Fight the World of Relativeness

'Escape the circus, and live beyond the limits of the imaginary lid.' -Playstation 2
Go check out the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYu81Q1QTy4
This commercial is an excellent example of many of our lives. We are 'boxoholics.' We take what we know, define it, say how it works, wrap it up, put it in a box, and say, 'There it is!' The beautiful thing is that God likes to take these pretty little boxes and SHAKE them. This is sometimes challenging and frustrating, yet exciting. We need to live with diversity and flexibility as our partners, not fight them.
Sue Rinaldi from England was our teacher this week. Listening to her was like listening to a song all week. She spoke on, 'Communicating God's Heart Through the Arts.' She definitely shook us up, in a good way, and her teaching was so incredibly refreshing and inspiring.
A great reminder was to always use God as THE source. Along with that, if we ever find ourselves becoming bored or boring, or out of inspiration, then to GO. Go somewhere you can see God. If your world gets small, if your imagination becomes small, get OUT of your world. Get out of yourself. Do something, go somewhere where you can see God.
We addressed the obvious issue that the world is in need, and then how to meet that need: We must meet the world with love, with passion; 'Kiss the world awake.' We need to meet the world with skill- When the temple was created the best artists were summoned and used. With authenticity- With true reality and out of an honest heart. With cultural insight- This earns the respect and provides the openess and an ability for others to hear what we have to say. We need to look into what people are doing and spending all their time and money on, and look into why they do and like the things they do. We need to meet the world with a sensitivity to the signs of the times and prophetic eyes- We need to get into the future in a way, to be leaders. 'Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.' -Acts 17:21 Nothing has changed. And, we need to meet the world with humility- Hello! The message of Jesus.
I realized my need to get in touch with the world I live in. This is hard for me, but I need to discipline myself. One idea is to start reading the TIME magazines that are delivered to the base. At one point Sue said, 'Find your creative pulse and make sure it's always there.' This all is so true, and something so important to start remembering and working on daily.
A couple other videos Sue showed us this week were amazing. Here are their links, go check'em out and let them inspire you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzoNInZ2ClQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvTFKpIaQhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSIbfzK2spg

Under the Sea

Have you ever had an under the sea Thanksgiving? We have! Seeing that they don't have Thanksgiving here, we made things a little untraditional, okay, very untraditional. We entered the room with blue lights shining from above, accenting the bottom of a ship on the ceiling made from cardboard, fish nets and paper fish all around, and whale noises playing. The meal started out with turkey sushi. We had games, one being pin the tail on the whale, and another one shown in the pictures was fishing for treats. At one point for entertainment a student named Esben sang bits of songs and put them all together. It included beach boys songs ('Kokomo'), 'Cold Water' by Damien Rice, the Bay Watch theme song, and a few others that had some reference to the beach. Sharks, beach trash, scuba divers, a yellow submarine, fish, turtles, the heart of the ocean (from Titanic), starfish (that was me), and many others attended.

Music Track Concert

The music track gave an excellent concert that surprised everyone. Each person has to write one song per week. At the end of the week they decide as a track which song the whole group will learn. They performed songs they have written up until now. I'm sorry I don't have any sound or video clips for you. I'll let the photos sing for now.

Roots of Bitterness

This last week was Plumbline. It was sort of a counseling seminar. We looked into our negative personality traits, such as fear of failure, insecurity, and times of loneliness, which were some of mine. Considering we weren’t born with these traits, we were taught how to look into where they came from, and how to begin to work on getting rid of them. Their roots are usually in childhood memories. You are able to among other things, forgive others and yourself; to tear up these roots.
Genesis 3 was used a lot, the fall of man. The first question God asks Adam and Eve after they have eaten the fruit and are hiding is, “Where are you?” This question was used to help us identify our personality traits, and where we are in life. After Adam says to God that he hid from God since he was afraid because he was naked, God asked him, “Who told you?” This was the main question. Who has told us we are insecure, afraid, sad, inferior…whatever?
It was a very hard process, but an extremely powerful one. I’ve been able to begin to live life with a new reference system. It was very good for Mitchell too. There are issues in our marriage that we are able to confront in new ways. We’ve learned so much about ourselves, and therefore able to begin being better together.

"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation...Lift up your heads...that the King of glory may come in." Psalm 24:3-7

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf!

Two weekends ago the staff threw the students a Lovefeast. It was 'fairytale' theme. It was a really amazing night, the best party I've ever been to. They completely transformed the dinning and living rooms into a fairytale forest. The three little pigs, brothers Grimm, Repunzel, fairies, the three blind mice, A troll, the queen, the princess, snow white, a snow queen, and so many more, they were all there. It was really fun to make the costumes, we had to get creative with just stuff we could find around. We just barrowed other peoples clothes, cut/colored cardboard boxes, and stuff. We used some tall, dried weeds as Mitchells tail (he was the Big Bad Wolf).

There was dancing, a halarious skit, the staff read off appreciation notes to each of us, and a yummy meal (including dessert! Mmm.).