SOLD - Construction Day

 "Sawdust flew around members of Bethel Church on Thursday as they gathered in an empty horse barn in Kennewick. They lugged and lifted sheets of plywood and nailed them together in what in about six months will become modules for an exhibit on the human slave trade.

Members of the church are working to raise awareness about human trafficking and how it affects lives in the Tri-Cities and around the globe.The exhibit, planned to be unveiled in May during a "Justice Weekend" at the Richland church, will tell the story of different facets of the human trafficking trade.

Each module will represent a different country and a different human trafficking issue facing that country's citizens -- sex trafficking in the United States, for example, or children being forced to serve as soldiers in war-torn African or Asian nations."

Via the Tri-City Herald: read the full story HERE. We had some great reporters come out who were well informed as to what else is happening in the area to combat human trafficking. We also had some great volunteers who came, built, let us use their barn, fed us, and didn't complain about the fact that we were building in an unheated stable at the end of December.

ARES Engineering donated work hours to put together our blueprints and Home Depot donated most of the delivery costs for the wood.

Now... we get to turn our giant wooden maze into an international experience. (More construction pictures HERE.)

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/12/30/1768994/church-building-human-trafficking.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

KNDU - SOLD: The Human Trafficking Experience

Thanks to our incredible media liaison, KNDU came by while we were just getting started this morning and filmed a story on the human trafficking exhibit. Actually, she got KVEW and the Tri City Herald there as well, just because she's amazing like that.

IJM Rescue

And They Shall Beat Their Guns into Goal Posts??

"Football's governing body, Fifa, is studying plans to hand out free or cut-price World Cup tickets to football fans who surrender guns to the Brazilian government.
Brazil's justice ministry submitted the plans for the 2014 event last month as part of a new disarmament drive in the South American country.
According to reports in the Brazilian media, the government's suggestions also include swapping official footballs and shirts signed by World Cup teams for weapons handed in to authorities.
Another proposal, part of a new "World Cup law" currently being debated by lawmakers in the capital, Brasilia, would see destroyed guns used to make goalposts that would be used during the World Cup in Brazil, and at other Fifa competitions around the globe."

 Via The Guardian: read the rest of the story HERE.

It's not quite beating swords in plowshares, but it certainly has that echo.

Google Steps Up

"Google Inc. announced Wednesday that it's providing $11.5 million in grants to 10 organizations working to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking.
Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission, one of the grant recipients, called the move a "game-changing investment." IJM is a Washington-based human rights agency that works to rescue victims of slavery and sexual exploitation in about a dozen countries.
"This is the largest corporate step up to the challenge that is beginning to apply direct resources to the fight against slavery," Haugen said.
According to estimates by grant recipients, Google's support will free an estimated 12,000 people from slavery and prevent millions more from being victimized. Numbers vary widely, but policymakers, activists and scholars estimate the number of modern-day slaves at somewhere between 10 million and 30 million people worldwide."

Via CNN: read the rest of the story HERE.

Imagine

Find out more HERE.

Messy

There are some Sundays where mornings with the fourth and fifth graders are light and easy and everything that is wrong in their worlds can be fixed with a smile or a laugh or just a little bit of attention - when they are safe and alive and happy and our group feels messy in the way that creating art is messy. Crazy and hard to understand from the outside, but clearly in the process of becoming something beautiful.

Then, there are weeks like today, where we still smile, and we laugh a little, and we lavish on the attention, but it isn't enough. Weeks when they trust enough to come with their hurt hanging out in the open and we don't have enough time to bandage everyone's wounds - when I am half tempted to skip story, so that we can just sit down and get to the bottom of it all, as if we could talk and hug and chase everything away. These are the weeks when they come scared and angry and shamed and hurt, and they don't have the words for any of it. Weeks when I am suddenly aware of the fact that there are sixteen of them and one of me. And, our group feels messy in the way that a disaster zone might feel messy.

So, we run, and we memorize verses, we pray for each other, and we try new things. We talk about friends who are homeless or living doubled up - because, even though it isn't THE issue for any of them, it is an issue for all of them, one more thing that they are seeing and struggling to understand.

And, when it takes longer before they can force their bodies to listen, when kids who I know love Jesus don't want to pray, when they won't meet my eyes because I might see what they are trying to forget, we plow through it. Because, this is beautiful too.


Messy and painful and frustrating, yes. But, beautiful.

Beautiful: because they have discovered that you don't have to be perfect to be at church, because they are growing and changing, because they are living out the trust that we built last year, because they are raw and honest, because they are healing, because there is a God who knows their hearts more deeply than I ever could, because they are clinging to His promises, and because this mess is community.

Like most God things, it is totally and completely beyond my power, like standing at the sea shore with a bucket, trying to catch the waves. And, odd as it seems, I am okay with that.

(But, it might be time to draw another leader into our crazy community, so that the thirty-five kids on my roster have another set of ears to listen and another pair of hands to catch them when they are hurting and out of control. Because, easy days or hard days, if better shepherd to student ratios are possible within the small group, I am all for that!)

Fair Trade Christmas

Need some gift ideas this Christmas? Check out your favorite charities and non-profits and see if they have a gift catalog that you can shop from. Or... this blogger has put together a link up of smaller fair trade and US made gift ideas that you might not have seen before.

And... some pretty cool kids are selling crafts to raise money for a well in Zambia. Their products would make awesome stocking stuffers.

Tent

Typically, during childcare, the tents are reserved for the use of the children, but, occasionally, we let one of the high schoolers inside as well. :)

Report Card

Shared Hope has released a report card, ranking US states on the strength of their laws dealing with child sex slavery (domestic minor human trafficking). Do you know where your state ranks? Do you know why?

It is more than worth it to poke around on their website for a few minutes and see what you can find. Reality is closer to home than we often like to pretend.

One of the walls in the building we use on Sunday nights is covered in chalkboard paint. This...has been one of the longest lasting drawings to date.

Haiti has been up on our entry wall for over a month and a half.

I feel like that ought to tell you something about our kids.

Shoeboxes!

So, NaNoWriMo is managing to turn me into the world's worst blogger for the month of November, but, Operation Christmas Child really did happen this year. We had a trickle in sort of a week, a fairly busy Sunday with several churches that brought in hundreds of boxes each, and then a Monday that never stopped moving.

Something like 5,000 boxes came in between 9am and 7pm yesterday.

Luckily, they were mainly in shipping cartons already, and we had some very amicable church staff who were willing to let us add a little physical labor to their day!

The news came down, as did an entire preschool full of children. My fourth and fifth graders came down to pray over the boxes on Sunday morning. At least three different high school clusters came to bake cookies and pray and haul shipping cartons. More volunteers than I could keep track of came down and made the activity center their temporary home. People donated enough "loose stuff" to build dozens and dozens of boxes.  Someone built us a snowman who was carrying a box of his very own. We fit twenty-two boxes into shipping cartons and then regretted it the moment it came time to heave them into the truck. And, we got thoroughly sick of the shoebox videos running on repeat.

11,410 boxes ended up leaving here by the time it was all said and done, which put us at just about seven hundred over last year's collection. Whoot!

And, now, we have a day or two to breathe - and sleep - before Thanksgiving and then Nutcracker. 

Telling Their Stories

A short, locally made video on teen homelessness. These are normal teenagers facing a situation that ought to be abnormal. This isn't a big city. This is Eastern Washington. These are our kids. Honor their stories by taking a few minutes to watch.

Scavenger Hunt

This week was a "fun night" for the High School youth group. They drove around town taking pictures for a digital scavenger hunt. Well, most of them drove. One group stayed behind to do a mini hunt at the church.

Seeing as one has to be twenty-five to drive during church sponsored events, and yours truly is something a little closer to twenty-two, I got to hang out with the on campus group.

This, is what happens when you tell nine high schoolers to find the largest doors in the church and pretend to be gorillas. Have I mentioned that I love these kids?

One of these girls did Focus Month this summer. One of them was in a sociology class that I taught. 

Earlier in the night, I was talking with a freshman guy who I used to babysit, laughing about the things that we used to do - tree forts and lightsaber fights, spinning in circles until he was "flying" and letting him hang on my forearm so that it looked like he was being strangled.

One of these girls was in my cabin her fifth grade year of camp.

I've been around some of them since they were too young to rightfully remember that I was there. 

What constantly amazes me, though, is the little tiny details, the goofy moments, that these kids do remember. They remember songs that I taught them, reading me stories that they wrote for class, running relay races during Sunday School, and taking fake mug shots for Mother's Day gifts. They remember all sorts of things.

Hopefully, as we add new memories, the one thing that will shine the brightest is Christ in me and the hope of His eternal glory. Because, without that, none of the rest of it really matters.

Learning Our Way

Do you ever have things that you ought to be able to explain, but you can't? Things that happened in sequence, but don't store in your brain that way? Things that were more an exchange of expressions and emotions than they were of words and actions?

Some weeks, that is what teaching Sunday school feels like. I could tell you what we did, but that wouldn't begin to explain what actually happened.

I could tell you about twirling my girls around during music, but I don't know that I could describe the hesitant smiles. I could tell you about tugging one of my boys down to the floor, but I don't think that I could explain the stance that was waiting, begging me to do it, or the tense body that melted down close and leaned back against my knee.

I would probably skip over the moments where I asked one of the girls to grab a pen or to move our box, and you would never know the pride that straightened her shoulders or the way that she focused in the rest of the hour, rather than being flighty and all over the place. I could tell you that we sat in a circle and shared our name and favorite thing that we did that week, but that doesn't begin to paint the picture of the kids who say, “nothing,” knowing that I will tease them about it, or the smile that relaxes their entire being when I do so, just like we've practiced it for weeks on end. I could tell you that they each read me the verse, but I can't tell you the triumph in their voice as my eyes and ears are focused in on just them, or the amazing quiet as they waited in line.

I could tell you that we played sardines, but that doesn't explain the scraggly line of children weaving through the parking lot, as intent as a shepherd looking for lost sheep, or the grin when we finally found “it” waiting like a monkey in the tree – a tree that he knew to hide in because he and I had talked about it in passing three weeks ago, and he remembered. I can't explain how her got a little taller with the knowledge that that I knew that he had remembered – because it meant that I remembered too.

I can't explain the sense that, as they worked to get someone else in the tree after him, it didn't matter that they were nearly strangers or could have been competing. I can't trap family and cooperation in black and white type.

I could tell you how I brought the rest of my small group inside and then left them to go get the two who had managed to stay back in the tree, but that doesn't encompass how right it was to find a pair of brand new friends perched, just waiting, because they knew that I would always come for them - not running off or getting in trouble, but just being with each other because they could.

It doesn't explain the sense of running back across the campus with just the two of them, as if they had forgotten that our family wasn't really one of blood, forgotten that we were at church, forgotten that they were learning.

I could tell you that we watched a video, or that I spent half the time with my head craning back and forth, counting to thirteen to make sure that they were all there, but that doesn't explain the fact that some of my kids listened a thousand times better because of it, that, if I was hypervigilant, they could be less so.

I can't capture three boys stretched out on their backs, perfectly recounting to me the Bible story, because they had been tugged to the ground, had hidden in a tree, had run late through the parking lot, and they were finally centered enough to learn.

I can't explain a dozen hands tapping my arms, wanting to try the memory verse that is somehow exciting rather than boring, or the questions that spring from lips as they try to understand the intricacies of the story. “How...?” “Why...?” “Wouldn't...?”

I could tell you what we did, but that wouldn't begin to explain what God did through it.

Fall Frenzy

Every year, my church family puts on a harvest party for a low income school(s) where the kids can come with their parents and play games and get way more candy than they will ever need. This year, my awesome cluster was in charge of face painting and tattoos at one of the schools.

They did a great job - even when the requests were completely bizarre. "I want a mustache and," pointing to different parts of his face, "a kiss mark here and kiss mark here and a kiss mark here."

Between the group of us, we managed to decorate faces and hands on several hundred children, all within the space of an hour and a half, and not make any permanent messes in the classroom.

Watching adult, high school, and middle school small groups come together to pull off this kind of event is amazingly fun and a great reminder that - whether people have been here for twenty years or two weeks - our church family really is just that, a family.

Remembering

Game prior to Ryan sharing about his trip

This week, one of the high school leaders shared about his recent trip to Haiti. The last time that I saw this group of kids listen that attentively... we were IN Haiti - and the group was about a quarter of this size. I'm not sure that they were all breathing, that's how quiet it was in the room. The kids who haven't been to Haiti yet were listening carefully. (And, yes, that is a yet. Quite a few of them are already talking about going next year.) The kids who have been were listening - and remembering - with their whole bodies.

I could have walked into the room mid talk and, without hearing anything or seeing what was on the screen, told you what part of the trip was being discussed. That was how perfectly their body language while hearing/remembering mirrored their body language the first time that they lived it out.

Before we left Haiti, we talked about the way that their brain was probably going to be processing what they had seen and felt, how it probably was processing already. We talked about the fight or flight response that was full on in the process of throwing them for a loop, about why their insides were responding to, "Can you wait five minutes to do that?" as if it were a threat to life and limb. We also talked about how Haiti memories were going to feel different than their memories of last year's math class, about how the human brain stores trauma - things that register as "holy-crud-what-do-I-do with this!?" - as emotion and sensory input (sound, heat, color) rather than normal picture memories. We talked about nightmares and about trauma memories making things feel like they were happening again.

Then, we came back. And, for a few weeks, they lived all of that out hardcore. They were up at night and awake early in the morning. No matter what they were doing, you could read Haiti in their eyes. The entire country had slipped in there and taken up residence.

After a couple of weeks, it started to fade into the normalness of the rest of their lives - even if it was a distinctly new normal.

Two and a half months after getting back, those memories are still so raw and just under the surface that the flash backs come out, not only through their eyes or their faces like a normal ministry trip might, but through every muscle in their bodies. And, yet, these are the kids who stand around afterwards for as long as Ryan will let them, wanting to know more, tell more, remember more, because they miss it, and they want to go back. These are the kids who, before we had gotten all the way home, before they had caught up on sleep or recovered from colds, were already talking about "next year...go[ing] somewhere hard."

Pardon me while I pick my jaw up off of the floor.

Have I mentioned that these kids amaze me?

Work

Yep. These are my kids. Well, some of them. (And, yes, they are being lions. No big deal.)

I'm currently working with these guys in the morning a couple days a week and then heading to one of the elementary schools to make sure some older kids survive lunch and recess alive and without wearing much of their neighbor's food.

All in all, it makes life very entertaining, between the littles who are convinced that teachers have two goals in life 1) to be used as piece of furniture and 2) to play tag and the biggers who are convinced that teachers - or at least Ms. Jessica - have three goals in life 1) listen to their stories 2) listen to them burp and 3) play tag.

Can we see the overlap where Jessica might be spending a lot of time running in circles?

The Dark Side of Chocolate

Score one for my local church getting nvolved in human trafficking. What you see on your screen is part of the twenty-five or so people who were present for a screening of the Dark Side of Chocolate and a Q&A session afterwards.

Actually, score more than one, because this is far from the only movement in this direction. By spring we hope to be moving full force ahead. For now, check out my other blog for more details as to where we're headed and what's currently in the works. Because, I think that you might get just as excited about all of this as I am.

Best part? There are other people eager to leadership of most of the parts and pieces, meaning, no matter where God takes me over the next couple of years, there will still be people here, making this happen. Yep. It's a very cool thing.

PS. Watch the documentary online here
Get a kit to host your own screening here
Or, watch the mini-documentary that we used last year with the high school group here

7:11

Twice a year the middle school youth group puts on fun nights, where the goal is more or less to make sure that leaders are outnumbered by at least a dozen to one, station said leaders at various activities, and then release two hundred odd middle schoolers (plus one of my fifth graders) to run through the church building for four hours, with a little bit of caution tape to let them know where they shouldn't be going.

Definitely sounds like the sort of plan that I would have come up with!

Because of my lack of either a cloning machine or a time turner, I rarely get to hang out with these kids, so love it when they do things like this that occur on not-Sundays. I love getting to connect with them, even if just for a few minutes while they shoot nerf darts at each other, box in an inflatable bounce house, sumo wrestle, shoot potato guns, or slip over to show me their pockets full of candy. I love seeing plenty of faces that I know and quite a few that I don't know. I love the sixth graders who are trying hard to be too cool to need me around anymore but still check over their shoulder constantly to make sure that, whatever that cool thing was that they just did, I saw and approve of. I love the seventh graders who decide that the balance between grown up and childlike is absolutely, over the top hyper that runs its mouth a mile a minute. I love the eighth graders who see the world with that clarity that comes from having one foot in one and stage and one foot in the other. I love that, even though they don't have to, they're still willing to let older people help define their world. I love that they're becoming almost as fast as they are being, and I love that they know it. Middle school is just a fun age.

Although, one of the boys came up to say hi and leaned his elbow on my shoulder. Yeah. I definitely did not give permission for him to be this tall yet. Way to make me feel old, kid. I already felt old enough when your brother graduated from high school, thankyouverymuch. No need to rub it in.

Occupy Wall Street

"Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants."

Since September 17th, New York City has been "occupied" by a group of people who have decided that it is finally time to stand up, speak up, and live out change. And, I do mean live out, in the most literal sense of the words. There are no tents or hanging tarps, no "structures" of any kind, just a mass of sleeping bags and bodies each night. They provide each other with food, warm clothing, first aid, entertainment, and a chance to be heard.

There are grandmothers who want peace, pilots and teachers who want better pay, parents who want a better future for their children, and an entire generation of twenty-somethings who, collectively, see a thousand symptoms of a broken system and have decided, in a method that is 1/3 protest, 1/3 street fair, and 1/3 social media, to do something about it. They are leaderless, but not visionless, intentionally without a formal list of demands, but not without dreams of a new world.

Over the last weeks, largely without the attention of traditional media, they have spread to well over 800 US cities, and they don't have any intention of going away any time soon. It might just be time to sit up and listen.

• Information and media from the Wall Street occupation

• Well put together video on the movement
• Working draft of Solidarity Principles
• Another video and another
• News feed regarding the movement
• Photos more photos and more photos
• A beautifully calm essay on language and terminology
• Occupy Portland
• Occupy Tri-Cities

TVPRA Update

Today (Wednesday, October 5), the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously passed the TVPRA (Trafficking Victims Protection Re-authorization Act)! After not even being on the docket last week, the bill was fast-tracked on Monday. Thanks came from Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to those "who took this unseen issue and made it a top priority."

The bill now moves on to the full House and could be voted on by the Senate committee as early as tomorrow.

Learn more about the TVPRA here.

Something Beautiful

You Dance

Short video on Human Trafficking that I pieced together for the women's group at my church.

They're Back!

If you haven't been by my supervisors' blog lately, they're back in Kenya after a furlough in the States to fundraise and reconnect with family and churches. And... they've jumped back in two feet first.

Go check it out and see what they've been up to.

It Really Does Make a Diference

"The number of children under the age five who die annually has plummeted from 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) have said in a new report.

The two United Nations agencies estimate in the report that the drop means about 12,000 more children's lives are being saved each day.

They say there are many reasons for the improved under-five mortality rate, including better access to health care and preventive measures such as immunization, clean water and better nutrition."

Read the whole article here. Twenty years of effort really do make a difference. Imagine what we could accomplish in another twenty.

Take Two

Once upon a summer, we sat around a picnic table in the park and designed awareness posters. These are the ones that the kids made + a few Picnik effects to make them a little more internet friendly. (Or try to, visual arts are not my strong point.)

Yard Sale!

Saturday morning, we piggy backed on my family's yard sale to raise funds for The Hope House in North Carolina and a well project in Zambia, Africa.

The kids collected yard sale type donations from their friends and neighbors, and showed up as early as 6:45 in the morning to get things set up and ready to go. The ever useful cage boxes were put to use again. And, of course, being us, we had some strange conversations and spent some time being more or less ridiculous.

All told, they raised $211.35 between the two organizations.

Hope House fundraiser = DONE

Well:being fundraiser = 11% of a deep well

Not too shabby!

"It taught me to be humble and to help those who are in need, whether they are rich or poor"

 

After 9/11, a Masai man from central Kenya, who had been in America on the day of the attacks, inspired his tribe to offer the greatest gift and the strongest condolences they could offer to the American people, a herd of fourteen cows. To the Masai, a cow offers peace and comfort. And, although many of the elders had never seen an airplane up close or a building that could hold so many people, it was clear that peace and comfort were what was needed.

He went on to publish the story as a picture book, "Fourteen Cows for America."

After reading the story book in school, a Kenyan girl responded that, "It taught me to be humble, and to help those who are in need, whether they are rich or poor."

Read the entire news story here. It can be powerful to realize that "our" story is not ours and ours alone. Somewhere, on the plains of Kenya, there is a herd of cows being carefully tended to, each one bearing a brand on their ear in the form of the Twin Towers.

Authentic

"If you want to make a change in this world, if you want to embody an active faith, be actively involved in talking with God. Fight the urge to say the words you think he wants to hear, but instead open yourself up to discover the truth of who he really is.

You need not wait a day to live justly and change the world you live in. God uses broken, backwards, burned, and hurting people everyday to do extraordinary things.

I would, however, recommend that before you throw yourself into the fight against injustice every morning that you would push yourself to be authentic and honest (whatever that may look like) with our God. I promise you that, if you want it, God will tear down the false walls you’ve built around him and rebuild your heart to see him, yourself, and humanity the way we were meant to."

(From the World Vision ACT:S blog)

Again

There are moments, when I look around a room at a group of forty-some highschoolers who came to youth group on a long weekend, their heads bowed close together over pieces of paper that say things like, "Somalia," "Sudan," "Haiti," and "Afghanistan," that I can feel the presence of God settle over the room like a blanket.

They utter the simple phrase, "Do you want to do it Haitian style?" and I know that He smiles as their voices fold over and into each other in a rhythm that only He can pick out. 

Every time that I think that I could not possibly fall any more in love with these kids, they turn around with those not-quite-grown-up eyes that carry more stories than we could cover in a month of Sundays, and I find out that I was wrong. Again. For the dozenth time that night.

Missions-y Day

So, the thing about not blogging for a while, is that it suddenly becomes a billion times harder to pick out which stories ought to be shared:

Last Sunday we got to share about Haiti and missions with the 4th and 5th graders and then help them to write letters to the Play it Forward soccer teams at HCM. (Yep. We've talked about missions a lot with them this year, but there are a few that eat. it. up. every single time.) You can tell them that you went on your first missions trip when you were twelve, and their eyes light up, already counting the months until ten-years-old becomes twelve.

You give them a list of five things that they can do now to get ready for a future trip and they all watch, trying to second guess what comes next, but one or two of them perk up in their seats, gaze glued to you, keeping track on their fingers so that they don't forget.

One of whom happens to have been one of my kids since he was in Kindergarten, which kind of makes my insides do a little happy dance!

Over the last year they've heard about justice and missions and miracles and the love that only the Holy Spirit can bring, and each time I get a chance to talk to them (each time the crew of not-normal-presenters gets to talk to them) they listen with a few fewer walls up, because, when we say that we serve an awesome God, they are starting to believe us.

*On a funny side note: One of my boys from last year flat out refuses to verbally communicate with me in the hallways, but, almost every week, I will find him standing just behind my elbow, waiting for me to grab the back of his head and bop my hand through his hair. His eyes dance and he smirks up at me like I just gave him a free I*pad... and he runs away before I have a chance to get any farther than, "Hey, you!" He just wants to make sure that I still know he exists.*

And...that evening, we spent the entire night of youth group hearing about ministry trips that people went on and camps that they served at.

It was just a missions-y kind of a day.

Chalking

Thursday we spent time researching some facts on hunger and then took our well used, stubby, little pieces of chalk to some concrete to share what we had learned. (And, somewhere in there, we sang songs from Fiddler on the Roof, missed an exit, dropped one person off to do some yard work for her parents and kidnapped another one - with parental permission.)

Because, well, every other thing that we do seems to involve chalk. And, seeing as it was the hottest day this year, it made perfect sense to be out in the sun...oh, wait. Maybe not. Haha. This is why it is good that I have a group of crazy teenagers!

 

And... the Focus Month group is back in business, trying to take advantage of the last few days (weeks for the girls) of summer break.

Monday we worked to revamp the purchasing system on the Well:Being site so that it has shopping cart functionality. Wednesday we designed business cards for the site and brainstormed some fundraising strategies for that and the care package for human trafficking victims that is still in the works.

Today, only God knows, but I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

Finding God

"You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. " Psalm 16:11

It's so easy to get caught up in what still needs to be done, what isn't happening, the places where there is need upon need. Like Job (One Year Bible anyone??) it's so easy to start asking God, "Why?" "How could you let this be?" "Do you not see what is happening here?"

It's always amazed me, though, how God finally chooses to answer Job. Rather than focusing on wealth or poverty, He stays with Job and explains to Him the wonder of His creation.

This is the God who paints the sky such a bright blue that you want to jump in it, who blows and sends clouds of dust billowing across the desert. This is the God who smudges His finger across the horizon to blend a sunset that dances and changes every minute and who sprinkles rain until grass and trees glow green.

Look around you.

Do you see God?

(Challenge: Write a list of ten ways that you saw God today. Do it for a week. See how your perspective changes.)

Vet! Wouj!

I wish that it had not been too windy for my phone to pick up sound, because this was a very fun moment. If you could suddenly jump inside of one of these pictures, you would see one of the kids who came to Haiti bringing back something that she learned.

In this case, she is teaching a group of Sunday school kids to play Red Light Green Light the way that we played it in Fond Chaval, with Creole words rather than English ones.

Super simple thing to bring back, but this is how you do reentry in a church the size of Bethel. You teach little things in little moments, and then, as you run across your teammates, you tell them about it. Because, Haiti is a part of these kids now, and it does them good to be allowed happy, simple moments that remind them of that.  :)

Small Things

It’s been just about a year since I moved back “home” to the town where I grew up and my family still lives, and the questions are starting to get a little more insistent. “Where are you going next?” “When are you planning to move?” “What are you waiting for?”

They all come (I hope!) from a place of love and curiosity and the funny thrill that we all get from watching someone else do “big things” with their life. And, oh, how I would love to be able to hand them a packet with dates and details. But, the truth is, every time that I ask those same questions of God, I hear His quiet whisper to, “Wait. Stay. Love where I have you.”

And, so, I’m here.

I’m here, letting my breath catch in wonder at the God who is present in all things. He is present in the highschoolers who dump buckets of water on my head and the fourth and fifth graders who glow with pride when I compliment them. He is present when my cluster girls cry and when the Focus Month kids laugh about something that was said weeks before. He is present in Portland and in Haiti and as we draw hundreds of stick figures in the park.

I’m here, falling in love with kids that I didn’t know a year ago, but who I now count as “mine.”

I’m here, watching in awe as the fruit of what I did in middle school and high school stands before my eyes, growing up and growing into the men and women that God designed them to become.

I’m here, looking back and looking forwards and remembering the Mother Theresa quote that says, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

I may not know the answers to the “big things,” or even the medium things, but I can strive to do small things with great love. Because, if there is one thing that I do know, it is that I love these people, and that I love the God who loves them. And…I figure that He’s pretty much got the big things covered.

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Jesus With Skin On

Monday through Friday, we spent our “mornings” (7:30-3:00, Haitian time) riding in our friend the bus to get the hour and a half/two hours to Fond Chaval, partnering with translators and Sunday school teachers to run a VBS, and then riding back. Some days we got there at 9:00. Some days we got there at 11:00. Every single day there was a crowd of kids waiting for us.

Monday morning, with some of our team still reeling from the wet run VBS on Saturday, was one of those 11:00 days. We pulled into the church to hear the kids already inside, singing away, even singing an English song just for us.

We were a relatively loud team, in a relatively loud country, but Monday morning was one of the calmest, most peaceful, settings that I have ever seen for a VBS. There was a bloody knee and a ripped skirt, but the difference between our leaving moments in Thoman and our leaving moments in Fond Chaval were night and day.
In Fond Chaval, we had the awesome privilege of working with the pastor of the church to figure out how to best make our VBS plans fit into his goals for his church and his children’s discipleship ministry. It wasn’t always perfect. There were moments of miscommunication and times when the high school “small group” leads would turn around and realize that only three of their forty children had actually followed them around the corner. But there were also moments that were very, very good.  

Being the “coach” (the person overall in charge of rotation timing and making sure that things run as smoothly as possible) meant that I got to wander around constantly and see a lot of moments as they happened. And, let me tell you, these high schoolers made a lot of moments happen.
*Rotations were completely dependent on the length of the craft, so the length differed drastically from day to day. We also were operating without watches, which meant that “three minutes” from Jessica could mean just about anything. The teams did an AMAZING job, despite all of that. And, the craft team were heroes, working every day inside of a hot – some days very musically loud – building. They rocked it.*
On Tuesday (?), I walked around the corner of the church to the front games station. Last time I had been there, they had been finished with their planned game and trying to come up with something to fill the rest of the time (common occurrence). This time, though, one of the teenagers stops me before I can tell them to rotate with, “Wait! You have to see this! This is brilliant!”

He squats down on a rocky, dusty field, across from a line of squatting children, and, at his call of, “Ale!” (“go!”), they all start bouncing towards him like an oversized frog race. Within seconds, he is on the ground, eyes sparkling, covered in children who are grinning at him like their favorite uncle has come to town.

This is Jesus with skin on.
Early in the week, one of the teenagers told me he was “frustrated”  with not being able to understand the kids or be understood by them. (Jessica’s favorite question for the week was, “How are you doing?” The great thing about teenagers is that they’re fairly likely to give you an honest answer.) Literally, he was oozing with the longing to just communicate.

The next thing I knew, he had learned the words for “red” and “green” and had forty laughing kids running at him, playing Red Light Green Light.

By Friday, just about every kid there knew his name.

This is Jesus with skin on.
Every time that I would turn around, there was a blanc bent down, listening as hard as they could while a kid whispered in their ear. When I would come up and ask, they would point to individual faces and tell me names that twisted up their tongues just trying to repeat, and each kid would look up and grin.

In the bus, on the way home, they would talk about who was and wasn’t there that day. Because, even though the small groups were different every morning, they paid attention and kept track of “their kids.”

This is Jesus with skin on.
By half way through the week, our team was drooping with exhaustion, but they walked into that church every day already smiling, clapping, dancing and “singing” along with whatever songs our amazing music translators decided to use. They slid into rows with kids or into their place in front to lead songs and poured every bit of energy that they shouldn’t have had into words and motions (that, for the large part, we still don’t understand!).

They kept it up for hours and then melted onto the edge of the stage when the last of the kids had filed out the door, suddenly remembering that they were tired and sick and emotionally wrung out.

This is Jesus with skin on.

One of the girls stayed back with a lady leader on Monday morning, because she had been our throwing up child the night before. Instead of moping about staying behind or doing what she might have wanted to do, she (they) spent the morning repairing eighty gallon bags of too-soft pay dough and then met us at the bus, ready and eager to hear all of our stories.

They smiled and laughed and didn’t complain about missing it. They let their eyes light up with our excitement and let themselves be infused with our desire to have them meet these amazing kids.

They served us without expecting thanks.

This is Jesus with skin on.
   
200 kids smiled at us and laughed with (and at) us as we attempted to speak Creole. They held our hands and sat on our laps. They crowed around us to see the pictures that we had taken, and they made sure that all of the little ones and the shy ones got pictures too. They waved and shouted and ran after the bus as we left every day. They tugged on our arms and called our names. They taught us new words and they greeted us with hugs and music.

Because, every single one of these kids was Jesus with skin on to us.