Here's my outreach team!!!
From left to right: Arne, P.D. (aka Dad), David (his hair is black now), Yours Truly
Amy (aka Mom), Allie, Kissy, and Glori. We are the largest, as well as the most ethnically and culturally diverse team on the school. David is Chinese-American, Kissy is Korean and black, Allie is from England, and Glori is from Tanzania.
We are a little more then halfway through the school. We have finished reading the entire Old Testament, and in between the Old and New Testaments we had a few days of cross-cultural training and outreach preparation, and a very long but informative day on the Jewish Intertestamental history, with a focus on the Maccabean (Hasmonean) period, and the Roman period.
We read 1 Maccabees 1-10, and it was AWESOME. I'm a little sad it's not in the Protestant Bible's. While I understand it doesn't fit some people's requirements for what qualifies as the inspired word of God, you can clearly see God moving to protect Israel again and again, and you can't really understand the average Jew's worldview in the New Testament if you don't know that part of history. Most people, upon realizing Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah, would have assumed He'd be the next Judas Maccabeus, except without the whole dying in battle thing.
There's a lot more in 1 Maccabees, and I would assume 2 Maccabees (which tells the same overall story from a less zealous perspective, or so I'm told) that adds to the New Testament story. I would highly recommend finding an Apocryphal Bible and reading that middle chunk that young Protestant children are told to stay away from because it's from the Catholic version of the Bible and therefore isn't really the Bible.
It's still history, and while some of the other books are slightly less believable (I'm looking at you, "Bel and the Dragon"), they are all still important Jewish texts, and will add to your understanding of the Jewish mindset at the time of Jesus.
Class time!
Let's see, what else have I done the past few months...oh yeah, prophet study! We were all assigned a minor prophet to study in depth and eventually give a 30 minute teaching on. I was assigned Habakkuk. At first it seemed a daunting task. The longest speech I'd ever given was 10 minutes back in Speech class senior year of high school, plus Habakkuk is only 3 chapters, that's a whole 10 minutes per chapter! However, I quickly discovered it was going to be difficult to summarize what I wanted to say in just 30 minutes (it was ONLY 10 minutes per chapter).
My original outline was 4 pages long, and had literally everything I could possibly find about the book of Habakkuk. There's probably enough information on that thing to give a 2 to 3 HOUR teaching on the book if I had enough time to prepare. Seriously, if you haven't recently (or ever) read that tiny, short, funny sounding book sitting snugly between Nahum and Zephaniah, go do so now. I fell in love with it.
We also went camping! Our cross cultural training week was supposed to be during our camping trip, but we ended up leaving 2 days early because there was a storm that destroyed half our tents. However, the Friday - Monday that we were there was a ton of fun! I got the worst sunburn of my life (I could not even reach my own shoulders the next day to apply my own Aloe Vera, I had to get friends to put it on me because it was so painful) for spending to much time shirtless on the beach on a sunny Saturday, but it was worth it, because we had a ton of fun.
Credit for Camping Photo's goes to my dear friend Laura, who photographs everything now that she has a smart phone for the first time. We've all been there Laura, it's okay.
Lunch around the campfire!
Worship around the campfire!
Class under the pavilion at the beach! A few hours later we'd see THE storm role in, wait for it to pass, and then head back to camp to find everything busted. We headed home that same afternoon.
The "WeatherMaster" got mastered by the weather.
The Tuesday after we came back (we were still supposed to be camping) was declared The First Annual Madison BSN Ugly Day, as a way to continue the fun and games in spite of having to come home early. I will share a class photo here.
WARNING: MAY CAUSE GAGGING AND/OR WEEPING. VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
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Here you go
Pretty bad, huh?
Our winner was Meagan, the girl on the far right next to me. She clipped off some of her own hair and glued it to her armpit as an added affect. The runner up was Noah, on the far left, who throughout the day continually splashed water on his crotch, rubbed charcoal on his face, and waxed his beard, so he'd look more feral.
You can't tell in this picture, but I actually shaved off half my mustache and drew in a new curly one with eyeliner. After the competition was over, I shaved off my whole mustache and sideburns, and a few days later my whole beard. I am now (relatively) clean shaven.
Just this past weekend we did a fundraiser/local outreach at the Madison farmers market by the capitol building. We made a ton of homemade Arnold Palmer Ice Tea (Ice Tea and Lemonade mixed), and handed out free cups to thirsty passers by. We all made Facebook events and asked for people to pledge a certain amount of money per cup (we put a limit on handing out 1000 cups). Some of my friends made over 2000 dollars in one afternoon handing out free lemonade!
Some of our lovely servers!
Meagan was on fire. I think she must have handed out half of our cups by herself!
I didn't get any pledges per cup, but I did get a few people asking how they could donate in other ways, and besides, it was a lot of fun and we got to bless a lot of people, so it was super worth it! I got to chat with some homeless people and it made me miss San Francisco :') Plus I think I may have signed up for a local philosophy club while talking to these two older guys about what I was doing. They had some kind of a sheet, and I put my email on it to get back in contact with them. We'll see.
That's all for now. As always, thanks so much for reading and please consider donating towards my outreach with either the GoFundMe button on the side of the blog, or by contacting me on Facebook or email (christopherpaulhickey@yahoo.com). Our outreach budget is being finalized, and with tickets it's looking to be between 4000-4500 dollars, and we leave in a month and a half. I have at least a thousand dollars in donations already, and little bit helps! Thanks again!
God's Blessings,
Chris
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