For the past 2 1/2, almost three, months I've lived in Herrnhut, Germany. :) For the first two months I lived in town and had a walk that was about twenty minutes long each day. Down a hill. Through a forest.  Over a creek. And up the entrance to the Castle. :) I am not kidding. I kind of wish I was kidding. But I am not. 

The best part of the hill, is that it's called, Slow Death. It got it's name because the merchants had to take their wagons up it every time they went to market. Some of them wouldn't make it. I am serious. Again I wish I could be joking. 

 

My saving grace is that about half way up, there is a bench. It became our normal breather. Its the only way I made it up it all the time with my back-pack on full of stuff. 

This is Christina. One of my roommates. :)

All throughout the forest there are signs just like this one and there are random stone settings. Each one is a bit different. I should go through one day and take pictures of all of them. :) Maybe I will get a nice day here one of these days and I can go out and do it. 

Anyways. This particular one is one of the places that during the early years of Herrnhut, like way back in 1730, what they called Pastoral Care groups (Banden) would meet here and have worship and talk about personal or other problems. Crazy, eh? worship in the woods at a stone meeting place. SOOOO COOOLL!!! 

Now this place (below) is a monument to the first Tree that was cut down in the forest to build one of the first buildings in Herrnhut. Yeah, they are all about their monuments here in Herrnhut. I mean I would be too with such a rich history. :) 

 The rest of the images are other pictures from the forest. Enjoy!!

Until next time, go take a walk outside. :) This one I am definitely doing too!!! 

brief update

Im back. Never thought I would post twice in two days did ya? :) Well I am just full of surprises. 

So, I wanted to write a brief update and also let you know that I have a new addition to my blog page. 

We are at the beginning of our technical last week of lecture for our DTS. Originally we had planned to be leaving next weekend for outreach, but, our German visas have not yet come in and we are un able to leave the country without them. As you can imagine that would make things such a mess. So, our departure has been pushed back a week. Instead of leaving the 4th/5th we are now leaving sometime between the 10th & 12th of Dec. In some ways it is a blessing because we get an extra week here to just chill and process everything that has been going on. But on the other hand it means we lose a week of outreach. Which is a major bummer. 

I personally am not sure what to think of an extra week. I know God has big things in-store, but it is hard to see when I am not seeing how the finances are going to workout for outreach. My brain (ie. my flesh) is still trying to figure out how it will work. I know God's ways are not my ways. It is difficult to walk out some times. 

Yeah, so that kind of brings me to my blog addition. I added a paypal donate button. If you feel God impress upon you to donate to help, feel free to use PayPal. 

I have learned so much while I've been here. It is remarkable. We were assigned to prepare sermons last week based off one of the parables in Matthew 13 and the Kingdom of God. I've been looking in to what the Kingdom of God is and yeah. It has been crazy. Each of the parables are such great pictures of different aspects of the Kingdom of God. But the one that has stuck out to me was the parable of the Pearl. The merchant came across a valuable pearl and when he did he sold everything to buy the pearl. Why not? I mean the Kingdom of God is so much better then anything else. It is priceless and it doesn't make sense to hold on to fake pearls and cheap jewelry when you can have the real thing. You can have the Kingdom of God. The kingdom that changes everything. In 1 Corinthians 4:20 it says that "the Kingdom of God is not of talk but of power." Yeah, when we are about the Kingdom of God it isn't some soft spoken feel good fuzzys in your stomach but it is seeing people healed, demons being cast out, and food multiplying. 

In Luke 17:21 is says "the kingdom of God is within you." We carry the kingdom wherever we go and that WE can be atmosphere changers. WE can be the ones to see miracles. WE can bring the power of God to dark places. 

Yeah, so God has been challenging me with this idea. What if I fully grasped my identity in the Kingdom of God? What if I truly believed and understood what this meant, to have the Kingdom of God within me? 

I mean think with me for a moment. What if the Church today fully grasped their identity in the Kingdom of God? - Would they let go of their programs and their time schedules to whole heartedly seek after Who Jesus was? 

So, my question to you and myself. Would I/you sell everything and buy the pearl? Do I/you even recognize when I/you have that pearl in my/your hand?   

Concept Photography

I'm here in Germany for Photography and I haven't posted many pictures. For that I am terribly sorry. 

It's not that I haven't wanted to post pictures but without fail every time I've sat down to resize the images for the internet I've gotten sidetracked and distracted. But, I am making that change. 

In a previous post I put up my night shoot images. They were a lot of fun to take and I have taken a couple more since then. But those didn't turn out so good. I wanted to shoot a lot more but it has gotten so cold out here I don't think I could stand outside for more than one image. I would like to take some on outreach when we are in warmer climates. However we shall see what happens with that. 

Anyways I desire to go through the images I have here and being posting those pictures. I will start with my last assignment, Photo Story. This assignment was to do a photo story/concept. The assignment was to get us into thinking through a series and how to tell a story with our images. So we were to take consecutive images instead of four random images that had no relation to each other. You get the basic idea. 

My concept came from an image I got in my head during one of our worship times. It started as a "Self-Image" piece and as I flushed out the idea further it came to be an 'inner demon' concept. The four images are to show that sometimes when we are battling the enemy it isn't necessarily an ugly demon from an external source, but the enemy uses our own flesh to fight against us. So, I chose to do a four picture series where the 'inner demon' was the person in the image. One person, separate camera settings. :) 

Yeah, so here is my photo assignment. Enjoy!

:) I promise happier photos are coming. 


until next time, go have a Peppermint Mocha for me! 

I'M BACK! :) 

It's tuesday… which you will be reading it on wednesday. :) Anywho…..

This week so far has been good. I made it out to Zittau to the Visa office. A couple weeks ago I sent out an email to a few people explaining that we had a minor/major visa problem. I am going to try and recap it…. attempting at keeping it short. 

Sept 1st Germany's visa process changed. At the time we were not sure how that looked exactly but we just kept hearing, "The process has changed so please bare with us." And that it would take roughly 6 weeks to process our visas. Two weeks ago we found out that the 6 week processing time didn't start until after you had been to Zittau to be fingerprinted. Out of the 80+ students and a few staff only 4 people had been to Zittau at that point to get their fingerprints taken. Also, we were 4 weeks away from outreach. Yeah, could be a small issue if the visa didn't come in on time. HOWEVER, I was in the last group of people to go up to Zittau. We went up today. :) So, now we just have to pray a speedy process and that we all get our visas in time. :) We are only 3 weeks away from outreach!  

I am not sure that made sense…… I am a bit confused by the whole thing anyways… any who… I just know that it all could have been really bad. And we aren't out of the clear yet. BUT the staff at the base are AMAZING!! They have been working so hard to get all of us in the right office at the right time with the most efficiency. 

That is the exciting news from today. This past weekend…….. was fun! One of my roomies and I went night shooting. (it's our next assignment.) I had a lot of fun in the end. I started out a bit rough. But I think I have at least two prints worth turing in. Here are the good ones left .... 

Ever wondered what was outside your window? .... ME, with a camera! HAHA 

 :)

Tomorrow night/Tonight ... Wednesday night is castle art critique. It is going to be fun. It is so cool to see what other people are creating and thinking. :)


Until next time, do something fun! 

OUTREACH

This past week has been really good. Tim Heathcote was with us. Whoah. I don't really know what to say at this moment other then he was really good. The week long example was "Mind the Gap". There are gaps in our culture and around the world. Statistics like in some muslim nations there are only 3 christians to every 1 million muslims. (thats a gap) The numbers of people who live on less then two dollars a day and then the even more staggering number of people who live on less that one dollar a day. Gaps are everywhere and people are falling into the gap. Tim showed us and challenged us on what God thinks of the gaps  and then really challenged us to ask and pursue how we might stand in the gap. 

Early in the week during one of the workshops Tim spoke about Ebenezer and Jehovah Jireh. 

God who will provide and God who has provided.

It has gotten me thinking about all the times in my life God has been my Ebenezer and provided for me. Because of those times I am able to stand up and have faith that he will provide in my future. He has been faithful to me. Tim encouraged us to explore a creative physical Ebenezer. Something that we can have that reminds us of that time and what God did. Just as in the Old Testament and how He told them to build a monument so to always remember what He did for them in the fight at Ebenezer. 

Okay so, on top of a really good message I found out where I am going on outreach. I am going to THAILAND!!!!!! Yeah. We will be leaving sometime between the 3-5th of December. I know its only 3 weeks away now. Its crazy!! Yeah. So, there is a lot we have to do still to get ready but it is crazy! AH! It is going to be a crazy faith journey with God but I am pumped.

We are not 100% sure everything we will be doing while we are there but I am stoked to be going. I am relying on God for my financial provision. Before I left home I really felt him telling me to worry about Lecture. That I was to have Lecture and He would cover the rest. So, this is the fun/terrifying part. To rely on him. He is faithful and I know it will be amazing. I just have not stepped out onto this branch before. It will be a faith walk for sure. 

If you feel God pressing it upon your heart to help support me in this crazy venture in my life you can send a check to my home address: 

Payable to Jordan Miller

2125 Johnstown Rd

Chesapeake, VA 23322

I love you all!! 

I really felt to write a blog post. I had been putting it off and I really felt an urgent need to post something. I will most likely come back and flush out this post more but for what ever reason I needed to post this it is here. 

Until next time, go play in some leaves.