Second Half of our Awesome Trip

After White Sands, we drove to Carlsbad Caverns.  When we were taking this picture, I had to put the camera on my car and time it just right.  In order to get the right angle, I drove my car up on the sidewalk...just a little, and along came a park ranger who asked me to back it up.  I did, but seriously, my right front wheel was only an inch on the pavement...haha!

This place was cool.  Full of stalactites, stalagmites, and bat guano (aka bat crap).  Apparently the stuff is a valuable fertilizer.  No bats there right now, but from March through October they roost here and fly out of the huge cave each evening to feed.  We walked around two and a half miles throughout the cave and they just discovered another path within the cavern that extends 140 miles.  This is a site to see if you're ever driving through New Mexico.  Maybe the Norwegians can come out here for Thanksgiving some year and we'll go see these awesome places.

This is a display a the Roswell Alien Museum depicting an alien body recovered from the UFO crash in 1947.  Some believe it to be true and call it "The Great Cover Up," because of their belief that the U.S. government recovered a space ship and three alien bodies.  Some believe it to be a hoax.  When reading about all this, it is pretty convincing...but who knows.  I'd like to think it were true and think it would be pretty cool if we made contact with other intelligent beings, in our lifetime.  When I told one of my mentors that we were going to visit Roswell, he said, "So you're going to visit your relatives" (referring to the aliens, of course).

But here is one of my distant relatives, for reals, Billy the Kid.  There is a story in my family that Billy the Kid was not actually killed by Pat Garrett in 1881 and was not William H. Bonney but that his death was faked and he lived until 1950 as Brushy Bill Roberts.

The final stop on our trip was Ruidoso.  We stayed here a couple of days and marveled at the tremendous amount of wooden bears carved with chainsaws.  Chances are that if you have on of these bears it came from Ruidoso, NM.

Ruidoso also had an awesome coffee shop called Sacred Grounds.  Too bad we found it on our way OUT of town and only spent a few minutes there.

We had a great time on our trip and wanted to share some of it with you all.  This week....PORTLAND!

Trip Through Southern New Mexico

Hanne and I decided to take a spontaneous trip this week.  Yesterday we drove through the Valley of Fire, which consists of a number of lava fields and is pretty magnificent.  This is also the area where the first atomic bomb was tested.  Shortly after this first test (a little over a month) the bombs were dropped on Japan.  It was crazy standing there and thinking about that.

This morning we went to White Sands National Monument.  The above pictures don't do justice to the sand dunes.  The dunes are made up of gypsum and are white as snow and amazingly beautiful.  Hanne and I hiked up to the top of one of the dunes and read Scripture and prayed together.  It was a cool place for a devotional.  There is no place like this in the world.  Holloman Air Force Base is close by and they use this area for missile testing.  When I think about this area being used for this testing, it takes away from some of its natural beauty, in my mind at least.  It's unfortunate that no matter what we are surrounded by and no matter how unique something may be, humanity's tendency is to be destructive.  However, I suppose that this wide open space is ideal for missile testing.  I simply find it unfortunate that we feel the need to test missiles to promote or protect, however you want to look at it, our own interests. This is a whole different conversation than the one I intended to write about but one that I found myself contemplating at the Valley of Fire and White Sands.  May the Word of God break through the violence and oppression that continually plagues our world and may we one day look to his Word (rather than human authority, force, violence, and oppression) for answers.  I have faith and trust that one day he will restore all things...

Tomorrow we are going to Carlsbad Caverns, another place which is one of a kind.  Our plan from there is to visit the aliens in Roswell and then hang out for a day or two in the forest of Ruidoso.  Then it's back up to Albuquerque for a few days before we depart to Portland, OR where we will be undergoing an assessment with a missionary organization we might be working with while in Europe.

"Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.  For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie.  If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."
- Habakkuk 2:2-4

But for the Grace of God

I've been thinking a lot lately about the magnitude of God's grace. I lived a lot of my life up to a point trying to earn "success."  Success in accordance with wordly standards such as career, money, and social status. For me, success has mostly meant getting a decent education and having enough money to pay my bills and live. I decided early in my life that I was not going to let the amount of money that I have dictate my worth, however, I often compare myself to my peers based on the wordly standards I mentioned above...all centering on money.

I find myself dwelling on this subject in this time because I have found that when I reach particular goals in my life, such as recently finishing my masters degree, they are not nearly as fulfilling as I thought they would be.  Nothing ever seems to be enough.  So, as soon as I reach one goal, I'm off and running to the next.  However, when I take pause and contemplate what's really important, I find fulfillment in the fact that God loves me no matter what I do, no matter how much money I make, no matter what my social standing is. His grace has permeated through all of the messed up things that I've done in my life and despite those messed up things (a lot of which should have landed me in jail or dead) he still says that he loves me...and that is nothing short of a miracle to me.  I do not have have to earn success in his eyes. And that is what is important to me today: recognizing that God is the one in whom my faith lies, not power, money, or fame. Ultimately these things don't matter. There is so much bondage in this world and when we chase "success" we only recede deeper into the dungeon. There is freedom in God's grace and a deep fulfillment in his love.  I easily revert back to measuring myself and my worth by this world, so for me, it is a daily receiving of God's abundant and unconditional grace that sustains me.

I can't imagine living my life the way I once did, holding the measuring stick of the world.  It's a constant cycle of trying to live up to a meaningless standard.  Today, I choose to throw away that measuring stick and simply rest in the arms of God, who loves and extends grace to all of his creation unconditionally.

Days of Pain, Days of Grace

So, these last few days have been very painful as I caught pneumonia last week and have probably never been sicker in my life; but they have made me feel very fortunate as well.  First off, I used to have to go through things like this by myself, but now, I have someone to go through them with.  I have caught myself on numerous occasions thinking how I get to go through everything, good and bad, with Hanne, which is an overwhelmingly great feeling.

Second, when I went to the hospital the other night, I was given excellent care.  They ran all kinds of tests and made sure they knew what I had, how to treat it, and that I knew what was going on.  Again, I couldn't help thinking how fortunate I am.  The reality is that the majority of the world does not have access to that kind of care and that had the kind of pneumonia that I have is left untreated, it could be fatal.  So, if I was born somewhere else in the world or didn't have health care here...well, who knows.  Kinda makes me wonder sometimes, why me?  I suppose I could speculate on that all day.  I don't know why me, but what I do know is that God does not want me to squander what he's given me.

So, I guess, at this moment, I am even more motivated to show love, grace, and mercy to others in the same way that God has shown these to me.  I am excited to take it to the streets, and rather than take what he has given me for granted, to cherish it, and give it to others...

Also, a really cool thing happened the night I got really sick (Wednesday night).  I had never felt more miserable in my life.  I was coughing up blood non-stop and couldn't sleep.  We were contemplating going to the ER that night, and in hindsight, we should have.  Anyway I couldn't stop coughing so I asked Hanne to pray for me, she did, I stopped coughing, and slept for a little bit.  I woke up a bit later and again was coughing and couldn't sleep.  Hanne prayed for me again and I fell asleep again. 

This is going to be an exciting month for Hanne and me.  We are sharing our vision and calling with a church plant this upcoming Sunday (as long as I'm feeling better) and plan on meeting with others throughout the month to share what God is calling us to do.  And, at the end of the month, we go to Portland, OR where we will be attending a conference with a missionary organization we are thinking about partnering with. 

We miss all our friends in CA!