When you have no money...

When I arrived at seminary, several people I talked to spoke of the money-saving virtue of cutting your own hair. Down to my last $___, I finally thought I'd give it a try. Emily was visiting, and on a whim decided to help me complete my seminary experience. I know many of you may be strapped for cash, too, in these hard times, and I want to encourage you to consider the possibilities. It took 3 hours, but I'm sure once you get some practice it goes a lot quicker. I considered not posting these, but when I was assured that this was an integral part of the seminary experience, I decided to share:

At one point, a mistake occurred that appeared irredeemable. My hair was contoured with locks of hair on the back of my head much shorter than the hair on the side of my head! I was ready to shave it all off... but with expert craftsmanship, my new favorite hair-stylist fixed it. It strikes me that, Biblically and in my own experience, just when you think you're done, God is just getting started. He is the master hair-stylist... or potter. (no, emily didn't take her hair off and put it on mine, so that she had bad hair and I had good hair... this is not an illustration of substitutionary atonement!)

p.s. this is not a subtle plea for financial support... really, it's not!

Retreat! Retreat!

Boy, it's been an exciting whirlwind of a month! I wanted to quickly update to those of you who still read this thing and (gasp) even pray for me!

Winter Teen Conference

January was all about preparing for Winter Teen Conference, our church youth retreat (which had 230 kids this year!). I was tasked with assembling and preparing an inter-church worship team to lead our retreat in worship. Meeting over the course of two months, we rehearsed, prayed, trained our hearts and attitudes, and ate together. Then we went to Conference in February and played and worshiped our hearts out. If you have talked to me before about worship, you know my thoughts about the difference between "lead worshipers" and "band members"-- a band member plays to glorify music or himself; a "lead worshiper" joins the singing in their music and in their example to help others glorify God. During that weekend, the kids were musically excellent, faithful with the small stuff, level-headed, and most impressively, they took seriously their role of being "lead worshipers." I think I realized that one night as we were gathered around in a powerful time of prayer before a worship set. God certainly worked in the lives of those teenagers... it was a lot of fun and a big encouragement to worship with them.

Serving the Servants

More recently, I got to expand my ministry repertoire. Last weekend, I did some "college ministry" (ok maybe you wouldn't call it that!) . The college group at BCEC had its retreat, and I got to attend... as the childcare provider for two of the staff-workers' families! It took me back to those years that I was working at Mary Johnson's Children's Center and wondered if that was what I'd be satisfied doing for the rest of my life. With only four young children and both Emily and me to share the work, it was more fun than challenging as we did stuff like read "The Pigeon Eats a Hot Dog", have bacon for snack, and go on a scavenger hunt. Though I didn't get as much homework done as I hoped to, it was a very nice, different weekend as I got to be a servant to those who were serving others.

Studies...

Meanwhile, I've fallen a little behind on my studies... as in thousands of pages behind. Still, the Lord continues to provide. For example, I didn't get my Word Study paper done on time for class on Monday, but I got an extension because we had a snow storm that shut down the school. Maybe God won't always give me an extension like that, but I'm reminded that I can trust the Lord whenever I follow his promptings to serve or to put priorities on things outside my own narrow interests and inside the interests of his kingdom and glory.

pictures-- top: worship team at WTC, bottom: scavenger hunt to find a snowman (we just built it)