In the last two weeks the "bus family" has seen alot of changes.
I traveled to New York City to visit with some friends, while Marcus, Bailey, and Gary drove the bus to just outside of Elizabethtown, PA and Howie and Amber stayed in Florida to plan the wdding they are set to have in late April.
The bus made it to pennsylvania suffering only two headlight fuses, a radiator leak and a "S*** -Ton" of Gas. I kidnapped a dashing young lad named Jacob Grove from his girlfriend in New York City and Howie and Amber found out they're pregnant.
So all this to say that the "bus family" has not only seen but also experienced alot of changes in the last two weeks, although, I think we can all atest that the changes experienced have been for the better. Having a few days apart has been good and rejoining afterwards has been even better.
I've been thinking alot about the fact that G-d had called me to spend a period of time visiting various denominations and ministries of the Body of Christ, and I've spent a good amount of time trying to understand how this whole bus thing fit into the picture.
Now that we're in Elizabethtown, PA we're staying with Howies parents, sister, and grandma in a wharehouse, with ample room to store our bus, their bus, and work on them as well. And in the last few days we've all had the opportunity to be a part of the Matheney's understanding of their call to Christ's Ministry. And so, some of us have had the opportunity to share in fellowship with the "liberated Amish," various house churches, and some of the most beautiful worship sessions of this trip. In bringing together backgrounds of multiple first-nation tribes, central american flavor, messianic jewish roots, and a pretty charasmatic theology I'd say the Matheney's praise G-d like very few others do.
And all of this to say, that maybe this "bus thing" has been G-d's way of letting me experience and serve with this ministry.
In the next week the Matheney's in their dubbed "War Wagon" will head down to Florida again to help in flushing out the plans for Howie and Amber's wedding, and the Train de Vie will stay put until the wedding is over.
So if you would like to pray for this very young and learning ministry called the Train de Vie, I think we could all use constant guidance in learning to be good stewards of the bountiful blessings that G-d pours down on us everyday. And more specifically we will have to make some hard decisions concerning the pregnancy and our commitment to one another, as well as what this next month or so will look like.
Thanks for your support.
3.15.2008
changes slowly come
in the time that our friend bump has let us stay at his house it has dawned on me multiple times how different each person can be. Within our group we have people who sometimes seem administrative, closed off, short, removed and sometimes even angry. But this seems to be a blessing sometimes, because we have people like bump to help us process these things. towards the beginning of our stay he had talked to us about what kind of prayer we needed and we had said something along the lines of looking past the dumb crap to see a bigger picture and not getting caught up on frustrations. he taught us his way of making sense of these things. He told us to make a statement of what frustrates us; i hate it when/it makes me angry when/ it frustrates or confuses me when ______ does _____ or is _______. and then he told us to change what was in the first empty space to the word "I". This sounds lame and not applicable in all situations but as i was riding one the bikes we got donated to us through the parking lot at the school near by, trying to be peaceful about the situation that was frustrating me at the time i tried it and when i came back to join the people hanging around the bus i felt much better and felt as if i had a clearer understanding of what would make the situation better-me helping it and not being the agitator or devils advicator. Whats hard about this is not only the fact that you have to way in the call to not commit the sin of ommision in many instances but also that the process will never be speedy oreasy - that is the process of dying to your self. When we went to church this last week i was suprised at how good the sermon was. It was short, had very little content, but the content there is worth repeating a million times: worship is dying to yourself, for Christs sake.
I recently thought about getting love your enemies written on me. That seems idealistic but it is very much a neccesary thing to remind yourself to do on a constant basis. The problem is that it is easy to talk about in this circumstance but it is even harder to handle the idea of loving your neighbor and putting that into action.
the hardest part is when you already love someone, like your siblings in Christ, or at least you think you do and try to but then catch yourself acting out of anger towards them and not walking in love.
after a week of difficulty, despite our generous host who i think we could have made an effort to treat better, and still grasping on to the remnents of our sicknesses, we felt very at peace about taking the bus to pennsylvania and we are leaving tommorow morning to work on the bus with howie's parents up in elizabeth town. However only 3 of us are going to leave in the bus tommorow;myself, bailey and gary. And gary is jumping off before we get there to go to new jersey for a couple of days and bailey will have to try to drive a bus the rest of the way (neither of them have ever driven a school bus before, and i certainly will not drive any time soon, so please pray for our safety)
then on tuesday john will fly to new york to meet his good friend jake and potentially bring him back to pennsylvania to live on the bus with us for a while, and howie and amber are staying in florida to hopefully plan their wedding and spend some much needed time together.
so the 6 of us will be in 4 different places for a minute but hopefully by april there will be 7 of us with 2 dogs and a hopefully surviving mouse in the same place. But were at peace about it and the lord has blessed us with 4 wonderful people to stay with in elizabeth town so i think this will turn out wonderfully and hopefully we can all spend more time in quiet and not feel as if there are 5 other people stepping on our toes and ciggerettes.
I recently thought about getting love your enemies written on me. That seems idealistic but it is very much a neccesary thing to remind yourself to do on a constant basis. The problem is that it is easy to talk about in this circumstance but it is even harder to handle the idea of loving your neighbor and putting that into action.
the hardest part is when you already love someone, like your siblings in Christ, or at least you think you do and try to but then catch yourself acting out of anger towards them and not walking in love.
after a week of difficulty, despite our generous host who i think we could have made an effort to treat better, and still grasping on to the remnents of our sicknesses, we felt very at peace about taking the bus to pennsylvania and we are leaving tommorow morning to work on the bus with howie's parents up in elizabeth town. However only 3 of us are going to leave in the bus tommorow;myself, bailey and gary. And gary is jumping off before we get there to go to new jersey for a couple of days and bailey will have to try to drive a bus the rest of the way (neither of them have ever driven a school bus before, and i certainly will not drive any time soon, so please pray for our safety)
then on tuesday john will fly to new york to meet his good friend jake and potentially bring him back to pennsylvania to live on the bus with us for a while, and howie and amber are staying in florida to hopefully plan their wedding and spend some much needed time together.
so the 6 of us will be in 4 different places for a minute but hopefully by april there will be 7 of us with 2 dogs and a hopefully surviving mouse in the same place. But were at peace about it and the lord has blessed us with 4 wonderful people to stay with in elizabeth town so i think this will turn out wonderfully and hopefully we can all spend more time in quiet and not feel as if there are 5 other people stepping on our toes and ciggerettes.
3.13.2008
Miteinander Leben Pt. 1
The Train De Vie (Train of Life), our current project of a school-bus "ministry", currently sits in Largo, Florida at a man named Bump's House. And we've spent the last week or so getting our hands pretty dirty in bus work.
As of now we have a bunk bed, two end cabinets, a large work table, and two couches, all complete with large storage compartments/areas finished. And we've begun the process of building our pantry/sink area, bathroom, stove/refrigerator area, and the rest of our main cabin sleeping facilities.
But aside from the steady progress of building up 2x4's and ply-wood for practical use, I think all six of us can say that this week has been a long week of refining us as individuals as well. This week has been a week of hard work physically as well as just about anything else.
However, we are continually thankful for what this is continuing to do for all of us.
This week we had our first real breakdown (if I dare call it that), and yet after being reminded by our good friend Dietrich Bonhoffer, we have recognized that this isn't always a bad thing at all. In fact it was comforting to realize that when things don't go the way you think they should, it can be because your ways aren't always G-d's ways.
And not only that, but I've realized that when I begin my day by recognizing that not every person with a set of beliefs gets the blessing of living with other people with similar beliefs (let alone 5 of them), I begin to look at the rest of the people on this bus as parts of the same body, rather than just seperate individuals.
And while there are very different people on this bus it really changes all of our perspectives when we remember that we supposedly believe that we will be together for eternity.
In fact I'm pretty sure this will change the way I think about loving my neighbor if I can do better to remember this more.
For now those are my thoughts and updates, but I will try and post again tomorrow.
Thanks again for your prayers and support, we are tremendously grateful.
As of now we have a bunk bed, two end cabinets, a large work table, and two couches, all complete with large storage compartments/areas finished. And we've begun the process of building our pantry/sink area, bathroom, stove/refrigerator area, and the rest of our main cabin sleeping facilities.
But aside from the steady progress of building up 2x4's and ply-wood for practical use, I think all six of us can say that this week has been a long week of refining us as individuals as well. This week has been a week of hard work physically as well as just about anything else.
However, we are continually thankful for what this is continuing to do for all of us.
This week we had our first real breakdown (if I dare call it that), and yet after being reminded by our good friend Dietrich Bonhoffer, we have recognized that this isn't always a bad thing at all. In fact it was comforting to realize that when things don't go the way you think they should, it can be because your ways aren't always G-d's ways.
And not only that, but I've realized that when I begin my day by recognizing that not every person with a set of beliefs gets the blessing of living with other people with similar beliefs (let alone 5 of them), I begin to look at the rest of the people on this bus as parts of the same body, rather than just seperate individuals.
And while there are very different people on this bus it really changes all of our perspectives when we remember that we supposedly believe that we will be together for eternity.
In fact I'm pretty sure this will change the way I think about loving my neighbor if I can do better to remember this more.
For now those are my thoughts and updates, but I will try and post again tomorrow.
Thanks again for your prayers and support, we are tremendously grateful.
3.08.2008
More photos! Again!
look pictures of bill and some of the progress of the bus and nad clothing:
www.photobucket.com/users/brontosaurous
god bless.
www.photobucket.com/users/brontosaurous
god bless.
3.03.2008
Since our last post.
A couple of things first:
1.I want to apologize for photobucket, while it can hold more photos it's not as easy to arrange your pictures and so things might seem a bit hectic.
2.I want to apologize for the length of that last post.
and moving right along....
Since our last post Gary, Bailey, Howie, Amber, Marcus, and myself have spent the last week working on this International Harvester that G-d has so graciously gifted to us. We've been blessed and blessed by so many people and so many opportunities. Our friend Bill who picked us up hitch-hiking hasn't stopped being a blessing to us by any means, and his house mates Russ and Maureen have carried on in this tradition. The Lord has continued to provide for us in ways we could have never expected including minor conversations at The Waffle House.
Not to mention what we've begun to learn about being in a traveling community with each other.
We've completely ripped out the entire insides of the bus that you may have seen and begun our work in placing in a kitchen, a bathroom, a couple of bunk beds, rope ladders for the emergency exits in the roof, some couches, and lots of nooks and crannies for storage.
The bus officially runs like a beaut! Air-brakes, lights and all!
And the entire outside has begun it's transformation into a canvas that I'm sure will have dozens and dozens of coats by the end of it's life. (seeing that we've decided to let any one who pleases paint our bus whenever they want.
And while our days have been spent working on the bus, our evening have been filled with good fellowship and lots of church visits.
In fact I've officially been to a service where multiple people have been "slain in the spirit" and passed out after being touched by the ministers. And I still don't know what to think.
The other night after one of these services at the House of Prayer here in Edgewater,FL we had the opportunity to fellowship with the two pastors. Their loving kindness just continues to make me ask more questions.
Even they admitted that it probably was unlikely for the pastors in this branch of the faith to purposefully push over their congregation members for show. Yet if people really are gather in G-d's name how does this stuff happen? But then again how does most of the corruption happen in churches these days if people really are gather in G-d's name? Have we really missed it by that much?
But I don't know about all that. In fact that night paster Vicki prophesied over me that I had a lot of questions and the G-d was telling me not to worry about them.
Don't really know what to make of that either.
I'm sure more thoughts will come with more time of reflection. But as for now, we're trying to leave Daytona Beach Area tomorrow with our bus to head back to Clearwater to get some things welded and fixed for us and then with many more lessons learned about denying oneself and picking up the cross, this bus will get going north.
More to come soon
1.I want to apologize for photobucket, while it can hold more photos it's not as easy to arrange your pictures and so things might seem a bit hectic.
2.I want to apologize for the length of that last post.
and moving right along....
Since our last post Gary, Bailey, Howie, Amber, Marcus, and myself have spent the last week working on this International Harvester that G-d has so graciously gifted to us. We've been blessed and blessed by so many people and so many opportunities. Our friend Bill who picked us up hitch-hiking hasn't stopped being a blessing to us by any means, and his house mates Russ and Maureen have carried on in this tradition. The Lord has continued to provide for us in ways we could have never expected including minor conversations at The Waffle House.
Not to mention what we've begun to learn about being in a traveling community with each other.
We've completely ripped out the entire insides of the bus that you may have seen and begun our work in placing in a kitchen, a bathroom, a couple of bunk beds, rope ladders for the emergency exits in the roof, some couches, and lots of nooks and crannies for storage.
The bus officially runs like a beaut! Air-brakes, lights and all!
And the entire outside has begun it's transformation into a canvas that I'm sure will have dozens and dozens of coats by the end of it's life. (seeing that we've decided to let any one who pleases paint our bus whenever they want.
And while our days have been spent working on the bus, our evening have been filled with good fellowship and lots of church visits.
In fact I've officially been to a service where multiple people have been "slain in the spirit" and passed out after being touched by the ministers. And I still don't know what to think.
The other night after one of these services at the House of Prayer here in Edgewater,FL we had the opportunity to fellowship with the two pastors. Their loving kindness just continues to make me ask more questions.
Even they admitted that it probably was unlikely for the pastors in this branch of the faith to purposefully push over their congregation members for show. Yet if people really are gather in G-d's name how does this stuff happen? But then again how does most of the corruption happen in churches these days if people really are gather in G-d's name? Have we really missed it by that much?
But I don't know about all that. In fact that night paster Vicki prophesied over me that I had a lot of questions and the G-d was telling me not to worry about them.
Don't really know what to make of that either.
I'm sure more thoughts will come with more time of reflection. But as for now, we're trying to leave Daytona Beach Area tomorrow with our bus to head back to Clearwater to get some things welded and fixed for us and then with many more lessons learned about denying oneself and picking up the cross, this bus will get going north.
More to come soon
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