In l'Afrique

Bonsoir, Brothers and Sisters in the States

I do not have the best internet connection so I have to make this brief.

This is my update:
We were meant to leave on Thursday 2 weeks ago. Our flights were canceled and we ended up splitting our team in two to make 2 separate journeys on 2 separate days to Togo. My team left last Saturday. We spent 22 hours in flight, 18 hours in airports, slept in a lot of chairs, ate our "last American meal" of McDonalds in the Frankfurt airport, stepped on Ethiopian ground, tried to decipher a whole lot of French, and arrived in Lome, Togo last Monday. The other half of our team encountered just as much opposition as we did, but arrived safely (and together, after also being split a second time) on Tuesday.

When we finally all made it here, we were so thankful to be back together after separating 3 days before and were incredibly eager to get on the University campus and share the Gospel with students there. And we are still eager.

When we finally got everyone together, our project leader had to share with us that there had been rioting on campus (which seems to the popular thing here in french-speaking Africa... this is why we couldn't go to Cote D'Ivoire). Negotiations have failed to be made and the campus has been closed since we got here.

I cannot express the emotions my team has gone through together, but we are confident of the Lord's faithfulness. It was our leaders' idea to contact supporters in this time of potential discouragement and ask for joined prayer that this wouldn't be so.
Pray that:
a peaceful negotiation will be made
the campus will open and we will be allowed on it
while we are waiting, we are learning more about the character of the Lord
He is filling us with a Spirit of unity and peace and boldness in preparation for when we do get the opportunity to minister to the students

In the mean time, we have been blessed to meet students outside of campus. And we practice our french with the staff at the compound we are staying at. We are enjoying immersing ourselves in this culture and language. But this city needs hope. Please pray for that. Pray that our brothers and sisters in Togo would see the Lord, that they would experience His joy, that they would be filled with hope. Right now, the church down the road from our compound is joining for days on end of unceasing prayer for the Holy Spirit to fill this city. Pray with them that they would experience the fullness of God. Pray without ceasing.

Praise God that none of our team has gotten sick yet. Praise Him that we were called to this place where no other project has ever ventured before, and that He has specific work that He has prepared in advance for us to do here.

I pray that God blesses you with the immeasurable riches of His mercy and grace, and that He is keeping each of you near to Him, that each of you are growing in wisdom and knowledge of His character.

Thank you for a being a part of this adventure He has called us on.

7 days away and 3000 dollars out; this is a cry out

Countdown to l’Afrique: 1 week; 7 days; 168 hours
Support raised: 2300
Support still needed: 3000

Six months ago, I was standing in front of this girl I didn’t know at DCC when my life was changing drastically and I didn’t even know it.  She went to a West African summer project last summer, and she’d just stood up with her team in one of the smaller seminars to talk to a room of people interested in going to Africa this summer.  I couldn’t tell you why I’d picked that room.  Indecisive, as always, I walked up and down the corridor to choose one of the informational meetings on a specific project.  Finally, I chose the room at the very end of the hallway with a big poster reading “Côte d'Ivoire” across the front.  I didn’t even know what part of Africa that was in.

After the meeting, a few of the girls were standing outside of the room, and I was just looking at some of the pictures from the project that were set up on the poster. One of them asked me if I was thinking about going.  I kind of laughed and told her it’d be really cool and all, but that it wasn’t very probable.  I was about to walk away when she said, “If it’s about money, don’t let that stop you.”  I didn’t say anything about money, so I just said okay and started to leave, but she still called after me, “I was 2800 dollars away from my support goal less then 2 weeks away from the trip, and it all came in.  Don’t let it be about the money!”

The funny thing is that it wasn’t about the money at all then.  But it was like there was this Spirit living in her that is all-knowing or something and spoke those words because He knew I’d need them now…

I applied to the trip in a haze.  One minute it wasn’t even a possibility, and the next I was on the phone with the original project women’s director, being accepted.  But she also told me the project had changed and that she would no longer be going on the trip. 

My project was now venturing to Togo.  We were departing on the 26th instead of the 31st, and we were raising $5250 instead of $4800.  Less time, more money.  But I accepted.  Because money and time didn’t change where I knew Jesus was calling me to plant my feet this summer. 

And it still doesn’t.

The support I’ve raised so far came in very quickly and in bulk.  It was incredibly encouraging.  And then it stopped coming in. 

I am on my hands and knees; I do not regularly ask for help, so all of this has been terribly humbling.  I have these 2 facts at war in my head. 
On one side: 3000 dollars?!  In 7 days? I have no idea where that is going to come from.
On the other side: 3000 dollars?!  In 7 days?  Good thing the Lord is sovereign; good thing I’m confident of what He’s called me to.  Good thing He’s not worried about this trip, or His work in me and in Africa, and He’s most certainly not freaking out right now thinking, “Oh no, how am I going to provide this money?”  I almost have to laugh when I think about the other side of the war in my head. 

So I tell my heart to tell my head that I know who the Lord is, and I know what He promises, and I know that, as a friend reminded me yesterday, God does not just make orders that He can’t pay for. 
I tell my heart to tell the stress-induced hives on my legs, the empty stomach that can’t keep down real food, and this weary soldier soul that’s still persevering by the strength of the Lord that I will make it to Africa just fine.  Because I will. 
Because He wills.

Someone from MoBap who has no idea that I’m struggling raising this support (I’m not entirely sure who they are) sent out a text at this very moment:
“Only people who are resting constantly in the righteousness of Christ will be able to risk it all wholeheartedly for the glory of Christ.”

So I will abide in Jesus in confidence of His righteousness.  I will remain in and rest in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  I will trust in the God who commands, 

Cease striving, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
                                                       PSALM 46 : 1O

Because it’s the only way I can risk this all wholeheartedly.  My pride and my grip on control.  I have to risk that wholeheartedly to glorify Christ. 

United, We Stand; Divided, We Fall

Simply put:

[I screwed up, and I’m sorry for that.]

J, that’s for you.

I’m going to tell you guys a story. I’ve never tried this here, so we’ll see how it goes. In this story, there’s far too much beauty to the brokenness that as much as I want to keep it to myself, because of the hole it left in my heart or even to protect myself from the embarrassment, I can’t. It is stained with the glory of the Lord, and I want to share the glory of the Lord with you.

This one is for the Hartkes.

About two years ago, I told this guy I loved him. Yes, the “L” word- I used it. I’ll tell you: before I used it, that phrase (even more so directed at a man) scared me.
But, that was all before he ever looked at me. Everything changed when all of those reservations were so quickly shoved aside just because of the way he said my name, just because of the way he tapped into my thoughts with all his thoughts and all his words.
So I said it. I told him I loved him, and I meant it. And he told me loved me back, and I believed that. So that was that. We’d said it, and it was enough for me… for a while.
What followed was a whole lot of heartache. Saying those three words was not enough. Hollywood always makes that look like the climatic point. “And they live happily ever after.” Yeah, that’s not true. Especially for two seventeen-year-old kids claiming to follow Jesus and not seeking His counsel through it.
The day he broke up with me is forever burned in my mind. Trust me when I say I tried to forget it and I can’t. But most memorable are the hours I counted down before he came to meet me that morning because I knew it was coming. This is what I wrote that day:

“ I wanted this for so long. And now, as it is coming to an end, I am not sure what I should do- fight for all it’s worth, or let him go easily because there’s nothing left in me.
In Psalm 146, David warns, ‘Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save… Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them- the Lord who remains faithful forever.’ Maybe I should have stopped to hope as hard for Jesus, as I did this boy I love. ”

It was too late by the time I realized that. All I could do was let him go. If' I’d been stronger, I would have chosen the same thing he did for us. But I wasn’t stronger; I didn’t rest in the power of the Lord. And it hurt.
There are more journals I’ve found more recently with thoughts I never remember thinking, doubts about our relationship I never remember having. I was so struck by that “L” word and the notion that caring about him the way I did was enough, everything else just seemed so small. It seemed so beyond me (and it was) that I was too afraid to let it out of my hands, to give it over to Jesus (which was ironically the safest thing I could have done.) But it took the whole experience to learn the lesson that would have brought me peace a year and a half ago.

We spent the year following our break-up just as close as we’d always been. Emotionally attached and pulling at the strings we knew of each others’ hearts. We talked about pretty much everything, avoiding only the topic of ‘us.’ I cannot speak for him or his intentions; I will not try. But I can speak for myself. My motives were not hidden in the joy of the Lord, my intentions were not built on my trust of Him. They were built on my own selfishness.

A little over six months ago, our communication came to an abrupt halt. A decision I’d made in anger and bitterness. I was out to prove that I could do it- reject love entirely. I just didn’t know it was Jesus’ love I was rejecting. Our friendship didn’t even have the chance to be transformed by the Lord into something edifying; it no longer existed. We took the pieces of each others’ hearts we’d gathered over all that time and went our separate ways.

Brothers and Sisters, no. I screwed up and I am sorry for that. I sinned against my brother with my selfishness and he sinned against me, but repentance and forgiveness were not what my heart would immediately delight in.

Nevertheless,

Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. - Isaiah 44:23

Today I am here.

I have forgiven him, and by the graciousness of God, I have found the strength to tell him. I mustered up the courage to send him a letter after almost 5 months of no communication whatsoever. And 2 months later, he mustered up the courage to face me- repenting, and forgiving me too.

I feel that five, ten, twenty years down the road, the hurt of tearing the seal of 2 hearts that had been sloppily bonded will seem much smaller than it even does to me now. And that hurt already seems smaller than it did a year and a half ago. Immensely so. But I won’t forget it. I won’t forget caring that much. I won’t forget seeing another person the way I saw him.

I share my heart and my failures with you, my family, if- for nothing else- to encourage you. To encourage you to be unified, to urge you to allow the work of His Spirit inside you, to share with you this personal story of redemption through forgiveness, to tell you that the our broken hearts are pleasing sacrifices to the Lord. The situation was terrible. The heartache was great. And our failings were so far past what I ever could have imagined would be redeemed. I didn’t think our story would see resolve. In all honesty, I did not expect him to write me back, much less forgive me. And it was all I could do to rejoice in the Lord when he did. He has been so good to us. He has provided such boldness and, simultaneously, humility for us. I stand in awe. There is peace.

Yes, Hartkes, you were indeed correct. It was His words spoken through you that led me where I did not want to go, that challenged me past what was comfortable. And I praise Him that; I thank my God for you. And I thank my God for the redemption of sin.

“ and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord ”

Countdown to l’Afrique: eighteen. days.

My ride to church texted me at 4 this morning to tell me she couldn’t give me a ride, but I didn’t get it until I woke up- at 10. 

So I’ve spent the better half of my morning listening to some suggestions from K Bake’s music blog that I hadn’t gotten to yet (I had to, after all that musical jam and convo last night) and reading Ephesians. 

Apparently for Project, we are reading through it (I’m guessing 6 chapters, 6 weeks… there’s some correlation there).  I am getting more and more excited every day.  It’s still slightly surreal that hopefully in 3 weeks, I will be on my way to AFRICA.  At the beginning of the school year, if you’d asked me if I ever saw myself doing this, I would have had mild hesitation before saying something about it sounding great in theory, but not realistic.  My fam has one missionary kid already, and for the sole purpose of not wanting to follow in her footsteps, I would have likely rejected the idea.  My only compromise had always been that it would be really cool to travel somewhere on a team with my sister and do a mission for a summer.  But with her, and those pretend plans were imagined much further in the future.  When I was done with school.  And more settled, more grounded.  More secure and more comfortable. 

But it’s funny how I’ve realized that He never works on my time schedule, under my expectations.  He called me out of my life this summer, on my own.  And like I said all those months ago, I wanted to be able to say that like Abraham, when God called me, I got up and went.  No questions asked.  My feet were obeying before my mind even had time to think.  It’s a good thing it worked out that way. 

There’s just so much going on  right now that it’s hard to focus on any one thing.  Between finals, support-raising and preparing my heart for Africa, and getting ready to leave CoMO and preparing my heart for home, the only constant is the sovereignty of God over every aspect of all of it. 

Throughout the week of unceasing prayer, I kind of went in and out of Ephesians 4&5.  And I just love the way the Spirit will reveal new things to my eyes about the same passage in scripture each time I read it.  So even today, I was loving the picture of walking as “children of the light.”  And I’m trying to apply that to each one of the things on my To-Do List. 

Okay, I know this was super short, but I’ve got Developmental Psych and History books that are begging for my attention this Sunday afternoon.  If anything, I know I will update at least one last time before I leave for Togo.  And I can guarantee you that one will be a long one. 

Oh and if you want a little summary of what the ‘Pray Without Ceasing’ week was like, check out this link here:

http://kebedefaith.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/pray-without-ceasing/

Picking Up Where We Left Off

Back in the prayer room.  It is currently 1:13 in the AM.  Don’t worry, there are 2 other people in here… I’m not breaking the prayer chain by writing now.  My “shift” doesn’t technically start until 3 so I’ve got a few hours and since this week has had zero free time, I thought I’d get some blogging done during this time. 

I’m amazed at how worn in and familiar this place feels, and we just set it up.  But it’s like an outside reflection of the place I’ve asked the Lord to dwell in my soul, in my heart.  I suppose it should feel pretty familiar.  In the last couple of days, I was trying to meditate on Scripture that I felt God might be trying to speak to me with pertaining to this week.  Immediately this passage jumped off the page at me:

But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth?  Behold heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!  Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you, that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where you have promised to set your name, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.
                                                                                           2 Chronicles 6:18-20

I love this.  I cannot even explain how much I love this.  Solomon is dedicating this temple that he has built with the wealth that God has provided him.   He has declared that “ The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods ” in chapter 2, verse 5.  He acknowledges at that point that he is no one to build a worthy house for the Lord, only as a place to bring their offerings before Him. 

That is what this place is.  A place to bring our offering.  And all we have to offer is our hearts.  It’s all we have, and so conveniently all we need.  The sacrifices of our God are our spirits- broken.  Our hearts- open.

I think the prayer for this house that is dedicated to God is absolutely beautiful.  What a bold and honest request.  It is the one I’ve been praying for the place we’re asking God to dwell in now.  That He would listen to the cries and prayers of His servants, that His eyes would be open toward this room, day and night.  That He would have open ears to our requests and petitioning on behalf of His people, His children who don’t even know they’re His yet, and His children that do.  That He would hear our pleas to build up the Body on this campus.  And all of that, knowing that this house cannot even contain Him.  We are here to intercede for the voiceless and hardened hearts, and only because Jesus first interceded for us.   He was our voice first.

This room is our temple for every second of the next 7 days.  And we, His dear and beloved children, can come together to seek His Spirit’s counsel.  Together.  In a place that is specifically dedicated for the sacrifice of our open and moldable hearts.  If any of you reading have not experienced this on your campus or in your community, I deeply encourage you to give it a whirl.  God does not ignore the requests of His servants.  I cannot tell you what that looks like, but I can tell you that the Lord is faithful. 

Well I will leave you with a little Isaiah.  Brothers and sisters, I have been so wonderfully encouraged.  And I pray that my encouragement encourages you.

“These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,  “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”  - Isaiah 56:7,8

 

P.S. Countdown to l’Afrique: 27 days

P.P.S. – it is now 2:36.  Can you tell I got distracted?  Story of my life.

P.P.P.S. – there’s no internet in this place.  Not guaranteed to remember to post this tomorrow.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s just that I believe things could get better”

I tried this a couple of days ago.. didn’t work out so well.  We’ll see how it goes this time.

Countdown to l’Afrique: 37 days.

I started my research job training on Saturday.  We spent about 2 and a half hours learning the standard procedure for administering the Woodcock-Johnson proficiency and progress test, measuring the competency and reading/mathematical abilities of kindergarten - third grade kids.  Then we spent another 2 and a half hours role playing for practice.  I felt weird calling the 20 year old guy next to me “Little Johnny” for an hour and pointing to words like “thorough” and “plentiful” and asking him to tell me what they were. 

Well, that was about the most eventful part of my weekend.  After my hectic schedule last week, I didn’t know what to do with myself with absolutely NOTHING to study or read for 3 whole days.  I find it nearly impossible sometimes to rest.  I get anxious.  And sometimes I’m anxious about being anxious.  And sometimes I worry when I’m not anxious because I feel like there’s got to be something to be anxious about, and maybe I’m not anxious because I’m forgetting what I’m supposed to be anxious about, and what if it’s something with a deadline, and what if I miss the deadline and it’s something that affects my being in school or being able to go to Africa, and it’s so annoying that I forget things that affect my being in school or being able to go to Africa anyway, why don’t I just write these things down, oh because I don’t have a planner, because all the planners at the bookstore are inefficient, and most of the times I’ve gone to get one the employees tell me they’re out of stock and that they’ll be getting better ones soon, I don’t know when soon is but it’s the middle of April and I obviously don’t really need a planner with only a month of school left.     
                        Welcome to my brain.  I wish there was a “Shut Down” button.

I have a brain that will manage to analyze any given subject down to the core.  It goes in circles and circles on its own, and I know better than to fight it by now.  I’ve learned to laugh at my controlling tendencies and acknowledge sooner, rather than later, that they are impractical.  I’ve better learned to shake off the little stuff.  However, I’ve noticed lately that my mind’s natural defense is to focus on the little stuff— to perfect details, and somehow ignore a bigger picture.  In letting the small debris dust over me as it  may, my eyes have the chance to finally see some of the rooted issues planted much deeper.  And those I cannot shake. 

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Psalm 51:17                                                    
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

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A week ago my project director asked us to be thinking about something specific that we want to be grown in this summer while we’re in Africa.  He asked us to bring a book or podcasts or something specifically pertaining to whatever we’re asking the Lord to stir up in us.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot and, like I said, my brain never stops running, so I’ve got more than a few ideas.  Maybe I want to ask Him to teach me to eagerly pursue a spirit of patience, or gentleness, or kindness, or peace… or any of the other fruit haha.  Maybe I want to ask Him to teach me to endure, to dress myself in strength.  Or maybe to speak in wisdom and love.  Or maybe to be more bold and let the Word of God flow from my mouth more easily.  Surely, you can see how I’ve felt pulled in many directions.  I want all of these things, and trust He is growing me into them, even now.  But what I’m finding myself most drawn to is GRACE.  Giving and receiving grace—I do neither very well at all.  More specifically, I want Him to teach me more about forgiving in grace and accepting forgiveness.  I’ve been challenged to accept the extreme measures I know this will entail, the stark brokenness I know I will have to become. 

I think I’d be good at hiding treasure.  Because, to me, that’s what this is.  Only this treasure is dangerous—notions that threaten to steal hope, or cover light, or will me away from trust.   Something so alarmingly delicate, preciously and invaluably vulnerable.   There is a pain so deeply buried in my soul that I can’t even find it.  It is because of its dangerous delicacy and vulnerability that I’ve gone to the most intricate means to hide it.  I was a success. 

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Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
                                                    - Psalm 51:8 - 12

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As if I needed further confirmation that grace and forgiveness were both things I needed to focus on, I opened up Relevant today and came across an article about generational sins. 

“ I look at my battered but relatively unscathed self in the shadow of generations of sin, wickedness of biblical proportions, mental illness and general suffering, and know it is only by the grace of a Savior that I’m here and serving the God who pursued me even through my ancestors. ”

Even through my family.  Even through the people who are supposed to protect me, people who have said they’d protect me, and didn’t.  Two weeks ago, my discipler broke sin into two categories for me: sins that I commit and sins that are committed against me.  Immediately I realized how far away I push sins that have been committed against me.  Adverse to confrontation, I fear the rejection—in acknowledging these sins to be forgiven—is far too great to overcome.  But whether I’ve ever been able to admit the affects of sin committed against me, I have the scars to prove it.  Truth is still Truth when I call it a lie. 

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
                                   Psalm 51:1,2
              

Rescue is Coming

“The race is not to just the swift and strong, because I’m not strong”

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.   
                                                                                                   - Philippians 2:5-8

Miawoe zɔ, friends.

That means “welcome.” I like to pretend I know a little Éwé (Eʋegbe) which is the most popular Togolese vernacular language, though French is the nation’s “official language.” That one is easier for me. Salut, mes amis.  Je suis très heureux pour cet été.  J’ai appris un peu français ce semestre seulement… So we’ll see how far that takes me.  Madame Joyce told me there are actually a handful of professors here who are from/have been and are familiar with French-speaking African countries.  Yeah… why didn’t I get one of those?

There are 38 days until my semester ends, and 51 until I leave for Togo.  I am fully aware that time is going to fly and I’ll be on that plane before I know it.  I am so thrilled to dive into another culture and learn more about my God, and sometimes anxious about where this funding is coming from, but at an understanding with Him about just how much control I have over the financial support coming in.  Which is none.  I am not He who changes hearts and beckons servants to give cheerfully and generously.  It’s been really weird… to acknowledge that this part- which is so obviously essential to the trip- is completely out of my hands.  It’s been a relief too.  It’s been a test in surrender and trust, a forceful one at that.  But I just stand here in awe as I witness Him deliver every time. 

I came back to CoMO early during my Spring break.  I just love school so much I couldn’t stand to be away for more than 5 days.  Just kidding.  I do love Columbia though.  I think about that passage in Matthew 9 where Jesus is just blazing through cities and villages, talking about the Father and “proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom.”  He’s encountering people who don’t even believe at all, and then people who are so overwhelmed by His presence.  He is encountering the dirty and the dying and the sick, and it says that He looked out at the masses of people and “had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).  That’s how I feel sometimes.  I’ve said that here before- how I walk through this campus sometimes and just feel grief. 

I have a good community of friends here now who have that same compassion.  So we came back early to immerse ourselves into the hurting or struggling areas of our own community.  Of our brothers and sisters that have a hard time coming up with food for every meal, of children without their parents, of the helping hands of this city.  There were 7 of us, and let me tell you: 4 straight days with a group this size and you’re like a little family by the end.    I suppose that is kind of the point.  We played Bingo and Dominos with an old and wise generation together, and packaged like 4 tons of cheesy hotdogs together, and painted a handful of doors and learned how to caulk the walls from Bob the Builder together, and raked a whole lot of mulch together, and played Signs in the break room at the Mid Missouri Food Bank together, and talked for a lot of hours about our lives before Jesus together, and relayed the importance of weighing all consequences of a choice in “Make It, Take It, or Break It” together, and slept in the same beds together (haha boys at the boy house, girls at the girl house), and we discussed a lot of Scripture together, and prepared a delicious amount of food for one another, and played with 10 little kids that were so hungry for our attention together, and ate a meal with our brother Thomas (and his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Daisy), who live in Columbia and don’t have a home, together.  We prayed together, and broke bread together, and we were emptied together, and then also filled together.  I just said “together” 15 times.  And my point is that all of those things, “serving” our community, wouldn’t have changed us in this way if we hadn’t been together.  Because when the 4 days were over, I realized our community had really served us.  It taught us to be more generous and humbled servants with each other, and to be so thankful for where the Lord has placed us in our lives and what He’s placed in them, and also to be selfless with giving and focused on bringing His Kingdom to meet us where we are every day.  All of that in 4 days.  He is Jesus.

Not to mention that the day we worked on the house for Habitat happened to be a gorgeous day.  Check out that pretty blue sky. 

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
                                                                                       - 1 Corinthians 1:26:31

I like the part where it says that because of Him I am in Christ Jesus.  When Paul challenged the church in Philippi to be humbled servants, he tells them to be encouraged by Jesus’ example.  Being able to feel that compassion and great compeller to love selflessly and give not only money, but time and myself is straight from Jesus.  That was His mind, His love.  We share that with Him, and its absolutely beautiful.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, and participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind.
                                                                                               - Philippians 2:1-2

That’s how we’re humbled.  By taking on His mind, sharing His compassion and love for man, but ultimately sharing a love for the glory of the Father.