The Most Miserable Experience of My Life

Maybe that sounds like an overstatement, but it is in no way an overstatement. No. This past weekend truly was the most miserable experience of my life. I went backpacking in Wales. Let me just say that I went on my maiden voyage this summer to the Lake District in England, and had a splendid time on my backpacking trip there for a few days. I wasn't so sure about the whole backpacking experience, but it was so great! That had a lot to do with the fact that it was sunny the whole time, no rain, daylight until like 9:30, and we were next to a beautiful little stream. Okay, this weekend in Wales...not quite the same. Started off Saturday...got to Wales and we were pumped...loaded up the packs and headed out. Well, apparently we started off going the wrong way-had a map, but somehow the guys leading read it wrong or something, I do not know...but we got sort of lost. To make a long day short, by the time it was dark we were still searching for a camp spot and ended up having to hike up this steep hill covered in ferns and gorse, in the dark, with huge holes everywhere that were little streams, etc. etc. I wish I could describe to you how unfortunate this was, but words can't help you imagine or feel the yuckiness of it. Not to mention the fact that we crossed a little river and my foot slipped and went in up to my knee-my boots and socks were completely soaked through and I was pretty cold by the time we got to camp and set up in the dark. Our leader gave me some hot things for my hands and feet which totally helped, and I was warm all night. The next morning we had to tear down everything and load it all back up to hide it in the gorse because we had camped on the top of this small mountain/large hill next to a path. We left on our hike and the weather was pretty good for the most part. Emily and I returned early from the hike because we got to a point where we would be hiking on a ridge for a prolonged period of time, and the ridge was just above the very steep hill, so I felt very very uncomfortable with the heights and the steepness. We decided that since we were early, we would go down for water. We had to find the running water, which meant we had to climb down the hill to the stream...no path, just a whole lot of gorse scratching our legs...to the bottom where there was water. Then, we filled up the 50 gallon jug and proceeded to carry it back up the steep hill. This little adventure must have taken at least an hour. 50 gallons is kinda heavy, so it was slow goin. Great workout for the arms....and legs as well. Got back up and set up our tent and hung out waiting for the others to return. That night was great, had a nice hot meal and socialized. Good times. Went to bed around 8 p.m. since it was pitch black and there was nothing to do, plus we were pretty stinkin tired from the hike. Storm set in a little later and there were galeforce winds and rain ALL NIGHT AND INTO THE MORNING AND AFTERNOON. Didn't get a lot of sleep that night since the tent was being blown so hard by the wind that it was almost touching me laying down and the water was leaking in. The loudness of the rain pelting the tent and the excessive levels of wind noise didn't help either. Miserable. So I wasn't in the happiest of moods when I woke up Monday morning, and I really just wanted to leave and go home where it's warm and happy. But our leader wanted to try and wait out the storm because it would be nearly impossible to tear down and pack up in 70 MPH winds. However, it only got worse through the morning. A few of us were sitting in "the cook tent" drinking hot chocolate and the tent was being blown so hard that the side was caving in. Well, this tent has many, many poles because it is built to withstand HIMALAYAN MOUNTAIN STORMS. It could not, however, handle the Wales mountain storm, and one or two poles actually broke. Some bent as well. This wind was beyond anything I have ever experienced. It was just such a bizarre feeling to be standing there on top of this hill in the wind and rain, and know that you could do absolutely nothing about anything. You could do nothing about the wind and rain, you had to pack up, you had to potty outside in this weather, you had to be cold, you had to put your backpack on and scale down the side of the mountain with no trail to get back, you had to be soaked completely through. So strange. So miserable. After we packed up, we really did just go straight down the side of this steep hill/mountain thing, which was crazy. I fell 5 times with a pack on, no good. It was just so slippery!! Unbelievable. Then we had to climb over a couple of fences, so I'm thinkin we were not on completely legal property the whole time. But I made it through!!! And I have to say there were some enjoyable moments too...I mean there are some things that you can only experience in a setting such as this. Do I regret going? Yes, definitely. But such is life.

Who Knew Dean Martin was an Alcoholic Comedian?

I thought he was just a great singer, but Deano was pretty funny as well I guess. Last night, April and I went to "The Rat Pack" show in the West End and it was excellent. I mean, seriously excellent. We went into London for the day-started off at Chili's in Canary Wharf...but my tummy has been yucky this week so I only had a boring dinner salad. £3 for a little bowl of iceburg, that's unfortunate. But I do love the atmosphere and Chili's holds so many great memories. I was telling April many of them yesterday. Beginnings, endings, celebrations...good times. Anyway, then we went to Greenwich and walked around-went up to the Prime Meridian and had an amazing view from there. The park there is fantastic-massive green hills and loads of trees. Then we had some cheap cobbler at this place I go to for cobbler when I am in Greenwich.
Then we went to ASDA. ASDA is the wal-mart of England--wal-mart actually owns ASDA, so they have George clothes like in Wal-Mart, but that's about the only thing they both have. This was my first ASDA experience and it was pretty good. It had the Wal-Mart feel to it, but still England so you see things like Jammie Dodgers (some kind of cookies) and stuff like that. But I got 2 cute, cheap George sweaters!
After all this we went to the half price tickets booth at Leicester Square-got there at 7 p.m. and were able to get tickets for "The Rat Pack" at 8. We felt like we were in America-the theatre was different from many other London theatres and the music playing up until the start of the show were American classics. Could not believe how excellent the show was. Frank was the best-very classy and cool. Dean made lots of cheesy jokes, a couple of which were actually kinda funny. And they talked a whole lot about Dean's drinking addiction-which I guess was just part of the show and not necessarily true. The guy who played Sammy Davis Jr. was interesting. Yes, that is how I have to describe him. He moved in interesting ways-jumping around and dancing and such-very very entertaining. I don't know how accurate it was because I don't know Sammy Davis Jr.'s style too well. The singing was fabulous. I would definitely see it again.
I am going on another backpacking excursion this weekend. I cannot believe I am going backpacking again. I really thought it was a one-time experience for me. I am already semi-regretting my decision to go, but I'll just be praying that it doesn't rain and that it isn't too cold. This journey is way easier than the other one though-the hike in isn't nearly as long and the altitude isn't as high. The hike up on Sunday won't be as difficult either. We have 14 people going, so it should be great. Several of our youth are going. Then Wednesday we're off to Stockholm, Sweden for a few days for the annual high school retreat with other International churches. So that's what's on the calendar.

Middle School Retreat Addendum

So last week after coming back from the MS retreat, I wasn't sure how much the kids really took from it or learned...or would apply to their own lives. But Tuesday morning I got a call from a mom to tell me that she had gone up to wake her son up and he was already awake-had set his alarm and gotten up-to do a quiet time!!! How awesome is that! She said after he finished breakfast he had 10 minutes extra time so he grabbed his bible to continue his quiet time. She was so excited because this is something she wanted to see happen, but didn't want to push onto him. So that was super encouraging! Then on Wednesday, another mom was telling me that on Sunday night her daughter was writing down scripture memory verses onto 3x5 cards to memorize. Then she saw them in her backpack. Later that afternoon I was driving that same girl home from her soccer game and she was telling me about that and she said that she was using her time on the bus to look at the cards! How great is that! So those were two very encouraging reports to hear! Just reminded me that I have no idea what kids are being reached or when or how....but things are happening.

Middle School Retreat

This weekend was the annual Middle School Retreat. So we went to the Isle of Wight, which is just a wee island south of England-about a 40 minute ferry ride from Portsmouth. The place we stayed at was an old Victorian house built in 1870 that has been redone as a Christian Retreat Centre. It was really beautiful and so close to the water. We walked down to the beach Saturday afternoon and it was such a nice day! The view from our rooms was so great-straight out onto the water. We had 18 middle schoolers, Brittany our helper who is on a gap year, The Serranos-a married couple with 2 middle schoolers and a 7 year old, and me and Andy. It was good fun for the most part. We played lots of fun games and talked about basic Christian disciplines. The kids were divided up into 4 teams for the weekend, to encourage them to mix up with some kids they might not otherwise, and they had to make up a team cheer for the whole weekend. I decided to use random countries for the team names, so we had Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Argentina, and Malaysia. I thought that would make the cheer making up process more fun. And it did. Yugoslavia's cheer one first place...Andy hummed "Chariots of Fire" while one girl ran in slow motion and the other kids all pointed at her one at a time saying "you go"...then they rewound and she ran backwards and then ran forwards faster and they all said together "YOU GO YOU GO SLAVIA" with their weird hand gestures as well. It was awesome. I wish you could see it as it was. Anyway, teams got points for good deeds, games, sportsmanship, memorizing verses, kissing up to the judge, and other things like that. I encouraged creativity, so whatever they could come up with was good. Argentina won in the end, barely. They cheered a lot. Malaysia was a very close second. Saturday night some kids broke a bed, so that was unfortunate. But apparently it was an easy enough repair. I gotta say though, I was embarrassed for their behavior somewhat. The staff at St. Rhadagund's probably has quite an interesting view of Americans now!! But all in all it was a good weekend!

Life as a Youth Worker

So life as a youth worker is interesting...a youth worker does many things. Yesterday I added a new thing to my list...driving instructor. Yes. Brittany Taylor is 17 and is learning to drive. Here in Britain you can't drive until 17. She had only taken 1 lesson and she asked me to take her to this neighborhood called Burwood Park-where I used to live actually-and let her drive around in there for practice. Wow. Scary. She sometimes drove in the grass and the turns were probably the scariest part. It was really funny. Very interesting to be in the car with someone that had only ever driven once before...and had never even reversed. She reversed once and that was...fun. But I really believe that by the end of the 20ish minutes, she had improved a bit.

Image Worship

Another Relelvent article that I thoroughly enjoyed. The stuff she listed so applies to me and to our worship, I believe. I say that as a generalization and not an all-encompassing truth. But I feel like I am often not able to express myself freely in worship; probably just because of the parameters and hindrances I place on myself.

Image Worship
by Jessica Lenington

Sophistication, education and experience only go so far with God. In our culture, image is worshipped, and we are inundated constantly with a flood of this worship—words, pictures, stories, sounds, music, statues, artwork—all carefully crafted expressions of worship to this idol. In our culture, in the Church, too often worshipping God has been badly polluted by this sin. So let me share what’s been happening to me: though I’ve been abandoning the purer worship I used to know, God is bringing me back. As I invited the Holy Spirit to meet me today, I got stripped of sophistication.

My spirit has been set free, like an unaware, trusting child. I am so thankful.

As I prayed, I wondered: Why is it that we fail to really enter in? Why do we remain trapped, unable to taste the purity of worship, unable to totally worship and let it all out? What is the root of this problem? I wonder if it isn't, more often than not, the sophistication of our self-consciousness that holds us back, this pollution of image-worship and the resulting cloud of confusion, self-absorption?

• If I get emotional when I’m singing a worship song, then I will be faking myself out, immature.
• If I even sing a worship song, it will not match my life, which doesn't worship God as much, so I will not sing. I don't know how to sing or worship in my heart.
• If I stand up to worship when no one is around, I will just be religious, trying too hard.
• If I stand up to worship when others are also worshipping, I’ll just be copying them.
• If I lift my hands, what will that matter?
• If I dance, I might tread into the realm of weird or flakey.
• If I worship in silence, how will I know it is real? I have too many fleeting thoughts.
• If I point my spirit to God and thank Him while washing the dishes, cleaning, driving, working, taking care of the kids, it won't be enough—I should do more. So I won't, because what I have to offer isn't enough. I should do more good works—that is more acceptable to God.
• If I ask God to meet me, He won't come. I haven't been consistent.

I think each of these lies comes from a root of the worship of image, the extreme self-consciousness of our culture. It puts us on a perpetual stage; it entices us with fantasies of having others watch us do great things, or having headlines written about us, or having movies made about our lives—we end up living to what we want our legacy to be. We try, as the philosophers say, to create our own lifestyles. This idol, this lie, this sin imbeds itself into our concepts of our own purposes, our concepts of who we are. We put our focus on ourselves as though God was responding to who we are. This pervasive lie tries to make us believe that unless others are impacted or see what God is doing in us, there is no value in our lives—and there is no value in worshipping.

Fortunately for us, there is a way out of this trap, and I think I’ve started to see how to escape. We can be freed from this problem, and we can return to worshipping and praying in unseen closets instead of the public places of our hearts (and blogs). Back when Jesus walked the earth, He asked His disciples a question while traveling along the road with them: Who do people say I am?

According to the Gospel of Mark, they responded, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets." And Jesus asked them another question: But what about you, who do you say that I am?

Jesus seeks our response to who He is. In letting go of the idol of image, we can, free of self-consciousness and self-absorption, say as Peter did: "You are the Christ" (Mark 8).

We are not in charge of creating our own lifestyle or our own legacy after all. We can relax and feel His love. We can worship. May each of our eyes be opened, and may we truly respond, unafraid and unashamed, to the One who transforms us, who loves us, who is our only judge.

The imagination, filled with the Holy Spirit, can brilliantly set us free to worship without shame or holding back. I pray for each of us to be stripped of sophistication. I pray for God's holy mercy to light our path.

Dig Deeper
John 8:12-30
John 10:9-18
John 11:1-45