For the King and the Kingdom

I'm having so much trouble checking my email!

2008-06-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

i cant seem to access my account. Navigating the system is trouble for me, even as a former computer engineering major. Oh well.

As a result i'm having trouble emailing out my last prayer letter. Fortunately, it's a blog post under June 5th!

Hopefully you'll like it! i'll be writing another one soon since the last letter was making up for no May letter!!

Thanks! i'm having fun in Colorado, i've never been out here and it's giving meaning to the song lyrics, "For purple mountain majesties..."

It's absolutely beautiful! Look at my flickr site for some new pictures!

In Denver

2008-06-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

i'm in Denver right now writing from the basement of a church in the Sun Valley section of the city. Statistically, it has the worst crime in the city. There's a lot of projects around and i heard that there is only 5 or 6 houses in the whole neighborhood. This doesnt fit my concept of the inner city. i'm used to more houses, even though they are run-down. Does anyone know if there is project housing in Rochester, NY. i dont remember seeing any, but that doesnt mean that it doesnt exist.

Our weeks have been jam-packed. The first week i arrived involved orientation with the staff, then we visited Sand Dunes National Park west of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It was amazing. i took pictures but they're on film and some of them are on b&w film so i need to get them processed and scanned before anyone will see any hint of them.

Then our students arrived, we spent a week orienting them, and then we had a week of camp. It was a camp filled with youth group students from Texas. No offense to Texans, but i was picking on them a little bit... Some Texans were talking about how the bridge from the song "London Bridge is falling down..." was dismantled and moved to Texas and i said, "Well, what isnt in Texas..." i'd imagine that there's some Texans that would never feel the desire to leave the state. i'm not sure if that's a reality or not though.

Right now we're in Denver training for the weeks of camp that will be comprised of urban students. As we've seen already they are a handful and discipline will be very important. This will be a great opportunity to practice and grow in an area i've never had to do much with. i'm terrible at discipline, but i'm excited to grow in my understanding of one of my favorite sayings, choices and consequences. It should be a wild ride!

Thanks for your prayers! i really appreciate you all being a part of my team. If you could, please pray that this summer would be refreshing for me as i come off a difficult year in New Orleans, that i would be refreshed especially in my relationship with God, and that i would incline my ear to God's voice concerning my direction in the future!

Thanks again!

(if you want to see a picture of me in the snow on June 5th)

Out here in Colorado

2008-06-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

Here i am in the beautiful state of Colorado!

The manager of the camp here was telling me that many people that live here arent from here, the mountains just attracted them to this place. i can understand why. i'm knee deep in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in maybe south-central Colorado and it's absolutely gorgeous. It even snowed here earlier today! Isnt that crazy.

i arrived here about a week and a half ago and since then it has been a whirlwind of activity as i have meet and worked with the staff, planned for the arrival of our students, worked with the arriving students, set up for the weeks of camp that will soon happen, and try to figure out how to do normal life stuff at the same time.

It's been fun but challenging.

What has been rewarding for me has been spending time with the Lord here. We have an hour scheduled every day and it's much needed! It's very refreshing!

Well, i need to get off the computer so others can use it! See ya!

2008-05-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hello from Colorado! i'm currently sitting at an elevation of 9000 feet in Horn Creek Colorado.

For those of you that i wasnt able to see, i drove back from Louisiana at the beginning of May and stayed in Rochester for about two weeks before leaving for here. It was an extremely brief stay but it was good to be back.

Our work in Louisiana has finished, we closed up shop, but many of my teammates (in fact, most, are going to continue living and working in New Orleans to further the gospel there. That place is in such great need of the love of God and i'm excited they are staying there! As for me, i'm not sure where the next few months will take me. i'm hoping to spend this month and a half in Colorado "finding myself" a little bit and seeing where God would have me and finding out exactly what gifts and talents God has given me and just what it is that i want. i'm discovering that knowing exactly what it is i want is terribly hard!

As we (Danielle and Rebecca from my team are also joining me in Colorado) drove up to Colorado to staff a summer, i was listening to a favorite radio program of mine called This American Life. Each show has a theme and this show's theme was "Big Wide World". The show explored when your world is suddenly blown apart and becomes a lot bigger for you. This exact thing happened to me as i experienced seeing the mountains out here for the first time. This is the farthest west i have ever been in my life and i'm realizing the God's world is way bigger than i've ever experienced and ever can experience. It excites me! It also blows apart my small ideas of what i think my future will look like and leaves me craving more experiences like this one! Just look at those mountains. If you look in the bottom third towards the left our camp is right around there, in the foothills of those mountains! It's amazing.

i'm actually in Colorado for a reason. This is my summer assignment for Crusade. i'm staffing a summer camp for inner city kids from Denver. i'll be discipling college students from around the country as they work the camp and i'll be working the camp myself too! i'm excited to see how things work here since they havent told me much. i'm expecting God to do big things out here. Would you please pray that God would work in my life providing me with direction and a servant's heart out here and for the college students that i will disciple? Thanks so much! Please excuse the quick prayer letter! Computer access is very limited here which is something i'm quite excited about!

Again, thank you so much for your support. i realize that without your generosity i would not be having these new experiences and it means a lot that you would care enough about me to provide them for me. Take comfort in knowing that your gift is impacting eternity through the students i will be able to minister to this summer. You're storing up great treasures in heaven through your gifts!!

Your friend,

James!

Thoughts on leaving

2008-04-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

The other day i was thinking about how when you're about to leave somewhere it seems like all your friendships and different relationships are sweeter and more satisfying. i'm pretty sure that's because you take time to enjoy them before they're gone for what may be forever and you realize that you really do enjoy your friends.

So i think the trick is to just pretend you're always leaving where you are so that you sacrifice unimportant things in order to enjoy the people you enjoy. This reminds me of the book i read on the Sabbath. There's something to leaving a lot of space in our lives to allow us to do things that are important to us.

This is all brought on by a visit i made to our neighbor Sean today. i brought a plate of "going-away" cookies made yesterday by our team in order to give a heartfelt goodbye. After chatting on the porch about his son moving back from Baton Rouge and where life was taking the both of us next he invited me inside and i ended up staying for about an hour and a half.

It was a great experience for me and it made me wish i had spent more time talking to him in the past. We talked about history, education, where his son's life was headed, guitar, and whatever happened to cross our minds. He is genuinely well-read and concerned about being proactive and contributing to the world. He is one of our neighborhood leaders and i really respect him and his work. It was a great time and i came home with one of his books under my arm and a hope to return...

So maybe i will!

i pray that you also are able to take time to enjoy those that you enjoy!

What to do, what to do!

2008-03-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

i'd like to continue blogging! Maybe not as regularly as before, but still regularly. i really enjoyed it!

Well, spring break is now over and i have so much life stuff to catch up on. i'm going to Colorado for summer project and i have a lot of information to sort out and catch them up on, as well as a wedding to be a part of in the middle of it (my friends Dave and Chrissy are getting married!).

Along with making future plans, we also as a team are leaving our house and therefore need to clean it out, relief tools, furniture, everything! So we arent done working in this city, but need to attend to a lot of logistical things! It will certainly keep us busy!

We got to spend time with our Mexican friends at the swamp the other day... i dont remember if i ever mentioned that. It was a complete riot. They're so fun and funny and have great hearts for God. Our friend Oscar even got to do a service at the New Orleans Mission in Spanish! Isnt that fun? They were such a blessing to us!

Oscar and Kat

Me holding an alligator baby

Me and Andreas

Antonio and Kat making fun of Kat's mom Pat, who was falling asleep during the tour!

Also, we had a PR nightmare from Week 3 (our huge week of 300 students) come back to haunt us. Our friend who reads the New Orleans Newspaper online nola.com emailed Rebecca on our team about a situation. Then Rebecca emailed us to read the article. For those interested, here is the article. In brief, we found out through an email that one of our students called the police claiming that housekeeping staff at our hotel had stolen money from her. It was a strange way to learn about that kind of news. We found out that all this had happened without anyone contacting us! i dont know what kind of rule that breaks, but neglecting to tell our team about that send up red flags to me!

We've been told that an investigation is underway and that the housekeeping staff have key cards that record when they key into a room and no one keyed into these students rooms while they claimed the money was stolen. There's a lot of hearsay and rumors involved in the situation. It all seems very shady. i'm sad that money was stolen and i'm also disappointed in how this situation has been handled by the students reporting that money was stolen.

i said today during staff meeting that i was completely uninterested in getting into some strange PR war and Ken said that at this point it's just a bunch of people pointing fingers. i think we're all on the same page as far as how the situation should be handled from our end. i'm glad our team is very wise and composed of wise people.

ok, you should see a prayer letter soon! Life is crazy, but nowhere near as busy as the past month.

Sorry for not posting as much this week!

2008-03-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

First, i didnt post on Easter because it was Easter and i didnt want to post on Easter. Also, i kinda assumed no one would read it. i think that set the pace for the rest of the week. We worked on Easter and had Mediterranean food that night because it was easy and so that was our Easter dinner.

i missed my family and wished i could be at home eating large amounts of food for Easter. It gave me a chance to think through Easter and i tried to keep the attitude of celebration no matter what i was doing. Jesus is risen and a gyro on Easter day and registering students for a conference cant ever ruin that!

This week has been much more low-key considering we dont have as many students at this conference. It's been delightful. i've had time to catch up on life a little bit (like grocery shop and watch a movie and not work on the weekends) but at the same time our team is struggling to keep ourselves from checking out of the conference.

There are still students working in our city and we want to give them our best.

That's good for me to state minutes before our last meeting of spring break and considering that after tomorrow's staff meeting we're probably all going to be incredibly lazy until Monday! And i look forward to it. i'd love to sleep and not be awakened by a phone call or a situation!

Hard to keep this up!

2008-03-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

i think blogging has been really rewarding for me this month. Even though i usually do it extremely late, it's been fun to do and i'm hoping that when i go back and read this stuff, i'll actually remember what happened during those weeks!

Sorry i missed last night! This week has been absolutely crazy, and i have to admit that i was absolutely pooped last night. It's very rare for me to go to bed before 11 or 12 at night these days and as soon as Rebecca and i popped in Napolean Dynamite to watch - or more precisely - as soon we turned the lights off 10 minutes into the movie, i was out! And then i woke up long enough to brush my teeth and then go to bed.

i was also quite grumpy last night. Pretty much anything and everything only made it worse. i really didnt have much reason to be grumpy and all the stuff that i would get mad at were not important. That tells me that i've had a long week and need some recovery time.

It has been a long week. The five of us are responsible for about 300. i cant imagine doing the same thing last year with 11 seeing over 1200! That would be intense.

This week went smoothly even though it was long and intense. Our speaker, Pastor Rick, from Journey was great and dynamic and i loved his talks. The first night he spoke to the students about the importance of their work in the city. The second night he spoke about how we can be passionate through the strength of God in us. And i cant save it so i'll add to it later i think!

i dont know what to write!

2008-03-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

This past day has been a lesson in having things constantly changing. Everything seems to shift out from under us and it seems like we're experiencing the outworkings of "when it rains, it pours." Maybe it's not really that bad, but it feels like life is happening at an extremely fast pace and a million things need to be juggled in the midst of what's already a busy week!

The week is still going well and i'm excited about what we're doing and this week has been our smoothest so far imho, and i'm ready for it to be over so i can have a personal life back!

i wonder if this is how people feel when they have a baby, except more acute...

Another long day again!

2008-03-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

The Milne Boys Home (North Cottage?)

Arthur wearing the humongous pigeon poop filters (as we affectionately call them
- organic waste filters actually)

Today was another long one. i got up at 6:30 AM to meet our dumpster coming at 7, but they didnt show up until after i had left to get more tools ready. i drove back and forth delivering tools to our biggest worksite, the Milne Home. i think i left a link on my last post.

Our friends from Mexico just walked in our house, so i took care of getting them situated and talking with them!

Oh my! It's late! i need to go to bed! i'll post more tomorrow!

Wow

2008-03-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

This week we're hosting about 300 students. Rebecca mentioned today that we're in our 4th week of hosting spring breaks and it's strange to think that we've been running on this schedule that long.

Another thing i've noticed is that having just 100 more students than last week has really changed the character of the conference. Since we knew this week was going to be more hectic, i think we have shed our more laid back ways and have really kicked it into high gear. We've been working a lot more (i worked from about 6-12 AM last night and from 12:30 PM until 12:30 AM now Sunday, i will also be getting up at 6:30 AM today to get some things organized) but we're also much more streamlined, organized, and flowing.

Tonight we even had a strange incident of two guys mistaking which room was theirs and walking in on a room of our girls. It involved the police and everything. When it rains, it pours you know?

i'm excited for this week! We have some fun work lined up. We're sending students to work on various projects at the Milne Boy's Home. i dont know much about the site, but i believe that it's a historical place that Louis Armstrong himself was a friend of - having grown up in wavering family circumstances himself, so it's a big deal for local New Orleans culture.

i was able to talk quite a bit to our neighbor Jane last night. i dont know if i've mentioned her before, but she's a very interesting person and i'm glad that we've been able to get to know her.
She's even been helping us by leading teams and almost apprenticing Ken in carpentry.

All in all quiet a fun experience. There's way more to say but i need to get to bed!

Please pray for us! There's a lot of stress and tension that we each carry and it's easy for our team to get short-tempered. Please pray that God works through our students this week as they serve the city!

i was just reading Wikipedia articles about New Orleans... did you know they had legalized prostitution for a short time? That explains a little more of the history we experience here...

The paper

2008-03-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

More t-shirts (for the band)

For some reason, i just cannot get a daily paper. i counted today and i've received four papers and missed six. If a major league baseball player batted like that it would be amazing, but if it's paper delivery we're talking about, that's horrible! And i've called the circulation department everytime. Blah!

Today i felt quite productive. i was out of the house at 8 to go to Target to buy shirts for the band. Then off to the other Michael's to buy out their ink too; i'm going to have to buy more ink online or something. After finishing the shirts for Giants of Silence i gave them to Mia and took off for home.

Arthur and i made a trip to the hardware stores to see about buying and renting tools for next week. We have about 320 students coming in next week and i want to do everything i can to prepare. So after all was said and done i cleaned out our tool shed and assembled everything i could think of for next week. i'll be continuing the process tomorrow too.

i'll mention it in my prayer letter, which you better read, but...

i'd like to make you (my prayer supporters) t-shirts as a gift for sticking it out with me! Please email me some information:

The size you want
The color of the ink that you want
How many you want (if you want some for your family)

Please be reasonable with me! No asking for shirts for your third cousins...

i wont be posting tomorrow, since it's technically a day off... please come back on Sunday night for more! Or Monday morning, depending on what time you go to bed.

Concert + pizza + buying water = craziness

2008-03-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

Tonight was royally busy! We had our last meeting of the week tonight and in addition we provided pizza for the students, had a keynote (music ministry of Crusade) band play a concert, and also i ran t-shirt making again. During the concert Ken came up to me and said that the band needed water and could i run to the gas station for some. Fortunately the gas station is right next door to the hotel, so it was only a five minute trip. It's funny how no matter how hard you plan, there's always some little thing that creeps in that you seem to have forgotten to take into account and needs to be provided immediately even though there's a million other things you'd like to take care of. Fortunately my attitude in dealing with buying water was much better than dealing with some students today...

We have some students here that are frustrated with their work experience. i understand that. Working in New Orleans means feeling useless some of the time and i'm guessing they've got more than their fair share this week. Our team tried bending over backwards for them; i made some calls to try to line up different things to do for them instead of what they were already doing. They didnt want that.

i'm frustrated because backup plans are a "no-no" in my mind because if we've committed volunteers to a certain group, i think we should follow up with them for our organization's names sake and to foster a relationship with that group. Overbooking and then having some students not show up would be relational suicide for us (my opinion) and would damage our efforts in finding work in the future. In addition, it was reported that this group of students didnt like the idea of the work we had selected for them even before they got on the worksite. It's hard to serve people when you dont feel like they're very appreciative (even though they may be, i dont know their hearts...). i hope they learn something in New Orleans, and i hope that it's what God would like them to learn. i also hope that it lines up with what i'd like them to learn, but i hope most of all that God has his way with them, regardless of what i desire.

Oh, it was also my dad's birthday today, so in between emceeing the meeting, running t-shirts, and cleaning up sound equipment, i gave him a call and talked with him for a while.

Well, chalk up another long day of work. At least 9 hours today, plus some unaccounted for time.

i dont think i'm going to write as many late night posts, i get wordy and complainy at this hour! :)

strange

2008-03-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

someone was shot and killed a block away from where i live last night

Fun!

2008-03-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

Today i worked at Extreme Makeover's site again and just returned (it's now 12:30 AM). i worked from about 11 until 12 at one of the sites. i'd post pictures but i signed a contract saying i wouldnt give away any information, including pictures or details about the site's location, design, etc etc, and so forth.

Today was much more relaxed, i made phone calls, sent out my prayer letter for this month (late!), took some students on a tour of New Orleans, and was able to find more work for next week. Things seem to be coming together for our insane number of 322 people next week. i found spots for them in working with the wetlands, which even though i dont know much about them, are very important for the Louisiana environment. They act like a natural barrier to disasters and flooding but since they have been receding, their ability to dam is compromised. i encourage you to look it up because i dont know what i'm talking about. Research shall ensue.

i felt very productive today. It was a nice feeling that honestly i havent always felt here. i expect the feeling to continue.

If you want to see a little bit of what i was working on check out Extreme New Orleans

t-shirts and more t-shirts

2008-03-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

Today i woke up really early for me... 6:45 AM. i know my dad must be thinking about how he wakes up that early all the time, but working according to more college hours as a Campus Crusade intern has given me quite a tweaked schedule...

Today we visited our worksites in Westwego and Central city ish-areas (i better not say anymore than that). They are both with the Extreme Makeover Home Edition. i took a bunch of pictures of them, but i dont think i'm allowed to show them until after the show airs. So i will hold off on them for now. But it was fun looking at the sites and seeing a roof that according to the workers, didnt exist 5 hours earlier.

i also got to see BT and the UB IV crew! What a surprise! It was nice seeing some old compadres and partners in crime.

Tonight we ran our large group meeting for week 2. Ken's pastor Ray spoke for our meeting. i loved what he talked about, he was very conversational and spoke about how Christians move towards the pain instead of away from it. i feel like he spent all his time sharing anecdotes about his life in New Orleans, how living here means living free from pretense and how New Orleans is a crystal clear picture of the fall and redemption...

Pastor Ray

Some notes i took (combination of my thoughts and Ray's though mostly Ray's)-

There's not much opportunity for pretense:
You dont pretend youre safe because youre not
You are able to be who you are in the Big Easy (For good or bad)
Things are broken and you know it: Roads/Govt
New Orleans very much like the Kingdom:
Place of celebration
Diversity
Very relationsal; community is incredibly important
Great food
Wild creativity

New Orleans is about moving towards pain, into it and through it and letting it wash over you and figuring out a way to remedy the situation. And it's a lesson worth learning even though i feel beat up and bedraggled in the process.

In other news, the students made more t-shirts (instead of me! yay!) and it worked out really well. It was a fun time for me to connect with them and share a little about New Orleans and see where they are in their trip.

Thanks so much for being apart of what i do down here! i plan on sending out a prayer letter soon to give you more updates. Your prayers have really kept me going as i navigate this strange stage of life and keep long hours serving the city of New Orleans for God.

Another long day

2008-03-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today was another long day! i've been on since 1:30 PM today and i'm still going at 11:48 PM. i'm going to work long enough to finish this blog post! (Now that's dedication!)

i spent the day working registration for week 2. After another frustrating trip at Kinkos (there always seems to be something with them, they didnt print my job for when i had requested it) we went to register students for spring break. It was pretty laid back, but required being available for a long time. Then i ran errands for everybody. i bought paper and envelopes.

Then i went to Kinkos again to pick up my print job and they had only printed the first page of my five page packet! So i waited for them to finish the job while i made some copies and fedexed a bunch of checks.

Then i came back to the site, ran our large group meeting for about 200 students, answered questions, alphabetized a ton of papers.

Just now that i've gotten back i've filled out my company credit card reports, written in my blog, and now i'm ready for bed!

Up tomorrow at 7 AM to get tools out to one of our groups!

Spring break week 2, here we come.

A labor of love

2008-03-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

T-shirts strewn everywhere

i'm still behind, but i'll take some of my time off to write this one. And then i'm off until Sunday!

Yesterday, i spent the entire day making t-shirts. i decided that it would be fun to take my idea of making t-shirts for my team to making t-shirts for our conference participants. So i made about 50 shirts yesterday. It took way too long.

From now on, students will make their own shirts. i had a blast making them, but i cant afford to take that much time for t-shirts. There's other stuff to be done.

i already missed one didnt i!

2008-03-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Chrissy paints her New Orleans Water Meter t-shirt

Yesterday was a long day for me. i started out at a pretty late time (around 9:30 AM) but went all day after that. It was fun, but taxing. i delivered tools to mid-city, then turned around and went to the lower ninth ward (which is the area that was probably hit the hardest) to deliver water to our groups.

i've heard some pretty fun stories from students that have been working with Common Ground. We just started working with them (remember they're the group we've jokingly termed "the socialists") and respect them a lot so far. i guess some students spent time at an animal shelter walking dogs. Pretty fun huh?

Last night we started making t-shirts with the students. i had a diy project to make t-shirts and opened it up to our spring breakers. i think it went over well and was fun for the people that we had visit us here.

i'm enjoying spring break, but i think i'm at my wit's end for this week. i've noticed i'm getting more impatient and flustered easily... blah!

Also, i've had some lazy days in my time with Campus Crusade, but sometimes i think days like that make up for it. i believe i worked for 12ish hours yesterday: from 9:30-12:30 and then from 2-11:30, with a small stop for dinner around 10:15.

Long day!

2008-03-04T19:44:00.000-08:00

This morning began with a bunch of miscommunications between me and a group we're working with called Common Ground. They were telling me that our group needed to meet them back at their headquarters, but our group was being told by another member of their organization that they were supposed to work where they were.

So we ended up with a triangle of confusion and i really wish i had handled it better! There were a lot of steps i could have taken to solve the problem, but i put a bunch of those tasks on the backburner. i dont think it was all that wise for me to do! Woops!

i'm learning that coordinating for this spring break monster is all-intensive and requires me to be available at all hours of the day!

It takes a lot of work, but i'm learning, and for the most part i'm enjoying it.

If you think of it, could you please pray for me? i have big decisions to make about my summer and i'm pretty apprehensive about it... :(

Spring Break Week 1: Day 2

2008-03-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

Students working with a homeowner in St. Roch

i'm hoping to blog everyday of spring break! (ideally, that means everyday, with the exception of saturdays!)

Yesterday, we registered all of our students for the hotel and the conference from 2-8 PM. So from about 12:30 PM until 10 PM i was running around New Orleans, answering questions, emceeing a meeting, and in general preparing. It was a long day and i'm pretty pooped from it today.

This morning i helped situate our students working with the Arkansas Baptist Builders. Ken and i were running around frantic trying to get everyone work and to help them get going on it - a task that can be very difficult when you're thrown into another organizations workings and acting like a leader.

All in all it's been fun. Rebecca mentioned the other day that we're extremely busy, but that it's a good season to be extremely busy because it balances out the phone calling and being at the house planning.

Today while delivering a ladder to one of our groups, i made a little pit stop to take a picture of a wrecked stoop of a wrecked home. All of a sudden i hear someone behind me ask what i'm doing.

"oh, i'm just taking a picture"

"why?"

"i like the way this stoop looks all broken."

"It's not broken. This is my house."

"oh..."

At first it was pretty confusing for me. i didnt get that it was her house so i was caught off guard. We shared a few moments of silence and then i asked her about the house and what she was doing. Her name was Yelena(?) and she had lived in that house for 45 years. Her brother lived downstairs in the house and died during Katrina. She had the house paid off and got insurance money but it wasnt enough for her to demolish the house and build another one and in the meantime she was renting down the street.

We didnt talk for long; i offered to help and she said thanks, but we're demolishing it. And we traded goodbyes and off she went.

Yelena's stoop

i was shocked that she would continue talking to me after seeing me taking pictures of her home (she seemed quite skeptical of my intentions at first) but we talked for a while. Just proof that people here are way more relational than me in general.

i'm not shocked that she's been in the same house for 45 years. New Orleans is full of "born and raised" people. Not too many (besides my type of people) are from somewhere else...

keep tuned in, tonight we have a main meeting that i'm emceeing and we'll keep going hectic and strong until Friday morning!

Spring Break begins!

2008-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Spring Break has begun!

Danielle works registration

Weeks ago, we had planned on starting our spring break conferences in the beginning of March, but after a few groups expressed interest in coming down a week earlier, we decided that we would be able to handle it. Plus, it's almost like a pre-production run. We can fine tune what the rest of the weeks will look like having worked through this week.

So on Sunday, students came in from Michigan and Ohio (which i'm finding is just an insane rivalry). Fortunately, since i came from a school with a undeveloped football program, i never took part in rivalries like that.

Now that i'm a few days into the week, i'm surprised at how much work is preparation, and now that everything is rolling, our jobs are a little bit easier. We just let the machine we started run its course.

Prepping for the meeting

i'm hoping to do a video slideshow and some t-shirts with the students this week and i hope they turn out! i hope the students have fun too. i really want them to have a good experience. If you think of it, i would love prayer for creative ideas to make MCing the meetings fun for the students, and for the competence to pull off my ideas!

On the subject of spritual warfare

2008-02-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

i tend to downplay talk of spiritual warfare because i think that often it's used as an excuse for poor choices. Recently, i think i've been experiencing it.

There's something about New Orleans that just depresses people. i dont know how to describe the feeling. i'm sure there's lot of reasons someone can feel blue. Being unsatisfied and feeling broken is common human experience, but in New Orleans somehow it seems different. i have never seen a place suck more out of people than here. Even one of my friends who doesnt have a Christian background like mine says he feels the weight of this city. He said that no where else has he seen around him a such an affinity for fetishism, voodoo, and darker sides of humanity.

Where else is drinking so glamorized? The roads are terrible, politicians corrupt, and there doesnt seem to be any respite. New Orleans has glamorized their particular brand of warped hedonism.

i cant complain too much because the culture is rubbing off on me and i'm soaking up a lot of the attitude that i'm in.

It's so strange, but i can think of no other explanation for why things are the way they are here than a spiritual one.

If you think of it, please pray for me and for the city of New Orleans. It's beautiful and charming, but just like any place where a broken set of people is involved, it has a dark underside...

looking at the world through dust colored glasses

2008-02-07T09:04:00.001-08:00

looking at the world through dust colored glasses
Originally uploaded by jugglingnutcase

Pictures from Mexico

2008-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

Ken showing off his chapalines. Chapalines are grasshoppers, apparently they're a Oaxacan delicacy. Many of the Mexican students we talked to said even they havent eaten them. They tasted like really dry, spiced popcorn. i didnt particularly like them, but i'm glad i can brag about having had them!

Here's our team at the pyramids in Teotihuacan. Sorry it's tipped, but i had to rest my camera on a rock.

We went to an orphanage with Kat (my northeastern STINT pal) bringing backpacks -or "booksacs" if you live in NOLA- for all the kids so that they could have new backpacks like all the other students in school.

i'm a big fan of coke and Ken was constantly looking for a glass bottle of Pepsi so i thought i'd follow suit. Isnt this a great picture? Danielle took it and it turned out great.
i was told that coke tastes different in Mexico because they use a different recipe. Now i'm no coke aficionado, but i agree. A little different.

You know what else is different in Mexico? Cheetos! And man they are amazing! i like them way better than US Cheetos. They have a chili pepper flavor in them.

hello from mexico!

2008-01-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

i'm writing to you from Mexico City but here everyone refers to it as el D.F., the Federal District. My trip here has been a blast and i'm sad that my week is pretty much up. Today is our last full day in el D.F.

So far i've traveled all around the city by nearly every major form of transportation: bus, taxi, metro, and above ground trains. i've seen the zocalo (which is the center of the city), the pyramids at Teotihuacan, and three campuses: 2 UAMs (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana), and Tech (the "Harvard of Mexico"). i'll post pictures soon when i'm back in New Orleans and have all my electronic stuff. Unfortunately i forgot my battery charger so i had to be fairly conservative with my picture taking, but i think i got some good shots. i'm waiting until i get back to look at them all, i think it will be fun to delay the gratification.

i'll post again soon about meeting a friend here. i met this guy named Asead on my first day on campus. We're pretty good buddies now and there's some fun stuff to share about,

but that will come later, i'm busy taking some much needed down time here at our STINTer (the US team doing ministry here in Mexico City) friends' apartment.

the future...

2008-01-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

Ah, the future.

What will you be doing next?
What's next year going to look like?
How will you survive afterwards?
Will you ever grow up?
Will you please stop drooling?

-head swims then drops to the floor-

AH!

Lots of questions on everyones' minds. Well, they're on mine too. This idea of the future and where i fit into it is a subject that absolutely breeds consternation (if you'll notice, i used that phrase to spell 'abc').

Here's what i'm thinking:

(forgive the punctuation if it's incorrect please)
i can live in a large number of locations next year: New Orleans, Louisiana: Rochester, New York; Maine, Vermont, or anywhere else that i havent thought of yet.

There are three main options that i'm thinking through though:
1) Get a job in Rochester: i have a degree in computer engineering and actually do enjoy doing software stuff. So potentially, i could get a job in Rochester (i have friends that work for Paetec and might be able to get a nice job there)

2) Go to grad school for counseling or psychology. i've thought about this more lately. i think the part about Crusade that i've liked the most is seeing growth in the students that i work with. i love to see them open up in community and be vulnerable with each other and work through forgiving others, truly loving others, and allowing Christ to love them. It's really cool when it works. i love the human mind and body and how they work. i think God really did create us in his image and there's a lot of beauty locked into who we are. i think this route might be a way to explore that.

3) Join staff with Crusade. i've thought about this for a while. Not sure what to think about this one. i know it well, so i know i like it, but does it fit with my passions and make me feel alive inside. That's a big question. And i'm hoping to figure it out. If i did join staff, i feel like i'd really want to do it in the Northeast, and i'd probably want to do it with Lifelines, the ministry that i worked with in Maine over last summer. For some reason, seeing people grow while rock climbing, getting my whitewater rafting guide license, and being in beautiful places is attractive to me. But dont spread that around. All the other staff people might be miffed.

Feel free to share your thoughts with me... as long as they're helpful!

Please pray for me if you ever wonder what i'll be doing in the future!

It's been a long time hasnt it!

2007-12-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been forever since i posted last. i'm sorry about that! i havent been too excited about posting about my life lately, i've been pretty tired and worn down and blogging hasnt been at the forefront of my mind.

Over Thanksgiving i was able to go home to Rochester and that was really good for me. i think that living in New Orleans had worn me down quite a bit and it was good to get my bearings a little before heading back, even if i wouldve been home for Christmas 3 weeks later.

Right before Thanksgiving break i was able to attend the Red River Region's (to which i belong now, no longer the Northeast) staff conference and meet my colleagues from around the region. It was fun to be recharged and to see other people committed to the same things that i am: the spread of the gospel, the display of God's love, and the propagation of His hope.

In between Thanksgiving and Christmas our team was able to throw a Christmas party for our neighbors. There i was able to meet with Curvin, a 34 year old that has been through quite a bit. It was great chatting with him and i feel like we really connected. He has such a good heart and seeks to serve God and the people around him. He told me all about visiting his son in Indiana about twice a month, rebuilding his house while he rents out his other finished house and stays in his trailer, and taking food to the homeless that live under the highway bridge every 2 weeks. The first time i met him, we had mowed about 20 square feet of his lawn between the sidewalk and the roadway and he went out and bought five of us cold powerade and snacks. He has such a big heart.

i was able to come back to Rochester for Christmas. Honestly, flying back over Rochester and seeing those warm yellow streetlights reflect off of snowplowed roads and partly shoveled sidewalks was exciting for me. i do actually love snow and cold weather! Plus it's good to feel like i havent completely wimped out by acclimating to warm weather.

Christmas was fun, it was good to be with my family and friends. i'm realizing how difficult it is to keep up with everyone since i've been away, but i'm relieved that it's fairly easy to pick up where i left off.

Soon i'll be headed to Boston for the Northeast regions annual conference where i'll be able to connect with old friends from my internship last year and students that i met on summer project in Maine. IT should be a blast!

And then i fly out for New Orleans straight from Boston, and then a week in New Orleans, and then...

MEXICO!

warm day

2007-11-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Today is warm again. i know, big surprise.

It's funny to me to be experiencing 80 degree heat in November. Does that strike anyone else as strange?

Today is pretty slow, i hung out with Ken and we bought a new mower blade and some gas and oil for our equipment. Then we went around and cleaned up our neighborhood a little.

Now i'm going to write a beautiful prayer letter that you all will enjoy. i hope.

you should hear from me soon.

Here's a reminder to continue checking out my pictures! i work very hard on them!

Rap battles

2007-10-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

Today i went to Delgado Community College to help some student leaders there pass out candy and tell people about their Bible study.

i met a lot of interesting characters.

i met this girl Ann, who is autistic and let me know it within the first few seconds of meeting her. Come to think of it, i met her one of the first days that i was down in New Orleans. She talked to Kathryn and i for a while and made it a point to let us know that she was both autistic and Jewish and therefore did not care for anything we were about, but she hung out and talked to us for a long time.

Today, Ann made sure i knew she read Star Wars books and that her favorite game is Pokemon and that she could easily spend hours playing it. She seemed very nice. Autism is something i know very little about, so i wasnt sure how to act around her, but i did my best. i have a lot to learn when it comes to being with people (i blame my major in computer engineering).

Before meeting Ann i was finishing up handing out candy with Thecla, our student leader at Delgado, and was able to witness a rap battle. Which Thecla said happens quite frequently at "Del-ghetto".

i'm assuming that most of my readers, living in suburban New York in general, have not witnessed a rap battle and may not know what that is. This was actually the first rap battle i've ever seen in real life, so it was a new experience for me too!

A rap battle is where two or more people will freestyle rap with each other, trading time. These usually involve lots of cussing, talk of money, and creative putdowns.

It was beautiful and an experience that left me wanting more, especially after the security told them that they would need to go outside if they were going to continue being that loud.

Awesome! Thecla better give me a call next time she sees something like that going on!

New Pictures

2007-10-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

i just put up a bunch of new pictures on my flickr account. Hopefully i'll keep adding more of the ones i have because i spent exorbitant amounts of money getting them developed to just let them sit around on my computer.

Things here in New Orleans have been pumping. This past week we had two groups come in. One was from the great city of Philly and the other from NC State. Philly always reminds me of when i made Philly cheesesteaks all summer long in Wildwood, NJ. Great memories. The Philly group mostly worked with other organizations here like Rebuilding Together and Habitat for Humanity. The NC State group worked more with homeowners we have relationships with. They painted for Bob, who has pictures of himself in a canoe tied to the roof of his house and did odd jobs for Sylvia, who loved us to death.

After working with Sylvia we all got to talk with her before we left and were able to circle up and pray for her and her son Sam. It was really a beautiful moment. i think that was the first time i've been able to pray together with a homeowner and that thought makes me sad. i hope we can do that more often and can continue to figure out how to have spiritually significant conversations while we work.

So much!

2007-10-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

i havent posted in forever which is unfortunate because so much has happened in the past few weeks!

It's crazy to think about it and realize that due to my poor memory i've forgotten most of what my weeks have been composed of here.

Whatever...

Last Wednesday we tried to finish up gutting at a house a few streets down from us. The house had been trashed by the levees breaking. i think the house was three streets down from the levees that are nearby Paris street. The homeowner was telling us that she had neighbors that were cleaning up after Katrina with relatively nice weather over their heads and then were shocked by a rush of water from the levees. It reminds me how much damage was actually caused by the failure of the engineering systems, it wasnt just the bad storm by itself.

This house was an absolute nightmare to gut. The walls were made of plaster over drywall. i'm sure it creates a nice plaster effect on the house without plastering over slats like i see in some houses, but taking it down makes the whole thing not worth it. Where the walls met there was also a type of chicken wire in there with the plaster and drywall. Taking down sections of that was extremely difficult, time-consuming, and physically draining. Ken and i spent hours working on that stuff!

In other news, we're swamped this week. We have two groups coming around to do work. One is from NC State and the other is from the great city of Philadelphia. i've really only been to Philly a few times for track meets and once because i got lost in the city trying to drive through it, but i call it the great city because they invented the cheesesteak (my tongue is firmly in my cheek at the moment).

i'm excited because a friend of mine from my summer project in Acadia is coming down with NC State. Hannah will be the first person i have seen down here that has any connection to my life before New Orleans. It's strange to think that everyone i've met here is a new friend or acquaintance and that they have nearly no connection to my life before being here in any way.

hmmm...

Other than that, our campus team has their Fall Retreat this weekend, so two of our teammates will be there and not with us. We also have a neighborhood cleanup that we're running Saturday.

So phew! We have a lot to do.

Soon i should have some more pictures developed. Hopefully they're good ones. Expect to see those fairly soon on my flickr account.

Working with Habitat

2007-09-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we're working with Habitat for Humanity here.

i'm really excited about it. The first week i was here my team took Arthur and i (the new guys) out on a little tour and one of our stops was Musician's Village. i think it's sponsored by Henry Connick, Jr. It's a beautiful housing development. The houses are pastel colored mostly and look strange compared to the rest of the area.

i hope to take a lot of pictures and post them way later, but it may take awhile considering my digital camera has seemed to bite the dust (quite literally) and i'm saving money for a new camera, so processing lots of film is subject to my budget constraints.

Neighborhood Meeting

2007-09-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today i attended my first neighborhood meeting with some of my teammates. It was definitely a learning experience. These occasions is where you meet the thoughts and feelings of New Orleanians head-on.
One of the people in attendance was incredibly antagonistic. The man running the meeting, Sean (i hope that's how it's spelled), said that this is a common occurrence for their meetings - someone new will show up for the first time and feels the need to vent to the point where it isnt helpful. This lady fulfilled that for me. When a police officer was speaking about cheap cameras that can be used for video surveillance of the neighborhood and asked if anyone had any questions, this lady started grilling him about drug problems. Her thoughts were completely unrelated and i didnt find her discourse helping anyone move forward. It wasnt just an isolated event either. The council woman who represents the neighborhood also spoke at the meeting and afterwards this same lady attacked her for having her office locked. This was one of those times when i found myself really irritated. i dont understand what she went through here, but those actions are detrimental to the neighborhood, and weaken her case for getting any help or support. Strange, strange.

The council woman brought up an interesting tidbit too. She said,

In this city we find this truth, "The squeaky wheel gets the oil."

That does seem to be the operating principle around here. But it makes sense, doesnt it? i dont think i can make a right/wrong, good/bad judgment about that yet, but that seems to be how it works.

The Maze!

2007-09-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

The past two days we've been running around the city of New Orleans supporting this ministry called the Maze. Actually, they've been helping us out by running a magic show that we've been inviting students to. Wednesday night, they performed at Tulane and Thursday they were at Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU).
What a fun show! Ken and i have been joking the whole time about how we want to learn some tricks now.
The other night at dinner, Ken mentioned that i juggle. So we had a fun little conversation about how i like to "manipulate things". Good times. Especially since i got to enjoy some red beans and rice, jambalaya, and gumbo while talking to these guys.
During the performance i got to run the camera for the show. It was a real riot. i've been into trying to have a better eye for things, and this gave me a great chance to practice. The stage manager Billy said that i was his best cameraman yet! Yay for me, that was exciting.
ok, i'm rambling a lot, but that's ok, because i'm done now.

Lots to catch up on

2007-09-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

i'll start in last week.

Last Friday, our team spent some time tearing down a shed and getting rid of a tree. It was a lot of fun and good, hard, hot work. We were out in the sun for a long time.

i actually got to do a little chainsaw work which i enjoyed thoroughly.

After finishing, we got to chat with the homeowner. Her name is Maria and she related to us her story of leaving New Orleans the day before Katrina hit. She was in the last plane out of the city because her brother worked for an airline and if she didnt go on that plane she probably would have been in the Superdome. Her story was super sad because not only was she displaced from her home, but had to sleep in homeless shelters with her son next to "prostitutes and drug dealers". i cant imagine living in that state. i'm thinking about putting a post on my personal blog about what it's like for me living in a state of tension, but it can hardly compare to what this woman described.

The next day, i stepped on a nail while working at a site. It wasnt a big deal. In fact, it barely broke the skin, but i still freaked out anyways. Now that i'm typing it out and a week away from the situation, i really was worried about it even when it was such a small cut... So my teammate and i drove around for a while looking for a free health clinic. Eventually we found our way to an emergency room and i talked to my mom about how long i could wait to get the tetanus shot and be safe so i wouldnt have to pay money. She told me it wouldnt be a big deal to wait a few days. After deciding that i didnt have to get a shot immediately and that i would survive, they called my name, i explained my case to the doctor, and asked how much the shot would be.

He asked if i needed a certificate. i said, "no, i just want the shot." And he upped and left me! i didnt know what to think and he never answered my question about how much it would cost. He came back with a needle, popped it in my arm (to the absolute chagrin of my teammate, actually i dont know what was on her face because it was turned 180 at the neck away from me), and asked me not to mention his name or where i got the shot and to tell my mother that there really are nice people in New Orleans.

So i received an illegal tetanus shot (i think it was illegal). Not sure. But i am certainly thankful and feel like God gave me a freebie.

New Orleans and celebrities

2007-08-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Our team has been talking a little bit about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They're actually part-time residents of the city. i think i've walked by their apartment in the French Quarter, but i'm not sure. i'll get one of my teammates to let me know where they live and maybe i'll take some pictures.

i've heard that they're doing wonderful things for the city. i found an article on the New Orleans Times-Picayune about Brad's help in the rebuilding efforts. The article is here.

One peculiar and interesting statement is contained at the end of the article too... If you read it, think about what that means for the city of New Orleans if what Brad Pitt says is true.

Thinking through the next year

2007-08-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

This week i'm actually not in New Orleans!

Surprising i know!

Monday morning our team drove down to Pensacola, Florida. So far i've had the opportunity to meet the campus team that our team is paired with in the city, dream about what we'd like to see over the next year, and do some preliminary planning. i've also spent quite a bit of time at the beach soaking in some sun, drinking salt water (it beats freshwater anyday), and getting to know my team for next year.

Hopefully i'll be able to host files on this blog. It may be more than you'd be able to look through, but we've got some documents of our hopes and dreams for next year and some of the facts we have to work with that i'd love for you to see so that you can get a better idea of what's going on here.

A fun part of this week for me is getting a clearer picture of what's going on with the city of New Orleans and what i'll be doing. i know i was unclear when asked questions about this year of ministry and it was mostly because i didnt exactly know! (the cat's out of the bag!) We've been talking as a team (campus and relief team) about how we would like to integrate our work to be "passionately proclaiming and compassionately demonstrating the gospel in the city of New Orleans". We're also planning on transitioning from using outside groups to help the city to empowering students (and not all Christian students) to do work in the city. This leaves room for all sorts of great work. This can be student outreach, community outreach, leadership development, and so much more, all-in-one package. i feel like what we're hoping for leaves incredible amounts of space available for God to do things.

i've also started reading the first Harry Potter book. A task i've been told i should have started years ago. Thanks to Maine, i now know that "should" connote judgment so i'm ok with not having read it yet. i'm guessing you're ok with me reading it too!

i'm here in New Orleans!

2007-08-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for your prayers and your thoughts as i've moved down here!

i'm now living in New Orleans. My address is:

James Sconfitto (that's my name if you dont know already)
3633 Franklin Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70122

i'm going to be playing with Google Earth a little bit (if you havent checked it out, it's a cool program that lets you look at satellite imaging of the earth) and i'll try to make a downloadable sheet so that you can see where i live and see photos of my house right on the map.

But for now, here's some fun photos for you to look at!

This one is of my beautiful room, after i was completely unpacked... ok, not really.

And here's our kitchen, which has everything i need so far. Hopefully they enjoy pie, because i brought my marble rolling pin in the hopes of being able to make a decent pie crust.

Today i walked around with my team member Ken and took some pictures in our neighborhood. Some of the houses look great, some look absolutely awful. i love all the colors houses have here. A lot of them are bright and bold house colors.

Look at this! i'd like to see a house in Rochester or Buffalo painted this color.

Scary Map of New Orleans

2007-07-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Check out this crazy map of the elevations of New Orleans.

It's frightening isnt it? Please dont use this against me though!

i'm guessing it's accurate, but i got it off the internet, so be a little wary.

As far as a general update, i leave in exactly one week (August 4th) and i'll be driving down. It will be a fun trip. i'm spending a night in Ohio and a night in Tennessee to break up the trip and visit friends that i havent seen in a while.

Fun fun, here we come!

Support update: i'm at about 95%, which is really sweet. Just a little more... i'm having trouble being motivated to finish up since i'm so close, but i'm trusting that God will push me through and help me keep driven and diligent.

keep watching for updates! i'll be in New Orleans soon with tons to share and a desire to not fill up your mailboxes, physical or email.

i have returned

2007-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

i've returned from Acadia Summer Leadership Project 07. My time in Maine was absolutely wonderful. i loved nearly every minute and learned so much that i could hardly post about it in a readable chunk.

Our days were action packed. Each week we had a theme. The four themes were combined with 4 different activities. For my group the theme/activity breakdown looked like this:

Learning to bond with each other - Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail
Saying yes and no and respecting yes and no - Rock Climbing
Judgment and acceptance of good and bad - Hiking
Experiencing choices and consequences or moving into adulthood - Biking

By far, my favorite activity was rock climbing. Not only did i love climbing out over the ocean, getting the backs of my legs splashed as i prepare to climb 50 feet of pink granite, but i also loved seeing and being apart of the incredible growth our group experienced. The last day of climbing we took our students rappelling, which is controlling your own descent of a cliff with a rope and some equipment (it's fairly safe). We sat them at the top of a 165 ft cliff and said, "Either you all go, or you all dont. You have 25 minutes to decide." Try to imagine getting ten of your friends together and giving them an ultimatum like that. What would your friends decide? If someone said no, would you accept it or try to convince them otherwise?

Our team decided to go for it! i was shocked considering two of our group members were afraid of heights at the time. After half the group had walked down the cliff, one member said she couldnt do it. She tied the experience to her inability to make her own choices in the past because she was worried about her parents and her friends disapproval. She decided that God didnt require her to live like that any more and she knew she would still be loved after saying "no". This is the fly-by, quick recap of the experience. But as she was describing how she wanted to free herself from the approval of her parents and that she now felt freed by God to take responsibility for her own decisions, i felt like crying. It was absolutely beautiful, seeing her transformed at the top of a 165 ft cliff on a gorgeous sunny day.

The whole summer was filled with moments like this. Epiphanies were rampant, even in my own life. Please ask me sometime!!

Again, i've put up pictures. So many i havent even finished titling them!
Acadia Leadership Adventure Pictures!

Pictures from Acadia!

2007-06-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

i am currently putting up a few pictures on my flickr account from Bar Harbour, Maine. There arent as many as i'd like to put up, but i dont have great access to the internet, nor do i have my own computer. But in my opinion, these are some really pretty photos because i am in a really pretty place.

flickr.com/photos/jugglingnutcase

Acadia Rock Climbing

2007-06-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

i'll post again soon!

But i have about 10 seconds before i go rock climbing on Otter Cliffs near Bar Harbour. Wow! It is so beautiful. i'll put a picture up soon!

Thanks for your prayers!

On the Road

2007-05-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

Since i love This American Life on NPR, i've given it a few more listens as i drive up to Acadia. Coincidentally, the most recent episode on my iPod is called "Roadtrip!" In the first chapter, they give a man who rides Greyhound buses across the country washing dishes a tape recorder and ask him to record the conversations for the radio show. The beginning of the episode talked about how road trips are glamorized in our minds and somehow still seem to turn out longer than we hoped and a little more boring than we previously thought.

That reminded me of reading On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. i felt the book was very meandering and a little longer than i hoped, but now i'm thinking that may have been the point...

An interesting aside: He said that as soon as he had a tape recorder, people started to clam up and didnt trust. All of a sudden he was an outsider, even though he considered Greyhound buses the closest thing he had to home and had tons of stories of fun/strange conversations under his belt. i empathized completely with him. Earlier while i was doing a video getting student responses to the question "Who is Jesus?" most gave me very strange looks even though i was very upfront about what it would be used for. They said they wouldnt mind giving responses, just please dont record them!

Which is great because i am very much on a roadtrip out to Acadia, Maine! i'm currently spending some time in Amherst, MA at a staff couple's house. Ric and Allegra were kind enough to offer me a place to spend the night so i didnt have to do the 11 hour trip all at once. They even fed me honey mustard pizza, brownies with ice cream, and pop tarts. Which i dont think they were too proud of, but i loved it. Who can deny a free meal and seriously awesome dessert.

So very soon i will split out to Maine. Another 6 or so hours of driving and then i'll be there! So you may not hear much from me from this point on! i'm hoping that i can use this time to experience life away from the internet. Although, if i feel like it's healthy for me, i'd like to upload a picture onto this blog about once a week and write out a nice prayer letter from Acadia to all of you!

Thanks for being with me on this journey through your prayers.

If you could pray that i would be open to forming strong relationships here and pray for our staff team as we seek to develop student leaders, that would be great! Please pray that God would use this time to develop everyone's character and help us truly incarnate Christ.

2007-05-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

i got this link from a friend of mine that i'll be working with next year in New Orleans.

This article talks about the work Campus Crusade volunteers did at Edna Karr High School, work our group took part in. i actually weeded out their front gardens and painted a few panels of the front of the school!

Check it out!

Giving Electronically

2007-05-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in giving to my ministry electronically, here's a link that will enable you to do that:

Give Electronically

New Orleans Letter!

2007-05-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

Many of you have asked about next year! And in case you missed my letter letting you know what i'm doing, here it is:

Thank you so much for all your prayers and for your financial support! You have been an incredible encouragement to me and there is no way God could have worked such wonderful blessings at the University at Buffalo or in my life without you! I have grown in ways I could never have imagined and learned so much about leadership. God has revealed to me the incredible need for Jesus on our college campuses.

As the time of my internship draws to a close I have been faced with the question that many of you have been asking me - what next? The past few months have revealed a veritable storm of activity in my mind concerning this question.
While leading our spring break trip down to New Orleans to work with students from all over the country, I fell in love with the city of New Orleans and felt the unbelievable spiritual and emotional need of that place. Going back was never part of my plans, but as I learned about the opportunity, talked to God about it, and considered my current stage of life, the idea of going back to New Orleans grew from an outside possibility in the back of my mind to a full-fledged desire. I feel God has presented me with an opportunity to work with Campus Crusade in New Orleans and has developed in me a passion for the city and I have decided to follow him there. I will join the relief team there in bringing God’s love to a city that desperately needs it. I will also have the opportunity to continue sharing the Gospel with college students.

As I make this transition, I want to ask you to make this transition with me. As I move my ministry to New Orleans, would you go with me by continuing with your prayer and monthly support? Would you also please consider raising your support level in faith? This will be a great blessing as I meet ongoing financial commitments; it will also give me a firm financial foothold as I make this transition. And in terms of prayer, nothing means more to me than knowing that people are interceding for me and my ministry.
Before and after I staff the Acadia leadership project in Maine during the month of June, I would love to meet with you and share in person all the Lord has done over the past year and all that I am trusting Him to do in the future. Thanks again for making all this possible. I appreciate you!

Boring!

2007-04-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

This may seem boring, but one fun part of my internship has been doing all sorts of fun trivial and tedious activities that i never needed to be involved in during my time at college.

i'm now developing a working knowledge of microsoft publisher as i create materials for our weekly meetings. i am currently working on a video for our Western New York Fellowship Dinner. It's a video of who UB students think Jesus is. i've never made a video before and it's kinda fun, even though it takes a whole lot of time!

Also, another fun thing i've enjoyed that comes with being part of a gigantic organization is creating logos for Western New York that fit in with our corporate identity:
i recently made a flyer or something like that for our ministry and then my director sent me a packet that explained our graphic identity. Turns out our personalized symbols (like the Western New York Campus Crusade logo you will or have seen on my prayer letters) have very specific guidelines like: compressed font 67% smaller than the corporate logo at 60% of the color blue.

Now this isnt fun for most people, i understand. But i'm really enjoying learning how to fit in with Campus Crusade while still being creative, innovative, and an envelope pusher on other fronts.

An announcement and a frustration

2007-04-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Announcement: i'm going to spend next year doing Katrina relief work in New Orleans.

Frustration: Ellicott really is full of spiritually interested students.

So i'm annoyed because i've left all these students that i wish i knew at the beginning of the year! We could've gone so far together!

i guess that's the way it feels when you leave things you've invested deeply in behind!

Stata Center

2007-03-24T09:45:00.001-07:00

Stata Center
Originally uploaded by jugglingnutcase.

Here's an old picture that i'm proud of. i was trying to be somewhat artistic here.

This is the Stata Center in Boston. It's the MIT computer science building so i figured i simply had to visit it. Fortunately after the Boston Winter Conference i was able to walk around Boston for a day.

This was one of the highlights of my trip (sad i know, but i loved it)

hippies?

2007-03-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

(they're not real hippies, just my generic term for people who seem to embody the hippie lifestyle in the modern era)

So today i was supposed to share these new image surveys that i stole from Panama City Beach, but i didnt because i couldnt find anyone, and was putzing around, and felt awful about not getting that done well.

And then i saw an old friend with a huge group of people and started to chat with him instead, ditching the whole survey thing.

The group was an environmentalist group on campus doing a fundraiser. So i pulled out the $2 i won in Katrina for drinking a small bottle of real maple syrup and joined in.

They were making hemp bracelets and necklaces, so i learned how to do a simple weave in hemp today. It was awesome. i got to have a few short conversations about spiritual things with the president of the club and got to talk in general with the hippies. Unfortunately, the smell of hemp is strong and distinct and i have bad memories tied to that smell (ask me about my junior year living situation sometime if you want an explanation)

Man, they're awesome. So fun to talk to... i could go on for a while, but suffice to say. i love that group of people. They're in love with life in a way that few people i know are. And they are so genuinely interested in people and it's ok to be intellectual around them! i love it.

Rant following: i feel some sort of pressure from my immediate Christian community to eschew philosophy because... well, i dont know why because, but it feels like because philosophy is "extra-biblical." So in my circle of Christian friends, we didnt have philosophical conversations. And i love having that back in my life when i talk with the "hippies"

Katrina

2007-03-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

i have a fun story posted on my other blog from New Orleans!

Check it out: Jamie's personal blog

i also have pictures on my picasa and flickr accounts (they're all the same pictures):

Katrina Part III - Picasa
Katrina Part III - Flickr

Katrina

2007-03-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

If you can imagine your neighborhood turning into a wasteland... charred vandalized cars, black, rusted, with melted glass across the front seat; garbage piles in the streets 15 feet long and 6 feet high; mold covering every wall in your house. If you can imagine that for a bit, you'll get a very small limited glance into the damage in New Orleans.

It's absolutely incredible. Beyond description.

Tomorrow morning i leave on a bus from Buffalo down to New Orleans, with a stop in Panama City Beach. That means i'll be spending nearly 30 hours on a bus. i'm planning on bringing lots of books and my iPod. Heaven knows i dont want to have a conversation!

Then as soon as we get there and get settled, i'll be going to a leaders meeting (i'm the point person for our campus for this trip) then running a meeting for our students and then running away on the whirlygig that this conference will be!

And i cannot wait!

Helping out in this way is such a great experience. This is one of those times in life where you can know, without a doubt, that you're following in the footsteps of Jesus. He talked about reaching out with cold cups of water and clothing and visits. And down in NOLA we'll get to be the "incarnation" of God in the world. That's a weighty matter, and it's going to be fun too!

i'll have plenty to say afterwards, with lots of pictures! So please check back soon! (a week from Tuesday)

i'm sorry for the confusing flow of this post. i've been going nuts trying to straighten out details and remember everything i'm supposed to for the trip! So unfortunately, organizing thoughts is an all-time low priority these days!

Ellicott Excitement

2007-03-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

It's true. i love alliteration.

Ellicott has had some excitement lately. About 3 or 4 weeks ago, after our tuesday night small group in the Ellicott coffeehouse, my friend matt and i met a few students. It's fun how we met too. i mentioned how i liked the music in the coffeehouse and asked some people if it was the Flaming Lips (which is an awesome band btw) and they said yes of course it is.

From there we just chatted. i ended up spending the rest of the night hanging out with them. i met four people in particular, whose names will go unanounced for now. And i really enjoyed talking to them. They are super involved in the anti-war movement here at UB. Our conversations went through everything, from war to God to hell to Elliott Smith to drugs to God to church to religion to everything else you can imagine. Well, not quite everything. But we covered a lot and it was fun.

i'm convinced that the alternative culture, i dont know how to describe it. The modern-day hippies, if you will, are the best people to talk to. They're so interested in life. They want to soak it all in, respect other people, they have ideals that havent been crushed by the world and they're not afraid to stand up for things. This perfectly described these new friends i met.

Fast forward a week. i bought a biography about Elliott Smith and was able to lend it out to one of the friends i made that night. i hope he enjoys it. The first few chapters were rough if i remember correctly.

So we'll see where this goes! Either way, it's fun to watch God put people in my life and bring me into their lives!

Emotions, spirituality, and the past

2007-02-26T14:49:00.000-08:00

i've been doing quite a bit of reading on emotions lately. Some friends of mine recommended reading The Emotionally Healthy Church, by Pete Scazzero, and i started it last week. It is about the lack of emotional development in spiritual discipleship.

Another book i recently finished is How People Grow, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, which details the processes people go through in growth, how growth happens, and how to create environments for spiritual growth. It's a wonderful book, one which i believe anyone in leadership should read. Especially for those who run small groups.

One of my main comments when reading these books is that i need to see these issues and processes play out in the real world in order.

And what would you expect? My thoughts (they hadnt even gotten to the point of prayers yet) have been heard by God and situations have been thrown in my life requiring me to sort through these issues, both in my personal life and in the lives of many of the students i minister to.

So i'm pretty nervous because i'm on the beginning of the learning curve in a difficult and dangerous territory. Thankfully, God has given us his Spirit for situations like this. And with that hope, i can run forward - embracing the unknown and learning how to do what it is i signed on for.

i'm scared, but this is the nitty-gritty fun stuff.

What could that possibly mean?!

2007-02-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

i thought it would be a wise decision to show that i actually do work in my internship. So here's a picture of my next monday. Monday is generally my office day where i take care of my reading, prepare for any small groups or discipleship appointments, make phone calls, print up advertisements, prayer walk on the campus, etc etc.

But i ask you... what could that little statement in the middle there possibly mean!?

My Summer!

2007-02-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

So what's my summer going to look like?

Well, that's a question i've been wondering for a while myself... but while i was in Boston i found out.

Before we get to that, going to Wildwood Summer Project with Crusade in New Jersey was one of the best experiences i've ever had. During that summer i learned so much about how to share my faith in every facet of my life. Most people think just learned how to walk up to random people i didnt know to share my faith, but i learned how to share my faith with my friends from home, friends at school, and co-workers.

Wildwood was also valuable to me because it taught me what true Christian community can be. i cant say that it was perfect, because it was far from that, but it was beautiful to see the new levels on which we would relate over the course of the summer.

Which is why i'm hyper excited to be going to Acadia, it's in Maine - i didnt know that before i was told about it, because i know how good these summer projects are.

When i was asking other comrades what i should request for the summer, without a doubt this was recommended to me by the colleagues i consider closest. Both my campus director and my discipler from my summer in Wildwood said that their summer in Acadia caused more spiritual growth in one month than they had experienced in years.

The theme as far as i know is grace and truth (John 1:17). What i mean by that is being truthful with God, yourself, and others and experiencing God's grace from God and from others in spite of the truth. Spiritual growth and developing spiritual leadership are the foci of the project.

Here's some weblinks if you're interested in learning more what i'll be doing with students this summer:
Summer Projects - All of the projects Campus Crusade offers. Some interesting ones are the NYC art project (Tribeca) and the Alaskan Men's Project
Leadership Adventure - Acadia Project's website

Thanks for checking up on me!
james

oh what He means to me

2007-01-29T09:52:00.000-08:00

In my last post i longwindedly described my experience sharing last week.

Here's a brief post on why that was so fun for me.

Ellicott is ridiculously large. Over 3000 students live there.

All last semester i had been praying for God to show me where His Kingdom was already active in Ellicott. As i followed up dining hall surveys our movement had taken i visited maybe a hundred rooms or so, but most of the time, no one was around. i did everything i could, i varied the times i walked by, dropped by two or three times. For all my effort i couldnt find interested people. This motivated me to pray for help! Of course i needed it! It felt like even in such a large place there was no interest in God so i asked God to reveal to me any sort of Kingdom life in that place.

He blessed me with two great conversations at the end of the semester, but i left the semester feeling horribly defeated.

So that's why seeing such interest in the early weeks of the semester was so great. God had answered my prayer by leading me to two girls who mentioned they've been thinking about going to church and that they have friends and an RA who want to go with them.

In the middle of my feelings of failure and defeat i found God's grace lifting up my chin. i'm so thankful for His hope welling up in me.

God's grace exemplified

2007-01-27T08:20:00.000-08:00

Part of my job as an intern with Campus Crusade for Christ is to do evangelism. Right? That's what everyone pays me the big bucks for... jamie's gonna go out and talk to everybody at UB, sharing the gospel, reasoning with the heathen to bring them into the Kingdom! (maybe i should define "evangelism" in a later post...)

Well, to be honest, when i heard at my intern training that interns were supposed to pursue an evangelistic strategy for about 16 hours a week a grimace slowly crept across my face. My face began to transform gradually from the top right corner to the bottom left into a look of utter petrification!

i dont do 16 hours a week. In fact i'm frightened when it comes to even trying to talk to people about faith.

So this past Tuesday i decided that i should share my faith because... well, because i wanted to be good at my job. There may have been high holy motivations, but those werent the kickers. i decided that Wednesday would be the best day and i would do it in Ellicott from lunchtime until my meeting with my director about the talk i was giving the next day.

Writing the talk didnt go as well as i planned, so i weaseled my way out of doing surveys in Ellicott Wednesday. i pushed it back to Thursday.

Thursday came along and i was still behind on my talk, so i said "Ok James, you should go, how about going from 3-4?" Three came around and i said i was behind... then i said, "Ok James, go at 5." Five came along and i was still sitting at home. But i felt guilty so i stepped out the door and went to my car at 5:15 and drove up to North Campus. When i got there, i limited myself saying i would only go until 6:30, and then i limited myself to talking to one person. i approached a guy, asked if he would want to do a survey with me and he said he was leaving in a minute...

Time to make a choice...

Let's talk to those girls over there. i asked two girls if they would help me out by taking a survey about their faith background and they said yes! Ok, thanks God, i can actually talk to someone now! We talked about their faith, how they grew up, what was going on in their lives... i think they had a hard time answering my questions. It's not everyday someone comes up to you and asks extremely personal questions about faith and the meaning of your life. They had both grown up Christian - one Catholic, one Protestant, and they said God had been there through hard times. i couldnt let that go, so i asked what they meant by that. One girl spoke up... She had just heard that her friend had died in a car crash the day before.

After a while i asked the girls how sure they were they would go to heaven, one of them said 100% and the other said 98%. Wow, i rarely ever hear percentages that high when i ask that question. At this point i went through a basic Gospel presentation. It was a lot of fun.

Afterwards we talked for a bit and i found out they were looking for a church. And not just them, but some other girls on their floor, including their RA! That was so cool! i invited them to church. i still have another day before they come so i'm still hoping and praying. Either way, i hope God gives me more opportunities to interact with them.

This post is really long, so i'm going to spare the commentary for the next post. In the next one you'll see why i'm so excited about this conversation... It's a beautiful intersection of God's grace, timing, and answer to prayer!

i'm so excited about this semester, i feel like a stored up flood is about to be loosed!