Myspace is ghetto

I just splurged and bought some really nice Bose headphones, and they are incredible! The difference is huge! I can hear each note so clearly. Crisply. Everything just sounds soooo much better. I didn't realize a great set of headphones could make so much difference. I'm hearing things I didn't even notice in songs before. I really recommend getting a pair!

SPF

Today was a sad day.

My Bible Core Course is finally over. It was long and extremely difficult, but so fun and rewarding at the same time. Yesterday we had our graduation ceremony which was fabulous (I got an A on the course!). But today I had to say goodbye to everyone.

So now I'm sitting in Amsterdam missing all my classmates. It's unnatural, I think, to spend 3 months building such good friendships, and then just part ways so suddenly. YWAM Schools are so hard to finish in that way.

The day after tomorrow I fly, with my Grandma, to the states for 3 weeks!

SPF

Only 3 weeks to go and the Bible Core Course is finished. I've honestly never worked so hard in my life… But I've also never learned so much during such a short time!

The bible really is like a whole new book to me. Sad to say, as I've gained a much greater understanding of the bible, some of the sense of divine mystery has gone out of it. But I've learned to read the bible for what it is: a collection of writings by many authors at different periods, all intended for specific audiences in specific situations, and written for specific reasons.

I can no longer read it as if it was written directly to me, about my situation, during my time, or I will be in serious danger of misinterpreting it, and then applying things in a way God never intended me to, and even living life in a way God never intended me to live!

Each day, as we go deeper into the bible, I can practically hear everyone's belief systems (including my own) crumbling around me, as we discover what the bible really says, and how it compares to what we have grown up believing… It's great! Anything that can be shaken should be! Let the chaff crumble away, and let the gold remain! I honestly can't say that I feel this study has brought me closer to God so far. But it is rooting me and grounding me in truth, and giving me the keys to understand the bible for the rest of my life—and that is valuable.

This week we've been studying Revelations. Yesterday, we went through the history of 2,000 years of false predictions and misinterpretations that came out of the book; things that led to the most absurd movements, and even contributed to horrible atrocities such as the Crusades. It seems ridiculous to me now, as the cycle continues, and teachers today continue to claim divine insight into the book as they compare the events in Revelations with current events in the world, just as hundreds have done before them!

Anyway, it's enough to say this school is fantastic! And before I start rambling for too long about what I've learned, let me declare the main reason why I am blogging this evening: It is to announce my upcoming outreach trip to Indonesia!

In January, three of us from the BCC School will go for 8 weeks to Jakarta. Originally there was no outreach planned, but we three each feel the urgent call to pass on what we've been learning—specifically in a place where this kind of teaching is not so easily available. Our mission is to teach and instruct Christians (especially pastors and church leaders) in the inductive approach to studying the bible.

If you're not familiar with the inductive approach, it is basically all about letting the bible speak for itself, rather that coming to the text with preconceived ideas of what it should say, and bending the meaning of the text accordingly. It has to do with discovering who the original audience was, what their situation was, and then figuring out what the text would have meant to them. Then, after discovering a good deal of background information (which almost always makes a huge difference in the interpretations), we can discover the timeless principles, and try to apply them to our lives.

The annoying thing about this is that it takes work… lots of it. It's so much easier to just interpret the bible as if it were directly written to us, out of our own understanding, out of our own world-view, and within our own circumstances… and then to come up with a meaning completely different than what the author intended. Or easier even to subjectively use scriptures out of context to confirm what we already believe.

And so we want to help people learn how to study the bible correctly, just as we have been learning in the last months; to come to the text with an open mind, and to let it speak for itself; to allow the text to form us, rather than us trying to form the text into what we want it to say.

I will certainly keep you updated on our trip. I'm still in the process of raising finances, so keep me in mind in the next months as we finish the school and get ready to go. I get to spend Christmas this year with my family in snowy Colorado (which I'm really, really looking forward to), and immediately afterwards I head for the intense heat of South East Asia.

Please pray for us too, for God's favor, for opportunities, for effectiveness, etc.

Thank you for staying in touch!

Be blessed,

SPF

So my birthday was the other day. It started the day before with a Dutch birthday party that me and another girl threw together. Dutch birthday parties are quite different that American ones. Here, the one having the birthday slaves away all day, buying everything, and spending the day serving everyone he invites. Usually he leaves the party exhausted and irritable...

Then the fire happened. Somehow a garbage dumpster burst into flames, and things inside began exploding violently. I happened to be the one who found it. Nobody else was around, and it was about to catch a huge pine tree on fire. Finally I burst into somebody's house while they were having coffee, and scared them to death by yelling at them that there was a fire. It's was a quite entertaining scene now that I look back. We managed to save the day.

The next morning, on my actual birthday, the fire alarm went off at 6am. My first thought was that the arsons who set the dumpster on fire came back to finish us off. But it turned out to be a drill, and I had my first birthday congratulations while standing in the cold dark, half awake, surrounded by shivering people in their Pj's.

After the early morning antics, I came to class and had to take an hour-and-a-half test on what I'd learned so far in the course. I finished much earlier than everyone else, and left to take a break. After about 20 minutes when no one else came out, I realized I forgot to look at the back side of the paper!

What a birthday. I've been so busy, I only just realized last night that I'm now actually 25 years old. Somehow the birthday party pushed the actual meaning of the event out of my mind.

I got eye glasses. I've been realizing over the last couple years that it's becoming harder to see things far away. And what's far away seems to be getting closer and closer, if you know what I mean. So I just got my eyes tested, and bought glasses. I don't need them all the time, but they really help to read the board in class!

That day I was praying that God would show me what it means that he's the light of the world. I read in John that right after Jesus said this, he healed a blind man. An hour after this prayer, I received a call from the eye specialists telling me that my glasses were ready a whole week early, and that I could come pick them up.

When I walked out of the store I was astounded at how much detail there is in the world!! I had been missing so much! Each leaf! Each blade of grass! I could see facial expressions from afar away, and read street signs before it was too late to turn! A whole new dimention of hidden beauty was revealed to me.

I was blind but now I could see.

Pretty great birthday present, eh?

SPF

Man it's been a long time since I've blogged. Too many things to do, too little time. Writing is so painful nowadays anyway with my mystery condition.

Anyway, I want to say something about Harry Potter. I am a huge advocate of these books, and I recommend them to anyone. I have to say I get quite a bit of criticism from fellow Christians about the fact that I read it. So many hear the word 'witch' and automatically throw the whole thing into their 'evil box'. It's a sad thing. I find so many Christians lack critical reasoning skills, and live their lives according to superstition and rumor. Well... that's a well known fact amongst unbelievers I'm afraid to say.

As I read the final chapters of the last Harry Potter novel, which came out in July, I was absolutely astounded as I found a very powerful allegory to the message of the gospel! I couldn't believe that J.K. Rowling is not a Christian! I thought that perhaps the message of Christ is such a powerful idea that it's bound to pop up in many great stories, but it seemed much too obvious. Love conquered death through selfless sacrifice.

Of course as most of you probably now know, it's become public knowledge that J.K. Rowing IS indeed a Christian. She didn't want the masses to know about her beliefs because it would have caused so many to stop reading, and many to guess what was coming up. Wow... she has had to endure so much slander from the church over the last 10 years! But anyway, it is clear now that it WAS an intentional allegory! Amazing! Simply ingenious!

Millions of people all around the world have read and been touched by the end of this story. Millions of people have been exposed to the concepts of the gospel in a way that they would be interested in, and accept, not even realizing what it was alluding to. What a way to pave the way for the real gospel message! Way to go Rowling!

I think God is speaking to the world through Harry Potter. And what a disruptive way to do it. The whole body of Christ is reeling at the idea! I love it.

The whole message of the stories was that true power is not in our abilities (or magical skills). Harry Potter was a rather mediocre wizard after all. But it's all about our character, our choices, and our ability to love. As Dumbledore always said, love is the most powerful force in the universe!

SPF

So I finally got to drive a car through Germany. It wasn't a particularly nice car, but still it was something I've wanted to do for years.

It had been about 10 months since I'd driven (since I last left Colorado), so I was a bit choppy on the clutch... and had a brief problem with driving on the wrong side of the road... but otherwise it was great!

If you don't know, Germany's highways are famous for not having any speed limit! You can be cruising at 160km/h and some BMW or Porsche will suddenly zoom by you, pushing 200. It's crazy. I tried to stay below 165km (about 100mph) as it was dark, raining, and I had 5 people in the car. ;)

One of our tires suddenly exploded while my friend Moses was driving. It could have been really bad, but thankfully he didn't panic, and was able to maneuver us to the shoulder. It was scary though. Changing a tire in the pouring rain, on the side of the autobahn with semi-trucks flying past is something I won't forget.

We drove all the way from Amsterdam to Hernhutt, then to Prague, then back to Amsterdam via Frankfurt and Cologne. It was a fabulous European road trip!

So while I'm on the plane finally headed for Istanbul in the middle of the night, I pray and tell God I trust him, and that I know he'll take care of me somehow when I get there, because I have no idea what I will do to get to the hotel on the other side of the city. Istanbul is massive, it takes at least 2 hours to drive from one side of the other, nothing runs in the middle of the night in terms of transportation, and all the hotels near the airport are super expensive. So really, from a human standpoint, I'm in trouble... But I know my God so I'm not worried.

As we land I ask God what I should do, and he says 'talk to the person next to you'. Next to me is this Turkish lady, she doesn't look entirely unfriendly, and so I say 'excuse me do you live here?' She turns out to be really friendly, immediately trusting of me, and extremely helpful. She tells me she has a friend who owns a taxi, and he is picking her up, and will see if I can join! She waits for me as I go to get my tourist visa, go through passport control, and pick up my baggage. We hop in the car and take off to somewhere with a name I can't pronounce. I'm just going along with it because I heard God's voice. So we chitchat, she teaches me a bit of Turkish, and we have a fun ride through Istanbul. They drop me off in some big square (now I know its called Taksim square), which is as far as the guy is willing to go. I bless them as they leave, and they wish me the best of luck. Hehe, luck...

So there I am standing in Taksim Square at 3am with my luggage, no Turkish money, no concept of where I am, and I realize I don't even have the address of the hotel I am looking for! Should I despair? Nah. I walk around and finally find an ATM to withdraw a bit of Turkish cash (which is a bit scary with all the night prowlers around). Then I walk over to a little hole-in-the-wall juice shop which is still open. I buy some fresh OJ, and sit down to pray.

The place is so funny, the workers are all wearing generic uniforms, each of a different type (reminds me of Cairo). Eventually I start to talk to them with a mixture of English, sign language, and pen and paper. I explain a bit of my story and and tell them the area to which I'm trying to get to. I end up becoming sort of the 'attraction of the night', and workers from the neighboring stores all get involved in discussing what I can do. I'm there hanging out with them eating, drinking, smiling, nodding, and trying to communicate for a couple hours. Finally this guy tells me to follow him, and he takes me down a couple streets and hails down one of the mini-buses still driving around. These are like taxis which follow specific routes that only the locals know, and they are extremely cheap. They try to explain to me that I have to take a few buses, make a couple connections (of course the names of places are too foreign sounding to remember), and I'll get to the region where I'm going. So I say, 'great', and hop in the bus. One step at a time.

Well to make this long story shorter, I made it alive and well at 6:30am to the Hotel. I ended up spending a little money at the end for the mini-bus driver to take me directly to the hotel (he had no idea where it was, and had to keep stopping to ask people), but at that point I was too happy and tired to care. What an adventure that was. Usually I would have been all sorts of stressed out, but I felt so taken care of! I loved it.

SPF

While I was writing that last post, my flight to Turkey was taking off without me. I have never actually missed a flight before when I was physically present in the Terminal. Honestly I mistook 18:45 for meaning 7:45. How embarrassing talking to the Lufthansa agent... he actually laughed at me. So now I have to wait another 2 hours for another flight, but it goes to another airport which is very far away from where I need to be. The adventure continues...

SPF

Every time I go to an Airport I have an adventure. This time, I was at Schipol waiting for my flight to Zurich, and I see on the screen that it's been delayed by an hour and forty minutes. So I wait around, and after a while I check the screen again, and hey, the gate changed! Typical. So I walk to the other end of the airport (about a 25 minute walk), and then get a call on my cellphone. It's my friend Sam, who happens to also be going to Istanbul on the same flight (though we were traveling separately). He says "RUN TO GATE B9 NOW!!". Apparently they have transfered all passengers to another airline, and they are expecting me there, and the gate is about to close. So I start running back the way I came. But then I realize, well I need to stop by a transfer desk to get another boarding pass, or they won't let me on. So I stop at a desk and ask them what is going on. The lady has no clue. She calls people and gets more confused. While she is on the phone, waiting for someone else to pick up, I get another call. "RUN THEY ARE CLOSING THE GATE!!". So I say, peace to the lady and take off running. Oops, I screech to a halt, there is a line of 50 people waiting in line to go through passport control and security (I don't know why they have them between terminals here)!! So I run past them all right to the front yelling that I am about to miss my flight. I get to the guy, and he looks at me doubtfully, reads my boarding card, and tells me that I am going to the wrong gate. I try to explain but he refuses to let me through, and calls a security officer to figure out what's wrong with me! So I go off with her, and she (very slowly) takes me to an area where all these defeated looking persons are sitting around. She makes a few phone calls, taking her time, and my hopes begin to fail. Finally she tells me I need to walk all the way back across the airport to where I was originally supposed to go to get another booking. Sigh.... I get another phone call, "It's too late man". So I walk all the way back across the airport to get a new booking. They send me to another transfer desk, and I finally get another flight on another airline.... So now I'm in Munich, instead of Zürich, and I have to wait 5 hours till I get to fly to Istanbul. This means I arrive to late for anyone to pick me up, and I'll have to find my own way to the hotel. AND I will miss the first meeting of my conference! Ah well...

SPF