There and Back Again

Well, I am finally back at my house in America. Thousands of miles away from the Australian culture I have left behind and my team is scattered all throughout California again. It feels so strange to be done. To really have gone there and back AGAIN, all by the grace of God. Our team had a great time at debriefing. We stayed a couple days in Los Angeles to put a wrap on our trip. We cleared any miscommunications or angers people had kept on the trip, and then did a lot of encouraging one another. The last two weeks of the trip I thought I would feel so relieved once I knew that everyone was safely back in their houses with their families. And that is definitely true, I do feel relieved that God delivered everyone safely back home. At the same time, I was a lot more sad the past couple of days with them. God blessed my first time leading with such an incredible team. Honestly, they were a group of people growing in Christ, seeking to advance His kingdom, and honest about where they came up short. It was such a privilege to be a part of the team. Please continue to pray for every one of the members of my team as they transition back into life back home, and for me in having peace with the team now being apart. It was so strange to drive around in Bakersfield yesterday. All the sights I had not seen in two months, and the hot weather I definitely had not experienced. It felt like an out of body experience. All I could think about was the city of Melbourne, on the other side of the world. It looks nothing like this and is nowhere close to the temperature. Yet, there is a whole city of people over there, many who still have no clue what the true gospel is. Continue to pray for the city and the people over there.
This trip has taught me so much and I don't even know where to begin. Let me start with the conversations that our team had. We initiated conversations with around 925 people. About 530 of those turned into spiritual conversations. In about 260 of those, members of our team got to share the gospel. And of those 260, 8 people RECEIVED CHRIST! That is a large number for Australian ministry, so I feel that God blessed our team very much in that regard. Honestly we had more initiations and spiritual conversations than are even here. It is so incredible to look at the number of lives that God affected by using us. I love being a part of the missions field, on the front lines bringing people to know Christ. It is one of the greatest blessings to be a part of this type of ministry.
Personally, I learned a ton on this trip. It starts with how this was a different trip for me than last time. I was the leader. And I learned a ton about being a leader. Not just about being a leader in "spiritual" things, but throughout the trip. While I didn't oversee administration and finance, I learned a lot about that stuff by helping with it and seeing how God uses it to help. I also learned how to protect and care for the team. When a drunk guy was in the hostel I had to make sure everyone was protected from his presence. The hard things like that are what a leader does. Leadership takes a lot of self-sacrifice and a ton of humility. It takes diligence and perseverance. Above all, it takes reliance upon God and allowing Him to lead through you. After leading this trip, I know that God has blessed me with the spiritual gift of leadership. It was different being there more for the students on my own team than for the students in Australia. The mindset had to be setting up the students on our team so they could do the most effective ministry. I was definitely involved in this ministry, but humility and self-sacrifice played a part in this. I loved leading the team and found so much joy through it. This is a lesson I will take into consideration as I allow God to share with me His future for me. I got to do discipleship with the guys every week. This took up about half of my week on campus, but it was one of my favorite things. I loved sharing with the guys how God has grown me, and how He is continuing to grow me. I loved how we shared our struggles and helped fight against them. I loved doing well-being check-ins with the guys, and then learning truth about God and ministry together. I loved being a shepherd in this way. I also got to be a shepherd for the team as a whole by sharing the vision with the team for different weeks. Our visions ranged from hearts for the lost to knowing Christ to spiritual warfare to prayer centered ministry. I was given the ability to grow in my teaching ability as I shared these visions using Scripture. This was another one of my favorite parts of the trip. I love Scripture and how it helps us in every step of our life. Throughout this trip I continued to learn how to place my relationship with Kelsey in the right place. God put it on our hearts to have our relationship take a backseat this trip, while we focused on ministry first. It was great to see how God made that easy for each of us, and how I was barely even tempted to ever waver from that. We both grew so much individually which is only going to help our relationship become more Christ-centered. I also continued to learn about evangelism. I did not lead anyone to Christ on this trip, just like the last one. That can be a foothold where Satan could give me discouragement. This is where the definition of successful evangelism comes in. Taking initiative in the Spirit to share and leaving the results to God. I love evangelism! I don't believe it is a spiritual gift of mine, but I know from Scripture it is my responsibility to do it. I could see God using me in it. I had some conversations with "intellectuals" where my religious studies degree came into play. God gave me boldness and confidence in sharing which inspired people I shared with. Most of all, God continued to grow my individual relationship with Him. I continued to learn more about Him by studying His word. The tram rides made me feel sick, but because of that I would sit in the front and just listen to sermons. I learned so much from all of those. I continued to try and grow more and more of a heart for prayer and fasting. I am nowhere close to being perfected in holiness, but I believe God continued to make me aware of struggles and how I can continue to grow in them. This was by far the biggest thing I take away from the trip.
This was such a great trip for me and I can't thank each of you enough for praying and supporting me all the way. I loved this opportunity. It continued to make me missions minded and want to grow more for the kingdom. As a leader, it is so great to see the impact God allowed our team to make! The last night of encouragement was one of the greatest things for me. Some of the guys told me I had become their greatest spiritual mentor. I don't even know how to express my gratitude in words to the Lord that He would use me in that way. Others said they loved to see my heart for prayer. Prayer is something I am constantly working on and I know I am far from where I should be. It was so encouraging to hear that God is working on me in this area too. The whole team felt like me and Kelsey put our relationship in the right place for the trip, which was such a blessing to hear. I mean I thought we did, but there could have always been stuff I was oblivious to that I was doing. Others said they respected the wisdom I brought. I am far from knowing much at all, but I was so glad that God worked through the little that He has begun to teach me. The best part, however, was something different than all of this and was not even about me. I told the guys that my biggest prayer for them this summer was that they fell more in love with God. I knew if that happened, then everything else would go well. I just wanted that to be true of this summer for them. The last night many of the guys told me this happened for them. All I can say is thank you Jesus for allowing Your people to grow closer to you. Much love to all and much thanks! GOD BLESS!

Farewell

Its so crazy to think that I will be flying home in less than a day. This trip has flown by! Honestly, this feels like the fastest summer of my life. Likely this has to do with some combination of being in Australia, being on mission, and being a leader. It has been so great to be a part of this whole trip! I cannot believe that I have to say farewell to this place that I have come to love. I still have a few days before I have to say goodbye to my team, but I have already had to say my goodbyes to the aussies I came to know on the trip. It just amazes me that God is working in this country just as much as He is working in America. To live in a city on the other side of the world, and see people proclaim the name of the Lord is so liberating. There are people all over the world proclaiming the name of the Lord and believing in His gospel. People I will never meet, cultures I will never see, and places I will never go. Yet, all of these will be my brothers and sisters in heaven! It has been such a blessing being a part of this Australian culture and bringing the gospel to the people who don't know it. There are tons of brothers and sisters throughout the nations, but there are far more lost people there!
I have absolutely loved leading this team and being a part of it. It has just amazed me how close we have become and how much I enjoyed being a leader of it! I have learned and grown in so many ways on this trip. In knowing the Lord, making His name glorified, and growing in community are just the tips of the iceberg. I can't wait to share it with all of you and continue this life of growth that I have been able to live here. I cannot thank all of you so much for being a part of both my financial team and prayer team. Please continue to pray as our team wraps things up. Pray for our safe travels. Pray for our growth to continue. Pray for our lives to be radically changed. And please pray for all the seeds we are leaving behind in these Aussies. That is most certainly the hardest part. Pray that we can leave that to the Lord! I will blog when we get back in America again! I gotta go get packed now! Much love and thanks!

Knowing Christ Jesus

Sorry I realize its been a few days since I have had the chance to update this so I'm doing it now. I would love to begin with a verse that has been on my heart tonight while reading the word, Philippians 3:7-8 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them RUBBISH, THAT I MAY GAIN CHRIST." Many of you have probably heard these words before in a sermon or in your own reading; in fact, I still remember a very convicting sermon I heard from Francis Chan about these words. Philippians is a great book as a whole, and chapter three is amazing. It is a letter written from Paul, to his brethren at the church that he founded there in Acts 16. Compared to many of the other epistles, it contains much more gratitude and less rebuke of some type of evil in the church. This chapter displays how Paul had all the religious 'points' anyone could ever ask for. All of that, meant nothing WITHOUT CHRIST. Without God, nothing. With God, everything. Paul considered ALL THINGS RUBBISH compared to the infinite greatness of the relationship he could have with Christ Jesus. These words strike me at the core, as I'm sure they will for anyone who reads them with a discerning heart. God and nothing else. God and nothing else. KNOWING CHRIST JESUS! I know that I do not live up to this standard. I pray to, but even my prayer time is eaten up by things that I have not considered loss compared to the worth of knowing God.
I mean only to use these words as the exhortation and rebuke they are to me. One thing I have emphasized repeatedly to the guys I am with on this trip is that the foremost goal should be knowing and falling in love with Jesus. If that does not happen this trip is sadly a failure, because it will end in the same apathy we had before. I have to preach this to myself more than I do to them. I know what it is like to come back from a trip like this. You have vigor for the word for two weeks, and then distractions start getting in the way. Don't get me wrong, the last time I came to Australia my life was radically changed. I started reading and praying and coming to God much more than before. But compared to Paul's standard, one we are supposed to imitate, it's nothing. For the past week or so, I have been listening to a man named Paul Washer. He is a fantastic preacher of the Word, but from his teachings I have become even more convicted of scripture like this. If I were to actually treat God as more than just my upmost priority, but as my source of life; then my life would look different. These words from Philippians are an exhortation to me because they give me such joy and remind me how important knowing Christ Jesus is. All other things are rubbish. And in that vein, these words are a staunch rebuke. All other things are rubbish and nothing compares to knowing God. Knowing God is my biggest prayer request for myself and my team. Pray for us to know God in the same way that Paul did.

Now time for a few bits of ministry news! The ministry has been good the past few days. First, we did take a day as a team to spend as our 'Day with the Lord'. It is so important that while one is constantly pouring out, they pour back into themselves with the Lord's strength. While this is a daily thing for us as Christians, it is so important to see that even in Jesus' ministry he removed Himself with His Father for periods of time in solitude. It was great to hear the experiences of the students and just for me to get the time to be with my Lord. Another person named Tuan came to Christ last week. I have forgotten for some reason at this moment, but I believe that brings the project total to seven. That is such an amazing blessing! And I know students are meeting up with others, and seeking to share Christ's love as much as possible with maybe their last chance to here. I have not had any overly amazing conversations the last few days, but a few interesting ones. One guy named Adam was raised Christian, but now believes it to be all lies. He told us Christianity resembles to much of Egyptian religion, and named a documentary called Zeitgeist as his source of 'truth'. I had heard a little about this claim, but not a ton. So we tried to share the truth and what we knew how to, and explain how Jesus is the only true God who rose from the dead. It didn't end exactly how I would have loved, but we did share the gospel in it's true form, one he had never heard (works-based nonsense). It was super reassuring to do some research on the whole Zeitgeist thing, and now have a few answers prepared for the next time someone brings it up. Had another conversation with an atheist whose name is slipping my mind right now for some dumb reason. He took our survey, and was certain of his answers. It was so sad to see, but he allowed us to share the gospel with him, which was great! Sometimes you don't see people take big steps from having a -10 attitude towards Christ to a 10. Many times in evangelism here, people may move from a -10 to a -9.9. But I am so thankful for that change and any that happens! I know God is working here, just as He is working all over the world through His creation! Continue to pray for outreach these last few days. Pray everyone has strength and fervor to continue. Pray that they would feel the necessity to reach out to each and every student. Pray for focus, because it is hard to have the seemingly same conversations over and over again. Also pray for all the guys. I am finishing up my discipleship with them this week. It has been such a privilege getting to know them and pointing them to Christ. I want them to remember the things they learned on this trip. Discipleship has been one of my absolute favorite parts of this trip. I have loved coming before the Lord with all of the guys and learning about Him and how to advance His kingdom. So pray for that too! Thank you all so much!

Family

I was not planning on writing a blog right now, until I listened to a song called Tear Down the Walls by Hillsong. It is such a great worship song, and one that we sang quite often the last time I was in Australia. The bridge goes like this, "For all Your sons and daughters who are walking in the darkness, You are calling us to lead them back to You. We will see Your Spirit rising as the lost come out of hiding, every heart will see this hope we have in You." Like I said, I was not planning on writing anything, but when I listened to the words I became emotional. I started crying and just having to pray. There are so many people walking in darkness here. I honestly believe that hell is a reality. Therefore, all of these people are going to hell and they are never going to get to experience the majesty of God in heaven like I will. My heart just crumbles at this thought. I go about so many days in my life back home knowing this same thing, but without the same intentionality. Part of me just wants to jump for joy at this bridge, the Lost will come out of hiding and see the hope we have in the Lord. Yet, only a fraction of them will. So many of the others will just walk away from the gospel message annoyed, saddened, angry, apathetic, or any mix of emotions. But they will never know Jesus like I get to! This thought destroys me! We are called to bring our lost family back home. In the states, I let people pass me by all the time who need Jesus. I know I am never going to be perfect at it, and I have come to realize that evangelism is not my spiritual gifting. But I am called, thus I must obey. It's the reason I'm here. Ministry is tough here, people don't just listen. It's not like what I hear about the people who are poor or oppressed in other parts of the world, who know this message is true. Australians think their life is fine, BUT THEY ARE WALKING IN DARKNESS. Nothing is more disheartening than sharing with somebody the light of Jesus and them rejecting it, or even mocking it. Even at that, ministry is so much harder with the people back home . . because we will see them again! I pray that I would not let my own stupidity and lack of ability to obey get in the way of Jesus. Pray for these people. Pray for the people around you. Pray desperately for opportunities to bring them back home. If hell is real to you, please please help people stay out of it. This is my encouragement for the night. Know that their decision is not in your hand's, it is in the Lord's. But it is your duty to obey, no matter the consequences and no matter their decision.
On another note let me tell you a few experiences. Yesterday, a lady on the tram next to me was crying on the phone. If you don't know, I get sick on the tram so I sit in the front by all the old people. I listen to two sermons every day, one on the way there and one on the way back (its an hour tram ride). Anyways, she was an old lady and she was crying and I heard God nudge me to ask her if I could pray for her. I was like no way! Believe me, if you were in my mind you would have heard "Please, God, Please. I really don't want to. It would be so much easier just to listen to my sermon and act like I love you, but not love your people." Seriously, sometimes I'm an idiot. So eventually, I decided to ask her. She didn't want prayer. Seems like a bad ending to the story right? . . She may not have wanted prayer, but God nudged me to love that woman. I don't know what it did for her life to have a stranger seemingly care for her. She did tell me thank you very many times and that I was a nice young man. Nonetheless, I obeyed, her decision is in God's hand.
I have had some great conversations this week. I talked with a guy named Michael who got so close to accepting Christ. We are pushing an event for the ministry here called Gutsy Love and it is all about real manhood. So we went through this little survey with him and shared the gospel with Him. I asked his reaction, and he was like "Yeah, I don't see any reason why that would not be true" (honestly such a blessing, reactions like that are far and few between). Then I asked whats stopping him from believing and he said "I guess nothing". In that moment I was ready to pounce and bring a brother to Christ. Yet, Satan showed up. Right after that answer, he got a call from his girlfriend and had to leave. Such a bummer! Pray our group runs into him again.
After that, I met a staff member named Damien. Went through the same survey and towards the end he said he was a Christian. Many times we have heard that answer but after asking clarifying questions, we see they don't really know the gospel. So I asked him, "If Jesus asked you why you should get into heaven what would you say?". Normally people say some bogus about good works. He said "Well, I guess if it was Jesus looking at me I would say . . Because of YOU!" I got a big smile when I knew we had met a Christian staff member! Pray that he gets involved with the Christian movement on campus to give them a mentor. Pray he would take a role of responsibility of his faith on the campus and be a light.
That is all for now! I love all of you. Above all, continue to lift us up in prayer!

Retreat

We had Mid-Project Retreat this weekend and it did not come a minute too soon. Part of me is absolutely amazed at how fast the time has gone by this trip. We have been in Australia for over three weeks. I feel like we just landed! Yet, I can tell we have been here for a while based on how tired I have become. Waking up and going through the daily routine got a lot harder after that first week. So, this retreat was great for everyone. Oh, and the LORD provided so well for us on this time. We had a house for the guys and one for the girls, both about a ten minute walk from the beach. You have no idea how nice just hanging out in a house can be when you spend an extended time living in a hostel with very little privacy. Our group had not been able to just hang out as themselves for quite a while, because it is very hard to find a place where you are all alone in the hostel. We watched a couple of movies, relaxed, ate fish and chips, and just hung around the beach. Such a blessing for our team!

Some of the cool stuff that happened while we were there. We had a team time that went over our expectations of team behavior. It was amazing to see how many people on the team felt like we had adhered to our norms. We have a very rare group on this project, one who truly loves one another and seeks for others benefits! That was Friday night. Saturday night was really really cool. We split up into gender times. Obviously, I was with the guys. So many of the guys were just worn down and a couple were even pretty sick! I had this whole idea of what I wanted the time to look like, most of it came from the book Wild at Heart. I wanted these guys to feel like they could jump in the foxhole with one another and be a band of brothers. Struggles were shared and prayer was had. While the physical may not have been healed, I felt a comfort over our spiritual lives. Then we all came together for prayer and worship. The worship was so great because we could yell as loud as we wanted without having to worry about waking up the people in the next room over! It is so great to meet with Jesus like that when you feel like you have had to hold back a little. We prayed over all the people we have initiated with, had spiritual conversations with, shared the gospel with, and brought to Christ! My particular group prayed really hard for those who we had shared the gospel with, because they are now held accountable for hearing it. It was so crazy to read off all the names that were in the jar and lift up each of them to the LORD. We also took some time to pray for our hearts and over the empty jar, that the LORD would overflow it with the work of His kingdom in Australia. I feel so blessed to be here, it is incredible!

I did a little reflecting this weekend. This trip is so different than the last time I was here. We live in the city, the school we reach is much larger, our evangelism looks different this time, and my role is completely different. I have responsibilities besides outreach that take up my time. I have leadership duties, shepherd over the group, and disciple the guys. Each one of these things takes up quite a bit of time. I rarely get free time, which is partly why this weekend was so great! But as I reflected and am continuing on, I realized I am learning so many lessons through my time here that are different from last time. First and foremost, I am learning how to be a biblical leader. I am really starting to feel like this is one of my spiritual gifts. It is incredibly hard, but I love it! There is so much that this entails. It starts with learning how to plan time and do all of the administrative things. I'm also learning and growing in how to truly disciple men. This has been my favorite part of the job. I have never poured into guys as intentionally as I am pouring into this group and I know God is doing work in them. I am also growing in preparing lessons and speaking God's truth in front of others. This is a lesson I am truly valuing while I am here. Besides all of these things, I am learning how to be humble, keep short accounts, and forgive others. I make mistakes. I am learning how to admit them in a humble way that continues to grow myself and the team. Sometimes people don't act exactly how I would want them to. My orientation is to not forgive them and be bitter for some time towards them. This trip is teaching me slowly how to grow out of that, and believe the best in people. God has been growing me in so many ways and I don't even know how to put them all down.

Please continue to pray for our team. Prayer is such a vital part to our ministry. Right now, you can pray for healing. Three of our team members (Blake, Trevor, Jared) are quite sick. I am afraid that this could spread to even more of the team. So please pray for the LORD's healing hand over our team. Also, pray for our last two weeks of campus ministry. Pray that big things would happen, people would understand the gospel! Pray for urgency in our mindsets, and that our weariness would not slow us down. Also, pray for me. I have been reflecting a lot, but I am also looking forward to the next chapter. I will be done with classes after fall, and I would really love for God to show me a vision for what's next. I have many great ideas, but I want my path to be of Him. Last time I was here, God helped me a lot in this area, so I would love for prayer here. And as always, pray for my leadership. Thanks and much love!