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

Pray for Senegal

Hey everyone!

Please, please, please pray for Senegal, especially the city of Dakar. You may or may not know that there was some rioting there while I was in the country, a lot of political unrest about the President. Long story short nobody likes him and he tried to pass some bills that would keep him in power when nobody wants him to get re-elected next year. The electrical power has also been getting worse and worse there and that's government run. The riots have intensified since my team and I left the country, in fact there is now a curfew in effect on Dakar, the city that I was staying in. Also, some radical Muslim groups that have up until now been pretty underground groups are now using the political unrest and the rioting as pretense for attacking churches. Several evangelical churches in Dakar, at least 6 to my knowledge, have been attacked and burned down by these radical groups. I am especially worried about the safety of many of my Senegalese friends and Nationals who were working with the organization I was there with, they attend evangelical churches and I honestly have no idea it could have been their's that was burned down. There aren't a ton of evangelical churches in Senegal so it wouldn't be a stretch. Please pray for the country, and for my friends. Pray that God would show up there in a mighty way, to protect the believers there and to use this for His Glory. Pray for Pascal and his family, Yasenth (sp?) and his family, Martin, Severe, Pacifique, Ida, Etienne and all of his cousins, Samba, etc. Thank you all, I love you!

In Christ,
Matt

Settling In, but not Settling

Well everyone, I'm back in America and now have time to write in more time and with more detail about all the craziness of this summer, as I'm just resting all of today and tomorrow. I'm still not going to tell everything because I have to leave something to tell you all when I meet you in person lol.

God has done and taught me so much, I honestly am not sure where to start. Let me give you the big picture, and then hone in on details. If you've been reading my blogs up to this point then you'll have read about a lot of it. You'll have read about how God has broken my heart for the lost and especially the 10/40 window. You'll also have read about how God tore down sinful pride that was filling my heart but covered up on the surface level, and taught me how to live a life that makes much of Him instead of myself. I didn't actually mention in my blogs but at the end of the summer we counted up and between the 16 of us over the course of 6 weeks we shared the Gospel about 1,000 times with over 450 DIFFERENT people. 9 people put their faith in Jesus Christ and in doing so despite the sacrifices that it required, gave God glory. They decided that no matter what they had to give up, He was worth it. One example in particular of someone who had to give up much was a Muslim background young man who has decided a relationship with Jesus Christ was worth more than potentially his family relationships. Then there was Etienne who decided that in light of his new relationship with Christ he would drop everything and begin to be an ambassador for Christ, I am so proud of him. God already has and is going to continue to use him to do big things in Senegal. These are the major points of what happened this summer, time to elaborate.

Point one: heart for the lost. The 10/40 window is the area from 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees longitude that contains nearly all of the world's remaining unreached people groups. An unreached people group is a group of people that does not have any access to the Gospel. How that is actually measured and quantified varies I believe but the gist of it is that they would walk for days and day and not find anyone who could share the Gospel with them. Senegal is included in this window. If you lined up all the people who are unreached in a single file line they would circle the earth 25x. Can you imagine a line of people as long as the earth, 25 people wide, trampling to destruction? This was just a statistic to me until I spent every day for 6 straight weeks driving past a huge graveyard full of people who had never heard the name of Jesus or seen a Bible. I will now spend the rest of my life doing something about this problem, whether God calls me personally to go live overseas or not I will always be involved prayerfully and financially in sending the Gospel to the 10/40 window.

Point Two: brokenness. There is an entire post about this, so I'll keep it relatively short. I was living a life to glorify myself, all under the pretense that it was for the glory of God. That's not an easy confession to make, but it's true. Even my God given spiritual gift of evangelism I was using so people would say "wow look how successful he is!" God spent all summer showing me how not one single aspect of my life is to make much of myself, not even my salvation. All of it was to make much of Him. Even the fact that I have had access to a Bible and the Gospel for my entire life is an undeserved gift of God that I took for granted until I collided with a people group who hadn't been exposed to either, ever. The fact that I even know who Jesus is is entirely a work of God, and has nothing to do with me. Why did he do it? Did he do it because he wanted to make much of me? No. He did it because he loved me, yes. But not an American definition of love, where you make much of the person you love. A Godly love where he loves me enough to give me himself, so I can be satisfied in Him and in being satisfied in Him, also glorify Him. Life is not about making much of me, its about making much of Him. By consequence, this means making little of myself, and I'm okay with that now.

Point 3: 16 people, 6 weeks.The Gospel was shared 1,000 times with over 450 different people, most of whom had never heard it before. 9 people put their faith in the Lord. Because of point 2 I want to take time to emphasize that none of this had ANYTHING to do with me or my team being awesome. We were only faithful, God did the rest. Because of your prayers, and because of God's Spirit, we were able to see and be a part of these incredible things.

Point 4: my Muslim background friend. He is from the Wolof people group, which is one of the unreached people groups I was talking about above. There are over 5 million people in this people group, and only 150 believers, there is no complete Bible in Wolof. It is 0% Evangelical Christian, and my friend is being discipled to begin to share his faith. In case your faith isn't that big of a deal to you, this guys family might not ever speak to him again. I can't even begin to imagine sacrificing the things he will have to sacrifice, but God gets the glory because guess what? My friend looked at the Bible, saw Christ for who He really was and said if this is really true then it is worth giving up EVERYTHING that I have. He hasn't actually sacrificed a thing either, he has gained.

Point 5: Etienne. I can't say enough, and I've said a ton already, so I'll summarize. I hope Etienne is reading this right now. I'm so proud of him. First I saw him go from death into life, talking about how big of a decision it was whether to open his life to Jesus or not, because he knew he'd have to follow it his whole life. He decided Jesus was worth it and he never looked back. The Spirit came into his life as promised, and God began changing him from the inside out. He quickly became bold and passionate about Jesus, and before long was sharing his faith with family members and friends. 3 weeks after becoming a believer he had helped me lead 3 more people to put their faith in Christ. Then I left Dakar to go to debriefing, and he led another guy to invite Jesus into his heart without me even being around. He has grown so much, truly he has grown into a man of God. Being a part of his life this summer and a part of his growth was an honor and a blessing. God is going to use him for huge things, and I can't wait to hear all about it. Glory isn't to Etienne though, glory is to God. Before God came into his heart, Etienne was a cool guy, but I couldn't have said any of what I just said about him. Etienne is a living testament to the radical life change that is supposed to happen once you open your heart to Jesus. I love you dude, I'm proud of you, and I'm praying for you.

In summary, I will say one more thing that God has taught me. My last post was titled Home Sweet Home, and now that I think about it thats not totally true. When I come back to America, I miss Etienne and other dear friends. When I go back to Senegal, I miss my family and my friends here. I miss my Bible study. Home is heaven, where I won't miss any of them. I'm settling back into life in America, but I'm not settling for just any life. I'm following Etienne's lead, I'm living in light of the Gospel, living passionately for Christ. I'm not wasting my life.

In Christ,
Matt

Home Sweet Home

Hey everyone!

mdcoope3.blogspot.com

I am posting now to let you all know I am home, and it was an incredible summer! It was also rather exhausting though, especially the plane flight back and the jet lag. So, I won't be writing anything more here about the trip, although there is more to tell. This is officially the end of this emailing list, however I will continue to update my blog regularly (perhaps more regularly now that I'm in the US). I will also be bringing back my Facebook that I had been fasting from for quite a while now. Many pictures will be posted there. The link to that is www.facebook.com/mdcooper Thanks again for everything you all did to make this summer possible, I love you all!

In Christ,

Matt

We're all safe!

Hey guys,

I just wanted to post and let you guys know we're all safe in sound. As you may or may not have heard there has been some political unrest in Senegal over the presidency. They don't like him and with elections being next year he is trying to enact some very unpopular laws to keep himself in power. That's the shortened version but anyway Dakar is the capital (where we've been living and doing ministry) so that's where the "action" has taken place. There were some demonstrations downtown yesterday and we live at least 20 minutes from there depending on traffic and didn't leave our compound yesterday almost all day and stayed far away from any protests. It's actually been pretty interesting to observe from a distance, it's not every day you see a fully armed riot squad rolling by on the street. Anyway we aren't in Dakar anymore we're 3 hours from there at a remote location for our debrief. It's very peaceful here and we'll be here the remainder of our trip, were only going back to Dakar to go to the airport basically. I'll let you all know when I get back to America safely on the 28th. Peace and blessings!

In Christ,
Matt

P.S. As far as ministry goes we are finished but God is NOT! Even since leaving Dakar I've received a text from Etienne saying he led someone else to Christ! I'm so proud of him :)

More Answered Prayers!

Hey so this one shouldn't be nearly as long, but God did more mind blowing things today. While we have seen 4 people come to Christ as a summer project so far, I was able to see 3 come to Christ before lunch time today!! Every conversation I had, relationships I had built all summer were just bearing fruit right in front of my eyes. I've never seen or been apart of anything like it. 2 of the 3 had something to do with Etienne, go figure. He took his first step as an ambassador for Christ by translating for me as I shared the Good News of Christ with 2 of his friends. He ended up leading them both to Christ. At the end came the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. I'll never forget it. I looked over at Etienne and said "it is so exciting when people move from death into life!" and Etienne was sitting in between the two guys who had just received Jesus into their hearts. He wrapped his arms around both of them, pulled them into his chest and with the biggest grin I've ever seen he said something I'll never forget. He said "they are my younger brothers!" this guy who has been a believer for 3 weeks and known these other guys his whole life. It was like he had a whole new relationship with these guys. They were his brothers in Christ now and he knew it and it filled him with pure, unspeakable joy. Words don't do it. 3 new brothers in Christ today folks, rejoice with the angels.

Answered Prayers

Hey everyone,

I know I just posted yesterday but I want to tell you all about an incredible thing that happened today. I want to tell you because it is an answer to the very things you all have been so faithfully praying at upon my request. I want you to know that your prayers have been answered (or at least hopefully some of them). This post is about the home visit to Etienne's house that I write about yesterday in my P.S.

Honestly it's hard to know where to start or how to collect my thoughts because it all just happened and I'm still kind of full of adrenaline but I wanted to write about it while it was fresh. I'll do my best. Etienne and I went to church together this morning to a French speaking church and it was awesome. He loved it and it was awesome to watch him worship. Afterwards Justin (my director) and I went to his house as planned. We spent all morning and afternoon just hanging out and meeting all of his cousins and uncles who he lives with. For the record if any of you travels overseas for Missions, do home visits early and often because they express SO much care for the person and respect. It means more to them than I can express, and he opened up a ton. He loved showing me hundreds of pictures of his village and family back at home and traditions. So did his Cousin Patrick who I have also blogged about before. If you'll remember, he also came to know Christ earlier in the summer. The other thing about home visits is that they are longgg. Thy are marathons but they are worth it. Anyway, back to the story. Etienne and Patrick left the room at one point and their uncle (who is the head of the family and very influential) said he wished he could participate in the group Bible studies Patrick had been organizing (see the post "launching baby movements") but he is too busy. We told him we'd be glad to share with him some of what we had taught, and handed him a "Knowing God Personally" booklet which is essentially the Gospel summarized into 4 main points and in French and English. He began flipping through the booklet and Patrick and Etienne come back in and we get sidetracked hanging out and talking. About 30 minutes later conversation came to a stop and an awkward silence and we realized that the uncle had been totally disengaged and absorbed in the booklet since we had handed it to him half an hour ago. We said hey man you've been looking at that thing for a while, do you have questions? He did, and long story short we were able to share with him John 3 how Nicodemus was a Pharisee followed all the law but that wasn't enough Jesus said he needed to be "born again." This hits home with Catholics because many of them are in a system of "works-righteousness" which basically means they try to earn their way to heaven by following rules instead of resting in the grace of God displayed by Jesus' death on the cross as payment of our insurmountable debt before God. Anyway so we asked him what he thought it meant to be born again and he didn't know but he wanted to so we explained to him Ezekiel 36:25-27 that God has promised to cleanse us and take out our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh and put in us his Holy Spirit. We emphasized how it was God cleansing us not us cleansing ourselves, and that this prophecy in Ezekiel was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. Things were clicking for him and he knew that being born again meant the Holy Spirit coming into his heart a having that heart of flesh. He recognized that he could have good behavior and still have a heart of stone, and be spiritually dead. We were just about to explain to him that to get the Holy Spirit, this heart of flesh, and be born again all he had to do was repent and believe and ask Jesus into his heart. Then, much to our dismay, he said he had an appointment and would love to keep talking about this but couldn't. God wasn't shaken though, He had this in mind for His glory too. Backtracking, this entire time Etienne and Patrick have been helping translate and helping their Uncle understand the Gospel! :) Anyway, so he has to get going but before he goes we tell him that when he gets back, even though we'll be gone and probably won't ever see him again if he wants to be born again then to ask Etienne and Patrick how to go about doing that, what the next steps are. He said he would! After he left, I asked Etienne and Patrick what they thought they should say to him when he asked. They didn't miss a beat, both of them had already memorized Revelation 3:20 in which Jesus says "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." They knew the Gospel, they had accepted it already. They turned to the prayer in the back of the "Knowing God Personally" booklet which they had both prayed, and said they would have their Uncle read it and tell him that it wasn't that they were magic words but if they expressed the desire of their Uncle's heart then he could pray them and according to Revelation 3:20 Jesus would come into his heart just like He promised, and take out his heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh, and begin a relationship with him. I was ecstatic, these two young Senegalese believers were going to lead their Uncle to begin a relationship with Christ!!!! We're talking about Spiritual Multiplication in SENEGAL!!! IN THE 10/40 WINDOW (if you don't know what that is, google it)!!! After that I had a great discussion with Etienne and Patrick about 2 Corinthians 5:15-21 which talks about us being Christ's ambassador's and how we've been reconciled to Christ and entrusted with His ministry of reconciliation. Through asking questions about the passage, they came to their own conclusion without me shoving it down their throats that helping someone to be reconciled to God (or have peace with God) meant to share Christ with them, because they believed Christ was the only way that peace with God was possible. When that came out of their mouths, I just about lost it. They said it made them sad that so many people in Senegal dying without ever even hearing about Jesus. They understood that God's plan A for getting the Gospel to the Senegalese people was them as ambassadors and there was NO plan B. That if a President sent out his ambassador and that ambassador didn't deliver the message, that it just plain would not get delivered at all. That's HUGE. We also went through Romans 10:14 about how people can't believe in the Good News if they haven't heard it. Patrick said once he knew the Bible as well as Justin and I did, he wanted to travel the world and teach the Bible. They decided their "small" action step to apply what they had learned in 2 Corinthians was going to be to begin trying to be ambassadors to their cousins and uncles that they lived with, including one Muslim cousin. They even asked about verse 16 which talks about not seeing people as the world sees them but as Christ sees them. They drew the conclusion that it meant seeing people not by their outward appearance but seeing people as either having a heart of stone and needing Jesus, or having a heart of flesh and having Jesus. It was AWESOME!!! Some time this week, Etienne is going to help me translate in sharing Christ with one of his friends who doesn't speak English. I cannot describe to you how exciting this afternoon has been with words in this blog post but I hope that right now you're encouraged that your prayers are leading to incredible things happening here in Senegal, and I hope you're almost as pumped as I am about what I'm getting to see God do here first hand. Praise the Lord!!! No glory to me, God gave me His word to teach, He gave me His son to teach about, He gave me His Spirit to guide my conversation, God gave these young Senegalese men His Spirit to understand and be moved to action. GOD is good! GOD is might to save! God is moving and causing Spiritual Multiplication here in Senegal, in the 10/40 window, in an area where thousands of people are dying every day without even having heard the name of Jesus, there are some native believers who are upset by that, and want to do something about it. People who will be here long after I go home in a week. People who have deeper relationships with other Senegalese, people who speak the language, people whose lives are beginning to be radicalled shaped by Christ in a way that provides testimony to the people that they are living with. I can't get my mind around it. In Senegal sometimes we are seed planters, and often times we don't see those seeds grow or come to fruition but today God blessed me with seeing everything I have worked towards and prayed for this summer come to fruition right in front of me. This was why I spent a majority of my summer in a little Copy Shop with Etienne and Patrick. This was why God sent me to Senegal, this was why God asked you all to give financially so I could be here, this was what we've all been praying for. I don't know how to wrap this blog post up well, which is probably why I'm still going on and on, but today was amazing, thank you all again for everything that you do. None of this would be possible without you, I can't say that enough. I love you all, keep praying!

In Christ,
Matt

Final Sprint

Me and Usher

Me and Stephen/Etienne (If you follow Anna's blog, this is the guy from the dream) my new brother in Christ!

Hey folks,

Blog link (with pictures of Etienne and other names you've heard me write about): mdcoope3.blogspot.com

It's time for the final sprint. I'm beginning the process of going harder in one week for the Gospel than I might have previously thought was possible, and quite honestly I'm not going into it armed with a full tank. I'll explain in a moment what that is going to look like, but first I want to start as always by thanking each and every one of you for your support, which I absolutely could not do without under any circumstances. God used you all to get me here and he has use you all to get me through, so THANK YOU for being willing to be used in that way.

This past week has been pretty crazy. One of our teammates, Ben, was sick for about a wee and a half and finally got sent home. He wasn't deathly sick or anything but it wasn't really getting better and we basically realized that if he stayed he wouldn't get back on campus to do ministry at all anyway, and he needed to get home to better medical facilities to figure out hat it was. Now he is home safe, and has been diagnosed with mono :( pray for him please! Anyway through all that we were all pretty affected because we lost our project directors for a week essentially to constant trips back and forth to the clinic, constant phone calls to Campus Crusade back in the U.S. as well as Ben's parents and etc. This also left a lot of responsibility on the other staff members (like me). It was crazy spending most of the week as the only guy staff member that was around and available. I ha to impromptu lead a lot of devotionals and things like that which were scheduled to be Justin, and fell on me. Even little things like helping get our team out the door in the mornings, and enforcing curfew. It was faith stretching. One of the things that kind of got forgotten about in the process was our weekly outreach. We realized the day before that we hadn't secured a place to have it, and that was my entire day that day trying to make it happen. God is good though and we got a GREAT place for it at the last second. The outreach was a Christmas in June party, which was awesome. We got to teach our curious Senegalese friends about the biggest Holiday in America and all of our fun traditions. In the process we were able to tell them why it was so important to us, the birth of our Savior. We read them some prophecies from Isaiah as well as the stories of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke. Then a girl from our team, Brinkley, shared her testimony of how Jesus had changed her life. We also had a lot of time talking and hanging out and enjoying sharing culture with them. We cut out snowflakes and stockings and put them on the walls. The stockings had Senegalese names like Fatou and Etienne and Babacar and Ousmane. :) We also decorated cookies, and played Christmas music!

Anyway, more about the sprint. There have been a lot of comparisons here about STINT (being here for a year or two) being like a marathon, and summer project being like a sprint. The STINT schedule is much less intense and full than ours, what we do is NOT sustainable in the long term. We're like special ops or something, we come in with the man power and energy to provide a short term boost to the ministry here, and since we aren't here for long we can go harder. Cross country and track people know what I'm talking about here; if the race is shorter, you have the freedom to run faster. If it's longer, you have to show discipline in pacing yourself. What I'm doing here has been specifically compared to a 400 race. Its 1 lap so it's just short enough to be a sprint, and just long enough to make your legs want to give out at the end. I have never personally ran in one of these races but my director has described it as your body basically giving up and you only make it to the end because you see the finish line and your willpower kicks in. You see it and you realize the harder you push to get there the sooner rest comes. "Rest is coming soon, I can see it, but now is the time to give everything I have left." This is my mindset for the next week. We get Monday through Thursday here doing ministry. Thursday night is our goodbye party, and then Friday morning we leave for our debriefing. That will be blissfully sweet rest but now is not the time for that, now is the time to do everything I can in faith so that when I leave I can rest peacefully knowing I did everything God asked me to do and the rest is up to Him as far as the salvation of my friends here. Oh, how I pray that I will see them in heaven one day. Pray that with me and God Willing (or Inshallah as they say here in Senegal) I will introduce you to my friends here in heaven one day. Anyway pray with me and for me this week that God's Spirit provides me with energy that I don't have for this final push, so that I can leave nothing on the table. So I can do everything God calls me to do and when rest comes that it will be a peaceful rest because of that. As I push harder, y'all pray harder! :) Thanks so much, I can't wait to see you all very soon.

Prayer Requests:

- For energy in the last leg of this sprint.

- For Babacar (both of them), and Hdiangue, and Usher, and Musa, and Djamel, and Frederic, that the Spirit would move in their hearts and show them their need for a Savior, and show them that Christ is that Savior. For me to have Words to speak as I share the Gospel with them just a few more times.

- For the rest of my team and their contacts, the same prayer request as above.

- For Etienne and Patrick and Paul Demba and Paula (Praise the Lord!) as they continue to learn what their new relationships with God practically look like and how to follow Christ.

- Safe travel to our debriefing location, and a God given time of rest and reflection on the summer.

- That every student at the University of Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) comes to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

In Christ,

Matt

P.S. If you were astute enough to observe that I'm sending this on Saturday instead of Sunday then here's why: I have a visit to Etienne's house tomorrow afternoon! I'm very excited :)

Beautiful song about God's heart from the nations, based on Scripture.

Bittersweet Countdown

I jacked this picture from Anna, although I shared in the experience haha, this was AWESOME

Hey everyone!

blog link: mdcoope3.blogspot.com (I will try to put pictures up)

I miss you all a ton, and I hope things are going great wherever you so happen to be. Of course I will start by thanking you all for your ongoing support. I need it very badly. Your prayers especially, but also for your encouragement! Thanks so much to those of you who emailed me or commented on the blog, it was refreshing to hear from you and I hope you'll keep it up. For those of you that I didn't hear from, I'd still love to.

I just finished reading the book "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper and it was pretty good. He says countless times in the book that "He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." that's such an amazing thing that we don't have to choose between a miserably stoic and therefore unhappy life that pleases God and "doing things our way." We can be eternally satisfied in a beautiful God and experience unspeakable joy and in doing so make much of God. The apostle Paul's words will not leave my mind when he said "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." I pray that I would continue to learn to live that way. To truly believe that God's steadfast love is greater than life.

Anyway, this is a taste of what God has been teaching me, on to Senegal stuff. If you can't tell from my last blog post, I'm trying to be transparent with these blogs and let you all see my heart. It's not all smiles and laughter all the time. I love it here, but to be honest sometimes I don't even really like it haha. I love the awesome cross cultural experiences that I would be missing if I hadn't come. I love the people. I love experiencing community with African brothers and sisters in Christ. I love the many many dear friends I have made on campus, Senegalese students close to my age and oh how I desire for them to know and experience a relationship with God. The sad reality is that most of them don't, and for many of them that might never change, though I'll never stop praying for it to happen. I can't describe to you what it's like to every day go past a massive graveyard full of people who never knew the Jesus that died for them. Many of them never even heard, never had the chance to know Him. Brothers and sisters, does that break your heart? It should, it breaks God's heart. It's a huge problem that EVERY believer in Christ is called to be a part of. I know that sounds crazy and maybe you disagree but for me having been here I know that whether or not God calls me back to live here (I don't think he has long term) I will always give and I will always pray because I am not okay at all with how many people die having never heard the name of Jesus, never seen a Bible.

In addition to seeing that tragedy first hand every day, there have been a lot of long, tough conversations that try my patience. As I shared last time, there are many discomforts. It's hot and dry all the time, you are constantly dirty and thirsty. However, in this environment growth in Christ is unavoidable which is beautiful. There are many beautiful things about this place that I will miss when I'm gone but to be totally honest there have been times when I have desired nothing more than to be just that, gone. 

Anyway, I can't wait to see you all. Pray for my friends Babacar (two of them), Usher, Musa, Hdiague, Arthur, Toumani, Saiv. There are many many others but these are the ones I have met with the most. Some are closer and more open than others but all of them don't know God and are in need of a Savior. Pray for me as I begin the bittersweet countdown of 16 more days. I will miss it, but I can't wait to leave lol. Hearing from you all is so refreshing, so make that happen if possible.

Prayer Requests:

- All the names I listed above, that conversations would go well with them and that they would come to know Christ

- Our team member Ben, he has been sick with a fever since Monday or Tuesday and so that's a pretty huge prayer request. We want to see him get better and back doing ministry as soon as possible.

- The guys from the Bible study I led this year. I really hope and pray that they are having strong walks with the Lord wherever they are this summer, and I can't wait to see them again. If ya'll are reading this, love you guys!

- Etienne (Stephen) and Patrick as they begin walking with Christ and experiencing His love and plan for their lives.

- That every student at the University of Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) would come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

In Christ,

Matt