Lost in Translation

If you didn’t already know this, North Aurora has made some dramatic changes since we first moved onto the block five years ago.  The cultural breakdown is now roughly: a third predominately white transient poor (living in the motels or worse); a third, immigrants from Mexico; and the last third are the refugees from war torn countries around the world.  Predominately from Burma, Nepal and Somalia, though there are others as well.

We are a rainbow of cultures helping each other become more at home in this beautiful country of ours.  Our programs are filled with faces beaming from under “hijab” (muslim head coverings) or above bodies swathed in “sari” dresses, even in winter, so excited to experience free education (even for women) and the lovingly supportive community we share with them.

Learning about a new culture can be fraught with landmines and misunderstanding.  Cultures that don’t  run their lives by what time it is are often late to appointments and hold more value in relationships then punctuality.   Especially those that have spent years living in internment/detention camps spending most of their energy to obtain the basics of survival.

Our food bank was the first to be stretched, a few years back, in being Christ to these families.  Many of our foods are baffling and hard to trust for a vegetarian who finds themselves in a very meat centric culture, (with foreign looking produce even.)  Invitations to come explore our food was met with polite resistance.  Until we dropped our need to control and began visiting, accepting the invitations of families.  As a guest, we were treated like a blessing on their house, whatever they have being freely offered, though it might cause them hardship later.  As we showed love, trust and respect of them and their food, so they began to trust us.

Along the way we’ve discovered many things.  The women are familiar with cooking on stove tops, but fear the oven.  Many women calling it a “dragon” (which took a bit of translation to learn)  =)  The mystery of broil, bake, let alone self-cleaning selections, make them suspicious and fearful of it.

Which brings us to this holiday.  Ever thought about how much baking goes into a traditional American Thanksgiving?  I hadn’t. Even if you leave the turkey out of it, there’s a lot!  The first year was a fiasco of explaining a frozen turkey is meat.  Which taught us to offer a King Sooper gift card for a turkey or anything else they might like instead.  We did talk to our families about getting more culturally specific foods, but no, they wanted to celebrate the freedom they found in America with a traditional American meal.  Maybe next year we can plan for a few volunteers to do cooking classes for the oven? lol

Now, you find every ROP program blended with our multi cultural community; from youth ministry & after school tutoring, to GED, ESL and Food Bank.  God’s Kingdom work in foreign countries, is right here in North Aurora.

New Connection & Growth

Writing has always been a very solitary thing for me.  Crafting a thought into words takes space, silence, and a good deal of avoiding  interruptions.

It is the only time I cannot listen to music as I work.  Nothing that might break the mood or the thought that God is leading me to share.

Maybe that explains some of the struggle I’ve had accepting social media.  It’s writing, but immediate and conversational.  One must check back and pay attention and maybe even be quick with a response.  =)

I’m fascinated by my husband, who uses Facebook as a ongoing conversation with his family scattered across the eastern plains of CO, and farther.  He talks with his old high school friends, college friends, and even cousins, aunts & uncles.  For privacy, he has special pages for branches of his family; the Stones, the Ekbergs. I’m in awe.

When I first got on Facebook, he would gripe when I wasn’t up with the conversation because I hadn’t checked it in weeks. I’d also heard about inane chatter about who’s doing what when; “Just made a pizza for lunch.”  Yet, all these classes I’m taking for websites & social sites stress the importance of understanding these places are a new mission field, a place for relational partnerships between individuals and organizations.  The old ways are not gone, but we as Christians should not let technology and “newness” scare us away from places where we can lift Christ up.

I’ve since been trying to exercise new habits of social networking for ROP.  I’m not doing so well but I’m learning.  Yet, God is even faithful in the Internet world.  People have been ‘Liking’ our ROP Facebook page.  =)

Partner organizations on Twitter are reTweeting.  I don’t know exactly what I’m doing yet, but God knows what He has planned.  (Which I find incredibly reassuring.)

I want to create a wonderful place for people to visit and get to know ROP and each other.  A place to share ideas, event news and create new relationships and volunteers.

Please pray as God trains me and stretches me to learn a new way to build His vision.

Layers & Peeling

Whether it’s a line from “Shrek” that Ogres are like onions, or “The Blind Side” describing people that are like onions, you have to peel them back one layer at a time. It feels like life gives us onions rather than lemons, sometimes.

Lemonade never related to people very well for me. Maybe it was the image of squeezing and crushing that gave me shivers. Not that peeling an onion is without its consequences. There’s the whole, "slow so you don’t bruise it" and tears in the process. Yet, that sounds human to me and very relatable to interacting with friends, family, and difficult personalities.

This last month has been all about listening. God’s charge to us all and His indispensable tool for true
relationship. For those of you who have been through our youth volunteer training, I’m sure you remember the emphasis that was put on just listening, active listening, and sharing only when asked.

It’s amazing what a kid or teen will share with you when they really feel heard and cared about by an adult.

Yet, for all I’ve learned and experienced with really listening, it’s one of those lessons in life that I keep having to relearn. With the resent loss to our family of my husband’s mother, my husband needs me to do little else but listen with uncritical love, without trying to “fix it.”

At work, we just went through a team building exercise in, you guessed it, listening! When God is doing great things, it’s amazing how hard the devil attempts to get a toe hold to create discord. As our building is filled to capacity with programs, and heading into the holidays, communication is key, with listening and understanding the bigger part.

With all my experience & training, it is my flesh that keeps getting in the way. Finding that I’m not listening but rehearsing what I might say next, or identifying so much that I take the conversation over and make it about my experience, or even playing “fix it” hearing them shape up the issue only to offer my best advise before they’ve finished. My flesh doesn’t seem to learn that only by listening does real understanding take place. And my heart longs to feel understood, doesn’t yours?

Praise God that He is not quick to judge my failings and throw me away for the hurt I cause. Instead, with grace and patience, He loves me as I get up, dust myself off, apologize and try again. This time seeking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct me, giving me a patience and joy in listening.

I pray this grace for you and your family, too, as we head into the holiday season. The Greek word for Spirit translates, “Breath of God.” So remember to breathe and look for God in the relationships around you. Know that Jesus is in control and seeking to bless us. I will keep the prayer bucket full, so feel free to dip from it as you need.

Walking in Adversity with Faith & Hope

This summer has been more than hot, it’s been rough, on  everyone.  I’m not just talking about the Century16 shootings, but our families.  Yes, deaths, yet also, economics, joblessness, foreclosures, fires, insurance claims, illness, and kids out of school.

                 Ever hear of Caregiver Fatigue? I have, yet I’ve never seen it so prevalent across the board, regardless of income, background, or location.  Grief and tragedy are great levelers, but don’t ever underestimate, pure old stress.  Especially for those of us who are often looking out for someone else instead taking care of ourselves.

Yep, I’m talking to you! ~chuckle~  I know I can’t be alone in overdoing because I care.  I know you all too well.  So here are some things that God has been teaching me this month. 

· I can experience 3 different emotions in under five minutes when I’m having a bad day.

· A rough day at work, a rough commute home, equals a grumpy me when I walk in the door to my family.

· God wants me to treat me like His precious child, even as I treat others with the same compassion.

As Nathan and I have been dealing with family stresses, besides my ministry & his work, namely our aging parents health.  We have agreed to make a healthy change together.  We will no longer rely on our commute home to be decompression time between work and home.  One word, traffic; enough said.  =)

So instead, once we are home and before unloading the car,   before going in and seeing each other, before greeting the kids, we will just go around to the trail behind our house and walk & talk with God for 15 minutes.

Wow, we were addicted after just two days, it felt and worked so good.

Now, I know our life is not yours, it just still has stress you don’t want to bring with you place to place.   Take it to God, talk to yourself, choose  something that would bless you.  Give yourself enough grace to transition with God from one role or expectation to the next.  I think you’ll be as amazed and addicted as we were.

My prayer for us all is to take the time to allow God to grant us that peace that passes understanding we pray for ourselves and others.  I pray to be a light in a dark place.  An example to the world of what a close relationship with Christ can do for all the healthy and broken relationships in our own lives.

With faith and hope for each and every one of us, I pray.

Foreign Lands like Twitter, Facebook, & Google

It is no secret that social media is not going away anytime soon.  I’ve heard the complaints and the praises and, personally, I was not interested. 

Yet, I have a husband that works insane hours, most days from 7am to 11pm without unlimited internet access.  My husband loves Facebook because it is a viable and vital way to keep up with family and friends when he can only talk in the middle of the night.

Then I met Jerry Fultz over coffee to talk about our ministries.  He said something that challenged me.  Long story short, the online community is God’s mission field, too.  An hour stretched into two as he expressed how social media is very much a tool of relational ministry.  I was sold, with a smile.  Which didn’t mean I don’t still have a lot to learn.

Recently, I read a book called “@stickyJesus” by Toni Birdsong & Tami Heim.  It’s all about how to live out your faith in a online mission field.  I highly recommend it.  So, are you someone like I was, reluctant and busy? Or are you more like my husband, eager to get online and stay in touch?  Maybe you’re somewhere in between.

God creates us all uniquely suited for the mission field He is calling us to join Him in reaching.  I’m discovering just how big this new field is, and how hungry people are to feel heard.  Just like any worldly place, there are the posers, liars, and crooks; the uninformed, misinformed, and   bullies.  It’s not unlike walking into a cocktail party and attempting to meet or know people.

Yet, when we really listen, even past the boring updates, the nervous chatter, and off color jokes.  There are voices asking to be heard, willing to let us in, if only we will be kind.

I began attempting to be a listener on Facebook.  My husband helped me set up a group for our past Prodigal’s to get in touch.  Wow! What a response, especially to pictures.  My account is now a gateway for teens and past teens to get in touch, keep in touch and strengthen bonds once more.  God has worked in wild and wonderful ways, yet not just online.  Online is where it starts, of course.  God isn’t afraid of technology, He just uses it as a tool, not a replacement for relationship.  Christ is still more    interested in us coming together to get personal and relate to each other, then in anything impersonal.

I’m amazed sometimes in what our Prodigal’s share online.  Recently, a teen I’ve mentored had a lot to say. First, her boyfriend was out of jail and they were together again.  Then, that she was homeless with him now because her family wouldn’t let him move into her bedroom. Soon after, that she had discovered she was pregnant. Lastly, to say they had become engaged, did anyone know where they could stay the night, off the street.

Finally, a question, and then more.  To these, I responded.  Not to be a know it all or judgmental, but to invite her offline so we could share and she could ask all the questions she wanted.  From there she invited me in deeper to talk with her and her boyfriend.  God is at work.

Now I know my story is not yours.  Yet, I don’t think it is any less relevant.  There is nothing in scripture to say God created the internet as a solution.  It is just another foreign land into which He calls us to be light in the darkness.  Not to preach or judge, but to offer an answer to those who are seeking. From that light of Christ’s truth and love for them, a spark can draw people into real relationship.  Is this as new a thought as it is for me?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.  =)

What Would You Do?

What if your child was given a ticket for using fireworks in the city and county of Denver?  What would you do knowing it to be a youthful mistake, serious, yet caused no damage?

Now imagine, what would happen to a kid that  didn’t have a loving family with structure and discipline at home?

This is a truth that is a part of this ministry.  Two teens, both with a warrant out for their arrest for this very reason.  One girl, one boy.  The warrant is due to ignoring the ticket for so long.  The consequence is now a $200 fine or 2 days in jail. 

One single parent refuses to appear in court for her child, she has her own issues with the law.  The other single parent has cut her child off and kicked her out of the home permanently, though the girl is underage.

As a mentor working with street kids, how would God desire us to come alongside these teens?  Is it just about money solving the issue of the fine?  What if there is no money to use?  We show love, but what does that look like?

I’m not asking because I know the answer.  I ask because I believe God teaches me a lot when I bring Him a problem bigger than myself or any  ability or resources I have.

Share your thoughts and ideas and teach this missionary a thing or two.  =)

Cell Phone Prayers

Sitting with a small group of elementary and  middle  school children, who had recently accepted Christ was a treat.  I was asked to help kick off our summer discipleship program.

The volunteer lead had a wonderful lesson on cell phones and prayer.  I watched eyes light and hands shoot up to questions like:  If you wanted to call me could you press any numbers you wanted?  What’s God’s number? And many more.

Looking up passages in the bible, the children learned how They can call God anytime by using His number J-E-S-U-S.  That we can call Him any time and anywhere about anything.

I was asked to share my story of last week & how I had lost my smart  phone for a week.  How I prayed to God about it and how He answered my prayer.  We closed by asking the children to share their prayers so we could pray together.

I was in awe as I watched the Spirit move and these new little believers step out in faith.  I feel so blessed God invited you and I into sharing these simple truths with those who need His love!

Mission Field?

It amazes me how many changes  technology has brought us over my lifetime.  For my grandmother, it was the invention & commercialization of airplanes.  She always looked to the skies with awe and wonder.

For me, it is computers, from the ticker cards they used when I was a child, to green monitors, then amber, and finally an inescapable part of our everyday life.

Who knows what the future may hold.  For the present, we live in a reality of websites and social media.  What an amazing new mission field.

Yes, mission field.  In learning how to join or keep up in this brave new era of Facebook and Twitter, I found     myself asking what it looked like to be a Christian in an online world.  Is there such a thing as living out my faith online?

Each training and class was quick to teach the mechanics of building a page, etc.  Yet, where is God’s hand in this?  Our children will never know a world without it all.

I’m learning a lot, yet I feel like we as Christians, have a lot of catching up to do.  What do you think about it all?

Foreign Missions is Here

Missions:  a person undertaking a mission and especially a religious mission

Ministry:  a person or thing through which something is accomplished

I’m wondering if our culture has begun to believe what they see on TV.  That missions is only about starving children, villages stricken with disease, poverty, and a lack of education somewhere overseas.  As you see above, it’s not that complicated.

Transforming the world by living out our salvation in our daily lives, loving God, and loving our neighbor, does not take a passport.  It does, however mean joining a team.  Partnering with someone overseas or right in the urban neighborhoods of our city.

Transformation is a powerful word.  Just hearing it, we almost automatically think of radical conversions and incredible change.  But is it possible to transform an apartment building, a neighborhood, or a workplace into something Christ-like?  Jesus thinks so. 

“In your heart, set Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone that asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect.” 

1 Peter 3:15 

I live and work along the East Colfax corridor.  It is filled with motels and apartments teeming with old people, families, children, and teens.  Some of them may be immigrants, refugees, addicts, prostitutes, hustlers, dealers, or even none of those things.  Yet they are all my neighbors living along side me from day to day.

I’m looking for team members and partners in this calling God has placed on my life.  Individuals looking to learn more about faith, urban missions & ministry.  Will you consider joining my team as we lift God up?  Will members, already part of my team, reach out to others to join and share this experience with us?  God is up to something and I want to be part of it.  Please join me through prayer as we seek to lift Christ up along East Colfax!   =)