Post-CityLights -- Coming Home with New Eyes

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 4-6^th 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.

Week Seven -- Laughter and Tears

Our last 10 days in St. Louis… they flew by! (This post and the next one will be some of the most important of the summer. :) )

Summary:
The end of the summer was filled with laughs and tears. The last week of school was great. We got to see that our students really had listened to us and really had learned from us this summer. They made us proud at Parent’s day with their performance. We had a great last 10 days with the team as well, wrapping up, but still growing ever closer.

Sunday (July 11), we went to church at Friendly Temple, an African American mega church in St. Louis. They’ve just built a new sanctuary, which was beautiful! One thing that has definitely struck me during my interactions with African American brothers and sisters this summer is their constant thankfulness. They thank God each and every day for each and every day, not taking things for granted. The worship at church was vibrant and alive and long. Sweet. Then we went back for a meal that Gerry had made for us including mashed potatoes!!!!!!!! My first of the summer. I don’t think they were homemade… didn’t taste exactly like it, but it was still wonderful. Our weekly Sunday night international dinner was Ethiopian and Eritrean that night. That was some goooooooood food.
Our last week of school was a little wild and crazy with the kids, but it was good. We practiced our skit, did some activities to talk about the Civil War and then briefly about the Reconstruction, had them decorate journals for themselves in which Laura and I wrote them each a letter and pasted some of their projects from the summer in. We talked about how sin has messed up the world that God created, and I presented the gospel to them one day. I should have prepared a better prayer for the end, but I trust the Lord still used it. One kid commented on how much I said “um.” Ha, oh well.
It was a bittersweet end to the summer. I loved each and every one of the kids in our class so much. Laura and I were so thankful that God brought Thompson and Cassius back unexpectedly for the last week of camp. They didn’t like the other camp they were at. I was SO proud of them on Wednesday during Parent’s day when they performed the Lifehouse skit. It wasn’t perfect, but it moved everyone in the auditorium. Many of the adults were crying, including Ms. Leia, our director. I was shaking so badly I could barely drum afterwards. I’ll hopefully post a link to the video once Laura gets it up online. At the end of the auditorium time, three of the boys from our class went up to the microphones, and Laura and I kind of looked at each other like, “Oh no… what are they doing up there…” Ms. Leia let them at the mics, and each of them thanked Laura and I for being their teachers this summer and shared some specifics. I almost started crying. It wasn’t until the last few days that we could see that they really had been listening to us all summer; they had really come to care about us, at least a fraction of how we cared for them. Also in the journals that we had them make, we had them write a letter to themselves or to God talking about their summer and how they were feeling about the next year. Like the goal setting exercise a couple weeks ago, it just gave me so much hope reading their letters. Here is one of the most touching for Laura and I (typed up exactly as he wrote it):

“Dear me,
I had a great time this summer. Especially at the firm foundation camp. I had 2 of the most excellent teachers (counselors). They tought us very well. So because of their great teaching I have goals for the fall. I’m going to be more respectful. I also want to is to have a better relationship with god. I have no fears or worries for next year. I just wish I could have a better bond with my mother. And I just pray that I don’t get caught up in devilish ways. Even though Im good at saying no when it comes to those things. Thank god for a great summer.”

Wednesday was the last day of class, but we got to spend the day at the zoo and the science center with our kids on Thursday. It was really hot that day, but it was nice to have a day just to hang out and do life with the kids. Actually, one cool thing about the summer is that the kids in my class would frequently come to eat dinner with us in the evenings and then play basketball at the gym. They live around they neighborhood, so it was great to see them outside of the classroom setting.
The last few days of school were encouraging for me as we saw a glimpse of what God did through us this summer. I’ve been learning to be content with whatever role in God’s plan he has me playing. Most of these kids have been poured in to for years now, and I was only there for five weeks of it. I know God will use those five weeks, but it’s also encouraging to look at the bigger picture, knowing that God had placed people before me to love on St. Louis, and he’s definitely got people lined up for the future as well.
Thursday night we had our coffeehouse, kind of like a talent show. And what a talented team we have. There were poems, songs (original and covered), skits, etc. It was a super fun night of enjoying some of our last time together. The women also presented our thank you to the men for the dinner they made us. It was a song and dance routine to “I’ll Be There” by the Jackson 5. Fun times. We gave each guy a part of the big mural that we had painted during our small group time the night after Ladies’ Night as well.
Friday through Tuesday was just more processing time and hanging out as a team time. We had a retreat of silence at City Park, then to the History museum and the art museum again. The Mourner’s exhibit was opening at the art museum, so it was a free exhibit that day. They had the statues of the 40 mourners from John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, as well as a modern video art piece. Then we went to the Latino part of St. Louis for dinner. Delicious cow tongue quesidilla is what I had. :)
Saturday we had another retreat of silence for processing at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. Then we went out to Grant’s Farm, the Anheuiser-Busch estate. They had a lot of ridiculous animals there, including a trained animal show.
Sunday was our last time of worship at New City Fellowship. We got to say goodbye to people, and then we had our last international dinner of West African food made by two of our team members (from Ghana and Nigeria). We watched a movie called Saving Grace (the 1986 one). It was a fun movie, but still one with a lot of lessons that we could take out of it, like how to en. Monday we took a day trip to Illinois. We went to Brussels, a cute little town in rural Illinois. We had a delicious multi course lunch of homemade food at a hotel/restaurant there, called the Wittmond Hotel restaurant. We had a big cookout that night at home as well. We spent Monday night and Tuesday morning processing the summer together, sharing what we loved, what we’ll miss, etc. I wish we could have had more processing time together, but what we had was fun.
This time and these people have touched my heart deeply. I look forward to sharing more of my overall take away lessons soon, now that I’m caught up with everything that I did.
One last thing for this post.
I wanted to let you know that at the end of the summer our team was short on our budget. We cut things here and there, but still ended up with quite a deficit. After reading a bit about what God has done this summer in St. Louis, would you consider continuing to support that work that He continued through my teammates and me? My team was a HUGE blessing to me and to the community we worked with. I have friends around the country and around the world. I so appreciated the support from you all through the summer, through financial support, thoughts, and especially prayers. If you feel led to support our summer, you can send checks written to InterVarsity to me at PO Box 145, Birchwood, WI, 54817. No pressure, it’s just something related to my time in St. Louis that’s been on my mind that I wanted to share.

I’ll be posting my final thoughts and lessons from the summer sometime this week I hope. :) Thank you again SO much for your support and for being a part of this life changing summer.

Week 6 -- Sharing Stories

Summary:

Week six in St. Louis, week four of teaching, was shortened because of the Fourth. We spent a lot of time in class talking about Jesus, while briefly touching on the Underground Railroad. Our tutors for the week were from Colorado, and one day during class they shared their stories of how Jesus has transformed their life. The men on our team made us a BEAUTIFUL dinner to love and serve us one night, and the women spent the next night bonding and making a beautiful mural of which all of the guys, and eventually all of the girls, got a piece.

Because of the holiday on Monday after Fourth of July, we only had three days of class that week. Our class was down to 7 students, but we had a fun week with them. I had shared my testimony with them the week before during devotionals as I mentioned, and so quite a bit of our time was spent preparing that. Most of our time that week was spent on devotionals and teaching about Jesus instead of African American history. We did briefly talk about the Underground Railroad some more. They made quilt squares like the ones used for codes that were hung outside houses along the Underground Railroad line.

I realized that I never really mentioned the tutors we have working with us. Living in a different part of the same building each week are teams of high schoolers who come to St. Louis for a week-long missions trip. In the mornings, they work in our classrooms as tutors and get to work closely with one or two students and get to know them. In the afternoons they go out in to the community to do different work projects. We had a group of really great tutors from Colorado with us that week -- two high school girls and two of their college aged male leaders. They really poured a lot into the week with our students, especially with prayer. I really really enjoyed interacting with the high school girls and hearing their stories. One of the girls who was going to be a sophomore in high school really appreciated interacting with Laura and I throughout the week and so did we! God really grew my heart for the difficult, but ever so important, middle school to high school aged kids. Little kids are still cute and super fun and loving, but I appreciate being able to have real conversations with the older kids.

One day we spent the whole class time hearing the testimonies of our four tutors. I think it was a really great day for the kids. They got a little antsy by the end of listening, but the tutors did a wonderful job. We had a whole spectrum of stories, involving everything from parental abuse to cutting to partying to just living life for sports to seeking affirmation from men to self-image, stories of people that grew up in the church, even with pastors in the family, and stories of someone who grew up Jewish and found Christ later in life. These were people who had great stories of the power of God in their lives and they were people that our students had become friends with. Because of the spectrum of real stories we heard as well, I think it also made the Lifehouse skit a little more real to them. Even for me though, it was an awesome day, because I LOVE hearing testimonies. It reminds me of all the different ways that God can work, and it reminds me of his love and his power.

I realized I haven’t talked much about my time teaching art this summer. I’m always tired by the afternoons, and never had much enthusiasm or energy for art. It was fun to get to work with the younger kids that I didn’t know as well. They are super energetic. We made different projects like little African-looking hand drums, 3-D African animals, some African style stamp painting called Adinkra, mancala boards, African masks, etc. Some of my favorite times were when this beautiful group of girls, about age 6-7, would come in to class or in the middle of class just start singing excitedly one of the worships songs from the morning worship. It touched as part of the worship team to know they were enjoying the songs and connecting with them, but even just as a teacher, it was encouraging to see these beautiful daughters of God singing his praises as they’re painting and coloring.

Two of my favorite nights of the summer came during this week as well. Tuesday night, the guys on our team along with the two male staff workers put together a beautiful night for the women, to serve and love us as their sisters. We didn’t know what was happening. We were just instructed to show up dressed nicely at 6pm on Tuesday night. They cooked dinner for us (yakisoba and fruit), as well as transforming the chapel area in to “Café Shalom.” They escorted us in one by one into a candlelit room. Then they served us at our tables while to of the men played beautiful music in the background. They had cake for us as well. They did a wonderful job. The night really touched a lot of my sisters. I heard many comments like, “I’ve never felt that special before,” or at least “I haven’t felt that special in a long time.” It was a huge huge blessing for the men to do that for us. Our interactions with the 11 men that were around this summer were awesome. With the no dating rule at City Lights, we could encourage and affirm one another without worrying that others would read into it. For many of the girls, the quality men of God that we got to live alongside this summer were a catalyst for healing in their attitudes towards and relationships with men. The bar was raised for what a man of God, especially one who is pursuing us, should be. I am blessed enough to have a wonderful man in my life right now, and that night made me appreciate all he does for me even more.

Wednesday night is our small group night, so all of the ladies got together for a joint night to do something to thank the men for their beautiful night for us. We took a 20 foot long piece of butcher paper and a bunch of paint. We were instructed to paint anything, didn’t matter what, but also to move around the mural. It wasn’t that one area was claimed or anything and you couldn’t ruin anyone else’s work. By the end we had a beautiful mural, which represented a really fun night of bonding as well as our unity as the women of the summer team. Once it dried, we cut out 8 by 10 pieces of the mural and put them in frames to present to each of the men. They each had an important part in our summer and the mural wouldn’t have been complete without each piece in it. After making cards for each man and painting, we sat down and had some heart-to-heart “real talk,” which is some of my favorite. It was an awesome night of bonding with my sisters and thanking our brothers.

Thursday night was another big night. We had a speaker on the racial reconciliation. She talked about the need for Shalom in the world. Shalom is more than just “peace,” but it’s the way things ought to be. We talked about how Jesus entered in to the brokenness of the world. The world’s solution for reconciliation is “don’t be racist,” but Jesus’ is more active: repent and love your neighbor. We looked at the story of the Good Samaritan.

Her end applications, to contrast the secular solutions, were:

Don’t be “color blind;” SEE people.

It’s more than “celebrating diversity;” go deeper.

Don’t just “get along;” sacrificially love.

Then we had a time of worship, which turned in to a time of confession to the whole team. It was a really hard night, but it brought a lot of healing for people (including myself) as they shared their struggles and their stories, the ways they’ve sinned and been sinned against.

Friday we spent our retreat of silence at a cemetery, which obviously led to some thoughts and later discussions about how short life is. Gerry asked us to write what we would want our epitaph to read, what we would want to be remembered for. I was thinking something along the lines of “Faithful servant of the Lord.” We went to the St. Louis black history wax museum. It focused on people who have St. Louis as part of their history. The first half of the museum especially was cool, because it was the same stuff we’ve been teaching in our classes all summer. Then we had White Castle for dinner. It was my first White Castle, and hopefully my last. We went to The Muny (the municipal theater) to see the musical, The Titanic. It was ok… most people didn’t like it. Our last free Saturday I spent most of the day helping Eric and Jake in the woodshop as they worked to get kids caught up on their projects, so their bookshelves would be ready to take home by the end of the program.

God is so faithful. I’m looking forward to catching you up completely in the next few days. We got back to Wisconsin last night. I sunburned one arm as it hung out the window, and we drove through some nasty storms and tornado warnings in southern Wisconsin, but we made it back to Black River Falls last night.

Fourth of July weekend!

Here’s a brief blog on my long Fourth of July weekend, Friday through Monday.

Summary:

Friday we spent the morning in a junkyard reflecting and spending time with God, then headed to the homeless park to hang out with Jesus in a different way. Saturday, I spent with my old host family from Etzel and the girls that I lived with there. We celebrated the Fourth with a barbeque and fireworks at the Arch. God’s been continuing to give me opportunities to put names and faces with the demographics we hear about. He’s also changing my perspective on those that society has told me to avoid, like the homeless, or even the inner city children that I teach.

Friday was a very impacting day. We spent the morning doing a retreat of silence in a junkyard. They sent us there to put us in an environment that reminds us how things of this world are fleeting and temporary, even if many people idolize them. I was thinking a lot about sin and dealing with my sin. Then I reflected a bit on the junkyard, as people were walking by me sitting in a car, looking for the car/parts they needed. I kind of stole the beginning of this train of thought from my lovely friend, Emily, who was at CityLights last summer. Here’s what I wrote:

People come here to take the few good parts left that they need out of these old cars. How much is that like our society, and how different is that from God? We see broken “worthless” people and come in to the junkyard to take what remains of them, use them for ourselves—whether its using a woman for sex, or exploiting a refugee who can’t speak English, or taking advantage of an elderly widow. We see the brokenness and are only there long enough to get what we can out of them. But God sees these broken down messes, and instead of seeing what He can take form them, He sees what parts are needed to make the car function again, and He fills them up, noticing what we do have to offer that He can use for His glory, even if it’s not much.

I also got out of the car and my tan capris were stained from the car seat. It was an interesting illustration of what it can cost to go in to the junkyard. That can happen when you spend time with those people that we’ve said are unwanted as well. It might make your stuff or your life a little messy. But I walked around with dirty pants all day, and it was fine.

Then we headed to a park in downtown St. Louis where a lot of homeless people congregate. We brought tons of extra lunches and got to sit in the park all afternoon eating and hanging out. It’s been times like that this summer where we get to meet real people and put faces and names and stories with demographics. It was a huge blessing to have fun with them for the afternoon.

While we were there, the police kicked out a few guys, who had all of their stuff piled by one of the benches. It was understandable, but frustrating. We took one of them to try to find a place in one of the tent cities in St. Louis. Those places are crazy, real communities, even with a “mayor”. The men go out and work, and the women stay around and take care of the “city,” at least at one of the two big ones here. It’s hard because the city just passed an ordinance or something kicking all of the homeless out of the park, and most of the downtown area. It’s difficult though because all of the services (like shelters) for the homeless are in the downtown area, but they can’t stay anywhere around there during the day now. We had three friends we met there come to hang out with us where we stay one night, and then again they came for church and lunch with us. They were surprisingly not bitter about being kicked out of the park. They understand why people don’t want some of the homeless shooting up in a park where their kids might play. When we were there, we did a bit of trash pick up and picked up a syringe and needle from… something? These people are valuable to our God, and I’m trying to figure out how to value them as He does. One of Gerry’s granddaughters was always heartbroken when passing homeless asking for money while they were in their car, so she came up with an idea that her mom helped implement called blessing bags. Filling a small bag with food items (bottled water, canned soup, crackers and snacks) that you can keep in your car to hand out when you pass someone by. Just thinking about how when we feed (or don’t) the least of our neighbors, we’re feeding Jesus (or ignoring him)…

We often have a double standard and assume the worst of people. The homeless obviously made some bad life decisions that got them where they are, and it’s their fault. If they really tried they could get themselves out of this. That’s true in some cases but definitely not all. We don’t want to give money to someone in need, because we assume they will go and use it on drugs or alcohol, but we give money to businessmen without questioning what they will use it for, and often it would be the same things.

We spent the night at City Museum, which is basically a giant playground for adults. Crazy fun time. Definitely tired by the end of it. And Eric lost his phone somewhere crawling around outside at some point.

Saturday, I spent most of my free day with Kim, Maggie, and Dionna, the girls I lived with on Etzel. Eric and I had a shortened morning in Forest Park, and then the girls and I went back to the Jackson’s house to cook them breakfast again. I used my mom’s waffle recipe for them. We had an awesome morning of hanging out with them again and actually hearing their testimonies, which we had never heard in a week of living with them. We ended our time with them by going to look at the house that they are currently restoring to move in to in the fall. Then the girls and I went out to Sonic and to Maggie’s house (she’s from St. Louis) for a chill afternoon of hanging out at having girl talk. I spent the night at Forest Park with a group, chilling and playing in one of the fountains. I was super tired though.

Sunday, the Fourth, we went to church, and then headed to my friend, Jake’s house where his parents hosted a barbeque for us on the Fourth. It was a delicious meal, and a nice time of hanging out. We then went downtown and bummed around the Arch, watched the airshow, and then watched the fireworks there. It was a nice show. It was a nice once-in-a-lifetime Fourth of July, but I did miss my normal day on the lake in the Wisconsin summer. On the way home from the Arch, I started feeling sick (sore throat and swollen lymph nodes), and I slept from midnight until 6pm. I got up for dinner and brief time of hanging out, went back to bed at 10pm, and woke up at 8:45am. By Tuesday night I was feeling pretty good again, but it definitely knocked me out for the most part of a couple days. Luckily, it fell on July 5^th, which we had as a completely free day.

I’m now only a week and a half behind, but I hope you can get an idea of what I’ve been up to and some of the things God’s been teaching me.

SO SO grateful for all of you in my life and for your support this summer.

Peace.

Prayer requests

We're down to one week left of CityLights! Craziness.

Prayer for:

-- Trying to wrap up this crazy summer. What else do I need to get out of this crazy summer? How do I go home and live it out in a totally different context?

-- Wrapping up with our students. What else does God want us to tell them this summer? We have Tuesday class, Wednesday parents' day, and Thursday field trip.

-- Endurance for a last busy week of processing

-- Anything else the Spirit leads you to!

Thank you thank you!

Week Five -- Potential

Behind again. My bad.

Week three of teaching!

Summary:

It was an awesome week with our kids. They were having an on week. They worked on biographies of abolitionists, and we were so proud of them! Thursday they got a little nuts again, but they are wonderful. Sunday we talked about refugees, with the combination of going to a church with a lot of refugees and then watching movies about refugees. I’ve been learning more about how to live out being a servant in a healthy way. Another blog coming soon about our Friday, which was really sweet as well.

Description:

Our week with the students was awesome. It was the last week for two of our students, including one of our best students. We did biography projects of abolitionists, and our students made us so proud with what they put together in 3 days of work time, only a couple hours total—start to finish with research and making a poster. We were having fun together and respecting one another for the most part. We had them asking more of their big questions about God, which we still need to finish answering. Our tutors were from Kansas and local students.

I was able to share my testimony with them on Tuesday during devotionals, which was super great. I used the Lifehouse Everything skit to share my testimony with them, because it is a big part of my testimony and basically is my testimony in a lot of ways. Some students had seen it before, but they enjoyed it. They asked if we could do it for the whole tutoring program some time. We’re performing it at parents’ day, which is the last Wednesday (this week now).

Laura shared her testimony on Thursday (their rowdy day), which got frustrating by the end. She had them do an activity that was really powerful and life-changing for her. They wrote two personal goals and one goal for their community. Then they also wrote their fears on the back. Then they ripped them up to remind themselves that there shouldn’t be anything holding them back, and their fears don’t have to prevent them from reaching their goals. Laura and I were both basically crying by the end of class. Some of the goals that were shared:

“I want to go to college.”

“I want to get a degree.”

“I want to play NFL football.”

“I want to give my parents what they need and want.”

“I want to get rid of the bumps on my face.”

“I want to be a lawyer.” (and same kid) “I want to be a good father.”

“I want to go to Harvard or Yale to be an anthropologist.”

These kids here have so much potential and just need some opportunities and affirmation. It really has been a great time of getting to know these kids, being able to hear more of their stories, more of their dreams. To be a part of those stories and a part of them reaching those dreams is such a huge blessing.

Sunday was intense for me. We went to New City Fellowship at South City, a part of the city where there are a lot of immigrants and refugees, and so they church there is also full of refugees and immigrants. Our movies session on Sunday night, we watched clips from movies about refugees which made a very stark picture, making everything more real. At church in the morning, it was so cool worshipping with all these different people, from different place, in different languages. I was just smiling, thinking about how cool the experienced was. Then we paired it with these intense scenes from movies about what the people I was worshipping with had actually experienced. It was crazy powerful, crazy convicting. I just still need to figure out what my role is in international justice for these civil wars and oppressed peoples. If you have any ideas, let me know. :) I’ve gotten a few. I’ll share them later. Just like my “forgiven much, love much” from last week, Sunday made me think about “given much, give much.”

God has also grown my servant’s heart this summer. People have really been affirming my servant’s heart, which has really helped it grow this summer, but now I’ve realized I’m struggling with the Mary/Martha mentality (Luke 10:38-42). I’m working to figure out when I should serve and when I should just sit and be with people.

We had Sharie Chappeau come to our small group and share some of her heart and her story with us. She just always really inspires me to be more a woman of prayer and more led by the Spirit.

Week Four -- Patience...

Sorry for the delayed updates. Last weekend we had a technology fast, so we didn’t use our phones or computers for the whole weekend, and I didn’t get a chance to write an update any other time.

I’ve gotten some comments that my blogs are quite lengthy…which I realize. There are multiple purposes for that. For one, it’s partially for me because I’m not writing down everything I’m doing all the time, so this is a record and reminder for me of what I’m doing and feeling week by week. Also, I figure if you get tired of reading, you can stop. :) Some people I know have also wanted more details.

But I do realize it’s lengthy so I’m going to try to do a brief summary at the beginning of each blog, with the expanded version to follow. (Not that I’m upset at all! Seriously.) I think they will also be getting shorter, because we’re in our groove now. :)

Summary:

Our second week of teaching presented new challenges. The kids showed more of their true colors. They were rambunctious, disrespectful, and hard to love. Laura and I tried to figure out how to be an authoritative figure and to still show them the love of Christ. By the end of the week, God was changing my heart and my attitude, showing me how he would interact with my students. Even though they were harder to love, by God’s grace, he grew me in love for them so so so much. We also had another week together as a team getting to learn to love one another through annoyances as well. We talked about loving the immigrant and the alien in our country during our team movie night. For our team day on Friday, we went to Concordia Seminary for our retreat of silence, then to the St. Louis Zoo. Then we rented paddleboats in Forest Park and then went to a musical, “The Me Nobody Knows.”

My lessons from the week were definitely about relying on God. He was showing me how to love unruly students and how to keep encouraging them. We talked a LOT about respect with the kids last week, and you could definitely see God working on some of the kids’ attitudes.

Details:

The second week at school we had a sports camp for the kids. Four college-aged students came in with an organization called Sports Crusaders. They had our class for two hours of sports camp in the morning, and our students still had to have wood shop in the afternoon, so we only had 45 minutes of class with our students each day. It was also one of the hottest weeks we’ve had all summer, so that was a little rough as well. Most of the time we had the kids in class we were talking with them about respect – respecting us, their peers, and other authority figures. There were many incidents in the classroom and out. One of the boys in my class made fun of another girl’s skin. She has vitiligo, which means she has some of her skin that is discolored. They were also not listening hardly at all during class, and rarely during devotionals with the Sports Crusaders, and even talking back sometimes. But we saw a lot of good discussions and a few attitude changes through the week; praise God! We did manage to squeeze in a few lessons on slavery and what life was like for the slaves as well.

Because of these trying classes, I was praying a lot for our class and how to love the kids and not act out of frustration and impatience. And oh how God delivered. He gave me a lot of patience that was not of myself, and a lot of wisdom in how to keep dealing with the kids.

We also talked with them one day during devotionals about “Rocks of Faith” as we called them, based on the sermon we heard here on the first week from Joshua 4. One man from each of the twelve tribes was instructed to find a stone, which they placed as a memorial reminder once the whole nation had crossed the Jordan River. The rocks were meant to be a memorial and reminder for the people of God’s faithfulness. We’ve started a poster on our wall so our students can write down ways they’ve seen God’s faithfulness, recently or in the past, so they can remember when they’re having trouble. It’s fun to hear their stories. Some of them are kind of ridiculous, but they’re great.

The musical we saw on Friday night was really powerful for me. The musical is based on writings from kids from the inner city of New York. It resonated strongly with me after a week of struggling to love my students. It was a good reminder of what kind of stuff surrounds these students every day – what attitudes and lies they encounter from so many different angles.

My free day entailed another morning at the park with Eric, and a night out at a restaurant with a dude playing blues on his guitar with some of the members of our team. It was great.

I had “Forgiven much, love much” written on my arm all week to remind myself in those moments that it’s hard to love, how much God loves me and how much he’s forgiven me. It is only my selfishness preventing me from loving more fully. And so I’m trying to remind myself of how much I’ve been forgiven, and the love for God and for others that should pour out in response to that. It’s really become a huge motto for me lately.

That was my second week of classes!

I’ll hopefully be getting back up to current soon…

Week Three -- Teaching or Being Taught?

Our first week of five weeks of teaching is done! It was awesome. Laura and I are co-teaching the oldest group – 11 kids who are around 11 years old, mostly boys. This year the summer curriculum is based on early African-American history (1600-1900). All of our lessons are supposed to revolve around that theme – teaching geography, a bit of math, history, reading, and writing.

This first week we’ve been talking about the start of the slave trade. We looked at what Africa was like and why slavery began. We discussed the Middle Passage and tried to help make it a bit real to the students. The lessons have been based on the book Amos Fortune Free Man.

Our days (Monday through Thursday) are typically structured like this, and will be for the rest of the summer:

We get up for 7:15 breakfast and to pack a lunch. We do a brief corporate prayer time for the day before heading off for a half and hour of personal devotions and then we head off to prep classes a bit. I’ve been playing drums on the worship team every morning for chapel time for the kids, so we have rehearsal until the kids come in from recess at 10. We do morning worship with them, which is great. Then we have them in class for 2 hours. We read to them for 15 minutes or so out of Amos Fortune Free Man. Then we do some math drills. We teach the main lesson for the day, using different activities and we make sure they get some kind of writing practice in for the day. Then we have a time of devotionals with them. Lunch, then recess, then afternoon classes. They have gym class (or dance if they prefer) and art class (woodshop for the older kids). I teach art every other day, with my free afternoons open for prep. Then we bring a load of kids home after school.

Playing with the worship team has been an awesome learning experience. I have a quite limited repertoire of beats, but I’ve been learning a lot of new ones from the worship leader and other people on the team. I’ve been appreciating their input, and it’s been a great time of bonding with people. It’s also been a blessing to be able to serve on the team with Eric. He’s playing bass. I’m excited to start playing spirituals next week with the kids because a lot of those have swing beats, which I miss playing and haven’t had much chance to play since high school.

A couple of highlights from the week with the kids have been a brief conversation with a girl named Jonai in my class and our Tuesday devotionals. I had a conversation with Jonai on Wednesday morning. She asked me to talk with her briefly in the hallway, and she asked me how her math drills were going. I looked at them and told her she was doing very well! She wasn’t doing them as quickly as many of her classmates, but she was doing them quite accurately. She excitedly replied, “Really?!” and went back into the classroom jumping with excitement. She asked if I could write a letter to her parents telling them that she had been doing well, because they have been working with her on her math because she failed math in sixth grade. It was an awesome example of how a lot of these kids just need a confidence boost, someone to tell them they can instead of always hearing they can’t.

Tuesday devotional time was really awesome as well. It was only our second day together but somehow (the grace of God) the kids still opened up with a lot of big questions they had. Who wrote the Bible? Where did it come from? Why don’t we read it in Greek and Hebrew so we can be sure there were no translation errors? How can God expect us to be perfect, yet know that we won’t be? We asked them to write any lingering questions anonymously and put them in a basket before they left class. In the basket we found questions that we really need to talk about and pray through how to answer these gigantic questions… Is God really good, because sometimes it doesn’t feel that way? How can we say God is all-powerful and good when he doesn’t do anything about the starving people around the world? They are thinkers. And I love it. It’s been a challenge after Tuesday to learn how to lead effective devotionals with them, since they have them at the end of their morning and they are sick of sitting and being in class. But our weakness is God’s strength.

Friday is our team day, and so this week we spent the morning doing our retreat of silence (2 hour quiet time with God) at the Basilica in St. Louis, which is absolutely GORGEOUS! I love it there. Then we went to the St. Louis circus, which was sweet. I love the trapeze artists. We spent the latter part of the afternoon browsing the art museum, and they had three paintings by Monet who is one of my faves. Then we just spent a chill evening hanging out as a team.

I spent my free day doing a variety of things. Eric and I got to go to Forest Park to hang out in the morning for a bit of time to catch up with one another. Then I spent the middle of the afternoon working on a few random things and watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Saturday night, a group of us went to an event at the South City site of New City Fellowship. The event was to celebrate world refugee weekend. St. Louis is the third largest refugee city in the United States, especially the South City area. The church invited members of the congregation and community to share their stories of what they’ve experienced. We heard from two different groups in Burma (the Karen and one by Myanmar), Bhutan, Liberia, and the DR Congo. Due to quiet voices and faulty technology, it was hard to audibly hear, but it was also hard to comprehend through accents and broken English. The basic themes came through however – extreme situations of legitimate fear and persecution, civil wars and governmental failures, but everyone, despite the things they’d seen, the family and friends they’ve lost (some in front of their very eyes), they still worship God in a way I haven’t been able to yet. Completely thankful, completely dependent, completely aware of his goodness and sovereignty. Pure worship of the king who brought them out of trials and into this new place. They also shared a worship song from each of their cultures, which was really neat. I got to see and hear people from places I’ve never honestly thought about before, hear many languages I’ve never heard before, and love them as brothers and sisters in Christ. The comprehension barrier was frustrating, but the evening was still a great learning experience.

We’ve also started our discipleship class for the rest of the summer. Twice a week, a present and a former pastor of New City Fellowship alternate and come and talk with us on the idea of Sonship, living as if we realize that we are Sons of God, not orphans walking around helpless and abandoned by our father. We’ve talked so far on the fact that we are not righteous on our own, but it’s Christ’s righteousness as our own. There is nothing we can do to make us more or less righteous than we are right now, because Christ’s righteousness is perfect, and it’s already ours as adopted sons of the Father. Because of that, we are completely dependent on him. It’s not our strength; it’s not our efforts at righteousness, but solely the grace of God that allows good to come from sinful people like us. There is no room for boasting in ourselves, because God acts in our weakness where all we can do is point to the work of Christ in our lives.

The theme from the beginning part of the week was reconciliation and unity. It came up in my head many times, as well as in speakers or studies or devotions. God really made me start looking at areas in my life that needed reconciliation on the most basic levels. Because of the leading and conviction of His Spirit, I called one of my friends and got to talk with her for a half an hour, the first real conversation we’ve had in six months. I haven’t felt that kind of peace and joy in a long time. The blood of Christ and the power of his reconciliation are beginning to manifest themselves in this very dear relationship of mine. (2 Corinthians 5)

The latter part of the week, I really started thinking a lot about “not my will, but Yours be done.” At the Basilica, I was paging through their hymnal and came across the hymn that they use to meditate through what they call the Stations of the Cross – the journey Christ took from his sentencing to his last breath. Every verse of the hymn ended with “not my will, but Yours be done,” and that theme has been rolling through my mind ever since. I’m still trying to wrap my heart around it more and more. I mean, that is basically the essence of following Christ. But being able to see so many examples of what that looks like for people is challenging, especially trying to really humble myself to this posture. God’s been revealing more areas of pride in my heart and my inability to act in humility. The sermon this morning was on Philippians 2, Christ’s humility. Learning to approach others with that kind of extreme humility, but more importantly learning to approach God in that humbly submitted “not my will, but Yours be done attitude.”

Prayers:

Continued relationships with the kids in our class and grace in co-teaching and all of the dynamics that come with that

Brokenness – that God would continue to reveal my brokenness to me. That he would break me to the point where he can really enter in and use me. Where I'm not striving of my own strength, or holding on to my pride, but I’m humbled before the throne by the brokenness within me, so that God’s grace and strength may shine brightly from this broken vessel.

Balance – I’ve really been getting more engaged in community, which is awesome, and there are always things to do, but I need to make sure I’m still taking adequate time with God to process everything that we’re thinking about and listen more to him.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Peace from St. Louis!

Life on Etzel Avenue -- Lessons from the Neighborhood

We spent the week living with host families from New City Fellowship who are living intentionally on Etzel Avenue. My host family was an African American family of 6ish. Mr. Chuck and Ms. Leia Jackson were awesome hosts for three of my fellow interns and me. They have two daughters, Neia and Sydney, ages six and eight. Cherish, one of Mr. Chuck’s older daughters (13), was staying with us for most of the week, as well as his sixteen-year-old son, Marcus who is in St. Louis for the summer. Mr. Chuck works for Harambee, a ministry of carpentry, employment, and discipleship for youth in the community. He’s lived in the neighborhood for a few years. His wife, Leia, works for one of the church’s ministries as well. We had a great time eating with them, having a girls’ night out with Ms. Leia for Fro-Yo, and some girl talk with Cherish about guys, and hung out and did nails with Neia and Sydney. Mr. Chuck is such a father figure, and he really took us under his wing, even the first night he met us. He spoke a lot of truth into our lives and really encouraged us in a lot of ways.

One of the highlights of the week for me was living with Kim, Maggie, and Dionna for the week. I didn’t know any of them very well going in, but we had late night talk times and got to share our testimonies. These girls all seem a lot different than me on the outside, but we’ve actually all struggled with similar things. Kim and Dionna are African American, from Houston and Iowa respectively, and Maggie looks pretty similar to me, from St. Louis. We had a great time bonding, and I really learned a lot from the diversity of our group. Kim even taught me some new slang so I could understand what she was saying.

The week was definitely an awesome growing experience for me in that I knew that I was the least comfortable with African American people, having had very little interaction with them, and basically no real relationships or friendships. And God knew that of course so he blessed me by surrounding me with many African American people, even brothers and sisters in Christ, who I could learn a lot from, especially Kim, Dionna, and my host family, as well as a lot of the kids I interacted with and their families. And other people on the street. And in the grocery store. Etcetera. And oh how I love and appreciate them now that I've gotten to know them. What a blessing! And I love all of the gospel songs we sing, both at church, and randomly with our team.

On Friday night, Mr. Chuck invited one of his friends to come over and chat with the four of us that were staying with them. Travis lived many years of his life on and near Etzel Avenue. He moved there when he was two, and life was pretty good. First I should explain what Etzel was like 20 years ago. Almost every single house was either a crack/drug house, collapsed and abandoned, or some other kind of trouble. There were strong gang rivalries by neighborhoods in the area, and you couldn’t leave a four block area without fearing for your life. Even in the elementary schools, people would ask you where you lived and you would be profiled and associated based on that. There were usually 30-40 dudes hanging out and hustling drugs on the corner. There were gunshots frequently, and Gerry said that the police didn’t even want to respond to Etzel and sometimes wouldn’t.

Travis’ mom became a crack addict, and life got hard for him and his family. They lived in an apartment building with his mom’s whole extended family in different apartments. His mom’s boyfriend was a crack dealer, which gave Travis a look into the industry. In his neighborhood, there was really no choice for kids. You either joined them, or never left your house. Travis started dealing at age 11, and eventually started stealing crack from his mom’s boyfriend. He got involved in the local gang as well. As he put it, he was discipled growing up, but not in the way we normally use the word now. He was discipled in the street – how to kill, how to sell and use drugs. One of his close friends in the gang with them killed his cousin who was Travis’ best friend one day over a petty argument. From there he started asking a lot of questions to God about why this happened. It really walked his world. A few days later, a church came down the street and was hanging out evangelizing and he was already questioning and looking and so he met the pastor. He mentioned that one of his hobbies was rapping, so the pastor took him to meet some Christian rappers (a completely foreign concept to Travis). From there, those rappers brought him to meet Flame, a famous Christian rapper from St. Louis. When Flame dropped a rhyme for Travis, the fire in his eyes convinced Travis that God had to be real, because he could tell how convinced Flame was. Travis soon got arrested for homicide, which he didn’t commit. God really worked in that situation to bring a lot of crazy circumstances together. He had gone to court and gotten a court date for 30 days later. He talked with God, and he said, “If you get me out of this, I won’t tell you what I’m not going to do, but what I will do. I’ll go to chuch.” He woke up the next morning to the jailers telling him to grab his stuff. He did, thinking he was moving cells, but they released him. He didn’t really know why, but he got out. He started going to church weekly, having given over his life to God, and God began the sanctification process. He stopped doing crack, stopped dealing, stopped going to the clubs. After about two years, God told him to get back into rapping, and so now he’s a Christian rapper, traveling around the world, performing under the name Thi’sl.

He also shared how he’s seen Etzel transformed. He really appreciates the people from New City who moved into the neighborhood and didn’t leave, even after people were shot on the sidewalks out side their house. When he comes back to visit, he’s always shocked at the people walking the sidewalks and hanging out and jogging, walking their dogs. When he lived on Etzel probably only 10 years ago, you would NEVER be out doing things like that. One thing he said that has stuck with me is, “The size of your impact depends on how much you surrender to God.” I want to learn to surrender more. I’m asking for God to show me the things I’m still holding on to which are preventing me from making the full impact that He’s asking me to make. Mr. Chuck also talked with us about the importance of building relationships with people and relating to them on their terms. That’s something I’ve been thinking about this week as well.

We got to lead Backyard Bible Club Monday through Wednesday on Etzel Avenue. It was a great experience, challenging in many ways, but great fun as well. It was cool to see these kids getting into the songs and then memorizing the verse for the night. We had them partake in skits to act out the Bible story for the night and keep them engaged. We did Moses, then Gideon, and then the stories of the prodigal son and the Good Samaritan. There were only a few students from the neighborhood that weren’t children of the church families, but what a blessing they were! To see how hungry they were for attention, and even a few misconceptions about God and Jesus came up in our interactive discussions with them. We were walking the street one day, looking for kids to hang out with and we met 3 beautiful girls who were playing in the backyard of the apartment building that I was staying in. These girls were some of the greatest teachers of my week.

I saw them Monday through Wednesday, and they came to Bible club Tuesday and Wednesday. They fell asleep before Bible club on Monday, so we prayed they would be awake and their parents would be ok with them coming for Tuesday, and they were able to and were very excited! They really didn’t want much to do with skits or Bible lessons, but they loved attention and people to play with them. Oh those beautiful girls, made in the image of God and growing up in a less than ideal home situation. Of the four children, they have three different fathers, the latest of which lives with them and their mom. They had a lot of misconceptions about God and Jesus and who he is.

And while I was angry at the situation of these beautiful girls, one of the things that God most surprised me with this week was the ability to see God’s beauty in their mother and to lover her, despite the lack of stability and security in their home and the fact that she has a bottle of whiskey always at her side.

I’ve been learning to stop assuming. To stop judging. To stop assessing blame.

Or at least I’ve been trying. Or rather it’s been God’s work in me. In and of myself I am wicked, broken, selfish. By the grace of God, He’s *beginning* to give me his eyes, his heart. Pray He’d download more.

Also pray that:

Relationships with the 11 students in our class would continue to go deeper so that God can use us to impact them beyond just learning some math drills and geography.

I would be able to co-lead well with my co-teacher.

That the slightly slower schedule we have coming up would allow me to press into processing with Jesus more.

Thanks again for reading! An update on my first week of teaching coming soon. :)

Brokenness -- Lessons from Week One

Brokenness.

Welcome to the world.

This week exposed us on many levels to the brokenness of the world – past and present, in St. Louis, our country, and around the world. In the process, I’ve been reminded that I’m one of the many messed-up pieces of the picture.

Maybe the world’s not that bad. It’s better than it used to be, right? We don’t have slavery anymore, everyone can go to school if they want to, there’s equal opportunity laws and affirmative action. (Not that I think any of these things are bad! Great things!)

One of the main actresses in the play from Saturday night shared her story during the play. Gang-raped at age 15, doctors said she would never be able to conceive children, so in her depression she fell hard in to alcohol and drug use. She married and was blessed with a miracle child, a beautiful daughter. She loved that girl, until one night, a drunk driver barreling down the road struck them head on instantly killing her beautiful eleven year old daughter, also putting her on the edge of death. She has fought hard to begin walking again.

Broken.

St. Louis schools are in horrible condition. The teachers kept passing this kid (lets call him James) all the way up until third grade, even though he didn’t know how to read. By that time he felt so stupid that he couldn’t read that he dropped out of school. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it.

Broken.

In our fixed game of Monopoly, whichever piece you chose determined how much money you started with, how much money you got for passing Go, and what kind of rules you played by. The people who had picked the privileged piece got to go whenever they want, they didn’t have to pay when they landed on the properties of the poorer people. They didn't have to go to jail when they drew that card.

But that was just a game.

Even in the game, as my friends who were playing the different characters, we could see sin come out. How a little money, a little power, turns into a lot of greed. How a little injustice turns makes you angry… or soon enough apathetic and complacent.

That’s me.

Selfish, ignorant, and worst of all complacent and apathetic. I knew coming in that my heart wasn’t nearly as broken as God’s was for the hurt of injustice and the cry of the oppressed. And I’m just praying that as these things continue to become real this summer, that my heart will be molded by my maker into the way He originally designed it, before it was twisted by sin.

At the play Saturday night, the main character fell from the corporate world to land flat with her butt in a Metro seat. One of the friends she developed over the next months eventually confronted her with how she had been living her life in isolation, not letting anyone in, not letting anyone help, letting pride and fear get in the way. I started crying at this point because I realized that is a huge part of my brokenness too. I’ve been in a funk this week, and I couldn’t figure out why until the play last night. Most of you know me as crazy, outgoing, sometimes bold, loud-laughing, people-loving Kristi. Well that’s not what I’ve been showing people this week. St. Louis threw me out of my comfort zone, naturally. That’s what I was expecting and hoping, but I was not expecting these effects. Where I don’t talk… I would rather sit in my room or outside by myself than talk with anyone, where I have to force myself to laugh when other people are laughing, where I don’t feel needed in the group… out of my zone. At school, that is my territory. I know what I’m good at, I know what to do. Here, I instantly put up walls and didn’t want to trust my team. Not good. That’s my pride and brokenness in me.

But it also reminds me of something that Brenda said in A Credible Witness. She said that it’s so important to make people feel like they are needed. We can’t just invite them into our lives or into our fellowships where we don’t need them there. It wasn’t that people made me feel unwelcome, or that they did anything specific. In my head, I just felt unnecessary. Praise the Lord He spoke to me through a couple teammates who didn’t even realized how much it meant to say that my laugh was awesome or whatever. Anyway, that’s a big part of what’s at the center of me. Pride. Impatience.

I am broken.

And yet how blessed I am. As we worked in the sun and the dirt, beginning to get dehydrated as we cleared weeds in the Etzel neighborhood, one of my teammates shared her thoughts that as she was thinking about how hot and tired she was, she was reminded that we were blessed to be able to hop in our air-conditioned cars to go to our air-conditioned rooms and hop in the shower, rehydrate with ice water or lemonade and sit down and relax with friend for the evening, while many of the people living in these apartments couldn’t do that.

The world is broken. I am broken.

But that’s not the end of the story.

There is hope, there is life. Jesus is alive and at work in me and in my team and in this city and in this world. He’s taking people who have been scarred so deeply by this world, and reaching in to the places only he can touch to heal them from the inside out. He’s reaching into my heart in tons of different ways, to heal hurts, change my sinfulness. That actress from the play who fell into drugs and alcohol? The prayers of her mother and by the grace of God and the work of His Spirit, she came out of that, to a renewed outlook on life. Even after the loss of her daughter, she chooses to praise and thank God. She chooses to glorify him in her life.

Jesus is equipping and sending his people into neighborhoods like Etzel to live and love alongside the broken. He’s asking His people to adopt children who come with the baggage that the world has laid on their shoulders, and to show them the easy yoke of Christ (Matthew 11:28-30). God’s heart is for the oppressed. Seriously. That’s one of the things nearest and dearest to his heart. Our God is justice. He is mercy.

What am I going to do about it? I’m following Christ… or so I say? Christ walked into the bad parts of town that everyone else avoided. He touched the people that most people took a couple extra steps around. Will I follow Him there? My first step is to Etzel this week. Lets see where he takes me from there.