New blog

Morning everyone!

I have a new blog that I've been posting on. I thought I'd let you know.

Check it out here.  It should open in a new window.

New phase in my life, new blog. Yeah, I know: real fickle.

Thanks for reading!

Day 1 and 2

I have safely mad it to a little village about thirty minutes outside Cluj, Romania. My bags are intact along with all of my belongings -- at least, as far as I know nothing is missing. I'm not exactly sure where to start.

The flight over was pleasant, albeit loud. Not because of the plane itself but because of the people on it. For one, there was an older gentleman in my row that spoke to the lady next to me for over how the world doesn't ever read or do anything smart. Honestly, I should have listened more, but I was feeling particularly selfish. It was also loud because of the group predominantly high school students from South Carolina. Like me they hardly slept on the flight, but instead of watching movies and listening to music, they talked (loudly) with one another. I can't say too much as I have been the same way, however, the loud, obnoxious America stereotype is not one I'd like to perpetuate. So while my row mates and fellow Americans continued to talk, I watched a movie on a screen that was stored under my seat. How to Train Your Dragon was the name of the movie, which ended up being better than I thought it would be. I heard it was cute but I've been a little disappointed with kid’s movies lately. Anyway, the movie was cute and played the father/ son motif well from the side of the Son. About half way through the movie they served our meal. I tried to use what little German I could to tell the flight attendant what I wanted. After it didn't turn out so well, I ordered in English and the attendant said it was good for me to use what I can. So I did. Please, thank you, and orange juice were about all I got out.
Nothing else happened except that it was unusually warm on the plane. We landed in Munich were I rushed to the gate for my next flight because I didn't know how long it would take. For whatever reason the Munich airport likes to put everyone through security at least three times, so I had do everything save taking off my shoes. The most unfortunate part of the process was when they made me drink all the water in my water bottle (because it was a security risk?) before I could go through. I drank it down as fast as I could gather my things and continued to the gate. I was a little let down because it was the last of my water from North Carolina. The water that you can drink in most of Europe is bottled and tastes...different to say the least; not bad, just not as good tasting to my American taste buds. As I got closer to the gate, I started to feel really warm. I thought it was just because I was moving as quickly as I could. As I found the gate I realized that, for whatever reason, the air conditioning wasn't on. Just then I was shocked to realize that I was in Europe. All of the sudden there men and women all around me who European, no mistaking it. I sat for a while worried that the others I was meeting would miss the flight and that I would have to enter Romania on my own. Thankfully they just a few minutes after me and we were able to get on the plane headed to Cluj without a problem. The flight to Cluj was also uneventful with the exception of two of my row mates, both of whom were Romanian. They were friendly and very talkative, mostly because the guy wanted to date the girl.
That was when things started to get interesting; our landing was less than stellar and scared us all a bit. We got off the plane and got our things and went into to passport control which consisted of three booths and four agents. Matt, Mark and I got into line and pulled our passports out with the loud, obnoxious group behind us. Pretty much the entire time they were in line they yelled back and forth at one another, not in anger, just because they liked being loud. Like any East European passport control, it was intimidating enough without people yelling across the room. We made it through without any trouble, thankfully, got all our stuff from baggage claim and headed for the door when a woman pulled us aside. None of us (Mark, Matt, or I) speak Romania, so it we floundered for a minute trying to understand what the problem was. Thankfully a younger woman came and translated for us; they wanted to know what we had packed. Apparently that we had so many bags piled up was a red flag. After seeing a few bags with clothes in them and playing a little dumb, we were able to get through to the other side.
We found our contact after a few minutes of waiting and trying to call him. We got loaded up and headed to our hotel about twenty or thirty minutes from the airport where we found out that the rooms we thought we would have had been occupied for the past week and the occupants needed weren’t planning on leaving. When we asked why they were allowed to stay and found out that there is a law that says that the landlord can’t kick them out… Okay. We asked later if we could get the room after they left this weekend and were told that they weren’t leaving until the weekend of the 23th. Right… Honestly, the hotel is really nice for being in the middle of nowhere and the restaurant in the hotel has really good food, so I shouldn’t complain. Once we got checked in and freshened up, we had some lunch and did our best to stay awake and plan the week out. We had to keep moving to stay awake, so we headed back to Cluj to the Romanian equivalent of Sam’s club to get bottles of water for the group and then went to the mall. That Cluj has a mall is not so weird to me; what is is that it is three stories tall filled with stores that the majority of the population can’t afford. Our contact told us that no one buys anything; they just go to the food court for dinner. I’m not sure how proud I am to say that my first dinner in Romania was a McDonalds Greek Wrap. I will say that it was really good and really filling; I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish only because I was so tired. After a quick trip to Starbucks and three games of Chess (Matt and Mike – 3; Sam -0), we headed back to the hotel where Mark unsuccessfully tried to buy some Skype credit during which I was able to talk to my wife. My goal was to stay up until 8. We made it to 12 am.
There is more to say, but I have a pretty good feeling I’ve lost the majority of my readership already. I’ll get more up with more reflection later.

To Honor and Obey

“My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you”

Proverbs 7:1 ESV

I’ve been married for about six and half months now. It’s awesome, but not really because of me. I’m nothing special. I have red hair, but that’s about it. On the other hand, my wife is fantastic! She bakes and cleans like a fiend, is the most beautiful drop of sunshine I’ve ever seen, and she has a soothing way about her. I love her so much; I’d do just about anything for her. But that’s not all of it. That’s not all of it… there is something more.

I think that that something is that we spend time together and do things together and do things for each other. We participate in life together. I’ve heard for years that my relationship with Christ should be like that. We – the church – should be His Bride and He the Bridegroom and I thought “Oh! What a wonderful picture of how we as Christians should live our lives” and left it at that. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? Just because two people are in the same room doesn’t mean they doing life together or living intimately. There must be something more to our relationship with Christ.

If I love my wife, I’ll listen and treasure what she has to say. I’ll remember to pick up my clothes or make the bed or take out the trash. Certainly I will forget sometimes, and I won’t always tell or show her how much I love her, but I will always come back to her and serve and tell her “I love you” and train myself to do these things as second nature. How much more I should be doing the same thing with Christ! He is always present with me; His Spirit dwells within my heart; He is my redeemer! Surely if I can learn the second nature of marriage I can learn the first nature of Christhood. Should it be anymore difficult? Do I make it more difficult than it ought to be? What a simple request from a God who has poured out such an expensive perfume over me: to keep His words and treasure his commandments. Are his other commands so costly, so difficult?

I pray that we, as his Church and as a people, will stand up in devotion to Christ rather than remain his demanding, reluctant, and adulterous bride.

Growth or destruction?

You know there is some truth to the sentiment that ignorance is bliss. When we don’t know that we are fat, lazy, and close to death, we are perfectly content to sit on our couch and eat donuts and watch TV all day. When we don’t realize that we are hopelessly lost, destitute, and condemned to death, we are happy – nay, eager – to continue with our self destructive behavior.

There are times that I wish it had not been made known to me all that is truly required from Christ’s disciples. I could be lazily drifting in whatever state I wanted. What a heresy… I don’t mean it. I would rather bind myself to the freedom of the cross. It’s just the pains of training my self for righteousness. You know, it’s awful funny that we think that conforming to the image of Christ should be easy. Athletes know that if they want to be good that it takes long hard hours of vigorous training. The military understands the need to practice so that its soldiers are ready for battle. But I don’t want to write my school assignments on Saturday because it requires me to work hard before anything is “due.” I don’t want to fast because I get hungry and why should I have to not eat something?

I’ll be very glad to be done with conviction and even more enthusiastic about entering into perfection. I want to do well with the here and now, but I also want to be with Jesus. Heck! If I could be with Jesus right now, even without reaching perfection, I would. But this is when my true nature comes out I suppose. This is when I am given the opportunity to grow in perseverance and, in turn, character. One more chance for Christ to cut away at the filth I’ve tried to clothe myself with.

Worthiness

I know I don't ever write anything. I suppose because I know my self and how much help I need. I guess I should do more of it at appropriate times. There is a certain danger to it though. As a believer in Jesus Christ, all I say and do is examined and dissected and judged. There is nothing for it: it will always happen. And so I pray for grace and mercy because I am still in dire need of saving.

I had to write a reflection sort of journal thing and something struck me;

What a waste it is not to heed God and give up everything. What a terrible cost it is not to come to Him and throw our whole selves on His altar. It is not worth holding on to sin. God is worth letting go of everything.

I don't really know where you are, but I know that I am here on the other side of not throwing all of me onto God. I'm finding the cost of defying his call for complete repentance. Rest assured, hiding only lets the wound fester and consume the whole limb. Eventually it even poisons the whole body. Why not stop and see God, the one who created time, who loves you exactly where you are and throw yourself into his waiting arms letting everything else fall at his feet?

I don't remember a whole lot about my very early childhood. But I know that when I wanted to be held, anything that got in my way was thrown down so that I could hold on to my father and he to me. How I wish you can learn from little children and throw off everything that gets in between you and Gods loving embrace. It's just not worth trying to hold on to anything but God.

Dear friends and family,

What an exciting time it is! Fall is finally here, the leaves are changing, and the crisp taste of autumn is full on the air. And just like the wind, God is moving swiftly and changing things, particularly in my heart. You see, I’ve been reading a lot of books lately and there seems to be a consistent theme: we are supposed to live an active life.

I was convicted the other day when I read a book called Crazy Love. In it Francis Chan is not bashful at all when he writes that we, as the body of Christ, should be active in our faith. He says that we should follow our Saviour’s lead and live sacrificially. While thinking on that, I’ve been reminded what Paul said in Philippians

“But even if my life is to be poured out like a drink offering to complete the sacrifice of your faithful service (that is, if I am to die for you), I will rejoice, and I want to share my joy with you.”(2:18 NLT)

And the straight talk of James

“So you see, it isn’t just enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all – it is dead and useless.”(2:17 NLT)

To say the least, it has been a humbling number of weeks. As much as I hate to admit it, I live a very comfortable life, one of very little sacrifice. I tell you this not to boast of my own humbleness, because I have none apart from Christ and his redeeming love. I tell you this because I want to live sacrificially and be “poured out like a drink offering.” I tell you this because we serve a very big God, and I want to show just how big He is.

I have the unique opportunity to do just that by going with Leader Servant International on a Servant Heart trip to serve the staff at the Lomonosov Children’s Hospital in Lomonosov, Russia. The team I will be working with will be going to share the tremendous love of Christ with the patients, staff and administration by renovating one of the rooms in the hospital. The Servant Heart team will be stripping the room completely and starting from scratch, putting in new studs, drywall, flooring, electrical wiring, and light fixtures; everything the room needs to be used once again to help the patients.

I come now to ask if you would consider helping myself and the Servant Heart team complete this project. There are a number of ways that you can do this:

· Pray: You can pray that God would be glorified and that his renown would grow in the hearts and minds of the staff and the children we will be serving. You can pray that God would provide for the children and staff in extraordinary ways. Pray that God would provide for those of us on the Servant Heart team, that God would provide funds for the trip above and beyond our needs.

· Give: The cost of the trip is $2,600. This cost includes airfare, food and lodging, travel costs in country, and supplies for the renovation. By giving, you will help me go and serve God and show his love in a tangible, practical way. If just 26 people gave $100, I would have everything I need to do the work God has called me to. (If you would like to give, you can make all checks payable to Leader Servant International.)

· Go: Prayerfully consider going on a Servant Heart trip. Go to leaderservant.org and begin to look over the photographs posted, pray and spend time seeking and listening to God about where he would have you go and what he would have you do.

Thank you so much for your prayer and your prayerful consideration to support me. Make sure to keep up with the project while we are there by going to leaderservant.org to see pictures from each day and hear about what we are doing. I pray that God would reveal himself to you in new and staggering ways.

With much love,

Sam Banfield

Psalm 117