The biggest opportunity just hit tonight, though. I was just commissioned as the team leader
for a missions trip to Bulgaria this coming Summer. Over the coming weeks, I will get in touch
with the missionary we are working with, research Bulgarian culture and demography, find out
what type of ministries are already established and what we can and will do to help, recruit
team members, and plan and start fundraising efforts.

Here’s where you can help. The first thing this trip will need is prayer. Prayer for God’s blessing,
His financial provision, for divine favor in all aspects, and for His will to be clear to us (and
especially to me, as the leader). I also will probably have down moments where the world just
seems to be piling on and raising obstacles against this trip, so I will need occasional
encouragement in those times. I can’t promise I will stay in great contact with everyone
individually, but I will be updating Facebook notes and my blog pretty regularly concerning the
trip. Additionally, I will need fundraising ideas. I’m a pretty swell idea guy, and a great
researcher, but I can use all the help I can get with creative money-making projects. Finally, if
you want to make a direct monetary donation, get in touch with me.

Thanks so much everyone for your support throughout my adventures and for being as
wonderful a group of friends and family as I could ever have asked for. Love and blessings to all!

There are thousands of prostitute ministries in this world, and I salute every single one of them. Certainly, some may be approaching the field without having counted the cost or without having a faint inkling of what they’re supposed to do, but they’re trying. They’re reaching out to broken women and offering the hope and the healing that only God Almighty can provide. While not perfect and certainly not easy, clean, or simple, prostitute ministries are something our Father absolutely throws His weight behind. Why? Because it’s an attempt to step inside His will for His beautiful and beloved daughters.

Here’s where our lives in Mexico get messy. Men who have had surgeries to try to look like women are not God’s beautiful and beloved daughters. Instead, they are God’s valiant and mighty sons. They are the leaders of families. They are the strength and the backbone of society. They are the governors and warriors of the people. They are sons of Adam, hand-crafted in the image of God Almighty, the Father in Heaven we are created to worship and enter into a loving relationship with. At least that’s what they were meant to be.

Instead, they are little boys tortured and sexually abused. They are cold, twisted, black hearts. They are bound and shackled by fear, by hate, by disease, by disgust, by neglect, by loneliness, by Satan. They are confused. They are hurting. They are lost. They dwell in darkness. They prowl the streets, repeatedly entering into slavery most foul. They sell their bodies and, thereby, their destinies as mighty men, for drugs, cash, or for a sense of belonging, of being wanted. They are looked upon with scorn by people of all walks. They are mocked by homeless beggars. They are threatened. They are pressured. They are hopeless.

Check that. They are not hopeless. We have a hope for them, and we once seemed hopeless ourselves. I’m reminded of 2 Corinthians 1:9-10

^“9Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us^(A) rely not on ourselves^(B) but on God^(C) who raises the dead. ^10(D) He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.^(E) On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

How, when we have been snatched from death (Romans teaches us that the wages of sin are death, and that we were all in sin before Christ snatched us from it with His sacrifice), though we were unworthy, how do we turn a blind eye to these tormented souls? How do we judge them? How do we condemn them? How do we determine that they, or anyone else, is beyond the hope of Christ?

Is it not our responsibility, no, our command from God Himself, to hold out hope for these men? Is it not our responsibility to hold them in prayer? Is it not our responsibility to love them at all costs? Is it not our responsibility to share the love of Jesus Christ, as well as His Good News, with them, before they are lost to the depths of Hell forever?

Of course it is. That’s not the question though, is it? We all know our responsibility. We all know our charge. What we don’t know, is how to do so. For now, it’s with a prayer-walk combined with praying at home for direction (half the group on the walk, half at home) every other Friday night. Someday, we hope to partner with a local church to physically launch this ministry (This is the Engage way. We make sure a local church is involved with our ministries so they will continue in case anything diplomatically catastrophic causes us to suddenly leave the country.), but until that point we are relegated to prayers and prayer-walking only. This is not to diminish prayer, as it is a vital part of one’s spiritual life and any ministry not covered in prayer generally serves very little, if any purpose whatsoever. However, we, as missionaries, tend to be people of action rather than people of waiting. These men are dying out there, and we want to intervene and help.

Please join us in prayers for these men, for the daily lives they lead (Who knows what that looks like? Do they have families? Day jobs? Can they even go to the store without being mocked and ridiculed?), for the nights they suffer through, for conviction and transformation, for light in their dark world, for partners in this ministry, for their safety and health, and for God to be glorified when they are redeemed by the blood of Christ. He died for them too. They just don’t know it yet.

My entire life, I’ve been passionate about running. The burn in your lungs, the pangs of exhaustion in your legs, the steady pounding tempo of feet on pavement, the sweet aroma of exhaust and body odor, the heat of your body using every ounce of energy it has, the reliable rivers of sweat seeping from your every pore. There truly is nothing like it. I ran the Nike 10k on Saturday morning, which was reportedly the largest race that has ever been held (calling it “The Human Race,” Nike hosted simultaneous 10k races in major cities across the world) and I finished. This was approximately twice as long as I’ve ever run, because I’ve always been passionate about running.

I joined the cross country team in middle school one year so I could train for soccer. I was never very good, because I was a bit of a chunk and, as previously-stated, I was passionate about running. I generally came in towards the back of the pack, but I finished all the same. I was never a boost in the standings and I usually felt like an outsider, as I was basically the fat, slow, asthmatic kid on the cross country team, just like on the soccer team. However, I stuck it out, even though I was passionate about running.

In high school, I was relegated to the C-Team even though I was considerably more talented than at least half of the Junior Varsity. Why? Because I was the hefty, slowish, out of shape kid. Why? Because I was passionate about running, of course.

Since my first step into Guadalajara, this city has taken my breath away. Actually, as cliche as that sounds, it’s been absolutely true. Being 7,000ish feet in the air makes it really hard to breathe sometimes, especially when one is running (which, in case you’d forgotten, I’m quite passionate about). Here, everyone and their dog and their friend and their cockroach is a runner. (Ok, so maybe not the friend, but at least everyone and their dog and their cockroach.) Two weekends ago, two of our leaders ran and finished a marathon. That’s intense. Those people are passionate about their running. A week and a half ago, I decided to sign up for The Human Race. (Yes, that’s as hilarious to me as it might be to one or two of you. I had to sign up and pay a fee to be part of The Human Race. This is why Nike pays advertisers so much money.) Having never run that far, I figured I could do it no problem. Little did I know, my passionate hatred of running would make this one of the worst and best mornings of my life.

For my entire life, I’ve hated running. I mean passionately hated. There has never been anything I like less. I don’t mean all forms of running, though. Put a ball out there and I’m going to run fast and love it. Throw a frisbee out in front of me and I’ll sprint after it gleefully and lay out fully-horizontal to catch it. Give me someone to cover in a pickup game of football and I’m going to laugh while running stride for stride with them. But suggest to me running for exercise or running for the sheer joy of it, and you will see a look of shock, disdain, disgust, and distaste. That is simply not my idea of a good time. It’s boring, it hurts, there’s nothing even remotely fun about it, I get sweaty and stinky, and my body is built entirely not for that. I’m passionate about running.

For the first three miles, I was doing pretty well. I was taking my time, but still moving steadily. After that, my body decided to remind me that I’d never run further than that before, and it sincerely didn’t want to this particular morning either. I gave in. I walked sporadically over the last three miles, but only walked for a few minutes total in the entire race and, most importantly, I finished. My target finishing time was 1 hour flat, but I came in around 2.5 minutes over that, which I decided to be 100% content with. Yes, I said content. When I crossed that finish line and picked up my medal, I was excited. When I got my first hugs from people who could not have cared any less about my disgustingly sweaty body because they were just so proud of me and excited for me, I felt accomplished.

It’s funny what happens when you push through pain and disdain and passionate hatred. People are proud of you. You claim victory over the adversary. Your passions change. I can’t wait to do a 5k in a couple weeks. I’m looking forward to doing another 10k in January. Next year, I’m going to try to do a half-marathon here in Guadalajara. You know why?

Because I’m passionate about running.

I’ve been humbled and corrected. The week of “El Colli Boot Camp” was spurred by our total neglect towards preparation, both in physical work and spiritual, for El Colli practice and “game day.” We showed up to Thursday’s practice with terrible attitudes, completely unprepared to teach everyone our roles and parts for Saturday’s ministry. Because of this, that Saturday ended up being rather underwhelming. This all sets up what we experienced over that week.

On Monday night after our meeting, we were handed rules for the week. These rules dictated two pairs of clothing for the entire week, including socks, shoes, underwear, etc. No electricity use except for homework. No computer use except for homework. No shaving. No toiletries except for one bar of soap per bathroom and a toothbrush and toothpaste. No using the dryer. No hot water. Spending limit of 20 pesos for the week. Most importantly: no complaining.

That night (Monday) we slept on the floor at Matt and Angie’s house. Guys in one room, girls in another. The next morning, we were given 1.5 hours to get everyone showered, using no hot water or electricity, still in the dark. Since “everyone” included 13 people, this was quite a task. We also divvied up 6 granola bars, 6 apples, and a box of cheerios between everyone. For the cheerios, there were only cups, no bowls, and no spoons. Also, we had one box of milk that was not cold. The morning was surprisingly smooth and we all got out the door and off to classes in plenty of time. That might have been the last smooth part of the week.

Tuesday day was not too terrible. We’ve all gone a day without a shower, right? We felt fine. Shoot, some of us were downright chipper. Tuesday night after La Fusion was a different story. We’d been stuck in a hot sweaty room with a bunch of kids (whom we dearly love) who were driving us crazy, we were hungry, we were sticky, and we weren’t allowed to use the microwave to heat up our dinner, or use the lights even though they function perfectly, or allowed to take a shower. That was a rough night’s sleep.

Wednesday we were allowed to take bucket showers. If you’ve never heard of a bucket shower, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out what it means. There’s a bucket. It has cold water. You give yourself a “shower” with a cup or sponge in the bucket. Simple, right? Actually, yes. The bucket showers were a lot less brutally frigid than the 2 minute shower at Matt and Angie’s, but since it isn’t hot water you still don’t quite feel clean. Wednesday mornings are worship devotionals, so Carolyn led us in a bunch of songs a capella. This turned out so much better than I had expected it to and we all drew close to God. We concluded with some heartfelt prayer and headed off to school, where we all felt self-conscious about wearing the same clothes as the day before. Wednesday is generally a pretty slow day for ministry, so we didn’t have to do much after school except study for our other classes and hang out with each other. (One awesome little aside about Wednesday is that Kim Crannell, a great friend since Mr. Bono’s Pre-Algebra class in 6th grade, sent me three pairs of brand new shorts in the mail, since all of mine had ripped and had to be discarded. They arrived on Wednesday and they all fit perfectly and Kim has earned my love forever, although she already had it)

Thursday was back to normal cold showers (still only in the morning. For everyone else, this is normal. For me, I’ve been a night shower person since I was about 7 years old when my sister started Kindergarten. Showers slow me down and put me to sleep, so this was of particular annoyance to me, and I had to repent of my frustration at the end of the week when I realized what was going on), but they weren’t nearly as bad as the first ones because, again, we had time to do it carefully. The quirk for Thursday was twofold: Thursdays are “Dia de Español” and we were not allowed to use silverware for the day. Dia de Español means that, outside of meetings, we are only allowed to speak in Spanish for the entire day, from the conclusion of morning devotions until dinner commences in the evening. This is easier for some of us, but with sleep deprivation, stench, discomfort, and general discontent stemming from living with people for a month and a half, we were all approaching a breaking point that day.

Friday was the zenith of the experience. We were allowed showers on Thursday night (still cold) and I took mine right around 11pm, figuring that would be the best timing for the water to be the warmest (in Mexico, potable water is kept in tanks on the roof, so the water is being warmed by the sun all day). I was right. That shower felt absolutely amazing. We were also allowed to change into our second pair of clothes on Friday morning, so we felt refreshed throughout the day. That night, we opened up the youth center and spent hours playing with kids from both Arenales (the youth center neighborhood) and from Casa Hogar (a home for abandoned/orphaned boys). We also attempted to get them to watch Shrek 3 in Spanish, but that didn’t last long. It did last long enough for them to consume inordinate proportions of Coca Cola and Jiffy Pop, though, which they loved.

After sending all of our munchkins off for the night, we headed over to El Colli to split up into two groups and walk around the neighborhood observing just what happens. I cannot stress this enough: that was a dangerous thing to do. The violence in this neighborhood isn’t something we couldn’t handle, since there really aren’t guns or things like that, but the spiritual oppression and the perversion of this place is not only palpable, it’s so thick in the air that it feels like you’re wading through a bog of sin, fetid with the stench of decay and rife with the whispered lies in the shadows. I stayed close to our girls, ready to do anything necessary to protect their innocence, their comfort, and their bodies. After the walk, we met back up at the van and discussed all that we had seen, felt, heard, smelled, and sensed. At the end of the night, we came home for dinner, which was eaten hurriedly and with much loud complaining about the week.

At the conclusion of dinner, Angie commented on how little it sounded like we had learned based on our conversation and complaining, going so far as to mention that the week could be extended if necessary. Angie drilled home the point of the week: “You’re supposed to be learning what it’s like to live in El Colli, not that that is possible living in an amazing house with a real bed and fans and going to two colleges at the same time, but you’re supposed to be gaining an understanding, be it ever so minute and limited, about the kids you’re serving. It doesn’t sound like you guys learned anything. I want you to take a moment to think about this week, then every person is going to explain what they’ve learned.”

That ring around the table was one of the most passion-filled, compassionate, heart-breaking conversations I’ve ever had the pleasure and the honor to take part in. Each of us spilled out intimate heartcries for the rest of the group to hear and each of us broke down at one point or another. For my part, I spoke of my brief stint as a homeless person in college, which almost nobody knows about. I related it to this and said that even that was becoming a source of pride, that the enemy was lying to me about my supposedly superior experiences and my supposedly superior wisdom and that I had been listening to and putting credence in those lies. In truth, I have more to learn than I could have ever thought possible, and I am now even slower to learn it because I spent so much time thinking I already knew it. I repented and asked for forgiveness from the group for my arrogance and my pride.

The next day was El Colli, but I stayed home. Normally, this is not allowed. On this week, I have no idea why it was allowed, except that I had almost no responsibility at the ministry that day and I had to get a ton of homework done so I could go to a retreat with the youth group at my church (Esmirna) that night, where I ended up making a ton of friends, building relationships like a madman, got asked by the youth pastor to lead worship some time in English, and discovered that I now have at least one Mexicana who has a crush on me. That last part is the least exciting, by far.

When we got home on Sunday, we went straight to the finish line of the Guadalajara Marathon to watch Angela Tiffany (not Matt’s Angie) and Matt finish their race. Unfortunately, we were on Mexican time (I’m not sure why they even say time in that phrase, since Mexicans both have no concept of it and don’t keep track of it), which meant we were about 30 minutes late to see the finish. They both finished, however, and I am so proud of both of them.

On the way home from the marathon, I did something crazy. I signed up for a 10k this weekend. Oy vey. This could turn out to be a very bad decision.

After Andy finally showed up and we did our devotions, we set about to some homework time, then reconvened for one final training session. We went over some info on each of our current ministries and spent extensive time explaining and preparing for El Colli, including learning the dance moves to two very catchy songs.

Later in the evening, we had several pastors from our churches over for a catered dinner. There were about 8 different taco fillings to choose from and tortillas being made and grilled fresh in front of us. The dinner was amazing and the time with the pastors was great. I met the pastor of my church and spoke briefly with him about helping with the youth group and worship teams.

Eventually, the guests all went home, allowing us to clean up and set to our real task for the day/night. There’s an area not too far from us called Plaza Del Sol. At night, Plaza Del Sol is crawling with transvestite prostitutes. We feel very strongly about helping them, reaching out to them, and sharing the love of Christ with them, so we’ve been talking and praying about how to do so. Currently, the Engage ministry model demands a partnership with a local church (The idea behind this is that we may at some point be forced to leave the country and/or be gone on extended breaks, and we don’t want a ministry to die simply because we can’t be there. Additionally, plugging people into local churches tends to produce much better permanent results.) along with an actual plan for how the ministry will operate. As of now, this ministry has no partner church and no action plan, so it consists of prayer walks in safely-large groups.

Several (three) of us stayed behind to intercede for the safety and inspiration of the rest of the group, but everyone else went and split into two groups. I was one of the people staying behind, and I can tell you we felt a serious battle is taking place in this city. I received two different visions while praying for God to speak to us. The first was of battle-ready but battle-scarred and battle-weary angels flying over Guadalajara. They had clearly been at this for some time, but were unable to land yet and take the territory. The second vision was of the Engage students standing at a bus stop staring at an empty bus (empty buses don’t exist in this city). We were each taking turns paying the driver to stay, and we were collecting the tickets to hand out to the flood we knew was coming.

When the groups got back to the house around 1:30am, we all had the sense that we would be asked to pay a greater sacrifice than we expected, but that it was not only worth it: it was our destiny. This is going to be a long fight, but one we’re proud of.

It’s time to change that. I hope to be visiting here and unloading my emotions, ramblings, musings, and whatnot frequently, honestly, and (hopefully) eloquently.