Seven

As single people and as a married couple, we have spent a good amount of the last few years with people who live on less than $2 a day. We feel in alot of ways that we have too much, we live too extravagantly, we are wasteful and do and have so much that isn't necessary. It's the American way - we know that it's all we know and it's what we've grown up it. But we don't necessarily want to live the American dream, we want to live globally; to consume less and give more. We have to live counter-culturally and that won't be easy, but we want to try. We feel compelled to do some fasting so that God will meet us here, teach us, grow us and reveal to us more of his globe and how we can be part of that story.

Here we go... Jarred and I have decided to embark on this journey - we're scared, we want to curse, we want to laugh at the thought of us actually being able to do this for seven months, but we're in.

This is basically the gig:
"A seven-month experimental mutiny against excess, tackling seven areas of overconsumption in the spirit of a fast; a fast from greed, irresponsibility, apathy, and insatiability. Each area boiled down to just seven choices for a month:

Food.
Clothes.
Possessions.
Media.
Waste.
Spending.
Stress."

read the rest here - http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/12/26/an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess

Jen Hatmaker wrote this book called Seven. When she talks about herself, I see myself in her and I think that maybe, just maybe, we can do this. So we'll do our best. Ask us how we're doing, keep us accountable, basically what I'm saying is HELP! Ha.

I'll be blogging about it (and other things) here (yes, even during media month - I can write blogs but not read them). So follow along on our journey! It'll be a shitshow to be sure, nothing new around here, but we can't wait to see how God changes us.

Beautiful - FMF

I spend a significant amount of my time overseas - in communities all over the globe. I'm grateful for a job that takes me to places where I see more of Jesus, where the Gospel gets bigger and the world gets smaller. It's changed me. It's made me see how God makes beautiful things out of messy places and messy people and messy communities.

The thing I think is the most beautiful is the community found in other countries that we, as Americans don't have or value. We live for ourselves - we rarely open up our homes, our wallets, our lives to our own families, let alone those who are different than us. We live such independent, self-focused lives and it makes me sad. I want to be in a community that's a beautiful mess like the ones I see in Haiti - where people feed their kids, their sister's kids and their neighbor's kids because if they don't, then who else will? They live in one big house, love each other and get on each other's nerves, but they provide real, genuine community for one another and they understand what it's like to "have each other's back." They would give anything for someone they love to have food, shelter, education and a future...anything. And that's beautiful.

While we sit in our houses with more than we could ever want or need, may we remember today that messy is beautiful, community is beautiful, living for something other than ourselves is beautiful.