Biggest. Puzzle. Ever.

It's been a while... I think I'm ready to express myself again.

Your will is like a 4,000,000 piece puzzle that expresses all that this world is. You are the Father that is completing this puzzle, and we are the child that is sitting in your lap in awe of what you are doing. We watch enviously as You work while wanting to help.  We look at this puzzle and we are overwhelmed. We don't know what to do with all of these pieces.  We want to help finish this puzzle. Every now and then we will think that we see a place that a piece will fit. We'll try and slam it into the piece. We think it fits. It doesn't. You take the misshapen piece out, take our hand, and allow us to help. We did it! We helped with the puzzle. That's all we wanted ever since we saw this daunting project. After that, we get a taste of what it's like to put a puzzle together and we want to do more. We try to slam a few more pieces into places that it doesn't fit like children do so well. You will once again, so graciously, allow us to help again. Taking our hand to get .000025% closer to the end of the puzzle. The process repeats itself over and over again. Every time we help, we get happier and more excited that You're allowing us to help with Your puzzle. Someday, maybe, just maybe, we will understand that the only way that we will be able to help You, serve You, is if we allow You to work through us.

Silly Pharaoh...

This "morning" I stayed in bed after I woke up and read Exodus. Not the whole thing, just the part about the plagues and stuff. What I thought was most interesting about this passage was the part where "God hardened Pharaoh's heart." (Ex 7:3) I actually thought of this more disturbing than anything else. Disturbing in the fact that God would "harden someone's heart." So, I looked more into what this meant.

God didn't do this outside of Pharaoh's will. That is, God didn't change anything about Pharaoh. He would've made the same decision regardless of whether God did this or not. What I got out of digging deeper into this passage is that God was looking at this situation and thinking to Himself, "How can I make the best out of this situation?" The best thing that He could think of is that He had to empower Pharaoh to make these decisions to, in time, build him up. Or in other words, there would be a  better chance that Pharaoh would come to know the power and who God really is through all of this crap that was about to happen to his nation. Of course, Pharaoh knew that all of these plagues would happen and eventually wipe out his nation, but he still didn't let Israel go.

Another thing that interested me is the progress that was made throughout the this whole plague process. Pharaoh at the beginning was so unbelievably skeptic of the whole situation. The first time that Moses and Aaron go to the Pharaoh, I picture him laughing at the two young Godly men. He says "Show me a miracle." (Ex 7:9) They do. Then Pharaoh summons his little magicians. They do the same thing. Pharaoh's reaction to this is that Moses and Aaron's message wasn't from God because it was duplicated by human hands. Eventually, once you get further into the plagues, Pharaoh starts to admit that he's sinning against God. Still, he's stubborn and doesn't allow Israel to leave. Then, he FINALLY allows them to leave and Moses is all like, dude, we want all of our people to leave, not just the men. And Pharaoh's all like, no man. That's not happening! Still stubborn. Man, what's it going to take to break this homie down!? Finally, after ten plagues, Pharaoh gives up. He admits defeat and realizes that God is bigger and He always will be.

That made me think about how stubborn I can be sometimes. It forced me to take a step back from my life and look at what I'm holding onto saying "No God, I'm bigger than you and there's no way you're getting what you want in this area of my life." Man, that's challenging. Challenging to just admit that I'm not big enough to fight Him. Why even try?! There's no use. I might as well just wave the white flag now. Why should I go through ten plagues with a hardened heart when I could go through none and do God's work to its fullest.

My extended family

This past Saturday I went to the Milwaukee Brewers game. Miller Park, the Brewers stadium, is just an architectural and structural phenomenon. The retracting roof is unlike any other retracting roof as it rotates open, not slides. I usually enjoy going to professional sports. Even when I don't like either team playing, similar to Saturday. The main thing that I like about professional sports is seeing everyone so unified on one goal. When a player does anything close to something a physically average body wouldn't be able to handle, everyone cheers. Even I cheered. As a Cubs fan, a team that the Brewers have beat up on all year, I should despise Brewers. But I cheered. I didn't care. The good feeling in the stadium is contagious.

When I saw everyone so happy and cheering for anything and everything that was going on on the field, I thought of the family that is promised to us as Christians. This family of brothers and sisters that traces back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve. I think that the relationship that we should have between our brothers and sisters in Christ is very similar to the relationship that we have with people at professional sports games. We should be doing all of the following:

1) Watching for successes and failures.  In a professional sports game, the players are under a microscope. Everything that they do in those times are ridiculed and criticized to no end. Given, all of this stuff is on a very surface level, but can still be applied to our relationships with each other as a Body of Christ. We should be watching each other's lives very carefully. As Christians, we know that it's hard. We're put under the microscope of everyone else in the world. They expect us to be perfect a lot of the time. We know we can't do that though. It's up to us, as brothers and sisters, to call out each other when we make a big mistake like fans do for professional sports players mess up in a game. (Maybe booing someone off the field is a little harsh and not loving...) Because we know how hard it is to live in this world and not of it, it's up to us to call each other out on it.

The other big thing that we need to remember is to CELEBRATE with each other! So often Christianity is boiled down to "What am I doing wrong?! How can I make this better?!" I'm not saying that that's the wrong mentality to have, because it's good. We all have to be striving for a solid walk with the Lord. However, we need to celebrate with each other and lift each other up when good things happen! It's in those times that can really fuel them to continue whatever it is that they're doing. This is  something that I've encountered this year at school so far. I'm tired. I haven't gotten much sleep. I've been pouring into a lot of people and whenever I see some sort of result, ANY result, it causes for celebration. Celebrate with that random 300 pound guy next to you in the stands if it comes to that.

2) Be undignified! At these professional sporting events, it's kind of funny if you ever just watch people. I'm not sure if it's because they've had a little too much to drink or because of the atmosphere, but their actions at these events just scream "I'm going to do _____ and I don't care what you think!" Why can't Christians have this mentality? (Once again, maybe a little more loving and less "drunk guy in the stands"...) We all know that we love the same God. We all know that we follow the same Jesus. We all know that we have the same Holy Spirit dwelling in us. So why can't we just worship however we want? pray how we want? talk freely about what's on our minds? 

At professional sporting events, with most people in the stands, you have one thing in common: the game. You're completely sold out for everything Brewers or Cubs or Packers etc. Often times when we go to one of these events we end up at least sparking a conversation with the person/ people next to us. Why can't this be with our brothers and sisters in Christ? With most of the Christians in this world, we have one thing in common: Jesus. So what's stopping you from sparking a conversation with the person you're sitting next to at church that you've seen for a month in a row? Why can't you talk to the person that openly confesses they're a Christian in front of the entire class or work place?

A lot of times Christians don't see every other Christian as a brother or sister (I'm guilty of this too). We just see them as another person that believes the same thing we do. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. God loves us enough to call us His children... yet we still ignore each other or ignore the actions that we are making and shrug it off as no big deal. When Paul concludes his second letter to the Corinthians, he states how important this concept is of embracing the relationship with each other. As you go through the day, my challenge to you is to treat everywhere you are like Miller Park. Every one throughout your day treat like an all star. 

What now?

I want to use this post to thank everyone that supported me this summer. Your prayers were present over the whole summer. The reason that I know is because God answered those prayers and gave me the energy, words, and actions needed to make the biggest God footprint in Chicago and the students' lives as possible. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been able to experience what I did, and I wouldn't have gotten to experience God in the ways that I was able to. So I want to thank you for all of the prayers that you offered over the summer and all of the financial support that you were so generous in giving for me to get the opportunity to even go to Chicago this summer.

"So Donnie, how are you different from this experience?"

Well, it's funny you ask. This summer was life changing. No two ways around it. This summer itself was somewhat of a leap of faith. I didn't know what God was going to do with it or what He was going to teach me in the process. He didn't disappoint. I witnessed God working in the lives of so many students this summer. All of the teams that came in, over and over again were answering prayers of churches to further their ministries. We were able to see kids get saved in the Vacation Bible Schools that the teams ran. 

The thing that God was beating into my head and heart all summer was the fact that I'm not here for myself. I'm not in Chicago sleeping on couch cushions, getting 6-7 hours of sleep every night while working intensely long days, and doing all of these work projects for myself. I'm not doing it for the people of Chicago. I'm doing it for God. I tried doing all of the things this summer on my own strength for many days and even weeks. I couldn't do it. I needed to rely on God to do what I was meant to do there. The only reason in my mind that I would need God's power and presence in my life is if I'm doing His work. If I can't do something on my own, that's a good sign, a sign saying I'm doing something right. I'm doing stuff that is above me. Something Godsized. 

Metaphor time! Consider everything that we do, every action that we make, is candy. Everyone loves candy. What's better than candy? More candy! More candy = more impactful actions. We all want to leave an impact. The more candy that we get the more candy we want. Our end goal is to get as much candy as we can. Godsized candy! Godsized candy = Godsized impact! Why can't we focus on this in our everyday lives? Focus on God's purpose and why He's placed us in every situation He has in that given day? That's one of the biggest things I've taken away from this summer. Living life intentionally. I want to have a purpose for everyday that I'm living. At night, before I go to bed, I want to have my Godsized 100 Grand candy bar for dessert.

That's what I need to do this year in order to make a Godsized impact on MSOE's campus and Milwaukee in general. God's ready to move in Milwaukee. He's ready to use this campus to change the world. The only problem that we might encounter is whether or not we're ready for the change and how willing we are to actually act on what we believe God is trying to do through us as His children here at MSOE. I'm pumped to say the least. I'm ready to feast in Godsized candy. 

How do you define your faith?

Is it by what you say? Is it by what you think? Is it by what you don't think? Is it by what you do? Is it by what you don't do? 

It's really an interesting question. One that I never asked myself really before this last week. I was given the opportunity to teach a bible study on the passage James 2. James 2 has a relatively famous passage in it that says rather bluntly "faith without deeds is dead" (2:17, 20). In the process of teaching this passage, I asked the question "What do you do to make people know that you're a Christian?" This question seemed relatively straightforward and somewhat easy to answer. The answers I got were rather interesting. I got such answers as "I don't curse", "I don't have sex", "I don't drink or do drugs", or " I don't gossip with my friends". Don't get me wrong, all of these things are good and are very important while being a Christian. However, that's not what this passage was getting at.

If you think of pretty much any character in the Bible and why they were known in their time, about 99% of the time it's because of what they did. Not because of what they didn't do. This is what James was talking about when he wrote this Chapter of his letter to the new church. He knew that they would stand out already because of what they didn't do. He knew that there would be temptation to be complacent at where they are by just not doing stuff. 

In high school, this is what I let define me and who I was as a person. I was the one "that didn't drink" or that "didn't cuss". This has been something that I've been living by until this last year. I've realized that reading the Bible and learning about God is a huge part in your relationship with Christ. However, if you don't take everything that you're learning in your life and apply it to your life somehow then what's the point? James went as far as to say that you're wasting your time if you're doing that. Hmm... convicting, isn't it? 

So what does this have to do with my summer? For one, I'm learning a TON about God and about the plans that He has for my future. This next year, God's entrusting me with a much larger flock than he has in previous years. This means that a lot more people are going to be looking to me to model what a relationship with Christ looks like. James 2:17 is one of the main things that I'm going to have to keep in mind while doing this so that everyone I'm being a witness to doesn't just think that being a Christian is a list of things that you shouldn't do but it's something that you need to be active in and something to strive after. 

When Jesus was on this earth, he didn't just not do things. He acted upon every opportunity that he had in his years on this broken planet. He cared for the tax collectors, he loved the prostitutes, he fed the hungry, he humbled the proud, and he healed the sick. The name Christian literally means "to be like Christ." The people in Jesus' time knew him by what he did, not by what he didn't do. So let's be like him. Let us act on the faith that we have in God in every situation possible. Whether that be talking to the person next to you in line while waiting for lunch about their day or being able to pack up and move if that's what you believe His will is. In Paul's letter to the Hebrews he defines faith as "being sure of what we hope and being certain of what we do not see." We need to take actions out of faith whether or not we know what is going to happen. If we don't, it shows our uncertainty in God. If we're uncertain about God, then we have no faith.

God in a box

Lord, 

You are the God of this city. You have shown me that many times in this last month. You are moving through so many people in this community to make this place more like how You intended. You have a plan for everyone and everything. You've proven that many times. God, I haven't trusted you the way that I should. I haven't been as faithful following you through those hard times and praising you in those tough times. God, I need to be able to listen to your voice and act upon what I've hear. The level of urgency that you call for your people to have isn't there in me. I've been very relaxed in these last couple weeks. I know that I don't have much time with these students to speak truth into their lives. But I've just been sitting back watching you work. I ask, Heavenly Father, that you use me for the reason that I'm here, and that reason is to speak truth into these students' lives. God, You are in control here. Not me. Please help me realize that and help me do your work humbly as this summer progresses. Please give me the energy that I need to finish what you sent me here to do. Please instill in me a level of urgency that I need to have to get Your will done. You are in charge. You are the reason I'm here.  

Amen.

The trip this last week was a team from Memphis. This team isn't your "normal mission trip team"... Let's just put it this way; they got kicked out of the church we're staying in temporarily because a guy that works here thought they were random kids from the neighborhood. They were 6 African American students from the not so nice parts of Memphis. What I learned from this trip was that God can connect with anyone. He can do something for anyone in this world to help them see him. So often we put God in a box. We say "This is the way that I see God and this is the only way that He is." That couldn't be farther from the truth. 

God is big. People say that all the time. We sing worship songs about the power that He has and how big He is. But do we really see how big He is? Do we see the power that He is? Do we even look? I know I don't very often. I'm guilty of it. I leave God in my little box. I've started seeing God work in ways that I never thought possible. God turning people to Him through community, miracles, relationships, conversations, family troubles, and through praise. The most thought provoking way that God works through is community. 

God created us to be with each other. He didn't create us to be isolated. Not just through our church, not just in our circle of nice little Christian friends, but getting people that don't believe Jesus is Savior. That's the crucial part that most people don't realize. They just look at their church and are comfortable with their relationships that they have there. That's the way that I used to see things. I'm guilty. Comfort is so overrated though. Do you think that Moses was comfortable leading Israel out of Egypt into the Promise Land? No. Do you think that Peter was comfortable being the rock of the Christian church? No. Do you think that Paul was comfortable being called to be one of the most persecuted against Christians of all time? No. All of these people from the Bible took off their skirts and did what they knew God was calling them to do. I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that any of the above tasks are more difficult than building a community involving everyone. 

When we, as a Christian church, start to love people as who they are and not who the world sees them as, that's when we start to see God in different ways. That's when God reveals Himself to us. How have you seen God today? 

Habakkuk 1:5

Wow. It's only been three weeks in Chicago and so much has happened. To everyone out there, I'm sorry I won't be able to fill you in on everything that has happened. However, I will fill you in on the most important events in the last two trips and what God is doing in my life as an individual.

Trip 1
Church: Faithbridge Methodist from Houston, TX
Location: La Villita Community Church, Little Village, Chicago, IL

This being the first trip of the summer, I thought that I was going to get eased into the summer and into what God is doing in Chicago. Key word there is thought. Our work project for these two weeks was to put up dry wall in a church across the street from La Villita. Dry wall sounds like such an easy project in theory, but when you're working on a building that was built in 1891, and has been remodeled and had amateur hands working on it all throughout the years of the building, it's far from easy. There were a lot of obstacles that had to be overcome in the process of taking down old drywall, cutting the new pieces, and putting those up. The kicker is that the students had to navigate all of those obstacles pretty much by themselves with the supervision of all of the adults on the trip and myself. The students found ways to get through all of the problems that they encountered throughout the whole two weeks and made those two rooms very pretty.

The work project isn't what made this trip so special. On this trip, the students genuinely cared about each other. They wanted to know each other's stories, their struggles, and celebrate with each other! It was fun for me to be a part of such a tight knit community and seeing such a cool environment for Christ to flourish. Being able to step back from the group and look at how people were being transformed was one of my favorite parts of the trip for me. There were a number of people of the team that were rather quiet at the beginning of the trip. I heard stories over and over of these students "not talking at Bible study" or comments something along the lines of "I've never heard you talk before..." So often we get caught up in what's going on and we're so into the moment here and now. We spend so much time looking and gawking at what's going on that we forget about God. We look at the situation that we're going through and we just see it as something that's happening, not "This is God." That's what I had the opportunity to see this trip. I saw the Holy Spirit just doing work in these students. Some people say that it's so hard to see the Holy Spirit working. After this week, I think that it's the most noticeable of the Holy Trinity. He can convict people on what they're doing or how their acting, they can open them up to possibilities in their lives, or even give them strength to do what they never saw possible. All of these things I saw or even experienced myself during this trip. God is moving.

Coming into this summer, I had a few things in mind that God was going to show me: how I can better serve the poverty in Milwaukee this coming year, what I should do with school and how I can use that to better the Kingdom, how more effectively share the Gospel and how it has effected my life, and how to handle a large amount of responsibility. During this trip I had the opportunity to get to know our missionary partners at La Villita: Victor, Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church (the church we did work in): "the Charles-es", and Young Men Educational Network (YMEN): Marcus. I was informed of the neighborhood and how God is moving within Little Village. I was privileged enough to hear a few testimonies from the people that I was so blessed to meet during these two weeks. What was really cool about all of these stories is that most of them had something in common: trusting God. So far in my walk with Christ, I have struggled quite a bit with that. I'm just starting to learn that God is bigger than me. There's no possible way that I'm going to overcome God's plan for me with my puny self. I'm starting to understand that God wants me with Him and on His side and the only way that I will get away from that plan is... well... I can't get away from His plan. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, God is going to pull me in. So why is it so hard for me to trust Him and go with Him willingly?

I would say that I can relate to Saul right now. After he's blinded on the road to Damascus, he spends 3 days in Damascus praying. Just saying to God, "Dude, what're you doing with me?! I've persecuted you so much and turned against you every chance I had! Why me?" This is the mentality that I'm having right now. I don't know what God is doing in my life right now. I don't know what He's preparing me for. I don't know why I'm going through all of this challenge and struggle this summer. But all I need to do is stay faithful through it all, and God will provide and everything will turn out. I mean, just look at Saul. After his conversion, he ended up writing most of the new testament. God will have His way with me. I will be a weapon on the side of God. I just pray that I will take the easy route. Not the route to Damascus.

Quick Recap of Trip 2:

Church: Emmanuel Lutheran, Dayton, OH

Location: Brickyard Bible Church, Chicago, IL

Sadly, I don't have time to go into as much detail as I did on the last trip but I'll try to give you a quick rundown:

This small church on the Northwest side of Chicago has a member that came to the church a couple years ago. The reason that she came to the church was to die. She was pregnant with her 5th kid and she had a fatal case of cancer. She came to the church to get her relationship with God right. The members of the congregation then prayed over her for pretty much a day straight. Then, she went home after that for a couple days. She went into the doctor then to get a check up on the progress of the cancer and a miracle had occurred. The cancer was gone. SAY WHAT??!?! Yeah. God did that. He just said "No, I'm not done with you yet," and snatched that cancer out of her body. She then proceeded to have her 5th child with a husband addicted to drugs. Soon after the baby was born, the father decided to go to rehab and give his life to Christ as well. Insane in the membrane. 

Even though the family is now apart of the church, they still don't have the funds to fix the house that they have had pretty much their entire lives. Words seriously can't describe the massive amounts of work in this house. Literally, everywhere you look there is something that needs to be worked on. They have been praying for the energy, manpower, and resources to make this work happen around their house for years. A couple days before this team from Dayton comes in, Ryan, the trip leader, called the church we were staying at and asked the pastor if they had any families in the congregation that needed any work done around the house. Obviously, he thought of this family first. Prayers were answered. God is awesome. Energy, manpower, and resources were brought to the house on Monday, June 27th, 2011. 

Oh, I forgot to tell you that they were about to go into foreclosure. If they didn't have four main things done in that house, then they wouldn't be able to live there anymore. Those four things included fixing concrete stairs in for the front porch and putting in new wooden ones, tearing out flooring in the bathroom and putting brand new flooring in, putting water seal on the back porch steps, and putting a new ceiling up in the basement of the house. Wow. That's a lot of work to have to have done in any house and for this house, it was just the beginning. The hardworking team from Dayton did work on this house during the 5 days that they worked there. They either finished or nearly finished all of the four projects that they had to to bring them out of foreclosure. Talk about God providing. 

Another thing that was cool about this trip was that this church helped plant a LeaderTreks site in Dayton. This summer LeaderTreks had 3 weeks in the Dayton area. Emmanuel Lutheran saw the need that was in Dayton at the time and they acted on it. The only thing that I've heard about the Dayton site thus far is that it's awesome. God is moving in Dayton so much from what I heard from the team that was here and what I've heard from the group that was in Dayton. The Dayton site has been SO successful that they want to expand the trip next year from 3 weeks to 10 weeks. God is moving. 

Prayers

The first third of trips, I've learned so much about God and who He is. He's been teaching me so much through the students, the community I'm submerged in, and the stories that I've heard. He's been making me think through why I'm here also. I had a conversation about community and what it is with a person recently. That one conversation flipped my perception of serving upside down. We were talking about the concept of intentional community. The idea of living submerged in the areas that need serving. He said that the people in those areas don't want to feel like a charity case (who does?). While trying to piece what I'm going to be doing in Milwaukee this next year together and hearing this life changing stuff, I realized that that's what I'm supposed to do in Milwaukee. Live life with the poverty. Make the homeless feel like they're needed. Help the broken hearted gain hope again. But this isn't just by going to a soup kitchen once a week or once a month, but it's by living with them. What does that look like though? That's the question that I need to look to God for now. 

As the summer goes on, and the trips begin to mesh together a little bit, my energy will begin to diminish. I'm starting to get worn out. Physically and spiritually. I can't do this alone. If I want to make the biggest impact here in Chicago then I'm going to have to be ready to fight in battle. I need help. As this summer goes on, please continue to pray for me that I can have as much energy needed to fulfill God's plan for me this summer. Also, please pray for patience for me this summer. We have four weeks where we are moving around Chicago from church to church. This is extremely tiring. I have less free time than I thought that I would and expending more energy during the weekends than I would like. During these next 3 weeks please be praying for patience because I'm already annoyed with all of this moving around. Doing it 3 more times is going to be even more frustrating. 

Also, if you want to be apart of God moving in Chicago this week, and want to partner with me financially still, there's still time! Up to the end of July you can help support me by sending a check made out to LeaderTreks to:

LeaderTreks

Attn:Donnie Bogle

25W560 Geneva Rd. Suite 30

Carol Stream, IL 60188

Or if you have a PayPal account then you can help that way by clicking the following link:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=WC5DYEAEHS87Y&lc=US&item_name=LeaderTreks&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted