The beginning of a journey.

[The picture is of main dining room where the have free dinners 6 days a week.]

Hello Everyone!

So some of you may know that I've moved to Tennessee for two or three
months. For those of you that don't know that I've moved to Tennessee,
I have. Here's why:

For several years it has seemed that God has been burdening me with
the idea of inner city ministry. Homeless people, drug addicts,
dysfunctional homes, and people with all sorts of other problems have
one answer or key to there problem. And I have the key. God showed me
the key. God gave it to me. His name is Jesus. Best gift I ever got.

And I don't want to keep this gift to myself.

So for quite some time, I've felt the draw, the calling to serve the
street people, the inner city crowd, but I haven't made any steps
specifically in that direction. I was just sort of waiting for the
"open door". In spring 2012 I went to a discipleship school in CO as
many of you know. When I was there, I met this guy Nathan, who comes
for one week out of the semester to teach. He's a happy, loud
laughing, delightful guy who is all about Jesus. It was a standing
joke that if you asked him what he was going to speak about today,
Nathan would say, "Jesus!" If you asked about tomorrow, "Jesus!"

He mentioned a few times how he worked with a place out in Tennessee.
Guess what type of people they worked with. Homeless people, drug
addicts, dysfunctional homes, and people with all sorts of problems.

I didn't really think a whole lot about it until about a week or two
later, if I remember correctly. I was praying, and I really felt God
saying that that was where he was pointing me to go. It seemed God was
saying it really strongly. Really strongly. When I got back from CO I
talked about it with my parents, they were up for it, and I called up
Nathan about it.

After much prayer and searching of the heart, "Is this just me wanting
to do this, or is God telling me?", I became more and more sure that
it was from God. I knew I wouldn't agree with all the structure of
everything they did. I also realized they wouldn't have the same
standards that I have. But I knew God wanted to teach me through it. I
knew He wanted me to look past the surface, dig past the dirt and
rocks, and mine the gold of Jesus. So now, after much, much waiting,
I'm finally here.

And yelling to God, "Why'd you put me here?!"

Haha, I can tell after the first few days, its going to be an
adventure.  For example, the heavily tattooed, rough looking guy,
John, that walked off the street and arrived at the church building
about the same time I arrived, that no one knows anything about, and
has served jail time, gets put in the bed next to mine. And we were
alone in the room. But thats ok, I've got protection. When I looked
under my mattress an hour earlier, I noticed a knife laying there.

Later, one of the head guys, David, gets to talk with John, and finds
out he suppose to be in jail for seven more months. So David tells
John, he can either serve his jail time and afterwards be admitted
into the rehabilitation program, or he can leave. His choice. John
left around noon, but his backpack is still in my room. Anything could
happen at this point.


So I'm basically here to serve, pour myself out, and be Jesus to these
dear, addicted people.  At the same time learning the experiential
knowledge of how to best show Jesus, which I can then  bring home with
me and use as God would see fit.

That's *Why* I'm here. I have yet to tell you *What* I'm doing (that's because
I don't know yet, myself). But that can wait for another post.
Hopefully more pictures of people soon to come!