With fear and excitement I leave for Brasil

Well, the time has come and gone and I can't believe that the day is here. I can't believe that it has been over a year since I graduated from school and that I spent a year in México and now am off to Brasil. I am both excited and scared for what God has for me and what is in store. My heart races even as I write this and am not sure what to expect as I leave for Brasil. I will be leaving tomorrow with a friend to New Jersey then taking a bus to New York City, and then I'll be leaving on Tuesday morning from JFK airport and flying first to Bogota, Colombia and then to Sao Paulo, Brasil where I'll arrive on Wednesday morning around 5:30am, from there I'll be taking a bus from the international to the domestic airport and hopefully someone will be there to pick me up. It has just been such a blessing to see all the support I need come in and just be so blessed by all of you. This time at home has made me realize what amazing friends I have and how much I am going to miss all you guys. Much love and God bless.

Fundraising and preparing to leave

Hey all, thanks for all your prayers and support. I wanted to thank everyone that is supporting me with words of encourage, prayer and financial support. If anyone is interested in supporting me, let me know and I can tell you how you can. I will be leaving for Brasil on September 23rd and be in Brasil until March 17th, then on to Colombia for two months until May11th when I will return to México and there is a good possibility that I will spend the summer in Mexico City again as a leader for Spearhead. I have been enjoying my time here in the US visiting friends and family. This past weekend I spent with the family in Ocean City, NJ and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the next two weeks as I prepare to leave. Much love and God bless.

Brasil Bound (and Colombia too and then maybe back to México)

hey all, thanks so much for your continued prayers and support as I make transitions in my life. I had a great time in Guatemala with my brother and saw so many beautiful things and met so many beautiful people. It was interesting to talk to various of Pete's friends and just get to know Guatemalan history. It was neat to talk to various students and former students about their view of Guatemala, the civil war, social injustice and suffering there. I really feel like it opened my eyes to some of the pains of Central América and most of Latin América with dictatorships, coups and civil wars. I think its just hard for me to fathom the concept of civil war and a blatantly oppressive government, its just so far from my experience. Its amazing how that could become or is for so many people the norm and just part of their story and experience. It really just helped me to understand better some of the pain, doubts, struggles and pessimism that often pains Latin American politics and attitudes. While in Guatemala we also had the chance to visit this beautiful lake called Atitlan which was nice to just relax for a bit. We took kayaks out into the lake and it was just so gorgeous. On my way home from Guatemala, I was stopped in Houston by homeland security and interrogated and searched for like 20 minutes which made me miss my flight, but i eventually got home at 2am and have been home for about a week now. It has been great catching up with friends and family. I have finalized plans with Brasil and almost Colombia as well and perhaps back to Mexico to end it all. I will be in Sao Paulo, Brasil for 6 months living in an intentional community in the slums and working with a church plant and the young people of my community. I will live in a house with 5 guys (Brasilians) and look forward to the challenges of a new place, culture and language. Due to visa restrictions I will only be able to stay there 6 months, my plan from there is to go to Colombia for 2 months to work with a LAM (latin america mission) missionary who does microenterprise development ministry. From there I may return to México for one last summer (my 5th last summer) before returning home next August to make decisions for what is next. I hope all is well with you all. Much love and God bless.



my bro and I
three countries that are near to my heart

a bad translation in Guatemala

Wow, I really can't believe it....

Wow, as I sit here in the airport in México waiting for my plane at 6am to fly to Houston to then get me to Guatemala I can't help but be overwhelmed by the thought of leaving here. I can't believe this year has gone by so fast. It has most certainly had its ups and downs, struggles and triumphs, but all full of blessings. Leaving here I feel like I'm being torn from my home and just am full of sorrow at having said goodbye to my family and friends. The verse in Mark 10:29,30 that says "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." I feel truly blessed in the fulfillment of this promise and can say that I have a plethora of homes, brothers, sisters, mothers and the rest. I feel like I have been blessed beyond my wildest expectations. When I think back over the past year I can't help but smile. So many beautiful people have been a part of my life, so many smiles, small acts of hospitality and generosity; so many people accepted me as one of their own, forgot I was some foreigner and just called me friend, brother or son. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve God and the Mexican church over this past year. Tears are coming to my eyes as I write this thinking of being away from home (México), for so long, I know as I go home (Maryland) I will be received by more family and friends and feel blessed to be able to share my experiences, to be able to share of the mighty work and power of God here in México. I know that I say "hasta luego" and not "adios" but it is still hard to leave. I don't know if my place in life is back here, Brasil, the US or some other country, but I know that México will always have a big place in my heart, that I will also as Mexican singer Luis Miguel said carry Mexico in my skin, that it will always be a part of me, a part of who I am. I thank God and you all for allowing me to have this opportunity. I pray for guidance as I proceed forward, I received my Brasilian visa this week and things seem to be order for my trip to Sao Paulo. I pray that I would be able to nail down details when I arrive back home (Maryland) and hope to leave for Brasil in the middle of September. I pray to that I might be able to figure out what comes next after 6 months in Brasil, whether it be a trip to Colombia to learn about ministry and microenterprise, a trip back home (México), or going home (Maryland) and figuring things out there. I thank God for all the blessings he has poured upon me and pray the same for you all. It has been neat this week with my brother, Pete, here visiting México and meeting some of my most cherished friends and family here in México. Yesterday we went to one of my favorite churches and I actually translated the whole sermon as there was a pastor from the US there on a missions trip. It was neat to get to know him a bit and hear his passion for Jesus and reconciliation in the church. I was a bit nervous about translating the whole message in front of everyone (maybe like 250 people), but I thought it went pretty well. The missions team was the most remarkable one I have ever seen or worked with. There were 5 people on the trip, the first a white middle class middle aged pastor, then a female Mexican missionary to India who has been working at the church in Boston and learning english there, the next one was an African American middle aged man, 3 years sober and a former drug addict and alcoholic, the fourth one was from Guatemala and came to the US at 18 not speaking any English and despising the Christian church, he never responded to the gospel until a friend invited him to this church in Boston where he heard the gospel for the first time and gave his life to Christ, and finally the last guy was an African American guy with several disabilities and a giant heart for God. I was so thoroughly impressed by the pastor, the church and the group, I tend to be very much a skeptic these days when it comes to churches and am not easily impressed, but these guys impressed me and were really an awesome picture of what the reconciled diverse church should look like, that through the love of God, we might learn to love one another, not to judge and see that God's kingdom, that our church, has no boundaries and that we were called to go into all the world and to love all the world, not just the ones we choose to like. My flight is taking off, much love to everyone and God bless, see you in a week!

Summer in Review video

hey all, i made this video for our end of summer meetings and thought you might enjoy

Great end to the summer

hey all, hope all is well. The summer ended well, but very busy. I went on a youth retreat with one of the churches I was working with during the summer and gave a talk at their missions themed retreat. It was really fun, although wet as we were camping and it rained really hard and even hailed a bit. I can't believe how fast the summer went by. I was really proud of our team. I felt like they really learned so much during the summer about God, México, missions and life and was just really proud of them. On other news front I talked to the people in Brasil and it seems to be coming together and I got my visa yesterday from the embassy and also picked up my brother at the airport and we spent the day today together. We went to a bunch of different places in Mexico City and then finally went up to La Presa, my first home in México and had lunch with them. It was really cool to see Pete get to meet them and get to know some of my favorite people in México. Much love to everyone. I will be here in Mex with my bro till Monday, then we are off to Guatemala for a week before returning to the US on the 18th. I"m looking forward to seeing all of you.

Been a long time

Hey all, sorry for such a long time between posts, but between not having reliable internet and working with a short term high school team for the last week I haven't had many chances to update things. To go back a bit, on Sunday the 13th I went with Paul, my leader, to La Presa, my first church for their grand opening of their new church building. It was great to see and just awesome to see the huge smile on Pastor Ignacio's face (also one of my Mexican dads). A few young people from the church and the two spearheaders working there as well as myself performed a skit about not wearing masks and pretending to be someone we are not which seemed to go over very well. After the skit I spent a bit of time explaining it and talking about how we no longer need to pretend to be someone if we know that we are loved by the creator of the world. It was a really neat time to see people I hadn't seen in three years as it seemed like all of La Presa showed up even those that hadn't been to church in forever. I would ask for prayer that the church would continue to grow and God would use them to bring his good news to La Presa. All last week I worked with a team of 23 high schoolers from the New England area who came with a program of Gordon-Conwell seminary with their mentors who are seminary students and a seminary professor. I had a great week working with them and getting to know some of their leaders. A couple of them really challenged me a lot and gave me a lot to think about as far as my future and perhaps full time ministry. It is a thought that still scares me, but I feel like God might be pulling me there. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed working with the high schoolers and it was great to see them in spite of language and cultural barriers interacting with the youth at the church we were working at. We spent most of our time doing street preaching in their neighborhood, in the center of the city and by a dump just to the north of their church. We went to the Alameda (sort of a central park) and to Bellas Artes (a big Kennedy center sort of thing) one day to sing some songs and do some skits and I was amazed by the crowd of 50 or so that gathered to watch the skits. Afterwards I was shouting translations of what the seminary professor was preaching and then gave a little message myself when he was done and many people prayed with us which was really cool. The next day we went to visit a landfill where a lot of people live to collect various things to sell. We played a lot of soccer with the kids and presented some songs, skits and told some stories to them. It was a good time, but very eye opening. Afterwards we took a tour of the dump and met a few people who lived there and its just really sad to realize that people live like that. During the week I also celebrated my 23rd birthday and two of the other leaders (one mexican, one from the US) blindfolded me and took me on the metro where they got a bunch of people to sing happy birthday to me before getting me in a taxi, still blindfolded and taking me to Garibaldi which is the most famous plaza for mariachis. They took off my blindfold as the mariachis began to sing the mexican birthday song which was really sweet. On Sunday we went to the church we had been working with (one I have also been working with this summer), they generally have 4 hour services with about 2 hours of singing. It was a really neat service for the kids as most of them had never been to anything like that and it was cool how the church sang a lot of songs bilingually so that they could understand. I translated several testimonies and a message which was cool and just had a great time. I am actually leaving tomorrow to go on their camping trip and share a message there too. i will be there on thursday, friday and leave early saturday morning to make a clown show in La Presa before leaving for Guadalajara to go to a wedding on Sunday, driving back late sunday night to be able to go to the pyramids with the summer team monday morning. It should be a busy but good week. Today I spent most of my day trying to get my visa at the Brasilian embassy. After getting lost trying to get there I waited in line two hours before being told as the first words something about a bank deposit slip which I didn't have, I thought I could pay with cash ($130, all other countries pay $20) but Brasil has a program of reciprocation where they do to your people what you do to theirs which I actually think is a a good policy. I ran to the bank and ran back to get there 15 minutes before closing and find that they had closed early. It was kinda a bummer, but gave me an appreciation for the process most people have to go through to get to the US. Hope that update wasn't too long, but to end I just want to give praise to God for all He has been doing in and through me and continue to ask for prayer for guidance for the future. Much love and God bless.

i'll post more pics later, when I have time, but you can see the ones i have by clicking below
You can see more La Presa pics by clicking here
Or more pics from this past week's team clicking here

paul to the left and my pastor in the middle
the new church building
selling freezer pops at the dump
my birthday mariachis
the group from the week