Automatic Breaking System

I got word just a few days ago; one of my prodigal family had died at age 23.  I hadn’t seen him in a few months, walking around Colfax or Peoria or 11th, and I always do.  He always had a smile and a wave when he recognized my car.  We always took the time to talk when we happened to see each other at the grocery store, or wherever.

Dustin was a light hearted soul, stuck in a world of harsh consequences.  He wanted to be liked so much, that lies and boastfulness became some of his standard tools.

I was just getting to know Dustin, years ago, when I finally got to meet the real young man behind the mask.  He was running toward the locked front door at Coffee House, when I saw him through the glass.  I rushed to meet him.  Unlocking the door, I saw the five kids running after him in the background.  Once inside, I witnessed them stop, talk, and finally walk away.  My eyes closed in thanks to God for turning them around, as my heart rate started to try and settle back down.

Dustin was a mess.  He wasn’t ducking his head in shame, though. He had thrown it back to try to stop his bleeding nose.  It had bled halfway down his shirt, as it was.  Taking stock now, bloody nose, bloody hands from a fall, skinned knees and bare feet.  As I moved to help him, he burst out, “don’t touch the blood, Ms V.”  I took a deep breath and starting praying again as I went to get the medical kit with gloves.

“They got my phone and my shoes,” he worried aloud, “my mom just got them.”  I tried to reassure, even as I was cleaning him up.  However, I didn’t know his mom at all, I couldn’t have said how she would react.  I started with asking about his mom, eventually offering to go in with him, when he talked with her.

This whole situation tore down the walls between Dustin and me.  He let me see the real person behind the defenses he’d built.  That afternoon made us family, and we talked and stayed in touch, even after he stopped coming to Coffee House.

I know relationships built living along Colfax can create some unusual families.  Chosen families that just as often have as many dysfunctions as blood related families do.  Relationships that God uses to shape me, just as much as anything I might say or do shapes others.

Life gets in a rush, here, just like everywhere else.  And in the rush sometimes, I hit a hidden patch of black ice and I lose all traction.  Only Christ gives me that ABS feeling of helping me come to a controlled stop to seek Him in the midst of chaos and loss.

To hear this last week that Dustin had died in January has put the breaks on my life for a time.  He is not the 1^st prodigal teen I have lost to death.  Each teen and each relationship is unique.  Losing Dustin has put me in my Heavenly Father’s arms, aching at this loss.  There are no words for this feeling.  I’m so glad Jesus doesn’t need them to hear my heart.

Who is Lighting the Way for Who?

I remember the days before I was nine.  Teacher's talking behind closed doors.  I overheard words like gypsies, transient.


I remember the look in someone's eyes when they were just "uncomfortable" with me.  Whether it was how I looked, smelled, talked, or gave them the eye, they were uncomfortable.  I was left to wonder why.  What about me makes you look at me like I'm something stuck to the bottom of your shoe?  What makes you whisper to someone next to you when I walk by?


Street teens have told me the stories of being told quietly, off to the side, by someone in the church that the teen is new to, that they need to: dress differently, look differently, speak differently.  Translation:  be someone else before you're welcome in God's House.  I've experienced it, in some form, have you?


I remember learning that Anger is a secondary emotion, it is caused by first or primary emotions like: shame, insecurity, disrespect, fear, etc. 


I remember sitting on a bed, hurt at what Christians could do, and my mother passing on the lesson that "they are God's beloved children, too," even when they're not seeing the whole picture of God's kingdom.

We're all broken, under construction, learning to draw closer to Christ.  We all can carry His light.  I feel a confidence when I introduce myself as "a sinner saved by grace."  I wish I did when I say I am a Christian...

a glimps of me...

“So, you have no practice at anything permanent.”

It was a statement.  She was 16 years old and I was coming up on 40.  This girl had just given me a revelation that would change how I view my own life, simply because she was right.

All we had been chatting about was how much we’d moved around when we were younger. Yes, we were also counting moving around from place to place in one city.  It was a lot, for both of us.  I was asking her how this affected her relationships with family & friends.  So, of course, being 16, she answered it, but then turned the question back on me.

I answered that I was very close to my family while we were moving around together, but it kinda fell apart once we weren’t in the same house.  I have two long time friends, because they’re stubborn enough to keep calling me every few months, and forgiving me about my long absences to the friendship.  My life was filled with acquaintances and my ministry family.  I admitted that it had more to do with my not thinking to call or keep up with people.

This has been a chief regret of my life.  I’m in love with the idea of family, but I suck at it.  Unless something happens, or they’re standing in front of me, or call me, I don’t think to keep in touch.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love them or don’t think about them and wonder what they might be doing, or even spinning yarns in my head of what they might be up to in the moments I’m thinking about them.  I say a little prayer, and I head into the next thing, and there is always a next thing, isn’t there…

If my parents hadn’t come to me in my late 20’s and asked, almost insisted that I find one evening a week to come to their house and visit, I don’t know what would have happened.  I’m lax in talking to my older brother, because he and his family live across the street from my parents.  I see him holidays, hear about him through my niece and my parents, so it seems like I’m close, even if I’m not.  I’m ashamed to say I’m not any better with my oldest brother who lives out of state.  I know I love him; I even admire him a lot, and think of him often.  I think to call and then tell myself to wait until the minutes are free after 7:30 pm, then my life pulls my attention away and I forget.  Too often, it’s the same with my friends.

All I could think about was all that moving.  Building the habits of making friends quick, so I had some, and forgetting them quick after a move so my heart wouldn’t ache over something I couldn’t do anything about.  In my young sinfully human way, building bad habits to “protect myself” and feeling it was okay.

So here we are.  I'm trying something new and praying God will help me develop into someone better than who I am.  A blog, an ongoing communication to my family, my friends, my champions, my church, my neighbors, and any new friends I make along the way.  I won’t always be talking about me, but I will have something to say.  Wanna join me?

Come & See!

If there is one thing I’m learning the longer I walk with the Lord, is that I have a lot to learn.  Coming into this mission field, I had a lot of preconceived notions about who I was and what I had to offer.  God, in His infinite patience has used the wisdom of the Christians already here, those who have joined with me or who supported me, and those I serve, to be my very best teachers and mentors.

I find myself at a loss of words to express all that Christ has done and is doing with these street kids, this community, and even the Christian walk of everyone that touches this ministry.  I find myself saying “Come and see! It’s more than a building, more than a place, you can feel the passion and energy that the Holy Spirit brings to God’s work!”
 

Today, if someone asked me who Jesus was, I would say, “Come and see.  Let me show you Jesus with skin on!”  I have been asked how we “evangelize the poor here.”  I find myself wanting to say, we bring folks like you and me here to learn about the kingdom of God from the poor, and then send them out to tell the rich and powerful there is another way of life being born in the margins.

I have learned that Jesus didn’t seek out the rich and powerful to spread His kingdom for a very good reason.  Rather, He joined the bottom, the outcasts and undesirables.  Then those in the middle were attracted to His love for people on the margins, and even some of the rich and powerful, too.  (We all know that each of us really feels poor and lonely, don’t we?)

Then Christ did what the “trickle down economics” of man could never understand.  Jesus invited us all into a journey of downward mobility to become the least.  Teaching us that we should be shouting the gospel with our lives, not our rules.

So many “seekers,” whether from the street or the suburban churches we partner with, have not been able to hear the words of Christians because the lives of Christians have been making more noise than sense.  It can be so hard to hear a “still small voice” of the Spirit amid the current noise of Christendom.

All I thought I had to offer these kids and families living along East Colfax, was really so much noise, once I really began to listen to God’s plans.  Christ didn’t call them, “the least of these,” He call them, “the least of these, my brothers!”  So, now I am learning the true meaning of the gospel of “the first shall be the last.”

So here is my challenge for the coming year.  I want to bring these “kingdom” lessons to those that are curious or thirsty to know more.  I want to meet with you, share a cup of coffee and a story, and let myself be peppered with questions.  I want to share with as many as possible, the great things happening here that we can all be a part of for God’s glory.

And I want to challenge all of you!  “Come and see!  Do not sit idly by and wonder what it means when Christ asks us to have a Servant Heart.  Come and see Christ with skin on!”

Dip Your Foot in the Pool!

A journey closer to God begins with a first step...

All I had going for me when I first started checking out Prodigal as a place to volunteer was a passion for helping kids and a lot of confusion on where to go, how to start, and the knowledge I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing!

I have no illusions that I am a perfect Christian.  I just knew that kids and teens, living in poverty, don’t deserve to be abandoned to their fate.  I just wanted to help in any little way I could.

My story is not unique.  I have heard it many times over as I have invited volunteers to join us in building Gods kingdom.    God has called us to have a heart for each other, and a heart for the poor.  His will is that we love our neighbors, whether they are Christians are not.

“I just feel like I’m not sure where to start, but I want to do something,” is a passionate statement often echoed.  Yet fears and frustrations often come up even before you check out the outreach you think you might want to be a part of at any church or organization.

All of us show up with some preconceived notions.  We’re human, it’s in our nature.  Then God steps in, bigger than our nature, and begins opening our eyes.  We learn that we have so much to learn.  That learning to love God better comes from learning to love His human beings better.

A light in the darkness showing the way.

It’s about making the time, not just for the cause you are excited about, but because through this process God is   revealing Himself.  It’s so common to get caught up in the routine of our lives and forget we have something to share that could change another’s life.

"I didn’t even know you guys were down here or that this stuff was happening to these people.”

“I’m learning so much each time I come down here to help.  I feel like the kids are teaching me so much more than I get to teach them!”

“I’ve felt like God was leading me to do something for awhile.  Find something I could really sink my teeth into.”

How is God speaking to you in your life?

What excites your imagination or frustrates so much you want to change it?  When was the last time you tried to “dip your foot in the pool” with giving something of yourself to honor God to someone in need?

Took a shift volunteering with your church’s child care, found a cause or ministry already connected with your church, or just checked out one of the ministries that you discovered online in your area?  Have you ever thought of checking out a ministry that you’re already supporting financially?

God calls us to raise up disciples as part of our faith walk.  Giving to missionaries and ministries is something we can do, but it shouldn’t be all that we do.  How can we start to know Christ more intimately, to share our blessings and gifts with those less fortunate, if we don’t seek something that stretches us?

These are questions I have asked myself.  Questions I ask of each of my missionary staff and volunteers.  Where am I in my faith walk, have I become to comfortable?  What am I learning new each day that encourages me to reach outside my comfort zone and see what God is up to in His kingdom?

Take Two

It’s no secret that the Economy seems to be dominating the news and the attention of the general public.  There is no area it has not touched on, it seems.  Just this past month I read a comment on how it was affecting the mission field.  How “the recession is permanently changing the way people think about giving - and how they want to interact with charities and each other.”

I was intrigued.  I wanted to learn more!  The more secular articles fairly screamed about how there was a tremendous short fall in giving as people lost confidence in a quick recovery.  Even some large Church organizations were talking about  tightening their belts and re-organizing.  Yet, the grass roots ministries and missionaries seemed to have a remarkably different perspective.

There has been a marked rise in “in-Kind” giving, whether clothing, food, sundries, or office supplies.  More and more, individuals would like to offer some of their skills, their expertise, or even their time, rather than just money.  A marked rise!  How can that not be good for God’s kingdom and His people!

The other half of that “changing the way people think about giving - and how they want to interact with charities and each other,” I discovered, was that those that wish to support, want to know more about what and who they are supporting. 

People are no longer sending their money out to several missionaries and organizations,      satisfied they have done what they can.  I have had more than one donor say that now, as a couple, they are selecting only a few and expecting to know more, be involved more, and see the impact that their donations are creating for the kingdom of God!

Often they are learning more about the missionaries and missions, themselves, praying more, being intentional and specific in what events or groups they are supporting.  They are using their own contacts with other friends, small groups, and church leaders to network and interact together for everyone’s benefit!

This is the best news ever!  The body of Christ is moving in a big way!   I’m so excited that you are a part of this with me, too!  You have surrounded me with prayer, time, support, encouragement and more.  You are already faithful to God’s kingdom building, and I feel blessed that Prodigal Gatherings has always been so well suited to all of these forms of donating!

Whether you’ve known me personally, through ministry, or heard me speak at your church, you have prayerfully made offerings for God’s kingdom and call on me to be a missionary.  I am eternally grateful and give God the glory for you!

I am passionate about our youth and volunteers, and now I can add, passionate for this good news of how God is moving.  I would love to invite you to join with me in getting the word out!  I think everyone needs to hear some good news about the body of Christ, and the triumph of God despite these days!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I Thessalonians 5:11-18

Everyone's Economy

It's been a tough year for everyone.  In the East Colfax community in which I serve, I watched a family lose their electricity because the father couldn't find enough day labor work to cover the bill.  And then I watched as everyday Christians and Bible study groups responded to our call and, each giving what they could, they raised enough the lights and heat back on.

These times have not just hit our poor community, but everyone, from our volunteers, who paid high gas prices this summer to come mentor our youth, to churches looking to give where the need is the greatest and the impact the most.  Troubling days in the secular world highlight what makes Christians so very different.  We might be tightening our budgets a bit more, but we know what treasure our God has in store for us.

If you would like know more about becoming one of my ministry partners, or find out more about the kingdom work happening on East Colfax, please contact me.  All donations are tax deductible, and those made before Dec 31^st will apply to this year's tax refunds.  More importantly, your financial support will have a kingdom impact on the lives of needy kids and teens.

As we celebrate the birth of Christ, Immanuel, God with us, the true treasure of our lives, both Nathan and I are wishing you and your loved ones a safe and joyous Christmas & a happy New Year!