Buenos dias!
There is a lot to share since the last time I wrote! Last Wednesday we had guest speakers for Revolution: the Benefields. The Benefields moved to Mazatlan, Mexico to be missionaries a few years ago, and have been growing a strong church ever since. They come back here to Champaign to see family, and we decided to ask them to speak while they were here. A lot of the students really enjoyed their story, as well as the pictures of tarantulas, snakes, and scorpions they brought along.
One of the most impacting stories of the night, however, was about a teen boy from their colonia who had experienced a lot of rejection from home. The young man in the story could not find attention through good, beneficial ways, so he took to inhaling paint. Their story continued to say that, while building their new church, the same young man came along one day and decided to graffiti the newly painted church. Instead of scolding him, however, they asked him if he wanted to help finish painting the church. After finishing their painting, they had the opportunity to pray for him and tell him that God, as well as everyone there, loved him very much; in response he broke down. I feel that it was a powerful story for our students to hear; just the fact that even though we will do things that are wrong, there is a God who loves us extremely much, as well as people who wish to do the same.
I also got the chance to go with our Family Life pastor, and a few other youth pastors and interns, to the Heartland Vineyard in Iowa during the weekend. Basically, it was a conference for the region's youth pastors to come together and talk about how their ministries were doing and offer advice and encouragement, as well as cast vision for where they were heading. Now, if you are not from a church background, imagine having a bunch of people who work with middle school to high school youth in the same room, and how all of their personality types are geared towards that age, and you will see why this was such a good time! We were pretty crazy: at a gas station just inside of Iowa, one of the other interns and I were playing catch, and I decided to punt the ball...against the wind. My brilliant idea swept the ball way over our heads and landed it directly on the roof of the gas station, a good 25 feet above us. If you check Google maps a year from now you may see it up there, still. Other adventures included a late night of hot wings and m&ms, as well as roaming the streets of Waterloo, IA. During this roaming adventure we stopped by a PetSmart, and I almost convinced myself to buy some frogs (animals are a weakness of mine, especially if I can take them home).
Overall, last week was a huge success, and I feel revived and re focused as an intern. In this refreshed state, I feel like throwing out a thought, to which you can ponder and mull over to your hearts content, or throw it out completely and simply think I am crazy:
Is society's 'fear' of, even their animosity towards God fueled by the thought of losing control of their lives because God sets rules to live by? Or does it stem from people who claim to love Him withholding their love and understanding of others and their feelings/lives and choosing to act out in unspeakable mannerisms? I feel that there is a lost connection to the love that God has for us and the amount of free will we DO have, because there are those who don't represent those in their everyday lives. God doesn't have a rule book that He checks every time someone does something wrong, because of something called grace. Likewise, there is no call for people to hate others, to fight wars in his name, or to choose what party in politics is 'Godly': He only asks us to love Him and to love those around us.
Anyway, this was just a thought, if you have any questions or want to talk over it, feel free to! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!
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