And ….this is our life.

*Wednesday night: Last night before finals. Stephanie and I had locked ourselves in my room to study for our last finals of the semester. Shortly after crawling into our cave of social depravity my roommates decided they wanted to watch “Phantom of the Opera”. Our walls being paper thin Steph and I decided to go outside on the front porch to study. While being on the front porch for about 5 minutes a man approached us. He explained to us that he was stranded and had no gas or money to get back home. I then called a friend who had a gas can. As we were waiting for the friend to arrive we were able to talk to this man about his life and his family. We found out that he has three kids and was in town for a job interview but sadly it fell through. When our friend Cole arrived with the gas can, the man asked if we could pray for him, so we did. Since we had left over beanie babies from our courage house excursion we were able to bless him with those as well as the gas, $14, and a blanket.

If we weren’t outside because of astronomy, and media law we would have never been able to talk to that dude and pray with him….God straight up used media law and astronomy to do those things….wow….Jesus you are so sneaky.

*Thursday was a great day. I passed Media Law…that was a miracle in itself, but also Kole and I got to start recording “untouched” I think it’s going to be great.

*Friday….Meg, Steph, and I were just sitting there…..and I was staring at a blanket and the thought came to my mind that some homeless person in Hot Springs needs that blanket…after voicing this thought the three of us piled into my car, prayed, and headed to Hot Springs. Once there I got this massive feeling that we needed to go to this church so we went there and looked all over the place for a homeless person possibly sleeping by a trash can or on the steps. We saw no one. As we were about to head out I said “God why did you have me come here.” Then Meg replied” Rhyan there is someone walking” I looked up and sure enough there was someone walking in front of the church on the road. We rolled down the windows of my car and asked him if he was cold. He stopped and looked very confused. Then he approached the car, and we asked again. “Sir are you cold?” He looked at us for a while and with a sad expression said “no”. We asked if there was anything we could do to help him, and again he said “no”. He turned and walked away, and not wanting to press the issue we left as well. I have no idea what God wanted to do with him, but it’s so cool how real God is and He lead us to that church and that town for a reason at that specific time. Dang God you are amazing.

Another cool thing God did that night was with my friend Meg. She was looking desperately for a gift to bless a friend of hers with. I can’t go into details but Meg was looking for a very specific gift that was hard to find. Along the way to look for Homeless people Steph and I had to pee VERY bad so we stopped at Wal-Mart. We mad a v-line for the bathroom and behold it was being cleaned out so we turned down this “random” isle to avoid awkward confrontation with the janitor and on that “random” isle lay the gift Meg was looking for…that’s right. It was the ONLY one in the store. God used pee, and a dirty bathroom to bless one of Meg’s friends….dang….so sneaky.

*Saturday: This was the day of the gig in Prescott, AR.  The youth minister at First Baptist Church Prescott, Ar asked me to come lead worship at his church this night, so with the help of my friend Jackson we did. It was so cool! I spent about 3 hours getting a set list, and power point put together, but once I got there I really felt God pushing me to toss both and just worship..So we did. Jackson and I got a few songs in order but really just winged the whole service, and it was amazing! We just worship and shared stories and the kids really got into it near the end. There was a time where they were asked to sit and just pray and do business with God, and you could just tell the Holy Spirit was moving. After it was all said and done we got to go socialize and play with them which was awesome. And Steph and I got to talk to some of the women serving food and found out the lady I had been talking to for the last 20 minutes is Doug Compton’s Aunt….WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? Turns out he is coming down in a few weeks to lead a d-now there and they invited me to come…wow. When Jesus opens doors He straight up Nucs those mugs. Wow. All in all amazing night.

*Sunday: Woke up this morning and had a fight with my parents…..not exactly what you want to hear right. I just go home. Really? It was over my life choices…of going to a school for worship leading…of going to where God has called me to….of dropping everything and following Jesus. My parents are amazing…don’t get me wrong…they just don’t understand how HUGE God truly is. Steph and I left for Church after telling my parents that I loved them. While walking to the car Steph asked me “I mean…are we crazy?’. Steph and I have a very similar outlook on life. We don’t want nice things…our dream is living out of a trailer and giving 80% of our income to others..even just straight up selling everything we have and do mission work. We want to be so crazy in love with Jesus Christ that nothing else in the world matters except for following Him. We arrive at church and after service was over we asked Preacher Paul (that’s what I call him) if we really are crazy. He assures us that we are not and God is going to use these experiences to teach us more about serving him. As we are talking to him 2 people came up and encouraged me about moving to TN, and Preacher Paul mentioned God might even call us to do something crazier like be a missionary in Asia (which He has already called Steph to do). The entire conversation was dripping with conformation that we are on the right path and radicalism is something that won’t ever make sense to the world, but it’s something Jesus has called us to. No turning back now.

The rest of the day went on like usual…creeping out a lady on the road whom I thought was my mother…(she wasn’t), biting a hole in my pantyhose while I slept…still don’t know how I managed that, and rolling around on the floor. That night is where God again blew my mind.

Kohlton Roper…….Oh Kohlton Roper…..I simply love this guy with every ounce of my heart. Kohlton and I met about a year ago and my life will never be the same. This guy is seriously my music kindred spirit. Every time we get together…EVERY TIME God gives us an amazing song or 2. At this point in time Kohlton is unable to talk to me because of a program he is called MC, …long story / explanation…but even still we got together with Steph and Wes and just played music for about 2 hours, and God blessed us with 2 new AMAZING songs. They’re so awesome there is NO way we could get any of the credit for it. They are straight from the Holy Spirit, and I can’t wait to get in the studio and perfect them. I really feel like kids are going to be worshiping to those songs in about 5 years. Merry Christmas to us! Jesus…we so don’t deserve this. Why are You so awesome? I can’t wait to see how much fame is going to be put to YOUR name through all of this! Love you Jesus. You are the only reason that I sing.