Kenya… and what you can do to help.

This post is not one to try to take your money, it’s not a post to make you feel guilty or convicted about what you do or don’t do… but it is a post to get you thinking globally/out-of-the-box/pretty much anywhere but here. 

God is doing some amazing things in the world today, and thankfully He has allowed me to be apart of it! Kenya is a place I’ve learned to love like no other place on earth. There are lots of spiritual and joyful people in the world, but there is no one like some of the people of Kenya. The typical westerner looks over at Kenya and thinks, “Gosh I feel bad, there are a lot of suffering people with little resources.” Well there are a lot of suffering people, but after going there a couple times I feel more of a sense of envy, and maybe a small sense of jealousy towards Kenya. It’s because they don’t have everything we have that makes it so easy for them to see God as He is and enjoy the small things in life, and when one experiences that you fall in love with it so fast. 

This summer I was accepted on an internship with Choose to Invest to spend a couple weeks in Georgia with 20 other like-minded individuals from all over the nation, getting to know them and learning how to be a team with them… then spending the rest of the summer in Kenya, living, loving, worshipping, and existing with the people of Kenya in a few various village areas north of Nairobi. So 2 weeks in Georgia, and 8 weeks in Kenya… all this summer. Needless to say I am unbelievably excited… first off to meet everyone on the team, then to go to Kenya with them and make lots of new friends everywhere we go performing God’s will in the places we go. 

The thing about it all is that in order to go, there are a couple things I need. Doing something of this magnitude involves a lot of prayer and a lot of money… two things that I am unable to do myself. I am constantly reminded that if it’s God’s will for me to go to Kenya, then He will provide the provisions and He will show the way. But God uses people to contribute to His will in other’s lives, and that is why I am writing this post. 

If you want to pray for the Journey Team, pray that God’s will is done through us in Kenya and that we are not afraid to do what is right and needs to be done. Also pray we all are able to raise the fund needed to go. 

If you want to help me financially you can email me at jstunz11 at gmail dot com. I will be happy to help you give in whatever way works best for you. 

Thank you so much for anything you have to give, especially if it is prayer. Our God is bigger and strong and more powerful than we can imagine and He is still loving and listens to our every needs. 

Jakeb Stunz

Rocky Raccoon Race Report

In a sentence, the events of the past weekend were, without a doubt, a good mix of the most stressful yet mesmerizingly awesome times I’ve ever experienced.

I drove down to College Station to stay with an awesome friend, Zach, who was set to do crew for me during the race. We hung out with his friends, had fun, laughed… always a good way to relieve whatever pre-race jitters one might have. Pretty much everything after that started going downhill from there… We got to Huntsville, picked up my packet, had a trail briefing from Joe (race director), and set up the tent to camp, eat, etc. Zach had to leave to let people in his apartment… all at once, it started to pour down rain getting the tent all wet on the inside, Zach’s car broke down, the pit was flooded so we couldn’t cook steaks or pasta. Any runner knows you can’t go without dinner before a huge race. One’s body just can’t go 50 miles without any kind of calories/carbs/nutrition to sustain burning nearly 10-15,000 calories. Panic started, I’m sitting in a wet tent, no dinner, no car, no crew, everything I had prepared for the race was getting wet. None other than my sister and our good friend Alisa came to save the day. Long story short, Zach got a ride back to Huntsville in hail, and Tori came to pick us up and let us sleep in a house.

The following morning, it was nice to see the rain had stopped… for a while. Driving on I-45 to get back to Hunstville, severe weather hit. Ian Sharman (RR100 course record holder) put it this way… “ there were thunder, lightning and possibly the Mayan calendar’s predicted end of the world.” It was bad. Going 20 mph in a 70 just to see the road is a bit nerve racking. Nonetheless we got there just in time to see the 100 milers head out in the downpour with their eery lamps glowing in the darkness of the woods. A great friend, Jason, who was going to run with me (didn’t sign up in time) surprised me by showing up to run with me for a lap or 2. I would not have done nearly as well as I did if he didn’t show up. Conversation was good, which kept my mind off of running and instead enjoying the pine trees, the quiet lake, and the distant cheers of those who had also come from far away to watch people run.

The start seemed effortless. I met a man named Chip who I ran with and talked with for a good 10-20 miles. I guess conversation was good, cause us along with a good dozen people took a wrong turn onto the 100 course. Good thing we did, cause we got to talk to Ian Sharman and Hal Koerner about what the heck we should do to get back on course. We ended up just staying on the 100 course back to Dogwood, which added a good 10 miles to the lap. Directors just told us to run the next one normal and add whatever we needed to reach 50 to the last lap… kind of a way of saying they didn’t do very good at marking the trail, so we were allowed to customize the course to finish an official time.

The rest of the race after the turn went perfectly. The wrong turn hit me hard mentally. Chip and I both commented on how the stress of running without knowing where we were had an immediate deteriorating effect on our bodies. We made it back to Dogwood somewhere around 27 miles, and already Tori, Jason, and Zach were wondering what the heck had happened. I was expected at 3 hours to come into the start/finish… but when you come in a couple hours late, they start to wonder.

Jason and I headed out on a superb loop. I took every advantage at getting my hands on some warm cheese quesadillas, which boosted my spirits a ton. I was feeling hungry, which is a sign up quickly losing calories. I never bonked, which I credit mostly to whomever made those delicious quesadillas. We got Jason initiated into the sinking mud and just had fun, enjoying a bit of conversation, and even taking this loop somewhat fast. He stopped somewhere near Nature Center to wait for me, as I was eventually directed to run there and back to make up for the wrong turn.

I came into Dogwood, grabbed a Gel and refilled my bottle up with water, unloaded everything else that was unnecessary, and headed out with the goal of running the last 10Km in under an hour. Jason found me, ran with me for a bit, and took a short-cut through the woods to be able to see me finish.

I ran into the finish with an array of thoughts/emotions. Sadness, cause I was finally enjoying myself; confusedness, cause with all the frantic trying to find the right direction I had lost the mental mile maker in my head; and extreme excitement, cause I was finishing 50 miles in just over 9 and a half hours!

Overall, the race was everything God needed it to be. I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about life. I was strengthened mentally for the mistakes I made, and rewarded later for having made the decision to press on with endurance towards the ultimate goal of finishing strong.

It’s good to be done. It’s good to be able to relax and know I don’t have anything specific to train for. Just give me a few days/weeks and I’ll change my mind about that really quick.

Unofficial Time : 9:33:46

Stuck in the Middle

Things are happening! Lots of good, a bit of bad… but honestly when does life go exactly how WE want it to go?

A couple months ago, I sent in an application to be an intern with Choose to Invest… in other more simple words, I’d be spending my summer doing something bigger than myself in a place that I love; Kenya. As of December 7th, I will now be going to Kenya this coming summer!!! Nothing has made me more happy in a very long time, and it’s really a huge God thing, a prayer I had answered in a big way! More than anything else, just the simple acceptance to be on a team of people having the common purpose of God, both in serving those in Kenya and doing a lot of soul-searching, it has been the umbrella effect and clarity I needed to see God in a lot of areas of my life.

For instance, the Rocky Raccoon 100 miler has been a downward sloping hill (or if you want a runner’s metaphor, it’s been an upward sloping hill) since I wrote that last blog. School hit, I realized my lack of discipline (despite some solid long runs), and me being out of the country for the holidays in a country smaller than most counties in Texas makes it hard to pull a vital 50 miler off. So I decided to run the 50, and my friend Jason decided to join. As I went to sign up, there was no more space left! Rocky Raccoon is usually the type of race that still has space left on race day, much less 3 months in advance!!! So needless to say, I’ve been in touch with the race director Joe, and I’m on a waiting list to run the 50. I’d appreciate prayers, as it’s a step in fulfilling my ultimate dream of running a major ultra-race (Western States, Hardrock, Badwater, etc.). It’s just a stressful matter when you have been training for a few months for something you desperately want to do, and now it’s an up-in-the-air issue. 

But since this happening, God has put a few potential “replacement” races in view. No matter what happens, I think I will definitely find a way to sign up for the Ouachita Trail 50 miler in mid-April. Arkansas, from my childhood, has been one of my favorite places on earth. This race climbs Pinnacle Mountain just outside Little Rock, and pulls off a nice 25 mile out n’ back on the beautiful Ouachita Trail. I have some nice history on this trail, with my dad and sister. Dad and I took a couple days for my 13th birthday to enjoy the trails and rough it in the cold after we summitted Pinnacle Mountain with my sister. It’s a beautiful place, and I think would be a good place to run a 50 miler.

 

But anywho, all these good things happening (Kenya, Christmas, Singapore for the holidays) has me stuck in the middle with the immediate negatives (stress of getting in races, Texas Tech finals week, paying for a couple speeding tickets). It’s a weird time in my life, but I always have the joy of the Lord… I have no reason to be a pessimist. 

The Soon-to-be Good News

It’s not official (it’s not facebook official at least), but I’m 95% sure its happening. I haven’t even registered for it yet (hence “soon-to-be”). I’ve been refraining from telling a whole lot of people, but my family knows and a few friends who are too involved in my life to not know the reason why I’m gone a lot.

I’m about 3-4 weeks into training for the biggest race I will have ever run… Rocky Raccoon 100 miler. Marathons are awesome, but after 3 I always felt on going farther and farther. The reasons behind not telling a ton of people is because I hate the attention and pressure that comes from that… but also I was doubting the ability my body had of actually covering that distance. So I told myself I’d wait a few weeks, see how the long runs are going and how my legs hold up. I ran 30 yesterday, a feat in and of itself… it was mundane, boring, typical Lubbock neighborhoods that bring no peace-of-mind or special hop and rhythm to a stride. Which is why yesterdays long run brought so much confidence! Most runs like that tear me apart, and yet I made it all the way with an average 9:45 pace and finished feeling great. So I figured it was time to make it official and quit giving myself reasons to doubt the ability God gave me to just enjoy myself on a long run and relax.

This next weekend, me and some friends are gonna try and make it to Caprock or Palo Duro Canyon to camp, so I’ll probably take off early and run 40 while they set up camp. Let them do all the dirty work while I enjoy the canyon trails.

Run happy my friends! Enjoy life.

 

Fall (Prelude to the Best Time of the Year)

It’s that time of year! Or at least getting there… the weather is changing here in Lubbock, and Texas Tech is beginning to look like a beautifully colorful campus. Lights are beginning to go up already for Carol of Lights at Christmas time… they are getting ready for Christmas already!!! Apparently the light show is pretty spectacular as it covers the second largest campus in the USA in beautiful white lights. These small signs of cooler weather brings me great joy. I don’t know what happens, but there is unbelievable peace that comes with winter. The ability to wear lots of clothes, or sit next to a camp fire, or even sit inside with a blanket and a hot cup of coffee or thick hot chocolate… and just enjoy one’s surroundings; enjoy creation. People come together in those times, maybe for warmth.

There is also a lot of excess running that comes with winter as well. Since most races tend to put themselves in the cooler time of year, training goes up, up, up! Mileage seemingly exponentially grows, and not at any major costs. I headed out for 20 miles last Saturday on trails on the Trinity River, and I could not have asked for better weather. 45F in the morning and jumped to about 70F by the time I was finished. This is what 20 beautiful miles of semi-trails look like.

I look forward to putting on a thick jacket when I’m going out for a run. I look forward to camping trips coming up, with camp fires and friends. I look forward to “true” football season where you paint up and wear nearly no clothes and still go out in the freezing weather and cheer on the Red Raiders.

So all you summer folk, don’t fight it. Embrace it. Winter is coming and its gonna be COLD! Have some fun and enjoy life, whether it be outdoors doing something active or indoors by the fire with a book and a cup o’ coffee.

Missing Out…

So, my mom and little sister are heading out tomorrow for a country that has most of my heart. A place where the people are so different yet make the best friends anyone could ever have. A place where materialism is a virtually non-existent concept, yet spirituality is everything. A place where in the smallest, otherwise invisible villages, God is more present and worshipped and loved than in most American church settings. A place I don’t think about without feeling such vast mixed emotions of sorrow yet intensified joy for the future in store.

God blessed me, allowing me to raise money and travel to Kenya the past 2 summers, and I am who I am today because of it. There is a lot of Kenya that changed me spiritually, emotionally, and materialistically in ways that many countries could not. It changed what Matthew 25 meant to me, it changed how I prayed, it took my selfish view and threw it on the ground, realizing that being in the top 5% of wealthy population is not something to be proud of. There is something that hits you in the core when you are digging a trench next to a 70 year old woman with a baby on her back; or when you drive past the 2nd largest slum in all of Africa and see how too much of this world’s population lives.

I’m excited for Mom and Anna. I’m glad they get to see and experience some of the things Tori (older sister) and I have seen and experienced. I’m especially excited for Anna, just because she is younger, and I wish I could have done some of those things when I was a kid. Kenya seems like the kind of place her extravagant and joyful personality would fit perfectly into. Zebras are to Kenya as cows are to Texas, dancing, singing, tons of running around and non-stop energy… yea, it’s Anna.

As a family (and separately) we have been to remote places like Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc… but SouthEast Asia holds a different remoteness than something as insane as Kenya. It’s just full of excitement and energy and things happening; a random elephant or giraffe cutting you off on the road, playing high altitude soccer with Kenyan children, always having a hand to hold, always seeing the vast, never-ending, rolling hills of the savanna, or dancing and singing in a church service with vibrant people who love and cherish the Word of God. It’s just different. It is something you can’t describe. One can’t understand until they have been and experienced the smell of the air and the dirt beneath their feet and the vibe of such a place; which is why Mom and Anna going is such a huge deal.

I’m sad I will be missing out on this trip. It was sad to send off the Kenya team this summer knowing they would get to say hi to Muendo Ben and Nehemiah and Faith and Elizabeth and Michael and many more. But I know that it will be good for the whole team that is going and I would never take that chance away.

I’d ask that everyone pray for two teams that are going in the coming weeks. One is the trip my Mom and sister are going on with 410 bridge to visit all the Daraja Children’s Choir villages. The other is with my hometown church Brazos Pointe Fellowship, who is going also with 410 Bridge but are going to much of the same places we usually go to. God is doing some awesome awesome things in Kenya, and I’m increasingly getting excited to see how all this develops and glorifies God’s amazing power and love in the near future.

College Life…

…rocks. My parents are awesome and I miss my family, but I’m enjoying being me with my own schedule and my own time to be a more flexible person. I am enjoying my classes. This semester is only 13 hours so wednesday and friday I only have one class. The other days I am done by noon. This has given rise to doing things I have never done before. Working out and running shorter, faster distances has become a favorite past time. I don’t work out, I hate machines and artificial ways of building muscle, but somehow there is some sick pleasure and old high school basketball memories that come from working my body in various ways. My best marathon was at a time when I was in the middle of doing basketball… I completely destroyed the Christchurch Marathon (3:50) in the midst of doing some killer long runs and basketball sprints and weights. I guess that means it takes more than just your legs to get through a marathon. But it is all mixed in with a few great 5+ mile routes I’ve made in and around campus.

I’ve also had heaps of time to explore the ins and outs of the church scene here in Lubbock. I’ve been to 3 recommended churches, 2 youth group ministries and 1 small group. It’s been enjoyable seeing how God works in different ways to different people in various churches, but some just weren’t for me. Maybe it wasn’t that they weren’t for me, it was just that I felt a big calling to the First Baptist Church here. I am, by no means, a Baptist. If I’ve learned anything from traveling and going to Redemption Hill in Singapore, it was that I really hate putting a label on Christianity. I believe in this radical sense of living and loving and taking the Bible in its raw sense and not complicating it to a point where it makes no sense or means the wrong thing. That is one of the reasons I loved Redemption Hill. First Baptist here really doesn’t strike me as a Baptist church, but that is because I attend their 9:30 service for college students and go to Paradigm here on campus on Thursdays. It’s really been awesome… the worship team rocks, the preacher preaches truth (as far as I’ve heard) and has a real heart for students, and they even have mission trips that go to various places (Kenya being one of them… I definitely have my name on that list). Other than that, I signed up for a small group with 1st Baptist. It’s a small group (no pun intended) but it has some really awesome people in it… One of the few times in a Christian setting here that I haven’t felt awkward at all. This is perfect. It felt good to sit down, have a breathe of fresh air, and just enjoy company with some fellow Christ-followers.

I guess so far, college has been better than I expected it to be. I mean, some people think having one coffee cup as your only dish would suck, but it has been extremely useful for both coffee and ramen noodles (don’t worry I eat the campus food most of the time). It saves money, I don’t have to buy dish soap or a wash clothe. haha but all the ultimate frisbee, football, running, worshipping, school work, and whatnot has me tired yet craving more and more.

Just in case you read this beforehand, make sure you watch the Tech Football game… Look for me in the student section! I’ll be in a red shirt. We should absolutely murder Texas State… I’m pretty excited. And if you didn’t know (all you from Lake Jackson or Singapore) Lubbock has a cold front coming in Sunday! Lows of 55 and highs of 80?! boom shackalacka.

Summer

Pictures are worth 1000 words, so I’ll show you my summer of 2011 thus far. Excuse the messiness.

After happily finishing the IB, I went with the family to New Zealand… that place increasingly gets better and better every time I visit. It was a good vacation, save all the earthquakes. Then I flew home to Texas, only to hop on a bus with some great people to go to Panama City Beach Florida for Bigstuf. God did some big stuf there in a lot of people’s lives. After that I went home, saw the people I hadn’t seen yet, and then headed to New York where I am now! I’m here just to hang out with one of my best friends I went to school with in Singapore, and it has been awesome so far! The pictures illustrate that below. Enjoy.

Times Like These

Wow, so this is going to be a throw up of words in weird sentence structures and I might not even edit it when I am done. Just be prepared.

“It’s times like these you learn to live again. It’s times like these you give and give again. It’s time like these you learn to love again. It’s times like these, time and time again.” -Foo Fighters

I don’t mean to be redundant with posting a quote from what the name of this blog is, but I think the Foo Fighters were on to something. There is so much truth in this. When you are stuck between two lives, each separated by a vast ocean thousands of miles wide, you start to learn things about yourself. You start to learn who you are, because no matter what kind of a person you are with one type of people, you are the same with another. This isn’t always true, especially in my case, but there are things about me that never fail to shine through the front… things I just can’t hold back from feeling and expressing. And its times like these, when I am about to take the life I lived in Singapore to Texas, that I’ve learned to live again. Friends and family all of a sudden became so much more valuable to me. I crave Din Tai Fung and Kaya Toast all the time, and I’m not even gone yet! I began to understand (as weird as it sounds) how amazing music is and the importance it has in my life when they took my guitars, amps, and pedals away for 3 weeks to ship back to the USA. The absence of the things you love begins to force you to live in different ways outside you comfort zone and in return you understand what you were missing all this time.

These times have come all too often in my life, and I consider myself lucky though they cause so much pain every time. Leaving my friends in Texas, then in Kenya after leaving my Kenyan friends. Making friends in various parts of the world and leaving them. Now leaving the friends who have taught me so much about myself over the past two years and not knowing which ones I will see again. In this wildly short life I’m given, it’s a tough thought not knowing these things. So in times like these, I’ve learned to live for God again. I’ve learned to love God again. And through all this comes the generosity of my heart, giving. I’m a fool if I ever expected to get past a big life change like this, all by myself. So with leaving my friends and family, I’ve been able to cling to the Lord. In times like these, He gives me peace and grace and I gain full trust in His Will.

It’s times like these I learn to live, give, and love again. And thank God its times like these, time and time again.

 

Turning Tides

Well… this concludes my high school career. It’s a weird feeling, almost like my mental state hasn’t totally grasped the idea that I am done with the IB Diploma. Every now and then I wake up immediately beginning to think of what I must do today, like I have homework or something to accomplish. But all in all, I DON’T have anything to do! So I get to relax and enjoy life as it moves forward into the next stage.

They say that transitions are usually the hardest part of ending and beginning a new chapter in life, but with the way my summer is looking, I’m not worried. Within a matter of less than a week, I will be in New Zealand again, toeing the line at the SBS Christchurch Marathon. Then off to running and having fun in amazing places; Mt. Cook, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Arthur’s Pass, etc. But all the while New Zealand will be preparing my mind for moving back to the states to be with family and friends for the next 4 years. I will leave to Texas soon after New Zealand, then go to a camp in Panama City Beach, Florida called Bigstuf. I’ve only been lucky enough to go on this camp once, so there is no doubt I am looking forward to hangin’ on the beach and experiencing God with my best friends. Then I’ll make a roadtrip to Colorado with two of my best friends. In August I get to go to Lubbock for Texas Tech orientation just to see my new home and get logistics down (classes, dorms, etc.). Then I have a small period of time before I move in for good… into my new, individual/shared, Red Raider home.

In between all that you can add lots of random spontaneity such as day-long running trips at Huntsville, 200 mile bike rides for charity, a few trips to the lake, maybe a deer lease trip, and lots of good times with the amazing friends I am lucky enough to have (International and Texas alike).

The next few months will be a time to remember, relax, have fun, and just enjoy the transition that is happening around me… embrace the change. I have a funny feeling its going to be a radical summer of 2011.