Seniors 2016: James Palmer

"Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to be at the forefront of the next great awakening as God sweeps through not only the U.S. but Europe and all over the world!" -James Palmer

Today I woke up early and I was listening to a sermon about Prayer.  My summer schedule has included a lot of "early to bed and early to rise" and I've been wanting to grow in passion for early morning prayer.  That got me thinking about my bro James Palmer.  James helped lead a prayer meeting called 'Kindle' that met 6 days a week all throughout the school year last year.   Every morning at 7:30am, James got up and gathered with a small core of guys and girls to pray and intercede for the campus.  Together they engaged in the spiritual battle asking God to work powerfully in and through the lives of the Christians on campus.  They prayed for those who don't know Christ that they would be open to the gospel.  They prayed for revival and healing and spiritual transformation.  

As I was typically driving my kids to school during that time slot, I never made it to Kindle.  But I am thankful for James and the Kindle crew!   I am thankful for all the ways they participated in the mission and I am personally thankful for James' example; his faithfulness inspires me even today.  

James is from Ithaca;  he grew up here and attended Ithaca High School. I met him just a few days into his freshman year at Cornell almost 4 years ago.  We were playing Glow in the Dark Ultimate Frisbee and James was doing really good!  

When you meet James Palmer, he will probably strike you as a kind, mild-mannered guy with a chill disposition.  He's considerate and articulate and smart.  If you met him in class you would enjoy his company.  He's kind of mellow in certain ways, but at the same time, there's a powerful intensity about him! 

James was committed to evangelism in many different forms!  During the fall, he decided to try out a little open air preaching in the middle of campus.  

Throughout his time at Cornell James set an example of radical faith.  His dedication to missions is truly remarkable.  The summer after his freshman year he joined Larry and Van-Kim Lin on a summer project to one of my favorite countries in South East Asia.  During his sophomore year I got to serve with him in Haiti over Spring Break.  I loved hanging out in our room with the guys talking and praying each night.  This last March he and I were together out in Baltimore.   

Me with James and Gaelle down in the gorge. 

It is no exaggeration to say that James Palmer maximized his senior year.  He lead the Kindle meeting and also worked as a Resident Assistant in one of the freshman dorms.  James also helped me to lead a Community Group this year!   Each week we hung out on Tuesday nights with 10 - 14 freshman guys to eat together, share life and dig into the scriptures.  James' contagious passion and knowledge of the Word were definitely a blessing to the guys!   James set a high bar and encouraged the men to live sold out lives for Christ.  

During his "Senior Share" James exhorted his classmates to really trust God for Greater things.
James had everybody close their eyes and imagine various things like telling close friends about Jesus, talking to strangers about the gospel and traveling to new places to spread the gospel.  He had everybody picture in their minds people being healed from physical illness and spiritual oppression.  James said "close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to be at the forefront of the next great awakening as God sweeps through not only the U.S. but Europe and all over the world!" James ended with the Apostle Paul's words from Ephesians chapter 3

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.


I'm really grateful for all the ministry I got to do over the years with James!

While we were out in the DC/Baltimore area for our Spring Break mission, James proposed to his girlfriend Gaelle!  

  

Cru Short Term Trips are Worthy!

Right now we have a team of Cornell students working in South Africa with the Mamalodi Initiative.  The Mamelodi initiative is in my opinion, a model of effective, sustainable, Christian humanitarian aid. Pioneered with Cru students from Harvard, the Mamelodi Initiative is an educational program that serves underprivileged teens and school age children.  Ivy league college students spend time teaching and tutoring kids so that they can pass the matriculation exams that stand between them and a quality education.  It has been rightfully observed; "if there is one thing every Cornell student can do, it’s pass a test!"  

Our team that’s there right now is reading the acclaimed book; When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  Insightful and provocative, the authors of this book (along with their organization The Chalmer’s center) are an asset to Evangelical Christianity in America.  Their organization has played a key role in pointing out the different ways that Christian mission trips can be categorically detrimental even as the participants are trying to be a blessing.  As the title makes clear, it is possible to hurt even when trying to help.  Together, they are enabling all of us to take a more critical look at Christian missions and offering insights about how to do things well.   This is an excellent resource for everyone who wants to minister in and to the world in a way that makes a comprehensively positive impact.  

Certainly they are not the only ones to write about this topic.  In recent years, much has been written on the web questioning the wisdom and overall value of evangelical missions trips -especially short term ventures.   I’ve read many articles and even had conversations with students here on campus who contend that most short-term trips are not worth doing. I disagree!  believe that short term trips are thoroughly Biblical and we must keep sending out teams both to do short-term and long-term work.  But we should help each other to strive after wisdom and move forward with God-centered purposefulness.  

I really believe that it’s possible to do things well, and on the whole, I think the short-term trips that we offer with Cru are very valuable and effective.  Cru has both international and U.S. stateside summer mission trips that college students can participate in.  

I want to point out three things that help enable the Cru trips to be more helpful than hurtful on the whole.  

#1  Gospel Centrality.  One of the things that makes Cru’s projects so valuable is the gospel-centered nature of our missions. Throughout its history Cru has prioritized the communication of the good news of Jesus Christ as our primary objective.  The core of the Great Commission is to make disciples of Him!   We certainly value humanitarian aid and social justice initiatives; we believe in both good words and good deeds!  But no matter what else we do, we press forward with our conviction that the gospel is foundational.  Everyone everywhere needs Jesus, and our first aim is to make him known. Helping others to discover and follow Jesus is categorically helpful and good. Always.

#2  Working in Partnership.   When we take a short-term student team to another country we are typically working on or near a college campus, in conjunction with a long-term team of missionaries in that country.  Often, the long-term teams include local ministers who are native to that area or country.  Yes, sometimes a short-term team goes ahead of a long-term team, but in either case, we strive to connect our short term activities with those who are long term.  This format helps us to work in ways that are truly constructive, and it literally enables our short-term participants to contribute.  We aren’t just taking a group of students to a foreign country on some type of “Christian tourism” adventure, but we are able to involve them as ministers engaged in the long-term work.  

#3  Students working with Students.   A more cynical colleague of mine once asked the question: “Does anyone else think it’s weird that we take unskilled youth group kids to do construction in a country full of men who are skilled construction workers?”  He was scoffing the classic “mission trip to Mexico” phenomenon.  Certainly it’s an over-statement to say that everyone in Mexico is a skilled construction worker, but there is no doubt that most American junior high kids are in way over their heads at a construction site.  That’s not all bad, but what we’ve got going in Cru is different.  The majority of our ministry consists of straight-forward discipleship and evangelism in a context that our students are at least generally familiar with.  We take university students to a university!  It’s a venue where we are considerably experienced.  Sure, some methods need to be tweaked and “contextualized” a bit, but on the whole, our students are engaging in a kind of ministry that makes sense.  They are building relationships with other college students, they are building friendships and they are talking about Jesus.  It’s the same thing they do here at our campus!   

Here are some links: 

Mamalodi Initiative Website http://mamelodi.org/?page_id=651

Mamelodi Report Summary  http://mamelodi.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mitwopager.pdf

When Helping Hurts  https://www.chalmers.org/when-helping-hurts

A couple of Articles on this topic:

From Gospel Coalition:

Why You should Consider Cancelling Your Short Term Mission Trips  

AND

Don’t Cancel That Short Term Mission Trip

Some Biblical examples of Short-term missional methodology.

Jesus’ whole ministry was a 3 year short-term trip.

The Apostle Paul’s ministry was a series of short-term style mission ventures.

Jesus sends his disciples on some very short-term trips. eg: Luke 9,10.  

Jonah’s mission to the Assyrian’s was quite short.  

Michael Horton talking about the Church’s mission to make disciples.  He talks about needing to be aware of “mission creep”; losing sight of the main mission.  Scrub to the 2:10 mark.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXIVOvTANv0

Senior 2015: Esther Koo

"I grew up in a Gospel church, where half the congregation was black, the other half was white, and there were four Asians: my dad, my mom, my sister, and I. It was fun, and I thought all churches looked like that!"

Esther Koo is one of those people who really "gets" what we are trying to do as a ministry.   She is an extremely dependable and faithful servant who has contributed a lot to our movement here at Cornell.  There is no actual way of tabulating how many girls are  plugged into Cru and growing in Christ  because of Esther's leadership and example.  She is a real shepherd of women, she's an encourager and she has a lot of spirit!  We call it "Cantonese Fire!"   

Esther has an inquisitive mind.  She asks great questions and is commited to thinking about things critically.  

A few weeks ago at Church, Esther Shared about a particularly pivotal moment that occurred during her sophomore year. She said "I was meeting with my mentor, who was an upperclassman in Cru, and she posed the question to me, “Why are you a Christian?”  I responded that I enjoyed having the knowledge that God had a plan for me, and I could trust in Him for the future.  My mentor acknowledged that, but then proceeded to share the Gospel.  I was about to write it off, because I had heard it many times, but I realized that the Gospel should have been the answer to her question.  And for the first time, I was convicted by it.  I realized that up to that point, my “faith” consisted of Christian values and [knowledge of] Bible stories.

She continued: "Applying the Gospel to my life meant confronting sin.  I did not know the destructive effect that sin had on my thoughts, thinking about people in an unedifying manner and projecting my desire for affection physically and emotionally on the way I perceive others.  What’s more, sin is a barrier to an intimate relationship with God.  However, the power of the Gospel shatters that barrier and when I recognized sin and laid it at the foot of the cross, I felt freedom."

A couple of years ago on the Haiti spring break trip. 

Esther's zeal for Jesus is pretty overt.  She's served as a Community Group leader for the past several years and she's been a big part of our Spring Break mission trips every year!  Thankfully Esther will not be leaving Cornell next year.  She'll stick around to get her masters degree so we get at least one more year with her!

Esther also lived in the 10 girl Cru house.  

Brian Green is NOT Normal!

Senior Brian Green is very unusual.  The things that he does are not normal; they are not typical, they are supernatural.

James 5:16 says “confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed.”  Brian does that.  A couple of months ago, he felt prompted to pick up the phone and call his dad specifically to confess some sin.  He had talked with his parents about many trials and temptations, but he decided it would be a good idea to call his dad and really let him in; to tell him ‘the whole story’ related to a specific issue in his life.   

John Owen once said: “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you”   Brian Green is a man who steps out with boldness and exposes sin to the light; where it dies!   Normal people don't confess their sins to their friends. They don't open up to their community group. Normal people don't call their dad and confess sin to their family!  Brian Green is not normal.

Brian can only do this stuff because he really loves Jesus!   He got involved in Cru during his freshman year.  Edgar Lei and I were leading a freshman small group and he came out very early on.  Brian would say that although he had a Christian background, college is where he really came to understand what it means to live in relationship with Christ.

Brian can be very outgoing and funny.  He cracks people up when he speaks in various accents –imitating people from around the world.  Brian is very dependable and smart, but I am certain that when people think of Brian the first thing that comes to their mind is his gracious, compassionate nature.   The way that he treats others is so kind and so helpful that they immediately feel loved. 

When he’s part of a small group, Brian has a real gift of helping others to be more authentic.  He leads others to a place of vulnerability.   He does this by sharing openly about his life and about his sin in a way that helps others to actually feel the safety and warmth of God’s grace. His openness enables others to connect with the truth of the gospel in a way that is quite remarkable.   Brian has grown a lot during college and that has a lot to do with his humility.  He is unassuming when he has a question; he's honest about what he knows or what he doesn't know.

 In our ministry, we talk about the Good News of Jesus Christ transforming Cornell.  We really believe that when the love of Christ is impacting every student, this place will be better!   We are striving to proclaim the gospel and make disciples who live out their faith in a way that really changes and blesses the world!  So how does that look on the ground? 

Recently, Brian brought truth and grace into his engineering project work group.  There was a bunch of “drama” in his group and they had become marked by relational tension, back-biting, and gossip.  Working together was miserable and it was all basically fueled by competition and selfish ambition.   The group was not performing as well as they could have been, but rather than pulling together and encouraging one another, everybody got irritated and started blame-shifting!  Nothing new under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

In a normal group, that would probably just continue until the end of the year.  But as I’ve mentioned already; Brian Green is not normal.  For Brian the idea of bringing sin into the light is not a theory; it has become a life habit.  So one day, he decided to bless his group in a way that only a Jesus follower could.   

It was not easy, but with trademark gentleness buttressed with Spirit empowered conviction Brian spoke into the messiness of his group.  Before they started their homework he said: “Hey guys, I think we should talk about our group here.”  You could have cut the awkward silence with a chainsaw!   He proceeded then, to verbalize that which everybody already knew was true –that there was a lot of tension in their group.  And then he uncovered the sinful root.  He did this by confessing his own faults.  He talked about his own frustration and then apologized for the ways in which he himself had been blaming and condescending towards others –both overtly and in his heart.  He asked for forgiveness.  Then he asked if anyone else wanted to express their feelings.  People were reluctant to open up as boldly, but in the end, the air was clear.  The fire of gossip had been doused.   The group was better!  

That study group stopped being so horrible because of Brian’s faith in Jesus.  He brought redemptive blessing to that work team.  And in short, it was because he understood that God loves him unconditionally that he was able to risk looking like an idiot and being ostracized by his team-mates for making things more awkward!  Additionally, it was by resting in the grace of God and understanding His  power that he was able to be courageous and not shrink back from what needed to be done.    Knowing the compassion of God enabled him to proceed with hopefulness that God would use his actions to make his group better.  Understanding God’s passion for loving reconciliation gave him a vision for how much better his group could be! 

Brian would be the first to tell you that what he did was scary!  But I’ve seen Brian move through his fear with faith many times!   He’s been a strong and stable leadership presence in Cru at Cornell for almost 4 years now.  He’s helped lead small groups and gone on numerous short term mission trips!

We will definitely miss him when he rolls, but I know that Clark Construction will be blessed to have him.  As Christ’s love pours thru him, they will be blessed. 

Brian was with me in Haiti over Spring Break.  He’s actually served with Cru on three separate trips to Haiti –including a Summer Project.  

Letter from my Dream World!

A big part of our work on campus with students involves mobilizing students to go to the world as missionaries. We have both short-term and long-term trips that students can be a part of. There are so many needs in the world, and the experiences are so valuable that we promote these a lot. This year, we've got students going to Haiti, as well as Colorado, and Montana on Cru Summer Projects. Sadly, one of the biggest inhibitors to student participation in missions is parents. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. Even (and very often) Christian parents can be extremely discouraging of their kids spending a summer serving others and spreading the Gospel. Usually, the discouraging sentiments are rooted in a lack of faith and zeal on the part of parents, and that is very unfortunate and sad. But, other parents are different! Below is a real email written by a parent of a student in our movement. This father is absolutely filled with faith and confidence in the Lord as well as a dedication to the Great Commission. He wrote this last year to both of his sons when they were applying for the summer projects that they eventually went on. One of the boys is a leader in our ministry, and his brother is at another college. I can't even imagine what my job would be like if every parent was like this! I call this a letter from my dream world! Hi Alex & Jim, I reviewed the online materials regarding CRU's summer mission programs. I believe these are valuable programs and I'm happy to see that both of you have expressed strong interest in participating. As I will be making a couple of mission trips myself this year, and Mommy and Mark may also sign up for a trip to [closed country], I can see that the Lord is really blessing our family to participate in His work. I understand the cost is high but I also trust that the Lord will provide. With this, I would encourage you to start the process as early as you can, including signups and fundraising efforts. If you want me to assist in providing contact information for your fundraising exercises, please let me know. Just in case you want to know, we recently received a fundraising letter from Brian Smith, who is planning to go to the middle east with the same CRU program this summer. God bless! Dad In my dream world, Christian parents would be the biggest cheerleaders for Christian Missions. I can't even explain how many encouraging elements there are in this note! His interest in what his kids are thinking about doing is commendable. He encourages his kids to sign up early, and start raising their money. He is not the least bit concerned that the whole family will be trusting God for financial support in order to participate in missions, because he knows what a privilege it is and that God will provide. Then, he mentions another student, a family friend, and implies that he will be supporting him financially to go on a Cru summer project. Who is this guy!?! His example is one that I hope will be followed! *I have changed the names of the students and the country.

Trip to Haiti 2

My unfortunate tendency would be to rush back into life here and not take much time reflecting or processing our time in Haiti. So, I’ll write just a little bit here for myself and for anyone else who is interested in reading. This is a rather long post. I've tried to keep it interesting, and I've included lots of pictures. I have also bolded certain sentences to keep it easy for you to skim thru it as needed.

(Above) This is Mike, one of the older kids at the orphanage. He liked to hang around with us.

(Below) Adam with Daniel and Kelly Thomas

The orphanage is run by a pastor named Rigo and his family. Rigo is a great guy who loves God and desires that all of the orphans be raised in stable, Jesus loving homes. He explained to us that he is not running an “adoption agency” but that he is a steward who has been called to raise up children in the family of the Lord. This compels him to be very particular about who he connects with, and who he allows to adopt from his orphanage. He’s not advertising on the internet or anything. People are referred personally to him by other people, so the process is pretty organic. This network of people is made of committed Christians. (Below is Rigo's son named Rico.)

Pastor Rigo has a church of course, and they also run a school. Here are the kids in their school uniforms.

Being in Haiti, of course the orphanage itself is pretty “third world,” and isn't necessarily up to first world sanitation standards. Most of the country is in a state of ‘black out’ and thus dependent on generators to provide electricity. While there, we would have electricity for just a few hours each evening. Most people also do not have working plumbing. Most of the water is trucked in, and delivered to various cisterns in the neighborhoods and carried about in 5 gallon buckets. We did not drink that water at the orphanage, so I do not know for sure whether or not it is potable. It was used primarily for cleaning, bathing and washing clothes. In order to shower, we simply drew cups of water from one of the buckets and poured them on our bodies. We did have a toilet, which was a real bonus, but in order to flush it, we’d have to pour water in from a bucket. Drinking water was brought in by the Culligan man, and water was made ready for cooking with the use of Culligan filtration.

But despite all of this, the orphans appeared to be in (relatively) good health, they are fed well, bathed every day, and were all wearing clean diapers and clothes. Looking back, we should have brought a load of diapers with us to leave there. There are about 60 kids at the orphanage, and about 10 or so full time care-takers. After the earthquake, some of Pastor Rigo’s teenage nephews and nieces moved into the house, so they are around to help out as well. But, the place could surely use some more help!

The orphanage is a 3 story place that was relatively unharmed by the quake. On the ground floor there is a small courtyard area, that is partially covered. That is where the children spend most of their time playing and eating etc. It is not a grass courtyard, it’s cement. In fact there is no real outside place for the children to play. It appears that before the quake, there was some room out in front of the house, but now that place is occupied by tents. It was kind of a bummer to see how little room the kids have to play in.

Regarding tents, the whole city is full of them. Immediately after the earthquake of course, nobody wanted to be inside their homes, so everybody was sleeping outside. All of the orphans, and caretakers actually lived outside in tents for over a month! Now, those who have homes are back inside, but many people are still residing in the tents outside, and of course thousands of people don’t even have that! Some of the tents are make-shift tarp and stick dwellings. Others are camping tents that have been donated by people (and companies) in the U.S. The nicest ones we saw were donated by Rotary international. It seems almost everywhere that there is a spare plot of land off the road, there is at least one tent –if not a whole colony of tents.

Guaging by images on the news, I was under the impression that the whole city of Port Au Prince was totally leveled. Most buildings sustained damage, and there are many that completely collapsed, but it seems the majority of buildings are still standing.

While in Haiti, Adam and I spent most of our time at the orphanage with the kids. We spent most of our time with 3 ½ year old Kelly Thomas. He took to Adam right away, and pretty much stuck with us every minute that we were there. He ate with us, played with us, and even slept in the same room as us on the 3^rd floor. It seemed better to me to have him stay in his own room with all the same kids he always slept with, but the orphanage workers thought otherwise. Adam and I were concerned about disrupting his life too much, since we would only be there for 3 full days and he won’t be able to come here for many months yet.
One and a half year old Daniel was (understandably) more apprehensive about chillin’ with us. We still got to spend good time with Daniel, but he was more comfortable with the woman who takes care of him. Of course, we hung out with most of the kids there –usually the boys. A couple of the older ones; Mike and Davidson loved to come up to our porch and play. There were somewhere between 7 and 9 years old. We couldn’t communicate too well, but we could throw the football around.

We left the orphanage a few times. We accompanied Rigo’s son on a mission to find a mechanic to repair the diesel generator. It was a lot of driving around for nothing, but we were glad to be able to see the city. “Romping” is a better word to describe what it’s like to drive thru Port Au Prince. Though there are some larger paved streets, most of the town is made up of dusty debris covered roads. While out and about he showed us the Church, and school that they run as well. And just a few weeks ago, they started a small medical clinic and are hoping to grow it into a full grown hospital some day. This pastor Rigo is a busy dude!

On Wednesday, we went to the U.S. embassy so Adam could pick up some paper work and ask one more time if the ‘humanitarian parole’ option was available so that he could bring one or both of the boys home sooner. Though we prayed that some how they would say yes….they said no. So Adam and Tracy will continue to wade thru the regular adoption procedures.

It had been my hope to spend some of all of Wednesday with some fellow Campus Crusade for Christ staff members who were also visiting Port Au Prince. Campus Crusade plans to be working in Haiti for at least the next 5 years. Global Aid Network or GAIN is the humanitarian aid arm of CCC and they currently have a lot going on over there. While standing on the curb in front of the U.S. embassy, I saw our friend Brody go by in a large GAiN marked work truck, and I got to spend about 2 whole minutes with Esperandiue –a Haitian Campus Crusade staff guy. But because both communication and travel around the city was difficult, we didn’t get to do as much as we would have liked on this trip. Our friends Brody and Kurt did get to connect with GAiN the whole time though.

One cool thing though was the fact that Pastor Rigo and Esperandiue had met each other a few weeks prior. GAIN had provided some food for the orphanage children.

Mark, Gregory, Evans, Bernard, Maken, Milo and Kevins, were some of the older guys that we met. They all spoke at least a little bit of English, and in addition to the little kids, these were the guys we spent the most time with. Especially Mark and Evans. Mark would come up and hang out with us a lot, and it was fun to talk with him, hear about his country and learn a little bit of Creole. He is one of pastor Rigo’s nephews, and before the earthquake, he had another place to live, but now, he’s at the orphanage. Evans was not related, and in my understanding, he has basically grown up at the orphanage. He is around 19 now.
We learned that the Haitian college age students, -much like their American counterparts like to waste, I mean spend a lot of time on facebook. Whenever there was electricity, somebody was on facebook! The cool thing about this of course is that it should be fairly easy to keep in touch with these guys!
One other thing that dominated our time in Haiti was ‘hotness’. It was sweltering in Haiti. I don’t actually know how hot, because we didn’t have a thermometer, but we were sweating like pigs. I’ve been to hotter places, and I know that Haiti itself gets hotter in the summer months, but that place is broasting man!