Flood Relief

On Saturday a group of about 25 from Marion First Pres went into Cedar Rapids to help out with the flood relief. My camera batteries ran out early (which probably saved my camera) but here are some of the snapshots I managed to take.
This was my first real trip into the heart of the flood. It's weird to be right in the middle of what was a bustling city neighborhood only a month or so ago, and now see it completely barren and empty, with the exception of a few houses who have volunteer groups working on them, and the occasional Salvation Army food truck driving by to feed volunteers.

I added a red line on the photo to show where the water line on the house we worked on was. Well above my reach, and I'm 6'3".

We weren't the only people doing flood relief this week. A Methodist Church youth group from Berthod (near my home town) stayed at our church all week. One great thing about disasters is the denomonational structure in this country breaks down, and we get to become The Church.

Speed Limit 20

I love watching for different shapes and patterns in everyday life and like to experiment with how they might look in a photo. Much of the time, I don't get images that I care for, but sometimes I take something that speaks to me. It may not look good to others, but that is the beauty of art.
I took this photo of a beat up parking lot after visiting a gentleman from the church who is in hospice care. I have only visited him and his family a few times, but they already have a special place in my heart. The man has MS and can not comunicate very well, but I don't think I will ever forget my second visit with him, when he managed to speak the words I love you out when I left. I often times think that we pictures our lives as a journey on the freeway with all the wonderful sights and sounds wizzing by us as we drive on by. Sometimes in life however the road looks a lot more like this, as we are forced to slow down, endure the jolts and bumps of the road, and trust in God to help us figure out how to put all the pieces back together.



I took this photo on the very same day in the flower garden of the people's house I'm living at this summer. Often times we get to see the greatest beauty in life, when we are forced to slow down.

Shining Some Light on the Trinity

Sitting in theology and history classes over the past two years have really began to give me a deep appreciation for our Trinitarian beliefs; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In fact I don't think there are many classes that haven't help develop this deep and profound respect for this, the fundamental building block of our Christian faith. It's only through understanding the Trinity that we can even begin to understand the statement that, "God is love" and to understand the communal aspect of our religion. Wars have been fought over this one issue, and yet I feel that we are losing touch with these Trinitarian beliefs in our secular world. I see less and less of the Trinity, even in our Sunday worship anymore.
This photo was taken of some stained glass windows in First Presbyterian Church in Marion, where I am working for the summer. I love going into our chapel in the late afternoon with the lights off, and the sun shining into the windows of the dark room. It's an amazing effect. It also amazes me how something we often think of as plain looking on the surface, can be so beautiful when you shine some light on it in the dark.....and that was much deeper then I originally intended.....

Stopped in my tracks

I have hit a bit of a snag in my quest to post photographs each day for my personal photo project. It seems that when you have an old camera, and lose your USB cord, then you can't load your photos on your computer. It will cost me over twenty dollars apparently to replace the cord, which has me thinking about just replacing the camera, for a much newer one.

I have been taking photos however. I stole Becky's camera this weekend in an attempt to give her something to remember her first two church's as she gets ready to be reassigned to a new one. I'm bummed out that she will be moving even further away, but I'm real exicted for all the potential this new ministry has for her. Like all things I guess we take the good with the bad. Here are a few of my favorite photos from this weekend.

A photo project

It's amazing how much being in school can make one tired of writing. I love to journal/blog as I explore my thoughts and reflect on the world around me, but I have found that with other writing assignments, I have probably burned out a bit on my writing. To that extent I'm going to try something different for a while, and share my life not through words, but through photos. My goal is to post a new photo everyday (or at least a photo for everyday, I'm sure I'll double up some days), to reveal a little bit of me. My hope is this will inspire some writing as well as help to better develop a photographers eye. I'm doing so with an inexpensive digital camera, so no great big special effects. What you see is what I saw. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then maybe this blog will the equivilant to a set of encyclopedias by the time I'm done!