So now I’m home from St. Louis.
It was weird pulling back in to Black River Falls with Eric on that first Thursday night. We both looked at each other and just said, “Wow. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been gone 7 weeks.” Except for the corn being taller, everything is pretty much the same. It’s hard to come back when you know you’ve changed, but not much around home has. It feels strange. It felt similar to when I came home from being a foreign exchange student in Japan… my time in Japan just ended up being this nice dream-like memory for the most part. I don’t want St. Louis to be the same way. Looking now, I wanted to share some of the ways I’ve seen myself change. I would appreciate continued prayer as I seek to make sure these don’t fade completely away. I know that they’ve already started to fade in some ways, but I pray that God will etch these truths on my heart so they become part of me.
I’m trying to complete the alliteration, but there are four main lessons I’m taking away from the summer:
Patience, potential, prayer, and (international) people.
Working with twelve year olds and living with 30 other college students, some of whom I didn’t have much in common with, and the logistics and last minute changes and unknowns associated with the summer really grew me in PATIENCE. I’ve always had a hard time being patient, especially with people and especially with my family. I’ve also been super schedule oriented most of my life, but, this summer, our every changing and frequently completely unknown schedule and agenda helped break me of that. I learned how to keep my cool when people ignore you or don’t listen or even instigate dissonance. I’ve been working to apply that back at home with my family, especially working for my dad, this August.
Through my interactions with my class, God began to give me his eyes for POTENTIAL. The very first day of the project we had a devotional guide through Isaiah 61 and 62.
Isaiah 61:1-4
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion –
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
The will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;
They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
God saw the potential of the poor and the broken city. He didn’t see the poor as a liability or a hopeless cause, but he said THEY would be oaks of righteousness; THEY will rebuild these cities. God began to give me his eyes for potential this summer. Working with the kids over time, I began to see past the behavioral problems, beyond the disrespect, behind the underlying factors of culture and broken homes, and God blessed me with a glimpse of who they were created to be. The goal setting activity from week three of teaching (week 5 overall) and the end of the summer wrap up from the last week really helped me see that. Each kid, even the really difficult ones, had their shining moments where you could see their desire to be some one, to do something, to be more than they are. I continue to pray they would continue to find a lot of that in their identities in Christ, but I also pray they would see themselves as having the potential to do whatever God wants them to do. I also trust God will put more people in their life to continue to tell them that, and I pray that those voices would be louder than that of the culture’s, sometimes their parent’s or sometimes their teachers, and even the church’s sometimes – those voices that so often tell them they can’t, that say their stuck in the same cycle. That peak into the potential of these kids (who would have been so easy for me to write off as drug dealers or vandals-in-the-making in the past) changed my perspective on other “hopeless” causes, like the inner city or the homeless or even specific people in my life. It has given new depth to my skills as a visionary. I’m stoked to apply this to my chapter of InterVarsity, my campus, and my city.
God also used the summer to remind me of the power of PRAYER and my desperate need to grow in it. God answered prayers over and over again – from providing for my funding before I even came, to the best day we had for class behavior was one that I prayed during my devotional for each student by name and for our class time together, to little things like a quick recovery from being sick, to restored relationships like that one with my friend from home who I hadn’t talked with for ages (I’d been praying for reconciliation with her for 9 months). He blessed me with people on my team and in my small group that were extremely gifted in and passionate about prayer. They were a blessing to my summer. It’s been hard for me to make time for prayer since being back, so pray that I DO THAT! :)
The last big thing didn’t really come up until the last week in St. Louis. God used an article we read to remind me of my love for INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE. St. Louis has a large refugee population, and though my primary place of serving this summer involved African Americans, God did give me a few opportunities to interact with internationals. We got to go to church with a lot of the refugees. The three kids that Eric and I drove home after school each day were Congolese, the older two being born there. I got to pretend to translate a little for my friend, Wanda, and a friend that she met in the refugee village near Etzel. Nelly is a Congolese refugee with kids, while her husband is still in the Congo. I hung out with her and Wanda on two different occasions and used a little of my VERY rusty French. The international dinners each week were always a highlight, as well as being blessed by the members of my team who are not American born. I love other cultures, other languages, and learning and serving; God reminded me of those desires and gifts in me, and I’m convinced that I really need to do more with international people in order to steward those passions, gifts, and life experiences well for the Kingdom. I’m not sure of what this looks like long-term, whether it’s working with internationals while they are here (refugees, international students, immigrants…) or whether it means a short or long time in their context. I know in the immediate future it means more intentional interactions with international students on my campus in Madison. Waiting on God for more details than that. :)
A couple of stories from the summer I forgot to include elsewhere.
God continued to remind us of how much we’re needed and how much He is needed in St. Louis. On Hodiamont Avenue, only a few blocks from where we stayed with host families, there were four or five murders while we were there. This is the neighborhood that many of the refugees come to live, the apartments that Nelly and her kids live in. Some of the men from our team even went down there one night to be “security” for the high school teams that went down there to serve the kids of the neighborhood. It was a scary situation, but it was also crazy how quickly the shock wore off. I understand why many people who live there long term barely blink an eye any more. One of the teenage boys involved in the Harambee summer work and discipleship program through New City was killed the last weekend we were in St. Louis. They announced it at church on Sunday, and said it was hard, but they weren’t sure how the other kids in the program would react on Monday when they told them because this kid was most likely not the first person they knew to have been shot. Crazy huh? Praise God for his redeeming work in Etzel Avenue, and we pray the same for the rest of the city and beyond. It was also sweet to see God’s protection during our time there.
We also got to have a fun girls’ night with the girls in the summer tutoring program who were in 4-6th grades. They stayed after school one night for an evening of fun, massages, painting, food, and some honest discussions. We let them submit questions into an anonymous question box, and there were some good questions in there. We talked about self esteem and true beauty, even had a beautiful woman from the church come in to talk with them about it.
This summer was an AMAZING experience, through which God taught me more than I could explain even if I wrote a 100 page blog entry. These are some of the stories, some of the lessons. I’m so thankful for your support of this part of my journey. I’m stoked to keep walking into what God has for me. Through the summer, I became even more at peace with what He’s calling me to after college, which is being a staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I'm 95+% sure that’s what I’ll be doing once I graduate in December 2011. The scary part now is waiting and starting to think about fundraising my salary… multiple thousands of dollars a year. It’s intimidating, but the fundraising process for this summer was a huge encouragement for me. Thanks for your prayer, your encouragement, and for reading this saga of St. Louis. I’m in the process of writing a song about my summer. Once it’s done, I’ll post it for all of you. I’m also looking in to getting a few pictures from the summer posted, as well as that video of my class performing the Everything skit.
Be blessed!
Ephesians 3:16-21
16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.