The Story Of Me Part 2

 Ok so, you know those days where you really don't know what to do? Well at this moment that was my whole life. I had this fiery, renewed passion for God, but I didn't really know what to do with it. So at the end of the summer I went back home. I had a seasonal job for a few months, and around the end of that time my Dad announced that he had gotten a job offer to go work for the Army Department of Works on a tiny tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Due to me not having any plans at the time, and not being finically independent, I tagged along.

However, it was a very, very small island controlled by the US military and I was over 18 and didn't have a job... so I got kicked out of my parents house by the military. Not really knowing where to go or what to do, I returned to Camp Li-Wa for the summer as the guy SALT (Teen guy volunteers) counselor. It was an amazing summer. I was able to teach and learn a lot; it gave me some direction and instilled a love for youth and camp ministry (I also began dating Bethany at the end of that summer, but I digress). At the end of that summer I headed down to Palmer, AK where Alaska Bible College had just moved their campus, to begin pursuing a degree in youth ministry.

While attending ABC I remembered just how much I didn't like school, but nevertheless I was determined to graduate. However, in February I got a random message from Jeff Winell, whom I had worked under at Camp Li-Wa. He had just started as the director at a small Bible camp in Michigan and was wondering if I would be interested in the program director position. I talked with some pastors and some of my professors at ABC and all of them encouraged me to go, so I packed up the few things I owned and moved to Michigan.

The position was part paid and part support, so the camp board gave me until the end of the summer to raise the required support. We were getting close to the end of summer and I had exhausted all of my resources. I had sent out support letters, messaged people, talked to people, and done everything a good little support raiser is supposed to do... but I was still $100 dollars a month short. 

I was sitting in the office one morning, doing my devotions and watching this robin flying back and forth, pulling worms out of the ground and taking them up to its nest. It just so happened that I was reading through Matthew at the time, specifically Matthew 6:25-29

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." 

I realized that everything I had been trying to do had been under my own power and I wasn't giving it up to God. So I went out and spent some time in prayer, asking God for His help, because if this truly was where he wanted me, I needed Him to provide. As I was headed back into the main area of camp, there was an older couple that was coming to pick up some lawn mowers for repair. They stopped me and asked how everything was going and specifically how my support raising was going. I was honest with them, told them I was short of what I needed, but I knew that if God wanted me here long term then He was going to provide. I didn't think much about the interaction until a week later when the couple returned the lawnmowers. While they were there they handed me an envelope with the exact amount I needed to finish raising to stay on full time.

The three years I spent at Good News Camp were filled with stories like that, we would run out of our resources, and then God would show up. It happened again and again and again... until it didn't... but that is for the next part.

The Story Of Me... Part 1

My life has been a very weird, crazy experience, filled with lots of ups and downs, twists and turns, happiness and depression, and lots and lots of ADD! I decided it would be a good idea to share my story through this blog for a couple of reasons. 1: To have a record of it here to always be able to look back on, and add to. 2: To be able to share with my new church family just who I am, and where I am coming from. I love sharing what all God has done in my life with people so if you have any questions about anything please feel free to shoot me a message!

I was born into a Christian home. My mom was a stay-at-home Mom (somehow she survived raising and homeschooling me) and my dad was a volunteer worship leader on and off throughout my childhood. I was told I accepted Christ at a very young age (I say I was told because I don't truly remember). I do remember continually getting saved in the back of the van by myself on the way to summer camp every year, because I wanted to be sure that I could tell my counselor that I was a Christian. I did all the good homeschooled Christian kid things: volunteered places, went to Awanas, and helped with sound and slides at church. I was at church every time the doors were open... mostly because we were the ones opening the doors... Everything in my life was great... until I turned 19...

My Freshman year of college was when my faith began to slip apart. I was attending George Fox University pursuing a degree in video production. I quickly learned that it is so much easier to lay in bed on a Sunday morning and watch football than it is to go to church. My first year of college I went to church all of 3 times. Twice at the beginning of the first semester, and once in the second semester because my Dad was visiting me. Without anyone prompting me to pursue a relationship with God, it just fell to the wayside, but I didn't really realize it at the time, because in my eyes I was still a much better person than the majority of the guys on the hall of my christian university. 

Starting in spring of 2012 is when everything really began to fall apart. My Dog died, the transition to college didn't go well, and I lost the scholarship that was allowing me to be able to afford to go to school. So suddenly the next three years of my life that I had planned out were gone. Because of that I found myself at home, not really knowing what to do I went back to volunteer at camp as the video production guy. It was an odd summer serving in ministry because I didn't really know where my faith stood at the time. I was at a crossroads and I knew it. I either needed to buckle down and truly pursue God and a relationship with him, or give it up. Little did I know that life was going to slap me in the face one more time that year, a lot harder than it had ever before. 

I remember the morning of July 9th very very clearly. I had eaten breakfast down in the dining hall and had left early to head up to my "office" (a broom closet in the barn). I was grabbing my camera, batteries, memory cards and everything else I would need for that day, when I decided to hop on Facebook for a bit because there was still some time before campers arrived. The first post that greeted me was a post from my best friends Dad, stating that Martin had not been seen since Friday night, and they had just found his car, with his keys and wallet still in it, down at the bridge down by the river. He was asking for volunteers to help the search and rescue team that was arriving that afternoon. 

At that moment I began bargaining with God, I threw out the classic "I will read my Bible regularly" and more, just so long as Martin was found and was ok... but that didn't happen. On Thursday night, July 12th, they called off the search, and I lost it. I was mad. I decided that God either wasn't real, or at least didn't care. People at camp knew what had happened, but I didn't let anyone know what was going on in my head. 

Fast forward to one week later. July 19th. I am running sound for worship that night, and the worship team is singing "How he loves us". Im sitting there listening to it, and I throw one final challenge up to God, "God, if You really are real, and You really do care, and You really do love us, I don't feel it right now, and I don't understand". I still can't accurately describe what happened next... just that a feeling of total love, acceptance, and comfort surrounded me. It truly was a supernatural experience with God that night. 

God didn't fulfill His end of the bargain that I had been trying to make with Him, instead he had a much better plan that I just couldn't see at the time. That moment was the major pivot point in my life. I began to truly pursue a personal relationship with God. It made me have a passion for ministry, to try to help show people that all encompassing love of God. It re-directed my future plans. Did that moment magically fix everything in my life? No, but it was a start. It has been a continual journey since to actively pursue after God and what He has for me. 

Anyways this is the end of part one of my story. How my life had to fall apart, so that God could begin working on creating something beautiful out of the mess that it was.