Tree Training

Team training is behind us, the world ahead.

Team Thailand just wrapped up a whole 2 weeks of training at Avant HQ in Kansas City, MO, and now we know everything there ever was to know about how to plant churches where they don’t exist in the country of Thailand.  Seriously.  When it comes to the know-how of being a good teammate to knowing the number of flush toilets vs. molded bucket latrines are present in the country to developing intercultural effectiveness to taking JUST THE RIGHT visa photo to communicating like a pro to expecting reality to pegging you on the Thinker-Feeler-Doer Triad to mastering exactlyhow our taxes are going to work to knowing whatever the heck tactical advantagemeans… *BIG GASP*… we’ve nailed it for sure.

Alright, for real, now.  We did learn a lot of useful stuff.  We went through the book of Acts and studied the “missionary methods” of Paul and his buddies.  We discussed how suffering for Jesus is actually a real thing and how, really, planting churches has nothing to do with how awesome we are, but with the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of our assignments as a team was to cast a vision for what we want Thailand to look like as a result of us being there.  Being good Christians and average creative geniuses, we took the entire two weeks to define our roles and create a visual image of the thriving church of Thailand. 

We pictured a tree.  Because a tree speaks of life and growth and something that starts small but becomes big and keeps getting bigger.

A tree, as we know, begins with a seed.  This tree will begin with the seed of the story and life and Good News of Jesus, the Light in the darkness.  We will be carrying that seed with us – we, Team Thailand, the shell.

Seeds don’t grow in dirt that is hard and dry, but in soft, broken up soil.  In the same way, the Gospel will not thrive among people with hard hearts, but with broken ones, recognizing their desperation for something beyond themselves.

Watered by the refreshing, life-giving rain of the Holy Spirit, the seed springs up, growing into the trunk of a mighty tree that is the Church.

As the tree continues to grow, it bears branches, then, leaves, the fruit of a maturing church, a national Thai church that reaches beyond itself to the broken world outside:  to break the chains of false religion, to fulfill the physical needs of its own people, tomeet together to talk about Jesus when we’re not there, to fight for social justice.

That’s our vision for Thailand.  And not that we want to tell God what to do, as if He looks at our plans and goes, Yeah, that idea is actually a lot better than Mine, let’s go with that instead.  But if it’s really God’s desire for all people to be saved, we hope and pray it’s a lot like the plan He already has for His people there.   

NEWS:

• The team has set an official date to arrive in Thailand:  January 8, 2015.  Yay!
• It looks like the way I've been reporting my financial support has been an little janky.  Right now, I have raised 74% of my necessary monthly support (not including one-time gifts, which will go directly to one-time costs like language school, my plane ticket to Thailand, etc.).  I'm so excited to be nearing the 100% mark (which I have to reach before I can board the plane)!  If you would like to be a part of our ministry through monthly or one-time financial gifts, please click the Help Send Me to Thailand! button below.  

PRAYER:

• Please pray for me and my team as we prepare to go:  that we will complete the "tasky" things that need to get done, but especially that we will be able to invest well in our relationships with people.
• Please continue to pray for the people of Thailand:  that God will empower Thai Christians and missionaries already there to share the Gospel boldly with others, and that He will draw even more Thai unbelievers to His Son.

Kòp kun mâak!

Help Send Me to Thailand!

Photobomb!

Better late than never, right?

Apologies for the delay on this month's e-news, but I figured I'd try to crank something out before the next one is due in 3 weeks.

I can't believe we're wrapping up another whole summer.  School supplies are flying off the shelves, people are finally coming home from DisneyWorld, and all I can think about is how the current temperature is what I'm going to h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ get to experience everyday for the next 5-7 years of my life.  Good times.

Khon Kaen, Thailand is where our team will most likely be living after our year of language school.

As I'm sure many of you have experienced, this last month of my life has been pretty packed.  So instead of giving my usual quirky sermonette, I decided to update/bomb you with photos of my July existence.

Here's where I've been the last month (and where I'll keep being until the end of this one):

Don't take it too literally.

I resided in the home of Mark and Denise Bruner, who have been missionaries in Africa for most of their lives.  Mark works for Avant, and the two of them regularly host people like me in their home to disciple them and help them explore their ministry giftings (i.e., they feed us and let us hang out with them and talk about Jesus and our lives, rub off all of their wisdom on us, and sign us up to volunteer in various ministries and outreach centers in Kansas City, MO so we can actually practice doing some of the things we’re going overseas to do).  So, obviously, that’s exactly what happened.

I helped out at , which is an organization that seeks to transform impoverished, violent, and hope-started communities into healthy, thriving, and Gospel-living communities.  I interacted with groups of youth in different neighborhoods and helped the staff with random administrative/organizational tasks.  

Sweet baby kids who came to the carnival neighborhood outreach.

At the  office, I worked with the same recruiter who spoke at Echo Ranch Bible Camp last summer and convinced me to give this organization a shot.  In addition to a couple other writing projects, my main gig was to feedback and fancify his PowerPoints for this summer's chapel messages at ERBC.

he year wasn't important.

At , a coffee shop that provides food, clothing, other essentials, and the Gospel to the down-and-out in Northeast KC, I had coffee with a gangster, put together puzzles and talked about God with a 4-year-old, invented sandwiches, and helped transport a semi-homeless lady to a psychiatric hospital.

Coffee for Jesus!

While July was a whirlwind of different ministry roles and interruptions to normal life, August here in Kansas City is a little different.  I'm spending this month with my team at the Avant headquarters, where we'll be going through team training (i.e., learning how to plant churches without killing each other).  More on that in the next e-news.


THE STUFF OF PRAYER:

• God has been giving me a heart overhaul over the last month.  It's one of those pain-leads-to-growth kinds of things, so I am honestly excited and grateful for it.  He appears to be doing the same thing in a few of my teammates as well.  Please pray for us, that we will hear His voice and be obedient to what He desires for us.
   
• I have reached 82% of my required monthly support!  Thank you to those of you who have chosen to partner with me in this Kingdom work.  Please pray for my team as we continue to seek ministry partners to serve with us through prayer and finances.  If you believe the Lord is leading you to help send me to Thailand, please click the button below.

Help Send Me to Thailand! What have you been up to this month?  What has God been teaching you? I would love to be praying specifically for each of you.  Please tell me how!

Purity Culture

If there’s one thing I’m terrible at – well, besides snowboarding, and whistling, and technology, and picking out non-burn-inducing mouthwash –

it’s romantic relationships.

You guys, for real.  I’m the worst.

It’s all fun and games while the mystery is still there.  You know, trying to figure out if they’re into you, the inconsistent and unpredictable texting, the semi-ambiguous hangouts, the game.  But once there’s, like, intentionality involved, as in words like, “I am interested in you, and I want to get to know you better,” my mind and body go into freak out mode.  Because, in my mind, as soon as someone gives up the ruse, throws in the towel on the game, that someone just gave me something, a piece of their heart or mind or something of themselves for which I am now responsible.  Responsible to accept and cherish or to give back with a little more wear and tear than before. 

I can’t handle it.

I was in a coffee shop with some good friends a few weeks ago.  One was in a struggling relationship, another was struggling to decide whether she wanted to pursue a relationship, and then there was me:  single and free. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” one of the struggling ones said through tears.  “I mean, I feel like I’ve been told my whole life to be so careful in dating, to guard myself against impurity and being with the wrong kind of guy, but it just produced this fear of screwing up to the point where I didn’t live.”

We all chimed in with similar feelings, recalling the weight of the church youth group purity culture in which we grew up, telling us not to give ourselves away or kiss boys in places we wouldn’t want to tell our grandmas about or maybe just not date at all because really, what’s the point, and who wants that emotional baggage?  Because if you hand a guy your emotional or physical rose, or Styrofoam cup, or wrapped up Jolly Rancher before you marry him, you’re damaged goods, and nobody wants you anymore.  It was a culture of performance and fear, one that got us hyped up about our husband lists and wedding days but never told us how to become marriable human beings because we were so set on avoiding the potentially wrong relationship. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for the heart behind the purity talks.  I’m all for pursuing the best thing, sex in the context of marriage, the way God designed it.  But when we start exalting the pursuit of an ideal over the pursuit of Jesus Himself, things always get a little screwy. 

And, honestly, I don’t know what to do about it. 

I’m certainly not the first one to bring this up.  It seems like I’ve recently seen more blogs floating around than usual on this topic. 

I’m also not trying to chalk up my inability to function well in relationships entirely to teaching I received throughout my youth.  I’m a big girl, and I need to be able to make big girl decisions.

But I do wonder. 

I wonder what it would have been like to go about those early dating years without so much fear of making the wrong decision, of tainting my purity ring, of feeling condemned to Hades every time I went too far.  I wonder what it would have been like to focus more on Jesus Himself, on the freedom and fullness of His love that is more satisfying than professions of longtime interest over MSN chat or a first “real kiss” under the stars, a love that actually fills you up so much that you don’t even want to tread the wide road because you’re already accepted but reminds you that – though feeling broken and worthless – you are still whole and still redeemed if you do. 

And maybe it’s okay for me to receive that piece of emotional something and treat it the best I can, knowing I may not be able to return it in its original state – trusting that the God who makes me whole can take care of other people, too.

Real Church

I love church. 

But there was a time when I didn’t care about it all that much.

As a kid who grew up going to Sunday School and Big Church and all those Christianese names we came up with for our specific Sunday morning gatherings, church was kind of just a thing good people did.  You go on Sundays and Wednesdays, and you felt guilty when you didn’t – not because it had that much of an impact on your personal life, but because… it’s just something you were supposed to do, some vague standard you believed God held you to and was disappointed when you fell short. 

So I went.  But I never really experienced or really even knew things like community orvulnerability were a thing, not until later.  I threw myself into activities like choir and youth group and later youth group leading.  I could put on the nametag that said, Hello, My Name Is “Productive Member of the Body of Christ”.  And as we Christians, or Americans, or simply just people often do, I let my worth get tied to my performance, my level of helpfulness, you know – doing the Lord’s work, as if God couldn’t do it Himself.

I guess that really started to change when I started attending Celebrate Recovery, a 12-step, Christ-centered recovery program for people of all backgrounds and hurts, habits, and hang-ups (which is everyone, in case you missed that).  Up until that point, I had never been around people who let all their issues hang out.  People who could stand in front of a group of mostly strangers and say, “I’m a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with food addiction/codependency/alcohol addiction/people approval/control… and my name is _______.”  I started to recognize the names of those struggles swirling around in me.  And I experienced the freedom of actually saying, Yeah, me too. 

In those days, God started opening my eyes to what real church looked like.  Not abuilding, place where we can feel good about greeting newcomers and serving donuts and showing off our Sunday best.  But a place where we can be real about our crap, because our “goodness” doesn’t make us good enough, because we're gathering in a Name other than our own.  And, once the masks are finally off, we can empower each other to pursue Him instead of the ideal images of ourselves.

In those days, God gave me people who pointed out the lies I believed about myself and about Him.  Lies like… I missed the mark.  I’m not good at anything.  I am not valuable.  God is disappointed in me.  I can’t hear the voice of God.  If I just had more faith, God would give me ________.  I will never be at peace…

And He said, Blessed are those who [failed/mourn over life lost/are restless for something more], for they will be [comforted/filled/given the Kingdom of God].  He said,Good!  I’m glad you finally quit pretending you have it all together – because I actually do, and I am the One who makes you whole.  I redeem your failures.  I have made you worthy.  I made you, I know you, I love you, and I’ve got you.

It’s that sort of experience – that raw, authentic way of relating to others and to God – that makes you never want to go back to being fine.  It’s that same thing that I want for the people of Thailand, the freedom and life of being known and loved anyway. Yeah, you failed.  So did I.  But that failure to measure up was the train wreck that brought me back to the Prodigal God.

Have you ever experienced real church?  How did it change you?

…………………………………...

THE STUFF OF NEWS:

• I will be spending most of July and August in a discipleship/internship at Avant.  I'll be volunteering in the Kansas City community, helping out at the Avant office, and building relationships with the people up there.
   
• The roundtrip road trip through the Midwest was a success!

THE STUFF OF PRAYER: Please continue praying for the people of Thailand - the ongoing political situation, the Christians and ministries already there, and that God will continue opening people's hearts to the Truth of the Gospel.   I have received financial pledges of about 77% of my required monthly support!  Thank you to those of you who have chosen to partner with me in this Kingdom work.  Please pray for my team as we continue to seek ministry partners to serve with us through prayer and finances.  If you believe the Lord is leading you to help send me to Thailand, please click the button below.

Help Send Me to Thailand!

The Best Thing

First things first…  Yes.  I am still going to Thailand. More than likely, you’ve heard a few things on the news about what’s going on with the political situation in the Land of Thais (or, if you’re like me, you learned about it from someone else who keeps up with the news).  The most frequently asked questions I’ve gotten over the last month besides, ‘When are you leaving again?’ [January 2015] are, ‘Have you heard about what’s going on over there?’ and, ‘How does that affect you and your team?’ Those are fair questions, and I’d like to answer them more thoroughly by directing you to the most recent newsletter of a couple on my team, Heather & Matt.  They covered the ins and outs of it all pretty well, so I encourage you to check out what they have to say. Second things second…  I’m going to be doing a fair amount of traveling and time away from home over the next several months.  If you’re in any of these places, let’s hang out! Coming to a City Near You!               JUN 21-25                 Anderson, IN             JUN 26-27                 Chicago, IL             JUN 28-29                 Willmar, MN             JUL 7-AUG 27            Kansas City, MO It’s hard to believe June is already upon us.   It’s been nearly six months since I attended Candidate Orientation Program (COP) at Avant and was officially appointed as one of their missionaries, and it is now nearly the same amount of time until I hop on a plane and head to the world.  I don’t know about you, but I’m one who doesn’t really know how to process a major life transition until it’s just about to happen or is happening or has already happened, so I’m trying not to make my head spin too much by forcing myself to think about what it will be like to… you know… live really far away for a really long time.  I’m still pumped, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s a bittersweet sort of thing, as these sorts of things usually are. Do you ever look back on your life, and then where you are now, and think, Wow, I never would have thought I’d be here?  I do.  Six or seven years ago, my dream was the typical, middle class American one:  a well-enough paying job.  A husband.  A kid or two.  Adult-like lifestyle changes, such as knowing how to cook and not cracking my knuckles anymore.  But somewhere around 2009, God started chipping away at that dream.  I never thought I’d be here.  But I’m glad I am. Sometimes I look around at my friends and acquaintances who got the dream I cherished, the dream for which I longed and prayed for years, and my heart does that thing hearts too often do, getting wrapped up that icky mess called envy, coveting, bitterness. God’s been convicting me of that lately.  Reagan, just because it’s your desire doesn’t mean it’s My best for you.  He’s been saying that to me over and over.  My best for someone else may be different than My best for you. Peculiar Treasures by Jaquie If the God of the universe, the One who defeats evil and rescues the helpless and works in timing that is pretty much never at our convenience but always works out… well, better…  if His best for me, for now is giving up the American dream, moving to the other side of the world, and telling other people about Him… then that’s what I want.  Walking away, choosing something else, telling God, Nah, I've got this…  It might work out okay.  But it wouldn't be His best. His best for you, for now may be working with those defiant foster kids in a group home, or mommying your two under five, or loving your wife as Christ loves the Church, or serving your ill-tempered parents, or trusting Him through the transition.  Or maybe it's looking around you, realizing this isn't His best, and making some changes.  It may not be easy, it may not be fun, but if it’s the work He has prepared for you,then it’s His best for you.  And it probably won’t last forever, because soon enough, He’ll show you the next best thing. Where does God have you right now?  How can you learn to embrace it as His best for you?  I'd love to hear about it. …………………………………….. THE STUFF OF NEWS & PRAYER: Please pray for the ongoing political situation in Thailand.  Pray that God will work out His best for the people there.   Pray for me as I travel this summer.   I have received financial pledges of about 68% of my required monthly support!  Thank you to those of you who have chosen to partner with me in this Kingdom work.  Please pray for my team as we continue to seek ministry partners to serve with us through prayer and finances.  If you believe the Lord is leading you to help send me to Thailand, please click the button below. Help Send Me to Thailand!

I Blew It

I had the perfect chance, but I checked out instead.

I got the usual small talk questions as I sat across the table from my coworker while we supervised the adolescents on our unit.  "Are you married? Do you have kids (statements usually coupled with follow up phrases like, ‘Really?  You’re too pretty to be single,’ or, ‘Oh, usually when you meet young, Caucasian females who seem to have it all together, they’re married.’  Thankfully, this guy just let it go).

“So, are you planning on doing this job for a while?” he asked.

“Not forever,” I responded.  “I'll be leaving to go do missions overseas in a little less than a year.  I'm be going to Thailand with a team for 5 to 7 years, and we’ll be church planting.”

“Oh.  I don't really know what that means.”

“Basically, we’ll be talking to people and telling them about Jesus and how great He is, and then they’ll tell their friends, and then… churches will form.”

I said something else in Christianese that I can't recall now, something unintelligible to the untrained “churched” ear.

“Oh, that's interesting,” he replied.  “I'm not really religious, though.  I used to go to church…  But me and God, we have an understanding,” he said with a chuckle.  When I asked what he meant, he went on.  “When I was a kid, I was at church almost every night of the week.  But I didn't like it.  It just never really made sense to me.  So now I don’t really go anymore.”

“Yeah… It would make sense that it would be hard to enjoy church when… you didn't really… care about it.”

Conversation over.

I left work that night feeling like such a missionary failure. What happened? This guy set me up for the perfect opportunity to share Jesus with him, but I was too scared to ask more questions, to breach uncomfortable boundaries.  I had talked about Him with strangers before.  It's not like this was my first ballgame.  But for some reason, the right words just seemed to escape me.

It was that same defeated feeling times a thousand that had me in tears as I revealed my fears to my teammates a week later in Kansas City.  As we sat in our stuffed sofa and chairs, encircling a coffee table piled high with perhaps not-so-realistic expectations, I confessed.  I feel like I am going to fail in Thailand.  I have no idea what to do, and I'm afraid I won't be able to create any relationships with the people.

If I can't do it here, what makes me think I'm going to be able to do it there?





I'm sure Moses and I would've had a few good laughs, a couple of blubbering idiots trying to tell God we can't do anything right.

And then I picture God sitting back with sort of an amused smile, thinking, "Okay… so what?

Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Turns out, nearly every teammate in that circle had experienced some kind of spiritual attack that weekend.  Plaguing thoughts and fears about how there were a thousand people more qualified than them to go.  About how the team would be better off if they weren’t there.  About how they were just fooling everyone with a mere appearance of spirituality.  About how, really, they were just hypocrites.

It should be no surprise.  The greater God’s plan, the greater Satan’s attack.  The more affirmed the calling, the more prevalent the lies seeking to destroy it.

What I tend to forget is that the victory doesn’t depend on my sufficiency, but on the One who is already the Victor.

He is security.
He is relationship.
He is sufficiency.

Easter & Other Stuff

A sunrise in Thailand.

Christ is risen! On Easter morning, I awoke with a profound sense of joy.  I don’t ever remember feeling that deeply about Easter before.  Rather than glazing over the anniversary ofJesus’ resurrection – as if it were merely something that happened a long time ago that was somehow significant to our faith, but sort of irrelevant to us today – I placed myself in the story.  What would it have been like to be Mary as she walked to the tomb that morning, spices in hand, grieving the loss of her very best friend and the man whom she believed would save her land from oppression?  What would it have been like to see that stone rolled aside, the tomb empty?  To meet an angel whose news would have been shocking, to say the least?  And, finally, to hear your name spoken by someone who you were convinced would never speak again? What fear. What amazement. What joy. I’ll be spending this day on the other side of the globe this year, Lord willing.  Maybe I’ll even be able to produce a jumbled mess of words that sort of resemble, “He is risen, indeed!”  I’ll be living among a people who don’t know the meaning of the most important day in history.  Who don’t know the joy of having an Advocate who overcame death.   I grew up in the church (as the gone-to-church-my-whole-life Christians say), so I never experienced not knowing who Jesus was. But I imagine finding out would be similar to not finding His body in the tomb.  Putting to death your expectations from a religion meant to pave the road to peace.  Placing your doubts about whether you’ll ever arrive at perfection in the burial chamber.  Rolling the stone in front, sealing your own shame, guilt, and failure inside forever. And then waking up to find the tomb empty.  And something, Someone who is far greater than anything you had ever hoped or dreamed – the embodiment of peace, eternal life Himself – standing before you, saying your name. …………………………………… THE STUFF OF NEWS: I met (most) of my Thailand team last weekend!  We all met in Kansas City, MO for a few days to get to know each other; fly a kite; pick the brains of former missionaries to Thailand; consume lots of BBQ, stir fry, coffee, and Thai tea; talk about our expectations for the team (eek!); and pray over where God has us now and what He is preparing us to do.  (Pictured below:  women of Team Thailand:  Marnee, me, Heather, Liz)                    I had the blessing of seeing one of my World Race teammates get married andreconnecting with several of my friends from my WR squad.                    I pierced my nose… again.                                    THE STUFF OF PRAYER: April is already a difficult month for many in Oklahoma who lost loved ones in the OKC bombing 19 years ago, but poor health and death have become a more recent struggle for many others in my community and close social ties.  Please pray for those who are mourning the loss of Kaytie Joiner and for God’s comfort and healing in the lives of close friends and their relatives profoundly struggling with health issues. Pray for my team as we continue to raise financial and prayer support and that our growth and trust in Christ will continue to increase. Pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to move in the hearts and lives of the Thai people, preparing them to hear the Gospel.

Help Send Me to Thailand!

How was your Easter?  Did you have any awesome revelations?  What was the coolest thing you found in one of those plastic eggs?  Let me know!