Jeremiah - God is Our Home

          The days have been getting more and more exciting as we draw closer to the birth of our first child! The anticipation is killing and I'm just constantly checking up on Allison to see if she is having contractions or feeling strange or different. I am going to be a father soon! As I think about all that it means to be a parent and have the responsibility of caring for another growing, living, human being I get a little worried that I won't be good enough.

          We have prepared every square inch of our apartment for the arrival of this baby. I have started thinking about what things I need to maybe take out of my day to day routine like what kind of movies I watch our video games I play and how much I use that kind of entertainment to fill my time. I don't my child to be glued to the TV or phone screen. I am thinking about how I can build new life giving habits like conditioning my body for stamina and strength. In fact just before summer came this last year my back went out, and I was stuck in bed for about a week. I don't want that to happen again especially as the baby comes. I am also planning for the weeks after we come back to the U.S. in July. Also, the years after, and what our ministry will look like in combination with our job choices. This can be really stressful as I realize that their is just a lot to think about. With all these thoughts it's easy for me to get overwhelmed and wonder if I can be the father, the parent I want to be. However, I have been developing another great practice. This practice is simply being still before God.

         The last thing I want to do when I feel overwhelmed is be still. Logically, if there are many things to accomplish and to be done then it makes sense to start making moves to progress towards these goals. But I am experiencing just how God is building me up and strengthening me in these moments when my body and my mind are simply still. My mind needs a lot of healing. It is so easy to get discouraged and distracted by my own thoughts or concerns. So I have been taking about 15 minutes a day to sit down and do what is referred to as "centering prayer". I have a word that center my thoughts around and this word is something that reminds me who God is. In the beginning of our time here in Norway my word was "trust". So I would find a quiet place and sit and close my eyes and let my mind go wherever it wanted. However, every 30 seconds or so I would remember my centering word, trust and it would center me back to just being still before God. My centering word has changed through out the last year. For a while it was, love. After that it was, life. Really, no matter what it has been it has just been a reminder that God is good and is with me as I practice moving away from using Netflix or Video Games or Facebook to pacify my anxiety or stress. Recently the word, home has been my centering word. And this word reminds me that God is my home where ever I live or my family lives, and no matter where my friends are or my community is. This provides me with so much freedom to confident in moving forward in the midst of feeling overwhelmed sometimes. Not only am I finding my safety in God being my home but I know that God my child's home. Even though I can't quite see the future house we will live in I know that God is going to be with me, with Allison, with our son or daughter, with us every step of the way. God is our safety. God is Our Home

Jeremiah - Ping Pong Pals

   
          It was so nice to get to visit our home in the U.S. this last summer. I really underestimated the impact of not being around people I know so well. Being in a new place with a different language is hard, but being away from the relationships I rely on most to keep me sane has been the hardest part. Developing and maintaining relationships here in Norway is just different than the way I keep up with my friends at home. However, I have managed to find some really great friends over the course of the last year and I have been trained in the ancient art of ping pong!

         I have two main friends that I have been able to play ping pong with. Amin is incredible and has mastered the technique of super fast spikes on the ping pong table and my friend Reza is like a kung fu master with spin and speed. Both of these guys are from Iran and are seeking asylum here in Norway. Reza has been here for almost 10 years and Amin has been here for about 4 years. They have applied to stay in Norway and they have been waiting literally for years, the whole time they have been here, to receive an answer. This is a really scary situation to be in. At any moment they could receive a letter in the mail telling them to pack up and get ready to be taken to another town or to be escorted out of the country. So really when we play ping pong together it is one of the few moments where they get to relax and forget for a few hours about their state of limbo.

       After every church service on Sunday we sneak away downstairs to a secret room where we play ping pong for hours. We also get to play at least one other time during the week, and sometimes more people join. This has been a place where I have been able to find friendship, and also a place where I see God's face the most. In the midst of the intense competition we forget about our problems or how different we are and are free together. This has been a life giving space.
       About 2 weeks ago my friends Amin and Reza received word that they have been denied residency here in Norway. This has made them ask all kinds of questions among them being "God if you are my father and I am your child then where are you now?"

       I have been asking this question with them and pleading with God because I do not know how to answer this. I don not know what to say or what to do in these really sad and life changing moments other than try to comfort my friends and tell them that God is still in fact our loving parent, and he will never leave us.

      We have been praying that God would show them that he is still with them even in this hard time. Reza and Amin have been transferred to different cities now and are waiting for one final decision. I am so glad that I have been able to share this freedom with my friends. Even through our differences we found friendship and joy. I never knew God could use ping pong in such a strong and important way. Please pray for my friends, God's children, Reza and Amin as they search for their next steps.

My Life in a Basil Plant - Allison Post

thankful that God makes us better through unexpected change.

an allison post

It's WILD to look back and see where we've been before. In the last post, we were in Latvia, and I was unaware of being 3 weeks pregnant (which explains the beginning of some food aversions and sensitivity to smell!)

Fast Forward, we are just hitting 37 weeks pregnant and its an ENTIRELY different ball game. I've been up for hours trying to reconcile my hips attempting to separate themselves from the rest of my body, but hey, it's only temporary, right?! I figured this was a perfect opportunity to unpack something I was thinking about yesterday.

So over the past 9 months we have been UP and we have definitely been DOWN. (Sometimes it can be easier to dwell on the down, but balance is everything.) While pondering on the fight for balance, i sometimes ask myself what it's worth to endure suffering (be it minimal and momentary or long and difficult). I turned to my windowsill yesterday after starting this mental discourse and it just hit me: I am my basil plant!!!!

I've killed a lot of herbs and household plants this year, including my birthday cacti. As Kristin Cobwell says, WE DON'T JUDGE! But I have this ONE basil plant that has been more than faithful to me for the past 3 months. Its very green, many fronds, and had many stalks. Super healthy plant...maybe a little TOO healthy. It started needing some crowd control for one thing as the stalks were pushing against each other, blocking one another from good airflow and harvesting which also lead to a small mold problem. Jeremiah suggested chopping off two of the highest stalks which had tons of perfectly fine leaves on them. I was skeptical, but let him thin them. After observing the plant a little more, I saw that some of the stems were pushing to the borders of the container -- this little guy needed a new pot. So my landlord gave me a ton of dirt and my choice of potting containers, and we transplanted. I was concerned that all these changes were gonna kill my plant, stunt it's growth. But to my surprise, it has yielded more happy fronds. It's healthy AND made new again.

I can not tell you how much I've seen me in this plant since we committed to going to Norway. I was doing pretty well where I was, thriving in my cozy Richmond and searching for purpose. Finding it even. But I believe that God knew to prune me. There are ways that I've grown here in which I couldn't have had I stayed in those "good places" at the time in my life. For the eyes God wanted me to have, and the maturation of my spiritual walk, this transplantation has surrendered me into an incredible balance in my life. My dependency on Jesus more than my loving families, trusted friendships, and noble causes has had to define me and compel me in my pursuit to love people, and to love God for that matter. Even though it's not always easy, I see what God has done for me and in me. And I'm better for it.