A Work in Progress

Hey guys! This is probably going to be my last blog post from here in Santa Cruz, we leave for a staff trip to Yosemite national park early Tuesday morning and after a few days there we'll be heading straight to the airport to fly home. I'll be back in Apex around midnight on July 6th. Thanks to my brother Mike for being willing to pick me up from the airport, you're the man. Thank you ALL so much for supporting me in so many ways, I appreciate you all very much. Phil 1:3-5 "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now."

Well, for the second week straight as I reflect on what God has been teaching me, the struggle is narrowing it down from the tons of things I feel like God has been teaching me. As a result, I decided that what he's teaching me is how messed up I am and how much I have left to learn, hence "A Work in Progress." I'm in a process of being made into the man God wants me to be but as long as I've got this flesh on me that process won't be over, I'll always have a lot to learn, and I'll never find the bottom. I've been learning what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, being unafraid to move in a direction I feel the Lord leading me in, even if I can't see the outcome. I've been learning how much of what I do is entirely motivated by seeking validation from others. This is dumb for a lot of reasons but there are two main reasons. First, because I already have all the validation I'll ever need from a God who doesn't just love me but he actually likes me. He delights in me, he's proud of me, he enjoys spending time with me. Second, because when I do things to make other people notice me and think highly of me, then I'm by default not doing things to bring glory to God which is what I was created to do. I've been learning from the very beginning of this project what it means to play the background and serve others. Being here on staff instead of as a student has shown me how much its not about me. My entire purpose in being here has been to facilitate the students to grow and take steps of faith, and if I do so in the process then great. I'm literally only here to work myself out of a job so that after these 5 weeks the students wouldn't have any need of me anymore. Also, as we went through a chapter this week about total depravity I've been reminded that even when my actions look like I've got it together a little bit I'm hopelessly messed up on the heart level and thought level and motivation level. In light of all that, thank God for the cross! Without it, I'd be pretty screwed. I can't wait til the day I get to cast all that sin down and never have to struggle with it again, the day I meet Jesus!

I hiked out with some students to a spot called "the garden of eden" and we set up our hammocks!

This week has been pretty exciting seeing the students starting to take ownership of the project and for us to begin to take a back seat. Yesterday the entire staff team went to a water park in San Jose called Raging Waters to give the students an idea of what a day would be like without us around at all. It was so much fun! We got back just in time to see the students that we picked as Action Group leaders lead for their first time. Victor did a great job with our group. We officially pass the baton to the students on Monday night. There's not a ton to write about to be honest in regard to things that have happened but I do want to give shout outs to some of the men in my Bible study! Steven Andrews and Austin Dix both just got back from overseas summer projects in East Asia and Argentina, welcome home men! I was so excited the other day when I got a call from Steven, since he had no contact at all from East Asia and I can't wait to catch up with him even more when I get back home in a little over a week. I also really want to give a shout out to Alan King who is here in Santa Cruz with me! I'm so proud of him for taking the step of faith to come here. He's met lots of people this summer and been way out of his comfort zone the entire time but I see him growing so much. I'm really excited to see him every morning being the first one outside having a long time with the Lord before work. When we picked servant teams, I thought for sure Alan would be on Admin/Housing or Weekly Meeting team which there would have been nothing wrong with but I was pleasantly surprised to find out he had joined the outreach team with me specifically because he was scared of it and wanted to grow in that area. He's a whole different person than he was when he got here, and unlike me hes not even halfway done here yet. I can't wait to see the man he is when he comes walking up to me on campus in the Fall. Proud of you Alan!

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 leaders that God has raised up (answered prayer). Pray they'll find strength in the Lord as they give direction to the project this summer, that they'll be respected by their peers. The best is yet to come for these students after we leave.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as my coleader J.P. and I take off for the summer. Victor will be leading the action group after we leave, Sam will be leading the prayer team, and Branson will actually be one of the project directors. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for them.

- 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 that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left. Pray for safety as we're going to Yosemite soon. Some of us will be hiking half dome, which is a 17 mile hike.

- Please continue to pray for Nichole. Pray for her to see God clearly, for courage to trust him, pray that she'd find lasting joy, satisfaction, and a living hope in Jesus Christ.

A Beautiful Relationship

No, not with a girl. I have a beautiful relationship with the God who created me and saved me and loves me with an unfailing love. Mostly when I blog about what God has been teaching me it's always some attribute of his character that has really stuck out to me, or something specific on my part that I've been learning such as rest, or humility. This week, I couldn't for the life of me think of something specific that has stood out, although I've learned a lot. I was explaining this to my friend Thomas Tran who wisely told me "sometimes its more about enjoying the fact that the relationship exists." It's been 6 years now since I put my faith in Christ, which probably seems like nothing to some of you reading this, but sometimes I forget what it was like before I knew Him. I forget the emptiness I felt, and the dissatisfaction. I'll never forget what it was like when I asked him into my heart though and that all became a thing of the past. Psalm 51:12 says "Restore to me the joy of your salvation" and I think that captures the essence of what God's been teaching me. It's a beautiful thing that I never have to experience condemnation anymore, never have to feel unloved, I always have hope, I always have joy and satisfaction, I'm guided and empowered as I'm going through life and encountering situations such as sharing my faith, picking leadership for project, and making important decisions. I read the Word with a Helper who brings it to life in my heart, I speak with my God and he speaks with me. I can be totally honest with Him, fully known and yet fully loved. I can be refreshed at any time simply by His presence, or one of His promises such as the fact that I have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for me. I have a loving heavenly Father (and a loving earthly one too). Speaking of my dad, this is totally unrelated to what God was teaching me this week but in light of Father's day I want to give him a shout out. I'm disappointed I couldn't be there for it to show him how much I appreciate him but I think I do more this year than ever before. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and there have been lots of moments seeing cool cars or watching basketball or whatever that I've wished he was here experiencing it with me. I miss you and I love you dad!

Visiting the Golden Gate Bridge!

Teaching Carlee how to shag dance at the Barn Party!

I want to move on now to what actually happened this week. The two biggest things were the Barn Party we had on Saturday night, and then a conversation I had with my friend Nichole after church on Sunday. Also, on Monday we picked the leadership for the whole project that will take over after the staff team leaves so I suppose that was a pretty big deal too. On a more fun note, not related to ministry at all, the staff team took a really fun trip to San Francisco yesterday. The Barn Party was a ton of fun! We had corn on the cob, ribs, brisket, pulled pork, baked beans, watermelon, banana pudding, and dirt pudding. I'd say between 30-40 of our coworkers were in and out throughout the evening including Nichole who was attending her third straight cru barn party! I got to sit in on a conversation where one of our project students, Carlee, got to share her testimony with her coworker Lucas. I also got to go through the gospel with this guy Rafael who was sitting by himself at the end of the party. It was a really interesting conversation but he said things didn't add up for him and I hope to get to talk with him again. I was really excited to see Nichole becoming closer with some of our project girls, since I'm going to be gone in a week and a half (isn't that crazy?) and I'd love for her to stick around and get close to those girls. I wanna give a shout out to Morgan Robinson for really being awesome about trying to get to know her! I also taught like half the project how to shag and that was a lot of fun. :) The next morning Nichole came to church with us, which was exciting because after the barn party I was barely able to drag myself out of bed so I was impressed! The pastor was starting a new sermon series on the book of 1 Peter called Living Hope. Afterwards she and I had a great conversation about it, she opened up and told me that she knew she didn't have that kind of hope and she saw it in us and believed what we were saying was true but she's scared to death of giving up control of her whole life. It's the only thing that scares her more than going to Germany. Please pray for Nichole as she's very torn about all of this, and she desires a relationship with Christ but is scared to take that step of faith. I'm praying for God to continue to show her who he is and that he can be trusted, for courage for her to surrender, and believing God through prayer that she'll begin a relationship with Him this summer. Before she goes to Germany, she'll have that living hope in her life! The trip to San Fran yesterday was both a lot of fun and exciting but the only way to really describe everything we saw is through images so look for an album to get put up on Facebook soon. Last night after we got back, one of the girls on project fell while learning to long board and broke her ankle and had to go to the hospital. Her name is Shelby, will you pray for her to have a speedy recovery and that it wouldn't stop God from changing her life this summer?

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 leaders that God has raised up (answered prayer). Pray they'll find strength in the Lord as they give direction to the project this summer, that they'll be respected by their peers. The best is yet to come for these students after we leave.

- Pray specifically for Victor, Damon, Branson, Sam, and Greg as my coleader J.P. and I take off for the summer. Victor will be leading the action group after we leave, Sam will be leading the prayer team, and Branson will actually be one of the project directors. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for them.

- 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 that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left. Pray for safety as we're going to Yosemite soon. Some of us will be hiking half dome, which is a 17 mile hike.

- Pray again for Nichole. Pray for her to see God clearly, for courage to trust him, pray that she'd find lasting joy, satisfaction, and a living hope in Jesus Christ.

Shining in Splendor

Hey everyone!

Thanks again for everything you all do. Some support me financially, some pray for me more than I ever deserve, some are the most loyal friends I could ever ask or pray for, most of you are all of the above. Whatever that may be for you, I'm grateful and I wish I could express that in words.

The reason that I chose Shining in Splendor for the title of this is because the thing that has struck me the most about God this week is simply his glory. Or perhaps not so simply, because we throw the terms "glory of God" or "glory to God" or whatever around so loosely that it's almost lost it's meaning. Do we realize that when that word comes out of our mouths we are using a word that means the entire weight of all God's attributes combined into one word. This "glory" isn't just a trendy Christian word, it is indescribable, unfathomable, it's mind-blowing. We're going through a book with the students called Experiencing Christ Within by Dwight Edwards and this week is chapter 2 "First Things First: A Reputation at Stake" and it's talking at length about the glory of God. The main theme of the chapter is that the number one thing that God cares about the most is his own glory. This is summed up when Edwards says "The main point of our spirituality according to the Bible, is the furthering of God's glory, not the fixing of our lives. In other words, God does not exist for us; we exist for him." Before jumping into that he takes the time to go through "so what exactly is God's glory? How does the Bible portray it?" And he writes "For your meditation on those questions, choose some of the following passages and read them with an open mind and heart. Then record your thoughts in the space provided. (You may want to specifically look for how God's glory is manifested in each case.) Exodus 24:15-17; 33:18-23; 40:34-38; Numbers 14:20-24; Deuteronomy 4:34-38; 2 Chronicles 7:1-3; Psalm 29:1-9; Isaiah 40:5; Ezekiel 1:25-28; 39:21-24; 43:1-5; Habakkuk 3:3-6." Anyway, I would encourage you to do this on your own time but I did this yesterday while playing the song by Matt Papa that's below on repeat. It's a really well written and inspirational song about God's glory and includes a clip of a John Piper sermon on God's glory at the end of the song. The Holy Spirit used the combination of all of these things to just make the word of God come alive in my heart and I had the clearest picture of God's glory that I've ever had in my life. I want to share with you what I wrote down as I went through each of these passages one by one.

"The Lord appeared and His glory was consuming, devouring. His goodness, His graciousness, His mercy and compassion ARE His glory. The fullness of them can't be seen by men without killing them. The glory of the Lord is guiding and filling. Those who follow Him in a spirit of faith will be ushered into His glory. His glory is beyond compare. It is displayed with trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror. Seeing His glory is a privilege! It is characterized by a consuming fire. It invokes worship. He is worthy of glory. We have only seen a shadow, but His glory will be revealed and we will experience it's fullness together when we see him face to face. His glory has no beginning and no end, it is an endless expanse. Our response is to fall on our face."

Third Day describes well my experience yesterday in their song "Show Me Your Glory" as they write "I caught a glimpse of Your splendor, in the corner of my eye. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It was like a flash of lightning, reflected off the sky. And I know, I'll never be the same." I did indeed catch a glimpse. Anyway, I want to tell you a little bit of what happened this week in terms of the project now that you have an idea of what's been going on in my heart. The first thing worth noting is that we're finally on a normal, somewhat predictable schedule. I know when the students will be working, what project stuff they'll have when they are off of work, and I know what staff stuff I have going on while the students are working each day of the week. This is nice, because I can plan for times to talk with friends and family, and write blog posts, and just in general know when I'm going to have free time. Speaking of free time, a nice part of being here as staff is there's definitely a little bit more of it than when I was here as a student.

Anyway, we had our second outreach this past weekend on Saturday night and it was interesting to say the least. The Saturday night crowd downtown is definitely different than the Sunday afternoon crowd (when we did our first outreach). We went down there with these big boards that had questions on them such as "Who is God?" or "Who is Jesus?" or "What is sin?" and we had sharpies and just wanted the people of Santa Cruz to write down that they honestly thought than then dialogue with us about it if they felt comfortable doing so. It was really interesting to see the mix of answers we got, we're definitely not in the Bible belt anymore. My group had a pretty frustrating time, I can't remember being more discouraged after an outreach in a long time. We were harassed by drunk homeless people, one of whom we had to have arrested because he wouldn't leave us alone. These certainly distracted from our other conversations we were trying to have, and one girl believed in multiple truths "whatever your truth is is true for you." She asked what I believed and I told her I believed there was one absolute truth and it was found in the Bible and she went on a rant about how could we believe in a book that says to kill all homosexuals and that abusing your wife is okay (the Bible doesn't actually say either of these things). Some groups fared better than we did but as a general rule we all had a very clear picture by the end of the night just how lost and dark this place is. This isn't bad because it developed compassion in our hearts. Matthew 9:36 says that when Jesus saw the crowds "He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." This is pretty much what happened during our outreach. 

The other big thing that happened was our Men's night. This was probably my favorite night of the project so far. We had a volleyball tournament by our rooms, we learned about authentic manhood, and we had a feast. This was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life. As far as the content on manhood we used an acronym R.E.A.L. men Reject Passivity, Expect God's Reward, Accept Responsibility, and Lead Courageously. I remember this being very life changing material for me as a guy on project two summers ago and was definitely excited to share with the guys. I got to speak on rejecting passivity. This was one of three talks I got to give over the course of the past week, by far the most speaking in front of people that I've ever done. On Monday night I gave my testimony in front of the project, and any guests that they had brought from work. On Friday night I gave a 45 minute training on how to lead a small group Bible study, and on Sunday night I spoke on rejecting passivity. I actually really enjoyed those opportunities, especially the manhood talk. Anyway, this week has been a blast and man night was a huge success, we're looking forward to another great week that you'll get to hear about sometime next week. It's crazy how fast the project is blowing by as we're selecting leadership to take our place next week. Pray for those decisions as they are big ones. Thanks again for everything you do! Prayer requests below.

- 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 God to raise up leaders among the students to take our place when we're gone. This is an especially important one this week as we make those decisions this coming Monday. Each room will need an action group leader, each servant team will need two leaders, and there will be 4 directors and assistant directors who will lead the project as a whole.

- 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 that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left.

- Pray again for Nichole. I'm giving her a Bible today and I'm praying it helps her a lot. She's still pretty confused about a lot of things and is leaving for Germany in August to be a nanny for a year, which she's both excited and nervous about.

View out the window from where I ate lunch yesterday!

His Power, My Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:9 "But He said to me 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

This is a verse I seem to just keep coming back to this year as I've wrestled through what it looks like to walk humbly with my God, seeing myself in light of him instead of comparing myself to other people and going through an endless cycle of insecurity and pride. This past week I think this sums up what I've been most struck  by about God in ministry, in my quiet times, and as I've observed his creation! I've been reading through the book of Hebrews extremely in depth for my quiet times to go along with the Summit Church's sermon series on the book of Hebrews called "Christ is Better." I remember in one of the first sermons in this series J.D. suggested we continually read through the book while we go through it as a church and I decided to try that since I've never done it before. I've always finished a book and just gone on to another one, it's never crossed my mind to re-read through a book multiple times to really get deep into it. I'm really enjoying it. The book really paints a very clear picture throughout of Christ's glory. I think sometimes we get so caught up in Jesus' humanity, being able to relate with us and in fact dying for us that we forget he is the God who created the universe, glorious and powerful and that he raised from the dead. We forget to deal with Christ with awe. Hebrews really hits home on Christ's superiority. He's higher than the angels, he's the mediator of a covenant that is infinitely better than the old one, he's sitting at God's right hand and interceding on our behalf, hes perfect and blameless in a way that we never could be. Not only have I seen this in Scripture but I've been seeing it firsthand in my life. I've been so overwhelmed from huge waves to the biggest moon I've ever seen reflecting off the ocean to mountains and valleys and 17 foot wide redwood trees and even just looking at the stars which you can see better here than in Raleigh or Apex. I'm so humbled, I'm less than a dot in the span of God's creation why does he choose to love me? Why did he think I was worth dying for? When he looked at all that he said it was good, so why did he look at me and say very good? Why am I the one made in His image? Why does he pay me any attention at all? If that wasn't enough I've just been thoroughly reminded as I always am in ministry that I am completely dependent on God to see any change happen in anyone's life, and I am also completely dependent on him and his strength to get me through the day.

Okay, now for a quick update on what actually happened this week. So, the students arrived on Monday and that basically changed everything. There are now 80 people here instead of 30, lots of relationships to be built! The schedule this week was pretty intense since the students needed to get orientated (I know that's not a word but I like it better) for the summer. Wednesday and Sunday were the days most worth writing about I think. Wednesday we had from 9am-2pm to get with our roommates, who would also be our Bible study for the summer, and share what's called our "soul to souls." It's essentially an extended testimony that's like 20-25 minutes (or at least its supposed to be) and we go through our history, heritage, heroes, hard times, and high points. It's kind of a crash course in each others lives to build some honesty and trust into the group and so for the rest of the summer we can really see where others are coming from as we live with them and deal with conflict. Me and my co-leader JP shared ours Tuesday night to model it, and then on Wednesday we went to the Redwood forest and heard all the guys share theirs. It was definitely a really sweet time of laying a foundation for relationships that will last a lifetime and just encouraging to hear what God had done in all of our lives to bring us to be sitting in the redwoods together. After that we had fun day which involved lots of games and a scavenger hunt and a really good meal to cap it all off. Sunday afternoon was our first outreach. We went downtown and used a tool called Soularium to engage the community in spiritual conversations. For those of you who haven't used it before, it's got 50 pictures that we laid out on the sidewalk and when people stopped to look we asked told them it was a picture survey about life and spirituality and asked if they wanted to take it. The questions associated with it are which 3 pictures best describe your life, which 3 pictures do you wish described your life, and which picture best represents God to you? If you want to see the images, and how other people responded to the survey check out mysoularium.com. It was cool because it was unimposing on the people downtown, they approached us, and that also was a good first place to start for a lot of really nervous summer project students! They got to have some really cool conversations, listening to folks share their stories and what they believe about God and quite a few of them got to share in response what they believed about God! One such person was my man Sam Turkal, he was with me and really stepped up boldly into something he'd never done before and went through the Gospel with Jazz and Christian, two folks we went through the survey with.

Thanks again guys for all that you do for me! I love you all very dearly and you mean the world to me.

Look below for some prayer requests!


Some things you can be praying for are...

- 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 God to raise up leaders among the students to take our place when we're gone.

- 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 that to be contagious to the students that they would really work as one for the summer especially once the staff have left.

- Pray for clarity for my really good friend here named Nichole! She says shes real confused about a lot of things and asked me to pray for her not to be confused anymore!

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.

Full Swing of Things

Hey everyone! So, welcome to my first blog post in months. Life has been absolutely CRAZY, so here goes my attempt to catch you all up on it, as well as some things coming up that you can pray for. This will also serve as my first monthly prayer letter to those who support me for my Cru Internship. The plus side of that is that there is now guaranteed to be at least one blog post a month on here! =] However, that doesn't mean that there won't be blog posts that aren't prayer letters, just that all of my prayer letters will also be blog posts. Make sense? Let me know if it doesn't.

So, school has not only officially started but is now in full swing, hence the title of this blog post. I am taking 20 credit hours of school (so glad I'm not an engineer), and also interning with Cru, which takes at least 15 hours each week but usually ends up being closer to 20. So as you can imagine I stay very busy. All this just to give you an idea of how much has actually happened since I last posted a blog and since I last talked to some of you in person. As busy as things have been, I would not say things have been overwhelming and with the exception of a few of my classes/assignments it's all been things that I thoroughly enjoy. One of the things that Todd Smith said my freshman year that has stuck with me is not to do anything by yourself. That's the reason that I manage to meet with all the people that I meet with during the week is that I don't eat any meals by myself and I try not to do anything without a purpose. My day to day schedule basically consists of class, homework, bible studies, and meeting with people one on one. I meet with 6 or 7 guys each week, including Todd who disciples me. The rest of those are either younger believers that I'm meeting with for whats called Discipleship, or non believers that I'm trying to be intentional about loving on and sharing the Gospel with. One of my best friends this year has been a guy named Cody Hanna, shout out to him if he's reading this. We hang out at least every Friday, and its been a real blessing to get to know him and we've had some great discussions, it's awesome to hear his thoughts on things. To explain more about Discipleship for a second, it's so much more than just sitting across a table from someone for an hour once a week and getting into the Word, so much more than just a one on one Bible study. When you look at Jesus and His disciples, or Paul and Timothy, what you see is that they did life together. They did ministry together, they did accountability, they spent time just plain hanging out, etc. That's what I try to see happen in my discipleship relationships, and obviously the way things are with classes and etc we don't spend every waking moment together like those Biblical figures did but I think you all see the point. I say this so that when I throw out the word "Discipleship" in these prayer letters, you all will know what I am talking about. Shout out to Kenny Ragsdale who has put up with me in that kind of a relationship for over a year now, love that guy. My Bible study has gotten off to a great start by the grace of God, I can't believe how much my guys have grown up over the summer. Many of the young men who were kind of on the outskirts not really consistent in coming have really built strong walks with the Lord over the summer and are now some of our core guys. We're pumped to be seeing about 20 guys coming out each week and we've already had some really good discussions. My favorite thing has been to see a lot of the guys being more outwardly focused and really being intentional about pouring into other guys lives to try and make a difference for the Gospel. Some of my Bible study guys are now leading their own Bible studies and I've met many of my "grandbabies" in the faith this year, which is kind of silly but it has been very exciting. Some of them even got baptized this past weekend. I've also gotten more involved this year with my church here at school, The Summit.

Some big events that have happened so far this year that I want to praise the Lord for have been The Summit's Church at the Ballpark, and NC State's Campus Crusade movement had our annual Fall Retreat. Very recently The Summit church in Durham had it's Church at the Ballpark, I hope it was the first of many. The church has about 6,000 members and this was the first time that the whole church had worshiped together in about 10 years. We rented out the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and had well over 7,200 people at one church service, it was like nothing I've ever seen before. The pastor gave a Gospel presentation and then they opened it up for baptisms and we saw nearly 400 people get baptized. I had the privilege of being a baptism counselor, helping walk people from death into life. They intend to open baptisms up again this weekend for those who didn't get the chance last weekend and I plan on being a baptism counselor again. Also, just a few weekends ago, NC State Campus Crusade had their annual Fall Retreat. We had about 350 students come out to Camp Dixie for a weekend (some of you Salem folks know all about that). The exciting thing was that we had a lot of freshman come out this year, I would say nearly half of that 350 were freshman. Fall Retreat is always a time where many freshman get plugged into Bible studies, build relationships that last through college, and even make decisions to live for Christ in college. I got to lead a small group at Fall Retreat and it was cool to see some of the people in the group making decisions like that they wanted to be more committed to getting into the Word of God daily.

One big event that is coming up for us is our annual Barn Party. This is always the most fun thing that NC State Cru does every single year. We always have a ton of people come out who are not normally involved in our movement and it's good to see a lot of those people experience the body of Christ. We will be having line dancing and hay riding and lots of good food! Please be praying that this event would be successful and that many people would come out and that God would get glory from relationships that are built.

Prayer Requests:

- Above all please pray for my personal walk with the Lord, that I wouldn't get so caught up in my busy schedule that I forget to spend time with Him.

- Please Pray that the Bible study would continue to grow and press outward to make an impact for the Gospel

- Pray for Cody, and some of the other guys that I've been getting to know this year. Pray that they would experience Christ in a real way.

- Pray for the Barn Party, that God would use this incredibly fun event to be glorified and that the body of Christ would really be on display.

- Pray for me to continue to manage my time well, so that I can have a healthy balance between my school work and really investing my time in other peoples lives.

- Pray for the guys in my study who are leading their own studies that God would help them build great relationships with their guys.

- Pray for the 3 guys that I'm currently Discipling; Brad, Christian, and Kenny, that God would be able to use me to impact their lives for the Gospel and that they would then impact others.

Thank you all SOOO much! I don't know what I would do without you. Your support in so many different ways is vital to everything that God has allowed me to do at N.C. State. Please let me know if you have any prayer requests, I'd love to return the favor. All of this is also going to be posted on my blog at mdcoope3.blogspot.com and soon I will put some pictures on there, so please check that out and I believe if you click "Follow" it should allow you to receive emails when I post a blog.

In Christ,

Matt

Life in Apex

If you know anything about Apex, then you know why I don't have much to write about lol. Today though I went and helped with a service project through the Summit, which is the church I go to in Durham. I love it. Anyway, we were originally supposed to be doing work at A.V. Baucom Elementary, which is my old elementary school, but they were finished before we arrived. They still put us to work though, they moved us to Apex Middle School which is my old middle school and we helped with landscaping. It was fun, the only person from the school there was my old Assistant Principal, Mrs. Avramidis. That was nice seeing her though, and kind of surprising that she remembered me since that was so long ago and it was such a large school. We got a lot of work done in a short amount of time though and I even got to help plant the new Apex Middle School Spirit Rock. =] I went out to lunch with my dad yesterday, and it was awesome, we had one of the best conversations we've ever had with each other. Thanks Dad! Later tonight I'm going to a Saturday night church service at the Summit, and then going to see Harry Potter for the second time with Chris Yow. I saw the midnight showing the other night and it was so much fun, we dressed up and everything.  We went to get dinner as a group beforehand and I got to share the Gospel with a homeless guy when I gave him our leftover Pokey Stix. For those of you who don't know, those are like garlic cheesy breadsticks, they are great. I also got to see Kenny again that night for the first time since I've been back because he came to the movie with us, love that guy! We went before the movie and visited Mike Mehaffie, he just recently had some major eye surgery so pray for a quick and successful recovery for him! It was great to see him again too. Tonight I'm going to church with Chris for the first time ever and I'm really excited about it, then we're seeing the movie and he is sleeping over at my house. I saw Chris about a week ago for about 2 hours but this will be our first real opportunity to catch up and I'm really excited for it. Also in the past few weeks I've been raising support, and making phone calls just about every day for an internship I'm doing in the Fall and that's been faith stretching.

God has been definitely moving in my heart since I've been back. I've had to be disciplined in continuing to have a daily quiet time without a team of people around me encouraging me and holding me accountable. I've had to be disciplined as well in making lots of phone calls that I don't want to make every day about raising support, it can be a pretty stressful process but I know I'm growing through it. The biggest thing God is teaching me right now is to be intentional in looking for opportunities to share my faith. They have always been right there in my lap as far as campus ministry and spending my summer's on mission trips. This is the first time in over 2 years that I've spent more than a Christmas break in Apex and I don't want to waste these months. I know there are opportunities to share the Gospel, I just have to be proactive in finding them instead of just waiting for them to fall in my lap. That's what led me to sign up for the service project I did today, and I was really excited to get to talk to that homeless guy on Thursday night. Pray for me to continue to look for opportunities and make the most of them when I find them. It's true that there are fewer opportunities here than at N.C. State but there are still plenty of people in Apex who need to hear the Gospel I just don't necessarily interact with them on a daily basis. Thanks for taking time to read this, I love you all!

Prayer Requests:
- My internship requires that I build a team of ministry partners to support me financially and make my ministry possible, right now I'm working on building that team so that I can actually do the internship in the Fall. I'm 6 weeks behind because of my trip to Africa.
- Senegal's political situation (see Pray for Senegal), and the hearts of the students I met while I was there, that God would grow the seeds we planted and prepare them to be harvested.
- For me to find and take advantage of opportunities to share the Gospel while I'm in Apex for the remainder of the summer.

In Christ,
Matt