Portland

So my best friend in the whole world Calla Maria Davis-Boozer just moved to Portland (again) with her husband David and gorgeous year-old daughter Vera. I might be going to visit them with Stephen in the next couple of months and I am so excited. I love Portland (as well as the Davis-Boozers) so I hope it works out. In the meantime I have pictures like these to make me miss them even more...

dead faith

What good is it my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.'

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.

I have heard a lot of people talk about dead faith, or faith that doesn't do anything, faith that bears no fruit, that offers no witness to goodness, to love, or to God. I want my faith to show my God, and I pray that it does. I want faith that leads me to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and love the wretched.

Stephen was telling me about a friend's mom that asked me about his faith. Her exact question, "What is your faith?" kind of put him for a spin I think, as it would me.

What is your faith? I used to think of faith as a simple synonym for belief. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus is His son, and as such is God, who was sent to Earth to reconcile Mankind back to Himself through an unthinkable sacrifice. And when He went back to heaven I believe that He sent the Holy Spirit to stay with us to that we would have help when we inevitably messed up again.

But my faith must be more than the One I believe in. My faith must be multi-dimensional. It must not only be about who or what I believe, but also how I believe.

Does my faith lead me to do something? If I see a child starving on the streets, is my belief in God or in what he could do going to change anything? Probably not. But my belief in how he would want me to use my faith would change something. Putting my faith, my belief in His love for that starving child, into action will change something. It changes everything. Because believing in God is only the start. Believing in God only helps yourself, and only to a short extent at that. Loving others through that same faith is what makes the difference. That's what faith is really for. Not for selfish reassurance in a better afterlife, but for selfless reassurance for another's present life.

Make it better for someone else. That is what faith should do. That is how faith should act. Because like Paul said, even the demons believe in God. It is what they do that makes them who they are and demonstrates what they truly believe.

Helping through Facebook

ok so normally i would not be one to promote facebook applications (for those of you who don't know what facebook is, it's basically an online networking site that helps you keep in touch with all of your friends; applications can be added to make things more "fun" and/or complicated)

HOWEVER there is one that I must promote. It is the Causes application. By putting it on your Facebook you can promote the cause of whatever organization you wish to promote.

You should start with the cause for Bedouins International. We are going to Haiti in September and we really need to raise some support. We are going down to document a school on Coco Beach as well as an initiative called The Vanilla Bean Project which will be put in place to provide children and their families with a sustainable income. This cause is worth promoting.

Go to Facebook

Go to Facebook Causes


This is your chance to help! Please?

need a photographer?

ok so i know there are a number of you out there looking for a photographer. i know this because i am going to about eight weddings this summer. so i thought i would pass along the website of a photographer here in birmingham who might just be the most talented photographer i know. he shoots weddings, bands, documentary stuff, everything really. and he's the main photographer for Bedouins International. you really should check out his stuff...it is pretty fantastic. Here is a picture of me he took that i really love.



Check out all of his galleries here:
STEPHEN DEVRIES PHOTOGRAPHY

yay for apendices

so i had a little scare this past weekend...thought i had appendicitis...and i have no health insurance. it was great fun. to go to the doctor for a check up would have cost about $100 and getting a CT scan to check out my appendix would have probably been somewhere around $1,000. not having health insurance is really scary. i mean if i really had appendicitis and my appendix had ruptured i could have died, but i really didn't want to have to pay $1,000 (even on a payment plan) if it was just a stomach bug you know? i mean what can you do in those situations? you're just stuck.

but i feel much better now thanks to a lot of prayer and tlc...and patience...i am a whiny baby when i don't feel good. so many thanks go to my infinitely patient boyfriend stephen for putting up with me. and to my mom and good friend kelly for praying for me. i love you guys!

so have no fear, i still have my trusty appendix in good working condition...or does it work? what exactly does your appendix do again? something about good bacteria or immunity or something? i'll have to get back to you on that.

orange sky

so i've had this song stuck in my head for the last 2 days..so you should go listen to it because it is fairly fantanstical

my favorite line is "in your love, my salvation lies in your love..." and so on.

enjoy...

Alexi Murdoch
(click on orange sky)

Bedouins on Squidoo

Hey guys...check out the new Squidoo lens for Bedouins International HERE.

There you can look at our video, see some of our pics and browse around at some of the other lenses to find out more about what else is going on in the world. Have fun!

Peace.

perseverance

i know this is the kind of thing you really aren't supposed to talk about, but i feel like i need to.

i have been so mad at God recently. things are just not going the way i would like them to. i can't pay my bills. my car keeps breaking down. i don't want to be in 2 of my 3 jobs. i just want to work for bedouins full time. i need patience. i need faith. more than faith, i need something good to be revealed through my faith.

i have been getting angry at work, because i don't want to be there, and i think it's been obvious. i don't want my co-workers to see that side of me. especially if i am the only example of a follower of Christ that they get to see. i want them to see the kind of God i hope to represent. because He is Good, even when i am not.

and He is Love...especially when i am not.

but i haven't even wanted to talk to Him lately...honestly i haven't even wanted to talk about Him. prayer has been a chore. reading my bible has been a nuisance...even though i KNOW that the reason i feel that way is because i have been neglecting it.

and i know that i can do nothing worth anything without Him. and i want to give my all to Bedouins. i want to give it all to my other employers too, because i want to do everything i do in His Name. but lately it has been a lot harder to motivate myself.

but i do Love Him. even when i am mad at Him, I Love Him. i just needed to get that off my chest.

Consider it pure joy my brothers when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

...we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

(James 1:2-3 & Romans 5:3-5)