Timothy Paul Kirkpatrick

Well, I am worn out.  Katie and I started our trek back to Buckley Friday morning.  We flew back into New Orleans from Michigan Thursday night, drove back to Lafayette, picked up the dog and crashed at Paul and Weezie’s joint.  Got up early Friday, picked up the rental truck and then was greeted by the REDWOOD Media Group to help me load up (and pc).  It was a nice surprise.  We got on the road about 11:30 after a tearful goodbye from Melany and drove to Alabama.

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to families.  Well we went to visit Katie’s family tree.  They were all cool though despite any doubts I had.

After a quick stay in gO’Bama country, we drove to Indy to crash at the Shunem House.  Then after a quick service and lunch at my old church in Indy, we make the jaunt to ChiCAGOOOOOOoooooo Yeah! 

That’s pretty much it.  We are “geek’d” (that’s how they say excited in Michigan) about the church, the people and the opportunities.  Thank you for checking in on us now and again.

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Katie and I are in Buckley, Michigan this weekend.  It seems as if the culture/weather/people are completely different then Saint Martinville, Louisiana.  This for the most part is true.  In Louisiana you are either Cajun(white), Creole(several generations of mixing) or Black(African Americans).  In Buckley Michigan you are either Dutch(White, blonde, blue eyes) or German(White, blonde hair, blue eyes).  But in the end people are people and every culture and people group in the world needs Christ.  I loved the opening intro video this morning that said “We believe we are all broken pieces that Christ is putting back together.”  What a few of spiritual maturity!  I remember being shut in for snow days in New Hampshire as a kid (the weather here reminds me of this, high of 65 today, low of 50 tonight) and we would put together puzzles.  I remember how frustrating it would be to start out.  Someone dumps the puzzle on the table then every scrambles to find something that fits, something that seems right, something that makes sense.  We keep looking at the picture on the box and try to identify the puzzle piece with the picture on the box.  And yet it’s tough sometimes.  Often times I look at my life and see how screwed up it might seem compared to the picture on the box (Christ).  But then I have to realize that I’m still being put together, according to my willingness.

I remember how exciting it would be when you stop seeing the mess of a broken puzzle and we could start see the picture.  Our job as pastors and our responsibility as Christians is to help each other with the puzzle.  For some it’s trying to get the outer shape together, getting them to understand that they are a broken mess; and that there is someone who is waiting to trade them that mess for the picture on the box.  Some people just need some holes filled in.  The bottom line is the picture on the box.  I want to be a picture of Jesus.

p.s. - 50 degrees is the low in the beginning of August! It feels like February in Louisiana or Nov/March in Indy! Are you kidding me!!!???!

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Last week a wrote a comment on my friend, Heath’s Blog, about Manny Ramirez.  I felt like the comment in itself was a blog and have decided to post it real quick.

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Every time I stop and realize it’s a Tuesday the song “Tuesday’s Gone” immediately pops into my head.  While most  people might think of Happy Gilmore or the 70’s; I happen to think of the movie Dazed and Confused and spending time with a good friend, Matt LeRoy.  Matt, though he was and has always been a mentor figure is really good at one thing that matters most, being a friend.  So here’s to you friend.

In other news:

• Our last Sunday at OSC is this week.  After 5 1/2 years it’s time to say goodbye.  More on this later.
• There are some very cool opportunities on the horizon for us and we feel strongly that God is leading us by faith through these doors.  I’ll update that around Aug. 10.
• Another good friend is getting back this week from her Mother Theresa/Shane Claibourne tour.  Check out her insights here.  Seriously, she’s got some good things to say in these posts.
• I am getting better after being sick to my stomach for over a month now.  If you ever go to Nigeria, don’t eat “Gala.”  It looks and tastes like a Kolache, but it will end up, as the doctor said “eating the lower half of your stomach lining and the first part of your small intestine.”  So if you want to know what that feels like, just give me a ring and I’ll let you know.  But in the words of the dying old man in Monty Python’s search for the Holy Grail…”I’m feeling better.”
• Because I’m in recovery Katie and I are the two people in America who still haven’t seen The Dark Knight.  Is it really that good?  It’s poised to pass Titanic as the all-time America grossing film.  Will it cause me to shed a tear as well?
• I am toying with a few new theme ideas.  How do you like this one?  It’s my favorite so far.

Bring out your Dead - Video

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Dancing upon injustice.

A lot has been on my mind and heart lately.  The move is coming up, I’m trying to finish things on the house and we are working hard to help with the leadership transition for the Hope Center.

It would be easy, well easy isn’t the right word.  It would be convenient to just push through these next three weeks and make sure everything gets done on time.  Anyone who moves from a house knows there is usually a whole lot more involved in the move then originally anticipated.  No matter how many lists or budgets or Google calendars we make to help us organize something is always bound to come up.  It can be the same for a job, a position, a ministry or volunteer opportunity.  Now is definitely one of those times.

One of the things I enjoy about my wife is the same thing that kind of lured me into falling for her to begin with.  She loves to hate injustice.  Not just social injustices (human trafficking, poverty, lack of adequate water/food); although that’s her specialty, rather she hates all injustices.  It could be someone showing up late, a child who doesn’t know how to read or someone not standing up for the sanctity of marriage.

Jesus’ taught that the entire law of God can be summed up with two things: to love God with everything you have, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Josh McDowell explains the love as simply protecting and providing for.  The love interest could be your relationship with God, your own personal well being or a loved one.  Katie helped me with this concept during this past weekend.

She saw, where I did not, a potential for injustice in our marriage by us not having much time for each other over the next few weeks.  So she sprung into action and planned a 5 hour road trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama.  A quick night of camping, a few hours at the beach, then back to the dirty dirty to finish up our time in Louisiana. 

There are many people in the world who are into the trends of fighting for causes.  But there are few people like Katie, who not only fight all injustices big and small, but thrive to see them brought to the light and fixed.  There is a song called “Did you feel the mountains tremble?”  It is an older song, but a powerful one nonetheless.  There is a line in the song telling of “dancers who dance upon injustice.”  There are those who get caught up in trends, and usually get caught up in something else.  Then there are those who thrive, who dance upon injustice. 

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I came back from Nigeria late last night.  Over the next few days I’ll post some of my thoughts and reflections from the trip.  There are many thoughts about politics, religion, education and poverty that I think are pretty interesting and honestly America could learn a lot from.  But today, I am just going to share my heart.

Sunday Morning, I woke up in my hotel room early.  I took a bucket shower and began to pray about the service and what I felt God wanted to speak through me.  I began to sing to myself the old Hillsongs song made popular by Shane & Shane “You Said.”  It goes a little like this:

You said “Ask and you will receive whatever you need/You Said “Pray and I’ll hear from heaven and I’ll heal your land/You Said your “Glory will fill the earth like water the seas/You said “lift up your eyes, the harvest is here, the kingdom is near/Ask and I’ll give the nations to you/O Lord, that’s the cry of my heart…

Basically, the song takes parts of what God/Jesus says throughout the Bible and then calls them back to God.  What this does is tests our faith.  I might say something like this:

“God, if you are who you said you are, then I have to be who you said I am.  You have called me a son, and you said that I can ask for the nations as my inheritance, the ends of the earth will be my possession.” (Psalm 2)

And my prayer that morning, went something like that.  After Pastor Wale picked me up and we went to the church I settled in for the 2 hour worship service/testimonial time.  Then I was going to speak.  What I was not ready for was the seemingly spontaneous 5 person choir who got up right before me and began to sing the song “You Said” as slides of the previous days medical/food/clothing outreach roled on the power point.

I smiled at the “coincedence” of the song until God pinpointed something that I had buried deep in my heart eight years ago.  It seems as if tears are the only outward sign of unearthing buried dreams.  The tears began to roll down my cheeks and they weren’t stopping.  About 8 years prior to Sunday, while I was in college, I went to a meeting called World Christian Fellowship.  It is the first place I heard the song “You Said.”  I looked up the scripture (psalm 2) and prayed a little prayer like this:

“God, if you are who you said you are, then I have to be who you said I am.  You have called me a son, and you said that I can ask for the nations as my inheritance, the ends of the earth will be my possession.”

8 years ago I was asking not for material possessions, but rather for souls, for redemptions, for healings.  Sunday God spoke very clearly to me, and assured that I was starting to see the fruit of my dreams and my prayers.

I set my notes aside for a few minutes and began to speak from my heart that morning.  (Let’s be honest, it’s usually better that way)  I begin to speak about Martin Luther King Jr’s dream.  He had a dream of racial equality.  Rather then physically fighting for it, he boldly and humbly spoke it.  His life did more for racial equality then all the men who died fighting in the civil war could do.  He had a dream.

We all have dreams.  We all, and I mean all, have seeds of hope, dreams, and desires that God has planted deep inside of us.  Those of you who have had buried those dreams come about, understand the tears.  Tears not of sorrow, but of joy.

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I was able to talk to Tim three times this weekend! He found a phone card for only one cent per minute so we were able to talk longer than with the World Phone ($2.50 per minute). He arrived in Ibadan on Friday to meet Pastor Wale. On Saturday, they did a medical and food outreach in Bere. Tim shared they saw over 100 people in the clinic and over 200 in the food pantry. He was extremely impressed with how organized the volunteers from Wale’s church were. He also said the conditions in the inner city were unbelievable. There were no toilets and no clean water. The government has completely abandoned this area in a city of 1.5 million people. Pastor Wale’s church has a vision to start a community center there while also building toilets and a well for clean water. The grand total for their projects is $32,000.  As we just received a $25,000 government grant for the Hope Center, it is shocking to know that same amount of money could literally provide life to this community. It also breaks my heart to know these preventable conditions exist while we enjoy a comfortable “anything we want” lifestyle in the US.  Tim just kept repeating he was so overwhelmed and that it would take a while to process all the things he had seen. He preached for about half an hour on Sunday at Wale’s church and laughed when they told him it was short but powerful. Apparently, they are accustomed to sermons of at least an hour. He was also able to speak at a bible club at the university. Overall, he said the trip was amazing and exhausting. The food has been interesting and sometimes unidentifiable. He is definitely ready to come home.

Please continue to pray for his safety! He arrives tomorrow night at 9:30pm in Lafayette. I am sure he will have much more to share when he returns. Also, thank you to every one who has checked on me and taken me in while Tim is away. It is such a blessing to have friends who shower you with love and generously open their homes even when you are a stubborn vegetarian hippie with a stinky dog

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Today Tim called and said they went to a hospital to pray with patients. While he was in the maternity ward, the doctor asked him if he wanted to help circumcise a little boy. Tim was shocked (personally I think he was thrilled) that he didn’t need any medical training and agreed to help perform the snip snip. Tomorrow the group will visit a rural village and Tim will be speaking at a youth service. In his words, it will be a “bathe in a bucket, dig a hole to poop kinda place.” The group will be staying there until Friday and then Tim will leave to meet Pastor Wale. I am very anxious to hear more details after this meeting about the progress and vision for the community center Pastor Wale wants to start. It is harder than I could’ve imagined being here while Tim is away. I miss him terribly and I hate not knowing every detail of the things he is seeing and experiencing. Please continue to pray for us as we seek God’s direction for our future. Also, pray for Tim’s safety as he leaves the group and goes to meet with Pastor Wale.

I’ll update you as soon as I hear more!

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I’m sitting at my computer at about 1 am the night/morning before I leave for Nigeria.

Instead of listening to Toto or Band-Aid sing about how great Africa is, I’m listening to Bruce Springsteen sing about Tom Joad.  If there is one thing that a Springsteen song can do for you, it is thing: to make you feel something inside of you that you didn’t quite know was there.  You identify with something in his songs…they become foggy mirrors.  And I’m beginning to wipe the glass and squint at the reflection.

Rather then post some meanderings about all the things I’ll do while I’m gone.  I’d like to share what I see as i look into that mirror.

• Things have been rather stressful lately.  I won’t go into all the details because one of the points I’m beginning to see is that the details in my life, your life, are just details.  There is a root problem that I’m beginning to uncover.  And like a root, I need to go through a good bit of dirt to dig it up.  What that root is, I’m not quite sure.  Is it pride, anger, lack of self-control, selfishness?  I don’t think it matters, right now I’m just digging.
• I worked my tail off to get this house ready for a party to thank the people that have volunteered at the Hope Center this last year.  It was great, but I’ve sacrificed a lot to get things done.  Things.  I say things, because in 20 years, they won’t be worth describing.  They’ll just be things.  I’m tired.  Katie’s tired.  We both might be tired or just tired of the situations I’ve put us in.  Fortunately, she’s very graceful in all aspects of life.  But I’m sitting here at 1 am reflecting on the past few months of marriage, and the next 9 days.
• I’m not nervous or scared to go to Africa.  But I have been thinking about what it will be like leaving Katie for the first time in our marriage.  What if something happens to her, or me, what will we think of the last 7-9 months of our life?  Will I be able to say that was the best time of my life, or just she was the best woman, wife and friend I knew?  What will she have in the memory bank in regards to me?  A wise man said once, “Vanity, vanity it’s all merely chasing after the wind.”
• Ever since I was a young lad I’ve had a yearning in me to do what was right in the face of injustice.  This is much different then just doing right or being on good behavior.  It has to do with speaking for those who can’t speak, fighting for those who can’t fight and standing up for things worth standing up for.
• Even though all those things are in my heart, and I feel passionately about them; I get increasing frustrated that I have trouble communicating what is in my heart out through my mouth, and that I can’t actually fight anyone.
• Where are the leaders of the world?  Where are the ones, elected or not, that people can look at and say I’m proud to know them, or I may not even like that person but I respect what they stand for.  It seems as if everyone worth looking up to is hated by one group or another.
• I’m going to bed now.  Before I go, I had posted earlier a blog about songs that save.  Here is a song/video that will make you think more then anything:

American Skin (41 shots) - Bruce Springsteen.  It’s about a young manwho was shot 41 times by cops in New York city who thought he was pulling out a gun…turned out to be a wallet.  It cause a big hubbaballoo in the NYPD until a few months later when everyone was canonized on 9/11.

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