Wiki Leaks

I just ran across this article summarizing Global responses to the "Wikileaks Cables." It is worth a few minutes/.

Foggy White Rock 2

More Pictures





I finally got close enough to get a good picure of a couple of long tailed ducks.



The estuary of the Little Campbell River

Foggy White Rock

The past week we have been stuck underneath a quite impressive temprurature inversion in the fog. Today is the worst yet, we can't see the water from our apartment. That said, the light has been beautifull and I have gotten some neat pictures. Enjoy.

Alot of starfish have died recently, I don't have a clue why. The segulls don't seem to mind. Most just peck at them, but this one decided to try to swallow one whole.


When not swallowing rotting starfish whole, the segulls 'dig' for clams by walking in place and liqufying the mud. After they get one, they fly above the rocks and then drop it to break its shell open.


Guess who just walked past.

Following Christ Reflections

Over new years I had the pleasure of attending Following Christ 2008, InterVarsitys graduate and faculty ministries Urbana(esque) conference. The theme of the conference was human foureshing, a topic that has gained my attention in a very strong way lately. NT Wright walked us through a significant portion of Collisions. Wright is as brilliant a speaker as he is a writer.

I was part of a track “God's Green Kingdom” that discussed the Christian earthkeeping imperative. The discussion was somewhat familiar. Perhaps this is because one of the people leading it was one of my favorite authors on the subject, Steven Bouma-Prediger, who wrote For the Beauty of the Earth. On the whole, my hope of getting to network with people who are of a similar mind on the issue was brilliantly achived. My personal highlight was a lunch with Scott Sabin, director of Floresta. Floresta is a Christian development organization that works to combat poverty by combating deforestation and deforestation by combatting poverty. We talked about the potential for me to develop a PhD that would allow me to work alongside/within that organization. I hope such a thing develops.

God's Politics

The lecture "God's Politics" by Jim Wallace that I mentioned in my last post is online. Check it out here.

~Andrew

Why the right gets it wrong and the left doesent get it...

A couple quick thoughts and prayer requests.

First off, I want to mention an event, being hosted by the college that has just started here at CC: “Religion in Public Life: why be afraid. It promises to be a rich discussion of religion, including Christianity, and how that should influence our societies. One of our first speakers was Jim Wallis, author of Gods Politics: why the right is wrong and the left doesn't get it. It was an incredible discussion of how the gospel should affect political thought that was both encouraging and challenging to me and I believe very stereotype breaking for many other students. Please pray that the Christian community would take advantage of the opportunity for discussion created by these lectures.

The second thing is a reminder about Jesus unplugged. Please keep praying that people would be drawn to this place where they will have the opportunity to sit at Jesus' feet. We have scattered seed widely in invitation, and hope to see a significant harvest.

Finally, a story. Last week our scripture application experiment was based on a discussion of Jesus' love for lost things. The natural application experiment was to go looking for some lost things. We used an Evangelistic survey developed by CRU and went into the dorms to talk with people. There were many very good, real, conversations that came from this effort. A particular blessing was a very long conversation I got to have with one freshman guy. He came into another conversation that had been spawned by one of the surveys, abruptly stating, “Christianity is the single wost thing that has happened to people in history.” But he stayed in the conversation even after everybody else had left... after listening to him describe his problems with, thoughts about, and lots of other stuff regarding religion, I asked him, “would you like to hear what I think is really important in Christianity. He said yes, and I was able to outline the 'meta narrative' of the good news for him over about the next hour and a half. Please pray that this friend would dwell on the Gospell and keep asking quesitons about faith. This interaction really gave me a chance to practically learn a lot of what I had been taught regarding “postmodern evangelism” in the training for this internship over the summer. Key aspects that I would like to share with you include:

~Listening to, knowing, and caring about the person you are talking with. This provides the necessary relational connection on which “post moderns” will build trust. People will listen to us if we honestly will listen to them first.

~Asking people if they are interesting in hearing what we think is so important about Christianity, Jesus, or whatever the conversation is talking about. This opens the door for people to actually listen as we speak, rather then engaging in a debate of sorts. Then, of course, it is important for us to understand the gospel and communicate it clearly.

As always, thank you for your prayers!

Shalom,

Andrew

A long overdue update.

Its long past time for another 'blog update! A lot has happened in the past month and a lot of really cool stuff is happening currently. I shall start off with past news, then share current happenings, and finally discuss current prayer requests.

Past News

Though still significantly in “New Student Outreach” mode, the main force of our work has defiantly transitioned a little more into discipleship, maintenance, and service to those around us. The two bible studies are both going really well. They are not extraordinarily well-attended, but there are several committed students in each. It has been interesting to experience the temptation to be satisfied with this “apparent success” and be satisfied with building the kingdom of Andrew's success, rather then challenged to continue the task of building the Kingdom of God. After reading Don Richardson's book Peace Child over block break, I was struck with a new understanding of how powerful the gospel actually is, and how limited my expectations for watching God work had been. I am challenged to keep begging God to pour out his spirit on this campus, begging for revival, begging that we as a community would be transformed by the powerful message of good news brought through Jesus.

Another cool development is the fact that we have been able to form relationships with a whole bunch of freshman international students who are curious about Christianity. At one point last week I gave a guy from China a couple of books about Christianity that he had asked to borrow. He was with a friend, from Nepal, who then took one of the books to read! It was pretty amazing.

Our first event following up on the “In Christ Colloquium,” a pre-block prayer meeting for the leaders of different Christian ministries went really well. I hope the other participants were as encouraged by it as I was. We have also been in conversation with the people who are re-pioneering Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) here at CC and are exploring what it looks like for us to be partners as missionaries on this campus.

Current Happenings

This block our theme for the Bible experiments is invitation. We have studied the parable of the shrewd manager and the parable of the lost coin and lost sheep. The applications to these passages are pretty clear-- we should be doing evangelism, using our resources shrewdly to find lost people, win friends, and show people Jesus. Last night we went into the dorms and did surveys about students perceptions of Christianity in-order to open up the door for spiritual conversation. We had some awesome conversations and were encouraged to be bold in proclaiming the gospel.

Right now we are in the midst of inviting people to Jesus Unplugged the regional InterVarsity fall conference. Our goal is to bring 20 Christians and for each of them to bring 2 non Christians. Pray that God would move in such a big way, and that we would be equipped with the necessary resources to deal with such an overwhelming crowd!

Our contemplative prayer service is as beautiful as ever. We are using a liturgy from the Anglican Church in Kenya this block. It has been weird though, how few people actually make it to the service. People will constantly say they are planning on being there, and then never show up (even to the point of walking there and somehow disappearing on the way).

Prayer Needs

Please praise Jesus for the ways he has blessed us with life while we are doing his work. It has been awesome for me to watch him work around and through me.

Pray for our scripture application experiments. Pray that we would not be satisfied with some measure of “success” but would constantly see the challenge of bringing the gospel to this community in a disciplined, powerful, and loving way. Pray also that we would be able to find those Christians who have not yet found Christian community on the campus and bring them into our fellowship.

Pray for Compline; that the apparent spiritual block keeping people away would be broken down so that more people can participate in glorifying Jesus on the campus.

Finally, pray for our current evangelistic outreach. Many people are hearing about Jesus, and many people are considering coming to Jesus Unplugged, where they will interact with him much more. Pray that we would understand the gospel and communicate it clearly. Also, in about a month (November 1) Ravi Zacharias will be speaking on campus. Pray that our advertisement will be effective, and that people would be able to hear the gospel through him. Also pray for wisdom as we consider follow-up methods for that and Jesus Unplugged. Finally, please pray for my apartment-mate Ariel. She is considering choosing to follow Jesus. Pray that my witness would reveal him in truth, and that her heart would continue to be receptive.

~Andrew Nelson

Mercy Charge

It is amazing to be working in a place and time where the call is to reap a harvest! God is doing an awesome work around me and it continues to to completely overwhelm my expectations. Story after story of God doing an amazing work continues. I just finished leading our second “scripture application study” in Loomis, the dorm where I am focusing my energy (Nathaniel and Rachel are leading the same study in Slocum as I write). We studied mark 9:1-13 two stories of Jesus leading people in showing mercy: in one case to a paralytic, in the other at a party to “tax collectors and sinners.” Please pray for us on Saturday night, as we go to apply this scripture by baking sweet things, and otherwise hosting a party in the dorm (right in the middle of what is already known as the crazy party hall) and maybe going out to a party as a group. Pray that we “go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

God is bringing together an awesome group of people who are exited about this experiment. I am exited about the revolution that is about to happen.

Current prayer requests (not removing any past ones:):

~That we would clearly hear God's leading as we administer mercy (including the Saturday experiment).

~That people would continue to be inspired by both the vision and actuality of what is occurring.

~That we would consistently be actively witnessing to people around us.

~That people would get exited not only about our scripture experiment but also about the community prayer we are doing in conjunction with my Church.

~That people would get exited about “Fall Conference” which is an amazing event for evangelism as well as discipleship of Christians (especially if they bring seeking friends). Our goal is to, by the shear grace of God, bring 60 people; 20 Christians who each bring two seeking friends. Pray that God would work!

~For spiritual protection and guidance of Sarah, Rachel, Nathaniel and myself as we lead, and for the freshmen we are leading. Jesus is working through us and I know the enemy hates to see that. I cannot believe how hard it was for me to sit down and write this email; the enemy does not want you all praying.

Thank you for your prayers, they are powerful and effective.

-Andrew

NSO week report

Thank you for your prayers! New Student Outreach has been an amazing time of watching God work. A group of students, much bigger then I had dreamed (about 15), have gathered together who are exited about in our radical "following Jesus" groups in the two freshman dorms.
It has been really wild watching God work. So far as either Nathaniel or my personal ingeunuity is concerned, there had been very little. God has given us a vision in an awsome scary way, we have communicated that vision, and the spirit has made people exited about it. My personol favorite story begins as I am dancing at the periphery of the "vidio dance party" which is put on by the school primarily for first years. Two hippy girls from the northeast start dancing with me, then we start talking. I tell them I am a seinior, and naturally, they are curious why I am on campus (most upperclassmen moved in yesterday); so I tell them. I am on campus leading a radical experiment in actually doing what the bible says... they immdedatly stop dancing and stare, wide jawed, "are you seriously doing that," one of them says, "I cant belive you are actually doing that. Thats so cool." So I suppose that is the response to christians doing what we are called to.
During the second part of the week while freshmen were off campus we hosted an event where leaders from different ministries that are serving students at Colorado College got together and were able to share there heart, vision, and stratigy for the work they are doing on campus (or off, as the case may be :). It was an amazing, rich time, where we were able to recieve much greater perspective of what God is doing throught this community. As a result of that we are now planning to meet together to pray on a blockly basis. Establishing something like that had been one of my key goals for this year, now I have to dream bigger!

Finally, please continue to pray. Because NSO was "sucsessfull" I now desperatly hope that the Holy Sprit will show up in our bible study application groups. If he doesent, we will look dang stupid. Please pray that students will stay exited, will bring friends, and that God will give us all his vision for what he wishes to do with our community. Please pray that God will indeed birng the various ministers together to pray regularly for the campus. Also, please pray for Nathaniel and I as we plan out the semester's studies and figure out a fiew more logistical detales for InterVarsity here at CC. Of particular concern for us are figuring out how to best serve upperclassmen who have been connected to IV, planning the structure and function of our leaders meeting, and figuring out how to connect simi-connected upperclassmen who want to be serving along side us.

Shalom,
Andrew

New Student Outreach

Tomorrow we start New Student Outreach wich is probably the most defining moment for what the fellowhsip will look like over the next year.

Our activities will include:
Helping freshmen move into there dorms by lofting beds, carringing boxes, being avalable to drive them to the store or whatever. Pray that we would be bold in forming relationships with freshmen and that trust would naturally develop.

Providing an "information table" during the 'spritual life fair.' Pray that we would redily be able to communicate our vision and that freshmen will get exited about that vision.

Lots of 'hanging out' in the dorms and at oreintation events. Pray that this would not be wasted time, but time where trust is built between us and freshmen.

Thank you for your prayers. Pray BIG!!!
~A

Vision, Method, and Ongoing Prayer Requests

Vision

As a community at Colorado College IV/Five Smooth Stones is in the process of preforming a radical expriment in listening to the word of God and then, as a community, immedeatly applying the scripture in the context of our community. My friend and colligue Nathaniel Kidd, suporbely summerized our vision in an email to an incoming freshman here is what he had to say:

"As the Five Smooth Stones, we draw our name and our inspiration from the story of David and Goliath, and the observation that God uses small, weak, inexperienced people who trust in Him to overcome the mighty forces of the enemy. So too we as a community are small, weak, inexperienced—even fearful from time to time—but still we have a deep hunger to hear and follow Jesus in the midst of the difficulty and uncertainty we face on campus.


"Our desire as a community is to engage in the radical experiment of listening to the Word of God and doing it in our lives at CC, and when God shows up, we look forward to witnessing lives transformed by the Gospel, and even participating in revival and renewal on the campus.


"Our primary method for doing this is going to be through small “Scripture Application” groups; we’ll have at least one meeting in each Freshman dorm, and possibly others as the Spirit leads. These groups will meet once a week around a passage of Scripture—we will study and discuss it for about fifteen to thirty minutes, and then immediately go out and take it for a test drive in the dorm/campus/city context as appropriate. Then, as a community, we will continue to support, encourage, and pray for one another as we attempt the difficult and daring task of living by the uncomfortable words we hear from Jesus."


Prayer Requests

Some key ongoing prayer requests are summerized below:

~Pray that we as a community would have ears to clearly hear what scripture is saying to us, in our context. Pray that we would be inspired by the Holy Spirit in how we should apply those scriptures, and walk in His power, not in fear as we follow him.

~Pray that I would have wisdom in time management. I am prioritizing this internship (a ~20 hour a week commitment) but also attempting to maintane a full-time status as a student at Colorado College. Pray that I would have faith as I submit my achedemic preformace (which is often a tempting Idol for me) to the Lordship of Christ.

~Pray that I would always rely on Christ as my source of stringth. I know my stringth will fail.

~Pray for my personal life, particularly my relationship with my girlfriend Rachel.

~Finally, if you ever don't know what to pray, pray Isaiah 61:1-4 over me and this fellowship.

Crazy Adventure Ahead!

Hey Friends,
Sorry that I have kept this blog inactive for as long as I have. It's not (particularly) that I have had nothing interesting to write. Mostely I have been lazy, but I have also been a little frustrated with blogger (for there annoying photo loading interface). I think I have found a good way around the issue though, so, here goes nothing.

I will primarily be using this blog over the next year or so as a portal for communicating ministry progress and prayer needs as an intern with InterVarsity Christian Fellowhsip at Colorado College. So, start checking back regularly, 'cuase I will be updating regularly.
~Andrew

Southern Elephant Seals

Here are a couple of photos of Southern Elephant Seals from punta delgada a very large colony. They are hauled out in-order to molt. It is hard to get a scale in these photos, but some of the animals we saw were tremendously large, the largest probably 15-18 feet and 2-3 tonnes; in other words, HUGE. They are increadibaly akward on land and would only move ~10 metres along the beach at a time, then they would rest for several minutes, and possibly after that continue moving.

Peninsula Valdes

These are photos of Southern Sea Lions at Peninsula Valdes in two different breeding areas. We spent a couple days observing them. Orcas are known for beeching themselves inorder to catch sea lions on the beach in the top photo.

Parque Nacianal Lanin

Our next adventure was a week long bus trip north of Bariloche. The key subject we studied were Auracaria Auracana Trees (You may have heard them called Monkey-Puzzel Trees, this is an offensive racist term, as it was origionally used refering to indigenous people as monkeys). The mountian is Vulcan Lanin. The Crucifix markes the border with Chile. I illegaly crossed several feet into the country:).

To the base of Mt Tronador

This hike from puerto blest lead us up to the base of a massive glacier that ended on a huge cliff. I counted 37 waterfalls coming directly off the glciar front. The flowers are Fuschas which are common garden plants in washington. The climate in this part of patagonia and western washington are remarkably similar.

By foot from puerto blest

These photos are from a supposed 28k treck to the north of Puerto blest through spectacular tempereet rainforest in glacially sculpted valleys. Notice the bamboo in one picture. This bamboo is one of the dominent understory plants-- very wierd for such a glacial terrian it made the place feel like a cross between Hawaii Rainforest and Norway. The trail followed an old logging road which had been used to acces Fitzroya (Alerce) trees (like the one pictured; these trees can be 3000 years old! ). The road has long detereorated into the rainforeset and much of the trail was really just a path throgh knee deep mud. Also in some places we had (got) to cross detereorating bridges over interesting small ravines... those were exciting.

From the Water, Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi

After Chaluaco, we traveled by boat across Lago Nahuel Huapi to Puerto Blest. The Large Mountian is Monte Tronador "mount thunder" because of the sound of its glaciers.

Well, I have wandered quite a wayse since I last updated this blog. The most interesting adventure was a month long course called Ecology and Biogeography of Patagonia which was tought in Argentina. Here this and the next fiew posts are some photos from the escapades! Enjoy.

These First photos are from Chaluaco, a vally just to the south of Bariloche in the Argentine Lake District (except the pink building, which is the presedential palace, El Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires.) The flowers are Alstromeria, and grow like a carpet everywhere. The poor photo of a bird is a Majelenic Woodpecker which is a member of the same genus as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Peleated Woodpecker. The girl climbing the tree is retreeving a recently hatched parakeet chick. (which will be the first photo in the next post)
~andrew

Elk quieres Taco Bell?

Dream Lake

Flat Top Mountian (It really does look flat from the other side, i promise)

The Highlight of Rachel's Trip

Amanda

Rachel and I

Rocky Mountian National Park

End of Block I

I have just completed the first block of the year here at Colorado College. The class: Surface Processes and Geomophology (translation: things moving down hill- why the sufrace of the earth looks like it does). It was a good class, but slightly odd. There were intense peeks of work, but overall a fairly low level of stress. The picture is from one of our field trips.



Other things of note this past block included:

-Completion of the duck project. (You know what I am talking about. )

-Trying to start a Freshman Bible study for InterVarsity. No one ever showed up (maybe because no one was ever invited). I am still working to process what exactly went down there. Quite clearly my method of trying to connect with people in the freshman dorm was inneffective. As my co-leaders and I have many connections with international/multicultural students we are planning on re-directing our energies into a small group/bible study with a focus on cross cultutal issues and a target of cross-cultural people. We are excited to see what happenes there.
Overall it seems as though there has been good sucess with other efforts relating to InterVarsity (locally known as five smooth stones). Are large group meetings have been very sucessfull this block with Don Everets a who discussed "the four turds in the punchbowl placed there by Jesus at a party of the Pharasies. It seems as though his messages intrigued and challenged people in awsome ways.

-The joys and pains of ajusting to new living conditions. Cooking your own food takes a lot of effort! I very much do think its woth it, however.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

I finally caved :)

After ages of planning on creating a blog, but refusing to use a typicall blog posting and hosting service, i have caved. I suppose it would have been good to figure out how to make a web page myself, but, alas, summer ended and i shall have not time for some time and with the time i do have i do not intende to learn how to build a web page. So here is my blog, boring as everyone else's, for the view of the world.