{shutters slide to unveil fingerprints of angels}

News from the front line of love (A Haiti Update)

2010-03-04T05:37:00.007-10:00

Bonswa from Saint Marc, Haiti!

Supply Distribution
We have been busy here in St Marc! Today refugees from Port Au Prince that were in need came to the Supply and Food Distribution at the YWAM base. Over 800 people were served (canned, bagged and boxed) food items, baby supplies (diapers, wipes, toys, etc), kitchen supplies (utensils, plates, pots and pans), clothes, shoes and other various items. It was a bit chaotic, each person was allowed to fill two shopping bags (about the size of a grocery store shopping bag) with whatever they could.

Food Distribution
Since there are about 25,000 refugees in St. Marc, YWAM is organizing food distribution through the local churches. It is awesome to see the locals rising up and taking care of their own! There is a long history of apathy and dependency on foreign aid and we believe the local church holds a huge part in the ending of this mentality. Over 60 pastors came to collect food (they do this on a weekly or bi weekly basis). We gave out a shipping container (24 tons!) of canned food, sacks of rice and beans and noodles and just as they handed out the last bag of rice, World Food Program showed up with another 24 tons! (A lot of organizations come to YWAM to help organize their aid because YWAM has been here for 23 years and has the relationships with the people). God truly provides and today was a huge display of that provision!

Port Au Prince
3 members of our team are in Port Au Prince and have been for the past few days. They have been sending us daily updates and the photos and stories are devastating but they have seen glimpses of hope as well. It is going to take a long time to rebuild this nation, but there have been very positive signs of Haitians making a stand for God.

Medical Clinic
YWAM St Marc has been trying to purchase a local abandoned clinic to start their own clinic but had not been able to until right after the earthquake (the 4 story hospital in St Marc collapsed) and Port Au Prince sent their non-urgent care patients to YWAM. They quickly scrubbed out the abandoned clinic down the street that had formerly been used for euthanasia and abortions and are now, over 40 days after the earthquake, treating patients on a daily basis and are housing several patients. Today, a boy who has been in bed and said to be paralyzed with TB, was able to sit up and get into a wheelchair and go outdoors for the first time in 40 days!

PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY & THE LONG TERM EFFORT
Our main effort has been creating a photographic survey for the YWAM International Development Team. All week we have been jumping in trucks and buses and motorcycles cruising all over Haiti crafting what will be the proposal for inviting YWAM & Non-YWAM International Leaders to invest time, personnel, ethics, intellect, and resources into long-term community development in Haiti. We are over 2,000 pictures into what we pray will be a provocation to the masses to see hope restored for a NEW Haiti. Staying up until the wee hours of the night were doing our very best to get the job done.

We are exhausted but are seeing amazing things happen.
for more check out - photogenX.net

The Gospel & The Flag

2010-02-21T09:07:00.001-10:00

Let The Riot Begin

2010-01-31T20:52:00.006-10:00

Last night as I sat upon the shoulders of a crazed soccer fan taking pictures in the streets of Cairo I wondered to myself what it would take to get Americans as excited about ANYTHING as this whole nation was about a game. Egypt beat Ghana (1-0) to take the African Cup of Nations. The streets filled up minutes after and a jubilant riot of sorts erupted till they were interrupted by the prayer call at dawn.

Being tossed among the crowed I thought of the celebration that will ensue when the whole world is transformed by love and the Lamb returns. If it's anything like this, then surely I want to be a part of it. In fact I want it to come now in all it's jubilant splendor.

As the night and celebration pushed on, I then back in our dreary hotel room shutting my eyes and drifting to sleep, explosions filled the air. After each one the loudest cheers filled the air. I smiled and imagined a day to come when people will shout for more than a game. When love itself will rear such an outcry of support, such a shout that the whole earth will tremble. When the only violence possessing the hearts of men will be a "violence of love".

So what are we waiting for. LET THE RIOT BEGIN.

To Demonize & Segregate (Haiti We Love You)

2010-01-22T06:39:00.005-10:00

Thank you Ekklesia Project for mustering a response so quickly in the wake of ignorant speech. I wasn't in any way surprised to hear of the cutting remarks of Pat Robertson in the aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake, only deeply sorrowed that once again someone of his stature would steep so low to demonize the poor. I've always been amazed at the ability of the powerful to create distance between themselves and the marginalized. It's like clockwork. The last few days I have been organizing my thoughts with hopes to write a response, but our dear brothers & sisters at Ekklesia Project offered up a far more eloquent one than I. So I share it hear and simply offer my support...

Written by. Spencer Dew (for the whole essay go here - www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11073)

"In what has now become a much-circulated clip, tele-evangelist Pat Robertson makes sense of the catastrophic Haitian earthquake as the latest in a string of curses delivered by God to Haiti’s people. Robertson’s interpretation of this catastrophe, whether we find it repellent or compelling, offers an excellent example of one of the ways religion functions: Robertson reiterates a reassuring framework of meaning in the face of experiences which call such frameworks into question.

The earthquake, rather than evidence of the random and senseless nature of human existence, provides for Robertson evidence of God’s existence and ongoing, partisan involvement in human history. Robertson’s theology provides comfort, too, in its categorisation of the victims of this tragedy as deserving of their fate, insulating Robertson from the agony of identifying too closely with these wounded, mourning, homeless, and hungry fellow humans.

Robertson may be moved by this suffering – his remarks were delivered as the Christian Broadcasting Network raised money for earthquake relief – but his religious anthropology renders this suffering, in his words, “unimaginable,” a stark contrast to anthropologies that urge empathetic relations.

For Robertson, the Haitian people are markedly 'other', a tone that carries through his version of the nation’s history: “They were under the heels of the French,” he says, “You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so the devil said, OK, it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

This story is, of course, far from true. Robertson offers here a typical demonisation of the Voodoo religion and a Christian distortion of the legend of the 1791 Bois Caiman ritual. Yet Robertson, one imagines, finds animal sacrifice and blood vows repellent, and he has no reason to be accepting of any religion other than his own, ruling them all false and therefore damnable.

In the clearly defined narrative Robertson insists upon, the followers of God can expect rewards while to the followers of the devil, come destruction, blood, and wailing. The troubling aspect of Robertson’s remarks, however, is not the myths he offers to make sense of the world, but what he leaves out of his thumbnail history of Haiti: Unmentioned in his summary is the word “slavery.”

The “true story” that Robertson occludes is that Haiti, the first country to be founded by former African slaves, owes its origin to armed uprising. What began as raids on plantations became full scale revolutionary war, with people who had been regarded as chattels claiming their liberty via the blood of their former 'masters.'

From Nat Turner to Fred Hampton, the armed, independent black person has remained a nightmare image to those who benefit from white privilege in America, an image, indeed, not unlike Cotton Mather’s description of Satan incarnate in New England, that “Black Man” with the power to destroy the social order.

Haitian Independence was an event interpreted by much of the white, slave-owning world of the time as catastrophic. That 'they' would dare – and be able – to seize power called into question pre-existing systems of meaning-making as surely as any earthquake.

The image of black slaves shedding their chains and taking up arms contributes far more than any hobgoblins of the evangelical imagination to the historical 'curses' that have kept Haiti poor and troubled. The history of American relations with Haiti has been indelibly tainted by America’s true devil – the lingering effects of our own schizophrenic founding as a nation insistent on liberty, yet practicing slavery.

Just as racist terror helped shape the stereotype of Voodoo as devil worship, so too, racist attitudes have dominated the history of American relations with Haiti, from the fearful to the patronising, from clandestine political machinations to occupation by military force. It is to be hoped that the current attention on Haiti (for those of us who reject dismissive metaphysical explanations such as Robertson’s) will prompt Americans to examine the racism embedded not just in foreign and domestic political history but, indeed, in our own minds.

Without honest confrontation of the legacies of our past as a slave society, some 'they' will always be demonized and some 'devil' will always be imagined as a mask for our earthly hatreds and fears."

Nigeria - An Update

2010-01-19T06:28:00.001-10:00

Blessings Friends & Family from Alexandria, Egypt. We pray you are having a beautiful beginning to your New Year. We wanted to start by saying thank you so much for your prayers and the outcry of support for our last minute effort to Nigeria. Together we raised a little over $1,000 in a week! People did bake sales, tithed work checks, and gave as God led them and we are so incredibly thankful. Time and time again we are amazed at how God uses His body to support one another!! Thank you for being apart of that and lending your support on behalf of the marginalized in Nigeria.

So we have an update and it's a little sad with a lot of optimism and excitement mixed in. It appears that indeed our visa & financial situation will hold us back from getting into Nigeria this Friday. It was just to much to fast to try and apply for visas as foreign nationals in a not so efficient foreign system. The Nigerian Embassy in Cairo has been giving a lot of mixed information and it appears that visas wont come together in time. It would also financially basically flatten us at the moment (even with what was raised) because of flight price jumps. So with a little sadness we have to report that Nigeria will have to wait for PhotogenX.

That being said, we are really excited. It was after all a very quick and hectic undertaking to try and go so speedily for such a short period of time. Yet during the last week of trying to make it happen we have been able to speak with our leadership and we all feel that Nigeria and the injustice perpetuated there, along with the incredible response our Y family is already undertaking needs to be a new front line for us this coming year. So it's with excitement that we return to Kona with some direction. In some ways this will allow us as a community to slow down, research, network and then go with confidence, purpose, and more intentionality. So we are indeed planing on heading to Nigeria in 2010 (Lord willing).

If you gave towards our effort to Nigeria, please know that we will put aside any funds raised specifically for Nigeria to go towards that specific effort next year. If you would like to be reimbursed or have the money used for another purpose we are more than happy to do so! Simply communicate that with us. You are a blessing...

This past week in the scramble we have researched Nigeria like never before. Please take some time to pray for our brothers and sisters there and to make yourself aware of the issues the face. The greed and international exploitation countered by violence and bloody mayhem is a totally overwhelming. Pray for the Church in Nigeria, specifically in Port Harcourt where the brunt of the violence is and where the Y community is stationed. Pray it can be a haven of peace. Pray for our families effort to rehabilitate so many hurting young adults and that our Father will break the violence from their hearts. Pray that more productive and creative ways of ending oppression can be birthed and that the Church would rise up and lead these efforts. Let us all lay a prayer foundation as we begin to put plans together for next year.

Thank you for your love and voice! We will be in touch in February when we are back at home base. There will be much to share and pray into together as we move into 2010 with all the Lord is planing to do with PhotogenX this year.

Grace & PEACE,
Steve & Diane Schallert

Peace & Rehabilitation {Nigeria}

2010-01-09T04:43:00.001-10:00

Salaam Aleichum from Alexandria, Egypt. After a long flight from New York, a couple days in Cairo, and a short drive up to the coast we have reconvened safely with the track community in Alexandria. Egypt is a hazy desert or mixed cultures, familiar smells, and crazy drivers. It kind of feels like we are back in our comfort (i.e. discomfort) zone. The Muslim call to prayer rings through the streets five times a day bringing back fond memories of Afghanistan and ushering in a reverence for God in us all. The track community is doing well and we are excited for a month of sharing in fellowship, helping to facilitate things for the team here as well as for the rest of their time throughout the middle east. We feel it is so important to transition well before we head back to Kona to join the leadership there in February. Again we are so thankful to you all for your support & prayers these past months. We need them now more than ever!

So an amazing opportunity has approached us the last couple days which we desire to share with you. When we arrived in Egypt our friend Geeta who works all across the world with our "Family" invited the two of us to join her for a week long survey trip to Nigeria (January 22nd - 29th). Let us give a little history before we go on -

Nigeria is the most populated country in all of Africa with nearly 150 Million people. It is also one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of natural resources, primarily in oil, and yet over 70% of the population lives well bellow the poverty line. For decades multinational corporations have done crooked business with the government stealing land from the people and exploiting these natural resources. It seems ridiculous that a country so naturally rich would be a land of such dire poverty, and so the people took up arms. Over the last decade dozens of militias (mostly young men ages 16 -30) have decided to fight for their rights to their land, resorting to violence out of a state of poverty & envy. Our "Family" has had a presence in Nigeria since 2001, often involved in the mix of this violence and attempting to create outlets for education of the youth. Here is where things get amazing. Last year through a long effort of dialog between NGO's, "freedom fighters", and the government over 200 members of various militias decided to lay their arms down and live in rehabilitation camps (remember most of these "freedom fighters" are only in their late teens and early twenties). After the camp was established the government approached our "Family" and asked if they would be willing to be involved in the rehabilitation work of ex-fighters seeing a deep need for spiritual renewal as much as psychological. Our "Family" agreed and has since been involved in the process. Over the last year of the 200 ex-fighters over half have become believers and starting last month 60 of these once vengeance seeking militia kids, now young recovering believers, are partaking in one of our Discipleship Training Programs in Nigeria! How amazing is that!!! Well the peace & reconciliation & rehabilitation effort continues on as sure as the bullets continue to fly and it's at this point that Geeta comes along and asks us if we would like to come with her to this camp to document the work and see how PhotogenX can get involved in the future.

As soon as Geeta mentioned the trip to us we felt a stirring in our hearts. As we discussed it with our leaders, they too were excited about the possibilities and thought the timing was perfect, as this is a transitioning period for the whole team. They are encouraging us to go. We have entered into prayer and ask for you to pray for us as well. With us being in Egypt it is only a five hour flight to Lagos, Nigeria and this short trip could open a ton of doors for PhotogenX (not to mention our wider "Family" in Kona) to come along a support an amazing effort that God has birthed. There is so much need for new creative and non-violent efforts for justice in Nigeria. There is so much need for conversations and the stories of these kids to be told. There is so much injustice in the dark that needs to be brought into the light.We believe our Father is moving...

NEEDS {SUPPORT & RESPONSE}

There are a couple major needs we have for this trip to Nigeria to happen - Prayer & Money (sound familiar). We need a lot of prayer as this is only two weeks away. We are trying to apply for visas within a foreign country working with the Nigerian Embassy in Cairo. Pray for favor! We need a stamped entry visa in about a week! We also need to get some special vaccinations and figure out flight details. So much prayer is needed!

We also need to raise about $2000 total ($1500 for tickets, $300 for visas, $200 for food & housing) to cover the cost of the trip as we don't have the income to cover everything. Every bit will help. If you or your community feel led to make a special one time contribution towards this effort, you can do so by donating at the PAYPAL link below. All the finances will go directly towards this effort. If the doors close because of visa rejection, we would be happy to return dontations given or you may specify if you would like the money to be used toward future work with PhotogenX.

Thank you for always walking with us. Pray for us this week as we wrestle through this process. Pray God's favor would be upon us and that all the governing officials that have to check "yes" boxes will put their pens to the papers and do so quickly. Pray also for safety and wisdom as Nigeria isn't always the safest place to be. We love you and hope that in February when we head back to Kona we can have a multitude of amazing stories to share with you all!!!

We would love to hear from you.

Blessings from Egypt,
Steve & Diane Schallert

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T17:01:00.006-10:00

What In The World Is An Anabaptist?

2009-11-29T23:03:00.005-10:00

So I was perusing about many of my favorite websites and blogs the other day and came across a great little article on the Young Anabaptist Radicals website about the traditions history and beliefs. It's kind of an interactive article actually as it asks for input from other Anabaptist's. I wouldn't have thought much of it, except that earlier that same day I had a long discussion with some friends about the Anabaptist Tradition who had never heard a thing about it. To their eyes it was just some relished folk tale of mid 16th century reformation fall out with the Amish & Mennonite communities (bonnets and all) as a modern result. So with that in mind I thought perhaps it's time we shed a little light on the subject, not simply because I profess the tradition as my own, but more importantly because I actually think there is a strong misunderstanding of who the Anabaptist's were and are and the fact that history seems to have dismissed us all together. The article is in no way comprehensive, but it's a good place to start. If you are interested in the radical reformation or the Anabaptist tradition the link to the article is bellow.

{Dirk Williams - Anabaptist Martyr & Saint}

- QUICK STORY -

"No story of an Anabaptist martyr has captured the imagination more than the tale of Dirk Willems.
Dirk was caught, tried and convicted as an Anabaptist in those later years of harsh Spanish rule under the Duke of Alva in The Netherlands. He escaped from a residential palace turned into a prison by letting himself out of a window with a rope made of knotted rags, dropping onto the ice that covered the castle moat.

Seeing him escape, a palace guard pursued him as he fled. Dirk crossed the thin ice of a pond, the “Hondegat,” safely. His own weight had been reduced by short prison rations, but the heavier pursuer broke through.

Hearing the guard’s cries for help, Dirk turned back and rescued him. The less-than-grateful guard then seized Dirk and led him back to captivity. This time the authorities threw him into a more secure prison, a small, heavily barred room at the top of a very tall church tower, above the bell, where he was probably locked into the wooden leg stocks that remain in place today. Soon he was led out to be burned to death.

Some inhabitants of present-day Asperen, none of them Mennonite, regard Dirk as a folk hero. A Christian, so compassionate that he risked recapture in order to save the life of his drowning pursuer, stimulates respect and memory."

Chances are if you read my blog it's because we already share some similar sentimentality about the world and if that be the case there is a good chance you already read and hold to a lot of Anabaptist thought perhaps without even knowing it. But this is a history we should never forget as it reminds us that throughout all of Christian History, no mater how off the straight and narrow the church has run, there has always been a ragtag group of outcasts forming communities of love and hospitality declaring Jesus Christ as Lord of ALL. We are not alone and we never have been!!!

HERE IS THE LINK

A Visual Update

2009-11-02T22:58:00.009-10:00

Just click on the pages bellow to view them larger.
I hope the pictures can give you all a little glimpse of our lives at the moment.

The Dirty Quiet Jesus

2009-10-11T00:59:00.003-10:00

As the sun rises and a brilliant display of reds, pinks, and dark blues pierce the darkness, we are welcomed into another day. South Africa is awakening to the sounds of ocean swells and exotic birds singing songs of liberation, it’s a change our little community can smell in the air morning by morning. Thus as the massive sun engulfs the horizon we sense another baptism, another chance for love to give birth to hope and yet another fresh start for us all...

It’s hard to believe how fast that huge African sun moves up and down the horizon lines. We have been in South Africa nearly a whole month already and each day has shed more light on what the coming year will hold for us. We have spent much of the past month building into our own community - working on vision, strategy, prayer, fasting, healthy rhythms of missional life and the logistical shaping of the next year spent in the margins of society. God has been moving and speaking clearly and it’s been beautiful to witness his heart for the poor and needy.

We have also run headfirst into our witness and work here in Cape Town. Great connections have been built and are continuing to grow among a number of organizations and communities in the area. Having a long term Voice for the Voiceless office here in Cape Town has also really helped, seeing as much of the relational building blocks are already established. We mentioned in the last update that much of our effort these months will be focused on a township close by called Capricorn. We have spent much of the past month walking the trash filled streets, playing with street kids, starting bible study groups, praying for people and building relationships. Last Monday we also started what will be a weekly prayer vigil in the middle of Capricorn. It was a beautiful night of sharing, singing, and praying for the end of racism, poverty and HIV.

That night Diane meet a woman named Margaret who wandered by as we were singing. She joined our fellowship, sang and cried with us, and shared her story with Diane. Margaret is so alone. Her entire family has either left the area or passed away. Loneliness surrounds her life. When she stopped by our humble gathering she was on her way to find a place to sleep, along side the thousands of other homeless individuals in Capricorn making the migration, but she felt the need to stay and linger for a moment - the need to pray and love and share and live. Her presence directed our meager effort back to it’s purpose, for in Margaret we all met a Jesus few of us ever dare to meet. A suffering, loving, humble, quiet Jesus who sleeps in the dirt and welcomes us all to the Kingdom of God. As Diane held Margaret’s hands that night and prayed with her, the tears on both of their faces pointed the way to a common humanity. A common connection to the love of Christ witnessed in this little moment. Let us all pray for more and more moments like this...

{INVITATION}

We invite you all to join us in prayer for Capricorn every Monday morning. The six hour time difference should bring us to prayer at roughly the same time. Your prayers for the Voiceless of South Africa really make a difference. We invite you to pray on behalf of the thousands homeless individuals facing the chilling ocean winds every night. We invite you to pray for the end of racial segregation that breeds hatred and violence. Specifically, pray for the thousands of Zimbabwean refugees in Capricorn who face constant racial discrimination and live in daily fear of violent attacks by white and black South Africans alike. We invite you to pray for the end of drug abuse, domestic violence, and the rising HIV rate. We invite you to pray for the thousands of children who wander these streets parentless - easy prey for the Traffickers and Pimps. We invite you to pray for the brothels and exploitation of women and children to come to an end. We shall be meeting every Monday to pray as a witness to God’s love for this community. Let us make it a global cry. Come and join your voice in prayer for the Voiceless of Capricorn.

Life Together

2009-09-23T11:29:00.002-10:00

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet not so small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

The End of the Beginning

2009-08-29T10:01:00.009-10:00

So it´s very hard for us to put into words these last two months.
Where we have been...what we have seen..how we are doing...where we
are heading. It´s amazing how fast time moves. Yet one thing we can
indeed say is that our God, who persistently loves us, has walked with
us, hand in hand, this whole way...His perfect hope has been in us and
His presence all around. What a beautiful God we serve...

We are learning that leading a team of 20 some people around the world
(both practically as well as spiritually) is no simple thing. It takes
a consistent capacity to give and give and give. We need more love to
overflow. Sometimes we make mistakes, but grace seems to always be
with us to lead us back to a path of hope. And it´s such a blessing to
serve together as a couple. The more we push forward in this life of
missions the more we can see what a privilege it is to live life this
way. We may not have a proper wedding bed or a home, in fact we may
have actually lived in 21 different ¨rooms¨ - in 10 countries - in
just 14 months of marriage...but we know the will of our Father and
feel His peace. Home is in His hands.

Our little community of ¨hopeful vagabonds¨ has learned a lot during
our time in Panama. It´s been a crazy couple months of faith lived in
love for those cast to the edges of this concrete (and sometimes
actual) jungle. We are learning what it will take to actually be a
community of faith and hope. A people set apart for the sake of the
Gospel. A community setting out to transform other communities with
love.

We have been involved in a lot over these short two months. I´ll list
a recap, not because I typically prefer listing much of anything, but
simply because when I think about the depth God has moved here it
blows me away...

- Together we have -

- Lived together ( 39 of us!) in a tiny Church in Gamboa, Panama.
- Walked the streets of Panama City sharing love with the poor, the
needy, the prostitute.
- Visited clinics to pray for prostitutes and minister to their broken hearts.
- Trekked to the far reaches of this country to share the love of
Christ in tiny mountain villages of the remote Ngobe people.
(By the way we made a mini documentary about our time with the Ngobe.
Its currently up on Facebook, so if we are friends on FB check my page
to view it)
- We started a Church, Cultural Heritage Center, Primary School and
YWAM base on 15 acres of land on the top of a mountain in a remote
mountain village.

- Joined a medical team and saw over 2,000 people in just three days receive treatment and prayer.
- Made lots and lots of friends.
- Baked brownies to demonstrate the simple love of Christ for the
Smithsonian Scientists who also call this part of Panama ¨home¨.
- We slept in Orphanages; played, bathed, and fell in love with a
zillion kids and felt provoked to respond.
- We made a 128 page book about Orphans Rights Issues in Panama for
Hearts Cry Ministry! It was printed TODAY! Matt & Misty from Hearts
Cry now have a meeting set up to share the book with the Government
and further their proposed changes to the Orphan-Adoption System...

I know it just sounds like a bunch of random moments...maybe because
in reality they really were. But every moment is full of PEOPLE.
Indigenous communities afflicted with HIV getting treatment and being
empowered to hold onto their languages. Kids getting hugs and laughing
for a few hours as a lost glimmer of hope sparkles in their once
again. Women downcast by poverty who resort to selling themselves to
feed their kids listened to, prayed for and given shoulders to lean on.
How can we share these experiences of love with you all? You are all a
part of this journey! Your prayers and financial support carry us. We
can´t say thank you enough...perhaps thats why every update we ever
send ends with THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

We really mean it.

Tomorrow morning we fly back to the US Mainland for a few weeks of
sharing and family time. We will be in Michigan from Aug 27th - Sep
4th & New Jersey from Sep 6th - 10th. Many of the days are filled with
meetings and speaking engagements, but if you would love to get
together for lunch or just some fellowship while we are around we
would love to. Our main purpose in coming back to the states for these
few weeks is to try and raise the remaining support we need for the
coming year. We currently need another $1,200 of monthly support in
order to continue this work. We shall head on to South Africa
September 11th regardless of where we are financially towards this
goal.

This is only the end of the beginning. The next year will hold much of
the same as our community continues on in hope and love. South Africa,
Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Germany, India, Asia (and
many more in between) here we come with open arms. Christ be
glorified...

PRAYER REQUESTS:
- Pray for this book we are leaving behind with Hearts Cry. Pray that
it can bring some heart back to the issue of Orphans in Panama.
- Pray for all the people we have come in contact with while in
Panama. Pray they would come to know Christ and hold fast top His
redeeming love.
- Pray for our financial need. That the right individuals, families,
congregations and communities would partner with us.

The Ngobe, Orphans & The Continuing Saga of the Stolen Backpack Adventure

2009-07-25T05:07:00.008-10:00

So it seems I have finally found a free 20 minutes to send out a well needed update to you all. First of all I want to say a huge thank you from Diane & I for your response to the announcement that our pack was stolen late last month. There has been such an amazing outcry of love and words and giving. It's really been overwhelming. Once again we feel so overjoyed to know the loving bond in Christ Jesus with you all. I also just wanted to share that just this week we were able to purchase a replacement laptop for the one that was taken from us WE DID IT!

I wanted to ask you all to join us in dedicating this new machine for the work of the gospel. So many of you have a claim in the work that it will accompany. So join us in prayer to commission it's use for the sake of justice and good-news to the poor, broken, hopeless and forgotten. Thank you all so much.

- Onward -

So what a crazy adventure we had last week. On July 9th our team headed 6 hours north to the land of the Ngobe. I really don't know where to begin, because my mind still can't really grasp all that happened. So let me just give you a play by play in hopes that some of our excitement will translate. The Ngobe are both the largest and most impoverished indigenous people in Panama. Almost 150,000 people totally marginalized, mostly forgotten by the rest of the population and left to fend for themselves for almost 400 years. They have become an entirely self sufficient agriculturalist society, living off the land and trying to survive.

On a hot wednesday afternoon our team drove six hours by bus, half hour by taxi, and two hours straight up the crazy mountain trails by 4X4 until we reached the village of San Felix. San Felix is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. It looks far more like Nepal than Panama, as mountains peek through the cloud line bellow and the temperature drops 20 degrees. We spent the first night in a small catholic church praying for purpose and the hopes to see God move. The following day we split up into smaller groups of 2 or 3 and wandered the valleys and mountains (cameras in hand) meeting people and listening to stories.

I met a beautiful woman that day named Maria who was a mother of 7 and very alone. Three of her kids were terribly sick (one so sick that he had to be taken to a christian feeding center 3 hours down the mountain) laying in their little hammocks hanging from her humble home made of sticks and metal roofing. We began to talk (Translating from English to Spanish to Ngobe) and soon my heart broke for her. Almost a year ago her husband left to go find work, but never returned. Since then she has been struggling to find food to feed her amazingly cute kids and has become so lonely. She holds onto hope that one day her husband will return, but hat hope is quickly fading. I had no idea what to say to her, no idea what to do for that matter. So I asked if I could pray for her...she agreed and we bowed our heads. I prayed for love to come and fill her and for the God who created the mountains to move in her life. I prayed for healing of her sick children and for their joy to fill their home...

After a while I could think of nothing else to say and so we all just cried together. Afterward we talked about hope, love and Jesus and asked if we could take her family's picture because she was so beautifully made in the image of God. Maria blushed and said absolutely, but that we should go and come back in an hour so she could get her and the children cleaned up. So we did and that afternoon was one to remember as joy and thoughts of worth and dignity crept back into memories that had long forgotten what it feels like to be loved.

{Maria & a few of her little ones}

All of our groups decided to invite everyone we met to a community gathering back at the little catholic church that evening. So as the night rolled in we waited around praying that anyone would show up...then the rain came. The clouds dumped so much water on us I began to fear the church's collapse! The evening went on and we began to think we would be alone...but slowly off in the distance flickers of light appeared...then they came. Walking for miles through the pouring rain, with children tied to their heads and at their sides they came. Almost 20 people came that night including the regions mayor! We spent hours sharing storied together and singing songs. We even sang "How Great Thou Art" in seven languages (including Ngobe). The mayor told us about their struggles as a people. He told us about how they are loosing their language because the government's mandatory spanish schools forbid their children to speak Ngobe in class. We heard about domestic abuse, the loss of culture and wide spread poverty. We shared our hopes in Jesus and said we would help however we could. It was a blessed night.

That evening we also met a Man who would change our plans for the rest of our time in the Buggle (Reservation). His name was Pastor Rafael. Rafael is a Ngobe believer who had started a church a number of years ago a few miles down the mountain. He has since become a Paul to the Ngobe, wandering the mountains and sharing the gospel no matter the cost. A few months ago He and his wife, along with their three week old baby, walked to a village called Tugri and slept outside in the mud for three days until the village would let him in. He told us about this village and how it was becoming the Capitol of the Ngobe. The Mayor of San Felix also chimed in and said if we wanted to go there he knew the Village Elder well and could call him. So we felt God was doing something and the next morning decided to head to Turgi with our new friend Pastor Rafael.

Little did we know that Turgi is a six hour hick from San Felix. We walked and walked and walked, up and up and up. By the end I think most of us nearly passed out (a few may have along the way). But alas just over one last mountain pass there is was, Turgi. We were the first foreigners ever to visit Turgi. I can't explain how that feels, to know so few eyes have ever seen such a place. When we arrived we were welcomed. The Mayor had sent a man on a horse the night before to let the Village Elder know we were coming and they had already found us a place to stay. We bunked up in a humble 10 foot by 10 foot hut (16 of us mind you) just before he rains came. I can't go play by play of our three days in Turgi or else you shall read for hours. Plus I would hate to ruin all the stories here. But our three days were filled with amazing hope. We met together with families as well as the whole community a number of times. We sang songs together and talked about faith, creation, community, development, culture, grace and Jesus. The most amazing thing that I can't wrap my head around is that by the time we left the village had donated 15 acres of land to YWAM & Pastor Rafael to start a Church, YWAM Base, Ngobe Cultural Heritage Center and Ngobe Speaking Primary School! So Rafael and his whole family along with a few people from the Panama City YWAM base will be moving to the mountains of Turgi to begin a new adventure. I believe this is called "Fruit that lasts."

So amazing to watch God orchestrate our time and energy.

After we left Tugri we walked back to San Felix and drove two hours to another village called Cameron. There we met up with a medical missions team from Connecticut. We spent four days loving people, trying to organize the chaos, holding screaming babies who were getting injections, working in the pharmacy, praying for people, getting beat in stick-ball by kids half our age and occasionally taking some pictures. We saw 2,000 people in three days with a medical team of 10 people (two Surgeons, a Dentist, a Pharmacist, and a handful of Nurses). It felt more like a refugee camp than a Ngobe village, but regardless I think we all felt a persistent presence of peace in Cameron as we reached out to hurting communities.

We were all rather tired in the end (rightly so I believe). We arrived back in Panama City on the 17th with just one day to spare before we held a conference called One Voice. The day was really something else. Music, dancing, photography, painting, culinary arts of all kinds dedicated entirely to the cause of bringing a Voice to the Voiceless. A number of organizations and churches representatives were present along with most of the major press outlets in Panama. We had a gallery and many of us spoke throughout the day about voiceless issues from Human Trafficking to Refugees to the Orphans Crisis in Panama. I shared a good deal about Afghanistan and my hopes for reconciliation and enemy-love, praying for the Church to stand up for peace. We also launched the Voice for the Voiceless: 30 Day of Prayer book in Spanish (if anyone is interested in having some in spanish let me know and I would be happy to bring some back to the states with us). That night our own Susi Childers (founder of PhotogenX) gave a key note address and call to action. I don't think any of us will ever know how much of an impact or hope was sparked that day. So join us in praying that the love of Christ will ripple across this country, compassionately calling others to work for the cause of justice & love.

The past week we pretty much just slept. Our remaining six weeks here will be spent working on an Orphans Rights project alongside Hearts Cry. Tomorrow we are actually going to live at an orphanage for a good part of the week. From what we have seen so far, the institution itself is so broken. If you are committed to praying for us, pray our effort will bring "Fruit that lasts." That in our short time we can aid Hearts Cry in such a way that the lives of 50,000 orphans can be changed. That they can find love and families in the future. That the government would recognize the problems and seek to regulate and revise a system that is causing so much hurt. Pray that love would be given freely and for our cameras to capture God's heart. Much more on this to come....

Thank you for reading this novel. I will try and be more regular with updates. But I suppose this is a beautiful problem to have...God moving and working so much that updates get longer. In fact lets pray these e-mails get longer and longer and longer until we have to find a new medium to share what God is doing. Thank you for your love and support. We can't wait to see a number of you in early September when we stop through the US Mainland on our way to South Africa. You are all in our thoughts and prayers...

Nobu Modeemiga ("God beless you" in Ngobe)

Join in the Jubilee (updated again)

2009-07-01T10:09:00.010-10:00

WE DID IT!!! - Updated July 23rd!

(this is a secure giving account)

So here is the game. Diane & I currently live in Gambo, Panama on the floor of a church office along with the rest of our vagabond PhotogenX Team whom we are leading clear around God's Green Earth. Last Friday on the very first day into our journey, our laptop-backpack was stolen from us at the Panama City Airport. Beyond anything, our present circumstance has made us even more aware and determined to see life brought back into the darkness. Our hearts go out to the people of Panama who are so desperately marginalized by the advancing world around them that they steep to becoming criminals of survival. So in many ways our stolen laptop confirms the absolute NEED for journeys like our own and for missions of justice and reconciliation. It has given Diane & I a lot more fire for what we are doing!

So amazingly in just the past two days, with only a few quick e-mails we have been given $436 towards a replacement of our stolen laptop. In all reality it's basically impossible for us to work on our coming projects without one. So the outpour of love from many of you has been amazing. In just two short weeks we will be leading our team far far away into a distant indigenous village working along side a medical team. These people have been pushed decade after decade further and further from their original homeland and now live in the most desperate of conditions. Many of the children are malnourished and most families live side by side in tinny makeshift huts. Incredibly most Panamanians from the city probably don't even know these people exist! So we will be going with our cameras to tell their stories and give them a voice!

Once we return from this village (on July 17th) we will begin working on creating awareness tools, as well as starting on a number of other very practical projects. OUR GREATEST HOPE IS TO BUY A REPLACEMENT LAPTOP BY THE TIME WE RETURN TO PANAMA CITY. Bellow & Above I will keep a running tally of the donated amount and the remaining amount needed to buy a replacement (which is around $1,400 USD). We ask you to intercied for us. If you can give and feel lead to great! Perhaps also you might feel lead to simply share with your friends or church about what we are doing and our need, that would also be great. Perhaps your church or youth-group of bridge club would care to take up a donation or have bake sale, this is also great. Get the word out, as we are far away in the jungle and now need you in turn to give us a voice!

WE DID IT!!! - Updated July 23rd!

We love you so much and again and again are reminded of how incredible it is to belong to the Community of God.

(love reconciles all)

And When It Rains It Pours

2009-06-30T18:49:00.002-10:00

So couple quick updates from the humid heat of Panama. Today Panama
saw it´s worst thunderstorm and flooding in almost five years! Pray
for many of the villages which live on the edges of the flood plain
river banks. There are many many peoples homes being destroyed! We got
word today from a small indigenous village about an hour up the river
from where we are staying. They had a number of trees fall on their
little huts and about 40% of their homes are destroyed. Most of these
villages store up food as they make few trips into the city to much of
their supplies and lively hood have been destroyed by the rising
waters. We had a number of things planned for tomorrow, but have opted
to simply go and help this community rebuild their homes as best we
can. So pray for us tomorrow as we boat up the river to give aid to
this hurting community...

Also, Diane & I are very much in need because of our stolen
backpack/laptop. In all we had about $3,500 worth of gear stolen from
us. A laptop really is a needed tool in the work for justice that we
do. It´s basically impossible to be in the field and shooting pictures
without the means to edit and create the publications and awareness
material we have come to provide here...

We love you all, keep us in your prayers...

Trying to stay dry,
Steve & Diane
photogenX.net

The Schallert´s Stolen Backpack Adventure

2009-06-30T18:43:00.003-10:00

Hello Brothers & Sisters. We pray this finds you well and full of the abundant grace of our God. Diane & I have just arrived in Panama City and can´t tell you how excited we are to see what God has in store for us! There are so many amazing opportunities arising and we have only been here 24 hours!! Right now we have a project being developed working along side the US Embassy, who are beginning a campaign against Human Trafficking in Panama. With organizational prostitution being legal in Panama it makes this issue even harder to engage and more hidden, but the statistics of just how many woman and children are being trafficked in Panama are unbelievable. Some of that has to do with another major issue we are getting involved with during our time. We have strong contacts here working with an organization called Hearts Cry that are trying to find homes for the 50,000 neglected orphans in Panama. The system here is so unbelievably broken it would take hours to explain. But these children are basically abandoned and often worse off in the system that on the streets. Abuse is so prevalent and these orphans are one of the simplest target for Human Traffickers. So the two issues really relate to one another, yet we see so much potential for our team to really make a lasting impact over the coming months, leaving something behind that these organizations can build from and use. And last night, just as we arrived, we saw just how much the great darkness wants to stop our work for justice.

Last night as we rolled out of customs and into the greeting area of the airport, one of our backpacks was stolen. Diane had set it on the floor for one second to get my glasses out of it, stood up and said hello to our Panama Contact (David Tracy) and then as quick as that it was missing. We searched around, asked airport security, later called airport security again, but it was never recovered. It was probably stolen right from under our feet. Today we filed a police report (a very interesting cultural experience), but it is probably lost for good. The backpack itself along with all the following was taken:

Our 17" Macbook Pro (with charger, cords, and CS3 software)
Steve´s Cell Phone
Steve´s 60GB i-pod
Diane´s 350GB WD External Hard drive (Thank God we have a backup of our work)
2 pair of Sunglasses
3 Books I was very much enjoying
Diane´s Bible
and the saddest loss is our quote books that Diane & I have kept since we first started dating...

So we REALLY need your prayers. Again, we believe this to be yet another confirmation of just how much the Kingdom can shine here. Just how much the love of Christ is needed in Panama and across the earth. We bring a voice that the darkness wishes to silence, yet we WILL NOT BE SILENCED. Please pray for us at this time.

Also it is very hard for us to really accomplish our task without some basic equipment. Most everything we can live without, but it is terribly difficult to do our work for justice without a laptop...that is really the biggest loss and now one of our most immediate needs as we begin working on project in Panama. If any of you pray and feel lead to help us in our need, I have listed a link bellow to a smaller suitable replacement laptop that would help us tremendously...the replacement laptop will cost us around $1,300...beyond anything however, we are still very much looking for monthly financial supporters to walk with us over the coming year as we head into the world proclaiming good-news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed on every continent...how great is our God!!

Link to computer - http://www.apple.com/macbookpro
13inch Macbook Pro

Because He Lives,
Steve and Diane Schallert
photogenX.net

FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO SUPPORT OUR CONTINUING WORK AROUND THE WORLD
PLEASE CONTACT US VIA EMAIL (projectlove1.0@gmail.com)

And So We Begin...again...

2009-06-23T10:28:00.004-10:00

It's really crazy, but I haven't really had a second to process what Diane & I are about to go do. We have been so incredibly busy preparing, organizing, advocating, networking, fundraising and more than anything PRAYING about what we are going to do, and hope God will do through us, and all that we believe can change, and what can give life to those who are marginalized, and yet it's always seemed such a long way off. But today it hit me!!! This Thursday {as in two days from now} the two of us and our team will get on airplanes...and we won't stop for over a year. The world will be out stage and hope will be our script. So pray for us! I have more hope for this world than ever before and feel more prepared than ever to capture the beauty and worth of people all around the world. Again I plead pray for us! Pray for our photography, as it is our tool for cultural and personal transformation. For art in it's very God-granted nature has the possibility to create something out of nothing, to build beauty out of the broken. We hope to give worth and listen...quick story:

"Last summer Diane & I really caught this truth in Afghanistan. There was a specific moment during our time in Mazar-e-Sharif that I truly realized the potential that photography has to literally restore a light that has gone out. It was a particularly hot afternoon, the sun was up and a dust storm had just blown through. On these ridiculously sizzling days it's not uncommon to see more stray dogs wandering the streets than people. But I was out laughing with street kinds and taking pictures when I met a young kid in his late teens named Ahmed. Ahmed was orphaned by war at age ten. His entire family had been killed in a bombing years ago and he has basically wandered the country alone ever since. As Ahmed told me his story I began to cry...I felt hopeless and knew of nothing else but to ask if I could pray and take his picture. He agreed, I prayed for him (and he for me) and then we parted ways. A few days later I had printed the photo and thought it might please him to have it, I thought perhaps Ahmed had never had a photo of himself, so I went to find him. When I found him a few blocks from our house I handed him the picture and then - like nothing else had ever before - it hit me. Ahmed gazed at the picture of himself...so deeply...as if to say for the first time "I ACTUALLY EXIST"!!! I am real, so I must have worth! I could literally see his entire self become empowered as he stared at himself. He was SOMEONE again! A light had turned on. It was one of the most eye opening moments in my life to see how photography can be a tool to actually breath life into someone..."

And this is what we are about to go do for the next year! Not just in Afghanistan, but all across the entire world starting in Panama, because there are Ahmed's in every single country & city on the planet. Diane & I profess a hope that you all know and hold within you as well. It is found in Christ alone and his message brings good-news to the poor, the broken and the voiceless. It's time we go proclaim it...It's time to yell it from the roof-tops...We have cameras...and I encourage you to ask yourselves...what do I have? Do you have a voice? A job? A field of study? You can bring good news to everyone around you, for in your vary lives exists a kingdom so utterly beautiful it WILL transform. Let it bubble up! The it over flow! Let us let our love shine together and one to another...ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, ANOTHER WORLD AWAITS!!!

- Prayer Points -

- For all our last minute logistics here in Kona before we leave Thursday. {so much paperwork}
- For safe travel of our whole team to Panama City {We fly out @ 5:40pm Thursday}
- For a good transition into the practical {hands and feet} ministry in the field.
{we are moving from conceptual to practical now and will need grace}
- For a strong cultural sensitivity {as Paul says to become a Greek to a Greek}
- For safety as we head to the villages {in about 10 days from now!! We will have to trek far into the jungle to live and work in the indigenous community. They have been so marginalized by their fellow country men, so pray for times of empowerment and that the love of Christ would be birthed in their communities}
- For the conference on July 18th! {We will be launching the Spanish version of the "Voice for the Voiceless" prayer book, so pray it will spark a prayer movement in the Spanish speaking world on behalf of the marginalized in those lands. That this prayer may be the foundation to actually see issues like Human Trafficking end in Panama}
- For our projects and open doors. {We have been invited by the US Embassy in Panama to contribute all the media for their international Anti-Human Trafficking campaign! This is such a huge opportunity to make an impact on sexual slavery in the region!}
- For Unity!!!
- For our marriage, that we can grow in love and closeness. {That we can have some special moments together that empower our marriage and that we can continue to rely on God for our needs}

- Also please pray and consider our financial burden. WE ARE IN NEED. We need to mobilize $2,000 of continuing monthly support starting next month in order to lead this mission across the world. As of now we have about $250 of monthly support, so we are really looking for individuals as well as communities who want to partner with out work. We have so much faith in God's provision so we are stepping out in belief that God will provide. Please consider partnering with us. Every single dollar counts ever month. If you received our most recent missions package you have the information for our YWAM Missions Account, if you did not, we would be happy to fill you in on how to give. Our arms are wide open to you...

We love and appreciate you all so much. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and feel free to send the occasional message. It's always so encouraging to hear from YOU when we are in the jungle or the desert or the slum or the township. You are with us and we LOVE you!

Because He Lives,
Steve & Diane Schallert
projectlove1.0@gmail.com
photogenX.net

Part 2 {Vision - "The Hope That We Profess"}

2009-05-04T18:24:00.003-10:00

Proverbs 31: 8-9 “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

-A Quick History-

In 2005, our now dear friends and leaders, Paul & Susi Childers birthed a vision for a missions organization that would bring light to the darkness, hope to the hopeless, and a VOICE for the VOICELESS using art & photography as a catalyst for making actual-measurable change. It was, and has become, a global vision for finding creative ways to address, expose, and redeem the world’s biggest injustice issues. This is PhotogenX.

PhotogenX has since its genesis functioned under the parenting of YWAM (Youth With A Mission), which is one of the largest and most widespread missions movements across the planet. While we are our own entity (with our own tax exempt 501c3 non-profit status) our partnership with YWAM is a vital part of our identity. YWAM has over 170 locations worldwide and is present in nearly every country on the face of the planet, which gives PhotogenX the networking capability and connections to enter and work in nearly every corner of the globe.

Over the past four years PhotogenX has been in a pioneering stage. Cultivating a long-term vision and learning day by day how to better our impact for those in need, we have only just begun. This is actually one of the major reasons Diane & I feel so privileged to be serving here. Being still very much in its infancy, we {and you} have much to offer and much to contribute to what PhotogenX will become in its adulthood. Paul & Susi are incredible at building community and working out of relationship. They see the end of injustice and the Kingdom of God as the ultimate goal, which leaves any ownership of the mission as secondary. We feel right at home and can’t recommend Paul & Susi to you enough as amazing believers, leaders and followers of Jesus Christ.

-Speaking Up {who we’ve been & who we are}-

There are two primary focuses in the actual ministry of PhotogenX as a mission; they are the mobilization of intercessory Prayer and Christ-like Action on behalf of the Voiceless around the world. Both of these focuses relate deeply to how PhotogenX has begun to function as a community of God-fearing artists. In 2006 Paul & Susi published what would become the first PhotogenX publication, which is the “Voice for the Voiceless: 30 Days of Prayer” booklet. This prayer book has since helped rally nearly 100,000 individuals and communities to pray for “voiceless issues” across the globe. Since its first print it has been translated into six additional languages and as we speak Susi is in Germany launching the German edition in Berlin. For those of you who have read/prayed through it I just want to emphasize that this booklet serves as much as a mission statement as it does a practical tool for awareness and prayer. Prayer is only the start, but action must follow. And it’s to this end that Diane & I have come to our placement within PhotogenX.

The 30 issues in “Voice for the Voiceless” {Child Prostitution, HIV, Human Trafficking, Infanticide, Poverty, just to name a few} are issues we desire to engage and practically work towards eradicating. Over the past year we have seen God move in incredible ways through our community. Last year we launched a campaign & publication called “Sex & Money: A Global Search for Human Worth” which is focused on the endless connections between money and the global sex trade. Currently there are 1.2 million children being trafficked globally EVERY YEAR, a fact which we believe breaks the heart of our Lord. So in response we have been campaigning across the western world to raise this issue to any and all who would hear and act. We have also begun to engage practically by building strong connections with other ministries from Delhi to Cape Town, Amsterdam to LA who care for those being rescued from this brutal industry. Prayer lays the foundation. Action brings redemption. Onward…

-Us & PhotogenX-

As I mentioned in the last post, we have officially joined PhotogenX as full-time staff. Our roles are very much related to the long-term goals of the ministry. Over the past four years this community has made tremendous strides in the area of prayer, which is and has been a needed foundation for engagement. Yet we believe that as a mission we are at a shifting point from continuing prayer into much more intentional action. This is specifically where Diane & I will be leading. Our roles within PhotogenX leadership are to practically move us as a community and ministry into more intentional engagement. We both hold a strong passion for the practical {hands & feet of Jesus} service of the marginalized and we both feel this is such a perfect place for us to use our strengths and creativity.

-Practical-

Our first real push in this direction will be a one-year journey across the globe starting this June in Central America. This journey will be one of purposeful-intentional service and connection. It will be a year of living in the margins of society and on the frontlines of injustice. Our hope is to build connections and birth new opportunities to move our ministry into action. Diane & I will be leading a team of twenty-some photographers around the world making stops in Panama, Cuba, Southern Africa, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, East & Western Europe, India, Nepal, and a good deal of Asia. We’ll be documenting photographically as well as practically serving the “least of these” wherever we go in a hope of building bridges that can turn into long-term projects. Diane & I will also be using this journey to connect with a number of organizations and ministries that are already working to end these voiceless issues at a grass-roots level, seeing how PhotogenX can partner and aid their continued efforts in the future…

So we have a long road ahead of us, but I can’t even begin to explain how excited we are. We truly feel this is exactly where God has been leading us and where our gifting and experience is best suited for the purposes of love. We LOVE you all as we LOVE the world, by the LOVE of our Father. We will need your continued embrace as we walk into and through this transition of the “full time missionary world.” And we also want to extend our arms as Paul & Susi have done for us. Please come and be a part of this. Come and be a part of us.

We’ll be in touch soon to explain how we can best partner together for the furthering of Christ’s Kingdom through our work with PhotogenX. I also invite and welcome your correspondence. Please call, e-mail and message us. We would LOVE hear some friendly familiar voices.

Hope & Peace,

Steve & Diane Schallert
s - projectlove1.0@gmail.com
d – diane.schallert@gmail.com
www.photogenx.net
www.photogenx.net/sexandmoney {for info on the Sex & Money Project}
www.avoiceforthevoiceless.co.za {for our work in South Africa}
www.hakani.org {for info on our campaign against infanticide in Brazil}

Part 1 {Community - "Laying Down Roots"}

2009-04-23T21:50:00.003-10:00

Over the past couple of years Diane & I have been in a beautiful place of searching, contemplating, dreaming and believing. Together we have seen such huge change and progress in both of our lives, as well as the lives of those around us, that it's really kind of overwhelming to think about. In our short marriage, we have witnessed jointly the most astounding hope along side the most desperate despair. Both of these realities have opened our eyes to just how much the world needs the living Way of Jesus Christ. Soon enough Diane and I will be celebrating our one year anniversary. It blows me away when I realize it's been nearly a year already. How amazing our journey into missions has been. How amazing is our God who loves us...

Our work with PhotogenX as a community and an organization has been "life-altering." Thats really the only way I can describe it. The joining of physical missions {aid work, evangelism, mercy ministry, community development, etc} with mass communication & awareness {photography, publication, advocacy} has become our burning passion. We start by sharing with and mobilizing the Church to pray for the voiceless around the world, yet then immediately collaborate to physically move in a direction of justice. This is our heart, and our vision for the establishment of the Kingdom of God across the globe. These are the gifts God has given us as artists to give a voice to the voiceless. This is the place God has brought us to share the LOVE of Christ with whomever we meet. It is also the reason PhotogenX exists as a project and the reason we have come along side it...

As I said before, the last year has really been more of a "getting our feet wet" stage. We've tested the waters and seen some change, some hope, and a glimpse of the Kingdom. That being said, we have also come to the stark realization that we can only do so much good when we decide to leave doors open. So we can no longer continue to limit our responsibility out of some fear of commitment or the romanticizing of other organizations. Diane and I have learned that the longer we continue to float from project to project, never laying down roots, the longer real lasting change will be waiting. So after a lot of prayer, council, fellowship and an unbelievable open invitation from Paul & Susi Childers {PhotogenX Founders} to come and join their work...we have officially commited to joining PhotogenX as senior staff for the long-haul. Five, ten, twenty years who knows, but we have decided to marry Paul & Susi's vision for missions. We are making vows in a similar fashion to what Diane & I did a year ago, yet this time we simply make them to a vocation of love and to an organization of hope. We are walking into the full-time missions world full of excitement, confidence, belief and a few shaky nerves to balance us out...please pray for us!

This means a lot of things. First and foremost, we are now changing pace from simply being "involved" with missions to "BEING" full-time missionaries as a profession. It's kind of a strange paradigm shift to go through in your brain. It's no longer about this or that specific project or trip, but about devoting our whole life, marriage, time, energy, and resources to the cause of PhotogenX and the sake of the cross. It also means we will not be returning home after our eight month commitment to PhotogenX but will immediately be moving into our rolls for the long-term goals of PhotogenX (there is a chance that we could in theory stop by the mainland for a few weeks in early September to share and be with you all). We will be spending at least the next two years leading a track of photographers straight around the world, building bridges for making actual - measurable change within many of the injustice issues we deal with as a mission. But thats for another time...I will send another e-mail shortly explaining the rolls Diane & I are stepping into, our vision as a mission and a couple, and how you can get involved with us in a long term nature as missionaries...

We love you all so much! Let me just state once again that any and all of the hope that is sparked through our work is a direct result of your involvement. We would not be here if it were not for you and your continued prayers, partnership, and financial "sowing" into us as a couple and our continuing ministry. Thank you for literally holding us up and walking with us over the past year...we pray we can walk together for a long time...

Drop Food - Not Bombs

2009-04-03T16:33:00.003-10:00

{www.foodnotbombs.net}

Washing Osama's Feet

2009-03-07T16:21:00.005-10:00

Brad Cole runs a ministry called Heavenly Sanctuary which puts on Conferences around the country on the Character of God -- and they get it right. This year they hired an artist named Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group to paint the above picture to use on posters advertising their conference. Under this picture they had captions like "Follow the Leader," "God IS Great," and most accurately, "Jesus - Still Too Radical?"

Heavenly Sanctuary had contracts with several malls in the Seattle area to hang these posters advertising their conference, but no sooner had the posters gone up than angry calls began flooding the malls. Many people -- but, it seems, mostly Christians -- were offended at the image of Jesus washing Osama Bin Laden’s feet. There was such an outcry that each of the malls decided to go back on their contract and take the posters down. The Christian College that Heavenly Sanctuary was renting space from to host the Conference also canceled their contract. Brad had to scramble to find a secular venue (which, ironically, had no problems with the poster).

What does this say about how many American Christians envision Jesus? Obviously, the protesters believe that Jesus would not wash Osama Bin Laden’s feet. But Jesus died "not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world" (I Jn 2:2) -- and this obviously includes Osama. So if Jesus died for Osama, how are we to imagine him being unwilling to wash his feet?

What the protest reveals is that many Christians have tragically allowed their patriotism to co-opt their faith. They have allowed their American citizenship to take priority over their Kingdom citizenship -- despite the New Testament's instruction for disciples to consider themselves "foreigners" and "exiles" wherever they happen to live (Heb. 11:13; I Pet 1:17, 2:11) and to consider their real citizenship "in heaven" (Phil 3:20). Many American Christians seem to want a Jesus who will defend their country and hate their national enemies as much as they do. Many want the Jesus of the Middle Ages whom Crusaders called on to help them slaughter -- not serve -- their Islamic enemies. Many seem to want to reduce Jesus to just another version of the tribal gods that have been called on for centuries to bless tribal battles. Most wars throughout history have been fought under the banner of some god or another.

Fortunately, the real Jesus isn't anything like this. Knowing all power had been given to him, John says, he wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the dirty, smelly feet of people he knew would deny and betray him in a couple hours (Jn 13:3-5). Knowing he could call legions of angels to vanquish his foes, the real Jesus rather chose to let them crucify him, because this is what they needed him to do (though they of course didn't know it). Then, with his last breath, the real Jesus prays to his Father to forgive his barbaric torturers -- and all of us (Lk 23:34).

This is the kind of power the omnipotent God of the universe uses against his enemies. And this is the kind of power we're to use against our "enemies." It's the power of Calvary-like love.

We're called to imitate the Jesus who washes the feet of enemies, dies for them, and prays for their forgiveness. We are to "live in love, as Christ loved us and gave his life for us..." (Eph. 5:1-2). When we were enemies, Jesus nevertheless ascribed unsurpassable worth to us by paying an unsurpassable price for us. We who claim we are his disciples are called to do the same. We're to sacrificially ascribe unsurpassable worth TO ALL PEOPLE, including our enemies -- even Osama Bin Laden.

In light of God's servant love toward us, we must be willing to wash Osama's feet -- and pray for his forgiveness.

Jesus says to us:

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt..." (Lk 6:27-29)

And in case we missed the point, he comes back five verses later and says:

"...love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. (How important is this? Read this next sentence carefully). Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Lk 6: 27-29; 35-36).

When we act like our kind Father, we reflect the fact that we are his children.

In Christ, God's been kind to Osama. May we who are his children do the same. May we be encouraged by the above picture rather than offended by it. May we pray, "Father, forgive Osama. He doesn't know what he's doing."

{Thank you to Greg Boyd for basically all of this post - check out gregboyd.org to learn more about his books, writing, and life}

P.S. In case some of the faces on the poster are unfamiliar to you, they are (left to right) German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Tony Blair, England; Kofi A. Annan, UN; Osama bin Laden; George Bush; Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; and Jiang Zemin, former president of China.

{Creation Care}

2009-03-03T17:07:00.003-10:00

{stop & listen}

The Art of Quiet

2009-02-15T10:23:00.016-10:00

I really don't know when it happened, but without knowing it my mouth was shut. Not really by my own will {no conscious effort whatsoever} I was hushed in conversation, silenced in dialog, and left staring blankly at the glowing screen before me. For those of you that don't know me very well you probably haven't noticed much, but the rest of you I'm sure must have. I'm not nearly as outspoken as I once was. That might come as a shock to some of you, but I used to have a lot to say {understatement of the year}. I had an opinion about everything. My two cents jar was rapidly making me a rich man. But something has changed in me & whether or not that is for the better I really don't know yet.

It's not that I have nothing to say. Oh contrar, I have more subject matter swelling my brain these days than ever before. And for once in my life my words have a little more merit behind them. But some great heart spasm has simply told me "NO, time to be quiet. Silence your tongue & just wait." For what we wait, my tongue and I, I do not know...

Yet amid the stillness I have begun to learn some things. Mostly things about myself and how I wish to live. Yes LIVE, as in flesh and blood and sweat and tears...not in thought and theory, idea and concept. Ever since coming back to the United States form Afghanistan life just seems a little more meaningful. As if the things I do {not so much the things I say} are what really coexists with the rest of creation. For in all honesty, simply talking about the poor, oppressed, displaced and lonely or crossing all my theological T's & I's, while these things are infinitely important and are the first step in many cases, eventually serve to isolate me from their reality all together. Poor PEOPLE become "poverty". Starving PEOPLE become "hunger". HUMAN BEINGS that are displaced from their homes, made into widows, orphans & refugees, then bombed and bombed and then bombed some more become "collateral-damage". War is what happens "over there". What great tragedy it is to have created "issues" out of human suffering so as to "manage" them {or at least manage our conscience so we don't have to see our contribution to them}. But these are the children of God who are blessed! So this is why my tongue has gone numb I suppose...

Many of us love to quote Francis of Assisi's words "there is no use walking anywhere to preach, unless ones walking is ones preaching." Ironically most of us can't realize the ignorance of even repeating those words as opposed to simply responding to them. I personally have shared them probably a thousand times while sitting comfortably in my privileged-white-suburban-middle-class life. Forgive me our beloved saint...

Thus after a lot of thought I have decided that this silence isn't such a bad thing after all. In fact I think practicing the art of quiet now and then could do us all a great deal of good. So it's with this that I walk out into the world once again...tomorrow we go...again...

{LOVE}

2009-01-11T10:05:00.002-10:00

{The Journey Continues 2009}

War Tax Resistance.

2009-01-09T09:07:00.007-10:00

Well as most of you probably know Tax Season is just around the corner once more, and for those of you who are like me, you've already begun the debate of morality in your brain once again. We all understand that around 54% of our tax dollars go directly to military spending that furthers the escalation of violence and murder all around the world. So as a believer in Christ - the everlasting Prince of Peace - how can I contribute to such atrocities? On and on our questions go...

I don't really have the time or energy to put forth a long theological stance on why Christians need to resist paying war taxes (you could easily find far more knowledgeable & coherent people writing on the subject anyway), nor do I have the stamina at the moment to go over the many many historical statements presented by both the Institutional and Free Churches (both historical Peace Churches & Mainline Churches alike - but I'll post a link bellow), instead I just thought I would share a resource or two I have used in the past that can get any of you other subversivites {made that word up} or curious conspirators on your way this year.

Here is a link to one of the most conclusive "guide to war tax resistance" websites around. It will help you decide how "daring" you want to be this year as well as talk you step by step both through the process as well as make very clear the possible legal repercussions for resisting paying these taxes - {http://wartaxboycott.org/gettingstarted.htm}

Personally all I can say is that there is peace in knowing that the money I worked hard for in 2008 is NOT going to a barrage of missile strikes on Palestinian children. In fact my actions are actually taking away for it. And just think, if enough people decided they weren't going to just sit by, if enough people were willing to go to prison, and if enough Christians took up their cross and followed the path to Golgotha (or perhaps Gaza) and were willing to stand someplace between the end of the gun and heart of the oppressed...perhaps then we might just earn the title of peace makers & perhaps then the lion would lay down with the Lamb...

peace,
Steve

p.s. - Here is a link to Church proposed war tax resistance statements, lets not forget this is no new idea or practice for believers living within the empire - {http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/taxes/wartaxes.html}

p.s.s. - War tax resistance is an act of conscience, of civil disobedience. This campaign is about refusal to pay for war, not promoting tax evasion or challenging the constitutionality of taxation or war taxes.

Non-Violence & The Kingdom of Heaven

2008-11-01T07:42:00.006-10:00

Ok so I want to try something. I've been thinking about it for a little while now and came to the conclusion that in all reality nothing harmful can really come from it other than people having a better understand, at the vary least, of my particular beliefs. So here is where we start.

Most of you probably will never have heard of William Lloyd Garrison or the Society for the Establishment of Peace among Men, which existed in 1838 in the United States. He falls among the countless other marginalized voices throughout Christendom's history that have stood for truth with such blatant honesty that you will likely encounter their names upon the "heretic" list. But Garrison was a fiery abolitionist (the champion of emancipation among his more favorable titles) who came to the conclusion after wrestling with the most dangerous of scripture (i.e. The Sermon on the Mount) that the establishment of Christ's Kingdom rested on the open profession of the doctrine of nonresistance to evil by violence (now more well known as "nonviolence"). In 1838 Garrison pend an incredible declaration, from Boston, that was circulated and signed by a remarkable number of believers from various backgrounds including many of the members of the Society for the Establishment of Peace among Men. Immediately after which a Society for Nonresistance was founded, and a journal called the Non-Resistant began spreading. This declaration of Garrison's gave so powerful and eloquent an expression of a confession of faith of such importance to men, that one would have thought it must have produced a strong impression on people, and have become known throughout the world and the subject of discussion on every side. But nothing of the kind occurred. Not only was it unknown in Europe, even the Americans, who at the time held such a high opinion of Garrison, hardly knew of the declaration.

So this is my hope; to share in this declaration with you all. My desire is to spread this declaration of nonresistance as far as print & electronic media can and to gather signatures from as many as would adhere to such a confession. I will post it here and elsewhere, send e-mails and newsletters, and ask those of you who adhere your names to it to spread it as well. Simply add a comment wherever you find it (with your name) or return an e-mail with your wishes to be added to the list of signatures. After adequate time has been given for circulation I will print the declaration and combine our names with the names of believers who signed it in the 1830's. I will then send it to every armed-forces branch of the government as well as send letters to established congregations in support war and violence, not out of spite, but in declaration of our beliefs. Hurray how exciting!

So many of you are already professing believers in nonviolence and many others of you are not. Still many more of you, I'm sure, have never concerned yourself with war and violence and the establishment of heaven on earth. Yet to all I say keep an open mind. If anything let this declaration of my beliefs be a conversation starter, and if you haven't studied nonviolence perhaps read up on it. Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, or anything by Leo Tolstoy are great places to start. But if you're really feeling dangerous check out Matt. 5-7!

A Declaration of Non-Violence 2008

(first introduced by W.L. Garrison in 1838)

"We the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause which we love, to the country in which we live, to publish a declaration expressive of the purposes we aim to accomplish and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the work of peaceful universal reformation.

"We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of mankind. Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests and rights of American citizens are not dearer to us than those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury...

"We conceive that a nation has no right to defend itself against foreign enemies or to punish its invaders, and no individual possesses that right in his own case, and the unit cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If soldiers thronging from abroad with intent to commit rapine and destroy life may not be resisted by the people or the magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the public peace or of private security.

"The dogma that all the governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with his will, is no less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of our existence unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be in any nation are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ in the treatment of enemies; therefore they cannot be agreeable to the will of God, and therefore their overthrow by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects is inevitable.

"We regard as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we regard as unchristian and unlawful; the existence of any kind of standing army, all military chieftains, all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military exploits, all appropriations for defense by arms; we regard as unchristian and unlawful every edict of government requiring of its subjects military service.

"Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we cannot hold any office which imposes on its incumbent the obligation to compel men to do right on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity. It follows that we cannot sue any man at law to force him to return anything he may have wrongly taken from us; if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender him our cloak also rather than subject him to punishment.

"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth--has been abrogated by Jesus Christ, and that under the new covenant the forgiveness instead of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined on all his disciples in all cases whatsoever. To extort money from enemies, cast them into prison, exile or execute them, is obviously not to forgive but to take retribution.

"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration, and that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated only by good; that it is not safe to rely upon the strength of an arm to preserve us from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, long- suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth; for those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.

"Hence as a measure of sound policy--of safety to property, life, and liberty--of public quietude and private enjoyment--as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance principle, being confident that it provides for all possible consequences, is armed with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing force.

"We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines (i.e. Just War Theory). The spirit of Jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither fears God nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide evil by our fundamental principle of not opposing evil by evil we cannot participate in sedition, treason, or violence. We shall submit to every ordinance and every requirement of government, except such as are contrary to the commands of the Gospel, and in no case resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.

"But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places and in low places, to apply our principles to all existing evil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It appears to us a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more, it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of God on earth.

"Having thus stated our principles, we proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt in carrying our object into effect.

"We expect to prevail through the Foolishness of Speaking. We shall endeavor to promulgate our views among all persons, to whatever nation, sect, or grade of society they may belong. Hence we shall organize public lectures, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and petition every governing body. It will be our leading object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings, and practices of society respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment of enemies.

"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful that in its prosecution we may be called to test our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The proud and pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, may combine to crush us. So they treated the Messiah whose example we are humbly striving to imitate. We shall not be afraid of their terror. Our confidence is in the Lord Almighty and not in man. Having withdrawn from human protection, what can sustain us but that faith which overcomes the world? We shall not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try us, but rejoice inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings.

"Wherefore we commit the keeping of our souls to God. For every one that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for Christ's sake, shall inherit everlasting life.

"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the sentiments contained in this declaration, however formidable may be the opposition arrayed against them, we hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the reason and conscience of mankind, and resolving, in the strength of the Lord God, to calmly and meekly abide the issue."

Sign Bellow

......

STEVEN SCHALLERT

Thoughts on returning to the "other-world"

2008-09-23T04:55:00.001-10:00

I am utterly convinced now that the supposed airplane we disembarked on from Kabul was in actuality a time machine. It's as if we stumbled through some black-hole or dimensional field into another world, one utterly disconnected from the other. From "bible-times" to the Jetsons in a few short flights. From simplicity to chaos and complication. Yet BOTH worlds seem ever broken.

One is simply trying to survive in the most real sense of the word. Undeveloped, uneducated, war-torn & starving to death, the inhabitance are totally aware of the "other-world" and dream of it's beauty and vibrance. They even have portholes that allow them to lust for a life without gunfire, famine, or the lack of opportunity.

The other world however (this world-my old world) is lonely and lost. The inhabitance gouge themselves searching for happiness and belonging. Yet continually find themselves wanting and disconnected. They are uneasy, untrusting, lifeless and tense. They fear their worlds collapse and see its survival, in the most exaggerated sense of the word, as more important than their very own. They are totally unaware of the "other-world" and their "life" styles express this in grandeur.

It is very simple from this observation to render one world the Oppressor and the other the Oppressed. It is simpler still to draw a deep sympathy for said oppressed world. Yet, and I find this strangely peculiar, even simpler to draw a deep sympathy (as an oppressor) and do absolutely nothing to bring forth justice.

But here in lay the radical truth both Oppressor & Oppressed must be set free! The one world can not simply liberate the other. With this mentality we simply produce more violence and globalize the ever looming Empire of Loneliness. Visa versa, the simpler world has not the means to separate its beauty from its lust to breath life and reason into the other. It also has little voice to amplify and no receptive ears await unoccupied from the expansive world they might harken to. So to this I say, with every inch of me, we need a NEW WORLD.

One that will feed the hungry and comfort the lonely hearted. One offering GRACE to the ignorant and MERCY to the hopeless. For just as charity without JUSTICE is incomplete, so justice without FORGIVENESS is incomplete. We need a new salvation - a new Jerusalem. LET THE NEW WORLD COME...and it has..

It is here among us now, just waiting to be realized. In truth, it was for THIS very reason that Christ came; to establish this new world upon the earth herself. This world, HIS WORLD, is NOT for some distant cloud. It is for today that salvation sings, "equality now, liberation now, freedom now, and justice today."

So for those of us who have begun to abandon the old worlds a breath of life from God Himself is pushing us onward. We have new eyes to see, new ears to hear, and new hearts to give away. We are being restored to the intended design, echoing of Eden wherever we go. For us, there is no turning back...only the Kingdom. And as we grow we begin to join in salvation's song, "let all come...oppressor and oppressed...a NEW WORLD awaits."

love.

If love were a cancer we would stop seeking a cure & let it consume our whole bodies.

2008-08-23T21:41:00.010-10:00

I'm sorry it's been so many weeks since I last wrote, but God has detained me with His constant moving, shaking, changing and directing. Diane & I have some really exciting things to share with everyone, both about our work here in Afghanistan as well as our plans for the coming years.

First, however, (I suppose this should come first in order to leave everyone feeling cheery upon completion of this update) I have been deathly sick this past week. I'm definitely on the road to recovery now, but still very weak and not able to eat much. Last Sunday I was invited to a banquet of some locals and seated as a guest of honor. Their poor family surprised me with an Afghan delicacy that probably cost them a couple weeks wages and I felt so humbled by their generosity that there was NO WAY I could refuse it. Boiled sheep butt fat in oil and spices along with these little meat dumpling thingies and fruit. Needless to say my westernized stomach never forgave me. I woke up that night with the worst pain in my life, vomited for two days straight, lost about 10lbs, got so dehydrated I needed to drink salt water to bring my muscles back under control and praised the Lord for this amazing families gift all the way through. I really am feeling much better today, but prayer for health is really needed. We have two weeks left here in Afghanistan and a slew of photo projects to get done before we go, so I'll need the energy.

One other note of prayer needed for our team is a rise in persecution coming our way. This week alone we've had rocks heaved and pelted over the walls of our courtyard, a threat that the police are going to come raid our guest house because of "rumors" that we are preaching the gospel (which we are, so, thus is life), and I was spat in the face during my conversation class by a radical who couldn't accept the fact that I have tattoos and am still such a nice guy (or really because he called me a sinner and Jesus a rapist and I said we are all sinners and that the rapist loves him very much).

So pray...but also please know that while there is persecution here (as there is anywhere when people genuinely live their faith) the people of Afghanistan are beautiful. The friendships we have made mean more to me than anything. And to watch the sparkle in the eyes of Afghans dreaming about a better world will break your heart. It has mine...

So on to all the euangelion (or good news). These past few weeks a lot of our team members have been working in a village project 4 hours south of Mazar in Shebragon. They have been leading an education workshop teaching teachers basic learning methods. Most of the village communities have little to no education programs and the schools are usually run by adults who themselves hold 5th or 6th grade proficiency in subjects. So what a blessing to provide more opportunity for future development of those communities. Here in Mazar our office work is wrapping up. My conversation class finished this week but has opened so many doors for me to speak plainly about social justice, non-violent resolution to violent oppression, grace, hope, love and even my faith. I can't do justice in words the feeling you get in your chest when a student comes to you after class and wants to speak in private about Jesus. You feel sneaky. You feel like the early church must have felt in many instances. You feel as much of the church today still feels watching the Kingdom practically break out, touch hearts, and be realized.

This coming week we are all scrambling to get out and shoot as much as physically possible capturing whatever we can of this incredible place. We'll be trucking out to a village north of here, as well as finishing up our work at the orphanage. This friday I'm also organizing what I'm calling HAPPY NAN DAY (Nan is Afghan bread by the way). Next friday is the beginning of the influx to Mazar because Ramadan (the Islamic month of prayer and fasting) starts the following week, so the Mosque will be flooded with people. As a sign of LOVE and RECONCILIATION we're going to buy as much bread as our broken Toyota Mini Van can hold and head down to the Mosque to give it all away, blessing and praying for people as much as we can before we either get kicked out or run out of bread. HAPPY NAN DAY - feel free to celebrate NAN DAY with us in your own towns!!!

*THIS CONCLUDES THE AFGHANISTAN PORTION OF THIS UPDATE*

Now onto the future. So Diane and I have been praying constantly the last couple months about what God has for us next. As some of you know we have planned to continue working with PhotogenX for the next few years, but the Lord has been shaking those plans, as He often does. There has been a lack of peace in our hearts for a while, but the Lamb has been speaking. Well after a lot of prayer, council, and confirmation we have decided to come back to States for a season. We believe this is the right thing for us, our new marriage, and beyond anything the will of God. Here is our main passion for coming to the west:

We have been dreaming together about a "social experiment" we want to start called Project Love 1.0. We have been excited about the idea for some time and believe God has finally said YES. Basically we want to help mobilize Congregations and Communities to socially/radically change their cities. The hope is for Project Love to be 100% practical (i.e. non-theoretical) in actions of Love throughout a community asking NOTHING in return from those the actions are helping. We don't want votes, church membership, or even conversion in return for the love we share (see the life of Jesus for more details). WE JUST WANT TO LOVE PEOPLE BECAUSE PEOPLE NEED IT. We don't want to start and organization, we want to birth the organism by simply living love in community. We don't want Project Love based in any certain city, instead we want it to be global and move from place to place. That’s why we call it "1.0" in hopes that there will be a 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and on and on...the ideas and actions can range in zealotry from organizing carpooling and free transportation to work/school for single parent homes to mobilizing finances to buy homes for the homeless (or maybe give some of ours away, who knows?)...we also finally want to make it a very ART based project by capturing and documenting LOVE in it's very nature as best we can and then making publications, websites, photo books, short films, and holding art galleries and exhibitions.

SHEEEESH (did everyone take a deep breath?) OK, SO THAT'S OUR HEART.

This is the primary reason we are coming home. We will be moving to MEMPHIS, TN this fall to live in community with my Brother & Sister in Law, with the hopes of helping bring life to that city. We are so excited to come along side other believers and change things. This is what God has been doing in us...We will also spend the next year while we are back in the states building relationships and speaking at different congregations about our work in PhotogenX and mobilizing more solid missions support for venturing out in the future. We are still hoping to be a part of this community and do the 'Round The World Track next year or the year after.

So there is much behind and much ahead. God brought us to an island to get married and to the desert to hear His voice. In two weeks we head to South Africa then back to the States. Through everything we know that God is faithful. He has provided for us time and time again and will continue to. Thank you all for your faith and love for us. For your constant prayers and financial support. Because of you people in Afghanistan who were hungry are being filled as the Kingdom of God invades this land with more force and power than any empire which has done so over the past 3000 years. Joy is here...

See you soon...

The Sickness From the Black Lagoon

2008-08-04T06:27:00.013-10:00

{My wife and I south of Mazar having an Afghan Picnic}

I work up this past Saturday at 7am with a fever of 103 and convulsing muscles. Excess amounts of vomiting followed leaving me dehydrated in a way I think only Bear Grills [of Man vs. Wild] could possibly imagine. We called an American doctor friend who firmly insisted I drink more salty water than is humanly possible and posture myself before the maker of the universe. I’ve done both things and woke up this morning mutated into some kind of BLACK TONGUED MUTANT. Yes that’s right folks - I’m in Afghanistan and my tongue is black. In related news, I’m joining the X-Men…

{our friend TANK MAN}

I’m not gonna lie, these past couple weeks have been hard. Sure I haven’t eaten solid food in 48 hours and my mouth looks like I could personally solve the world oil crisis, but even emotionally it has just been really taxing. Living in a WAR torn country dose that to you I suppose. Poverty surrounds you. Violence surrounds you and you begin to feel helpless. Yet it’s the vary nature of our new creation that indeed makes helplessness expire and grace evolve. Perhaps we are just crazy enough to believe that what we are doing here is helping change things. I know I am…a little crazy that is.

The past weeks have seen further work in our NGO office as well as time spent in a local orphanage. We’ve all also been working on various projects for local NGO long-termers to help provide them with solid media & photography to raise funds and spread awareness. Diane photographed the local women’s prison {you can check out a bunch of her shots on her blog right now} which is in absolutely ludicrous conditions. Further, once you make the recollection that when a woman goes to prison in Afghanistan her children go with her, those conditions are even more mind numbing. Babies being raised in rubble – children playing in barbed wire. Yes I’m tired…but the Lamb is at work…

{Bread for Life - is a project I have been working on

which serves to support local Afghan believers in

opening bakeries, sustain community and freely

feed the pour - i.e. Afghans Feeding Afghans}

The relationships I have built with local Afghans are the dearest things to me now. For while I feel at times I am taking more from this country {in photography} than I am giving back, these friendships are honest. On a personal level they have really toiled to close the gap between east & west, rich & pour, and muslim & christian. I have grown weary of the personification within my faith that pushes strictly for conversion. I find more often than not that this mentality negates the need to live out the established Kingdom. Francis of Assisi often said that "there is no point in walking anywhere to preach, unless ones walking is ones preaching." A sentiment I wholly agree with. These men (and women) I love are REAL people, with REAL problems, in a REALLY oppressive culture, living in a staggering disposition to half-truths, violence, and anger, and if we are REALLY honest with ourselves, we won't see much of a difference between their world and our own. We all must overcome and we all hold within us the beauty & truth of our maker. GRACE MUST BE LIVED, NOT PREACHED...

...After all, what mere words could possibly make manifest the fulness of His grace?

Like Stucco in Bullet-Holes

2008-07-18T19:20:00.018-10:00

"The Cross is not a detour on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom, the cross is the kingdom come." - John Howard Yoder

{doll face with a doll face}

I'm often asked because of my views if 1st century Christianity was (is) a religious movement with political overtones or a political movement with religious overtones? I respond in actuality that no one in the 1st century would have ever made such a distinction. They were one in the same and thus what the GOD MAN proclaimed was & is high-treason. Perhaps if we honesty contextualized the revolution we supposedly adhere ourselves to we would stop calling the Bible a "good-book." Perhaps we might even find ourselves terrified of the words in our MANIFESTO. Or perhaps our eyes might even be opened to a whole new world; a KINGDOM THAT HAS COME; not one of some distant future that offers nothing to the millions of people living in the hell of this world. Freedom is NOW! Heaven has FALLEN. The REVOLUTION has come.

{on our drive from Kabul to Mazar}

True Story: an Afghan believer came to the Lord a few years ago and started giving away bread. Every morning he would go out and buy exceedingly more bread than he could ever eat & would give the excess bread to the needy in his community. He shared all that he could while making just under $300 a year working as a teacher. Last year the police came to arrest him for no specific purpose beyond his faith but the poor people living on his block came out to meet them. They yelled and defended him as a man of honor. Nonbelievers defending believers in a country where Christianity is the "root of all evil"...Jubilee...

{peace}

True Story: an Afghan believer came to the Lord many years ago and bought a megaphone. The week after his baptism he climbed the prayer tower of the largest masque in Afghanistan and preached the gospel. Needless to say he was martyred for his actions but he smiled as he took his last breath knowing the word had been proclaimed where never before...Jubilee...

{hope}

True Story: Last week our team wandered the streets of Mazar gathering trash in a land where the streets are basically paved with it. We were peculiar to say the least and crazy to say the worst. Constructing puppets from the rubbish and performed stories for street kids and orphans we brought laughter into the streets. For an hour no one remembered they were hungry, homeless, and fatherless...Jubilee...

{love}

True Story: I teach an english speaking conversation class three times a week here in Mazar to 20 some odd Afghan men. All of my fellowship has warned me not to talk about politics, but seeing as their lives consist primarily of war, oppression, and lack of opportunity I kindly ignore their suggestions. We spend the mornings telling stories and dreaming of futures. We talk about community development and not relying on governments to take care of the poor. Hope fills the walls like Stucco in bullet holes. We conceptually imagine what peace could be like & actually create it for the few hours we meet...Jubilee...

{on our drive from Kabul to Mazar}

These first two weeks in Afghanistan have been incredible. Difficult, but incredible. We are all sick with various inhuman viruses unknown to science causing us to heave all known bodily fluids from every known orifice. One of our Afgan brothers here actually had his appendix taken out this past week giving George and I a much desired insight into one of the local afghan hospitals. We played nurse because well they do surgeries here, not follow up care. The doctors write prescriptions for pain medication, saline, IV's, needles, etc. which we would go purchase and figure out how to administer. But he survived and is back with us so I think I should at least get a medical degree of some kind. His experience is encouraging us to rely on the Lord for healing because well the doctors LOVE to remove organs for just about anything. They get paid more for amputations and such things after all...there is 1 doctor to every 8,000 Afghans in Mazar!

*Sorry for the poor photo resolution - the internet can't handle better quality here*

The Other Side of Earth

2008-07-09T23:02:00.007-10:00

[Delhi, India]

The four days we spent in Delhi were a compulsory brain shift for us all, blowing up our “world-view” and forcibly surfacing the ignorance we jointly share. While the excitement and optimisms remain they are now coupled with the reality that weather we want to admit it or not, WE LIVE IN A BROKEN WORLD.

The streets of Delhi are a circus of acrobatic disarray as cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, tractors, cows, pushcart vendors, stray dogs, horse-drawn thingies, and 25 million people from all walks of life jockey for position at 40 MPH. As our team left the airport we piled the 9 of us, plus our contact, plus the driver into a single taxi with our bags piled about 10 feet high on the roof. My lovely wife soon coined the phrase “Assume the Spoon” as we entered the “Big Top”.

The extreme poverty of India is unavoidable. It doesn’t matter where you look because it pours into the streets from every direction. Street kids and beggars see our white skin from miles away & encompass our team, making me ponder what Jesus really meant when we said, “Give to those who ask”. The entire time we spent in India I couldn’t stop thinking about the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It was almost prophetic how much my thoughts drifted continually back to this story…

Ok so a Jewish man is robed, beaten and left for dead on the road to Damascus. Members of the Religious Right pass on by ignoring his desperate cry for help. Only the Samaritan man stops, loves the man and gives selflessly of himself, not just saving the man’s life, but paying for his entire recovery. Thus we have yet another peculiar insight to what we believers are meant to live like.

…but as we spent our days in Delhi wandering the streets I had some questions for Jesus. I want to radically love people. I want to be the Good Samaritan, but what if there is more than one man dying in the street? What if the entire road to Damascus is littered with bodies? What if the entire city were? Country? I realized how ignorant my idealism was in India, but regardless if you were to ask me where Jesus lives today…I would say He lives in Delhi.

Probably the most notable instance from our time in India was being asked to join a gathering of all the various “M” workers throughout Delhi. There is nothing really comparable to fellowship with like-minded believers in a far away land, singing Hindi songs and breaking bread together. To pray for Delhi with local believers makes you realize how incredibly beautiful The Way really is.

We did have a few amazing opportunities to shoot photography. One afternoon we visited the largest Mosque in India and shot street kids playing on the steps. After a few minutes we had a hundred kids not begging for money but for their pictures to be taken, their faces glowing as we show them their pictures on the display. Joy in a joyless place. Jubilee erupts in the streets. Hallelujah.

So beyond anything spending 4 days in India got our heads on straight. We left Delhi full of questions, excitement, and hope for the months ahead. Honolulu, Tokyo, Delhi, Kabul, 20 plus hours of flights, 8 plus hours of cross desert driving, a few questionable mountain passes, various scary military check points & one suicide bomber later we are finally in Mazar-e Sharif…more to come…

careful words for seemingly reckless moments

2008-06-24T14:12:00.014-10:00

{we love each other}

As most of you know by now (and if not, sheesh get with the program) Diane & I shared some vows, gave some rings, and did some kissing a little over a week ago. Yet I honestly think that a "wedding" must last much longer than the 20 minutes we shared in the sun; family and friends googling with anticipation; Diane and I recessing quirkishly down the aisle looking at each other in a "that was it?" kind of way. I was actually thinking about how anyone could spend so much time & money investing into such a minutiae-blur of a moment as I floated by all the posh faces...

It's so easy to say I love you, but it's another thing entirely to constantly demonstrate love through humility, selflessness, and grace; to walk a lifetime of patience with another, dying and dying again. It's also another thing entirely to extend the vows shared beyond one another to all of humanity, but so we are called by Christ to love. Last Saturday was not just another physical act, no, it was not just another foot washing. Rather, it shared more in common with baptism; an uprooting of the soul, a public declaration to literally be the hands and feet of Jesus in radical redemptive love to all people. To let the sand beneath our feet be an echo of His grace...

{grace}

All that said, we did have an incredible Wedding. I don't know how in the world it turned out so beautiful on our "missionary budget" (i.e. free) but what an awesome example of God's provision. We are so incredible thankful to everyone who flew across oceans to be apart of it and to everyone who took time to think of us and smile. We love you all, miss you all, and can't wait to see you whenever God brings us back home. There should be pictures and videos floating around soon enough (these things happen when 90% of your guest list comprise of photographers). If you have been praying DON'T STOP we feel them in our bones...

{SO ONWARD - WHAT'S NEXT?}

Well amazingly one week from today we are heading to the field. All the lectures and prep work have been incredible but I must say Diane & I are just aching to leave. July 1st we start the first leg of our ROUND THE WORLD TRACK, as we and the team make our journey to Afghanistan. It will take us three or four days to even get to Kabul (via Japan & India) then we will bus over the mountains to the north of the country where we will primarily be working out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Once in Afghanistan we will have a solid couple weeks of language courses before we start working in the tribal communities doing food drops and capturing the incredible beauty of these people. The famine in Northern Afghanistan is worse today than ever and we long to aid the work being done by capturing their stories and by sharing the hope we have within us!!! I've never been so exited in my whole life. We so need your prayers for travel, safety, cultural sensitivity, reconciliation, and Lord knows the list could go on and on...

...We have no idea how much communication we will have once on the ground but I will try to update the blog as much as physically possible as well as send out e-mails...I will try and call as many of you as possible before we leave in a week. If you want to talk by all means don't hesitate to call, we don't care that we are "on our honeymoon" we just want to be able to share with you and touch base before we leave...

PS - I totally love these people...

God & Politics

2008-06-03T23:31:00.003-10:00

{Three Degrees of Separation from Speaking of Faith}

If you have some spare time take a listen to this conversation between Chuch Colson, Greg Boyd (one of my favorite authors), and Shane Claiborne (also one of my favorite authors). This is so important and my heart has been here the last couple months...

No Great Leap of Faith {Afghanistan}

2008-05-24T14:24:00.006-10:00

{over the edge}

Oh great "leap of faith" I wish to be rid of thee. Yet another phrase which draws the perfect sovereignty out of our Lord. It's a saying tossed around most Christian circles that I just can't get my head around. I long to never take another "leap of faith", but rather LIVE by faith; constantly uprooted and directed by the Lamb. To no longer simply "give thanks" before a meal, but more importantly live a life which merits thanks for the food provided. The problem is we are "living on the edge", close enough to the dangerous fall to hear the wind howling bellow. From time to time we leap into the air to feel the exhilaration of what it might be like to go over the edge. But the thought of "loosing ones life" in the fall keeps us from the freedom of flight. I propose we go beyond mere "leaps of faith" and unwittingly fall into the abyss, leaving only the glory of the Lord visible to save us from the rocks below...into the great unknown...

{South Point - Hawaii Big Island}

So we have been working hard to finalize the first 3 months of field work we are about to embark on. I can't tell you how incredible exited I am to share with you what we will be doing. Last night after weeks of fumbling around with visas & NGO contacts we received an open invitation from our contact in Afghanistan. For those of you who don't know, there is currently a great famine going on in the northern territories of Afghanistan caused by draught and the continuation of violence in the region. The UN & Oxfam have estimated that unless aid workers can reach these tribal areas more than 7,500,000 people could die from starvation!!! So yesterday we received the invitation to go and work in Northern Afghanistan for 2 months delivering food as well as photographing and capturing the situation in hopes to bring further awareness and aid. The NGO we will be working side by side with (I can't share their name) has given us word that for US$170 they can feed a family of 7 for 2 months!!! If ANYONE is interested at all in helping us raise funds specifically for this purpose PLEASE get in touch with me. We (PhotogenX) are trying to raise around $10,000 which would allow us (YOU) to personally provide food to 60 families for the next two months while I am personally in the field...

Please pray for us in this time as we prepare to leave. We need our visas & immunizations to be taken care of this week!!! So please pray that God would provide in his perfect timing for us. I'm so exited I can hardly contain myself...

{South Point - Hawaii Big Island}

In other crazy news Diane & I are getting married in just 3 weeks now!!! Where in the world did the time go? Things are coming together and we just want to thank everyone who has sown into our relationship over the past couple months. You are such a blessing to our lives. I can't believe we are going to start our lives together traveling the world serving people. How perfect...

We are still looking for people to partner with us on this journey of hope. We so wish to share and dream with you of another world and put action to those dreams. We want to bring you with us as you sow into our work and share in the hope that we profess...we'll be in touch ;-)

{South Point - Hawaii Big Island}

Saints or Communists?

2008-05-06T22:35:00.010-10:00

It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just missions projects but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. One of the verses I have grown to love is the one where Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples and says, "I no longer call you servants... Instead, I have called you friends" (John 15:15)." Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love, genuine relationships. Someday, perhaps we can even say those words that Ruth said to Naomi after years of partnership:

"Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there be buried" (Ruth 1:16-17).

And that's when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. In the words of the late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara:

"When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist."

Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.

{much of this post was borrowed from Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution which I HIGHLY recommend by the way...oh & I love & miss you all}

Another Way of Doing Life

2008-05-01T13:08:00.015-10:00

A few years ago the University invested $80,000 into new playground equipment to help better serve the many family's with children working here in Kona. There are so many amazing families with the cutest kids you could ever imagine. They laugh, cry and play together taking no regard to the fact that they can't speak the same language. They simply embrace each other as little people with different looking eyes & skin. Well I've been here a month now and I rarely see kids using the wooden castles & ships they have purposefully created for their enjoyment. I see them instead during my work duty (Diane & I take care of all the recycling here on campus as a part of contributing to this community) playing in our GIANT pile of cardboard and paper. They say "I pay no mind to those castles & ships, I just want to roll in the trash for a while. You built me an empire, yet all I need is my imagination." Usually I'm left holding my HI-5 cans wondering, "what if we as the Body of Christ looked like this?

{These are my favorite TEACHERS}

Diane & I are getting married June 14th. We haven't expected to have much of a WEDDING itself, which is fine with us as it leaves room to focus on the MARRIAGE, but God is so faithful to his people. His love is so overflowing. The past couples weeks He has provided basically all the things we were totally ok with not having for the day. Isn't it incredible how God LOVES to bless his kids with the things on their hearts? We give up - we let go - God is FAITHFUL and in CONTROL...

{Thank you all SO much for your love and support in this!!!}

www.HAKANI.org

This coming week The Childers (A Voice for the Voiceless) along with a bunch of our PhotogenX companions will be heading to Washington DC. They will be meeting with Congress to discuss the continued "tradition" of INFANTICIDE in the Amazon. This past January Susie Childer's Photography of these issues culminated in the making of a documentary film, which will be shown in these meetings. The film is about a young girl named Hakani who amazingly survived her families tribal "tradition" of burring unwanted children alive. A Publication called "A Voice for Hope" will also be distributed in Congress, as well as to all the standing members of the United Nations, featuring PhotogenX photography. One of the major problems is that the Brazilian Government continues to deny the indigenous people basic human rights by excluding them from citizenship. This means that the constitution dose not apply to the tribal people, leaving the hundreds of families who want to save their children without a voice. This issue is so deep I cannot do it justice. Please go instead to the website above if you care to know more about this project. I wanted to make you aware because many of us here have been working on, praying into, and giving out hearts to this project since we stepped foot on this Island. So as our team heads to the States this week I just want to ask for prayer that God will soften the hearts of those they cry out to; that our Father's will and love for these beautiful children can infect the lives of men who's pen can bring an end to these brutal acts; that GODS heart for the VOICELESS will become OUR heart for the VOICELESS!!!

So often we look up to heaven and ask God, "Why is this world so broken?"

I honestly think most of the time He looks back down and says,

"I was about to ask you the same question"

"You are my HANDS & my FEET"

I'll leave you today with a bit of what has been on my heart the last few days. Soren Kieregaard {one of my favorite 19th-century Danish Christian Theologians} said it far better than I ever could...

" The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand, But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New testament."

{LOVE is a REVOLUTION}

The Great Symphony

2008-04-15T20:55:00.021-10:00

.oh come great composer.

Kona is a place of Symphony where so many elements {much like strings} come together evolving into a beautiful orchestration. I awake in the morning to see the Pacific in the west and the volcanic blackened mountains to the east; lending evidence of God's sheer "jaw dropping" power peripherally.

.the photogenX crew.

PhotogenX is well underway with it's lecture and preparation phase. There are 30+ of us comprised of men and women from Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Switzerland, Brazil, The UK, Germany, South Korea, & The United States ranging in age from 18 to 50+ from all walks of life. We represent only one of 4 projects currently working through The University of the Nations & YWAM here in Kona, Hawaii. Currently there are around 300 people on campus from 42 nations representing basically every Christian Denomination on the planet. We converge to use ART as a catalyst for change, to bring hope and the Gospel to those whom we have forsaken, and to stand in unity to show the world another way is possible.

.another world is possible.

Everything is changing. Living in community dose that to you. You have no choice but to tear down your walls to see the world in a different light. Try to enter into worship with such diversity, while holding reservation in ones heart, and you will see how quickly walls must come down. I guess thats the power of the Church in it's truest sense {as God intended}; no division, no boarders, just LOVE. I'm getting there {it's personal}...

GRACE - Pololu Valley, Hawaii

This past weekend all of PhotogenX went out to Pololu Valley on the Northern Coast of the Island near Makapala. It was a time to be alone with God and to continue to grow as a community. For those {probably all} of you who haven't been to Pololu Valley it is probably the most beautiful place on planet earth. The opening scene of Jurassic Park was shot there, yet even though I searched rigorously I found no Dinosaurs. I did however find a Wife! Diane and I got engaged this past weekend standing atop the 400 foot cliffs leading into the valley bellow {i.e. in the Parking Lot the minute we stepped out of the car at the rim of the Valley}. I had intended to wait another month or so, but God's timing defies the logic of men. We turned the corner into the valley and I knew I wouldn't make it through the weekend without asking Her. I didn't make it 10 minutes actually! But we are so exited for this...

We're tentatively planning on getting married June 6th (yep thats like 6 weeks from now). I will keep everyone up to date on plans and so forth. Please keep us in your prayers as we just added yet another major life change into the mix! When The Lamb dose "life surgery" it's most often a Triple Bypass of sorts. Grace.

I hope you enjoy the first installment of pictures here. Most of them are work from shoots around the Kona area...

Genesis

2008-03-31T06:59:00.007-10:00

.It's time for the next great EXODUS.

This life of ours must be constantly uprooted to make sure it is "living well", and I am so exited for the digging to begin again. I just want to start by saying thank you to everyone who will read these writings over the years to come, your LOVE and support carry me. Your prayers and financial contributions remind me that "The Way" is still thriving among us as a movement of grace embodied by God's people. Please keep them coming...they are bread...

From April until June 2008 I can be reached at this address in Hawaii:

Please send any mail "Airmail" (not "ground" or "surface")

Steven Schallert

PhotogenX DTS

University of the Nations

75-5851 Kuakini Hwy Box 432

Kailua-Kona, HI 96740

USA

Any financial contributions should still be mailed to my home address in MI.

Checks can be made out to The Holland Church of Christ.

Or you can feel free to make online donations using Visa/MC from the button bellow.

Beyond anything, I hope these writings will bring you inspiration in your own Exodus. That they can encourage you to LOVE as Christ loved and that we can embody Heaven on this earth. Lets start a new way of living, let us be "set apart" as a revolution of hope...