X-PERIENCE HIM WITH ME

Before Outreach

2008-01-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

Matthew 6 (NIV)
Giving to the Needy
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Prayer
5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]' 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Fasting
16"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Do Not Worry
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206;&version=31;)

I love this passage. It basically says: Give everything you have, do it with a humble heart, keep your relationship with God, do it with a humble heart, and in all of those things, don't worry.

It's going to be my theme verse for the next 3 months.

On the 16th, at 11:00am [MY time] I will be leaving for Frankfurt Airport. From Frankfurt, I will be on my way to Chad. For the first month, we will be staying at a YWAM base in Sarh. From there, we don't actaully know. There is a chance - if we can get government permission - that we might end up in Sudan in the middle of the Darfur war. Pray for that because we don't know if it's something that God wants...as much as we want to go.

Basically what we'll be doing while we're there, is working with Darfur refugees. [To explain, there is an African Holocaust in Sudan on the border of Chad, and people are fleeing to Chad to get away from it...but there are not enough resources for them so they need allthe help that they can get...and so we are going to at least work with the ones in Chad]. We are going to be helping them in as many ways as we can...which mostly involves spending time with them. Philip [our leader who is from Kenya] has been to Sudan and said that many of them are beyond help, and all you can do is love them. So yeah. pray for safety, pray for strength - physical, emotional, and spiritual - for courage, for clear minds, and for a peace that surpasses all understanding.

I love you guys....see you soon!

~JUSTIN~

Lifehouse Everything Skit:

2008-01-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Outreach!!! [well, kinda]

2008-01-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

So, this past unit of time has been very interesting.
Christmas was awesome. I got to hang out with a lot of cool German people...and be part of a family for a week. In my many travels during Christmas, I discovered the person that was meant to teach me German...a 7 year-old girl named Anna who doesn't speak English. All that I knew how to say in German was "how do you say ____ in German"?...amongst various phrases and words that are thoroughly unimportant. For Christmas i got some pretty cool stuff [and I haven't even really celebrated it yet!]. I got: Beef Jerky, Smoked Cheese, Pocket bibles, Green Duct-Tape [from my parental units], DrPepper JellyBellys, a DrPepper T-Shirt[from Kayanna], and some boxers with the British Flag proudly wrapped around them [from Stephanie]. So, I already made a wallet out of Duct-Tape and it's pretty sweet.

My parents sent me a box with some of that stuff in it, and I took a second [actually, when I say "second" what I really mean is 15 minutes] to look at it, and I came to a very interesting conclusion: my mother does not know how to spell "Germany"! The entire address what amazingly perfect, even down to the fact that it was sent to "Ruppelsdorf" and not "Herrnhut", but the country that it was being sent to was "Germay". Thanks mom, I love you a lot and you make me laugh.

I will be leaving tomorrow morning to do some outreach in northern Germany for about 2 weeks and then I will be back in Herrnhut for about a day, and then me and my team will be leaving for Sarh, Chad...it's coming up fast!
Leaving tomorrow brings about some bad things as well as good things. 1st of all, my sanity will leave when I say goodbye to Joel. He will be leaving on Sunday for Afghanistan and I won't see him for three months...crazyness!

Well, it's 2am and I still haven't packed yet......but i'll update again soon.

Love you all!

~JUSTIN~

And then...

2007-12-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

So,

I thought that it would be appropriate for me to start by appologizing for taking so long to update this...because it has been a while.

Been around and done a lot since the last time I've updated this.
I was in Nuremburg for a week and that was a blast! We stood on the streets with signs that read "Free Hugs!" and "Gratis Umarmung!" [which is the German translation]. I've been asked if it was akward, and I guess that all I can say is that it was probably more akward for the people trying to pass by us without making eye-contact! That was fun. We got to talk to a lot of people about a lot of different things. I even got to pray with an American soldier who is going to Iraq on January 20 [keep "Mario" in your prayers].

We got back and this week we had an amazing speaker named Dan Bouman. He walked into class, and started talking about his books and he said "And this one is called 'Imprisoned in Iran'...because I was...in prison in...Iran!" It was so funny.
Dan spent 9 weeks in an Iranian prison for being a missionary. The government had actually been watching him, and when he applied for a visa they gave it to him so that they could arrest him on the way out of the country; and they did. Look up his book!

Chad team: we are doing well in our preparations for departure on the 16th of January. We will be doing some work in Germany for about 2 weeks before our plane leaves. We had a meeting a few days ago, and Ate [her name is Beate which is pronounced "Bee-atta"] pulls out a card and says "this is for the Chad team". Turns out, 2 of our fellow DTS students had put some of their money together and gave us E110! The next day, we were given E2,000! Wow! When stuff like that happens, I just want to explode!
Here is our picture:

[Top Left: Phillip, Laura, Miriam, Yours Truly, Elizabeth, Johanna, and Alex. Bottom Left: Paige, Carolin, and Beate.]
Laura, who is from Latvia, will not be going with us as she has switched outreaches to go to Afghanistan. Please keep her in your prayers; her dad died this week unexpectedly. She amazed me: we were all in class and the we started hearing someone crying "Oh God no. Please!" over and over. About 3 minutes later we were told about what happened and we all prayed for her. About 15 minutes later, Laura came down to the lecture hall and said, "I want to worship God right now, can you please put together a worship team?" Less than a minute later, she was standing up with her hands held high, proudly worshiping the God who gives and takes away. Wow! That blew my mind.
Phillip, the man on the far left, is from Kenya, and he did his DTS in YWAM Arusha! That's where I lived when I was in Tanzania! I told him about what has changed since he's been there, he was amazed. I guess that it truly is a small world after all.

I went to the cemetary for the first time recently, and an interesting thought came to mind. I was talking to God and I realized that when we lose loved ones it really sucks, but just think about how He feels. There are all of these dead people hanging around that God really loved hanging out with. I'll bet you that God can't wait until He comes back either!

By the way, thank you for your prayers! My friend who went in to get tested got the results back, and he is HIV negative! Praise God!

I love you all! Hang tight until I get back.

Ty: Thanx for the encouraging email, it was just what I needed.

Micaiah: Hang in there trooper. Keep at it. Don't live life day to day; but rather: live life decision to decision; it'll make it easier.

I love you all! I miss you!
Thank you for your support. I owe you all lots of hugs when I get back, and don't worry, you'll get them.

God Bless!
~JUSTIN~

And How

2007-11-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

So,

Just in case you were wondering: yes I am still alive.
I am very cold over here, but other than the snow (and there is enough to go around) and the wet, I am hanging on.

So, all of the excitement about Joel and I going to another foriegn country together can end now: Joel is going to Afghanistan. Yeah...pretty intense. I really think that that is awesome and all, but I don't think that it was very fair:
1. It was not an option, and they didn't tell us about it. I'm not even sure how Joel came to find out about it.
2. If it was an option that I would have known about, I would have put it as my first choice [and no, I'm not just saying that because Joel is going].
3. What about people like me who would have been interested but didn't get the chance?

I guess that God has a bigger plan than I do once again.

Last week was Plumbline [Greek for: make sure that you're right with God week.] I learned that: 1) I'm supposed to be a leader, 2) my wife is going to play a big part in my ministry [whatever that is going to be], and 3) sometime in the future I'm going to sign an important contract and it will be a good thing. Yeah, I'm so much more confused than I was two weeks ago.
The cool thing is: I am feeling awesome! I love Jesus!

Pictures:

This is a youth room that we played at on Trumpet Tour:

This is my friend Martin Luther:

Need I comment?:

This is the street that I do outreach on in Dresden:

And that's all that I can say right now.....but I have a prayer request:

One of my friends is going in for a HIV test in a couple of days because of his past....so keep him in your prayers.

Love You!

~JUSTIN~

Color Deficiancy

2007-10-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

So, I was playing with a childrens' toy, and it occurred to me that my eyes might more color-deficiant than I thought. There are several platforms; each with four sides which are colored. There is a red, blue, green, and yellow side to each platform. You are supposed to match the colors and the platforms in order to make a building-like structure; let's just say that the blues and greens were totally off! [I still am not sure what was wrong though......whatever.]

Last week was Holy-Spirit week and I have a praise report: I spoke in tongues for the first time!
The speaker was a middle-aged German man who used phrases/jokes that apparently don't translate into English very well, thus: I probably could have gotten more but i guess that a language barrier is another thing to make life interesting.

This week is about money and stuardship. I'm not very comfortable with either subject, but that's where God works the most: through uncomfortability. Our speakers are a Swiss couple, one who's native language is French, and the other's is German; tey both speak very good English.

Tyler is going to stay in Germany for a while longer....until the 14th. He will be playing bass for what is called "The Trumpet Tour". The YWAM Herrnhut worship team will be touring all over Germany playing at churches and events calling people to missions. He will be leaving Herrnhut on the 4th, and arrivin in Bellingham on the 13th; I will not be able to see him during this time.

I went on a local outreach to Dresden again on Friday. I got to lead worship in a popular spot downtown....I don't have pictures yet but i'm going to talk to the designated photographer about getting me some for all of you guys. One of our team leaders - Rebekka - came really close to leading someone to Christ, but, the devil got saved by the bell of this individual's cell-phone. We took 100+ cards with Bible verses written in German on them and put them on a 1.5 foot high wall along with a lot of candy...it got the youth hook, line, and sinker; they were everywhere. It was so cool to see all of the seeds that were sown and to get the opportunity to tlak with the youth of Dresden one-on-one for a while.

And the part you've all been waiting for:
I'm going to Chad!!!
That's right: my long term outreach will be to Chad [try looking in the center of Africa :)...]. This country is a muslim country with very strict/interesting rules. Lets just say that without the permission/street smarts, I could end up in jail for 2+ weeks.....why? For taking a picture of course. We are going to need a lot of prayer while there, but don't worry too much yet, because I won't be leaving until after Christmas.

That's about all that I have time for tonight so:
Good Night [well.....yeah, for me]

~JUSTIN~

Pictures!!!

2007-10-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

YAY! Pictures!

Here is the Water Castle:

This is some graffiti in a city called Zittau. I'm not sure what it means....but it looks like it holds quite a bit of meaning:

The REAL Volkswagon:

Sunset behind a windmill:

My friend Elizabeth:

Joel, Carrie, Rebecca and I:

Uli is on staff and he's the only person on this planet that can pull of those glasses! He's awesome:

This is Stefan. He's on staff and is also my local outreach leader:

I would put a million more on here, but it's 12:30 in the morning and I need sleep.

(Tyler is safe in Germany!!!)

~JUSTIN~

Local Outreach!

2007-10-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

For my local outreach I went with a team of 9 to a neighboring city named Dresden. Our team leaders are Rebekka and Stephen. It's about an hour and a half to get there. We got there at about 6:45pm on Friday. We started by praying [of course!]. The streets are filled with people my age drinking/smoking.....etc. We figured out that our strategy would be to set up the two guitarists [Josiah and I] on a street corner and start playing worship songs. Al we were walking Stephan felt God telling him to stop on a fairly un-occupied part of town. So we set up on a corner occupied by a bar. We played for about 15 minutes when Stephan noticed a middle-aged man watching us from a distance. I'm not completely sure what happened, but Stephan came back with 5 Euros that this man had given randomly!

It gets better! The owner of the bar came out and gave us all something to drink while we were playing! But once again, my life takes a twist......the owner's idea of "refreshment" was a little different from ours; he gave us wine. So much for that! We were all getting cold, and my fingers were starting to hurt and so J.R. decided to ask the ownere of the bar if we could come in and play.....I got to lead worship in a bar in a dirty part of Dresden Germany for about an hour and a half!!! The owner of the bar said that we could come back anytime as long as a soccer game wasn't on! Praise God!

The adventure didn't stop there. Germany's transit line was on strike and so about 90% of the trains were cancelled. We didn't get home to Herrnhut untill about 1:30am.

So that's pretty much how my weekend has been. No new pictures yet but i'll try to get some of the base and some of town + people for all of you.

Love you!
~JUSTIN~

I'm Getting Better At This!

2007-10-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

So,
Today I was working on hanging a message board in a hallway at the castle, and it's a big sheet of metal painted white that they are going to stick announcements to using magnets. All that we had to do was pre-drill some holes in the brick, put some plastic plug in it, and screw the sheet to the wall. Once again I underestimate the power of unpredictability. We pre drilled some holes, and as we were doing the last one, and it was good for the first half [c'mon Justin get to the point!]...it takes a while to drill through metal and brick....and all of the sudden there was an explosion and a small fireball came out of the wall! We were fine...but very confused. We came to the conclusion that the metal got too hot and it sparked. A couple of minutes later we opened the door to go to the basement and realized that the light-switch didn't work and upon further investigation [which involved looking about 10 feet in front of us] found that the emergency lights were on...yeah! It turns out that we drilled right through a wire, and yes, it was 240! The drill is fine, and the lights work, but they're still going to call an electician to come and fix the wires that probably don't have a coating anymore...and yes, we are going to delay the hanging of the message board.

Class was really good. We talked about how smart God is and how Bible has sooo much information that is just being discovered today; but was written a couple of thousand years ago!

I'm still now sure where i'm going for outreach...but we should learn our options in about two weeks and I'll be sure to put something up here about it. I might be going on a local outreach tomorrow so you guys can be in prayer about that.

I've come to the conclusion that I love toasted bread. [I just thought I'd share that]

Tyler will be here in one week!!! I'm stoked! He'll be living about 1 minute away from me.

Joel is doing well. He's picking up German pretty fast.

If you guys have ANY questions about stuff over here feel free to ask.

And on that note I'll say goodnight....er.......good afternoon?

~JUSTIN~

Yo!

2007-10-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hey!

I'm back! [not home, posting a blog]

It's definetly an interesting experience here trying to figure out who I am in Christ and what that means for me and the people around me. We have a speaker here staying for the week teaching about worldview and his perspective is pretty cool. He uses Proverbs ["Just as a man thinks in his heart so will he become"] to explain why different cultures do what they do and what turning back to God means for them.

I've been making new friends here at the base and hopefully next time I get a chance to post, I'll have more pictures of them and other cool stuff we've been doing.

So here's a list of things that some friends and I came up with that Germany doesn't believe in.....but should!

1. Napkins

2. Ice

3. Protien

If you're confused, don't be 'cause it's pretty self explanitory.

My work duty is "Maintenance" but we all know that it's really called "MANtenance". My job consists of asking Ingrid Worzer what needs done/fixed at the base every single day and then spending 2+ hours trying to figure out how to fix it! The other day, I spent 2 hours mounting a window shade [aka blinds]. Before you think that I'm inept, let me explain: usually when you mount blinds, you first install some clips that the blinds eventually mount to...pretty easy huh? Not so much. No clips, no matching screws, and no matching plugs....you get the point. I had to drill through cement using the "Man-Drill" [which is pretty much a step down from a sawzall]. and then shoot some screws directly through the frame of the blinds......but, they are mounted and look amazing!

Last weekend we went to Zittau to do some shopping, but apparently everything in Germany closes at noon on Saturdays so we pretty much saw the outsides of a bunch of buildings.

I got to play drums for worship on Monday and it was amazing! God was so present in that room!

[By the way, Micaiah, I got the comment that you sent me.......thanx :)]

Yeah, here are some pictures:

This is Josh Elke. He is sitting with me at the only cool place in Herrnhut. Would you believe me if I told you that he was drinking apple-juice? [Just for his sake, it is apple juice]

This is my friend Carrie:

This Carrie and Stephanie [Stephanie is from Seattle WA!!!]

This is Johno [He's from Brazil]. He lets me practice my Spanish with him.

This is my friend Paige...and her camera.

Well, th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

I love you and I'll try to update this thing more often from now on.

~JUSTIN~

I'm Here!!!

2007-09-29T04:59:00.000-07:00

Finally!

Yes I am safe and here! I just figured out how to make my blog English! I would have liked to have been able to see the "New Post" icon, but i couldn't becuase it was in German. oh well.

All of our planes were on-time and our trip was fine....even if it was looooong. I have internet [obviously!] and I'm able to email so feel free to shoot me one! Here's two pictures from Germany, and you can expect to see many more.

[#1Right! I Get It!] [#2Downtown Herrnhut Yeah!]

Yeah. Anyway. I'll Post some more tomorrow or tonight.
Lemme know what's happening in the big city!

God Bless!
~Justin~

Less than a week!

2007-09-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

OY! [Latin for: "What a long week!"]

So far, in preparation for Wednesday, I have signed up for 2 bank accounts (making a total of 3), gone shopping for clothes, bought a webcam, set up our computers so that we can easily talk while I'm in Germany (for free), and on top of that I helped my brother caulk his co-worker's house. It really doesn't sound like much when it's all written down, but I can guarantee you, it was quite a list of things to do, and I'm not finished yet.

Tonight Tyler and I are going to our friend's house to do some quick recording at his studio so that my mom can listen to my music while I'm gone and hopefully maintain her sanity.

Here is an amazing picture of a little boy worshiping at one of the orphanages that we went to while in Tanzania:

It's just amazing that I don't even need to look up into the heavens to see God and His glory, all I have to do is look at the people that know Him like I do.