A little update on my personal life lately for you.
This past weekend, Aimee came into town for a bridal shower thrown by my side of the family. They had it here in Springfield at Dining By Design and it seemed to have gone over really well. They played a few games, headed up by my sisters, 
including "The Newlywed Game" for those of you who remember that. Well, make it the "Almost-Newlywed Game." Anna slapped on a mask of me in the 5th grade that Kayla put together and flipped over pre-written answers to questions that I had answered the night before. A lot of my family showed up along with Aimee's mom and a couple of her friends. It was a great time I hear. Plus, we got some amazing and much needed gifts.
Other than that, we spent our weekend going on a date, meeting up with some friends in town, eating with family and shopping. It may be the last time Aimee comes down to Springfield before the big move in May. Speaking of, I plan on going back to Columbia the weekend of the 15th of May. We get the new apartment May 1st, and Aimee will move into that almost immediately. Once I come up I will couch hop until the wedding June 13th.
This weekend, The Rock will have it's Spring Equippers' Retreat held at Cassie Clooten's parents' lake house at Lake of the Ozarks. Each year, the leaders of The Rock as well as upcoming equippers (student leaders within canvas groups) spend the weekend in fellowship, worship and discussion over what it means to be an equipper at The Rock and where we see our church going in the near future. It has always been a great time and it will be my first as a staff member. Being away from my church home is really difficult, especially having been gone for so long, so to have the weekend to be around upcoming leaders is something I am really looking forward to.
Other than that, I am in the final stretch of my time here in Springfield. Gifts have been coming in, though appointments for some reason have been difficult to schedule recently. I am encouraged in general, but this definitely wears on me. I've certainly come to a new understanding of what it looks like for me to carry my cross daily for the sake of Christ. Not everything goes according to plan even when you are taking the path you are certain of, but God is providing and I am doing my best to stay faithful through the good times and the difficult. I continue to look ahead and trust in him who is faithful. And I thank you for your support, your prayers and your encouragement. I thank you for taking this journey with me.
There are great things to come. I know that much.
"Yeah I was walkin' in Memphis! Walkin' with my feet ten feet off the ground!"I remember waking up to this song blaring through the PA system one morning a couple of years ago when I went to Memphis, Tennessee for a week with a group from The Rock on a mission trip. Although completely jarred from my slumber and despite the fact that I was in no way shape or form ready to get up at 7am, I was looking forward to the day.The Rock has had a partnership with Service Over Self, a ministry which provides free major home repair in the projects area of Memphis, Tn for several years now. We send a team down there over a weekend in the fall and again in Spring Break for one of their urban camps. Just a couple of weeks ago, Pastor Ed Courtney led a team of 16 students, 9 of which had never been, to serve with SOS over this year's Spring Break.Each group is lead by a construction manager (a staff member of SOS) and sort of adopts a home for the week. They spend about four full days working on whatever the project seems to be and if the owner is home part of the time, attention is definitely given to getting to know him/her and their family. Half of one of the days is spent doing something fun in Memphis. Each night there is an evening service at the SOS facility, where the team stays all week. One evening is spent with one of the SOS staff members, hearing their story and why they are passionate about serving in an urban ministry.Ed's team served a 60-year-old man whose wife and son were in conditions that required constant care. They put in a new floor, new doors, repaired the porch and painted in the house and on the porch. They also met and talked with a man who had been living on the streets one day. Ed shared with me this:"One day we got to talk with a guy who used to be homeless and a crack addict, but he said he had been clean for 5 months. He was off the streets, but it sounded like he was pretty much mooching off an elderly lady and living with her. He didn’t have a job and seemed quite content with the fact that he was off drugs and “only” drank 2 beers a day. Marlon (Big Dog) asked him how many days a week he drank, and he said 7. It was good because the students could see that this guy was basically settling for a life off the streets, but was unwilling to acknowledge or go to rehab for a drinking problem. He didn’t seem to mind not having a job or really providing for his daughter. It was good because people then made the connection that often they settle for less in their lives when God probably has more for them."Shelley Arnsman, a great friend of mine, has been deeply impacted by this ministry as well. She has been to SOS a few times, spent last summer doing an internship with the program an
d recenlty went to Ethiopia this past January with the program. She shared with me last school year how serving in that way had really affected her and she talked about what it means for us as Christians to address social injustices such as poverty. I asked her what she thought she could do with this passion while at school. She told me how she just wanted to talk with people about it so that others would be aware and so they could bounce ideas and thoughts off of each other. She ended up leading a discussion group that met in one of the dining halls each week - it grew at one point to about twenty people. After she spent the summer working with SOS, she told me how she had really been challenged in her faith and believing the Bible as the inerrant word of God as well. But that story is for the next prayer letter...The trips to Memphis can really get the ball rolling in waking people up to new ways to serve and be Christ to people using their hands in this sort of way. Sometimes all it takes is sacrificing a week, driving 500 miles and opening our eyes to a completely different world than we are used to to change our perspective forever. I know that dozens of students have had this happen through trips to Memphis, I know I have, and I know each trip is just another drop in the bucket and another opportunity for it to happen again.
Pastor John Drage led 19 students from The Rock also to Choluteca, Honduras over Spring Break - most of whom had never been before. The team helped a family move into a new home at Casa Hogar Vida, the AIDS orphanage our partner church is building, installed a shower for a family, helped with the church expansion, and served in Limon at the Malnutrition Clinic. They also brought money down given from supporters for the church to use and buy a bus in Tegucigalpa, which they did. They bus will be used to transport HIV victims from Choluteca to Tegucigalpa for treatment, to transport mission trip groups and to transport families to Casa Hogar and to church each week.Trips like these really can mess you up. In a good way.Aimee visited Choluteca with a team a couple of years ago and her heart was broken. She had just been studying Spanish for a little while in school and after the trip, she fell in love with the Hispanic culture and the idea of serving in foreign missions. As many of you know, last Fall she spent three months serving with the GCLA (Great Commission Latin America) church as a full-time mi
ssionary. It was a life-changing experience that she will carry with her forever.I went down last January with a team, never having been overseas in my whole life. I never laid my eyes on such physical poverty, never had dozens of children line up before me to receive a pair of shoes, never poured a concrete floor in a house whose family considered it a luxury, never stood under the gaping holes of a hut-like house while rain poured down and ruined what little a family had, never played soccer with bare-footed children while nearby broken glass and trash covered the ground, never sat in a prison having a broken conversation with a man who told me he shot and killed a man.Trips like these flip your world upside down. Consider a recent excerpt from a journal post that Joey Soto, a young man who went on this most recent trip, writes:
"When I arrived in Honduras, it felt like a homecoming. My heart was finally at peace; I finally felt as though Christ was unveiling my lot in life for furthering His kingdom.
Whoever says the course of a week can’t change the course of a life has never met my God, the God of the Universe. The God that is always faithful. Always perfect. Always gracious.
Throughout the week, growing in community with fellow local Honduras believers and even those I went on the trip with, I felt as though God was giving me a taste of what he has in store for me.
While it would be irresponsible for me to speak for God and claim that my lot in life is as a missionary in Honduras, I feel as though God is leading me down the path of missions—something I may have never truly realized without a 10-day heart-renovating experience."
The guy has written three journal entries for his friends to see how much his perspective has changed. Also, please see this excerpt from a journal of Caley Palmer, another girl who writes about her conversation with a Christian couple who worked at the city dump for less than $3 a day:"I had asked before if they went to church, and they said that they did. With Tyler, we asked, that if they were to die today, would they think they would go to Heaven. With utmost certainty, they replied, "Yes.". When we asked more questions, they had all the right answers, and I honestly believe they have a deep personal relationship with Christ. The one thing that they said, though, that I will never forget, was this statement: "it’s not good works or deeds that get us into Heaven. it’s our faith. Without faith in God, we have nothing." …WE. HAVE. NOTHING. This blew my mind! How could two people be so sure, so confident, passionate, sincere, and excited about their faith and hope in Christ and live and work at a city DUMP?!? It puts my faith to shame. Hearing their hearts and responses was so exciting and encouraging to hear, and immediately tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t stop crying. THAT moved my heart."
