Sweet Rest

Well hello everybody, it seems I always end up re-vamping this blog every summer for my trips, and I can never seem to keep it up during the year. It's been so long since I last posted that the whole layout of the site has changed! Sorry in advance that this is going to be a long one, it's been one heck of a week and I'm gonna pour out my heart a little bit. I think it'll be worth the read.

Anyway, I've been in Santa Cruz, CA for a week and 2 days now, and it has been CRAZY. The students haven't even arrived yet and I've been feeling pretty exhausted. For those who don't know, I'm returning to the same summer project that I was a student on two summers ago only I'm going to have the privilege of staffing it this time! We arrived 9 days early as a staff team, May 19th, to begin to plan out the summer and set up the Peter Pan Motel where we'll be staying for the summer. The students arrive tomorrow, May 28th, and I can't wait. We spent the first 3 days here in nearly non-stop meetings hardly leaving the living room of the beach house we were temporarily staying in. Our directors did a great job of breaking things up with fun activities like going out for dessert as a staff team, and taking snack breaks. There's only so much you can do to ease the pain though when you have an entire summer project to plan out in 3 days. A few blessings though were Sharon Mehaffie's cooking and the hot tub that we got to use in the evenings. :) I also had an awesome heart to heart with one of the other single staff guys, Julian. After those 3 days it came time for the physical labor, which was actually a relief after sitting still for so long to get out and use my body. We were all pretty mentally exhausted. Setting up the Peter Pan was a beast though, we had to pull out all of the stuff for the summer from 3 huge pods, then load those pods back up with all of the hotel mattresses, box springs, and frames. Then we had to get everything off the floors in all of the rooms so they could come in and power clean the floors, moving all the tv's into storage in the process. Then we had to set up two triple bunks in each room (which was way more difficult than it sounds), get the lounge, kitchen, and office in working order, moving around ovens and refrigerators and couches and who knows what else. This just sums up the major things that we did, but I don't say all this to complain just to give you an idea of what my week has been like. It's been pretty intense. A blessing was the 11 students (10 guys and 1 girl) who came a few days early to help us set up the Peter Pan. Not only would we have never been able to do it without their help, but it was awesome to start getting to know them. Beginning to pour into those guys was a great reminder of why we're here and what all this hard work was for. All of the work on the front end will be completely worth it because of the lives changed through this summer project. Mixed into all this it was AMAZING to see my friend Nichole Saucier again, who I'm still in touch with from the last time I was here. She's still working on the boardwalk, where the students will be working and where I worked for a whole summer, and I've bumped into her twice. I'm excited to get to hang out with her outside of work once we get the chance. It's been awesome in general just to be back in Santa Cruz again, a place where I have such sweet memories of my life being changed just two summers ago.

So, you might wonder after such a lengthy list of all the exhausting things we've done in just a week why I titled this post "Sweet Rest." I titled it that because the concept of biblical rest in Christ completely rocked my world today in a very timely and refreshing way. I wish I could say that I've been finding my rest in Christ  throughout all this craziness, since that would be the spiritual missionary thing to say, but to be very vulnerable I came into this morning pretty mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. Emotionally because on top of the physical and mental labor, I was really struggling with connecting with others on the project and I was upset about it. I'm one of the only single guys on the whole staff team, and sometimes it feels like the staff don't entirely see me as one of them because I'm still a student, but then it also feels like the students don't entirely see me as one of them because I'm staff. It's something I struggled with last summer in Senegal as student staff as well. I don't even know how much truth there is to the feeling, but its definitely an insecurity that Satan has used to get to me. I was stressed, I had a headache, and I was exhausted. My tank was just about empty, and that was not a good sign for what the rest of the summer was going to look like. God knew that was going on in my heart, and in His perfect timing He entered in with His good word. This morning I went to go try out the church I'll be attending all summer for the first time (It's called Twin Lakes), and I didn't know what to expect but we walked in on the middle of a sermon series about refueling spiritually, and this weeks sermon was on Rest. The pastor was preaching on Matthew 11:20-30, the passage culminating in Jesus' sweet promise "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Not only that, but I came back to the Peter Pan, spent some time reflecting on the message, then decided to watch J.D. Greear's (Pastor of my church back home, the Summit) sermon from last week that I missed. In God's perfect timing his message was titled Inner Rest, and supplemented what I had heard in church really well. This particular topic of finding rest in Christ is not one that I've explored much or heard preached on very much at all, but one that I desperately needed to start incorporating into my life. It's especially crucial I think for someone in ministry because this is very much not the first time I've felt burnt out from doing things for God. I am really thankful for my director who really protects our Sabbath day well. I had until 4:30 this afternoon to spend with the Lord and just beginning to apply this idea of resting in Him. I feel SO refreshed seriously I went from bottoms to not being able to remember a time where I felt more fresh, and I know this is a concept that not only really helped me recharge from a rough week but one that as I begin to apply more and more will help me the rest of this summer and the rest of my life. It wasn't just physical rest that I needed, I had 10 hours of sleep the other night and still felt awful the entire next day. There was a soul rest that I needed that no amount of sleep or vacation or even encouragement could give me, it was only found in Christ. I spent this afternoon on a perfect day reading a book in a hammock on a cliff 75 feet up overlooking the ocean (picture attached). Tonight we went out to eat as a staff team one last time before the students arrive and it was a very nice meal that was covered by the project, but best of all I felt like I really connected with the other staff at the dinner table. I seriously felt like I was a zombie walking around and now I'm alive again. I want to thank my beautiful Savior Jesus Christ for doing EVERYTHING necessary to save me, and then SITTING DOWN at the right hand of God, and in so doing allowing me to sit down as well from a lifestyle of works trying to earn his favor, build an identity, feel like I'm worth something.

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for me to continue to find rest in my Savior, to know him more and better each day and overflow the fruit of the Spirit.

- Pray for the students, for courage to get on that plane and come out here, for safe travel, for God to begin preparing their hearts even now.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as these will be the guys in my action group this summer that I'll be focused on pouring my life into. Pray that God rocks their world this summer like he rocked mine when I was a student on this project.

- Pray for those in Santa Cruz who don't know Christ, pray that God would go before us and prepare their hearts to hear the message of his unfailing love for them, what he did for them on the cross, and his desire to have a relationship with them.

- Pray for continued unity among the staff team, and for great unity to grow immediately with the students when they arrive. Pray we'll be a community that reflects Christ in the way we love and relate to each other.