Blessings and things I will take home with me.

"To me there is no safer place to be than to be broken in the hand of God" - Jennifer Soderquist

I have talked a lot about the hard things here, the injustice, the brokenness. At first it is very hard to see anything but the painful things here, but that has begun to change. See, it is when we are most broken that we are most able to see God. And it is in the midst of this brokenness that I have experienced the deep love of Christ through his Church.

It has been a great joy to be able to serve the church here, but I am convinced that we have been far more blessed by the people we serve than we have been able to be a blessing to them. Much of that blessing has come from the children who attend the day camp. Let me tell you some stories.

We have one boy in our camp who needs a walker to get around, but he has the best attitude and so much enthusiasm for life. He insists on playing duck duck goose and similar games with the other children, and when he really gets going, I have to work to keep up with him. He has been such a joy for all of us. There was this one day though, that he was getting very tired, and we were getting ready to go to worship. He told his leader that he didn't really want to go; worship was boring. So his leader promised to sit with him and that he would have fun, because it was one of her favorite parts. So we're partway through worship and he's just sitting there, tired out, when the music for the song "Every move I make" comes on. For those of you that don't know it, it goes like this:

Every move I make I make in you,
You make me move, Jesus.
Every breath I take I breathe in you.
Every step I take I take in you,
You are my way Jesus.
Every breath I take I breathe in you.

All of a sudden this young boy gets really excited and tells his leader that he has to stand up. He gets so excited about this song and just sings his little heart out. Watching him praise God enabled us to understand the song in a way we hadn't before. For him, every move he made, he really did make in Christ. Every step he took, he took in the strength of Christ. What an example to us!

And then one of my girls had a lot to teach me about running the race well and not giving up. This little girl would fall down and get right back up and keep on going. Well, one day we were playing capture the flag, and I sent her to get the flag from the other side. The game was disintegrating at this point, but she ran straight to the flag, grabbed it and came back as fast as her little legs would carry her anyway. She didn't stop running until she was finally tackled three quarters of the way into her own side of the field. She bumped her head pretty badly and was crying, but a couple minutes later she was up and running with me to the cabin before worship! If only we had that kind of perseverance.

We also took the kids canoeing one day (which is quite an experience with many kids who are very nervous around so much nature!). One of the other interns had another sweet little girl in her boat that day that was helping her to paddle. They were both working hard for quite a while, with the camper pointing out beautiful things from time to time. Eventually she put down her paddle altogether and just sat to look around. Her leader (the intern) kept paddle and working hard to keep the boat going, until the girl turned around and told her to stop. At first she didn't want to; she felt the need to keep going, to get to the finish quickly. But the little girl continued to push her and told her to rest and enjoy the beauty around them. Her leader realized then that the little girl, who was only 9, was leading her this time, and had a valuable lesson to teach. Children are so good at seeing what we so easily miss. It is no wonder to me that Jesus said "let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

The kids bring us all sorts of laughter too, like the little boy who thought that when we sang "We wanna see Jesus lifted high" we were actually singing "we wanna see t-shirts lifted high." It took us a while to figure out why he kept lifting his shirt up so much!
And let me just say that there are few blessings as dear to me as children hugging me and hanging on my arm with a death grip, wanting to sit by me on the bus, slipping their hand into mine, and begging me to come back next year. I am going to miss them all so much. I've been fighting back the tears all day as I said my goodbyes.

The children aren't the only ones who have blessed us though. I have been amazed by the unconditional love we have received from the churches here. We came as short-term servants, and they could have just been nice to us and thanked us and sent us home again, but they welcomed us into their lives and homes. They became our beloved friends.
When the other two Nueva Vida interns went to the church outing and didn't bring any food, they were given more than enough by so many people. (I couldn't go because I was sick, and I was so upset when I heard all their stories!) They drank tons of one family's horchata (a drink made from rice), and the family responded only with joy about sharing it with them. We have been embraced by the community there and invited to join in their activites and watch futbol (soccer) with them. Just today my junior leader's family took us out for tacos and then brought us to their paleteria to show us how they make their ice cream and to give us some for dessert.
They have given us so much, and yet expect nothing in return. We have experienced unconditional love here. To me, that is a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

And finally, we have been blessed by the teens and young adults in the area. Many of them are wise beyond their years. There is one young man I'll mention who has the ability to see God's hand in everything. To him, a simple trip to by plants for the garden easily becomes a blessing. He was given a good shovel and a free lunch, and then us interns stopped by to say hello and see how his work was coming. He told us then that those three things made his day such a blessed day. And he has this amazing faith that God really is moving and working everyday in our lives. He understands some things that I have yet to learn. And this sunday, when the offering plate was passed, in it sat a carrot; the firstfruits of his garden. I am constantly challenged and encouraged by this young man.

Most amazing to me of all is that even though I have only been here six weeks, I know that I will always be welcomed here. I have made some dear friends and I cannot wait to come back and visit, and, God willing, serve with them some more.

Things I have learned/ will take home with me:

• I love the people here, and I love this city. Yes, we are different from eachother, but those differences make us whole. I have seen a side of God that I never knew before by being here, in relationships with the people in the community. And even though we may all look a little different, ane even though we have different cultures and backgrounds, we're still all pretty much the same, and we're all still part of the same family. These are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
• I have rediscovered my enjoyment of photography. Which of course means I rediscovered my need of a good photo editing program. *cough*photoshopcsforchristmas*cough*
• Christianity is a journey. We don't just work at our faith until we get to some undefined point of being the "perfect" Christian. We will always be learning and growing and stumbling and getting back up again. Our job here is to worship God and live out his kingdom on earth.
• Characteristics of God's Kingdom: Downward mobility, redemption, sacrifice, upside down (last shall be first) , Deep justice (not just service and quick solutions, but dealing with the causes), Authority, counter-cultural, surrender
• You don't have to be able to fix it. Sometimes you just need to walk through it with people. See the post on El Roi
• There are things I have seen and learned and experienced here that I will never be able to explain. Some things you have to see to understand. I will probably offend people by accident. People may think I'm crazy for how my life changes. I have gotten a glimpse of how Jesus must have felt when he taught the crowds time and time again about the kingdom of heaven and they just kept not understanding.
• Rest is necessary. And the weird paradox is that as you take time out of your busy schedule to rest, you will find the time to order your life and get everything done without killing yourself or your relationships. It's ok to say no. Burnout doesn't help anyone.
• I apologize ahead of time, Betsy, because you will probably have a rather weepy Bethany on your hands the next few months as I let the emotional shields come down and I really start processing this summer.
• I know longer know where my life is leading, or even where I will be come January. And I'm really ok with that. As I told the children today when they begged me to come back next summer; I am here this summer because this is where God told me to go. If you want me to come back, you'll have to take it up with him. My life is the Lord's, I will go where he sends me. There's no turning back anymore. I've surrendered my dreams and my plans and now "to live is Christ and to die is gain."
• I have become a coffee drinker. To the point where I need to invest in a coffee maker when I get home.
• It's okay to be uncomfortable.
  
• There's tons more, but I think this is enough for now!
  

7/20/09 Brokenhearted

"The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire." When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven." -Nehemiah 1:1-4

Weep. Weep for the brokenness, for the injustice. Weep for children without adequate schools. Weep for the oppressed. Weep for those who are demeaned for the color of their skin. Weep for the joy of children who have nothing but Christ and the depression of those who have everything but him. Weep for children who have no family but the gangs. Weep for the gangs that destroy their lives and their children's lives. Weep for children who have never known childhood. Weep for young people who have high expectations of being dead or in jail by the time they are my age. Weep for those who have blood on their hands. Weep for the abused. Weep for the abusers. Weep for the addicts. Weep for those who deny their addiction. Weep for the homeless. Weep for those who deny a destitute mother shelter in winter. Weep for the prostitutes. Weep for the hatred and the division by the train tracks. Weep for those who have no hope. Weep for dying neighborhoods. Weep for corruption. Weep for people who try to get their lives together but have to sell drugs to feed their children. Weep for people who have been behind bars most of their life. Weep for the falsely convicted. Weep for the mistrust , the cynicism, the bitterness. Weep for fathers that cannot feed their families no mattter how hard they try. Weep for children who bear children. Weep for youth that see that an education will get them nowhere. Weep for the neighborhood where two of the biggest health problems are starvation and obesity. Weep for the supremisists. Weep for the devaluing of relationships in pursuit of political correctness. Weep for graduates who have no future. Weep for those who cannot see the brokenness. Weep for the 150 gangs in chicago. Weep for the hypocrits. Weep for a church that sends hundreds of teens on mission trips to Mexico but discriminates against Mexicans in it's own community. Weep for the indifference . Weep for the assaulted. Weep for their attackers. Weep for the fear. Weep for the inequality. Weep for the lies. Weep for the lives destroyed. Weep for a church that holds on to its money with an iron fist. Weep for the ignorant. Weep for battles not fought. Weep for the spirits of greed and destruction. Weep for our deafness. Weep for our complacency. Weep for the need right in front of us. Weep for America.

Pictures.

Hey all,
Sorry I haven't updated for a while. I'll post as soon as I get the time to write, but for now here's a few pictures from our field trip yesterday.

Me, Dan, and Adam. We're all volunteers at the summer camp

Me and Katie, another volunteer

Me and Emily. Yet another volunteer :-)

One of our adorable campers.

Campers playing in the fountain at Navy Pier. They really loved the jets of water that shot up out of the ground.

Dan and another of our wonderful campers. They all bring us so much joy!

The staff.

El Roi and Brokenness

Some quick business before I start; I have made two updates to the blog. The first is that I think I figured out why some people couldn't comment, and the problem should be fixed now. So use that comment box, because I love hearing from all of you! Secondly, there is now an RSS feed up for this page, as per request.

Ok, that concludes business. On to the fun stuff.....er, well, the stuff you want to read :-)

El Roi
"Seeing is not easy business. It demands a lot. It can be tiring and sometimes unpleasant. It means carrying in our minds unresolved pain and need. It means abandoning the enclave we might have been hiding in. We won't be able to sleep quite as soundly. The things we thought mattered we will now consider of little or no importance. It's not easy to live as an exile- Jesus said we could depend on that. This is what drives us back, to need to see God afresh, to need to grow in our capacity to 'let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 2:5)." -From The Dangerous Act of Worship

El Roi. The God who sees.
This name for God is only used once in scripture, In Genesis 16. Abraham and Sarah's servant Hagar is pregnant with Abraham's son and has been so horribly abused by Sarah that she has fled into the desert. There she meets an angel of the Lord. The angel acknowledges her hurt and pain and then sends her back. And then she gets to name God. This lowly servant, raped by her master, gets to name the Lord almighty! Time and again it is the poor to whom God reveals himself, it is the poor who understand.
"She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.' " (Genesis 16:13)
The angel of the Lord also tells her to name her son Ishmael, which means God hears.

God doesn't change Hagar's situation though. He sends her back to Abrahan and Sarah. He merely listened to her, saw her pain and acknowledged it. God let Hagar know that she was not invisible, and that was enough for her. God sees. God hears.

Our white American culture is a culture of doing. We don't want to experience pain or problems, we want to jump in and fix them. We are a fighting culture, and we have made many gains because of it. But our way is not God's way.

I am not saying that we should never fight for the side of right and justice, but often our real call is simply to listen. To see. We cannot fix all the problems that plague our world, but we can bear witness to the pain they cause. We can see other people, see their lives, their sorrows, their joys. Often the most effective ministry we can do is to really see. To let people know that they are not invisible.

But to see we have to be vulnerable. Seeing means risking our own pain and our own hurt. It means discovering injustices we never wanted to know about, and finding ourselves partly or wholly responsible. It means setting aside our own opinions and beliefs and not getting defensive. Seeing usually means investing in people's lives, sharing in their struggles, but it can also be as simple as asking the stranger sitting next to you on the El (the elevated train in Chicago) how their day is going. But whatever the scenario, and whatever the personal cost, we must see.

The Brokenness that Brings Healing
Ask me how I am right now, and if I'm being honest, I'll tell you that I'm ripped to pieces. My heart is broken a little more each day for this neighborhood, and I am constantly suppressing my desire to jump in and try and fix everything. It's so much harder to sit and simply be a witness to the injustice here, but I'm learning to accept the discomfort and learning that it's ok to live with hurt. I live in a shattered world.
But I am broken in another way as well. Much of our focus here is on community and systemic problems, but in the midst of that, God has brought my own life, faults, and calling sharply into focus. I have professed all my life to follow Christ, but I am only now beginning to understand what it means. When Jesus called people to follow him, he also called them to leave everything behind and start a new life as his disciple. These men left steady jobs, family, good lives, screwed up lives, wealth, all to follow Christ. Now it's my turn.

But it is far from easy! God keeps asking me to surrender more and more to him and it keeps getting harder and harder because each thing is successively closer to my heart. Each thing is a little more dear to me than the last. Still, I know that for every part of my life I am asked to surrender, the Lord has a more abundant life prepared for me. And I know that I will have to continue surrendering till the day I die, until every bit of me is given over to the Lord.

I'm under no illusions that my life will be easy or happy or comfortable. But I do know that it will be abundant, worthwhile, and full of joy.

I'm having a rough time right now, but that's ok. I am struggling, but that's ok. I don't have to have it all together, I don't have to be perfect. God is redeeming my life. I can rest in his peace.

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12-13)