Foundations

A few months ago I was informed by my mother of a mission trip that my family was planning to Tennessee, and a few months ago I was unaware of the wonders I have come to know so well since my arrival. This story, like any other is filled with a sense of inspiration and childlike happiness, a struggle and then an acceptance of the ending reward...but if you are reading my letters, know that this particular story is in fact not a story at all, and it is quite possibly the most moving. It is the real accountance of the two most beautiful and perhaps most important fibers in the human soul; meliority and christianity. Right now you may be asking 'what exactly is the meaning of meliority and where did it come from?' Meliority is stemmed from the Latin word [melior] which is understood in English as "better". Meliorism is the most unselfish belief that I have come across, aside from the belief in God, and what is more interesting is how I found it. It is "the belief that the world can be made better by human effort," and it is that fine doctrine that holds the utmost amount of faith in the human race, even when the world is cruel. The heart and soul of optimism and love are dependent upon it and faith in God, and these two notions are more real than the keys beneath my finger tips.
      Through the course of my 18 years on this earth, I have seen through the eyes of others what a wonderful place the world can be if God is only accepted into our hearts. I have watched on tv peoples lives succome to the great and almighty God just by the touch of their pastors hand on their persperating forehead. I have heard their stories, and watched their eyes drip like faucets onto empty floors because they have finally found whatever it is that makes them whole. Yet I never really understood. To me, these people weren't real, they were figments of some far away place that didn't exist outside my sphere of reality... maybe it was because I couldn't connect their new found wholeness to my broken pieces, my hollowed heart. I thought they were just pretending, and who knows maybe some were, but little did I know I would come to learn that it was I who had been pretending all along.
     We arrived in Tennessee on a Sunday and the humidity nearly knocked me off my feet a few steps outside the airport; I, living most of my life in west Texas was used to the dry, windy climate. Nonetheless, me, my family, and the rest of the Betenbough housing crew packed like sardines into a small white bus and drove to Williamsport, which is conveniently located about an hour outside of Nashville and headed to Narrow Gate Foundation. This particular stretch of land truly is a little piece of heaven carved into the foot hills of Tennessee; it is a glass of water in the dessert to which I can now happily say I have had the priviledge of drinking from. A few days after our arrival myself, my little brother and a few of the Narrow Gate members went on a hike to the 'High Point', a spectacle of a hill which overlooks the entire property just so I could really take in the beauty of the land, but as it turns out... as many things in life turn out... what I found was much more than just a beautiful view. I found on top of that hill, as so many young men at Narrow Gate do, a compassion and a respect for God like I have never known before. As Ken, Frank, Clayton, John Rae and myself shared our life stories, each more compelling than the last, a spark was lighted within me, and as seconds go by writing this letter, it grows bigger and brighter than the moment before. We were strangers walking up the hill, but I can say that without a doubt we were friends coming down. I have never in my life been so moved by the emotion's of others, but what I could see when I looked into their eyes, as if I peered through a window into thier souls, was love. A true, and pure, and personal, and passionate love for God. I left wishing that somehow I too could see this warm, radiating passion for the greater force in my own eyes. There was my first sip of living water, and to my surprise, I was thirstier than ever.
      Tuesday night, after the 'High Point' I lay in bed and continued to ask, when would I get what these four young men had? When would I get another taste of God? Then Wednesday came, and with it, a revelation.
      At around 11:00 p.m. I was walked into the countryside by a now good friend and vessel of the Lord named Adam, to which I am extremely thankful, and at 12:00 p.m. I came back alive. To be completely honest, it was like I was on drugs... you know, the kind that make you feel invincible and happy and energetic and free. And that is the best feeling in the world, the feeling of total and complete liberation, the knowing that the world is in reach, the beauty and awe that brings one to tears. It is wonderful, lasting and real. The best part is that it is real. A mere breeze had caressed my skin and I knew he was with me, and I think that he knew I wanted him to be. Under the stars and amidst the hundreds of fireflies, I felt the hand of God, and I am thinking now how badly, I cannot wait to touch it again.
     This trip was a mission, I was suppose to be just a helping hand that cleaned up some gardens and made the place a little prettier, yet I  leave living and renewed. I was suppose to change the "Narrow gators" lives, and now I am certain, that they have changed mine. I have watched through my own eyes how people like Bill and Stacy Spencer ( the founders of Narrow Gate) have made this world a better place to be in, how people like Ken, Frank, John Rae, Clayton, and Adam have been changed by faith and are reaching out to do the same for those around them. God has changed the outcome of so many lives through those people and words cannot begin to explain how grateful I, and so many others are, that they have chosen His path. In short, these people have made me realize that mankind is a wonderful, brilliant, and life changing species when coupled with God. At Narrow Gate, with the help of many, I started the life long journey of self discovery; I found that I am a meliorist, and a christian; I have faith in mankind and more importantly in God...and those two things are a wonderful foundation to any structure.