welcome!

'shine your eyes’ is a phrase that I picked up in liberia, west africa. it means to open your eyes and see the Truth. this is my hope for people everywhere, myself included, that we will continually be transformed to see and be the ideals God has set forth as the Kingdom. the book of isaiah says it this way:

'see, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. the mind of the rash will understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.’ isaiah 32:1-4

currently this is taking shape in my life working with bahamas habitat. we are working to provide aviation support to bahamas methodist habitat, a hurricane relief/sub-standard housing repair organization based in the bahamas. know that we would love for you to come spend some time with us as we take part in all the beautiful ways that God is loving His creation.

in the words of mother teresa, “pray for me that i not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor.” and i pray that in all that you do, whether coming to the bahamas, serving in haiti or celebrating life in your part of the world that you will simply love and come and see all that God has for us. let this place be a place of celebration and conversation for us to greater understand life with one another.

‘and because of our faith, He has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand. and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has in mind for us to be.’ –romans 5:2

peace.

11.15.2009

work permit and "owey owey owey"

there are three islands just off the north tip of eleuthera:  harbour island, spanish wells and current island.  let's be stereotypical.  harbour is for the tourists and rich folk, spanish wells is where the white bahamians live and current is where 20 people settled and the future site of the zion children's home.  just about two weeks ago the methodist conference approved us to be the project leaders to build a children's home on current island.  two women from current have a vision from God that began about 2 years ago to build the home.  here we go!  it's an incredible blessing and plan to start on the cleared ground with the teams in march if all goes as planned.

i've been awake since 4:45 this morning because!!!  we went surfing at sunrise at surfers beach this morning!  the waves were monstrous..too much for surfing even.  besides not having surf boards, the waves were killer.  abe tried surfing and gave a quick surfing lesson and demo:

 lesson 1: "play the tide, don't let the tide play you" after trying to paddle out and getting tossed back on shore.
lesson 2: "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" after being owned by the waves
lesson 3: "if surfing doesn't work out, you get good exercise!"

then, abe, matt and i decided to get owned by the waves for the next 2 hours.  video is attached.  see, the sand just before the tide line has sinking sand (caedmon's call anyone?) that you'll be running running running and then drop down in knee-deep sand.  so my goal was just to make it to the water before getting knocked down like a bowling pin, the waves being the bowling ball that is.  if you need an image in your head, imagine me literally rolling like a rag doll in the waves being tossed on shore screaming like the 'grape lady': "owey owey owey!"  if you do not know this reference, search "grape lady" on youtube.  at one point i was washing off the sand from my bathing suit and looked up, saw literally a 10 foot + wave, turned around to accept my fate and was swept off my feet to be parallel with the water and crashing down.  it was hilarious.

my work permit was approved this week too!  good news!

we had our first community meal this past thursday.  my hope is that we will intentionally eat together with semi-guided conversation that invites those in the community into camp and know that it is a place of genuine hospitality.  i'm excited for this to become regular and the conversation that comes from us being together.  we have it in mind to be a potluck and open ended conversation starters for people in the community, and each other, to get to know each other.  dreams are dreams right now but i feel God is calling us to something more than a meal.  we'll see.

lenny kravitz lives here on the island and has a big recording studie.  last night we went to a local place where his bass player and band manager were playing with i'm pretty sure james taylor under the cover as a guy named maurice.  i'm on to his game..

there is a lot happening.  a lot of wonderfully blessed elements going on.  i'm learning a great deal about living, eating, working, worshipping, and playing with the same group of people..and all that that entails.  that's for another day because i'm still learning so much.

mother teresa quoted thomas a kempis in his writing, the imitation of Christ: "Love feels no burden, values no labours, would willingly do more than it can, complains not of impossibility because it conceives that it may and can do all things; when weary is not tired; when straightened is not constrained, when frightened is not disturbed; but like a lively flame and a torch all on fire, it mounts upwards and securely passes through all oppositions."

peace.

3 comments:

  1. ridiculously funny video cam.

    beautiful quote, too.

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  2. Cam! Hahaha. I love that once you went down it took a solid 10 or so seconds for you to get back up. But hey, I guess the point is that you DID get back up and went at it again! Ha, oops cheesey lesson there for ya! I miss you bud and am jealous that you're wearing a swimmer! :) I just made that up, fyi.

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