Hannah and Josh

Two and a half years ago, I met Hannah. She immediately became one of the closest friends I will ever have. Now, we are roommates and she is engaged to Josh Hutcheson. Ever since I have known Hannah and Josh, they have always had a little bit more chemistry than just friends. So, it wasn't a surprise at all when they started dating a little over a year ago, or when, this past August, he told me he was going to propose to her before the end of the semester. On December 7, he popped the question and she said yes!

Yesterday, I had the incredible opportunity to shoot some picture for them. This was my first time to ever really shoot portraits for anyone, so it's safe to say I was a bit nervous. But, they made it way too easy! I hardly had to pose them at all, I basically just followed them around with a camera and let them interact naturally. When you look at these pictures, you can tell just how in love they are, and man! i can't wait for their wedding in June. It's going to be a fun one!

Here's just a few of my favorites!

Congratulations Hannah and Josh!

Christians.

Hey. My name is Avery. Avery Marie Zorn. I am a junior in college. I am in a sorority. I play guitar. I wear a nose ring...not a stud, a ring. I cut six inches off my hair this past summer. I like to wear jeans. I usually read the same books over and over again. I never listen to the radio. Most things I do, I do because I think they’re “cool.” Sometimes I don’t know how to trust people. I don’t usually like to talk, but I love people. I think people are the most important things on this planet. 

I am a Christian. 

Since moving to a college town a little over two years ago, I have stopped using the word Christian. Even as I sat down to write this, I didn’t expect to call myself a Christian. In my social sphere, no one really uses the word. We call each other “believers” or “followers.” But, now that I think about it, there is definitely a reason that the early Church identified themselves as “Christians.” They were taking the name of Jesus upon themselves. They wanted everyone to know “WE BELONG TO CHRIST!” It very well may be that a “believer” in our society is someone who is scared to associate themselves with the name of Christ. But, when we don’t use his name, we are prone to forget everything he did for us. Everything he stood for. Everything he is asking us to do for him. 

You may have not ever thought about it this way. I really hadn’t until today. But I do think it is very important that we take a minute a think about this. What are the implications of this new name we’ve given ourselves?

In my life, using the title “Believer” has been an easy out for myself and those around me. Realistically, in a small southern college town, “believers” are probably make up the majority of students. There are a lot of people who believe in Jesus, believe that he lived and died for their sins and rose again on the third day. But there aren’t a lot of Christians: people who are willing to lay down their pride and take it to the next level. To say, “Yeah, this Jesus guy may not be the ‘coolest,’ but I am going to associate my name with His. That is my identity.”

If you know anything about the apostle Paul, it is probably that he was once a passionate Christian-hater and that he wrote over half of the New Testament. But there’s got to be a ton of little details that none of us know about this man. We know he suffered, and in a couple places he even listed some of the persecutions he faced, but we will never know the details of the pain he actually experienced. Paul, writing to the Philippians expressed his excitement for the name of Jesus. He wrote, 

“...AS IS IT MY EAGER EXPECTATION AND HOPE THAT I WILL NOT BE AT ALL ASHAMED, BUT THAT WITH FULL COURAGE NOW AS ALWAYS CHRIST WILL BE HONORED IN MY BODY, WHETHER BY LIFE OR BY DEATH. FOR TO ME TO LIVE CHRIST, AND TO DIE IS GAIN... INDEED I COUNT EVERYTHING AS LOSS BECAUSE OF THE SURPASSING WORTH OF KNOWING CHRIST JESUS MY LORD. FOR HIS SAKE I HAVE SUFFERED THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS AND COUNT THEM AS RUBBISH, IN ORDER THAT I MAY GAIN CHRIST" (Philippians 1:20-21, 3:8). 

Everything Paul suffered and everything he did well didn’t matter one bit to him without the promise of a life with Jesus. 

We may not have ever consciously meant to disassociate ourselves with the name of Jesus. But it has become a habit. We’ve got to get out of the rut. I think somewhere in the back of my mind when I have called myself a believer, it’s given me a little bit of ease about my identity. That maybe by not calling myself a Christian, I won’t put the burden of a negative connotation on my shoulders. But Jesus told us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30). 

I can’t live like this anymore. If I’m going to commit to this, I’ve got to go all in. I can’t try to live a life like Christ without calling myself his. So from now on, I will tell people that my name is Avery and I am a Christian. 

what the church is.

i wrote this to be featured in the blog section of the UK-USA Ministries website, but I also want to share it with you:

Almost three weeks ago, I left Teesside and met seven other University of Arkansas students in London to begin a short study abroad trip. Now, even at the end of the three weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to think and reflect, and it is still incredibly difficult to sit here and put thoughts on paper to successful explain my summer as a Barnabas intern. 

So, instead of trying to tell you everything, I will just tell you one thing that was revealed to me just this past week. A friend and I were in London on Sunday night, and we were able to attend the evening church service at Hillsong London. It could have been mainly a result of me being tired and extra emotional that day, but as soon as we began worship, I was weeping. I was completely overwhelmed by the energy of the body of Christ giving Him the praise He deserves. I think this response was brought about by a realization of what the body of Christ really is. 

Coming out of a pretty spiritually dry semester this past Spring, I think I was hoping the Lord to show up to fulfill my expectations this summer. I’m not sure he did that. But I am sure that he showed up to fulfill HIS expectations. What I wasn’t expecting to learn about was the nature of the body of Christ, the Church. As an team of interns, we quickly became a living, growing image of the body of Christ. It was obvious that the Lord had picked each of us up from whatever we thought we might do this summer and set us here for a specific purpose. As we began to work and serve, we began to see each other’s strengths and weaknesses and were able to use those to fulfill His work better. 

Although we had a pretty good little picture of the body of Christ inside our home and within our team, if I looked out beyond us, into the small group of believers in Teesside, I saw a completely different picture. I am very blessed to come from a community in America where there is a strong church “on every corner.” It’s not like that here. Yes, there are believers, and yes there are churches, but community looks completely different. “Church” in the Tees Valley isn’t just a building that believers travel to once a week. Most churches in the area don’t even have their own buildings to meet in. For these people, church is the interaction between the body of believers that they belong to. I think that’s what it is supposed to be. I got the privilege to witness a completely different kind of church. I watched as the believers and laborers here encouraged one another personally and walked through life together. In the midst of such darkness, that level of personal fellowship is so important. 

So I guess at this point I understand the work that UK-USA Ministries is doing as taking care to encourage the body of Christ in the Tees Valley. With several different outreach projects among kids and teens through Youth for Christ, we (as interns or gap year workers) have had the opportunity to come alongside the local believers and serve them in any way we can. 

Ephesians 2:19-22 says, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

So, I think when I was standing in a room full of passionate followers of Christ last Sunday, I was overwhelmed because my new realization of church was one step closer to being completed. The church, the body of Christ, is in existence to bring glory to God. Whether that involves worshipping to upbeat music with a few hundred other people or fellowshipping in a cafe with two other believers, all that matters it that the Lord is glorified, that he is the main point. My time in England has taught me that maybe church doesn’t have to look like I thought. Perhaps church is, in a sense, simply a word to describe the act of glorifying God, in whatever way possible. Whatever trains believers for godliness, that’s what church is. 

However believers become built up into a dwelling place for God, that’s what church is. 

read this and others or watch some intern interviews here.

huh.

I have probably sat down seven different times over the past month to try to write this blog post. For some reason I just haven’t been able to finish. But now is as good a time as ever. 

Today is my last day in Stockton. Tomorrow I leave for my three week adventure at Cambridge and Oxford. I could say so much about how excited I am for that, but this post is not about that. 

It’s really hard to look back on a time like the one we’ve had this summer. So much happens every single day. For me, it’s like Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret or some book like that. I can read it, and I can try to understand everything he says. But I will never know fully because I will never experience China as he did. It’s like that. I don’t think my words could adequately express my emotions or even describe the life we have lived this summer. 

Seven weeks ago, thirteen of us found ourselves in the Manchester airport after a long day of traveling. Since then we’ve seen things that most of our friends and family in the States will never see. We’ve seen centuries-old churches and abbeys, we’ve seen the North Sea, we’ve seen the beautiful English countryside. But more than anything, we’ve seen the Lord beginning to work in the lives of a few English kids, teenagers and adults. We’ve even had the chance to witness a couple of them come to know Jesus. I don’t think I will ever forget the looks on the faces of James and Jack when they are invited to join us in fellowship after a Sunday morning church service. Or the tears in their eyes when they heard the Lord call them his children. I may forget what it’s like to drive on the left side of the road. I may forget how it felt to walk through the streets of York. But I won’t forget the way the Lord orchestrated every single thing that happened here this summer. From the way our team works together to the conversations we have had with the “least of these” in Stockton. No one who knows Jesus would be able to truthfully say that they didn’t believe the Lord has had his hand on everything that has played out this summer. 

The past few months have been nothing more than a Valley for me. I have gotten discouraged. I don’t understand why it seems easier for some people. I think the biggest thing the Lord has taught me about myself this summer is that it’s not going to be the same for me as it is for the people around me. He is doing specific things in my life that will teach me better than other things would. He may keep me in this valley for longer than I think I am able to stand. But every single day I’ve got to wake up and keep climbing uphill. He isn’t going to bury me down here. I’ve realized a lot about what this part of the journey will look like. I’m walking uphill, which isn’t easy. And I may not always be able to see the peak, the mountaintop, but I know it’s there. That should be enough to keep my eyes focused on the Lord as I walk through every day. 

I think the funniest thing about life is how the Lord takes our expectations and completely flips them around. For the past three summers, I have spent my time in three completely different communities. As much as I tried to not have super defined expectations going in to it all, I did. I had a certain picture of what I thought the Lord would teach me. He just showed himself in ways I would have never expected, and every single time it caught me off guard. Perhaps it’s important to learn not to limit the Lord or think of him within out finite minds. He is so much bigger and better than we could ever think. Can't I give him a little more freedom to work in my life as he wishes?

i'm not the biggest fan of hot weather or beaches or any of those common summer things, but after growing up at camps and pools in the Arkansas heat, experiencing a summer in England is a bit of a shock. 

first, i could not be more thankful for the weather these past three days. we've had a high of 60-65, which to most of you probably sounds freezing. to us, it was a heatwave. the best thing about this weather is that it brought out the community of stockton. three days in a row we were outside playing sports and having conversations with people in the town. this is rare. in a place where the weather is usually pretty cool and dreary, the people tend to have negative or tired attitudes. this is not absolute, just a general observation. but all over town people were out, and the ones we had the chance to talk to caught a glimpse of the hope and light that comes from Christ. 

as i have said before, we made friends with some of the kids who live in stockton. right now i want to tell you the story of one of them. this young man is 17 years old (he is on my left in the picture below), and for the past few years he has been living on his own. every member of his family either has passed away or has moved from the area. i'm not sure what it is, but something has kept him here. he is homeless. i don't know how long it's been this way, but it is overwhelming to think about. compared to the other kids we know, he is the most clean cut, most concerned with his looks... i was a little bit confused when he was so drawn to us from the beginning (he has been where we are almost every single day... he can't stay away), but then i realized he has no one else. he has a couple of close friends in the area, but it is likely that none of them show they care as much as we have been. on Sunday, we were heading out to Saltburn to hike a little bit and have a worship service/baptism on the beach. while we were waiting on our team at the church in Stockton, Joey walked up. after talking for a while, he hopped in the van and came with us. we chatted on the way there, we could tell he was nervous. he knew he had just gotten in a bus with a group of American Christians. he had a blast. it was all good, clean fun. probably something he hasn't experienced in a while. as we talked to him, he told us all about his dreams. i thought about how he maybe has never had someone encouraging him to pursue them until now. we are excited for him, genuinely. we want him to succeed. but more than anything, we want him to know Jesus. he heard the gospel. he saw Hannah's baptism. i think he is starting to get it. we are praying HARD for his life. as much as we want him to come to faith, the Lord wants him even more. Jesus wants him to know that even though he has been left with nothing, he is not alone. Jesus loves him.

please. i am begging you to get on your knees and pray for this boy. the Lord is faithful and he can draw him in. he, along with everyone else here in northeast England NEEDS Jesus. we are learning the power of prayer. sometimes all we can do is plead with the Lord for their salvation, ask him to bring hope and life to this area. it is dark and it is lonely. we have been shown mercy, and we want them to know it, too. these. people. need. Jesus. 

it is in faith we pray. 

the valley.

greetings from Stockton!

since we arrived yesterday morning, i have thought several times "i want to include this in the next blog i post." but now that i'm sitting here actually doing it, it's hard to think of what to say. i want you all to know what it's like here, and although i'm not sure i will be able to explain anything well enough, i will certainly try.

if you think we are in London, you're wrong. if you think we are in any place that is similar to London, you're wrong. we live in Stockton. it's not at all like i imagined it to be. even if you've seen Shelby or Hannah's pictures, it's different. we take pictures of the scenic places, but those are the every life of these people. the every day is dark and dry and hopeless. on the streets, most of the businesses are closed and many windows are boarded up. the schoolyards are lively, but homes are broken.

both nights, we have gone to a parking lot to hang out with teens. last night we set up a skate park, and tonight we hung out on the "youth bus." basically, in Stockton, there are youth workers, people who work for the city and try to keep the kids and teens out of trouble. the kids we have spent time with do poorly in school, and most won't attend past the age of 16. they smoke a lot. they drink a lot. they have a lot of piercings. they're hard. BUT, Jesus is so good. i come from a "wealthy American home" and attend university. sure, i have piercings/tattoos, but that's probably the only common thing between us. it should have been very difficult to make conversations. but, it wasn't. Jesus has been our words. all we have done is sit and talk to them, and they love it. we love it. i'll probably end up talking about this a lot, so i'll leave it there for now.

today we hiked up Roseberry Topping. i'll likely get a picture of that up soon. from the top, you can see the entirety of the Tees Valley, where we will be working. Mike read from Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones. as many times as my friends and i have read and talked about this passage over the semester, it has never made as much sense to me as it did today. England is so different than America. our schools and universities may seem dry, and they are. but it's not the same. people in America have the opportunity to seek Christ. our friends and neighbors have most likely heard the gospel at some point in their lives. these people haven't. people aren't not following Jesus because of social pressure. they just really don't know. it's a different kind of dark. and it's heavy.

but it is also so evident that the Lord has sent people and brought us here for a very specific and important reason. this much darkness needs a light. in the ways that Jesus has already set up friendships and conversations for us, we can see that we are here on his mission and in his timing. he is working and is ready to pour out more.

pray for our friends. pray for strength for our team.

thank you

update: here's the pics!

Part of the Tees Valley 

Roseberry Topping

Saltburn

cheers!

i'm going to write a book.

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior"

across the ocean.

we're going to England!

in 64 days, on May 15th, my two best friends and i (along with 12ish other incredible team members) will board a plane headed across the ocean to the United Kingdom. i would like to tell you more, but that is almost all that i know at this point. we will be building relationships with children and teenagers and just sharing the love of Jesus. 

i. am. pumped. 

Tees Valley, here we come!

Hannah.

tonight i am going to write about something that i hope each and every person on this earth gets the chance to experience at some point in his or her life.

everyone should have a friend (or two or three) that they know, without a doubt, was placed in their life by God. i mean, a friendship that would have no reason to exist outside of the workings of the Lord. that's what i'm talking about. those kinds of friendships..... wow.

this semester, i have been totally blessed by a new friendship. Hannah.

what a joy this girl is. we've been friends for exactly one month. it feels like i've known her my whole life. sometimes, the Lord reveals himself to me through people. sometimes he uses friendships to say, "yeah, i'm here. i hear you. i'll send you someone else who gets it." this is rare. but Hannah is one of those people. someone who gets it. 

last night, she sent me this: "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" - C.S. Lewis. he got it. coming from a man as wise as C.S. Lewis... i know that this is something that couldn't come from this world. 

i hope you have people in your life who get it. people who, when you are with them, you can't help but thank God for their lives. my life is truly different because of these people in my life and i am glad the Lord chooses to work in this way. 

fayetteville.

it's as close to home as i have ever felt. being in the town of fayetteville feels so right. always.

but i realize my days in Fayetteville are numbered, and i have no control over that number. i vow to enjoy this city more. and to love these people deeper. there is something special about the community that is here. i may not always have that, and i want to take full advantage of it while i can.

so, i am vowing to begin (and hopefully finish) this semester in love. and as i have had time to think about how to love, it's been hard because i have realized that this city and these people aren't mine. they have been given to me by God for a little while, but before i know it, they could be gone. i could be gone. how do you learn to love something and invest your time in it without letting it take the place of the Lord in your life. He still deserves the highest priority.

this semester is going to be good, i can already feel it. and not in a, "oh, i just came back from break where i went to a Christian conference and i'm so fired up!" kind of way. it's going to be good in a "i am excited to spend time with the Lord and during that time learn how to live the rest of my life" kind of way. my classes might be hard, but it'll work out. i'm taking perspectives. joining a Bible study. leading worship more. through all of this, i pray the Lord draws me close to himself and helps me to focus on him always....that i never become wrapped in everything that is going on, but that i constantly live to glorify Him.

in everything i do.

what if?

i am pretty confident that no one will ever be able to fully commit to something the Lord asks them to do with no fear whatsoever. the test will truly be if one is able to overcome those fears and go anyway. 

what if you were called to pack up and leave? what if all the plans you had ever made--big or small--were no longer at all relevant? would you have the strength to leave everyone you've ever known to begin your life in a new and completely unfamiliar place? 

i have always thought, sure, i'd be able to do that. but haven't put much effort into it past there. but i recently sat down to actually think through the weight of a decision like that and i was immediately in tears. 

the weight of the Lord's calling can be so much heavier than we could ever even think about bearing. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice." Since i read this quote a few weeks ago, it has permeated by thoughts in several unexpected ways. i love my friends. but each in a completely different way and for completely different reasons. and these are still different than the ways i love my family and the work i do. and still different than the love i have recently felt for the country of England. it consumes my thoughts. my heart longs for relationships with the people. my feet long to walk along the cobblestone streets in town and the grassy paths of the country. it doesn't make much sense, but somehow i have fallen in love with a country i have never even considered for more than a few seconds. 

my home is not in a place, but with a vision. and it only makes sense that i would chase that vision. a vision that came not from my own mind for i could never have thought this up on my own. 

"There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind." - C.S. Lewis. and it is in this utterance that i find an ounce of hope. 

another year.

there are many things i could say in this post, but my hope is that this will hopefully not be as dull as a typical New Year's rambling and that in one way or another i will be able to pass along the things that have inspired me over the past couple of weeks.

"And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog--"

i, like the speaker of these words, have spent my life falling short of all that the Lord has for me. but, i, too, have seen Him and have wandered after him for quite some time. and a wandering is truly all that it can be called. sometimes i think about how we are all here, not quite knowing what comes next, but somehow it comes anyway. as i wander around this earth, all i can hope is for my wandering heart to be bound to the Lord by His goodness. i have spent too great an amount of my time here on this earth in fear and in silence and in stillness. Charles deFoucauld said, "The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." even if i am wandering, as long as i am connected and bound to the Lord's heart, what do i have to fear? Jesus told me to take heart, because he has already overcome any hardship of this world.

although i cannot yet tell where this year will take me, i do know one thing. my eyes will see places i have hardly even dreamed of. my heart will know love so much deeper than anything it does now. i will meet people who will change my life forever. i will see the Lord's plan continue take shape in my life. and i will not be afraid to go where i am sent for my heart longs for these places and these people whom i have not yet seen or met. adventures are out there just waiting to be had and i am here just waiting to be sent.

2013, i welcome you with open arms, a full heart, and a willing spirit.