Location: Growing roots in my usual spot in my bedroom in Oradea, Romania (the last day of May at about midday)
I just returned from a worship service (my first in Romania). Have you ever wondered what church might be like in Romania? Probably not. But if you do now, let me tell you.
A large portion of the Church in Romania is Greek Orthodox, but even if one attends a Catholic or Protestant church, baptism and membership are extremely important. Most of you know that I most often worship among Protestants, though what is important to me is not the label but that the community who is worshipping together is doing so in loving submission to their Lord and Friend, Jesus.
J. and her (our) coworker (G.) invited me to come to their service today, which meets in the gym of the other school where J. works (I had not yet been there). This congregation is demographically young Romanian families in casual dress, probably mostly middle-class (as much as there is one here), and quite "Westernized" despite everything happening in the Romanian language. A loud rock-style band leads worship, and three or four pastors share preaching and shepherding responsibilities.
Knowing that my extremely limited Romanian skills would prevent me from understanding most of what was said, I prayed carefully before the service. I prayed that God would keep me focused on Him, not my surroundings. That He would give me the understanding I needed to be able to worship Him, even if that was in a different way from those around me. That He would not let me become distracted by the people around me, the music, the language, my incomprehension, the environment, my expectations, or anything else. Thanks to God alone, I greatly enjoyed the service, miraculously understanding most of the main points of the sermon, as confirmed by J. who helped to fill in the gaps afterward. I was able to worship intimitely with the Lord, despite the barriers and distractions and only having a French Bible with me. The Word was presented carefully, from 2 Kings 4 and 2 Kings 20, with the question being "What do you have in your house?" This meant first that we should use the resources God has given us, even when we do not think we have anything of value. Secondly, the story of King Hezekiah in chapter 20 reminds us to think about what we value and how we treat the things we value. Then the pastor took us from the Old Testament (the first half of the Bible) to the New Testament (the second half), all the way to Acts 3:6, when the apostle Peter had no material resources but a relational resource--Jesus. So the question changed to "Who do you have in your house?" When Jesus lives in us, we have more than we could ever need to be whole, healthy, and wealthy.
I thank the Lord for helping me to understand and to unite in worship with the congregation I visited. I thank Him for answering my prayers, that His name might be glorified.
Have you ever gone to church, had a miserable time, and decided you were done with that "religious stuff"? Have you ever come back from church thinking, "I got nothing out of it--what a waste of time!" Have you ever come back from church dissecting everything that was wrong (real or imagined) about the service or the people in attendence? I have.
In fact, I thought that I might get very little out of church today, because of my language barrier. This brings up a couple of points:
1. Church is not an entertainment or social event we "attend" in order to receive pleasure or blessing.
2. Do you pray for your Church?
The word "attend" is a great word. In French, for example, it means "to wait." That is more the sense that is appropriate for the Church. The word "Church" refers not to a building or a service or an institution, but instead to a community of people. Like any group of people, it includes grumpy, ornery, smelly, annoying, flawed people. So we cannot really "go" to church, but we can be "part" of the Church. The reason the Church gathers (whenever it meets) is not to show off fancy clothes or airs in front of one another. Rather the Church gathers because it is only complete when its individuals come together into community. Then it can function corporately. Individuals can bless and be blessed by those around them. We can pray for one another. We can worship together. We can help one another, encourage one another. We come together and "attend," wait upon the Lord. We come together and symbolically say, "God, we join together in agreement and remembrance that You are our Lord and King, and so as a people we bow before You and humble ourselves, that Your will might be done and that Your Name might be praised. We receive the love and blessings You give us, and we ask that You accept us as a people as an offering of love and thanksgiving to You."
If you get nothing out of "going to church," perhaps you are not putting anything into it. I recommend looking for a group of people whom you can love and who you will let love you.
When you find that group, pray for them. Pray for the leaders, the custodians, the elders and the infants, and everyone in between! Pray for the Church before you gather, that the Holy Spirit might go before you and prepare the leaders and the congregation to be united in humble worship and loving community. Pray for yourself that you might be prepared to receive what it is that the Lord has for you.
You might think that it is easier for me to remember to pray for the worship service since I am in a foreign land. To tell you the truth, I find it easier when I am among my home congregation, for then I know the names of the pastors and the people, I know the issues that are going on, the needs of the Body, and so on.
When I walked the streets of Oradea this morning, you could tell who was going to church by the way they dressed and by the looks on their faces. Some of the congregations here, from what I am told, are quite legalistic or lifeless. There are congregations like that everywhere, sadly.
If you have visited that type of church before and decided never to return; find an alive community of people and give it another shot! If you are part of a congregation like that, use the resources that God has given you to make sure that Jesus is living in your house, and in your Church. May church not be about what it looks like, but who it looks like.
Church, may you and I allow Jesus to mold us into His own image, that the world around us may not see self-righteous hypocrites, smug legalists, or aloof Bible-beaters, but instead that they would see our loving Savior for who He truly is, the charming Prince of Peace who longs to love the most unloveable of us, who longs to love even you and me.
On this Lord's Day and everyday, allow yourself to be blessed in the Name of that Lord, Jesus. I bless you in His Name!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Full-time Dish-onary?
Location: My usual armchair in my guest room overlooking Oradea, Romania (way too late at night on 30 May).
Before you leave this page, check out the latest picture on the bottom of the column at right. That is my new friend and roommate, H., in front of a poster of a superhero outside a mall in Oradea. But before I tell you about that heroic endeavor, let me tell you about "walking on thin rice" earlier today.
The last couple of days have been fine, though laundry has been a man-versus-machine fight that I hope to finally have resolved by Monday. Aside from that, I had a nice time helping out with the kids yesterday--in fact, I got a call from J. in the morning asking me if I could get there immediately because of an emergancy that delayed the normal staff. So I got to "man the fort" by myself for a little while. We then had a nice day at work, followed by a low key evening that involved some solid conversation with roommates J. and V. and a light dinner at a local American-style cafe with a live band.
Today had a mellow start followed by lunch with the girls again, after which I got to wash the dishes once more. The Romanian word for peace is "pace" (pah-chay), so it has been delightful that the ladies are letting me enjoy "kitchen pace" after feeding me a nice meal. These hours of dishes and singing with God have been very refreshing; besides that, they are a perfect arrangement--the girls enjoy cooking and I enjoy washing the dishes! J. is a full-time physical therapist missionary; I thought maybe I should become a full-time dish-onary... But when V. caught me trying to pick grains of rice out of the bottom of my socks, she told me that in Malaysia it is very bad to step on rice since it is such an important staple--I knew then that I was walking on thin rice!
Some of you are a bit overwhelmed by the length of my posts, and others of you are requesting such detail. I have no idea who all even reads this, but I pray that when you choose to, you find the Word you need to know that day. Whoever you are, thanks for joining me on this journey. It will not all be pleasant, but it will stretch us and we certainly will grow if we persevere till the end! So before I sign off and go to bed, I need to tell you about tonight and the picture below.
My friend H. has a heart for the young people of Oradea, many of whom have little hope. So he has taken it upon himself to try to organize some activities (poetry, sports, etc.) that will bring such youth together to be mentored and encouraged into seeing the hope that is before them. He was so excited when he told me about it earlier in the week that I readily agreed to join him tonight, without having any idea what was planned.
So this afternoon found me making a tram trek to a foreign part of Oradea to meet up with him at McDonalds. From there he took me to meet some young men he has been mentoring, and it turned out to be just the four of us--he had apparently hoped for more. Rather than staring at one another around a table, we decided to go to the nearby mall and buy an American football.
We were teasing H. about knowing everyone--he stopped every 50 yards to say hi, and he even knew the girl walking down the fashion runway!--which is why we took his picture with the hero poster. But the truth is, his excitement was contagious, and we hopped a tram back toward town with a football and a lot of anticipation. We reached a park and began to discuss the rules of football while explaining the throwing technique. For the second time, ironically, Mr. Jeremy-the-I-don't-follow-pro-sports-or-really-know-the-rules-American found himself teaching a handful of Europeans how to play football. Fortunately, we were able to draft two more (albeit non-anglophones), so we had enough to play 3-on-3 football in two languages, according to the rules to a greater or lesser degree. We finished that by a bite to eat at a local kabob stand, sitting as an audience for one of the guys who wanted to share his rhymes, and taking a short walk and exchanging digits before separating.
H. and I walked home, still stunned. Our plans had been completely ignored, and God had done things His way. We mused about how often the Church tries to do things its way, with all of its carefully planned programs, and how the truth is that only God can draw a person to Himself. Our job is merely to love the people He loves, letting Him reveal Himself to them. More than anything, He simply wants us to let Him love us, but as humans, we are so often too proud to receive that love! We want to do things for ourselves, our way, as we have planned! Gifts from God sound too good to be true--we want to earn them. We try to live for God, rather than letting Him live out His way in us.
H. and I agreed that the real hero tonight was not the comic superman, nor H. with his passion for young people searching for hope, nor even me with my game-for-anything attitude--it is God. May He get all the glory. The moment we turn our focus to anything other than Jesus, Himself, is the moment that we need to stop what we are doing and hand the reins back over to Him. Unless we let Him have His way in us, we do everything in vain.
Friend, I encourage you to sit down and write out your brainstorms and plans and dreams for tomorrow, for next week, and for the rest of your life. Then I encourage you to give them to the Lord, and ask Him to have His way. He wants what is best for us, He knows what is best for us, and He has the power to bring it about. What better course of action could we take? Stop trying to be the hero and let the One who is a proven Savior be the Lord of your life. I did it, and nothing has been the same since!
Before you leave this page, check out the latest picture on the bottom of the column at right. That is my new friend and roommate, H., in front of a poster of a superhero outside a mall in Oradea. But before I tell you about that heroic endeavor, let me tell you about "walking on thin rice" earlier today.
The last couple of days have been fine, though laundry has been a man-versus-machine fight that I hope to finally have resolved by Monday. Aside from that, I had a nice time helping out with the kids yesterday--in fact, I got a call from J. in the morning asking me if I could get there immediately because of an emergancy that delayed the normal staff. So I got to "man the fort" by myself for a little while. We then had a nice day at work, followed by a low key evening that involved some solid conversation with roommates J. and V. and a light dinner at a local American-style cafe with a live band.
Today had a mellow start followed by lunch with the girls again, after which I got to wash the dishes once more. The Romanian word for peace is "pace" (pah-chay), so it has been delightful that the ladies are letting me enjoy "kitchen pace" after feeding me a nice meal. These hours of dishes and singing with God have been very refreshing; besides that, they are a perfect arrangement--the girls enjoy cooking and I enjoy washing the dishes! J. is a full-time physical therapist missionary; I thought maybe I should become a full-time dish-onary... But when V. caught me trying to pick grains of rice out of the bottom of my socks, she told me that in Malaysia it is very bad to step on rice since it is such an important staple--I knew then that I was walking on thin rice!
Some of you are a bit overwhelmed by the length of my posts, and others of you are requesting such detail. I have no idea who all even reads this, but I pray that when you choose to, you find the Word you need to know that day. Whoever you are, thanks for joining me on this journey. It will not all be pleasant, but it will stretch us and we certainly will grow if we persevere till the end! So before I sign off and go to bed, I need to tell you about tonight and the picture below.
My friend H. has a heart for the young people of Oradea, many of whom have little hope. So he has taken it upon himself to try to organize some activities (poetry, sports, etc.) that will bring such youth together to be mentored and encouraged into seeing the hope that is before them. He was so excited when he told me about it earlier in the week that I readily agreed to join him tonight, without having any idea what was planned.
So this afternoon found me making a tram trek to a foreign part of Oradea to meet up with him at McDonalds. From there he took me to meet some young men he has been mentoring, and it turned out to be just the four of us--he had apparently hoped for more. Rather than staring at one another around a table, we decided to go to the nearby mall and buy an American football.
We were teasing H. about knowing everyone--he stopped every 50 yards to say hi, and he even knew the girl walking down the fashion runway!--which is why we took his picture with the hero poster. But the truth is, his excitement was contagious, and we hopped a tram back toward town with a football and a lot of anticipation. We reached a park and began to discuss the rules of football while explaining the throwing technique. For the second time, ironically, Mr. Jeremy-the-I-don't-follow-pro-sports-or-really-know-the-rules-American found himself teaching a handful of Europeans how to play football. Fortunately, we were able to draft two more (albeit non-anglophones), so we had enough to play 3-on-3 football in two languages, according to the rules to a greater or lesser degree. We finished that by a bite to eat at a local kabob stand, sitting as an audience for one of the guys who wanted to share his rhymes, and taking a short walk and exchanging digits before separating.
H. and I walked home, still stunned. Our plans had been completely ignored, and God had done things His way. We mused about how often the Church tries to do things its way, with all of its carefully planned programs, and how the truth is that only God can draw a person to Himself. Our job is merely to love the people He loves, letting Him reveal Himself to them. More than anything, He simply wants us to let Him love us, but as humans, we are so often too proud to receive that love! We want to do things for ourselves, our way, as we have planned! Gifts from God sound too good to be true--we want to earn them. We try to live for God, rather than letting Him live out His way in us.
H. and I agreed that the real hero tonight was not the comic superman, nor H. with his passion for young people searching for hope, nor even me with my game-for-anything attitude--it is God. May He get all the glory. The moment we turn our focus to anything other than Jesus, Himself, is the moment that we need to stop what we are doing and hand the reins back over to Him. Unless we let Him have His way in us, we do everything in vain.
Friend, I encourage you to sit down and write out your brainstorms and plans and dreams for tomorrow, for next week, and for the rest of your life. Then I encourage you to give them to the Lord, and ask Him to have His way. He wants what is best for us, He knows what is best for us, and He has the power to bring it about. What better course of action could we take? Stop trying to be the hero and let the One who is a proven Savior be the Lord of your life. I did it, and nothing has been the same since!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Laughing in the Rain
Location: Once more in my room, 7 stories above Oradea, Romania (28 May, bedtime)
Friends, I knew today would be fairly mellow, and I knew that my open schedule would allow for God to move freely. Both were true, but very different than I had imagined.
My day began with an amazing time of intercessory and worshipful prayer with my two roommates. From that time on, we knew that the heavens and earth would be shaking today!
I had planned to do laundry, and my day became on big battle with my hosts' washing machine. It turned out that the labels are in Italian, not Romanian, and that it apparently works fine until you try to open the door. It does not drain properly, so the front-loading door remains locked shut.
So rather than laundry, I answered the phone call of my new Romanian friend from Tuesday, S. (in the picture above), and I joined him and his friends in town. We spent much of the day walking in the rain (he tried to help me find a laundromat), and we also dried off in a little cafe. One of the highlights of my afternoon was seeing some sort of red-tee-shirt Romanian election group dancing in the rain to "YMCA" and "Cotten-Eyed Joe" downtown!
But all the little snags of my day were relatively nothing compared to my new friend, V. I wasn't going to post that picture, which I actually took as a joke for a friend of mine who taught me to ask for that kind of water in Romanian, but I would like to ask that you pray for her. She learned quite a bit of troubling news today from her home of Malaysia, and she is in the process of taking many exams. Please wrap her in your prayers, and thank you in advance. God is working mightily in this young lady's life.
These small and large troubles come on the heels of our fervant intercessory prayer for Oradea. God is moving very powerfully here, and we are experiencing pathetic aftershocks of the Enemy's efforts to thwart our Father's plans. Yet like my day today, when the clouds try to drown out the beautiful joy of the Lord, I merely laugh in the rain, keeping my eyes on the Creator of the sun and the rain! Thanks for standing with us; the gates of Hell shall not prevail.
I have much to write, but it is late. Just know that each day in Oradea is better than the last, and that each one before it was already great. A quick update from the past couple of days is that I helped out J. again with the young folks with disabilities--I should probably clarify that these are not young children but rather young adults, 18 and over, the eldest being only a couple years younger than me. That went very well, and then I had my first ride on an overcrowded older-fashioned Oradea tram, followed by an hour conversation with my favorite cell-phone dealer while I waited for the network to straighten itself out. It turns out that she goes to the church pastored by my roommate! And my favorite part of the day was probably accepting J.'s dinner invitation with her and V., as well as another friend. I was given the privilege of washing dishes, and it was honestly just the refreshing "pace" (peace) that I needed to enjoy with my Jesus.
As you can see, I am richly blessed to be among such fine people in this country. I am also richly blessed to be prayed for by such fine people as you! I hope you can see that you, too, are richly blessed...
Also, you will be pleased to note that my friend M. helped me get the Italy slideshow posted, I think my posts are in a wider format for you now, and I posted my testimony at the bottom of this page, for those of you who would like to see it. My blog now comes up on a Google search if you type in "therabboni", which may help folks find it more easily. I'll keep working on the Swiss train videos and any other details that will make your journey more worthwhile! Onward!
Friends, I knew today would be fairly mellow, and I knew that my open schedule would allow for God to move freely. Both were true, but very different than I had imagined.
My day began with an amazing time of intercessory and worshipful prayer with my two roommates. From that time on, we knew that the heavens and earth would be shaking today!
I had planned to do laundry, and my day became on big battle with my hosts' washing machine. It turned out that the labels are in Italian, not Romanian, and that it apparently works fine until you try to open the door. It does not drain properly, so the front-loading door remains locked shut.
So rather than laundry, I answered the phone call of my new Romanian friend from Tuesday, S. (in the picture above), and I joined him and his friends in town. We spent much of the day walking in the rain (he tried to help me find a laundromat), and we also dried off in a little cafe. One of the highlights of my afternoon was seeing some sort of red-tee-shirt Romanian election group dancing in the rain to "YMCA" and "Cotten-Eyed Joe" downtown!
But all the little snags of my day were relatively nothing compared to my new friend, V. I wasn't going to post that picture, which I actually took as a joke for a friend of mine who taught me to ask for that kind of water in Romanian, but I would like to ask that you pray for her. She learned quite a bit of troubling news today from her home of Malaysia, and she is in the process of taking many exams. Please wrap her in your prayers, and thank you in advance. God is working mightily in this young lady's life.
These small and large troubles come on the heels of our fervant intercessory prayer for Oradea. God is moving very powerfully here, and we are experiencing pathetic aftershocks of the Enemy's efforts to thwart our Father's plans. Yet like my day today, when the clouds try to drown out the beautiful joy of the Lord, I merely laugh in the rain, keeping my eyes on the Creator of the sun and the rain! Thanks for standing with us; the gates of Hell shall not prevail.
I have much to write, but it is late. Just know that each day in Oradea is better than the last, and that each one before it was already great. A quick update from the past couple of days is that I helped out J. again with the young folks with disabilities--I should probably clarify that these are not young children but rather young adults, 18 and over, the eldest being only a couple years younger than me. That went very well, and then I had my first ride on an overcrowded older-fashioned Oradea tram, followed by an hour conversation with my favorite cell-phone dealer while I waited for the network to straighten itself out. It turns out that she goes to the church pastored by my roommate! And my favorite part of the day was probably accepting J.'s dinner invitation with her and V., as well as another friend. I was given the privilege of washing dishes, and it was honestly just the refreshing "pace" (peace) that I needed to enjoy with my Jesus.
As you can see, I am richly blessed to be among such fine people in this country. I am also richly blessed to be prayed for by such fine people as you! I hope you can see that you, too, are richly blessed...
Also, you will be pleased to note that my friend M. helped me get the Italy slideshow posted, I think my posts are in a wider format for you now, and I posted my testimony at the bottom of this page, for those of you who would like to see it. My blog now comes up on a Google search if you type in "therabboni", which may help folks find it more easily. I'll keep working on the Swiss train videos and any other details that will make your journey more worthwhile! Onward!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Distinct Privilege
Location: My bedroom in Oradea, Romania (27 May, early morning)
I have the distinct privilege of coming to you just as I finish my daily prayer time with the LORD. In other words, I continue my prayer time by writing you.
In fact, I have many distinct privileges. It is a privilege to be loved and prayed for by you. It is a privilege to receive so many notes from you via email; thank you for your patience as I try to respond. It is a privilege to have had the opportunity to meet people like you all over the world, and to see what the LORD is doing around the planet. It is a privilege to be loved by the God of the universe, to be able to come before Him in prayer, knowing that I have been adopted into even His family. It is a privilege to know that dispite my lack of qualifications, God wants to live in me and use me for His glory--and that He not only wants to, but does!
Prayer is the reason I write you today. Last night, we had a rather charismatic prayer meeting in the home where I am staying, and we crammed nearly twenty people into a space that is smaller than my old apartment, for those of you who visited me there. I was pleased when we took a lot of time to pray specifically for different churches of different denominations in Oradea. Join us in praying for the Church around the world! What a privilege it has been for me to continue to lift up the Church in Indianapolis from my station in Europe!
But I have more prayer requests. At the top of this page, you noticed a picture of me with a young man in a red shirt. S. is a twenty-year-old Romanian security guard who wants to make it big as a rapper and live in the "United," as he was calling the U.S. He used to want to be a pastor. I met him downtown yesterday, and he was helping me with my Romanian. Then he introduced me to several of his friends, and we played basketball in the park! I told them I was from the state where basketball was invented, so I had a lot riding on my performance!
I asked S. if I could post his picture so you could pray for him. His father cannot walk (since the age of 8), his mother has cancer, his older sister is recovering from pneumonia, and his younger brother is unemployed. Even with his job, he is struggling to make it. His story is not much different than many of the rest of the Romanians, except for one thing--he has hope! I do not think he knows the hope he has in Christ, but I am hoping he will join us at a youth event this Saturday where he might be able to learn more about that Hope. Thank you for your prayers!
I also posted a picture (scroll down to the bottom of the picture column) of the kids with disabilities with whom I worked Monday; I'm planning to go see them today, too. They actually gather in the bottom level of the building in which I live (how's that for convenient!), and so this picture was from our apartment window. Please lift them in prayer. Many Romanians do not have hope; those with disabilities have even a tougher life stacked against them in a country with elevators that are like rickety phonebooths, curbs and buildings without wheelchair access, and so on.
In addition to that, last night during the prayer group, we learned that a young lady just entered a psychiatric hospital in Cluj, suffering from depression. Thanks to God's work in my life with our Pressed but not Crushed group over the past year-and-a-half, I was able to share many practical tips with her friend. Please pray for this young lady.
Thank you for your prayers. I am thankful for them. Some of you have prayed for my headaches. I have only had to take medicine for them twice so far, with a couple of false alarms that you must have been praying away. Though I normally do not suffer from allergies, I have been annoyed by a runny nose since I arrived in Romania. That might be more than you wanted to know, but I tell you because your prayers are powerful, and the Lord has been blessing me through them. He has and will meet all my needs. Thank you!
Please do not let your prayers stop there. We had CNN on the television yesterday. Please pray for the tense global situation regarding, particularly, North Korea. Please pray regarding the battle over homosexual rights, as was emphasized in California yesterday. Please pray for the new Supreme Court Justice, Sonja Sotomayor, for that Court is one of the highest powers in the United States. Please pray for President Obama as he strives to lead wisely in these and other matters, including that of Guantameno Bay. Please pray for your Church congregation, and for others in your area and in your country. Please pray for the persecuted Church, who have given their lives that others might know Christ and live. Please pray for the people affected by the "economic crisis"--it is widely discussed in Europe as it is in the United States. Please pray for your leaders and encourage them, as well as those who serve you, be they janitors, missionaries, or both. Most importantly, pray for those you would like to hate--your enemies, those who annoy you, those who disgust you, those with whom you would like to have nothing to do.
If you have not traditionally been a praying person, I hope you will understand that there is not power in prayer. Prayer is important because there is power in the God to whom we pray. Incidentally, the Bible says that the gospel is the very power of God. Whatever your own father was like, He reveals Himself to us as our perfect Father, who loves and cares for us perfectly, who listens to even our unspoken prayers, and who answers us even before we finish praying. In fact, prayer is less words and more a posture of complete surrender before our sovereign God, the One who laid the foundations of the earth and yet cares to suffer patiently and lovingly with us in a world that we corrupted by our choices.
That is the gospel (another word for "good news"): that the God of the Universe loved us so much that He humbled Himself, clothing Himself with the flesh of a man, and came to us, knowing we could never make it to Him. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh-of-a-man, not only suffered with us, but for us, taking upon Himself all the sins and sicknesses of the world, and then letting Himself be murdered as the wrath of a just God was satisfied. Then He was raised to life, having condemned the sins and sickness to eternal death, and He raised us to new life with Him. Even more amazing, He was not content to live merely with us, but then came as the Holy Spirit, that He might live in us! Thus we have the distinct privilege and responsibility to be His body, known as the Church. This "Church" is not an institution that is cursed for its crusades or the Inquistition, nor is it buildings that stand hollow or house hypocrites. The Church are those people who have been redeemed by this Jesus and who allow His Spirit to live in them, not for their own good, but for the glory of God and the good of those who do not yet know Him. This Church has the responsibility and the authority to heal, to set free, to love, and to serve the suffering world in the name of Jesus the Christ!
Today I will probably spend several hours mostly failing to effectively communicate with Romanian children in wheelchairs. Yet somewhere in the midst of that (and in the midst of me!) is the hand, and heart, of God at work! Where is the hand, and heart, of God at work in your life today? Do not forget that you have the distinct privilege of being loved by an awesome Father!
I have the distinct privilege of coming to you just as I finish my daily prayer time with the LORD. In other words, I continue my prayer time by writing you.
In fact, I have many distinct privileges. It is a privilege to be loved and prayed for by you. It is a privilege to receive so many notes from you via email; thank you for your patience as I try to respond. It is a privilege to have had the opportunity to meet people like you all over the world, and to see what the LORD is doing around the planet. It is a privilege to be loved by the God of the universe, to be able to come before Him in prayer, knowing that I have been adopted into even His family. It is a privilege to know that dispite my lack of qualifications, God wants to live in me and use me for His glory--and that He not only wants to, but does!
Prayer is the reason I write you today. Last night, we had a rather charismatic prayer meeting in the home where I am staying, and we crammed nearly twenty people into a space that is smaller than my old apartment, for those of you who visited me there. I was pleased when we took a lot of time to pray specifically for different churches of different denominations in Oradea. Join us in praying for the Church around the world! What a privilege it has been for me to continue to lift up the Church in Indianapolis from my station in Europe!
But I have more prayer requests. At the top of this page, you noticed a picture of me with a young man in a red shirt. S. is a twenty-year-old Romanian security guard who wants to make it big as a rapper and live in the "United," as he was calling the U.S. He used to want to be a pastor. I met him downtown yesterday, and he was helping me with my Romanian. Then he introduced me to several of his friends, and we played basketball in the park! I told them I was from the state where basketball was invented, so I had a lot riding on my performance!
I asked S. if I could post his picture so you could pray for him. His father cannot walk (since the age of 8), his mother has cancer, his older sister is recovering from pneumonia, and his younger brother is unemployed. Even with his job, he is struggling to make it. His story is not much different than many of the rest of the Romanians, except for one thing--he has hope! I do not think he knows the hope he has in Christ, but I am hoping he will join us at a youth event this Saturday where he might be able to learn more about that Hope. Thank you for your prayers!
I also posted a picture (scroll down to the bottom of the picture column) of the kids with disabilities with whom I worked Monday; I'm planning to go see them today, too. They actually gather in the bottom level of the building in which I live (how's that for convenient!), and so this picture was from our apartment window. Please lift them in prayer. Many Romanians do not have hope; those with disabilities have even a tougher life stacked against them in a country with elevators that are like rickety phonebooths, curbs and buildings without wheelchair access, and so on.
In addition to that, last night during the prayer group, we learned that a young lady just entered a psychiatric hospital in Cluj, suffering from depression. Thanks to God's work in my life with our Pressed but not Crushed group over the past year-and-a-half, I was able to share many practical tips with her friend. Please pray for this young lady.
Thank you for your prayers. I am thankful for them. Some of you have prayed for my headaches. I have only had to take medicine for them twice so far, with a couple of false alarms that you must have been praying away. Though I normally do not suffer from allergies, I have been annoyed by a runny nose since I arrived in Romania. That might be more than you wanted to know, but I tell you because your prayers are powerful, and the Lord has been blessing me through them. He has and will meet all my needs. Thank you!
Please do not let your prayers stop there. We had CNN on the television yesterday. Please pray for the tense global situation regarding, particularly, North Korea. Please pray regarding the battle over homosexual rights, as was emphasized in California yesterday. Please pray for the new Supreme Court Justice, Sonja Sotomayor, for that Court is one of the highest powers in the United States. Please pray for President Obama as he strives to lead wisely in these and other matters, including that of Guantameno Bay. Please pray for your Church congregation, and for others in your area and in your country. Please pray for the persecuted Church, who have given their lives that others might know Christ and live. Please pray for the people affected by the "economic crisis"--it is widely discussed in Europe as it is in the United States. Please pray for your leaders and encourage them, as well as those who serve you, be they janitors, missionaries, or both. Most importantly, pray for those you would like to hate--your enemies, those who annoy you, those who disgust you, those with whom you would like to have nothing to do.
If you have not traditionally been a praying person, I hope you will understand that there is not power in prayer. Prayer is important because there is power in the God to whom we pray. Incidentally, the Bible says that the gospel is the very power of God. Whatever your own father was like, He reveals Himself to us as our perfect Father, who loves and cares for us perfectly, who listens to even our unspoken prayers, and who answers us even before we finish praying. In fact, prayer is less words and more a posture of complete surrender before our sovereign God, the One who laid the foundations of the earth and yet cares to suffer patiently and lovingly with us in a world that we corrupted by our choices.
That is the gospel (another word for "good news"): that the God of the Universe loved us so much that He humbled Himself, clothing Himself with the flesh of a man, and came to us, knowing we could never make it to Him. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh-of-a-man, not only suffered with us, but for us, taking upon Himself all the sins and sicknesses of the world, and then letting Himself be murdered as the wrath of a just God was satisfied. Then He was raised to life, having condemned the sins and sickness to eternal death, and He raised us to new life with Him. Even more amazing, He was not content to live merely with us, but then came as the Holy Spirit, that He might live in us! Thus we have the distinct privilege and responsibility to be His body, known as the Church. This "Church" is not an institution that is cursed for its crusades or the Inquistition, nor is it buildings that stand hollow or house hypocrites. The Church are those people who have been redeemed by this Jesus and who allow His Spirit to live in them, not for their own good, but for the glory of God and the good of those who do not yet know Him. This Church has the responsibility and the authority to heal, to set free, to love, and to serve the suffering world in the name of Jesus the Christ!
Today I will probably spend several hours mostly failing to effectively communicate with Romanian children in wheelchairs. Yet somewhere in the midst of that (and in the midst of me!) is the hand, and heart, of God at work! Where is the hand, and heart, of God at work in your life today? Do not forget that you have the distinct privilege of being loved by an awesome Father!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Nigerian to the Core!
Location: In a guest room of an apartment in Oradea, Romania (26 May, just before noon)
Before I arrived in Romania, most people crinkled their eyes and turned up their noses when I said I was headed here. They do not know what they are missing! The past two days (my first two in Romania), have been some of the best of the trip so far! I have been instantly adopted into several circles of awesome friends, and in my first twenty-four hours here, I had meals from 4 different nations, not including Romania! We had Japanese food for lunch in Cluj, McDonalds when we arrived for dinner in Oradea, Malaysian rice and cake for lunch on Monday, and a Nigerian meal for dinner last night!
But let me not get ahead of myself!
I left C. in the airport in Paris and spent the rest of my 8 hours there before a brief flights to Frankfurt and Munich and finally a flight to Cluj. Included in that was a night of "sleep" in an airport (with me playing "possum" when the cleaning man swept under my bench), an extra trip through customs in Munich (I don't know why), and the opportunity to meet a Romanian American (from Georgia) woman and her baby by carrying her stroller down several flights of stairs to get to our plan. All might flights were great, and my Japanese-German neighbor and I both tried to learn Romanian together as we descended into Translyvania.
The customs agent in Cluj tried to give me a hard time when I had an American passport and said I had not been anywhere in the last ten days where the flu was prevalent, but finally I made it through to my waiting hostess, J., who was quite surprised by my two extra suitcases (which belonged to the lady from Georgia). By the way, though I had been very dubious because of my connections, my bag made it to Cluj with me, except for my MC nalgene bottle which I new I had lost as soon as I checked my bag in Paris, having forgotten to grab it out of the side pocket where it was not well secured.
J., however, had done more than everything possible to offer me a warm welcome, and we went straight from the airport to meet several of her Cluj friends whom she had not seen in nearly a year. We laughed so much that I thought the Japanese restaurant was going to kick us out, and then they walked us to the train station to send us off to Oradea. They hated to say goodbye to "Alfred," my newly named backpack who is as large and heavy as a person, and decent company when no one else is around. For instance, he took our picture at lunch, and I'll try to post it for you.
Our arrival in Oradea found J. and I fighting to keep each other awake, though we had had (in my opinion) wonderful, significant conversation during the ride. We fell into McDonald's until we could make sure my hosts were home, and then she took me to their place to introduce me to them. They are medical students from Nigeria and the U.K., and they are wonderful! I was laughing with God as I lay in my bed that first night, say, "God, how is it that I have ended up in Romania, hosted by a friend I barely know--who lives in another part of the town--staying with two guys from two different countries, whom I only met an half-hour ago!?" I love the way God works!
Yesterday morning found me failing miserably to use my Romanian in a grocery store and then receiving wayward glances as I ate some breakfast on a street curb, but I made it to my destination without getting lost or having the police called on me. My destination was the disability center where J. works three days per week, and I spent the majority of the day working and playing with children with various disabilities: most 8 or so students were confined to wheelchairs, and only a few could communicate very well, even in Romanian. Thus, I threw out all English and Romanian and just talked "kid" and we had a blast playing "Uno" and "Memory" and doing puzzles. I expect I may have the opportunity to join those kids fairly frequently--we'll have to see.
After we left the center, I got to meet J.'s Malaysian-British roommate V. and her Japanese friend M. V. fed me, so she was instantly my best friend! Then we ran a few errands while J. made a cake--we had learned that it was the birthday of the Nigerian pastor with whom I was living! I'm not sure I was officially invited, but since I was living there, I was home for the party. And when they found out that I was really Nigerian on the inside, everything was great! J. came for a little while, and she's a physical therapist, so I was the only person not in the medical field out of the dozen or so present (all the rest were med-students!). And when she left, I felt bad for my other roommate, H. from the U.K.--he was the only non-Nigerian out of all of us!
After most of my new friends left, the three of us guys who live in the apartment had some wonderful discussion about God's work in Romania. Believe it or not, none of the three of us ever planned to come to Romania, and now he has brought us together here! It is not an accident, and I fully expect to be reporting amazing things to you during this month!
I have many more things to say as the Lord has been teaching me (waiting--such as in an airport--and being in foreign places allows for an open mind that is very teachable), but neither you nor I have time for all of that for now. I will do my best to keep you updated. Oh, but you will be impressed: I sent my first-ever text message yesterday!
Thank you for your prayers; I am praying for you! Please pray for J. and her work with persons with disabilities or injuries, as well as with the other folks among whom she ministers. Please pray for I. and H. with whom I live. Though they are both upper-level medical students, I. has started a church and H. is wanting to get deeper into youth ministry. Multumesc foarte mult! (That is Romanian--without the proper accents--for thank you so very much!)
Before I arrived in Romania, most people crinkled their eyes and turned up their noses when I said I was headed here. They do not know what they are missing! The past two days (my first two in Romania), have been some of the best of the trip so far! I have been instantly adopted into several circles of awesome friends, and in my first twenty-four hours here, I had meals from 4 different nations, not including Romania! We had Japanese food for lunch in Cluj, McDonalds when we arrived for dinner in Oradea, Malaysian rice and cake for lunch on Monday, and a Nigerian meal for dinner last night!
But let me not get ahead of myself!
I left C. in the airport in Paris and spent the rest of my 8 hours there before a brief flights to Frankfurt and Munich and finally a flight to Cluj. Included in that was a night of "sleep" in an airport (with me playing "possum" when the cleaning man swept under my bench), an extra trip through customs in Munich (I don't know why), and the opportunity to meet a Romanian American (from Georgia) woman and her baby by carrying her stroller down several flights of stairs to get to our plan. All might flights were great, and my Japanese-German neighbor and I both tried to learn Romanian together as we descended into Translyvania.
The customs agent in Cluj tried to give me a hard time when I had an American passport and said I had not been anywhere in the last ten days where the flu was prevalent, but finally I made it through to my waiting hostess, J., who was quite surprised by my two extra suitcases (which belonged to the lady from Georgia). By the way, though I had been very dubious because of my connections, my bag made it to Cluj with me, except for my MC nalgene bottle which I new I had lost as soon as I checked my bag in Paris, having forgotten to grab it out of the side pocket where it was not well secured.
J., however, had done more than everything possible to offer me a warm welcome, and we went straight from the airport to meet several of her Cluj friends whom she had not seen in nearly a year. We laughed so much that I thought the Japanese restaurant was going to kick us out, and then they walked us to the train station to send us off to Oradea. They hated to say goodbye to "Alfred," my newly named backpack who is as large and heavy as a person, and decent company when no one else is around. For instance, he took our picture at lunch, and I'll try to post it for you.
Our arrival in Oradea found J. and I fighting to keep each other awake, though we had had (in my opinion) wonderful, significant conversation during the ride. We fell into McDonald's until we could make sure my hosts were home, and then she took me to their place to introduce me to them. They are medical students from Nigeria and the U.K., and they are wonderful! I was laughing with God as I lay in my bed that first night, say, "God, how is it that I have ended up in Romania, hosted by a friend I barely know--who lives in another part of the town--staying with two guys from two different countries, whom I only met an half-hour ago!?" I love the way God works!
Yesterday morning found me failing miserably to use my Romanian in a grocery store and then receiving wayward glances as I ate some breakfast on a street curb, but I made it to my destination without getting lost or having the police called on me. My destination was the disability center where J. works three days per week, and I spent the majority of the day working and playing with children with various disabilities: most 8 or so students were confined to wheelchairs, and only a few could communicate very well, even in Romanian. Thus, I threw out all English and Romanian and just talked "kid" and we had a blast playing "Uno" and "Memory" and doing puzzles. I expect I may have the opportunity to join those kids fairly frequently--we'll have to see.
After we left the center, I got to meet J.'s Malaysian-British roommate V. and her Japanese friend M. V. fed me, so she was instantly my best friend! Then we ran a few errands while J. made a cake--we had learned that it was the birthday of the Nigerian pastor with whom I was living! I'm not sure I was officially invited, but since I was living there, I was home for the party. And when they found out that I was really Nigerian on the inside, everything was great! J. came for a little while, and she's a physical therapist, so I was the only person not in the medical field out of the dozen or so present (all the rest were med-students!). And when she left, I felt bad for my other roommate, H. from the U.K.--he was the only non-Nigerian out of all of us!
After most of my new friends left, the three of us guys who live in the apartment had some wonderful discussion about God's work in Romania. Believe it or not, none of the three of us ever planned to come to Romania, and now he has brought us together here! It is not an accident, and I fully expect to be reporting amazing things to you during this month!
I have many more things to say as the Lord has been teaching me (waiting--such as in an airport--and being in foreign places allows for an open mind that is very teachable), but neither you nor I have time for all of that for now. I will do my best to keep you updated. Oh, but you will be impressed: I sent my first-ever text message yesterday!
Thank you for your prayers; I am praying for you! Please pray for J. and her work with persons with disabilities or injuries, as well as with the other folks among whom she ministers. Please pray for I. and H. with whom I live. Though they are both upper-level medical students, I. has started a church and H. is wanting to get deeper into youth ministry. Multumesc foarte mult! (That is Romanian--without the proper accents--for thank you so very much!)
Mosaic
Location: Believe it or not, a quiet corner of the lower level of Charles De Gaulle Airport's Terminal One, Paris (about 2pm local time, Saturday, 23 May)
I write to you wearing an odd array of emotions.
(Scroll down to skip a description of my emotional analysis and to read immediately more exciting news.)
I left C. at the security check for his departure not long ago. I spent a nice while in the airport prayer room after that.
Yesterday, I visited the Sacred Heart Basilica twice. (I'll try to remember to post the picture I took of my view of the Sacred Heart: not the famous white domes and walls on a hilltop, it is a picture of a vendor in the midst of a crowd of tourists above the city of Paris--with a lot of zoom you might be able to find the towers of Notre Dame on the far left of the photo. Recall from the New Testament, Jesus was not tucked away in the corner of a lofty sacred building, but among the throng of crowds outside...)
In the evening I spoke twice with my family via the Internet and webcam.
I am now the proud owner of, yes, a cell phone, or a portable (in France), a Handy (in Germany), or a mobile (in Britain).
The past few days somehow have been both relaxing and taxing, and the days ahead are full of the unknown.
So all of this stirred together makes for an indescribable set of emotions. It was a great privilege to travel with C.; God is working powerful in and through that man. At the same time, I enjoy time to myself, and the time in the prayer room was a wonderful Sabbath in the Lord. I love the view of Paris from the Basilica, but the climb and the crowds are exhausting. Likewise, it was terrific to finally connect with my family, but the time change made it a late night. It is a relief to have acquired successfully the cell phone for which I was seeking; yet I am sad to have "caved in" to the technological pressures of our always-connected world. So I am happy after ten days of blessings from Milan to Paris, and I am excited to dive into a Romanian portion of my future. It is an unusual feeling not to have a human traveling companion now, but I do love walking with Jesus! I am figuring out the cell phone, and I am wearily ready for a few hours of quasi-relaxation in the airport during the next day.
Emotions aside, my mind has been mulling over this time in Europe thus far. Some told me I would fail (which is hard to do since I do not have a specific goal). I have been rightly described as leaving on a "fool's errand," and I came knowing that perhaps I was entering a lion's den. Like a turtle, I carry my home on my back; like a homeless man, I often am unsure where I will next stay. So far, as far as I know at least, I have not been on the international news for having unwittingly transformed Europe for the better. I have not saved anyone's life, nor accomplished a heroic feat. I have not amazed crowds or evangelized thousands. I have not witnessed God's healing power cause lame men to jump up and run around, nor were fed miraculously the many hungry persons from Paris to Milan all.
Nay, but as I sleep and eat and walk and talk, what has been happening?
Yesterday, as C. and I sat at a cafe on the fringe of a crowd milling in the shadow of the Sacred Heart's white-washed edifice, the Lord brought us into conversation with two ladies at the table next to us. Without me every mentioning my Lord, the lady next to me asked if I was an evangelist. That provided me the opportunity to explain that as Christians who have surrendered to the invitation of the risen Christ, we have the distinct privilege of allowing Him to tell of His glory and love and mercy through us. We have died to ourselves, and now Christ, through His Holy Spirit, actually lives in and through us. So in that sense, we all are evangelists, wherever we are and whatever we do, presuming that we do not quench the Spirit by trying to fulfill the lusts of our flesh or fanning the fears of the world. She asked me if I had visited the churches of Paris, and I answered affirmitively. I remarked that France and, indeed, all of Europe is full of beautiful church buildings, but that sadly they are often very empty. What good is a white-washed tomb if there are only dry bones inside? How holy is a prominent Sacred Heart when it houses pickpockets and vendors overlooking raucous bellydancers and naive tourists? What good is a church building if Christians are not worshipping inside? What good is a Christian if Christ is not living freely inside?
I rather enjoyed my simple conversation with the lady next to me. And we have had many interactions with folks like that: the honeymooning couple from Dallas who dined next to us last night, the Italian duo on the turning bus whose runaway luggage I helped to arrest, the ladies we prevented from entering the men's restroom in the Zurich train station, the family who enjoyed Levi the puppet, the lady we helped to cross the street, the Korean man who joined us for breakfast at our hotel in Heidelberg, the embarrassed lady from the front-desk of that same hotel who tried to help us free our captive bags from the wardrobe, our Ethiopian friend in Milan, the two Swiss ladies across from us on the train from Italy, high-quality time with great hosts in Kronberg and Nancy, the choir members who were surprised to see me after years of virtually no contact, the waiter in the Como restaurant, the folks from Indiana we spoke with in Heidelberg, and so many more!
Of course, most of those interactions do NOT include mention of Jesus. Few people listen to a pushy preacher. Besides, it is not my job to convert anyone. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. My task is simply to humble myself before my loving God and let Him live in and through me, to reveal Himself and to bring glory to His name. That is also the role of the Church. Everyone who sees me should be able to see Jesus living in me. Everyone who sees the Church should be able to see Jesus living in Her. If you call yourself a Christian, everyone should be able to see Jesus living in you, always.
Sure, we mess up sometimes, but God gives us grace for each day. Thus, I pray for the people God puts in my path. Are any of the interactions I mentioned things that will make the front page of a newspaper or be recorded in history books? Nope! But I guarantee you that many if not all of those interactions will have consequences that far exceed anything that was done or said during those brief moments of communion with one another. And you (and I) do not have to go to Europe for these to happen, we just have to recognize them as they do. I hope that I am not so eager for Romania that I miss the persons in my life during these next twenty-four hours. I hope that you are not so focus on what will happen or what might happen or what could happen that you miss these opportunities to enjoy the presence of another human being created by God!
I am now convinced, more than ever, that the most holy, greatest moments in life are most always perceived as the smallest and simplest, if we recognize them at all. Friend, if you do not feel like you are "saving the world," take heart: a Man named Jesus already did that. Just look around and offer a loving heart, listening ear, or helping hand to the person before you. Don't look for the result--look for the opportunity!
I write to you wearing an odd array of emotions.
(Scroll down to skip a description of my emotional analysis and to read immediately more exciting news.)
I left C. at the security check for his departure not long ago. I spent a nice while in the airport prayer room after that.
Yesterday, I visited the Sacred Heart Basilica twice. (I'll try to remember to post the picture I took of my view of the Sacred Heart: not the famous white domes and walls on a hilltop, it is a picture of a vendor in the midst of a crowd of tourists above the city of Paris--with a lot of zoom you might be able to find the towers of Notre Dame on the far left of the photo. Recall from the New Testament, Jesus was not tucked away in the corner of a lofty sacred building, but among the throng of crowds outside...)
In the evening I spoke twice with my family via the Internet and webcam.
I am now the proud owner of, yes, a cell phone, or a portable (in France), a Handy (in Germany), or a mobile (in Britain).
The past few days somehow have been both relaxing and taxing, and the days ahead are full of the unknown.
So all of this stirred together makes for an indescribable set of emotions. It was a great privilege to travel with C.; God is working powerful in and through that man. At the same time, I enjoy time to myself, and the time in the prayer room was a wonderful Sabbath in the Lord. I love the view of Paris from the Basilica, but the climb and the crowds are exhausting. Likewise, it was terrific to finally connect with my family, but the time change made it a late night. It is a relief to have acquired successfully the cell phone for which I was seeking; yet I am sad to have "caved in" to the technological pressures of our always-connected world. So I am happy after ten days of blessings from Milan to Paris, and I am excited to dive into a Romanian portion of my future. It is an unusual feeling not to have a human traveling companion now, but I do love walking with Jesus! I am figuring out the cell phone, and I am wearily ready for a few hours of quasi-relaxation in the airport during the next day.
Emotions aside, my mind has been mulling over this time in Europe thus far. Some told me I would fail (which is hard to do since I do not have a specific goal). I have been rightly described as leaving on a "fool's errand," and I came knowing that perhaps I was entering a lion's den. Like a turtle, I carry my home on my back; like a homeless man, I often am unsure where I will next stay. So far, as far as I know at least, I have not been on the international news for having unwittingly transformed Europe for the better. I have not saved anyone's life, nor accomplished a heroic feat. I have not amazed crowds or evangelized thousands. I have not witnessed God's healing power cause lame men to jump up and run around, nor were fed miraculously the many hungry persons from Paris to Milan all.
Nay, but as I sleep and eat and walk and talk, what has been happening?
Yesterday, as C. and I sat at a cafe on the fringe of a crowd milling in the shadow of the Sacred Heart's white-washed edifice, the Lord brought us into conversation with two ladies at the table next to us. Without me every mentioning my Lord, the lady next to me asked if I was an evangelist. That provided me the opportunity to explain that as Christians who have surrendered to the invitation of the risen Christ, we have the distinct privilege of allowing Him to tell of His glory and love and mercy through us. We have died to ourselves, and now Christ, through His Holy Spirit, actually lives in and through us. So in that sense, we all are evangelists, wherever we are and whatever we do, presuming that we do not quench the Spirit by trying to fulfill the lusts of our flesh or fanning the fears of the world. She asked me if I had visited the churches of Paris, and I answered affirmitively. I remarked that France and, indeed, all of Europe is full of beautiful church buildings, but that sadly they are often very empty. What good is a white-washed tomb if there are only dry bones inside? How holy is a prominent Sacred Heart when it houses pickpockets and vendors overlooking raucous bellydancers and naive tourists? What good is a church building if Christians are not worshipping inside? What good is a Christian if Christ is not living freely inside?
I rather enjoyed my simple conversation with the lady next to me. And we have had many interactions with folks like that: the honeymooning couple from Dallas who dined next to us last night, the Italian duo on the turning bus whose runaway luggage I helped to arrest, the ladies we prevented from entering the men's restroom in the Zurich train station, the family who enjoyed Levi the puppet, the lady we helped to cross the street, the Korean man who joined us for breakfast at our hotel in Heidelberg, the embarrassed lady from the front-desk of that same hotel who tried to help us free our captive bags from the wardrobe, our Ethiopian friend in Milan, the two Swiss ladies across from us on the train from Italy, high-quality time with great hosts in Kronberg and Nancy, the choir members who were surprised to see me after years of virtually no contact, the waiter in the Como restaurant, the folks from Indiana we spoke with in Heidelberg, and so many more!
Of course, most of those interactions do NOT include mention of Jesus. Few people listen to a pushy preacher. Besides, it is not my job to convert anyone. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. My task is simply to humble myself before my loving God and let Him live in and through me, to reveal Himself and to bring glory to His name. That is also the role of the Church. Everyone who sees me should be able to see Jesus living in me. Everyone who sees the Church should be able to see Jesus living in Her. If you call yourself a Christian, everyone should be able to see Jesus living in you, always.
Sure, we mess up sometimes, but God gives us grace for each day. Thus, I pray for the people God puts in my path. Are any of the interactions I mentioned things that will make the front page of a newspaper or be recorded in history books? Nope! But I guarantee you that many if not all of those interactions will have consequences that far exceed anything that was done or said during those brief moments of communion with one another. And you (and I) do not have to go to Europe for these to happen, we just have to recognize them as they do. I hope that I am not so eager for Romania that I miss the persons in my life during these next twenty-four hours. I hope that you are not so focus on what will happen or what might happen or what could happen that you miss these opportunities to enjoy the presence of another human being created by God!
I am now convinced, more than ever, that the most holy, greatest moments in life are most always perceived as the smallest and simplest, if we recognize them at all. Friend, if you do not feel like you are "saving the world," take heart: a Man named Jesus already did that. Just look around and offer a loving heart, listening ear, or helping hand to the person before you. Don't look for the result--look for the opportunity!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Smelling Alive
Location: Paris, France, near the Louvre Museum in a hotel built in 1824 (mid-afternoon on Thursday)
Bon! We just returned from another adventure--a fine perfume boutique. C. says it is the nicest place he has visited in Europe! (We were on a mission to pick up some requested perfume for a family member.) In fact, we laughed as he pointed out that the only pickpockets we have encountered thus far were in the boutique, they cleaned him out in exchange for a tine bottle of aromatic water! The process was complicated and full of paperwork, and we probably could have entered and exited the White House more easily! Besides, I think it smell horrible, and I told him it needs to be stowed in the bathroom tonight so our room does not smell like it!
But more seriously, I am glad we went. It shows us a side of society we rarely see, a side that hungers to know a personal God in the way that the rest of us do. Who will minister to the needs of the rich, of the arrogant, of the snobby, of the rude, the aristocracy? Because Jesus loves them as much as He loves you and me, you and I must love them as He does!
Some people have a specific impression of a French person. Some have a specific idea of what an
American is like. Instead of these stereotypes, we must look at each person as a unique person loved by the Lord, even when his or her ways are different than ours, and we must love them--even if it is inconvenient or unpleasant to do so!
You know, because of these unique perceptions and understandings, many in France have trouble understanding my year of study in prayer; it is very outside of their idea of normal. In fact, many Americans do not understand it, so very briefly, let me try to explain.
When I quit my salaried job over a year ago to study prayer, very few people, and perhaps even I, had very little understanding of what that meant. Why did I do it? As I have studied religions and delved into a life of faith in intimate friendship and discipleship with Jesus Christ, I realized that if a god is not worth everything in life, than he is not worthy of being worshipped.
Fortunately, Yahweh, the great I AM, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is worth more than everything in life. That understanding drastically changes our perceptions of what it means to have a family, a career, possessions, etc. Furthermore, as the Lord helped me to see that the only way to know Him more intimately, more accurately, more truly is through prayer. I realized that the reason the Church has such a bad reputation in so many minds in so many parts of the world is because it is impotent--it does not display the power or the life it preaches! So I asked myself why the Church is impotent, and I understood that the Church is impotent because it has tried to do so-called "Christian" things without knowing Jesus Christ Himself. In other words, the Church has turned prayer into a rote tradition, a habitual recitation, a droning chant, a shopping list of needs or demands... Pray is dead in most so-called "Christians." But how can the Church--the Body--be alive without being connected to the Head, Jesus Christ? It can't! And that is the role prayer plays.
When I realized that, I understood that there was no more important priority than truly comprehending what it means to pray, and to do so regularly (without ceasing, in fact), in order to always be in communion, fellowship (a.k.a. connected) with Jesus, the living Son of God!
Thus, my time in prayer took me deeply into relationship with the Lord. Yet this all took place in the midst of mostly "normal" life. The Lord provided for me, in part by providing me the perfect part-time job that allowed me to spend whole days focusing on prayer and ministry. In short, for the past year, my eyes have been fixed on the Lord, no matter what that looked like to the watching world. This posture led me in and out of many adventures, as well as times of quiet and waiting. I read books and learned from wise men, and I had many discussions about prayer and God, with Christians and non-Christians. There were no classes, formal teachers, a syllabus, or monastic life--just real life, to the fullest!
After all that time, my understanding of prayer changed, and my relationship with the Lord deepened. Church, we must know God! That is the very definition of eternal life--being forever before a continuously self-revealing infinitly wonderful God! It does not have to do with cherubs and clouds or escaping third-degree burns! It is not a dunk in a bath tub that then gives you license to live however you want. A true Christian is one whose life is no longer his own, but instead Christ, the very Son of God, lives in and through Him! Oh that you and I can be that Christian! Oh that we would be willing not only to reap the blessings of a life of fellowship with the Living God, but also the challenges, suffering, and responsibilities that come with it during our time on this earth!
So my year of prayer is somethine I will never regret. It taught me that pray, at its most simple, most fundamental, most critical level, is a posture. It is a posture of humiliy before a sovereign, holy God. And to live boldly in that humility every moment of every day is what we must do. It is a privilege, and it results in true life--His life living in us, the Body (Church) of Christ. So I began a year of prayer and now find myself in a lifetime of prayer. I initially stripped away the things that identified me--my career, my possessions, my reputation--and learned that unless I have an identity given to me by God, there is nothing that can truly identify me.
I am in Paris. I don't know where you are.
I am headed to Romania. I don't know where you are headed.
I know what has happened. I don't know what is to come.
I know who I am. I don't know what you think about me.
But I know Jesus. I hope you do, too!
Bon! We just returned from another adventure--a fine perfume boutique. C. says it is the nicest place he has visited in Europe! (We were on a mission to pick up some requested perfume for a family member.) In fact, we laughed as he pointed out that the only pickpockets we have encountered thus far were in the boutique, they cleaned him out in exchange for a tine bottle of aromatic water! The process was complicated and full of paperwork, and we probably could have entered and exited the White House more easily! Besides, I think it smell horrible, and I told him it needs to be stowed in the bathroom tonight so our room does not smell like it!
But more seriously, I am glad we went. It shows us a side of society we rarely see, a side that hungers to know a personal God in the way that the rest of us do. Who will minister to the needs of the rich, of the arrogant, of the snobby, of the rude, the aristocracy? Because Jesus loves them as much as He loves you and me, you and I must love them as He does!
Some people have a specific impression of a French person. Some have a specific idea of what an
American is like. Instead of these stereotypes, we must look at each person as a unique person loved by the Lord, even when his or her ways are different than ours, and we must love them--even if it is inconvenient or unpleasant to do so!
You know, because of these unique perceptions and understandings, many in France have trouble understanding my year of study in prayer; it is very outside of their idea of normal. In fact, many Americans do not understand it, so very briefly, let me try to explain.
When I quit my salaried job over a year ago to study prayer, very few people, and perhaps even I, had very little understanding of what that meant. Why did I do it? As I have studied religions and delved into a life of faith in intimate friendship and discipleship with Jesus Christ, I realized that if a god is not worth everything in life, than he is not worthy of being worshipped.
Fortunately, Yahweh, the great I AM, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is worth more than everything in life. That understanding drastically changes our perceptions of what it means to have a family, a career, possessions, etc. Furthermore, as the Lord helped me to see that the only way to know Him more intimately, more accurately, more truly is through prayer. I realized that the reason the Church has such a bad reputation in so many minds in so many parts of the world is because it is impotent--it does not display the power or the life it preaches! So I asked myself why the Church is impotent, and I understood that the Church is impotent because it has tried to do so-called "Christian" things without knowing Jesus Christ Himself. In other words, the Church has turned prayer into a rote tradition, a habitual recitation, a droning chant, a shopping list of needs or demands... Pray is dead in most so-called "Christians." But how can the Church--the Body--be alive without being connected to the Head, Jesus Christ? It can't! And that is the role prayer plays.
When I realized that, I understood that there was no more important priority than truly comprehending what it means to pray, and to do so regularly (without ceasing, in fact), in order to always be in communion, fellowship (a.k.a. connected) with Jesus, the living Son of God!
Thus, my time in prayer took me deeply into relationship with the Lord. Yet this all took place in the midst of mostly "normal" life. The Lord provided for me, in part by providing me the perfect part-time job that allowed me to spend whole days focusing on prayer and ministry. In short, for the past year, my eyes have been fixed on the Lord, no matter what that looked like to the watching world. This posture led me in and out of many adventures, as well as times of quiet and waiting. I read books and learned from wise men, and I had many discussions about prayer and God, with Christians and non-Christians. There were no classes, formal teachers, a syllabus, or monastic life--just real life, to the fullest!
After all that time, my understanding of prayer changed, and my relationship with the Lord deepened. Church, we must know God! That is the very definition of eternal life--being forever before a continuously self-revealing infinitly wonderful God! It does not have to do with cherubs and clouds or escaping third-degree burns! It is not a dunk in a bath tub that then gives you license to live however you want. A true Christian is one whose life is no longer his own, but instead Christ, the very Son of God, lives in and through Him! Oh that you and I can be that Christian! Oh that we would be willing not only to reap the blessings of a life of fellowship with the Living God, but also the challenges, suffering, and responsibilities that come with it during our time on this earth!
So my year of prayer is somethine I will never regret. It taught me that pray, at its most simple, most fundamental, most critical level, is a posture. It is a posture of humiliy before a sovereign, holy God. And to live boldly in that humility every moment of every day is what we must do. It is a privilege, and it results in true life--His life living in us, the Body (Church) of Christ. So I began a year of prayer and now find myself in a lifetime of prayer. I initially stripped away the things that identified me--my career, my possessions, my reputation--and learned that unless I have an identity given to me by God, there is nothing that can truly identify me.
I am in Paris. I don't know where you are.
I am headed to Romania. I don't know where you are headed.
I know what has happened. I don't know what is to come.
I know who I am. I don't know what you think about me.
But I know Jesus. I hope you do, too!
Backward and Forward
Location: In a guest room of the house I used to live in with my host family in Nancy, France (early morning on Thursday, May 21)
I thank my Father for many things, including you. I am thankful also for a patient traveling companion, for I know his patience has been tested by such a regular, strong dose of me during this past week. I am thankful for the Lord's help in recalling to me the French language, which has returned swiftly despite my inclusion of many foreign words from the previous week's travels and the past several years of Spanish study. I am thankful for the opportunity to see again the family that was so good to me while I lived in France. I am thankful for the privilege of being loved by a God that holds the universe in the palm of His hand, yet who takes pleasure in being directly involved in my life, abiding in me, in fact, through His holy Spirit, having loved me so much that He came to me when I had distanced myself from Him with my sin--clothed in the form of a man, He broke into the dark world I had chosen to live in, He gave me His perfect life in exchange for my evil that He took upon Him, dying at the hands of Roman executioners and offered me the privilege of joining Him in His everlasting life when He conquored death, leaving behind an empty tomb. He did that for you, too! Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Yes, Jesus is alive and well, and currently we are seeing Him at work in Nancy, France. We arrived yesterday late afternoon, having grabbed a quick lunch in Strausbourg on the way. The adventures began when my host-mom from six years ago picked us up at the train station, leading to some impromptu errands that quickly reminded us that culture shock is worse when we are tired and do not speak the language. We were spoiled by the last few days with a very Americanized (in several ways) family in Germany, and I had foreseen that this transition into France would be especially tough on C. since we were entering an area where he could not communicate. He marveled allowed at how quickly we moved from German- to French-speaking territory, only by crossing an invisible line!
But we both survived, and enjoyed, our initial plunge into Nancy, and we finally deposited ourselves and our packs at the house and joined the family for a quick dinner, where I was pleasantly surprised that I so easily was able to translate. Our hosts know a little English, too, which was appreciated. The family gave us a warm welcome, and even dusted off the guitar I had played when I was here last--no one had played it since! Then I left C. to recover in peace, and I joined my host-mom at choir rehearsal--I had participated in that choir six years ago, and needless to say they were surprised to see me! It was fun to sing with them again!
We found ourselves in the midst of many busy lives here, and our hosts have been very hospitable, but with little time to visit. So, we are heading to Paris this morning, sharing a train with my host mom so we can visit on the way. Then we have only a day-and-a-half before our flights leave--how quickly these past few days have gone!
Thanks for your prayers for us, as well as for the family in whose house I am typing at the moment. They are preparing for a wedding, exams, a trip, and whatever else life throws at them, and some grace and peace and Hope would certainly lessen the tensions.
What is God up to in Nancy? It is hard to comprehend or describe in these brief hours I have been here, so it will be good to return for the wedding in July. But for now, the sun is coming out and the day is beginning! To Paris! Carpe diem!
I thank my Father for many things, including you. I am thankful also for a patient traveling companion, for I know his patience has been tested by such a regular, strong dose of me during this past week. I am thankful for the Lord's help in recalling to me the French language, which has returned swiftly despite my inclusion of many foreign words from the previous week's travels and the past several years of Spanish study. I am thankful for the opportunity to see again the family that was so good to me while I lived in France. I am thankful for the privilege of being loved by a God that holds the universe in the palm of His hand, yet who takes pleasure in being directly involved in my life, abiding in me, in fact, through His holy Spirit, having loved me so much that He came to me when I had distanced myself from Him with my sin--clothed in the form of a man, He broke into the dark world I had chosen to live in, He gave me His perfect life in exchange for my evil that He took upon Him, dying at the hands of Roman executioners and offered me the privilege of joining Him in His everlasting life when He conquored death, leaving behind an empty tomb. He did that for you, too! Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Yes, Jesus is alive and well, and currently we are seeing Him at work in Nancy, France. We arrived yesterday late afternoon, having grabbed a quick lunch in Strausbourg on the way. The adventures began when my host-mom from six years ago picked us up at the train station, leading to some impromptu errands that quickly reminded us that culture shock is worse when we are tired and do not speak the language. We were spoiled by the last few days with a very Americanized (in several ways) family in Germany, and I had foreseen that this transition into France would be especially tough on C. since we were entering an area where he could not communicate. He marveled allowed at how quickly we moved from German- to French-speaking territory, only by crossing an invisible line!
But we both survived, and enjoyed, our initial plunge into Nancy, and we finally deposited ourselves and our packs at the house and joined the family for a quick dinner, where I was pleasantly surprised that I so easily was able to translate. Our hosts know a little English, too, which was appreciated. The family gave us a warm welcome, and even dusted off the guitar I had played when I was here last--no one had played it since! Then I left C. to recover in peace, and I joined my host-mom at choir rehearsal--I had participated in that choir six years ago, and needless to say they were surprised to see me! It was fun to sing with them again!
We found ourselves in the midst of many busy lives here, and our hosts have been very hospitable, but with little time to visit. So, we are heading to Paris this morning, sharing a train with my host mom so we can visit on the way. Then we have only a day-and-a-half before our flights leave--how quickly these past few days have gone!
Thanks for your prayers for us, as well as for the family in whose house I am typing at the moment. They are preparing for a wedding, exams, a trip, and whatever else life throws at them, and some grace and peace and Hope would certainly lessen the tensions.
What is God up to in Nancy? It is hard to comprehend or describe in these brief hours I have been here, so it will be good to return for the wedding in July. But for now, the sun is coming out and the day is beginning! To Paris! Carpe diem!
Silent Siege
Location: ICE train in Germany, en route to Strausbourg from Frankfurt (it is a little before noon on Wednesday, the 20th of May)
I happily write you after a mini-interrogation by the German Federal Police. They passed our compartment soon after we pulled away from the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Main Station), but immediatly returned and asked for our passports and our travel destination, etc. They then made some phone calls to check out our birthdays and other identifying information before smiling and wishing us happy travels. Though I do not think that is normal (they never even wanted to see our train tickets), there did seem to be a little extra security at the station, as well as some posters about terrorism. Perhaps we look like overburdened terrorists?
So I write after a pleasant séjour with the B. family in Kronberg. During this low-stress time, we were not bound by any sort of rigorous schedule, and we took advantage of the wonderful hospitality of our friends to catch up on email, laundry, and rest. I was very pleased to make it through a large number of emails that had been awaiting me, only to find 25 more the next day! Thanks for your encouraging notes and prayers, as well as your patience for my often tardy response. One friend suggested I try to widen my blog margin to facilitate your reading of it; it is a good suggestion, and I will try to, but no promises on success!
We enjoyed brief visits to Frankfurt and some of the surronding towns, including Kronberg. You would have laughed had you watched some of our navigational bumbles, as well as me answering the door to speak "German" to whichever unfortunate soul chose to ring the bell when I was the only one available to come to the door. C. learned a lot of German from the family, and I spent time each day working with the younger son in English. We failed to acquire a cell phone (so far, but we are still optimistic), and we did not go into a local school because the students "didn't deserve a reward." I did have the distinct pleasure of meeting a South African native who is involved in the local English-speaking international church, and I am very excited about the future consequences of that discussion; I expect the Lord has some very specific plans. In short, I believe it very likely that He will lead me back to or through Frankfurt this summer.
I am convinced that C. and I are both "very American," with the primary difference being that he admits it, and I am in denial. I have tried to do all I can to less the effects of culture shock for him, but it has been fun to be reminded of the thoughts and experiences I had when immersing myself in the European culture for the first time. Some of these include survival of mass transit, paying to potty, learning to walk lengthy distances, small refrigerators, speed reduction obstacles in the road, crossing the street as a pedestrian, lack of ice cubes and a proliferation of carbonated water, battling or exemplifying stereotypes of Americans, and new definitions of "personal space" and "modesty" and "normal."
Speaking of new definitions of personal space, just after I typed that, a lady joined us in "our" compartment, which is perfectly fine, but just seems unusual if there are any other seats available on the train. I presume that new adventures are about to begin!
Yet before they do, I need to mention the following for you who pray. The Lord has helped me to understand that we are beseiged right now, by the Enemy. When we first arrived on European soil, most of the attacks were superficial--such as missing luggage and in-your-face culture shock. Now however, we were not noticing what I would consider even more dangerous attacks, because they have been much more subtle.
As we relaxed this week, I saw that we were not only facing direct opposition through language, cultural, and traveling difficulties, but also less obvious things: a tendency toward laziness, spiritual lethargy (now that the adventures had calmed down some), distraction, fleshly desires, confusion, and so on. In addition, C. has been suffering from mild vertigo since the second or third day, and for those of you who have been praying against my headaches (thank you!), I have had two small ones that were quickly purged by aspirin. Yet all of this, added to federal police and train conductors and grumpy bus drivers and mistaken directions and the like, threaten to overwhelm us without us even realizing it. The best image I can give is that if there is some sort of "cloud" of darkness over all or parts of Europe, initially it buffeted us forcibly, and now it is settling upon or smothering us.
Thank you for your prayers. We give thanks to a God who has brought us here, who has revealed this to us, and whose strength sustains as while His Spirit goes before us.
Please pray that as we head to Strausbourg and Nancy and Paris and beyond, that we will be cognizant of what is happening in the heavenlies, that the gospel-the very power of God--would be alive in us zealously, that the Lord would use every moment of our every day to prevail against the gates of Hell, to pierce the darkness and proclaim hope to the hungry around us. We give Him thanks for you, and we thank Him for the good people of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. We lay ourselves before Him, and we lift you and them up to Him, that He might be glorified in His people, His Church.
I have heard of slight changes to the "plans" for next month in Romania, and we still have several days of His will in France. Maranatha! This is only the beginning! May the Name of the LORD be praised!
I happily write you after a mini-interrogation by the German Federal Police. They passed our compartment soon after we pulled away from the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Main Station), but immediatly returned and asked for our passports and our travel destination, etc. They then made some phone calls to check out our birthdays and other identifying information before smiling and wishing us happy travels. Though I do not think that is normal (they never even wanted to see our train tickets), there did seem to be a little extra security at the station, as well as some posters about terrorism. Perhaps we look like overburdened terrorists?
So I write after a pleasant séjour with the B. family in Kronberg. During this low-stress time, we were not bound by any sort of rigorous schedule, and we took advantage of the wonderful hospitality of our friends to catch up on email, laundry, and rest. I was very pleased to make it through a large number of emails that had been awaiting me, only to find 25 more the next day! Thanks for your encouraging notes and prayers, as well as your patience for my often tardy response. One friend suggested I try to widen my blog margin to facilitate your reading of it; it is a good suggestion, and I will try to, but no promises on success!
We enjoyed brief visits to Frankfurt and some of the surronding towns, including Kronberg. You would have laughed had you watched some of our navigational bumbles, as well as me answering the door to speak "German" to whichever unfortunate soul chose to ring the bell when I was the only one available to come to the door. C. learned a lot of German from the family, and I spent time each day working with the younger son in English. We failed to acquire a cell phone (so far, but we are still optimistic), and we did not go into a local school because the students "didn't deserve a reward." I did have the distinct pleasure of meeting a South African native who is involved in the local English-speaking international church, and I am very excited about the future consequences of that discussion; I expect the Lord has some very specific plans. In short, I believe it very likely that He will lead me back to or through Frankfurt this summer.
I am convinced that C. and I are both "very American," with the primary difference being that he admits it, and I am in denial. I have tried to do all I can to less the effects of culture shock for him, but it has been fun to be reminded of the thoughts and experiences I had when immersing myself in the European culture for the first time. Some of these include survival of mass transit, paying to potty, learning to walk lengthy distances, small refrigerators, speed reduction obstacles in the road, crossing the street as a pedestrian, lack of ice cubes and a proliferation of carbonated water, battling or exemplifying stereotypes of Americans, and new definitions of "personal space" and "modesty" and "normal."
Speaking of new definitions of personal space, just after I typed that, a lady joined us in "our" compartment, which is perfectly fine, but just seems unusual if there are any other seats available on the train. I presume that new adventures are about to begin!
Yet before they do, I need to mention the following for you who pray. The Lord has helped me to understand that we are beseiged right now, by the Enemy. When we first arrived on European soil, most of the attacks were superficial--such as missing luggage and in-your-face culture shock. Now however, we were not noticing what I would consider even more dangerous attacks, because they have been much more subtle.
As we relaxed this week, I saw that we were not only facing direct opposition through language, cultural, and traveling difficulties, but also less obvious things: a tendency toward laziness, spiritual lethargy (now that the adventures had calmed down some), distraction, fleshly desires, confusion, and so on. In addition, C. has been suffering from mild vertigo since the second or third day, and for those of you who have been praying against my headaches (thank you!), I have had two small ones that were quickly purged by aspirin. Yet all of this, added to federal police and train conductors and grumpy bus drivers and mistaken directions and the like, threaten to overwhelm us without us even realizing it. The best image I can give is that if there is some sort of "cloud" of darkness over all or parts of Europe, initially it buffeted us forcibly, and now it is settling upon or smothering us.
Thank you for your prayers. We give thanks to a God who has brought us here, who has revealed this to us, and whose strength sustains as while His Spirit goes before us.
Please pray that as we head to Strausbourg and Nancy and Paris and beyond, that we will be cognizant of what is happening in the heavenlies, that the gospel-the very power of God--would be alive in us zealously, that the Lord would use every moment of our every day to prevail against the gates of Hell, to pierce the darkness and proclaim hope to the hungry around us. We give Him thanks for you, and we thank Him for the good people of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. We lay ourselves before Him, and we lift you and them up to Him, that He might be glorified in His people, His Church.
I have heard of slight changes to the "plans" for next month in Romania, and we still have several days of His will in France. Maranatha! This is only the beginning! May the Name of the LORD be praised!
Monday, May 18, 2009
As Much As You Want!
Friends,
You will notice that my posts are caught up, and barring a couple of technical difficulties, so are my photographs. If you want more to look at, make sure you are reading in the margins where there are photos and links to more photos, as well as my profile and other information. Thank you to those of you who have left comments; I will do my best to respond when appropriate! Thanks for your prayers and for joining me on this journey! Happy traveling!
You will notice that my posts are caught up, and barring a couple of technical difficulties, so are my photographs. If you want more to look at, make sure you are reading in the margins where there are photos and links to more photos, as well as my profile and other information. Thank you to those of you who have left comments; I will do my best to respond when appropriate! Thanks for your prayers and for joining me on this journey! Happy traveling!
Chillaxing
Location: Basement of friends' house in Kronberg, Germany
C. and I are right at the halfway point of our time together, and things are going well!
Yesterday morning, we visited Providence Church in Heidelberg. There are many churches in the area (see the photo of the steeples), but sadly, there were only around fifty persons in attendance at what was described to us as one of only two Evangelical churches in Heidelberg, even with a guest choir present to share their voices. The service was very formal, almost liturgical, and the tone was serious. I understood very little of the German while C. followed most of it, but I tried my best at singing nonetheless! I do know that the sermon was based on John 16:23-28 and verse 33, with an Old Testament reading of the first part of Exodus 32. I studied that this morning, and there is some fascinating teaching therein; I wish I could have understood the sermon so that C. and I could have discussed it more thoroughly.
After church we wanted some authentic German food, so we had some Burger King at the train station. Then we caught the train to Frankfurt, and then the S-Bahn (local transit train) to Kronberg (a suberb of Frankfurt). On the S-Bahn, my puppet made its first appearance of the trip.
Many of you are probably familiar with the alligator-dinosaur-like green-and-pink puppet that used to live under the seat of my car. Well, he stowed away in my luggage, which explains some of the perplexed looks I observed on the faces of the security staff who were x-raying baggage at the airports. He finally popped out of my backpack yesterday on the S-Bahn, much to the delight of K. and K., two young children who were sitting across from us and asking their parents about our large bags. We had a fun time of play with the puppet for the twenty-minute train ride! We even learned that the little girl had slept with a plastic crocodile each night for a long time in the past, which is one reason she was particularly fond of Levi. By the way, after being alive for twenty-five odd years, I decided the puppet should have a name, and I thought "Levi" was appropriate, as it is short for Leviathan.
Puppets aside, we arrived in Kronberg and were welcomed by our friends, the B. family. They are particularly hospitable, and we enjoyed good discussion before a nice lunch at the tennis courts, followed by some lap-swim at the local pool. I had not anticipated such strenuous exercise, but it was good for my backpack-sore joints and muscles. Body-building C. picked up my pack yesterday for the first time and was amazed at how heavy it is--he now realized that my occasional whining was justified! Four-months of belongings weighs a bit more than 10-days' worth, though he has been buying books to try to balance things out! Nevertheless, I may be as well-muscled as him by the end of the summer!
I finally read through my emails last night, and I hope to respond some today. If you have been waiting for a reply, I apologize, because I have had virtually no opportunity to work online. Thanks for your patience!
I find (as I did years ago) that I feel very much at home among the Germans, despite the fact that my German-language skills are among my worst. So we are being spoiled here by the B. family, and we are looking forward to our few days here. We taught the boys the popular American slang word "chillax," which they liked because evidently "chill" is popular among young Germans. And we were helping the younger brother with his English pronunciation of "th." The practice sentence we came up with was "Practice this, that, and the other with your father, mother, and brother!" We may even get to go to his school with him tomorrow!
But for now, we are looking forward to our "chillax" day today. We are doing laundry (which will make us even better-received by the Germans), catching up on some online work, resting, and whatever else the LORD has in mind for us today. May you, too, rest in the LORD as you go about your day, as you give thanks for friends and their hospitality, and as you look forward to what might be in store for the near future! Resting is something we do not do well, yet we are to rest in the LORD, and sometimes it even takes practice. Remember, Church, practice this, that, and the other with your Father, mother, and brother!
C. and I are right at the halfway point of our time together, and things are going well!
Yesterday morning, we visited Providence Church in Heidelberg. There are many churches in the area (see the photo of the steeples), but sadly, there were only around fifty persons in attendance at what was described to us as one of only two Evangelical churches in Heidelberg, even with a guest choir present to share their voices. The service was very formal, almost liturgical, and the tone was serious. I understood very little of the German while C. followed most of it, but I tried my best at singing nonetheless! I do know that the sermon was based on John 16:23-28 and verse 33, with an Old Testament reading of the first part of Exodus 32. I studied that this morning, and there is some fascinating teaching therein; I wish I could have understood the sermon so that C. and I could have discussed it more thoroughly.
After church we wanted some authentic German food, so we had some Burger King at the train station. Then we caught the train to Frankfurt, and then the S-Bahn (local transit train) to Kronberg (a suberb of Frankfurt). On the S-Bahn, my puppet made its first appearance of the trip.
Many of you are probably familiar with the alligator-dinosaur-like green-and-pink puppet that used to live under the seat of my car. Well, he stowed away in my luggage, which explains some of the perplexed looks I observed on the faces of the security staff who were x-raying baggage at the airports. He finally popped out of my backpack yesterday on the S-Bahn, much to the delight of K. and K., two young children who were sitting across from us and asking their parents about our large bags. We had a fun time of play with the puppet for the twenty-minute train ride! We even learned that the little girl had slept with a plastic crocodile each night for a long time in the past, which is one reason she was particularly fond of Levi. By the way, after being alive for twenty-five odd years, I decided the puppet should have a name, and I thought "Levi" was appropriate, as it is short for Leviathan.
Puppets aside, we arrived in Kronberg and were welcomed by our friends, the B. family. They are particularly hospitable, and we enjoyed good discussion before a nice lunch at the tennis courts, followed by some lap-swim at the local pool. I had not anticipated such strenuous exercise, but it was good for my backpack-sore joints and muscles. Body-building C. picked up my pack yesterday for the first time and was amazed at how heavy it is--he now realized that my occasional whining was justified! Four-months of belongings weighs a bit more than 10-days' worth, though he has been buying books to try to balance things out! Nevertheless, I may be as well-muscled as him by the end of the summer!
I finally read through my emails last night, and I hope to respond some today. If you have been waiting for a reply, I apologize, because I have had virtually no opportunity to work online. Thanks for your patience!
I find (as I did years ago) that I feel very much at home among the Germans, despite the fact that my German-language skills are among my worst. So we are being spoiled here by the B. family, and we are looking forward to our few days here. We taught the boys the popular American slang word "chillax," which they liked because evidently "chill" is popular among young Germans. And we were helping the younger brother with his English pronunciation of "th." The practice sentence we came up with was "Practice this, that, and the other with your father, mother, and brother!" We may even get to go to his school with him tomorrow!
But for now, we are looking forward to our "chillax" day today. We are doing laundry (which will make us even better-received by the Germans), catching up on some online work, resting, and whatever else the LORD has in mind for us today. May you, too, rest in the LORD as you go about your day, as you give thanks for friends and their hospitality, and as you look forward to what might be in store for the near future! Resting is something we do not do well, yet we are to rest in the LORD, and sometimes it even takes practice. Remember, Church, practice this, that, and the other with your Father, mother, and brother!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Meanwhile
Friends, we are now in Frankfurt. There are three new posts below, and I hope to add the pictures tomorrow or the next day. Be blessed!
Here
Location: On the grassy bank of the Neckar River in Heidelberg, Germany (it is around 7:30 in the evening, still 16 May)
After the conductor educated us about proper use of our rail pass, we completed our otherwise uneventful train trip to Heidelberg. We found a nice hotel and a nice dinner, walking around a good bit of town in the process. I really enjoy seeing God at work here.
When I described to you previously the Gothic young people of Freiburg, I failed to mention the most significant point. All of that is, in my opinion, directly tied to the spiritual atmosphere of Europe. There are many things like that here, all of which suggest to me an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and oppression, of meaninglessness and false realities. These blind people from the truth of God's love.
So I watch for God at work. His work is perhaps easiest to see in the midst of such quiet turmoil. For example, at the moment I am sitting on the grass among families and young people and couples who are enjoying the pleasant evening next to a river slipping away into the sunset. There are volleyballs, soccer balls, badminton, blankets, dogs, musical instruments, bikes, and more. I enjoy this away-from-Saturday-shopping-crowds environment where people are laughing and playing. God is at work here.
Today while searching for a hostel, an elderly lady on the otherside of the road flagged us down. A little bewildered, I went over and make sure I could understand none of her German, and then helped her to cross the street that included the tram lines she feared. I never did understand her words, but God is at work here.
Our baggage got locked in the wardrobe in our hotel room (meaning the lock would not unlock properly), giving us the opportunity to practice more communication with the lady at the front desk as we laughed and fought the furniture together. God is at work here.
C. was looking for a certain German Bible, and this quest led us to a celler below the basement of a used bookstore, where we found row upon row of old theology books in the very town were Martin Luther defended his 95 theses so many years ago. God is at work here.
Last night, in Frieburg, I saw a girl with no face (some sort of deformity or accident) in the restaurant where we dined. Her parents were having dinner with her. Right now, I am watching a father help his daughter use a racket to successfully hit a birdie. Earlier, I saw a concerned father run down and catch up with his young son who was careening faster and faster down a steep road. A man on the very crowded bus helped an elderly woman off, and another hailed me after my poncho was knocked out of my pack. God is at work here.
A few hours ago, I was praying about church tomorrow, and I asked God to lead us to the church to which He would have us join in worship in the morning. It will probably not surprise you that He led us to a parked van that said something like the "Holy Spirit Worship Group" on the side, along with a phone number. I called the number, and we are hoping to attend church there in the morning.
God is at work here!
God is working in Indiana, and I hated to leave because of that--but man people in Indiana do not even realize it! God is at work here in Germany, and in Switzerland and Italy, and Jesus is alive and well--yet many people do not know it! I have to ask the Lord to give me His eyes, to see things from His perspective. Sometimes it looks a little different, and sometimes I have to try a little harder to see it outside of what I am used to, but God is at work here!
I told you earlier that I was reading Matthew 8 and 9. The last couple of days I moved into chapter 10, and the Lord has really been using it to teach me. It was not intended specifically for me or the Church, but rather to the Jews and the first disciples. Yet as with any and all Scripture, we must ask the Lord to show us what He wants to teach us through it. See how this passage is so meaningful to me where I am right now...
For example, Jesus sends the Twelve on a mission, and tells them to take very little, if anything with them. He tells them to speak peace into the places they go and to interact with households. Again, not all of it applies directly to me, but imagine how that resounds in my soul as I carry most of my possessions on my back through unfamiliar places, hoping that the peace of Christ that is in me will "infect" the homes of the people among whom I walk.
Jesus tells His disciples that He is sending them out as sheep among wolves who need to be clever like serpants and gentle as doves. He tells them not to worry when they are brought into question, because the Spirit will give them His words. Here I am in a place where I need the Spirit to give me words (because otherwise I cannot communicate), and where every stranger could be a wolf.
He explains that servants are not greater than their master, but that God cares for even the smallest birds and the hairs of our heads. That is the God who lives in me! The One who has given me the privilege of serving Him!
Jesus describes a life of following Him that sometimes results in leaving family and friends to carry a cross, who sometimes must loose or leave the very life he knew in order to truly live...
Never let anyone tell you that the Scriptures do not apply to our lives, to real life! God's Word is living and active, and it is good for teaching and correcting. Time and again, I have experienced this truth first-hand, and I depend on it daily. May you, too, be blessed in like manner!
After the conductor educated us about proper use of our rail pass, we completed our otherwise uneventful train trip to Heidelberg. We found a nice hotel and a nice dinner, walking around a good bit of town in the process. I really enjoy seeing God at work here.
When I described to you previously the Gothic young people of Freiburg, I failed to mention the most significant point. All of that is, in my opinion, directly tied to the spiritual atmosphere of Europe. There are many things like that here, all of which suggest to me an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and oppression, of meaninglessness and false realities. These blind people from the truth of God's love.
So I watch for God at work. His work is perhaps easiest to see in the midst of such quiet turmoil. For example, at the moment I am sitting on the grass among families and young people and couples who are enjoying the pleasant evening next to a river slipping away into the sunset. There are volleyballs, soccer balls, badminton, blankets, dogs, musical instruments, bikes, and more. I enjoy this away-from-Saturday-shopping-crowds environment where people are laughing and playing. God is at work here.
Today while searching for a hostel, an elderly lady on the otherside of the road flagged us down. A little bewildered, I went over and make sure I could understand none of her German, and then helped her to cross the street that included the tram lines she feared. I never did understand her words, but God is at work here.
Our baggage got locked in the wardrobe in our hotel room (meaning the lock would not unlock properly), giving us the opportunity to practice more communication with the lady at the front desk as we laughed and fought the furniture together. God is at work here.
C. was looking for a certain German Bible, and this quest led us to a celler below the basement of a used bookstore, where we found row upon row of old theology books in the very town were Martin Luther defended his 95 theses so many years ago. God is at work here.
Last night, in Frieburg, I saw a girl with no face (some sort of deformity or accident) in the restaurant where we dined. Her parents were having dinner with her. Right now, I am watching a father help his daughter use a racket to successfully hit a birdie. Earlier, I saw a concerned father run down and catch up with his young son who was careening faster and faster down a steep road. A man on the very crowded bus helped an elderly woman off, and another hailed me after my poncho was knocked out of my pack. God is at work here.
A few hours ago, I was praying about church tomorrow, and I asked God to lead us to the church to which He would have us join in worship in the morning. It will probably not surprise you that He led us to a parked van that said something like the "Holy Spirit Worship Group" on the side, along with a phone number. I called the number, and we are hoping to attend church there in the morning.
God is at work here!
God is working in Indiana, and I hated to leave because of that--but man people in Indiana do not even realize it! God is at work here in Germany, and in Switzerland and Italy, and Jesus is alive and well--yet many people do not know it! I have to ask the Lord to give me His eyes, to see things from His perspective. Sometimes it looks a little different, and sometimes I have to try a little harder to see it outside of what I am used to, but God is at work here!
I told you earlier that I was reading Matthew 8 and 9. The last couple of days I moved into chapter 10, and the Lord has really been using it to teach me. It was not intended specifically for me or the Church, but rather to the Jews and the first disciples. Yet as with any and all Scripture, we must ask the Lord to show us what He wants to teach us through it. See how this passage is so meaningful to me where I am right now...
For example, Jesus sends the Twelve on a mission, and tells them to take very little, if anything with them. He tells them to speak peace into the places they go and to interact with households. Again, not all of it applies directly to me, but imagine how that resounds in my soul as I carry most of my possessions on my back through unfamiliar places, hoping that the peace of Christ that is in me will "infect" the homes of the people among whom I walk.
Jesus tells His disciples that He is sending them out as sheep among wolves who need to be clever like serpants and gentle as doves. He tells them not to worry when they are brought into question, because the Spirit will give them His words. Here I am in a place where I need the Spirit to give me words (because otherwise I cannot communicate), and where every stranger could be a wolf.
He explains that servants are not greater than their master, but that God cares for even the smallest birds and the hairs of our heads. That is the God who lives in me! The One who has given me the privilege of serving Him!
Jesus describes a life of following Him that sometimes results in leaving family and friends to carry a cross, who sometimes must loose or leave the very life he knew in order to truly live...
Never let anyone tell you that the Scriptures do not apply to our lives, to real life! God's Word is living and active, and it is good for teaching and correcting. Time and again, I have experienced this truth first-hand, and I depend on it daily. May you, too, be blessed in like manner!
Outside Realities
Location: DeutschBahn Train en route from Freiburg to Heidelberg, Germany (lunchtime on Saturday, 16 May)
I suppose I only have a little while to write before we reach the train station. Last night in Freiburg was fine, but I do not have much to tell as a story. We had a nice hostel and a nice dinner, with a good time of Bible study over breakfast. But what I do want to mention is this idea of being set apart.
I mentioned in Milan about our perception of discrimination against our Ethiopian friend and us. As an American "tourist" who does not blend in even in his homeland, I was prepared to be treated as a naive foreigner--but it still feels uncomfortable. Last night at dinner in a very German restaurant, I very much felt like we were treated differently: even the bilingual German-English menu had different prices (higher in English). Today at the train station, we sat down at a table outside to wait for a few minutes before our train. The people next to us just stared and spoke in low tones while looking at us; I kept trying to figure out if there was something wrong with us, our bags, or our actions.
I think it is good for us to feel discrimination (if in fact, it is really more than my imagination), because it helps us to understand the plight of minorities in the places where I am among the majority. It gives me sympathy and compassion for them, while at the same time teaching me humility. For instance, how must the Mexican immigrants feel in the States when we demand that they "speak our language!"? I know that I would have been out-of-luck several times in the last few days in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany had that been the case for me! Or how about the North Africans in France? Or the Hmong in Burma? There are other groups that feel as though they are perceived as "less than" in this same way, some by virtue of their biological characteristics, others by choices they make. In some form or another, we need to be sensitive to how best love persons who feel ostracized because they are handicapped, label themselves homosexual, of a certain polical party, practicing a certain religion, of a gender that is a minority in a certain setting or culture, etc. I am far suggesting that we must agree with them or even understand them. But we have to stop speaking in the manner in which I am currently typing: us and them! We are we. This trip reminds me of this. We, Church, must figure out how to love those who feel unloved--not how to make them feel good about vices or sins or poor choices, but to let them know that we see each other, including persons who feel unloved, as a person created to have value by a loving, personal God. We must know that we, each of us, and everyone else, is a person for whom Jesus died on the cross, and in whom He wants to live out His holy life.
I hope to post a picture...
(Okay, we just changed trains, so I have a few more minutes before we get to Heidelberg.)
In the Freiburg train station, I took a picture of a group of young ladies dressed in an extreme Gothic fashion. Some of them had colored hair and stripped stockings; all of them were wearing predominately white and black clothing. Two even had angel wings on their backs, one pair was white and the other pair black. I hope to post that picture if I can (I was temporarily unsuccessful with my Swiss-countryside videos from yesterday).
I mention these young ladies because most of the people in the train station were avoiding their corner while not-so-inconspicuously watching them. Why would these girls dress like this? Well, I did not interact with them this time, but my experience gives me some clues. I think they feel like they do not fit into the society around them. They feel lost and unloved, below standard and hopeless. Thus, instead of screaming in frustration, they "wear" their screams, demanding the attention they crave, even willing to substitute this negative attention for the positive they seek.
I am attracted to these girls--not romantically or sexually, but rather because they are crying out for the love they need; they just do not know how to ask for it. So they alienate themselves from their parents, their responsibilities, their society, and even themselves, loosing themselves in their own new world where nothing is as it appears. In one sense, they are very bold, staring down social mores and norms, resolutely demanding that they be valued for who they are, not for what they look like.
On the other hand, they are terribly frightened. What if this does not work? What if they never find the love they desire? They cannot wear pink hair and angel wings forever! What if everything is really as it appears?
Church, please pray for these ladies in my picture. Please pray for them in our midst, in the Church! Please pray for yourselves and for us--these ladies represent those parts in all of us that feel misunderstood, frightened, dispairing, screaming for the Truth and Love we know must exist but we do not always perceive! Church, let us be the ones to love "them and us"; to let Jesus love through us. For we do know: there is Truth, there is Love, and there is Hope!
I suppose I only have a little while to write before we reach the train station. Last night in Freiburg was fine, but I do not have much to tell as a story. We had a nice hostel and a nice dinner, with a good time of Bible study over breakfast. But what I do want to mention is this idea of being set apart.
I mentioned in Milan about our perception of discrimination against our Ethiopian friend and us. As an American "tourist" who does not blend in even in his homeland, I was prepared to be treated as a naive foreigner--but it still feels uncomfortable. Last night at dinner in a very German restaurant, I very much felt like we were treated differently: even the bilingual German-English menu had different prices (higher in English). Today at the train station, we sat down at a table outside to wait for a few minutes before our train. The people next to us just stared and spoke in low tones while looking at us; I kept trying to figure out if there was something wrong with us, our bags, or our actions.
I think it is good for us to feel discrimination (if in fact, it is really more than my imagination), because it helps us to understand the plight of minorities in the places where I am among the majority. It gives me sympathy and compassion for them, while at the same time teaching me humility. For instance, how must the Mexican immigrants feel in the States when we demand that they "speak our language!"? I know that I would have been out-of-luck several times in the last few days in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany had that been the case for me! Or how about the North Africans in France? Or the Hmong in Burma? There are other groups that feel as though they are perceived as "less than" in this same way, some by virtue of their biological characteristics, others by choices they make. In some form or another, we need to be sensitive to how best love persons who feel ostracized because they are handicapped, label themselves homosexual, of a certain polical party, practicing a certain religion, of a gender that is a minority in a certain setting or culture, etc. I am far suggesting that we must agree with them or even understand them. But we have to stop speaking in the manner in which I am currently typing: us and them! We are we. This trip reminds me of this. We, Church, must figure out how to love those who feel unloved--not how to make them feel good about vices or sins or poor choices, but to let them know that we see each other, including persons who feel unloved, as a person created to have value by a loving, personal God. We must know that we, each of us, and everyone else, is a person for whom Jesus died on the cross, and in whom He wants to live out His holy life.
I hope to post a picture...
(Okay, we just changed trains, so I have a few more minutes before we get to Heidelberg.)
In the Freiburg train station, I took a picture of a group of young ladies dressed in an extreme Gothic fashion. Some of them had colored hair and stripped stockings; all of them were wearing predominately white and black clothing. Two even had angel wings on their backs, one pair was white and the other pair black. I hope to post that picture if I can (I was temporarily unsuccessful with my Swiss-countryside videos from yesterday).
I mention these young ladies because most of the people in the train station were avoiding their corner while not-so-inconspicuously watching them. Why would these girls dress like this? Well, I did not interact with them this time, but my experience gives me some clues. I think they feel like they do not fit into the society around them. They feel lost and unloved, below standard and hopeless. Thus, instead of screaming in frustration, they "wear" their screams, demanding the attention they crave, even willing to substitute this negative attention for the positive they seek.
I am attracted to these girls--not romantically or sexually, but rather because they are crying out for the love they need; they just do not know how to ask for it. So they alienate themselves from their parents, their responsibilities, their society, and even themselves, loosing themselves in their own new world where nothing is as it appears. In one sense, they are very bold, staring down social mores and norms, resolutely demanding that they be valued for who they are, not for what they look like.
On the other hand, they are terribly frightened. What if this does not work? What if they never find the love they desire? They cannot wear pink hair and angel wings forever! What if everything is really as it appears?
Church, please pray for these ladies in my picture. Please pray for them in our midst, in the Church! Please pray for yourselves and for us--these ladies represent those parts in all of us that feel misunderstood, frightened, dispairing, screaming for the Truth and Love we know must exist but we do not always perceive! Church, let us be the ones to love "them and us"; to let Jesus love through us. For we do know: there is Truth, there is Love, and there is Hope!
Humbling and Healing
Location: Train moving through Switzerland south of Lucerne, en route to Zurich from Como (early afternoon).
We purposely got a late start this morning, taking advantage of our night of rest. We also waited out a downpour, stepping into sprinkling rain. This is Friday, our third day on European soil.
Now we are winding through the mountains, hamlets, and meadows of Switzerland by train. The skies are cloudy and their is a low fog in many places over the bright and dark greens of May's plant-life. It is truly breath-taking, and though we must fight a bit of vertigo and motion-sickness here and there along the way, it is fascinating to marvel at the unique architecture, the grandeur of the waterfalls tumbling from majestic, even snow-covered peaks, the ancient block buildings that house churches and even fortress-like spaces. On the train, we hear Italian, but also German, Spanish, English, and a little French. I have tried to use the video function of my camera to catch a bit of it, and you can see us in the window's reflection. Though the video does a poor job of catching what I am seeing and hearing, I hope to figure out how to post a segment or two.
Again, thanks for your prayers. C. and I were just once more marveling about the Lord having brought us this far with so many blessings. One simple example is the return of our baggage with so little negative consequences during its absence. We know that C.'s wife was specifically praying much about that situation, and many of you were also praying for us without knowing the details of our circumstances. We thank the Lord for His grace and mercy, and we thank Him for the blessings in your life, too. May everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Not long ago, a blind man with a seeing-eye dog entered the train and sat down not far from us. I have had no interaction with him, nor have I even heard Him speak. Yet I find it ironic that he arrived moments after I finished reading Matthew 9 from the Bible's New Testament. You will recall that the final verses of that chapter include the story of Jesus, the Son of God, healing to blind men. They refer to Him hear as the "Son of David," which denotes His royalty, and when He asks them if they believe that He can heal them, they respond not only affirmatively, but it seems to me even enthusiastically. Because of this timing, I began praying for this quiet man, asking our Lord to heal him in a way that would give the Lord glory, in a way that would not terrify the man, but would lead him into the reassuring, loving arms of his Healer, His God. I frequently glance at him, wanting to be ready if the Lord guides him to me when He heals him.
Wow! You would never believe the sights out these windows as we ascend higher into the mountains! Great heights crevassed by plunging cascades and clinging arms and fingers of snow, not to mention the seemingly small buildings nestled amid verdant pastures and wisping fog, vistas, giant boulders, old and new bridges, farm houses and barns and shacks, sheep, cows, horses, curling roads, and historical edifices!
End parentheses. Yes, I was reading in Matthew 9; you will recall that the Lord was using Matthew 8 to whisper reassuringly to me a couple of nights ago, and since then I have been studying those passages carefully. What strikes me is the importance of humility. Before I left the USA, I had the distinct impression that part of my purpose in Europe was to learn more humility. Always in another language and another culture it is humbling, but these first few days have been even more so than usual.
And look at Matthew 8. When Jesus heals the man with leprosy, the man bowed before him to request the healing, and lifted up the Lord's desires above his own. When the centurion comes to ask Jesus to heal his servant, he begs him, and he explains that he is not worthy to have Jesus in his house. Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law, and she is lying in bed. Then folks possessed by demons are led to him. When certain men express their desire to come with Jesus as he travels, he explains that he has no where to lay his head, and that the dead can bury the dead themselves, rather than having much pomp and ceremony. When Jesus calms the storm, his disciples are pleading with him to save them. When the two demon-possessed men in the wilderness are set free, they ask Jesus what He wants with them. And this continues into Chapter 9.
Parenthesis: The sun is gloriously shining now! I wonder if this is when the blind man across the aisle will begin to be able to see? He is rubbing his eyes...
So I have been learning more and more humility, and more and more about humility. Jesus cannot be my Lord if I do not humble myself before Him. He will not heal me, save me, or set me free if I fight against Him, if I refuse to let Him. I cannot have my way and His. I must believe, like the blind men, that He can, in fact, perform whatever it is that I need Him to do. I must, like the centurion, take Him at His word. I must, like the disciples in the wave-covered boat, realize that my situation is hopeless without Him--I need Him to save me!
It is with this knowledge that I move forward, deeper into the heart of Switzerland, deeper into the heart of Europe. I do not know what is ahead, but I know Who is. And as long as He has His way, what better could I imagine? As long as He is my Savior, what can I fear? As long as He loves me, what does it matter what anyone else thinks of me? Like a man said to us at the last train station: "If you don't have plans [and I would add, "of your own"], they cannot go wrong!"
It is with this knowledge that I move forward, deeper into His heart.
We purposely got a late start this morning, taking advantage of our night of rest. We also waited out a downpour, stepping into sprinkling rain. This is Friday, our third day on European soil.
Now we are winding through the mountains, hamlets, and meadows of Switzerland by train. The skies are cloudy and their is a low fog in many places over the bright and dark greens of May's plant-life. It is truly breath-taking, and though we must fight a bit of vertigo and motion-sickness here and there along the way, it is fascinating to marvel at the unique architecture, the grandeur of the waterfalls tumbling from majestic, even snow-covered peaks, the ancient block buildings that house churches and even fortress-like spaces. On the train, we hear Italian, but also German, Spanish, English, and a little French. I have tried to use the video function of my camera to catch a bit of it, and you can see us in the window's reflection. Though the video does a poor job of catching what I am seeing and hearing, I hope to figure out how to post a segment or two.
Again, thanks for your prayers. C. and I were just once more marveling about the Lord having brought us this far with so many blessings. One simple example is the return of our baggage with so little negative consequences during its absence. We know that C.'s wife was specifically praying much about that situation, and many of you were also praying for us without knowing the details of our circumstances. We thank the Lord for His grace and mercy, and we thank Him for the blessings in your life, too. May everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Not long ago, a blind man with a seeing-eye dog entered the train and sat down not far from us. I have had no interaction with him, nor have I even heard Him speak. Yet I find it ironic that he arrived moments after I finished reading Matthew 9 from the Bible's New Testament. You will recall that the final verses of that chapter include the story of Jesus, the Son of God, healing to blind men. They refer to Him hear as the "Son of David," which denotes His royalty, and when He asks them if they believe that He can heal them, they respond not only affirmatively, but it seems to me even enthusiastically. Because of this timing, I began praying for this quiet man, asking our Lord to heal him in a way that would give the Lord glory, in a way that would not terrify the man, but would lead him into the reassuring, loving arms of his Healer, His God. I frequently glance at him, wanting to be ready if the Lord guides him to me when He heals him.
Wow! You would never believe the sights out these windows as we ascend higher into the mountains! Great heights crevassed by plunging cascades and clinging arms and fingers of snow, not to mention the seemingly small buildings nestled amid verdant pastures and wisping fog, vistas, giant boulders, old and new bridges, farm houses and barns and shacks, sheep, cows, horses, curling roads, and historical edifices!
End parentheses. Yes, I was reading in Matthew 9; you will recall that the Lord was using Matthew 8 to whisper reassuringly to me a couple of nights ago, and since then I have been studying those passages carefully. What strikes me is the importance of humility. Before I left the USA, I had the distinct impression that part of my purpose in Europe was to learn more humility. Always in another language and another culture it is humbling, but these first few days have been even more so than usual.
And look at Matthew 8. When Jesus heals the man with leprosy, the man bowed before him to request the healing, and lifted up the Lord's desires above his own. When the centurion comes to ask Jesus to heal his servant, he begs him, and he explains that he is not worthy to have Jesus in his house. Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law, and she is lying in bed. Then folks possessed by demons are led to him. When certain men express their desire to come with Jesus as he travels, he explains that he has no where to lay his head, and that the dead can bury the dead themselves, rather than having much pomp and ceremony. When Jesus calms the storm, his disciples are pleading with him to save them. When the two demon-possessed men in the wilderness are set free, they ask Jesus what He wants with them. And this continues into Chapter 9.
Parenthesis: The sun is gloriously shining now! I wonder if this is when the blind man across the aisle will begin to be able to see? He is rubbing his eyes...
So I have been learning more and more humility, and more and more about humility. Jesus cannot be my Lord if I do not humble myself before Him. He will not heal me, save me, or set me free if I fight against Him, if I refuse to let Him. I cannot have my way and His. I must believe, like the blind men, that He can, in fact, perform whatever it is that I need Him to do. I must, like the centurion, take Him at His word. I must, like the disciples in the wave-covered boat, realize that my situation is hopeless without Him--I need Him to save me!
It is with this knowledge that I move forward, deeper into the heart of Switzerland, deeper into the heart of Europe. I do not know what is ahead, but I know Who is. And as long as He has His way, what better could I imagine? As long as He is my Savior, what can I fear? As long as He loves me, what does it matter what anyone else thinks of me? Like a man said to us at the last train station: "If you don't have plans [and I would add, "of your own"], they cannot go wrong!"
It is with this knowledge that I move forward, deeper into His heart.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Have You Ever Heard of Como?
Location: Hotel Room in Como, Italy (late enough that I should be asleep!)
Yes, it is very late here, and I am extremely tired, having hardly slept the last several days. Yet I'm hoping that my efforts at keeping you up to date allow you to be just as blessed as we have been here on the "front lines."
Believe it or not, today was almost boring compared to yesterday's chaos! We DID get my computer and our luggage back, which is wonderful except for the fact that now we have to carry all of that! But by the time all that happened, we were ready to get out of Milan. So we hopped a train and here we are in Como, where we treated ourselves to a hotel to wash of and sleep off some of the effects and residue from our previous adventures. We now have clean clothes and towels to use with a hot shower!
However, if you do not know anything about Como, Italy, check out my slide show below. We only got here in time to find our hotel and some dinner, so there are only a few quick pictures. Nevertheless, you will see that we are suffering greatly here...right? The pictures of the lake and mountains and buildings are from Como. I included some train pictures of my buddy C. and one of the stations, because we have been on trains a lot lately! I also took a picture of some of our food at dinner simply because it was the complete opposite of last night's McDonalds! Dinner was another adventure--4 or 5 courses, no menu, no English! But it was very good. You will also see pictures of me playing with my camera timer in my hotel room--I wanted to show you the "me" that everyone knew for the last three days: they are going to think that like Superman and Fred Flinstone, I have a closet full of all the same outfit! You will also notice my new traveling companion, which I fondly refer to as my backpack! My sister would call it "ginormous"! Oh, and the first photos you will see are of us with our Ethiopian angel S. and her baby. There is also a photo of a bridge-like road, which was our view during much of our very, very long walk yesterday as we looked for our hostel.
I will do my best to stay in touch, but hopefully this will keep you busy for a little while. I cannot spend all my time on this blog--I have to sleep and get ready for more adventures!
Yes, it is very late here, and I am extremely tired, having hardly slept the last several days. Yet I'm hoping that my efforts at keeping you up to date allow you to be just as blessed as we have been here on the "front lines."
Believe it or not, today was almost boring compared to yesterday's chaos! We DID get my computer and our luggage back, which is wonderful except for the fact that now we have to carry all of that! But by the time all that happened, we were ready to get out of Milan. So we hopped a train and here we are in Como, where we treated ourselves to a hotel to wash of and sleep off some of the effects and residue from our previous adventures. We now have clean clothes and towels to use with a hot shower!
However, if you do not know anything about Como, Italy, check out my slide show below. We only got here in time to find our hotel and some dinner, so there are only a few quick pictures. Nevertheless, you will see that we are suffering greatly here...right? The pictures of the lake and mountains and buildings are from Como. I included some train pictures of my buddy C. and one of the stations, because we have been on trains a lot lately! I also took a picture of some of our food at dinner simply because it was the complete opposite of last night's McDonalds! Dinner was another adventure--4 or 5 courses, no menu, no English! But it was very good. You will also see pictures of me playing with my camera timer in my hotel room--I wanted to show you the "me" that everyone knew for the last three days: they are going to think that like Superman and Fred Flinstone, I have a closet full of all the same outfit! You will also notice my new traveling companion, which I fondly refer to as my backpack! My sister would call it "ginormous"! Oh, and the first photos you will see are of us with our Ethiopian angel S. and her baby. There is also a photo of a bridge-like road, which was our view during much of our very, very long walk yesterday as we looked for our hostel.
I will do my best to stay in touch, but hopefully this will keep you busy for a little while. I cannot spend all my time on this blog--I have to sleep and get ready for more adventures!
Blessed Misery!
Location: MIP (La Business School del Politecnico di Milano) in Milan, Italy (early afternoon)
Well, we didn't have to wait long for the adventures. Thanks for your prayers!
Neither C. nor I have had a shower or a change of clothes, except for a shirt he bought, and we only caught a few winks last night to fight of the three-day saga we have had so far. We did purchase some deoderant, as well as a voltage converter to recharge his US cell phone which got some use yesterday. A huge THANKS to his wife, T., for her long-distance help yesterday!
In my prayer journal last night, I wrote: "Abba, I wasn't going to write You like this, but I just have to praise You! This should have been a terrible day, yet You blessed us in so many ways!"
Let me catch you up!
Our third flight was as pleasantly uneventful as the first two, and it felt good to finally touch down in Milan. Customs was no problem for us; the female agent was flirting with a fellow in the booth with her, and she hardly glanced at our passports as she stamped them. C. and I were triumphant, for we had been concerned that customs might be a challenge for me with my lengthy plans and no visa. So, we practically skipped to the baggage claim, ready to be done with planes for a while!
It was not long, though, before the bags stopped coming and everyone left, leaving us waiting for our luggage that obviously did not come with us. We reported it and were told they would keep us posted, because they did not know where it was. We left with different emotions. C. was a bit concerned, having not experienced this before. To me it was "old hat" so-to-speak, and I was just excited to be able to walk around Milan without a 35-pound pack!
Thus, we headed toward the public transit, and near the elevators an Ethiopian young mother (and her baby--ask me later about her baby's Biblical name) helped us find our way; we, in turn helped her with her luggage. This turned out to be a good thing, as well as the commencement of our adventures! For you see, she had left her husband back in Ethiopia, and was traveling with 4-month old baby, 5 bags, and a stroller--and she spoke good English (and good Italian, having lived here in Milan for many years)! We had strong, (plane-ride) rested muscles, ready energy, free time, and four empty hands. This proved a beautiful combination!
S., our new friend, helped us purchase tickets for the train into town, and we missed that first train by seconds, so we were waiting for the next. I went to show her a picture on my computer, only to realize that I had left it in the seat pouch on the plane! (I had taken it out of my carry-on to make sure no one took it from me.) I rushed back into the airport, but I could not get to the British Airways desk because it was behind customs security. I made three phone calls, but I was given the run-around--imagine that it was always "someone else's" responsibility! Then I had to sprint back to C. and S. on the train platform--we barely made it, but it is true that I did not have my computer. That put a damper on my amusement, for I was picturing how I would explain my carelessness to my parents.
Fortunately, S. was also a believer in Christ, and so we mutually encouraged one another. We realized that we were each others "angels"; each of us would be lost without the others. (By the way, do you think it was a coincidence that S. had returned to the baggage claim because she had forgotten her stroller? That allowed our "chance" meeting at the elevators!) During the forty-minute train ride, we discussed our options, hoping to recover my computer, find out more about our baggage, and deliver S. to her rendez-vous with a friend who was to help her.
In a busy train-subway station where we ended up, she was unable to get a hold of her friend by phone. Next, we sadly followed her from office to office as she was repeatedly turned away from simple help that was readily available, presumably because of her skin color and/or the American "tourists" following her. Having hit a "brick wall" at every turn, we were all exhausted. C. and I decided to accompany her to the end of the subway line, where we exchanged contact information and deposited her with her baby and luggage in a waiting room where her friend could pick her up. Then we returned by subway to where we thought the hostel might be, only to end up walking many, many miles. At last we discovered the hostel, with very full bladders, very empty tummies, and emotional, mental, and physical fatigue. We momentarily colapsed at the hostel, got our bearings and gathered our wits. C. was a bit perturbed, and I was kicking myself.
Ironically, looking for the nearest place to eat, we grabbed McDonald's (despite yesterday's blog post!), then returned to the hostel to make fruitless phonecalls about our luggage and my laptop. Completely drained, we finally fell into bed.
As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time in prayer yesterday. I do not know you are a pray-er, but I would recommend it! Prayer is not just reciting poems or talking to an unseen God; prayer is humbling ourselves before an almighty God. That is what I did yesterday. I metaphorically knelt before my Lord, knowing that I had been careless and had caused several of the challenges we faced. Yet I also thanked that Lord for the many blessings: I was missing a computer, but we were safe and in the right place, and we had been given the privilege of helping others. I went to bed praising the Lord for His goodness. I was recalling some predictions I had mentioned. For example, I had told some folks in the US that though I was looking forward to adventures and the retelling of those stories, while in the midst of them, they are often miserable. I was also recalling my thoughts on the plane about the inconvenience of having to keep watch over my new technological toys (my laptop and camera), when usually I could be more at peace by traveling without valuables. I had prayed to the Lord, thanking Him for the tool of the laptop, but telling Him that I was leaving it in His hands, and that I would follow Him even if it was taken from me. I also felt reassured that the laptop would turn up soon, and our backpacks, as well--that much of what happened that day was for greater purposes. In the middle of the night, the Lord reassured me with Matthew 8, in the New Testament of the Bible. Thus it was that I fought off feelings of despair and self-condemnation and fatigue, knowing that the miserable story of which I was currently a part would become, eventually, a fun tale to tell!
Do you ever feel miserable, stuck in a string of "bad luck," wondering how you got there and how to get out? It might be kind of like being lost on foot in Milan, with nothing but the clothes on your back. If possible, next time you find yourself in that place, see if you can think "macro"--big picture. What good might come of this? What will this situation be like when I look back upon it?
So you might be dying to know what happened...
We awoke early this morning, and headed to the airport. At the airport, we used our charming smiles and the grace of God to gain access back behind customs' security. We learned that our bags were in Chicago and due in Milan at 2:00pm today. Then we were sent upstairs, where a woman delivered my laptop to me. A quick bite of lunch and a long bus ride deposited us upon the subway system and then the winding streets, which led us to a certain books store and the university that C. was scheduled to visit.
Now I am on a train headed back to the airport; our bags are supposedly awaiting us there. Then we plan to skip town, having a bit of a bias against Milan because of some of our challenges here. But secretly, I must admit how pleased I am! This is exactly why I came to Europe! I regret very little, if any of it! We have learned a lot, received numerous blessings, and met some wonderful people! We have ministered to some folks, and others have ministered to us. We have been humbled, taught, and watched over, and I feel ready for whatever comes next.
Yes, it seems to be a happy "ending," at present. But even if it were not, or even if things turn sour, I will trust the Lord. I am here because of Him; he brought me here. I plan to allow Him to work freely in me, to lead me as He desires. No matter what happens, I will trust Him. No matter how I feel or what I think, I will praise Him.
How wonderful it is to serve a loving God who is so much greater than nationalities, circumstances, physical limitations, and emotions! How wonderful it is to live in the Name of Jesus, the Christ sent by our loving Father God, who loves Italians, who loves lost and frustrated Americans, who loves humble Ethiopians, and you!
Well, we didn't have to wait long for the adventures. Thanks for your prayers!
Neither C. nor I have had a shower or a change of clothes, except for a shirt he bought, and we only caught a few winks last night to fight of the three-day saga we have had so far. We did purchase some deoderant, as well as a voltage converter to recharge his US cell phone which got some use yesterday. A huge THANKS to his wife, T., for her long-distance help yesterday!
In my prayer journal last night, I wrote: "Abba, I wasn't going to write You like this, but I just have to praise You! This should have been a terrible day, yet You blessed us in so many ways!"
Let me catch you up!
Our third flight was as pleasantly uneventful as the first two, and it felt good to finally touch down in Milan. Customs was no problem for us; the female agent was flirting with a fellow in the booth with her, and she hardly glanced at our passports as she stamped them. C. and I were triumphant, for we had been concerned that customs might be a challenge for me with my lengthy plans and no visa. So, we practically skipped to the baggage claim, ready to be done with planes for a while!
It was not long, though, before the bags stopped coming and everyone left, leaving us waiting for our luggage that obviously did not come with us. We reported it and were told they would keep us posted, because they did not know where it was. We left with different emotions. C. was a bit concerned, having not experienced this before. To me it was "old hat" so-to-speak, and I was just excited to be able to walk around Milan without a 35-pound pack!
Thus, we headed toward the public transit, and near the elevators an Ethiopian young mother (and her baby--ask me later about her baby's Biblical name) helped us find our way; we, in turn helped her with her luggage. This turned out to be a good thing, as well as the commencement of our adventures! For you see, she had left her husband back in Ethiopia, and was traveling with 4-month old baby, 5 bags, and a stroller--and she spoke good English (and good Italian, having lived here in Milan for many years)! We had strong, (plane-ride) rested muscles, ready energy, free time, and four empty hands. This proved a beautiful combination!
S., our new friend, helped us purchase tickets for the train into town, and we missed that first train by seconds, so we were waiting for the next. I went to show her a picture on my computer, only to realize that I had left it in the seat pouch on the plane! (I had taken it out of my carry-on to make sure no one took it from me.) I rushed back into the airport, but I could not get to the British Airways desk because it was behind customs security. I made three phone calls, but I was given the run-around--imagine that it was always "someone else's" responsibility! Then I had to sprint back to C. and S. on the train platform--we barely made it, but it is true that I did not have my computer. That put a damper on my amusement, for I was picturing how I would explain my carelessness to my parents.
Fortunately, S. was also a believer in Christ, and so we mutually encouraged one another. We realized that we were each others "angels"; each of us would be lost without the others. (By the way, do you think it was a coincidence that S. had returned to the baggage claim because she had forgotten her stroller? That allowed our "chance" meeting at the elevators!) During the forty-minute train ride, we discussed our options, hoping to recover my computer, find out more about our baggage, and deliver S. to her rendez-vous with a friend who was to help her.
In a busy train-subway station where we ended up, she was unable to get a hold of her friend by phone. Next, we sadly followed her from office to office as she was repeatedly turned away from simple help that was readily available, presumably because of her skin color and/or the American "tourists" following her. Having hit a "brick wall" at every turn, we were all exhausted. C. and I decided to accompany her to the end of the subway line, where we exchanged contact information and deposited her with her baby and luggage in a waiting room where her friend could pick her up. Then we returned by subway to where we thought the hostel might be, only to end up walking many, many miles. At last we discovered the hostel, with very full bladders, very empty tummies, and emotional, mental, and physical fatigue. We momentarily colapsed at the hostel, got our bearings and gathered our wits. C. was a bit perturbed, and I was kicking myself.
Ironically, looking for the nearest place to eat, we grabbed McDonald's (despite yesterday's blog post!), then returned to the hostel to make fruitless phonecalls about our luggage and my laptop. Completely drained, we finally fell into bed.
As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time in prayer yesterday. I do not know you are a pray-er, but I would recommend it! Prayer is not just reciting poems or talking to an unseen God; prayer is humbling ourselves before an almighty God. That is what I did yesterday. I metaphorically knelt before my Lord, knowing that I had been careless and had caused several of the challenges we faced. Yet I also thanked that Lord for the many blessings: I was missing a computer, but we were safe and in the right place, and we had been given the privilege of helping others. I went to bed praising the Lord for His goodness. I was recalling some predictions I had mentioned. For example, I had told some folks in the US that though I was looking forward to adventures and the retelling of those stories, while in the midst of them, they are often miserable. I was also recalling my thoughts on the plane about the inconvenience of having to keep watch over my new technological toys (my laptop and camera), when usually I could be more at peace by traveling without valuables. I had prayed to the Lord, thanking Him for the tool of the laptop, but telling Him that I was leaving it in His hands, and that I would follow Him even if it was taken from me. I also felt reassured that the laptop would turn up soon, and our backpacks, as well--that much of what happened that day was for greater purposes. In the middle of the night, the Lord reassured me with Matthew 8, in the New Testament of the Bible. Thus it was that I fought off feelings of despair and self-condemnation and fatigue, knowing that the miserable story of which I was currently a part would become, eventually, a fun tale to tell!
Do you ever feel miserable, stuck in a string of "bad luck," wondering how you got there and how to get out? It might be kind of like being lost on foot in Milan, with nothing but the clothes on your back. If possible, next time you find yourself in that place, see if you can think "macro"--big picture. What good might come of this? What will this situation be like when I look back upon it?
So you might be dying to know what happened...
We awoke early this morning, and headed to the airport. At the airport, we used our charming smiles and the grace of God to gain access back behind customs' security. We learned that our bags were in Chicago and due in Milan at 2:00pm today. Then we were sent upstairs, where a woman delivered my laptop to me. A quick bite of lunch and a long bus ride deposited us upon the subway system and then the winding streets, which led us to a certain books store and the university that C. was scheduled to visit.
Now I am on a train headed back to the airport; our bags are supposedly awaiting us there. Then we plan to skip town, having a bit of a bias against Milan because of some of our challenges here. But secretly, I must admit how pleased I am! This is exactly why I came to Europe! I regret very little, if any of it! We have learned a lot, received numerous blessings, and met some wonderful people! We have ministered to some folks, and others have ministered to us. We have been humbled, taught, and watched over, and I feel ready for whatever comes next.
Yes, it seems to be a happy "ending," at present. But even if it were not, or even if things turn sour, I will trust the Lord. I am here because of Him; he brought me here. I plan to allow Him to work freely in me, to lead me as He desires. No matter what happens, I will trust Him. No matter how I feel or what I think, I will praise Him.
How wonderful it is to serve a loving God who is so much greater than nationalities, circumstances, physical limitations, and emotions! How wonderful it is to live in the Name of Jesus, the Christ sent by our loving Father God, who loves Italians, who loves lost and frustrated Americans, who loves humble Ethiopians, and you!
I'm Diving In!
Location: Airborne, somewhere over France en route from London to Milan... (13 May)
How odd it is to think that I can sit still for hours upon end and find myself on the other side of the world when I leave my seat! Our brief stop in London began our initiation into the British and European cultures, and I find myself doubting that I am ready to weave my way through unfamiliar territory in an unfamiliar language. Likely I am feeling less adventuresome as my faculties are focused on pretending that I am not tired after my rather sleepless "night" turned into tomorrow much more quickly than normal. I expect these next several hours to be a potent reminder that I am in, but not of this world.
By now, and especially if you did not know me until now, you have figured out a few things about me. You have discovered that I am writing some of these posts when I do not have access to the Internet, saving them, and posting them when I am able. You noticed that the self-portrait that I posted is a rather plastic version of myself. You have divined that I am probably an American. You are wondering if I might be a Christian.
It is true that I only have sporadic Internet access for the time being; please forgive my irregular posts. In addition, it is probably safe to assume that as I leave the world of air travel, my posts will become a bit more profound.
Before I continue, however, I ask that you lay aside, momentarily, your stereotypes and preconceived notions (positive or negative) regarding identity labels. Yes, I am American, meaning North American (from the United States), but possibly very different from many other Americans. I do not wear red, white, and blue, nor am I fond of McDonald's. I am slender; I have studied several languages; and I do not own a television--which means I do not watch Jerry Springer or American Idol. I have Palestinian friends; I know that "football" is rightly played with a soccer ball; and I know that Indians are from India, not the Wild West.
Why do I say this? Because some of you might be tempted to file me in a drawer with your past experiences of Americans (whether in person or on a movie screen), never giving me a chance as a person who has value. At the same time, I want to challenge (without intentionally offending) my fellow Americans who do fit the above description, who do think the whole world should speak English, who do think that "bigger" always means "better... I want to challenge you Americans to consider who you really are: Is "American" the most significant part of your identity?
In the same way, read on, s'il vous plait, before you dismiss me as "one of those Christians." Whether you consider yourself a church-goer, a follower of Christ, a Hindu, or an athiest, I would ask that you get to know me before you decide who I am as a Christian. In fact, though I welcome anyone and everyone to read and comment on my posts, I write primarily for those who make up the Church, to encourage you to stop trying to live a life of faith, and to instead let Christ live in and through you.
This is why I posted this photograph of "me." It is actually a picture of a plastic figurine that a friend gave me as I embarked upon an adventure in prayer. If you look carefully, "my" hands are together in prayer.
So I pray you, even as the plastic "me" suggests, look beyond what you think you see, and peer into the heart. Look into my heart. Look into the hearts of the persons around you. Look into the heart of the God who loves you and wants you to be with Him. Look into your own heart...
My heartbeat quickens as we descend into Milan. What adventures await me? I hope you will stay with me to find out!
How odd it is to think that I can sit still for hours upon end and find myself on the other side of the world when I leave my seat! Our brief stop in London began our initiation into the British and European cultures, and I find myself doubting that I am ready to weave my way through unfamiliar territory in an unfamiliar language. Likely I am feeling less adventuresome as my faculties are focused on pretending that I am not tired after my rather sleepless "night" turned into tomorrow much more quickly than normal. I expect these next several hours to be a potent reminder that I am in, but not of this world.
By now, and especially if you did not know me until now, you have figured out a few things about me. You have discovered that I am writing some of these posts when I do not have access to the Internet, saving them, and posting them when I am able. You noticed that the self-portrait that I posted is a rather plastic version of myself. You have divined that I am probably an American. You are wondering if I might be a Christian.
It is true that I only have sporadic Internet access for the time being; please forgive my irregular posts. In addition, it is probably safe to assume that as I leave the world of air travel, my posts will become a bit more profound.
Before I continue, however, I ask that you lay aside, momentarily, your stereotypes and preconceived notions (positive or negative) regarding identity labels. Yes, I am American, meaning North American (from the United States), but possibly very different from many other Americans. I do not wear red, white, and blue, nor am I fond of McDonald's. I am slender; I have studied several languages; and I do not own a television--which means I do not watch Jerry Springer or American Idol. I have Palestinian friends; I know that "football" is rightly played with a soccer ball; and I know that Indians are from India, not the Wild West.
Why do I say this? Because some of you might be tempted to file me in a drawer with your past experiences of Americans (whether in person or on a movie screen), never giving me a chance as a person who has value. At the same time, I want to challenge (without intentionally offending) my fellow Americans who do fit the above description, who do think the whole world should speak English, who do think that "bigger" always means "better... I want to challenge you Americans to consider who you really are: Is "American" the most significant part of your identity?
In the same way, read on, s'il vous plait, before you dismiss me as "one of those Christians." Whether you consider yourself a church-goer, a follower of Christ, a Hindu, or an athiest, I would ask that you get to know me before you decide who I am as a Christian. In fact, though I welcome anyone and everyone to read and comment on my posts, I write primarily for those who make up the Church, to encourage you to stop trying to live a life of faith, and to instead let Christ live in and through you.
This is why I posted this photograph of "me." It is actually a picture of a plastic figurine that a friend gave me as I embarked upon an adventure in prayer. If you look carefully, "my" hands are together in prayer.
So I pray you, even as the plastic "me" suggests, look beyond what you think you see, and peer into the heart. Look into my heart. Look into the hearts of the persons around you. Look into the heart of the God who loves you and wants you to be with Him. Look into your own heart...
My heartbeat quickens as we descend into Milan. What adventures await me? I hope you will stay with me to find out!
Waiting
Location: O'Hare Airport; Chicago, Illinois; USA (12 May)
More to follow, but so far, my traveling companion for the first 10 days, C., and have had a beautiful afternoon. Our flight from Indianapolis, Indiana was smooth and on time (even a little early).
As I sit in the airport waiting for our flight to London, England, I cannot help but be thankful for the many friends and wonderful family members that bless me. My parents were a great help during these last weeks of preparation, and though goodbyes are not fun, they provided a fantastic opportunity for me to be in touch with my siblings, my grandparents, and many of my friends.
I am looking forward to what is ahead, but I dare not miss the "now." Thanks to all of you who have written me or encouraged me with a word or a gift--thanks for your patience as I gather myself from my chaotic preparations so I can give you a proper, personal "thank you."
As I head across the Atlantic and prepare to let my body adjust to a new time zone, I encourage you to enjoy the moments you have in the place where you are. Some of you may look with envy upon my trip, and I assure you that it will be interesting, but it will also include times of waiting, hurting, anger, frustration, fatigue, homesickness, and challenge. Yes, I am on an adventure, but as most of you know, that is nothing new. Virtually every moment of my life is adventure. Engage the people around you! Don't wait till you have to say goodbye to tell people how much you appreciate them! Don't wait till you must sell your possessions to free yourself from the ones that shackle you. Don't wait until you travel abroad to see new things, to relax, to think about who you are and where you live. Don't wait until you are stranded in a desparate situation to muse and ponder what is important to you.
You are important to me. That's why I am writing to you. Thanks for taking time to read about my life. As you finish up, turn away from your computer screen and seize the day. Go and live it--it's worth it!
More to follow, but so far, my traveling companion for the first 10 days, C., and have had a beautiful afternoon. Our flight from Indianapolis, Indiana was smooth and on time (even a little early).
As I sit in the airport waiting for our flight to London, England, I cannot help but be thankful for the many friends and wonderful family members that bless me. My parents were a great help during these last weeks of preparation, and though goodbyes are not fun, they provided a fantastic opportunity for me to be in touch with my siblings, my grandparents, and many of my friends.
I am looking forward to what is ahead, but I dare not miss the "now." Thanks to all of you who have written me or encouraged me with a word or a gift--thanks for your patience as I gather myself from my chaotic preparations so I can give you a proper, personal "thank you."
As I head across the Atlantic and prepare to let my body adjust to a new time zone, I encourage you to enjoy the moments you have in the place where you are. Some of you may look with envy upon my trip, and I assure you that it will be interesting, but it will also include times of waiting, hurting, anger, frustration, fatigue, homesickness, and challenge. Yes, I am on an adventure, but as most of you know, that is nothing new. Virtually every moment of my life is adventure. Engage the people around you! Don't wait till you have to say goodbye to tell people how much you appreciate them! Don't wait till you must sell your possessions to free yourself from the ones that shackle you. Don't wait until you travel abroad to see new things, to relax, to think about who you are and where you live. Don't wait until you are stranded in a desparate situation to muse and ponder what is important to you.
You are important to me. That's why I am writing to you. Thanks for taking time to read about my life. As you finish up, turn away from your computer screen and seize the day. Go and live it--it's worth it!
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Hourglass
Like you, I would venture to guess, I am passionate about many things. One thing that I very much enjoy is writing. Thus, this blog is fantastic and dangerous: fantastic in that it gives my smothered writing habits needed stretching and exercise, dangerous because there may be many higher priorities in my life at this moment which trump the wisdom of taking a moment to sculpt my thoughts and feelings into words.
Besides, as I mentioned, this technology arena is quite new to me in so many ways, so if you have been disappointed by my blog, please be patient with me. I want to help you along:
Why can you not post comments on my blog?
Watch for an email address! I had hoped to have it set up by now, but sadly, you will have to pardon me. Soon I plan to post an address to which you can email questions and comments.
Why can you not find my blog on a search engine?
If I understand correctly, search engines will not pick up my blog until it becomes more popular. Feel free to add it as a link on your webpage, and tell your friends about it. Maybe one man cannot change the world, but maybe one blog can! (Incidentally, I believe that one man can change the world, but that is another discussion...)
Why are there so few photographs on this blog?
Actually, I do not own a digital camera. As I become more adept at this form of communication, you will likely begin to see more photos and images spice up the page. Meanwhile, use your imagination! I would loan you mine, but it is a dangerous place!
Why am I posting so infrequently?
I depart overseas on May the 12th, and there is much to do before that time that necessitates my "pen's" silence. For example, I am trimming down my collection of possessions by selling and giving them away. Fortunately, a local charity that cares for orphans in Russia and India is having a community sale that will be perfect: The Boaz Project will sell the items I donate and use the money for the orphans. As a person who believes that too many self-proclaimed "Christians" have strayed too far from the teachings of Jesus, I am excited about this opportunity.
There once was a young man who ran up to Jesus eagerly wanting to know how to enter into God's Kingdom, and Jesus explained to him that he should follow the tenets of his religious law. When the young man proudly exclaimed that he had done so for many years, Jesus lovingly said--to the young man's dismay--that he lacked one thing:
"Go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
As you might imagine, this was a lot for the young man to swallow, and he went away pretty upset. Jesus went on to explain to his followers that it is very difficult for the rich to enter God's Kingdom because their possessions distract them from God. Happily, though, he reminded them that with God all things are possible.
Furthermore, I am reminded that further along in the Bible (in the Letter of James), "true religion" is defined as caring for widows and orphans. So often, it is hard to let God have first place in my life before such a critical society, yet in this, God seems to have provided me a practical way to follow His teachings.
Perhaps you think that irrational or impractical. If so, you may be quite justified. Keep following me, and let's see how it all turns out! But for now, the sand is falling!
Besides, as I mentioned, this technology arena is quite new to me in so many ways, so if you have been disappointed by my blog, please be patient with me. I want to help you along:
Why can you not post comments on my blog?
Watch for an email address! I had hoped to have it set up by now, but sadly, you will have to pardon me. Soon I plan to post an address to which you can email questions and comments.
Why can you not find my blog on a search engine?
If I understand correctly, search engines will not pick up my blog until it becomes more popular. Feel free to add it as a link on your webpage, and tell your friends about it. Maybe one man cannot change the world, but maybe one blog can! (Incidentally, I believe that one man can change the world, but that is another discussion...)
Why are there so few photographs on this blog?
Actually, I do not own a digital camera. As I become more adept at this form of communication, you will likely begin to see more photos and images spice up the page. Meanwhile, use your imagination! I would loan you mine, but it is a dangerous place!
Why am I posting so infrequently?
I depart overseas on May the 12th, and there is much to do before that time that necessitates my "pen's" silence. For example, I am trimming down my collection of possessions by selling and giving them away. Fortunately, a local charity that cares for orphans in Russia and India is having a community sale that will be perfect: The Boaz Project will sell the items I donate and use the money for the orphans. As a person who believes that too many self-proclaimed "Christians" have strayed too far from the teachings of Jesus, I am excited about this opportunity.
There once was a young man who ran up to Jesus eagerly wanting to know how to enter into God's Kingdom, and Jesus explained to him that he should follow the tenets of his religious law. When the young man proudly exclaimed that he had done so for many years, Jesus lovingly said--to the young man's dismay--that he lacked one thing:
"Go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
As you might imagine, this was a lot for the young man to swallow, and he went away pretty upset. Jesus went on to explain to his followers that it is very difficult for the rich to enter God's Kingdom because their possessions distract them from God. Happily, though, he reminded them that with God all things are possible.
Furthermore, I am reminded that further along in the Bible (in the Letter of James), "true religion" is defined as caring for widows and orphans. So often, it is hard to let God have first place in my life before such a critical society, yet in this, God seems to have provided me a practical way to follow His teachings.
Perhaps you think that irrational or impractical. If so, you may be quite justified. Keep following me, and let's see how it all turns out! But for now, the sand is falling!
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A Rose From Home
