kenya update.

umm.. can i just say God provides! yes.. yes He does.

with the help of my mom and good friends, we have reached the halfway mark for my trip! $2000 in a little over 3 weeks. Praise God!

Here's a little behind the scenes in my "sweatshop" as some call it.

oh yea.. and here's a few photos of the bro... big bday weekend. Go mike!

new eyes.

i think god's been trying to say something to me lately... about having new eyes. it keeps coming up. and im just now realizing this as i'm writing (which, by the way, is the beauty of writing/journaling).. but yes im realizing that this whole "new eyes" concept does a lot to explain this brokenness ive been experiencing lately.



real quick explantaion of the brokennes...

i have been deeply broken this past week... and i havent been able to say why. It's not a guilt or sadness over something that happened, but more of a spiritual brokennes thats not necessarily bad... just painful. and if you've studied mother teresa's life, she experienced something like this.. although much more intense. Its like she felt she had to bear the darkness of the world. She physically and spiritually hurt for the poor and the low and the depressed and the down-trodden.

now im no mother T... but being around the lost and seeing their pain and their sorrow and feeling a deep deep compassion and sadness for them has played into my recent brokenness.




But back to the new eyes thing.. like i said in a recent post, Claiborne talks about how a different world is possible.. how His (God's) kingdom is a realitly. well... that is if we're willing to not see the world the way everyone else sees it. Romans 12:2 hello.

and also, this morning at The Village matt chandler discussed how theres these lenses we all put on to see the world with... the secular lens (bad), the religious lens (reallyyy bad), and the gospel lens (weird but beautiful). and the beautiful thing about the gospel lens is that we are free (unlike religion) to act out of obedience in JOY. With new eyes and the right eyes, we see realitly.. all the crap and brokenness of our reality... yet we let ourselves FEEL this and we act... for HIS glory.

cocoon.

aww yes another outkast cover... i dont think its as good as obadiah.. but ill give them some props.

Peculiar.

a few pics.. props to my boy Jeff Heimsath. He's a photo mastermind.

aw yes.. way past due on an update... shirt sales is going crazy. The Lord is providing indeed. and goes to show that young people do want to be a part of a cause.. (either that or they just think the shirts are cool) but i like to think its the former.

so i'm reading Jesus For President by my boy Shane... i encourage all to read it.. especially believers. you may not agree with everything.. but it sure makes you think.. and its pretty biblically backed so it can be hard to disagree with some of the uncomfortable truths we tend to overlook.

• "God's people look strange in a rebellious and fallen world."
• "If someone asks if we are Christ-followers, can we say, 'Tell me what you see?'"
• "Jesus taught nonviolence when he said, 'I send you out as sheep among wolves.' Jesus knew that his followers would face threats to their lives. But nowhere did Jesus teach that his followers should turn into wolves when they run into other scary wolves. God...chooses...to suffer evil to overcome it."

just a few quotes a grabbed from last chapter i read... its hard to accept this idea of being a "peculiar people". Shane is basically challenging us to look at the ever popular Christian phrase: be in the world, but not of it. I mean how far do I really have to take that? I can still wear Nike shoes even though I know they are made in sweat shops that violate child labor laws right? I can still burn CDs even though I'm breaking the law.. everybody does it right? I can still do the same thing everyone else does and still be an icon for Jesus right?

'Fraid not, shane says. I was not made for this world. I know this. America isn't the kingdom i belong to. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth.. as it is in Heaven. We (Christ-followers) are to embody His Kingdom here and now. Claiborne writes: "We are thankful for Heaven, but we are not willing to stand by and watch people live through hell to get there." This world isnt just a holding tank. This life isn't just a waiting game. We cannot simply blend in and wait until our number is called to enter the pearly gates. No way. Kingdom work should happen now. We were not given the responsibility of this body and this life and this world to just fumble through it.. ignoring injustice.. ignoring our call.. ignoring all the little hells on earth.

I'm not preaching here... well maybe i am... but if I'm talking to anyone its myself. I need to be reminded of this all the time. That we are called to be like Jesus- that is being among all the crap of the world.. definitely not distancing ourselves... but also being different. Peculiar.

Let's get creative...

Africa.

The Lord is sending me to Africa... to Kenya... and i cannot explain my excitment. I am making shirts (as seen above).. they say HOPE and the "o" is an Africa... in case you can't see i guess.

If you are interested in supporting please contact me... the shirts are $10. You can email at megstricko@yahoo.com.

There is Hope for Africa.

Yeasayer

i cant get enough of this... yeasayer is incredible.

ALL of it.

so i talked with an old friend last night... she started telling me the things God has been showing her and teaching her. There was something she said that I've heard before many times but never dug into... she said we should glorify God in all that we do.



sure.. i know this. but there's a certain little word that i tend to overlook... that word is ALL. glorify the Lord in ALL, everything, each and every single nook and cranny of me life. Now what does that encompass? well... food, sleep, work, school, speaking, clothes, relationships... all these things should be glorifying to God in my life. i know this might sound mundane.. but this is one of those things that is for the first time actually penetrating my heart.



This reminds me of a beautiful truth Rob Bell highlighted... he said that it is rather ridiculous when christians ask another brother or sister, "How is your spiritual life?"... as if we have our "normal life" here and then our "spiritual life" over there.... as if God is in this one area I have made for him and the rest is just this life I must go through... as if things are only spiritual part of the time. But the reality is everything is spiritual. ALL we do is spiritual. And when we think about things this way... God becomes very present in every second of our lives. Suddenly some daily action like driving a car is no longer just an ordinary practice.. it is beautiful. I dont mean that we must be deep and intellectual 24/7 and take everything way too seriously... definitely not. But we must do one thing.. and that is realize that the Lord wants to be an intimate part of every aspect our lives... every action we perform, no matter how "nonspiritual" it seems to us. Everything is spiritual because God is in every moment.



Now that I've begun to acknowledge this.. really acknowledge it...Everything looks different. And its become my joy to glorify God in all I do. I am beginning to experience this joy through things in my life that i never even considered.