Awaken Kingdom Family

April 21, 2013- Today is a glorious day. Awaken pioneer, our original and ultimate school leader Andrew York marries the beautifully magnificant Terry Lee. Together they usher our growing family into a greater impartation of what love looks like and means to be family.

This union brings together friends from all over the world, Awakeners past and present. Our school gets to watch it all, experience the amazingness that is going on and carry on the legacy set before us- uniquely and in greater measure. I firmly believe that. One, because ' Uncle Andy' told us so. But moreso, because I know it's true.

Two days ago, Andrew York, Erica Gusterson, Kat Hobin, Matthew Scapparotti and Chris Chun sat with our Awaken crew for an hour before our Awakening Leadership Track family time(which consists of sharing Scripture memorization and testimonies). They spoke to us about the vision and history of this school we have taken part in through DTS and have now chosen to come back to staff. Our vision is simple... HAHA we don't have one!  After many attempts, it has never been pinned down. But that's okay because the history  sums it all up. Awaken has been and continues to be all about people commited to pursuing God's presence in community. That's how it started and I know without a doubt that's what it will continue to be. Awaken is a bunch of friends following the Lord together, prioritizing His presence and celebrating it above all.

Ahhhh! I love it. This is so my heart. What I long for. What I am desire to live out. Kat asked me last week what I imagine when I envision heaven. I hadn't thought about it much before, but I spoke about this dream I have. Of a group of epic friends huddled around a fire in the woods. Intimate fellowship in wild beauty. Hanging out with people I love for eternity. This is what I see this 2013 Awaken school as. We are made up mostly of teammates and leaders, friends and family from the past few DTSs. All gathered around this thing that changed our lives. This Man, Jesus, we believe in. Commited to seeing the new, fresh, insane things He wants to pour out each day. Commited to being a part of it and receiving it for ourselves as well. Commited to His love and will being unleashed on all our friends as well. Because we know we need Jesus and we know Jesus desires for us to experience and enjoy His presence in community.

I am so excited for how these 30 Awakeners are going to be knit to my heart during the Track. I thirst for the way we are learning to walk out Awaken and hunger for how we will uniquely champion this name in 2013. For we are truly standing on the shoulders of giants. And yet, we are not intimidated. No, we are encouraged! AWAKEN carries FAMILY! That is who we are, there is no way we could be anything else. So, here's to pursuing Jesus forever with the ones that we love, to 'Uncle Andy' and his lovely bride Terry!!! May the glorious blessing of this phenominal union rain down on us all. 

"Abide in Me, and I in you....that your joy may be made full....This I command you, that you love one another ....and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning."

|John 15-NASB|

nechmad

A little while ago, a man posed this question: What is the most important part of salvation to you?

I did not tell him this then, but now I will.

For me the most meaningful part of salvation is linked to my recent revelation of the Gospel. And the ways my heart has uniquely connected to it in the last nine months. The idea of sons and daughters coming home. Raised from the ashes, like one John Mark McMillian song goes. I look at the Gospel as a perfect Creator with innate family-Father, Son, Holy Spirit- and this God's desire to share creativity and love and build His family. That's why he created man and the earth. Then there is Man's fall due to pride and choosing to believe the lie that he could somehow do better than God's defined pleasure and perfection. The Bible is a story about God getting His family back by giving his Son. Not leaving them to themselves. In spite of ourselves. It's about sons and daughters coming home to Him. Back into pleasure and wholeness and family. 

Kingdom family. 

Salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11, Psalm 51, Jonah 2

Believing what is Promised

my recent contemplations have resolved around this belief I have that i want to change

 because I know it is not true.

the belief that I will wake up tomorrow.

I know that I have this belief based on how I live.

putting things off until the next day

assuming I have time

making plans for next week without first taking advantage of today.

I know that this belief is not factual

because there are people all over the world who were here yesterday

but have not life left in their bodies to say the same today

people like my uncle.

(people like my mom.)

taken suddenly

and we are surprised.

even i was in shock though I have been comtemplating this faulty belief

every day for over a month.

i want a different story

one where i wake up and live the most of my day

not hoping for something other than what i was given

but eager to walk through the minutes and hours

unfolding each new or normal opportunity with thanks

finding joy in the quiet

choosing joy in the chaos

accepting the joy of the unknown

appreciating and investing in the people before me

whether i have chosen them or not

taking risks with the hope that everything will work out

that it all will come together

and be intensely good,

each echo of my voice

every ounce of vulnerability

matters in the grand scheme of things

i know my limited mind cannot grasp.

i want to give back everything i am

give more of my all as seconds glide by

for we have all heard that precious saying,

that "tomorrow is not promised"

yet still bank on the rest of today.

what if we ran with what we were given?

what if we loved without fear and regret?

(and without fear of regret?)

what if we only looked back to strain forward?

what if we forgave so we all could go home?

what if we rested joyfully in our waiting?

and what if we decided with the miracle of our seeing the morning on our determination to do it...

to press go?

Marvels & Musings

"Understanding compassion- what it means to walk that out every instance. Choosing the right habit when it's easy, but then continuing to choose it the second it gets hard. Like where desperate joy for the things of God turns into straight up desperation. A crying out of, " God! I am in need!" Compassion for those you want to serve, for those you are serving with as a family, and receiving it from the one who sent you to serve in the first place."

I found this little unfinished blurb. A revelation from 'wandering' around Hilo with people I barely knew. Friends I can now call family. As I remember (what I like to call 'Team Asia's sketch faith journey'...you can ask me about it sometime if you have no clue what I am talking about), it reminds me of how much hope I can have. Because each and every day the things that I learned there are still true.

I am still experiencing the depths of what it means to have compassion and how it feels to embrace it.

I have been reading Romans lately. So many things strike me. The simple Gospel. God's promises. His goodness. How just He really is. Most of all his compassion on us. Gentiles. Slaves. People who get to be sons because the firstborn messed up. Grafted in, awaiting the original branches return. Oh man, and how glorious the fruit of Father's compassion on them will be!

I love when Romans turns back to Hosea, mostly because I love Hosea.
Concerning the Gentile , God says in the prophecy of Hosea, 
"Those who were not my people, 
I will now call my people. 
And I will love those
whom I did not love before."
And,
"Then , at the place where they were told,
'You are not my people,'
there they will be called
'children of the living God.'" *

Paul goes on to explain how Israel, the firstborn, will see the Gentiles partaking in their promise. Their jealousy will be roused by those who were not even looking for God but found him. By those who weren't even asking, yet God revealed himself to them. In the end, God is faithful to His people and good to those who in the beginning were not. His compassion rains down   . . .no. . . floods down upon them both (Romans10:19-11:15).

He is a compassionate God. Making us a compassionate people.
wow.

* Romans 9:25-26, The SourceView Bible

such a time

How many of us know that feeling when you don't get the answer you were expecting? Or not the way you were necessarily expecting it? That is life a lot of times right. Probably most times. That is what makes it wonderful! The way situations in life come together to complete pictures we could only imagine in our hearts. The way God births realities in ways we could never orchestrate of our own power. Nor would the routes He chooses ever fall under our natural will.

I am more cognizant of this, after a few weeks in Vegas have led to the realization that I am staying longer than I intended and without a date to say when it will come to an end (that is not months away). I have to learn how to live life here again. I have to adjust. I have to trust that the change in me and all the differences supercede the 'normal' routine of an old life. I have to be confident that I am present here for this season, for multiple reasons and continue seeking God's heart starting with what is most tangible. Because sometimes it really is that simple. 

I was talking to my dear friend Mrs. Rivka Bundra who is moving to New York with her husband and 5 kids (including a baby girl who is partying it up in her womb*) in just a few short days. The time that I have been able to spend with this woman -who has basically become the big sister I never had- before her clan heads across country is proof enough of how gracious and intentional God really is. And how He is in the business of making all things beautiful, especially the way we spend our time. Last night she suggested, "Look at what is right in front of you." Meaning adjust your sights to praying into what it looks like to let Holy Spirit lead you in pursuing relationships here at home instead of wildly chasing them. Partner your presence with those that would have it and running with those who are hungry for more in this life. Be available to those who are also thirsting to abandon the snares of the world and take up the freedom that resides in this joy-filled calling of Kingdom family. We we made for such a time as this.

Some days, I miss Kona and the relationships that I built and lived in there. Some nights, I miss Cambodia and the priceless investments planted in the rich soil there. I remember those days and nights when I missed Vegas, though. Here I am. Now, what am I going to do? Ms. Kortney Krugar (one of those lovely homes I found in the form of my sweet Awaken friend) put it so well the other day in a quick text, "...pursuing it back home, it's so easy to do it when that's the culture we were a part of and we had much encouragement along the way but now it's like: Home is where it begins. It's a challenge but I think without going for it at home, it will never become part of us!"

Shaka.

*Turns out this wasn't as accurate as we thought. Because, True Justice Bundra is very much a boy, we came to find out . Haha!

Adjusting to Absense

coming back to a city with finished roads and new buildings is fun until you don't know where you are. being able to drive again is nice until you realize 65 mph feels like you're about to fly off the freeway. i am experiencing similar feelings as i get back to so many relationships that have kind of been on pause. things have changed. i have changed.

it has officially been a full week of being back in Vegas. the feelings that i carry with me on a daily basis are kind of indesribable. and the only word that always comes to mind does not at all do them justice. but alas . . weird is what I feel. i find myself just observing the things and people around me. like i am relearning how to interact with the familiar atmosphere around me. my adjustment process is much like the way i am handling jetlag: i try to engage as much as possible before my body just won't let me go on. i am realizing it is okay to zone out, existing is all that matters sometimes. God does not expect me to be super; that's His job. life is a process even here in lovely las vegas with so much that i love. yet it seems like i have been apart from it for so long.

the other day, in the throws of running around and visiting people before they holiday, i was thinking about what God has been doing while I have been gone. everyone i run into wants to hear stories from my life these past 6 months. but i want to hear theirs. as we exchange tales, i understand more and more something my father told me the night he picked me up from the airport. "you will never know how much your choice to go has impacted people." before i found it a bit absurd, but i may have just been sleep deprived. with each day that i am home, i am beginning to see what he was pointing out: the value that God has in calling us to 'Go.'

i know for myself, being away from home and friends and family left a gaping hole that had to be filled. there was a void and walking away from my natural habitat forced it to be filled with something other than what I readily had access to. i had to find something else and i had to learn how to get it. Jesus told the disciples before he ascended to heaven, "But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the Advocate won't come. If I do go away then I will send him to you."-John16:7 The Advocate is the Holy Spirt, our Comforter, our Encourager, our Counselor, our Friend. He is meant to fill the void.

Jesus said he had to go, in order for Holy Spirit to come. So it makes sense that we on earth would experience this, too. Looking at my life and the ones of those I love, I can now see the value God had for the absense we endured. So much growth has ensued! Beyond the unexpected accolades of people expressing how my journey has inspired them (super weird btw). Beyond the tangible differences I can see in my character and my own personal walk with my God. Right now, what encourages me the most are those lives I left behind 6 months ago. Those family members and friends who offer up stories of the valleys they trekked through and how they reached the mountain on the other side. And how they came to be the thriving lights that I have the extreme priviledge of returning to this Christmas season.

i am not saying that i came back to a perfect world. not at all. but i am grateful to have come home to a place that i vaguely recognize, physically and spiritually. because God has evidently been hard at work in His garden (John 15). He has been tending to his branches and showing us all what it means to abide in His love. and how to watch  expectedly for the Advocate. we get to rest and reminisce, knowing that the manger has long been empty and God our Savior is a Man sitting on a heavenly throne. Yet, he is also ever with us. Emmanuel. God with us wherever we go.

Prioritizing the Presence

Sitting here at the hotel cafe in Siem Reap, seemingly "at the end to all things," a question lingers. One that has probably been there all along, but now more than ever is rising to the surface. It is flooding my awareness with its reality. It will no longer be silenced. No longer can it be contained by depths and leagues. So, I ponder it. I seek it out in response. And I wrestle with it. Struggling, flailing and failing at times. "What does it really mean to prioritize God's presence?" Outside of Battambang, soon outside of Cambodia, outside of this team and me.

These five days of debrief alone have shown me how easily it is to revert to our old self-looking out for what we want and pursuing our own comforts. We are only a few hours away from the place we called home and the people we invested our lives in and gave so much of our love. Yet, I find that the compassion with which we championed and immersed ourselves in now threatens to become stagnant. Sometimes, I feel that its power is growing faint. A cloud of judgment has crept over amidst the cat-calling of restless tuk-tuk drivers, bombardment of eager (even pushy) market-sellers and abundance of people begging on the bustling  streets. Slowly, but surely, its heaviness blotting out the sun. Concealing its rays to the point we forget the light we knew before. Going unnoticed in the whole process. Yes, it is a wonder how fast things can change.

Remember what life was like before? All those months. Remember what we said? The stirring in our guts. That reality is still available. It is still there. It has always been and always will be. All we have to do is ask ourselves a little question to return to the realm of our whole being. To again walk with clear vision and steady footing enlightened with the knowledge that God surrounds and pervades everything. To make it back to our original intention of continually being made whole.

Am I prioritizing God's presence? Am I bringing His kingdom as I said I would? Or dulling my senses with worldly musings, by trading wisdom for stone. Right here, right now, today . . .seriously WHAT ARE WE BRINGING?