Doing/Being

The American ideal of success and prosperity is junk.  Crap.  Dookie.  Whatever you want to call it in a negative worthless fashion, it’s that.  Success is having 3 cars, a big house, money, and fame.  Prosperity is having even more of all of that.  I would say most people in the US have a lot of those things but would not define themselves as “prosperous” or “successful”.  It is a standard that is longed for and sought after but it can’t be reached.  What do people with money and power want?  That’s right, more money and power.  Warren Buffet, the 6th richest man in world, as rated by Forbes, just had a record profit in one of his investment companies.  The dude made something like $6bn and was already looking forward to next one.  Mind blowing.

Success and prosperity can only be enjoyed or savored if they are salted, heavily, with contentment.  That is the missing link in many lives, including my own, and it is what enables to have joy and happiness right where we are.  I have always struggled with “being” right where I am.  Blooming where I’m planted, if you will…or even if you won’t.  I’m pro at looking to the next thing and preparing for it.  I research, do all my homework, and get excited for it.  But what happens when I get there?  By the time I get there I’m usually ready to do the next thing because it’s now static and I’m no longer enamored by the idea of doing just that thing.  I apparently love the prep more than the thing I’ve been preparing for and I find much of that comes out of a lack of contentment.  I always want more.  More this, more that.  And I find it takes less work to enjoy the idea of something that’s coming than it does to actually put the work, and my heart, into right where I am.  So where does it stop?  Well, it doesn’t.  Nothing will stop you until you do.  Even if you are forced to be right where you are it doesn’t mean your heart will be in it.  That’s what I am coming to see.  

What needs to change then is our/my mindset.  If we are focused on the next thing I believe it’s because we are more comfortable with “doing” there than we are with “being” there.  We are obsessed with accomplishments, achievements, and goals being reached.  But what if God never intended that in the way we think he did?  I’m not saying having goals and striving to attain them is bad, they’re usually very good, but at what point did/does the goal become more important than who we were, or were becoming, on the way to get there?  If we are striving to become better men and women then old things must be left behind.  New things must be looked to and sought after.  But the idea of “I have arrived” should never enter our minds because, really, who ever has?  If the people we model our lives after and think have “arrived” are also always looking to the next thing, to have more of what they already have, and to be better men and women than who they currently are, where does that leave us?  I’ll tell you; it leaves you right where you are.  You can’t be anywhere in else that moment than where you are.  It’s not possible to be in two different places at once, or to be two different people at once.  You have to work with what you have and be right where you are because it’s the only place and person you can be at that moment.  Can you change it for the future?  Yes.  Can you be somewhere else in the future?  Yes.  But at the present moment, there you are.  You’re there.  Nowhere else.

So what’s my point?  Well, I guess it’s pretty simple, as far as I’m concerned, I would rather my legacy speak far more about who I WAS than what I DID.  What kind of man I was.  How much of myself I gave to others.  The lives I impacted by simply being me.  There will never be another one of me, or you, for that matter.  History repeats itself and many people have done the same things over and over, but there is no chance of there ever being another person to live your exact life.  That blows me away every time.

When I was talking with my friend, Tom, last week and catching up, we were talking about the different ways we were growing and what God was teaching us at that time.  The biggest lesson God has been teaching me, by far, is to have grace for myself.  If I have grace for myself then I can better forgive my own shortcomings, and admit them, better assess my abilities, instead of my wishful thinking about them, and therefore be better able to see those things in others and forgive them and have grace for them as well.  In order to teach me this God has answered one of my deepest most persistent prayers of the last few years;  that I would see and understand his grace for me and have his eyes to see me as He and others see me.  He is certainly a merciful and loving to Father to allow me to see this.  I can only have real grace for myself if I understand his grace for me in the first place.  That changes the whole game.  The goals all suddenly change and all the things I have striven after for so long become either less important, non-existent, or shift in purpose or meaning.  

So, when Tom asked me what I thought God was preparing me for I had an answer I had never said before in my life.  Somewhere I must have known it was true or it would never have been fruit of my lips.  I responded by saying “Tom, he is preparing for Himself.”  What grace!  What mercy!  What Love!  A Father that loves me/us so much that He would make us fit for his kingdom just because He wants to and for no other reason!  If he had no other purpose or work for me to “do” that would be far more than I could ever imagine.  Truth like that requires nothing less than a total thought and paradigm shift.  The truth is, God does not need me/us to accomplish anything at all, but then the baffling part is that He WANTS to use us.  And then he uses the things he wants to use us for to further prepare us for himself and his kingdom.  He has the love, patience, and mercy to draw us through tough lessons and allow us to struggle so we can come out the other side victorious, better, stronger, and with a deeper faith than when we started.  Folks, the tough lessons, the ones that make you weep and bleed, are the ones that have the longest lasting impact on you and everyone you encounter.  It takes serious love to allow someone, and especially to watch them and guide them, through pain and hurt because you know it will make them better.  Fire burns, but it also purifies.

When I view myself, and my life, through that lens it then becomes clear that God is not anywhere as concerned with my comfort or my accomplishments as he is with the content of my character and who I am.  If that also becomes my concern then I am far better suited to have grace for myself, and what I do, because the pressure is off.  I don’t have to perform up to a certain standard all the time, especially when it’s my own unattainable standard that only creates a viscous cycle of high demand and self loathing due none of those standards being met in the way I want.  Grace for myself also demands a humble assessment of my abilities, strengths, gifts, and so on.  In effect, it lets me see me as the messed up sinner that I am and be ok with it.  Why would I be ok with it?  Because I know that while the change may be gradual more often than not, that the change is there.  The Bible says that “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.”  I need to be ok with the fact that I am who I am, and not just ok with it, but to love myself and have grace for myself in the way God does so that I can fully be the person He has made me to be, and is making me to be.  And in order to become that person I sometimes have to admit that I am worse, at everything in every way, than I would like to be.  That’s not always the case, but I need to be capable of admitting it when it demands I do.  Sometimes that will mean having more confidence and faith in myself than I currently have because despite the fact that I am messed up, I am a sinner, and I fail, a lot, God also made me/us for greatness and with eternity and His kingdom in mind.  I mean, look at the twelve disciples.  They are example 1A of this, and yet they succeeded in proliferating the greatest religious movement the world has ever seen.  In less than 300 years Christianity went from the most maligned and persecuted sect in the world to being the official ethos and religion of the Roman Empire.  NBD.  If God can do that through a bunch of fishermen and traitors, what CAN’T he do with us?

This is where the “doing by being” takes over.  If God establishes us the way we are, makes us how we are, and loves us the way we are, not just for whom we will become, then he can use us right where we are and how we are and not be concerned with the “doing” on our part.  God, quite frankly, does not need us or our help, yet he chooses to.  Let’s just pause on that fact for a moment once again…

When I came here to Rwanda I knew what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what my goals were.  I had it all planned out.  Guess what?  All of that changed or didn’t happen.  Time frames didn’t match up.  Methods didn’t work.  All my plans came to nothing.  But God was not done with me yet.  In fact, He was only beginning.  When I finally came to a point of complete surrender and admitting my short comings and that I had been working in my strength, not his, it was as if he said “Thank you, Ryan.  NOW we can really do some work.”  The weird thing now is that by simply being the man God has made me to be, and stopping trying so hard to do it all myself and letting God work instead, He is accomplishing more through me in less time than I was doing beating my head against a wall for three months.  I am still working with the staff and boys at HFLM while also volunteering with Young Life, leading and directing worship at House Church, and getting involved in other ministries here and plugging into Bible studies.  Me just being me and letting God shine through that person is so much better and more effective than any amount of “work” I could ever do or accomplish.  What a mind job.  It makes no human sense whatsoever.  Also, I love that “whatsoever” is actually three words someone decided was OK to make into one.  Kind of like “inasmuch”.  English is glorious.

So, again, what’s my point here?  My point is; let go.  Let go of your fears of being you.  Let go of your fears of not measuring up to the person you think you are and let go of your fears that you’re even greater and have more potential than the person you think you should be or could ever dream of.  God has made each of us for greatness and for eternal impact but that impact is never going to be greater than when we allow him to work through us by being the very person we are right now.  We need to “do” by means of being.  What makes a fish a really good fish isn’t trying really hard or constantly thinking about how it can breathe better under water or swim, but simply the fact it already does all the things a fish should.  As I am running and training for the Kigali half marathon in May I continue to dwell on what makes a good runner and I find more often than not is that, unless I’m in a race, a good distance runner simply does not stop.  When I run it’s much easier for me to say “Just don’t stop” than it is to say “keep going”.  I’m already doing all the things required of running.  I mean, I’m RUNNING.  So to simply “not stop” I inherently keep doing that.  To say “keep going” means I have to think about all the things I’m already doing and then continue.  That’s much more difficult.  “Just don’t stop” is one complete thought and encompasses all the things I am already doing. 

Where this then translates to my life and being me is that I am most likely doing all the things that I “do” to be me already.  When I say I’m going to go and “do” something else it means I am probably working very hard at doing something outside of what I already do.  It is outside my flow.  And if it’s outside my flow, it’s probably not jazzing me up very much.  This is not to say new things should not be tried or attempted, they absolutely should because those things may actually be the you that you haven’t been all along.  Let go of your fear of being really good at something new and at least try it.  Maybe even incorporate it into your repertoire, but do not sacrifice who you know you are to become this thing or person.  If it doesn’t work out, that’s ok.  It’s just as important to know and be ok with who you AREN’T.

Don’t worry about being you.  Don’t worry about what others think of you.  Don’t worry about what God thinks of you because his first thought is that He loves you.  That I can promise with absolute certainty.  Have grace for yourself because He does.  I have always hated being me.  I would much rather have been Brad Pitt from Ocean’s 11 with Josh Groban’s voice and Val Kilmer’s hair from Top Gun.  I mean, come on, who wouldn’t?  That body, that perfect tone voice, and that ultra awesome flat top blonde spiked wonder of a head of hair.  But wanting to be someone else steals my ability of being me, being right where I am, and helps absolutely no one.  Including myself.  And wishing I wasn’t me takes away the chance for me to love me, know me, and have grace for me as my Father God does.  When I accept me, and learn to love (and even like!) myself in that way, being alone isn’t as much of a problem anymore because I can stand being with that person.  Loving and serving others gets easier too.  Why?  Because I am no longer focused on the things I am not and who I wish I was.  I then become outwardly focused and am able to see others needs and love and have grace for them as God intended.

I “do” things all the time by just being me.  I play guitar, I sing, I dance around like a fool, I tell bad jokes, I hug people, I have long drawn out conversations about Game Of Thrones, Lord of Rings, and Star Wars (…and Marvel movies…and video games…and, yes, I know, I’m a much bigger nerd than I would let on most of the time), and I travel all over the world having crazy adventures and telling people how much Jesus loves them and loved them enough to send me to just be me with them because He can use me just the way I am.  What a crazy thing.

 What I want to tell you in this long, rambling, monologue is this; If you don’t know this already, Jesus loves you.  He loves you so much he gave everything of himself for you and me.  Not because he had to.  Not because it then gives him the right to be the big angry kid with a magnifying glass at an ant hill.  It was because of JOY.  Joy that we would be able to know and love him and take part in the joyfully intimate, gladly surrendering, mysteriously complex and simple, graciously self-accepting, mutually indwelling, passionate, and perfect relationship the Three-in-one God of heaven and earth enjoys with Himself.  He did it so we could be new and whole.  So we could know not just WHO we really are, but WHOSE we really are.  When I am found in Jesus, my life, and the very fibers of my being, will change.  And only ever for the better.  When I am found in Jesus, I find the me that He was thinking of and praying for as he hung on the cross.  When I am found in Jesus, I find the best me there could ever be because he made me and knows every part of me.  But, most of all, when I am found in Jesus, I find Him.  And when everything I am stands in the presence of the Living God, the rest just doesn’t really matter anymore.

 Praise you Father for new mercies and grace for me/us each day.  I pray I have more and more of that for myself so I can have more and more of it for others.  

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” - John Piper

-Ryan

Generic New Year Post Title

The Holiday Season is often one more beset with pain, anxiousness, and stress than most of us would want to admit.  Maybe we are without a family member or a friend for the first time due to a death or someone moving on.  It might bring up painful memories or maybe we are just too darn busy to sit back and actually enjoy what the season should actually be focusing on; Love.  Love divine came down as a humble baby born in cave/stable/trough or any other way you would like to interpret manger.  Love that calls us to himself and calls us to love one another.  This has never been more apparent to me than during this holiday season.  This was my first Christmas and New Year away from home and being out of the culture of Christmas in America allowed me to see through the fog of materialism and greed.  Christmas is about Love.  Shoot, our whole existence is about Love.  God says he is love (1 John 4:8) so if we’re not focused on Him how can we be loving others?  I can’t wake up in the morning and say “Hey, world, I’m gonna have more love today.”  I can’t have more of something I don’t have on my own.  I can do my best to be more loving but that’s like trying to sing without focusing on your breathing.  It just comes out wrong.  True, real, self-giving love comes only from God.  He is the source.  I’m making it my mission this year to plug into that source than ever.  What an incredible privilege it is to be able to come before the God of the universe because of the birth, death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus!  Prayer and worship are where it’s at and I invite you to join me.  It promises to be quite the adventure.  Speaking of adventure…

A few weeks ago some of us also had the opportunity to head out to the east of the country and get a little day safari at Akagera National Park.  After my many adventures in the bush in Zimbabwe with Lasting Impressions I wasn’t expecting much, and I was right, but man, the bush gets my blood flowing.  Being out there in the wild where anything can happen and seeing animals in their natural habitats is just the best freaking thing.  The first hour or two we only saw baboons and some monkeys, which made my trigger finger a little itchy I gotta admit.  Most people think monkeys and baboons are cute and cuddly but they’re anything but.  Little monsters.  On Christmas day we had some monkeys come into our friends back yard and we got to feed them bananas but I’m sure you can imagine they’ll be tough to get rid of from now on.  

After we got out of the thick brush and into a little more open space we got to see some elephant from about a mile off, a good deal of them too, maybe 50 individuals.  There really wasn’t much to see out of the ordinary with lots of warthog, hippo, impala, waterbuck, zebra, some crocs, and topi.  The real treat for me was finally seeing my first giraffe in the wild.  If you need proof God exists please just look at a giraffe.  It’s one thing to see them in a zoo and think “wow, what a gorgeous creature.”  It’s something else to see upwards of 6 of them at a time in one place and think “how the heck does this thing even exist?!?!”  They’re 18 feet tall, have tongues long enough to lick their own eyeballs, and their calves drop 8 feet to the ground when they’re born.  Just mind blowing.  Getting to enjoy these creatures in the wild, and getting to see them run, along with 7-8 young ones, was a real treat.  

The other treat was getting to see some Cape Eland, albeit from a long way off. Check them out.  They’re gorgeous.  Why anyone would ever want to shoot them with anything other than a camera I’ll never know.  We ended the day driving through the plain and getting to also see some Cape Buffalo and then had our long drive home.  While I did enjoy the trip it just hammered home how awesome and privileged I was to be able to do the things I did in Zimbabwe.  Rwanda is so…tame.  But here’s a story that isn’t…

This last week Torey’s family came out to visit for Christmas and New Year and we had the opportunity to go and climb Mt. Bisoke, one of the volcano peaks in the west of the country near Musanze.  On our drive out there I started feeling sick to my stomach and had a tough time with dinner that night and sleeping.  I was running a low fever and decided I would see if I was up to climbing the mountain in the morning.  Now, when I say mountain, I mean this is a 12,000 ft peak in the African jungle.  It is the natural habitat of the mountain gorilla.  This thing was nothing to sneeze at.  When I woke up in the morning I convinced myself I was feeling well enough to climb the mountain, or at the very least give it my best shot.

When we got to the office for entrance to park my bowels let me know in no small way that they were very unhappy and I proceeded to use the toilet about 4 times in the next hour.  Ah…Africa.  I paid my money and we started the journey to the mountain which has the highest crater lake in the world.  I was really excited to see it.  As we started our ascent I decided to be at the front of our group to make sure I could set the pace and see where I was going since the trail was littered with stinging nettles and I was wearing my Chacos and shorts.  Not the best idea I’ve ever had, but they kept me cool.  After climbing for about 2 hours my bowels once again let me know how unhappy they were and I prompted our guide to let me find a place in the woods to do my business.  Let me tell you something; digging a hole in the jungle is an experience in itself.  I climbed up through some bush and nettles behind a porter and he dug me a spot.  It was a special time.  By the time I finished I was behind most of the group and after climbing another hundred feet I was done.  My fever had kicked in full gear, I was drenched in sweat, everything hurt, and my legs were shaking going UP the mountain.  That usually only happens when I’m on my way down.  A few people on the hike had climbed Kilimanjaro and said that other than the summit day that this climb up Bisoke was way more intense.  I hate giving up.  I hate losing.  But at this point, I had no other choice but to turn around.  Even if I could have made it to the top I doubt I would have had any energy left to make it back down.  My friends Jon and Torey both looked at me and said “Ryan, you look like hell”.  That was the straw that broke this camel’s back.  I got the keys to the car from Jon and our guide assigned one of our armed guards and a porter to escort me down.  

As I started the descent I realized just how gassed I actually was because by this point every step was agony.  I had no strength left.  My knees were nearly buckling with every step and I slipped and almost fell more times than I care to count, not counting the times I did actually fall.  My porter, who also had my bag, had to hold my hand most of the way down.  Did I mention it rained most of the way down?  Yeah, it rained most of the way down and I, in my infinite wisdom, didn’t bring my rain shell.  In addition to being wet and weak, the trail was now a mudslide.  It was one of the most physically miserable days of my life.  Not only could I not conquer and reach the top, which was enough torture in itself, I was cold, wet, sick, and had to have another man hold my hand most of the way down the mountain just so I didn’t eat it too hard.  Despite all that, I chose to take what positives I could.  I now had the opportunity that no one else in the group had: I got to experience the mountain virtually on my own and enjoy its beauty in relative silence other than my two Rwandan friends helping me down the mountain.  I also saw the only wildlife of the whole hike; one lonely, gorgeous, chameleon. 

By the time I finally made it down the mountain it had taken me longer to get down than it did to get up.  I laid in the car, ate some snacks, and bundled up.  The rest of the group only returned an hour or so later which means they made it all the way up and back down in only an hour longer than it took me to get half way up and back down.  I guess I really was that sick.  It was an adventure to say the least, and not the kind I would care to repeat, but getting humbled isn’t always the worst thing that can happen to you.  I felt much better the next day but the stomach bug has lingered and I finally got to see the doctor this week.

The real adventure though has been this week.  At church we have had church wide fasting and prayer for the week praying for the year and seeking God.  Without my friend Jack in our house yet I have had the whole house to myself to pray, song as loud and late as I want, and just spend time with God in the quiet.  I forgot how much I have longed for that for over a year.  Loneliness is not something I have sought enough in my life being a total extrovert, but apparently I need it much more than I thought.  More time alone in this new year is a must.  It’s like the difference between always going into a fight on minimal rest and over training and having good rest, stretching, and massage.  It makes all the difference when you can come at life from a place of centeredness and strength (i.e. the Source, Jesus).  I look forward to a year more grounded in prayer and centeredness in Jesus than ever before.  It promises to be a heck of a ride.

’Til next time…

Camera fun with the boys

Checking out the hippos and crocs at Hippo Beach 

The Hippos at the Beach

Takin' it all in...

My first wild Giraffe...s

Caption this photo...

Gappy Hanksthiving!

This is a modified version of the email I just sent out to my support base. If you already got and read that email simply scroll to bottom and enjoy the pictures ;)

Once again, as I write this, I’m watching a rainstorm out the window. Rainy season here lasts from October to about…April. It rains most afternoons, almost never before noon, for about 20 minutes and then lightens up. This weekend though it rained fairly steadily and it was really wet. So wet in fact, most of my clothes didn’t dry out for two days. I wish I had room to have packed more tanktops…anyway…

These last few weeks, and this last week especially, have seen much more peace than my first week or so here in Rwanda. As November comes to a close, which is still a shock to me (it doesn’t feel like anything other than some time in July, much less the holiday season back home), things have evened out quite a bit here for me in my heart. I have continued to feel peace and no longer wake up thinking I’m back in Camarillo and have to go to work. That’s not to say I don’t miss home. I still miss it everyday. The people, the familiarity, and the nostalgia of the holiday season which I love so much.

During this week of Thanksgiving, only my second away from home, I have had cause, and time, to reflect more than most years for what I am thankful for. I am eternally grateful for my family. I miss them all terribly. I am so grateful for all my other families, you know who you are, and how they stepped into the gap in the years my family wasn’t doing well and took care of and loved me (and fed me!). I am thankful for things like broadband internet and traffic laws that people pay attention to. I’m thankful for meat, acoustic ceilings, and carpet. The list goes on. But today there is one thing specifically I am thankful for: we had a fire at the house on Friday afternoon in one of the boys’ rooms. He lost everything, but nothing that wasn’t replaceable, and the ceilings in two rooms burned out. No one was hurt but for a minor, minor burn on my arm from the doorframe, and we all got to pray together in thanks for God keeping us safe. The whole story is here on my blog, if you would like to read it.

As things have smoothed out and I have settled in a couple things are becoming more and more clear to me each day. Most of these realizations are quite humbling. I mean, when is it not humbling to find out you’re not as strong or as awesome as you think you are? The first of these is that I am not able to live in the home with the boys 24/7/365. As a social person, maybe an extremely social person, I NEED community. Not just bodies, but real, deep, Christ-centered community with others and in order to enjoy that they usually have to speak English. Only Gustave, one of the house caretakers, speaks fluent English as a full time resident here. The noise level is also brutal most days. I need more breaks than I thought I would. 

The other thing is that I am not able to disciple these boys in the way I had initially hoped by just being with them all the time. As they are on Holiday right now until January there is not a lot of structure in the day and I am finding it difficult to sit and talk with the boys to get to know them better since, well, they don’t speak any English. What this time in the house with them is accomplishing though is an established relationship and them knowing I am here for them. We have begun daily morning Bible study, prayer, and worship as a house for half an hour each morning and the attitude of the house has changed considerably. We also have nightly bible study with the house parents leading for the younger boys and older boys separately. More of this cannot be a bad thing!

All this is to say that as I have thought, prayed, and then done both some more about what will be best for me to continue here for long term, effective, discipleship ministry at HFLM is that my role will be shifting along with where I live. I just found out Wednesday that I will be moving in with my friend Jack to a house in Kigali just down the street from our other friends. We are SUPER pumped. Now we're praying for furniture and that the Lord reveals the best deals (free being our favorite one) and the best person to come live and work for us and take care of the house. With that, I am also praying for a reliable mode of transportation as the difference between paying for public transport everyday is close enough to a wash with owning my own transportation as makes no difference. 

I have been learning to ride a motorcycle and have performed well enough in far less than ideal conditions, and have felt pretty comfortable while riding though not without enough fear to keep me in line, to warrant looking at buying one in the next month or so or by the time I move into the city. Cars cost roughly 300% what they do in the states over here so they are not an option and after riding a motorcycle on really muddy roads with street tires this last weekend that is clearly not a great option either. Especially if I’m going to be out at the boys’ home in Kabuga 5 or more days a week rain or shine. A dirt bike is clearly the most viable option but they are not the easiest to find over here and are more expensive (typically in the range of 2500-4000 US Dollars) than the typical India made motorcycle. I have found a few and am praying for the Lord’s provision in all this and if it’s the direction He wants to go. I am waiting on him. While cars and motorcycles are expensive here they have one thing going for them that they usually don’t in the states: they retain their value incredibly well. In other words, whenever I do leave here, I can sell a bike for roughly what I paid for it depending on the use I put into it. It’s a very sound investment.

Many of you have asked what you can do for me for Christmas this year. I really appreciate the gesture to want to send things but that costs about $80 minimum to send a small box via USPS and it takes about a month to get here. If you would like to consider giving above and beyond monthly support for me for Christmas please donate to my Motorcycle Fund (this was my mom’s idea. Thanks mom!). I believe that to be a much more practical and effective thing to give towards the ministry here at this time. Transportation is a big deal! If there is something you REALLY want to send, though, I will not turn you down just get in contact with me, or my mom, and I can let you know how to best do that.

If you would like to give to the motorcycle fund please simply add to whatever you already give each month and send it through Breakthrough Partners. If you would like to donate please send a check to Breakthrough Partners 110 Third Ave. N., Ste. 101 Edmonds, WA 98020 with "Ryan Dalbey" on the check.

Where would a post like this be at Thanksgiving time if I didn’t end with this: if you are reading this, I am thankful for YOU. Without your love, prayer, and financial support, I would not be able to affect the lives of these boys in Jesus’s name at all. Thank you for helping me be on the front lines!

What to be praying for (If you're down): 

• Please be praying for HFLM, and specifically Torey and Hilliary, our directors, as we recover from the fire and raise support for a new section of roof, new ceilings in the burned areas, and new mattresses, bedding, and clothing for the boy, Baby, who lost everything. 
• For direction in this time of transition for me and how to best conduct, streamline, and minister most effectively here at HFLM. 
• For financial provision both for housing in the city (Kigali), and for a reliable mode of transportation. Provision for a great community to live with in Kigali beyond just my awesome new roommate. The praise is that I am making good friends already! The Lord is clearly at work. 
• For clarity in if, how, and when to move forward with working with the youth at the church I am now attending. 
• For continuing peace as I grow into my time here in Rwanda. 
• For the boys and our relationships: that they would continue to grow deeper in Christ and that they would come to trust me as I lead them with my life and the Word. 

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Thanksgiving in Kibuye with One Acre Fund. Muzungus galore!

Charlie started all the boys with plots of land and we are all growing something! Everyone picked something different to grow but Charlie and I are particularly excited for our plot and our watermelons. We're gonna own.

The view from our stay in Kibuye.

New Friends: Ayla (just moved in down the street from Charlie for the month and is here starting a leadership initiative for women here in Rwanda.), Jack (who currently lives with Charlie and will soon be my roomie! He has worked with Living Water Intl. for the last 3 years.) Ben (our friend who works with One Acre Fund in Kibuye. Super legit guy.), and, of course, Charlie.

View from my hammock at the One Acre Fund house looking out over lake Kivu and into Congo.

In The Burning...

It was a fairly normal Friday morning last week.  Charlie had showed up and he and I were working together in the office on emails and various other things when Yassipy, one of the boys, came running in and out of breath exclaimed there was an emergency and we needed to come right away.  Charlie and I looked at each other with that unsure look of whether this was a prank or not but decided to listen and followed in Yassipy’s haste.  As soon as we entered the house we smelled smoke and Yassipy said “fire”.  As we ran into the older boys rooms we were confronted with a bright orange glow coming out of one of the boys rooms and, as we turned the corner, that glow turned into a raging inferno.

Immediately I yelled for everyone to get out of the house and to get water.   Gustave, awakened on his day off by my bellowing, came running out of his room sleepy eyed and panicked.  I told him we had a fire in Baby’s, one of the boys, room and had to get everyone out and then get water in there ASAP.  We were outside in seconds and were immediately filling buckets of water to take inside and douse the flames.  It was absolute pandemonium.  We were running everywhere and Gustave and I were shouting orders while Charlie was helping the boys with water and get the rest of our staff to help.  When we moved back inside we found standing in the door tossing in buckets of water was about as effective as chewing bubble gum to solve a math problem and were quickly outmatched by the growing blaze as it engulfed the foam mattresses in the room and choked us with noxious fumes.  We moved outside and tried getting a hose to spray in through the window but water pressure doesn’t really seem to exist in Rwanda, or at least in the quantities that would have been enough to put out such a blaze, and for a moment, I was defeated.  Throughout the ordeal thus far I had been praying the Lord would keep me thinking straight, as he always seems to do in such situations, but I was nearly overcome with despair as I watched the blaze grow and begin melting the roof.  I had no weapons to fight and we couldn’t stay inside to fight it.  The smoke made my lungs ache with all that burned polystyrene.  For a brief moment, I gave in to the fact the whole house was going to burn.  It was then, in that darkest moment, that the Father God came through.  

Just as I decided to not give up, many of our neighbors came and began yelling for dirt to be thrown in to smother the blaze.  The few of our older boys who were here that day immediately began throwing dirt and breaking in the windows so we could fight from outside.  During this time our younger boys, some of our staff, and many of our neighbors were clearing out every room of valuables and getting other fuel out of the house should the fire fail to be contained in that one room.  I have never, ever been more thankful for concrete walls in a house.  If the house would have been wood framed, like most houses in the states, I am as sure as I can be we would have lost everything.  I began helping move things out of the immediate vicinity of the room and then started fighting the fire from inside once more as we had people bringing in buckets of dirt so we could smother it in spite of the smoke.  Slowly but surely, the plan worked.  If we would have had adequate water pressure the fire would have been out much earlier, but our Rwandan friends knew how to fight fires without such things.  It was humbling for me, but it was a good lesson.  I am extremely thankful four our neighbors who ordered people to bring in dirt and to stop with the water. 

As the flames died down we were able to enter the room and continue to pile dirt on the remaining flames burning on the beds and the armoire.  By this time, the house was empty of furniture, clothes, and anything else that could burn, and we were closing it out.  The smoke, however, was still thick, and the burning rafters were in danger of falling on us, but the two other neighbor men and I in the room had no other choice but to move into the room and put it out in close proximity.  By the grace of God they stayed up and we were able to smother every last bit of flames in the room with dirt.  

When we were sure there was no more risk of fire spreading from the room I went out to check on other areas of the house and found Charlie up on the roof with a neighbor who was ripping open the eves in a corner of the roof and expelling a bird nest in there that had begun to smolder.  With the bird’s nest removed, and the crisis now over, I went back inside the room and took a hose to begin drowning whatever the dirt had smothered as well as douse the rafters and make sure no embers remained.  When we had made sure no trace of flame or fire was left I pulled as many of our boys and staff together as I could outside and we prayed.  We thanked God for saving our home, I live here too, after all.  We thanked God that more was not lost and that it was all replaceable.  We thanked the Holy Spirit for guiding us and giving us clear minds to deal with the crisis.  We thanked Jesus for our neighbors, without whom we would surely have been lost.  And, most of all, we thanked God that no one was hurt.  I got a small burn on my arm from the super hot metal doorframe, but that’s all as far as I know.

The next three hours consisted of taking the burned bunk frames and bed boards out, ripping out the armoire, removing whatever tatters of burned clothes and books were left in it, shoveling out all the dirt, ash, and broken glass, and then washing, scrubbing, and scraping out whatever was left.  It was quite the task.  There were only two things that made it out of that room unscathed; one was an integrated mathematics book, and the other was, naturally, Baby’s Kinyarwanda Bible.  When we found it a few of us began singing “there is power in the name of Jesus!”  It was a seriously cool moment and one that will stick with us all for a long time.  

As we completed our survey of the damage after cleanup the results were not anywhere near as bad as we would have thought.  Other than Baby’s room in which everything but the metal bed frames, and the bible and math book, were lost only the ceilings in the bathroom, the outside hallway, and a smidge of the common room for the older boys’ side was burned.  Three metal rafters going up to the tin roof bowed under the heat, and part of the roof bowed in as well but the loss was fairly minimal compared to what it could have been. The Lord really looked after us through all of it to the point that even the melted and bowed roof still kept the ensuing rain out.  It rained all weekend and not a drop got inside.  Praise the Lord!

What we have presumed to be the start of the blaze was either a faulty voltage regulator or the wall socket the regulator was plugged into in Baby’s room.  The regulator sat on a chair and, according to Yassipy, “popped” and caught the chair on fire.  Once the foam on the chair was burning the large foam mattress right next to it went up quickly and then the other mattresses and the armoire.  It all happened in less than a minute.  If Yassipy had not been here visiting while the other older boys were all out of the house this would have been a very different story.

All of this just continues to show God’s provision and protection here at HFLM.  There is no doubt in my mind the enemy wanted the whole house to burn down that day but Jesus stepped in and said “NO”.  What a miracle we only lost what we did and that no one was hurt.  Thank you for your faithfulness Lord Jesus.  Now we look to you, and only you, for our provision, healing, and growth in the future.  Amen and Amen!

All that was left in Baby's room after the clean out.

 View of the outside

Me and Charlie

Reality...and then my ADD put in its two cents

What is reality?  I mean, I know I'm not the first, or the last, to ever ponder such a thing, but seriously, can we ever really know what it is?  I can't touch it, tastes it, smells it (Gollum anyone?), feel it around me, or measure it.  It is easily as abstract an idea as faith, hope, and love and possibly even more to me.  I've scratched my head about this ever since I was a kid.  It always struck me queerly that I can only see the world one way: my way (you can adopt others views but you can’t ever experience everything the exact way they do.  In this we way we are utterly alone).  I view it through my own two eyes and can only experience of it what my body can sense.  How often are my feelings wrong?  Do I feel or sense reality entirely differently than other people.  I have no freaking clue, but I would put my money on “yes”..and “no”.

I was having this conversation with a woman on one of my flights coming to Rwanda and commented on how odd a mode of transportation flight is.  I mean, you pay a ton of money, for international flights you pay about what a decent used car is, climb in a big metal tube and proceed to sit for an extended period watching video entertainment and drinking...things...and then you get out of that big metal tube in a place you've never been before, or perhaps you have, and couldn't return by any other means since you have no freaking clue how you got there.  You have zero bodily connection to your travel.  It's like napping on a huge scale.  I've been calling napping "time traveling" for some time now and honestly think that's my favorite way to describe it.  You lay down, close your eyes, and then, as far as you know, no time has passed but your clock reminds you you're feelings are wrong.  So weird.  Is it just me here?  Flying is like doing that while awake.  It's super cool, but will weird me out for the rest of my life. 

So, back to reality (that entire statement seems just a shade ironic right about now haha).  The reason I even bring this up is because it seems to me that people define their entire lives by what they believe to be the most “real” thing there is and following that very thing.  Why would someone stake their life on something they didn’t believe was actually real?  No one dies for something they know is a lie.  Or at least, one that they believe and know is a lie.  I’m sure people would die for Disney even though they know it’s a lie, they just don’t want to believe it.  Solipsism brings up the same idea, but that’s not what I wanted to get into.

Reality church stakes their lives, their name, and their reason to exist as “Jesus is reality”.  And you know what?  I agree.  Wholeheartedly.  If God exists, and everywhere I look indicates no other possibility, then he is the most “real” thing there is.  I mean, how could the progenitor of everything not be the truest form of existence in existence?  Even beyond existence??  I believe God exists in a way we can’t possibly begin to understand.  We may be able to name it, or have an idea of it, but wrapping our heads around it just ain’t gonna happen.  We don’t need to even get any farther than “omnipresent”.  The buck stops there.  I submit.  No comprendo.  I mean, being present in all places at ALL TIMES won’t ever stop blowing me away.  The old saying goes “the farthest distance between two places is time” and the fact that God dwells within and without time, at all times, and sees it in its entirety while also be unconfined by it is truly baffling.  My three pound finite mind wasn’t made for that stuff. 

I was talking about this with the boys at the home one morning this week during bible study.  I told them that God has “predestined” us because our language is inadequate to describe how he experiences time.  Maybe we are predestined to go the ways we go, but I doubt that since we possess free will.  This leads to the side of inadequate language and that if God is “omnipresent” then he exists at all times and therefore knows what we’re going to do because he already exists in that time as well.  The way I have described it for years is that it’s like watching a movie you’ve seen before.  The time comes when that character makes an incredibly important decision, they’re walking the knife’s edge, and you KNOW what decision they’re going to make but it doesn’t keep you from hoping, even praying, they change their mind and make the right choice.  I believe God sees our lives in that way all the time.  He is in the future so he knows what we’re going to do.  I mean, he doesn’t just see the future, he’s already there.  And even though he knows what we’re going to do because he’s fully present in the future, he’s also fully present in the now and is hoping, definitely praying, that we’ll make the right choice.  He’s right there with as we walk away from his purposes…AND HE LOVES US ANYWAY!!! GoolllllLEEEEEE!  CRAZZZAAYY!

So, logically, if I believe God to be the most “real” thing there is, and he says Jesus is his son, and that he IS Jesus, yeah, again, I have the idea, but no comprendo, then I’m only going to see things the way they are if I see things the way he does.  Everything else is either narrow-minded, incomplete, or just plain false.  Reality and truth also seem to walk hand in hand.  When Jesus says he’s “the way, the truth, and the life” he’s also saying “I’m as real as it gets folks and I ain’t playin’ around.”  Also, if he weren’t really God, has anyone else in the history of mankind with even an ounce of credibility had the cajones to claim anything like that and people believed him and then died brutal deaths for that very belief?  They believed in the thousands, then the millions, and now the billions I might add. 

But I digress, as usual.  How real can another place feel real without knowing how you got there?  It’s some kind of strange thing to be uprooted from your entire known existence and planted somewhere else with no connection of you got there.  I don’t think people were designed to do such things.  We are relational beings if we’re anything at all.  Coming back to Africa has been a dream of mine for 3 years now, and now all I can think of is how much I miss home.  How much I miss my family and friends whom I have so obviously undervalued, under-appreciated, under-loved, and taken for granted until now.  The spiritual dimension to this has been massive, I’ve never in my life missed home like this before, but it was taken to another level when I honestly felt like everyone I ever knew was dead.  Pretty apparent spiritual attack, if you ask me.  That’s why I bring all this “reality” business in the first place. 

My heart gets confused so often about reality and whether people exist or not.  Did I imagine them?  The only solace I have in not seeing someone I love or know is knowing they’re not gone from the earth, but as far as all my senses can tell me, they’re not in front of me so where else could they be?  It is only on faith that I must believe that feeling to be wrong.  Talking to people with oceans and thousands of miles between is just as strange.  I know I’m talking to another person but I can’t see them when we speak.  My brain gets it, but my heart misses it.  Maybe that’s because I’ve always preferred talking face to face as opposed to on the phone.  I’ll drive an hour to talk with someone rather than talk on the phone.  I HATE talking on the phone, but when it’s my only option, well, I’ll take it.

All this is to say; I miss home immensely, but I won’t give up just because I miss it.  God has made me to be here in Rwanda with these boys right now.  There is major, major reform work going on in me and He will use my gifts, healings and woundings both, and my life to affect the people I come in contact with.  

Failure to give my all will not be my reality.  Jesus’s love is my reality, and it never gives up.  Always hopes…

Rest...REST?!?! What's that?

This Saturday morning, as I write this, is the first whole Saturday, I mean the entire 24 hour period, where I've had nothing to do since...probably sometime in April.  I think.  Thanks to my schedule I woke up promptly at the end of 7 hours of sleep and then immediately said "no deal", turned back over, and woke up at 10.  I can't remember sleeping that late since, well, sometime in April.  People have kept telling me I need to rest, take a chill pill, and relax.  Well, quite frankly I haven't had time to do any of that.  The times that I have had I've been too over clocked on everything else that the few short hours I did have were eventually taken over.  It seems I have forgotten how to not run at full speed ahead.

When I got out of bed this morning I was haunted by the thought I would have a whole day of nothing to do.  There was no money to be made.  No kids screaming my name.  My friends were busy, and I couldn't do the things I needed to take care of because it was Saturday.  I haven't had this amount of nothing to do since...sometime in April.

Where all this has left me, however, is at the corner of exhausted and blown out.  Everything, including things I love doing, have become tiresome.  Hanging out in large groups is difficult.  Leading worship teams has become more work than desire.  And doing much of anything requires me buckling down to finish.  The catch here is though that since I've been going so hard for so long I also can't seem to sit still.  The thought of being home all day is horrifying, but certainly no worse than actually going out and getting stuff done.

The good news is that I don't have anywhere to be.  Nowhere to go.  Nothing I HAVE to do.   I have to refuel the tanks.  I can't remember the last time I sat down with my guitar and just worshipped on my own for the joy of it.  Not to mention doing a cool arrangement of "In Christ Alone" in Drop D tuning. I watched my favorite show ever, Top Gear, this morning because I could.  I don't watch TV anything anymore.  It has been refreshing.

What has been the hardest, though, has been that with running all around serving God and such, I haven't done so well in spending time with the one I serve.  That's just silly considering he wants me to serve him far less than he wants me to just be with him.  That lack of time with God has resulted in a total upending of my spiritual disciplines and the consequential thrashing that comes with not being in step with the Spirit.  The Enemy has been thwomping me something fierce and I haven't had the strength, will, or energy to fight back.  That changes right now.

As I've been getting thwomped and wondering how I let myself get into this mess the same thing continues to become apparent: I am a sinful person.  I am not anywhere near as good as I think I am.  And I certainly can do far less on my own than I hoped I could.  Seriously, we have NOTHING if we don't have Christ.  I have nothing.  I'm nowhere.  I'm bankrupt.  Kaput.

The theme for Fryathon, the High School summer camp at Camarillo Community Church, this year was "A New Hope" ripped directly from Star Wars Episode IV.  If you know me, you know I know this movie quite well...in addition to the two that follow it.  I haven't watched them in sometime but I am continually amazed at how much more I glean from things, especially movies and books, the older I get.  Mark Hamill, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker, once said that in Star Wars the "Force" is "religions greatest hits."  Ain't that the truth.  What really struck me this time around as I watched all 6 movies in a week was two things.
1.  Han Solo is still the coolest character in anything ever.
2.  The Force is ridiculously cool idea.

The Force is the pervasive energy field that governs all life in Star Wars universe.  It can be manipulated, used for personal gain and such, but it is also living and has a will of its own.  I did a lot of reading up on it all recently but I won't bore you with all of that.  What I will certainly venture into is how we, as Christ followers, need to have the same peace in our identity as Jedi do.

Jedi know who they are and why they are here.  But most importantly, they know that they have absolutely nothing without the Force.  Yoda constantly instructs Luke that a Jedi's power FLOWS from the Force.  I will stop all the Star Wars stuff here.  The important thing here is that their power flows from the force, just as our life flows from the Spirit.  Paul talks about being "in step" with the Spirit of God.  It is not a received once, "game over", thing.  We must follow and allow the Spirit to flow if we are to have the upwelling of life.  Busyness will quickly put the kibosh to that.  We must be disciplined in how we pursue God, but discipline must not become our God since our love for discipline will run out far quicker than our love for God will.

To sum all this up, whatever you have to do today, MAKE time to pray, think, meditate, whatever you want to call it, and spend time with God.  Read the Word.  Know what He has to say by doing so, and know that he is filling you up as you do.  Put the right fuel in and you'll get only good stuff out.

Getting My Wings

If you're reading this at all it's a good bet you're well aware I'm moving to Rwanda in the fall.  If you didn't know that and want to know more please refer to the previous two posts on this blog.  They'll give you all the deets you can handle.  I promise.

I've never done a blog but even just in writing this far there is one thing I am well aware of and will be sure of which to take full advantage: I can be as informal as I want.  I can literall just have word vomit all over this text box and it's totally fine.  Why? Because it's my blog.  I can say what I like and most of this space will be taken as record keeping and external processing.  I'm a talker.  If you didn't know that you don't know me.  I need to say things to get through them well.  I need to talk before I talk if you catch my drift here.  What this blog enables me to do, particularly in lonelier settings, is have that outlet to put thoughts down in a way that is so much faster and kinder to my ADD/ADHD than writing by hand in a journal.  That has its merits but my goodness it takes forever.

Here's a story I never got to tell in any of my emails simply for the sake of brevity which I still managed to fail at accomplishing.  Whatever.  That's what this is for now.

The Monday after I met with Hilliary I called up my cousin Gordon to pray.  We do that fairly regularly and I really miss our normal Wednesday lunches we enjoyed together when I lived in Santa Barbara.  It would be tough for me to feel more blessed by our relationship than I already do.  But I've been wrong before.

Anyway, as we were praying and seeking the Father and what He had to say about all this Gordon said "I feel like God is saying...well, hold on.  Back up.  So my dad was the procurement officer on a navy carrier for a long time.  His job was to make sure that everyone on that whole ship had what they needed to do their job.  The thing is though that everything that happens on an aircraft carrier boils down to the hundred seats in that briefing room for the pilots.  The whole reason that ship exists is for those pilots to get out and do their job and so everyone else's job on that ship is to make sure those pilots can fly.  They are uniquely suited physically and mentally for that job.  They are highly trained and educated for it.  In other words, they do what no one else on that boat can because that's who they were made to be."  Then he said something that blew me away.  "Ryan, God is saying you're his pilot."

I took a serious time out right there.  When I was a little boy living in Long Beach, my parents would take me to the Long Beach Airport, which was right across the freeway from where we lived on Signal Hill, and let me watch the airplanes for hours.  I was obsessed by a single minded notion and dream of being a pilot in the Navy and landing on an aircraft carrier in the middle of nothing but water. I had airplane toys, I had flash cards, my cousins and I all had WWII bomber jackets, and I went to every airshow I could in Southern California.  I've seen the Blue Angels more than a dozen times.  I wanted nothing more than to be a pilot.  Eventually though the years wore away that dream.  My ears were a mess and my math wasn't good enough and I gave up the dream of being a pilot.

Now here's the crazy part.  Gordon didn't know any of this.  I had never told him.  Most of my closest friends don't even know about this.  How could he possibly have known how effective that word about God saying I was his "pilot" was going to be for me?  Answer: He couldn't.  The mathematical probability of that happening with that specific story happening by accident is just way too ridiculous to even think about.

After I told Gordon all this all he could say was "WOW".  I mean, what else was there to say?  We both shared such joy with the Father God in that moment.  God had not forgotten my dream, even if I did.  It may look a little different but it's the same.  If he says I'm his pilot, I'm his man.  He's got me for life.  The plane will be different, the place I'm landing will be different, but my position as "pilot" is no different.  I am uniquely qualified to reach these boys and minister to them.  I do not have other limitations that some people may have (i.e. I am single, mobile, flexible, and want to go), and I have the life experience to reach them about healing with their father's that many others do not.  I am the man for this job and I can say as far as I know that I personally know no one better equipped to serve these boys in the manner I am called to serve them.

With all this comes the part about the rest of the ship.  What a wonderful picture of the church.  An aircraft carrier, man.  A floating city (city on a hill???) that can go wherever it is needed and each person on that ship is gifted specifically to serve the mission of that ship (church).  I LOVE that.  God has gifted each of us differently.  That ship could not function without cooks (God forbid!!), mechanics, commanders, etc.  Those pilots mean nothing if the planes don't work or their bodies fail because there's no doctor around to help.  What I'm saying is this: As a "pilot" I can do nothing without the support of those around me.  Financial and prayerful support makes me able to "fly".   From now on you are my flight crew and as my friend Jim said, "you're deployed, now we just need you on station".  Amen.

The next couple months will hold a lot.  Let's hang on tight crew and see what the Captain wants to do and where He wants to take us!!