Love better

I have a huge distaste for politics. I don't like controversy. In fact, I avoid confrontation and the tentions that come with disagreement as much as I can. I'm really annoyed with the news, the political strategies, and the way we as people 'deal' or don't 'deal' with each other. How did we get to a place where to have different opinions or views or beliefs means that your business is called to shut down and close it's doors?  How do people who call themselves the 'hated' ones do so much hating themselves?

The people asking for Chick-Fil-A to close their doors are exactly the same as the people who ask for Women's clinics to shut their doors. You may be on different sides of things, but you're acting in the same way.

There is very little open-mindedness anymore. It's agree with me or be gone. It feels like the middle is disappearing more and more, and becoming silent.

We're in a gimme gimme world. I'm right. You're wrong.

I hope to live better. I hope to love better.

I need to know that You're still holding the whole world in Your hands.

Why is it so easy to go on mission trips to third world countries and to love so greatly, but it is so difficult to love our neighbors, the people who vote beside us.

I believe in a God big enough to teach us to love in the disagreements. A God who accepts and loves ALL people. Our job as children of God is to show that love to ALL people, no matter the differences, or what they believe or don't believe.

Please call me out if you ever hear me condemn someone else for believing differently than me. There are too many people who need an encounter of love. My hope is that I can be intentional about the way I treat people. Live intentionally, to love, to be a disciple, to be an example, to change to the world.

It's never been my goal to change the world. But if I can be an example to the people around me, and love beyond myself, love to my best ability, then I will know I have done my best.

Come let it shine.

Holding my own

Each year it gets harder and harder to process my time at Sumatanga. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or if my priorities are changing, or if it's because I'm the one creating the programs. I do have to say that it is incredible to see what was once a "hmmm, this would be cool" idea to a "woah, we just built a labyrinth in the chigger bowl out of chairs" moment. I admit that I do feel pressure to create programs like Heath or Debbie (pressure I put on myself). They helped mold me into who I am. I remember them being magical.  I kept telling Timmy this last week. I want the programs we put together to be magical for the campers. I don't want normal worship and speaking. I want them to experience God in ways they never imagined...in the chaos of chairs and candles in the middle of the chigger bowl, in the waterfall at the old pool, in Peter Rollin's parable of the Last Supper, seeing the last supper unfold before them. A cross is not the only place to find Jesus.

Dress down your pretty faith. Give me something real. Leave out the thee and thou and speak now.

When did we become the adults? Timmy and I have now directed a jr. high camp for 3 years. We are still learning how to be directers, how to train counselors, how to lead a week of camp. I still have a hard time believing that it's our week. I have realized that I have to work on letting go of control and trust the what needs to happen for God to appear will happen...after all Sumatanga really is God's place, not 'our' place.

Rain is no measure of his faithfulness. He withholds no good thing from us.



I am honored to be a director at Sumatanga. I am grateful to be able to direct with Timmy. We may not have the same vision for a program, but somehow we balance each other out and make things work.

Now it's back to the real world. I'm very grateful for the past week of camp. It may get harder to recover every year, but I wouldn't trade if for anything in the world.