When you walk into my house in Salem, the first thing you will see is the little box of Christmas cards on the bench on the right side of the entryway. I love this box, and it provides great reading material when using the adjacent restroom on the left side. I love reading the Christmas cards because it is a snapshot into the lives of those who have walked through our lives at sometime or another. Therefore, as is tradition, I am writing a Christmas card.
James 4:13 - Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit," whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."
The college group I am involved with has been studying James for the term. However, this verse seems to have more redundancy then just the past term, as I have seen these truths at work for the past year. Before sitting down to write this letter, I looked at last years Christmas letter that I wrote to get an idea of what has transpired over the year. I was taken back to death, anticipated career moves, and relationships. Despite change, and transition, one thing I hold onto is that God is faithful, therefore friends and family, I hope that I can depict this truth over the course of this letter.
A big development for the year, outside of my new career as an underwear model, is that I began an adventure through the Bible. I had never read the whole bible and honestly felt like a fraud for never getting through His word. As I went, the Bible started to become real to me. For the first time, I spent consistent time in the Word getting to know the God I claimed to love. I am now on the backstretch and have about 100 pages to get through over the Christmas break. It feels like a victory, and it is only the beginning of a life of getting to know God.
On the lady front, I began my first collegiate dating experience on February 7th with a girl named Emily. She waltzed into my life and I experienced love for the first time (with a female outside my own family). I had known Emily for four years, but something changed upon my arrival back from Christmas Break. I learned so much from her, about God, people, love, and myself. During the course of our relationship, we maintained a joint journal that we passed back and forth, outlining the blessings of our relationship and how God was using us individually. Looking back upon this journal, God's hand was so clear in our relationship and I would not take any of it back. In the beginning of September, I had an undeniable prodding from God to end our dating relationship, which at the time was the last thing I wanted, but in retrospect was a blessing from above. And even now, we maintain a close friendship. Through my relationship, I was able to get a small glimpse of how the Lord loves us. I learned that in order to love someone I must first be in an intimate relationship with God as he is love and only through a relationship with Him can I have the potential to love. Secondly, I learned that love is self-sacrifice, yet it becomes a joyful thing to give for the one you love. It is like Christ and the church, in that for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.
The next major crossroad happened in March, when me and 5 other guys took to the road for Spring Break 09’. In truly epic style, we crossed through 8 states in 8 days, experiencing the beauty of the Lords creation around us. One of my favorite aspects of the trip was dinnertime. Each day we threw the budget out the window and indulged in a huge meal. But it was not the meal that was special, but what happened around the meal. Each meal we reserved an unlimited time for each guy to take a night and share his life story and a passage that has helped him through life's obstacles. We then memorized each of the six verses. I will never forget those times. Sitting on the South Window at Arches, overlooking the glorious snow capped Utah Mountains, with the sound of the bagpipes roaring through the red-rock was a distant second. A quick aside, the guys all decided to invest in a single pair of Exofficio underwear, which we had heard could last two weeks in a single wear. To unveil this incredible truth to the world, we took pictures at every major landmark (Grandcanyon, state borders, Arches, ect.) with just our Exofficio's. Now we are going to be featured in some Exofficio ad campaigns, after signing our model release forms, naturally. But through it all, was just reminded how the beauty of mans creation pails in comparison to the beauty of the Lord's nature.
We also experienced loss again and on April 10th, my family made our final trek to Fresno, Ca for my Grandmother's funeral. It has truly been a season of loss as we lost Grandpa and Uncle in the past year as well. Both Grandma and Grandpa battled cancer to the end, and are now in the presence of the Lord. For the funeral, my dad, Jon-Marc and I played a version of Psalms 23, focusing on the life that my Grandparents now have in Heaven. It was a special time, yet the realities of death are vivid as they are no longer here to watch us fall in love, pursue our dreams, and walk through the challenges of life. While loss is painful, it serves as a reminder that people and relationships are what matters in life and that life without close relationships is no life at all.
In June, I graduated from the University of Oregon and after much prayer, decided to defer my employment offer in San Francisco to the following year. I also decided it would be wise to apply to graduate school at Oregon and despite GMAT scores that were lower than expected, I was admitted into Graduate school at the UO for Fall 2009. Then to completely mess up my plans, I was presented with an opportunity to go to the Middle East for the summer. Through the radical year I had experienced as a staff member of the college ministry and the a seed that was planted during my time in Cambodia years earlier, I wanted to open myself up to whatever God laid in front of me. So a few days after my college graduation, I moved to Jordan for the summer.
While in Jordan, I taught an English course, led a children's program, and spent time with the local workers and people. I maintained a faced paced living over the time and despite spiritual oppression and barren lands, I saw the Lord move and was moved with compassion for the area. I experienced rich relationships and had my own "call" validated; that in some form or another I am meant to declare the beauty of God. I do not know what this looks like but I have learned that I have a maker who has it under control. However, this summer I was also deeply challenged by the idea of sacrificing for the kingdom. I learned that while I am to take up my cross daily, I have to first be a disciple of Christ. Continued prayer for the release of the captives is needed.
To usher in the start of a new school year, I had a close call with death. In September, two friends and I took to the ocean with our surfboards at the beginning of our college group leaders retreat. My friend Walt and I ended up getting caught in a ripe tide and splattered on the rocks. While we struggled to keep our heads above water while simultaneously disconnect from our boards, live took on a new meaning. Turns out we were on a rock shelf that could have easily taken us under the rocks, but God was faithful to somehow land us on the rocks. As the tides continued to rise, we ended up being rescued by the coast guard who had to twist our arm to get us into the rescue basket to be airlifted into a coast guard rescue helicopter. This certainly changed the course of the ministry retreat, gave us a new perspective on life and a certainly a cool story to tell. I was actually able to tell the story in the high school group last week in conjunction with Psalms 18, where David declares that the Lord is his rock and fortress in times of trouble.
Most recently, I finished up my first term of graduate school, and was able to transfer my employment offer to Portland from San Francisco, where I will begin employment with PwC starting in January of 2011. I am leading a Home Group (fancy word for a group of people trying to figure out how to become like Jesus) out of my house in Eugene and am still involved in the College ministry as a “normal person”. I have also moved into a house about a mile from campus called "The Ranch" and live with four burly roommates. One of my closest friends, Michael, actually shares a 9x11 room with me and we are learning the ropes of married life (kidding). Sharing toothpaste, nighttime talks and lunch rendezvous on campus. I love it. At the beginning of the year we took the chain saw to two felled trees and have about a chord of wood to fuel our fireplace. Nighttime fires are becoming a special routine for the guys of 580 West 8th. It has also been an incredible opportunity to have guys over to the house. Jon-Marc and I are continuing to hold down the sibling duo at the UO and I love being in community with him. He is becoming a man of character as well as a guy who can make me laugh harder than anybody.
Ryan Steven Dangaran
