the latest

So I'm starting to think that the answer to many of my ponderings and queries about calling and place and timing and purpose is:

"Just trust. Wait and see."

missions: back to the point

(This ties back to my post on 6/16)

There seems to be something missing, or shifting – at least in my world but maybe in some larger sense too. I’ve wondered recently where the push for missions has gone? The drive towards inner-city missions seemed to steadily increase towards the end of my college years. I remember Claiborne’s entrance into the evangelical scene with “The Irresistible Revolution” opening many suburban-raised Christians like myself to the mission fields close by, right in our cities – and it was a field that promised transformation for ourselves as well as our new neighbors.

In my masters program at Eastern, so many questions were raised – and I believe this reflects a heightened awareness among many church groups or para-church groups about the ineffectual strategies of some development work, and even the troublesome nature of some missionary work. “Development as missions” is a concept and a calling that felt dear to many who entered our program I think – for that is what Eastern offered us that was unique.

Now, I hardly hear about the missionaries, about their mission, except through a couple prayer letters and e-mail chains from friends and distant acquaintances. I am at a church right now that has a huge focus on urban missions, and that is where we are located, right in the inner city. We’re in this mission field. Our church is open to overseas missions and we financially support some missionaries, but why is it that I don’t have a sense of feeling “sent” by our church? We are missional; our church loves mission – yet, I don’t feel any personal encouragement to be a missionary, to be an ambassador – overseas – for the Gospel.

Now I know there is much work to be done right here, all around us, but what if international missions is the focus we (Ted and I) have had? What if that’s what we’ve felt as our heartbeat before? I’m not sure I’m even reading this the right way, because the core of my values that I believe God has placed on my heart are for LOVE and JUSTICE. And those are in need EVERYWHERE.

So, does international missions even make sense anymore? It must, but what I’m trying to read is what this current wave in missions-thinking is saying – what are Christians really thinking about missions – urban versus international? Is one locale being preferred over another?

Help me.

weekends...

I did this once before, sometime in 2007, where I had a particularly full, unique weekend and just felt like sharing it with everyone :) I suppose if I'm to get the full scope of things I should actually start things last Wednesday evening... when the real fun got started.

5pm & dinner with Deborah. In our two years of being here I hadn't walked to this particular corner of HP, to discover a beautiful corner garden outside of our friend's home. A beautifully fresh meal surrounded by conversations of Sudan, missions & culture.

11:20pm & I leave to pick up 3 weary travelers at the Chinatown bus stop who don't really arrive until about 12:20 am. I had been awaiting word of their flight/travel plans all day as they were trekking across the U.S. on standby from SF, to attend an event called PapaFest in the Pennsylvania farm country. My friend friend Renata was amidst the bunch! We came home, slept, and then they head off early with Ted to the airport/train station, on their way to the Papa gathering

Thurs.

10:00 am & my first Kindergarten graduation. A serious affair with song performances, slide shows, and tassle-shifting, reception, and lots & lots of pictures and excited parents

Evening & nothing, except for Little Caeser's pizza and a movie with my man. Loved it. Precluded by a phone catch-up with my dear friend Katie.

Friday.

10:30 am & 8th grade graduation. Very moving. Saying good-bye to our thirteen 8th grade graduates. I come home at noon to rest & prep for more goodness.

5pm & church cleaning with cell group, yippee! Nah, the work's not so bad when you get to scrub toilets with Wendy Hilemen by your side, haha. Home to change, cook dinner, and make calls before

7pm & last youth group meeting for the spring. Pizza, birthday cakes, games, rug burns and reminiscing. Not too shabby. Then,

9pm & good-bye party for friends Andy and Jodie around the corner from the church, but what? They had already left the party just 4 minutes before we got there! We stayed to chat with the others for 20 minutes... which really turned into 1.5 hours. Whoops, when Hannah starts texting wondering where we are...

11pm & late-comers to the "game night" at Josh and Hannah's house, partly in honor of our visiting friend Chris who moved out to Wisconsin to join InterVarsity staff a year ago. Looked like people were going to bed, but they stayed up and chatted with us for another hour or so anyways -- no games, but good times nonetheless.

Saturday.

12pm & Farmer's Market in HP and then scooting off to Burlington, New Jersey for what? A 40-minute meet-up with Gina which includes going to a Victoria's Secret in a ghetto mall and then picking Yuan and her boyfriend up just in time (or late, whichever) to head off to Flushing, Queens. Wawa stop, Tom Tom directions, and then about 3 hours of halted progress...

6pm & wedding and banquet reception at the Linden Place Chinese banquet hall. Incredible. Yes, there was glitter and lights, beautiful wedding party and service, and food; yes, there was food. 13 courses: eel, jellyfish, seaweed, fish, lobster, shrimp, shark fin soup, octopus, abalone, chicken, steak... and at that point it was 11pm, and we decided to leave, after some dancing of course. The 4 hours of traffic on the way home was a blast ;)

Sunday.

10am & church, sigh. Some Sabbath rest and corn on the cob, and then, a drive to the airport for a 2-hour chat with Renata outside of security before she headed out on her stand-by flight, back to SF. Wonderful time.

Ted and I are facing a decision: well, I don't feel like it's a real decision we can make.

We got turned down for a position that seemed like a great fit in Haiti. If we had been selected, that would have meant us relocating to Port-Au-Prince for at least 3 years. To be geared up for accepting the position, and then to not receive it, was a let down for sure -- they had told us we had a good chance of getting the job.

Not getting this job, mixed with a variety of other reasons, has led us both to wonder whether Haiti is indeed meant to fall in our immediate future. I personally do not know the answer to that question, but it's a question that has been surfacing ever so subtly for some time.

When I have had moments of feeling drawn towards the potential of relationships and ministry here in Philadelphia, I have wondered about the passion we have both felt at differing times about returning to Haiti. When that passion has felt dull, I attribute it mostly to distance and the fact that I have not been immersed with the Haitian population in Philadelphia in order to keep Haiti close.

I have also been reflecting on a tension I feel between the local and international. While my heart has been drawn overseas - "to the nations" - on and off for some time, I feel that we're in a place right now where the emphasis is on local expressions of mission - urban missions, in particular. A spirit of being "sent" overseas has not been fostered here in the same ways I felt it fostered in college -- through programs like Perspectives and missionaries' presentations at church. This has me wondering: how much does place matter?

People seem to de-emphasize the importance of place now, saying that it doesn't matter so much where we are situated, but how we are living out the Gospel wherever we are. Now, I do feel the importance of that sentiment, and I think it encourages good perspective, especially for those in my generation who may fret excessively over finding the perfect "direction" and "meaning" for our lives. But, what about calling? What role can and should that play ... how does calling enter into and alter our lives (by, say, a major move to a foreign country -- something longer than a mission trip) ? And, how is calling to be fostered in the longer-term if, for some reason, it's not meant to be acted upon right away ?

While I could feel like we're at at a fork in the road right now where one direction needs to be chosen over another (Haiti or Philadelphia), I instead am trying not to see two divergent paths. A friend helped by saying recently: "God does not call us to opposing things." So, while our hearts may flutter and dream when thinking of Haiti, we may also see some of the good here: maybe things that we need that we are only vaguely aware of ourselves, things God knows of that we don't.

So I guess what I'm saying here is what if both those things were on our one path? God knows, not us, the proper order of things. The real decision here seems to be whether we will wait and really trust in Him even if that means we feel like we might feel like we're skipping by an important dream. God will fulfill all, and maybe our dreams need to be more fully His -- submitted to Him.

Now it's this step-by-step -- wanting to get back into the Lord's presence to present our hearts to Him and seek direction, and counsel. We'll see.

saintly sayings

In a book I'm reading, The Cloister Walk, I pulled out these two quotes from a 13th century saint:

Of the heavenly things God has shown me, I can speak but a little word, no more than a honeybee can carry away on its foot from an overflowing jar.

What we know is as nothing, if we do not love God properly in all things.

--Mechtild of Madgeburg

As to the second quote, I am so not there yet Mechtild, but I love it. Yes.

thoughts, they scatter

I had a great conversation with a friend this afternoon. I can often spill out what is on my heart with this friend and she catches each thought mid-air and receives it, adding dashes of clarity and wisdom as she recounts what I've said.

I just felt like putting a picture of a dandelion here. I think the spinning seeds drifting off the plant gave me an image I was looking for. I can have a whirl of heavy thoughts impressing upon me all at once, but even as they stir unsettled in my mind, I can see feel some peace and assurance knowing that each means something and each will go somewhere. Even if the process looks confusing, it's not ultimately.