Honduras Day 2

Day two we woke up nice and late. They let us sleep in after our flights there and the crazy early morning. It’s a good thing too, because I got about 15 minutes of sleep the night before. No joke. We had a missions prayer meeting then I hung out for a little bit and then went home and made final checks on everything. By the time it was all said and done it was 2:00 AM and we were leaving at 2:30. Great…

So we went out to the meeting area of the compound and met up with the girls. We cooked and ate a breakfast of pancakes and eggs, which quickly became the staple breakfast meal, and had our own personal God Time. About an hour later Jeff and Michael showed up. Jeff ran us through the next two weeks. Telling us what the days coming were going to look like and what we would be doing. He then instructed us on making care packages that we were going to be handing out to the village people on the mountain that Jeff is ministering to. The care packages consisted of rice, beans, cooking oil, salt, toys for the kids, vitamins, a spanish bible, and some other things essential for life. We made about 30 of them and got it done in lightning speed. We’re DLA.

After finishing up those packages they told us to go get our trunks on, cuz we’re going swimming. Ok. So we got ready and hopped in the bus. This was actually the first of many times that we rode the school bus that took us everywhere we went while in Honduras. Saleen, our bus driver, was a great man. He didn’t speak a lick of English, but I could just tell that he had a great heart. So we were on the bus for a little while and ended up at this house. Michael payed the man there some money and they let us through. We started walking through the jungle and towards a river. We kept walking for about 5 minutes and showed up at our destination. A waterfall that fell into a pool of water and then the river flowed from there. It was beautiful.

We didn’t need to be told what to do. We dropped our essentials, and the guys dropped our shirts (an opportunity to take our shirts off? You better believe we’ll take advantage of that. ), and ran to the water. I was expecting it to be pretty warm, considering we were in Honduras. But nope, it was pretty stinking cold. Not like glacial runoff cold, but like just-came-from-the-top-of-a-mountain cold. Of course some jumped right in and others took about 45 minutes to get in. I on the other hand was busy watching our bags with Jacob. We were two of the three sweepers on our team and just as we started getting in, a couple guys showed up behind us. So we had to watch our bags. Just in case you know. Jeff then showed up and we were free to swim. We swam for a little while.

Then after that, we climbed up the waterfall and went to a pool above it and swam in that for a while.  Jumped in from the rocks and such and just hung out. Then we left, and picked up trash on the way back to the bus. This was something we did everywhere we went. Honduras is littered, literally, with trash, and we just did everyone a service by picking up trash everywhere we went and putting it in bags we were given. We picked up tons of it, but didn’t even put a dent in it. It was really sad actually.

Next we drove home, had a little time of prayer and worship for the upcoming week and ate dinner. Over the course of the week, Jeff hired a cook from his church to come a cook for us. She was a Honduran lady, and let me tell you, she made some stinking amazing food. That night we had eggs, rice, beans and this stuff called queso crema. It was basically a thinner version of sour cream. So good.

After a night of just chilling we all went to bed and had sweet dreams of honduras.

What was going to happen,

Morgan

Honduras Day 1

So I’m going to do something new and a heck of a lot easier on me. ha. I’m going to write a blog every day for each day that was spent in Honduras. So I’ll start on Sunday, and we left two weeks ago on Sunday, so it’ll be really cute like that.

So this day two weeks ago was simply the day that we left. We showed up at the World Prayer Center at 3:00 AM ready to go. Our whole team of 25 people loaded up in two vans and headed to Denver to fly out of DIA. We showed up to DIA at about 5:30ish. Our flight left at 8:30. We got our bags checked, full of peanut butter, jelly, spanish bibles, random toys, and other random things. Oh and 10 lbs of our own stuff. The guys on our team were told to pack really light and we were going to be packing our packs to 50 lbs with other things that we needed to bring. Food and such. So we did. My pack was 16 lbs before everything and that was about the norm. We all had nice and heavy packs after we packed them full.

The day before we had a meeting where we got our roles assigned to us. A role is basically how you can help the team and how each of us can contribute. We also have parters that we had to be by at all times in Honduras. Safety reason’s obviously. So my parters were Jacob Wheeler and Chad. We were the only three first year guys on our team. Our team was: the three of us, Ben Johnson, Kinzli, Andrea, Alyssa Huwe, Jana, Jess Bowles, Kylie, Adrienne and Lara. The three of us were the sweepers for our team. Basically we make sure everyone is where we need to be and that wherever we are people are safe. Our girls especially. Making sure they are safe and that they feel safe too. I was also the team photographer. Fun times.

So we checked our bags, four coolers, and two med packs. We got all of our boarding passes for the day and went to our gate. We had about 2 hours before we boarded. So I went with my parters, Jacob and Chad and walked around the airport for a little while. When we came back we found just about everyone passed out on the floor.

We then flew from Denver to Miami, hung out in Miami for a few hours and boarded a plane headed for Pedro San Sula, Honduras. It still hadn’t hit me that we were heading for Honduras yet. It was crazy.

So we landed in Honduras and got off the plane. We got our bags and went out to meet our contact. Jeff Hines and his son Michael met us in the terminal. We then loaded up a bus with all of our bags and coolers and such and headed to Le Cieba. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive there and on the way we stopped at a gas station to get some food. There was a cop just inside the door with a sawed-off shotgun. It was then that I realized that we were in Honduras. We then got to the house we were staying at. It was on the edge of town right by the ocean, and surrounded by walls on all sides. So it quickly became known as The Compound. Unfortunately, into the ocean flowed a river that was mostly comprised of sewage and crap, literally, so that, in turn, made the ocean pretty nasty. Lame. But we could walk about half a mile and the ocean was nice, so that was ok.

So that night we all went to bed, exhausted from the day of travel and the early morning. Excited for the weeks to come, and not knowing what to expect.

Pumped by this time,

Morgan

the PERFECT timing

So there isn’t a Honduras “recap” blog up yet (heck, I don’t even have a Tour blog up), but this is just too crazy. So we left Honduras a few days early. About a week actually. We were supposed to be flying out today actually, but we left last Saturday, the 23rd. The reason was because we got sick. A girl on our team was sick the day before we left and didn’t tell anyone. Just some stomach virus thing. Puking and all that junk. Fun. So about two days into our mission, one more girl got sick, and then 3 more girls, and then a guy and another girl. So we had 7 people sick in a matter of days. So they got us the heck out of there. With the medical treatment that we could receive in Honduras, we would still be sick and things would have gotten nasty. So New Life pulled us out. When we heard about this, we were obviously super bummed. Who wants to leave their mission field early? No one. And people are still bummed. We got a heck of a lot done, but it feels like there was so much more to do. People have really been down about it this week. We’ve been allowing the Devil to kick us in the pants with it.

Well yesterday morning, right before God Time started, Ben Johnson got on the mic and announced that there had been an earthquake in La Ceiba, the city that we were in, yesterday. A 7.1 that shook the whole city ragged and then a 4.8 aftershock. Johnson called the Hines, our contacts in Honduras, and asked how everything was. They are ok, the village people that we were ministering to are all ok as well. In this quake there was only one death, and some missing people, who I’m sure will be found. One crazy thing though is that the only bridge between La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula, the city we flew in and out of, was now out. The quake took it out. And by the looks of it, it’s quite a detour to get there any other way. That bridge was one of two that connected San Pedro Sula to the rest of Honduras.  And I’m sure there were tons of flight delays because of this. So basically, we would have been stuck there. For a while. And to add to that, a girl just recently got diagnosed with appendicitis and has to get her appendix out today. So we pretty much would have been stuck in Honduras with a lot of sick people and a girl with an exploding appendix. Awesome. Ha.

God got us out of there. Perfectly. No one is sick anymore, we weren’t hit by an earthquake, and we got done what we needed to get done. This is crazy. I can’t believe it. It couldn’t have been more perfect. I pray that God is with the families in Honduras who are missing people and with the family of the dead. And I praise God for getting us the heck out of there. I see now that the choice was obviously a good one, and we are now even more safe.

Snap,

Morgan

“You’re A Freak”

This among many other insults/”compliments” are things that I’ve heard throughout my life about my height. Some serious, some joking, some that are truly compliment, and some that are just mean. I’ve never really got it. Why do people have to pick on others? To feel good? To feel better than them? Or to simply degrade them? Who knows. What’s more interesting though, is how God takes something like that and makes it for good. Over the past couple months I’ve gotten two amazing words of encouragement about my height, that didn’t have to do with getting things off the top shelf or dunking (barely) a basketball.

One was about a month and a half ago. I was talking to a guy at the early men’s prayer meeting that Brady Boyd does. We were talking about life and DLA and stuff. I had just met him that morning and we were really connecting. About 10 minutes into the conversation he commented on my height. “Go figure” I thought. He followed the norm and asked me my height and I told him. He then said something to the effect of, “That’s so awesome man. Dude God has blessed you with that. Use your height, and the next time someone looks at you, just because you attract attention when you walk in a room, go introduce yourself. God has given you this gift to meet people and to start conversations”. Dang… I was grinning from ear to ear. Ha. It was awesome to hear that.

The next one was just yesterday. Michelle Vette was praying for some of the DLA’s that came back from Honduras during the Revival Town pre-prayer. She was praying for each of us specifically and came to me. The first thing she prayed was something like, “Thank you God for the stature You’ve given Morgan. Both spiritually and physically. Thank you for making him a solid oak that others can come to and get shade and rest. And that You’ve made him strong and reliable”. My mind was blown. During that prayer she spoke so much life and truth into my life. Things that I needed to hear and things that I needed to hear again. That woman is seriously anointed. She is so in tune with the Holy Spirit. It was amazing.

So there world. I’ve been made this way for a reason. Take it or leave it. If you don’t like it, you can take it up with God.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, 6′8″ and no I don’t play basketball.

Word,

Morgan

Honduras or Mexico?

The former, not the later.

The plans coming into DLA were that we were going to be going to Mexico this summer. Well God changes things. With the violence and everything, God told us not to go to Mexico, so we promptly obeyed. Not really knowing what was going to happen the staff of DLA started to pray about it. God opened up two doors. One to Germany, and another to Honduras. God gave us money, plans, people and desire. It was amazing.

So we now have a team going to Germany that leaves Tuesday. In Germany they will be doing a lot of praying. There is a church in Berlin that is on the rise. We are sensing an awakening in Germany through this church, and we want to help usher that in. The pastor and his wife were at Revival Town a month or so ago, and he started  praying in German. I don’t know what he was saying, but I started to cry. The Spirit was moving through him like crazy. He is a man of God, and I know it. I’m excited for that team.

The team I’m going to be on is going to Honduras. More south of Mexico, and therefore, hotter. w00t! So we leave on Sunday at 3:00 in the morning. Flying out of DIA we will be landing in Honduras sometime that night I think. Our work will mostly be manual labor and working and sweating our butts off. It’s going to be amazing! ha. We’re going to be sleeping on the beach, sweating, and wearing the same pair of underwear the whole time. Believe it. ExOfficio. Check out their underwear. Haha. Anyway….. that’ll be it. I’m not really sure what’s going to happen, but I do know that God is going to move like crazy here, in Honduras and in Germany. I love that we are split up, but I hate it all at the same time.

So I ask that you keep DLA in your prayers over the next couple of weeks. We are going to be pouring so much out, that we will need constant prayers of restoration and of rest in God. God is going to do huge things. Both in our lives and in the lives of those that we are reaching out to. Pray pray pray.

I’ll try to get one more blog up before we leave. About some of the happening around here I’m sure. I’m obviously not going to be taking my Mac with me, so ya… Ha. I’m stoked.

Praying for a heart for the Hondurans,

Morgan

The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says “what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives – swap seats with the man on death row – guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don’t you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

This is my prayer for my generation. This is my prayer for the kids who my heart breaks for and the teens that haven’t a clue. I want to see people live this out all the time. I want to live this out. I want to see my friends live this out. This is what we strive for. This is what DLA is aiming for. This is what the church should aim for.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God

and live as if it all depends on them.

Source: http://www.24-7prayer.com/resources/28

Finding More Of God

Just about a week ago I was at a late night prayer meeting. I walked in a little late and the first thing I heard was the leader (Matt Timmermeyer) say that he wanted us to leave different then we came in. He wanted us to have an unreal experience with God that night and he expected God to do great things during that prayer meeting that night. I was expecting it too, I just didn’t know what to do. As I lay on my face crying out to God, 20 minutes later, singing a completely epic version of Phil Wickham’s “You’re Beautiful”, I began to wonder what it took. What it took to go deeper. To know more. To experience God on this deeper level. I looked to where any Christian should look for all answers, the very words of God.

The first Scripture I went to was 2 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Basically, just like it says, we have all power in Christ to get everything we need for life and godliness. That is found in the knowledge of God. Great. So to go deeper, we need to have knowledge of God. The mysteries of God need to be revealed to us. Makes sense. I mean, how can you grow closer to someone you don’t know that much about. The more you know about a person, the closer you grow. It just works out that way sometimes. It says in Proverbs 19:2, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” So really, we need to have some form of knowledge about God before we get all lovey-dovey on him and others. We can have all the passion in the world, but if we don’t have knowledge first, we’ll fall on our faces. So that made sense, but then God threw 1 Corithians 13 in my face, specifically verse 2.

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Um… ok. So I can have all the knowledge in the world, but if I haven’t love, I’m nothing. Great. But it makes sense. I need to have love before I can have knowledge, because anything done that is now out of love is not of God. It says that three things will last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. Ephesians 3:17-19 says: “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” This love is a love that surpasses all knowledge. So that, in a sense, makes love greater than knowledge. So I need more love. Ok cool. Right?

1 John 4:16, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” So God is love. So to get more love we need more God. God is love. God is 1 Cor. 13. God is knowledge. God is zeal and passion and fervor. God is it. Alpha and Omega. So more God is the answer. Then in Colossians 2:6-7 it says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” and then in Luke 9:23-25, “Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?“. These verses are talking about receiving God into our lives and then daily taking up our crosses and dying to ourselves. “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” So to choose God and get more of him, we must choose him everyday and daily take up my cross. I much die to myself and deny my flesh in order to get more of God.

Then in 1 Corithians 9:26-27 Paul says: “Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” That we beat our bodies. Which is a way of dying to ourselves. When we make our body our slave then it has no control over us. We are the ones in control, because we are the master and our body is the slave.

All of that being said just to say this, we find more God by finding his heart. We find his love and try to harness it, even though we will never understand his love for us. It’s way way way too big. And in love will be God. When we see God and are face to face with him we search his face and begin to ask questions and read in order learn more about him. We learn more so we are never caught with our pants down. It’s insane how this stuff was all things that I already know, but God had to reinforce it in me. So I would say that I left that prayer meeting pretty changed. I was going crazy that night. I guess after I left, the Holy Spirit totally fell on that place and moved in a mighty way. I’m going to have to stay longer next time. But God really did a work in my heart in reestablishing some things in my heart. I love that there is so much to God, yet sometimes, it is so simple.

Mind = Blown,

Morgan

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Psalms 62:1-2

Choose Joy

“Choose joy” is a common phrase here among us DLAs. It’s something that, though it may have become a cliché, it still holds loads of truth. Choosing joy is a way to live life. It’s a day to day thing. It doesn’t end in the moment. It is a self-conscience decision that must be made at every moment.

Just two days ago I was going to get my car. A few nights previous I ran out of gas going back home from a friends house. At about 12:30 on Sunday morning I parked my car on the side of the road in the Black Forest area. Sometime between that time and when I went to get it Monday afternoon at about 5:00, someone decided that they wanted to get into my car. Pulling up to my car with a can of gas in the back, I noticed that my window was down. “I know that I rolled up all my windows. Heck, it was raining that night,” is basically what I thought to myself. When I walked closer I realized that my window wasn’t rolled down, but it was in fact broken out. Great. I freaked. I got in my car and looked to see if anything was missing. CD player? Check. Sweet shoes? Check. Wallet? No…

You see, I noticed earlier that day that I couldn’t find my wallet, so I assumed that I left it in my car. So when I saw that it was gone, that was it. I was done. I didn’t know what to do. My wallet was missing, two of Jake’s jackets were missing, and a pair of headphones. Awesome. I was so mad, and so sad at the same time. I was at a loss for words and had so many thoughts running through my mind at the same time. Who would do this to me? Why? Why is my life falling apart right now? Is this what supposed to happen God? I’m out of money, my car is breaking down, friends aren’t being loyal, and now my wallet is gone and my car doesn’t have a window. And to add to my problems I have to deal with the cops and junk. Phone calls and paper work. Fun. Not that I haven’t dealt with cops enough in my life. 7+ car accidents and a few other instances in my life. Cops are second nature, but still not fun.

That’s what I was thinking anyway.

I called my mom and was less than patient and nice to her. I vented. Big time. Why why why why? She just told me that it was going to be ok, and that we would figure this all out. Mom stuff. But it’s interesting how when something like this is going down, it takes on a different life. It rings with more truth. You want to believe it more than you ever have. So I did. Hoping that it was going to be ok. Then about half way home I just started crying. Self-pity mostly. Jake, who was riding with me hadn’t said a word. Then we pulled into the house and Jake, being the amazing guy that he is put the rest of the gas from the can into my car and stood there for a bit, while I sat in my car still and cried. He then leaned in through the open (ie. broken) window and said, “Ya know man, this is what we’re training for. Things are going to get hard. Life is going to suck. But we can’t give up. When your marriage gets hard and you don’t want to go on, are you going to give up? When your kids are being brats, are you going to give up? When you don’t know if you’ll be able to pay the bills, are you going to give up? We have to fight.” (He said something like that anyway). It was all I needed to hear. I looked up, nodded, and got out. I gave him a nice big hug and went in.

It was interesting how quickly my mood shifted. It was a huge paradigm shift. I was choosing to let this situation beat me up. I let the enemy in and do his work, and do it well. While all I needed to do was choose joy. So after that, I chose joy. Even when I talked to my mom later that night she said that there was something different. I was definitely more happy than I was the last time I talked to her. It was all because I chose joy. As much as it sucks not to have a car, not to have money and to be torn apart between friends, God is still God and always will be. He is never changing and He is my source for life. Not those other things, but God. I’ve been realizing that more and more and more. God is ALL I need. I’ve been beaten up physically, mentally, spiritually, and now financially. But through it all, God is here, by my side and picking me up each time. I’ve come to trust. I’ve laid down my pride and given it to God.

So that’s really why “Choose joy” is something I hear a lot. Because it’s so true. You can let the things of this life get you down, or we can look to God and say, “It’s all yours. I don’t know what your plan is in all of this and I don’t know how this is for my good, but I trust you. Have your way.” And He will. I heard just last night, that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. I saw this past two weeks or so how true that is. 10% what happens. 90% how we react. Think about it.

Choosing joy,

Morgan

Romans 8:28 – And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

(Explanation for the absence of blogs)

Well lets see. Two mondays ago I just forgot. We were leaving for Tour (in the process of writing a monster blog for that) and I was getting ready and forgot about it. Monday after that we were still on Tour and I didn’t have my computer with me. Two days ago, well I didn’t have a car so I couldn’t get to the church to get online. And then all that junk happened, so my day was pretty crammed after that. So sorry that I haven’t been keeping up. I got a slew of blogs in the works coming this way. And I have no idea what the picture means…. ha.

When Home Isn’t Enough

Do you ever feel like you just want to get away? Like everything around you is falling apart, in your mind, and you just want to leave? It’s a time when no one seems to be behind you, even though a whole slew of people are backing you up, and you are fighting this fight for life on your own, but you still know you’ve got Jesus at your back. At 19, I totally was feeling this. Like I would do anything to get out of my house, and darnit, no one was going to stop me.

This last week I was praying to God in Heaven and he showed me a two very cool things. It was like he showed me the heads side of the coin and then the tails side. He revealed to me something good and then something… not so good.

I was thinking about home. Just about my bro and my parents and my friends and my church. The big stuff. And the 3 months that I’ve been here I honestly haven’t missed home once. I’ve been back twice for different occasions, but when I was there, I was restless to leave. Could it be that I’ve grown up? Heavens no! Ha. But God reminded me that it was never a “weird transition” for me to move down here. I just kind of did it. Sure I don’t have all my stuff, but I’ve got everything I need. I never once looked back and said that I may want to do something else. I came to Colorado and now it’s my home. I’ve been coming to realize that my home isn’t my current location on the globe. It’s in the presence of God. It’s not Cheyenne, WY or Colorado Springs, CO or Kyrgyzstan (WPC flag…legit), it’s with God. In Exodus 33:14-15 it says: “The LORD replied, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ Then Moses said to him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.’”

That’s how I want to live my life. “God, if you are not going to be where I want to go, then I’m not going.” I think I’ve done a good job of this, but it’s always something to keep in mind. My move was easy because God was with me the whole time, and I’ve become dependent on him. I know that I can only be happy when I am where he is. That’s it. It’s not about my ministry, or my spouse (oh please God!!..haha), or who I influence. It’s, “Is God here? Ok, good.”.

Then God showed me the flip side of that. That in my life I have a lot of pride. That I feel like I can do it all on my own without God’s help. That I can get by, or do enough, or be good enough that I don’t need the help of God. A few weeks ago during prayer meeting we got all the guys together and started to talk about pride. How it is something that almost every guy deals with. We want to be able to do things on our own without the help of anyone, even God. I didn’t know how to pray against it, or what to say. I just rested in God and didn’t say a word the rest of the night of the prayer meeting. I was at a loss. The next morning at man workout we did what’s called the 21 gun salute. Groups of 4, first guy does 21 pushups, then the next guy and so on. You get the the first guy and he does 20 then the next guy and then the first guy does 19… All the way down to 1. It’s something like 250 pushups. It’s an insane number. About halfway through that I was done. I couldn’t even hold myself up after each set. I needed the help of others, but I was so embarrassed. I started to cry during this workout that God was working on my pride. That I have to be able to rely on Him and others around me if I even want to get through life.

I’ll never forget those two days back to back. Realizing my pride and then breaking it down. Pride is still an issue, as God showed me, but it’s getting peeled away. Sin issues and strongholds and ogres are like onions. We deal with the first layer, then God tells you to get the next layer, then the next, then the next. Unless God does a radical work in our lives, we will rarely be completely free from a sin overnight. Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Envy are all things that I’ve struggled with for a very long time. Now, they are but memories. I see the hints of the sins creep back in and sometimes I struggle more that I know I should, but by the grace of God I have learned how to overcome these things.

So I learned that even though I am dependent on God in my physical location and situation, I’ve become much too dependent on myself for my spiritual location and situation. “God I need you. I can’t do this life without You. You are my ONLY hope,” is to become my cry. In my life I want nothing more that to chase God, but do I depend on it? Do I need it?

Figuring out what I need,

Morgan

History and Then Some

The week before last was uneventful in light of the things previous and the things to come. A normal week. Workout and class and nightly sessions and stuff. I made some very sweet commitments with God and had some great conversations with friends. The one thing that did hit me hard was while I was reading in one of the Gospels and Jesus says of John the Baptist, that he is the greatest man   that has ever lived. Woah… Greater than Moses or Daniel or the Patriarchs and such. These are the people in the bible that are looked up to, not so much J the B. But he was greater. It got me thinking… What does and what would Jesus say about me? Would I be in the crowds listening to him commend someone else like that, or would I be worthy of such lofty words? But it also makes me wonder, does God look at the weight and size of my ministry, or at the weight and size of my heart and motives? John prepared the way for Jesus to come fully to others, but does my life prepare others to come fully to Jesus? Snap! God just gave me that. That’s deep…

So outside of that experience that I still can’t wrap my mind, heart and life around, the week after was pretty great too. We took a little trip down the road for History. History was basically Mexico training. It was amazing. So much to talk about, and so little time to type…

We started with a night of worship and teaching on Monday. They gave us our team assignments and showed us the dramas that we will learn for Mexico. We learned and practiced said dramas in our teams and really started to get to know our teams. We then broke for dinner and assigned roles in our teams. Things such as a team medic, photographer and food and water. Just specific roles that each member is required to fulfill in History and in Mexico. I got the role of Equipment/Back-up Rear Guard. Basically I haul all the stuff that needs hauling and my secondary is being a rear guard, which is sweet. I basically get to be a protector of my team. Making sure that everything is in check, that people are where they need to be and that the people on my team are safe. Dale (the main rear guard on our team) and I get to do this. I’m so excited that Dale is our main Rear Guard. I trust the lives of our girls in his hands. That’s a good feeling. We then had some worship time and got some of the Word from the Missions Pastor. Really good stuff. Talked about how when Saul was searching for donkeys, a boring and humiliating task, he was anointed to be king. Think about it… ha. Then we got on the bus with all of our hundreds of dollars of gear and hit the road, not knowing where we were going. We only went about 10ish miles and stopped, arriving at some random camp spot in some random woods. Still not sure where we were, but it was very nice. Slept that night…

The next day we split up into 3 teams, made up of 2 teams of the 6 teams formed the previous day. My team, team #1, Teal, teamed up with team #2, Orange. Team team team. Starts to sound weird huh?  …..

(The following 1500 words were removed for the protection of those who may or may not attend DLA in the future )

So that night we ate some more and then got to go to Revival Town. Basically the best night around the church that there is. It’s always so amazing. We then came back and went to sleep. The next day our teams got to go with Mr. Joseph Couch and do the hike. It ended up being an 8 mile hike with all of our gear on. We’re talking a lot of gear here. I have no idea on the weight, but mine was pretty heavy. (Removed for the ever watching eyes….) We then finished up the hike and went back to camp.

The biggest thing that I got out of the hike was that I can encourage people outside the normal realms of “encouragement”. There were a few people who were struggling during the hike. Just being able to be there for the girls on my team and encourage the other team when they were struggling. There were a few points when we would be going over some pretty difficult stuff, and I would be grabbing the pack of the girl in front of me and grabbing the hand of the girl behind me to make sure that they were ok and able to make it through. Also when we weren’t hiking, we were having our last meal of the trip and a girl on one of the other teams was convinced that she wasn’t going to eat the food. Her partner was telling her she could, and then I went over and started to talk to her and encourage her. I then just told her that at that point it wasn’t about her anymore. It’s about the people of Mexico and that she could only rely on Jesus to get that food down. And she did. Just things like that. That I really can be an encouragement and that people do listen to me when I encourage. It was huge for me.

After the hike, everyone was then told to get all that we had and get on the bus to go to _tag. Why we needed everything we had no idea. After _tag we went back to the camp site and were served another meal, while Ben Johnson (one of the 3rd years) talked to us. All the while different teams were being told to finish their meal and get in a van. Teams were all being separately shipped off. Ben started talking about the call and how we are always supposed to be ready to answer the call, no matter where we are. He then told the last two teams remaining, team 1 and 2, to go in and set up for bed and get ready to sleep. We set up all of our stuff and about 10 minutes later Ben comes in and tells us to pack everything back up. We have been called. The two teams got in separate vans and we took off, headed to who knows where.

(The ending, most amazing thing ever removed. Sorry people. Call me if you want to talk about it. It was epic. )

Basically History was amazing. I can’t say a lot because there are things that need to be kept a secret from people who may go to DLA in the future. All for the experience. Sorry people. That 3000 word blog just got scraped to 1100. haha.

Finally blogged,

Morgan