Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

Eric Metaxas delivers an extensive biography of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Metaxas chronicles Bonhoeffer’s life from childhood, through his academic years, his pastoral years, time spent with the German Resistance against Hitler, and finally ends with his execution. Throughout the biography, Metaxas inserts letters and writings that further help us to understand the thought process behind Bonhoeffer’s actions. Additionally, Metaxas includes a lot of history to help the reader understand the culture and times in which Bonhoeffer lived.

I LOVED this biography. I would HIGHLY recommend it to everyone I know. I haven’t read much Bonhoeffer, but reading about his life and the small snippets of his writings makes me want to immediately go out and read everything he’s ever written. This work was inspiring and often quite convicting. There were times when Metaxas was very wordy and he really enjoyed using clichés, but I was willing to look past all that because of how incredible the story was. And the fact that Bonhoeffer actually lived and did all these things rather than just being some made up hero figure is what really makes this biography so great. It shows us that we can live truly powerful lives if we completely commit ourselves and our wills into God’s hands. Don’t be daunted by how long this book is. Every once in awhile it seems to drag, but it is truly worth the time.

*I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

Book Review: "Saint Patrick" by Jonathan Rogers

BookSneeze® provided me with a complimentary copy of this book so that I could review it.

"Saint Patrick" is part of a Thomas Nelson series called “Christian Encounters.” The point of the series is to make church history more accessible for the general believer. In the “Saint Patrick” book, Rogers attempts to get behind the legends and consumerism of St. Patrick’s Day to the true life of the actual saint. Rogers examines the history available about Patrick and puts him into context. Additionally, there is an Appendix with writings attributed to St. Patrick.

I thought the premise of this book – seeking the true man behind the legend – was great, but it didn’t turn out exactly as I expected. There was a lot of speculation on Rogers’ part (though, as an academic, I know that this is the best he could do with the sources available to him). I suppose I was more interested in the grandiose stories than I realized, so I was expecting more of those. However, for the purpose of the book, and the series in general, I think Rogers did a good job of presenting the real Patrick and introducing the reader to the history. This book was a little dry at times, but it definitely made me more interested in learning about the true Patrick. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an academic introduction to the true St. Patrick and the Irish culture of his time.

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I am making the switch over to Tumblr.. not sure if I'm going to stick with it, or come back to this format, but for now enjoy:

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Finishing Strong and Final Reflections

Sorry about not updating for the past few weeks. Our final trip we were time-pressed and tired, so I didn't have much of a chance for blogging.

Quick amusing story about our final backpacking trip:
Our second day we were hiking in a spot where it was pretty much straight steep on both sides up and down, so not really a good chance for an escape route. As we were walking, I heard a rumbling sounds, like rocks falling. I looked up and at first thought a bear was running down the mountain to attack us. It actually turned out to be a cow BARREL ROLLING down the mountain, with its legs straight out. And it rolled for a long time.. I would have had enough time to get out my camera and video it if I hadn't been so shocked. Then he landed on the path stunned for a second and just walked right back up the mountain. I felt bad for him, but it was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.

Our final week we had a good amount of worksite stuff to finish up, so we made a big checklist and put it on the wall in order to motivate ourselves to finish strong. I honestly was having doubts that we would finish it all, but through a lot of hard work, enthusiasm, and prayer we made it.

It was pretty hard to say goodbye to Montana. There were so many little kids at VBS that I had fallen in love with, and knowing that we were just leaving them here in their rough home situations was really rough on me. It was sad to leave a place that was my "home" for 6 weeks.

It was even harder to say goodbye when I left Chicago. I had to leave Steven, Beth and Abby, who I had become so close with while we all worked together. They motivated me to push myself and encouraged me in the rough moments. We shared so many good times and several harder times, and worked through everything together: worksites, backpacking, buying food weekly, car breakdowns, trials, memorizing Scripture. I also had to leave several of the other interns who I became close with through intern training and staff members at LeaderTreks whom I really admire. It was a hard plane ride home.

And then a week after I got home, I left once again to move back to Baylor. It's been hard transitioning back to the "real" world. I had such an amazing time this summer. I have never felt as invested in as I did this summer. I have never lived so intentionally. I was renewed spiritually. I learned what it looks like to sacrifice for Christ. But honestly it's been hard sacrificing myself back home with all the comforts and distractions. So I'm just going to have to constantly remind myself what God did IN and THROUGH me this summer, and I'll start by sharing the most important things I learned this summer:

- God is really really really really really really HUGE! And I can't understand that. I went through some doubting and some rough patches this summer because this fact really scared me for awhile. But now it's cool to think that He who rules the world is the only one big enough to take care of everything. And, I encourage you to listen to Louie Giglio's talk, "Indescribable." It rocked my world this summer.
- Being a disciple of Christ is HARD. It takes sacrifice and it's not always fun. Read about the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10:17-31 or about Counting the Cost in Luke 14:25-35. But it's oh-so-worth it. God wants us to experience life, and life to the full.. and being his disciple is the way to do that.
- Community is so important! They hold you accountable, provide encouragement and support, help you discern where the Spirit's leading, and it's just plain fun to have that solid group of people.
- Memorizing Scripture is life-changing. Romans 12:2 talks about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, and that renewal happens by soaking our hearts and minds in the Word. Scripture is living and breathing and constantly can guide us. As I memorized Scripture this summer, I saw my attitude and mindset improve dramatically. It really helps you to become more and more like Christ.
- Living life with a purpose, mission, and intentionality is so much cooler than just floating along aimlessly. When you set goals, you can achieve your dreams and can do really HUGE things for God when you're living with a mission mindset.

This summer was more impactful and life-changing than I could ever possibly describe. Thanks for following my journey and providing a lot of encouragement and support. If you want to hear more specifics about what I did this summer, let me know and we can get together and chat.

Never Underestimate a Champion

It's interesting how just when you've started to become comfortable with something, you get pushed out of your comfort zone once again. After a few times of teaching Growth Journal and Bible Study during our nightly Team Time, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on how to do it. After our last trip, it seemed like building those deeper relationships with students and taking advantage of teachable moments was getting easier. I had almost gotten to the point where a lot of the things I was doing were very mechanical, and not as challenging as they had been.

And then came Team #6. An all boys team. Eleven high school boys, out of which nine are entering freshman year. Talk about a radical shift from the juniors and seniors we had been working with the past two trips. My first Growth Journal this week was a struggle, as I didn't think to change it so this new group would be able to relate. Conversations were, and still are, a struggle. My mind doesn't always think of topics that are especially interesting to high school boys. It's hard to go deep with them, because a lot of times they don't even know what they're thinking. Motivating and challenging them has been quite a challenge in itself. They have been quick to make excuses and slow to take responsibility. They lack the drive we've seen in some of our older students.

BUT.. it's been good. One of the ten leadership principles we talk about at LeaderTreks is "Never Underestimate a Champion." It's kind of the idea that people can do more than we sometimes give them credit for, and that we shouldn't give up on them. And that's definitely beginning to happen with this team. I'm learning not to give up on people, and to pour encouragement and challenge into them in order to motivate them to their full potential. Over the past few days, our students have slowly begun to recognize that they haven't been doing things to the best of their ability. They've become more honest in admitting when something isn't going well. Last night was an incredible turning point for all of them. They realized that they only had one day left on the worksite and at VBS to make a difference, and they took that to heart. When I got up to help with breakfast, I noticed that all the guys were up and already working on one of our work projects... an HOUR before breakfast was even ready. We usually start work at 9, and they were out there at 6:20! They finally worked enthusiastically and completed the work by the time devos started at 8. I was so impressed and so proud of them. Later today, their VBS was a TON better than it had been the previous days, and it seemed like several of the little kids were impacted by the love they received from our students. It will be interesting to watch how they continue to grow the next 4 days as we backpack and as they each have a turn leading us and keeping us from getting lost and getting to the campsite on time.

Tomorrow is our third and final backpacking trip this summer. It's weird to think that after four hikes, I may never see this same trail again. I've gotten used to some of the trail and know it pretty well. And I love it. I'm going to have to soak it in a lot these next 4 days, because I will definitely miss it.

If you could, please pray for energy and protection as we are backpacking, and that we would all be able to enjoy God's beautiful creation and grow even closer to Him.

Distractions

I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted! We've had quite a few things thrown our way the past two weeks, so I haven't had much of a chance for any updates.

Things are going well. We just finished with a group from Bloomington, IL. There were some great conversations that I was able to have with several of the girls and really encourage and challenge them. VBS was great and the kids who came were so cute. Work projects were a lot of fun: we poured a sidewalk for one of the churches we work with and then painted a shed, started building a playset, and did some weeding for the other church we work with. Backpacking went a lot better this time, which is an encouraging thought for our third and final wilderness adventure which starts in about 5 days. I'm loving my time out here. I absolutely love the other staff I'm working with and the students who come on the trips. It's sad to think that I only have two more teams and then I'm done. I wish it was longer.

As I stated above, we've encountered a few unexpected things in our time here.
- Getting kicked out of the library out of the blue meant Abby and I are now sleeping in the balcony of the gym. Not much privacy, to say the least.
- One day we couldn't turn on the lights in the gym, and when they finally came on we couldn't turn them off when it was time for bed = Abby and I slept in sunglasses that night.
- We couldn't get internet access until recently when we'd been expecting to have it for the whole summer.
- The sand and gravel we needed for concrete didn't get delivered when it was supposed to, so we had to put that project on hold.
- The night before backpacking we discovered that a good amount of our wilderness food had been stolen.
- Steven (trip leader) got randomly got pretty sick two days before backpacking.
- Beth (Steven's wife) was sick the next day.
- Our van started making really weird noises when Abby and I went into town to get some last minute supplies. We were 40 miles from "home" and had no cell phone service.
- One of the church's vans got stuck in mud, so the youth pastor, Abby and I had to try and push it out, then go look for help since it was just the three of us.
- Abby felt sick while backpacking and was not in good shape yesterday.
- We had to replace our brake pads in the van.
- Last night we discovered a group from the Native American Assembly will be staying in the school for several days. This was the first we had been informed of this.

The four of us have joked, saying to each other "Satan", every time something goes wrong. We even named one of the corners of our sidewalk "Satan's corner" because it took FOREVER to get the right way and things kept going wrong. But as much as we've joked about Satan being behind all of this, I think there's a lot of truth in it.

One of our leadership principles that we teach students is "Focus Precedes Success" and we talk about how when we're not focused on our goals and not that committed, then it's going to be a lot harder to achieve anything. One illustration that Abby and I used when we taught it was a Jenga game. We had one group really focused trying to build as high as possible while another group told them the wrong way to do things and just yelled general nonsense. The group that was supposed to be focused wasn't able to reach their goal because they got so off task by listening to those who were distracting.

We feel like a lot of these unexpected things that have happened are meant as distractions to keep us off our task of impacting this community and the students who come our way. It has been very tempting to give into frustration with each thing that has happened, but luckily we've been able to make it through by continually encouraging and supporting each other.

If you could be praying for us through this time, we would all really appreciate it. We are all worn down and trying to recover for our last two teams. It's been hard, but it's been good. There's nothing else I would have rather spent my summer doing.

Challenge and Growth

The Little Bighorn trail is a challenge. Hiking 18 miles and climbing 7000 feet in four days can be rough. It didn't help that I had just gotten over a cold. It didn't help that I was running on very little sleep. It didn't help that I barely knew anyone else on the trip.

But it was worth it.

Tuesday was our first day. The night before, as you can see in the previous post, I was pretty anxious and tired, but still excited. After driving to Big Horn National Park, we had to do some car shuffling. Usually when you hike you go in a circle back to your cars, but our trail was just straight up, so we had to take our cars to the trail end and then drive one back down to the trail start. I volunteered to drive up and down the mountain, which was quite the experience. I'm usually pretty timid about driving but it was a ton of fun and just to see all the sights along the road was awesome. Plus, there was a lot of snow left on the ground as we reached the top so that was really cool to see in the middle of summer. Once we got back to the bottom we started hiking. I was fine for awhile and enjoyed some conversations with the students. BUT, then we started the inclines. That killed me. My attiude shot down and I got really angry at God for placing me on the trip. He knew that I had a hard time hikinig last year. He knew that I had just been sick. He knew that I was exhausted. But he was still making me do the stupid hike. I think I even asked for death a few times. Melodramatic much? I know. Finally Beth (my trip leader's wife), really challenged me to rely on the Lord's strength and reminded me that I was placed here for a reason. She also told me to only think about today, and not about the fact that I am doing this hike two more times. She really motivated me to push forward and just helped so much. The rest of the day was fine. Got to the campsite, set up, enjoyed wilderness food.

Wednesday the team got off to a pretty slow start. We ended up leaving around 10:30, only after a huge herd of cattle came through. So we were stuck behind cattle for a lot of the day. Slow and smelly, such fun. Finally it looked like we were making some good progress. And then, it started raining and thundering and the lightning was going crazy. So we had to stop and take cover in some trees and got to stay in lightning position for awhile. Several of the students were pretty scared, so Abby (fellow intern) and I started singing some hymns and worship songs. That was pretty cool, singing about how God controls the lightning as the storm was raging around us. Finally the storm passed, and it was SO cold, so we decided to high tail it to the campsite. By this point my feet were getting pretty blistered and tired, so the HUGE hill we had to go up to get to the campsite was not looking very fun to me. But we finally made it. The campsite for the second day is absolutely AMAZING! There's a big mountain on one side with waterfalls coming down it, and then on the other side there's a ton of pine trees as far as you can see. It was so fun to be there and see those sights again.

Day three is typically known as the hardest day of the hike. It's a ton of incline, plus people are just worn out from the previous days. I had been dreading it since the day I found out I was going to be in Montana for the summer. Once again, it started out fine. We stopped way too early for lunch, but apart from that things went well and I had a lot of fun with the students I was near playing games and chatting. The sights were breathtaking and really motivated me to keep walking. However, as the day wore on my blisters started rubbing really badly and I was having trouble walking. The inclines took everything out of me, and I was just in a bad mood once again. Finally, one of the students took my tent from me which took away a ton of weight from my pack. That helped so much and I was so thankful for the student's willingness to serve me. We finally made it to the campsite and I had never been happier to sleep on the ground.

Day four (Friday), we hiked out. We had to take care of the car shuffling once again, so one of their adult leaders, and Abby and I hiked out early together. We left at 6 in the morning, expecting the hike to take 2 or 2 and 1/2 hours. We made it in less than an hour and a half. We were SO proud of ourselves. I really enjoyed hiking that early. The temperature was wonderful and it was a lot less stressful hiking with just three people instead of a team of 18. We got the cars all together and waited for 45 minutes before we finally heard cheering as the students ran to the trail end. It was really cool to see the smiles on their faces as they realized that they had finally made it to the end.

After that we drove to Billings and got to shower!! Yay!! Best shower of my life. Then enjoyed an awesome meal at Fudruckers. The best part of Friday night was our final team time. I had a really hard time connecting with these students. I came halfway through the trip, so I missed out on the first few days of getting to know them. They also were just really closed and you really had to push to get anything significant or remotely deep out of them. So I had been a little discouraged and just felt like I hadn't made any difference. However, during our encouragement circle where each student gets encouraged by two of their peers and one adult, I saw the walls break down. I have never seen so many high school boys cry before. Their tough exterior finally cracked and I felt like they were really touched by what they had experienced on the trip. To actually witness this was really powerful. It just reminded me that I should never give up hope on anybody. God may wait until the very end to work in their hearts, but I should never assume that they are incapable of being impacted. The students also demanded to encourage us as staff, and honestly I really needed that. I had felt like I was not needed on this trip and that I had made no impact, but the two students who encouraged me proved me otherwise, and I was really touched by that.

This past trip really taught me a lot about how I respond in situations and showed me a lot of areas in my life that I want to improve. And that's the beauty of challenge.. it spurs on growth and helps you become transformed into who God has designed you to be. As hard as it was, I do not regret what I was able to experience. I learned so much and I am confident that God is going to continue to challenge me in order to bring growth into my life.

Pray requests:
- Team #4 arrived this afternoon: transitioning into this team and being willing to get to know them.
- Rest and renewal
- Continued bonding between me, Steve, Beth and Abby
- God to work in HUGE ways on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation: many to turn from their false religion and be brought into the light of Christ

Thanks for bearing with this long post! I am so thankful for all of your support and prayers!