relationship. One thing that many people told me but that I suppose could not hit home until I experienced it, was how selfless a person in a marriage needs to be if they want it to work.

Before I entered into this relationship, I took it for granted that I could pretty much do my own thing. If I wanted to go out with a friend and stay up 'till one in the morning, it wasn't a big deal. If I wanted to drop all my stuff in the middle of my room and leave it there for 2 months(and yes, I did this for a long time), it didn't matter. No one else had to walk over it or spend less money because I spent more going out or sacrifice anything because of the choices I made.

Now everything is different. Since Linds and I desire a Christ-centered committment, we're both experiencing how different life is when it's lived in a marriage. It's amazing and the most beautiful relationship I've ever experienced and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But it's also the most work I've ever had to put into anything. Well, really I'm being shown that I haven't really put that much work into it. So I'm trying to change that.

In an effort to be a good husband today (and a halfway responsible car owner) I went out to my truck. My idea of productivity is to get things taken care of that are on my mind. As I was throwing out the garbage and putting some mail out, the truck came to my mind, so I decided to clean it out.

Context: Recently there have been two(ok there are definitely more I'm sure...) insignificant yet consuming things on my mind:

1) my lost The Myriad CD entitled "You can't trust a ladder". This, my friends is one of the best CD's I've ever heard. The melodies, guitar parts, layering, the lead singer's amazing voice, etc has left me wanting to listen to this CD all the time. This wouldn't be a big deal except I bought it 2 1/2 years ago after hearing them at a Cool Hand Luke Concert and still want to listen to it all the time. Sadly I had misplaced it and it has been lost for around 2 months now. Every time I've opened my CD case, I've frantically searched one more time for this cd.

2.) The hole in my truck under the passenger side door. It's nothing new. My truck is an '89 Toyota pickup. I'm well aware that it's bound to rust. However, it has been on my mind recently because a week or two ago I noticed that not so small pieces of my rusted truck's underside were strewn on the ground below the truck. Me, being the paranoid individual that i can be, immediately drew the conclusion that one of the others living in our apartment complex had kicked it while drunk. This could've been an at least possible option except it would've meant our neighbors were drunk and interested in the demise of my truck's underside quite often as rust pieces were consistently falling off at an alarming rate. The flaw in this line of thinking was that our neighbors are awesome and have done nothing in any way to keep us from having a most enjoyable experience at our apartment.

So I went out to my truck and I stared at the hole before cleaning out the cab. Immediately, a bird flies out of the hole. A second one closely behind it flies out as well. Rust pieces are on the ground under my car where the birds flew out and I feel like a moron. So after realizing that I'm a really mean and paranoid neighbor and that more serious work would need to occur on my vehicle, I began to get to the task of cleaning out the cab. This means mostly that I have to reach under the seat(which extends all the way across the cab) and pull all the stuff that I throw under there.

What I found:
- 5,000,000 batteries that are all leaking battery acid onto my hands(ok really like 20)
-1 crumpled and destroyed map of Illinois
-1 frisbee
-5,000,000 pens (no, really)
-various gum wrappers, church bulletins, receipts, etc.
-three license plates (...three?)
-5 golf balls
-2 FM transmitters
-2 windshield wiper blades
-more papers
-2 CD cases containing three CD's, one of which was my Myriad CD!!!! Woo HOO!!

Needless to say my day has been productive after cleaning my beast of a machine out. I hope to patch up the hole. If anyone knows some good material for this, I would appreciate any suggestions. There are several places on my vehicle that could use it to slow the wear and tear of the vehicle (which I recognize is still inevitable).

love you guys
-dave

Minnesota Mission Trip 08

What I can't get out of my head this week...

Share In The Blame - Caedmon's Call

Don’t blame the bullet for the wars you have sown
Don’t blame the winter when you’ve forgotten your coat
When you make the same deals for a hundred years
and you wanna make a change
You gotta hold up the mirror and share in the blame

Don’t blame your brother for the color of his skin
don’t blame your neighbor for the house he lives in
from the same cloth, we are made of, we are just the same
you gotta hold up the mirror and share in the blame

(chorus)
like a coming of age, I am learning how to say
all the failures I’m dragging behind
Finding freedom to speak, freedom to release
Oh tonight I wanna make peace with you

Don’t blame the writer for the doubts in your head
Don’t blame the preacher for the lovers in your bed
When you find out that the world is round, everything is rearranged
You gotta hold up the mirror, and share in the blame

(chorus)

Don’t blame the president, don’t blame the king
Don’t blame your history for what might have been
we will be free where the grass is green and the lion is tame
if we just hold up the mirror now and share in the blame

This song is off their new CD Overdressed. The whole CD is wonderful, if you are looking for some new tunes I would recommend it.

Whew...

Where has February gone? In the midst of all the craziness I haven't (well we haven't, it is still weird for me to talk in we sense) been able to keep up with our new blog. Here are some highlights from the last couple of weeks:

21 Day Challenge Highlights
- Jesus burned with passion for the church (John 2:17)
- Jesus is bold...
- Jesus didn't try to hide who he was, He is the Good Shepherd (John 10)
- Reading all the fulfilled prophecies blew my mind
- John 15: 9-10"I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
- Jesus cooked the disciples breakfast (John 21)

These are just a few of the many thing I pulled from the Gospel of John.

Friends:
I had a few friends from high school come up a couple of weekends ago. It was such a blessing to see them all. We have got to see each other more in the last six months ,because of all this wedding nonsense, than in the last 3 years. We want to keep it that way. Nothing is better than a good chick flick, pizza machine and chocolate fondue, yum!

Finished:
Last night, Jenny, Hannah, Erin and I finished our first bible study book (I say first because I hope there are many more to come). God so is good and wise. I started my internship praying to be challenged, praying I would still have community even though most of my time would be spent without my normal crowd, praying for a small group that I wasn't going to teach. He provided three of my best friends to spend one night a week with while looking into our purposes. We are all in different places right now and he used our different experiences to challenge us and create great conversations. It only took us 5 months to meet 8 times but we made it!

Started:
Small groups at UIS started a couple weeks ago. I am teaching a relationship study with my friend, Amelia and David. We have some great resources: Louie Giglio's audio series Boy Meets Girl and Craig Groeschel's book Going All The Way. They are funny, truthful, and challenging. More on that later...

Finally, Retreat!

This weekend is the Illinois Campus Ministry Retreat at Lake Springfield complete with Don Chafer of Waterdeep. David and I are both excited to hear some great music but more than that we are excited to retreat. My prayers this week have been, please let us feel the retreat. I am doing the registration for all the campus ministries for this retreat. I was worried at first that this was my time to shine and if I mess up they will think I am weird and my dreams of campus ministry will be washed away in a single weekend...yes I know it is silly. However, I decided this week that I have a choice going into this weekend. I can go in on edge or I can enjoy doing this organizational work (which I love) and then leave it at the door as I walk into the retreat. I pray this will be a great time to connect with my students and that I will be refreshed with them.

Ok this is really long...I only have one more thing. My amazing, husband bought me tickets to go see Derek Webb and Caedmon's Call on Saturday, April 19 in Chicago. I was so excited and he had all the CD's in my car so I could start jammin' out now...alas two days later all my dreams of musical wonders were crushed. I can't go that day. If anyone is interested in the tix let us know.