Providing

"I'm a terrible son." That kept running through my mind and out of my lips while I drank my foldgers coffee staring out the window at a Philadelphia intersection. "He's always provided for you, always, and you're just now noticing how much and how often he does this... Where's your head been Sam?"

Now I'm sitting here at Starbucks drinking a free cup of coffee, planing a trip that's being provided for while praying about a life that God is clearly leading. I'm terrible at following, but he's got me in a place where that's all I can do. Sit here and pray that he keeps taking me down the path he wants me on, that my sinful self doesn't jump the gun or overshoot the landing or just be stubborn...

I know he's sovereign and I know I can't screw up his plan - I'm not big enough to do that, but I do want to follow the timing he has.It's an odd place to be, to completely trust in God's timing yet wonder about the timing of things - know what I mean? When the options before you are good and best but you should aim to choose best and not just settle for good... I'm confused writing about this. Plus there's that whole, delayed obedience is still disobedience bit that keeps playing in my head like a broken record.

He'll do it all, he has to, cause I can't anything on my own.

Recent Thoughts

1. God provides

2. Pray about it

3. Sit at gun shows, sell BBQ sauce & learn about marriage. (If I dream about selling sauce then poo.)

4. Isaiah 54:7-8

5. This is my life!

6. Need to raise $1700.00 ASAP, if you want to help then comment! Really though I need all the help I can get so I can head back to Love-N-Care Ministries in India this March.

7. I think my sleep schedule is still all screwy.

8. Classes started. Books bought. Plan, what plan?

9. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood & righteousness.

10. I've been telling a story recently that either a) gives people chills or b) makes them cry. And it's a true story. God is nuts yo!

Follow the Leader

If I knew what to write at the beginning of this post then I'd write about it throughout, but I don't. India was wonderful, again. It was harder to leave this time than the first time (which I guess means this next time will be even more difficult). But it also let me remember things.

When I first became a Christian I wanted to be a missionary to anywhere. First I got to go to Israel with my senior class then to Egypt with some friends. Next was Uganda, but on the flight home from Uganda I remember distinctly being told - or lead - to know that my times of traveling had come to an end, that it was time to do work in Wichita.

And that's exactly what happened. As an intern I helped, by the sheer grace of God youth grasp the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. As a pastor at a church plant I saw God build his church and discipline me lovingly, growing me in my knowledge of people and my understanding of God.

But I'm not an intern anymore nor am I a pastor.

I can't deny he's leading me to something else. I can't fight the call on my life. I can't overlook the first desire of my heart, the one he had me set aside for a time.

My dad said it well, "Preach Jesus and him crucified and raised from the dead and ruling in grace and mercy."

Prayers & Money.

You all know I don't normally ask for money. Nor do I ever use my blog to try and raise funds. But this is important to me and thus here is the letter I am sending out to raise support for my return trip to India this March. Please give it a readin' and a thinkin' and a prayer:

Recently I returned from Visakhapatnam, India having had the privilege of leading a 16-person team to Love-N-Care Ministries to do building work, playing with kids from the children’s home, teaching, tutoring and praying with and for the ministry of Love-N-Care as well as many other things. This time was sweet and produced much fruit both in terms of the lives of the people who went on the trip and those encountered during the trip. To say, “I’m thankful for my time and Love-N-Care,” would understate all that feel and know about them. 

Therefore it is with certain pride and longing expectation that I ask for your help to return to Love-N-Care in March to help Love-N-Care lead a team from Singapore in a similar style of trip. My role would be to help facilitate this team during their time with Love-N-Care, helping them both understand the gravity of what they are doing as well as make sure jobs that we began in January are finished in March. 

I know the clock is ticking away on my time to find and buy a reasonably priced ticket, which is why I expect to see the full amount of my ticket gathered by the 2^nd of February. God will do this, I am sure, He will provide if he desires for me to go back in March, therefore I unwaveringly look to him to provide for this trip knowing that he will speak to the hearts of his people and cause them to, if it be his will, send me back. 

The total cost of the trip is approximately $1700.00. This would include the round-trip international flights and the domestic India flights. Once I arrive in India all my food and accommodations will be taken care of by Love-N-Care Ministries. 

Of you, my brothers and sisters in the gospel of peace purchased by Jesus, I ask two things, first, to pray for this trip – that God is magnified in my life and the lives of those I encounter. Second, to help me raise the necessary funds for this trip. 

Therefore please commit to pray with me for this trip and if so called please send a check to Sam Morris for whatever amount you feel called to give. In the memo line please write, “March India Trip.” Since this is a check made out to me personally I give my word as a Christian man that I will use these funds only to return to India and for nothing more. The checks may be mailed to me at 1017 W Franklin Wichita, Ks 67203. 

Again, I ask for your prayers, for ours to be enjoined together and come before our mutual God and Father as a sweet fragrance to him, that others would go into the ripe and ready field and help harvest the souls in India to the glory of God and the good of his people.

Thanks for your consideration. Looking forward to posting some neat things here in the near future! Trusting you're all well.

India Trip Thoughts

1. First time back to the same place.

2. The first class curtain is shut - Brain Regan is playing in my head.

3. I hope we don't get frozen fish heads for dinner on our flight. (Jk, they were all vegan... Just as bad)

4. Soulful black lady who dished out whit. I sent it back. She said she better be the one serving my food. I called TSA. That escalated quickly.

5. Screaming child behind me.

6. Kenny G Christmas playing in the Mumbai airport.

7. When your ears don't pop, it hurts pretty bad. And sounds funny.

8. We left Wichita at 10:46am Monday. It's now 5:15pm Tuesday (or 5:45am Wednesday Vizag time) and we're not there yet.

9. Having done this once before a lot of the novelty has worn off.

10. I've not had coffee for over 36 hours.

11. Sound canceling headphones.

12. Sang for some kids. They loved it.

13. Helped teach an art class.

14. Let some kids draw my tattoos.

15. That awkward moment you get left in a bus in the middle of an Indian village.

16. What to do with a recommendation like that?

17. Great car rides in India

18. Slept in a cold room, made blankets out of clothes - slept like a champ.

19. I never expected to find that here.

20. Cried in front of 100 people, India may have taken my heart & my future.

21. Home is where the heart is, I don't think my heart is in Kansas.

22. I am a whore I do confess I put you on just like a wedding dress and run down the isle.

23. No one will be able to be the same after this, I pray.

24. Now we can go back to football and pretenses and fake snobbery - o goody.

25. Need to go to Philly... You know for a cheesesteak

26. Hurry up and wait.

27. There's always room for one more.

28. Watching Muslims prepare to fly to Mecca. Works can't save.

29. Looper, End of Watch, & The Odd Life of Timothy Green; Isaiah 54-57; writing, music, & a picture kept me company on a 16 hour flight.

30. Trying to get every freebie possible. Have someone I need to visit, Lord willing.

31. Economy class AKA cattle car.

32. I need to raise $1700.00 so I can go back to India this March. Seriously though, I'm asking for money.

Lucky Ones

We lucky few, we band of brothers; having shared the trenches and the charge, fought for and along with each other; having in the same hour and moment drawn the mighty sword of the Spirit and in the great name of our Savior taken the light of God to people who dwell in deep darkness. Indeed these fellow travelers have beautiful dirt-stained feet for they have carried the gospel - each one.

These comrades, this company, this fellowship, this band of misfits, these torn up kids; the wretched and beautiful, broken yet whole, stupid yet genius - gone from home to come back different. No longer can they take up the life they lived before, there is no seamless return to be had, change must take place. We've been to the front-lines and done sorties into the territory of the devil and Christ had bound him wrist and foot.

We've seen the awesome power of God on high in a world of idols, and the same God who fights has won and will finally win in India has and will win in America. Wichita must be a beginning - 16 ignorant Americans set out, but now, now by the grace of God and the power of Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit 16 warriors return.

The charge is clear, the battle cry rings out, come and die. In work and school, in play and love, in death and life come and die to live. For there is a life outside of pretenses and football, there is a beauty more potent than a woman, more enrapturing than the mountains - his name is Jesus Christ and King, Lord of all and Friend, devastating Warrior to opposition and Healer to the called - our names are written on his heart, our names are graven in his hands for the High King of Heaven his victory he has won.

Getting it

Every now and again I get just a touch giddy. A year ago I started planning this trip to India, dreaming about it, thinking about it, praying about it - and now it's here, we're here. But that's not what makes me giddy.

The people I'm here with, this team of 15 other folks is what is making me happy. It's making me happy cause they're getting it. The things I wanted them to see, to feel, to know all of it they're beginning to understand and be moved by. "Humbled" is how they keep describing it. But still more they all echoed my assertion of feeling very much alive - like this is what we were made to do.

Last night 75 kids sang out with all the gusto they had in them and all the strength in their diaphragms, "I'll never know how much it costs to see my sins upon that cross," and 20 Americans had tears of joy filling their eyes.

Last Night's Village

Sitting at a table surrounded by water bottles my mind remembers going to the village last night. It was humid, like curl the hair on your arms humid, the sky dark and the smells interesting – it was the same village Ron and I had been to some 8ish months ago and looked exactly the same apart from some Christmas decorations.

            The 8 or 9 of us walking the tiny village streets sang songs and listened to Jeff preach through a translator. It was fun. It was an experience. It was Amazing Grace.

            After the second stop my heart had to sing it – there wasn’t any stopping. So we sang it for all its golden worth, for all its treasured lyrics, for all its universal meaning and depth and peace and joy. The last lines, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years; we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.” Tears flooded my eyes, and the repeat of the first verse was choppy.

            Here in India are brother and sisters in the gospel, here in India are people who know, love and will die for the same God we know and love but probably won’t be killed for. That day’ll come, the one ten thousand years after his return, the one we sing about in that rich old song, They’ll be there, those people on the street last night, those people who’s names I can hardly pronounce let alone remember and together with once orchestrated accord we’ll sing in the symphony of the King, “We’ve no less praise to sing God’s name and we’ve hardly just begun.”

Another Land

This land where the words are different and the language unrecognizable. This land so far from home that east indeed has met west. This land of different customs and funny ideas. This land where we have gone and, though only for a little while, have become sojourners.

Rich Mullins sang about it, Abraham was one, Jesus became one, and so the theme runs with us - we are sojourners in a far off country. Where the customs are sin and the ideas are tied to our brokenness. Where to be a national is to be damnable. Not for sake of race or creed but because of sin. It is the plight of the world, the custom inherent in all everywhere.

For us here in India there is no where further away. To go any further east would mean to be closer to home and the same goes for west. But even that doesn't portray how far away from reality our sin has taken us from God. Our worlds of realities have been skewed and stretched and dismembered and disfigured so badly and completely that the only hope for any salvation or redemption had to be a Traveler from that perfect distant place. It had to be Jesus. Had to.

To leave the wonders of heaven to know the ways of men and to save them from those dastardly things they call "life." Those perishable hopes and dreams of fleeting nothing's and pithy longings of celebrity.

There is a place where none shall die and all will live; where tears are wiped away and sadness knows its end; where astounding is normal and unimaginable is seen; where the shadow of the real is touchable and the broken mirror in which we now see dimly is mended and we see our Savior face to face. There is a place and we call it "Home."