Life is Beautiful

Isn't it though?
I am up unusually early today.
As I was perusing some recent photos detailing market strolls, frisbee golf outings, family gatherings... I was struck with such awesome wonder about how amazingly beautiful life is. I want to just soak it all up.

Thank you Lord for your creation, human creativity, healthy relationships, cloudy days, sunny days, fresh mountain air and your peace that passes all understanding.

church planting

Quick update on the church planting process:

Next Tuesday, May 12th, we will be presenting what the Lord has laid on our hearts with our home church's staff. We will be sharing the vision that we have been wrestling with and have been carefully protecting for some time now. We pray that this resonates soundly with the staff, and that the Lord will prepare all of our hearts for this time. We desire for all of us to be "on the same page" and for there to be unity among us as we go forward. Please join us in this prayer. These relationships are crucial.

Additionally, we will be presenting to a church-planting organization in hopes of receiving financial provision for the church plant. This may be happening within the month. Again, we ask for your prayers: that Pete and I will be one , like-minded and supportive of one another, that we will not compromise the vision the Lord has given, and that if this relationship will be beneficial to the Kingdom of God that both parties will choose to enter it freely and confidently.

Thank you for taking the time to keep up with us... to be "in common" with us.

Kassie

Scout

Scout.

Isn't she pretty?
Almost three weeks ago, we said goodbye to this amazing dog.
Words cannot express how dear she was to us.
God can speak so clearly about Himself through His creation. Scout was no exception. She was our constant, loyal companion and protector.

A few facts about Scout:
Pete rescued her at 8 weeks old.
She was named after the character in To Kill A Mockingbird.
She was half rottweiler, half australian shepherd.
Her growl and bark were very convincing.
Her favorite place to be was at Pete's feet.
She lived with Pete in a Volkswagon Vannigan.
She "came alive" in rivers.
She would freak out when it appeared we were in danger: rock climbing, swimming, slack lining...
She was very perceptive of our emotions.
She was an alpha.
She positioned herself to where she could see both of us at all times.
She saw the country.
She was extremely intelligent.
She turned non-dog lovers into dog lovers!

She was the best dog who has ever lived, and much, much more.


Thank you to all of you who loved her too!

Kassie

Spring

Man, Spring is so amazing! If you live in the south you are like us and are so ready for this completely irregular winter to be over. I was having such a hard time going from 65 degrees to 20 degrees every 4 days.

Life is good for us as usual. We have so little to complain about and such much to be grateful for. I finished finals last weekend and have been trying to catch my breath this week and transition to all the work that has been put on hold. I still have a few things to wrap up with school, mostly busy work stuff. However, I am enjoying the opportunity to switch my brain full speed to church planting stuff. There is so many thoughts, ideas, to-do's that need my attention, and I am excited to jump in. I am also excited to get to hang out with friends again. We have such an awesome community here in Asheville and I feel like my social life has been on hold for about 8 weeks. I have really been missing hanging out with folks and am pumped to start sharing spring in the mountains with good friends.

Kassie is tiered. She has been helping our friends Luke and Misty with their bi-annual children's clothing consignment sale. Basically they do in 3 weeks what most people do in a year and it is exhausting. She also has had some photo work lately which has been nice. Needless to say we have not seen a lot of each other lately and are looking forward to some reconnecting time in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for all the prayers through finals. Pray that I finish strong with some of this busy work and that I can get a lot of things taken care of for the church plant before getting back into more classes.

Hope you have a great Spring weekend!

a breather

The above images were photographed by Pete. The first is of blown glass strategically placed on the frozen river behind our home. The glass was a gift given to Pete from his boss. The second image is a detail from a rusty, abandoned vehicle in a field nearby.

These images represent a brief break from the office. Pete has been diligently diving into writing, studying and memorizing for his classes. In order to "catch his breath", he has directed his efforts to photography for study breaks. Please, please, please pray for him as he faces finals at the end of next week. We would appreciate prayers specifically for mental and physical stamina. We appreciate your partnership with us as we approach our first academic milestone together.

We certainly cannot express it enough... we are thankful for you guys so much. Thank you for your encouragement, prayers and support of every kind.

For now, we are buckling down and faithfully chipping away at the mountain of work ahead!

Kassie

Happy Valentines Day

Just a quick check in. Not a lot to tell new.

It is amazing how often in a day that my mind just explodes with some sort of learning from my classes and I am like "I got to blog about that." Then of course there is the realization that I need to still write several papers and I have finals just around the corner. So my brain "push-ups" turn to that work instead of talking to you all.

Finals are in 4 weeks, that sounds like a lot of time, and during my undergrad I probably would not have even opened a book yet. However, I will need every minute of that time to prepare for these finals. So if you have second, please pray for my focus, memory power, and some extra hours of energy. I would appreciate it.

Single or with someone, I hope you have all had an amazing Valentines day, or Saturday for that matter...

Peace

Restoration

This stream of conscious blogging may get addicting, be warned!

I was listing to a New Testament lecture last week and the professor used a quote that has stuck with me so deeply over the last few days. I feel like it was one of those breakthrough thoughts in clarity where your paradigm shifts one dial on the nob closer to truth. The quote had to do with the miraculous healing ministry of Jesus:

"Jesus' healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly 'natural' thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded." Jurgen Moltman, The Way of Jesus Christ. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 99.

Wow, I had always understood redemption in God's terms as returning things to the way that they were always meant to be at the point of creation, in the Garden of Eden. For some reason, however, I had never allowed the scope of Christ's redeeming ministry to permeate outside of the scope of individual spirituality. Now I have cognitively understood that God at one point in time will return all things to the way they were meant to be. However, I have always seen that as a moment in time and not a process. Redemption in my mind has always been a point, not a journey.

I do believe that we can take many learnings from the healing ministry of Christ: it was a sign of his power and deity, it was to reward faith, it was to create teachable moments for his followers, and it was a natural compassionate response to hurting and dieing people. Yet, when we read Colossians 1:16 "For in him all things were created:" we recognize that so much of the healing ministry of Jesus was simply the Creator returning things to the way that he intended them to be. In my mind this moves Jesus from just being a "great physician" who is making things work again, but he is the source of life who is restoring things to their intended order. A subtle, but I believe profound difference.

This shift in my mind moves Christ's acts of healings out of the category of "improving the recipients standard of living." It redefines his acts of healing as the author of life exerting his will and power of the dismal affects of sin on his creation. I imagine Christ saying in his heart as he healed the blind man "I never intended you to not see," to the lame man "I did not create you to limp," to the bleeding woman, "I did not author you to hemorrhage."

In his healing ministry Jesus gives us a glimpse of what "in the beginning" looked like and he points us to finality of "New Heaven and New Earth." As I make this learning my own I recognize a whole new meaning and motivation in our modern day "social justice" ministries. The work of social justice finds its true heart when it is not defaced by the attitude of obligation, responsibility, or duty. Instead, the work of mercy is given the breath of truth when I recognize I am joining with the original intentions of the Creator. Now my heart can cry out while I feed the homeless "you were not meant to go hungry," as I play with the orphan "you were not created to grow up without parents," sitting with the widow "you were not intended to feel so alone," mourning with the dieing "you were not designed to feel so much pain."

(As an aside, I think we can also apply this understanding of redemption to environmental preservation and restoration. When God said "subdue" - Genesis 1:28 - he did not mean waste, deface, pollute, abuse. When we live out redemption in every area of our lives, then acts of environmental stewardship are no longer selfish acts of worshiping and idolizing the earth, but righteous acts of ordering things to the way the were meant to be and will one day be again.)

Though we may not be able to exert the miraculous healing powers of Jesus at will. We have the privilege of taking the heart of the Creator to a broken and dieing world with the plea, "this is not the way it was intended, this is not the way it will always be." Jesus' healing ministry cries out to us "redemption is happening, and will be fulfilled in all things."