Area 2 - floods and freestyle

A week ago today I flew into Philadelphia international airport to commence my summer. There i spent a few days preparing our training facility (the gymnasium and various other rooms of a southeast philly church) and then spent the rest of my time with 66 summer staff, the eastern region. I wore a lot of hats during the week but overall I was there to prepare and equip our summer staff for an intense summer of living in community, loving on communities and doing youth ministry. In typical Y-dub fashion it was an intense schedule packed with powerful, life giving sessions.

I am overall feeling excited, and also very humbled and honored. I cannot believe that God would choose someone like me to be in such a leadership role. I am reminded of the kind of folks christ called to be his disciples and feel very connected to this idea. Praise the Lord that God can work through broken, individuals like filthy fishermen, tax collectors and me.

This morning I sent my staff off, with a swift pat to each of their bumpers I sent my 12 staff into their respective communities, Monnessan Pa, Steubenville Oh, and Niagara Falls NY. Its been so incredible to watch each of them begin to wrap their minds around the complexity of our organization and begin to develop a passion for their communities before even reaching them. I will head out tomorrow afternoon for Niagara Falls to check on the new housing site and some details. Next time I write, it will be from the falls.

In regards to my title, training or 'RAMP' included both freestyle rapping and a mid afternoon flood in the sanctuary. 

moving forward. moving out.

It seems like this is the time of the year that I succumb to my reflective side and begin to process the transitions that spring inevitably brings for someone like me. I have not had a spring in six years where I was not moving somewhere. Three of these years involved leaving the state I had been abiding in. It nearly seems that not moving or transitioning into something new in the spring would be more of an adjustment at this point. 

In about two weeks I will leave Minneapolis for three months to be an area director for YouthWorks. This will be my third consecutive summer with YouthWorks and although compared to the statistics of many of my friends that number seems nominal, I'm beginning to forget what a good ol' American summer is supposed to be like and I kind of like it. 

When I return to this place I will be married. I will be learning to be a husband, a lover, and a companion. When I return I will be living with a girl. Something I havent really done in six years. It has been six years since I lived in the comfortable, lovely, peaceful suburban home with my beloved family.  When I return I will have missed the bulk of the summer months, I will have missed three great months of the minneapolis farmers market and the gardens of my friends. I will have missed many of the open air concerts that make Minneapolis one of the better music scenes in America. The coffee will rapidly be shifting from cold pressed to french press and although the beaches that line the lakes of minneapolis will still be clad with bike riders, sun bathers, and painters, the ice will have sent its rsvp in. 

How morbid of me to be thinking about the deathly cold Minnesota winters three days after may day. I however, choose this unsettled life, I love this unsettled life. I choose to spend my summer living out of a bag, showering not as a habit but as a privilege, sleeping on my therma-rest, and living within moments with my summer staff. Moments of beauty as youth of the church get a hold of what God is about, get a hold of the radical nature of the life of Jesus, and find out what its like to love, make my decision easy.

Today my car bore the scarlet letter of a mattress atop of it that confirmed that I was indeed moving out of my North Minneapolis apartment. My neighbor and wonderful friend pops approached me shaking his head furiously, 

"aw man!" 

He exclaimed, 

"Your movin. Your leavin us." 

"I'm getting married pops, you know that. ganna be living with my wife down south side."

I replied, not wanting to go into the detailed description of what I would be doing three months prior to moving there. Pops retreated his attack on me quickly and began to relate to me the beauty of marriage if you can hold on to it. Pops lost grip of his own marriage to various addictions and cycles. I sat in the parking lot with pops as he related to me in his own special way various life lessons. Lessons he had taught me before several times; I've done a fair amount of sitting with pops. I sat and observed the streets that had taught me so much about the reality of life. I'm going to miss pops and the rest of the guys from the emerson building a lot. A whole lot actually.