The Next Step

As I sat on an outdoor stage in the middle of some obscure village in India, I listened to my squad leader Rachel preach the Gospel to the large group of men, women, and children gathered in front of us.  

I sat, and I reflected.  I thought about how crazy this whole thing was:  ten Americans randomly showing up in a tuk-tuk, singing English songs to little Indian babies, being forced to sit in chairs six feet above the locals, praying over people who had no idea what we were saying.  It all felt a little ridiculous.  And, really, it was.

India (unlike every other month) was a month of processing for me.  Over the last couple of weeks--or the last year, really--I observed how my teammates seemed to thrive at everything I really didn't like.  Specifically, anything that had to do with small children.  Especially if they knew no more than two words of English and just wanted to stare and wave at you.  I was over it.  I had made a list of all the things I pretty much sucked at.  And then I wallowed in all my spiritual failure.

I had been trying to figure it out for awhile.  Wondering why it seemed like everyone else has the same talents, except for me.  Asking God what the heck "my calling" was, whatever that means.

But, as I listened to Rachel, and I thought some more, I realized this is the stuff I'm passionate about.  

I'm passionate about the Gospel.
I'm passionate about sharing it with those who have never heard it or maybe just forgot what it meant.
I'm passionate about people getting it.

And that's super cool.

But, God, I wondered, How will I ever get to do something like this back in the States?  

And then He reminded me where I had done it before.  A place where I had grown and taught and loved years ago.  But, since then, I had never felt like it was the right time to go back.  

Until now.

This summer, I will be returning to Juneau, Alaska, to serve as a camp counselor at Echo Ranch Bible Camp.  ERBC offers weeklong camps to nearly 1,000 kids each summer that belong to four different age groups:  7-9, 10-11, 12-14, and high schoolers.  Each week, the kids have the option to participate in all kinds of fun stuff, including ziplining, canoeing, horseback riding, put-putt…  And then, of course, the stuff that really matters, like chapel services, cabin devotions, and Jesus conversations around the campfire.
 

 
I was a counselor there during the summer of 2009, and it was one of the best and hardest things I’ve ever experienced.  After only two days of counseling my first group of kids, I was done.  I sat bawling in my cabin, reeling with the fact that I would eventually have to let these kids go home.  I wouldn’t be able to shield them from all the woes of the world, the abuse some of them would experience, the lies they would hear…  I wouldn’t be able to remind them of the Truth, of the God who loves them, of the things that would keep them going. 

I would have to trust their Creator with those things instead. 

I would learn to trust Him again and again and again when I felt like my body, mind, and soul couldn’t function anymore, when "I couldn’t possibly be more exhausted than I am right now"; when I felt completely alone; when I knew I didn’t have all the answers I thought I had.  I would see Him work miracles, like provide the hands to actually make the camp run when we were short-staffed, the male counselors to lead those rowdy boys when there never seemed to be enough, and the friends I needed to encourage me at all the right times.  It was so hard.  But it was so good.
 
More important than my experience, though, is that those kids learned the Gospel.  That was the focus of the whole camp.  They may have shown up with zero knowledge or only a faint idea, but they left hearing it again and again.  They heard, they received, and they were changed.  Maybe only for a week…  Most of us know how those things go.  But the seed was planted.  And that’s all we could do.  I loved getting to hear every time a kid decided to give their lives to Jesus.  To see their eyes light up when they finally got it.  To be a part of what God decided to awaken in them.  It was beautiful.
 

 
This is my passion.  Sharing the Gospel.  Teaching the Truth.  Seeing people get it.  Sitting at that prayer meeting in India, I realized God was inviting me to go back to Alaska and do it again.  I always figured I’d go back one of these days…  And now, I am.
 
As we real missionaries and pretend missionaries do, I threw together a little fundraising page for the $1500ish I’ll need for this summer.  That money will cover airfare, food, and housing.  If you’re interested in partnering with me in this ministry, you can go here.  You be the hands; I'll be the feet, remember?
 
If you’re interested in reading any of my stories from my experience in 2009, there’s a blog for that too! 

Those kids' lives weren't the only ones changed that summer.

Mine world was rocked, too.

And I can't wait for it to happen again.

Re[ag]-Entry

It’s happened.  The frenzy and reality that is re-entry has, after 11 months, finally occurred.
 
I arrived at Will Rogers International Airport to 20 smiling faces I hadn’t seen in nearly a year.  Faces who got merely a glimpse of what I had been through over those 11 months.  Faces I hadn’t seen since before… everything.
 

 
My mom ran up to me with tears streaming down her face.  She threw her arms around my neck. 
 
“Are you happy to see me?” I asked with a quiet laugh.
 
I felt the need to perform.  To entertain.  To affirm everyone in my appreciation of their presence at my arrival. 
 
“Thank you so much for coming!  Hi!  So good to see you!  Thank you so much…” 
 
I didn’t know what to feel.  I wasn’t excited, but I wasn’t sad.  I just was. 
 
I tried not to have expectations.  I had heard all kinds of World Race re-entry experiences of nobody understanding them or knowing what to ask or how to be.  I figured that would be the case for myself as well.
 
Family members asked a few questions about things I had seen or eaten or things like that.  In the car, few questions were asked.  I talked about traffic in India after someone cut off our suburban.  When we got home, we ate dinner.  I shared a few pictures.  And then we watched a lot of videos of our pets.
 
I had a long and intimate conversation with my sister that night.  I felt connected.  I felt alive. I felt inspiring.   I felt like I really had changed.
 
More conversations followed over the next few weeks.  I was encouraged.  I was surprised.  I cocked my head in wonder at things about which I saw others get irritated.
 
Okay, plans didn’t work out the way we had scheduled.  It’s okay.  We’ll just do this instead.
 
Okay, I might have to wait an hour instead of five minutes.  It’s okay.  I’ll just find something to do in the meantime.
 
I wasn’t trying to go all when I was a kid, I walked to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways on anyone.  But as I observed, I thought about things that were worse than not getting an omelet for breakfast or an immediate ride home.  Things like Mozambican women having to mash up corn all day to make porridge for every meal or our squad having to wait eight hours for a big enough bus to Swaziland.  And really, still, those things didn’t matter all that much.
 

 

 
But, as I lounged on the living room couch or drank coffee in a Panera Bread booth or watched Skyfall in a comfortable, cushioned seat… as I had honest conversations with people who no more understood my experience than I fully understood theirs…
 
I noticed things that did matter.
 
Things like settling for mediocre relationships, spiritual walks, and purposes in life.
               being entertained by stories about abandonment, revenge, and abuse.
               looking for value in people
                                          food
                                          appearance
                                          drugs
                                          money
                                          performance…
 
Things like 20 elementary-aged kids being shot and killed. 
Things like your co-workers who, having been caught up in a cycle of less-than-perfect decisions, are now scraping to get by.
Things like shutting God out based on false delusions of who He actually is.
Things that wreck us. 
 
I sit across the table from these stories and yearn.  I yearn for their storytellers to take a step back and examine the direction of their lives.
 
Is this choice, this thing you can’t seem to live without, this thing that has you transfixed…  Is it taking you somewhere you want to end up, or not? 
 
When you look at the big picture, is this really working for you?
 
There are things that matter.
 
And there are things that don’t.
 
And then there are things that should matter.
 

 
But something weird has happened over the course of the last 79 days.  Something I feared but didn’t really expect.  Because I had been wrecked.  Figured out how to live with open hands, not fists clenched around my ideals and ideas of pretend American dreams.
 
I’ve slowly found myself migrating to the other side of the table.
 
I’ve become discouraged, defeated, heart riddled with anxiety and mind bogged down by all that I do not know.
 
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to breathe.  To embrace each moment infused with the beauty and glory of the God who gave it to me.  As I lie on the floor and cry out to God in the midst of the confusion and unknown, I ask Him questions like, ‘What do you want me to do?  Are you really telling me to do ______ a year from now?’  Which is funny, because God usually gives us the next step, not the next five.
 
I’ve curled up on the sofa of a shrink’s office and recounted the woes of my past and present.  I’ve sat in a car with my best friend and tried to predict my future.  I’ve lain in bed and cried with my face buried in a pillow.
 
And when I look at the big picture, I realize that this isn’t really working for me, either.
 
And then I realize that, through it all, God’s been saying the same thing over
and over
and over.
 
Trust Me.
Cling to Me.
Walk in the Light.
You don’t know the next step.  But I do.
Stop obsessing over everything else.  Fix your eyes on Me.
 
And this makes sense, because I’ve done it before.  When I’ve stopped focusing on all the crap that is rigged for failure anyway and started seeking Him, things just kind of fall into place.  Not always right away.  Not usually in the way I expect or desire.  But they do.  Eventually, they do.
 

 
The things that don’t matter fade away.  The things that do, the things that should matter, those come into focus.  Because all those things are Him.

Back to Camp, Back to Camp...

Happy February!

The month of four family birthdays, black history, and obvious(to everyone but me)ly, the Super Bowl. 

After another hum-drum week of taking customer service calls and trying to honor my new “old person” bedtime schedule, it was nice to spend a relaxing weekend at home.  How was your weekend?  What did you do for the Super Bowl?

It was so good to hear from several of you after my e-mail last week!  I love hearing about what you’ve been doing lately.  Keep those replies coming!

In my previous message, I told you I’d be announcing “what’s next” in a later update…

Well, here it is!

………

This is an excerpt from the "Missionary-ish Tales" e-news.  Read the rest here.