brokenness. ballin’ friends. birthdays.

1. my neighbor taught breanna and i to make puerto rican rice. i made it on monday night, and it was actually good. this neighbor that i speak of, she’s great. she has four beautiful children, cooks like none other and is so crazy generous and hospitable to us. she opens her door to us any time and makes us feel at home. she gives us leftovers. she takes time to teach us to cook.

2. for curriculum we are reading The Way of the Heart, by Henri Nouwen. it is SO good. read it. it’s about solitude, silence, and prayer. we actually have a solitude retreat next weekend – where we are pretty much in solitude thursday night and friday. i have to admit, silence scares me sometimes. maybe i’m scared of all of the thoughts? but through that sweet communion with God in the silence, healing comes. i’ve seen that. and that’s what i desire: intimate communion with God. ALSO – read Life of the Beloved by him.  it’s BALLIN.

just a quote to spark your interest.

“the compassionate person is so aware of the suffering of others that it is not even possible for him or her to dwell on their own sins.”

3. my roommate, daniel, gave me one tiny dread on monday.

4. my team made s’mores on tuesday night. it was kjartan’s first time ever trying them. we melted the marshmallows over our gas stove. it was great.

5. on my birthday, i woke up, walked to the bathroom, opened the door – and it’s filled (so filled i can barely get in) with balloons and stuff written on the windows. my teammates and the interns at urban promise (the after school program we work with) did this for me. it was amazing. the kids at the afterschool program made me feel so special, too. one little boy brought me a bracelet – his dad said he ran home the day before and said dad! i have to get lindsay something for her birthday! his aunt suggested earrings, but he said he didn’t see me wear earrings, so a bracelet would be better. this kid is in kindergarten! and another one of the girls in 6th grade brought me a cake. it was amazing. and all of the letters and packages i received from home. i was so completely humbled.

6. there is too much else to write. but here are thoughts i’ve been writing all week.

i love the 5th grader i sit with at the bus stop in the mornings as we wait for our buses. i love hearing a neighbor say, “don’t worry, i’ve got your back.” i love drinking coffee out of a mug with chewbacca’s face on it. i love worshipping Jesus in ways i never have before. i love and hate learning things about myself i wasn’t aware of. seeing that living in community is like “seeing yourself naked.” i love when scripture comes alive like never before. i love having only one mirror, which is in the bathroom you share with 4 other people. i love laughing with my team. i love playing foosball, and on the rare occasion,winning. i get angry at injustice, like when i hear that in my neighborhood, sometimes the trash doesn’t get picked up, or if a bags breaks, they leave it there. that wouldn’t happen on the other side of town. hearing that the education the kids in my neighborhood are getting is not good – like an “A” here is like a “C” other places – for some reason it’s okay for standards not to be as high. i love when a teacher at the child care center tells me about her life as a single mom, and got my number so we could hang out. or when an assistant teacher saw me at the bus stop and said she could pick me up in the mornings to go to the child care center.

and a final thought. God loves with a GREAT love. He loves us abundantly. He gives ABUNDANT life. FULL LIFE. i think i’ve settled for mediocrity a lot in my life. i don’t want to do that any longer.

“and once your were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…

BUT GOD, being rich in mercy, because of the GREAT LOVE with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us ALIVE with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the IMMEASURABLE riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians. 2:4-7

At city-wide (something we have every other Thursday in Philadelphia with the teams from Camden, and Philly) someone spoke to us.  He spoke about the prodigal son, and how most of us take the place of the older son. I come to my Father and am frustrated when He goes after the one who hasn’t stuck by Him like I have – and I feel like I have worked hard, and now the one who hasn’t is treated like a prince. BUT my Father looks at me and says “You are already my beloved. You already have all of this, and that is enough.” He spoke about how we are in need of being in the place of the other son, the one who ran away. When he ran back,  he saw his brokenness, and saw that being a slave to his father was better than starving. Yet when he goes to beg his father to allow him to be a slave, he is treated like a prince, and embraced. Just like that son, I am broken. I am starving. This speaker reminded me that when I look around my neighborhood, and I see the brokenness, I really can see the brokenness in my own life. Such as addictions – I also have addictions, they may just look a little different. I am the chief of sinners. Yet God calls me His beloved. And that is enough. So I came to do Mission Year for a year. Me doing this for a year cannot change the world. Maybe I am just seeing my brokenness, and in that I am able to love. Maybe I don’t have a lot to give, but I can give my presence. When I see my brokenness, and the gift that God calls me His beloved, I long for the ones around me to know that love.

In the mornings, something the Lord is showing me is what joy really is. I was having a hard day the other day, and I was angry. I was just telling God that I was in pain, and I couldn’t find joy in it. Then – that David Crowder song popped into my head “You are my joy, you are my joy, you are my joy, you are my joy…” That’s it. HE IS MY JOY. Regardless of what I am feeling, no matter where I am, no matter who or what leaves or gives up on me, no matter what changes, or when things don’t go as I planned, the love my Father has for me doesn’t change. So, if HE is my joy, then I always have joy, because He doesn’t change. The question is now, is HE my joy? Can I really be in a foreign place, out of my comfort, and have joy?

the back yard. where i spend a lot of my quiet time.

article we read at training.

http://www.esa-online.org/images/mmDocument/PRISM%20Archive/Features%202009/MayJun09MixingItUp.pdf

I honestly do not have any idea how to write about my life in the past month. I’ve been trying to write some things here and there – and I feel as if it is everywhere, but here it goes.

What a normal week looks like:

Monday. get up at 6:30 am. 7-8 am – quiet hour. Go with the team to Urban Promise Bible Study with the other interns there. Come home to grab a sandwich and walk back to Urban Promise (http://www.urbanpromise.org/) to do after school programs with pre -k through 6th graders. Leave around 6:30 to walk home for family night (one team member plans something for the team to do together).

Tuesday. get up at 6 am. 6:45-7:45 – quiet hour. Catch the #1 bus @ 8. Transfer to the #4 bus. Get to the childcare center (a part of The Ministry of Caring – a childcare center for homeless children) at 8:45. Work in the 2 year old room there until 1:00. Walk or catch the bus back home. Grab lunch, then walk to Urban Promise for after school programs. Get home around 6:45. Cook dinner with the team. Maybe read curriculum reading, work on newsletters, journal, hang out outside with neighbors (kids from across the street teaching us to dance), maybe a rousing game of foosball.

Wednesday. get up at 6 am. 6:45-7:45 – quiet hour. Leave at 8 for team leader meeting in Philadelphia at 9. Meet with the girls until around 12:30. Drive back for Urban Promise. 6:30, leave UP. Grab something for dinner at home, and walk to church Bible study. get home around 9:30.

Thursday looks pretty much just like Tuesday, except on Thursday nights the whole team goes to Philly for training or city-wides at the Mission Year office.

Friday. SABBATH.

Saturday. Quiet hour. Grocery shopping and chores. Neighborhood time.. which so far has included baking cookies for or with neighbors, block parties, sports with the kids, hanging out at other’s houses, running errands with neighbors, cards on the porch, bbq’s at the neighbors. Saturday nights are our hospitality nights, so we have friends and families over for dinner.

Sunday. Church from 10:00-1 or 2 (http://www.unionbc.org/). laundry, reading, hanging out in the neighborhood. team meeting. dinner. curriculum meeting (where we talk about what we have been reading).

My team. Breanna is from West Virginia. She is crazy passionate about learning about other cultures, speaking Spanish (Lauren her teddy bear is named OSCITO!!), and trying to learn to juggle. She hates germs, and gets really freaked out when I don’t wash my hands. She also says ya’ll (which I get made fun of for saying a lot here) and laughs really loudly with me.  Kjartan is from Norway.  He taught us a song to sing for the blessing. He juggles really well, and sometimes does it outside our house, and it’s like a one man circus – people stare. He is usually my partner in foosball, and we are good. When he wins, he likes to sing the Norwegian national anthem. Sometimes he says things like lick my back instead of kiss my butt. He is probably one of the most encouraging people I know. Kirk is from Minnesota. He is a really great cook and really wants our oven to work. He has my back when older men say awkward things on the street. He fixed my ipod within the first 10 minutes I knew him, and he is really good at technological things – which kind of sucks for him sense we are on a technology fast right now. He enjoys singing 90’s music with me, and is the calmest foosball player of the team. He also will say hello to absolutely anyone he sees outside and loves to drink “pop”. Daniel is from Calgary, which is in Canada if you don’t know. He says things like “ey” and when he says drama its like the beginning of Dramamine, that medicine. He must stop saying it this way.  He has dreads that are dirty, and likes to play Johnny Cash on the guitar. Older women like his dreads. He beats me at foosball every time, and eats really strange things – like bananas with sour cream and bacon bits. He is super funny, and he always really challenges me. And that’s them. They are great. Sometimes I am not as great to them, because I’m really selfish – and they give me grace – which is really awesome.

Also. go to Kjartan’s blog (http://kjartanaano.blogspot.com/). It’s in Norwegian, but you can see pictures :)

Things Jesus is teaching me.

1. He is enough. I’ve said those words and I’ve sung those words SO many times before, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really had to trust in them. There are times when I’m here when I long for the things I always found comfort in, and I miss home. Or I think, why would I leave home where my family and friends were, to come to a new place where I don’t know anyone, where people may laugh at me or look at me strange, and even accuse my team for doing things we didn’t do. Then I remember Jesus left heaven, came to earth where he was not comfortable, where people mocked Him and accused Him of things he didn’t do. And then he died for me. And I hear this faint voice that tells me – “Lindsay, I am enough. Remember those moments when everything seems to make sense – like when your heart beats out of your chest because the little girl that you love in your neighborhood yells your name out across the street, or when your neighbor hugged you and told you she really needed a friend and that God brought you to her, or when you see the love in sister Janice’s eyes when she puts a little boy who is living in a shelter to sleep for a nap while he can’t stop screaming – and in those moments when you have no words to explain what you are feeling – those moments are an abundance of my grace. I am enough, and I give you what you need.”  I am overwhelmed by who He is, and that I can serve Him. It makes no sense that He loves me. NONE. I am constantly more amazed by it.
2. I can have hope because Jesus has come and is coming again. I can have hope for tomorrow because I see Jesus changing this broken world now, and because He is coming back. When I hear children telling me about the violence happening right outside their doorstep, or the man down the street tell me of his hunger, and my neighbor tell me about the better life she wants for her daughter – I can have hope because Jesus died – and in His death, everything changed. There is now a forward movement towards redemption – He is in the process of restoring, and it is beautiful.
3. One of the hardest things in leaving Columbia has been leaving my friends. And I have seen here that I need that in my life. And my neighbors, they are not just people who live around me.. they are people that I need. I need the girl who lives down the street from me. I need her to talk to and share with and do life with. It’s a reciprocal relationship – give and take. She is not a project, or someone I ask questions to all day so I have good stories to tell about my neighborhood. She is my friend, a friend who I need and I need to be vulnerable with.

This is part of an entry I wrote in a reflection journal about a picture I had to choose from a magazine to explain how I was feeling. it was a picture of a girl with a party hat on, screaming…

“2 weeks and around 4 days. Philadelphia, Camden, Atlanta, Wilmington. Team leaders. Team. Staff. Neighbors. Church. Service sites. Here I am, in the middle of what I’ve wanted for so long, and yet I kind of want to scream. I look at the girl in this picture, and I see someone who has her party, exactly what she wanted, but she screams in the middle of it. For years now God has been opening my eyes to the fact that He is not to be contained in my small view of Himself. He is big – and is much more than I understand. And through seeing that, I am learning more of His true character through scripture, song, relationship, and quiet. And learning more about Him brought me here. I have desired so long to be just here. Learning to live in community, which I’ve seen we are created for – loving my neighbors and seeing past stereotypes, serving in the community – everything Mission year is about. And I was told how it would be difficult and overwhelming at times, yet that didn’t feel real. Now I am here and it is difficult and overwhelming. The girl in the picture, she is screaming, yet it is a picture, so she cannot be heard. I want to scream, yet I am surrounded by people – so I sit, with a scream on my face that cannot come out. Honestly I’ve always prided myself on being a laid back person – I really am not bothered by much.  Now – everything second I have to keep myself in check because I see how selfish I am and how easily bothered I can be over the stupidest things. And normally I am extremely outgoing and love to meet people, but it’s harder here. And usually I love to leave home. I’ve never been homesick. But now, I miss home. So at times all of this gets really overwhelming and I feel it building up in me and I want to scream, literally. But then I am quiet and alone for just a little while – and I am reminded of the peace and assurance I had in coming here. I am reminded of the fact that my team all has the same heart to be here and I begin to see the beauty in each of them, instead of being annoyed by something small. And I begin to feel loved when I sit in a room with them all, in silence or in laughter. Or I remember that God loves me, and He comforts me, and He satisfies me, and in the middle of chaos or confusion, He is there. And He comes in the simplest ways – in the encouragement of a teammate, in the smile of a little boy on a porch, in a neighbor when she feels comfortable enough to borrow something, or a flower in the middle of weeds, in the story of a man sticking with a recovery program and being freed from addiction, in the story of a school that teaches children in order to equip them to be leaders in the community and follow Jesus. He is here. And then I am reminded that the scream I couldn’t vocalize was heard. My good good God heard my cry and He is with me. And I am calmed, and thankful. And I have new hope for what He will do in this year.”

“But I call to God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage. Cast your burden on the Lord, AND HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU; HE WILL NEVER PERMIT THE RIGHTEOUS TO BE MOVED.” Psalm 55:16-18; 22