vacation with God (and phil)

the idea came after a really difficult couple of weeks here.. i can't go into many details in an open forum because of privacy issues.. i am a drug counsellor, after all.. just say it was one of the rougher months. i knew i needed to get away or risk burnout, so i asked my friend phil if he was up for a spontaneous trip with God. he said yes, so we prayed and did what every logical person would do.. drew modes of transportation and direction out of a hat. ;) it landed on car to the east. so we set our sites on shared transportation and hitchhiking options to budapest. this is me on te second day, on our prayer tower. we really weren't out for tourism, but rather to spend time with God and let him work in us, through us and with us.. we wanted to come home relaxed and haveing shared our faith in a natural way with those He prepared for us to talk to.. no stress, not forcing anything.

we ended up doing a lot of hitchhiking- and realizing in every car why we had to wait for just that ONE. the conversations were great. i'm trying to keep this short, so i'll just say that. we still have contact to one driver per email, he might visit. we stayed with people in their homes using couch surfing.. also an amazing thing. we were able to give our host in budapest a german new testament and to share testimonies with our host in bratislava. in prague we stayed at a hostel (it was good friday) but were able to talk to the hostess about our faith. all in all a well planned trip- especially seeing as how WE didn't really plan it.

we spent a lot of time just talking about serious issues (phil's also studying theology, he will probably end up as a methodist preacher), praying, reading through 2 corinthians, and singing (without a gitare and in public..) we saw the sides of the city most people don't.. the ghetto, a park with several hundred homeless.. we just walked and prayed. we had no rush, no place to be, no electronic devices.. it was just us and God. it was extremely cool.

i don't want to write all the details.. for one, it would just be tooooo much, for another, it's hard to capture it in writing. i'd rather TELL it. so if you're interested, we could skype.. :)

i was in dallas, btw

so if you missed it- i went home for the first time in a few years in february. i saw my bro and sis-in-law, parents and gram. it was good.

my sermon on the mount

so yeah, i haven't been writing much lately.. i'll get better.. really.. maybe..

yesterday i preached at the jesus freaks.. well, actually.. WE preached NEAR the jesus freaks.. we being my friend phil and i, and near being on the little hill nearby. there was finally some spring wether, so we took church outdoors. our topic was "truth" and "being real" and was a result of our vacation with God and in truth.. which i realize now i haven't blogged about yet, so i guess i should.

anyway, we had wanted to try preaching together because we often have thoughts that expound upon one anothers, complete each others, and challenge each other.. we thought it'd be good. and truth has been following us.. i hit the text in 1 john 3: 18-22 and phil took psalm 139. he started us off with a look inside, getting an honest feel for who you are and how God sees you. the i talked about being real with others- the type of honesty that goes beyond not lying.

on our trip the sub-title was "vacation of truth." this came about after a Bible study experiment where we had read the part of the sermon on the mount (mat 5:42) about give to those who ask... the group decided to give it a radical try for a week, to see what would happen. their readiness to do this (especially in the face of some of the things i witnessed happening that week) really hit me. so the next week, when we talked about honesty, i asked if we were going to do it radically for a week, too? they weren't so thrilled by the idea...... so when phil and i were on our trip and the topic came up AGAIN at his home town small group, i reasked the question. he said ok... and so we spent the next week being completely honest with each other (if at times we had to be reminded) about our thoughts, feelings, and whatever thing we were talking about. not just no lies- we took it deeper. and because the whole thing was also a trip with God (see the next post i think i will write), there was also an atmosphere conducive to truth. we were safe to be real.

so.. the sermon will be available online tomorrow.. but, well it's german, so i probably won't link it. the 8 of you who still check this blog probably wouldn't understand us anyway ;)