What's Next?

This week I attended the Next Church conference in Charlotte, NC. We drove down Sunday (for 12 hours) and then began our journey last night, stopped off at my brothers house and continued this morning. Despite the crazy traveling and my now very overtired state, the past two days were exactly what I needed.

As I look to my future, after graduation I want to know what's next. What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I supposed to be doing it? There are a million questions that I have about what's next. What I realized, is that I already know what's next. I know what God is calling me to do. I know where God is leading me and I have finally found a way to make it happen. 

I stumbled upon this future plan last week. I was asked to meet with a few professors to discuss the ThM program at McCormick. It's a program designed for graduates to develop a thesis and gain another Masters degree in Theology. I thought I was going for a free lunch and to talk with some of my favorite profs, but of course, theres no such thing as a free lunch. I have a passion for academia, despite how much I complain about it. I don't feel like I'm done learning yet and I don't think I'm ready to leave my academic studies. However, this revelation is in direct contrast to my call to plant a church. 

At Next Church I met with many others who are looking outside the box for their ministry, rethinking church and community. It is there that I realized that I have to do things my own way. I will do both. I can write a these and plant a church. I will do both at the same time.

Is this a crazy idea? Undoubtably it may not be the most rational choice, but it is clearly the right one. Next inspired me to try, to release my fears and go out on a limb. God's call for me is not something that I can sit on, it is TOO important to wait for permission to move forward with. I am going to push people, upset them, back them into a corner until they can't tell me no. God's work is risky, challenging, and yes, there is a possibility to fail. After Next, I am not afraid to fail in ministry, I'm afraid of failing to live out God's call for my life. 

Don't Speak

So today I preached a sermon entitled "Don't Speak." This sermon was focus on the passage in 1 Corinthians 14:34-5 where it says that women shouldn't speak and to do so is shameful. This passage was something that I had to confront for myself, to figure out how this fits in my Sacred Scripture. I used it in the context of domestic violence and how women are silenced in churches by our inaction on their behalf. 

I woke up at 9 and I was sooo ready to go, but service didn't start til noon.  I wasn't really nervous about the sermon, I had come to peace with it. I woke up ready to preach, there was an urgency. I had this word, and I just needed to let it out. I was excited, but calm. I was impatient. I had a dream that when I got up to do the opening I just started my sermon, that's how ready I was. 

I felt a sense of calm that I have never experienced before. I was excited, my foot was twitching, but my hands were stead, my stomach wasn't doing summersaults. I got up there and while I was doing it I felt good. There were places where I was worried, the sermon was tough and the audience looked a little shell shocked. I couldn't read them and I thought I was yelling at them, and that's why they weren't emoting much. When I finished and walked away and I was in a weird space. Still, there were no nerves. I was calm.

However, after service the reception I received was different. There is a usual "You did well" (which I still don't know how to react to). But today, the congratulations were more sincere, the hugs were much tighter. Today was different and I cannot explain it. My facebook blew up with compliments. Things were moving today and I don't really know how to deal with them, but today was definitely different. 

Guiller

Tomorrow is Haiti Sunday at church and I have been asked to talk about my experience in Haiti. I have had one of the craziest weeks. I am the Teaching Assistant for an intensive Hebrew class, in addition to taking a class for 3.5 hours 3 days a week. Half of this week I have been at school for 13 hours. I am exhausted and I haven't even really had time to think about Haiti, which is probably for the best. So here are bits and pieces of my story with Guiller.  

On our third day in Haiti we went to deliver our donations to other orphanages in Port au Prince. We left in the truck with bags of flip-flops, new clothes, underwear, and some rice and beans. We also brought some snacks with us. We had dinner tolls, peanut butter and Tampico, a kind of fruit juice. At the second orphanage we visited that day we gathered outside on benches with the kids. I was sitting with Guiller, he was probably 6 or 7, he didn’t say much, but had a bright and beautiful smile. As we passed out peanut butter on dinner rolls and the Tampico the kids faces lit up. Some just dug right in, others, like Guiller slowly ate the peanut butter from the roll, putting his finger in it, then licking it off, until most of the peanut butter was gone. Then he ate the roll. I watched a little girl, who was probably two chug her Tampico in a few gulps. It was probably a 12oz bottle or so, and this young girl drank it all at once. 

As they ate their peanut butter rolls something very profound hit me. We were sharing the body of Christ with these young children. We had our own Communion feast. The bread was covered in peanut butter and the juice came in a bottle, but we were sharing the Lord’s Supper. 

Language barriers kept us from having conversations with these kids, but our actions spoke more words than could ever say. We were there, all 22 of us left our families and friends for a week to share Christ with kids in Haiti and in that moment, outside on benches we were. These kids were hungry and we gave them food. They needed new clothes and we clothed them. We were doing what Christ has called us to do.

There are many things that are distinctively different between the two groups gathered on those benches. Our connection to these kids was something much more powerful than a love of soccer or music. In their eyes I saw God, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. I saw the connection that brings us all together. Every child we saw was beautifully and wonderfully made by God. Outside, on those benches we shared a Sacred meal between God’s children. We shared the love of Christ with these children without saying much, but simply by being there.

Processing through Pictures

Last night something incredible happened. On the flight home from Haiti, one of the other 'adults' took everyone's camera and downloaded all of our pictures. I got 1661 to mark my trip! There is such a wonderful mix of pictures that it is truly incredible. I spent probably a good hour staring at the pictures from the trip, and all I could think of was the wonderful stories that are being told through these pictures. Thus, I feel like a good way to share and process this crazy experience that I had would be through pictures. I hope to continue to process while I look through these pictures. While I am tempted to give you all a day by day play by play, I think it is best to share with you the stories that are on my heart and what I need to say. 

I will start with the first child at New Life that blew me away. Her name is Milaua. I don't know much about her story, but I am guessing she's about 7 years old. Our first night, we went over to meet some of the kids. I had taken a shower, because we had been painting all day and I had gotten pretty sweaty. After my shower I went to see the kids and Milaua came right up to me. She grabbed my hand, drug me over a piece in the blacktop, and told me to sit down, which I did. She had a cute hair tie in her hair, which I said that I liked. She proceeded to stand above me, and do my hair. I had two hair ties on my wrist, and she added her own cute bow to put my wet hair in 3 pony tails. I wish I had taken a picture of my ridiculous hair. There was a piece of hair in the front that didn't make it into one of my 3 ponytails and she braided it. 

This was my first interaction with kids from the orphanage. There was very little talking, most of the kids spoke Creole and learn French in school but their English can be hit or miss. I just sat there and let her make of fool out of me, and it was the best 5 minutes I had all day. 

How was Haiti?

This past week I ventured to Haiti with 18 college students and 3 other adults for 5 days. We worked with New Life Children's Home in Port au Prince. Our mission for the week was to paint the guest house where missionaries and groups of travelers stay on the property with the orphanage as they trave throughout Haiti on different projects.  New Life has over 100 children that they care fore, ranging from around a year old and up. There are also 20 kids there who have special needs. To see more about the orphanage and what they do there you can go to http://www.newlife4kids.org/.

Upon my return people have been asking me "How was Haiti?". I have no idea how to respond to that question. The experience was incredible and I had a great deal of fun. However, I also got my heart broken on a daily basis and I saw things I never want to see again. I saw young kids with bloated bellies from malnutrition, kids who haven't eaten all day, I saw kids who were nine years old that were the size of my 5 year old nephew.  I saw rubble from the earthquake nearly 3 years ago clutter the streets. I saw tent cities that were assembled as temporary housing that have turned into permanent residences. 

Overall, I feel bipolar. I saw God in the faces of so many people there. I experienced God in ways that I don't think I could have here in the US. However, I was also angry with God, how can God allow these children to suffer like this? How can God's children live in such deplorable conditions? I know that this trip has opened my eyes and given me a fire in my belly to do something, but what? How could I possibly help these kids. I cannot take them home with me, I cannot financially support them and I cannot work to stabilize their government. I feel pretty helpless. Here I am sitting in my comfy warm apartment with central air and my computer typing away. There are so many things that I learned from this experience that I cannot possibly begin to tell you all of them now. My hope is that as the weeks go by I will have a clearer understanding of how God will use this experience.