Coming Home!

Friends and Family,

Let me just say goodbye to my friends and family here in California and then I'll come back to Michigan. It has been a wonderful summer. This last week has included three different youth events that I've planned and led. They have all gone well except one kid almost drowned during our pool party on Wednesday. Hopefully, today at the beach with the youth group, we'll be able to avoid any more disasters.

Hey, you know what, maybe that would be a good thing to pray for. I'm going to clear off my desk now - I have to figure out what to do with my bobble-head collection - so in the mean time, I would love it if you prayed for the following things:

-for safety for the youth group at the beach today

-for safe travels home

-for only a minimal amount of awkward goodbyes

Thank you! You all are oh so great!

-chris

Squeezing the Fun

Hello hello!

Friends, this internship is winding down. I'll be home in about a week. I'm excited to go home, but I'm also going to miss this place. It's hard to tell everyone goodbye and have no idea if you're ever going to see them again. But at the same time, my clothes are really starting to smell, so it will be good to get home and have my mom start catching up on my laundry. I guess it would have been a good thing to learn how to do laundry before trying to live on my own.

I'm making the most of each day here, since there are so few left. I'm squeezing every last ounce of fun out of this California summer. Last week, one of my fun activities was to attend a free concert in the park. There was a classic rock/oldies tribute band that was playing that night. Their music was fun. I mean, you know you're in for a treat when one of the band members has concentrated all of his musical energy and directed it towards cowbell performance. He was tearing that thing up! To be fair, he also sang some harmonies and rocked out on the "Bongo Drum" setting on his synthesizer. Overall, it was a band full of talent.

Speaking of talent, you should have seen some of the 50 year old women and their reluctant husbands get out there and dance! Well, we shouldn't call it dancing, maybe just moving to the music. Well, then again, maybe we'll just call it moving. Whatever it was, it doubled the entertainment value of the whole experience.

On Saturday, I went on a hike in the trails around the Hollywood sign. It was a very unique hike. First of all, on either side of the mountain we were hiking on, you were able to see sprawling smog-tinted suburbs bumping right up to the base of the mountain. Also, there were tons of guys plugged into iPods, hiking with their shirts off, and girls plugged into iPods, hiking with their tiny little dogs. Once we got to the small summit of the mountain, we saw that there were two bulldozers sitting up there.

There's nothing like getting back to nature.

So here I go, I'm jumping into week #10. I have two youth events to lead, several exit interviews to go to, and a boatload of reflections to write, and then I'm hopping on a plane to Cleveland! I can't wait to see Cleveland. The big bummer is that I'll only be there for an hour and a half or so until I catch another plane to Grand Rapids. I'll be back in the G-rap at about 7:30pm, in case you want to greet me at the airport with candy.

But in my last week, I would love it if you would please pray for these things:

-the health of my host family

-that I keep following God's plan

-for safety in the youth events I'm leading

-for safety as I travel

Thanks for reading and praying!

-chris

The Man or Woman Game

Why hello there, and welcome to one of my last updates of the summer. I only have two and a half weeks left of internship shenanigans before I reenter the glorious Midwest, so I’m soaking up the golden coast goodness while I can.

Speaking of that same golden goodness, I preached my first sermon this past Wednesday at the local retirement facility. The residents were quite complementary of my preaching, which I appreciated, but really I think I could have read Mother Goose poems to them and still have received similar appreciative reactions.

Probably my favorite part about the whole experience happened before I even stood up to preach. I was reminded once again of the joys of being in an environment in which secrets must be shouted in order to be heard, when an old lady sitting four seats down the row from me leaned over to her friend and asked loudly,

“Is that a man or a woman?”

I’ll admit it; the classic “Man or Woman Game” is played from time to time amongst the Vanderzee brothers, but usually, the individual in question and most other innocent bystanders are unable to hear the inquiry. I had a tough time stifling my laughter as I imagined how wonderful life would be if I could be like that old lady and spend the next sixty years assigning genders to the ambiguously dressed.

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell who the old lady was talking about. I’m fairly sure that it wasn’t my personal gender that was in question, but just in case, I’m growing out my beard for when I come back to preach next week.

In all seriousness, I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare to give my second and final sermon of the summer next Wednesday. Also, if you could pray for the community of Rosewood Church, that they might continue to share in God’s love.

Thank you! Have a wonderful day!

-chris

SERVE and Surf

Hello there, faithful readers,

I just finished a week of SERVE. It was a great week of hundreds of high schoolers and their leaders getting involved in the community. However, due to a number of colliding factors, I almost went crazy. Symptoms of insanity began my first night sleeping on the concrete floor of a Sunday School classroom, suffocating from the smell of the high school guys and their unbelievable amounts of cologne. It only made matters worse when these guys started working out in the sun and their cologne clouds mated with their body odor to create a hellish lovechild of unprecedented stench. As if that weren't enough to make me go crazy, I also endured a twenty minute van ride each day listening to nothing but the latest Top 40 singles. If I hear "California Girls" one more time, I'm going to snap. Combine those factors with a severe lack of sleep and a serious lack of alone time and it's a wonder that I'm still functioning.

It's probably because God showed up this week. Big time. He was busy changing lives. Breaking the hearts of the proud and giving hope to the disadvantaged. I was a bit skeptical of SERVE at the beginning having never participated in it before. But now I'm a believer. I'm a SERVE fan.

As a way of unwinding from the madness of SERVE, I went surfing. Yep, one of the deacons and I decided to skip the first service on Sunday and catch some waves. I know, there are several things wrong with that picture, but I had a blast, so it's ok. Though to be honest, no one in their right mind would truthfully call what I did "surfing." My morning activities that day would be more aptly described as, "swallowing salt water like it's my job while being tossed like a rag doll by the pounding surf."

I usually take that description and edit out all the words except for the last one, in order to save time.

It's workin' out pretty well for me.

If you are so inclined, however, I would love it if you would continue to pray for me. Here are some areas that you can focus on:

-that God would continue to guide my actions

-that my work here would be an effective contribution to the kingdom of God

-that I would continue meeting with God daily

-that those impacted by SERVE would continue to sense and follow the work of the Holy Spirit

Thank you! You all are so wonderful! Thanks for all of your support!

-chris

Raise Your Hand If You're Embarrassed!

Holy gravy boats, we've got so much going on in Bellflower right now. Let me just fill you in on a few of the most important details.

The other day, I was chatting it up with some of the moms of the kids I tutor on Tuesday nights. We were talking in Spanish, and right after I mentioned that I had studied in the Yucatan, they began mumbling something amongst themselves. I didn't catch much, but I did hear two key words: "William" and "Levy." Yup, I thought I had left that reputation in Mexico, but apparently not.

For those of you who don't know, William Levy was the star of a Spanish soap opera that was filmed in Merida, Mexico, where I studied last fall. Apparently he looks kind of like me. Whenever I wore sunglasses in Merida, I would usually receive a couple double-takes of people who thought they had seen their local TV celebrity.

You should google him, but maybe keep your kids out of the room when you do this, because before Billy Levy started acting, he did quite a bit of underwear modeling.

Yikes.

Moving on, this past Sunday, I was in charge of leading worship from acoustic guitar for both morning English services. We hadn't practiced during the week, so we got up ultra early to run through the songs. However, the church has kind of old sound equipment, and we wasted a lot of time trying different cables and direct boxes, searching for the cause of my guitar not coming through the sound system. After about 45 minutes of stressful waiting around, my bassist made an off-hand joke about how I probably just needed to turn my volume up.

I looked down at the guitar and, lo and behold, there was a volume knob, and it was set at zero. I sighed in embarrassment and switched it back to it's regular church setting of eleven, and told the sound guy my huge mistake. He almost stabbed me. Luckily, my Cousin Becky tackled him, sending the knife flying harmlessly into the empty pews.

That was a close one.

But yeah, things are getting pretty wild around here. SERVE starts this week Saturday. Click here to find out what SERVE has done in other cities. Oh wait! Click here. That's better.

In order to get ready for SERVE to come to our church, we made some videos that demonstrate the basic rules for the arriving students and leaders. My main participation involved donning a bikini top in order to show why we aren't allowing 2-piece bathing suits. There's nothing like a hairy man in a bikini to help kids remember the rules.

The pandemic of nightmares might be the only serious drawback from showing such a great video. That and I've completely lost all of my shame. Shoot.

Right now you're probably thinking, "This boy needs prayer." And you're right! Here are some things that you can pray about:

-That God would be present and tangible during SERVE

-That all of the participants would be excellent witnesses to Christ's love

-That the Rosewood staff would remain in prayer, rather than trying to administrate this behemoth of a youth program by themselves

Thank you for reading! Y'all are great!

-chris

Attack!

Friends. I'm afraid I find myself under attack.

The other day, I was minding my own business just riding my bike home from church in the bike lane of a busy California road, when out of the blue, someone drove by in a green SUV and threw a water balloon at me. Luckily, this person, along with lacking kindness, lacked quite a bit of aim. The balloon exploded on my front tire and left me shocked but mostly unaffected. But I still wonder what could possess a person to do such a thing.

This is just speculation, but I am positive it was an executive from BP, setting an example for the consumers by gallivanting around in a gas-guzzler while doing his best to discourage users of non-gas-powered transportation. He's just fussy because everyone's mad at him. Poor billionaire.

On a more serious note, things are kickin' into high gear around here. Our Wednesday night programs start tonight and I'm leading worship on Sunday and we are hosting a SERVE youth conference in a bit more than a week. Also, tomorrow I'm heading up to Camp Dunamis for a day or two to help their staff and to hang out with the kids. It should be great. The camp is similar to Camp Tall Turf in that it focuses on kids and staff living together in diversity and experiencing God.

I'm excited.

But when this much good is happening for God's Kingdom, we can be sure that the Devil will be working hard against it, and his attacks might be a bit more serious than water balloons. Please pray for me and for the church in all of our upcoming ministry events. And pray for me, that I may trust God to work through me, rather than just asking him to bless what I already decided to do.

Thank you. Y'all are great.

Peace.

-chris

Reaching Back #3

Let me reach back once again into my memory of the past two weeks.

My work has consisted of many meetings. I meet with three mentors, Pastor Bonny, Pastor Dan, and Ryan. Pastor Dan is the funny and passionate senior pastor. Pastor Bonny is the hard-working, hospitable family ministries pastor. Ryan is the director of a local non-profit that specializes in community development. I am learning so much from each of them. In order to fill my days with even more meetings, I have been attending meetings for various comittees and for the staff. I serve as a tiny voice with no voting powers on each of these comittees, much like Pastor Bruce for Fifth Reformed's leadership meetings, or like Guam's representative in U.S. Congress. But really, I enjoy it.

I spend time between meetings organizing and leading various worship services, hanging out with sick people and homeless people, tutoring, getting ready for various church events, and secretly checking the scores of the world cup matches.

Basically, my life is pretty sweet. I went to Hungtington Beach with Cousin Tyler and his lady-friend last Monday. We saw dolphins, napped in the sun, and then went body surfing. Unfortunately, we got called in from the waves on two separate occasions due to riptides developing in the swimming area. Those lifeguards are killjoys.

At church, I'm beginning to see that my role might be aptly described as the Official Office Utility Player. I do everything from data entry to worship leading, from teaching 6^th grade Sunday school to preaching at a nursing home.

Yesterday, I visited a very sick woman named Nadine. She is only about 40 years old, but she has spent the last ten years or so in a hospital bed set up in her living room. She used to have a great voice, but now she is barely audible due to her tracheotomy. She has such spirit, though. She is a passionate Christ follower, and the movement of the Holy Spirit was more tangible during that visit than it has been for me for weeks.

Praises:

-a great host family
-the presence of God
-that I'm learning so much

Requests:

-that I continue to abide in Christ
-for Nadine
-for the ministry of Rosewood Church
-for the ministry of Kingdom Causes

Peace.

-chris