An Update To Yesterday's Post....

It never ceases to amaze me how God intervenes just when you need Him and how, ultimately, His plan is shown. This happened yesterday only a short time after I wrote my blog about my journey to Ohio and some of the struggles I was having deciding to change my focus and path to look at issues of poverty, crime, war, etc. during my research at school. Let me explain.

I walked into church yesterday morning feeling a little crushed and defeated. I couldn't understand why I was not able to follow where I knew God was leading. I had been thinking over the past couple of days about the movie "Yes Man" with Jim Carrey, where a man is tasked with saying "Yes" to everything and seeing where life takes him. As I sat down with my coffee expecting a status quo service, Abbey leans over with the program and says "You need to look at this..." Here is what I saw:

I sat back, anxiously anticipating service and just praying to God, "I have a feeling You want to speak to me today, so let me have ears to listen." Our Senior Pastor, Jeff Bogue, started a new series called "Wasted" and the message was titled "Saying Yes To God". He spoke on 1 Samuel 3, where God begins to call Samuel, yet at first he doesn't realize it is God calling him and thinks it is just the priest Eli. When Samuel realizes it is God, he says "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."

Jeff spoke about a number of points I won't touch on, but there is one that sticks out and I need to share. He began to speak about following our passions in life and how there are two keys to knowing your passion: 1.) A passion will never go against the heart of God and 2.) your passions will be confirmed by Godly counsel (a group of your Christian peers). Here is where God intervened.

As I sat listening to Jeff speak about Godly counsel, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I normally don't check it in church, but I just had this feeling saying "Just take a glance at it."When I checked my phone, I had a long text message from my brother-in-law, a Facebook message from a friend at my old church in Pittsburgh, and numerous comments and posts on my Facebook and on yesterdays blog from Christian friends affirming my decision, reminding my of my passion for the poor a number of years ago, and really spurring me on towards this decision. All of this at the exact moment that God used Pastor Jeff to teach my about the affirmation of Godly counsel.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the service listening, praying, and, yes, weeping. I couldn't help it and personally, I don't care. God has moved me to tears more times in these past 5-6 months than in my whole life and I see it as an action of Him moving in my life, changing me, helping me grow, and helping me be more Christ like.

Jeff spoke one last thing that struck a chord with me, as I know yesterday I touched so much on my worrying about these decisions. When we are trying to say "Yes" to God, it is important to discern whose opinion we value and who we don't. I spend a lot of time seeking the affirmation and opinion of those who, personally, I don't care for or respect. Yes, I love them as a creation of God but their opinion doesn't matter and isn't needed. It was just another little eye-opener for me that I seek approval from everyone, even those who I don't even care about their opinion on anything else otherwise. It's wasting my time and the resources God has given me.

I highly recommend you check out yesterday's message. It can be listened to on the Grace Church website under "Latest Audio," as of the publishing of this blog it isn't up yet though. It will be listed at the "Wasted" series. Also, if you click on Podcast it will take you to iTunes where you can download it.

The impoverished and my own inability to serve

I will preface by saying that this blog may be a little more personal than those that I normally post because I am going through a few things in my mind and am using this post as a way to sort those out. While to some these things may not seem like a big deal, to me these are some life-changing decisions that may be made...but let me explain

To those that know, in the fall of 2011 I left my job at Orchard Hill Church as the Sports and Recreation Coordinator for Michigan, where I was to be the Stewardship Coordinator for the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy. I thought this was my dream position and what God really wanted me to do, not realizing that my relationship with God at that time was an all-time low. I spent approximately 2 1/2 weeks in Michigan before I found myself back in Pittsburgh, at 24, without a job, and living with my parents. My parents were loving and kind enough to let me live for free and give me a job at one of their Subway stores with enough hours and making enough pay to pay my student loans, car payment and insurance, and still have a little left over to be able to do things. On Christmas Eve 2011, I had been bumming around Pittsburgh for 3 months, couldn't find a job, and I remember telling my mom, "Things aren't right between me and God and it's time I get them back on track." It had been a long while since I had found myself on my knees in prayer, but I was in my room and fell to my knees and told God, "You've put me through a lot of crap and I thought I was faithful. I'm sorry I strayed away from you and decided that, once again, I could do life on my own. I can't and I don't want to.  Help me." God worked wonders beyond what I could believe.

Within a week, it was brought to my attention that Kent State's deadline for fall admission had not passed yet for their doctoral program in geography (a program I had wanted to go to for my Masters and never finished the application, choosing to go back to Slippery Rock instead). I hastily gathered my application materials and wrote my essay about how I wanted to study connecting green spaces in urban areas to allow wildlife to move between these parks for mating purposes, etc. God showed up again.

Within 3 weeks, I had an offer from Kent State's Department of Geography to start my doctoral studies with (get this!) no tuition and they would pay me a salary to teach. Within days of hearing about this position, I found an internship in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park writing educational curriculum and I applied to it, never expecting to get it because, at this point, I had applied to around 300 jobs with only a few interviews (I realized recently I had fatal flaws in my resume that employers would throw it out at first glance, but more on that can be talked about later). Well, I got the internship within 2 weeks. Here is how God's hand worked in this. If I wouldn't have gotten the internship, I would have moved to Kent in August 2012, grabbing an apartment in the Rootstown/Alliance area, so I would be halfway between campus and home (40 minutes either way). God had a different plan. He put me in Akron, OH. 

Why is this significant? Well, my best friend had met his fiance online so I figured "New city, I know no one, why not give it a try?" Within a week, I was speaking with a lovely woman and made plans to meet her. If I was living in Alliance, this would have been out of my possible dating range because where she lived, I figured, was too far. But, as I said, God put me in Akron. I moved here in May and less than 24 hours after moving here, I found myself at a winery stepping out of my car and seeing a beautiful girl step out of hers and my awkward first words "Well, you must be Abbey?" 5 months later, I asked that woman to be my wife. 34 days from the time I write this, we will be standing at the alter in a church in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (where we first met and fell in love) and starting our life together. She is the most Godly woman I have ever met in my life and spurs me to pursue Christ in all I do. 

When I moved to Akron, I researched churches and Grace Church was the top one I wanted to check out. Imagine this, Abbey went to Grace Church and I got plugged in right away. Hmm...imagine this, we wanted to join a small group. God gave Abbey a new neighbor named Daniel, who also went to Grace. We were all invited to a neighborhood BBQ and decided to go. Daniel knew a couple of people from church, so introduced us. We met Caleb and Hannah and talked with them for a while. When we asked the church to pair us with a small group, they paired us with a new group Caleb and Hannah were starting (within walking distance of 1 block to where Abbey lived then). They have since become great friends and great leaders. We have built a great community here in Akron with great new friends and growing relationships

I put my faith in God, and realized I couldn't do life on my own anymore, and within these spans, here is what He gave me (and now us):

• Doctoral Education (Paid for!): 1.5 months
• Internship in the national park near Akron: 2.5 months
• Met a woman who would now be my wife: 3 months
• Got plugged in at a church that feels like home (today I am taking their membership class!): 3.5 months
• Got plugged into a community and small group: 5 months

Who knew, a year ago, I would be living in Akron, back in school (a doctorate is one of two main goals I set for my life), getting married, and once again experiencing true Biblical community I thought I would never find after leaving my old small group. To say God had a plan is an understatement. All is took was me on my knees praying forgiveness and for him to enter back into my life and that I would be open to where He guides me. 

Ahhh, but this brings me to my current dilemma. Done reading by this point, that's ok. This next part explains what I'm currently going through. 

I entered Kent with the idea of studying urban planning, parks, green space....the same things I've studied for the past 5 years. Seemed great and, almost easy. Well, let me backtrack.

Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Shortly after the earthquake, I met with a friend at Orchard Hill and said "I will do whatever it takes to get myself to Haiti this summer." Well, God got me to Haiti that summer for 2 weeks, another week that fall, and back again for 2 weeks the following summer. My eyes had been opened to the impoverished world that lies only a few hundred miles off of the southern tip of Florida...the bacteria filled water, burning trash, emaciated children, the violence, the drugs, the struggles, and, most importantly, the hope in the eyes of the Haitian people to see a difference in their country. 

Got put my in a church in Akron that does their main ministry in Haiti....so each week as I hear about their ministry there my eyes filled with tears. During my class in Geographic Thought (essentially, philosophy and social theory), my eyes were opened up to a number of political issues looking at war, violence, drugs, etc. (all that I struggled to process in Haiti). God is calling me....and I'm scared.

Things weren't sitting right when I thought about doing urban planning, as I knew God has called us to do big things in our lives to served the "least of these," "care for orphans and widows in their distress," and "love your neighbor as yourself." Here is what I believe God has been telling me, "Remember that passion you had to help Haiti? I haven't put you here in Ohio to continue studying parks. I want you to study poverty and I want you to continue the passion I put in your for Haiti. I put you here because here are the resources, opportunities, and experts that can help you do that for Me." And I can't get it off of my mind. I have been meeting with a professor in the department who is one of the nation's leading scholars on war and violence (and, conversely, peace geographies). He lit up at the notion of studying the role of Christian non-profits in addressing structural issues of violence in Haiti, especially related to child labor slavery (in Haiti, these child slaves are called "Restavek").

No longer do I feel uneasy about what I want to study (as I did when I couldn't decide on a topic related to parks and urban planning), but I feel scared. Scared that God is going to call Abbey and I to something bigger than we can handle, scared that He may use this to put us in uncomfortable situations, and just in general scared of the situations this may put us in. Scared of the future and employment opportunities that come with this. Scared of a number of things, but yet God puts in my mind the eyes of the children I met in a poor house in the northern Haiti town of Limbé and I weep and realize that, yes, God does want me here. 

A child in Limbé's poor house. Photo by Rob Norris, 2010

He has a plan, but once again, I am scared to do it. Even with Abbey by my side pushing me to follow His calling, I am scared. A life devoted to serving the poor and the needy (whether in the US or abroad)? God, really? Why this? Why not study something that will give me a cushy office job, a huge salary, and a 9-5 that will get me home to my wife and kids? What are you calling me to do? So, this is where I currently sit, 24 hours before the start of the spring semester, and still not being able to decide on a class because of the fear that changing this one class will set that research in place and that I will slide down this path towards poverty research. Living God's calling for my life, I believe. But also a path I prayed He wouldn't send me down. 

He had a plan for me this spring and He still does. I need to follow it and I know this. As Abbey told me last night (paraphrased), "You get so many ideas, yet every week you come back to wanting to study Haiti. When will you just realize this is what God wants you to do and stop fighting it because of your own fear? We will be fine, we will go where He wants us to go. The only true way to succeed is by following His plan."

I have been re-reading Richard Stearn's "The Hole In Our Gospel" about the need for the church to serve the needy. He was the CEO of Lenox China (dinnerware) and former CEO of Parker Brothers, yet God called him (I mean, wouldn't let go of the idea! You need to read the book) to take a position as President of World Vision. A drastic pay cut, moving family cross country, and finding himself spending a lot of time in some of the biggest slums in the world...yet he did it. If a corporate CEO can do this, why can't I?

So, I ask for prayers and I thank you for taking the time to read this and see what is going on in my life as of recent.