...still standing...

WOW! Can I tell you about the blessing that my week has been! First, it has been a little over a week since you and I have discussed life, specifically mine. It's kinda interesting that I have a blog about MY life and call it no longer central. Oh well. I guess I just try to remember that ultimately this blog is meant to minister to others. Hope it is doing that for you.

Anyways, we had a ridiculously amazing group last week and we are having a pretty amazing group this week as well. Last week we were able to do a tremendous amount of work for my friends, the Small Family (see posted ...giddyup...). To our surprise, she made the groups lunch every day. What a servant. This week we finished their home and have begun work on two additional projects; a teen center for the Boys and Girls Club and a major overhaul on a local church that will begin using the facility again this Sunday for baptisms. It has been a pretty insane 1 1/2 weeks. However...

...I would totally be lying to you if I said this was not hard. Its not as much about the work as it is aobut the really long hours, and honestly the ridiculous amount of spiritual warfare. There I said it, outloud at that. A few years ago, a fellow staff member at a church I served began to use the fact that I used that language against me. He began to throw the term back in my face and act as if the use of that term was simply to glorify me and get my own way. Since then I have rarely used the term. I am currently in a place of life where I have no choice but to acknowledge it. Call a spade a spade. Now, some things happen just because, but I totally embrace the idea that we do have an enemy seeking to kill, steal and destroy. To acknowledge anything less would simply be uncivilized and not very bright. Anyways, with all that said let me tell you about the weekend: radiator on the van blew up halfway to Billings and had to go buy a new van Saturday and go shopping for 3 meals a day for 70 people. Yeah. Supposed to be the day off. I had a little friction with someone (resolved PRAISE Jesus!), got hardly any rest, and started over on Sunday night. Sunday a Monday were just a little off for me. It was weird. Everything went fine, but ALL the staff felt such a heaviness surrounding the site and ourselves. Eventually we had opportunity to pray together outside. It was hazey and no stars were to be seen. Amazing enough, as we began to pray against the enemy in the name of Jesus, the fog totally lifted taking with it the heaviness and revealing the most beautiful mass of stars. God is good.
Oh it would have been so easy to just give up on a weekend like this. It would have been so easy to just kinda go through the motions this week and not care about anything. It would have been so easy to wallow in our lack of rest and spiritual heaviness. But, I always remember something my ex-girlfriend use to tell me in hard times (shout out to your wife Phil!). She would always tell me, "when times are tough Lance, you just stand! Don't quit or give in...just STAND!" I am thankful to Amy for those words of life that encouraged me this week to simply stand in the presence of the all-providing and all loving savior Jesus Christ!

Amen.

...change of delivery date...

Hey friends! Because my time off during the week is going to be falling on Wednesday evenings, please begin looking for my new posts on Wednesday nights orThursday Mornings beginning tomorrow. Blessings!

...encouragement on the journey...

Man!  I so wish I could just divulge information on ALL the things that are going on here in Lame Deer, Montana.  All good so far.  There are however some things I can share.

1.  The Minnesotans make fun of my accent.

2.  We named our work crew after some of the lovely wildlife in the are:  llamas, mountain lions, eagles, and sasquatch.  Yeah you read that right...how could we resist?

3.  I love the people I work with dearly.

4.  I am still dealing with pride, but by the authority of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit I am continuing to grow more and more like Christ daily.

5.  We can already see AMAZING work that God is doing in the lives and hearts of students, even on day one.

6.  God is encouraging me daily in my walk with Him.  Some of the things he has encouraged me in are the following:

--I am so very reminded of the fact that there is such thing as spiritual warfare.  I have for  the past few years ago, been almost apologetic about my belief in a spiritual battle  that is going on around us.  Two sides fighting equally as hard for our attention and  devotion.  Friends, I will no longer apologize for believing and fighting against the  spirits that would seek to drag me away from God or distract me from the work he is doing in me.  Not totally certain how this encourages me, but it does.

--God is revealing to me that I can still be in effective ministry with young people.  I am so thankful that God gives me the opportunity to minister to students that have the ability and the nerve to change this world.  I hope this is something I get to do for many years to come in some capacity.

--I am also encouraged to see that a group of people from extremely different places and backgrounds can come together and effectively run and maintain this phenomenal camp.  God is so good.

--I am encouraged that I can be honest.  So many of us spend so much of our lives lying to others and even ourselves.  This blog has actually really opened the doors for me to be EXTREMELY honest with myself and you my faithful readers.  Tonight I really struggled with pride and it manifested itself in a way that really frustrated me and probably others.  I felt Christ pushing me toward the need to confess this sin to my fellow staff members.  At first I was shocked did not want to apologize (see 2 weeks ago post to find out that I often think I know everything).  But, I decided that the good that could come out of the situation is for me to learn from it, take away a tool of Satan and hopefully rebuild a greater level of trust with my co workers.  They were extremely understanding and appreciated my candor i believe.  I certainly thank God that He can take ANYTHING Satan intends for evil and use it for good!

Friends thanks for your prayers this week.  I look forward to continuing on this journey with you.

Eyes on the Cross,

Lance

...giddyup...

Tony Campolo, one of my favorite theologians tells a story of a preacher out in the west.  He meets an ole cowboy and eventually over time leads him to Christ.  A while later, the preacher went to visit the ole cowboy and asked him how his relationship with Christ was going.  The cowboy said, "Preacher I feel like I have two horses roped up to ma heart and both are pulling in different directions."  The preacher asked him, "Which one is winning?"  The cowboy looked at him and said, "Whichever one I say giddyup to in the morning."

So true.  So true.  Over this past week in beautiful Montana, I have seen many things.  We went last week to see the Buffalo Jump (where the natives would run buffalo off the cliff before sophisticated weaponry), visited a lot of great people in the Cheyenne community, gone to a cookout at the park, and even participated in a traditional Cheyenne sweat lodge (google it).  I have so greatly enjoyed this different culture.  Last week I met with the Small family.  They are the best couple.  We will be working on their home in the next few weeks.  She smiles about everything....literally EVERYTHING!  She was telling us about a close friend dying from an asthma attack 2 days ago....smiling.  Then she told us about her step son getting shot in his driveway years ago...smiling.  And then she totally changed subjects and began asking about our families religious beliefs.  It was about 40% endearing and 60% awkward.  Then today and yesterday as I heard this Campolo story, I began to think about Mrs. Small (jackie as she would have me call her).  The truth is we all have an opportunity to smile and live life in expectation of great things.  Its just that so often we say giddyup to the horse that drags us down or reminds us of the things we dont have.  Seems to me Jackie has just made a decision to say Giddyup to the horse the reminds her that there are better things to come and reminds her of the blessings she has been given by God.  Hmmm.....

So my friend, no real deep and profound confessions or thoughts this week, I am just going to be challenging myself to be more aware of which horse i am spuring on.  Which one am I going to push toward the finish line today.  Will it be the horse that is charging as hard as possible toward Christ, or the horse that is charging as hard as possible the other way.

Lord, keep drawing me close to you and help me make decisions that spur me toward your will for my life!

Be Blessed Friends,

Lance

...Littlebird wisdom...

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."  1 Thessalonians 5.16

TIRED! Very Tired.  Tools and crap all over the place.  We did inventory today...and praise God it's almost over!

Toward the end of last week, we had an opportunity to lay out some goals for our summer with YouthWorks!.  I took this opportunity to be very honest with myself.  And now tonight, at a very late hour, I will be very honest with you.

I am prideful.  I believe I know it all.  I hide behind my ability to talk myself through many situations.  Sometimes, I run over people pretending we compromised, knowing full well, I got my way.  I talk down to people sometimes.  And honestly, as much as I quote Proverbs 18.21, I often speaks words that sound a lot more like death than life.  It's not pleasant to say, and it certainly isn't a pleasant thing to confess to you my friends.  But it is what it is.

That leads me to my goals.  I have decided that above all else, I LOOOOONG to gain a servant heart.  So often, I do good things, because there is some sort of payout for me.  It strokes my ego, makes me feel better about my shortcomings, or feeds the evil need for power that I sometimes struggle with.  The truth is, I am not a huge fan of serving others.  It pains my heart to say it, and tears stream down my face as I do.  It's not who I want to be.  I want to do everything for the glory of Jesus Christ who died on the cross that I might be saved.  I want to feed the hungry because they are hungry.  I want to paint a house because someone needs their house painted.  I want to build relationships with the preferred and denied because we all need relationships.  I want to pour into the lives of young people because I want so badly for them to know Jesus Christ...not just because it makes me look greater or holier, or even creates a built-in social system.  Don't get me wrong.  There are many reasons I work with students.  I love all of the students I have had the privilege to serve over the past nine years, but I find myself realizing that sometimes I poured into them for my own gain and sometimes not as much for theirs or God's.

So now we have exposed much of the truth of the matter, but friend, I praise God...GRACE ABOUNDS!!!  For those of you who have not been reading, I have moved to Lame Dear, Montana for the summer to work with a company called YouthWorks! on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.  Since the moment we arrived I have been warmly welcomed by  a man name Lonnie Littlebird.  Lonnie works for the school we are living in.  This man has been such a servant to our crew.  He has talked to us about the culture and taken us on trips.  He has set up our Wi-Fi and pointed us to coffee shops on the Rez.  He has helped in every way possible.  Last night, we were talking about religion and Lonnie shared that he realizes more and more every day that the Cheyenne culture is a culture of prayer.  It is my belief, through my prayers and yours, God will grant me the desire of my heart; a heart to serve his people, a heart to serve Him.  I am tired of serving myself.  It is exhausting to serve and consume all at the same time.  I long to serve the God of the universe and all those He sees as valuable (that's you).  I long to have a heart like His.  Would you please join me in prayer on this journey.  I need your prayers and I will be happy to pray for you.  Together we will both develop the kind of relationship with Christ the makes us no longer central.  Lance

PS...I am going to a sweat lodge Thursday night.  I will let you know how it went.