Finding...

NEMO!

Yes...Nemo, Dori, and Friends have found their way to Banda Aceh.

Let me show you the mural!!! The inside is complete - lots of colors and water life. About the only hitch was the moment I stepped "foot-long" onto a rusty nail - so thankful I got my tetanus shot before I left the country! Nancy and I painted 3 days straight, about 30 hours total - bending, kneeling, all the while talking or silently reflecting...occasionally stretching for "fresh air" breaks...enjoying the swifts of coolness from the fan when they reached us and listening to some Kenny G and Keith Green on our battery-powered tape player. Painting can be quite exhausting and at the same time therapuetic !

We were treated to fresh "iu" (pronounced eey-oo) by some friends in the village. This baby coconut water is very "cooling" according to the Chinese categorization of foods....so refreshing!

I plan to finish painting the outside of the Kindergarten on Monday by adding a few more water animals and the words "Tunas Harapan", which mean 'Seed of Hope'. Tunas Harapan is the phrase written in the Indonesian Bible when God promised Abraham many descendants.

Friends, thank you for praying for me and encouraging me in my return to Banda Aceh. I feel somehow more prepared for life here this time. Just like my heart is settled on it.

How beautiful is Psalm 23 from Sorina (you can read it by clicking on the comments section of the last post). I was reading in Luke 15 about how our Shepherd will go to the ends to find us, and when he does, he will gently thrust us over his shoulders to carry us on, and He's rejoicing!

It is such a great feeling to accomplish something so tangible as painting a picture. I've been learning much in the last few months about waiting, listening, being, examining, changing, resting, healing...but this feeling of completing a task is something I haven't savored lately, and it is sweet. I'm now busily visiting wood and metal shops to order furniture for the kindy...getting estimates and even designing some pieces! Whew...so many things from school days coming together in practical ways: painting, measuring, even playing volleyball :-) Last night I went to the military track (which is often teaming with people in the evenings) and joined a group of peers playing volleyball. A lot of them are on staff with Save the Children and get together every Friday to play v-ball. It's so energizing, and I hope to join them on Fridays!

I have attached some photos of the Thailand retreat to the Post entitled, "To Thailand With the Shepherd". Hope to send some more photos of Aceh soon...the connection speed here makes it a little challenging ;-) - Please pray for the Tunas Harapan (Seed of Hope) kindergarten, which will open July 1st.

Who Holds?

I'm leaving in a few hours for Indonesia. Ever so grateful for your covering. Discernment, Discipline and Courage are my great needs. Will be doing a spiritual warfare study on my own. Learning a ton about that! Likely painting a Finding Nemo scene - God has supplied a graphic design artist to assist me--huge gift to me! We'll be busy with the mural this week, as she can only stay until Thursday. Then, much logistical work to do...ordering proper furniture/supplies to wrap up the kindergarden before the opening ceremony with local officials and community members. Wanting right now to be with all those dear to me, esp. as emotions of "leaving" flood my heart (Jordan just left for States a few hours ago). Knowing that God holds.

He will guard and keep us until the Day! Be encouraged that He is with us and that we can draw near to Him with our whole selves. Why hold back? The Anchor Holds.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy! And to all those who have ever nurtured someone as their child...Your love and time have blessed us.

Mom, you are so special to me!

Wow. My last post was pretty intense. Not many comments - maybe there were things that I said and quoted that were extreme and troubled you. I think it's good to clarify that I personally am not condemning wealth all together or advocating a complete socialistic structure. I genuinely believe God loves to bless people with possessions and resources for a great purpose to enjoy and to steward. We just must be ever so sensitive to the calling of the Spirit to fight against our tendency to hold earthly comfort as more fulfilling than Jesus and to overlook injustice, and we must be disciplined to work toward kingdom treasure, rooted in relationship. Often we are blinded by our world and our own unwillingness to surrender. I struggle with my own responsibility in this, for my flesh wars against the things of the Spirit. It's kinda different to process some of these things "out loud" through a blog and to share with thoughts as I struggle with them, and though I can't possibly share all things, esp. as they are happening, sometimes there is opportunity and I am compelled to write. I really do invite your thoughts; I want to learn from you and receive your honest words of challenge or agreement. What has the Holy Spirit shown you? In the last post I made a comment about my many years of Christian schooling. Please let me express how grateful I am for my beloved parents' efforts to send me through Christian schooling and for the invaluable instruction of faithful men and women over the years. Learning history, science, math, philosophy, religion...from professors who know God and are burdened for His glory and my growth in Him has shaped my heart for life. My reflection was actually dealing with a realization and confession of my own lack of integrating the things I am coming to know of the heart of God with my "every day" decisions and lifestyle....

but we are not crushed by guilt when we find things that we need to change. We have a King who has made whole what was broken. In this life we are always growing, always learning new things in the journey with Our Maker, Redeemer, and Friend. I should never be content with the present state of my obedience or passion. Yet I always will rest in the provision through Jesus, who has cleansed me and made me part of His royal priesthood.

You are My Hiding Place

I find you in the secret place

I find you on the mountain

I find you in the early hours of my day,

I find you when I'm waiting

I find you when I'm in Your Word

I find you when I'm talking to you when I pray

Create in me a clean heart

As I come away with you

Wash away all of my stains

And restore to me the joy I have in you

You are my hiding

You are my hiding place

song by Joe Pringle, Christian City Worship 2005 (Australia)

This last week I have been worshipping with 10,000 young Singaporeans at City Harvest Church. LEARNING TO PRAY IN THE SPIRIT for the victory of the Lord in our world!

...It was a difficult week...It was a week of victory...I'll explain with great joy in the Lord...

MTI has asked me to go back to Banda Aceh to take over for Jordan who will be returning to the States this week. With Jordan leaving there is a great need for supervising the final touches to the kindergarden before school starts on July 1 (ordering inside equipment and the outside playground, landscaping, finishing the mural (yeah!), etc. From my home in America, I told the Lord I was willing, willing to go to the uttermost parts, willing to give him my youth, willing. But, it's not so easy to move forward when I've seen the place and realize that unless I cling to Jesus and follow Him, it will be a burden too great to bear. This time, this trip, this request of MTI, can be said to be "where the rubber meets the road" for me in walking with Jesus (a phrase that 4 people on separate occasions spoke to me this week). I took a few days of being still (this can be one of my greatest challenges!), quieting myself to be with the Lord and to listen. My questions to him were like... But Lord, is it "wise" to return given that I've returned from BA twice now to be hospitalized? Oh, someday I'll have to tell you the story of "trying out" the hospitals in BA!!! :-) Banda Aceh- my last days there were spent with fever and rashes. Banda Aceh- it can be so oppressive. Banda Aceh - I only know a few people there and there's nothing much to do, nowhere to go. I've just begun staying with a believing Chinese family in Singapore last week, and it is so comfortable to be here; I feel at home; There are good things in being here - I'm learning a lot about intercession and enjoying fellowship with teens who are hungry to be real with Jesus. I would only be in Aceh for a month over (Singlish meaning "a little over a month"), then going onto Myanmar for what is likely to be the remainder of the year. That's so much transition, Lord! And for some reason, I feel ready for Myanmar, like being there for 6 months min. and working on learning Burmese to communicate and build relationships is so appealing. But Aceh? I don't think I'm afraid of the physical hazards (e.g. yesterday brought a 5 point over earthquake in Aceh). No, my fear has been for my emotions, my comfort, a fear of loneliness and insecurity. Maybe the work will be too difficult to do alone? Maybe I'll be so bored and just weary with no one to share with? ...and the victory came after this battle in my spirit. Jesus wants to take me to a place of further dependence on and intimacy with Him for my needs. I love people, and building community, and sharing from the heart, and many of these are spirit-born desires, but I also can get caught up with human relationships and neglect my Jesus. The Lord has for me to grow to be with Him, to learn from Him, to worship and share with Him. I now am ready, and excited! I still anticipate difficulties, but I am awaiting a fuller knowledge of the presence of Jesus with me as I'm in Aceh. And, I think this is preparation for more to come, for if I go to Myanmar there will be even more limited access to communication. The other night Jordan shared with me a little of her experience of being alone in Aceh last year. She said, "It's like when there's no one else to talk with, you just have to have Jesus there with you, to sit with, to share with, to do all things together."

"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

- Paul and Timonthy, in Philippians 4:19

And one of the most amazing things this week was tasting what Spirit-led prayer can be!!! For years I've longed to cry out to the Father with His heartbeat, to really speak the things on His heart, to loose the heavenly inheritance of the kingdom on earth...it was Friday night and I was with around 10,ooo other believers - picture an auditorium filled with people crying out, arms upraised and sometimes passionately pleading, all engaged in a great love language war cry for the God who Hears to answer.

It's beyond description...I could see Aceh and cry out for God's heart for the people, I knew the Spirit was praying and my mind was fully engaged. Rather than feeling disjointed geographically or topic-wise, as is often the case when I sit down to pray, I felt like I was flying across the globe and could be anywhere at anytime, depending on where the Spirit led for intercession. A mature woman said these words to me, "We must ask the Lord to guide our tongue and be self-controlled to surrender totally. When our prayers are answered we know it was not our own doing or words, but the words of the Spirit. The enemy cannot understand prayer in the spirit and so wants to deceive us and render us ineffective." Many of my brothers and sisters here in Asia have walked in this prayer life much longer than me, and I feel like a baby in talking with our Father. It is awesome to know that our Lord hears us at all times, when we're young and when we're old, when we speak and when we don't, when we're afraid and when we're bold, when we're contemplative and when we're boisterous...The Holy Spirit is calling us to greater things and He is faithful to complete the good work He has begun in us. Prayer gives birth to great things, and they can happen suddenly! Pray for revival across the globe. We have the authority.

Guess what? I love learning to play the guitar! Worshipping in song is unlike anything else. So far my guitar "lessons" (generously donated by talented friends and teammates) have been very "international" - Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand...and I've found that the chord fingerings are quite universal! Hopefully they'll be a guitar teacher in Myanmar (and a guitar!). How incredible it is to be able to sing and play at the same time - (something I could never do with the flute!). Michaela, Mom said you played your flute so beautifully at your school's concert! Wish I could have been there, sweet sis. I'm so proud of you!

They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,

and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord...

Jeremiah 31:12

Thank you for praying for me, friends. My body and spirit are sustained because you pray. It is a privilege to be here and to share with you through the distance.

Moldy Soles

My shoes are rotting...I stole them from the poor. Mold is plaguing my 3 pairs of chacos that are siting outside the door of my house. In an equatorial climate, leather that's not worn doesn't stand a chance against the stuff. Guys, this is radical. I am so absorbed, so steeped in my Western lies of power and comfort that I don't even know what this means. I don't know how to love my neighbor, to know the poor, to be real - but I have been given a new heart (Ezekiel), and I want to know authentic community - globally incarnational. Okay, I'm back in Singapore, very thankful for the retreat- enjoyed meeting and learning from teammates but I was convicted by my lack of discipline to break away from the crowds and run away with my Lord, esp. when He called...incredibly challenged now about direction- spent tonight talking with Craig, the Greenfields' son, who works with Servants. If you can, look at some of the news articles on their website: http://www.servantsasia.org/news, esp. http://www.servantsasia.org/news.asp?number=153. "Downward mobility in an upscale world." How?

Shain Claiborn describes me...

"Not long ago, I sat and talked with some very wealthy Christians about what it means to be the church and to follow Jesus. One business man confided, "I, too, have been thinking about following Christ and what it means. so I had this made." He pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a bracelet, engraved with W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do?). It was custom-made of 24 karat gold.

Maybe each of us can relate to this man - both in his earnest desire to follow Jesus and his distorted execution of that desire, so bound up in the materialism of our culture. It is difficult to learn to live the downward mobility of the gospel in this age of wealth. For the most part, those of us who are rich never meet those of us who are poor. Instead, nonprofit organizations serve as brokers between the two in a booming business of poverty management.

I believe that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor, but that they do not know the poor. Yet if we are called to live the new community for which Christ was crucified, we cannot remain strangers to one another. Jesus demands that we live in a very different way." - from article written by Shane Claiborn 3/2/2006 http://www.servantsasia.org/news.asp?number=153.

Friends, I've spent 24 years in easy wealth, and I've been hardened by pride; I've spent my whole life receiving the lies that I had to be powerful to survive, that I had to be tough and maintain my security in image, that I was entitled to achievement, that my intentions were pure and that I was "right on track" for purposeful living. Most of my life has been Christian education: 4 yrs at Christian high school and 4 yrs at Christian college. I've been surrounded by people who adore me and protect me from criticism........I really have felt genuine love from spiritual friends. My educational training really did teach me good things. But, my sin so often prevents me from integrating the faith I've been given through grace and the radical life I'm called to live with Jesus. I am seeking repentance and direction for the steps ahead. Please pray for the Shepherd to reveal and a heart bent on emptying myself.

Here's what it looked like for Claiborn and a group of his friends...
"About five years ago, I became a part of a community called the simple way, a group of Christians literally born out of the wreckage of the church. Dozens of homeless families and children had moved into St. Edward's, a cavernous, abandoned Catholic church in one of the most struggling neighborhoods of Philadelphia. A small group of us who were students at Eastern College, a suburban Christian school, decided to move in with them as a gesture of solidarity. From that initial step, one miracle followed another as those families mentored us in community, worship, and love. Eventually, we settled in a rowhouse in Kensington, a few blocks from St. Edward's. It is the poorest (but most beautiful!) district in Pennsylvania. There is no place we'd rather call home. Here, we play and dance. We plant gardens. We feed people. We cry. We have a community store. We help kids with homework. We live, and we spend our lives joining folks in poverty as they struggle to end it. Because we know that we cannot end poverty without ending wealth, we also spend time talking with Christian communities about our work and hosting visitors.

Clairborn says, "I believe all our "programs" should have their genesis in true relationship. At our house, we tutor - but we did not start by deciding to do a tutoring program. We simply fell in love with the kids who needed help with their homework. We feed people - but we did not begin with a decision to start a feeding program. We simply fell in love with our neighbors, and they were hungry. - Claiborn article

Brothers and sisters in the US, Philippines, Congo, Belgium, France, Turkey and ends of the earth, I'm convinced that True relationship is the cry of the Spirit, the way of our Savior, the call of the Church today.

More excerpts from Claiborn: If we are to truly be the church, poverty must be a face we recognize as our own kin. Several years ago, I attended a protest against sweatshops where the organizers had not invited the typical rally speakers - lawyers, activists, advocates. Instead, they brought kids from the sweatshops. A child from Indonesia pointed to his face."I got this scar when my master lashed me for not working hard enough. When it bled, he did not want me to stop working or to ruin the cloth, so he took a lighter and burned it shut. I got this scar making stuff for you." I was suddenly consumed with the overwhelming reality of the suffering body of Christ. Jesus now bore not just nail marks and scars from thorns, but a gash down his face. How could I possibly follow Jesus and buy anything from that master?

If we are content with discipleship that ends merely with generosity, we still serve money. Generosity is a beautiful response, but we should not confuse it with love. Generosity is merely what is expected; what is required is to return that which has been stolen. God did not create some of us rich and others of us poor.

Basil the Great, writing in the fourth century, put it this way: "When someone strips a man of his clothes, we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not - should not he be given the same name? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute."

Instead of living out this alternative vision, the church has been content to be a broker between the rich and poor. Both those trapped in poverty and those trapped in riches view the church as a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. No radical new community is formed.In this model, both go away satisfied (the rich feel good, the poor get fed) - but neither goes away transformed. They do not join together to discover a new way of living.

Functionally, many nonprofits act as brokers between the rich and the poor. They facilitate the exchange of goods and services, putting plenty of professionals in the middle to guarantee that the rich do not have to face the poor and that power does not shift. Rich and poor are kept in separate worlds. Charity does not feed fundamental change.Brokering poverty also seduces Christians into being gatekeepers to power. Our progressive movements are haunted by the temptation to facilitate power.

Those of us who yearn for the kingdom of God must follow in the steps of Jesus. Jesus was not "in charge" of the poor. He was poor. The message of Christ from the manger to the cross is that the world is conquered through weakness, through leastness, through struggle - not from the top, but from the bottom.The people wanted a mighty Messiah. They got a baby refugee. They wanted a powerful king to take over Rome. They got a wandering homeless man. He could have saved the world with his mighty power, but he did it through his ridiculous love. The power of God lies in the brokenness of Jesus: naked, cursed, spit upon, with birds picking at his flesh as he died the rotten death of a criminal.

The great temptation of the church, and of every believer, is the offer Satan made to Jesus in the desert: to win the world with power. But power will not end poverty. We must discover another way of living.Jesus did not set up a program, but rather modeled a way of living that incarnated the reign of God. That reign did not spread through organizational establishments or structural systems. It spread through touch, through breath, through life. It spread through people who discovered love.

I am haunted by the command of Jesus to love our neighbor as ourselves. I struggle because I sleep in a house while my neighbor sleeps in a cardboard box; I eat twice a day while my neighbor hasn't eaten once. I draw strength from following Jesus in community. I live with people who, if they pass someone with a worse pair of shoes, have taken their shoes off and switched; people who have quietly handed over winter jackets to someone they met on the street without a coat.This is the reckless love of Jesus, which teaches us to see the connections between our wealth and our neighbor's poverty.

The love of Jesus will teach us another way of doing life, a way that will bring God's reign to earth as it is in heaven. The reign of God is not for the future. It is something we live today. Jesus reminds us that it is easy to love people who are just like us: "Even idolators do that" (Matt. 5:47). We are called to love those who hate us. Love those who create poverty, and love those who are trapped in it. See each of them in yourself - the same blood and tears. We are all capable of the same evil, and we have potential for the same good. As one believer said, "In the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands." From addicts I learn of my addiction, and from the saints I learn of my holiness.

The God of love and the love of God know no bounds. The unending love of Jesus teaches revolutionaries to love police officers, anarchists to love politicians, vegetarians to love meat-eaters, peacemakers to love soldiers. This is the love that makes us the church. Ultimately, only this radical love of Jesus can end the poverty-wealth dichotomy. When the rich meet the poor, together they will end wealth. When the poor meet the rich, together they will end poverty.

People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them. [This article by Shane Claiborn appeared in The Other Side, Nov/Dec 2000. and excerpts here were taken from the Servants' website]

"Awake, O sleeper;

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you."

Ephesians 5:14