Colorado: Day 4

As per the usual plan, most of us got up at 7:45 for devotional and/or a shower and ate breakfast in the dining room at 8:30. I woke up kind of sick that day and picked away at a muffin, which was delicious. After breakfast, we met as a team and went up to Georges' office. For the next couple of hours, we listened to the story of his life and his testimony. We listened to how he grew up in Lebanon and was raised Greek Orthodox Christian, and how he was kicked out of his school when he started attending a church that taught of a more personal, loving type of Jesus. He told us of how he was involved in gangs for a time and how he came back to Christ. He also told us of his twelve year struggle to translate a new version of the Bible into Arabic. After much political opposition, he was finally able to get it done, and now there are millions of copies of his Bible all over the world. It was very inspiring to listen to Georges talk in the quiet of his office. He is a very gentle, soft spoken man who has gone through a lot in his life, and God has worked in him in very powerful ways.

Afterward, we went into another office and talked about what we would be doing that day. We decided to go to the Islam exhibit at the college and then return later that night to listen to a panel of Islamic students. We prayed for God to be with us that day and for the students that we would encounter.

We walked over to the University of Colorado (CU) and went to the exhibit, which included many posters that informed people about the religion and a movie about the hajj, or journey to Mecca. It was very informative and helped us learn a lot about Islam before we attended the week's events.

After the exhibit, we drove into the foothills above Boulder and climbed up to some large rocks and sat down looking over the city. We each found passages from the Bible to read to each other and explained why we chose the passage and discussed it with each other. It was very insightful and engaging, and we got to learn even more about each other as God was preparing us for the week.

We came back to the Horizons house and ate dinner before leaving for the college again. The panel was made up of eight Muslim students, four guys and four girls. Two of the girls were converts to Islam from Christianity, and one was white. It was a good mixture of backgrounds. People submitted their questions and the panel answered them as best as they could. They explained the basics and origin of Islam and the five pillars, and pretty much rehashed everything that was on the posters in that room. The overall theme and message that they seemed to want to get across, however, was that Islam was very accepting of Christianity and Judaism and that there was no reason that we couldn't get along. This, I believe, was said more or less to attract college students to Islam. Any hard questions were answered with hesitation and shallow answers. This panel did not contain the best speakers of that week.

After they were finished, we went around the room talking to different people about their thoughts on what the panel said. There were a lot of different opinions and viewpoints and we got to know a lot of people that night.

We went back to Horizons and talked about what we saw that night and how we felt about the panel and the other people's thoughts. All of us had very interesting conversations with a number of people, some Muslim, some not. All in all, the night was rather sobering. We prayed again for the people we met that night and for the rest of the week. At this point, we were all pretty exhausted from the mountain climbing earlier and went to bed.

Colorado: Day 3

We arrived at our destination, Horizons International, at 6:00am Sunday morning. We found our bedrooms quickly and went to sleep. Three hours later, we were up to go to church. Matt and Riley, who had driven the most the night before, stayed in bed a got a couple more hours of sleep while we went. The name of the church is Indian Peaks Community Church, and is pastored by Georges Houssney, who is also the director of Horizons. He gave an interesting talk about remembering important things that Jesus has done in our lives. He gave the story about the yeast of the Pharisees in Matthew 16, and how the disciples had assumed Jesus was still talking about bread and not of deeper issues.

After church, we went to the store and purchased some food for lunch and for dinner that night. We went back to Horizons and made lunch: Salad and Spaghetti. It was delicious. After lunch, Matt, Justin, Alicia, Chelsea and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather we had in Colorado (It was in the 50s and 60s all week). So we walked down the street to a local cemetery at the base of a foothill and proceeded to hike up the first few hills. It was a muddy and slippery ordeal and I still have some red mud on my shoes from that day. The hill was pretty steep, and due to the lack of oxygen at that altitude and the fact that I was starting to come down with a cold, I felt like I was going to faint by the time we got to the top of the hill. I spent most of the time up there with my head between my legs and holding on to Chelsea while we posed for pictures. But eventually, I regained my strength and was able to enjoy the fantastic view of Boulder from the hill. You could see the entire city from there, and the mountains stretched as far as you could see to the North and South.

We returned to the Horizons house and met as a group. We went around the circle and took turns telling everyone what God had done in our lives as per Psalm 66:16. It was very interesting to see that God works in everyone's lives in very different and powerful ways.

Afterward, we had dinner (stir fry, again delicious) and chilled for the night. We talked with new friends and played pool and Foosball for a few hours before most of us went to bed. Matt, Riley, Justin, and Jim went rock climbing that night and they seemed to have a lot of fun. Eventually, we all ended up in bed, ready to begin the first real day of the trip.

Colorado: Day 2

I awoke in the church sanctuary on Saturday morning at 7:45, got dressed and had my devotional near the front door. Matt and Justin had left earlier to get the part and help Eric fix the van. Mike, the youth pastor, arrived around 8:30 while we were finishing up our devotions and getting dressed for the day. We sat around the table in the youth room talking about seminary and the differences between working with junior and senior high students. Pastor Greg came in about that time and gave us a $100 gas card, just one more blessing from these wonderful people.

A couple of their Sunday school rooms needed to be painted, and we had just so happened to have brought painting clothes. So we changed into them and put the first coats on three of the rooms. We took a break for lunch and ate Subway that Carol and Joyce had brought the night before. As we ate, we talked about our parents and our varying relationships with them. It was a very good conversation and we got to learn a bit more about each other through it. We finished up our painting and chilled for a few hours before the guys called to say that they were done with the van and it was running. About an hour later, they returned with the van in full working order. Eric didn't ask for any payment for his troubles, but we gave him a gift anyway. It was not nearly enough for what he did for us, but it was the least we could do.

So at 5:00 pm eastern time, we loaded up the van and car and took off for Colorado again, 30 hours after we had arrived at that great town of Genoseo. The sun set only about an hour after we had gotten on the road again, so most of our driving was in the night. But the full moon lit our way down I-80. The highway was open again. We had heard reports that 15 people had died the night before in the terrible road conditions. But today, the roads were fine, save for a few patches of ice. Driving through Iowa, we counted at least one hundred cars that were in the ditch. Most were facing the wrong way, some were sideways, others were completely upside down. Jackknifed semis passed in the darkness, and some just lay on their side by the road like a carcass. It wasn't until we saw these things that we fully realized God's intervention in our trip. If our van hadn't broken down the day before, we could have easily been one of the many that were stranded in the middle of nowhere.

We passed the time by sleeping and talking and playing the alphabet game through the night. Once we got deep enough into Colorado, a slight mist lined the horizon. You couldn't really make the mountains out, but you could tell that they were there. We arrived in Boulder at 6:00 am local time. As soon as we parked in the Horizon's lot, the sun peaked up from the east. We unloaded our stuff and found our beds quickly. Laying down, we were all very grateful for God's protection and provision for His children. I don't think any of us had trouble falling to sleep after that long drive.

I Am Orion

Just a few minutes ago, a dear friend of mine suggested that I take a look at the stars. I decided that this was a fantastic idea, so I put on my jacket and went outside. I stared at the night sky for a few minutes and thought about the past few weeks. When I looked at Orion, hanging there in the south on a quest to slay the bull with his faithful dog behind him, I saw myself.

I saw myself in Orion, reaching for the star, my heart's desire that is ever beyond my reach. And there behind me is the bright star, God, running after me, trying to get my attention. I have my back turned toward Him, focusing completely on what I want so badly.

God's been dealing with me lately. I am understanding my selfishness in putting my desires before Him. Slowly, but surely, I'm starting to learn how to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

Colorado: Day 1

At 6:00 am on Friday, after praying over our trip in the frigid morning air, our team left in one van and one car for Boulder, Colorado. Our team consisted of nine members: Allie, Matt, Justin, Kenny, Chelsea, Alicia, Riley, Jim and myself.

The roads were rough starting out. At that hour, it was still dark and cold and ice covered the roads. After the sun came up, however, the roads got a little better and the only major problem for a few hours was the harsh winds tugging on the van.

But then tragedy struck in Illinois. The check engine light came on in the van and the engine started to misfire. Matt decided that we had better find a repair place in a local town. The next exit was for a small town called Atkinson, but unfortunately, the town's only repair shop (on its dead end main street) was full for the day. They instructed us to drive to the next town to the Dodge garage and having no other options, we did.

The garage was located in a slightly larger town called Genoseo, IL. While they diagnosed the van's problem, the nine of us waited in the local Culver's for the next four hours. The staff was great and the people were wonderful there. At one point, in passing, Matt noticed a couple guys sitting at a table reading a book that he had read. Matt struck up a conversation and found that they were the pastor and youth pastor of a local church. He told them our situation and the pastor gave us his card in case we needed anything. a couple hours later, while the nine of us were trying to decide where to go if the car could not be fixed, a couple of ladies named Carol and Joyce overheard our problem. Carol was a retired social worker and invited us to stay at her house if we needed a place to sleep that night. She was deeply concerned about our welfare and had heard that the weather was so bad that they had actually closed I-80 past Des Moines.

We prayed for the trip and read Isaiah 33 and found some striking similarities to our plight in the chapter. There were also a lot of things that had nothing to do with our situation, but that's not as fun to talk about. Just as we were finishing up, we got the call from to garage. They estimated about $700 to fix the van. Since we did not have this kind of money, we decided to keep driving the van to Riley's grandparent's house and see if we could get it fixed there somehow. After driving just ten miles, however, the van started stalling out on the highway. So we turned around and headed back for Genoseo. We called the Pastor from Culver's and made our way to his church. We also got a severe scolding from Carol when we called her and told her what had happened.

We pulled into Geneseo Evangelical Free Church and sat in the lobby for a few minutes. It turns out that Pastor Greg was just about to meet with a guy that could fix our van. I believe his name was Eric. The church was gracious enough to invite us to stay the night in their building while we got the van fixed. We set up our headquarters in the youth group facility in their basement and met the Youth Pastor, Mike. We had some very stimulating conversations with him and enjoyed a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, which I am now addicted to.

Many people came by with food for us, and word kept going around about the highways being closed and horrible traffic accidents ahead of us. Outside, the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was falling almost completely horizontal. We called Carol and told her that we were safe and staying at the church and she and Joyce arrived a few hours later with enough food to feed us for a few days. They brought McDonald's and Subway, as well as packs of milk and cookies and all kinds of snacks. This was after some nice women from the church brought us sloppy joes and scotcheroos. We thanked them many times for their graciousness and thoroughly enjoyed their blessing.

We found out that Eric would be able to help us get the part and fix the van for only a couple hundred dollars. We would be on our way again the next day. We came together and shared with each other of God's great provision for us in our distress. We also went back to Isaiah 33 and found more similarities to our situation.

After praying for God to bless all those wonderful people of Genoseo that helped us in our time of need, we put our couches and sleeping bags together and went to bed in a place we never would have dreamed we'd be that night.

Back From Colorado

...And I'm back. This last week has been a very interesting one, and I plan on giving a day to day overview on what happened over the course of our trip to Boulder. I just need to say that the team that God picked out was a good one. My favorite part of mission trips are the bonds that grow between the team members as the trip progresses.

Off to Colorado

I'm off to Colorado, people. I'm going with a campus church group called The Gathering to Colorado University. Next week is Muslim Awareness Week, and we're going to meet with international students there in Boulder. It should be a very good experience. I look forward to relaxing over spring break and enjoying my time near those beautiful Rocky Mountains.