This is what I shared at Riverview Evangelical Free Church last Sunday. So if you read here regularly, nothing new, but I like to make these things available. :)
Hello everyone! I'm James. For those of you who are like "who is this guy?" I lived here seven years as a kid, was homeschooled and then went to Potter and Fallbrook High before moving to Florida and going to the University of Oklahoma and getting a degree in English Writing. I'm a musician and poet, and I'm a missionary. In the past three years, I've done short-term missions in Russia, Lithuania, Guatemala, and Mexico, as well as spending nine months volunteering with homeless youth in New Jersey and six months with a Children's Home in Mexico. I feel called to work with orphans and street kids I think in Kyrgyzstan, which is in the mountains between (POINT TO MAP) China, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan. I've learned a lot in these past couple years, I have a lot of crazy stories, and I want to share some of them with you.
Some of you are probably looking at what you want to do with your lives, what college you want to go to or what you want to end up doing. Have you asked God what He wants to do with your life? When I was looking at what college to go to, I was pretty set on Arizona, because it was the closest I could get to my girlfriend, who was here in Fallbrook and ended up going to Westmont, it was also far away from the South, which drove me crazy, because everybody there said they were a Christian, but for most people it didn't mean anything. Whereas here in Fallbrook, it was almost cool to be a Christian, it was like you were a rebel or something. Or at least, you could talk about God without people getting too uptight. Anyways, my parents kept arguing against me going to Arizona, and I was like "well, I guess God gave me my parents, but I don't know..." And it was between Arizona and Oklahoma, and I was praying in the car, and I looked up and there in Florida there was a University of Oklahoma bumper sticker on the car in front of me. So...I went to Oklahoma and God used me there and taught me many things there, including a bit of Russian.
But I kept coming back here to Riverview to go to Mexico in the Summers. When I was in 8th grade, I had been really struggling to figure out if this God thing was real, if church was real. And when I went to Mexico with Riverview, I saw the church. There were three churches working together trying to love kids. It was awesome, even though I was really awkward and plugged up the toilet and didn't have the guts to tell anybody, God used me in the lives of these kids. The big thing I learned from Mexico was that God wanted to be involved in my everyday life. I felt like my life in school was meaningless, but when we were in Mexico, every person we met we were thinking about why God had put them in our path. I met one girl who was with the church there and she didn't show up one day, and the next day I'm like "hey where were you" and she's like "working" and I'm like "working, you don't have a job" and she's like "well, I was praying in the morning, and I felt God wanted me to go over here and work for Him." And I was like "whoa. I want to live like that." And I wanted and tried to live like that here in the US, and sometimes it worked well, but most of the time I was afraid of other people and I want to please people and be good at things, so I had a really hard time letting God be more important than school or my friends.
One year in México the Pastor told us about "treasure hunts," praying for God to show us what he wanted to show us during the day. So we prayed in the car and wrote down whatever came into our minds. And one of the things was "brown horse" and about 11 o'clock this guy rides past our site on a brown horse and I see him and I'm like "dang" and Sami Geikie yells at me and is like "JAMES!!! BROWN HORSE!!" And I'm like "Yeah, so, you saw him too..." But since I'm a leader and all, I decide to go follow him, but he turns a corner and disappears and I'm like...hmm...and I look around, and I see pink flowers...which was another one of our images. But they were on every house on the street! I was very confused, and very sadly my response was "Uhh...God, I'm not talking to everyone on this street." So I started to go back, but I was so torn...I'm like just standing there. And these Mexican kids are there and they're like "What are you doing?" And I'm like..."well, praying, brown horse, and...I dunno..." And sure enough, as soon as I finished talking with them, the guy on the brown horse passes within five feet of us, and so I stop him and I'm like, hey we were praying, and brown horse was something we got, can we pray for you or something? And he was like "pray for my family" and left. And so I prayed for him with these five Mexican kids.
Another time in Mexico, I was all like "meh meh meh, it was better last year, the worship leader sucks and I miss the kids from the other site, God what am I doing here." The worship leader played "On Fire" by Switchfoot. It's not really a worship song. He only played it once. But it broke my heart, and I cried a lot and went out past the worship area, put my knees in the dirt and said "Ok God, wherever, whatever, and whenever you tell me to go, I'll go." I think most of us are willing to sing "God I'm yours" but in real life we're like "okay God, I'm gonna finish school and then I'm gonna get a job and get married, and you can have 10% of my money if I feel like it and we'll pray before meals."
You see, in the last few years, I've lost just about everything. I gave up track because I wanted more time to minister and play music, and in my mind I'm like 'oh man, I coulda been this fast, I got to 6th place in regionals in Florida." It was something I found my identity in. I gave up a scholarship to get my master's because I felt God was calling me to work with orphans. And honestly, I was afraid of God, because I knew God wanted everything inside me, but I didn't want to lose myself. There's a Barlowgirl song that basically says "Hey God, I know you're calling me to surrender my life to you, but don't see these dreams I have, they're me." We find our identities in so many things. I mean, ya'll have facebook? What do you have on your facebook page? It's basically all these markers of your "identity." And facebook is funny, cuz it's never gonna cover how complex any of you really are, and you're probably not gonna put things like "oh I snore when I sleep and I like the taste of boogers." So God's been trying to teach me, hey you can find yourself in me.
I think my biggest fears were that I'd run out of money, and lose my girlfriend. I dated a girl who's dad was the pastor at Fallbrook Pres, and we were in a relationship for seven years, but three years ago, I messed up, because I was afraid, and we broke up. I'd lost the girl who I thought was the one. I was on a missions trip in Mexico, this was my first missions trip I'd done on my own, I flew to Mexico City, did a trip with a group there, and spent some time with this family, the Zaragozas. Julie is a pastor's kid from Indiana, and Victor was a gangster in Mexico City who became a Christian. They've adopted 15 kids and Victor does evangelistic medical missions trips all through Mexico. After that we flew and bussed to Guatemala, and did a week missions trip there with a group from Missouri and Oregon. So I've got like just enough money for this trip, I had $200 left in my bank account, which was more than enough to buy a bus ticket from Mexico City back to the Oklahoma. Guatemala was intense, like I washed the feet of this sixteen year old who was completely uncomfortable and all the guys who were there were saying nasty things to her, but she sat through it all just to get a pair of socks. We played with kids who lived and worked in a dump, and were covered in garbage, and the other moms were like "don't play with those kids, you'll get dirty." We helped out at a after-school place, where the purpose of this school, basically, was to keep kids away from the gangs for as much of the day as possible. I also talked to guys who had been deported from the US at a soup kitchen. Did you know that the strongest gang in Latin America was started by LA gangsters who were deported? But God's working too...I met two "brothers" who came to Christ in the US prisons, and when they were deported, decided to work in drug rehab and as pastors standing against the gangs in Guatemala. I met a couple girls in Guatemala who, instead of going to college, decided to move to Guatemala and work with the kids there. One girl from Texas was a missionary there, 18 years old. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, BUT set the example, in love, faith, and purity. And I'm gonna add to that, in humility. Because you have a lot to learn, and if you want to do something well, you need to talk to and learn from everyone you can.
So anyways, I leave Guatemala, and I'm like, well these Quetzales aren't worth anything in Mexico, so I bought myself a little trinket, and had like 40 cents' worth left. I go into Mexico, go to eat dinner, and I'm literally counting my pesos and everything I buy to make sure I have enough for dinner. And I have enough, and one peso more. Then I cross the street to go to the ATM, and my debit card is gone. I've bought my bus ticket to Mexico City, my bus is leaving in 30 minutes, and I have one peso and a couple quetzales. The whole 18 hour bus ride, I don't eat, I don't drink, I'm just trying to figure out how to escape this situation. I get to TAPO, which is this huge bus station, and I'm going around asking if I can use somebody's phone, but people are like, yeah right, you're a gringo and you don't have enough money to make a phone call? So I go outside the bus station, because, honestly, I'm gonna cry. I'm thinking about how long it will take me to make enough money for the bus ticket home with my mandolin. And this lady sits beside me, asks me to practice English with her son, and after a while, I tell her what's going on, and she just leaves. But about ten minutes later she comes back and gives me 50 pesos. I immediately buy some water and some donuts, and I'm trying to figure out how to get back. My phone isn't working, and the battery is dying. My charger is lost. Finally, I call Verizon's tech support, and they put me through to the family I stayed with in Mexico before. And they tell me, oh yeah, there's a bus from there to here, it should cost 25 pesos, and I'm like, I think I have 28 pesos, perfect. I go to the counter. "Tepetlixpa." And they say 32 pesos. And I'm like 27-28, shake the wallet out...30, 31, 33 pesos. One more than I needed, AGAIN. On the way back, my phone died, and I got off at the wrong spot, but Pastor Victor prayed and found me at the next stop. God provided just enough. Just enough to keep going forward. If you walk in faith, you will always have enough. Now, what is enough? Last year I thought I was going to have to hitchhike to get to the next place I was serving. But I was like, ok God, if you're in this, you'll provide the people to take me there.
When I got back to the Zaragozas', the kids were all like "See James, God didn't want you to leave." I was like, you're cute kid, but stop confusing me. A year later, I did go back to the Zaragozas, and spent six months with them. I taught those kids English and music and helped with everything else, and lead worship on four different medical missions, and they made me a dental assistant. I'm a poet, an artist, I never DREAMED that I'd be assisting Mexican dentists inside an infamous prison in Acapulco. But that's how God works sometimes.
I left Mexico Tuesday night. On Monday night I was hugging these two kids who were crying because I'm leaving and I'm like "James, you're an evil person, you're abandoning kids who's defining moment in life was being abandoned by their parents." And this song came on by Michelle Tumes and it was "Wouldn't you say that life is beautiful." And I was like, you know, it really is. Although all these people I've met in these last six months, I don't know if I'll ever see them again, God used them in my life, and used me in their lives, and I know I've touched many people. So even though it hurts, okay God. And then the next song, my computer was on random, was a worship song, one of my favorites, "You won't relent until you have it all, my heart is yours." And I was angry. I'm like God, I have nothing left. I've invested in these people and now they're gone. I have a couple hundred bucks that I'm gonna buy my ticket to Lithuania with, I have a couple bags of stuff, and God, this hurts, and I just want to be loved, to be home. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT? I could get married if I stay. I could have a home. And I left the room for a while, and when I came back, there was this Don Francisco song on, "I will bring you home"...and it goes like this, "Though you're tired and homeless, I will be your home." And that promise from God, hey, I will bring you home, you follow me. I think that's one of the most beautiful moments God has spoken to me.
I've learned a lot in these past couple years. I read this book "When Helping Hurts," and it talked about how you know sometimes, making an orphanage creates orphans. Hear me out, so if you're an African mom who only has enough money to feed your nine kids a little rice one time a day and then this orphanage is built in your village...and you know, that if you send your kid there, they'll get an education and three meals a day, what do you do? Most of the moms will send kids there. So a kid who had a mom, doesn't have a mom anymore. We have to be smart about how we serve God and others. It's really easy to do more harm than good. I have a friend, she's a cutter. And I felt like "I have to help her, I'm her only hope, she might kill herself." And sometimes, maybe that was true. But over time, we were just using each other, doing more harm than good. I was using her to feel good about myself, to be the good guy, I can help. And she was using me to get attention when she felt bad. But in the end, because I was trying to be the good guy, I wasn't ready to help her get beyond her habit of acting out to get attention. Because I wanted to be the good guy. The United States of America, and most other rich nations, I wrote my college capstone about this, gives poor countries lots of "aid" so they can be the good guy. They buy products from American companies, and then give them to a country or loan money to a country so they can buy them. But in many cases, the aid does more harm than good. It takes away jobs. It takes away people's motivation to work. And it takes away people's motivation to solve their own problems. Haiti is a great, terrible example of this. Does that mean we shouldn't be involved? No. It means we should be smart about how we're involved. Many orphans' organizations, for example, have realized that orphanages should be the last resort. They've moved to feeding programs, starting community schools, so that those kids can stay with their families. They've started foster programs with local churches, because, as the US and Europe have seen, foster care is better for the kids and more efficient. Speaking of foster care, I heard a guy, 30 years old from Oklahoma. His little church decided to find good Christian homes for 200 foster kids. And they did. They changed the way the state of Oklahoma does their foster care, because it worked so well. So let's get practical. You meet a homeless guy, do you give him money? No, unless you really see something different or God tells you to, you don't. Most homeless people use money for drugs. I usually offer, if I can, any food I have on me. Or even better, sometimes I offer to take somebody to lunch. I brought a homeless guy to my job once and had lunch with him. I let him stay in my apartment, slept in the same room. The guys living with me stole stuff from me, watched porn on my computer, and left without paying rent. He just slept there for the night and then took the bus to the city in the morning. Listen, you're all rich, or you'll have the chance to be some day. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself, when you have an extra bed, and your neighbor doesn't have one?
You know, there's only so much you can do with money. My campus minister at Oklahoma told me once, "Time is the most limited resource you have. Don't worry about money, money will come." Money is important, but money can't hold a crying baby. My sister lives in Lithuania and she goes to the local baby orphanage with her friends to hold babies, because if babies aren't held, they shrivel up, they don't develop, they just turn into vegetables. Anyways, last summer we had a birthday party for one of my friends who lives in an orphanage. She's 12, and she's kinda a part of our family, I talk to her in Russian and my sister talks to her in Lithuanian. Anyway, at 9pm, she had to go back to the orphanage, and she didn't want to go. But she went, and I carried her on my shoulders, and she started singing to us "Happy Birthday to James, happy birthday to Kate..." and she named all of us, and I was like, you're silly. It starts raining, and she was like "James, my present" and I her presents are in my hands, was like "they're ok," it's not raining hard. But then she keeps going again. "Kate, my present, Steve, my present. Diane, my present. And of course, she included the cat, Mishkas." And I can't think of a better picture for that truth. Time and presence are the most powerful gifts you have to give someone. I'm a firm believer that the best way to share the gospel isn't to hold it out like it was a flier or an ad. I believe the best way to share the gospel is to invite people in. Invite people into your life, to go serve with you, to pray with you, to eat with you, to live with you. If God has really changed your life, they will see it. You don't have to preach, if you love God, you're gonna talk about him. If you love your friend, you're going to ask questions and point them to God.
And that's what I want to leave you with. Listen, there's nothing religious you do that get you right with God. This Christianity thing, all these trips and service things, are good and beautiful. But the reason I do these things, is because God has touched my life through them, and because I want to know Him more, and I want to follow Him. For a lot of my time in Mexico I sucked, I didn't take time to pray, I was just spazzing and I was like "God, I don't have time for you, I'm too busy doing ministry." When Jesus got too busy doing ministry, he went away from everything to pray. If you haven't seen God or experienced him, or if you have, I urge you to look. Dude, if there's a God in this universe, you wanna know right? And the thing is, no science, no book can substitute for a relationship. Pray, seek answers, ask God to show up. If you're a Christian, don't settle for the house and car and nice job, even if you have those things, see how much you can give away. God wants to use you. Are you ready? Are you open to the adventure He has planned? Even if you lose all the things that make people think you're cool and popular and rich and smart? What did God make you for? I don't know. I have a lot of friends. I know a couple dentists who are transforming lives through the way they do dentistry. This guy, he puts so much love, and care, into each person, the love of God is so EVIDENT in how he does free dental care. Another dentist cleaned my teeth for free cuz I'm a missionary and don't have insurance, but as far as where she fits in the kingdom, she's in charge of the young adult ministry at our church in Mexico, and she leads them on outreaches like twice a month or more. You see, if you're a Christian, you're called to be a missionary. The only question is how and where. I'm good at cross-cultural stuff. I speak three languages, I play guitar, I moved 10 times before I left high school. You know what though, I didn't start speaking my second language and playing guitar until I was 15. Two weeks ago I recorded and co-wrote a batch of Spanish worship songs. God has amazing plans for you in the next 10 years, even the next two years. But you have to ready. You have to seek him. You have to put in time reading his word, praying, trying to put faith into practice. You have to start learning new things, and you have to learn to do things that right now you're bad at. I pray for my friends, sometimes I still have no clue what to say. But I keep doing it. You know what? If you feel weak, God says His power is made perfect in our weaknesses. PERFECT. God's not looking for perfect people. He's not looking for the best. He's looking for the ones who are looking for Him. The ones who are ready to say, "ok God, you want it all, here it is. What do you want to do with my life?" You've each been given many opportunities. This state is the world leader in producing art and media, you're getting a good education, you have unlimited resources to learn about the Bible, and there are hundreds of ways in which you can serve God's kingdom. You know what I can do: I can pray. I can sing. I can write. I can hug. I can listen. I can speak. I can fetch dental instruments. I can teach. I can make food for people and invite them over. If I have, I can give. It doesn't matter how much is in my bank account. The most it's ever been is like $2000 and it's run out more than once, if I see somebody who needs something and God puts them in my path, I'm gonna do what I can. It's not complicated. It's hard.
Anyways, what questions do you have for me?
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