Saying Goodbye

Well guys, its almost here. This is my last blog post from Germany and I leave for Indianapolis on Wednesday! I am so excited to be home and to see my friends and family but I am also incredibly sad to leave. God has done some incredible things here and there is a big part of me that does not want to leave. But I wanted to take a second and give out some thank yous.

First off, to my team back home. From my friends and family to my supporters and prayer partners. You all have been such a huge part of my time here and I can never begin to thank you enough for allowing me to experience this summer and work alongside Unterwegs. It has been an incredible summer and I am so grateful for you being able to experience this with me. You are all incredible people and I hope that God continues to do amazing things through all of you.

Secondly, to the Unterwegs staff here. You guys have been amazing to work with. You each have wonderful talents and abilities and I only got to see them over eight weeks. You have come alongside the entire intern team and treated us like we were a part of your team. You are incredible and I hope that we will see each other again!

Third, to my intern team. Julie, Nathan, Michaela, Aaron, and Bekah. You are all amazing people to work with, I want you to know that. You each have incredible gifts and talents that God has been using in you and will continue to use in you. While we have had our rough days, we have come through it together and I could not ask for a better team to work with. I will miss you guys dearly and I cannot even imagine having to go back to life in the Northwest without you guys around me.

Finally (I know we are almost there), the students who are here in Germany are fantastic. They are wonderful humans and I wish that I could stay with them or that they could come home with me. Words cannot describe how awesome each of you all are and I will not try to do so, just know that I love you guys and hope that I get to see you again.

This week has been a series of highs and lows, I have been able to start getting excited about going home and seeing my friends and family. I also got to visit Heidelberg for a debrief session with some of the Unterwegs staff (Tony and Emily, you rock). Seriously, Heidelberg is one of the most gorgeous German towns I have been to, its so full of life and culture. I wish I could have spent a little more time there.


But its also sad. I attended church here in Germany for the last time today, I am saying my goodbye to people who have been a part of my life for the last 8 weeks, and I am dreading Wednesday morning (jet lag wrecks havoc on my immune system). God has taught me so much this summer and I have learned far more than I have taught. I suppose that is how it generally works though isn't it?

I will never forget this Summer and the people who made it so special to me. You are loved and I will miss you all.

Until Next Time,
Jacob Bush

Further Up and Further In

There is a quote towards the end of one of C.S. Lewis's best books called the Last Battle. The quote goes like this, "'I've come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!" That's how I have come to feel these last few weeks. No, not about Germany. Germany is not my home (that may change one day, that may not I'll keep you posted on that). Germany is a wonderful place along the way and so is Idaho. They are both incredibly beautiful places filled with people who mean the world to me...but they are not home.

Throughout this life, I think we get this idea that if we can get to one particular spot then we will be happy and that everything will come along easily to us and that we won't have any troubles. That looks like a lot of things, whether that is in relationships, money, or our heart's desires. I wouldn't have admitted it to myself, but I felt that coming to Germany was going to be a fairly easy transition...yea that was not the case (if you don't believe me take a look at some of the previous blogs). It was easily the most difficult thing that I have ever faced. In the tears, the sadness, the hurt, the joy, and the laughter, I knew that I needed to be here even when I did not want to be. I had this idea in my head that once I came to Germany everything would go smoothly and that God would do amazing things...God has done amazing things, but not in the way that I would expect him to do so (It kind of works out that way doesn't it)

When things began to be difficult, I started to tear myself down. Why wasn't I good enough to live here? Was I a failure? This continued off and on for several weeks. I felt discouraged and depressed some of the time and overjoyed and excited at other points. Slowly but surely, God has shown me that to follow Him where I need to be requires a huge dosage of grace and a lot of love. When God came to this world, He did not come with fire and brimstone but love and compassion. That's who I want to serve. So, as I go through this last week and a half (I know crazy right?) I want grace. Grace for myself, that when I mess up and make mistakes, its okay. Because to be home is to be in God's grace. It is not a place, it is grace.

Further up and further in, to the arms of God I will go. As I serve and live in Deutschland or the States, in his grace I will be blessed. Not for my glory, not for my praise, but for the grace that God freely gave. When I who was dead and cursed, found in God my second birth.

Further up and further in,
Jacob Bush

The Adventure Inside

Have you ever had one of those experiences that you can't explain? One that shakes you to your core and makes you question who you are? That was me this last week. When I first came to Germany, I never thought that those deep dark fears would ever come back up again. Why would they? I'm strong and powerful enough to handle this on my own...nope. I would wrestle with the pains of my past, whether that is rejection, humiliation, shame, guilt, pride, lust, and so many other things. I see these parts of my past, and I tell myself that I have them under control, those things no longer affect me...yea, that's not the case. All of these things came roaring back into my life this past week. I felt so worthless in so many ways. I wondered why God would even use someone like me ever. How can I show the love of God to anyone if I can't even show love to myself? No matter what encouragement people would show me, I would reject it because I was so caught up in how worthless I felt. I questioned every part of who I was and it was a pretty sad little picture...and God completely shattered that. 

In Psalm 42, David cries out saying, "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again- my Savior and my God!" That's how I felt, if I had a conversation with my heart it would have gone something like this.

Me: Hey Heart, how you doing?

Heart: Eh, I'm okay, been really sad lately.

Me: Why are you so sad?

Heart: Well, remember that stupid thing you did 10 years ago? 5 years ago? 1 year ago? *Insert every stupid thing I ever did* I feel worthless because of all of that.

Me: Well now I'm sad. Thanks a lot. 

At the end of the Psalm, David changed the tune a bit though. He spends most of this song saying why am I sad or this really sucks where are you God? At the end of that Psalm though, he says, I will put my hope in God. I will praise Him. I think that is really powerful. I love the way that he does not keep the song sad but that he adds a little bit of hope to the end of it.

I try to live my life with this concept of life is an adventure. While we like to focus on the dragon slaying, treasure hunting, and elves in the adventure, we forget about the dark parts. Every adventure has its dark parts (spoilers ahead you have been warned I am letting out my inner nerd): In the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when Aslan died and Susan and Lucy were lying besides him, everything appeared hopeless. When George Lucas made the horrible love story between Padme and Anakin in Star Wars Episode 2 everything appeared hopeless for the most epic saga ever. When Gandalf died in the fight with the Balrog, everything appeared hopeless. Are you noticing a pattern? There are going to be days when everything appears hopeless. Whether it is because of loneliness, being in a foreign country, or feeling like a little hobbit against the world, adventures are not always easy. The question that we have to face is what we do with the adventure in front of us.

I have made my choice. That choice is to keep going, after the death of Aslan there was the resurrection of Aslan, after the horrors of Episode 2 there was Episode 3, after Gandalf the Grey there was Gandalf the White, and after the darkness of night there is the sunrise of the dawn. For me that sunrise was deciding to focus my eyes on who God is, to stop wallowing in self pity and instead to see just how remarkable and amazing He is. As it turns out, the adventure is never about the treasure anyway, its about the change inside. 

Until Next Time,

Jacob Bush

The Party Don't Start Till I Walk In (Or get lost in the woods)

So, last night I was going to celebrate the fourth of July by blowing things up with good friends, however, I had already set up a Skype session with a good friend and mentor back home. So naturally, I tried to find the party afterwards. The part that I forgot though was that the party was fairly deep in the woods, in Germany, at night. I thought, "I can find this. Let's go!" So I took the bus to the French Quarter of town (with no incidents) and tried to find this party in the woods...I got lost. I could see the fireworks in the distance and heard the laughter so I tried to make my way in that direction and I ended up on a trail in the middle of the woods with little animals scurrying about giving me a heart attack every 5 seconds. I thought about calling them and then I realized that I left that form of communication back at Unterwegs. So I was for all intents and purposes stuck in the woods with no phone and the phone I did have (that I can't use to call people without being charged like a bajillion dollars) was running low on battery and that was my flashlight. I felt like I was in the middle of a slender man game (If you don't know this look up the Tobuscus Play Through of a Slender Man Game on Youtube its funny). I eventually made it out of there in one piece so that was thrilling. With that being said though (Yes this is not the end of the story, stick with me though I promise it gets better), my friend who was hosting the party told me the next morning that this particular forest still had some French land mines active. So to summarize, I was walking around the forest with no means of communication, with a dying flashlight, trying to find friends who I knew were nearby, without realizing that a potential danger could be looming.

While that may sound terrifying, I was on a trail for most of that time (only a few minutes where I lost sight of the trail) and the areas where the mines are thought to be have signs all around them. So I wasn't ever in any real danger (though it does make for a fantastic story). The reason I tell this story (besides the obvious hilarity that ensues from your reading this) is that I think this is really similar to what life looks like for everyone who walks around. We wander around in the dark thinking that everyone around us has it all together based on their laughter and fireworks while we are trying to find out where everyone is and how they got there. Our batteries are running low, we are frustrated and we want to go home. One of the things I like about Unterwegs is that it means "Along the Way." Along the way really describes where we are at, whether we are there (or think we are there) or know that we have no idea what we are doing.

When Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life. He did not say how messed up the path would be, or how hard the truth is to face, or how difficult life can be. He just said that He is the path to take. We are all still going along the way in life and in all reality none of us have made it to the end of that path because we are dumb and in the middle of the forest in Germany at 11 PM with an almost dead battery and Slenderman is waiting around the corner to grab you. Not that I have personal experience with that or anything. Keep going along the way.

See you Guys!
Jacob Bush