Quick Follow-Up

Hey guys! I had to pen (yes I know I'm typing) this one down. Especially after the most recent post. I'm ok. I've worked through everything with prayer and re-focusing myself on what matters, and I feel great as a result. So let me tell you about this dream I had last night.

I honestly don't remember a whole lot about it save for a few specific instances, and what I would call still shots in my mind. However, what they tell you about how long dreams actually last...maybe that's all it was anyway. I certainly don't remember it as vividly as some of the other dreams I've had, and there wasn't a surreal intensity like there has been in the past, but this one was still very interesting.

My purpose here was pretty obvious when I came. I was to work with special needs college students for a year, and grow in my personal relationship with God. Well, as that part of my journey comes to an end (the students go home for winter break in less than 2 months and I will likely be moving on in my life). I started to desire clarity on what my next step was.

What am I meant to do? Some people know what they want to do from the get go. They work and aim everything towards that goal. I truly envy that sometimes. I can honestly say I've never had that clarity in my life. My interests and goals are constantly shifting from one thing to the next. I enjoy a lot of different types of things, and I tend to learn things rather quickly so it's difficult to pinpoint one thing I enjoy above the others.

I'm not complaining, I rather enjoy being this way, however as I said sometimes it would be nice to have more direction. I suppose that's something that makes me unique though, and I should embrace it. Regardless, I have been praying for clarity in this matter as I tend to be a worrier about my future in the weirdest of ways (I used to take 3am walks around our neighborhood looking at the stars and just thinking. This started around the time I was 16).

I've definitely never had anything to worry about. I would more say I was wrestling with what I truly wanted to do. That eventually gave way to wrestling between the desires of this world, and pursuing a relationship with God and the gains that come with that. Well now that I've finally decided to let things here go and pursue Him 100% what do I do?

I mean there's not really a blueprint for it. Technically there is if you want to follow Jesus. Or Paul. But who really wants to do that? I mean that's crazy right? Go around preaching the Gospel and working on the side to pay your own expenses. Actually I've seriously thought about how to go about doing this multiple times. (Yes I am definitely crazy, I'll admit that.) I know that there are missionaries with this exact purpose, and I've been looking around to try and get involved with a group. So far nothing has stood out.

I don't think I discussed it but there was a missionary group here at the school a few weeks ago performing cultural dances and music. It was a fascinating show with primal drumming and all. The cultures covered were Fiji, Samoa, and New Zealand among others. I was really into it. I also met a bunch of the people involved after the show. I thought that was my sign, but have since cooled off. I will continue praying on that path.

However what I really want to get to in this post is my dream last night. As I stated before, I am a bit anxious about the next step after I leave the university here. I haven't really had any indication that I've recognized, but maybe that in itself is telling. Maybe I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to?

Last night before I went to sleep I asked the LORD to speak to me through dreams, so I could have a better understanding of what I was supposed to do. I have had super vivid "rapture" dreams before, and was initially a bit underwhelmed as I woke in the morning without such an experience. As I lay in bed trying to get the energy and will to sit up, I suddenly remembered I had asked God to speak to me in my dreams and I struggled to remember what I had just been dreaming about.                          

The typical rope ladder at a carnival.

Luckily a few still images remained in my mind, and as I concentrated I was able to piece together a few more parts of the dream. To explain one part of the dream I have to let you know that I watched somewhat of a documentary on carnival games before I went to sleep. The documentary basically went through each game and categorized them into 3 categories. 1 - chance games, 2 - skill games, and 3 - nearly impossible games.

The rope ladder was in category 3 as a nearly impossible game. They said that if you had enough practice at it, you could eventually master it and win every single time. I guess subconsciously my mind thought this was a good metaphor for faith because that was one of the images in my mind. The science behind the rope ladder is that it's only secured at 1 point on each side instead of 2. This makes it almost impossible to keep your center of gravity in the right place. You have to keep it literally in a straight line from one point to the opposite point in order to not fall off.

Anyways, so in my dream I'm walking standing straight up on this rope ladder. Except instead of just rope, it was filled in with scripture. I was walking on living scripture on old parchment written in Hebrew, and as I stepped on each piece it would come alive, the paper would turn to gold and the letters would float off of the page upwards to envelop me. I also remember knowing that I could experience what Jesus was thinking and feeling at the time that he was alive while I was walking. I also remember that the supposedly unstable ladder was as stable as a treadmill when I was walking on it, which was surprising.

The other image I remember is that I was building a house. I was supervising the building, but I wasn't really there. I was more ethereal than anything I would say. I could see the house. It was a nice 2 story typical American single family home, but it was in large square blocks. Some of the blocks were turned 180 degrees and facing the wrong way. I had a crane at my disposal and directed the crane to pick up the block to the left of the door that was facing the wrong way and turn it 180 so it was the right way. There were a few other blocks turned like this, but I was on my way to fix them as well.

That's when I woke up. I think there are some obvious things to take from that, but also some pretty encrypted messages. If anyone has any interpretations I would definitely be open to it haha. I intend to keep praying for some indication, and I will continue to pay attention to my dreams since I know that is one way God communicates with us.

Also, I thought it was pretty awesome that I woke up to a Facebook message from my good buddy Gino who had promised to donate some hockey equipment to the kids here in Daegu who couldn't afford it. I am seriously excited about the opportunity to help them, and I look forward to getting involved. I'm not sure if that will be my final destination here, or I will just be passing through but it will be interesting to see a rink again nonetheless.

I'll keep all you guys updated, and I appreciate you coming to read! Also, while I'm not doing this to make a living, I do want to let everyone know that I was approved for an ad sense account through Google. This basically means that the newly added ads on my blog page now support me (to the tune of about 1 penny a click I believe). So while I'm not going to be working to promote myself or market this in any way, by all means click away lol. Thanks for reading!

Life update

Hey guys! It's been a little while since I did my review of the intensive training here, and even longer since I've done any intra-personal reflection. A lot of my posts lately have been an external view of what I feel is the landscape of the church here in Korea, and I would be remiss if I didn't discuss what was going on inside of me lately.

So I'm just gonna come out with it. I've been pretty depressed lately. To the point where I haven't been talking to anyone. This started two Saturday's ago, and was really for no reason. Nothing bad had happened, life was normal, I just felt very lonely and away from God. I'm sure everyone has felt this in the past, and I have as well, but it was the first time since being here that I had this sensation.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the problem was. I should for all intents and purposes be happy with my life, I just felt empty. It was the weirdest thing, because even the day before I was excited and loving life. Why then would things pull a 180, and more importantly how...so fast? I decided I definitely needed to pray about it and take a look deep inside to see what was really going on with me.

I've detailed many times on here how I came back to God, but it bears repeating - even if just a short review. I was invited by my buddy Matt Gates on a Christian hockey retreat in North Dakota with another Christian friend. I picked them both up in Milwaukee, and before we had even gotten out of the city we were in a full conversation about God. It was then that I truly felt Christ's love in my heart, and it was the most incredible joyous, warm, sensational feeling I've ever had in my life.

A year later, Gater and I went again, yet this time things were a bit different. I was a year into my walk with God, and a more mature Christian. There were also more mature topics on the horizon. I remember the pastor of the church that sponsors the event (Hi pastor Kurt!) was going to talk that weekend about a book called "Mansions of the Heart". From what I gathered while talking with Gater on the way was that the book talked about the stages of your relationship with God. Detailing things from how close you feel originally, to the times when you feel God has left you completely.

In my infantile faith, I was in a bit of denial about the latter. How could anyone actually feel that way? God is always with us right? That's what the Bible tells us. I was certain I'd never go through that. I don't have real problems. My life is great...right? If anything, things are too easy and I have to create problems for myself just to have a better testimony (see 10 year faith hiatus and destructive behavior post). That's truly neither here nor there, but even in faith we can have unrealistic expectations, and succumb to complacency.

So at least I wasn't completely unprepared when this hit me like a freight train. Was I relegated to not being able to get out of bed in the morning due to crippling depression? No, I'm not claiming that. However, I am stating that I felt completely empty. I didn't care about anything or anyone in my life. Not that there was any malicious intent in these thoughts, think more of a complete and utter carelessness in the true sense of the word (not it's current meaning of being reckless).

I had no purpose. I had no goals. I felt that I was just floating. I still went through my daily routine. I was able to converse with people, and I'm sure I otherwise appeared completely normal on the outside, but I have to admit that I kinda felt like I was watching a first person point-of-view movie. This was a pretty crazy sensation to say the least. Especially in comparison to all the spiritual growth I've had here, and everything God has so generously afforded me.

I had to look internally because I knew it wasn't God abandoning me, but had to be something that changed within myself. What could that have been though? I didn't feel any different, I didn't act any different, I didn't think any different...or did I? I had to go through and dig up what I had been thinking about lately. After a few days I started to uncover some truths that I maybe didn't want to initially admit. Possibly other things that Satan had been keeping hidden in order to prolong my sin.

I started thinking about some of the things we had talked about in our small group at the intensive training. The people there were EXTREMELY against things like meditation and yoga, claiming that when you clear yourself of everything, you become empty and that's when evil spirits are able to come inside of you. Initially I thought this was a pretty wild concept considering American culture has no problem with these things. I had never even really thought about them that way, but I can definitely see the logic behind it.

Had I unknowingly invited an evil spirit into me? Was it a subtle one that maybe I couldn't detect? I started thinking about these things, and came to the conclusion that wasn't the case. However, looking deeper into myself I had certainly let sinful thoughts creep in and manifest. This was obviously not deliberate, but over time if you're not diligent these things tend to happen. I had started losing focus of the goal here and having my relationship with God be number 1 in my life. I let pleasures of the flesh dominate my thinking more and more. Just a little bit here, just a little bit there and before I knew it my heart was changing.

I didn't even notice it. It was definitely there though. Thoughts of drinking, sex, money, etc. These aren't things I would ever act on, and I don't know if I would even call them full thoughts or fantasies either. Nevertheless, I subconsciously started to harbor more and more of these, and this separated me from God. Not the other way around.

I had started to let my 'young man' mentality slip in. I may be 31, but there's not much difference between the mind of a 16 year old boy versus a 31 year old man. Little dreams like being successful by the world's standards, having a lot of money so I can provide my family with a nice place to live and my wife with security. Obviously on the surface these thoughts don't seem harmful at all. What's wrong with wanting some security? It's selfless to want your family to feel safe and have enough to live on right?

While it may seem this way, this departs from the fact that God will provide you with what you need. Beyond that, it's up to His will to determine what you will have and not have. I hearken back to reading Job with my church and discussing with Gater about how foolish that book makes prosperity gospel look. I know I'm jumping around with thoughts a bit here, but I'm trying not to get too deep into this particular subject, since there's a ton I could say about it, and this post is meant for something different.

I'll just say this to clarify. Trust God to give you exactly what you NEED to strengthen your relationship with HIM. This is the thought path I was on when I got here, and for the past many months as well. This is why Job is such an important book, because it destroys the notion that if we believe in God we will have financial gain. (We can extend this to health, family, etc, but we will just stick to financial for now). God allowed an extremely wealthy man to lose all of his worldly possessions in order to strengthen his relationship with God. (There were definitely a lot of other factors involved as well, it's not that simple, but the point remains).

Anyways, moving on to the next point. Who you surround yourself with has an IMMENSE impact on your own morals and values. We are all creatures of opinion, and the thing about opinions is that they're always changing based on new information, and pretty fluid in most cases. I consider myself to be pretty stubborn, and yet I still have wavering opinions about a lot of personal moral issues. Obviously the money one is the easiest to talk about, but others include drinking, sex, relationships, and even simpler things like diet, and exercise.

I was letting worldly views infiltrate my heart, and it was wreaking havoc on my spiritual life. Simple thoughts like "I want to buy my fiance a really nice wedding ring to show my love" can really snowball into selfish and materialistic ideologies. These things are symbols of our love, and our way of showing others that we care. Yet, what does it really show? Is it for our significant others? Or is it for others? I tend to believe the latter, that it's important that others look at her hand and say "boy he must really love you". It feeds off of the competition and greed of our fleshly desires.

This is just one example, of course and there are many more. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy but it doesn't seem to me that God gave us all diamond rings to show us that he loved us. Or that he rained gold down from heaven on us. No, what did he do? He sent His son to die for our sins. The ultimate show of self-sacrifice and unconditional love. We are able to love because He first loved us, and in this way we are to show that love to others.

The world would be a much better place if there were less diamond rings, and more metaphorical crosses. I realize that's a pretty bold proclamation, but it needs to be said. It's also truly neither here nor there since the world is currently Satan's domain...but I digress. It's truly a difficult task to take your eyes off the things of the world, and focus completely on trusting God. Especially when you may be in a relationship (or friendship) that demands time/resources/money whatever it may be.

All I can say is don't put your trust in people. They will not only inevitably let you down, but likely they will lead you down the wrong path, away from your spiritual goals. MUCH easier said than done haha. I certainly don't have that figured out yet, that's obvious, but I'm trying. Instead put your trust in God, and He will lead you to Him.

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone is doing well. Reach out if you have any prayer requests, or need any help! I will post again soon!

Review of "18th Multi-Ethnic Intensive Training"

Hello everyone! I finally got some time to post about the missionary meeting that I went to. This was called the '18th Multi-Ethnic Intensive Training', and was a pretty interesting experience overall. I've been pretty critical of Korea recently and I want to be positive because they do definitely deserve credit. I think it's just easier to pick out things you see when you're on the outside. Things stick out more.

So let me start out by saying that they absolutely know their stuff here. The presentation that was put together squeezes a TON of gospel knowledge into just a 3 day intensive training. Everyone received a binder with notes and charts demonstrating what amounted to a gospel system for use in evangelizing. Every single point was backed up with multiple Bible verses. As I said, it was all very impressive.

I went to a church about an hour and a half away from where I'm living called 하나교회 (Hana Gyohwae) or One Church with some guys from school here. This place is HUGE. Yet it's hidden in plain sight. Right off of one of the main roads, and maybe 100 yards from a major subway station. I wouldn't call it a mega-church, it's not that big...but it's surprisingly big for where it is.

The schedule was jam packed from the time we got there on Thursday around 5pm, until the time we left on Saturday around 5pm. I will post pictures of the schedule and binder lower in this post. The format was basically, an hour lecture, followed by an hour small group forum, followed by another hour lecture, followed by another forum, etc. Since we lived so far away also, we slept at the church with the other men who came. We were put in a room on the opposite side of the church from where the lectures were being held in what looked like a break room, and we slept on the floor.

I'm not complaining about the accommodations, just trying to give everyone an idea of what we did. There were more than enough blankets and pillows for everyone, and a bathroom that was easily accessible. They locked the doors at 10:30pm, and since the day ended at 10pm, we had a few minutes to run to the convenient store for a snack or two if we wanted before bedtime. There ended up being around 83 Koreans, and 26 foreigners who attended. I met people from China, Nepal, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ukraine, Russia, Spain, Philippines, Cambodia, and of course Korea. The two languages spoken were Korean, and English.

As the pastor spoke, there was a Korean woman who translated what he said into English. She worked so hard, what an awesome job she did. She was also the leader of my small group so I got to know her over the few days we were together, and that was nice. I also had some inspiration for a blog post while I was listening to the first lecture so I'll probably just fold that into this post wherever it fits. Actually here would probably be good.

As there were a good number of Africans at this meeting, (and me having never actually met an African person) I started thinking about how they had received the Gospel, and how it had evolved. I had many questions such as "How many people read the Gospel for the first time and think good deeds are the way to salvation?" I reasoned that the answer was probably not many. If you truly read the words of Jesus it's clear that believing in Him is the way to salvation. On the other hand though "How many people are fooled into thinking that way due to the current Christianity trends?" I would be willing to bet a lot of people. I can imagine a lot of the messages that come across on Sundays are akin to 'do good', and 'be good.

I started to ponder on what preachers preach on in the U.S. and asked myself if they drive home that Jesus preached on cleaning the inside of the cup first and therefore the outside will be clean? Or do they preach on deeds and the "symptoms" of being a Christian? I even drew a mini chart equating modern medicine with Christianity. A lot of these new pharmaceuticals you see treat one problem you may have, but give you 5 more issues. What's worse is that they don't even treat what is causing the problem, they just mask it. In the same way, I see the church going in the same direction. The general consensus is that there is a list of things to do, and that makes you a Christian. Obviously we have the 10 commandments, but as a modern society I feel that list has grown to include things like "Don't use profanity", and "Be a nice person", and "Don't drink" etc. Truly a lot if not all of these things could be completely fixed by reaching the root of the problem. A separation from God.

I then pondered what the message was in the other parts of the world? What do they focus on in Korea? Is global Christianity (one giant church where everyone agrees on the same things) a good thing, or a bad thing? What about cultural Christianity? Is cultural Christianity more effective? I.E. does it appeal to different cultural factors? For example would preaching about a more emotional side of the gospel be better for America, versus here in Korea where a more legalistic atmosphere is being shaped. I can't honestly remember everything I was thinking about when I wrote that down so I won't be able to be more clear than that, but I will get more into that topic later on anyway. Lastly, there are many different revelations from many different people all over the world. No one has the entire revelation, there are just pieces here and there from God, of course our belief in God would lend itself to trusting that He will reveal what needs to be revealed to people that will be most effective in their teaching.

So I mentioned briefly about the true root of the problem. Our separation from God. That was the main point of the initial lecture, and there is even a giant chart that this pastor has made about it. This chart details original sin, and attempts to show how our separation from God has created all the problems that we have in this day and age. Some examples are mental issues (ADHD, depression, etc), and also physical problems, but even societal issues as well. The answer obviously being Jesus and the re-implementation of the Gospel, and the resulting changes of heart because of it. As I said before, this was incredibly well thought out and supported through the Bible, and I think a great tool for any Christian to have this knowledge....I sense a but coming here...

BUT. Well, I started getting bored over the course of the few days. I found myself having difficulty concentrating (part of that was probably the diet...they fed us carbs and sugar for every meal). Most people were having trouble staying awake after each meal. Also, according to the pastor he goes to all of these other countries to train people and never thinks about the food, just his work teaching so we shouldn't worry about the food either, just focus on the gospel. I'm not sure what he was trying to get across here as many some of it was lost in translation, but it came off a bit pompous to me. Whatever, that's not all that important, though I would hope a guy who's doing all this work for God would be humble.

That wasn't my "but" actually, lol. I felt I had to give some background for what I'm going to say. I'm really starting to learn the lay of the land here in Korea. I've been told by multiple pastors that I should go back home to the U.S. to evangelize, and that I can be the "light" of America. Somehow by myself. I was thinking why they would be telling me that when it's clear there are issues here that need to be fixed, and I was under the impression that I was sent here by God to help this area.

However when you hear from multiple pastors that you should go back home, of course you're going to perk up your ears and wonder. So I prayed about it. I still don't completely have an answer, though I will admit at this point I wouldn't mind going home for awhile. I definitely had an easier lifestyle there haha, but God's will be done, not mine. Anyways I think I got my answer when this pastor started talking about how instead of Koreans going to evangelize the world, he wants to take the foreigners that come to Korea and train them, then send them back to their own countries to evangelize there. I mean logically there's nothing wrong with this. It saves money, and trains people to send out on missions. I just see a lot of things here that need fixing, and kept thinking that you need to remove the plank in your own eye so you can see clearly to remove the speck of sawdust from your brothers eye. I'm sure that could be flipped around and asked of me as well, but I'm doing my best to remove my own, and God is helping me.

I really have so much to say on this subject and I don't know if I honestly want to take the time to detail it all here. I was originally going to do a vlog post afterwards since I knew I had so much to say, but I couldn't coherently put my thoughts together so I thought typing it out would give me more time to think and be clear.

So. Lets get to the "but". This is the main underlying point of everything. I am seeing a very legalistic Christianity here. (Not that it isn't the same other places) However, it seems that Koreans feel the Gospel should be drilled into your head with logistics. This pastor has literally reduced the gospel to a "system" of charts and memorized Bible verses. He wants people to go out and evangelize with this. I ABSOLUTELY agree that we need to have knowledge from the scripture to back up our belief, but you don't just walk up to people with your handy charts ready to draw out and logically explain your belief in God. Our belief is simply not logical. That's why it's called faith. You have to be willing to believe that an all powerful God sent Himself (His Son) down here to be a man, to be killed by us sinners so that we would be saved. Like on the surface how crazy is that?

The bigger foul here in my opinion is that it robs the cross of its power. The cross is a completely life changing revolutionizing event, and truly what our entire religion stands upon. The fact that Jesus came here to die for you because he LOVED YOU that much. Not because you're a good person, no, none of us are that. In fact it was the "good people" of our society that ended up having Him killed. (The pharisees and temple priests etc). No He came in order that us sinners, that spit in His face every single day by continuing in our sin, would be saved. I don't know about you but I sin constantly and yet He still came for me. How many of us would die for our best friends sins, let alone the sins of people who hate us and are our enemies?

THAT'S how much He loves us, and I really feel that is being taken out of the equation here, and that's very dangerous. Now you may be saying to yourself, well what's wrong with having some backup for tough situations when cynical people ask you the inevitable "prove God exists" or some innocuous gotcha question that non-believers always seem to be trying to conjure up? Of course there's nothing wrong with that. I already said earlier we should be educated on our own faith, but our own testimony is the most weighty thing we can depart to another person. That reinforces the fact that LOVE is at the top of this totem pole. The one thing that matters, and keeps all of this together. It's so important in fact that Paul outlines this saying "¹ Though I command languages both human and angelic -- if I speak without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.
² And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains -- if I am without love, I am nothing.
³ Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess, and even give up my body to be burned -- if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

So tell me. What are you? Are you out there banging the streets with your Bible telling others how they need to repent? Or are you sharing your own broken experiences to help others understand that Christianity isn't about being righteous. That's merely a bonus of having your life radically changed by Christ's sacrifice. No, it's about being open and honest, as a child is. Just like the Bible says. "The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." Little children.

What if this pastor wants to do both? A great question, and I would hope that is the case. It wasn't openly said in this meeting, but the vibe was definitely that this was the best way to evangelize people. In fact the pastor said multiple times that other nations didn't have the "real" gospel, because they didn't have it outlined and supported like this. That really set off alarms with me. What a strange thing to say. He gave a few examples that were true (I don't want to completely discredit him, he had a reason for saying it a few times) such as in Ethiopia they believe that children don't have sin, so when he went there and preached that they were shocked.

The insinuation otherwise was quite different. In fact the leader of my small group who is the main interpreter for the pastor told me straight to my face that this system was a better way of evangelizing than being open and honest with people talking about my own experiences supported with the Gospel. There was a lot of "Oh I used to do that, but now I..." sentences. As I said before, I really hope it's all a misunderstanding and we're all fighting for the same thing. The problem is the motivations are different. Legalistic Christianity produces more legalistic Christianity and that produces churches like we have now. One that want to throw money at problems instead of do something about them.

Think about it, what kind of believer would these charts win over? Someone who is more interested in the logistics of proving something in their mind and to others, over the belief of feeling God's love, and operating off of true trust in Him. Some of this stuff is pretty slight in how it's presented, but as I said the motivation for it is what matters. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Putting God and His will first is the only way to truly achieve what He wants, for that comes out of the love and trust in Him. Those that feel His love will know how unconditional it is, and the more your own sins are forgiven, the more likely you are to forgive others which is exactly what Jesus commands. "41“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,^c and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”" (Luke 7:41-42)

I even had a conversation with a close buddy about this recently on how much easier it is to forgive others, and even encourage them after they mess up when you realize and are honest with yourself and God about how broken you actually are. Instead of condemnation for your fellow broken believing brother, you offer words of encouragement and sympathy knowing that likely you'll be there again soon as well. This is why the embodiment of the Gospel and not a legalistic logical view is so important.

All of the foreigners had to go up and give a speech on what they had learned during the training. I didn't really feel like lecturing on anything in particular so I kinda of winged it. I asked the Holy Spirit to speak through me and I ended up settling on the topic of Jesus' ascendance back to heaven. (There are 4 parts of Jesus' sacrifice according to this pastor and ascendance is the third). Anyways, my main message was "Love" as I felt that this was completely missed during the entire thing. In fact as I spoke, I wrote only the word "Love" on the board in big capital letters. (All the other presenters had been trying to draw the charts they had learned). I really hope that this made an impression on the people listening. I had a few guys come up to me after and tell me they thought I did really well, and one guy even told me that what I said was really important for the exact reasons I've been stating. It's so easy for that main message to get lost when everything is focused on beating systems and charts into your head.

I think that's all the main stuff I wanted to talk about. I hate to be so critical, because I truly love the culture and people here, but God has transformed me into someone who is open and honest and doesn't care what people think about me anymore. I have to call it like I see it. I'm continually praying for the people here, and I hope that God will show me how I can make a difference for them.

I actually will have another post pretty soon, because there's been a lot going on in my mind lately so look for that! Here are the pictures I promised, plus a bonus picture of me presenting my "Love" presentation! Thanks guys!

Bonus Pic! Big Carl in action!

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