Jubilee - God’s desire

I host a bible study as part of my ministry.  Recently, I was asked about a comment I made in passing, “What we really need is a year of Jubilee."

It’s something I’ve heard my dad say my whole life.  And it doesn’t surprise me when a teen doesn’t know an obscure, old testament reference, yet the question came from a learned adult Christian.

I love when God brings us to a place where the youth and the adults are all learning, together.  The Spirit really moved and we all saw each other in a new light as we shared a lot of different perspectives.

We started in Leviticus 25 talking about God’s call to Sabbath rest; not just for us, but everything.  Some of the adults felt put on the spot when asked why they didn’t keep Sabbath, or why we change it around.  Don’t ever underestimate a Street Kid’s ability to make you squirm.  =)

“But how is this about Jesus?”, a teen popped out with volume.  So I took them to Luke 4: 16 - 30.  The first written out sermon of Jesus after His temptation in the desert and the start of His ministry.  I asked them all to share why they thought that all the people tried to kill Christ when He spoke those verses from Isaiah and then talked about who God used and saved.  Lots of perspectives, here’s a few:

We talked about how Christ was declaring that He was the Jubilee come in flesh to give the people and the land rest, to bring justice and mercy.  How those that owned and possessed much didn’t want Jubilee.

How the Jubilee is for everyone but not for everyone.  It is only required of believers, yet it benefits everyone as we share it’s fruits, just like the Gospel.

We talked about the question of Peter to Jesus about how many times we should forgive, where Jesus said 70x7.  (This is where I learned something new about the correlation to Jubilee in that statement.)  That’s how many Jubilee years the Jews had not observed until the coming of the Christ.

This night will stick with me my entire life, for the interaction, the laughter & teasing, the scriptures & the deepened relationships.  This night, we were all the savory sweet fruit of the Spirit.

Preparation & Meditation

May is my Springtime preparation.  It’s the calm before the starting gun goes off June 1st.

ROP will be hosting three summer interns this year in partnership with Denver Urban Semester.

My role has always been as coordinator and mentor for their two months with us.  Training with them to get them up and running for youth day camps, food & clothing banks, tutoring with GED , administration fun and meeting with our community during ROP outreaches.

Like a box of chocolates, I have to be prepared for all sorts of personalities, skills and strengths.  It always goes best when I take the time to tune into God’s plans, rather than my own.

I still remember the great start I received from Jill when I first started with Prodigal.

A scary but exciting time, when we’re following God, yet not sure how it will change us as we learn about His heart for the lost, captive and poor.

May none of us forget our first time following Jesus into places that challenge us.  Moving us out of our comfort zones and into a deeper relationship.

Accountability is not a bad word!

In such an independent society, I think this word has gotten a bad rap; along with responsibility and submission.

I’ve thought of it as a bad thing, myself.  Maybe that’s why the leader started out talking about good vs bad stress.

Bad stress being that which slows us down or makes us ineffective.  Good stress might be a deadline that gives us just enough tension to get the work done.

Accountability can very much be a good stresser in our lives. 

To know someone will be asking me about, say, my devotional time with God; following up with me about the prayer request I made; or just calling me on what I just said over coffee.

If you’re like me, you crave healthy relationships, friends and mentors.  Part of that is allowing those I’ve come to trust, the permission to speak into my life.

Not just anyone, and not someone that doesn’t know me; but someone I’m going to intentionally allow close enough to my struggle to become a part of my growth and development.

A Year's Acomplishment

I know I’ve given you a few false starts about when, but not intentionally.  I’ve been eager to show you what I’ve been learning and doing over the last year, along with my other duties.  I’ve made some false starts and had to backup to learn about things that left me clueless.

 

However, March is the month!  Everyone has assured me that the timing is right and we can revel the upgrade to our own ROP website!

I’ve had help all along the way with editing, photos, and a great WordPress website design partner in John Fitzpatrick who is volunteering his expertise online from Arizona.  Communication has always been a passion of mine, yet I’ve had a lot to learn in this new age of website design, Twitter, and Facebook.

I’m sure I’ll be making a few mistakes along the way, yet I know you’ll go easy on me, right?

So, come on over and check it out next week!  Let me know what you think, share a suggestion, or look us up on Facebook or Twitter.

I’m a bit scared, but I think God has something great in mind for this!

It’s just a great new way to get Relational in Ministry!  =)

Twitter:  ROPministry

FB: Restoration Outreach Programs

Love can bring a plan together

     I’ve known D~ for five years.  I met her when she came to Colorado at  age 13 to live with her grandmother.  Her story is fraught with drama;  alcoholic mother,  a father & step-fathers that abused her, two siblings each with a different dad from hers.  She was passed around in the family a lot    because mom always chose men, alcohol and drugs over her children.

     When I first met her, she was withdrawn, quiet and a veracious reader, unless she got mad, her temper could burn you to the ground, but it was never her first choice.  She was never a fighter, she craved peace and stability.  She is the first in four generations to graduate high school, and she did it on time.

     I met T~ only after they became parents together.  I had heard about their relationship for over a year, through D~.  She didn’t paint me a glowing picture, but even I could see there was a connection and a growing love .  When the pregnancy was shared with her family, she was disowned.  Their ultimatum was, they would help her, only if she got rid of T~.

     T~’s past is filled with a grandmother that cares but couldn’t take him in from his meth addict mom, so he was in the foster care system by age seven.  This system could have helped him, if he hadn’t run away from several homes and made a lot of poor choices without support.  He spent a lot of time in detention with misdemeanors and bad roll models.  Yet, his heart wanted more.  He completed high school and chanced upon a young woman that had faith in him.  They fell in love.  His family is supportive of their relationship, but the family has no resources and addictions and drama of their own.

     One of the first things God taught me in ministry is key; listening, a lot!  Through the 10 plus years I’ve been a missionary, I know that sitting down with a teen to write out a list of their dreams and goals tells me a lot about where their head and heart is, as well as what they value and cherish.

     Sitting down with T~, just getting to know him, we made up a list, with no ideas from me until he was done, or only to answer a question.  He is passionate about finding work because the money will help solidify his future and take care of his past.  His first goal: earn enough to pay for a marriage   license.  Then he wants to take care of restitution and probation fees that he owes to Adams County for his juvenile record, etc.  So we talked more about options.  He’s excited about Joshua Station’s Transitional Housing program because it gives them two years, with classes on parenting, job skills, budgeting, etc.  His words: “I can learn what my family never knew.  I want to take care of D~ & their daughter the right way.”

     I might be ministering to this young family and answering a lot of their questions about resources, God & faith.  Yet, Jesus is using this little family, fighting the odds, to grow me and my faith.  He never stops drawing us closer to Him, using our willing hearts to learn through the relationships He draws us into, what His heart for us really is: just to be His loving family.

God Remembers

Sometimes, we find ourselves in the middle of storms.

A consequence of an action catches up with us.

We hurt someone or get hurt by someone.

We lose our jobs, our marriages and hope.

We land in the middle of a storm.

Recently, I read about someone who understands that.

In Genesis 8:1 it says, “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.”

That is amazing. Why?

Well, the earth has 196,939,900 square miles of surface area.

The ark was 450 feet long and 75 feet wide.

It would have been easy to misplace something so small and insignificant. I lose my phone all the time and the   surface area of my pockets is less than 196,939,900.

But God remembered.

He remembered.

And he sent a wind.

And the waters receded.

That’s my prayer for you and I, that we will remember he remembers. That we serve a God who remembers us in our storms, sees us in our small boats, and recedes our waters with a gentle wind.

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.