October is Over...YESSSS!!!....November is gone and December is here

October

October was rough for me. I am still getting acclimated to my new job. Much of my stress came from the many mistakes I made in this new job. I realized that too much of my joy was relying on how well I FELT I did and not on the joy that I have in Christ. I should be unconditionally joyful because of the liberty and life that He gives me. However, I was rendered powerless as I was often at the mercy of my own condemnation. My constant attempts to look responsible and professional in front my superiors thwarted my ability to just be me and live in the overflow of talent and ability God has blessed me with. My downfalls at work coupled with communication issues with my girlfriend, Sharon made October truly dark month. It was Halloween everyday for me.

November

I was hoping that November would be a lot better for me and it was. I feel more comfortable in my new job and I and Sharon are communicating a lot better. In fact we got engaged this past November during Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm Baaaaaaack

It has been awhile since I made an update to my blogspot. I'm not sure who is reading these (if anybody is reading them at all). Since my hiatus I have done a few things. I believe last time I wrote on this blog I was a super senior at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Since then I have graduated with a Bachleors of Applied Arts in Sport Studies. I am now the first person from my immediate family(biological and adopted) to graduate with a degree from a four year university.

It has been a long journey. I was reminded of this fact today when I sat in on a district wide counselors meeting and came across two of my elementary teachers.

WAIT A MINUTE SLOW DOWN... So after I graduated I worked one of the most challenging in rewarding jobs I've ever worked in my life, YouthWorks. YouthWorks is an international Christian organization based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This organization facilitates short-term mission trips throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. I was assigned to work with a group of four in Chicago, IL in a neighborhood called Humboldt Park.(More from my YouthWorks summer soon) After about 3 months in Chicago I headed back home where I would apply for and get an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer position with GEAR UP.

I started that position in mid-September...back to the story

Here we were reminiscing in this meeting about a younger me in elementary and some of the other people I hung with. We updated each other on how some of those people, that they taught and I hung out with, were doing and where they were now.

It's funny how time speeds by. Sometimes it feels like I was a child yesterday. Truly this life is but a vapor.

Aunt Val

I was cycled through the foster care system when I was a child. My mother was not able to take care of me. Because of my mother’s inability to take care of me I often was under the care of other family members and strangers. One of those family members that took me in for a brief moment in my lifetime was my Aunt Valerie. I vaguely remember my time with her being that I was so young when I did spend time with her. I do remember her daughter Asia was my favorite cousin at the time. Eventually, I would be separated from my family and adopted by the Davis family whom I have been with since I was seven years old. I did not keep much contact with my biological family. I would occasionally get calls from my sister, Angel, and visit my grandmother. During the summer after my high school graduation, my sister came from Texas with my her eldest children, at the time her only children. We were reunited after years of being apart. She came up to attend a funeral of a cousin of ours. She and her children were staying at my Aunt Val’s. To my surprise, my Aunt Val lived relatively close to my house at that time. I ended up staying over my Aunt Val’s house reminiscing with my sister and getting to know the younger generations of my family. The most memorable moment I can recall in regards to Aunt Val and this time spent together is when she found out that I could have attended some really prestigious schools, but instead I was getting ready to attend Central Michigan University. That was the first time in a long time any family member adopted or biological had anything of substance to say about my educational future. Such an act may seem simple, but I saw it as a gesture of compassion. She showed me that she cared for my future.

See my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer the Saturday before Thanksgiving 2009. And I am asking for my friends and family to help her in any way they can or wish to. My grandmother has set up an account for donations. I am also looking for fund-raiser ideas. If you can please help in anyway possible.

Currently, I am planning a benefit concert for late March early to mid April to offset her medical expenses. I am going to need help organizing the concert and securing a venue. I still am looking for people to perform also.

If you can not donate please come to the concert to support anyways. I would like to record the event and send it to my Aunt so that she can see that people care and she is not alone.

If you can donate here is some information for you:

"N The Pink" FM financial credit union 606 Stevens PO Box 97 Flint, Mi 48501 Acct # 25006 Routing # 272479977

Visit Nthepink.org

IC wins $1,000,000

A Million Thanks

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Alisa McNerney: I'm Only Yours Now!

Here is yet another response, from my friend Alisa McNerney, to the H.O.M.E. trip to Detroit.

So many times God slaps us in the face and wakes us up. We are an ungrateful people and some of us don’t even realize it. It’s the way the world has trained us to live. We go around every day thinking about things that we need, where we need to be, what grade we need to get or how much money things for ourselves are going to cost. It’s such a hard thing to come to terms with sometimes because it’s hard to specifically pick out just what we struggle with when it comes to be “self centered”, but sin has made us this way.

Today I joined about 60 people walking the streets of Detroit, passing out lunches and other necessities to the people in need. It was sure a splash of cold water right in my face! I’ve been walking around the last three weeks worrying about my feelings being hurt, about the needs that I’ve been faced with and how I’ve been making day after day about finding a job or making money to meet my needs. While all those things are legitimate things to be worried about it’s definitely not something that has happened that should be consuming my every being and it has.

While sitting in a hotel room the size of the smallest room in my house and listening to a broken woman talk about her life I was struck with this truth, who are we to make life about our troubles every day when there are people in so much pain that they’d rather take their own life to find freedom from their sufferings, then live another day of trying to hide their misery. This precious lady had grandkids and people she loved and you could tell that she loved them dearly, but she was so weary, so tremendously sick of the things she had to deal with every day that she kept repeating to us “I’m tired, I’m just ready to be done”. I’ve been living in the Alisa pity party and it wasn’t until today that I realized that I’m okay, I have the healer on my side and he’s here holding my hand, just a word away from rescuing me. I got the privilege, or maybe the honor of spending wonderful time with people who are just grateful to wake up every morning. I was lifted up to a place where my brain can now work properly, with my priorities in check and a brand new perspective on any situation I could face. Holding onto the promise of God in Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I cling to this, but in a different way after today. I want to cling to it in a way so as to give it away more then I use it for myself. If people who are homeless, jobless, moneyless, sick, heartbroken, tired and hurt all at one time can wake up every morning with a grateful attitude then I need to be following right along with them. Isn’t it sinful not to?
I found my joy today in stripping myself of all my concerns, of all my selfish ambitions and all my worries, of all who were surrounding me and of tomorrow and putting on the heart of Jesus by focusing all my attention on those who needed to know the Lord. My precious lady friend had a warm place and she had a family who loved her enough to come once a month to take her shopping and spend time with her, but she is dying on the inside because she has yet to cling to that perspective that God slapped me in the face with today. God is our joy in any situation!!! So I vow right now, with you as my witness, to find joy not in doing things deliberately to make myself happy, but by deliberately helping others to have joy, to find God and to love others just as God loved us. “If God woke us up this morning why would we let man steal our joy?”

I’m left at the end of this amazing day, full of so many joyful tears to have met so many amazing creations of God. To have shared in prayer after prayer and need after need and knowing that God makes all this possible. I’m left with only a couple pictures and a drawing by a much respected man, but really nothing at all but the bonds we started with these people, with these angels that God is stirring inside. God really is everywhere and he’s reaching even into the darkest places of this world, but not without our help. Who wants to join me in this vow, in this promise to the Lord that we will live each day to serve him by loving others? I’m sure if you walked those streets today you’d be broken down inside enough to know that the broken feeling isn’t a terrible pinch, but a powerful prick that’s pushing us to be all that we were created to be. This is what we were intended for, to live, yes, to be joyful and have amazing dance parties with our friends and crazy movie nights till wee hours of the night, but we were intended to be 100% focused on God and to be touching the hearts of his people who need him over those things. Who’s in? Who wants to be completely satisfied by God? Because after this blessed day I sure am.

“I need You like a hurricane,
Thunder crashing, wind and rain,
To tear my walls down,
I’m only Yours now!”
-Jimmy Needham

Let's Go H.O.M.E.

Homeless Outreach and Ministry Equipping was formed as a mission to supply food, clothes and Bibles to the homeless, those living at the poverty level and anyone with an immediate need due to an emergency situation. H.O.M.E. also educates and equips individuals as well as churches of their responsibility to recognize and care for the poor in their local community and the inner cities.

Sam Franjione: Love to Serve

This past weekend students from Central Michigan University traveled to Detroit, MI to serve the homeless. My good friend Sam Franjione was one of those students. He wrote this article in response to his experience during this mission.

More than anything, I enjoy communication. Communicating with others is the only way to learn about anything in the world. Today when I traveled with fifty of my most dedicated friends down to Detroit, I had one goal in mind, give the people of Detroit hope. If we as one are able to give even a single person more hope than they had the day before, I would consider the trip a great success. The overwhelming truth of it is, when we went down there today, I think we gave so many more than just one individual hope. I had a few good conversations with the homeless, including a great conversation with one man.

He told me of his past and where he came from. He told me of the way that he was living his life, and about how he lived through God and how God showed through him. I prayed with him multiple times and each time I felt something that drew me closer to God. I can only hope that he had that same connection. You see, hope is just about everything that these people have. They don’t have a nice warm bed to go back to at night, they don’t have a nice warm shower to wake up in the morning, and they don’t even have a nice warm meal to go to at the end of the day. But one thing they do have, one thing that they have, possibly more than any one of us, is hope. Their hope is such a large part of their life, it overtakes the way they live and today I saw and I know so many more people saw that very hope.

One thing that I always thought was cool was the way when I’d get done watching Mighty Ducks, I’d always want to go out and play hockey in the street right afterwards. I’d go out with my brothers and friends and reenact scenes from the movie. But after a couple of hours, that feeling would fade away. Or when you watch a movie like the Notebook, or Titanic, and you feel that extra special feeling of love for a couple days. It’s the same thing as that feeling too, soon fades away. Even when you may be watching an inspirational speech from your idol or a pastor, and you do your best to live by their words for a couple of weeks, eventually in most cases unfortunately, that feeling is caught by your old self. But the thing I’m trying to say here, the point I’m making, is that with God… That feeling never leaves. He never leaves you. He always lives through you and you in him. You just have to let it happen for he is waiting.

And I can only hope that we fifty some odd people and so many more all over the world were able to give people that feeling of hope, the one that never leaves you. And the thing is, the people that receive the feeling don’t have to be homeless; they don’t have to be hungry. As a matter of fact, in most cases, the ones that need to have this feeling are the ones who have money, have flourished homes, and have advanced educations. For these people are the ones who are most able to help.

Just talking with people today, for example, from our group, it was just an amazing conversation and we all know that. But I hope that every single group had that experience and from what I could tell, they did. And I hope that every single group across the world, especially in Haiti, is able to have that same experience. The experience that not only brings you closer to God, but closer to the people. Today, just left me wanting to help even more. Thinking about all of the people, not only in Detroit, but here in Mt. Pleasant, any city, wherever you may be at right now, there are people that need your help. That I can promise. So whether you’re already involved in your church or your community, or whether you are looking for some way to reach out, just remember that there are people everywhere all of the time that can use your reaching hand.

I can’t help but think about all of the people across the world that are so less fortunate than we are. The little things that we complain about, the little things that we can’t seem to get over in life are the blessings to others. What’s the worst thing that can happen to us? If I can’t make my next college payment for some reason, I’ll still have a home to go back to with my family. If my home is repossessed and I have no home, I still have family and friends with all of the love they share. Which is so much more just right there than the people we saw today had. It’s so unfortunate that they have so little to go back to. And when we left today, I was worried and prayed for all of those who we were unable to get to. Even those who we were able to get to, just that they would be okay for a little while, that they would have some place safe to go.

The bottom line is, we just take so much for granted and I really really dislike the fact that that’s the case. I wish so much that it wasn’t the case, but it is. There’s no better way to put it. The educations we receive, the job opportunity we have, the friends and family that bear their love with us, we should be so ridiculously grateful, but rarely we are. So I pray that we stay faithful, and continue to increase the amount that we are grateful for what we are given, and for what we have been blessed with. But there is one thing that we and the people of Detroit today had in common. We shared that one common bond, and that was God and the hope we have in him. Romans 15:4 says:

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

We must have hope, simple as that. And let that hope rest in the pwer of God for he has a plan for each and every one of us.


Love to Serve

Today we wandered near and far
Looking for hope to restore
In those who needed it most
Down to their very core

We served today for one reason
To give others a sense of hope
To let them live a life of freedom
Holding on to God as their rope

Hanging on
In everything they do
Letting God work through us
And working through them too

The truth that we found
Was extremely difficult to bear
For we saw tears shed
Tears that were concealed by thin, dry air

We did our best to give
To comfort them and provide
For those who needed it most
To slow down the oncoming high tide

These people need so much
And we can give so much more
Just with the praise of God
And do so through the Lord

Everyone who can help out the world
We now await that help of all
From the inner cities to third world countries
For so many of us will answer the call

Let us go now and serve
Loving all, living in style
For we have nothing to frown for
Proven by God giving us the ability to smile


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 40:31

Let us go to serve, love, and live through God
Peace.