Hey! Since Summer and I have been married, we are posting a joint blog on www.frontierlove.org . I will still post some blogs using on the World Race site, but we’ll be transitioning those of you who are currently subscribed to our blogs to receive updates from the new website. Currently, we’re in Alaska after a month long journey across the United States and Canada, and God has been doing some amazing stuff in both of our hearts that we look forward to writing about!
-Joel and Summer
The Pacific Coast
The wild roar from the chilly glacial fed river spoke that the cold ruled the forest here. The piter-pater of continual drizzle hit the tent throughout the night. And as we finally dared to open the tent to peek outside, chilly mist hid the tops of the pines as their beautiful scent hit our noses. I’m reminded why I love the Rockies; even in the bitter cold the sun peaks out to warm my face and my mind comes alive with determination. But here in the Pacific Northwest, the beauty and the green comes at a cost – more rainy days it seems than dry; more cloudy than sunny.
In Spain almost eight months ago, I never realized how cold the never ending rain could be. Zero degree snowy mornings in Colorado just before we left were invigorating, but in Spain we were drenched day after day. Our breaths often steamed with no heat inside our brick home. Books and papers warped as they dripped with the stone cold wet air, and our cold showers felt like death.
But this morning Summer and I looked forward to a hot shower. A cup of hot coffee from our frenchpress and camping stove provided the motivation to scrounge through our organized but tightly packed truck to find clean clothes. And we set off to find out if the showers were truly hot in our empty campground as we walked through giant maples giving up their leaves for autumn.
They truly were hot, and as I stared at the drain, I remembered back to Ukraine… and years back. The hot water felt good… yet for a second I remember looking at concrete floors… taking me back to a world I once only felt despair in. A world where hopelessness painted my view of everything. A world where color could quickly disappear, and it felt like the world was just continually draining away in decay. I survived day after day… but wondered what the point was. We work with our hands … but to what end? To have everything rust and disease away? Why try? We’re supposed to do good work. But only because we’re supposed to?
But something is different now. I have a hope. Perhaps a hope that people many years ago had when they constructed the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Didn’t they live in a hope of making a better world? Didn’t they have a hope for the future?
When we have hope; a hope that says it’s worth loving people, it’s worth building God’s kingdom on this earth… doesn’t the picture change? We do live in a world that decays without people. But isn’t it possible that when God created Adam and Eve to be fruitful and fill the earth with His glory that we are the solution to that decay when He lives within us? I remember hearing on the radio over and over again that the world is getting worse, the “antichrist” is coming, morality is decaying, pollution is getting out of control, and we just need to get everyone saved and get out of here before God’s judgement of the world comes. Pretty bleak, isn’t that? Why would we want to build and invest in God’s kingdom here on earth with that kind of outlook? But what if God is using our dreams and our creativity to build His kingdom here on earth as it is on heaven?
The world changes when you see the world being populated with people made like Him, with His creativity and His glory, doesn’t it? Everything changes when we see that people filled with His Spirit filling His earth with His glory are the solution to the despair, decay, and death all around us, doesn’t it?
