"I will bless you...and you will be a blessing" Gen. 12:2

God said these words "I will bless you and you will be a blessing" to Abraham when He was establishing His covenant. The reason God blessed Abraham was so that Abraham would bless others. "To much is given, much is required." (Luke 12:48) Are you blessing with what God has given you?

I've been here a week and I have learned more about life and God than I have in a long time.

We have to do book discussions throughout the Summer to learn about poverty and the Christian responsibility. Our first book is Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life by Robert D. Lupton. I finished it today and it is incredible. It taught me so much about impowering the poor and homeless rather than inhibiting them with free food banks and flop-houses (homeless shelters that have no programs or incentives). I learned that I have been so blind to what true community really is. I won't talk about it now so much because I have to write a paper on it by Friday and I'll be posting it on here. Stay tuned.


Some light-hearted news: In the past two days, we built a fire-pit in the backyard of our house and had a fire last night with S'mores included. It was us and the mosquitoes... ugh, I hate them. Emily, an intern, put up a hammock also and I have had the privilege of using it. It seems like we've all finally gotten comfortable with each other and our routines. Some of the best times have been sitting around the table during supper with my fellow interns. The fascination with my accent has increased and have had to say the word "South", "boat", and "both" to humor my co-workers. Who knew this would be the role I played among the group? The token Southerner.

Yesterday was an amazing day-off. I slept til 11:30 (12:30 your time). Didn't shower...at ALL. Read a book and hung-out with the interns. I also got to talk to some of you guys and catch up. It filled me up with that good, home lovin' I miss. I hope that made you feel awkward, but you taking your time to talk to me meant so much. The interns here that are local have had friends over and gone to dinner with people and family. It makes me ache a little bit for the ones I love back home.

Today, we did more orientation. Some game facilitation exercises for the summer. We got our schedules. YEE!

This is what mine looks a little like: (You should be able to click on it to make it bigger)
My main ministry participation will be with the Work Groups that travel from across the country to have an emersion and missions experience in the poverty of Waco. I'm a facilitator that basically hangs out with the groups, gets to know them, and tries to make their experience in Waco enriched. I'll also be with the Work Groups when they go out to do sort of a backyard Bible club on the streets in the community for kids to come out to. I basically do the same job there, play with the kids, and keep an eye out for safety concerns. I'll be tutoring the homeless men at the shelter as they try to get their GEDs on Wednesdays and once they get those, they move on to the Job training/placement program. And I'll be filling in as an office assistant at the main office which I figured would be a cool way to get to know all of the staff and locals. My Saturdays will be filling in random places as we will have to help with MissionWaco's poverty simulation which I don't really know if I've explained yet. But it's yet another event MW(Mission Waco) offers to visiting groups where they can emerse themselves into poverty for a weekend. I don't know any details because it's all highly confidential since we'll be doing it in two weekends. I'll tell you guys all about it afterwards and once we do it, we'll be helping other groups with it. We'll also have to volunteer some teaching chapel at the homeless shelters some nights and the World Cup Cafe waitressing (yay...haha). By the way, we ate lunch there today and it was DELICIOUS and so so cheap. One of our interns is going to do PR work for the cafe to raise awareness about it in the community because it is GREAT...and it all goes back to MW and is a place of employment for the homeless (That's where I met Malcolm).

Something else we are doing is every week, we have assigned times to get together with a few others and have certain Scriptures that we will read aloud to one another that are about the poor, oppressed, and our responsibility, Jesus' position, etc. We had our first tonight at Kathy's house and i LOVED it. I was sitting there thinking how this is how it was meant to be done and how the Jews still do it. Our Scripture came mostly from the Old Testament and it took us about an hour to get through it all. Here are some good ones:

"You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, they will no doubt cry to Me, and I will certainly hear their cry." Exodus 22:22-23

"You must not oppress a foreign resident; you yourselves know how it feels to be a foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt." Exodus 23:9
[In the law, over and over again, the Lord reminds the Jews that they should treat others well because they should remember what it was like to be slaves and foreigners in the land of Egypt. Really, over and over again. This parallels today as we can all remember what it was like to be slaves to sin, to the world and the battle it still rages in our hearts. Remember what it was like and don't treat the foreigner, the oppressed, the homeless, the poor, the lost as if they are some dirty, "foreign" thing. They are struggling with the same as we are. We are responsible for them. Remember.]

"When a foreigner lives with you in your land, you must not oppress him. You must regard the foreigner who lives with you as native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God." Lev. 19:33-34

"When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edge of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreign resident; I am the Lord your God." Lev. 19:9-10
[You can see how greed has completely changed the fabric of our society and completely ruined 'community'. Applying these verses to the 21st century, why do we horde our money and continually feel its a requirement to upgrade and have the "best"? Why do we use every last cent, our harvest, on ourselves? Unfortunately even if you do tithe, one book I'm reading gave the startling statistic that on average a church gives less than 1/2 of 1% of their budget to the poor. Now, I don't know the details of that. But it's just something to think about. When did we become so greedy?]

"He saves the needy from their sharp words and from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth." Job 5:15

"God rescues the afflicted by afflicting them; He instructs them by means of their torment." Job 36:15
[That's an interesting way to look at it. God's purposes are never completely known to man. How can we propose that the homeless deserve their depravity because of their afflictions? It's all in God's plan.]

I think that's enough, but I loved it. Can't wait until next week.
We also started our small groups. We are required to join a small group through a church and a few of us went to Jimmy Dorrell's (the director of MW) tonight. It kicked off with us going back to the homeless shelter to hear him share a message to the men there. I saw many familiar faces and a lot of the awkwardness was completely washed away. I got to speak a lot with a guy named Ron who is basically a flipping genius. He's probably late forties, early fifties. He came down from Pennsylvania immediately after the Branch Davidian church burning ((the big cult deal which is the only reason anyone knows about Waco)) to investigate what had happened. And he lived on the church property and gave tours to curious travellers. He was even baptized into their faith. If you can imagine my face I made at that disclosure, haha. He's really philosophical and believes that everything in this world is a conspiracy (and not just in the negative connotation, but just that everything has been plotted and planned by someone). He is teaching himself Hebrew and showed me how He is finding "codes" in the Old Testament that point to the divinity of Jesus. Now, you may be hesitant and so am I. But it was so cool to talk to him. I told him I wanted to know more about both: the codes and the Branch Davidians. I haven't gotten down to why he's at the shelter and if he's got a job, but it's another relationship that is forming by the grace of God.

There's a lot going on but I'm anxious to start my real summer schedule next Monday. Pray for that transition and that God would really use me in the venues I've been placed.

Thanks for reading, Peace to you.