Back to Breathing

Well, my crazy week has finally ended. Though the last few weeks have been full of activity leading up to this one, all of the frantic activity is behind me, and I can start to get back to what might even be called a normal life. Not that I didn't have a good time; all of the hard work really paid off in the end, and I'm so glad to have had these opportunities the past few weeks.

In case I've lost you, I'm talking about the close-packed series of IV events I was helping out with this week. The first of these was the evangelism table we did in the UNM Student Union Building. We decided to try a slightly unorthodox form of evangelism. For a few hours each day, we had a display board set up with the prompt "What do you hate about Christianity?" with space for students to come by and add their responses. Honestly, I was a little worried going in that the event would result in a lot of heated arguments, but by God's grace we were able avoid anything like that, though there was a lot of discussion on some controversial topics. We had great, honest responses from Christians and non-Christians alike, including frustration with hypocrisy, anger toward the hateful attitude Christians often have for people "under sin", and heartfelt requests that Christians return to the heat of the Gospel:the love God shows to sinners in spite of their sin. We then would interact with the students, asking them follow-up questions like what their religions background was and what experiences they have had with Christians to lead to their responses. Some really great conversations came out of these interactions, and though none of the students we talked to expressed an interest in becoming a follow of Christ, I'm sure that God softened some heats though what we did those two days.

Another major event this week was my talk at the IV Large Group this week. I spoke on John 9, where Jesus heals a man born blind, and tried to emphasize the way Jesus provided not only physical sight but spiritual sight as well. It was designed as an evangelistic talk - kind of a follow-up to the table - but unfortunately, even though we passed out more than 70 fliers at the table (wow!), no new students showed up except for one guy who knew one of the girls from the worship team. It was a little discouraging giver all of the students who seemed interested in showing up. I'm also not sure how well the talk itself went. I spent a fair amount of time preparing for it, but all the same it felt really unpolished, and think I could have done a much better job with it. I've never really felt like a fantastic orator, though I can get by when needed, and I think the talk solidified for me the notion that speaking from the Word is something God will need to continue to help me with. All the same, I'm glad I was able to have the opportunity even if my expectations happened to be a little different from God's.

Finally, on Friday we had the IV guys' and girls' nights out. I can't really speak for the girls, but the guys' night was awesome. We decided to go all-out with masculine activities, so we had a meat-only BBQ, fought with form swords (drawing only a little blood), and watched Braveheart. We then finished the night by watching Lady in the Water and having a serious discussion on how we find our identity though Christ. Oh, and the whole night we were all shirtless and were "tribal paint".

My Dad's chemo therapy continues to go well; thank you so much for the prayer support! He's had almost no adverse reaction to the medicine, has been staying active, and still even has all his hair.God has been so faithful to us during this trying time. The next round of chemo won't bee for a while still, but I'll be sure to keep you updated as things progress. Have a blessed week, and l'll have my next update this Wednesday as usual.

"Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever."
- Psalm 23