Piñatas, Witch-burning, and Holiness

I apologize in advance for how long this post is. Actually, I take that back; you can deal with it.

Above is my man Cristofer again with the beautiful heart that we made out of puzzle pieces. He's been in the clinic for a few weeks now, and he has been absolutely loving all the individual attention he gets there. He hasn't even seemed bored despite the fact that he's watched Toy Story 2 in the clinic about 3946782 times. They're trying to ease him back into his regular schedule by taking him to the small boys' house from dinner to breakfast and keeping him in the clinic only during the day, and he's cried every time they take him out of the clinic because he loves it so much there. The other child that's been in the clinic a lot lately is a girl named María. I'm fairly certain that every volunteer that's worked in the clinic is working on adopting her, because she's pretty much the most adorable little girl ever. Here's a nice picture of me and her right after I finished the night shift where I had to wake up four or five times during the night to give kids medicine, got about five hours of sleep, and hadn't taken a shower:

On second thought, I think I like this picture a little bit better:

When I first tried picking María up, she wouldn't stop crying because she wasn't used to being held by a guy, but she eventually got used to it, and I even (almost) mastered the art of putting her back into her crib without her crying.

This is Eduardo, but he's better known as "Pimba." He's one of the special needs children, and he's called Pimba because he does this thing where he claps his hands three times and then thrusts one hand into the air and triumphantly bellows, "PIIIIMBA!" The cool thing is that most of the kids actually take care of him instead of making fun of him like you would expect. Pimba is kind of allowed to do whatever he wants (within reasonable limits), so he always plays soccer with me while the other boys have to be sitting down silently somewhere. The thing is though, Pimba has his own dialect of Spanish that I've had to learn. Instead of pelota (ball), he wants to play with the mota. Instead of going to the cancha (the court they play soccer on), he wants to go to the mancha. At first it annoyed me that he always wanted to kick the ball around and that he always had food all over his face and hands after meals and got it on you, but God has helped me to really love him and enjoy being around him. He actually got moved to the medium boys' house about a week ago, so unfortunately I don't see him as much. I miss being around him and playing with the mota with him, but I still see him from time to time so it's ok.

Ok so this is kind of cheating as far as pictures go since this is a picture from Emmanuel's website, but we'll just ignore that. This is Terrez, Candice, and their son Jeremiah. Candice is the English teacher that I'm taking the place of, and Terrez is the math teacher in the high school. Terrez also works at the medium boys's house and Candice works at the big girls' house. They've been at Emmanuel a total of three years now, and they're actually returning to the U.S. in about a day or so. They're really cool people, and Candice has helped me a ton in getting accustomed to teaching the English class here. This past Saturday, all of the teachers in the high school (which is like eight people including me, Candice, and Terrez) got together for a going away lunch at one of the teacher's houses in Guiamaca. It was really fun because all the other teachers are very entertaining, and I got my first taste of authentic Honduran cuisine! We had tortillas and meat and this salad stuff and beans and cheese and avocado and fried plantains and it was delicious. The best part of all? I got to take home leftovers and some mangos from the tree outside the teacher's house! And in case you haven't tasted a Honduran mango before, which I'm guessing most of you proooobably haven't, they're pretty much amazing and you should be feeling pretty jealous right now.


In other news, we've actually gotten a few new guy volunteers for once! One of them actually grew up here in Emmanuel but was adopted by a family in Tennessee five years ago, and now he comes back to visit everybody. Right now we've got a total of five guy volunteers, and we'll be getting two more sometime soon. The girls will be getting eight more volunteers soon, putting them at a total of about twenty girls in one house. Preeeetty ridiculous. Unfortunately, we also had to say goodbye to Jordan this past Sunday, who was one of the guy volunteers who had been here for about a month before that. Jordan's a really good guy, and he strives to be a man who lives biblically. I had a great time getting to know him, and he's definitely going to be missed here at the house.


A lot of groups from churches come to Emmanuel for about a week on mission trips, and the group that was here last week did a "piñata" with the kids. The reason I put that in quotation marks is because it was actually a brown paper bag with rope tied around it. But hey, the kids loved it, and that's all that matters.

In order to cause the smallest amount of chaos possible, we told the kids not to move when the piñata was busted open. We spread the candy out all over the ground, and then counted to three and let them loose. I took pictures as they rushed the candy, and I've gotta say, it kinda looks like a zombie attack or something.

There are a lot of Danish volunteers here, so the other night all the volunteers decided to get together to celebrate the Danish witch-burning holiday called Sankt Hans Aften! It has something to do with John the baptist's birthday being the next day, but we never really reached a conclusion as to why that got paired with witch-burning. Regardless, we decided to celebrate by burning our very own witch! I've gotta say, I'm pretty proud of how good our witch turned out.

Sadly for her, I wasn't proud enough of her to keep her from being burned at the stake.

 (insert awkward transition into the serious part of the post)


I feel like one of the big things God is teaching me at the moment is holiness. To be holy means to be set apart from the world for God's purposes. I've been reading the book of Numbers lately, and one thing that I specifically noticed was a thing called the Nazirite vow in Numbers 6. It's basically a vow of complete dedication to the Lord. They had a lot of rules that they followed to set them apart to be totally dedicated to the Lord. For example, they weren't allowed to drink wine. Not only that, but they also weren't allowed to eat grapes or raisins. Not only that, but they also weren't allowed to eat anything that came from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins. They also had a lot of other rules like not cutting their hair for the entirety of the vow and not going near a dead body, even if it was their father or mother or brother or sister, because that would make them unclean. This isn't to say that we need to grow our hair real long and stop eating grapes, but as Christians, we should be set apart from the world. We should be dedicated to the Lord's purpose. One of the practical ways this affected me was through my music. I was looking through my music, and there was a lot of stuff in there that wasn't glorifying to God at all. It's incredibly easy to just tell myself, "Oh this song's ok because it's funny, this one's ok because I don't actually agree with what it says, this one's ok because it has a lot of memories attached to it, this one's ok because I really like this song, etc." However, I just couldn't shake this feeling that I needed to do some deleting in my music library. I started off just deleting some songs that were just ridiculously/obviously bad, most of which I didn't actually enjoy listening too so it wasn't that big of a deal. The problem is, God doesn't just call us to give a little bit, He calls us to completely dedicate ourselves to Him. The guy doing the Nazirite vow couldn't even eat the seeds or skins off the grapevine, and that meant that I needed to give more. It was really tough and I hesitated a lot, but I eventually ended up deleting a good bit of songs that I actually really liked. Not all of them were blatantly bad songs either. Some were just songs that I knew that I listened to when I'm in a really bad mood in order to dwell on my anger and put myself in more of a bad mood. That kind of stuff doesn't glorify God though. I'm sure I still need to find some other songs to get rid of, but hey, it's a start. Holiness isn't just about the music you listen to though. It has a ton to do with the way that you act. I know that there are so many times that I act exactly as the world expects and encourages me to act in certain situations (wanting to retaliate if I've been wronged, being prideful if someone compliments me, wanting to receive all the praise for any good thing I do), but I also know that God is working on me. He's helping me to be set apart from the way the world thinks and behaves in order to bring glory to Him. It can be really hard to be set apart sometimes. If everyone's making fun of someone, it's ridiculously easy to just join in because you want people to think you're funny or you want to be liked. It's ridiculously easy to just snap at a person who's trying your patience, whether they're doing so intentionally or unintentionally. However, God calls us to a higher standard to that. Not only that, but He's also right here with us and gives us the ability to live lives worthy of His calling, all we have to do is ask.


Another thing God's been teaching me about lately is recognizing Satan's attacks. If you read my last blog post, you know that I was going through a bit of a rough time a couple weeks ago. A bunch of different little stressors were getting to me, and I was just exhausted. I was constantly having thoughts like you can't be yourself around your students because you aren't fluent so you can't show your personality or you're not really making that much of a difference in these kids' lives and I would get in bad moods and just force my way through the day. Thanks to a letter from a friend (that I know God had me read at that time for a specific purpose), I began to realize that that wasn't my voice or God's, but Satan's. I'll give another example: So there's this kid named Cristian who's about 13, and a couple weeks ago he told me that his brother, who lived outside the orphanage, was shot and killed. I was taken aback at first and thought maybe I heard him wrong, but I said I was sorry and then he kind of walked off by himself. A few days later I was with his sister in the clinic and she told me the same thing with some more details. Apparently their brother owed a lot of money to some drug dealers but didn't come up with it on time so they killed him. I felt horrible and wanted to do something to help but didn't know what to say. I couldn't get the picture of Cristian walking away by himself out of my head. When he told me about his brother's death he just looked so.. ..empty. I prayed for him and his siblings every night, but I felt like I needed to do more. I felt pretty clear leading from the Holy Spirit to write Cristian a letter, so the next day I did just that. It wasn't anything major, just a few bible verses and some encouraging words. However, the next time I saw him, I chickened out and didn't give it to him. I started to have second thoughts. Maybe it's too cheesy to put bible verses in his letter. He's probably already gotten his brother's death off his mind and me bringing up again will just do more damage. I waited a few days, but then I read the letter from my friend. I realized that those thoughts and my hesitation were coming from Satan, who was trying to prevent me from doing something that I clearly felt God leading me to do. "For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed about the testimony of our Lord" (2 Timothy 1:7-8ish). We have no reason to fear doing something that God leads us to do. I gave Cristian the letter, and he hasn't said anything about it, but I trust that God used it how He wanted to. I've been doing a lot better now that I've been recognizing Satan's attacks and realizing that they're not true. I'm actually starting to enjoy teaching sometimes, and I've been able to show my personality despite getting tongue-tied or not understanding everything. I've gotten to know a lot of the students better, and God has been renewing my strength every day so that I'm not just exhausted and in a bad mood all the time. In conclusion..

God is good.

Running On Empty

Well I'm sure all of you have been on the edge of your seat dying to know how the soccer tournament went last last Saturday, so I'll start off there. The girls played in the morning and the guys in the afternoon. There were six guys teams, three teams made up of kids from the orphanage and three from the surrounding town called Guaimaca. I played for one of the Emmanuel teams because they were missing a person, and I've gotta say, it was pretty awesome. Probably partially because we had some pretty legit uniforms.

The tournament was a pretty big event here. There was music, they were selling food, and everybody came out to watch the games.

My team tied twice in the first phase, so we made it to the next phase. We played one of the teams from Guaimaca and were losing 2-0, but made an amazing comeback! ..and then we lost in penalty kicks. We ended up coming in third place, and the team that beat us won the whole thing. Unfortunately, that meant that the prized medal wouldn't be spending any time here at Emmanuel.

The Wednesday after that was my birthday. The day started off with a beautiful chorus of small boys singing the Honduran birthday song (which is a lot longer and more creative than the American "happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear insert name here, happy birthday to you." I mean seriously, whoever made up that song could have at least made it a little bit more interesting.) One of the English classes I teach sang the regular happy birthday song to me too. After that we had church, and then me and the other volunteers decided to have a little hot dog cookout at the farm. Scratch that; it wasn't a cookout, it was a FEAST! We had some vegetables, some fried plantains, and some pixie sticks and suckers for dessert. When you're eating pretty much the exact same thing every day (breakfast: oatmeal or granola; lunch: rice and tortilla, dinner: rice and tortilla, occasionally with a pleasant surprise of scrambled eggs type stuff), you have a greater appreciation for all other foods. But hey, the food with the kids tastes good and it's free, so I'm not complaining.

Speaking of food, I learned how to make tortillas the other day! The cocineras (girls that cook for us) taught me how to properly make the dough into a ball, flatten that ball of dough out, and toss it on the oven. My tortillas were pretty pathetic at first, but I got the hang of it by the end. Of course it still took me about three times as much time as them to flatten out the tortillas, but hey, they've had a lot more practice than I have.

The cocineras also got a cake for me on my birthday! However, misbehavior on the part of the little boys and complications in the cake delivery postponed the celebration until Saturday instead of Wednesday. Splitting up a modestly sized cake into enough pieces for 60 or 70 boys means the portion size is pretty tiny, but it was some good cake, and all the boys really enjoyed it. One of the girls had my camera and took some pictures of the boys as we passed out cake and drinks.

All the volunteers sign up for shifts working in the clinic, and I brought my camera to my shift the other day. This is Cristopher:

Gosh, what a baller. This guy is gonna be getting sooo many ladies when he gets older. And not only does he have a ridiculous amount of swag, he's also got a good sense of humor.

A couple of girls named Karen and Yensi were there too, but they were being difficult and wouldn't let me take many pictures of them so this is all I've got:

Aside from all that fun stuff though, I've been having a little bit of a rough time lately. There's not like some major problem or anything, it's just a lot of little stressful things that build up. Serving in ministry for two and a half months is a lot different from a one or two week mission trip, and I think I’m starting to feel the consequences of that. I’ve just felt really exhausted lately. It’s part homesickness/not having anyone I’m comfortable being completely myself around, part constantly being frustrated with not being fluent in Spanish, and part miscellaneous little stressors like students misbehaving in English class and stuff like that. All that stuff adds up and puts me in a pretty miserable mood, and then I get frustrated with myself for being in a bad mood, which doesn’t help at all. The other day when I was feeling especially frustrated with everything, God led me to a few different verses.

“We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17).

If Paul can consider all the beatings and jail time and persecution he endured as “light and momentary troubles,” then there’s absolutely no reason for me to have a little pity party for myself every time I get stressed out. However, for me to be able to see any unpleasant circumstances I face as light and momentary troubles, I have to truly believe that that eternal glory really is coming.

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).

God doesn’t ask us to just grind our teeth and endure the trials and stresses in our lives, he offers to renew our strength every day so that we can truly live in the midst of it all. That’s how people are going to see the life of Jesus revealed in our body; God gives us the ability to truly live regardless of our circumstances. The thing is, we have to hope in Him for that to happen. That’s the thing I’m struggling with the most right now. It’s so easy to get bogged down with all the stuff that frustrates me that sometimes I don’t even think about God during the day, let alone put my hope in Him. A lot of times when I do try to put my hope fully in Him, I intellectualize it too much. The fact that I get to spend eternity with the Creator of the universe becomes just a piece of knowledge in my head and not a living hope. That’s why I’ve been so exhausted lately. I’m pouring myself out for these kids but not getting filled back up because my hope in the Lord is too much head knowledge and not enough heart knowledge. So the prayer request for right now is that God would help me to not try to renew my own strength, but instead fully put my hope in Him so that I may run the race he has for me and not grow weary.

Ranas Que Echan Leche y Algunas Otras Cosas

I am a murderer.

The other day I saw a frog in the area where the small boys normally play, and I was ready to start playing around with it when Suly (one of the girls that works in the kitchen at the small boys house) told me that that kind of frog can echar leche. Turns out a lot of the frogs in Honduras release a milky substance that can burn you. Fun stuff, right? We decided that we needed to get it away from the area the boys play in, so I used a shoe to try to move it away. After five minutes of trying to get it to go away without getting burning frog poison on myself, Suly decided that we needed to kill it. I didn’t want to kill it because I like animals too much, so Suly started throwing rocks at the frog unsuccessfully. It even got pinned against the wall with a rock once and we thought it was dead, but it somehow emerged unscathed. After a lot of persuasion, I got convinced to kill it myself. I took a big rock in my hands, lifted it above my head, choked back some bitter tears, and threw it down on top of the frog. BOOM! The deed was done. Some frog guts looked like they were spilling out and some of its skin was peeled off. Two guilt-ridden minutes later, the unthinkable happened-- the frog came back to life and started trying to escape! We freaked out and I threw the rock on it a couple more times until I was sufficiently convinced of its deadness. The memory of that day still haunts me, but at least I can release all of my pent-up emotions here. I would post a picture of the incident, but it was a bit too gruesome for some of you to handle (and I didn’t have my camera with me at the time).

In other news, I’ve finally settled into a bit of a schedule! I stay at the little boys’ house during meal times to help give out food and clean up afterwards, and I’ve been teaching English classes for a little less than two weeks now. I love the boys at the house I work at, and I’ve actually learned most of their names! There’s Oscar (the boy in one of the photos in my last post) who runs up to me for a hug every time I see him and makes sure to always say hello and goodbye to me, Carlitos, who likes to press a button on a toy truck that plays music and have dance parties with me in the laundry room, Rudi, who thanks me in French whenever I give him food, Vaca, whose real name is Jefferson but gets called “cow” by everyone (including staff) even though he’s one of the smaller kids (I’ve still yet to hear the full story of how he got that name), and many more. I really love getting to know the unique personalities of the different kids. I want to take pictures of them, but it’s hard to do that without causing chaos. Once you take one kid’s picture, they all want their picture taken. So far, I’ve just been able to sneak a photo of all of them watching the movie Spirit (which they were all singing along to) in the area where they eat their meals.

English classes have been going pretty well so far. It’s kind of strange because there are actually a lot of students who are my age or older, but they’ve been pretty respectful for the most part. Right now I’m helping a lady named Candice teach the class, but I’ll be teaching it all by myself once she leaves in the end of June. I definitely have a lot more respect for teachers now, because being a good teacher is tough. Especially when you’re trying to make class semi-bearable but have to teach using a workbook that is about 95% exercises, and especially when said workbook is littered with ridiculous grammar and spelling mistakes. For example, a sentence on page five says “She will stay ¡f your’re not here.” Yup, that’s definitely an upside down exclamation point instead of the letter “i”. And yes, that definitely says “your’re” instead of “you’re”. Example number two! The text on page eleven says “Mrs. Mary Scott lives with her husband Andrew and her two young”. The rest of the paragraph is missing. It continues to say that “In the morning she usualy wakes up very early to look after her children and prepare brekfast for them. While Susy and Tom are in schoo; Mrs. Scott must do a lot of things at home.” The especially fun part is that my book is different from the one the students have for some reason, so I’ll start explaining one of the many errors and then proceed to get a lot of confused looks because it’s written correctly in their books. Oh, Honduran education system, why must you frustrate me so?


Overall though, things have been going really well. Teaching English to the 7th-11th graders gives me a good opportunity to get to know some of the older kids. I’m also gonna be playing soccer on a team with some of them in a tournament tomorrow against some teams from outside the orphanage. It’s not quite the big, grassy field that I’m used to though, so we’ll see how that goes. Here’s where we’ll be playing:

A couple of other things real quick:

On Friday mornings they have what’s called “big circle time,” which is where everyone in the orphanage meets in a big circle (hence the name) in the yard and sings and listens to some kids recite Scripture they’ve memorized and a person preaches a short message. The circle’s pretty dang huge though, so I wasn’t able to get the entire thing in the picture.

Here’s a picture of the guys’ volunteer house and one of the room that I’m staying in. It’s a pretty nice place, and right now there are only five guys in the house. The only bad thing about the house is that it’s at the top of a pretty big hill, but it’s ok, I need the exercise.

As far as prayer requests go, I would really appreciate if you guys could pray for God to teach me genuine humility as I serve here, for good memory with all the names, for me to be the best teacher I can be for the kids in the English classes, for God to give me opportunities to positively impact the kids here for His glory (especially some of the older ones since they don’t get near as much attention as most of the younger kids), and whatever else may be on your heart. Thank you so much for your prayers, I really appreciate(/need) them! 

And so it begins!

I flew out of Atlanta to Tegucigalpa at 10am then met up with a team that’s going down there for a week so that I could ride a bus with them to the orphanage.

The bus ride took a couple hours, but it was pretty interesting. It’s always really cool to see in person what another country looks like. There were a lot of houses really close together on big hills, and it kind of reminded me of the scenery in parts of the movie Fast Five. In case you haven’t seen that movie (and even if you have), here’s a picture:

There were places with a lot more houses than that, but it was hard to get a good picture while the bus was moving.

When I got to the orphanage I realized that it was a bit bigger than I thought it would be. The entire place is like 9,000 acres or something, and it kind of feels like a small town or city. They’ve got about 6-8 houses for the children, a girls’ volunteer house, a boys’ volunteer house where I’m staying with a few other guys, a team house for people that are here for a short time with their church, a school, a church, a farm, staff housing, La Tienda (a small store that you can buy food from), a main office, and probably a lot more that I don’t even know about yet. But now the moment you’ve all been waiting for...

The kids! There are almost 500 kids here, and they all want you to know their names. So far I have about 20 down, only 400-and-something more to go! I really can’t wait until I know a good bit of them. Most of the kids are really friendly. Some of the kids are a little too friendly (aka 16 and 17 year old girls that try to hold my hand and make me feel really sketchy). I’ve had a ton of fun playing soccer and getting to know the kids so far though. I’m supposed to be meeting with the staff at some point to figure out where they’ll have me working most of the time, but no one has said anything to me or Carol (another volunteer that got here the same day as me) about it, so for now I’ve just been following Allan and his dad (two of the volunteers I’m living with) around and playing with kids**. Any of you who know me well at all will know that I’ve pretty much been in heaven since I get to use Spanish so much here. It’s preeeetty much the best thing ever. I especially like hearing things in Spanish that aren’t meant to be understood by me and the other volunteers (like when Allan got called a pig the other day for sucking the juice out of a lime). I still can’t understand everything, and there are about a billion words I don’t know, but I’m able to have conversations with people, and that’s ok for right now. 

I’m really glad that God has pushed me out of my comfort zone in coming here. It’s an amazing place, and I’ll hopefully be growing a lot in my faith over the next two and a half months. It’s a beautiful truth to know that regardless of where I am on the planet or how far away I am from friends and family, God is always with me. “If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:9-10). One thing that I need some prayer for is that God would help me to see these kids as he sees them and truly have compassion for them. The kids always seem so happy that it’s really easy to forget that their parents are dead, in jail, can’t provide for them, or just plain don’t want them. They’ve grown up with some really rough circumstances. I’ve already heard of one girl who saw her mother murdered right in front of her, and apparently stories as gruesome as that aren’t that uncommon of a thing here. I think a decent number of kids have been involved in gangs as well. That’s why I don’t want this to just be a summer spent playing with some kids in a foreign country; I want this to be a summer where God pours out His love through me, because these kids truly, desperately need that.

**Update (I don’t feel like rewriting the other stuff): I met with a lady named Katja today with two other volunteers and she gave us the rundown on what we’d be doing here. I’ll be working a lot with the small boys house (the boys have given me the name Chimichanga), and I’ll be helping teach English classes for 7th-11th graders (and eventually teaching them by myself!). It’s nice to actually start getting a schedule instead of wandering aimlessly all the time/shadowing Allan and his dad. Well, that’s all for now! I’ll try to post on here a good bit, but I’m using someone else’s internet right now so I don’t want to get on too much. ¡Hasta luego!

Why Not Be Utterly Changed Into Fire?

I thought that I might as well explain what the title of my blog means instead of leaving it as some obscure, artistic-sounding phrase that most people will probably just not pay much attention to. It comes from a song by a band called mewithoutYou called "The King Beetle On a Coconut Estate." Here are the lyrics:

As the moon rose and the hour grew late

The day-help on the coconut estate

Raked up the dried leaves that fell dead from the trees

Which they burned in a pile by the lake

The beetle king summoned his men

And from the top of the rhododendron stem,

"Calling all volunteers who can carry back here

The Great Mystery has been lit once again"

One beetle emerged from the crowd

In a fashionable abdomen shroud

Said, "I'm a professor, you see, that's no mystery to me

I'll be back soon, successful and proud"

But when the beetle professor returned,

He crawled on all six, as his wings had been burned

And described to the finest detail all he'd learned

There was neither a light, nor a heat, in his words

The deeply dissatisfied king

Climbed the same stem to announce the same thing

But in his second appeal sought to sweeten the deal

With a silver padparadscha ring

The lieutenant stepped out from the line

As he lassoed his thorax with twine

Thinking, "I'm stronger and braver and I'll earn the king's favor

One day all he has will be mine"

But for all the lieutenant's conceit

He too returned singed and admitting defeat

"I had no choice, please believe, but retreat

It was bright as the sun, but with ten times the heat

And it cracked like the thunder and bloodshot my eyes

Though smothered with sticks, it advanced undeterred

Carelessly cast an ash cloud to the sky, my lord

Like a flock of dark vanishing birds"

The beetle king slammed down his fist

"Your flowery description's no better than his!

We sent for the great light and you bring us this?

We didn't ask what it seems like, we asked what it is!"

His majesty's hour at last is drawn nigh

The elegant queen took her leave from his side

Without understanding, but without asking why

She gathered their kids to come bid their goodbyes

And the father explained, "You've been somewhat deceived

You've all called me your dad, but your true Dad's not me

I lay next to your mom and your forms were conceived

Your Father's the light within all that you see

He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds

Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds

He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat

Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other its sweet

Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face

Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace

And just as a flower and its fragrance are one

So must each of you and your Father become

Now distribute my scepter, my crown, and my throne

And all we've known as wealth to the poor and alone"

Without further hesitation, without looking back home

The king flew headlong into the blazing unknown

And as the smoke ring hurled higher and higher

The troops flying loops around the telephone wires

They said, "Our beloved's not dead, but his highness instead

Has been utterly changed into fire"

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

Sorry that was so long, I promise my future blog posts will be shorter/have more pictures/be more interesting. Here's a picture of a beetle for you to make it a little better:

I wish I could go into a full analysis of the song because it's one of my favorites lyrically, but that would take forever to read. The basic message of the song is that you'll never really be satisfied with your understanding of the fire (God) if you just rely on other people's descriptions/experiences of it. To truly be fulfilled by your knowledge of the fire, it means it must be the knowledge that comes from personal experience: flying headlong into the blazing unknown.

The bible says that true personal experience with and fulfillment in God can only come when we die to ourselves. Jesus himself said that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Matthew 16:25). The whole concept of dying to self is something that I feel God has really been putting on my heart lately, and it has a lot to do with going to Honduras too (if you just randomly found this blog, I'm going to be volunteering at a place called Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras this summer). I know that some of you are upset about me being away for like three months straight, and believe me, it will be very difficult for me to be away from all of you for that long as well. It's also gonna be pretty hard for me to go to a foreign country where I don't know anyone since I can be a pretty shy person at times, but I am very confident that this is what God wants me to do.

I don't want what I want; I want what He wants, even if that hurts.

Of course, that's an easy thing to say and a much harder thing to actually experience. However, I'm finally beginning (emphasis on beginning) to understand and accept the implications of a statement like that, and God is teaching me to really trust in Him. God's plan is infinitely better than mine, and His promises are true. He won't let me or you or anyone else lose their life for Him and not then reward them with the true life that comes only from Him. So the question still remains:

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

p.s. You should go listen to "I Belong" by Foxes Have Foxholes, it explains how I feel pretty well. You can even download it for free (and legally!) at noisetrade.com.