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Some of you reading this started reading this blog because of LeaderTreks. Some of you have started reading it this past academic year. Some of you are reading this for the first time. A lot has happened this last year... Thinking about everything that has happened in the last year and where and who I was a year ago is all overwhelming. LeaderTreks taught and grew me so much last summer (see previous posts). This last school year has been insane. I've learned a lot about God, engineering and what living out the Gospel looks like. One theme that God has been driving home this last year has been loving the "orphans, widows, immigrants, and the poor." These four people groups are seen in the Bible as people that God values. God sees the need of these people and wants to use the material possessions that He has blessed unto the rest of society to meet those needs. Obviously these people groups have changed a little bit in today's society... The idea is that there are always going to be marginalized people groups in society and God loves those people and cares to supply for them. This is evident in a lot of Scripture. One example of this is the concept of gleaning in the Old Testament. God told the farmers that while they are picking a crop and they miss some to leave it. This isn't for laziness sake... It's so that the people that do not have can pick it and have food. 

God has been putting many opportunities to love these people groups in my life this last year. Some of the main situations that He's gave me are my summer in Chicago, my job as an RA, going to college in Milwaukee (fourth poorest city in the country), and *drum roll.....* working in Memphis as a construction manager this summer for Service Over Self (SOS). (For those of you that didn't know that I'm working for SOS this summer, this is something that I've been looking forward to since mid-February.) Working for SOS is something that I believe that God has placed in my life to challenge and grow me into a more faithful servant of His. I'm excited to experience a new city and to grow my knowledge of construction management this coming summer. SOS is a home repairs ministry that gives high school and junior high school students a place to learn about God, get a missions experience, and challenge them in their construction skills. There are students that come into the SOS for a week at a time and do construction projects in an inner-city neighborhood called Binghampton.

I am excited for this summer for a multitude of reasons:

1. To get away from MSOE for a while. As much as I LOVE going to school at this wonderful institution, it will be nice to escape for a while. I enjoy the people here and what they have done in my life. However, MSOE does not bring very much diversity in my life. I'm looking forward to interacting with people of different majors, personalities, and faces. It will be a refreshing yet challenging time getting away from MSOE and getting to know all of the amazing summer staffers that I will be working/growing with this summer. 

2. Experiencing a new city. I've enjoyed learning more about the diversity, history, and culture of Milwaukee this last year. Milwaukee is an incredible city to live in and to experience at any time of the year (unless you can't stand the cold...). I'm looking forward to experiencing life in a new city. One of the largest things that has struck me hard just in the last couple months is the civil rights movement. Memphis, being the city that Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in, was home of one of the largest turning points in the movement. I'm also excited to experience the beauty that is found in the buildings and structures in Memphis seen in this slideshow. 

3. Learning more of what God's plan for my life is. Right now in my life, I believe that God is calling me to use my degree in Architectural Engineering and Construction Management to be in ministry someday. I don't know where or what that's going to look like. I think that exposing myself to people that have made these decisions for their lives is a good way for me to figure those questions out. I'm excited to dive into God's Word all summer and be in a place that is submerged in the presence of God to find a little more of God's will for my life. 

4. Learning more about God! I love working with high school students. I love challenging them and exposing the talents that they didn't know that they had. I love seeing God in the city. I love seeing God work through brokenness. I love experiencing God through His Word. I love learning more and more about what it means to have "gospel-faith". I'm pumped to be challenged and molded by God, the people that I'll be working with, and all of the experiences I'll have this summer.

To everyone that supported me for LeaderTreks last summer:

If you think that what you gave or all of the prayers prayed were just a one time thing last summer, you're dead wrong. Last summer shaped who I am and how I go about living my life for the one and only Lord of the universe. I thank you for every penny that you gave and every word that was prayed for me. Last summer pushed me to seek other inner-city connections and possibilities for this summer. So if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in Memphis this summer either. I have been blessed by having all of you loving supporters out there. I hope that there has been some way that I have been a blessing in your lives as well along the way.

To everyone reading:

I don't need financial support for this summer. SOS is nice enough to provide a stipend for this summer that comes directly from them. Just because I don't need financial support for this summer, I need prayer support. As I'm preparing for this summer, I ask that you join me in prayer for this coming adventure. I ask that you pray for me being able to finish school without dying. I still have 4 weeks of school left including finals and it's crunch time. I will need prayers to be able to focus on God and being able to set aside time to prepare for this summer spiritually and emotionally. I ask that you can be praying for all of the relationships that are in my life. This summer I will not have very many opportunities to keep in touch with all of the friendships that I have here at MSOE. If these friendships are not strong and steady before the summer, there's a chance that they will be crippled when I come back from the summer. I ask that you can be praying for an urgent and intentional mentality in this area of my life.

I thank God for the each and every one of you and the support system that I have in my life. I feel extremely blessed through the friends and family that He has placed in my life. 

"May God bless you a million times"

Brew City isn't all beer and cheese...

ATTN: Long Post. If you have something to do/ somewhere to be, you have been forewarned.

This past week was MSOE's spring break. Yeah, yeah... it's really late for spring break. I know. You don't have to tell me. The InterVarsity chapter at my school had the privilege of having our own Milwaukee Urban Plunge (MUP for short)! This week is to train and inform the college population of the injustices urban populations go through. Another thing that this trip did was to empower college students to do something about these issues. This week (that wasn't really a week I guess) lasted from Tuesday till Sunday. The theme for the week was "Who is my neighbor?" The reasoning for this to be the theme was that the college campus sets up walls around itself so that it doesn't have to experience the outside world. Honestly, if I didn't want to, I could go a month without hearing about anything outside of the MSOE world. This trip forced us to get a (hypothetical) ladder and look over those walls into the parts of Milwaukee that are deemed undesirable by society. The week looked a little something like this:

In the morning we would have a Bible study going over various passages dealing with the "Who is my neighbor" theme of the trip. The passages included James 2, John 4, Acts 18:8-25, and Ruth 1-2. The study made clear that our "neighbors" are anyone that we come in contact with. When Jesus said in Mark 12:31 that we should "love our neighbors as ourselves" he wasn't just talking about our physical neighbors. We also discussed injustices that dealt with neighbors (everyone) and how we (middle upper class white folk) tend to shy away from looking at those issues (especially when those people don't look like us, come from the same background, or believe the same things as us). We weren't just shown the wrong things to do but the good things as well.

The next part of our day we went to a ministry on the north side of Milwaukee called Mother Scott's Christian Youth Center. This place is blessed upon blessed by God. Mother Scott is considered by many as the "grandmother of Milwaukee". She has been serving in Milwaukee since 1974. This ministry provides hot meals to the homeless and poverty stricken, has a food pantry, clothing donations, addiction counseling, a 24 hour prayer hotline, as well as summer programs and tutoring for children. They also have a computer lab that they are currently working on getting internet in. This computer lab does wonders for the homeless community. When someone doesn't have access to a computer it's considerably more difficult to look for jobs, make a resume, and read the news. Mother Scott's also mostly hires people that are living in poverty/ need. In the time serving there I spoke to at least 3 people that said they just started working at Mother Scott's and got hooked up with them through a temp agency. Seeing Mother Scott interact with the people that were in her building allowed me to see why she was widely known as the "grandmother of Milwaukee". She has such authority, people respect her, she is intimidating but has unfailing love for everyone, and she strives after God and encourages others to as well.


In the evening of the days during MUP we experienced the city more. The activities that we did included watching a documentary about the civil rights movement in Milwaukee and the racism still prevalent in the city (Milwaukee is the most segregated city in America). This opened up my eyes to the complexity and abstractness of segregation and how everyone contributes to it.

Another evening activity was going to a Hispanic church on the south side of Milwaukee called Desatar (day-say-tar: means undo or untie) for their evening service. The sermon this night was about being a good steward of what God has blessed you with. This was extremely interesting because just that morning our planned quiet times was on Revelation 18 and the temptation of materialism. The sermon at Desatar spoke on God wanting to bless His people financially and it's our job to do good with what we have. (Those of you that are familiar with the prosperity gospel, this is not that.) Our quiet times, on the other hand, was talking on the temptation of materialism and wanting our stuff too much. The reason that these two things are such an interesting contrast is that, on the surface level, these are two opposite teachings. However, if we go too far in either direction (not wanting money because it is "evil" and wanting money too much), is not sound theology. Yes, God does want to bless us with enough money to survive and live in this world. Yes, God wants your full and undivided attention, not distracted by something as trivial as money. There is a happy medium between the two. Another thing that I learned from the contrast between the two was the cultural differences and the fact that with different cultures comes different struggles while following.

Thursday night we went to a food kitchen in the downtown of Milwaukee called St. Ben's. This was probably the most thought provoking and best experience that happened all week. At St. Ben's all we did was get food and sit down to talk to another person there that we didn't previously know (preferably a homeless/ poverty stricken person). I talked to a man named John (he introduced himself to me as Giovanni). While I ate with him the conversation went from Illinois to Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky to legalizing weed to other laws in America that should be passed. After eating, John left. I felt the urge to go pray for Him. So I got up and asked if I could pray for him, he agreed and asked if we could go outside. We talked for another 20 minutes outside about Christianity, family, and injuries in our lives. While talking to this man that may or may not be homeless, I was thinking to myself "Why am I so afraid of people like this?" Here he is, pouring his heart out to me and on the verge of tears. He's a person. I'm a person. There's no more reason for me to be afraid of him than there is the professor that is teaching my Macroeconomics class. As I'm writing this, I'm understanding that this is what the theme of the week is all about. If we're all living in the same city, under the same government, surviving through the same weather, and created by the same God, why can't we just love each other like it? Why do we fear people that are different than us? Why do people feel that they can't change? Why does our society marginalize the people that don't have and seclude the people that have a lot? What would love do to our society? What would it look like to have everyone love everyone? Maybe the Beatles were right...