This Past Semester in One Word

If I had to sum up the last semester of G42 in just one word (thank goodness I don't), I would use the word "hope".  I have always considered myself an optimistic person.  I have prided myself in the past for my ability to focus on the positive, but I never realized how hopeless my world view actually was until last semester. 

From what I had seen of the world, relationships brought pain more often than joy, abuse was the norm not the exception, and death was the only constant in life.  I had always been told that the world was headed down the drain.  "What is this country coming to?" was a redundant question asked by the oldest and wisest people.  I looked forward to heaven because hope for this world was already lost.  The only hope that remained was for Jesus to come back and rescue the few faithful survivors from the devil's stronghold. 

I started to question these beliefs on the World Race.  As I traveled around the world doing missions I got to see how God was working in each country and each ministry.  I saw lives being changed every day, I saw love being multiplied everywhere and it seemed like an unstoppable force.  I began to wonder if maybe the world wasn't doomed.  It kind of seemed like God was present on the earth and things were actually getting better. 

My time at G-42 has taken those questions and solidified them into concrete beliefs.  The book of Hebrews says our faith is the substances of things hoped for.  This is the cornerstone of our faith.  This is what the Gospel, the good news, is all about.  Because of Jesus we can hope for lives of fulfillment, peace, and joy; for radical transformations, for a church against which the gates of Hell will not prevail, for freedom and justice and healing.  Jesus brought the keys to the Kingdom, he defeated the enemy, and on the cross he said "it is finished."  The ancient curse of Adam has been overthrown and the serpent has been crushed.  The church is waking up and people are coming to the light by the millions. 

It's a great time to be a Christian!  Jesus is the constant in the world, he can heal the abuses of the past and there is no need for them to be repeated.  We don't have to wait for heaven to be a part of the Kingdom!  

Happy New Year!

As I sit at a table in front of "Wok and Roll" in the JFK airport the last couple of hours of 2013 slip away.  The year started on the roof of a random apartment complex on an island in Thailand with shrapnel from the surrounding fireworks spraying me in the face.  It was a year of bungee jumps, tropical islands, and long flights; of preaching in prison cells, evangelizing on street corners, and cooking for orphans; of redefining what it means to be Brant Copen, what it means to live life.  The man who stared out over a sea of fireworks with his toes hung over the edge of the 17 story roof is not the same man who now sits staring out over the security checkpoint in terminal 1. 

Dodging the shrapnel in Phuket, Thailand 

Today I probably touched more people than any other day this year as I wandered around New York City; excusing my way through the subway stations, pushing to the front of crosswalks in Times Square, squeezing my shoulder between the tourists in order to get a picture of the ice rink in front of the Rockefeller Building.  However, I was also more alone than any other day (with the lone exception of course of my little hermitage into the Superstition Wilderness).   Yesterday I left my family at the bus station in Ohio in order to travel back to my family in southern Spain; however, it will be a full week before I reach my destination.  Today was the first of several days I will be absent from family and though I enjoyed the excitement today in the frigid city air, most of my thoughts were shadowed with a desire to be sharing the experience with someone close to me. 

The fruit of my hard Asian-shoulder-pushing work

I was not alone on that rooftop in Thailand.  There were fourteen men lined up Oohing and Aahing at the fireworks like seven year olds.  Those men would become as close as brothers throughout the rest of the year and two of them, along with five women who were absent at the time, shared almost every minute of the first seven months of 2013 with me on my World Race team.  They know all my habits, all my moods, all my good and bad qualities, all my over-told stories, and exactly what I'm thinking just by my facial expression.  They cried with me, screamed in terror, laughed until their sides hurt, and listened with empathetic faces.  They are my family and I love and miss them. 

My World Race family with our host family in Masai Land, Kenya

The two months I spent in the States this year was hardly a return to every-day life.  I summitted five mountains in new Hampshire, felt the spray of Niagara Falls in New York, splashed in the waves in Florida, and camped on a volcano in Oregon.  All of my adventures were tag-alongs though; I simply followed friends around the US; catching up, sharing stories, and making new memories in the process.  Though it seemed short, and I didn't get to see even some closest to me, those two months were not just a filler between the World Race and G-42, they were two months of family reunions with people I love and miss.  

Birthday in the Presidential Mountain Range on the annual DHMH

Fittingly, the last three months of 2013 have been spent in the romantic country of Spain.  I have danced in Flamenco clubs, got lost on a last minute road trip to Madrid, spent countless evenings watching brilliant sunsets over the Mediterranean, and had my world view rocked in the classroom.  Once again, every moment was shared with my ever expanding family, this time at G-42.  The icing on this 2013 cake was last week, being able to spend a Christmas at home with my Mom, Dad, and siblings; my blood family.  So this year I have changed a lot and experienced much, but it wasn't the exotic locations or adrenaline-filled events that impacted and molded me the most, it was the relationships with the people with which I experienced them.  The people that pushed me outside of my comfort zone, that challenged my narrow-mindedness, that believed in my dreams, that listened to my stories, that acted as Jesus to me when I needed Him most; my family.  Thank you so much for a life changing year. 

- Love Brant

Christmas with the fam - a rousing game of Capitalism