Photos of the week!!- The Stinkin WORLD SERIES!

As you have expected this week's photos of the week are all dealing mainly with the World Series! Where two games were held right here in Detroit!! It was a great time for the city and a great time to be here! We were able to watch the last 6 innings of the last game of the series from the roof of Central UMC (where I work remember?)! It may have been a pretty boring series with the Tigers getting swept, but Dan it was awesome to see the city come to life and be so crowded!

Photos of the Week-Run Forest Run!

This weeks photos of the week are all dealing with the half marathon! I know they do not have much to do with my missionary service here but they are stinkin awesome (I think anyway). A friend here in Detroit was unable to run the 1/2 marathon so at the last minute I was able to take his spot! It was great!! 

 Before the 1/2!

 23,000 people ran in Detroit over 3 races on Sunday!

This is some of the image that I was referring to in my previous post of how beautiful some of the scenes were during the run.

And hey look at that we all made it!

Be Excited!

So today's blog is all about our ability as people to get excited over something.

What makes you excited? I don't mean like a "yay I'm excited" I mean like you actually want to leap for joy or hoot an holler.

Today I ran a half marathon that crossed over to Canada o the Ambassador bridge, then snaked back to the US in a tunnel, so for a mile we were running underwater! It was so very awesome, so I guess I am sort of still on that really excited running high somewhat, so bear with me.

It was in crossing the Ambassador bridge just before sunrise that I experienced this excitement that makes you just want to yell, it was beautiful and to be running with 23,000 others to share that experience was almost just too much. I loved the feeling of having the view and at the same time I felt like I was challenging my body to be better.

Directly following the run Joni (a coworker) and I went out to a church in the suburbs to give a presentation for NOAH. It was here that I saw another excitement. In speaking to some of the people at the church there was a certain excitement about getting more involved in some way shape or form at the NOAH Project. More excitement.

So again, what gets you excited? I feel that we allow these moments to be fleeting, to be small memories of a great feelings. So I got to thinking, what gets me excited? Well I should continue doing what makes me excited because I think those things will be things that I will do best and also enjoy. So I am not proposing that I constantly run accross a bridge, or that I am constantly brainstorm ways that agencies can be more comprehensive, but I am saying this is what the community or church should incite. I think it is a job of the church community to understand what excites each other and then challenge the congregation to act on this knowledge. May we never live void of excitement, I just don't think the Lord would desire that. maybe excitement is simply the harmony of what we love and what the world puts before us, in turn what the Lord places before us. What resonates with you? What makes you excited?

Also, pictures will surely be up soon, and almost surely will be the photos of the week! Thanks for reading! Thoughts?

Blast From the Past!

Hola!

      So it has been a little bit since I have posted on here and I first just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for reading and thank you for being interested! Thank you for thinking of me and thank you just for checking this out! I have soooo many thoughts right now and well I guess they will just have to wait because that’s right, get excited, its story time!

      So the story actually starts waaaayy back in 11^th grade I believe it was (yes I still remember it). I was on a mission trip in Philadelphia and we were riding the subway to our next soup kitchen we were serving at. So we are all in the same church, from Matthews United Methodist and actually all wearing the same youth group t-shirt. So a man curiously comes up to me to start a conversation. We talk about what we are doing there in Philadelphia and what we hoped to accomplish and how. I remember he was very interested in hearing more about what I knew about the Bible and just my beliefs and how they affected me. So as it is a train, his stop came up and he said “My name is Brother Chris by the way, but hey give me a call, I’d like to hear more about this and get to know the church you are staying in.” He hastily jotted down his contact information and the best time to call on a yellow sheet of paper and disappeared off the train. At this point in the story I would love to say that I contacted him and connected him, but when the time came for me to call, when he said he would be free, I vividly remember asking to borrow a phone from the leader and simply not having the courage. “Tomorrow” I reassured myself. Tomorrow came and went and I forgot (or selectively did not remember). I'm really not sure what, if anything, would have happened had I called, but I remember this story very well. However, I kept that yellowed piece of paper.

      So years later I find that I still have that paper, and although the hastily written number is most likely useless and certainly faded, I keep the paper intentionally. To me this paper is a reminder of a mistake, not that I am just beating myself up about it, but that I am simply remembering an opportunity just to be kind and step out of my comfort zone and act. Act upon the opportunity laid so perfectly and easily in front of me. I was scared. So fast-forward to this year. So as I moved into my office I had a corkboard filled only with pushpins. I brought in random pictures of myself and friends, family and just landscapes and at the back of the envelope of pictures; I find this yellow sheet of folded paper, reading “Brother Chris 6:00-8:00pm” and a phone number. I pinned it to the bottom of the board as a reminder to listen when the spirit says listen, to stay when the spirit says stay and to act when the spirit says act. I tell this story, not show guilt, but as a personal reminder of the importance of moving and maybe just a little reminder or myself and everyone else, may we not forget to act. 

Photo of the Week!- Puppy!!

Alright so I know the last week has been pretty weak in depth, but these photos of the week are just really exciting!

Brian and I had a good friend go out of town for the week and we were able to dog sit for the week, well his name is Duncan and these are just a couple pictures of him, more pictures to come from last week, I just haven't been able to upload them off of my phone! I hope you are having a blessed and wonderful day!

Photo of the Week- Just a Little Late :-)

Hello, hello! So very sorry to come to you so very late, but I have actually recently been a little sick with a pretty nasty cold, but hopefully I am getting over it, that's my excuse anyway haha...anyway last week's photo of the week comes from a Friday Night! 

This is a picture from the festival Delectricity, which is an art festival focusing mainly on the arts using electricity. This was the first annual festival and at this stop in the festival we met an awesome couple from Baltimore, Maryland who harnessed the reverberations of a drum to make electricity and cause a light to flash. A few of my friends and I enjoyed playing these drums for quite a while, actually you can see a few of them still playing the drums. I really just liked the picture with the man holding the Jesus loves you sign off to the side, this man walks all around the city with the sign (personally not my favorite way of witness, often times it seems to do more harm than good) and the lights.

As I mentioned recently in a post these festivals really display to me drive to better Detroit. These festivals drive the people pf the city to continue to stand behind the city and better the city!