Hey all, just wanted to share something I’ve been processing. Hope this makes sense:

If we are Christians, we try and live our lives like Jesus, right? We even ask ourselves things like “What would Jesus do?” I think that this is a good question to ask, but I also think that trying to live our lives like Jesus did, can sometimes be too abstract of a concept for us to grasp. Perhaps a better question is: “How would Jesus live my actual life if he were me?” It is then our goal to live like that.

I realize that these seem to similar goals, but to me, the second question is a lot more tangible - and a lot more difficult. It is not just an abstract question, it is a question of Jesus living out our current actual life right now. What would that look like? Our goal is to then live that out through him

This thought has been changing me. Hopefully it makes you think as well!

- Josh

Saturday, September 19, 2009 |Fillmore, New York| (listening to: At the drive in – relationship of command | Bright Eyes – I’m wide awake it’s morning)

Today we woke at our usual fall tour hour, 11:00am’ish. I enjoy the days when we can move at our own individual paces; getting some reading done, heading out on a jog, accomplishing some small errands or just enjoying a coffee and the scenery outside.  When you live with 4 other guys spending every waking and sleeping hour together you enjoy the mornings that allow you to wonder into your own world.

Once we gathered to go set up for Sunday morning we headed to the church where we had left the van the night before. When we arrived Ben Last (Pastor at Fillmore) had some Houghton students clean our van for one of their service projects. We had to laugh because it was only on the trip to Fillmore that we had to push garbage aside to find a place to sit. It hasn’t been this clean since we received the van. It even smelled awesome! It was also a blessing to have some students still available to help us load all of our gear into the church.

Later that day we took advantage of the fact that there was a state park 10 minutes down the road. As we drove down the tree canopy road it lead us to a canyon filled with a couple of breath taking water falls. I know there are some people who see things like this and say, “That’s cool. Let us move on”. But when I see places like this I want to get a book and a thermos of coffee and spend some time just being surrounded by something that you only get to experience in certain spaces of time ( I could insert a good CS Lewis quote but I’ll save it for another time). This is one of the places you mark on your map so when you have more time next trip you can take full advantage.

On our drive back from the park we thought we would stop at the Houghton College to hang out with our friend Jessica who was on RA duty. This ended up being one night of pure awesomeness. We ended up making many new friends doing the dorm rounds with the RA’s as well we ran into some students that we have met along our travels. It is one of those nights that you can’t really explain. All you can say is “We had fun, and you should have been there”.

I write this because I just feel blessed. I wake up in a stranger’s house who is kind enough to give us food and a bed. We arrive to our next destination to have people serve us with helping hands. We then drive down the road to see the craftsmanship of the most creative Being to ever exist. The one who created us created the things around us, which just makes you think, if this waterfall is taking my breath away then how much more should the pride of his creation, you and I.  Then to put some icing on the cake, we sing and laugh with people we’ve just met.

Life is good. Thanks for all who make this possible for us.

-Drew Wallace

Fall Video Journal: Sept 6 - Sept 11

Hey, I haven’t posted anything in ages because I’ve been waiting for us to get a video camera so we can do little journals. Now we have one and we can start posting stuff. I might go back to writing some more and posting more stuff. Sorry I’ve been so lazy.

- Josh