Death...OK

So I was watching this video and started thinking, "What was going through her head while she was flipping around?" What it one of those things where it happened so quick she didn't know what was going on, or did her "life flash before her eyes" in a long slide show of past victories and failures. Did she think to herself, "This is it...I'm dead. I knew I should have went to church last week." While I was thinking about all this, I asked myself, "What if I was on top of a 700 story building and began to fall off...what would my thoughts be?" Well maybe not 700 stories because that would be a long time to think about pretty much everything, but you get the idea. Would Megan and JP and their future be on my mind? Would I be thinking about the pain I could possibly feel? Would I be thinking, "Crap!! I knew I should have not stepped on the ledge even though Phillip told me it would be ok." (we have a long history of talking each other into doing stupid stuff) Or would I be thinking about Jesus? About the future glorification of my soon to be roadkill body? I'm not sure, but I know I would be ok...Ok with dying. Ok with place my wife is with her walk with Jesus and her ability to raise JP into a deep relationship with Christ. I would be Ok in my confidence that I know Jesus and have been purchased by His blood. Ok with Phillip even though he just got me killed:) And all of my other friendships...I would be ok. So as I'm falling from this ridiculously high building, would be falling with peace. I would have some anxiety and discomfort, but I would also be eagerly awaiting my reunion with my Heavenly Father. Would you be ok? Or would you be saying, "I should have done this and this and this. I should have spent more time with my family and less at work. I should hugged my kids a little more and kissed my wife a little sweeter. I should have met Jesus...I should have listened and responded when I had a chance...I'm not ok."

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Day 5: A Conversation With a Muslim

This day was a shocker. As we were working at site #2, I began talking to the homeowner to whom we were helping. We had some connections since he lived in Dothan, AL back in the 70's and we became very close very fast. I asked him what church he attended and after he dodged the question a few times I asked plainly, "Whats the name of your church?" He then told me how he went to a Mosque around the corner and he was a Muslim. I was shocked. Possibly the most gentle man I had ever met was...Muslim. There's no way. He does not fit the stereotypical personality to be a Muslim. As I was in shock, and completely worthless to do anything for Jesus, the Holy Spirit took over. ON a side note...this is what is really cool about God. I would have left him alone and not went any further and then 3 hours later kicked myself in the tail for being a pansy. But God took over, and believe me when I said it was Him because I'm pretty worthless. I asked him about his faith, and I was shocked at his explanation. He believed it was all the same God...just different names. And the purpose was to do good. I asked my new friend what he thought about Jesus and he said, "Well, He was a great Prophet." I told him that we believe He is God, and that He is not the same person as Allah. He began to tear up and I asked him what about sin...where did he find forgiveness. He told me more about his faith when he said there is no forgiveness...just hope that his good outweighs his bad. I began to share with him what Christ did and why He did it. The biggest hug I ever received was from this new friend. He asked me to pray for him as he searched things out and read his New Testament.As we were leaving the site he hugged me again thanking us for the work. I told him it wasn't us but Christ working through us that led us to help him. There was a reason the kids gave up a week of there summer to help others...Jesus. Please pray for my friend.

Saturday's 7

I thought I would take a break from the M-Fuge recap and get back to the basics of Saturday's...what can I say? I'm a traditionalist.

• I'm about to order me some Toms. What are Toms you ask? They are shoes. Really cool shoes. And for every pair you buy an underprivileged child in another country gets a pair too. So I'm buying the family some shoes.
• My birthday was yesterday. It was a pretty normal day, which is fine with me. I got some money, a cool boat ride offer, Jessie hooked me up with a sweet picture with quotes around it (although I wish it could have been a picture of me and her together), and my wife made me a picture book of JP and cooked an amazing birthday meal.
• I'm preaching tomorrow morning and I'm really excited. The marks of a Believer through Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification...I know what you are thinking but come anyway.
• School is about to start and I'm surprisingly excited. The break has been nice but I'm ready to start learning some more...WHOA, that sounds weird.
• I hate paying bills!! That's the reason me and Megan don't have any money.
• I had a guy come into my office the other day and randomly start blasting another church. He was telling me how unbiblical they were and how the pastor was all about money. I need to call the guy and apologize because I semi-lost it on him. For all of you guys who want to step in my office and talk bad about people doing Jesus-work: Do your homework on what they are really about and don't listen to what other ignorant people tell you, and then come and talk to me:)
• I'm about to go preach the sermon to an empty sanctuary and pray...if you want a preview sneak in the front doors and sit on the steps...It's about to get loud!!

Day 4: Site Work and St. Louis

This was another amazing day with fantastic worship and message. After we worked on site all day we got to visit the city. Where did we go?? Where else would you go with that many teenagers...the mall. So today let me just show you some pics of this amazing day...


These are some really cool people I got to do a lot of work with...Maddie, Reid, and Kayla.


This is what I did most of the week...cut down limbs. Although Reid and I had some fun times doing it.


There were some big limbs hanging over power lines so me and Reid decided to bring them down. We talk for a long time about the right way to do this, but it was hilarious when we got up there and saw exactly how close we were to being blown away off the metal ladder. It didn't help that we were about 25 feet off the ground too.


While we were cutting limbs in the back of the house this is what was going on in front. These guys stained the whole house and did some serious yard work.
Yeah we were that close to power lines.
He was a pretty tough guy although I did save his life like a hundred times. No, really...I did.
This was the sealing we did on the guys driveway. We used over a 100 gallons. I was a massive driveway.
Here is a pic of the LSU girls showing off how much work was done. Basically they wiped it all over themselves to get dirty so they could complain later...I'm just joking. They worked a lot.
While me and Reid were cutting we found this sweet vine so we pretended to be Tarzan for around 30 minutes.

Day 3: Squirrels and The Saints Go Marching In

So again I arise at 5:30 to spend some time with Jesus before the campus starts hopping. This morning started really weird though. As I was sitting in my uncomfortable iron chair (I don't know why I thought I should be uncomfortable while I read and prayed...I guess I felt like I was suffering for Christ) a squirrel came up beside me. It sat there and stared at me for about 7 to 8 minutes. Me being at a super-spiritual missions camp tried to see what God was telling me through this deep experience with nature. It ran off only leaving a little squirrel doo-doo pile about 10 feet from my chair. Nothing spiritual there but I did see something I have never seen before. Now, I was reading in Acts 2 and verses 36-39 really hit me. Peter preached and the lost people hearts were spiritually cut...that is powerful. Peter had no impressive PowerPoint or video illustration, no moving music or a gifted worship leader, but he did have the Gospel and he preached it apologetically. The Jewish people began asking, "What should we do??!!" It just really hit me as I read this that I try, that's right I, try to build the Gospel on top of gimmicks instead of just sharing the gospel. That was a lot for a guy to take in at 5:30 in the morning after seeing something so spiritual as a squirrel taking a dump at my feet. We then eventually got to site and started working the day. This is when I got really close to some really cool students. Maddie, Reid, and Kayla or we liked to call ourselves RMRK Tree Service, we pretty much worked together for the remainder of the trip. After I cleaned out the gutters on this sweet ladies house Reid and I climbed a tree to cut some limbs down. We had no chainsaw, hacksaw, or any saw to cut this 7 inch thick limb down all we had was a butter knife...ok maybe it was knife saw...but it was really dull. Maddie and Kayla rigged up a sweet pulley system so when we cut the monster down it didn't crash into the ladies house. Maddie and Kayla did have a tough job in our tree business because they ended up cleaning MOST or maybe ALL of mine and Reid's mess...Thanks girls. After the lady made us brownies and ice cream she played a couple of songs on the piano for us as a thank you and we made our way to site two...Great stories for you here later. Dinner (cafeteria food is good), worship (redundantly amazing), and my team crushed the scavenger hunt (Who Are We?? Congo!!), I want to leave you a quote from the campus pastor..

--Your heart will either be destroyed by working for stuff or edified by working for the Kingdom.

Day 2: First Day on Site

As I woke up at 5:30 Tuesday morning God began dealing with me from the very first moment about missions, about service. I got to pray for our students before the campus really got busy but I think God ended up revealing to me things I needed to change more than anything. What He was teaching me ended up being pretty scary, but some powerful statements. Our whole week Scott, camp pastor, taught mainly from the parables of Jesus, and that morning during our send off celebration (the throw down we had before we left for site every morning) Scott began to hit us hard with a few statements:

- The Gospel is the most important thing.

- Lay it all down for the sake of the call.

So as we left for site, I got to load our van up with teenagers going to serve. I got to pull a trailer full of equipment through the giant mess that is St. Louis. We pulled up to our first site:

This house belonged to an incredibly sweet lady, who was a believer, who had a terrible skin disease. She could not be in direct sunlight for very long and her house just wasn't being taken care of. So our first day there we cleaned the house and did some painting. A lot of yard work was done and I got to pressure wash her driveway. I remember we ate turkey and provolone sandwiches this day which were delightful but we had the worst lemonade in the history of lemonade drinking. After site work we hung out for a little while and ate before worship. Worship was absolutely amazing and that will get very redundant simply because words cannot express the talent these guys had or the heart for Jesus. So I'll leave you with a statement preached so strongly by Scott: Jesus calls us to be FOLLOWERS not FANS.

Oh yeah Church group that night was amazing. This is simply a time where we as a church got to sit down and talk and share about our days since we were separated for the most part. I want to give a shout to Destiny...She had no one in our ministry in her track and she came back telling me that it was an amazing day. I was so glad to see these students comfort zones disappear...

Day One: Registration

My first post in the M-Fuge Blog series and I'm starting with registration??!! I know that may sound weird to a lot of you guys but there is something I learned from this and it may be a little more on the administrative side of things. My lesson was this: Whatever you do...do it well. These guys at m-fuge were amazing. As soon as we pulled up staffers were in the parking lot with us hanging out and directing us to the next station. They took our students to pick out track times and took us adults to another "chill out for second" place to let us settle down. When we met back with our students they were playing some really cheesy games but they were entertained and excited about the week. When the students learned they were not going to be in the same group with each other I believe they got a little nervous. We were each split into either PCY (painting, construction, and yard work), Games and Rec, Social, and Children's with each group assigned a country to represent throughout the week. Everything went as smoothly and as perfect as I could have ever hoped for and it is because the staffers at M-fuge took time to meet our students, learn names, and make it easy for us youth pastors. I appreciate there Christ-like example and we'll definitely be fuging it up next summer.