July 8, 2010 

Finding My Place in This World: Where Do I Belong? (Part 2 of 2) 

“A heart that’s hopeful
I head that’s full of dreams
But this becoming
Is harder than it seems… 

Feels like I’m
Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world 

Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world” -Michael W. Smith Lyrics 

Time is flying by, in fact it seems like every day is faster than the one before these days! It’s now been 7 years since I graduated high school in 2003 and yet here I am in virtually the same place I was 7 years ago. What happened? I ask myself–where did I go wrong? Why is life so hard and why is getting to where I want to be seem so elusive to me? Lately these questions have been drilling me in my head as friends, former co-workers, family members, and my peers continue to progress in life, while I’m stuck in neutral. Here’s a recap at what went wrong over the past several years…. 

High school for me was a complete waste(or at least it feels that way)–and I deeply regret that it was. I was a nobody in high school, but okay with it. I wasn’t even a part of any crowd, didn’t have many friends, and didn’t involve myself in any after school activities such as plays, sports, or clubs. Why? Because I approached high school with a passive attitude. I didn’t put full effort into my academic work, striving just to get by and be done with it. Am I being too hard on myself–perhaps…but I have know I could have done so much more than what I did through those 4 years. Then planning for college was seen as a chore and I took little interest in it. I dreamed of going to somewhere like Malone or Mount Vernon but I knew it was impossible with my grades, so I settled for Stark State Tech College because it was cheap and close to home…. 

Deciding a major was a nightmare—nothing appealed to me. My thinking process was this: The Health field—boring. Engineering–way too complicated. Law–um….I’ll pass. Teaching…death. (no offense to all you teachers), Computers…too much math,…okay, I guess it’s going to have to be something in the business field. So I took the easy way out and choose Financial Services. After all I had to pick something, right?… 

Less than 2 years in, I was miserable and knew Financial Services was going to be the death of me with classes like Accounting and Taxation. So I switched majors and choose Marketing–yet another mistake. I based my major on the introduction class to Marketing, which I loved, but never considered what actually a marketing job required. I ignored all the warning signs, convincing myself that marketing would somehow work. After a few setbacks, I got my associate’s degree in marketing in 2007 and thought getting a job would be easy…. 

As it turns out, getting a job wasn’t the problem–it was what the job required; the details of my job description immediately made me realize that I had made a HUGE mistake. Marketing in the truest sense is sales–there are different words for it promoting, advertising, public relations, but at its core Marketing is simply sales(which doesn’t fit my personality at all!!). After a few job shadowing interviews I was miserable and knew I wanted out. By this time, I just wasted four years of my life in college and gotten nowhere..now what?.. I asked… 

Over the next year or so, I again struggled on what to do. I decided on going back to school, this time striving to get certification in Desktop Publishing. Yet another mistake. Why? Desktop Publishing is mainly a home business job that thrived in the 90s, now it’s slowly fading out. Also certification is mainly for people who already have experience in that area of study, but need a little more educational training. So if you’re counting that’s 5 years in college and 6 overall that managed to pass me by… 

Last summer, I decided to try something different–a self-training program in A+ certification(Information Technology). You guessed it–another mistake. Although the material itself isn’t hard to comprehend–it’s incredibly boring and I had a hard time getting motivated to learn the material, so I’m faced with making another career altering decision… 

Going a few months back before then, On April 21, 2009, the course of my life took a drastic change. It may have not been in one instant moment that transcended every area of my life right then and there, but I finally woke up for good after years settling for mediocrity and getting by. Fourteen months have since passed and I’m beginning to see the results of the decision I made on that day. I’m no longer afraid to take risks, I’m more willing to step outside of my comfort zone, trying new things doesn’t faze me like it used to, my walk with God is incredibly strong and getting stronger, rejection is much easier to deal with now since mid-February, and I’m beginning to see clearly on what God wants me to do with my life! That brings me to my decision that I’ve been wrestling with for months…. 

I’ve always wanted to doing something with computers, but it always struck me as a complex field with tons of math. While in school during the spring of 2009, I discovered my love for web design. Then SHOUT IT exploded onto the scene and the idea for a website came. In mid-November of last year, I launched the website and since then many ideas, concepts, and dreams have sprung up, so I bought the Adobe Web Design Suite. The only problem is that I don’t know how to use all these programs, so I need to learn how…. 

…So going back to school in the fall(Stark State) to study Web Design is what I feel God is leading me to do. No regrets, no passivity, no lackluster effort–it’s all or nothing. I’ve already spent 7 years wandering in the desert of despair and mediocrity. I can’t afford to make another mistake–so this decision must be the right one. I’ve prayed long and hard about this and I feel very confident in this decision. Of course, there’s plenty of hurdles and obstacles that I must overcome. Money, time, more commitments, sacrifices in my schedule are just a few that come to mind. I still haven’t figured out all the details, but I feel led to try for an associate’s degree in Web Design which will take at least 2.5 years or most likely 3 years. Yes, I’m frustrated it took this long to finally wake up and realize what I’m supposed to do, but like everything else in my life, it’s taken awhile for me to figure things out. I guess you could say I’m a slow learner… 

Getting a job that pays the bills is never enough as I’ve learned. There’s more to a job than just earning money, making a living, and getting by. Also I’ve come to the realization that your job must fit your strengths, abilities, passions, etc. or you will be miserable! It sounds obvious, but a lot of people like me get a job just because it’s what they’re supposed to do. One more thing I’ve learned to not to live for someone else’s dream–do what God’s called you to do, not for what other people expect you to do. You can’t do anything you want, you must use what you’re given and use them for the glory of God!….. 

Before I can walk, I must learn to crawl. I’m still paying for the mistakes I’ve made over the past 7-10 years of my life, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can learn from my mistakes but it does me no good using them as an excuse for where I am today. The time is now to make something of my life, to live with a reckless abandon, living as each day was my last. I’ve grown so much in the past year or so, and I finally think I’m headed in the right direction. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in my life, question marks flood my mind as each day passes. In this process, God is teaching me to trust Him every step of the way, giving Him every part of my life. This is one area(my career) I’m finally ready to hand over to Him… My story isn’t over by any means…in fact…it’s just beginning!! 

Thanks for Reading. God Bless. 

-Kyle 

September 7, 2010

The Memories and Message Behind Our Mexico Missions Trip

“Let’s go
To the great unknown,
Find the one that rolled away the stone.
Let’s go to the foreign shore,
Find a way to give
like we never gave before.
Let’s go,
Going far and wide,
Pack your bags and leave it all behind.
What are you waiting for?” -Mark Schultz Lyrics

It’s been a little over 10 years already since one of the most memorable, surreal weeks of my life. In early August of 2000, a group from the high school youth group from Northside Christian Church and I went on a missions trip to Piedras Negras, Mexico for Crossroads Missions. No one could have guessed the trials, problems, and experiences that lied ahead. Here is an look back on the trip; the memories and what God taught us along the way. I’ll try to recall things as accurately as I can…

I never intended to go on this trip when it was announced. The first thought was intimation and fear. Not to mention getting people to sponsor the trip sounded like a lot of work. But, after a few weeks mulling it over and in prayer, I felt like God was pushing me to go; so I signed up. There was plenty of preparation involved from getting shots, to attaining a passport, to buying tons of supplies for the trip. It was a stressful few weeks leading up to the trip for sure.

I don’t remember which day of the week we left but I do remember we left in the early evening(most likely it was Thursday). The trip was scheduled to take about 30 hours–all on a commercial bus. That’s right–30 hours!! The trip itself was an adventure. Our bus broke down in the middle of Tennessee in the extreme hot afternoon sun. With no air-conditioning it was a brutal experience. Thankfully, we were able to contact a local church and got transportation there until our bus was repaired. Sleeping on the bus was NOT FUN!! Most of us got little sleep and I was fortunate to get any. I really have a hard time sleeping on moving vehicles.. We finally reached our destination crossing the border of Texas in the early afternoon on Saturday( I believe), several hours late.

I clearly remember the first time I stepped off the bus and into the Mexico heat. It was like walking into a steaming oven! I’ve never experienced such extreme heat in my life! It took awhile just to be able to function in that heat!! After unpacking we joined the rest of the team and started working on the missions work. After lots of digging the first day, I spent most of my time with Chris McClure working on the pipe-lines–very hard work and tedious!! I also worked on sandpapering the walls of a few houses as well. The days were long, very hot, and oh yeah there was no indoor plumbing–not a pleasant experience!

There was plenty of surreal moments to be had in my week down in Mexico and one of them was staying overnight at a kind Mexican man’s house. Chris McClure, Dave Dodson, Brian Shooks, and got to ride in a truck with a Mexican guy and tried to communicate with him despite not knowing a whole lot of English. It was certainly interesting trying to communicate with him. Staying overnight at his house was definitely a eye-opener on the drastic contrast of life they live have and what we are blessed with.

Along with our missions work each day, we were grouped in teams that helped prepare meals for the day, which was a little rough considering most of us had no idea what we were doing. We managed though. There was worship every night and that for me was the most enjoyable part of the day. We had a Sunday service at the church we were staying at and that was another surreal experience. Hearing familiar worship songs in Spanish was certainly neat to be a part of.

A day or two before we were scheduled to head back to the States, we took a day off from work to go shopping in a local market. It was lots of fun to be immersed in a totally different culture and eat from a foreign restaurant. Figuring out what was what on the menu was really nerve-wrecking(but hilarious!) After shopping, everyone met up at a local lake to cool off. That was when everything took a turn for the worst…

After swimming for awhile, we worshipped on the other side of the lake and then headed back for our stuff. All the bags and belongings near the bus where gone–everything: Cell-phones, cameras, clothes, wallets, video-cams–all stolen. Fortunately for me and a few others we took our stuff to the edge of the lake, so it wasn’t taken. But that didn’t account for the fact that we were robbed and in another country no less!! We tried getting help from the local police, but their law force is not even up to par when it comes to ours, so there wasn’t much we could do.

The last days were spent trying to take in what had happened, frantically cancelling credit cards, and buying supplies to replace things that were stolen. How could they do this we asked? The irony was that we were on this missions trip to help serve the less fortunate and they were so desperate from their poverty that they had to steal from us Americans. It really put things in perspective of how bad things were just outside the United States border and how richly blessed we were! We kidded about them watching the video from the video-camera they stole and realizing who we were and who they had stolen from. Who knows maybe because of this they came to know Christ…God works in mysterious ways…

The trip back was very uneventful compared to the what we went through, but no one seemed to mind. We were so tired physically and emotionally and just wanted to go home by then. My return back to reality was totally bizarre!! Being away from technology for over a week, indoor plumbing, cool weather (the high 80′s felt amazing!)–things I took for granted were now savored with delight!

To date this is the only missions trip I’ve been on outside of the United States and I am so grateful that God sent me on it. I got a taste of the extreme poverty experienced in most of the world and got to see a whole new culture. I even learned a few Spanish words I didn’t know down there(but I admit most of them I have forgotten). I met wonderful people down there and be a part of something far bigger than myself. Even though in the whole scheme of things, our work that week was a very small part of the big project to build homes in Piedras Negras it was satisfying knowing that one day those homes were going to be lived in. We were making an impact no matter how small they might have been! I hope to be able to go on another missions trip in the distant future, but I could do without all the drama….I’ll always treasure the week I spent in Piedras Negras and for the opportunity I was given–I grew so much from this trip and it’s made me see things in a whole different light….Hope all of you who went on this trip enjoyed looking back at the memories with me!!

Thanks for reading and God Bless.

-Kyle