What's in a Grin?

In case you don't know me, let me tell you, I'm a fairly happy person. Now, I get upset and have bad days, and I've never been accused of anything near "bubbly". In fact, I'm a pretty mellow person. Regardless, I'm good at being generally cool with life. I try to keep that up by looking to the little things, little messages from God. A sunset. Or a kind gesture between two strangers. Or a smile.

I got the privilege of being a part of a worship night for the second time the other night. We were supposed to practice on Monday, but then Granger decided it needed a blanket, so it put on a foot of snow. So our practice was pushed back to Wednesday, which was also the night of the actual worship night. People were late to rehearsal, (including myself), and we had some technical difficulties, so we didn't start for probably another hour. Off to a great start, huh? Referring to all of the snow and problems that night I remarked, "You know, it's almost like someone out there doesn't want this thing to happen..." (That's right satan, I called you on it.) What I didn't know yet was why he wanted that.

A shot of the mood, pre-students.
Credit goes to @tsutch on Instagram.

Then we started singing. Practice went pretty good. I love playing with those artists, the songs were terrific, and I generally knew what was going on, which is helpful. After breaking for dinner, Tyler took some time to talk to us and read some verses, to get us centered on why we were there: to praise God. After that, practice was just better somehow. When we finished, and people came in, the crowd was a bit smaller than I had hoped, so I was just praying that God knew what He was doing.

The music started with a relatively upbeat song, then slowly descended into the songs that people tend to really respond to. After a couple of songs the band got to take a seat to watch a video with the rest of the crowd, an acoustic rendition of the song Oceans, which is one of my favorite worship songs out there. That's when it got real for me. I really met with God in that song, and He held me for the rest of the night. The climax of the night was the song Set a Fire. The lyrics are very simple and repetitive, and we in the middle we just hung out on the chords while clips of one of Mark Beeson's sermons played. but in the down time, when nothing was happening, us in the band just kept playing those four chords, B...E...G#...E...B...E...G#...E... I couldn't tell you what happened in the crowd then. They all just faded into the background. All I know is that the musicians had our moment. Tyler wasn't singing into the microphone, but we were on stage living in those lyrics.

               There's no place I'd rather be...
               There's no place I'd rather be...
               There's no place I'd rather be...
               Then here in Your love, here in Your love LORD...

And I don't know when, but at some point I looked out into the room, and saw two lights on the ceiling. To me, almost anything can make a face. Cars have faces on the front and back, the two headlights and the bumper, that's all I need. I'll often draw a curved line beneath double O's, and make that into a face. But I saw those two lights, and there was no mouth to that face. No lines, no frown, no smile. A few choruses later, I looked back out, and that's when it hit me. The two lights were the eyes. They were God's eyes. And beneath them, were all of those bright faces, reflecting His glory. Because God wasn't smiling.

He was grinning.

What's in the grin of God? You are. I am. Anytime we praise Him, serve Him, love Him, we are the embodiment of the Joy of our Father.

Nicaragua2012 (Part 3)

*Post three of my Nicaragua2012 Posts.*
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*

At this point, you may be thinking, "Wait. He's already at the end! How can he have a third post??"
Well, this post is just for a few stories that I've thought of. So let the stories begin!


1. Imma start out with a good one.You may know Nathan Arndt. You probably don't. Regardless, this story is amazing. Picture this:
It's day four. It's 6:30 in the morning. I'm still in bed, half asleep and honestly I'm amazed I have any recollection of this. Riley Robbins is walking around. He cringes, and says something about the painful blister on his foot. Nathan, out of the blue, says "Hey, you want me to pray for it?" Riley says sure, so right then and there, at 6:30 in the morning, Nathan kneels down, and says a prayer of healing on Riley's foot.
Moment of honesty, I doubted. I thought, why would God spend His time, just so Riley could get out of a little pain? But later, Riley's is asked about it, and he says "I haven't felt it all day......but in a good way!"


2. This is gonna seem really shallow after that one, but whatever.
Thing is, down there, they don't get the luxury of lawnmowers, weed whackers, or anything of the sort. But they still need to keep a little bit of landscaping! So how do they do it??
Machetes.
They sent four of us guys out, to see what we could do. We couldn't. I actually thought we were doing decent! It only took like 15 swipes to get a tiny patch of weeds down! Then a Nicaraguan lady comes out to show us how it's done. With a piece of bread and a cup full of juice in one hand, she takes a Machete, and in THREE SWIPES gets what it took us twenty to get. Talk about an ego buster!

We were even less adept when they started throwing them. Yes, you read that right. They grabbed a few machetes, and started throwing them and getting them to stick into trees. I actually got the most out of any of us Americans! Which was two. But neither of them was as impressive as theirs! And they did it over...and over...and over again!



3. Obviously, there are people who live at the place we stayed. They prepared food, and cleaned our rooms while we were gone. Similar to a hotel. Except the food was FLIPPING INCREDIBLE! I would live there just for the food!!!
Anyway, one day we get back, and there are two piles of clothes in the middle of the rooms. I realize after look for a few seconds, that it is a bunch of our clothes! A few seconds later, I realize that its the stuff I already wore, and got all dirty! That's right. Those ladies, out of their own free will, hand washed all of our dirty clothes. Shirts, socks, and even underwear! I wouldn't even do that for myself!


Once again, I just wanna thank anyone who supported me, through either money or prayer! You don't know what a blessing you were!

So there you have it. That's the end. Until next year that is!

Nicaragua2012 (Part 2)

*Post two of my Nicaragua2012 Posts.*
*This is partially for you, and partially so I have a place to write it all so I remember it. So pardon all the horrific details.*


OK. So you may remember, when we left off, I had come back from the beach. The next four days were our designated "work days". I'll begin there...

If you want the most basic overview, "We built two houses."

They started lifting before I could get to the side...

For a more detailed description, I'll just write what I wrote in my journal after day 3:
"It's been a ton of fun. You never get overworked, because there's not enough work for everyone, so you can easily take breaks. But don't think it's easy! I wake up every day more tired, and super sore!
People are so helpful! Sammy spends the entire time giving herself to all the little Nicaraguan children, and also is constantly offering to bring people their waters bottles! Everyday, Tara goes out of her way to cover all of the backpacks, so the when it rains, (which it does everyday here) none of our stuff will be ruined! No other specifics, but everyone gets whatever you need, and if you need a break, they jump at the chance to get back to work!

Putting in the floor boards

At some points throughout the day, I just spend some time with the little boys. We just run, fight, growl, and tickle (Yes. I did say tickle.) Even though we aren't doing anything, they still have so much fun, and the glee on their faces is amazing to watch!
I also love watching the teenage Nicaraguans. I can't understand much of what they say, but i feel a connection. We're just a few teenage guys, out here building to help some people out!"

So there you have it. That was my play-by-play, in the midst of the action.

On Thursday night, we went to Church. The preacher was another visitor, and he had a ton of great stuff to say about worship.
Here's some of my notes:
Ephesians 2:10
       God designed us to worship Him through good works.EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING
       What do you worship?
What is worship?
       Singing?
       Praying?
       Praising?
             All three of these, but more! Worship is doing what the the Holy Spirit leads us to do, and its from
             your heart!
Whatever you do, do it for God!
Romans 3:23
Worshiping is reflecting the glory of the Master.
Love like He loved, Grace like He graced, and Forgive like He forgave.
God is most Glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him!
You have to KEEP your heart close to God.
You don't plan to fall out of love. It comes from not continually coming to Him.
Worship: an outward expression of your inner love.
Do you know Him? If not, you can't truly worship Him.
Psalm 139:14
       You will never be able to worship God if you think He made a mistake in you.


And that's the conclusion! Now on to post numero tres!