true bikers wanted

and when i say "bikers" i mean the real deal... pedal pushing, padded short wearing, crazy peeps who want to show some love to some unloved peeps!

so i'm wanting to organize a bike tour in poland. the purpose of the tour will be to explore new communities of Roma people. we want to find new communities and make connections with the hopes of telling them about God, Jesus and life as it can be.

at the moment, i'm looking into distances, terrain and villages. i'll be plotting a route soon hopefully and will have some more info in the coming month.

if you or someone you know loves to ride... let me know.

more info to come.

end of the day blues

so i bought a box of hair dye and thought it was black... it was navy blue. ha! quite exciting actually.

at the end of the day, we wonder why it all went away
all the struggles, all the change, all the dreams of nothing strange
and we snuggle in our place, pull the blankets around our face
it's a warm and cozy space, it's the end of another day

everybody's got somethin
everybody's got somethin
something we don't want to break
something we try to keep safe
something that we can't replace
we all got somethin somethin somethin
somethin something somethin

we all got dirty plates but it means that we ate
we ate something beautiful, it was something we all would create
while we're watchin the world as it fades, we're takin it all in stain by stain
i can't help as it all will come, to let it carry me out through the back gate

everybody's got somethin
everybody's got somethin
something we don't want to break
something we try to keep safe
something that we can't replace
we all got somethin somethin somethin
somethin something somethin

10 things we learned at camp

10. buses will stop and wait for you if you need to go peee...

9. the eyebrow ring is terribly powerful--it makes it or breaks it in first impressions.

8. sometimes ICE skating rinks are PLASTIC... not even gonna lie.

7. Ted's not graceful on ice.

6. the correct response to "Amen" being said is of course "SMACZNEGO!"

5. just because they're smiling, it doesn't mean it's something nice.

4. orphan camps are masochistic, cause we'd do them again.

3. you wear it, you wash it!

2. once you go black, you don't go back!

1. GO BIG or GO HOME!

orphans. widows. rewards.

umm... so apparently working with orphans is rewarding. i know... mark this day in your calendar, but the story gets even weirder... are you on the edge of your seat? i'm about to say something shocking...

i'd like to adopt an orphan some day.

yes... there you have it folks. i said it. that's the way it is. not gonna lie. this week is going good except for the food. i wish i weren't with this company and i could solicit all of you for every penny that you own so i could feed these kids pizza at the end of the week, but we all know that i can't do that. so... i guess it'll just be broth soup, bread and butter. oh well. it's all good.

bussing it to Wisła

even though this bus is totally going to be a let down from the ridiculously luxurious charter bus i took over the christmas holidays, i'm glad i'm just not getting on a train.

so i never told the "train ride from hell" story on here. hmm... that's a long story that i'll have to type another time.

i noticed today that it's still january despite my hope that time would fly instead of drag on by. i think it has something to do with the lack of natural disasters that has made this month seem so long. no apartment fires. no strong apartment winds. my life is pretty mundane.

BUT!!! today i'm going on a new adventure to the mountains to hang out with some orphans. updates to come hopefully. otherwise i hope you don't sit in too much suspense.

new apt

don't hate... it's just the way it is out here in the burbs of krakow...

skipping was totally worth it

so yesterday i totally skipped c1. it was totally worth it. i sat and ate my breakfast in the living room in the morning sunlight. i drank my coffee and stared into the distance. and i had this picture in my head.

i've been trying to sort through what it should look like to be christian today. or what the kingdom of heaven on earth might look like. does it look like the organization that we're constantly pressured to look like. should we be teaching people how to look like the norm? should we teach people how to look bored to death with christianity by teaching them the rules and the organization and by putting them into classes on how to "be a christian"? i don't know. it's all good and well and those things help people but i wonder if there's a different way that's more practical to everyday living. for a people who think that family is more important than sitting in a class to learn how to read or write... for a people who understand stories and can memorize them and retell them because they can't read which means they can't cross reference from a stupid little list in the back of their bibles is a class on how to do all those things really necessary or even beneficial? i don't know. you tell me.

the reformation brought a lot of emphasis on literacy because it shifted the authority to the interpretation of the scriptures (i got that from phyllis tickle's book "The Great Emergence"). people had to be literate to interpret the scriptures for themselves. they had to have the scriptures in their own language too. whereas in the past, the Church/Pope (still is this way just not in the reformed traditions) interpreted the holy scriptures for the people and what they said was authority and THE way it was.

but in the meeting, we weren't even talking about teaching people how to read. we were talking about how to put an illiterate group of people into a class setting for literate people.

if family is important, then why teach how to be a christian as a family? or what does it mean to be a christian as a family member. what does it mean to be a christian as a family? why not meet as families.

anyways... that's beside my previous comment about having a picture.

picture... at c2 we were talking about gifts (please don't make me pull my hair out by having a theological debate about what the "actual" spiritual gifts really are. i won't listen to you. i'm postmodern remember.). but the scriptures being read talked about each person in the body of Christ having a gift that helps the whole. we should use those. it connected with the picture i saw earlier that day.

the lamb doesn't get eaten by the lion. they stand side by side.

the businessman makes decisions that recognize the humanity of those he works alongside and over.

the musician writes songs about the life he's stumbled upon.

the orphans and the widows are taken care of.

the convicted people of God who say that abortion is wrong, they go and adopt a pregnant single mother to walk through the difficult pregnancy and adopt the child she is unwilling and unable to take care of.

just some thoughts.

we all do what we're good at and we keep in mind the ways in which Jesus turned the system upside down which were practical ways of living out the greatest commandment and the second greatest. they were pictures of the kingdom of heaven.

this is long. sorry. just some thoughts. i'll be thinking of how this specifically applies to me and maybe write more later.

huh?

sometimes you just have to wonder if things really do change. maybe we stop drinking, maybe we stop smoking, maybe we stop beating our wives. what? is that not good enough? it's the everyday things that i don't understand. if lifestyles are changed, old habits left in the dust and a joy in life realized, then what is there more? we keep hoping to see fruits in the shapes of different things--worship services, budgets, accounts, expenses for ministries, offerings in the plate or bag, others being evangelized and organization, organization, organization. if things don't grow, is it our fault or theirs? does it mean it's real?

john talked about a mark and that we shouldn't get it. i was reading that maybe the mark he was talking about used to be the way people were allowed to buy and sell in the marketplaces. it was how people were able to participate in the economy. if john says don't get it, then how did people live without it? maybe the amish have it figured out. i don't know.