Suicide PSA Choose Life

Hey everyone! Just wanted to write yall and let you know a bit of what we have been doing these last few weeks. We started on a group project and were told to choose from 4 different topics. Our group chose the topic of Suicide in Switzerland. We did a research paper the first week and looked deeper into the fact that Switzerland being extremely beautiful and rich is actually in the top 20 of most suicidal country and number 6 regarding men and suicide. The research was really difficult to study because of how dark the subject is, but what we found was really amazing. The research paper is long, so I won't post it, but if you are interested in reading it, let me know and I can send it to you. After we wrote the research paper, we had to do a flyer, poster, video and web design related to our topic. We chose to encourage those who are in pain, or those who are suffering with thoughts of suicide. Our name was "Choose Life" and our slogan was "The world is not the same without you." Above is our video made for the project. Spread it around and send it to whoever you know who might need to know that they are needed and wanted in this world. That they matter and without them, it is just not the same! Our group also made a web site www.wix.com/chooselifeicd/home. I wish I could show our flyer and poster, because we found this cool paper at a hardware store that is reflective and on the paper we have our saying "the world is not the same without you" and when you look at the paper it is a mirror and shows yourself. It was so cool! I wish someone would take this and make it an actual campaign!

So, it was great to finish our project and think wow, three months ago I would never have thought I could have created something like this and it was really cool how we learned how to create with God. We would constantly pray and listen to what God had to say about the subject and read in his word and hear his voice on where to go. I am so thankful for these last 3 months! I am also SOOO excited to go home for a month and be in Texas for Christmas. Then I will be going to England for 2 years and helping with the Olympics outreach in London 2012, but more on that as it gets closer :)!! Once again, I am so extremely blessed to have you around the world praying for me and supporting me! I think I have learned more about my passions in these 3 months than my entire life! It has been an exciting, frustrating, busy, sleepless, fun, crazy, adventurous time I will never forget! If any of you want some Swiss Chocolate, write me and I can bring it home! Thanks for everything!!

Thanksgiving 2010 YWAM

So this week was Thanksgiving week and it was really sad to be away from my family on Thanksgiving day. All my family gathered together in Stratford, Texas and I celebrated thousands of miles away. It was difficult being so far away, but we celebrated in our own way on the base! First, I made a Thanksgiving Video for our base, we learned adobe premiere and adobe after effects and it was really great for me to learn more about video editing...you can check it out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYyIArG2ti8

The next thing we did was we had a huge thanksgiving feast and then hid about 600 paper turkeys around the entire building and had a race to see who could find the most turkeys in 5 minutes...It was a mad house around here and people were using some great basketball blocking out moves! It was crazy! Afterwards there was a down pour of snow, so we all went out and started what I will say is the greatest snowball fight I have ever been apart of! Each side had strategy and tactics and plans of attacks, so it was so much fun! Today we woke up and went to a print shop and communication museum in the capital of Switzerland. It was an awesome day and we ended with coffee at a small village that looked like a christmas north pole. It was the coolest town I have ever seen, covered with snow and had a castle. No words can describe how beautiful it was! Tomorrow we are going skiing to complete an amazing Thanksgiving week! I have not been out of the base these 3 months because we spend about 12 hours a day in the classroom designing and learning, so it will be nice to take a break before we start our final project. For our final project we will be researching and making a print project, web project, and video project over one current event subject in Switzerland. Our team is doing a project over suicide in Switzerland, because it has one of the highest rates in the world. It will be interesting to interview people on this issue and find out why one of the prettiest and richest places in the world feels so hopeless. I am excited about going deep, but it will be a crazy crazy 2 weeks, and then that means I am going to be home for Christmas!!

Something else, I have been officially accepted to Staff for Ywam Harpenden, England! I will be co-leader of the olympic sports outreach team. We are planning on having 10,000 people to direct and place and house around England for 2012. I am also helping with the design team and creating graphics, print projects and videos, so I'm excited about that! YAY! Well, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you guys all know how thankful I am for you and your support, it really means EVERYTHING to me!

Photoshop!

This week, we learned a crash course in Photoshop!  I probably spent around 10 hours a day in the classroom just playing around with the tools and experimenting with different blending tools.  It was cool starting with a black page and adding colors and paint brushes to achieve a look I wanted.  There is still so much to learn, but I love it and I can't wait to get better!  This week we are starting in webdesign, and the following week is VIDEO!! I'm so excited about the video week!  Also, this week, I am going to see two of the Swiss guys from my DTS, so it will be great to finally get out of this classroom and explore Switzerland a bit!

My First Design Project

This week, we have been learning about the importance of design and how every image, every color, and every word have meaning.  Something that looks cool with no content is worthless.  We started out with an art project and were each given a topical word.  From that topic, we had to create a design that represented that word.  My word was Success.  When I was thinking of the word success, I thought it really depends on whose perspective you are looking at when defining success.  Like a successful day for batman is different from a successful day of a stay at home mom, and a business man would think of success in different terms than a sports star.  As I was writing down these terms, I thought of how God would define success, and how sometimes the things we throw our energy into now, are really eternally insignificant.  So here is my representation of Success.  The roots on the dead tree are things that you can throw your life ambitions into and then the eternal effects is no fruits, but if you dig deep and define your measure of success through a biblical perspective, the fruits have a lasting eternal significant like the evergreen tree.  Good Stuff!  Next week is photoshop and we have already created a magazine in InDesign, but maybe I will post more on that next week! Tchau!

Our Glitter Story vs. God's Star Wars, Gladiator, Braveheart Story

              I have noticed recently that it seems all the great stories follow the same story line.  Things were once good, then something awful happened, and now a great battle must be fought or a journey taken.  At just the right moment, which just happens to be the very last possible moment, a hero comes and sets things right, and life is found again.  Braveheart, Titanic, Star Wars, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix all these epic movies follow the same story.  “All of these stories borrow from THE STORY! From Reality.  We hear echoes of it through our lives.  Some secret written on our heart.  A great battle to fight, and someone to fight for us.  An adventure, something that requires everything we have, something to be shared with those we love and need.”  To me, it is crazy that in this epic battle God is creating, he has chosen us to be bit players in the fight.  He has used story to create with us and used us to communicate about this hero that comes in the right moment to set everything right again.  When we set to making our story and God’s story the same, we get to join in the adventure.  It gets interesting when we try and separate the two stories, for examply we could have the greatest theology on Christ; the most dynamic mission statement; with the best kind of music; and the coolest graphics with the best media team in the world, but outside of a burning passion for the glory of Christ and the Kingdom of God, we will build our own kingdom, and it will die with us.  When we focus on communicating and creating with Christ it becomes a graphic, a movie, a speech that is outside ourselves and part of the epic story.  I was so intrigued by this idea of being able to communicate who God is and all His glory through our story, so I decided to do a little research and dig in deeper.  Why were we created to have a story to tell and what is our purpose in God’s story?

            When we are co-creating with God it is important to find out what our role is in the story that he is creating.  What does the bible say about what we were created to do?  Isaiah 43:7 says “Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made." In this verse it says that we are created for His glory, with the word glory in Hebrew actually meaning honor, splendor, and reputation.  So, with this, we were created to glorify Him, we were created to give him honor, to marvel in his splender, but in the midst of that command, He is inviting us to enjoy him. “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hands there are pleasures forever.” Psalms 16:11.   The word presence in the Hebrew actually means Face of God and the word fullness in it’s transliterated form is soba which means abundance and satisfying. It seems to me that our story and the purpose of our creation is to worship Him and in the midst of that worship is to experience deep abundance and satisfaction.  I can see that as being a universal truth.  Constantly we replace worshiping Him with someone or something else and that deep abundance and satisfaction does not exist.  When we make other things ultimate it robs us of being fully satisfied and begins to create in us a desire for something more.

            Mark Driscoll says, “We were created to reflect, mirror, image God in creation, However, through sin, we have a proclivity to worship created things rather than our Creator God.”  By the story we tell with our lives, it communicates who and what we worship.  We could worship music.  We have a favorite band, we know all their songs lyrics, we buy what they are selling and this year, I went to a John Mayer concert and began to notice the way people were responding to the music was a giant worship event.  Sports is another thing we worship.  The crowds of a football game in America react and become emotionally involved in a game.  I have recently been convicted on this truth reflecting on my personal journey of worship.  I have realized that If 19-year-old boys are ruining my day because of what they do with a ball, that's a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him. When I replace ultimate and true worship with temporary worship, that abundant and satisfying life seems to fade.  Because Texas Tech cannot win every game, eventually they will let me down. On TV, Michael Scott from “The Office” will leave the show and my weekly schedule of television will be thrown off, food is good, but I will always be hungry again, shopping has great perks and amazing sells, but the clothes I buy will get old, worshiping movies and books is a crazy idea because those movies and books will never love me back.  These are all areas that we try to fill into to replace this thing that we were created to do. 

This has been a big revelation to me that I want to focus on during this school.  Everything that I create and the actions and where I place my emphasis on, I pray that it reflects God’s glory.  I pray that through creating with God, I will be able to be apart of His story on making Himself worshiped among the nations.  John Piper says something so interesting, “Missions exist, because worship doesn’t.”  The reason we are given an opportunity through communication to be a mouthpiece to the world is so we will be able to be apart of creating worshipers.  I think  as communicators it is our job to be apart of pointing others to a creator. John 4:23-24 says "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshiper. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."  True worshipers are those who are true not by name and semblance but by their real nature being a worshiper. The word used here for spirit is pneuma with the root word of pneō meaning to breath.  This is deep revelation to me that if we are to worship in spirit, it is to worship with our breath.  By breathing we are worshiping, and by the words we communicate we are worshiping.  The word “truth” here means loving the truth and speaking the truth. So to be a true worshiper in Spirit and Truth we have to worship through our speech and then speak it out. 

I think about the Swiss mountains around me and the fact that they are doing what they were created to do by standing and communicating to the world stories of their creator.  They were created to worship and cry out about God’ glory in the earth.  Have we been outdone by a rock? The revelation about living my story to communicate God’s glory has been a convicting revelation.  Have I been worshiping with every breath? Have I been worshiping in spirit and truth and pointing people towards a creator?  When applying this, I would like to take steps in being intentional in the story I am telling with my life. I realized, I have an option when it comes to communicating and creating with God.  I can create a movie on my own that has great graphics and cool special effect that I could make on my own strength and it would probably make the box office, but more than likely the numbers would come out in the form of the movie “Glitter” which was voted one of the worst movies of all times.  I could take on this role of doing things my way and living for myself and for my personal gain and my glory, which sounds almost romantic in the fact that I would have a name for myself.  But all that glory fails in comparison when I think of the other option.  In contrast, I could create and imagine and think and draw and write as a part of a bigger movement, a bigger film, a bigger production. I could be on God’s creative team that is producing a film that is bigger than Avatar, Titanic, Lord of the Rings, and Pirate of the Caribbean combined.  Being on this team is about something greater than myself, it is living with purpose and it seems more exciting to be involved in a movement that is lasting then in something that ends with me and my story.  To make this truth in my life, I want to focus on constantly looking to how I am communicating.  Are the words coming out of my mouth ultimately going to end up in a “Glitter” movie about myself, or will it be the role of an extra in the Grand Epic film God is telling?

 “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31.  If this can be our life song of worshiping God through all aspects of our life then our story will ultimately communicate to the world a story that is greater than ourselves. 

            It is amazing that God doesn’t need us to create this movie of all movies.  The mountains are able to cry out his glory, but instead he chooses to allow us to be apart of the creative process of making Him famous among the whole earth.  We don’t have to sit back and create our own movies that fail miserably in the box offices, but instead we can join him in his unbelievable story line that ends with Jesus coming down with a tattoo down his leg and a sword in his hand, and a new heaven and a new earth! We get to be on the winning side and apart of the battle where we already know that the lamb wins in the end.  Worship, draw, speak, create, and write, in the process of the dramatic ending that all will cry out and bring Him glory.

(This is my topical study for my communication and design school in YWAM.  We had to take an aspect of communication and study it further.  For my research I used blueletterbible.com, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler and John Eldredge.)

The Revolutionary Communicator

So, I am here in Switzerland!  I arrived at the end of September and I have been attending a school with YWAM titled "introduction to communication and design."  Coming into this I had expected it to be learning how I can communicate with people through different mediums like photoshop, video editing, and illustrator.  Until this point, I had thought a good communicator was someone who got good responses like many people responding to an alter call or had a large following and were known as a good communicator.  From these first 2 weeks my expectations have been blown away.  We started the school looking into how Jesus communicated verses the way the media says we should communicate.  Jesus was attentive to his audience, his focus was on them because he cared about their hearts first.  He also sought to be on their turf and in their terms.   The bible says that Jesus dwelt among us...the word dwelt actually means "to pitch a tent."  The thought of him having a pitched tent as he connected with people is so intriguing. Learning to communicate in these terms has been revolutionary to me, because the attentiveness Jesus portrayed is crucial to being a good communicator.   With this aspect of being available to listen is invaluable because of the pure oxygen of sincere attentiveness gives.   Jesus was the ultimate example of communicating because he never traveled more than 100 miles from his home, worked as a tradesman, yet was still able to set in motion a movement that would continue and effect every nation, every culture and every language.  My new thought of a good communicator is not someone who got good responses, because Jesus was subversive to the culture, he didn't seek good responses and he didn't desire large followings because he frequently said things that sent the crowds away.  A good communicator is someone who serves and seeks to know others deeply.  Jesus was the ultimate server and I desire for my heart to burn for people the way he did and communicate with people on their terms.

As part of our assignment with the school we have to do a weekly journal of what we have learned this week, but there has to be a media aspect to it, so I have chosen to do the weekly journal on my blog.  I will be updating this every week!  Stay tuned for more projects and posting.  Talk to yall soon!

Home Sweet Home!

So, I'm now back in the big USA for a month!  I stepped off the plane after 48 hours of traveling, and was greeted with a whole crew of Texans!  So great to have people surrounding me that understand the value of American football and the beauty of country music!  We went straight for Mexican food and I had a good ole' fashion burrito with a large Dr. Pepper.  Who knew how amazing Dr. Pepper could taste after months of seperation. I guess the statement is true...absense makes the heart grow fonder.  I have really enjoyed being home these last couple of days, just catching up with friends and sleeping in my own room with my own bed.  What a luxury!  So, what's next for the vagabond?  Well, I'm heading to Switzerland for a school called communications and design.  I will be at this school for 3 months and here I will be learning all about the ends and outs of photoshop, video editing, and graphic design, and they will be teaching us ways to effectively communicate the gospel throught the media.  After this training, I plan on joining the Olympic outreach team in London starting in January.  The goal of this team is to travel around Europe and get people excited about missions and hopefully get the churches to send a team to do outreach during the Olympics in 2012.  I will be in the communications and public relations aspect of the team as well as the sports outreach aspect.  We will be making contacts around London and setting up sport ministry opportunities for the teams to join us during the month that the Olympics will be in London. I'm so excited about this opportunity because during the Olympics there will be people from all areas of the world!  So many tribe, tongues and nations will be represented and gathered together in one country!  What an amazing chance for God to show up and show off!!  If anyone is interested in supporting me during this time, either finanically or prayerfully, you can contact me at dondi_carter@hotmail.com.  I would greatly appreciate anything! I love you all, thanks for everything!