SICM Reflection Part 1, a psalm

I have returned from SICM, which was awesome. I highly recommend people going, and do recommend going again. Like I said at FOCUS, probably my largest takeaway was one of vision and inspiration. While I have alot of ideas that I would like to develop and share, I feel a much greater obligation to attempt to spur others on, to help them live out the ideals that were thrown at us. If the marathon is like a simmering coal, and the sprint is like some gas being throw on it, I hope we can all simmer a little hotter when the flames die down.

On the third day, Tuesday, we were given the chance to write a psalm. This is what I wrote, unedited, unpolished, straight from my heart letting God know what I thought about Him and what He's done.

O God, what have you done to me? You have made me a captive of your heart, enslaved me with your love. I was once content with my own ways, no more. The pain of hunger is nothing to the longing for justice. Why God Why? Sometimes I just want to be me, but you put something in my heart that burns and aches. I think I could never be content with most things again, I've been tricked out of myself.
O God, you are amazing. You think I am worth more than I know. You even let me do your will. Every day I think I could die and be happy. But you apparently think I have more, and give me another. Please let me always be with you. I would be so lost otherwise. I love you.


I plan on going back through my notes and seeing what I see and posting more...maybe I will inspire you :)

Update/End of Year+Birthday Wisdom

Thought I'd give an update on how stuff is going, seeing as how its been going, also to share some end of year thoughts and birthday wisdom.

I now think its funny that I talked in my previous post about shelving my linkfa project idea in order to focus on the Garage Giveaway with Joe. Today we had our second joint-ministry meeting discussing how we want to do Garage Giveaway in the future, particularly for the summer. It was pretty cool because we had Beth Smith from BSM, Ray, Vinay and someone else from ICF, Brandon and I from FOCUS, Joe and Anne Caldwell from the International Student Services Office, pretty sweet how we are all working together. So far it looks like the plan is to have a team of volunteers who will be asigned apartments of international students. The international students will sign up at the ICF Welcome Party and possibly at orientation. Welcome Party is on a Friday, so the next day we will give the volunteers some training and then send them off to meet their assigned students. It will be the volunteers job to asses the needs of their assigned students, get them the furniture they need, and help alert us about the needs so we can get the furniture. The volunteers will also have a checklist of things to do in the future, to keep up and make friends with the students. So we get the international students furniture and hopefully a new american friend. Its really cool getting to be around Beth, Ray, Vinay and Brandon and getting to hear their ideas on international ministry. Honestly, all of these ideas are theirs, not mine. I feel like I am slowly catching their vision though, the future looks pretty exciting.

Now onto other things, this is going to be some end year reflection mixed in with some birthday wisdom, though I think its a lot the same. This past year has been challenging, stretching, but good. Definitely my best year of college so far. Maybe even the best year that I can remember. When I first came to FOCUS two years ago I felt accepted, and knew some people, but didnt really hang out with anyone. Last year I lived with two guys from core but still didn't really feel like I had any close friends. This year however has been pretty different in that aspect. There are quite a few people that I would call friend and go hang out with. There are also some that I would call close friend, or brother, this I haven't had before and its pretty awesome. The people in FOCUS are family now, thats how I feel. I also feel like God has taught me to rely on Him more this year, and not worry so much about how inadequate I am. Too many times I've been convinced of failure only to get the opposite. Sometimes I feel like God is trying to see how much He can convince me something won't workout, maybe to see how much He can surprise me with it working. So yea, pretty good year. I'm very excited about staying around here for the summer and seeing what next year will be like.

The Latest Update

Well its been a while since I've blogged, so I think its time for an update.

As far as my linkfa projects go, after much thinking, a few weeks ago I decided to focus my energies more on the furniture drive, planning and executing that. The plan is to start up collecting furniture again soon, ramping it up for the summer time when we get more new students. This is probably going to look like garage sale hunting, possibly a furniture drive in conjunction with the ISSS office in May, and maybe some ad placement in local papers.
The Friendship program is still something I am very interested in working on, however I decided that it would be better if I took the semester to research how other groups have gone about doing similar things and doing some more in depth planning.

I'll probably post a post on some deep topic like discipleship soon.

FOCUS Winter Camp 2008

I just wanted to say a few words about camp this year and what it meant to me. I would say it was awesome or incredible or I loved it, but I don't think that would do it justice. Getting to hear Eddie speak this year was an experience I could have every weekend. It seemed like every word from the guy's mouth was driven by some love and compassion, it was obviously more than just Brandon asking that got him to come talk to us. Theres a scripture in Jeremiah that Garret showed me once, Jeremiah 20:9, in it Jeremiah basically says that if he tried to stop talking about God it would be impossible, that God's words were like a fire in his heart, shut up in his bones, and he's tired of fighting to contain it. I think that might describe Eddie some, whenever he spoke I could just feel something powerful, he was really pouring himself out to us.

This semester started off with me coming up with my outreach project, the idea came out of nowhere the night I needed it. I spent the next few days wondering what I'd gotten myself into and how I was going to accomplish this. I was getting a little depressed and worried, started thinking that maybe I wasn't doing the right things, or not doing enough. If camp was anything to me, it was encouraging. Eddie reminded me of the romantic adventure I had first considered Christianity to be, which was very encouraging. Saturday night was really great though, the words people shared with me really lifted me up. I often wonder, even dream about how I can become better in a certain way, or do something better. People told me Saturday night that I was something I had wondered about, longed for, wanted badly.

I am so very excited about this semester. I believe we can all accomplish what we are setting out to do. I think that if God has called us to this, why should we pause? What are we waiting for?

I love you guys.

Reaching for Outreach Update

I decided to email the International Student Services Office to see if they had an ideas about how we can help new transfers. I was told that there is a new student group called 'Global Village', created to represent all diversity at UTD, part of the group helps new students transition in. This is something I may have to go check out. I also asked if there was any kind of system that buddies up new international students and current students, apparently its been tried in the past but never quite worked. I'm probably going to meet with the program coordinator, Ann Caldwell, to discuss their ideas, my ideas, see if we can help each other out. Maybe I'll be able to get some support from this office.

On a somewhat related and different note: Last night Joe and I talked about the Garage (Furniture) giveaway. He's talked to me about helping make a better system and I'm going to make that part of my project(s) for the semester. The basic idea is to make an efficient system so that we always know the inventory of our furniture and are able to move out furniture to people who need it as quickly as possible. While it is nice to get a bunch of people together and give away alot of furniture at once, everything would run much more smoothly if we could deliver furniture a few days after we receive it. Some things I need to think about are furniture critieria, a good way to keep inventory(possible electronic database), and how I can get other people involved on helping create this.

Thats all for now.

Outreach Project Dealy Thing

For the semester, each linkfa is supposed to come up with some sort of outreach project, either by themselves or in a group. The purpose of this project is to reach out to people that aren't in our ministry. "Reaching out" should mean acts of service, being good news. I was trying to think of how I was going to further reach out to my international friends, but I should have known they would be the ones to tell me what was needed. I was talking to my friend Shail and he was telling me about the new transfers we got this semester, fresh from India, and how they lacked furniture, housing, etc, you know the story. What I propose is not me helping coordinate people picking up and delivering furniture. What I would like to see happen is other people reaching out to these transfers, getting to know them and helping their needs. I greatly enjoy the friendships that I've made with some of the students that I've helped, and it would seem selfish to not share that with others.

Shail and I have already talked about getting together a list of the new transfers and some of their furniture needs. I'd like to be able to take this list, split it up between myself and others, and have us each handle the needs of those people. Obviously if theres one large source of furniture, many people can go there but the idea is to make it more personal and friendly.
It would also be nice if we could do something maybe monthly together for the transfers, just to make sure they are feeling at home here.

So I'm going to attempt to sum this up:
-International Transfers
-Build Friendships
-Help Facilitate Coming/Getting used to UTD

Thats it. The end.

First

First off, my name is Ryan. This blogger.com is for writing down ideas concerning ministry and also making Brandon happy. It should be interesting to see where this goes.