Blog update!
Naysayers: “Matt, why is your blog like 7 days after you said it would be?”
Great question! I’m actually writing you from the border crossing between Bulgaria and Greece 🙂
[or at least that’s when I wrote this, then it took me five days to find wifi]
Naysayers: “Why the heck are you way over there? You are supposed to be in Romania this month! Are you lost?”
No, I’m not lost, but thank you for your concern 🙂
Our host in Romania was kind enough to set up a nice little adventure for our squad before starting ministry this month. So, for a about a day and a half, I’ll be jumping off cliffs into the Mediterranean 🙂
Let me catch y’all up on everything 😉
So after leaving Ukraine with a cozy 12 hour van ride, team SOLDOD arrived in the beautiful city of Brasov, Romania.
[Brasov: old, new, and everything in between]
[Me paying attention]
[Me not paying attention]
Team SOLDOD and I spent 5 days in Brasov with the rest of I-Squad and were met there by our squad mentor, Jeremy, and our two squad coaches, Kieth and Karen
Christianson.
[Jeremy and his beautiful family (they recently had a new addition!]
[Our amazing squad coaches, Kieth and Karen Christianson]
These amazing people helped us think through and process all that happened in the first month of the world race.
What went really well?
What went terribly, terribly wrong?
What are some cool things that happened?
How did you see God show up this month?
These questions and so, so, so many more floated through our minds as we walked the streets of Brasov, spent some quiet time at the hostel, and worshiped and prayed together at a conference room in a nearby hotel.
It continues to amaze me how God can use someone like me to serve in so many different capacities. In just the last month, I’ve been a pick-up game soccer evangelist, a worship leader, English teacher, VBS music coordinator/facilitator/performer, and throughout it all, the hands and feet of Jesus to Ukraine, a country that is still doing its best to recover from years of communist rule and oppression. I made so many great friends in Ternopil and, God willing, I’ll find myself there again someday.
And then there’s Brasov. We had the absolute pleasure of sharing a night of worship and prayer with E-Squad, another World Race group that was on their way to their 9th month of ministry! Wooooowwww!!! I can’t even imagine what that must be like, and yet before long that will be me. Ha, if you told me three months ago that I would be singing and playing guitar in front over 60 world racers, mentors, and coaches, I would have laughed at you. Before the world race I didn’t even sing in front of crowds. In fact, I didn’t even own my own acoustic guitar until about 7 weeks ago. I’ve been a musician for about 6 years now, but I’ve never sang in front of a crowd.
Bass guitar? Anytime!
Electric? If all I have to play are power chords 🙂
A cajon or any other hand drums? Sign me up!
Ukulele? If it’s a Twenty One Pilots song or the occasional Elvis track, I can swing it 😉
But acoustic? With all the fancy chords?
That’s definitely a little outside my comfort zone.
Sing? In front of a crowd? Not just in the shower?!?
Ha! I don’t know about that.
Or at least, that would have been my answer 3 months ago. When I was assigned to a team SOLDOD at training camp, I quickly realized I was the only person in the group who knew how to play any sort of guitar. I’ve barely gone more than a couple weeks at a time without playing some kind of worship music for the last 6 years. Even when I feel distant from God, even when I feel like He isn’t speaking to me, like I can’t hear him, like I can’t figure out his will or his plan…..I have worship. When I’m playing music, when I’m helping others to worship God, to connect with him through praising Him….I feel connected to Him too. How could I go an entire 11 months without that experience? So I had two choices: either I find an answer to that question, or I learn to play acoustic guitar.
So, at training camp I got a respectable recommendation for a cheap, yet decent travel size guitar I could buy online and a week later I was stairing at chord sheets it my little house in Lake Charles, trying to learn more than the 4 chords I already knew when my two guitar toting roommates weren’t around to let me know how bad my B-minor chord sounded. Joking! They were pretty helpful, and believe me, I had questions.
When I left the states, I knew how to play about three songs. Five weeks later, I’ve played about 25 different songs in front of multiple different crowds. Granted, most of the people spoke little English, so hopefully they just thought all Americans sound like that when they try to sing. Anyway, I’ve struggled with people’s perception of me for a long time. I tend to give off a vibe of not caring what people think, of doing my own thing, sometimes even fooling people into thinking I’m bold or outgoing. But I’ve just found that it’s an easy shield to throw up between myself and other people. If you make yourself stand out enough, set yourself apart, maybe people will be intimidated and won’t try to get close to you, or at least not the real you. At other times in my life I’ve tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping that people will forget I’m even there and won’t try to talk to me so that I don’t have to figure out what to say, wouldn’t have to to figure out the rules to a game that I didn’t understand, and that frightened me. Now that I’m on the World Race, I found myself in a brand new community, one that has no idea who I am or what to expect from me, or anyone else in the group for that matter. My prayer was that I could find a healthy balance, that I could find healthy community with these people by showing them the real me, whether they can accept that or not. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out exactly who the real me is. I’m learning to be present in the moment, rather than floating around in my own head worrying about what people will think and running though a dozen hypothetical scenarios and conversation that haven’t even happened and probably never will. I want to be present HERE, where God has me, doing what He has me here to do. If that’s playing music and singing so be it. If that’s playing soccer with a bunch of middle schoolers who can dribble circles around me, ok God. If it’s stopping on the side of the street and buying all the flowers a nice elderly woman was selling so that we can hand them out to random people, lets do it! ( all credit goes to Megan Small for that one, it was an amazing hung to see and be a part of)If it’s asking a stranger to translate so I can talk to a stumbling drunk about Jesus, lets go!
[This is Illianca (no idea how to spell that correctly). A super nice Romanian lady who spoke zero English We got to pray with her about Her sick daughter, then we bought all of her flowers :)]
In Songs of Solomon, it talks about “little foxes” that make their way into a vineyard and mess up the vines and spoil the crop. In our lives, these little foxes take the form of small issues or thoughts that, when ignored, can do a lot of damage over time and eventually shift your entire outlook or mindset in a situation, even shifting and distorting the circumstances you find yourself in and making you less effective for God’s Kingdom. For me these little foxes are simple little thoughts throughout the day: belittling my self worth, doubting my identity in God’s Kingdom, doubting that God really loves me, that I deserve to be loved, worrying that He habe a plan for me or that I may not live up to that plan.
So, here I am, sitting in a van on the way to Polychronos, Greece. I’ve been in this seat for about 12 hours now. Thats a lot of time to think. And sleep. Ok, I mostly slept, but then I got a red bull at a gas station literally just cuz I was tired of sleeping. I’m used to flat-as-a-board Louisiana, and out the window allI can see is open fields and forests leading off to rolling hills and mountains. I see this and think, “I never want to become jaded to a sight such as this. God is so good.” The little foxes could easily steal away something as beautiful as shear awe at Gods creation, but only if you let them. Them I had a funny image of little green, jade foxes running around in my head. Ha ha, there’s your title 😉
These next 10 months are a chance to live in super raw community with a group of people who just want to call me higher, to point me back towards God every time I stumble, to call me higher every time I doubt myself or God’s plan, whatever that looks like, because I certainly don’t know 99% of the time. This is a chance to truly flesh out Matthew Alexander, and who God has called that man to be, because most of the time not even I know who he is. But one thing I do know for sure is that for now, I am exactly where God wants me, and it’s a beautiful place to be. Can you say the same? It’s a question I ignored for a very long time, because I was afraid of the answer. Is there a question you’re avoiding? A chat with God you don’t want to happen? Because believe me, if u start asking God hard question and praying hard, even impossible prayers, God will answer.
Lord, what parts of my life have I yet to surrender to you?
Father, in what areas of my life am I still disobedient?
Dad……..papa……Abba, where would you like to send me? Who do you want to send me to?
What are the little foxes that are spoiling my vineyard, which is meant to be a pleasing offering to You?
What lies of the enemy, what lesser identity have I allowed other people to speak over me?
God has an amazing plan for your life. Sure, He can use you wherever you are, if u are willing and obedient. But, if you are truly willing to step out in faith, there is so much more around the next bend.
[The beach near our campsite in Greece]
God isn’t finished with you yet. He is just getting started…..
Sorry, I know that was a good bit of reading, I kind of felt like I just word vomited all over your screen, but that’s how I process things best. Thank you so much for reading!!! Is there anything I can pray for you about? If so, comment below, or shoot me an email at [email protected], or even message me on Facebook. I’d love to come along side you in approaching God’s throne in any struggle! Peace out, I’ll update everyone again as soon as I can, I hear our new host here in Romania likes to keep us busy once the ball gets rolling.
I would like to invite you to make my journey, your journey. Here are three simple ways:
- The most important, PRAY.
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