Echoes of the Spirit still dwell

+10 bonus points to anyone who understands the title. :-)

So I got back from Chapter Camp a couple of days ago, and I'm still overwhelmed by the things that God did while I was there. For those of you who don't know, Chapter Camp is a week-long retreat for the InterVarsity chapters in the Rocky Mountain Region that happens every year. My week included the chapters from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Montana, with a total of about 140 students. The camp is always an incredible experience, but I think this year was by far the best I've been to, maybe even one of the most spiritually uplifting weeks I've ever had! Here's an incredibly small sample of some of the things I experienced during that time:

• The lessons for the week were centered around the first 4 chapters of the Gospel of John. Through our chapter study times and the sermons from the speaker, Doug, I was really challenged to not simply understand the scriptures but really apply them to my life. We saw how Jesus invited people to "come and see", not go and see, meaning that we likewise need to be willing to take people on the journey of discovering God's love rather than simply sharing with them and leaving it at that. I personally was really convicted in my lack of any real effort to try to be that kind of person for the non-Christians in my life; it's something I'm now going to try to change, and I hope that you all will keep me accountable in this.
• I had a really great time really connecting for the first time with the UNM chapter. I've hung out with them a lot before in previous years, but this was the first time that I was really able to just focus on them, and I'm really glad that it's such a great chapter with such a desire to see more in the coming year.
• I and a few others from the Tech and UNM chapters participated in a 1/8th marathon - about 4 miles total. It was a really great time, even though I was completely unprepared. I'd never before run quite that far at once, and certainly not at the elevations of the area around the camp. I'm glad I was able to do it, though, and I think that doing the race is going to be incentive for me to run more often and just generally try to get into better shape.
  
• We saw 4 people come to Christ, praise the Lord! In fact, one of them was from UNM, and we had the privilege of baptizing him and another UNM student (who wanted a symbolic break from some things in his past) in the cold, cold water of the stream running through the camp. Major props to Hans the UNM staff worker for his willingness to perform this service for those students even though the water was, well, essentially arctic.
• We were able to witness a number of really great testimonies from many of the students. These ranged from people describing what God has done for them at camp to stories of God's restoration to prayer requests for the work of God in other parts of the world. We even had one girl (who, by the way, will be going on the Kenya project as well), who had been having trouble with her knee even after several surgeries and was having a hard time getting around the camp. Her chapter laid hands on her and prayed for healing during one of our worship sessions, and she was healed, running around the camp with tears of joy on her face praising God with all her might! I've never personally witnessed a faith healing, especially not one where I have seen the transition so clearly, and it was just amazing to see how the power of God was so real during the week in actions such as this.
• One of the sermons involved a call to those who wanted to be more missionally-minded on their campuses. It wasn't just an indication that we wanted to do more witnessing on our campuses, but that we were willing to let God mess up our schedules, our housing arrangements, our grades, and our relationships to be able to work through us as He wills. At least half of the camp chose to publicly make this decision, including me, and I'm sure that in most of the cases this won't simply turn out to be a mountain-top experience that goes nowhere. I believe that God is going to actually work through these commitments, and I've already seen evidence of this. During the UNM chapter discussion of the night and of how to really put our commitments into practice, one of the girls received a vision of me and Hans leading the students between the carcasses of two bulls. This is a symbol from Old Testament times that represents the most serious of covanents, for instance when God tells Abram that he will be the father of many nations. I'm so encouraged that God is showing how He too is on board with the commitments we made, and I'm sure that there will be something awesome to come out of all of this in the coming year!

These are just the tip of the spiritual iceberg I hit during my time at camp, and I wish I could tell you about the friends I made, the prayers I had answered, the worship, and the overall wonderful time of communion I had with God and all those around me. Something big is going to come out of these experiences, and I can hardly wait to see what it will be!

Quick update: I'm pretty much done with my fundraising for Kenya thanks to all of the donations that you have made, and I've started making some progress on the internship funding as well. I still have about $12,000 to raise, but I'm also starting to get some meetings set up to ask people to be part of my support team. Please continue to pray that I will be able to have the financial and prayer support that I will need for the coming year and that I would be able to effectively relate to people the work I will be involved with and the vision God has given me for how He wants to transform UNM.

... and past the finish line!

Well, that's it. It's all over now. No more classes, tests, homework, projects. Just preparing for Kenya and the Internship next year, then work as far as the eye can see. ;)

Yeah, there's a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks/months/years, but for now I'm really glad to just rest for a little and reflect on the college life I'm putting behind. I have to say, it's really been an awesome time, as much as I might have complained at the time. I'm really going to miss that life, and especially the people I got to share it with. It's really you guys who made college worth experiencing.

That's all I have for now. I'll be going to Colorado next week, so I'll pretty much be out of touch for a long while, but hopefully I can give some kind of an update about where I'm at afterward.

The Last Lap

Disclaimer: The following thoughts are in almost no way related except inasmuch as they all relate to stuff that has been happening recently. If you receive some divine insight into a common thread herein, such a concept is completely unintended on my part.

I'm almost done with the semester, and by extension the entirety of my education as far as I can foresee. Praise God, it's almost over, and I survived just as He promised! I'm sure that I'll really miss college and all the cool stuff that's happened over the past few years, but for now it's great to just start sloughing off responsibility and finally get some rest. Ironically, I think I may have lost the ability to make effective use of free time; I feel like I should be doing something productive instead of relaxing. Curses.

I had a bit of an interesting experience yesterday. I subscribe to Popular Science and have for quite a while, so I've gotten into a habit of simply renewing my subscription when I'm told that it's about to expire. So when I received a call yesterday claiming that my subscription would soon expire and that they had a nice continuing readers deal for me, I thought that was just the cat's meow/pajamas. Then, like the cultural robot I am, when they asked for my credit card number etc., I provided it without much hesitation, hung up, and thought "huh, that could have been a bad thing." My dad, who listened to the whole thing, was quick to point out my stupidity with information drawn from my latest issue, noting that my subscription was still good for another 18 months, not exactly the imminent danger that I had been told of. To make a long story short, I was able to experience the joy of being a victim of identity theft. Woohoo. No worries though, as the credit card was canceled before anything bad happened.

On a slightly related note (I know, I promised not to have any of those), I am planning to go see the new Star Trek movie tonight with some of my Tech friends, but I can't pre-order my ticket online since the credit card is no longer valid. In fact, since I also don't really have money on me, there was a bit of a question of how I would actually be getting into the movie. I was at my brother's graduation open house today, though, and one of the families there gave me a graduation gift with cash inside. It's cool to see that God provides, even if it's for something I think of as silly like going to a movie.

I think I'm really starting to be dissatisfied with the way that churches work nowadays. I think my biggest complaint is with the Sunday School program. Yes, it is nice to have little arts and crafts and to tell some quaint little G-rated versions of stories like Samson or David and Goliath, but what is the point? Are we just trying to fill some kind of entertainment void for children while the adults sit in church and hear real messages with actual application? Not that kids don't get that in Sunday School ever, but seriously, the only lessons I can remember were that Jesus loves me or that we should pray for things we want. In the last lesson I saw of the Truth Project, Dr. Tackett showed a copy of the New England Primer, a small book designed to teach 1st graders in the 1800's how to read. It was not the same "see Spot run" junk that we teach nowadays in school. It taught words like "fornication" or "abomination". It taught the catechisms, so that children could answer questions like "What was the nature of Jesus?" How many adults do you know in the church today that could accurately or even adequately answer such questions? We have become complacent, and we are raising generations of spiritual dunces. Is it any wonder that people wonder how the church can be relevant in the modern world when all they grew up doing in church was coloring pictures and eating animal crackers?

I owe something of a debt of gratitude to my friend Marcus for recommending another blog to me: Stuff Christians Like. It's a really awesome site that talks about stuff that we have all seen in the church which is just a little rediculous. For instance, "#22. Mixing sign language and music." or "#80. Fixing things with mo' prayer or mo' bible." It's a hilarious look at some of the stuff that defines Christian culture in America, and while I don't always agree with everything the guy says, he's really great at showing how much we go out of our way to do things the "churchy" way. Whether or not you are a Christian, I highly recommend it. Seriously, read it. Like now.

Fundraising update: I'm almost there with the Kenya giving. Last count was at $4,070 of $4,725! I've also been working on my Case for the Internship, which is basically the little presentation I plan on giving to people who are thinking about supporting me for next year but want to know about what I'll actually be doing. So far I don't have any monthly contributions, but I have one-time gifts currently totalling $900. Very cool! Keep praying for me as I try to reach the support goals for both programs, and that I'll be ready for both experiences as the time for them approaches. Also, thanks everyone for your support, both money and prayers! I really appreciate it, and I'm sure God will bless you for them.