these are the encounters I'm learning to live for.

I am writing to you at 12:30 Sunday evening. This weekend marks the mid semester break, and although we are technically off of studies, our weekends are still full with kingdom purpose. Saturday morning I arrived at church at 8:30am for Street Teams. This week, we joined forces with a group who goes to State funded housing in Waterloo behind the church’s city campus area.
We started off by meeting a beautiful young Australian woman named Carmen. She was terribly ill, and so she asked us to take her dog out (she lives on the third floor of a run down apartment building wreaking of smoke and urine and dust.) Then we had a visit with a gentle old man stuck in his home because of past work injuries. Lory was a pilot for many years before he was the victim of a plane crash that put him into a coma for 4.5 months. Since the crash he has slurred speech and very little mobility. He lives alone in a little apartment, and it is beautiful to see him light up under the snowy white beard covering his gentle face. We talked with him about the weather and how it made him feel. We talked about getting transportation for him to join us at Hillsong on Sundays. Everything we mentioned seemed so significant to this man, he hung on our every word. Since it is difficult to understand him, he was patient to repeat everything several times and use what little body language he could muster. This man is living in a cocoon feeling alone and rejected and once a week 4 college students spend 10 minutes with him and he closes the door very obviously feeling like a million bucks. It seemed so wrong to me.
We met with others, including a man from Finland who learned the accordion and laughed about his poor form and lack of talent. We met with men who needed help lifting things because of back problems, and elderly who treated us like princesses in their home just so they could have a few companions for a bit.
Saturday reminded me that the community I have at home and now at Hillsong is an honor and a privilege and not the norm. We are living among the forgotten.
I so often pass by the women on their walkers and the drunkards on the side of the street without a second thought. But tonight I am reminded of a Savior who didn’t just see their outward appearance; He looked into their soul and saw something worth dying for.
I’m embarrassed to say that Friday night I debated on whether or not I should even go to Street Teams. I struggled all night and I finally went to bed thinking that Kingdom purpose is a better thing to live on than 2 more hours of sleep. And now I think of Lory’s face when he closed the door. I think of Carmen’s desperate plea for someone to just take a dog downstairs for a bit. I think of old men with windbreakers dreaming of more vodka as a companion, and being pleasantly surprised to get us instead. These are the encounters I’m learning to live for. This is the purpose I’m living out in Australia.

That same Saturday night I met a beautiful Norweigan woman appropriately named Bella. She had the wisdom of a life filled with adventure, academics and humanitarianism. Bella sat near me on the bus and we talked music and culture and science. I was inspired to live life her way. She had been to 17 universities in 8 different countries with varying degrees from the highest rated schools and was working as a pediatric neurosurgeon through an organization that sends her all over the world to the greatest need. She had lots of knowledge, but more than that she had a lot of appreciation.

Christine Caine spoke tonight about living without fear. Getting to death safely is no way to live. I would like to be a beautiful Bella one day. I would like to be sent to the greatest need, but also find room for the invisible need in places like Waterloo state funded housing.
This weekend reminded me that I am alive for more than my desires. God’s call is so much bigger than our circle of friends; and sometimes you only need to take a walk to find the need.

We serve God

Joshua 3

The Jordan

^1-4 Joshua was up early and on his way from Shittim with all the People of Israel with him. He arrived at the Jordan and camped before crossing over. After three days, leaders went through the camp and gave out orders to the people: "When you see the Covenant-Chest of God, your God, carried by the Levitical priests, start moving. Follow it. Make sure you keep a proper distance between you and it, about half a mile—be sure now to keep your distance!—and you'll see clearly the route to take. You've never been on this road before."

⁵ Then Joshua addressed the people: "Sanctify yourselves. Tomorrow God will work miracle-wonders among you."

⁶ Joshua instructed the priests, "Take up the Chest of the Covenant and step out before the people." So they took it up and processed before the people.

^7-8 God said to Joshua, "This very day I will begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel. They'll see for themselves that I'm with you in the same way that I was with Moses. You will command the priests who are carrying the Chest of the Covenant: 'When you come to the edge of the Jordan's waters, stand there on the river bank.'"

^9-13 Then Joshua addressed the People of Israel: "Attention! Listen to what God, your God, has to say. This is how you'll know that God is alive among you—he will completely dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. Look at what's before you: the Chest of the Covenant. Think of it—the Master of the entire earth is crossing the Jordan as you watch. Now take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of God, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan's water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap."

^14-16 And that's what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.

¹⁷ And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot.