God Grew Tired of Cheesy Films….

….so He inspired some folks to produce one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. So, stop whatever you are doing right now, and go rent “God Grew Tired of Us.” It is the inspirational story of a bunch of Sudanese boys who escaped the Islamic genocide of Christians in southern Sudan. They made a grueling journey across the desert when they were young boys and spent the rest of their childhood in refugee camps. None of the boys have seen their families since they were little, and many of their families have been brutally murdered during the ongoing Muslim jihad. Now that the boys are grown, the world is trying to figure out to do with them because they cannot safely return to their homeland, and life in the refugee camps offers no future for them. A number of the boys have been chosen to come live in the U.S. to work and to finish their education, and “God Grew Tired of Us” follows several of them during their first few years in America.
This film aroused so many emotions in me when I watched it. It made me angry that the world has stood by and done nothing as the Muslim jihad continues. It mad me cry that these young men are faced with the reality that their families and homeland have been decimated and are forced to live as strangers in a very strange land. It made me feel a deep joy as I watched them adapt to American culture with innocent and open hearts. The first time they all try to go up an escalator in the airport is hysterical. Anyway, all I can really say is GO WATCH THIS FILM!
(There is a similar documentary to this one called “The Lost Boys of the Sudan,” but “God Grew Tired of Us” is considerably better)

A Tough Loss

Well, all my fellow Buckeyes are in mourning tonight after a disappointing loss to Illinois in The Shoe. I keep telling myself that sports would get boring if all my teams won every week. Oh well, there’s always next year.

On a more cheery note, I heard a quote tonight that I thought was great. We were watching the movie Almost Famous and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character says, “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” How true that is….

Ministry Update

I don’t want to get into too many details about life and ministry in Eagle, but I did want to give y’all a general overview on how things have been going in my first six or seven weeks here. So, here are a few updates and thoughts:
1. I’m feeling more and more confident that God has called us to serve here. Ministry certainly has its challenges, and I’ve been busier this past month than at any other point in my life. But, the business has been good. I’m working hard, but I’ve really enjoyed the work. I take this to be a sign that I’m pretty well suited/gifted for this ministry. I still have many times when I feel like the challenges are pretty big and I’m not sure what I should do next, but I’m actually enjoying the challenges and feel inspired to attempt to overcome them.
2. I’ve been spending a lot of time just building relationships. I’ve realized that in ministry I must overcome my fear of taking the initiative to call people, visit them, and begin to build relationships with them. When I served in MN, I know that I became too standoffish. I’ve been trying to call and visit a lot of people here, and the more I do it, the more I see how essential this aspect of my ministry is. In fact, it can seem so important that I can easily understand how some ministers end up neglecting their families, prayer lives, preparation time, and study time in order to spend all of their time “out there” trying to participate in Christ’s incarnational ministry among people. I know that I must continue to take the initiative to call, visit, and connect with people, but I also must guard against neglecting other essential aspects of life and ministry.
3. God has been giving us hope. Everything is not perfect, but I really believe that God is working and leading us. He is helping me to see things not as they currently are, but as he desires them to be. I am seeing that people and church structures are flawed, but he is reminding me that his Spirit is at work building and expanding his kingdom through Christ’s transformational grace. Everyday I am reminded of his grace. His grace is giving me great hope.