a false ending...

hellooooo friends. isn't it good to be back. so this was quite a surprise for me that I would actually be getting back on this crazy thing. I think this slowly turned in to a spectacular way to organize my thoughts over the past year. And hey, organization doesn't hurt anyone. So while I continue to clean up the chaos that is my life, you are welcome to read. That being said, it has been months since my fingers have spilled my guts out on a keyboard so this might be a bumpy ride. Here's a flashback on all that I have done since arriving home. 1) Emotional ROLLER COASTER! Smells, people, smiles, food, walking paces, honking cars... it's the little things that will shoot me back to Peru... that being said, it brings me to my second point... 2) Learning to Let Go. Holly don't you have a funny way to write songs. God has been teaching me to just keep breathing, keep living. To admire the beauty of the past but not allow it to keep you from creating beauty in the future. I guess you could call these last few months kind of like waiting for a second wind while you are running... just tricking your mind through the pain until something gives you a boost of energy. Or for the mom's out there, keeping yourself busy enough so you don't have time to sit down to get depressed about how busy you really are. 3) Two tours with the beautiful (but not enough for you to date;-) Holly Starr. Wow. talk about learning balance. Probably two of the biggest learning experiences EVER! Learning how to separate work and life. Having the ministry BE our family really makes it difficult to sit down sometime and enjoy just that... family. But God is working it out bit by bit, and drawing us closer every day. Yes, as much as you may have thought my family was tight knit... we just might be on the verge of getting closer;-) 4) Working/Translating for my brother-in-law Bryan for cherry harvest. Definitely showed me that I have a lot of MEXICAN spanish to learn. But still it was an awesome experience. 5) Received the Peruvian exchange student (and one of my best friends in Peru) that is staying in Yakima. His name is alfredo. He is really cool. We've already played basketball, went to a rodeo, and even sneaked on to the grounds at the gorge;-0 Sometimes it almost hits a little too close to home that he is here. But I'd rather he be here than not. Anyways, that's a few of the things I've been doing lately... besides trying to study my Hebrew (for israel this january) and applying to UCLA and UW for next fall. I'm thinking FILM/BUSINESS DEGREE. Or maybe that should be a busyness degree;-) Oh and forgive me for not telling you what is happening RIGHT THIS moment. I moved to WISCONSIN yesterday. Crazy Crazy Crazy. I'm interning with the national teen speaker Bob Lenz as well as a band called The City Harmonic. Pretty insane. We already did a week long tour in California where somehow I ended up doing lights for their live music video with JJ Heller. Definitely an experience to remember. But that's what I'm doing for the next 2 months of my life. Travel Travel Travel. And while we are talking about travel, let's talk about it. ;-) God has definitely given me some crazy opportunities. From the Amazon jungle, to the beaches of Lima, to Seattle, to giant stages all over california, finally bringing me to office cubicles in Wisconsin... it's been quite the ride hasn't it. Firstly, I would like to thank God. I just wish I could show you everything He is showing me. I guess the most important thing I want to share is the fact that when you travel so much. Living in so many different bedrooms. Relying on people who aren't your family to be your family... you begin to do just that. You start to depend on the people God puts around you, and instantly. I don't see a comfortable bed as exciting anymore, I don't see clothes, money, food as hardly important. Food meaning what and when I eat, not if I eat;-) I'm talking about God allowing me to see life in a way where the things I do aren't what classifies my life... but the people I come in contact with. I mean as an intern I am completely broke, but already so many people have provided for me. (car, food, housing, a movie ticket, etc.) I mean to me I am beginning to really grasp a simple fact-I can find life ANYWHERE! I can be climbing Machu Picchu. I can be putting sticker prices on a t-shirt. I can be flying on a 1 hour plane flight. I can be on a giant stage introducing a famous band. But it all means the same to God. EVERY MINUTE DETAIL. The thing that makes it all worth the same is that it is all for His glory. Every person I contact equals 100 the same as any other person. So if the job doesn't matter, and the peoples worldly worth doesn't either... what does? I think God has really brought it down to simple terms for me... It would be two words. The thing that matters is THEIR SOUL. If we could stop looking at people exteriorly or even stopped judging them on their personality type and started trying to reach their soul, MAYBE, just MAYBE... we could have somme true converts in this world. Or, not so cynical, we could have a higher percentage of true converts! We see glimpses of this in the old lady that loves on the little punk kid in the church. When a stubborn sibling chooses to put their guard down and say I'm sorry. When a teenager chooses to side with the one bullied rather than the bullies. When we see someone despite a difference in beliefs loving and caring for someone else. I guess it can all be simplified to the word Compassion for one another. Probably one of the fastest disappearing traits in the world today. Or at least it is becoming a type of compassion that is so subtle that it reaches out little more than "I feel you loss" when someone's family member dies on facebook. We have become so okay with allowing our communication in the real world, become like the communication in the cyber-world. Something I claim to be a huge problem. Let me challenge you with something. Watch yourself the next time something gets awkward... or uncomfortable. The next time you are alone, watch how your body wants to fill the time. Or the next time you get in a fight, does your hand automatically touch your phone. Do you feel better saying sorry through a text message. Or how about the most obvious, when you say sorry to someone, if you are one of the blessed ones to still do that in person, where do your eyes go? Do you even have the strength to look someone in the eye. I pray that I am writing this to you and it is totally irrelevant. And if it is, then please write to me and teach me your ways ;-) haha. but if this strikes a chord, let it. Let it rattle the walls of your life until you learn to fight for love, for compassion, for communication that is being lost. Because as I travel the world, I am realizing that we are all the same. In the sense that the world is collectively allowing itself to become more and more secluded about their actual lives, and more and more pronounced in their cyber lives. So this week, challenge yourself to look at a person and see them as special because they have a unique soul. Talk to them. And then, TALK TO GOD. (i will using bible type wording for this one.) If you have problems opening up to physical people here on earth, people that you can see. How much MORE difficult will it be for you to open up to a God that you can't see! Think about it. As will I. Blessings, Lucas