The open road, a car full of my stuff, and dreams to be
lived fueled me down I-75 to Gainesville, Georgia this past Wednesday. A few weeks into Haiti this summer I
asked God what I should do when my time was finished. I really felt him pressing on my heart to move to
Gainesville where Adventures in Missions has their headquarters. Even before I got to Haiti though, I
prayed that God would bless me with a brotherhood. A group of guys in close proximity that would challenge me,
encourage me, and spur me on to my destiny. It was in Haiti where I met my current housemates:
Matt Ruple, Aaron Burner, and Seth Barnes Jr. My brotherhood.
They are all former World Racers with giant hearts for the
Kingdom. They are the kind
of guys that won’t settle for ordinary, won’t give in to the pattern of this
world, but instead will breathe God’s
Kingdom to life where ever they are.
We decided that we would live with each other after Haiti with the
intent of living out Kingdom dreams.
The four of us moved into The Lake House, as everyone
affectionately calls it on Lake Lanier.
This ended up being a huge blessing that I never expected. It is an older house in need of some
repairs secluded in the woods on the lake, but only a 5 minute drive to
town. The plan was for it to
be bulldozed down and be replaced with condominiums but with the bad housing
market those plans have been on hold.
So meanwhile a friend to AIM has allowed us to live there for an
extremely good rate.
We invited people over today for a home church
gathering. About 10 others showed
up. We worshiped, prayed
over each other and then asked God what he wanted to say to us. We felt God directing us to minister to
the large Hispanic community here and as a result will be putting on a barbeque
in a park on Wednesday for the surrounding Hispanic community as tool for outreach; A way to exchange stories
and an opportunity to pray together.
So what will I be doing here? I am working full time with
Adventures in Missions, although I am not getting paid. I will be in need of your support for a
pay check to live off of. More
about that in a coming blog. I
have still been overseeing the logistics for Haiti for all our Short Term trips
that go there. I am also
working on reviving our college break trips with Seth Jr.
This coming Friday I will be flying back to Haiti for 10
days to help Clint Bokelman lead a trip for his old church with Seth Jr. Clint, is an amazing man of God that I
have been blessed to get to know over the summer. He is one of the top leaders in AIM overseeing all of Short
Term Missions (STM) for AIM.
An STM is a weekend to a few week trips in the U.S. or anywhere in the
world.
I hope this brought you up to speed. My first 4 days have been great. I had dinner with all but one member of
my World Race team (5 of us are working for AIM now, see pic). We killed two scorpions in our house,
just little ones though. I have to
kill that raccoon that keeps getting into the trash. Us guys went thrift shopping for the house and all
found vests to wear, see pic.
