I began my year with a trip to Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Chicago. On this trip we explored many diverse cultures and ministries in both Christian and other religious contexts. We visited the Temple of the Reformed Church of the Ladder Day Saint, a Hindu Temple, the church Jacob's Well, a Hindu worship service we were invited to by a group we ran into at the Plaza, and many more places. I learned a lot about each culture we studied and examined how to best spread the gospel with each culture we analyzed.
If this trip did not satisfy my wanderlust then the one in March certainly did at least for awhile. I journeyed with a small team to Cascade Pichon, Haiti to help build a school. Here I fell even more in love with development and working with other cultures. I got to see the beauty of all ages working together to build this place of learning and of a people working together to do their best with what they have. I learned about "dégagé" and creative lifestyles: it makes one want to strive to live simpler. In preparation for this trip I gave up social media in an effort to live more simply during the Lenten season and this mindset only continued after this trip. Haiti was life changing and was a trip my life had been building up to through my experience in Belize and then with my involvement in collecting shoes for Haiti for the past two years. This trip affirmed my love for cross cultural missions.
After an amazing trip, much to my lovely girlfriends dismay, I ventured to Birmingham, Alabama and then New Orleans, Louisianna for an exciting and busy summer working for youthworks. This trip affirmed my calling into youth ministry and helped me gain experience working with nonprofits. During the summer I really began to value community and see the importance of longevity and intentionality. I grew incredibly close to my team this year which showed me how invested into people's lives I can get in such a short time period. I had experienced this last summer, but my team in NOLA really showed me what a team family can be like.
Finally after 3 full months I returned to Ohio to see my lovely girlfriend and spend a few days volunteering at the camp that she works at. It was a nice transition from not seeing her and working 17 hour days. Returning to college and my dearest love, I had decided to focus on investing in the local community and giving back where I could. In order to do this I became a Student Mentor and Academic Peer Mentor at my university in order to invest into the lives of freshmen and those in my living area. If this did not keep me busy enough I decided to take on another job while striving to be actively involved with my local church--a small group of roughly 39-40 people who meet in a storefront. I became an Ambassador for YouthWorks which successfully fulfills my love of recruiting and allows me to stay connected with this organization which I have grown to love. Throughout my busy schedule I began learning a few French words when I would work in the cafeteria because my coworker is a native of Montreal and her first language was French.
In the midst of my busy schedule I was diving into my theology courses discussing Christian Holiness and Open theism. Through my theology course I realized that I believe in a cross between open theism and process theism. I was able to express my thoughts on open theism and God's foreknowledge through a paper that shares my belief that God fully knows the past, present, and is journeying into the many known and unknown possibilities of the future because God's very nature is love. This topic was one I had been thinking about all year. 2014 was a year of questioning and wrestling with God's nature and my own calling.
In the midst of all these findings I made one of the highest decisions of my life. I spontaneously proposed to my lovely girlfriend after the end of a fun weekend trip to Lexington, Kentucky. The rest of my year has been spent planning a wedding, reading theology, reading the life changing book "The Sparrow", learning to crotchet, traveling to both sets of families, and slowly becoming coffee experts with both automated and manual coffee makers.
As this year has come to an end it is easy to reflect on the good and bad parts of this crazy and adventurous year. I have learned many new skills, have gained new ideas and I have learned more what it means to love others. This morning I received a huge affirmation that my calling is for Youth ministry when I student from Youth Works contacted me on facebook and asked me for advice on how to get HIS youth group on a missions trip. It was exactly what I needed to end this year on a good note. I have also started making hats and now one pair of mittens so I would say it's gonna be a good year.
So here's to 2015! Here's to graduation, to getting married, to moving to a new town, to starting a new post-grad job, learning to make new clothes, and living a life of simplicity with my almost wife. Here's to a new year of adventures and love! Let us all love!
