Haiti Update #1: Holy Ruckus

Greetings friends!

I've written to you from a lot of cool places in the past, but today I am writing to you from the roof of the La Croix mission in Haiti, just as the sun is coming up over the mountains. Words cannot express the beauty that can be found here! Hopefully later on I'll be able to take a couple of photos and post those up as well. 

We left for the trip on Friday afternoon and flew to Miami, where we encountered our first major snag, in that apparently Travelocity never officially made our reservations for our hotel room. This actually panned out quite well, as it meant that we could spend the night in the same hotel as the rest of our team. It just meant that I also had to bounce around the Miami airport like a mad man a little bit on Friday night! 

We woke up at an ungodly hour of the morning on Saturday to board our flight to Port-Au-Prince. Flying in over the mountains was beautiful, but also a stark reminder of Haiti's poverty. There are hardly any trees or forested areas in the country. It reminded me of Africa in a big big way, but not as much as driving from Port-Au-Prince to La Croix. The markets, the people carrying unbelievable loads on their bicycles, and the ridiculous driving all took me back to my time spent in Malawi. The location is different, but poverty is poverty everywhere. 

On Sunday, we went to worship at the church in the mission. It was amazing! People here worship with a complete reckless abandon, they couldn't care less about how people might view them. Hands in the air, dancing in the isles, it didn't matter. They were going to display their love for God. My favorite part of the service were the prayers, where people just prayed out loud whatever they wanted all at the same time. It was like a holy ruckus, and I was super pumped to be a part of it. 

Most of the rest of yesterday was spent resting up, getting ready for the work that we're up to this week. We sat in on a short English lesson taught by one of our team members, which was a lot of fun and allowed me to dance upon a chair. How could you not love that! I also have access to a guitar, so there have been a couple of songs bouncing around in my head, so hopefully Tree Anthem will walk away from this trip with some new tunes. 

Today, I think I'm going to be spending most of the day in the school here at the mission, doing some painting and whatever handiwork I am actually skilled enough to complete. We're shooting some video while we're here, and the internet connection seems to be pretty strong, so maybe we'll post a video blog or two along the way. 

Thanks for reading along, and thanks even more for your prayers! God is very good to us on this trip!

Godspeed,

Jason

Travel Blog!

Hello friends!

Today is the big day! A group from Westminster Presbyterian Church has been planning to go to Haiti for quite some time, and we're getting on the plane at 5:00 tonight! The best news of all though is that my wife and father in law will both be on the trip as well, and so it's a whole family affair! I'm really excited about what God's going to do in our lives through this trip. I'm really excited to see how God is moving in and through the people of Haiti, and how our stories can intersect. I'm really pumped for new worship experiences, both formal and informal, new ways to meet God in a new place.

That's the best part of mission trips, I think. To change the scenery a little bit on your typical prayer life and devotionals, to take a step out of the normal and dare I even say comfortable in your life, so that God can interact with you in a way that he might not be able to while you're at home. So I ask for prayers, that our team would be open. Open to do whatever we can to help the people of Haiti, and also open to allow God to have his way with our hearts through this trip.

I think there will be internet down where we are, though it may be spotty at best, so I'm hoping to hop on and post some pictures and updates of the trip. If the internet is fussy, I'll keep writing the posts any way and then share them when I get back to the States. Your continued prayers are amazing, and I look forward to what God has in store for us through this trip!

Godspeed,

Jason

The ocean in a cup!

Hello friends,

Last week, some of us on staff at Westminster Presbyterian Church were giving ourselves metaphorical high-fives, rejoicing in our wonderful decision to delay the start of our Wednesday evening activities as week into the new year. Rather than start last week, we decided to start tomorrow night, to give us time to ease back into the swing of having a full time job before trying to figure out what our next moves would be.

That was all well and good, and probably would have continued to be well and good, had I actually taken the time to ease myself back into the swing of having a full time job. Instead, I spent most of last week trolling the internet looking for hilarious youtube videos. The result? It's Tuesday, I have messages to deliver on Wednesday and Sunday, and I am totally stuck. Way to go J!

Actually, it's not the problem you would expect. Or at least it's not the problem I expected. You would expect after three weeks off, I would just be out of practice. You would think that after a few moments of opening up the bible and/or my favorite commentary, bouncing the "sermon writing ball" off the wall a few times, and busting out my trademarked yellow legal pad would be enough to get the blood flowing again. But I don't think my writers block (at the moment at least) is due to a lack of discipline, or even a lack of things to say.

I think it's that I have too much to say!

That blank page is not intimidating because it's blank. That page is intimidating because there is so much I want it to be. There is so much that I want to communicate through the lost art of the sermon that 20 minutes just isn't enough to contain the whole thing. When I sit down and open my bible, I'm struck by the unyielding grace of the God of the universe, who in spite of everything has decided to share his love and his grace with me through his son. I want to try to find a way to help other people feel the way I feel when I think about that. I want to try to express the joy that's going on inside my bones every time I say the name of Jesus out-loud. And the whole time, this blank page is staring at me, almost laughing at me, daring me to write something down, to make physical something that is so deeply spiritual.

The blank page dares me to try to fit the ocean in a cup.

And so I'll do what I always do. I'll wrestle for a week, and try to get as much out as I can. I'll probably be disappointed. I'll probably think that the messages being delivered this week aren't up to snuff. And this isn't a pride thing, like I'm saying it's not good enough in the hopes that the congregation around me will tell me how great it was and I can feel pretty cool. I'm not even talking about substance or style at the moment. It's like Peter writes, I am filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, and at the moment, I'm feeling the frustration of not expressing the inexpressible.

Anybody out there here with me? And if so, do you have a good text for Sunday? :)

Godspeed,

Jason

Not motivated at all...

Hello friends!

I am sitting at Starbucks, coffee in hand, seminary text books spread across the largest table I could get a hold of in the crowded coffee shop, and I simply cannot find the motivation to get any work done at all.

I have a quiz the very instant I get back to class on Tuesday night, and my professor has provided me with a study guide (for which, I am forever grateful if you're reading this Dr. Humphry!) but I am just struggling to keep going on the task at hand. I have logged an overwhelming number of hours already today on Facebook. I take frequent breaks to try to get my Pandora station to play exactly as I please. I have stared out the window longingly at the bright sunny day.

What do you do when motivation escapes you? What sort of things do you do to get things going again?

Please, comment soon. My grades may depend on it.

Godspeed,

J

Thank you!

Wow!

The J-Blog has hit 20,000 views! That means that 20,000 of you have accidentally found this website while searching for the Toronto Blue Jays, or that one person has been constantly refreshing to see if I will ever say something negative about Rob Bell. Either way, thanks for making the J-Blog one of the most fun things I do all week!

The Divine Hours

Hello friends,

With the new year, I've been trying to get back in the habit of keeping spiritual disciplines. This is hard for me! I struggle keeping any kind of habit alive, if for no other reason than my days are so unpredictable that I think I have a hard time keeping a schedule of praise. And so for the (what feels like) billionth time, I'm hitting the reset button on spiritual disciplines.

I've picked up Phyllis Tickle's (best name in all of Christian literature) Divine Hours and started to use it as a devotional. The Divine Hours is a continuation of the practice of fixed hour prayer, that is that three times a day, at the exact same time every day, I set aside a little bit of time to pray. So for me, I'm going to be doing my best to pray at 8, 12, and 9. I already slept through the first hour (or "office") today, but that's ok. This is a bit of a learning process.

So far (I've only been doing this for a day now) I'm really appreciating a bunch of things about the Divine Hours:

The Prayers are based largely on the Psalms. I think as Christians we tend to ignore the Old Testament, and the Psalms are some of the most beautiful pieces of Scripture in the whole bible. Using them as my prayers has been incredibly meaningful.

Repeated Prayers. Each office has the Lord's Prayer as a central component, and in addition each week has a prayer that is repeated at each office throughout the week. I am a forgetful person, and so being reminded of the same thing every day, and in this case, three times a day, can't be a bad thing. I know a lot of people are against the sort of "rote" prayer habits, but for me at least I'm finding a lot of meaning in them.

Habit habit habit. I am so bad at habit, but this book makes it fairly easy to try to break into a new habit for the new year.

Have any of you had any experience with the Divine Hours? If so, feel free to share in the comments!

 

Godspeed,

 

J

Back in the saddle and some prayer requests!

Hello friends!

Just like the guy on a buffalo, I am back in the saddle. The Christmas/New Years break is over, and so we have returned to our offices and returned to youth ministry.

To be honest, I really missed it! We still have one more week before we start back to Veritas, but even today with several planning meetings and dreaming and brainstorming sessions, the blood is starting to flow again. I was actually thinking today that I could really go for an excellent retreat, the kind where kids are opening up and late-night deep discussions are happening all over the campsite. We have a few of those opportunities coming up, so I don't think I'll be disappointed!

But I was also thinking today that there are several among us out there who are coming back and perhaps wish they weren't. I know there are several youth workers out there who are starting to feel the slow pains of burnout. And so this evening, my prayers are with you. I pray that you find the encouragement you need to keep going. I pray that God would open up new doors and new possibilities to you in the near future, and that God would allow you to see all the ways in which the seeds your planting are starting to grow.

If there's anything specific I can pray for you for, please feel free to post it here in the comments.

It's great to be back everybody!

Godspeed,

J