Învaţ

Everyday I study and converse with an assorted group of 34 other persons also studying Romanian, representing 15 or 16 different countries. My mornings are spent soaking my brain with grammar lessons--which are never given in english. During the afternoon I listen to lectures in Romanian, throw pottery at a little Romanian pottery shop, go out into Romanian villages, or play soccer to get some exercise. In the evenings I usually watch Romanian films, do my Romanian homework, and then either go out with some fellow students or complete some personal writing.

Essentially, I eat, drink, and breathe Romanian. It's excellent.

The multi-cultured table conversations have been enormously enlightening. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. It is stretching me in many ways.

So, despite many setbacks, my heart steadfastly trusts that his love will win in the end.

Amen.

The road is as home to me as my sheets.

I’m in Amsterdam at the moment, visiting my lovely musician friend Leslie for a few days. Friday I leave to study Romanian in northern Romania for three weeks. Then I’ll return to Amsterdam to meet up with the boys from the band I play in. Perhaps we’ll write an album while we’re here, but we won’t be playing any shows since we lost our vocalist.

I love my friends at home, I have a wonderful family, but traveling has become an addiction for me. It is nourishment for my bones.

The Lord has me close to his heart. Close enough that its beating occasionally succeeds in drowning out noise of my cynical thoughts. That’s necessary now. He holds on to me, and I love him, and he is giving me his eyes.

Brilliant.

The traveling has been smooth thus far. Leslie stays with a lovely family with three small, energetic children. Although I’ve not met him yet, there is a young man staying here from Britain, and apparently he is a soccer player, so I’m excited to do some skill building!

Soulful

Jazz music. Sometimes I find life very frustrating, other times it is quite friendly--but it is always difficult to understand. Solomon said that with wisdom comes much sorrow. Sorrow, because there is always another side, and you can never know. Sorrow, because people live in tragic filth because of their ignorance. Sorrow, because the world is content to live in its self-defined structures without regarding the fact they built them.

So, jazz music. Jazz music understands the turmoil of life and takes it in without offering an answer. Answers only become stale. Except Jesus. But Jesus isn't really an answer, although we treat him like one. No, he was a son. A son of the most high God.

He's kind of like jazz music. He took life in. He saw people. He loved them. He helped them. He didn't always fix them, but he pointed them toward a cure for their meaninglessness: love. Not that love was a new idea, but he defined it in a different way. He defined it by undefining it, and just living it.

As for our precious cultural and religious institutions, I can only quote the prophet Isaiah, "He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, 'Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?'"

We have idolized our ways of doing things, but we have too much to lose to rock the boat. Sorry, sorry excuse for rational beings.

Mmhm.

Honestly, sometimes I struggle with the nihilism in my own soul. Epistemology is a waste of time, but it's frustrating to ponder the absurdity of our lives. Solomon wrote extensively on the subject. Of course, there is recognizable beauty in life, and we should pursue it, but we must be careful not to take ourselves too seriously, because the truth is we don't know the answers. I don't know the answers. I only know Jesus. And I know him by faith, his faith in me as much as my faith in him. He held on to me when I could no longer hold on to him, and so I've devoted myself to him.

But that doesn't mean I understand. It only means that I trust.

It is true that the traditional foundations of our faith are under question. A lot of Christians seem to be concerned. I don't think I have the energy to be concerned. After all, we serve a God who has said that he values honesty. We shouldn't avoid the reality of our own ignorance, we should face it, as genuine human beings. If God is really God, he certainly is capable of defending and continuing his faith.

Really though, I'm glad our esteemed institutions are toppling. I think it's hilarious. They have become ironically arrogant anyways. Jesus didn't teach superiority, he taught meekness. If anything, I think we are returning to faith. God is humbling the world—Christians and non-christians alike. It's like the tower of Babel. We thought we could accomplish anything, that we had become like gods, but now we can't even decide if we exist.

Let's return to the simplicity of Christ's message. There is only hope in faith and in love.

p.s. Aaron is home from the hospital, doing very well. I have been reading 'Three' by Ted Dekker to him, and taking him out on his wheelchair so he can smoke cigarettes in the nice weather.

A time for mourning.

On Sunday, four of my friends from the youth ministry I work at were in a car accident. The driver died, the passenger almost died, and the two in the back were fine.

I spoke at the driver's funeral on Friday. At least two hundred teenagers took off school to attend. I've been visiting the passenger in the hospital every day.

It's been real hard for everyone, of course. Nonetheless, I am seeing Jesus' love show up everywhere in this situation. It's been an excellent opportunity for me to love on the boy who was in the passenger seat. He broke two vertebrae in his neck, lost half of his left-index finger, broke his ankle, bruised his lung, and has plenty of stitches, but he is alive. I sit with him, read to him, bring his family food--it's been a real relational time, and although it has made my already busy life nearly impossible, I can't convince myself that there is anything better to do than go show that boy Christ's love. He does after all have a long road ahead of him.

Here's my plug for Regent: being an online student, I have been able to take my computer to the hospital many times this week. When Aaron (the kid) fell asleep, I'd type away, and when he woke up, I would talk to him. I love the flexibility of learning online, even though I sometimes wish I had more interaction with other intellectuals.

Oh yeah, it's been quite a week. The Lord gives me strength, of this I have zero doubt. Even when my legs give way, I don't fall. His plan is for me to be able right now, and so I am.

Romania

I worked at a boys school called Fundatia Crestina Ioan (The Christian John Foundation.) FCI takes in around 20 boys ages 16-18 (or thereabouts) that come from orphanages or hard economic situations. The program is two years, and they teach the boys carving, carpentry, English, a few computer basics, etc. Life skills. Furthermore, they show the boys the love of Jesus Christ, and they share his gospel with them. The ministry is just large enough to do everything well, and just small enough for the staff to be very personal with the boys.

After the harrowing adventure getting there (which turned out to be a long story) I was able to spend two weeks with the boys. For the most part I did what they did. I woke early, ate, did chores, learned to carve, played soccer, etc. I also taught them lots of games, through occasional hot-chocolate-and-cookies parties, did some driving for them in their stick-shift mini-bus, bought them boxing gloves and a few other items, led some bible studies, and loved on them as much as I possibly could every waking minute I had.

A spoonful of chaos helps the medicine go down. There is simply nothing better than getting a group of Romanian guys my age all riled up and excited to do crazy things, all with an underlying message of Christ's love. And a little bit of blood from that nice left hook while boxing.

Power is a joke. Love always wins in the end, but it requires a lot of meekness to love at all times, and sometimes meekness feels like weakness, and sometimes others perceive meekness as weakness, but nonetheless, love always wins in the end. You just have to trust that, because Jesus said to, above all else, love him and love others. Love doesn't always look like we expect it to, but it never looks like selfishness, arrogance, or social competition.

Fresh air, baby. That's all.

So, Thursday I leave for Romania. I have far too many things to get done before then. But my Lord is always faithful to me. Which is good, because it's moments like these that bring painful clarity to my incompetence.

So, I was telling my dad about my plan of attack:

I get off the plane in Bucharest, try and find a bus to the train station, find a train to the city I'm going to, try to find the bus station there to get a bus to the little village I'm going to, try to remember which direction to walk for two miles once I get into the village in order to find FCI (the ministry I'll be working at). I am fairly confident in my plan, but there is of course much room for logistical failure due to traveling delays, and the occasional railway strikes. Besides the fact that I'm going to be weeping tired after a full day of traveling, and I'm going to have to manage all of it with my extremely limited knowledge of Romanian.

"Wow, son, you're really manly, just going out on your own like that." - my dad.

Mmhm. I love my dad. :)

FCI is a two-year school for boys ages 16-20 (or so). It is a very smart ministry. They bring hope to the boys' lives by teaching them useful trades, who in turn bring hope to the country by supporting its economy. The school is large enough that it is run well, but small enough that the handful of staff are able to be very personal in sharing the good new of Jesus Christ with the boys. Love it.