Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Just Kidding...
Well, I "figured" to soon. I called Rehoboth today (though I thought the PLIA planning/committee would have done it) and they said that they already had two groups comming and no place for us to stay. soo...we still don't know where we are going, and we leave in 2 weeks. Normally I would be excited for the adventure of not knowing, but now that I am a leader of 11 I am getting pretty stressed out about the whole thing. Keep praying that God gives us direction in finding a site and we will keep listening and searching. word
Monday, February 26, 2007
Leader of the group formally known as Brooklyn.
PLIA has been a pretty sweet part of spring break for me in college. The short term mission projects have been nothing but growing experiences for me. I Put (ing) Love Into Action in Atlanta my freshman year, and lead a group to Inez, Kentucky, last year. Organizationally (from a leader point of view) things have run very smoothly as well, that is.... until this year.
Since I loved PLIA in the past, I thought it would be great experience to lead a group again, this time to Brooklyn, New York. I partnered with Ashley, a sophmore from Montanta, and we went to work getting things figured out for our group. We even gave a short presentation on what we would do in Brooklyn in order for potiontial PLIA members to find where they would best fit. We contacted the site a few times and got some genereal information from them, which was nice to share with the group as well. (Group makeup- 5 guys four girls)
Things were going pretty well with the site and setup until last week saturday. Ashley got a call from a different contact in Brooklyn. Jon (we'll call him jon) is the pastor of the church, and raised many interesting questions to us about our team. (Jon sounds EXACTLY like Nicholas Cage....it enthralled me for the first five minutes of his conversation). For example he asked if our group members had the faith it took to work in the very dark spiritual place of Brooklyn. Another issue was finding a place for us to stay...they were suppose to have some construction done, but there was only one room for our group. We figured out a way to house everyone be accomodated, then the issue became not kitchen for the guys who would be staying at the church (the girls at the pastors house). After a conversation with the "director" of PLIA, I decided to ask the site if they actually wanted us, or if it was not going to work. Jon said that it would not....thus I am not leading a group to Brooklyn. (they did want us, but apparently couldn't get things figured out)
I contacted the 'director' of PLIA and told him what was up...and by the afternoon I had a list of new sites on my computer. Ashley and I conviened a emergency meeting with the group and gave them the options for new sites. So...I am now going to lead a group to Rehoboth, New Mexico (well.. hopefully, we are not positive quite yet). There is a Christian community (with a school...etc) in an indian reservation there and we will hopefully do light construction and work with the kids from the school. I am pretty darn excited to see what God has for us there...Wherever we go we will know that God had a plan to bring us there that we never would have imagined. word
Since I loved PLIA in the past, I thought it would be great experience to lead a group again, this time to Brooklyn, New York. I partnered with Ashley, a sophmore from Montanta, and we went to work getting things figured out for our group. We even gave a short presentation on what we would do in Brooklyn in order for potiontial PLIA members to find where they would best fit. We contacted the site a few times and got some genereal information from them, which was nice to share with the group as well. (Group makeup- 5 guys four girls)
Things were going pretty well with the site and setup until last week saturday. Ashley got a call from a different contact in Brooklyn. Jon (we'll call him jon) is the pastor of the church, and raised many interesting questions to us about our team. (Jon sounds EXACTLY like Nicholas Cage....it enthralled me for the first five minutes of his conversation). For example he asked if our group members had the faith it took to work in the very dark spiritual place of Brooklyn. Another issue was finding a place for us to stay...they were suppose to have some construction done, but there was only one room for our group. We figured out a way to house everyone be accomodated, then the issue became not kitchen for the guys who would be staying at the church (the girls at the pastors house). After a conversation with the "director" of PLIA, I decided to ask the site if they actually wanted us, or if it was not going to work. Jon said that it would not....thus I am not leading a group to Brooklyn. (they did want us, but apparently couldn't get things figured out)
I contacted the 'director' of PLIA and told him what was up...and by the afternoon I had a list of new sites on my computer. Ashley and I conviened a emergency meeting with the group and gave them the options for new sites. So...I am now going to lead a group to Rehoboth, New Mexico (well.. hopefully, we are not positive quite yet). There is a Christian community (with a school...etc) in an indian reservation there and we will hopefully do light construction and work with the kids from the school. I am pretty darn excited to see what God has for us there...Wherever we go we will know that God had a plan to bring us there that we never would have imagined. word
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Dang it....I thought I knew so much!
One advantage of having only 9 credits as a senior in college is being able to choose some classes that I want to take. I chose Interpersonal Communication and Contemporary Philosophy. Where IPC is a great class and I have learned a lot already, Contemporary Philosophy has officially blown my mind.
Today we discussed conceptual idolitry which is essentially puting a concept of God in the place of God. This didn't sound all that bad until I realized the implications were pointed at everything I know (or knew). Is my understanding of God an idol that seperates me from the true God? When I pray, do I pray to the God that I have been taught to know...that I have developed through out the years? How can I worship God if the god I worship looks more like my creation of god than God. What words can I say to worship him? The language I use to describe God is inadequate...when what I seek to describe is unfathomable can words do any thing? Maybe silence is more appropriate than making God fit into language (much less my small knowledge of it). Its like trying to use words to describe the Holocaust. You can't. Anything word you could think of would not do it justice. There are none.
So we looked elsewhere to find some hope...and find that even C.S. Lewis this amazing Christian author and evangelist wrote that everything he "knew" of God was a house of cards and when it came down to it (the death of his wife) the house blew over. However, instead of constructing new concepts of God I could try to test and break down the skewed ones. Yet...in the process I create more conceptual idols of God..and not really God. This probably doesn't make as much sense as it does to me, this is partly because I suck at explaining things, and partly because this stuff is soo deep and it is so world shattering.
Anyways, back to the confusion. At this point in the class we took a break and let the unsettling stuff be unsettled. It felt shitty but before I knew it we were back to it. Having never spoken in Contemporary Philo yet this year, I was very hesitant to ask the huge question weighing me down: What then can we do? How can we know God with out making an idol out of the image we create? yet...my stuper must have been pretty obvious because he called on me. I asked and he responded.... that the best we have is the Experience of Liberation from the conceptual gods we create. The best we can know God is the experience of getting rid of our false gods. This journey or movement of liberation is the part where we get the best sense (or whatever word you want to use) of God (yet I hesitate to say that for fear of starting over at the beginning ((again)) ).
Ok, I have probably made no sense to anyone but myself here. So let me try it one more time.
The whole problem here is that we think we know God....We think we have him all figured out and we can explain all these things about him....but when we think like this.....we have made this image of God an Idol which seperates us from the true God.
Today we discussed conceptual idolitry which is essentially puting a concept of God in the place of God. This didn't sound all that bad until I realized the implications were pointed at everything I know (or knew). Is my understanding of God an idol that seperates me from the true God? When I pray, do I pray to the God that I have been taught to know...that I have developed through out the years? How can I worship God if the god I worship looks more like my creation of god than God. What words can I say to worship him? The language I use to describe God is inadequate...when what I seek to describe is unfathomable can words do any thing? Maybe silence is more appropriate than making God fit into language (much less my small knowledge of it). Its like trying to use words to describe the Holocaust. You can't. Anything word you could think of would not do it justice. There are none.
So we looked elsewhere to find some hope...and find that even C.S. Lewis this amazing Christian author and evangelist wrote that everything he "knew" of God was a house of cards and when it came down to it (the death of his wife) the house blew over. However, instead of constructing new concepts of God I could try to test and break down the skewed ones. Yet...in the process I create more conceptual idols of God..and not really God. This probably doesn't make as much sense as it does to me, this is partly because I suck at explaining things, and partly because this stuff is soo deep and it is so world shattering.
Anyways, back to the confusion. At this point in the class we took a break and let the unsettling stuff be unsettled. It felt shitty but before I knew it we were back to it. Having never spoken in Contemporary Philo yet this year, I was very hesitant to ask the huge question weighing me down: What then can we do? How can we know God with out making an idol out of the image we create? yet...my stuper must have been pretty obvious because he called on me. I asked and he responded.... that the best we have is the Experience of Liberation from the conceptual gods we create. The best we can know God is the experience of getting rid of our false gods. This journey or movement of liberation is the part where we get the best sense (or whatever word you want to use) of God (yet I hesitate to say that for fear of starting over at the beginning ((again)) ).
Ok, I have probably made no sense to anyone but myself here. So let me try it one more time.
The whole problem here is that we think we know God....We think we have him all figured out and we can explain all these things about him....but when we think like this.....we have made this image of God an Idol which seperates us from the true God.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Newest Arrival
Caleb Wallace Fey getting ready to go grocery shopping for the first time. (Kyle and Lori's firstborn son--my Nephew) He obviously has a lot of stlye!
Senior Year
Here are some pics from Senior Year at Dordt.
-First, of course, is Soccer season. Hanging out with the fellas, and watching the girls last game.
-November 16 brought me on a trip to Cincinnati for the national youth workers convention. (youth specialties). Our group of Dordt students got to see quite a bit of the city. (and Newport, KY, which is right across the river). On the way back we stopped in Indianapolis at Burger King. The significance here was an amazing conversation and testimony given by one of my friends. During her testimony, I stared out at the sun shining through the clouds and was taken back by the awesomeness of God's grace. I nearly went blind, but my spirit was full of joy.
-thanksgiving brought some pumpkin carving and some running around East Campus apartments with friends.
-Lastly, Heather and I flew out to San Diego for Aslan's wedding (where we were chartered to the reception) and later in the trip got to go to Del Mar, Carlsbad, Huntington Beach, Chino/ontario, and a bunch of other places in San Diego county.
This is basically the highlights (well....the ones i have pictures of) of first semester senior year at dordt.
-First, of course, is Soccer season. Hanging out with the fellas, and watching the girls last game.
-November 16 brought me on a trip to Cincinnati for the national youth workers convention. (youth specialties). Our group of Dordt students got to see quite a bit of the city. (and Newport, KY, which is right across the river). On the way back we stopped in Indianapolis at Burger King. The significance here was an amazing conversation and testimony given by one of my friends. During her testimony, I stared out at the sun shining through the clouds and was taken back by the awesomeness of God's grace. I nearly went blind, but my spirit was full of joy.
-thanksgiving brought some pumpkin carving and some running around East Campus apartments with friends.
-Lastly, Heather and I flew out to San Diego for Aslan's wedding (where we were chartered to the reception) and later in the trip got to go to Del Mar, Carlsbad, Huntington Beach, Chino/ontario, and a bunch of other places in San Diego county.
This is basically the highlights (well....the ones i have pictures of) of first semester senior year at dordt.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Alaska O6"
Matt, Eileen, Jessica, and I packed up all our camping gear, piled into the Ruters minivan, and headed off to Omaha to catch our flight to Anchorage in June. On the flight we took a little detour and flew over mt Logan (19,950 ft) the highest point in Canada. The plane was only about 10 thousand feet above the mountain on a clear day, so the view was astounding. The first thing we saw when we walked into the airport was the world record grizzly that was about five times the size of me. A lady from church picked us up, drove home, and gave us the van to take up to camp about 2 1/2 hours away. We got to camp and slept hard. The next morning we met the other camp leaders Matthew, Lesslie, Bridget, and the Camp director Duane. We also got some time to walk around camp and get a feel for the beauty and ruggedness of the area. I moved into a pop-up camper next to a serine lake surrounded by mountaines. The other leaders lived in fifth wheels next to my "bachelor pad". EagleCrest ministries is on a hill about a mile up from our campers which were in the guest section of Victory Bible Camp. (vbc is a huge camp for Alaskan kids with lots of fun activies like horsback riding, watersports, hiking, and other outdoors things).
It took two days to comprehend our surroundings then Jessica, Bridget, and I took off for Fairbanks in "Red" (Eaglecrests 92' dodge fullsize van) to pick up "blue" the 94 dodge fullsize. The crazy roads (and crazy driving by me) caused us to hit our heads on the ceiling a few times, but we made it up to camp Li Wa (living water) in about 8 hours. We decided we could drive back through the night so we left Fairbanks at 10:00 at night (of course it was still light out..so it didn't feel that late). However, when the battery of blue decided to start acting up we experienced many problems. Our first problem stop (and Jump Start from an Alaskan) was the gas station right in fairbanks. Then I drove blue to North Pole, however she died there too. Soo..we decided to rest in red at the local groecery store. The only problem with this was the killer population of gigantic mesquitos who snuck in through the vents. We experienced hell for about 2 hours then decided that we needed to get out of North Pole (it was not nearly as awesome as I pictured it as a kid)..............to be continued.
It took two days to comprehend our surroundings then Jessica, Bridget, and I took off for Fairbanks in "Red" (Eaglecrests 92' dodge fullsize van) to pick up "blue" the 94 dodge fullsize. The crazy roads (and crazy driving by me) caused us to hit our heads on the ceiling a few times, but we made it up to camp Li Wa (living water) in about 8 hours. We decided we could drive back through the night so we left Fairbanks at 10:00 at night (of course it was still light out..so it didn't feel that late). However, when the battery of blue decided to start acting up we experienced many problems. Our first problem stop (and Jump Start from an Alaskan) was the gas station right in fairbanks. Then I drove blue to North Pole, however she died there too. Soo..we decided to rest in red at the local groecery store. The only problem with this was the killer population of gigantic mesquitos who snuck in through the vents. We experienced hell for about 2 hours then decided that we needed to get out of North Pole (it was not nearly as awesome as I pictured it as a kid)..............to be continued.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Summer 06' Colorado
Summer 06' Colorado.
Early summer 06 brought me to Colorado to hang out with my sister and brotherinlaw as well as do some hiking with Kris Walhof and Andrew Hoeksema. I drove right to denver and met up with Kris and andrew. I checked out the pad then we drove over to Vail Colorado to spend the night with some friends of Kris's friend (it was a little complicated, but hey...we had a place to stay so we weren't complaining). Coming directly from Iowa to 7 thousand feet above sea level was not exactly optimal for my body, but I drank enough water to be able to function. Though i woke up quite a bit during the night it was really helpful to staythat high because Saturday was the hike to the top of mt Elbert (elevation14430 ft). We woke up at 330 and drove an hour and a half to the trail head. I just bought new boots for Alaska and a camel packwhich made me even more excited. If i recall correctly this is the first time in my life where I truly felt "crunchy". We ascended the mountain at about six and got to the top around 11. I'm not going to pretend that my sudo athleticism made the hike easy for me by any means. The first 20 min I could only take about fifty steps before I got really winded. Hiking in elevation is a friken challenge! 4.5 Miles, a four thousand foot climb at 20 percent grade! After we passed the treeline we experienced some taunting from the mountain offering us 2 or three false summits, but eventually we arrived at the true summit. After we had our hearts fil of the view, the sense of acomplishment, and the peace, we each sat down by ourselves and had some reflection time. Tired as I was, I took a little nap. By this time I was used to breathing heavy anyway so it didn't bother me to much. There is not much else I could say about my mountain top experience that hasn't been said about most others, but I will say that something inside me awoke when I was up there...and it did not leave for the rest of the summer.
The way back down the mountain was much easier on the lungs but much harder on the knees. We got down in less then half the time it took to get up...minus the stop for water when I took a 20 min nap again and sun burned the shit out of my lips. We made it to the bottem, took some pictures, and went back to denver. I drifted in and out of sleep for the two and a half hour car ride home, but when we got there still had the energy to go to a Denver Outlawz professional lacrosse game in Mile High Stadium.
I went to Milikan the next day and spent the rest of my time relaxing watching 24 (to which I become hoplessly addicted) , reading, going to the coffee shop to go online, and of course hanging out with my sister and brother inlaw. All of this seemed to be some kind of preparation for Alaska where I headed the next weekend.
Early summer 06 brought me to Colorado to hang out with my sister and brotherinlaw as well as do some hiking with Kris Walhof and Andrew Hoeksema. I drove right to denver and met up with Kris and andrew. I checked out the pad then we drove over to Vail Colorado to spend the night with some friends of Kris's friend (it was a little complicated, but hey...we had a place to stay so we weren't complaining). Coming directly from Iowa to 7 thousand feet above sea level was not exactly optimal for my body, but I drank enough water to be able to function. Though i woke up quite a bit during the night it was really helpful to staythat high because Saturday was the hike to the top of mt Elbert (elevation14430 ft). We woke up at 330 and drove an hour and a half to the trail head. I just bought new boots for Alaska and a camel packwhich made me even more excited. If i recall correctly this is the first time in my life where I truly felt "crunchy". We ascended the mountain at about six and got to the top around 11. I'm not going to pretend that my sudo athleticism made the hike easy for me by any means. The first 20 min I could only take about fifty steps before I got really winded. Hiking in elevation is a friken challenge! 4.5 Miles, a four thousand foot climb at 20 percent grade! After we passed the treeline we experienced some taunting from the mountain offering us 2 or three false summits, but eventually we arrived at the true summit. After we had our hearts fil of the view, the sense of acomplishment, and the peace, we each sat down by ourselves and had some reflection time. Tired as I was, I took a little nap. By this time I was used to breathing heavy anyway so it didn't bother me to much. There is not much else I could say about my mountain top experience that hasn't been said about most others, but I will say that something inside me awoke when I was up there...and it did not leave for the rest of the summer.
The way back down the mountain was much easier on the lungs but much harder on the knees. We got down in less then half the time it took to get up...minus the stop for water when I took a 20 min nap again and sun burned the shit out of my lips. We made it to the bottem, took some pictures, and went back to denver. I drifted in and out of sleep for the two and a half hour car ride home, but when we got there still had the energy to go to a Denver Outlawz professional lacrosse game in Mile High Stadium.
I went to Milikan the next day and spent the rest of my time relaxing watching 24 (to which I become hoplessly addicted) , reading, going to the coffee shop to go online, and of course hanging out with my sister and brother inlaw. All of this seemed to be some kind of preparation for Alaska where I headed the next weekend.
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