The Problem with Beards

This is it. The last week of my summer internship with Sacred Road Ministries. It has been quite a ride, some things expected, some not. This week was a little different than the rest because I was leading a site with the youth of the community. we painted the home of a tribal elder and his wife named Slim and Sally. We also replaced 2 doors and built a wheelchair ramp for Sally. Leading a site with the youth is in many ways the same and in a few ways unique from leading a group of team members. Like the teams, the youth have to be directed as to what to paint and what not to paint, where to paint, proper technique, their work has to be checked, and they can occasionally be remiss in their duties. unlike the teams, the youth are not strangers in the community, this week they painted faster than the teams, and there is no way of knowing how many people will be on site from day to day. The fact we are able to have a site (actually two, but I never saw the other site) where the work is being done by the youth is an incredible example of how much work the Lord is doing on the rez. Having enough youth active in the ministry that we can have a work site where the labor is done almost exclusively by the teenagers of the community is a huge amount of growth over the last few years. talking with the people who have been around the longest, you hear that even four years ago, there were so few kids in the youth group the idea of them doing almost all the work on a site was laughable. There were only ten or twelve youth, and only four or five were engaged enough to want to be involved. This summer, the youth group has had over 80 kids involved in some way shape or form, and Tuesday night youth group usually have around 50 attendees. Over thirty youth have been on the work sites doing the labor. The goal for Sacred Road is to eventually have a church on the Yakama reservation that is run by the Yakama people. The Granberrys don't want to be here forever, there is a desire to work themselves out of a job by raising the leaders of the church from within the community. That starts with the kids and with youth group.

This week we had four work sites. Slim and Sally's house, where I was leading the youth group girls in a painting project and one team member with a construction background rebuilt a wheelchair ramp and helped Uncle Dave install two doors, the Site three houses down from mine where Sho was leading the team in repainting a home, there was a roofing site led by Justin and Beth, and the Youth group guys built a woodshed for a family under the tutelage of Drew and Taylor. The sites were all completed on time, and the biggest problems came in getting materials to the sites. (specifically cap shingles to the roofing site) and in the fact we had to re-cut the door frames on my site because the doors we ordered were an inch too wide. Everything came together beautifully in the end.

Oh, and the to address the title of this post: the problem with having a beard -at least a beard the length of mine- comes from the fact that we give a lot of piggy back rides to children at kids' club. The grip strength of a six-year-old boy with moderate Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and a mild case of Random Affection Disorder is amazing, and entirely sufficient to cause severe facial pain when applied to a beard.

Prayer requests this week: Smooth transitions for the interns as we head back to the life off the rez, prayer that we would have the words to tell others about the need that is here and the work being done, thanks for the work being done, prayer for the full time staff as they continue the Lord's work here on the rez, prayer that the Lord would continue to work powerfully here.

Beauty and Brokenness, Scars and Healing

Quite the week this week. There was a lot of stuff going on that stayed smothered until the very end and made this seem like an easy week for those not directly involved. Every Saturday night, though, we have what's called say-so, when we all get together and watch the videos of the previous week and spend time talking about what impacted us most. This week's say-so was the most powerful of the summer.

But first, work site updates. This week was crazy with how much we were trying to get done. we had a roof-over on the house of e tribal elder named Harrison, a roof-over and a carport to paint at the home of the tribe's coffin builder Ray, a bathroom to finish at Leslie's house, and exterior paint job at the Adams' home, two walls to frame at the Dempsen's, the youth working at the home of another elder named Iola and painting a couple rooms at the Adams' house, and a crew building decks at Camp Chaparral. Yes, 8 sites in a week, 6 for the team alone. I was on the roof-over at Harrison's home, and the crew Beth and I were leading absolutely flew. we were finished by 1:30 on Wednesday, quite a feat when the crew leaders are trying to slow the crew down so we can stay out in the community longer. The Adams' house was done by around lunchtime on Friday, Leslie's house was a one-and-a-half day job, the Dempsens' walls were done by the same crew as Leslie's floors, Ray's shop and carport took right up until the end of the workday on Friday, but they got finished. Iola's woodshed was completed Friday morning, and almost two cords of wood stacked by the end of the workday that afternoon. oh, I forgot to mention, there was a team in Warm Springs this week too. They painted the Early childhood learning center.
One of the most powerful things about the say-so was the effect kids' club had on people this week. as a bit of background, there are two separate locations where we hold kids' club. Totus Park in White Swan is the original location, and in the last couple years, the Sacred Road has started another in Adams View Park near Harrah. The people who have been working with Sacred road a long time have incredible relationships with the kids at Totus. They have been playing and talking with some of the kids there for five or six years, and seen kids who can barely toddle grow up. Because of the relative newness of the Adams View location, there are not those deep relationships (for the most part.) What this leads to is separation anxiety when someone moves, whether that someone is a kid or a staff member. Those most impactful stories this week came from the staff members who have historically worked at Totus, but this week were at Adams View. Stories of feeling ripped in two, because of how much they love the kids at both locations. Stories of realizing that they were trying to avoid getting really attached to the kids at one place because they felt they belonged at the other and failing because the kids were so desperate for love.
That desperation is what really breaks your heart. You see the kids that so need love, but are too afraid to get involved. They hang back at the edges of kids club and play a few games, but it will be a long time and take a lot of coaxing before they're able to trust.
prayer requests for this week: a sense of peace as we the interns prepare to go back into the rest of the world. After the next team week, we're done for the summer. Pray for the transition for the full time staff as well, as they go from a state of constant motion to relative solitude as the summer staff leaves. Pray for the kids at kids' club as the summer comes to an end and they face 9 months of limited contact with the 'Church People' they love to play with and who love to play with them. the ministry does not stop at the end of the summer, but the amount of work that can be done is so much less without the summer staff that it slows immensely.

An Intern on a Hot Asphalt Roof

There is a book by an author named Lemony Snicket called 'A Series of Unfortunate events.' This last training week has a couple days which could accurately be described by this title. on Tuesday  the 26th, I severely sprained my ankle while playing a game called steal the bacon with the youth group. On Wednesday, Justin and Taylor dove for the same Frisbee, after a ride to the ER and a couple hours, we ended up with Justin having 3 stitches over his eye, a nose broken in four places, and a concussion. Taylor got six staples in the back of his head. This left Justin and I out of action the next day, and I on light duty for the next two days. Justin then was barred from the roof for the upcoming team week. Essentially, the two of us were unable to help prepare for the upcoming team week, and we were down one  roofing intern (My ankle healed enough to work on the roof by Monday.) So, one of the major prayer requests this week is continued healing (we all seem to be recovering well.)
The Projects this week included a roofing project at the Dempsens' home on their home and on the clubhouse where they run an after-school program for kids in the community. At the same time, we were continuing a painting project there at the Dempsens'. The other crews were working at the house of a single mother on a roof-and-paint, and the youth group from the community was working on a shed at the Yarbroughs'. it was a long, hot week, but we ended up finishing the shed right on time, having only half an hour of work left on another, and finishing all but some cosmetic work at the third site.
Kids club went well this week too. Wednesday was the fourth of July, and kids' club is canceled every fourth of July for two reasons: one: very few people come. Two: we become targets for bottle rockets. Instead, we took the team to Toppenish to watch the fireworks display. Friday we had water games due to the heat (mid nineties.) Jesse and I both ended up utterly soaked. It was fun and entertaining and the kids laughed incredibly hard. It was great to see them laugh. They can be so somber when they show up.
There has been a focus this week on the family aspects of the teams. The teams that came this week included a group from Kentucky, a group from Covenant Presbyterian in Issaquah, and a group from True Light in Seattle, a mainly Asian church. On the night of the fourth, we were also joined by a number of the youth from the community. So, we had about 1/3 white, 1/3 Asian, and 1/3 Native Americans. We had some confused looks from people driving by when they saw a group of people that mixed all together playing, laughing, and watching the fireworks. The pastor from Kentucky put it well, I think, when he brought up the  passage about every nation coming together to worship the Lord. he called the fellowship this week a little foretaste of what heaven may be like.
Prayer requests: Healing for Justin, Taylor and I, Health and safety as temperatures soar this coming week (100+ the next 5 days), and passion for Christ that is seen by the community.

Flexibility

This week was a lesson in flexibility. One of the unofficial mottos of Sacred Road Ministries is "Semper Gumbi" (Always flexible.) Monday I and one other intern were sick with a stomach bug that's been going around, so there was a mad scramble to replace us by pulling interns off sites where there was more than one leader. it was a bit hectic, and I was restless all day wanting to be out helping, but my stomach consistently reminded me that I should be laying down, not riding around the rez and runnning construction sites.
Luckily, it was just a 24-hour bug. Tuesday I went to be the thirs leader on a site that needed a little more help. I ran a paint crew until lunch, then helped roof after lunch (there are a lot of projects where we both roof and paint a home.) It was a bit entertaining to watch a 16-year-old girl with a 16 ounce hammer try and drive nails as fast as I can with a 24 ounce framing hammer. (Tap taptaptaptaptap vs. tap BAM.) The goal was to have the roof dried in (meaning fully tar papered) by the end of the day. we did it, but only just. we finished at 2:25, using leftover scraps of felt paper to cover the last 22 feet of the ridge. But we got it done.
I ran a paint crew on Wednesday and put a full second coat on the house my team painted two weeks ago. we actually did a little more than that as well, we started priming the trim color areas, so my expectations were exceeded and the day was a success, despite a lack of focus after the lunch break.
Thursday. field trip day for the teams. I ended up escorting two of the leaders around town as they ran errands while the rest of the team (and the rest of the interns) floated down the Yakima river or wandered through a cave. It wasn't all bad, I bought some bacon (that was breakfast on Sunday) so the house could have some for the first time this summer. for 5 men between the ages of 19 and 22 to go without bacon for a month... well, I bought 3 pounds and there was none left after breakfast. Bacon is an important food group for yound males.
After the errand-running, we had kid's club. we had been having it all week, today I was on the kickball daimond. In 90-degree heat. It was quite the contras the next day when it was 75 and I spent the daying playing with hot wheels with the littler kids. I drank a lot more water Thursday than Friday.
Friday night and Saturday morning were goodbye times. We finished all of the projects for the week (one roof was right down to the wire, but it got finished.) adn teh teams are off to their respective hometowns.
We were really out in the community this week. The site where we were both painting and roofing was a house owned by a tribal member, another site (we were just painting this one this week) was the workshop of the tribe's coffin builder. Talk about someone known by the community around us. Because of the low life expectancy here on the reservation, almost everyone knows Ray. Sad, yes, but true.Something to make you think. Traditionally, cutting one's hair is a sign of mourning, and the mourning period for a close friend or family member is one year. At any given time, there is probably someone within earshot who is currently in mourning.
Prayer requests for the next couple weeks: health and rest for the interns, continued good work by the teams, praise for another week free of major injury, prayer for my ankle (I sprained it during youth group Tuesday night.)

Also, Pictures available here: Flickr, Facebook

Sacred Road, Entry 2

     You know those times when you realize you've forgotten something you should have been doind for an extended period of time? This is one of those times for me. I've just finished with the first team week, and taken no pictures. I'm sure some will be on facebook before long, but still, it's a little embarrassing to forget something like that. I suppose I should be used to it by now. I've never been good about remembering to take pictures. I shall make a note to be sure and take some the next team week.
     As it is the day after the team has left, a recap of the week's work done is due. in 4 days of work and one field trip day, we had two days when rain made it impossible for the painters to paint, yet we still managed to first-coat a house. the roofing crew had only one day when they couldn't work, and they stripped and re-roofed over 3000 square feet of asphalt shingled roof on a building purchased by the ministry last year for conversion to a church house. The third crew had the task of tearing down and cleaning up the debris of an approximately 2000 square foot shed. It was done. It took all 4 days of work plus a couple hours the morning of the field trip, but it was done.
     The physical labor in construction (or destruction, as may be the case) is a huge part of the work week here, and can be physically exhausting, but the part of the week that takes the most out of you is kids' club. An hour and a half of giving piggyback rides, playing tag, pushing kids on the swingset, and helping them cross the monkey bars, then 20 minutes of snacktime, a Bible story (acted out by the kids under the direction of an intern) and a couple songs before walkinng to kids home or loading them on to the van for the ride back to their house. Physically, it is tiring Emotionally, at is simultaneously exhausting and incredibly refeshing and incredibly sad. there are far to many stories of kids that were engaged at kids' club one day and gone the next. Talking to the permanent staff members, you hear the stories of bright, promising children. Enthusiastic or maybe just reaching the point where they can let down their armor a little who never come back. Some have died. Many have moved. some are scared by the fact they are opening up. for whatever reason, we lose them. The hope for these kids is they will someday seek out 'church people' (I'll explain) later in their life when they are in a hard spot, remembering the love that the teams and staff of Sacred Road had for the as children.
     I've just used a phrase with negative connotations in much of today's world. 'Church people' is, as often as not, seen as a near-epithet. The Christian church has become an institution people are immediately suspect of; there is a long history of reasons for this, and one can hardly fault people for being suspicious of our motives. After all, 'church people' are weird. There is a dafference here on the reservation though. The work done by Sacred Road has drawn children -and their parents and older siblings- twoards, rather than away from the church. When the teams show up for kids' club the first week, you can hear the yells of the little kids: "The church people are here! the church people are here!" It's a challenge to us as members of the church, too. When was the last time we were so excited about the church we would literally run to be a part of it? Of course context is important, and these kids are excited because here come perhaps the only big people willing to play with them. Wait, stop. Go back and read that again. The only adults willing to play with them. These kids are in a bad spot, and the church is for them a place of relief. They find joy with the Church people as we reach out to them. Sacred Road iis living out the command to care for the poor and the orphan. There is an excitement about the church here, and the work the Lord is doing, even in tragedy, and amazing to behold.


Specific prayer requests this week: My health (I picked up a cold somewhere.) the safety of the Sacred Road staff as we recover from one team week and prepare for another. Rest. Joy. Safety for the Kid's club kids in the off week. Thanks for the work done and the relationships developed over the last week. Safe travels for the people traveling on our free day (Monday) this week.


Blessings in Christ,
Thomas

Orientation

My Timing is off. I thought the schedule would be a bit more regimented than what it is, and I would actually have the full Monday of every off week for personal time (blog writing, sleep, talking with Kaylee, all those things that make life more pleasant.) No such luck. I am a 24-7 on-call intern, and my actual free time will be brief and scattered. Generally. I have been able to piece together a post during my few free moments, though. It's posted below.

     Now I've been here for almost a week. The days are starting to get a slight routine to them. I wake up at 6:30, do my daily devotional, write about my experiences from the day before, and then have breakfast with the rest of the guys (and Jessica.) I make breakfast some days, coffee most days, help clean up some days, help set out lunch supplies some days... all the morning duties are divied up amongst the rsidents of the house.
     Speaking of the residents, I'll introduce you.Justin is a 22-year-old engineering student from Mississippi and is rooming with Sho, who is quiet, but has been here a lot and knows the permanent staff already. Taylor is my roommate, he's a 19-year-old cowboy from Ellensburg who trains horses for a living; he has a very large family (7 brothers, 3 sisters.) Joshua is the member of the permanent staff who lives here full time. he is a quarter Hopi and runs the Sacred Road children's ministry. Robert and Jessica are a married couple (about two and a half years into their marriage) who live here on the training weeks and running the Warm Springs prioject during the Team weeks; Jessica has been here before, but this is Robert's first time to the Reservation. Then there's Uncle Dave; He's a sixty-something guy who has been active in mission work for many, many years, having worked in Siberia and Mongolia, among other places. He is one of two immediate supervisors of the summer interns, second in command only to Chris (The Sacred Road Director.)
     Every morning, one person makes breakfast, two people clean up, one person sets out the lunch supplies, and one person cleans up after lunch has been made. then we all head out to whatever training session or prep work we have for the day. lunch is at noon or so, and after lunch we do whatever else is on the docket. Usually more prep work.
     The place we are staying is a 7000-plus square foot house, built as a private residence. It was forclosed on by the bank and the ministry was able to purchase it for a very, very low price. The eventual plan is to take out almost all of the interior walls and convert it into a church, but for right now it is still a house and the male interns get a terrific place to stay and don't have to go anywhere after the end of the youth group activities with the native kids.
     And finally, we have reached the part that is most important. The people of the Yakama Reservation. This is going to be far more than what I thought it would be. My job is far more than just a project supervisor for the roofing projects, I am a minister of the Lord to the people, and my job is therefor much more difficult than I first thought. The adults I have met have been few so far, and involved with the church, so there is less of a barrier there to interaction. The kids are a different case. Most of them have been involved with the youth group for a while and some of them are very involved in the leadership of it. Still, the other kids can get rowdy. They've been well behaved when they have been here, but there was one fistfight on the bus on the way here and some of the stories are downright scary.
     I suppose the personalities of the kids are to be expected. They've grown up having to fend for themselves, and the way they do that is to charm the people bigger than they are and dominate the people smaller than they are. They don't have a safe place in their lives, so they can never let themselves be 'just kids.' School is a violent and unpleasant place and home (if they have one) might be worse than school. Sacred Road is trying to change that. it's amazing the difference that we can see even after just an evening at the church. There is a structure here with benevolent authority figures, it is a place where they can let their guard down for a couple hours. The kids who got into a fistfight on the bus had to go home, and they have to wait a couple weeks before they come back, but there were kids there who were coming back after an incident like that and they were calm. Rules were followed, something that doesn't often happen here. Sacred Road's work, even beyond the mercy missions construction projects, is giving the people something they haven't had for a very long time: respect.


Prayer requests for the coming days: preparation for the first team week, strength as leaders in times of controversy, safety, and memory for the things we are learning during the last days of orientation.

Thanks and blessings in Christ,
Thomas

Sacred Road, Part Two

I'm in.Cue the excited dancing.

And frantic support letter writing.

The Internship starts May 23rd. I'll try and write about my experiences every other week (the weeks I'm leading a group will be 80-90 hour work weeks, so please, cut me a little slack.)

That's it for now. Except that I've finished the application to Covenant Theological Seminary as well. Now I wait for the response to THAT. Seems like I've been doing a lot of waiting lately. It's probably good for me. It'll help me develop my patience.

Ciao.

Sacred Road Ministries

     Well, so much for writing a new post every week. I suppose my life just isn't interesting enough now I have a full time job for me to feel inspired to write. Something out of the ordinary has to happen. cue half a foot of snow  in mid/late March in western Oregon. Yes, we really got a pile of snow, and it was a very wet, heavy snow. Wet heavy snow falling on trees waterlogged from months of rain and beginning to bud out into bloom means massive destruction of the trees and the power lines strung beneath them. People were without power for up to three days in some areas. This being Western Oregon, the chaos extended to the roadways, where people unused to snow were suddenly driving through 4-8 inches of the stuff. It doubled my drive time to work, luckily, i was prepared and left half an hour early from my house. the flickering power supply made it interesting, since i need to use the computer at work, and each flicker causes a shutdown of all programs running at that point. The upshot of all of this? I got to drive in the snow again! It is an activity I have sorely missed since moving away from Spokane. Also, there is now plenty of firewood available for anyone who wanted to hold onto it and allow it to dry and season properly.

     Probably the biggest impact the snow (a new record for the date, by the way) had on my life was the delay it caused in my application process to an organization called Sacred Road Ministries. You can view their website here for a fuller explanation of who they are and what they do, but essentially, they plan and run short-term mission trips on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington state. Their summer internship program involves coordinating with the incoming groups to figure out how the group (usually high school or college age) can best benefit the community. They also run a number of other programs on the reservation, including a children's Bible study.

     I learned about them after my pastor visited the Reservation about two weeks ago and came back all fired up about how much good they were doing in the community. He suggested I check them out as a possible resource for a summer internship (and possibly more) so I did. It took me a while to get the application, but now it has been finished and submitted and the needed references have been sent in. It was a bit of a push to get it done (I got the application from the Tuesday and it was due Friday) but now all I have to do is wait for a response and pray.

A Prayer

   I just don’t know Lord. You are my father,
my Great Father, He Who Is
adored.
    How can I worship You?
    How can I show my face to You?
    The sacrifice of your Son is the Justifying act that changed the world. It is enough. Help me to see. Convict me of my sin, rend me, envelope me in a fire that burns away my impurity, that putrid stuff I want to cling to. Help to to hate that sin I now love. Turn my desire for the slime and crud and dirt and mud that pervades my all into a desire to be more like You. As the Psalmist said, “Wash me, make me Pure within.”
    Make my desire for You overwhelming. Bring me back to You, away from the place I was before. Bring me out of my shame and into Your light. Help me defeat my shame, not by dwelling upon my sin, but by dwelling within Your Son. I know Your love is greater than all my sin, Help me to know. I cry out with the words of the father from the Gospel of Mark: “I believe! Help me in my unbelief!”
    Make me know You more.

amen

Revised Essay

As you know if you read the first draft of my essay (posted about a week ago) i am not an exceptionally good writer, at least not when it comes to working from an outline. Thankfully, I do have friends (and a lovely young woman) who are willing give me the badly-needed help required to improve the debacle that was my first draft. here's Draft number 2. It may be a final draft, those due dates are starting to loom large...

   Ever since reading Norman Maclean’s novel A River Runs Through It, I have been struck by the parallels between my family and the Macleans. Change the location from Montana to Oregon, and turn the clock forward 100 years, and it could be my own family. In the Maclean family, the father is respected, the brothers are often at odds, and the mother is loved above all else. In my family, my father is a Ruling Elder at our church, my relationship with my brother has long been characterized by tension (though we are closer now than we were in the past) and my mother grants adoration far more generously than we can properly repay.

   The eldest Maclean, Norman’s father, is an officer of the Presbyterian church and is often “anxious to be on the hills, where he could restore his soul and be filled again to overflowing.”# My father shares this trait with the elder Maclean, and I have inherited it from him. My father and I enjoy people, but when we need to be refreshed emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually, we tend to separate from the crowds and end up out in the wild lands.

   The younger son in the Maclean family is marked by stubbornness and personal drive that exceeds that of the Scottish Presbyterian minister who is his father. My younger brother and my father often, to put it politely, butt heads when in contact for a long period of time. Both of them can be characterized by a powerfully driven, type-A personality; they desire to control the circumstances of their own life and the lives of others around them. While the years have softened the edges of my father’s severe nature, my brother, at the age of 20, is still considerably headstrong.

   The mother Maclean is the center of the family, the rock the sons look to, the one the father loves dearly, the character who remains almost unchanging throughout the story. Kind, loving, eminently patient, she is an idealized mother spelled out on paper and clad in a short, slender frame. What can I say about my mother? She is there for us when we need her, and is the center of our family. Reminding us that when we want to take a hike, it really might be best to take along some water. when we want to go fishing, life jackets are a good idea. she keeps us from forgetting those simple little things that make everyday life easier and more enjoyable.

   There is one more character in the Maclean family: Norman himself. The elder brother. The more introverted one. The one who, though there are differences in opinion, loves his brother and father, who is laid back to the point that he is able to accept most anyone as long as they are genuine. The one who has his faults -he is a people-pleaser, often to his own detriment- but he is still a kind and likable guy. This is almost exactly like me. Hello, my name is Thomas Pendell, and I would like to enter your program for the Master of the Arts in Counseling.

   “When and how [did I become] a Christian.” My conversion story is rather simple; I was born into the church and God answered the prayer of my parents and never let me know a day apart from Him. My entire life has been an answer to prayer. Do I  think I’m perfect? By no means. I have had my struggles, but through all of them I have always been able to reach towards the comforting arms of Christ and the support of the church around me. My struggles have mostly been private ones, but when I was able to share, the support I received from the session was undeniable and incredibly strengthening. Yes, this does make it harder for me to relate to some people, those who have lived a wild and raucous party life for example, but at the same time, it will help me relate to those who have grown up in the church. There is certainly a place for the minister who was drawn out of a drug-induced haze into the loving arms of Christ, but there is also a place for those raised within the church like me.

   The story of how I decided to pursue a career in ministry has to begin in high school. I was a shy and reserved kid. I would take the corner chair whenever possible, and my level of interaction with people was minimal. It was in my sophomore year that I joined the theatre department, giving them a new person to fill the role of ‘quietest person.’ I’m not certain how much of my development was due to experience in the theatre and how much was due to simple aging, but one way or another, I was far from shy by the time I became a senior. I had become comfortable with the circle of people around the theatre. It was time to expand my social landscape beyond high school.

   I continued to grow as an extrovert in my first year of college, but was slowed somewhat by the field of study I was pursuing. I was working on an engineering degree, which is not conducive to the development of social skills; lots of time spent inside among nerds (I certainly fit this category) who were nice enough but quiet. God’s designs, however, placed me in a university with a wide variety of general education requirements, including courses in philosophy, history, and theology. What I found in taking these classes was a budding interest in the humanities. I subsequently ignored this interest until my junior year. That year, two things happened to change the course of my academic career. The first event was an engineering course. I came into it having never failed a class before, and rarely having been even close. On my first exam I received a score of 59%, the highest test grade I would receive all semester.

   The second event was another class, this one a theology class titled “Introduction to the Christian Faith.” It was fascinating. Reading such classics as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, and Tozer’s the pursuit of God gave me my first real taste of the Christian literature I had long meant to read, but had never seemed to find the time for. The literature got me thinking in ways I never had before (the point of all good writing, I suppose) and I loved it.

   The frustration I faced in my struggle in the engineering class, combined with the joy I found in both that first well-taught and well-read theology class and the ones to follow, and my experiences the following summer as an intern at my home church led me to believe God was calling me away from a life in physics to pursue a career in ministry. Before that summer I had been wallowing in near stagnation. Since then I have been growing in my faith in a manner much more consistent with the way I should. Rather than simply accepting what I am told, I am actively pursuing the Biblical foundations of reformed theology.  I am trying to pray more, though not having an active prayer life in the past, it is something I still struggle with. I read, oh do I read. Timothy Keller and C.S. Lewis (beyond Narnia) and Brian Williams and Paul Miller. These are the men who’s words I read on a regular basis now, where previously I read them only occasionally.

  The classes were what planted the seed in my mind, but interning at my home church in Eugene during the summer of 2010 watered that seed with a fire hose. I read a fair amount of theology and had a lot of fascinating discussions with my pastors. I also prepared and delivered two sermons; one on the importance of diversity in evangelism, based in John 4, and one on the importance of faith over works, based in Galatians 3. My favorite part was leading the annual church campout. 40 people, seven campsites, the Metolius river, bacon over a campfire, homemade chili, and four days (three nights) of good conversation with friends in one of the most beautiful parts of God’s creation. Those mornings when I was up before the sun building a fire and making coffee helped me to understand what it meant to be a servant leader, that those whom i have looked to as good leaders have always been those ready to help the led. This realization has become a part of my vision for ministry. The Bible calls us to be servant leaders, but the practical aspects of that are often lost in today’s world. people -including, and perhaps especially ministers- get caught up in the hectic pace of life, and need to be reminded of why they are there.

  As far as discipling, most of my relationships with friends have become discipling relationships. Whether my friends are Christian or not, I have often become the person they seek out for advice or comfort when facing a difficult challenge in their lives. This is becoming less of a role as I leave my undergraduate career behind and move to a place more geographically distant, but I still get the occasional text or email. I think this may be where I do my best evangelism, as well. Friendship evangelism is difficult, but it is the best way to reach others. People have to be respected before they can be converted, and they cannot be viewed simply as ‘projects.’ They do not respect a random person on the street who tells them they must repent, but a friend telling them they should take a look at this Jesus guy will at least get them thinking.

   My home church needs another person to fill a void between the two pastors currently on staff. The senior pastor is an excellent communicator, but is often more straightforward than might be best at certain times. The associate pastor is much more soft spoken and has a better feel for the emotional aspects of a given situation, but has trouble couching his words in such a way as to avoid insulting people, and while the Word of God can be offensive to some, it needs to be clear the truth of the Word is shining through rather than what seems to be the opinion of the man speaking. Both of these men have helped figure some things out in my life, but I am a better communicator than my associate pastor and better at being sensitive to the emotional needs of people than my senior pastor. I fill the void.

There is another paragraph with which this essay ends, but it deals with how I intend to pay for an education at CTS, and quite frankly, I think information of that nature should not be bandied about the internet.

Bad Poetry

    It has been another week, and as I sit here listening to a reading of E.A. Poe’s The Raven as read by James Earl Jones (you know you’re jealous,) I ponder the things of life and digest the delicious dinner recently consumed, wait for a text from my lovely girlfriend informing me she has finished her homework and is ready to resume the revisions of my essay, relaxing in my sweats and preparing for sleep. It is getting late, you know, and I have work early in the morning. I know not what mood I’m in, I ponder, so, I think I must be pensive.

‘Tis The Raven, I am sure,
as the raven sits upon a bust upon the frame of chamber door.
The po’m has ended,
but I still sit,
pensive now to try my wit,
as I verse and curse and poem
to the people (I don’t know them)
sitting waiting to read this entry,
still and silent, standing sentry
for my writing to the gentry,
as it loads on blog’s dark shore.
it is poetry, nothing more.

    Perhaps instead of ‘pensive’  I should have said ‘inspired to write bad poetry.’ Whatever.

    My essay is coming along, slow but sure. It really does need to come along more quickly. As mentioned in my previous entry, the deadline for financial adi applications is April 15, so I really need to finish this thing soon. My problem is, writing has never been a strong suit of mine. Not writing in a formal manner, I mean. I am much better with a short piece on the life of a mayfly, the sight of a river, or the sunset over the mountain. Short, descriptive essays rich in imagery and rife with poetic language. I think I’ll put one of those up soon. My short essay about a winter storm, I think, will do.
    Wow. It seems I am doomed to wax poetic this evening. I shall not subject you to anymore of this. Here’s a link to a site with celebrities reading poetry. Follow it. Enjoy it.

http://speakcelebrity.tumblr.com/

if you're following me, then you've asked for it.

    Well, I said I was going to try and get these written weekly. I think this one’s a little late, but oh well. This is the evening of Superbowl Sunday (fantastic game it was, too) and I am working, once again, on the application essay for seminary. I did some research over the last week, and I have to submit any financial aid information by April 15, so I should probably make sure I can actually get in before that point, eh? Anyway, it’s starting to come together in a rough sense. I am not proud of it, but then, how much can I expect from a first draft? I did usually turn in first drafts in while I was in school, but then I was usually satisfied with them; not so much here. Being good at train-of-thought writing hurts me with this sort of essay. The essay is essentially outlined by the questions I have to answer for the admissions folks, and I was able to come up with a decent outline, but the transmission of outline to essay is one I have never figure out. I ended up scrapping the whole outline and starting over. So, here is my unfinished product. Please feel free to leave opinions in the comments (if they’re short) or to message me on facebook or email me at “tpendell11@my.whitworth.edu” with longer comments.


It is a difficult task I have been put to, writing a decent essay from a series of bullet point questions. Family, faith, future, finances, all of these are great subjects to write about, but stringing them together is quite a demanding proposition.
   Let’s start with family. In Norman Maclean’s novel A River Runs Through it, we read the story of a family in Montana, where the father is respected, the mother is loved, and the brothers are… often at odds, shall we say. Also in the book, we find the father an officer of the Presbyterian church who was often “anxious to be on the hills, where he could restore his soul and be filled again to overflowing.” My father shares this trait with the elder Maclean, and I have inherited it from him. The younger son in the Maclean family is marked by stubbornness and personal drive that exceeds that of his Scottish Presbyterian minister father. My younger brother and my father often, to put it politely, but heads when in contact with one another for a long period of time. Both of them can be characterized by a powerfully driven, type-A personality. A desire to control the circumstances of both their own life and the lives of other around them, and while the years have softened my father’s starkness, my brother, at the age of 20, is still considerably willful. The center of the Maclean family, the rock which both of the sons look to, which the father loves dearly, and which remains almost unchanging throughout the story is the Mrs. Maclean. Kind, loving, eminently patient, she is an idealized mother spelled out on paper and clad in a short and slender frame. Change to location from Montana to Oregon, and turn the clock forward 100 years, and this could be my own family. There is one more character in the Maclean family, Norman himself. The elder brother. The more introverted one. The one who, though there are differences in opinion, loves his brother and his father, who is laid back to the point that he is able to accept most anyone as long as they are genuine. He has his faults as well, he is a people-pleaser, often to his own detriment, but he is still a kind and likeable guy. Hello, my name is Thomas Pendell, and I would like to enter your program for the Master of the Arts in Counseling.
   Unfortunately for both you the reader and, I the writer, my skill as a wordsmith falls far short of that with which Mr. Maclean plied his pen. Also, I lack several decades from the life Maclean drew his stories from. What I can do is answer your questions, even if your prompt for the application essay contains one of my least favorite questions: “when and how [did] you [become] a Christian.” The reason for my dislike for this question arises from my dislike to disappoint. My conversion story is rather simple. I was born into the church and God never let me walked away. The story of how I decided to pursue a career in ministry is far more entertaining. My story would have to begin in high school. I was a shy and reserved kid. I would take the corner chair whenever possible, and my level of interaction with people was minimal. It was in my sophomore year that I became the quietest person in the theatre department. I’m not certain how much of my development was due to experience in the theatre and how much was due to simple aging, but one way or another, I was far from shy as a senior. I had become comfortable with the circle of people around the theatre. It was time to expand my social landscape beyond high school.
   I was understandably more outgoing in my first year at college, but at the same time I was working on an engineering degree, which is not conducive to the development of social skills. Lots of time spent inside among others who were nice enough but quiet. God’s designs, however, placed me in a university with a wide variety of general education requirements, including courses in philosophy, history, and theology. What I found in taking these classes was a budding interest in the humanities. I subsequently ignored this interest until my junior year. Junior year, 2 things happened which changed the course of my academic career: the first, was a theology class titled “Introduction to the Christian Faith.” It was fascinating. Reading such classics as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, and Tozer’s the pursuit of God gave me my first real taste of the Christian literature I had long meant to read, but had never seemed to find the time for.
   The second event was another class, this one an engineering course. I came into it having never failed a class before, and rarely having been even close. My first exam, I received a score of 59%, the highest test grade I would receive all semester. The frustration I faced in my struggle in the engineering class, combined with the joy I found in a well-taught and well-read theology class, and my experiences the following summer as an intern at my home church led me to believe God was calling me away from a life in physics to pursue a career in ministry. Since that summer, I have been growing in my faith well, in a manner much more consistent with the way I should be growing. It is not something I realized before, but until that year, I was stagnating in my faith. I was a Christian, but I was not growing as I should.
   The classes were what planted the seed in my mind, but the summer of 2010 watered that seed with a fire hose. The summer of 2010, I worked as an intern at my home church in Eugene. I read e fair amount of theology, had a lot of fascinating discussions with the pastors, and prepared and delivered two sermons. Also, my favorite part, I was the leader of the annual church campout. 40 people, 7 campsites, the Metolius river, bacon over a campfire, homemade chili, and 4 days (3 nights) of good conversation with friends in one of the most beautiful parts of God’s creation.
  As far as discipling, most of my relationships with friends have become discipling relationships. Whether my friends are Christian or not, I have often become the person they come to when they are facing a difficult challenge in their lives, whether seeking advice or simply comfort. This has become less of a role as I have left college, but I still get occasional texts or emails. I think this may be where I do my best evangelism too. Friendship evangelism is difficult, but it is the best may to reach people in today’s America. People have to be respected before they can be converted, and they cannot be viewed simply as ‘projects.’
   As I am applying to the Master of Arts in Counseling program, there are more questions to answer. What is the connection between theology and psychology? I believe the Bible speaks to the whole person, and as such, speaks to the mind as much as the heart and soul. it is stated in the Westminster Catechism, man’s purpose is to glorify God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. As this is a prerogative of Christianity, it is something the Bible speaks to. In Christ, we find a truth that should comfort and counsel us no matter what our life is like, and it is finding how that connection can be made that has to form the foundation of Christian counseling. As my pastor would say, “your opinion doesn’t help anyone, it’s the truth of the Bible that matters.” Unfortunately, my knowledge of Biblical support for people is not encyclopedic. I need guidance myself to find the connections between Biblical text and peoples’ situations.
   You want to know how I plan to help the ministry of my home church. I believe I will fill a void between the two pastors currently on staff. the Senior pastor is an excellent communicator, but is often more straightforward than might be best in certain situations. The Associate pastor is much more soft spoken, but has trouble couching his words in such a way as to avoid insulting people, and while the Word of God can be offensive to some, it needs to be the truth of Word that shines through rather than what seems to be the opinion of the man speaking them. Clarity, that’s the word I’m looking for. I’m not trying to be insulting or degrading to either of these men. Both have helped figure somethings out in my life. But I think I am a better communicator than [associate pastor] and better at being sensitive to the emotional needs of people than [senior pastor]. Ideally, I would not be at my home church long after seminary. my dream is to work in Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, or Southeast Alaska, and it is my hope God would see me called there.
   So, here I am. What is your verdict?

Back To It...

     I’m starting a new journey in my life, so I suppose I should start writing again. Since my last entry, I have started dating a lovely, talented, smart, funny, and in most every way more eligible young lady than I have any right to be around, graduated from college, and embarked on my first in-depth exploration of the real world. I have been hired, worked as a painter, quit for a better job, worked in a warehouse, been laid off, been hired again a day later, and now work at a major manufacturer in my hometown in the warranty department. I am in the process of writing an application essay to seminary, looking for a new car (as much as I love my truck, I can’t afford to drive 50+ miles a day at 16 mpg), and trying (still) to embrace a praying life.

     This should be a record of my successes and failures on my trip towards seminary. I’ll throw in a few hunting and fishing stories (the events are always more entertaining than the stories, but you’ll have to live with that.) maybe I’ll post a draft or two of essays I’m working on. Heck, maybe I’ll forget altogether about writing (again.) But, whatever I do, I will remain true to three things: God, family, and the oxford comma. (Sorry, the oxford comma has been a topic of conversation recently.) There’s also the off chance of an occasional recipe showing up. Does that make this a cooking blog?

     I’ll update you on what I’m reading, the places I visit, an how poor I am doing at writing in my blog. I’ll try and make weekly entries, but the likelihood of this actually happening is quite low.

     So, here we go.

P.S.: what happened to the last 2 paragraphs of my previous post? They’re dark blue! That isn’t very helpful.