Feigning Innocence: This Post Is About My First Four Weeks At RMMC

They say sleep is something you need to have in order to live. I would agree with that. You see, I haven’t slept very much lately. The last three weeks have been something that one could reasonably call insane. Four weeks ago (about the time of my first post) I learned how to be safe while rock climbing and rappelling and also how to fix broken people while out on hikes and too far for emergency services to be readily available, otherwise known as Wilderness First Aid. So if your intestines fall out of your stomach when you are on a hike, you can give me a call and I will know not to touch them with my hands and try to push them back in. Anyways, the next week was staff orientation, which involved quite a bit of planning and leading orientation shtuff. Also during this week we made plans for the first senior high camp, which was last week. That orientation week was pretty much crazy with all sorts of getting to know other staffers and learning what happens with all the kids coming and stuff. So then the kids camps started and sleep decided it wasn’t as important. I did a lot of planning, a lot of facilitating, a lot of music-ing, and a lot of announcement-ing. The same happened this past week, and it was awesome. I also had the opportunity to put into action a game that I sort of came up with myself, which was both an extremely stressful and loss of confidence time as well an amazing time of growth in both my confidence and pride in my abilities to be able to pull something off like that. Sounds confusing, but it isn’t. We did it twice and I thought the first day went horrible, but it actually went decent, and the next time we played was much better and I felt much better about it. And we will play it once more. Then, after this week, I am off to Phoenix to help lead some worship there for the Jr. High Mennonite Youth Convention, about 100 kids. It should be a good time, but we have to do some planning for it that needs time to do. After I get back from that I will probably be out on maintenance or something strenuous like that, which I am excited for. Mainly because I will get to sleep and hike. I must admit, I have been selfish in coming here because so much of me wants to hike and do things for myself. I do know that it wasn’t just out of selfish ambition that I came here, though, because God has shown up in ways that I can’t even imagine. However, I don’t have to imagine it, I just have to believe it, because I know that He is here and guiding me as I run this race, and I am not running it in vain. Hymns are rich, yo.

In other news, I have become homesick for the first time that I can remember. Which is sad, but it is a refreshing thing. I know how much I care about my family and have always known that, but now that I have this feeling I know that I am where God wants me to be. It isn’t because I am uncomfortable sometimes, but I know that if I would have just come out here because I am selfish then I probably would have only worked half the summer so I could get back home and also not been program director. It’s all complicated, but makes perfect sense to me. Now, I definitely miss people, especially my family and loved ones, but I stick to some lyrics a decent group of people sing; “We’re far from home but we’re far from alone and the people we meet are the friends that we’ll keep.” So here I am, living a piece of my dream and hopefully helping people see the love of Christ, and not just the love of Christ but also the awesome and terrible might that is God. Not because of who I am or what I do but because of where we are.

Which brings me to a rabbit trail, or whatever it is called when you go off topic on a little rant. So there is this awesome song called As The Deer. I don’t know where the lyrics come from, maybe I should check it out, but one of the verses goes as follows; “You’re my friend and You are my brother even though You are a King. I love You more than any other so much more than anything.” So the I looked it up and it was written by a dude in Seattle in 1981 named Martin Nystrom and based off of Psalm 42:1. Anyway, this verse bothers me whenever I sing it, so I have decided that when I lead this song I will not sing this verse. Why is that, you ask? Because God is our Father, our Creator, the Creator of all the earth and all upon the earth and the universe and everything in the universe. He is not my brother. Friend? Maybe, but even that is a stretch I believe. I completely believe that He loves us unconditionally and Jesus came to die for us because of all the crap that we do, but I can’t feel comfortable calling God my brother and friend. He is so much more powerful than that, so much more powerful than I am, and deserves (and demands) so much more respect than to be called the friend or brother of a mere human. I understand the sort of imagery that Nystrom was going for in penning that verse, but I don’t agree with it. The love of God doesn’t seem like a lovey-dovey relationship, it is the relationship between a Creator and the created, the powerful and the meek, and our God should not be reduced to something less than what He is because is so much more powerful than us. We need to respect the awesome and terrible might of God, not reduce it to something less than that just so that we can feel comforted or be able to “understand” what kind of love it is that He has for us. I could keep going, but it is midnight and I am exhausted, and don’t want write too much past what I have thought.

TL;DR I have had long and stressful days, I have grown a lot, I love hiking but sometimes feel like my desire to do that gets in the way of the ministry I am here for, and God is way too powerful and awesome to be called my brother.

Here are some of my favorite pictures thus far: