I’ve been growing accustomed to a journey filled with bends in the road that I can’t see beyond.  It’s been a faith walk the past few years into things unimagined and unforseen even.  And most days I’d tell you I’m not so sure where I’m going so much as just learning to follow the rabbit trails that point me the direction that God is calling.  I’m not so much of a super planner anyways, but the more I learn to walk curiously, the more I find myself in placed I’d never even considered going at all.

But in this road I’m traveling, I see easily how rabbit trails can turn into a rat race.  How we think we see what could be beyond, so we veer off course and instead of following God, we begin to pursue a seen end.

I tend to think though that the rat race is really just a mouse trap.

I tend to avoid political discussion here in this space.  I refrain from becoming self-indulgent to engage in social commentary.  It’s not that I shy away from it, so much as don’t feel called into the arguing or the point proving.  That to me feels like a veering off track for me personally, but I have had a thought over the past few weeks that I think God is calling me into that is a part of this journey of curious faith.  It’s the thought that…

“Sometimes I will make seemingly bad business decisions to make good Kingdom ones.”

That’s not to say that I will be foolish, but it is to say that if God is behind anything that I’m doing…if I’m following something that I believe He has asked me to walk into, then it’s really as simple as either I trust Him or I don’t.

If I trust God, and trust that I’m walking hard after Him, then I don’t need to worry about how sometimes I might make a decision that seems upside down to the world.  It’s what my friend Ann Voskamp calls the Upside Down Kingdom.  It’s putting the Lord and the things of His heart first and not striving.

Ecclesiastes 4:4 says,  “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

I don’t want to get caught in the winds of envy of others that blow me off course.  I don’t want to get sucked into a rat race that traps me.  I just want to follow Jesus wherever that takes me…and if that means that sometimes I’ll seem foolish to this world, then so be it.

 

Once when I was a kid, the children’s ministry at my church performed the musical, “Fat Fat Jehoshaphat.”

My dear friend Laura Parker always got the leads in the plays because she could sing like a nightingale. I on the other hand….well….couldn’t.  So in “Fat Fat Jehoshaphat,” I was cast as the scribe.  Apparently discontented with being just a scribe, I decided to jazz things up a bit.  So… in my announcement of Fat Fat Jehoshaphat entering the room during the performance…in true-to-Biblical-time fashion…I shouted my “Here Ye, Here Ye” line with a decidedly 8 year old version of a Brittish accent.

And so, I made my stage debut….

I have no idea what Ann Voskamp and I were giddy over in this picture from Allume this past fall, but it really looks to me like I’m announcing her with a Brittish “Here Ye, Here Ye.”

And since there’s something worth announcing…in the very best way that I know how, I say to you….

Here Ye, Here Ye!

Allume tickets go on sale tomorrow at midnight!

 We will be having a Twitter party beginning tomorrow (Friday 2/28) at 11pm and will run right up until tickets go on sale!  At 11:50 pm during the Twitter party, we’ll even be giving away a FREE Conference Ticket!   The first 50 tickets sold get a special Early Bird price of $265 (regular price is $299) and the pass includes access to all general sessions, breakout sessions, parties, as well as including all meals from Thursday dinner through Saturday dinner!  Go HERE to get your pass, and join us tomorrow night as we give away tons of prizes between 11pm and midnight under the #Allume hashtag!

Hope you’ll join us tomorrow night as well as at the conference this October 23-25th in Greenville, SC!  And in case you haven’t seen, make sure you check out our new website!  We freshened things up a bit on the ol world wide web slice that Allume.com occupies, and we’re pretty pleased with the way it turned out!  Really…we think it deserves a “Here Ye, Here Ye” for sure!

For several months now, I’ve heard the Lord whispering “Africa.”  I’ve never been, but it has been popping up in my social media streams and then into my life enough that a few months ago, I began asking the Lord if I was supposed to go… if this whisper of Africa might be meant for me.

But why would I go?  What would take me there?  And once there, what would I do?  I didn’t know…but I kept hearing it almost like a breeze through the trees….

“Africa.”

As Allume began to draw near this fall, I kept hearing it more… “Africa.”  And I couldn’t help but notice that there was a fair amount of Africa coming directly in my path.  Partners like FH who had taken friends of mine to Africa (and me to Bangladesh one year ago), introductions to Pearl Ministries and Ornaments 4 Orphans who are doing amazing work in Uganda, and my new friends at Sole Hope too.  It suddenly began to feel like Africa was all around me.

About 6 weeks or so before Allume I got a really funny email from Dru Collie, who along with his wife Asher, founded Sole Hope.

“I think we went to elementary school together,” it said.

Dru Collie….Dru Collie…Dru Collie…..hmmm…sounds kinda familiar, but not sure.  I thought and thought and didn’t remember.  So I emailed him back and said ” You went to Oakwood too?!”

Nope…Viewmont.  But turns out that we did go to middle school together!  Grandview Eagles ya’ll!  And then I remembered him! Back then I was the cheerleader that had incisors that grew in above my gumline, and tall, lanky Drü who now spells his name with a fancy umlaut, was called plain ol “Andrew.”

And here we are a few years later, a couple of kids from Hickory, NC who are partnering our organizations to make a difference in the world.  Even crazier too is that my dear old friend, Laura Parker, co-founder of the Exodus Road, was also a Grandview eagle.  Funny how God decides to use a few random kids from Hickory, NC to accomplish his purposes all over the world.

Anyhow, as I got to know Asher better at Allume, I just fell more in love with not just the Collies, but the work they are doing in Africa.   My kids became interested in it.  It was something they could begin to wrap their arms around.  And it was so simple to get involved.  Beyond just sending money, Sole Hope builds a road to take something small here and make it count big there.

Take a pair of jeans that you’re not really wearing anymore (and let’s be honest, anyone who has ever had a baby or eaten too much Thanksgiving dinner has at least 1 or 11 pairs that would qualify), invite some friends over to bring their ill-fitting pants with them too, gather around a table and cut them up using shoe patterns provided by a Sole Hope shoe cutting kit.  Send the cut out jeans back to Sole Hope’s office in the US, and they ship them to Uganda.  Once in Uganda, your old pants become life-giving for thousands of people there.  The patterns are made into shoes that provide a fair wage for workers and use recycled tires for the soles.  They pave the way for foot washing clinics to remove terrible, debilitating jiggers from children’s feet, and each child gets a new pair of shoes.  Sole Hope ministers to the people of Uganda through education, medical care, and literal foot washing to eliminate the problem of jiggers amongst children there.

Watch this quick video to see what I’m talking about.  Be aware that the images are difficult to see, but even my own children have watched it and the Lord continues to break their young hearts for his beloved there in Africa.

My 4 year old had an ingrown toenail recently.  As we worked to pull it out from the skin growing in around it, he looked at me and told me how badly it hurt, and then said “I bet it hurts even more with those kids in Uganda.  Maybe we can send them some of my shoes Mommy so that their feet don’t hurt.”

They get it friends.  Even our children can understand pain and want to give hope to the hopeless.  And despite the fact that I will be away from my own children from March 9-20th on a trip to Uganda with Sole Hope, they are excited to be a part of the story that gives hope to others.

I’m excited to go.  I’m also nervous because I know that the most work I’ll do there will probably be on my own heart.  But I’m honored to be a part of the hope story in Uganda.  The Lord whispered “Africa” to me and is allowing me to shout it loud for others to hear now too.

We had a shoe cutting party for Sole Hope at Allume this fall, and our creative director, Carey Bailey, and I have the unbelievable honor of following some of those cut out shoes to actually place them on the feet of precious children while we are there.  We are joining a team of women who will be using our online spaces to make the story of hope tangible for those longing to be a part of it.  I hope you’ll follow along as I write from Uganda between March 9-20, and make the Sole Hope story a part of your hope story as well.

If you’d like to donate to our trip, that’d be super awesome.  We all need to raise support to be able to go, and I’d be honored if you would partner with me in this way to make it happen. The goal is to raise $2800 each and I’m part of the way there, but am asking for your help now too to bring this piece of my story fully to life. You can go HERE to make a “One Time Donation” and in the notes part, write “Logan Wolfram – March trip.”

And whether you donate or not, I’d love to have you follow along and join the story that God is allowing me to be a part of telling.

It’s been a month since I’ve even written here in this space…no surprise really since I was running Allume which happened this past weekend.

I want to recap things…the weekend… but, I have to confess that it’s near impossible to recap a weekend when that weekend was really the culmination of an entire year for me.

So I don’t know where to begin.  And maybe I begin a year ago when I was on the phone with the kind friends at (in)courage and I cried and said that I had no clue what I was doing.  I was handed this thing called Allume, a thing I never looked for or even wanted to dream to do, and suddenly when I realized that my dear friend Sarah Mae was fresh out of vision because she has given so much over the prior 3 years, and that I needed to get some vision, I felt just lost and totally inadequate.

So I cried on the phone with Saul and Lisa Jo, and I got off and called Sarah Mae and was angry that she had “hung me out to dry.”

Or at least that’s how I felt a year ago.

But God knew…and He knew that He had a vision, and that because I didn’t, I’d ask Him to share with me what He wanted to do.  So I listened hard.  This whole past year I have been on my knees listening hard, making decisions, and then holding them heavenward for holy confirmation to be given.

So this past weekend for me, it was confirmation that I listened and heard Him speaking, because the King of Heaven and Earth showed up in that space, and for 3 days, the Hyatt Regency Greenville became holy ground.

I had felt  for months that Christ-centered identity would be spoken, that there would be exhortation for faithfulness in the still places before we’d be called into louder ones, that a brokenness would be permitted, life would be breathed onto dry bones, and then that from the fullness that we have in Christ, that we would be made aware of the overflow and the generosity we can then pour out.  I had never known how that would happen, but it began with Ann, continued with Melanie, broke open with Jennie, breathed life with Bianca, and then poured out with Jeff.  And in between in all of the sessions, more of the same…a calling, a filling, and an outpouring.

The body of Christ united not just by what we do (the writing, the blogging), but by who we are, and why we do what we do.

I’m still spinning from it all.  Soaking up the joy of a revival that I believe was birthed in many hearts as we spent our time together.  And I’m taking a couple of weeks to celebrate God’s goodness of what has been done, and asking for his wisdom to see where He leads us all together next.  And I have a few ideas, but just like this year, I can have ideas and plan up to a certain point, but the space that made what we shared so holy, was in the parts that God did, that we couldn’t begin to know.

My son just had a flag football game today, and the whole thing actually put me in a funk.

This is our second year playing Upward Flag Football and it has been the best experience.  If you’re not familiar with Upward, check them out!  It’s a faith-based sports program dedicated to teaching the mechanics of the game (they do soccer, basketball, flag football, and cheerleading) with an emphasis on equal opportunity and playing time, as well a focus on good sportsmanship and the idea that every child is a winner.  In my opinion, its an awesome way to introduce a game to little kids, teach them to understand the game, but still have loads of fun.

They don’t even keep score.

Which in my opinion for a bunch of 7 year olds is absolutely fine.  It’s great in fact!  They will have all of their teen and adult years to keep score and have others keeping score of them.

I’ve noticed this trend of uber-competitive sports involvement since I’ve had a child old enough to be playing organized sports, and I have to tell you….I just don’t get it?!  What ever happened to boys starting to play tackle football for the first time in middle school? And when did little kid teams start traveling out of state for games?  And no wonder by the time some kids are getting to college now, they’re burnt out on something they used to love.  When did childhood sports become about domination and having to be the best and chiding your kids that they’re not good enough unless…?!

We have a friend who played football at Boston College and he said the same thing.  If you start too competitive too young, somewhere along the way, the love of the game gets lost.

And I want to know too why are little boys who’s bodies are just growing are focusing on tackling and hitting one another before their brain even has the chance to learn cursive writing?!

Today at our flag football game, one kid literally tackled another one and knocked him flat on the ground.  I get it, you might dive after a flag and knock somebody over, but that’s not what this was.  All of the parents on the sideline gasped in unison as we held our breath to make sure he was ok.  But then the part that really shocked was when the coach of the tackling offender began to loudly clap and yell “Way to stop ’em buddy!”…and then more claps.  Then yelling at the kids on his team to circle up to get ready for the next play while poor Josh was still flat-backed on the ground.

Are you kidding me?!

No “Hey buddy, are you ok?!”… or to the kid that knocked him down, “Make sure he’s alright…how about helping him up?”

Nada

Just claps and “circle up” and don’t worry about the kid you just tackled in a no-tackle game.

So their team went on…passing the ball to the same 3 highly athletic kids, not giving a fair shot, and for me…destroying the reason we play in this league.

When you’re 7, a game should still be a game.  It should be fun.

The reality is that most of our kids do not have a career in professional sports ahead of them.  So why do we act like they do?

I realized today too that the way we behave as parents at our kids sporting events has the capacity to completely enhance or ruin the fun for everyone.  The parent who’s yelling at their kid who can’t keep their hands wrapped around the ball.  The parent of the super athletic one who gets ticked off if their kid doesn’t get to play the whole time.  The parent who purchases literally every single bit of unnecessary gear for a non-competitive flag football league to make sure their child gets noticed. We, the parents, set the tone for everyone.

It’s all really messed up.  And it messed me up today too.  It made me mad, and it made me sad, and I just don’t understand what’s so darn wrong with letting kids be kids and play a game for FUN.

I read a quote one time that says, “Children need the freedom and the time to play. Play is not a luxury, it is a necessity.”  By definition the word “play” actually means, “engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”

Why so serious ya’ll?!

Why can’t we hold off on the intense sporting stuff til they’re old enough to decide for themselves that they want it?  Why must kids be on traveling teams when they have barely learned how to tie their own cleats?  And why do parents get so up in the mix that they ruin it for everyone?!

And I can only do my part I guess and not be that way.  Even feeling angry about this today isn’t exactly the best response, I know that.  Maybe I’m crazy, but I kinda think that childhood should be fun, and that playing on teams when you’re little should be about learning to work together, being fair, and practicing good sportsmanship.

They are called GAMES for a reason.