What You Should Know About Me

 

I will start with the simple facts so
that if you don’t know me already you can get an idea of where I come
from.

 

I have grown up in a Christian home
with an amazing Pastoral Father and incredible Proverbs 31 Mother.

 

I have an older Brother who is a
Captain and pilot in the Army and has done a tour in Iraq flying
helicopters; his lovely wife is my sister-in-law who is a school
teacher and an excellent chef.

 

I have a younger sister who is 13 years
my junior (God just made us wait a while for her to come along for
some reason) who is a fine young lady and feels called to be a
missionary as well.

 

We are a bit musical in my family. Dad
is a violinist as is older brother (also does some piano) and younger sister, and Mom is a
classically trained vocalist with the most incredible voice you will
ever here. I am a cellist first and foremost but can handle the drums
and a bit of violin and guitar as well, all of which I really enjoy. We love
playing and singing together and have done it professionally for some
years now.

 

I love to play sports but I have to be
careful about watching them too much (especially Texas Longhorn
games) cuz I get way too into it;-) But I LOVE to play basketball and
just about anything else.

 

I was once upon a time a Personal
Fitness Trainer at a 24Hour Fitness Sport in Austin and love doing
that kind of coaching and teaching. I love going through a good work
out both for my self and others who want one.

I really enjoy movies and tend to quote
them often.

 

I am originally from Austin, Texas and
really love it.

 

So there are the basics, now for the
story.

 

I went through my own challenges and
struggles as a young man and I tried it in my own strength for longer
than I wish I had but I finally abandoned myself and found brokenness
before the Lord about three years ago. As I moved into dependency on
Him He began ordering my steps which led me on a short mission down
to Haiti in summer of ’08. It broke my heart for the world outside of
my comfort zone and set me in motion toward my first World Race which
I went on in August of ’09 (K-Squad what what).

 

Needless to say the Lord moved
powerfully in my life throughout my race experience and began to put
in my heart what it was he designed me to do. I signed on to go out
again with the World Race as a Squad Leader in October ’10 (S-Squad baby)  and had
another unbelievable 4 months out on the field with amazing people of
my generation who are desperate for God and more of what He has and
intends for us in this life. In coaching them along and sharing what
the Lord had done and was doing in me, I found what is really in my
heart to do for the Kingdom in my life.

 

My heart is broken for the orphans, the
prostitutes, and people entrapped in trafficking, the people dying of
AIDS in hopelessness, and I want to continue to see life brought to
lifeless places as long as I live. What breaks my heart even more is
the people just as sick and dying in their souls here in our own
country, even in our own churches, without the life in abundance that
the Lord came to bring us.

I want to see the orphan loved, the
prostitute liberated, the hungry fed, and the sick healed, but I know
how incapable we are to effect these things or bring any kind of life
to them on our own, try as we might through our good will through
various aid organizations and humanitarian movements. I can feed them
for a week only to watch them starve again after I have gone. I
really can’t do anything for these people that matters without giving
to them living water that comes from Jesus Christ. The only way I can
do that is to have the well of water springing up to eternal life in
my own life and be able to give it from there. This life and well is
fed only by a personal relationship with God himself, the God who
made us for His and our pleasure and when we turned away from Him and
were lost into death, gave Himself as the penalty for our sin and
reconciled us to Himself again.

 

As I look around me even amongst many
Christian communities in the United States, I am hard pressed to find
many people who appear to have Life and Life abundantly and a well of
water springing up out of them to eternal life. I see people who are
hungry, knowing that there must be more than what they have
experienced with God so far and are searching for what really brings
this life. These people are my mission. The Lord has brought me out
of where I was and is leading me into the abundant life that He was
talking about, and I want to show that way to everyone I can.

 

I want to help people to be freed by
the Spirit from the death and chains that are all over their lives
from sin and reach brokenness before God and dependency on Him that
allows their lives to truly start. Knowing this is possible, and
having tasted of it in my own life, I can say with the apostle Paul,
“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet;
but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind (hey, thats
abandonment) and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on
toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

I want to disciple, teach, encourage,
lead, point the way, for every one that I can, even Christians, to
have this life now. As they have it we all will begin to spill it out
around the globe and the orphan will have food, the prostitute and
trafficked slave will have freedom, and sick and weary souls will be
free of the death that lives in their bodies. That is who I am, and
what God made me for.