A kettle on the Fire

Passion for good deeds

rebreakfast — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 11:21:02 +0000

“Christ did not die to make good works merely possible or to produce a half-hearted pursuit. He died to produce in us a passion for good deeds. Christian purity is not the mere avoidance of evil, but the pursuit of good.”

- John Piper

I’m hitting a John Piper kick once more.

I have always loved learning and I believe that those even outside of school should be striving to learn more. As the disciples themselves did, we should devote ourselves to fellowship, breaking of bread, the study of the Word and prayer. Honestly I am a nerd, half of my ‘perfect day’ would be spent curled up reading somewhere. I love the knowledge that can come from a book, especially when it is in reference with the bible and God. I get a ton out of novel, but at the same time I like very detailed studies on the Word.

Right now I’m starting a study on Hebrews by John Piper, so be expecting some tid bits on what I learn.

Drained

rebreakfast — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:35:35 +0000

One night in Haiti we had a teaching on passion. We split into groups and discussed where it comes from, why people get burned out in the areas they are passionate in, and how to not become burned out. My group agreed that people become burned out because they lean on their own strength and enjoyment when we should rely on God for strength and His glory for our enjoyment.
I believe that when we depend on our own strength and things get hard, we usually have no reason to push forward and therefor become frustrated and burned out. But when we are depending on God’s strength and doing everything for His glory we aren’t factoring our enjoyment/how easy something is into whether we press forward, instead we focus on the fact that when we do something simply because God has given us the gift and we want to use it for Him, we can sometimes feel His pleasure in walking out in it. To quote Eric Liddle, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure”. Our purpose is to worship Him, but He has given us passions to walk out while we are here.

Two days ago I flew in from Haiti. Since then I have mainly slept and caught up with family and friends and I am extremely exhausted. Honestly I don’t understand why I feel so tired, but I keep thinking about Haiti and how little sleep I got, how often I went all day on pb&js, would spend half the day in blistering heat and yet I was never exhausted. I was very tired, but I still had strength and energy to everything I needed to. I was the appointed photographer for the group I helped lead down there, this role carried over after they left, and there were a couple times when I wasn’t thrilled about hauling my camera along with me, but for the most part I was very excited.
Anyways, my point is that since getting back from Haiti I now can feel how much the trip wore on me physically, spiritually and emotionally. Too me the crazy thing is that God gave me so much energy while I was there in Haiti, while I was walking out in the passion He has given me, to the point that I didn’t even realize how much I was putting into my time there. Talk about God keeping me under His wing.

Discipleship

rebreakfast — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:32:25 +0000

The devastation here is unbelievable. And the problem didn’t start with the earthquake. The mindset of the Haitians is so different than Americans. Most of them just simply want to leave, yes they care about their families, but besides that they want to cut ties with Haiti. When the earthquake hit it gave Haiti a new beginning because all of a sudden the world cared, but even with all the help, food, supplies, and water that has been given the nation is still in a horrible state. Many of the YWAM Port au Prince and St. Marc leaders believe the condition of the nation hasn’t changed because there hasn’t been any discipleship; food and water are always given, wells are even dug, but the people don’t know how to maintain anything.
Right now the YWAM bases are working on teaching the people in tent cities irrigation techniques and how to maintain a house (which we will HELP them build). There is a need, but first there needs to be action on their part. A mind set needs to be changed, before Haiti can move forward.
Millions of dollars have been thrown at Haiti since January and when I drive the streets here there is no sign of it.

Politik

rebreakfast — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 01:16:27 +0000

Look at earth from outer space
Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space

Give me real, don’t give me fake
Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul
Give me time, give us a kiss
Tell me your own politik

Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Just open up your eyes

Give me one, cause one is best
In confusion, confidence
Give me piece of mind and trust
Don’t forget the rest of us

Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul
Wounds that heal and cracks that fix
Tell me your own politik

Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Just open up your eyes

And give me love over, love over, love over this, ahhh
And give me love over, love over, love over this, ahhh

Today I taught the team I am helping lead to Haiti a drama put to this song. During my DTS, three years ago, Chad came up with the idea and a couple of us put the whole thing together. The entire song is mouthed as a dialoge between God, satan and man.
I have color coded the lyrics to help yall out.
Bold font = God
Normal font = Man
Red font = satan

I love this drama and not only because my DTS made it but because it depicts our will as humans to be strong without God, the destruction that it leads to and Gods undying love for us. I also have never seen one done quit like this. And it’s to a Coldplay song … can’t get much better.
When I showed the group a video of this drama, as preparation, one of the comments was “this makes me want to cry”, because it portrays God’s love and our true desperation for Him so clearly.

I’ll leave you with this: God is singing to you, asking for your love.

Bowling Shoes

rebreakfast — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:31:18 +0000

Recently I came to the realization that I needed to let go of “home” and of course this revelation came while I was sitting on a bathroom floor staring at a pair of bowling shoes.

As part of Youth Department training we had some required fun activities; we called them “forced fun” times. Last Saturday was one of these times. All 18 of us went bowling in the morning and then went over to a house to watch a World Cup game. Somewhere in between frame 4 and 5 of the first game I ended up running to the bathroom, trying to keep myself from sobbing.
Being here in Orlando without my family and friends has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. For once in my life I actually have healthy relationship with my sister, my mom and I are closer than ever, and I have a lot friends who have made it past all my barriers. Unfortunately every single one of these people live in Greenville, North Carolina. With Saturday being my sisters graduation I already had a bad case of “it” aka homesickness, but adding in the bowling alley knocked me off the edge.

To give a little insight: As a kid my dad would take my sister and I bowling rather frequently. He was on several leagues and loved to bowl and we loved the fact that there was also an arcade there. Since his death I’ve been bowling maybe three times …. and never outside Greenville.

Being homesick is a weird thing. Everything reminds you of home. Food, smells, clothing. Or the lack of them makes you realize how much you appreciate. Before moving to Florida three months ago I had never experienced this.

Sitting on that bathroom floor I stared at my shoes. These shoes that hold so many memories in my mind. My sister and I trying our hardest to use correct technique, running around in the arcade, and attacking a plates of chili cheese fries. That is home for me. And sadly enough I need to learn how to make new memories. Not to let go of any, but to be able to move forward in life. I don’t know how to explain this, but the realization that I was holding on, rather tightly, to home hit me while I sat there. A practical way to start walking this out came to mind: my name.
Since being here I have been very adimit about the fact that I want to be called Ireland, not Rebekah, Beckie, or Beccah. Yes, part of it is because there is another Rebecca here and I don’t like people to shorten my name. But when people have called me by my first name I have offended and upset, much more then I should have been. It is because I was associating my name with home. Every time someone called me by my first name it reminded me of home and because I wasn’t letting go, it would hurt. Sitting on that dirty tiled floor I decided to let go. It was just a thought, a simple choice, but it made a difference. I’m moving forward now.

Funny how much a pair of bowling shoes could change my life.

Shredded

rebreakfast — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:10:55 +0000

Miami traffic is ridiculous.
One morning we went to a campus twenty minutes aways and it took us a little over an hour to get there. I could never live there.
On the way back to the church that same day we all heard something “hit” the van. Shortly after most of us were thinking that Brenden was a bad driver, because he was swerving so much. Then our tire popped. Seems up untill that moment he himself was thinking that the wind was super strong, because he was having a hard time keeping us straight. I have to say I’m very proud of how smoothly Brenden got us out of traffic and onto the medium.

Personally I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tire so shredded. I even grabbed one of the many pieces to put in my scrap book …. haha.

Probably the most annoying part of breaking down in the middle of the highway was that there wasn’t anywhere to sit. Yes it was hot, humid, bright, loud and we didn’t have water, but no one really complained.

to the right: Chad and I waiting to get back in the van.

While out there one of the only things I could think about was my camera, which was not with me , and how cool it would be to do a photo shoot there. There was a ton of traffic flying by at such high speeds I felt like it would make for great contrast.

Funny, Neva was the only one who thought smiling wasn’t appropriate for being broken down in the middle of Miami.

Thankfully Aaron and Lee knew how to change a tire. Though it did take them a little while to find the spare, which was hooked underneath the van. Turned out the spare tire in the van went to the trailer.

Lesson learned: When a loud noise is followed by swerving, there is probably a flat tire involved and some quality time on the interstate.

International Night

rebreakfast — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:25:26 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people crammed into K2 (we nickname all the houses). International Night was a time for all of us to come together and celebrate our nationalities with food.

I personally decided to contribute sweet tea to the menu; I thought about mashed potatoes but decided to go with something a little easier to make. And Im glad I did since no one else thought to bring a drink.

There were people there representing tons of countries: Nigeria, Sweden, Japan, Egypt, Canada, Russia, Dominican Republic, and Switzerland and others I can’t remember.

What I loved the most, of all the food, was the borsch. I don’t know who even brought it, but being able to have a bowl of beet soup was surprisingly very satisfying. Oddly enough I think I had borsch only twice in Russia.

to the left: Ibrahim (Nigeria), Theresa (Sweden),and Keturah (Japan)

below: Patrick (one of the DTS students this quarter) eating borsch.

Rainy Day

rebreakfast — Sat, 29 May 2010 18:35:22 +0000

The sky is falling
Dropping as little stars
taking over every leaf and stone
and crawling like darkness into my being
Shivering, I turn my face upward
dropping little tears down and
asking the cool to crawl within me
Thunder rolls answering
as the stars envelope me

I can not explain to you how refreshing and soothing a rainy day is. I’ve been asking God for one and here it is
Right now I am soaked to the bone, wrapped in a towl, sitting on the couch in the back room, sipping on Russian tea and reading “Funding You Ministry” (not exactly my prime choice but I have to have it read in less than 3 weeks). My house is almost empty right now, kinda weird since eleven people live here, and the thunder is softly reminding me of how beautiful today is.

This morning I had my prayer shift outside and then went for a bike ride …. it was wonderfully sunny. This is the beauty of Florida weather.

Welcome to Miami

rebreakfast — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:07:08 +0000

A lot of people will think of Will Smiths single ”Miami”, released back in 1998, when they read Miami. Sadly I had never even heard of this song until someone started singing it when I mentioned I was going.
I had never been to Miami and truthfully had no clue what to expect, besides a party town. Now that I have been I can actually agree with this statement, but at the same time there is so much more to Miami. Weirdly enough Will Smiths song does hint at what it is like -

“…Can y’all feel me, all ages and races
Real sweet faces
Every different nation, Spanish, Hatian, Indian, Jamaican
Black, White, Cuban, and Asian…”

I can’t tell you how odd it was to be in such a cultural place. At one of the campus’ we would go to in the mornings I seriously would be the only white person in sight; and it was so neat! There were Haitians, Jamaicans, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and Cubans. Seeing all of the culture mix together on a campus was very beautiful.
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“Party in the city where the heat is on
All night, on the beach till the break of dawn
Welcome to Miami”

One night we went to South Beach to talk to people. My partner and I went to Starbucks first (my first and only time in Miami) and then started walking. The first couple we approached couldn’t speak any English, fail, so we kept walking and being amazed by how cool all the shops and restaurants were. We ended walking over to this guy, Dave, and praying with him for quit some time. He was in the process of acquiring housing there and was making money by selling palm branch creations to tourist. Praying with him was such a blessing; not only did he come away blessed but we did as well. And he gave both of us some creations
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“Yo I heard the rainstorms ain’t nothin to mess with”

I first night in Miami it POURED.

Mochi

rebreakfast — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:37:26 +0000

Today we went to the Farmers Market. We went and no one else was there (a bad source told us it was on Saturday when in real life it’s on Sunday). So we ended up walking around Lake Eola. Coming from a place where you have to go to River Park North to see geese, I was in complete awe. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to swans! Sadly enough it seemed that I was the only one interested in trying to pet one so I had to run catch up with everyone instead.

Someday I will go back and this time I’ll have my camera (no, none of these photos are mine) and people who will wait (even if I have to force them) By the way, this ties into this past weeks teachings. We watched the Passion videos by Floydd McClung, which focused on passion. For small group this past week we incorporated the teaching and asked God to give us something to encourage someone else in their passions. Part of my encouragement was, “God has created you to capture the beauty others can’t see”. This is the second time this has been actually spoken over me, among the many times people comment on it. Well this afternoon made me think about this word.

We did end up at the Flea Market for a bit, though it wasn’t appreciated and we left.
Fact: I love flea markets. I like making a day of it. Wake up early, spend several hours roaming the market, grab lunch at a local cafe or deli and then walk around downtown – that’s a wonderful day to me. Course I would only do this maybe once a month.

Back to my day; after dinner we decided to try to new frozen yogurt place right next to the new theater. Mochi Frozen Yogurt = Amazingness. And yall know I’m not big on sweets. It’s a self serve place where you are charged per ounce, so you control how much it will cost you. And half of the toppings they have are fruit! I ended up with Taro and Kiwi yogurt with kiwi, mango and strawberry toppings.

It was a good day.
Got to know some people a little better and see beautiful things .